Books with category đź©ą Emotional Healing
Displaying books 1-48 of 58 in total

Like Mother, Like Daughter

From the New York Times best-selling author of Reconstructing Amelia, Like Mother, Like Daughter is a thrilling novel of emotional suspense that questions the damaging fictions we cling to and the hard truths we avoid. Above all, it's a love story between a mother and a daughter, each determined to save the other before it's too late.

When Cleo, a student at NYU, arrives late for dinner at her childhood home in Brooklyn, she finds food burning in the oven and no sign of her mother, Kat. Then Cleo discovers her mom's bloody shoe under the sofa. Something terrible has happened. But what?

The polar opposite of Cleo, whose "out of control" emotions and "unsafe" behavior have created a seemingly unbridgeable rift between mother and daughter, Kat is the essence of Park Slope perfection: a happily married, successful corporate lawyer. Or so Cleo thinks. Kat has been lying. She’s not just a lawyer; she’s her firm’s fixer. She’s damn good at it, too.

Growing up in a dangerous group home taught her how to think fast, stay calm under pressure, and recognize a real threat when she sees one. And in the days leading up her disappearance, Kat has become aware of multiple threats: demands for money from her unfaithful soon-to-be ex-husband; evidence that Cleo has slipped back into a relationship that’s far riskier than she understands; and menacing anonymous messages from her past—all of which she’s kept hidden from Cleo.

No One Talks About This Stuff: Twenty-Two Stories of Almost Parenthood

2024

by Kat Brown

No One Talks About This Stuff is a support group for almost-parents. It's a place to share their journeys of loss and limbo, to confront social pressure, and to find courage in the darkness of tragedies which happen every day yet are brushed under the carpet.

We hear from a stepmother who wrestles with infertility. A husband and wife each tell their experience of losing their baby. A lesbian comes of age at a time when gay people rarely become parents. A father finds loss to be his unlikely superpower. Complex post-traumatic stress disorder impacts a person’s choices about having a family. A black woman unpacks ancestral shame while finding renewed purpose.

And each person shares how they lived through it. This captivatingly beautiful, profound, and honest anthology opens a much-needed conversation about society, family, and honoring the missing children we will never forget.

The Second Coming

A luminous new novel from the best-selling author of City on Fire, The Second Coming plunges us deep into the lives of a teenage girl and her father as they navigate love, grief, addiction, resurrection, and the restless pull of other people.

When 13-year-old Jolie Aspern drops her phone onto the subway tracks in 2011, her estranged dad, Ethan, seems like the furthest thing from her mind. A convicted felon and recovering addict, Ethan has always struggled to see past himself. But then a call from his ex makes him fear their daughter's in deeper trouble than anyone realizes. Believing he's the only one who can save her, he decides to return to New York with a gift: the whole of his life, its hard-won triumphs and harrowing mistakes...

So begins the intimate epic of Jolie and Ethan: child and adult, apart and together, different yet the same. Their journey toward each other will face opposition from grandparents and siblings and friends. It will strain connections with roommates and benefactors and a probation officer desperate to help. It will push Jolie out past her depth with a mysterious admirer, and Ethan in over his head with his first love, Jolie's mom.

But as father and daughter struggle to find their footing, new vistas beckon: from a surf break in mid-'90s Delaware to group therapy during the Great Recession, from an encampment at Occupy Wall Street to a HoJo on Maryland's Eastern Shore, from the heights of the Brooklyn Bridge to horizons seldom seen in fiction. The Second Coming is at once an incandescent feat of storytelling and an exploration of an enduring mystery: Can we ever really outrun the past, stay true to ourselves while still chasing something new? Full of music and pathos and passion—full of blues—this beautifully attuned work of fiction renews the extraordinary promise of this writer's boundless and unflagging talents.

Long Island

Long Island unfolds as an intensely moving narrative of secrecy, misunderstanding, and love. We re-encounter Eilis Lacey, the complex and enigmatic protagonist of Brooklyn, now navigating life twenty years later. Eilis, an Irish native, is intertwined with the life of Tony Fiorello, an Italian American plumber. Together, they have forged a life amidst the sprawling family dynamics of Tony's relatives on Long Island.

The year is 1976, and Eilis, in her forties with two teenage children, finds herself without a support system in this still-foreign land. Her connections to Ireland are palpable and potent, yet she has not revisited her homeland in decades. A startling encounter occurs when an Irishman arrives at her door, claiming his wife is pregnant with Tony's child, and intends to leave the baby with Eilis upon its birth.

The narrative masterfully explores Eilis's response to this shocking revelation. Long Island is a tale of unspoken longings and the perilous silences that pervade Eilis's existence. TĂłibĂ­n's skillful storytelling gives voice to these silences, weaving a poignant story of a woman's solitary struggle within her marriage and the profound connections she reestablishes upon her inevitable return to her origins, rediscovering past ways of life and love once thought lost.

Counting Feminicide

Why grassroots data activists in Latin America count feminicide—and how this vital social justice work challenges mainstream data science. What isn’t counted doesn’t count. And mainstream institutions systematically fail to account for feminicide, the gender-related killing of women and girls, including cisgender and transgender women. Against this failure, Counting Feminicide brings to the fore the work of data activists across the Americas who are documenting such murders—and challenging the reigning logic of data science by centering care, memory, and justice in their work.

