An extraordinary look at what it means to grow old and a heartening guide to well-being, Happiness Is a Choice You Make weaves together the stories and wisdom of six New Yorkers who number among the ?oldest old?? those eighty-five and up.In 2015, when the award-winning journalist John Leland set...  more

An extraordinary look at what it means to grow old and a heartening guide to well-being, Happiness Is a Choice You Make weaves together the stories and wisdom of six New Yorkers who number among the ?oldest old?? those eighty-five and up.In 2015, when the award-winning journalist John Leland set out on behalf of The New York Times to meet members of America?s fastest-growing age group, he anticipated learning of challenges, of loneliness, and of the deterioration of body, mind, and quality of life. But the elders he met took him in an entirely different direction. Despite disparate backgrounds and circumstances, they each lived with a surprising lightness and contentment. The reality Leland encountered upended contemporary notions of aging, revealing the late stages of life as unexpectedly rich and the elderly as incomparably wise.Happiness Is a Choice You Make is an enduring collection of lessons that emphasizes, above all, the extraordinary influence we wield over the quality of our lives. With humility, heart, and wit, Leland has crafted a sophisticated and necessary reflection on how to ?live better??informed by those who have mastered the art.

"You can never unlove someone. Love makes a place in your body, throbbing right alongside your heart."  In An American Marriage, the author of Silver Sparrow returns with a stunning novel about race, loyalty, and love that endures. Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment...  more

"You can never unlove someone. Love makes a place in your body, throbbing right alongside your heart."  In An American Marriage, the author of Silver Sparrow returns with a stunning novel about race, loyalty, and love that endures. Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn't commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding. As Roy's time in prison passes, she is unable to hold on to the love that has been her center. After five years, Roy's conviction is suddenly overturned, and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together.   This stirring love story is a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control. An American Marriage is a masterpiece of storytelling, an intimate look deep into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward--with hope and pain--into the future.

Believed by her followers to have been the second incarnation of Christ, Ann Lee may be one of the most extraordinary and mysterious women in the history of Western culture. From humble origins in Manchester, England, she became the visionary religious leader of the Shakers, a small religious...  more

Believed by her followers to have been the second incarnation of Christ, Ann Lee may be one of the most extraordinary and mysterious women in the history of Western culture. From humble origins in Manchester, England, she became the visionary religious leader of the Shakers, a small religious cult characterized by wild shaking, impassioned singing, speaking in tongues, and a belief that the end of the world was near. When she died at age forty-eight, having brought her faithful to America in 1774, she left behind a religious movement that was to have thousands of followers. Masterfully conveying the energy and strangeness of the Shakers in their radical early years, Ann the Word is a penetrating look at a pioneer who, in feminizing Christianity, contributed to the status of women in her own time and ever after.

Scientists call them Inia geoffransin, an ancient species of toothed whale whose origin dates back about 15 million years. To the local people of the Amazon, pink river dolphins are "botos," shape shifters that, in the guise of human desire, can claim your soul and take you to the Encante, an...  more

Scientists call them Inia geoffransin, an ancient species of toothed whale whose origin dates back about 15 million years. To the local people of the Amazon, pink river dolphins are "botos," shape shifters that, in the guise of human desire, can claim your soul and take you to the Encante, an enchanted underwater world. As tributaries braid into a single river, Journey of the Pink Dolphins weaves ancient myth and modern science into one woman's search for these clusive creatures. With their melonlike foreheads and tubular snouts, pink dolphins look eerily familiar, like people in watery beginnings. No one knows for certain what gives the dolphins their distinctive coloring they may glow pink with exertion, or with age, or their color might change with the temperature of the water. With their flexible bodies -- stretching to eight feet long and weighing up to four hundred pounds -- and finely tuned echolocation abilities, the pink dolphins perform their water ballet on handlike, five-fingered flippers, in a habitat no other dolphin could colonize. Since these mysterious creatures appear mostly at dusk and dawn, and their migration patterns are unknown, Sy Montgomery's Amazon quest encompasses four separate journeys. In the Tamshiyacu-Tahuayo region, she follows the pink dolphins to the spirit realm, where shamans commune with the powers of the plants and visit the Encante. With paleontologist Gary Galbreath, she follows them back in time, tracing the history of the species. At Mamiraua, the pink dolphins illuminate the Amazon's present-day conservation dilemma. And in a final, glorious burst, Montgomery follows the dolphins back, down, deep, to the watery womb of the world, touching the very soul of the Amazon. "There are so many stories of botos, you will die writing," says one river guide. Ancient legends tell us that dolphins have guided humans for millennia, and in Journey of the Pink Dolphins Montgomery answers their call, taking us to that perfect place where the Amazon melts into the forest, dolphins swim among treetops, and the twenty-first century dissolves into the beginning of time.

This book will tell you what it was like for me to meet John Huston, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in London and in Africa for the first time, to work with them nonstop for about 3 months, and why- come hell or high water, through thick and through thin, for better and for worse, but not...  more

This book will tell you what it was like for me to meet John Huston, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in London and in Africa for the first time, to work with them nonstop for about 3 months, and why- come hell or high water, through thick and through thin, for better and for worse, but not quite until death did we par - it was great fun. - KATHERINE HEPBURN

In 1845 Henry David Thoreau left his pencil-manufacturing business and began building a cabin on the shore of Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts. This lyrical yet practical-minded book is at once a record of the 26 months Thoreau spent in withdrawal from society -- an account of the daily...  more

In 1845 Henry David Thoreau left his pencil-manufacturing business and began building a cabin on the shore of Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts. This lyrical yet practical-minded book is at once a record of the 26 months Thoreau spent in withdrawal from society -- an account of the daily minutiae of building, planting, hunting, cooking, and, always, observing nature -- and a declaration of independence from the oppressive mores of the world he left behind. Elegant, witty, and quietly searching, Walden remains the most persuasive American argument for simplicity of life clarity of conscience.For the first time, the authoritative editions of works by major American novelists, poets, scholars, and essayists collected in the hardcover volumes of The Library of America are being published singly in a series of handsome paperback books. A distinguished writer has contributed an introduction for each volume, which also includes a chronology of the author's life and career, an essay on the text, and notes.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Despite the famous rumors of his death in 1969, Paul is alive and well in Carlin's hagiographic portrait of the creative genius behind the Beatles, the lead man of Wings and the brilliant though sometimes insecure solo artist still filling stadiums. Drawing on recent interviews with friends and...  more

Despite the famous rumors of his death in 1969, Paul is alive and well in Carlin's hagiographic portrait of the creative genius behind the Beatles, the lead man of Wings and the brilliant though sometimes insecure solo artist still filling stadiums. Drawing on recent interviews with friends and McCartney's former band mates from Wings as well as on fresh research on the Liverpool lad, Carlin chronicles McCartney's life from his childhood love of music and his youthful entry into rock and roll with John Lennon in the Quarrymen to his meteoric rise to fame as one of the Beatles, his breakup with the band, his marriage to Linda Eastman and her death, and his recent marriage to and divorce from Heather Mills. Carlin rehearses the well-known story of the Beatles' breakup and Paul's disenchantment with Yoko Ono's role in leading the musical directions of the band. Feeling lost after the band dissolved, McCartney channeled his grief into his music, much as he did when his mother died when he was only 12, though critics both panned and praised his solo records. Since Barry Miles's definitive biography, Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now), goes only up to Linda's death in 1998, Carlin's study brings the musician's life to his most recent solo album, Electric Arguments (2008). McCartney emerges from Carlin's admiring biography as a brilliant musician who provided the creative direction for the Beatles, who taught John Lennon how to play the guitar and who continues to create new musical challenges for himself even now, when he's moving past 64. What's missing are interviews with McCartney himself.

