Most Popular Books by Jim Murphy

Discover the transformative New York Times bestseller—a step-by-step manual for mastering your inner mind for peak performance and living your life to the fullest. As a professional baseball player, Jim Murphy’s sense of worth revolved around results. He was focused on achievement but also afraid of failure. When he started coaching professional and Olympic athletes, he often encountered the same mindset. He became obsessed with learning how the best in the world performed with poise under pressure. After years of research, Murphy had a revelatory insight: the pursuit of extraordinary performance and the pursuit of an exceptional life are the same path. Filled with exercises, techniques, and tools, Inner Excellence trains your heart and mind, showing you how to: · Develop self-mastery—and let go of what you can’t control. · Overcome anxiety—and build powerful mental habits. · Remove mental blocks—and get out of your own way. · Train your subconscious mind—and release limiting beliefs. Merging two decades of research and interviews with top athletes and leaders with this training system, Inner Excellence will put you on a path towards a more satisfactory and joyful life.

TRAIN YOUR BRAIN FOR EXTRAORDINARY SUCCESS Now more than ever, you need a competitive edge to succeed-no matter what your field or profession. This step-by-step training manual from one of North America''s top performance coaches taps into the winning mindsets of Olympic stars, professional sports teams, and Navy Seals among others to help you achieve higher levels of performance than you ever thought possible. Jim Murphy''s complete program of proven mental techniques is based on life principles that easily apply to your company, your career, and everything you do. Inner Excellence shows you how to: CONNECT WITH YOUR PASSION-and run with it FOCUS YOUR ENERGY-and reach your goals BUILD ON YOUR STRENGTHS-and live your dreams GET IN THE ZONE-and achieve the extraordinary Filled with mental performance-enhancing exercises, creative goal-driven game plans, and 50 inspiring interviews, Inner Excellence raises the bar for success in business and in life. “Jim is an expert in his field. Inner Excellence transcends athletics and will have a profound effect on everyone who applies these methods in their life.” -John Kehoe, author of Mind Power into the 21st Century

An account of Robert Louis Stevenson''s twelve day journey from New York to California in 1879, interwoven with a history of the building of the transcontinental railroad and the settling of the West.

The Great Fire of 1871 was one of most colossal disasters in American history. Overnight, the flourshing city of Chicago was transformed into a smoldering wasteland. The damage was so profound that few people believed the city could ever rise again.By weaving personal accounts of actual survivors together with the carefully researched history of Chicago and the disaster, Jim Murphy constructs a riveting narrative that recreates the event with drama and immediacy. And finally, he reveals how, even in a time of deepest dispair, the human spirit triumphed, as the people of Chicago found the courage and strength to build their city once again.

This is the story of a killer that has been striking people down for thousands of years: tuberculosis. After centuries of ineffective treatments, the microorganism that causes TB was identified, and the cure was thought to be within reach--but drug-resistant varieties continue to plague and panic the human race. The "biography" of this deadly germ, an account of the diagnosis, treatment, and "cure" of the disease over time, and the social history of an illness that could strike anywhere but was most prevalent among the poor are woven together in an engrossing, carefully researched narrative. Bibliography, source notes, index.

Describes the events of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 as seen through the eyes of two actual participants, nineteen-year-old Confederate lieutenant John Dooley and seventeen-year-old Union soldier Thomas Galway. Also discusses Lincoln''s famous speech delivered at the dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg.

"Drawing on Arnold''s surviving writings and on the letters, memoirs, and political documents of his contemporaries ... a fascinating portrait of a brilliant man, consistently undervalued by his peers, who made a choice that continues to reverberate through American history."--Jacket.

A talking watch. An overcoat for two. A pair of pants for poodles. In his companion to Weird & Wacky Inventions, Jim Murphy shows kids some additional baffling and utterly silly inventions in the form of a guessing game that is both challenging and fun. What is a finger-supporting device used for? Can you really buy that talking watch? What on earth is a beard grinder? Whether it’s a device for shaping the upper lip or a life preserver for horses, this parade of unusual inventions is a real treat for trivia lovers and any curious kid with an interest in science and inventions. Ages: 9–12.