Drawing on Data Against Feminicide, a large-scale collaborative research project, Catherine D’Ignazio describes the creative, intellectual, and emotional labor of feminicide data activists who are at the forefront of a data ethics that rigorously and consistently takes power and people into account. Individuals, researchers, and journalists—these data activists scour news sources to assemble spreadsheets and databases of women killed by gender-related violence, then circulate those data in a variety of creative and political forms. Their work reveals the potential of restorative/transformative data science—the use of systematic information to, first, heal communities from the violence and trauma produced by structural inequality and, second, envision and work toward the world in which such violence has been eliminated.

Specifically, D’Ignazio explores the possibilities and limitations of counting and quantification—reducing complex social phenomena to convenient, sortable, aggregable forms—when the goal is nothing short of the elimination of gender-related violence. Counting Feminicide showcases the incredible power of data feminism in practice, in which each murdered woman or girl counts, and, in being counted, joins a collective demand for the restoration of rights and a transformation of the gendered order of the world.

The Alternatives

2024

by Caoilinn Hughes

The Alternatives is a tale about sisterhood, a novel of ideas, and a chronicle of our collective follies. It unfolds in prose full of gorgeous surprises and glows with intelligence, compassion, and beauty.

From the writer Anthony Doerr calls "a massive talent," comes the story of four brilliant Irish sisters, orphaned in childhood, who scramble to reconnect when the oldest disappears into the Irish countryside.

The Flattery sisters were plunged prematurely into adulthood when their parents died in tragic circumstances. Now in their thirties—all single, all with PhDs—they are each attempting to do meaningful work in a rapidly foundering world. The four lead disparate, distanced lives, from classrooms in Connecticut to ritzy catering gigs in London’s Notting Hill.

One day, their oldest sister, a geologist haunted by a terrible awareness of the earth’s future, abruptly vanishes from her work and home. Together for the first time in years, the Flatterys descend on the Irish countryside in search of a sister who doesn’t want to be found. Sheltered in a derelict bungalow, they reach into their common past, confronting both old wounds and a desperately uncertain future.

Warm, fiercely witty, and unexpectedly hopeful, The Alternatives is an unforgettable portrait of a family perched on our collective precipice, told by one of Ireland’s most gifted storytellers.

A Good Happy Girl

2024

by Marissa Higgins

A Good Happy Girl is a poignant, surprising, and immersive novel that delves into the complexities of relationships and the human psyche. We meet Helen, a jittery attorney with a self-destructive streak, who is grappling with the aftermath of a crime of neglect committed by her parents. She has historically coped by compartmentalizing her life—engaging in casual hookups with lesbian couples, caring for her grandmother, and flirting with a young administrative assistant.

Everything changes when Helen encounters Catherine and Katrina, a married lesbian couple whose sexual and emotional intensity begins to unravel the tightly wound fabric of her life. As they prod into Helen's past, they unearth a childhood tragedy she has long been repressing. Facing her father's pleas for help with parole, Helen seizes an opportunity to confront her history and seek answers she has long avoided.

Author Marissa Higgins explores themes of queer domesticity, the effects of incarceration on families, and intergenerational poverty, extending empathy to characters often deprived of it, leading to unsettling and thought-provoking results.

I Always Wanted To Be A Dad: Men Without Children

2023

by Robert Nurden

I Always Wanted To Be A Dad is a poignant memoir by Robert Nurden, a man of 72 who always dreamed of becoming a father. This heartfelt narrative explores the pain and regret he experienced when this dream didn't materialize.

In this book, Nurden unravels the complexities of the often-neglected issue of male childlessness, showing that the grief of childlessness can affect men as much as it does women. The 17 short chapters, infused with humor, are interspersed with heartfelt testimonies from other men who also find themselves childless-not-by-choice.

The book distinguishes between being childless due to circumstances and childless because of infertility. Through a series of reflective passages, the narrative arcs away from hurt towards acceptance and optimism for the future.

El lado B de las emociones

2023

by Eduardo Calixto

¿Qué nos produce turbación, desprecio o asco? ¿Por qué a veces el llanto nos desborda y nos deja exhaustos? ¿Qué nos lleva a culpar a los demás de lo que no somos capaces de resolver? ¿En qué momento nos convertimos en seres furibundos si perdemos el control?

En este libro sabremos por qué cedemos y en qué circunstancias a los deseos sexuales más intensos; cómo se proyectan en nuestro presente los traumas de la infancia; qué indica reír sin control si pasamos por una tragedia, un dolor físico severo o una gran tristeza; cuáles son las señales de una soledad profunda o un miedo sin límites que pueden derivar en una enfermedad crónica.

El lado B de las emociones es una obra provocadora porque nos confronta con lucidez y contundencia sobre aspectos que tememos, negamos o sencillamente odiamos. Eduardo Calixto llega hasta lo más hondo para hablarnos de nuestro enojo, el resentimiento, la vergüenza, el resultado: un libro con explicaciones impactantes sobre nuestras conductas más siniestras, la verdad sobre los actos perversos y, más que nada, las claves para conocer nuestros abismos, enfrentarlos y llenarlos de luz.