Fifteen brilliant writers explore how what we don?t talk about with our mothers affects us, for better or for worse. In the bestselling tradition of The Bitch in the House, What My Mother and I Don?t Talk About is an anthology about the powerful and sometimes painful things that we can?t...  more

Fifteen brilliant writers explore how what we don?t talk about with our mothers affects us, for better or for worse. In the bestselling tradition of The Bitch in the House, What My Mother and I Don?t Talk About is an anthology about the powerful and sometimes painful things that we can?t discuss with the person who is supposed to know us and love us the most. In the early 2000s, as an undergraduate, Michele Filgate started writing an essay about being abused by her stepfather. It took many years for her to realize what she was actually trying to write about: the fracture this caused in her relationship with her mother. When her essay, ?What My Mother and I Don?t Talk About,? was published by Longreads in October of 2017, it went on to become one of the most popular Longreads exclusives of the year, and was shared on social media by Anne Lamott, Rebecca Solnit, Lidia Yuknavitch, and many other writers, some of whom had their own individual codes of silence to be broken. The outpouring of responses gave Filgate an idea, and the resulting anthology offers an intimate, therapeutic, and universally resonant look at our relationships with our mothers. As Filgate poignantly writes, ?Our mothers are our first homes, and that?s why we?re always trying to return to them.? Contributors: Cathi Hanauer Melissa Febos Alexander Chee Dylan Landis Bernice L. McFadden Julianna Baggott Lynn Steger Strong Kiese Laymon Carmen Maria Machado André Aciman Sari Botton Nayomi Munaweera Brandon Taylor Leslie Jamison

The bestselling author of American Housewife ("Dark, deadpan and truly inventive." --The New York Times Book Review) is back with a fiercely funny collection of essays on marriage and manners, thank-you notes and three-ways, ghosts, gunshots, gynecology, and the Calgon-scented,...  more

The bestselling author of American Housewife ("Dark, deadpan and truly inventive." --The New York Times Book Review) is back with a fiercely funny collection of essays on marriage and manners, thank-you notes and three-ways, ghosts, gunshots, gynecology, and the Calgon-scented, onion-dipped, monogrammed art of living as a Southern Lady. Helen Ellis has a mantra: "If you don't have something nice to say, say something not-so-nice in a nice way." Say "weathered" instead of "she looks like a cake left out in the rain." Say "early-developed" instead of "brace face and B cups." And for the love of Coke Salad, always say "Sorry you saw something that offended you" instead of "Get that stick out of your butt, Miss Prissy Pants." In these twenty-three raucous essays Ellis transforms herself into a dominatrix Donna Reed to save her marriage, inadvertently steals a $795 Burberry trench coat, witnesses a man fake his own death at a party, avoids a neck lift, and finds a black-tie gown that gives her the confidence of a drag queen. While she may have left her home in Alabama, married a New Yorker, forgotten how to drive, and abandoned the puffy headbands of her youth, Helen Ellis is clinging to her Southern accent like mayonnaise to white bread, and offering readers a hilarious, completely singular view on womanhood for both sides of the Mason-Dixon. Making a marriage magically tidy -- Topeka three-way -- How to stay happily married -- Free to be...you and me (and childfree) -- Room of one's own (that's full of gay men) -- Other woman's Burberry coat -- Peggy Sue got marijuana -- What every girl should learn from ABC's The bachelor -- Ghost experience -- Party foul -- Today was a good day -- Straighten up and fly right. -- Halloween people -- Tonight we're gonna party like it's 1979 -- How to be the best guest -- When to write a thank-you note -- An Emily Post for the apocalypse -- How I watch pornography like a lady -- Dumb boobs -- Young ladies, listen to me -- Seven things I'm doing instead of a neck lift -- Serious women -- That kind of woman

From New York Times bestselling author and blogger Heather B. Armstrong comes an honest and irreverent memoir?reminiscent of the New York Times bestseller Brain on Fire?about her experience as one of only a few people to participate in an experimental treatment for depression involving ten...  more

From New York Times bestselling author and blogger Heather B. Armstrong comes an honest and irreverent memoir?reminiscent of the New York Times bestseller Brain on Fire?about her experience as one of only a few people to participate in an experimental treatment for depression involving ten rounds of a chemically induced coma approximating brain death. For years, Heather B. Armstrong has alluded to her struggle with depression on her website, dooce. It?s scattered throughout her archive, where it weaves its way through posts about pop culture, music, and motherhood. But in 2016, Heather found herself in the depths of a depression she just couldn?t shake, an episode darker and longer than anything she had previously experienced. She had never felt so discouraged by the thought of waking up in the morning, and it threatened to destroy her life. So, for the sake of herself and her family, Heather decided to risk it all by participating in an experimental clinical trial involving a chemically induced coma approximating brain death. Now, for the first time, Heather recalls the torturous eighteen months of suicidal depression she endured and the month-long experimental study in which doctors used propofol anesthesia to quiet all brain activity for a full fifteen minutes before bringing her back from a flatline. Ten times. The experience wasn?t easy. Not for Heather or her family. But a switch was flipped, and Heather hasn?t experienced a single moment of suicidal depression since. Disarmingly honest, self-deprecating, and scientifically fascinating, The Valedictorian of Being Dead brings to light a groundbreaking new treatment for depression.

Roger Fouts fulfilled humankind's age-old dream of talking to animals by pioneering communication with chimpanzees through sign language. Now, in Next of Kin, Fouts tells the dramatic story of his odyssey from novice researcher to celebrity scientist and caretaker of a family of chimpanzees, to...  more

Roger Fouts fulfilled humankind's age-old dream of talking to animals by pioneering communication with chimpanzees through sign language. Now, in Next of Kin, Fouts tells the dramatic story of his odyssey from novice researcher to celebrity scientist and caretaker of a family of chimpanzees, to his impassioned awakening as a crusader for the rights of animals. At the heart of this captivating audiobook is Fouts's magical thirty-year friendship with Washoe, the chimpanzee he met when she jumped into his arms. We follow Washoe as she grows from a mischievous baby chimp fresh out of the NASA space program into the matriarch of a clan of chimpanzees. Living and conversing with these sensitive creatures has given Fouts a profound appreciation of how much we share with our closest biological relatives, and what they can teach us about ourselves. This stirring tale of friendship, courage, and compassion will change forever the way we view our biological -- and spiritual -- Next of Kin.

Henry David Thoreau wrote four full-length works, collected here for the first time in a single volume. Subtly interweaving natural observation, personal experience, and historical lore, they reveal his brilliance not only as a writer, but as a naturalist, scholar, historian, poet, and...  more

Henry David Thoreau wrote four full-length works, collected here for the first time in a single volume. Subtly interweaving natural observation, personal experience, and historical lore, they reveal his brilliance not only as a writer, but as a naturalist, scholar, historian, poet, and philosopher. "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers" is based on a boat trip taken with his brother from Concord, Massachusetts to Concord, New Hampshire. "Walden," one of America's great books, is at once a personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, manual of self-reliance, and masterpiece of style. "The Maine Woods" and "Cape Cod" portray landscapes changing irreversibly even as he wrote. The first combines close observation of the unexplored Maine wilderness with a far-sighted plea for conservation; the second is a brilliant and unsentimental account of survival on a barren peninsula in the face of hostile elements, historical change, and natural decay.

The history of false teeth from the Etruscans to the mid-20th century.

