Displaying 15 books

It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth

2022

by Zoe Thorogood

Cartoonist Zoe Thorogood records 6 months of her own life as it falls apart in a desperate attempt to put it back together again in the only way she knows how. It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth is an intimate and metanarrative look into the life of a selfish artist who must create for her own survival.

Signal Fires

2022

by Dani Shapiro

Signal Fires weaves the lives of two families across fifty years, revealing the profound connections between them. Under an ancient oak on Division Street, retired doctor Ben Wilf and ten-year-old genius Waldo Shenkman share a moment beneath the stars, unaware of their intertwined destinies.

In a world where secrets and lies intertwine, the Wilfs and the Shenkmans are brought together by unforeseen forces. As the narrative spans the cosmos and half a century, these families are bound by the gravity of their shared history.

Signal Fires is an urgent and compassionate tale of kinship, remembrance, and the ties that bind us together. Dani Shapiro crafts a masterful story that illuminates the heart's capacity to heal itself through connections that transcend time and space.

Stay True

2022

by Hua Hsu

Stay True is a gripping memoir on friendship, grief, the search for self, and the solace that can be found through art, by New Yorker staff writer Hua Hsu. In the eyes of eighteen-year-old Hua Hsu, the problem with Ken—with his passion for Dave Matthews, Abercrombie & Fitch, and his fraternity—is that he is exactly like everyone else. Ken, whose Japanese American family has been in the United States for generations, is mainstream; for Hua, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, who makes 'zines and haunts Bay Area record shops, Ken represents all that he defines himself in opposition to.

The only thing Hua and Ken have in common is that, however they engage with it, American culture doesn't seem to have a place for either of them. But despite his first impressions, Hua and Ken become friends, a friendship built on late-night conversations over cigarettes, long drives along the California coast, and the successes and humiliations of everyday college life. And then violently, senselessly, Ken is gone, killed in a carjacking, not even three years after the day they first meet.

Determined to hold on to all that was left off one of his closest friends—his memories—Hua turned to writing. Stay True is the book he's been working on ever since. A coming-of-age story that details both the ordinary and extraordinary, Stay True is a bracing memoir about growing up, and about moving through the world in search of meaning and belonging.

The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy

2022

by Megan Bannen

Hart is a marshal, tasked with patrolling the strange and magical wilds of Tanria. It's an unforgiving job, and Hart's got nothing but time to ponder his loneliness. Mercy never has a moment to herself. She's been single-handedly keeping Birdsall & Son Undertakers afloat in defiance of sullen jerks like Hart, who seems to have a gift for showing up right when her patience is thinnest.

After yet another exasperating run-in with Mercy, Hart finds himself penning a letter addressed simply to "A Friend". Much to his surprise, an anonymous letter comes back in return, and a tentative friendship is born. If only Hart knew he's been baring his soul to the person who infuriates him most – Mercy. As the dangers from Tanria grow closer, so do the unlikely correspondents. But can their blossoming romance survive the fated discovery that their pen pals are their worst nightmares – each other?

Set in a world full of magic and demigods, donuts and small-town drama, this enchantingly quirky, utterly unique fantasy is perfect for readers of The House in the Cerulean Sea and The Invisible Library.

Honey and Spice

2022

by Bolu Babalola

Introducing Bolu Babalola's dazzling debut novel, Honey and Spice, a story that brings together passion, humor, and heart, revolving around Kiki Banjo, a young Black British woman who has deliberately steered clear of love. However, she finds herself in an unexpected fake relationship with Malakai Korede, the very man she cautioned others about.

Sharp-tongued and secretly tender-hearted, Kiki is an expert in avoiding relationships. She's the voice behind the popular student radio show Brown Sugar, where she empowers the women of the African-Caribbean Society at Whitewell University to navigate away from the pitfalls of 'situationships', players, and heartbreak. But after a public mishap involving Malakai, dubbed 'The Wastemen of Whitewell', Kiki's show and reputation are at risk.

A novel that captures the essence of young love and self-discovery, Honey and Spice is a delightful blend of laughter, tension, and the thrill of romantic possibilities.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

2022

by Gabrielle Zevin

In this exhilarating novel, two friends--often in love, but never lovers--come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.

On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won't protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.

Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

2022

by Gabrielle Zevin

In this exhilarating novel, two friends--often in love, but never lovers--come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.

On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won't protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.

Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love.