Truth & Beauty

2023

by Ann Patchett

Ann Patchett and the late Lucy Grealy met in college in 1981, and, after enrolling in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, began a friendship that would be as defining to both of their lives as their work.

In Grealy’s critically acclaimed memoir, Autobiography of a Face, she wrote about losing part of her jaw to childhood cancer, years of chemotherapy and radiation, and endless reconstructive surgeries. In Truth & Beauty, the story isn’t Lucy’s life or Ann’s life, but the parts of their lives they shared.

This is a portrait of unwavering commitment that spans twenty years, from the long winters of the Midwest, to surgical wards, to book parties in New York. Through love, fame, drugs, and despair, this is what it means to be part of two lives that are intertwined... and what happens when one is left behind.

This is a tender, brutal book about loving the person we cannot save. It is about loyalty, and being lifted up by the sheer effervescence of someone who knew how to live life to the fullest.

Outlive

2023

by Peter Attia

In Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity, Dr. Peter Attia offers a new perspective on living a better and longer life by challenging conventional medical thinking on aging and chronic disease prevention. Dr. Attia, a visionary physician and longevity expert, provides an operating manual for longevity, drawing on the latest science to introduce innovative nutritional interventions, techniques for optimizing exercise and sleep, and tools for addressing emotional and mental health.

Mainstream medicine, despite its successes, has struggled to combat aging-related diseases like heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's disease, and type 2 diabetes, often providing treatment too late. Dr. Attia advocates for a personalized, proactive strategy for longevity, emphasizing the importance of taking action now rather than waiting. This strategic and tactical approach aims to extend lifespan while improving physical, cognitive, and emotional health.

With the right approach, it's possible to outlive our genetic predispositions and enjoy better health with each passing decade.

Still Born

Alina and Laura are independent and career-driven women in their mid-thirties, neither of whom have built their future around the prospect of a family. Laura has taken the drastic decision to be sterilised, but as time goes by, Alina becomes drawn to the idea of becoming a mother.

When complications arise in Alina’s pregnancy and Laura becomes attached to her neighbour’s son, both women are forced to reckon with the complexity of their emotions. In prose that is as gripping as it is insightful, Guadalupe Nettel explores maternal ambivalence with a surgeon's touch, carefully dissecting the contradictions that make up the lived experiences of women.

SOLO

2022

by Jenny Tough

Jenny Tough is an endurance athlete renowned for her feats in running and cycling through some of the world's most demanding events. In SOLO, she shares a narrative that is as much about personal growth as it is about physical endurance.

Her journey begins with a quest to confront the feelings and emotions that were limiting her. Running, a therapeutic and empowering practice for Jenny, becomes the foundation for an extraordinary goal: to traverse mountain ranges on six continents, alone and unaided, starting in the isolated terrains of Kyrgystan.

This book is a vivid account of her expeditions across the Tien Shan (Asia), the High Atlas (Africa), the Cordillera Oriental (South America), the Southern Alps (Oceania), the Canadian Rockies (North America), and the Transylvanian Alps (Europe). Along the way, Jenny discovers invaluable lessons in self-esteem, resilience, and courage.

The essence of SOLO is the affirmation that embarking on solo endeavors, whether grand or modest, can be exhilarating and uplifting. Jenny's call to action, urging us to find inner strength, confidence, and self-belief, serves as a powerful source of motivation for readers seeking to overcome their own barriers.

The Fell

2021

by Sarah Moss

At dusk on a November evening in 2020, a woman slips out of her garden gate and turns up the hill. Kate is in the middle of a two-week quarantine period, but she just can't take it anymore - the closeness of the air in her small house, the confinement. And anyway, the moor will be deserted at this time. Nobody need ever know.

But Kate's neighbour, Alice, sees her leaving and Matt, Kate's son, soon realizes she's missing. And Kate, who planned only a quick solitary walk - a breath of open air - falls and badly injures herself. What began as a furtive walk has turned into a mountain rescue operation.

Unbearably suspenseful, witty and wise, The Fell asks probing questions about the place the world has become since March 2020, and the place it was before. Sarah Moss's novel is a story about compassion and kindness and what we must do to survive, and it will move you to tears.

What Are You Going Through

2020

by Sigrid Nunez

A story about the meaning of life and death, and the value of companionship.

A woman describes a series of encounters she has with various people in the ordinary course of her life: an ex she runs into by chance at a public forum, an Airbnb owner unsure how to interact with her guests, a stranger who seeks help comforting his elderly mother, a friend of her youth now hospitalized with terminal cancer. In each of these people, the woman finds a common need: the urge to talk about themselves and to have an audience to their experiences.

The narrator orchestrates this chorus of voices for the most part as a passive listener, until one of them makes an extraordinary request, drawing her into an intense and transformative experience of her own.

In What Are You Going Through, Nunez brings wisdom, humor, and insight to a novel about human connection and the changing nature of relationships in our times. A surprising story about empathy and the unusual ways one person can help another through hardship, her book offers a moving and provocative portrait of the way we live now.

The Perfect Game

2020

by J. Sterling

He's a game she never intended to play. And she's the game changer he never knew he needed.