From TV’s CSI to bestsellers by Patricia Cornwell and Kathy Reichs, interest in forensics is at an all-time high. Now one of our most respected forensic pathologists gives a behind-the-scenes look at eleven of his most notorious cases, cracked by scientific analysis and Sherlock Holmesian...  more

From TV’s CSI to bestsellers by Patricia Cornwell and Kathy Reichs, interest in forensics is at an all-time high. Now one of our most respected forensic pathologists gives a behind-the-scenes look at eleven of his most notorious cases, cracked by scientific analysis and Sherlock Holmesian deduction.As chief medical examiner of Rockland County, New York, for almost thirty-five years, Dr. Frederick Zugibe literally wrote the book on the subject—his widely used textbook is considered the definitive text. Over the years he has pioneered countless innovations, including the invention of a formula to soften mummified fingers—enabling fingerprinting, and thus identification, of a long-deceased victim. He has appeared as an expert hundreds of times in the media and in the courtroom—and not once has a jury failed to accept his testimony over opposing expert witnesses. And now, in Dissecting Death, he has opened the door to the world of forensic pathology in all its gruesome and fascinating mystery. Dr. Zugibe takes us through the process all good pathologists follow, using eleven of his most challenging cases. With him, we visit the often grisly—though sometimes shockingly banal—crime scene. We inspect the body, palpate the wounds, search for clues in the hair and skin. We employ ultraviolet light, strange measuring devices, optical instruments. We see how a forensic pathologist determines the hour of death, the type of weapon used, the killer’s escape route. And then we enter the lab, the world of high-tech criminal detection: DNA testing, fingerprinting, gunshot patterns, dental patterns, X-rays.But not every case ends in a conviction, and in a closing chapter Dr. Zugibe examines some recent high-profile cases in which blunders led to killers going free, either because the wrong party was brought to trial or because the evidence presented didn’t do the trick—including Jon-Benet Ramsey’s murder and, of course, the O.J. Simpson trial.

In a time of reckoning, this year?s National Magazine Awards finalists and winners focus on abuse of power in many forms. Ronan Farrow?s Pulitzer Prize?winning revelation of Harvey Weinstein?s depredations (New Yorker), along with Rebecca Traister?s charged commentary for New York and Laurie...  more

In a time of reckoning, this year?s National Magazine Awards finalists and winners focus on abuse of power in many forms. Ronan Farrow?s Pulitzer Prize?winning revelation of Harvey Weinstein?s depredations (New Yorker), along with Rebecca Traister?s charged commentary for New York and Laurie Penny?s incisive Longreads columns, speak to the urgency of the #MeToo moment. Ginger Thompson?s reporting on the botched U.S. operation that triggered a cartel massacre in Mexico (National Geographic/ProPublica) and Azmat Khan and Anand Gopal?s New York Times Magazine investigation of the civilian casualties of drone strikes in Iraq amplify the voices of those harmed by U.S. actions abroad. And Alex Tizon?s ?My Family?s Slave? (Atlantic) is a powerful attempt to come to terms with the cruelty that was in plain sight in his own upbringing. Responding to the overt racism of the Trump era, Ta-Nehisi Coates?s ?My President Was Black? (Atlantic) looks back at the meaning of Obama. Howard Bryant (ESPN the Magazine) and Bim Adewunmi (Buzzfeed) offer incisive columns on the intersections of pop culture, sports, race, and politics. In addition, David Wallace-Wells reveals the coming disaster of our climate-change-ravaged future (New York); Don Van Natta Jr. and Seth Wickersham?s ESPN the Magazine reporting exposes the seamy sides of the NFL; Nina Martin and Renee Montagne investigate America?s shameful record on maternal mortality (NPR/ProPublica); Ian Frazier asks ?What Ever Happened to the Russian Revolution?? (Smithsonian); and Alex Mar considers ?Love in the Time of Robots? (Wired with Epic Magazine). The collection concludes with Kristen Roupenian?s viral hit short story ?Cat Person? (New Yorker).

The time is 1985. Benji, the son of a lawyer and a doctor, is one of the only black kids at an elite prep school in Manhattan. He spends his falls and winters going to roller-disco bar mitzvahs and trying desperately to find a social group that will accept him. But every summer, Benji and...  more

The time is 1985. Benji, the son of a lawyer and a doctor, is one of the only black kids at an elite prep school in Manhattan. He spends his falls and winters going to roller-disco bar mitzvahs and trying desperately to find a social group that will accept him. But every summer, Benji and his brother, Reggie, escape to the East End of Sag Harbor, where a small community of African American professionals has built a world of its own. Except Benji is just as confused about this all-black refuge as he is about the white world he negotiates during the school year. He's hopelessly one step behind on every new dance, and his fantasies of hooking up are no match for his own awkwardness, not to mention his braces, his horrid father-cut Afro, or his secret Lite FM addiction. In this deeply affectionate and fiercely funny coming-of-age novel, Colson Whitehead--using the perpetual mortification of teenage existence and the desperate quest for reinvention--beautifully explores racial and class identity, illustrating the complex rhythms of the adult world.

Alan and Lisa Robertson, members of America?s favorite back woods family and the Duck Commander Clan, take on the topic of relationships as they share the secrets that saved their marriage. Infidelity, deceit, distrust, and shame. Unfortunately, these are recurring themes in many of today?s...  more

Alan and Lisa Robertson, members of America?s favorite back woods family and the Duck Commander Clan, take on the topic of relationships as they share the secrets that saved their marriage. Infidelity, deceit, distrust, and shame. Unfortunately, these are recurring themes in many of today?s marriages in America?even in the family-values-promoting, Christian-based Robertson family. With a romance that began in junior high, the couple got off to a rocky start but soon settled into married life and had two baby girls. Alan became a pastor in the church where his family had been members for years. Then, when Lisa had an affair, the heartache and the tension was very public. But this is not a book about a marriage gone wrong. It is a candid story of rescued love and renewed commitment. After nearly getting divorced, Alan and Lisa came to terms with what went wrong in their marriage and both began the hard work of making it right. Now married for twenty-nine years, Alan and Lisa counsel couples in trouble and speak across the country?openly sharing their hardships, their journey to renewed commitment, and a thriving marriage.

Hunter Clarke wanted one thing for Christmas: to spend it with his dad and his brother. He misses being included in any guy trips since his parents divorced and he went to live with his mom. So he?s less than happy when his mother tells him that he won a contest to spend Christmas in West...  more

Hunter Clarke wanted one thing for Christmas: to spend it with his dad and his brother. He misses being included in any guy trips since his parents divorced and he went to live with his mom. So he?s less than happy when his mother tells him that he won a contest to spend Christmas in West Monroe, Louisiana, with a family named the Robertsons. For some reason, they?re supposed to be a big deal. How did he win a contest he didn?t enter? Besides, he?s never heard of them and sure doesn?t want to spend Christmas in a swamp with a bunch of strangers. Korie Robertson is excited to open her heart and home to Hunter and show him what the Christmas season looks like for the Robertson family. And like it or not, Hunter experiences it firsthand. From duck-hunting disasters with the bearded guys, to learning to cook with Miss Kay, Hunter quickly discovers what it?s like to live with this boisterous, yet loving family. Putting on his headphones and ignoring them is not an option. Before long, Hunter begins to let his guard down. But with Christmas and the end of his trip fast approaching, will it be too little, too late? Or will Hunter be open to the greatest gift of all?

Helen and Scott Nearing, authors of Living the Good Life and many other bestselling books, lived together for 53 years until Scott's death at age 100. Loving and Leaving the Good Life is Helen's testimonial to their life together and to what they stood for:...  more

Helen and Scott Nearing, authors of Living the Good Life and many other bestselling books, lived together for 53 years until Scott's death at age 100. Loving and Leaving the Good Life is Helen's testimonial to their life together and to what they stood for: self-sufficiency, generosity, social justice, and peace. In 1932, after deciding it would be better to be poor in the country than in the city, Helen and Scott moved from New York Ciy to Vermont. Here they created their legendary homestead which they described in Living the Good Life: How to Live Simply and Sanely in a Troubled World, a book that has sold 250,000 copies and inspired thousands of young people to move back to the land. The Nearings moved to Maine in 1953, where they continued their hard physical work as homesteaders and their intense intellectual work promoting social justice. Thirty years later, as Scott approached his 100th birthday, he decided it was time to prepare for his death. He stopped eating, and six weeks later Helen held him and said goodbye. Loving and Leaving the Good Life is a vivid self-portrait of an independent, committed and gifted woman. It is also an eloquent statement of what it means to grow old and to face death quietly, peacefully, and in control. At 88, Helen seems content to be nearing the end of her good life. As she puts it, "To have partaken of and to have given love is the greatest of life's rewards. There seems never an end to the loving that goes on forever and ever. Loving and leaving are part of living." Helen's death in 1995 at the age of 92 marks the end of an era. Yet as Helen writes in her remarkable memoir, "When one door closes, another opens." As we search for a new understanding of the relationships between death and life, this book provides profound insights into the question of how we age and die.