In September 1862, two great armies faced each other across Antietam Creek. The outnumbered Confederate forces were led by General Robert E. Lee. The Union army was led by General George B. McClellan. Jim Murphy uses archival photographs, maps, and firsthand accounts to recreate one of America''s most important battles.

This collection represents an engagement with American history, technology, and cultures. Murphy''s poetry ranges from fairly straightforward narrations of events to experimental pieces using a variety of American-speaking subjects and several angles of vision on cultural creations--Elvis Presley, Holly Golightly, and Elmore James, to name just a few. Formal choices include the interlocking movements of the sestina and the rondau, the ebb and flow of loose blank verse, and the syncopated variety of free verse.

A hair-cutting machine, a used gum receptacle, jumping shoes, and more of the strangest inventions ever! A hat that can tip itself. A suitcase that turns into a bathtub. A pair of protective eyeglasses for chickens. These are just three of the hundreds of unusual inventions that people have dreamed up over the last two centuries. Some, such as the mustache guard, made perfect sense when they first appeared. Others were considered just plain silly. Jim Murphy has compiled a collection of the weirdest and wackiest inventions and presented them in a quiz style that is challenging and fun. Simple, clear explanations are provided on how the inventions worked or failed to work. Complete with over 100 colored illustrations of these crazy creations, this is the perfect gift for any child interested in science and inventions. Ages: 9–12.

Recreates the devastation rendered to the city of Philadelphia in 1793 by an incurable disease known as yellow fever, detailing the major social and political events as well as the time''s medical beliefs and practices.

In the summer of 1776, Joseph Plumb Martin was a fifteen-year-old Connecticut farm boy who considered himself as warm a patriot as the best of them. He enlisted that July and stayed in the revolutionary army until hostilities ended in 1783. Martin fought under Washington, Lafayette, and Steuben. He took part in major battles in New York, Monmouth, and Yorktown. He wintered at Valley Forge and then at Morristown, considered even more severe. He wrote of his war years in a memoir that brings the American Revolution alive with telling details, drama, and a country boy''s humor. Jim Murphy lets Joseph Plumb Martin speak for himself throughout the text, weaving in historical backfround details wherever necessary, giving voice to a teenager who was an eyewitness to the fight that set America free from the British Empire.

An ALA Best Book for Young Adults: Firsthand accounts of the experiences of boys sixteen and younger who fought in the Civil War, with photos included. Winner of the Golden Kite Award for Nonfiction “Making extensive use of the actual words—culled from diaries, journals, memoirs, and letters—of boys who served in the Union and Confederate armies as fighting soldiers as well as drummers, buglers, and telegraphers, Murphy describes the beginnings of the Civil War and goes on to delineate the military role of the underage soldiers and their life in the camps and field bivouacs. Also included is a description of the boys'' return home and the effects upon them of their wartime experiences…An excellent selection of more than 45 sepia-toned contemporary photographs augment the text of this informative, moving work.” —School Library Journal (starred review) “This wrenching look at our nation’s bloodiest conflict through the eyes of its youthful participants serves up history both heartbreaking and enlightening.” —Publishers Weekly “This well-researched and readable account provides fresh insight into the human cost of a pivotal event in United States history.” —The Horn Book (starred review)

Gold...silver...precious gems...the stuff dreams are made of. This is the story of a hoard of just such valuable metals and stones, whose journey begins in the year 1311, when the Knights Templar were prosecuted. A small band of valiant knights escape with the hoard and the turbulent journey begins. It''s 2525, and enter Mary and James McGoldenck, a young couple from Laramie, Wyoming, who fall in love with metal detecting and rock hounding, and because of those activities, trek all over Wyoming seeking buried treasures. Enter a villain from Louisiana, Jean Pierre LaCroix - drug dealer, money launderer, human trafficker, murder - these are just a few of his methods of making money. Follow Mary and James as they deal with deadly encounters, ambushes, difficult terrains, a mysterious American Indian, Thomas Light Horse, who shows up out of nowhere, and an old rancher named Chester Wilcox, who owns the ranch that holds Crashed Wagon Canyon.