The Perfect Game tells the story of college juniors, Cassie Andrews & Jack Carter. When Cassie meets rising baseball hopeful Jack, she is determined to steer clear of him and his typical cocky attitude. But Jack has other things on his mind... like getting Cassie to give him the time of day.

They're both damaged, filled with mistrust and guarded before they find one another (and themselves) in this emotional journey about love and forgiveness. Strap yourselves for a ride that will not only break your heart, but put it back together. Sometimes life gets ugly before it gets beautiful.

Turtle Under Ice

A teen navigates questions of grief, identity, and guilt in the wake of her sister’s mysterious disappearance in this breathtaking novel-in-verse from the author of 500 Words or Less—perfect for fans of Elizabeth Acevedo.


Rowena feels like her family is a frayed string of lights that someone needs to fix with electrical tape. After her mother died a few years ago, she and her sister, Ariana, drifted into their own corners of the world, each figuring out in their own separate ways how to exist in a world in which their mother is no longer alive.


But then Ariana disappears under the cover of night in the middle of a snowstorm, leaving no trace or tracks. When Row wakes up to a world of snow and her sister’s empty bedroom, she is left to piece together the mystery behind where Ariana went and why, realizing along the way that she might be part of the reason Ariana is gone.


Haunting and evocative—and told in dual perspectives—Turtle Under Ice examines two sisters frozen by grief as they search for a way to unthaw.

Olive, Again

Olive, Again continues the life of the beloved character Olive Kitteridge, a creation of Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout. Olive's journey is a profound exploration of human nature, filled with both empathy and brutal honesty.


In the town of Crosby, Maine, Olive interacts with a variety of characters: a teenager grappling with the loss of a parent, a young woman on the brink of motherhood, a nurse revealing a long-held secret, and a lawyer dealing with an unwanted inheritance. Through these stories, Olive's unique perspective offers insights into the complexities of life and relationships.


With her prickly demeanor and candid nature, Olive is a compelling force who challenges and inspires those around her. Elizabeth Strout masterfully animates the ordinary with an astonishing force, making Olive, Again a poignant reminder of the power of empathy in our lives.

The Dutch House

2019

by Ann Patchett

The Dutch House is a richly moving story by Ann Patchett, exploring the indelible bond between two siblings, the house of their childhood, and a past that will not let them go.

At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves.

The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is one another. It is this unshakeable bond between them that both saves their lives and thwarts their futures.

Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. Despite every outward sign of success, Danny and Maeve are only truly comfortable when they're together. Throughout their lives, they return to the well-worn story of what they've lost with humor and rage. But when at last they're forced to confront the people who left them behind, the relationship between an indulged brother and his ever-protective sister is finally tested.

The Dutch House is the story of a paradise lost, a tour de force that digs deeply into questions of inheritance, love, and forgiveness, of how we want to see ourselves and of who we really are. Filled with suspense, you may read it quickly to find out what happens, but what happens to Danny and Maeve will stay with you for a very long time.

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

2019

by Ocean Vuong

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a poignant letter from a son to his mother, who cannot read. Written by Little Dog when he is in his late twenties, this letter delves into a family history that began long before his birth—a history deeply rooted in Vietnam. It serves as a gateway into parts of his life that his mother has never known, leading to an unforgettable revelation.

This novel is a profound witness to the complex yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son. It is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. The narrative poses questions central to our American moment, as we grapple with addiction, violence, and trauma, but it is underpinned by compassion and tenderness.

Ocean Vuong writes with stunning urgency and grace about people caught between disparate worlds, asking how we can heal and rescue one another without losing ourselves. The quest for survival and the pursuit of joy power this remarkable debut novel.

The Carrying

2019

by Ada Limon

From National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Ada Limón comes The Carrying—her most powerful collection yet.

Vulnerable, tender, acute, these are serious poems, brave poems, exploring with honesty the ambiguous moment between the rapture of youth and the grace of acceptance. A daughter tends to aging parents. A woman struggles with infertility—“What if, instead of carrying / a child, I am supposed to carry grief?”—and a body seized by pain and vertigo as well as ecstasy. A nation convulses: “Every song of this country / has an unsung third stanza, something brutal.” And still Limón shows us, as ever, the persistence of hunger, love, and joy, the dizzying fullness of our too-short lives. “Fine then, / I’ll take it,” she writes. “I’ll take it all.”

In Bright Dead Things, Limón showed us a heart “giant with power, heavy with blood”—“the huge beating genius machine / that thinks, no, it knows, / it’s going to come in first.” In her follow-up collection, that heart is on full display—even as The Carrying continues further and deeper into the bloodstream, following the hard-won truth of what it means to live in an imperfect world.

Fresh Water for Flowers

Fresh Water for Flowers is a delightful, atmospheric, absorbing fairy tale full of poetry, generosity, and warmth. Violette Toussaint is the caretaker at a cemetery in a small town in Bourgogne. Random visitors, regulars, and, most notably, her colleagues—three gravediggers, three groundskeepers, and a priest—visit her as often as possible to warm themselves in her lodge, where laughter, companionship, and occasional tears mix with the coffee that she offers them. Her daily life is lived to the rhythms of their hilarious and touching confidences.