This one volume edition of Living the Good Life and Continuing the Good Life brings these classics on rural homesteading together. This couple abandoned the city for a rural life with minimal cash and the knowledge of self reliance and good health.  The authors recount how they created a...  more

This one volume edition of Living the Good Life and Continuing the Good Life brings these classics on rural homesteading together. This couple abandoned the city for a rural life with minimal cash and the knowledge of self reliance and good health.  The authors recount how they created a lifestyle based on self-reliance, good health, and a minimum of cash.

The early masterpiece of V. S. Naipaul’s brilliant career, A House for Mr. Biswas is an unforgettable story inspired by Naipaul's father that has been hailed as one of the twentieth century's finest novels.In his forty-six short years, Mr. Mohun Biswas has been fighting against destiny to...  more

The early masterpiece of V. S. Naipaul’s brilliant career, A House for Mr. Biswas is an unforgettable story inspired by Naipaul's father that has been hailed as one of the twentieth century's finest novels.In his forty-six short years, Mr. Mohun Biswas has been fighting against destiny to achieve some semblance of independence, only to face a lifetime of calamity. Shuttled from one residence to another after the drowning death of his father, for which he is inadvertently responsible, Mr. Biswas yearns for a place he can call home. But when he marries into the domineering Tulsi family on whom he indignantly becomes dependent, Mr. Biswas embarks on an arduous–and endless–struggle to weaken their hold over him and purchase a house of his own. A heartrending, dark comedy of manners, A House for Mr. Biswas masterfully evokes a man’s quest for autonomy against an emblematic post-colonial canvas.

On the centennial of William Maxwell?s birth, here is the second volume in a two- volume collected edition that reveals the full range of an extraordinary literary voice, a voice that John Updike has called ?one of the wisest in American fiction . . . as well as one of the kindest.? In Later...  more

On the centennial of William Maxwell?s birth, here is the second volume in a two- volume collected edition that reveals the full range of an extraordinary literary voice, a voice that John Updike has called ?one of the wisest in American fiction . . . as well as one of the kindest.? In Later Novels and Stories, Maxwell deepens his connection to his signature subject matter even as he broadens his canvas. The Château (1961) describes the most subtle and bittersweet encounter of American naiveté and Old World mystery since Henry James. So Long, See You Tomorrow

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The critically acclaimed, bestselling author of News of the World and Enemy Women returns to Texas in this atmospheric story, set at the end of the Civil War, about an itinerant fiddle player, a ragtag band of musicians with whom he travels trying to make a living, and the charming young Irish...  more

The critically acclaimed, bestselling author of News of the World and Enemy Women returns to Texas in this atmospheric story, set at the end of the Civil War, about an itinerant fiddle player, a ragtag band of musicians with whom he travels trying to make a living, and the charming young Irish lass who steals his heart. In March 1865, the long and bitter War between the States is winding down. Till now, twenty-three-year-old Simon Boudlin has evaded military duty thanks to his slight stature, youthful appearance, and utter lack of compunction about bending the truth. But following a barroom brawl in Victoria, Texas, Simon finds himself conscripted, however belatedly, into the Confederate Army. Luckily his talent with a fiddle gets him a comparatively easy position in a regimental band.Weeks later, on the eve of the Confederate surrender, Simon and his bandmates are called to play for officers and their families from both sides of the conflict. There the quick-thinking, audacious fiddler can?t help but notice the lovely Doris Mary Aherne, an indentured girl from Ireland, who is governess to a Union colonel?s daughter.After the surrender, Simon and Doris go their separate ways. He will travel around Texas seeking fame and fortune as a musician. She must accompany the colonel?s family to finish her three years of service. But Simon cannot forget the fair Irish maiden, and vows that someday he will find her again.Incandescent in its beauty, told in Paulette Jiles?s trademark spare yet lilting style, Simon the Fiddler is a captivating, bittersweet tale of the chances a devoted man will take, and the lengths he will go to fulfill his heart?s yearning.

Louisiana, 1875: In the tumultuous aftermath of Reconstruction, three young women set off as unwilling companions on a perilous quest... Lavinia, the pampered heir to a now-destitute plantation; Juneau Jane, her illegitimate free-born Creole half-sister; and Hannie, Lavinia's former...  more

Louisiana, 1875: In the tumultuous aftermath of Reconstruction, three young women set off as unwilling companions on a perilous quest... Lavinia, the pampered heir to a now-destitute plantation; Juneau Jane, her illegitimate free-born Creole half-sister; and Hannie, Lavinia's former slave. Each carries private wounds and powerful secrets as they head for Texas, following dangerous roads rife with ruthless vigilantes and soldiers still fighting a war lost a decade before. For Lavinia and Juneau Jane, the journey is one of inheritance and financial desperation, but for Hannie, torn from her mother and eight siblings before slavery's end, the pilgrimage westward reignites an agonizing question: Could her long-lost family still be out there? Beyond the swamps lie the seemingly limitless frontiers of Texas and, improbably, hope. Louisiana, 1987: For first-year teacher Benedetta Silva, a subsidized job at a poor rural school seems like the ticket to canceling her hefty student debt... until she lands in a tiny, out-of-step Mississippi River town. Augustine, Louisiana, seems suspicious of new ideas and new people, and Benny can scarcely comprehend the lives of her poverty-stricken students. But amid the gnarled oaks and run-down plantation homes lies the century-old history of three young women, a long-ago journey, and a hidden book that could change everything.

Deep in the heart of Mormon country, Lovell, Wyoming, is a small town populated by decent, God-fearing people who abide by the most rigorous strictures of pure, clean living. The sacred institutions are church and family, the guiding light one's faith in God. Yet from the opening pages of "Doc"...  more

Deep in the heart of Mormon country, Lovell, Wyoming, is a small town populated by decent, God-fearing people who abide by the most rigorous strictures of pure, clean living. The sacred institutions are church and family, the guiding light one's faith in God. Yet from the opening pages of "Doc" it is clear that something has gone terribly awry in Lovell. The trusted family doctor -- the man who birthed the town's babies, cared for husbands, wives, and children, counseled and befriended the townspeople -- was also raping his patients. Dr. John Story assaulted dozens of women, ranging in age from thirteen to seventy, over a period of twenty-five years. Brutally violating the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship, Dr. Story raped, molested, or sexually humiliated the women who most relied upon him. Mormons for the most part, many of the women were sexually ignorant until their wedding night, when they discovered what their doctor had been doing to them on the examining table. What is fascinating about "Doc" is not simply the terrible crimes but that no one spoke out against Story for years. The women's silence was based on disbelief, guilt, shame, and fear. They chastised themselves, thinking they had somehow "encouraged" the doctor, or imagined what they had felt or seen. They did not tell their husbands for fear they would kill Story, they did not tell their friends out of embarrassment. It took twenty-five years, with only a few whispers and hints of wrongdoing in the intervening time, before a small group of courageous, distressed women fought their town and the establishment to bring Dr. Story to justice. A veteran master of true crime, Jack Olsen moves in a new direction with "Doc". This is not solely the tale of a sociopath, like those whose complex, twisted minds Olsen has probed in such classics as "Son" and Cold Kill. It is the tale of women who are victims as well as heroes, of one man's violation of an entire town. Including the religious and social mores of Lovell in his scope, Olsen gently prods at communal secrets to unearth Dr. Story's legacy of pain and anger. Compassionate and sensitive, "Doc" is a tribute to a reporter of exceptional skill and humanity.

