Platform Books LLC

A new and revised edition of Claudia Black's groundbreaking workbook for adult children from dysfunctional families

This updated edition of Dr. Black's revolutionary self-help workbook provides readers with a step-by-step framework and a guide that takes them through a process to recognize how present challenges are influenced by growing up in a troubled family system, release the parts of the past they wish to leave behind, and take greater responsibility for how they live today.

Adult children tend to repeat the life scripts of their challenged, troubled families as a result of internalized beliefs and behaviors that were either modeled for them or were a part of their survival strategy. Claudia Black, world-renowned expert on dysfunctional families, articulates a seven-step process for readers to heal the wounds of their past.

This is also an excellent resource to aid therapists, counselors, and other helping professionals in their work with clients to help them become aware of how their family system affected them and grow beyond it.

So many couples are guilty of the same dream: we are supposed to walk into love knowing how to do it—how to build and maintain a relationship. 

Creating and maintaining a great marriage, relationship, or partnership is hard work. A second truth is that nobody teaches you how to do it.

Conflict Resolution breaks down a five-step model for readers in any type of romantic partnership to help couples find a new understanding of what a successful relationship can look like.

From the United Nations Security Council, through community organizing that changed the paradigm of municipal redevelopment, to the revolutionary post–Watergate Congress and his role spearheading new environmental, anti-cancer, and global vaccine health initiatives, Andy Maguire was on the front lines in seminal moments of recent American history.

Ahead of the Curve is the riveting story of how Andy learned to accumulate power and leverage it for the public good. Andy’s terms in Congress coincided with the tumultuous times of the Israeli Six-Day War and the reform era of New York Mayor John Lindsay. After a successful unorthodox campaign in a staunch Republican district, he helped revive a hidebound House of Representatives and led an important new environmental movement there. Pacesetting international development work came next.

Andy learned early on that no single person can create real change, discovering how to take risks, use power, build teams, spot compromises, and mobilize diverse interests to get constructive change done. His story is more than an inspiring memoir, and more than a portrait of a committed changemaker pursuing the common good. It also is a coming-of-age tale and an implementation handbook that shows others how to continue Andy’s work.

This vivid insider’s view of fifty years of world history by Michael Takiff, bestselling author of A Complicated Man: The Life of Bill Clinton as Told by Those Who Knew Him, is both a compelling read and a beacon of hope for the current era.

Ahead of the Curve is an exceptionally valuable and important book for those who seek to confront today’s challenges to American democracy and a stable world order.

The most pressing question in these uncertain times may well be, How can we bring healing and protection to the Earth? It was this very question that Cynthia Jurs carried with her in 1990 as she climbed a path high in the Himalayas, to meet an “old wise man in a cave”—a venerated lama from Nepal. In response to her question, the old lama gave her a formidable assignment based on an ancient practice from Tibet: she must procure earth treasure vases made of clay and potent medicines, fill them with prayers and symbolic offerings, and bury them around the world where healing is called for.  

Thus begins the journey of a lifetime—sometimes harrowing, but always shining with beauty at the threshold between urgency and the timelessness of the sacred. In Summoned by the Earth we accompany this passionate and creative Buddhist teacher, as she attempts to fulfill the daunting task. Ultimately, the path from the wise man’s mountain cave winds around the world, bringing Cynthia into relationship with elders, activists, diverse ecosystems and communities. One by one, as the humble clay pots are planted in the Earth, the power of an ancient technology of the sacred comes alive and a global community grows to protect the Earth and learn how to become vessels of healing.  

Along the way, we come face to face with the troubles burdening our communities everywhere while encountering some of the people leading the way to unexpected solutions and surprising new visions. We meet survivors of the Liberian civil war, and an ex-combatant who puts down his AK47 to take up mindfulness practice in order to create lasting peace. There’s the Hero Women in Congo, who are resisting femicide and defending the sanctity of their bodies and the world’s second largest rainforest. And there’s the indigenous elders everywhere, from the outback of Aboriginal Australia to the Native pueblos of northern New Mexico, who, in keeping their lifeways alive, are stewarding their sacred lands and regenerating ecosystems vital to our collective survival.    

Through all these cultures and communities, the path leads us to a cave above the Los Alamos National Laboratory, back to the cave in Nepal where it all began, and finally, to another cave high on Mount Parnassus in Delphi where the Oracle, in service to the Goddess Gaia, once divined how we may best live in balance. Over and over, we touch the heart of the world, only to discover by journey’s end that the heart of the world is everywhere and that our assignment now is to recognize we are a global family and wake up together. 

As many of us wonder what we can do in this eleventh hour, Summoned by the Earth offers a riveting account of one woman’s response to the challenges we face, and is an irresistible invitation to become “sacred activists” heeding the call of the Earth.