Violette’s routine is disrupted one day by the arrival of a man—Julien Sole, local police chief—who insists on depositing the ashes of his recently departed mother on the gravesite of a complete stranger. It soon becomes clear that the grave Julien is looking for belongs to his mother’s one-time lover, and that his mother’s story of clandestine love is intertwined with Violette’s own secret past.

With Fresh Water for Flowers, Valérie Perrin has given readers a funny, moving, intimately told story of a woman who believes obstinately in happiness. Perrin has the rare talent of illuminating what is exceptional and poetic in what seems ordinary.

Archer's Voice

2018

by Mia Sheridan

From New York Times bestselling author Mia Sheridan comes an emotional, slow burn romance about a woman desperate to hide and the man who sees through her walls, perfect for fans of Colleen Hoover and Lucy Score.

I wanted to lose myself in the small town of Pelion, Maine. To forget everything I had left behind. The sound of rain. The blood. The coldness of a gun against my skin. For six months, each breath has been a reminder that I survived--and my dad didn't. I'm almost safe again. But the moment I meet Archer Hale, my entire world tilts on its axis . . . and never rights itself again.

Until I trespass into his strange, silent, and isolated world, Archer communicates with no one. Yet in his whiskey-colored eyes, something intangible happens between us. There's so much more to him than just his beauty, his presence, or the ways his hands communicate with me. On me. But this town is mired in secrets and betrayals, and Archer is the explosive center of it all.

So much passion. And so much hurt. But it's only in Archer's silence that we might just find what we need to heal . . . and live.

George and Lizzie

2017

by Nancy Pearl

George and Lizzie is an emotionally riveting debut novel from “America’s librarian” and NPR books commentator, Nancy Pearl. It explores the intricacies of an unlikely marriage at a crossroads.

George and Lizzie have radically different understandings of what love and marriage should be. George grew up in a warm and loving family—his father an orthodontist, his mother a stay-at-home mom—while Lizzie grew up as the only child of two famous psychologists, who viewed her more as an in-house experiment than a child to love.

Over the course of their marriage, nothing has changed—George is happy; Lizzie remains…unfulfilled. When a shameful secret from Lizzie’s past resurfaces, she’ll need to face her fears in order to accept the true nature of the relationship she and George have built over a decade together.

With pitch-perfect prose and compassion and humor to spare, George and Lizzie is an intimate story of new and past loves, the scars of childhood, and an imperfect marriage at its defining moments.

The Facts of Life

2017

by Paula Knight

The Facts of Life is a poignant and beautifully drawn graphic memoir by Paula Knight. This visual exploration delves deep into the stigma-inducing health issues of miscarriage, childlessness, and chronic medical conditions.

Set in the 1970s, best friends Polly and April collect hazy knowledge about the “facts of life”—sex, reproduction, and gender norms—through the gossip of older girls, magazines, and books, along with the everyday behavior of their families and teachers. As the years pass, they each choose paths they believe will enable them to “have it all.”

April’s dreams of motherhood come true quickly, while Polly enthusiastically builds a career. However, her desire and hope to start a family become less firmly ingrained, influenced by her struggles with chronic illness. Polly's journey with her partner Jack is fraught with debates on parenthood, heartbreak of repeated miscarriages, and the effects of illness on their ability to have a child.

Throughout this journey, Polly is forced to reexamine what family can mean in a society that often associates family—and womanhood—with children. The Facts of Life is a funny, sometimes painful narrative that explores what it takes to be a woman, a partner, and a mother... or not.

Commonwealth

2016

by Ann Patchett

One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating's christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny's mother, Beverly—thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families.

Spanning five decades, Commonwealth explores how this chance encounter reverberates through the lives of the four parents and six children involved. Spending summers together in Virginia, the Keating and Cousins children forge a lasting bond that is based on a shared disillusionment with their parents and the strange and genuine affection that grows up between them.

When, in her twenties, Franny begins an affair with the legendary author Leon Posen and tells him about her family, the story of her siblings is no longer hers to control. Their childhood becomes the basis for his wildly successful book, ultimately forcing them to come to terms with their losses, their guilt, and the deeply loyal connection they feel for one another.

Told with equal measures of humor and heartbreak, Commonwealth is a meditation on inspiration, interpretation, and the ownership of stories. It is a brilliant and tender tale of the far-reaching ties of love and responsibility that bind us together.

Thirteen Ways of Looking

2016

by Colum McCann

From the author of the award-winning novels Let the Great World Spin and TransAtlantic comes an eponymous novella and three stories that range fluidly across time, tenderly exploring the act of writing and the moment of creation when characters come alive on the page.

The collection delves into the lifetime consequences that can come from a simple act, and the way our lives play across the world, marking language, image, and each other. Thirteen Ways of Looking is framed by two author’s notes, each dealing with contemporary issues at home and in Ireland, the author's birthplace.

Brilliant in its clarity and deftness, this collection reminds us why Colum McCann is considered among the very best contemporary writers. Accompanied by three equally powerful stories set in Afghanistan, Galway, and London, this is a tribute to humanity's search for meaning and grace.

I'll Give You the Sun

2015

by Jandy Nelson

I'll Give You the Sun is a poignant tale of love, family, loss, and betrayal that unfolds through the alternating perspectives of Jude and her twin brother, Noah. Noah, an artist who draws perpetually, navigates the turbulent waters of first love with the boy next door. Jude, on the other hand, is the quintessential daredevil, cliff-diving and speaking for the both of them with her bold red lipstick.