It's twelve days before the presidential election, and someone wants the incumbent eliminated from the race -- forever. For Jack Flynn, Washington correspondent for the Boston Record, it's a chance for the type of exclusive story about which most reporters can only dream: a round of golf with...  more

It's twelve days before the presidential election, and someone wants the incumbent eliminated from the race -- forever. For Jack Flynn, Washington correspondent for the Boston Record, it's a chance for the type of exclusive story about which most reporters can only dream: a round of golf with President Clayton Hutchins just days before he stands in front of voters in what has been the closest race for the White House in decades. But events on the links take a surprising turn. On the tenth tee, the president, confident of renewing his mandate, offers Jack the job of press secretary in his new administration. Minutes later, shots are fired. The president is wounded. Jack is caught in the hail of bullets. And the gunman lies dead nearby, taken out by the Secret Service. As he recuperates in the hospital, Jack receives an anonymous telephone call about the shooting, warning him that "nothing is as it seems." Using his considerable journalistic skills, Jack sets forth on an investigation that takes him from a remote militia compound in Idaho to the inner sanctums of the federal government -- and which forces him to face a devastating personal tragedy he has been unable to confront for a year. Along the way, with his bosses at the newspaper hounding him for daily scoops, the White House urging him to accept the president's job offer, and a fetching female FBI agent breathing down his neck, his anonymous source continues to contact him with new clues -- and new warnings. But just as he seems to be getting close to the truth, Jack Flynn unwittingly becomes front-page news himself. In the tradition of the bestselling Washington thrillers Absolute Power and The Tenth Justice, combining riveting authenticity with a wry narrative sensibility, The Incumbent hums with the vitality of the newsroom and bristles with the excitement of the final stages of a presidential election campaign. It marks the debut of a major talent.

Jack London was born a working-class, fatherless Californian in 1876. In his youth he was a boundlessly energetic adventurer on the bustling West Coast—by turns playing the role of hobo, sailor, prospector, and oyster pirate. He spent his brief life rapidly accumulating the experiences that...  more

Jack London was born a working-class, fatherless Californian in 1876. In his youth he was a boundlessly energetic adventurer on the bustling West Coast—by turns playing the role of hobo, sailor, prospector, and oyster pirate. He spent his brief life rapidly accumulating the experiences that would inform his acclaimed, best-selling books: The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and The Sea Wolf. London was plagued by contradictions. He chronicled nature at its most savage, but wept helplessly at the deaths of his favorite animals. At his peak the highest-paid writer in America, he was nevertheless constantly broke. An irrepressibly optimistic crusader for social justice, he burned himself out at forty: sick, angry, and disillusioned, but leaving behind a voluminous literary legacy, much of it ripe for rediscovery. In Wolf, award-winning author James L. Haley explores the forgotten Jack London—at once a hard-living globetrotter and a man alive with ideas, whose passion for social justice roared until the day he died. Returning London to his proper place in the American pantheon, Wolf resurrects a major American novelist in his full fire and glory.

Inside a Georgian townhouse on the Wigtown highroad, jammed with more than 100,000 books and a portly cat named Captain, Shaun Bythell manages the daily ups and downs of running Scotland’s largest used bookshop with a sharp eye and even sharper wit. His account of one year behind the...  more

Inside a Georgian townhouse on the Wigtown highroad, jammed with more than 100,000 books and a portly cat named Captain, Shaun Bythell manages the daily ups and downs of running Scotland’s largest used bookshop with a sharp eye and even sharper wit. His account of one year behind the counter is something no book lover should miss. Shaun copes with eccentric staff, tallies up the day’s orders, drives to distant houses to buy private libraries, and meditates on the nature of life and independent bookstores (“There really does seem to be a serendipity about bookshops, not just with finding books you never knew existed, or that you’ve been searching for, but with people too.”).

Book Description Sweeping us into the inner sanctum of Boston society, into the Beacon Hill town houses and exclusive private clubs where only the city's wealthiest and most powerful congregate, this novel gives us-through the story of one family and its patriarch, the recently deceased George...  more

Book Description Sweeping us into the inner sanctum of Boston society, into the Beacon Hill town houses and exclusive private clubs where only the city's wealthiest and most powerful congregate, this novel gives us-through the story of one family and its patriarch, the recently deceased George Apley-the portrait of an entire society in transition. Gently satirical and rich with drama, the novel moves from the Gilded Age to the Great Depression as it projects George Apley's world-and subtly reveals a life in which success and accomplishment mask disappointment and regret, a life of extreme and enviable privilege that is nonetheless an imperfect life. About the Author John P. Marquand (1893-1960) wrote several widely admired and bestselling novels, among them the Pulitzer Prizewinning The Late George Apley (1937), Wickford Point (1939), and H. M. Pullham, Esquire (1941). He was the author also of the highly successful series of Mr. Moto detective novels.

A young woman walks into a laboratory. Over the past two years, she has transformed almost every aspect of her life. She has quit smoking, run a marathon, and been promoted at work. The patterns inside her brain, neurologists discover, have fundamentally changed.   Marketers at Procter...  more

A young woman walks into a laboratory. Over the past two years, she has transformed almost every aspect of her life. She has quit smoking, run a marathon, and been promoted at work. The patterns inside her brain, neurologists discover, have fundamentally changed.   Marketers at Procter & Gamble study videos of people making their beds. They are desperately trying to figure out how to sell a new product called Febreze, on track to be one of the biggest flops in company history. Suddenly, one of them detects a nearly imperceptible pattern -- and with a slight shift in advertising, Febreze goes on to earn a billion dollars a year.   An untested CEO takes over one of the largest companies in America. His first order of business is attacking a single pattern among his employees -- how they approach worker safety -- and soon the firm, Alcoa, becomes the top performer in the Dow Jones.   What do all these people have in common? They achieved success by focusing on the patterns that shape every aspect of our lives.   They succeeded by transforming habits.   In The Power of Habit, award-winning New York Times business reporter Charles Duhigg takes us to the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed. With penetrating intelligence and an ability to distill vast amounts of information into engrossing narratives, Duhigg brings to life a whole new understanding of human nature and its potential for transformation.   Along the way we learn why some people and companies struggle to change, despite years of trying, while others seem to remake themselves overnight. We visit laboratories where neuroscientists explore how habits work and where, exactly, they reside in our brains. We discover how the right habits were crucial to the success of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, and civil-rights hero Martin Luther King, Jr. We go inside Procter & Gamble, Target superstores, Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, NFL locker rooms, and the nation’s largest hospitals and see how implementing so-called keystone habits can earn billions and mean the difference between failure and success, life and death.   At its core, The Power of Habit contains an exhilarating argument: The key to exercising regularly, losing weight, raising exceptional children, becoming more productive, building revolutionary companies and social movements, and achieving success is understanding how habits work.   Habits aren’t destiny. As Charles Duhigg shows, by harnessing this new science, we can transform our businesses, our communities, and our lives.

"The life of a country veterinarian has never been as accessible since the bestselling books of James Herriot."--The Tucson Citizen on Ask the Animals In Coston?s enjoyable second memoir, he again celebrates the gift of pets. Coston continues to work at his own veterinary practice in Virginia,...  more

"The life of a country veterinarian has never been as accessible since the bestselling books of James Herriot."--The Tucson Citizen on Ask the Animals In Coston?s enjoyable second memoir, he again celebrates the gift of pets. Coston continues to work at his own veterinary practice in Virginia, meeting adorable pets and their loving and quirky owners every day. These include Precious the parrot, remarkably friendly and unafraid for a bird, Dahmun, or ?Mountain of Love,? the Bull Mastiff, named by his linguist owner in a language he created, and Greco the beagle shepherd mix, who likes to eat rocks because he is too macho to chew on toys, his Greek owner insists. In stories ranging from humorous to heartfelt to tragic, this book makes a lovely gift for any animal lover.

