Mary Beth Smith: 8 books

About Abraham Lincoln: The Formative Years, 1809-1841Lincoln was one of those rare children who are able to hang onto their true identity in spite of abuse by their parents. Even a controlling, but not physically abusive parent, slows down their children's maturation. Those children lose...

If you have never read a book about Theodore Roosevelt, read this one first. If you have read other books about him, read this one to discover more about his philosophy and spirituality based on his own works. It covers his entire life from birth to death.The Joy of Life distills the personality of...

Before Abraham Lincoln became the calm, wise and compassionate president whom all presidents try to emulate, he looked and acted much differently. He had no beard to hide his gaunt, wrinkled and pock marked face, no well-tailored suit to disguise his sloping, thin shoulders and wrinkled neck. Abraham...

After unbearable pressure at home and at work, the author became manic and crashed her car into a tree thinking she would become reincarnated. After going to an incompetent psychiatrist, she had the enormous good luck to switch to the best psychiatrist in the county. Here she tells her own story along...

The author’s father came down with polio during the epidemic of 1944. This book describes his story of pain, rehabilitation and return to normality as well as inspirational stories of other polio survivors, some more severely paralyzed than he was. Most of these people adjusted well to life after...

The pain of acute paralytic polio is horrific. It is the worst physical pain there is. As every nerve in the affected area dies it feels as if a dentist is drilling the nerve without novocaine. Nerve after nerve dies. Ghastly pain ensues. The pain can last for weeks. The patient must listen to the...

As I was studying Lincoln I wondered why a pioneer child would want to learn to read, something no other child at that time wanted to do. These days children want to learn to read because their older siblings do it. Parents read. Their parents take them to the public library (children's section)....

This book is the end result of the author trying to “get a handle on” her father who died when she was thirty-three. Beginning in her mid-forties she attempted to understand him. Endlessly calm and smiling, undisturbed by the yelling of his wife and the small spats of his children, he was like...