But as the years pass, a chasm grows between the siblings. They are no longer speaking, each altered by a profound and heartbreaking event. It's only when Jude encounters a captivating boy and a mysterious new mentor that the possibility of reconciliation emerges. With only half the story each, they must find their way back to one another to heal and transform their world.

Authored by the acclaimed Jandy Nelson, this award-winning novel invites readers into a world that is both vibrant and emotionally resonant, promising to leave an indelible mark on one's heart.

The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief

The Wild Edge of Sorrow offers hope and healing for a profoundly fractured world—and a pathway home to the brightness, pains, and gifts of being alive. Introducing the 5 gates of grief, psychotherapist Francis Weller explores how we move through the waters of grief and loss in a culture so fundamentally detached from the needs of the soul.

The first gate recognizes—and invites us to accept—the painful truth that everything we love, we will lose. With this acceptance comes beauty and responsibility—and an openness into which we can pour the full love of our hearts. Here, we meet the sorrow of losing a loved one; the grief of illness; and the unique and profound pains that accompany loss by suicide.

The second gate helps us uncover and tend to the places that have not known love: the neglected pieces of our soul that need restoration and care. These places can be our secret shames, or the parts of us that we feel are undeserving of love. At this gate, we face our shadows and heal our most tender wounds.

The third gate meets us at the sorrows of the world, inviting us to open to the grave pain of our planet: the destruction of ecosystems, the harms of extractive capitalism, the unfathomable pain of war and occupation. We learn to honor and hold this grief even as we move through it, recommitting ourselves to the actions our souls call upon us to perform in service of healing and renewal.

The fourth gate, what we expected but did not receive, is present in each and every one of our lives. We may need love from a parent or partner unable to give it; we may lack the language to ask for the care we deserve. Each is a loss that must be acknowledged and grieved to move toward wholeness.

The fifth gate opens to our ancestral grief: the traumas, pains, losses, and unrealized dreams of those who came before us. Weller invites us to reconnect to our bodies, our communities, and the ancestral knowledge we hold in our bones...but may have forgotten.

Profoundly moving and beautifully written, this book is a balm for the soul and a necessary salve for moving together through difficult times. Grounded in ritual and connection, The Wild Edge of Sorrow welcomes each grief with care and attention, opening us to the feelings, experiences, and sacred knowledge that connect us to each other and ultimately make us whole.

The Notebook

2014

by Nicholas Sparks

Set amid the austere beauty of the North Carolina coast, The Notebook begins with the story of Noah Calhoun, a rural Southerner recently returned from the Second World War. Noah is restoring a plantation home to its former glory, and he is haunted by images of the beautiful girl he met fourteen years earlier, a girl he loved like no other. Unable to find her, yet unwilling to forget the summer they spent together, Noah is content to live with only memories...until she unexpectedly returns to his town to see him once again.

Like a puzzle within a puzzle, the story of Noah and Allie is just the beginning. As it unfolds, their tale miraculously becomes something different, with much higher stakes. The result is a deeply moving portrait of love itself, the tender moments and the fundamental changes that affect us all. It is a story of miracles and emotions that will stay with you forever.

Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope, and Repair

2013

by Anne Lamott

What do we do when life lurches out of balance? How can we reconnect to one another and to what's sustaining, when evil and catastrophe seem inescapable?

These questions lie at the heart of Stitches, Anne Lamott's profound follow-up to her New York Times-bestselling work, Help, Thanks, Wow. In this book, she explores how we find meaning and peace in these loud and frantic times; where we start again after personal and public devastation; how we recapture wholeness after loss; and how we locate our true identities in this frazzled age.

We begin, Lamott says, by collecting the ripped sheets of our emotional and spiritual fabric and sewing them back together - one stitch at a time. It's in these stitches that the quilt of life begins, and embedded in them are strength, warmth, humour and humanity.

The Coincidence of Callie & Kayden

From the bestselling author of The Secret of Ella and Micha comes a mesmerizing novel of fate, friendship, and the healing power of love...

THE COINCIDENCE OF CALLIE & KAYDEN
For Kayden, suffering in silence was the only way to survive. If he was lucky, he could keep his head down, do as he was told, and make it through the day. But one night it seemed like his luck -- and his life -- might finally end... until an angel named Callie appeared just in time to rescue him.

Callie has never believed in luck. Not since her twelfth birthday when everything was taken from her. After the worst was over, she locked up her feelings and vowed never to tell anyone what happened. Now, six years later, she continues to struggle with the painful secret that threatens to consume her.

When fate lands Kayden and Callie at the same college, Kayden is determined to get to know the beautiful girl who changed his destiny. Quiet and reserved, Callie still fears letting anyone else into her world. But Kayden is certain that Callie has come back into his life for a reason. And the more he tries to be a part of her life, the more he realizes that, this time, it's Callie who needs to be saved...

The News from Spain: Seven Variations on a Love Story

2012

by Joan Wickersham

The author of the acclaimed memoir The Suicide Index returns with a virtuosic collection of stories, each a stirring parable of the power of love and the impossibility of understanding it. Spanning centuries and continents, from eighteenth-century Vienna to contemporary America, Joan Wickersham shows, with uncanny exactitude, how we never really know what's in someone else's heart—or in our own.