A Brief History of Time, published in 1988, was a landmark volume in science writing and in world-wide acclaim and popularity, with more than 9 million copies in print globally. The original edition was on the cutting edge of what was then known about the origins and nature of the universe. But...  more

A Brief History of Time, published in 1988, was a landmark volume in science writing and in world-wide acclaim and popularity, with more than 9 million copies in print globally. The original edition was on the cutting edge of what was then known about the origins and nature of the universe. But the ensuing years have seen extraordinary advances in the technology of observing both the micro- and the macrocosmic world--observations that have confirmed many of Hawking's theoretical predictions in the first edition of his book.Now a decade later, this edition updates the chapters throughout to document those advances, and also includes an entirely new chapter on Wormholes and Time Travel and a new introduction. It make vividly clear why A Brief History of Time has transformed our view of the universe.

When editor Susan Ryeland is given the manuscript of Alan Conway’s latest novel, she has no reason to think it will be much different from any of his others. After working with the bestselling crime writer for years, she’s intimately familiar with his detective, Atticus Pünd,...  more

When editor Susan Ryeland is given the manuscript of Alan Conway’s latest novel, she has no reason to think it will be much different from any of his others. After working with the bestselling crime writer for years, she’s intimately familiar with his detective, Atticus Pünd, who solves mysteries disturbing sleepy English villages. An homage to queens of classic British crime such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, Alan’s traditional formula has proved hugely successful. So successful that Susan must continue to put up with his troubling behavior if she wants to keep her job. Conway’s latest tale has Atticus Pünd investigating a murder at Pye Hall, a local manor house. Yes, there are dead bodies and a host of intriguing suspects, but the more Susan reads, the more she’s convinced that there is another story hidden in the pages of the manuscript: one of real-life jealousy, greed, ruthless ambition, and murder. Masterful, clever, and relentlessly suspenseful, Magpie Murders is a deviously dark take on vintage English crime fiction in which the reader becomes the detective.

When editor Susan Ryeland is given the manuscript of Alan Conway’s latest novel, she has no reason to think it will be much different from any of his others. After working with the bestselling crime writer for years, she's intimately familiar with his detective, Atticus Pünd, who...  more

When editor Susan Ryeland is given the manuscript of Alan Conway’s latest novel, she has no reason to think it will be much different from any of his others. After working with the bestselling crime writer for years, she's intimately familiar with his detective, Atticus Pünd, who solves mysteries disturbing sleepy English villages. An homage to queens of classic British crime such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, Alan’s traditional formula has proved hugely successful. So successful that Susan must continue to put up with his troubling behavior if she wants to keep her job. Conway’s latest tale has Atticus Pünd investigating a murder at Pye Hall, a local manor house. Yes, there are dead bodies and a host of intriguing suspects, but the more Susan reads, the more she’s convinced that there is another story hidden in the pages of the manuscript: one of real-life jealousy, greed, ruthless ambition, and murder.

George Webber has written a successful novel about his family and hometown. When he returns to that town he is shaken by the force of the outrage and hatred that greets him. Family and friends feel naked and exposed by the truths they have seen in his book, and their fury drives him from his...  more

George Webber has written a successful novel about his family and hometown. When he returns to that town he is shaken by the force of the outrage and hatred that greets him. Family and friends feel naked and exposed by the truths they have seen in his book, and their fury drives him from his home. He begins a search for his own identity that takes him to New York and a hectic social whirl; to Paris with an uninhibited group of expatriates; to Berlin, lying cold and sinister under Hitler's shadow. At last Webber returns to America and rediscovers it with love, sorrow, and hope. "If there stills lingers and doubt as to Wolfe's right to a place among the immortals of American letters, this work should dispel it."--Cleveland News "Wolfe wrote as one inspired. No one of his generation had his command of language, his passion, his energy."--The New Yorker "You Can't Go Home Again will stand apart from everything else that he wrote because this is the book of a man who had come to terms with himself, who has something profoundly important to say."--New York Times Book Review

Nobody Will Tell You This But Me: A true (as told to me) story Bess Kalb, Emmy-nominated TV writer and New Yorker contributor, saved every voicemail her grandmother Bobby Bell ever left her. Bobby was a force -- irrepressible, glamorous, unapologetically opinionated. Bobby doted on Bess; Bess...  more

Nobody Will Tell You This But Me: A true (as told to me) story Bess Kalb, Emmy-nominated TV writer and New Yorker contributor, saved every voicemail her grandmother Bobby Bell ever left her. Bobby was a force -- irrepressible, glamorous, unapologetically opinionated. Bobby doted on Bess; Bess adored Bobby. Then, at ninety, Bobby died. But in this debut memoir, Bobby is speaking to Bess once more, in a voice as passionate as it ever was in life. Recounting both family lore and family secrets, Bobby brings us four generations of indomitable women and the men who loved them. There's Bobby's mother, who traveled solo from Belarus to America in the 1880s to escape the pogroms, and Bess's mother, a 1970s rebel who always fought against convention. Then there's Bess, who grew up in New York and entered the rough-and-tumble world of L.A. television. Her grandma Bobby was with her all the way -- she was the light of Bess's childhood and her fiercest supporter, giving Bess unequivocal love, even if sometimes of the toughest kind. In Nobody Will Tell You This But Me, Bobby reminds Bess of the experiences they shared, and she delivers -- in phone calls, texts, and unforgettable heart-to-hearts brought vividly to the page -- her signature wisdom: If the earth is cracking behind you, you put one foot in front of the other. Never. Buy. Fake. Anything. I swear on your life every word of this is true. With humor and poignancy, Bess Kalb gives us proof of the special bond that can skip a generation and endure beyond death. This book is a feat of extraordinary ventriloquism and imagination by a remarkably talented writer.

Fueled by a passion for running dogs, Gary Paulsen entered the Iditarod, the 1150-mile winter sled-dog race between Anchorage and Nome, in dangerous ignorance and with fierce determination. Winterdance is his account of this seventeen-day battle against nature's worst elements and his own...  more

Fueled by a passion for running dogs, Gary Paulsen entered the Iditarod, the 1150-mile winter sled-dog race between Anchorage and Nome, in dangerous ignorance and with fierce determination. Winterdance is his account of this seventeen-day battle against nature's worst elements and his own frailty. Paulsen and his team of dogs endured snowstorms, frostbite, dogfights, moose attacks, sleeplessness, and hallucinations in the relentless push to go on. Map and color photographs.

The mayor of Atlanta and a washed-up reporter investigate a series of assassinations, and uncover a conspiracy that reaches into the heart of the city's political machine.Mayor Victoria Dobbs Overstreet is a Harvard-trained attorney and Spelman alum, married to a celebrated heart surgeon, mother...  more

The mayor of Atlanta and a washed-up reporter investigate a series of assassinations, and uncover a conspiracy that reaches into the heart of the city's political machine.Mayor Victoria Dobbs Overstreet is a Harvard-trained attorney and Spelman alum, married to a celebrated heart surgeon, mother to beautiful twin girls, and a political genius. When her mentor, ally, and friend Congressman Ezra Hawkins is gunned down in Ebenezer Baptist Church, Victoria finds a strange piece of origami?a ?paper god??tucked inside his Bible. These paper gods turn up again and again, always after someone is killed. Someone is terrorizing those who are close to Mayor Dobbs, and she can't shake the feeling that the killer is close to her, too. "A moving and unflinching portrait of a city and its many layers of power...Taylor has created a hero we see all too rarely: black, female, powerful." ?Tim Teeman, Senior Editor of The Daily Beast"From buttermilk fried okra to bibles and bullets, the story comes out the gate moving and never lets up.? ?Eric Jerome Dickey, New York Times bestselling author of A Wanted Woman

For the first time, the final years of one of the world's most captivating rock showman are laid bare. Including interviews from Freddie Mercury's closest friends in the last years of his life, along with personal photographs, Somebody to Love is an authoritative biography of the great...  more

For the first time, the final years of one of the world's most captivating rock showman are laid bare. Including interviews from Freddie Mercury's closest friends in the last years of his life, along with personal photographs, Somebody to Love is an authoritative biography of the great man. Here are previously unknown and startling facts about the singer and his life, moving detail on his lifelong search for love and personal fulfilment, and of course his tragic contraction of a then killer disease in the mid-1980s. Woven throughout Freddie's life is the shocking story of how the HIV virus came to hold the world in its grip, was cruelly labelled 'The Gay Plague' and the unwitting few who indirectly infected thousands of men, women and children -- Freddie Mercury himself being one of the most famous.  The death of this vibrant and spectacularly talented rock star, shook the world of medicine as well as the world of music. Somebody to Love finally puts the record straight and pays detailed tribute to the man himself.