Team Emotional Intelligence 2.0

As organizations shift to depend more on team-based structures, the pressure to develop high-performing teams is more critical than ever. In the modern work environment, teams are expected to embrace change, navigate complexity, and collaborate well under pressure—all while delivering exceptional results and forming productive relationships.

While it is crucial to have talented, bright people within a team, there is a dynamic that is even more essential to overall team effectiveness. This dynamic is Team Emotional Intelligence (Team EQ). Insights from the latest research on team emotional intelligence, combined with TalentSmartEQ's research trends from working with over 200 teams (with 2000+ team members), bring EQ know-how to the team level.

Team Emotional Intelligence 2.0 delivers practical strategies and showcases how an emotionally intelligent team is far more than the sum of its parts. This book focuses on the four key skill areas of Team EQ: Team Emotion Awareness, Team Emotion Management, Internal Team Relationships, and External Team Relationships. It delivers 53 strategies and a step-by-step process for increasing team EQ skills so team leaders and anyone who's a member of a team can achieve peak performance and reach their goals.

The authors begin with a life and death story of team failure that illustrates how emotions can drive team decisions and lead to disaster. They share a proven approach to helping teams understand Team EQ skills, build these skills into strengths, and use them to sustain positive momentum and achieve peak performance. Strategies for remote and hybrid teams working virtually offer targeted approaches to bonding, communicating, tough conversations, and decision making as modern workplaces transform.

With the increasing reliance on teams in organizations, the understanding and development of team EQ skills is more relevant and impactful than ever.

Trust

2022

by Hernan Diaz

Trust is a sweeping puzzle of a novel about power, greed, love and a search for the truth that begins in 1920s New York. Can one person change the course of history? A Wall Street tycoon takes a young woman as his wife. Together, they rise to the top in an age of excess and speculation. Now a novelist is threatening to reveal the secrets behind their marriage. Who will have the final word in their story of greed, love and betrayal?

Composed of four competing versions of this deliciously deceptive tale, Trust by Hernan Diaz brings us on a quest for truth while confronting the lies that often live buried in the human heart.

An unparalleled novel about money, power, intimacy, and perception.

Ten Steps to Nanette

2022

by Hannah Gadsby

Ten Steps to Nanette continues Gadsby’s tradition of confounding expectations and norms, properly introducing us to one of the most explosive, formative voices of our time. Gadsby grew up as the youngest of five children in an isolated town in Tasmania, where homosexuality was illegal until 1997. She perceived her childhood as safe and “normal,” but as she gained an awareness of her burgeoning queerness, the outside world began to undermine the “vulnerably thin veneer” of her existence. After moving to mainland Australia and receiving a degree in art history, Gadsby found herself adrift, working itinerant jobs and enduring years of isolation punctuated by homophobic and sexual violence. At age twenty-seven, without a home or the ability to imagine her own future, she was urged by a friend to enter a stand-up competition. She won, and so began her career in comedy. Gadsby became well known for her self-deprecating, autobiographical humor that made her the butt of her own jokes. But in 2015, as Australia debated the legality of same-sex marriage, Gadsby started to question this mode of storytelling, beginning work on a show that would become “the most-talked-about, written-about, shared-about comedy act in years” (The New York Times).

Harrowing and hilarious, Ten Steps to Nanette traces Gadsby’s growth as a queer person, to her ever-evolving relationship with comedy, and her struggle with late-in-life diagnoses of autism and ADHD, finally arriving at the backbone of Nanette: the renouncement of self-deprecation, the rejection of misogyny, and the moral significance of truth-telling.

Disorientation

Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou is an outrageously hilarious and startlingly tender debut novel that captures a Taiwanese American woman's coming-of-consciousness amid chaos on a college campus.

Twenty-nine-year-old PhD student Ingrid Yang is on a mission to finish her dissertation on the late canonical poet Xiao-Wen Chou and move away from reading about 'Chinese-y' things. However, years of grueling research have left her with nothing but a junk food addiction and stomach pain. When Ingrid stumbles upon a curious note in the Chou archives, she believes she's found her escape from academic hell. But she's about to discover she's in over her head. Her attempts to decipher the note's message lead to a shocking revelation that turns her academic life and her understanding of the world outside upside down.

Joined by her friend Eunice Kim and pursued by her rival Vivian Vo, Ingrid finds herself on a wild ride of mishaps and misadventures, ranging from book burnings and hallucinations to protests and propaganda. As Ingrid's life spirals out of control, she begins to question her relationships with white men and white institutions, and ultimately, she must confront herself.