Jon Scieszka''s Guys Read anthology series for tweens turns to nonfiction in its fifth volume, True Stories. The fifth installment in the Guys Read Library of Great Reading features ten stories that are 100% amazing, 100% adventurous, 100% unbelievable—and 100% true. A star-studded group of award-winning nonfiction authors and journalists provides something for every reader, all aligned with the Common Core State Standards. Compiled and edited by real-life literature legend Jon Scieszka, Guys Read: True Stories is a mind-blowing collection of essays, biographies, how-to guides, and more, all proving that the truth is most definitely out there. Supports the Common Core State Standards

Surveys the history of the whaling industry from its earliest days to the present, focusing on the young boys who managed to sign on for whaling voyages.

Phoebe, Deirdre, and Mitch, college students working on their primatology and anthropology degrees, set off for Africa to find their father, who has disappeared from a mysterious research station at the edge of an immense forest. After being captured by militant rebels, they begin to travel down different paths to discover things they never imagined existed. In Confessions of a ChimpManZee, parts of Arthur''s brain were transplanted into the skull of a hybrid bonobo. In Africa''s Children, Arthur is sent to Africa to help with a Pentagon project to create an army of killer apes, but instead, he disappears into the jungle. Arthur has left human children behind in California, and those three children, now of college age, and with an inheritance to finance them, travel to Africa to search for their missing father. After they are captured by a band of rebel soldiers, they discover that the compound where their father had been living has been destroyed by those same soldiers. However, it may be that their father has escaped being killed and has gone somewhere even the forest chimps will not visit. The children become separated and fall in with different groups who are headed in the same direction for their own nefarious reasons, and as the groups converge, the children discover things about themselves and about life that they never dreamed possible.

An ancient virus is turning animals into people and people into monsters. Two romantically inclined mutants lead a pack of transforming pilgrims from Miami across Africa to Rome. Their two-fold purpose: stop the cure for the disease that created them, and get the Pope''s OK for non-humans to marry. A virus from billions of years in the past has emerged from ancient salt beds with devastating results. As the virus turns evolution on its head, people are changed into monsters, animals begin to demand their rights, and civilization is brought to its knees. The few remaining humans seek safety in the quarantine of walled cities such as the Vatican. They desperately seek a cure, but the only one they find may have results too horrible to contemplate Judeus and Miranda, recent converts to the phylum Porifera, set out with a were-wolfish priest, a planeload of mutating pilgrims, and a sabre-tooth shape-shifting cat on their own journey from Miami to the Vatican. One wants to teach the Pope how to pray in this strange new world. The other wants to stop the cure being developed by the remaining humans. And they both want to get the Pope''s final answer on whether non-humans should marry. With their plane shot down over Africa, they learn that strange events are not limited just to the civilized parts of the world. Is the virus God''s punishment on the world? Or is there no god but the virus? Or is the virus going to create a new god? Can three sponge-monsters straighten this mess out?

The Civil War JOURNAL OF JAMES EDMOND PEASE is now in paperback with an exciting repackaging!Ignorant to the bitter realities of military life, 16-year-old James enlists in the Union Army at the dawn of the Civil War. When his lieutenant assigns him to be the company historian of the G Company of the 122nd Regiment, New York Volunteers, he is initially at a loss as to what exactly he is supposed to record. As the days pass, James settles into his role, but he cannot take comfort in it. His country is divided by a bloody war, and his unit struggles through the hardships and turmoil. Through his journal entries, James poignantly captures the terror of battle, the drudgery of day-to-day life in the infantry, the loss of comrades, and the disillusionment of a young soldier.

A unique, fast, and quirky guide to Philadelphia''s heroes and historic sites

What is Life? Where did it come from? Where is it going? What are the characteristics of advanced lifeforms? What will life be like as it continues to evolve? What does this have to do with God? Centuries ago, people conceptualized the existence of gods based on conjecture and observable phenomena. These early theories of the driving forces behind nature became codified in such a way that it became impossible for them to change with the times. Now new facts apparently assault these old theories. Is it possible, however, that new scientific facts can reveal the true nature of these unseen forces? Can we learn something of God by examining life--by seeing where it has been, where it is going, where we fit, and how we can help?