In Legal Briefs: The Ups and Downs of Life in the Law, editor Roger Witten takes us behind the scenes of some of the most fascinating court cases of the last few decades, while introducing us to the sometimes strange, and sometimes comical situations these lawyers have experienced during their long careers.

This collection features twenty lawyers of varying backgrounds and expertise writing with pizzazz, humor, and passion about such significant events as the Watergate break-in; the 9/11 Commission; the Iranian hostage crisis, and more. They write of tackling issues concerning money in politics and Citizens United; same-sex parental custody rights; and the contempt charge against Martin Luther King Jr. And we are also treated to intimate portraits of some unique clients and towering figures in the legal world.

This book will delight all readers, not just those with a specific interest in the law. As Roger Witten writes in the introduction, these stories “reveal the ups and downs of a life in the law by telling stories that are dramatic, moving, and/or amusing Some are tongue-in-cheek. Others are serious but never dull.”

In these 25 true stories, a widely published philosopher recounts 60 years of interaction with people in all walks of life – some extremely famous, others complete strangers – from hospitals to restaurants, concert halls to airplanes, in private conversations and nationally broadcast interviews. Stories can be heartbreaking, distracting, funny, shocking, inspiring, revealing, and sometimes unforgettable – and all those attributes appear here. There’s no substitute for learning what it’s like to be someone else, to see the world as that other person does and reconsider our own views in light of that learning. These compelling and accessible stories motivate and enable us to do that, illuminating the unexpected relationships among all domains of human concern, the wellsprings of creativity, the elusive character of good judgment, and the pathways to social justice. They help us see more clearly what we care most about: deep features of human character and difficult choices, of social structures, of the power of imagination, of how to take account of the importance of what cannot be counted, and of bogus boundaries and assumptions that can repress clear thinking in any domain. These stories will make the reader more powerful in service of those values.

Piasecki’s upbringing was laced with poverty and trauma. He began reading at an early age, seeking out the wisdom and relevance from the “magical clan of writers” who helped him strengthen his writing muscle and feed into his creative hunger. Bruce’s journey to becoming a writer is spiritual and practical, as he discovers and uncovers what is truly valuable in a life. As well as being a writer, Piasecki is also an environmentalist, a speaker on climate and society, and AHC Group founder. He has also founded the family-endowed Creative Force Foundation. 

Doing More with One Life can be read as biography, or inventive memoir, or even as magical realism. Piasecki leaves that choice up to his reader. Readers and followers of Piasecki’s expansive career in environmental and community issues will be deeply moved by his tales of loss and his determination to make himself—and his world—into something profoundly better.

When they first began working on this book, the authors thought they would simply write the story of Linda Killinger’s grandparents who, with seven of their thirteen kids, took a fifteen-month trip across the country visiting relatives and the national parks, in their brand new 1930 Model A Ford.

Very quickly, they realized this was not just a simple story. Instead, they began to see it as a reveal of how this moment of history affected not only their grandparents’ family, but the generations to come, in the same way these historic events have affected so many other families. Levi’s Dream presents a living history of twentieth-century America. 

All proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to charity via The Kerry and Linda Killinger Foundation. Visit our website, thekillingerfoundation.org.

Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald honeymooned for five months in the summer of 1920 in a modest gray house in Westport, Connecticut. It was an experience that had a more profound impact on both of their collective works than any other place they lived.

It was, for Scott and Zelda, their honeymoon. Having just gotten married and after being kicked out of some of New York city's finest hotels, they were, for the first time, in their very own place, albeit for only five months. It was a time that Scott Fitzgerald called "the happiest year since I was eighteen."He had, after all, just achieved success with his first novel, This Side of Paradise, and was suddenly awash with money.

The Fitzgeralds lived a wild life of drinking, driving and endless partying while living in suburban Connecticut. As it happens, living near the beach, they were neighbors to a larger-than-life reclusive multi-millionaire, F.E. Lewis.

Historian Richard Webb grew up in Westport a few doors down the street from where the Fitzgeralds had lived some forty years earlier. Fascinated with the Fitzgeralds, when Webb learned that author Barbara Probst Solomon, who grew up across the river from the F.E. Lewis estate, proposed in the New Yorker that Westport was the real setting for Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby, he was stirred to actively researching her claim.

Boats Against the Current tells the real story behind the famous novel and its tragic hero, debunking the long-held belief that the book was solely inspired by the Fitzgerald’s time in Great Neck, across the Sound in Long Island, and lays out enough information about the fascinating Mr. Lewis that it is difficult not to believe that author Webb has located the true inspiration for one of the most captivating and iconic characters in American literature, the great Gatsby himself.

Illustrated with a fantastic array of never-before-seen photos from the Lewis family, as well as the scrapbooks of the Fitzgeralds, period newspaper clippings, and a myriad of compelling stories about Scott, Zelda and their fantastically wealthy neighbor.

A companion book to the documentary Gatsby in Connecticut: The Untold Story, Boats Against the Current also recounts Webb’s own journey of making the film with fellow Westporter and filmmaker, Robert Steven Williams.