Disorientation is a searing satire of privilege and power in America, a deep dive into personal complicity, and a compelling story of unspoken rage. Elaine Hsieh Chou presents a provocative question: Who gets to tell our stories, and how does the narrative shift when we take the reins?

The Anatomy of Anxiety

2022

by Ellen Vora

From acclaimed psychiatrist Dr. Ellen Vora comes a groundbreaking understanding of how anxiety manifests in the body and mind—and what we can do to overcome it. Anxiety affects more than forty million Americans—a number that continues to climb in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While conventional medicine tends to view anxiety as a "neck-up" problem—that is, one of brain chemistry and psychology—the truth is that the origins of anxiety are rooted in the body. In The Anatomy of Anxiety, holistic psychiatrist Dr. Ellen Vora offers nothing less than a paradigm shift in our understanding of anxiety and mental health, suggesting that anxiety is not simply a brain disorder but a whole-body condition.

In her clinical work, Dr. Vora has found time and again that the symptoms of anxiety can often be traced to imbalances in the body. The emotional and physical discomfort we experience—sleeplessness, brain fog, stomach pain, jitters—is a result of the body’s stress response. This physiological state can be triggered by challenging experiences as well as seemingly innocuous factors, such as diet and use of technology.

The good news is that this body-based anxiety, or, as Dr. Vora terms it, "false anxiety," is easily treated. Once the body’s needs are addressed, Dr. Vora reframes any remaining symptoms not as a disorder but rather as an urgent plea from within. This "true anxiety" is a signal that something else is out of balance—in our lives, in our relationships, in the world. True anxiety serves as our inner compass, helping us recalibrate when we’re feeling lost.

Practical, informative, and deeply hopeful, The Anatomy of Anxiety is the first book to fully explain the origins of anxiety and offer a detailed road map for healing and growth.

We've Got This

We've Got This: Stories of Disabled Parenting offers a profound insight into the lives of parents with disabilities. Writer and musician Eliza Hull presents an anthology where twenty-five parents share their personal narratives of raising children while navigating the complexities that come with being Deaf, disabled, or chronically ill.

The book explores the triumphs and challenges they face, and most importantly, it confronts the societal attitudes that often pose the greatest barriers. These stories are not commonly found in parenting literature, making this collection an essential read for understanding the diverse experiences of disabled parenting.

With contributions from a variety of voices such as Jacinta Parsons, Kristy Forbes, Graeme Innes, and many others, this anthology is a testament to the resilience and joy that can be found in the face of adversity. It challenges misconceptions and celebrates the existence and capabilities of disabled parents everywhere.

The Quiet Before

2022

by Gal Beckerman

The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas is an exploration of the formation of social movements through history and the role of technology in shaping them. Gal Beckerman, an editor at The New York Times Book Review, presents a narrative that spans from the 1600s to the present, examining how the quiet conception of revolutionary ideas in small, private groups has led to significant social changes, from the scientific revolution to the suffrage movement, and from feminism to modern-day epidemiology.

This book delves into the correspondence that ignited the scientific revolution, the petitions that won voting rights in 1830s Britain, the zines that expressed women's rage in the early 1990s, and the messaging apps utilized by epidemiologists during a pandemic. Beckerman highlights the importance of secluded spaces where radical ideas can incubate before reaching a wider audience and cautions that the prevalence of social media may be undermining these productive environments. By examining the successes and failures of movements like the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, and Black Lives Matter, The Quiet Before offers insights into what current social media platforms lack and proposes ways to foster the growth of radical ideas in the future.

Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?

2022

by Julie Smith

Drawing on years of experience as a clinical psychologist, online sensation Dr Julie Smith provides the skills you need to navigate common life challenges and take charge of your emotional and mental health in her debut book. Filled with secrets from a therapist's toolkit, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? teaches you how to fortify and maintain your mental health, even in the most trying of times.

Dr Julie Smith's expert advice and powerful coping techniques will help you stay resilient, whether you want to manage anxiety, deal with criticism, cope with depression, build self-confidence, find motivation, or learn to forgive yourself. The book tackles everyday issues and offers practical solutions in bite-sized, easy-to-digest entries which make it easy to quickly find specific information and guidance.

Your mental well-being is just as important as your physical well-being. Packed with proven strategies, Dr Smith's empathetic guide offers a deeper understanding of how your mind works and gives you the insights and help you need to nurture your mental health every day. Wise and practical, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? might just change your life.

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