Wickersham's gift is for capturing the habits of mind that lead even smart people to deceive themselves. Her book makes you slow down and listen, and then watch for people to reveal themselves. Elegantly structured, emotionally compelling... Short stories don't get much better than this.

Stories for Boys: A Memoir

2012

by Gregory Martin

Stories for Boys: A Memoir is a poignant exploration of fathers and sons, where Gregory Martin grapples with the revelation that the father he knew has survived a suicide attempt and had been leading a secret life. Martin's father, a man married for thirty-nine years, had been conducting anonymous affairs with men, and now must start anew as a gay man.

Amidst the national conversation about gender, sexuality, and acceptance, this memoir delves into the transformation of a father-son relationship. After years of suppression and denial, the truth is finally given air and light. Martin's narrative is both quirky and compelling, enriched with personal photos and a mix of social science and literary insights.

Through humor and candidness, Martin examines the impact of his father's secrets on his own life as a husband and father. Stories for Boys resonates with conflicting emotions and the complexities of family sympathy, posing questions such as: How well do we know the people we think we know best? And how much do we need to know to keep loving them?

Tiny Beautiful Things

2012

by Cheryl Strayed

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar brings the best of Cheryl Strayed's 'Dear Sugar' advice columns from The Rumpus, along with never-before-published pieces, all together in one place. With a new introduction by Steve Almond, this collection is a treasure trove of wisdom, humor, and heartfelt advice.

Strayed, the author of the bestselling memoir Wild, once wrote anonymously as Sugar, offering guidance to thousands seeking help for their real-life struggles. Whether it's dealing with infidelity, grieving a loved one, facing financial hardships, or experiencing the highs of love and success, Strayed approaches each topic with candor and empathy.

Rich with compassion and unflinching honesty, Tiny Beautiful Things is a soothing balm for the varied challenges of life, affirming that we are all capable of facing them with grace and resilience.

The Orchardist

2012

by Amanda Coplin

The Orchardist is a highly original and haunting debut novel set in the untamed American West, where a makeshift family is shaped by violence, love, and an indelible connection to the land.


At the turn of the twentieth century, in a rural stretch of the Pacific Northwest, a solitary orchardist named Talmadge tends to his beloved apples, apricots, and plums. His life is a tapestry of solitude and dedication to the land, filled with the quiet, steady rhythm of nature.


One day, two teenage girls appear and steal his fruit at the market. Feral, scared, and very pregnant, they take refuge on Talmadge's land. With deep compassion, he offers them shelter and care, and a fragile trust begins to form between them.


However, this fragile peace is shattered when men with guns arrive, leading to a tragedy that forces Talmadge to confront the ghosts of his past and embark on a journey of protection and redemption.


Amanda Coplin writes with breathtaking precision and empathy, weaving a story that is both intimate and epic, evocative and atmospheric. The Orchardist is a novel about the disruption of a lonely harmony and the transformative power of opening one's heart to the world.

The Tennis Partner

An unforgettable, illuminating story of how men live and how they survive, from Abraham Verghese, the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Cutting for Stone.

When Abraham Verghese, a physician whose marriage is unraveling, relocates to El Paso, Texas, he hopes to make a fresh start as a staff member at the county hospital. There he meets David Smith, a medical student recovering from drug addiction, and the two men begin a tennis ritual that allows them to shed their inhibitions and find security in the sport they love and with each other.

This friendship between doctor and intern grows increasingly rich and complex, more intimate than two men usually allow. Just when it seems nothing can go wrong, the dark beast from David’s past emerges once again—and almost everything Verghese has come to trust and believe in is threatened as David spirals out of control.

Compassionate and moving, The Tennis Partner is an unforgettable, illuminating story of friendship and loss.

The All of It

2011

by Jeannette Haien

While fishing in an Irish salmon stream one rainy morning, Father Declan de Loughry ponders the recent deathbed confession of his parishioner, Kevin Dennehy. It seems Dennehy and his wife, Enda, had been quietly living a lie for fifty years. Yet the gravity of their deception doesn’t become clear to the good father until Enda shares the full tale of her suffering, finally confiding “the all of it.”

Jeannette Haien’s exquisite first novel is a deceptively simple story that resonates with the power of a modern-day myth—an unforgettable narrative of transgression, empathy, and, ultimately, absolution.

Cut

Callie cuts herself. Never too deep, never enough to die. But enough to feel the pain. Enough to feel the scream inside.

Now she's at Sea Pines, a "residential treatment facility" filled with girls struggling with problems of their own. Callie doesn't want to have anything to do with them. She doesn't want to have anything to do with anyone. She won't even speak.

But Callie can only stay silent for so long...

The Illumination

What if our pain was the most beautiful thing about us? In the aftermath of a fatal car accident, a private journal of love notes written by a husband to his wife passes into the keeping of a hospital patient, and from there through the hands of five other suffering people, touching each of them uniquely.

I love the soft blue veins on your wrist. I love your lopsided smile. I love watching TV and shelling sunflower seeds with you.