An indispensable home reference for women, from the college years to old age The Complete Guide to Mental Health For Women is designed to help women take control of their mental health, whether their concern is a specific disorder or simply the psychological stresses of a life in transition....  more

An indispensable home reference for women, from the college years to old age The Complete Guide to Mental Health For Women is designed to help women take control of their mental health, whether their concern is a specific disorder or simply the psychological stresses of a life in transition. Within an accessible format that includes tables, charts, and comprehensive lists, over fifty experts provide the most up-to-date information on the entire range of women"s mental health issues, including:ADDICTIONANXIETYBIPOLAR DISORDERDEPRESSIONEATING DISORDERSLIFESPAN PSYCHOLOGYLIFE ISSUES FROM SEXUALITY TO RELATIONSHIPSTO TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCE AND ILLNESSPOSTPARTUM DEPRESSIONPSYCHOPHARMACOLOGYPSYCHOTHERAPEUTIC TREATMENTS, FROM EMDR ANDDIALECTICAL BEHAVIORAL THERAPY TO TRADITIONALINSIGHT THERAPYMENTAL HEALTH EFFECTS OF RACISM AND POVERTYQUESTIONS TO ASK A PSYCHOLOGIST OR PSYCHIATRISTTRAUMADrawing on the latest thinking in psychiatry and psychology, and written for women of diverse backgrounds, this trade reference guide to women"s mental health provides a comprehensive and readable overview to the psychologicalissues that concern women most. Arguing that women want and need to understand their mental health as more than a question of disorder or normality, it begins with the life cycle, helping women understand the major issues and biological changes associated with young adulthood, middle age, and old age. The Complete Guide to Mental Health for Women alsospecifically addresses the psychological importance of women"s sexuality and relationships, and discusses how social contexts, such as poverty and racism, affect mental health. Part Two explores specific mental disorders, including those, like postpartum depression, related to times when women are particularly vulnerable to mental illness. Part Three takes a closer look at treatments, including the use of antidepressants and other drugs, and various types of psychotherapy,from cognitive behavioral treatments to EMDR and beyond. The Complete Guide to Mental Health for Women ends with a section on life enhancements that discusses some of the activities that can help us live fuller lives.Lauren Slater, Ed.D., is a psychologist and Knight-Ridder Science Journalist Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the author of Love Works Like This, Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir, Prozac Diary, and Welcome to My Country. Jessica Henderson Daniel, Ph.D., A.B.P.P., is director of training in psychology at Children"s Hospital, Boston, assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, and past president of the Society for the Psychology of Women in the American Psychological Association. AmyBanks,M.D., is an instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a faculty member at the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute.

A mind-expanding and myth-destroying exploration of notions of white race -- not merely a skin color but also a signal of power, prestige, and beauty to be withheld and granted selectively Ever since the Enlightenment, race theory and its inevitable partner, racism, have followed a crooked...  more

A mind-expanding and myth-destroying exploration of notions of white race -- not merely a skin color but also a signal of power, prestige, and beauty to be withheld and granted selectively Ever since the Enlightenment, race theory and its inevitable partner, racism, have followed a crooked road, constructed by dominant peoples to justify their domination of others. Filling a huge gap in historical literature that long focused on the non-white, eminent historian Nell Irvin Painter guides us through more than two thousand years of Western civilization, tracing not only the invention of the idea of race but also the frequent worship of “whiteness” for economic, social, scientific, and political ends. Our story begins in Greek and Roman antiquity, where the concept of race did not exist, only geography and the opportunity to conquer and enslave others. Not until the eighteenth century did an obsession with whiteness flourish, with the German invention of the notion of Caucasian beauty. This theory made northern Europeans into “Saxons,” “Anglo-Saxons,” and “Teutons,” envisioned as uniquely handsome natural rulers. Here was a worldview congenial to northern Europeans bent on empire. There followed an explosion of theories of race, now focusing on racial temperament as well as skin color. Spread by such intellectuals as Madame de Stael and Thomas Carlyle, white race theory soon reached North America with a vengeance. Its chief spokesman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, did the most to label Anglo-Saxons -- icons of beauty and virtue -- as the only true Americans. It was an ideal that excluded not only blacks but also all ethnic groups not of Protestant, northern European background. The Irish and Native Americans were out and, later, so were the Chinese, Jews, Italians, Slavs, and Greeks -- all deemed racially alien. Did immigrations threaten the very existence of America? Americans were assumed to be white, but who among poor immigrants could become truly American? A tortured and convoluted series of scientific explorations developed -- theories intended to keep Anglo-Saxons at the top: the ever-popular measurement of skulls, the powerful eugenics movement, and highly biased intelligence tests -- all designed to keep working people out and down. As Painter reveals, power -- supported by economics, science, and politics -- continued to drive exclusionary notions of whiteness until, deep into the twentieth century, political realities enlarged the category of truly American. A story filled with towering historical figures, The History of White People forcefully reminds us that the concept of one white race is a recent invention. The meaning, importance, and realty of this all-too-human thesis of race have buckled under the weight of a long and rich unfolding of events. 70 illustrations

There is arguably no more critical and pressing topic than the relation of science and religion in the modern world. Science has given us the methods for discovering truth, while religion remains the single greatest force for generating meaning. Yet the two are seen as mutually exclusive, with...  more

There is arguably no more critical and pressing topic than the relation of science and religion in the modern world. Science has given us the methods for discovering truth, while religion remains the single greatest force for generating meaning. Yet the two are seen as mutually exclusive, with wrenching consequences for humanity. In The Marriage of Sense and Soul, one of today's most important philosophers brilliantly articulates how we might begin to think about science and religion in ways that allow for their reconciliation and union, on terms that will be acceptable to both camps.        Ken Wilber is widely acclaimed as the foremost thinker in integrating Western psychology and the Eastern spiritual traditions. His many books have reached across disciplines and synthesized the teachings of religion, psychology, physics, mysticism, sociology, and anthropology, earning him a devoted international following. The Marriage of Sense and Soul is his most accessible work yet, aimed at guiding a general audience to the mutual accord between the spiritual, subjective world of ancient wisdom and the objective, empirical world of modern knowledge.         Wilber clearly and succinctly explores the schism between science and religion, and the impact of this "philosophical Cold War" on the fate of humanity. He systematically reviews previous attempts at integration, explaining why romantic, idealistic, and postmodern theories failed. And he demonstrates how science is compatible with certain deep features common to all of the world's major religious traditions. In pointing the way to a union between truth and meaning, Ken Wilber has created an elegant and accessible book that is breathtaking in its scope.