The Great Gatsby may be one of America's essential novels. Boats Against the Current is an essential document for anyone who has read the book and wondered at the fantastical world whose story it tells.

Edith Wharton in France chronicles Edith Wharton’s dogged efforts to penetrate the Byzantine levels of French high society, her love for the French and Italian countryside, and her consuming passion for the Mediterranean garden. While Lesage is initially skeptical of Wharton’s ability to “become French,” this work ultimately portrays a woman of indomitable spirit who ultimately succeeds in fashioning a French home of her own making in her beloved adopted country.

Lesage’s work illuminates the intertwined characters and important relationships of Wharton’s life in France, many of them overlooked or minimized in earlier biographies. Prominently featured in the account are the French novelist Paul Bourget and his wife Minnie, whose meticulous diary entries over a 35-year period provide a fresh look at Wharton’s active social life both in Paris and on the French Riviera.

A still more intimate look into Wharton’s French circle is provided by her extensive correspondence with the Frenchman Léon Bélugou, a widely travelled mining engineer, writer and well-known figure in Parisian high society. Spanning more than 25 years, the letters portray a mutual intellectual kinship and devoted friendship. Other newly discovered highlights include letters presented as evidence in Wharton’s French divorce proceedings, a mysterious autobiographical essay written by Wharton’s lover, American journalist Morton Fullerton, and numerous photographs never before published.

The author of multiple works of translation, as well original French texts on Wharton and Conrad, Lesage had access to unexamined and untranslated French sources. She presents Wharton’s life from the perspective of a native French woman, capturing a unique view of Wharton trying to navigate through the ancient layers of French society and master its often maddeningly obscure rules, all the while commenting on the horrors of World War I and the cataclysmic changes in the arts and culture of Paris.

Would You Believe. . . When the Helsinki Accords were signed on August 1, 1975, the likelihood they would have a profound and lasting impact on the world were very small. Which is why a book about them after a half century is both surprisingly topical and well worth reading for anyone with an interest in modern history.

The thirty-five signatories were the nations of Europe, the United States and Canada at was formally known as the Conference of Security and Cooperation in Europe. The Final Act of CSCE contained detailed provisions on respect for human rights and set country borders that essentially held until Russia invaded Ukraine in February,2022.

Only 15 years after the summit signing, the Soviet Union imploded and its Eastern European satellites broke with Communism and the broad range of human rights issues –civil, social, economic, and political – were a major factor in this historic turning point.

Peter L.W. Osnos’ expertise on the history of the accords is vast, as a journalist and publisher. His narrative writing skill is widely recognized.  Holly Cartner provides a vivid account of how a small organization called Helsinki Watch became Human Rights Watch, the most important global NGO in its field.

Who should count as Jewish in America? What should be the relationship of American Jews to Israel? Can the American Jewish community collectively sustain and pass on to the next generation a sufficient sense of Jewish identity?

The situation of American Jews today is deeply paradoxical. Jews have achieved unprecedented integration, influence, and esteem in virtually every facet of American life. But this extraordinarily diverse community now also faces four critical and often divisive challenges: rampant intermarriage, weak religious observance, diminished cohesion in the face of waning anti-Semitism, and deeply conflicting views about Israel.

Can the American Jewish community collectively sustain and pass on to the next generation a sufficient sense of Jewish identity in light of these challenges? Who should count as Jewish in America? What should be the relationship of American Jews to Israel?

In this thoughtful and perceptive book, Robert H. Mnookin argues that the answers of the past no longer serve American Jews today. The book boldly promotes a radically inclusive American-Jewish community—one where being Jewish can depend on personal choice and public self-identification, not simply birth or formal religious conversion. Instead of preventing intermarriage or ostracizing those critical of Israel, he envisions a community that embraces diversity and debate, and in so doing, preserves and strengthens the Jewish identity into the next generation and beyond.

Would You Believe. . . When the Helsinki Accords were signed on August 1, 1975, the likelihood they would have a profound and lasting impact on the world were very small. Which is why a book about them after a half century is both surprisingly topical and well worth reading for anyone with an interest in modern history.

The thirty-five signatories were the nations of Europe, the United States and Canada at was formally known as the Conference of Security and Cooperation in Europe. The Final Act of CSCE contained detailed provisions on respect for human rights and set country borders that essentially held until Russia invaded Ukraine in February,2022.

Only 15 years after the summit signing, the Soviet Union imploded and its Eastern European satellites broke with Communism and the broad range of human rights issues –civil, social, economic, and political – were a major factor in this historic turning point.

Peter L.W. Osnos’ expertise on the history of the accords is vast, as a journalist and publisher. His narrative writing skill is widely recognized.  Holly Cartner provides a vivid account of how a small organization called Helsinki Watch became Human Rights Watch, the most important global NGO in its field.