Two-time Newbery Honor Book author Jim Murphy writes a stunning nonfiction masterpiece about a Christmas miracle on the Western Front during World War I. On July 29th 1914, the world''s peace was shattered as the artillery of the Austria-Hungary Empire began shelling the troops of the country to its south. What followed was like a row of falling dominoes as one European country after another rushed into war. Soon most of Europe was fighting in this calamitous war that could have been avoided. This was, of course, the First World War. But who could have guessed that on December 25 the troops would openly defy their commanding officers by stopping the fighting and having a spontaneous celebration of Christmas with their "enemies"? In what can only be described as a Christmas Miracle, this beautiful and heartrending narrative will remind everyone how brotherhood and love for one another reaches far beyond war and politics.

On his way to town to have some fun, a lazy but clever young man faces a terrible demon, who declares that his time has come.

James Edmond, a sixteen-year-old orphan, keeps a journal of his experiences and those of "G" Company which he joined as a volunteer in the Union Army during the Civil War

A biography of an Italian peasant who immigrated to America in the early twentieth century and endured poverty and the difficult life of an unskilled laborer, determined to become a published poet.

Presents a history, based on personal accounts and newspaper articles, of the massive snow storm that hit the Northeast in 1888, focusing on the events in New York City.

Can a single act of love save the world from destruction? A peasant born in pre-war Vietnam has memories of a life he will live in the future. These memories offer clues as to why he must now face the horrors of slavery and war in his current life. Is karma a punishment, or is it simply a choice we make? An Dong, a peasant in French Indochina, has dreams of a life he has lived before, but the dreams are of a place and a time that no one could possibly have seen--a place in the future history of a different country. In contrast to his current life of degradation and slavery, his future life is one of freedom and happiness, at least at first. He becomes convinced that his dreams are telling him that he must take action in his current life in order to keep safe that world of the future, but what it is he is supposed to do is not clear. If such things as reincarnation and karma are real, what is their nature? What are the laws that govern them? Are they punishments for lives poorly lived, or are they choices we make?

When a 10-foot tall purported "petrified man" is unearthed from a backyard in upstate New York in 1869, the discovery immediately turns into a spectacle of epic proportions. News of the giant spreads like wildfire, and well over a thousand people come to view him in the first five days alone!Everyone has their own idea of his true origin: Is he an ancient member of the local Onandaga Indian tribe? Is he a biblical giant like Goliath? Soon the interests of world-renowned scientists and people from around the globe are piqued as arguments flare over who he is, where he came from, and if he is real--or just a hoax. In a riveting account of how the Cardiff Giant mystery snowballed into one of America’s biggest money-making spectacles--and scams--Jim Murphy masterfully explores the power of 19th-century media and the unexpected ripple effect that a single corrupt mastermind can produce when given a stage.

In the mid-1800s, with both her father and her uncle in jail on an assault charge, Maggie, her brother, and her ailing mother rush their barge along the Erie Canal to deliver their heavy cargo or lose everything.

Describes how an ordinary family car may be transformed, on a limited budget, into a unique custom car.

“If you ever went to Catholic school, or never went to Catholic school, you need to read this funny, smart, kid-true book. It explains everything.” —Jon Scieszka, author of Time Warp Trio and The Stinky Cheese Man Jimmy Murphy’s sixth grade teacher, Sister Angelica Rose, is out to get him. She humiliates him in class and punishes him when he hasn’t done anything wrong. She even forces him to perform onstage with second graders, wearing a giant green banana costume. A classic underachiever with a talent for trouble, Jimmy wants revenge, and with his friends he plans a prank that will embarrass Sister Angelica in front of the whole school. What could possibly go wrong? "This is a light and funny coming of age story. Even students who do not attend parochial school can identify with Jimmy and the struggles that he and his friends go through. The characters are all dynamic and the reader will want to know more about them all. This is a quick and enjoyable read that any upper elementary student will enjoy." —School Library Connection A Junior Literary Guild Selection

An incident in a park leads to an accidental death, but a police detective wonders if it was an accident -- or murder.