Jill Ciment weaves an unforgettable tale of survival, compassion, and courage, in this haunting recollection of a child surrounded by confusion and madness, and her struggle to find an identity.  Half a Life  traces Jill Ciment's family from Toronto to the California desert -...  more

Jill Ciment weaves an unforgettable tale of survival, compassion, and courage, in this haunting recollection of a child surrounded by confusion and madness, and her struggle to find an identity.  Half a Life  traces Jill Ciment's family from Toronto to the California desert - -a landscape and culture so alien to her father that the last vestiges of sanity leave him.  As madness engulfs him he becomes increasingly brutal and the family, grasping at survival, throws him out the door.  Having no understanding that he has done anything wrong, he first lives in his car at the end of the driveway, waiting to be invited back in, before exiting completely from their lives.Poor and fatherless, Ciment spends the years from age fourteen to seventeen, as a gang girl, a professional forger, a stripper, a corporate spy, and finally, a high school dropout who by age eighteen has seduced her art teacher, a man  nearly three decades her senior and bluffed her way into college in an effort to shape a  future.  Ciment is cutting, insightful and clearly unapologetic as she details the confusion and bravado of a child heroine whose dreams and tenacity allow her finally, to create the life she has been so desperately seeking.

In this unflinching account of the ardent love affair between the author and her painting teacher, which began in the 1970s, when she was a teenager and he was married with two children, Ciment not only reflects on how their love ignited (who leaned in first for that kiss?) but interrogates her...  more

In this unflinching account of the ardent love affair between the author and her painting teacher, which began in the 1970s, when she was a teenager and he was married with two children, Ciment not only reflects on how their love ignited (who leaned in first for that kiss?) but interrogates her 1996 memoir on the subject, Half a Life. She asks herself if she told the whole truth back then, and what truth looked like to her in the even longer-ago era of love-bead curtains when she fell in love, when no one asked who was served by the permissibility around a May-December romance. In the light of #metoo, with new understanding about the balance of power between an older man and an underage girl, Ciment re-explores the erotic wild ride and intellectual flowering that shaped an improbable but blissful marriage that lasted for forty-five years, until her husband’s death at ninety-three. This riveting book about art, memory, and morality asks many questions along the way: Does a story’s ending excuse its beginning? Does a kiss in one moment mean something else entirely five decades later? Can a love that starts with such an asymmetrical balance of power ever right itself? Suffused with the wisdom that comes with time, Consent is an author’s brave recasting of her life’s settled narrative, and an urgent read for women of all ages.

1975 is a time of change in America. The Vietnam War is ending. Muhammad Ali is fighting Joe Frazier. And in the smalltown of Monta Clare, Missouri, girls are disappearing.   When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted, the most unlikely hero...  more

1975 is a time of change in America. The Vietnam War is ending. Muhammad Ali is fighting Joe Frazier. And in the smalltown of Monta Clare, Missouri, girls are disappearing.   When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted, the most unlikely hero emerges—Patch, a local boy, who saves the girl, and, in doing so, leaves heartache in his wake.   Patch and those who love him soon discover that the line between triumph and tragedy has never been finer. And that their search for answers will lead them to truths that could mean losing one another.

Right. Wrong. Life is lived somewhere in between. Duchess Day Radley is a thirteen-year-old self-proclaimed outlaw. Rules are for other people. She is the fierce protector of her five-year-old brother, Robin, and the parent to her mother, Star, a single mom incapable of taking care of...  more

Right. Wrong. Life is lived somewhere in between. Duchess Day Radley is a thirteen-year-old self-proclaimed outlaw. Rules are for other people. She is the fierce protector of her five-year-old brother, Robin, and the parent to her mother, Star, a single mom incapable of taking care of herself, let alone her two kids. Walk has never left the coastal California town where he and Star grew up. He may have become the chief of police, but he’s still trying to heal the old wound of having given the testimony that sent his best friend, Vincent King, to prison decades before. And he's in overdrive protecting Duchess and her brother. Now, thirty years later, Vincent is being released. And Duchess and Walk must face the trouble that comes with his return. We Begin at the End is an extraordinary novel about two kinds of families -- the ones we are born into and the ones we create.

Two teens. Two diaries. Two social panics. One incredible fraud. In 1971, Go Ask Alice reinvented the young adult genre with a blistering portrayal of sex, psychosis, and teenage self-destruction. The supposed diary of a middle-class addict, Go Ask Alice terrified...  more

Two teens. Two diaries. Two social panics. One incredible fraud. In 1971, Go Ask Alice reinvented the young adult genre with a blistering portrayal of sex, psychosis, and teenage self-destruction. The supposed diary of a middle-class addict, Go Ask Alice terrified adults and cemented LSD's fearsome reputation, fueling support for the War on Drugs. Five million copies later, Go Ask Alice remains a divisive bestseller, outraging censors and earning new fans, all of them drawn by the book's mythic premise: A Real Diary, by Anonymous. But Alice was only the beginning. In 1979, another diary rattled the culture, setting the stage for a national meltdown. The posthumous memoir of an alleged teenage Satanist, Jay's Journal merged with a frightening new crisis -- adolescent suicide -- to create a literal witch hunt, shattering countless lives and poisoning whole communities. In reality, Go Ask Alice and Jay's Journal came from the same dark place: a serial con artist who betrayed a grieving family, stole a dead boy's memory, and lied her way to the National Book Awards. Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World's Most Notorious Diaries is a true story of contagious deception. It stretches from Hollywood to Quantico, and passes through a tiny patch of Utah nicknamed "the fraud capital of America." It's the story of a doomed romance and a vengeful celebrity. Of a lazy press and a public mob. Of two suicidal teenagers, and their exploitation by a literary vampire. Unmask Alice . . . where truth is stranger than nonfiction.

When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently...  more

When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond. While many narrative set pieces of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the river’s banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin…), Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light. Brimming with the electrifying humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a “literary icon” (Oprah Daily), and one of the most decorated writers of our lifetime, James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first century American literature.

No one expects the police to knock on the million-dollar, two-story home of the perfect cul-de-sac housewife. But soccer mom Lara Love Hardin has been hiding a shady secret: she is funding her heroin addiction by stealing her neighbors’ credit cards. Lara is convicted of thirty-two...  more

No one expects the police to knock on the million-dollar, two-story home of the perfect cul-de-sac housewife. But soccer mom Lara Love Hardin has been hiding a shady secret: she is funding her heroin addiction by stealing her neighbors’ credit cards. Lara is convicted of thirty-two felonies and becomes inmate S32179. She learns that jail is a class system with a power structure that is somewhere between an adolescent sleepover party and Lord of the Flies. Furniture is made from tampon boxes and Snickers bars are currency. But Lara quickly finds the rules and brings love and healing to her fellow inmates as she climbs the social ladder to become the “shot caller,” showing that jailhouse politics aren’t that different from the PTA meetings she used to attend. When she’s released, she reinvents herself as a ghostwriter. Now, she’s legally co-opting other people’s identities and getting to meet Oprah, meditate with The Dalai Lama, and have dinner with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. But the shadow of her past follows her. Shame is a poison worse than heroin—there is no way to detox. Lara must learn how to forgive herself and others, navigate life as a felon on probation, prove to herself that she is more good than bad, and much more. The Many Lives of Mama Love is a heartbreaking and tender journey from shame to redemption, despite a system that makes it almost impossible for us to move beyond the worst thing we have ever done.

It had been nearly a century since elephants had lived in Southern Zulu - land, South Africa, where Lawrence Anthony founded his wildlife reserve. Yet one day a surprise phone call changed all that. A troubled, unpredictable herd needed a new home. In order to save their lives, Lawrence took...  more

It had been nearly a century since elephants had lived in Southern Zulu - land, South Africa, where Lawrence Anthony founded his wildlife reserve. Yet one day a surprise phone call changed all that. A troubled, unpredictable herd needed a new home. In order to save their lives, Lawrence took them in and in the years that followed found that they had a lot to teach him about life, loyalty, and freedom. The Elephant Whisperer is a heartwarming, exciting, funny, and sometimes sad account of his experiences with these huge yet sympathetic creatures. He tells of hair-raising fights with poachers, of elephants as surprise dinner guests, of raising a baby elephant in his home, and other incredible stories that will amaze animal-lovers everywhere.