The six recipients - a data analyst, a photojournalist, a schoolchild, a missionary, a writer, and a street vendor - inhabit an acutely observed, beautifully familiar yet particularly strange universe, as only Kevin Brockmeier could imagine it: a world in which human pain is expressed as illumination, so that one's wounds glitter, fluoresce, and blaze with light.

As we follow the journey of the book from stranger to stranger, we come to understand how intricately and brilliantly they are connected, in all their human injury and experience.

The Map of True Places

2010

by Brunonia Barry

Brunonia Barry, the New York Times bestselling author of The Lace Reader, offers an emotionally compelling novel about finding your true place in the world.

Zee Finch has come a long way from a motherless childhood spent stealing boats—a talent that earned her the nickname Trouble. She's now a respected psychotherapist working with the world-famous Dr. Liz Mattei. She's also about to marry one of Boston's most eligible bachelors. But the suicide of Zee's patient, Lilly Braedon, throws Zee into emotional chaos and takes her back to places she thought she'd left behind.

What starts as a brief visit home to Salem after Lilly's funeral becomes the beginning of a larger journey for Zee. Her father, Finch, long ago diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, has been hiding how sick he really is. His longtime companion, Melville, has moved out, and it now falls to Zee to help her father through this difficult time. Their relationship, marked by half-truths and the untimely death of her mother, is strained and awkward.

Overwhelmed by her new role, and uncertain about her future, Zee destroys the existing map of her life and begins a new journey, one that will take her not only into her future but into her past as well. Like the sailors of old Salem who navigated by looking at the stars, Zee has to learn to find her way through uncharted waters to the place she will ultimately call home.

Will I Ever Be Good Enough?

2008

by Karyl McBride

From experienced family therapist Dr. Karyl McBride, Will I Ever Be Good Enough? is an essential guide to recovery for women with selfish, emotionally abusive, and toxic mothers—designed to help daughters reclaim their lives.

The first book for daughters who have suffered the abuse of narcissistic, self-involved mothers, Will I Ever Be Good Enough? provides the expert assistance you need in order to overcome this debilitating history and reclaim your life.

Drawing on more than two decades of experience as a therapist specializing in women’s health and hundreds of interviews with suffering daughters, Dr. Karyl McBride helps you recognize the widespread effects of this emotional abuse and create an individualized program for self-protection, resolution, and complete recovery.

Narcissistic mothers teach their daughters that love is not unconditional, that it is given only when they behave in accordance with maternal expectations and whims. As adults, these daughters have difficulty overcoming feelings of inadequacy, disappointment, emotional emptiness, and sadness. They may also have a fear of abandonment that leads them to form unhealthy romantic relationships, as well as a tendency to perfectionism and unrelenting self-criticism or to self-sabotage and frustration.

Dr. McBride’s step-by-step program will enable you to:

  1. Recognize your own experience with maternal narcissism and its effects on all aspects of your life.
  2. Discover how you have internalized verbal and nonverbal messages from your mother and how these have translated into overachievement or self-sabotage.
  3. Construct a personalized program to take control of your life and enhance your sense of self, establishing healthy boundaries with your mother and breaking the legacy of abuse.

Warm and sympathetic, Dr. McBride brings a profound level of authority to Will I Ever Be Good Enough? that encourages and inspires you as it aids your recovery.

Walk the Blue Fields

2008

by Claire Keegan

Claire Keegan’s brilliant debut collection, Antarctica, was lauded on both sides of the Atlantic. Now, she delivers her much-anticipated book, Walk the Blue Fields, an unforgettable array of quietly wrenching stories about despair and desire in the timeless world of modern-day Ireland.

In the never-before-published story “The Long and Painful Death,” a writer's peace is interrupted by an unwelcome intruder, whose ulterior motives emerge as the night progresses.

In the title story, a priest waits at the altar to perform a marriage and battles his memories of a love affair with the bride, questioning all to which he has dedicated his life. Later that night, he finds an unlikely answer in the magical healing powers of a seer.

A masterful portrait of a country wrestling with its past and of individuals eking out their futures, Walk the Blue Fields is a breathtaking collection from one of Ireland’s greatest talents, and a resounding articulation of all the yearnings of the human heart.

Abide with Me

Abide with Me is a luminous and long-awaited novel by the bestselling author Elizabeth Strout. Returning readers to the archetypal, lovely landscape of northern New England, the story unfolds in the late 1950s in the small town of West Annett, Maine.

Here, Reverend Tyler Caskey struggles to regain his calling, his family, and his happiness in the wake of profound loss. The community he serves charismatically must come to terms with its own strengths and failings—faith and hypocrisy, loyalty and abandonment—when a dark secret is revealed.

Tyler has come to love West Annett, "just up the road" from where he was born. The short, brilliant summers and the sharp, piercing winters fill him with awe—as does his congregation, full of good people who seek his guidance and listen earnestly as he preaches. But after suffering a terrible loss, Tyler finds it hard to return to himself as he once was. He hasn't had The Feeling—that God is all around him, in the beauty of the world—for quite some time.

He struggles to find the right words in his sermons and in his conversations with those facing crises of their own, and to bring his five-year-old daughter, Katherine, out of the silence she has observed in the wake of the family's tragedy.

A congregation that had once been patient and kind during Tyler's grief now questions his leadership and propriety. In the kitchens, classrooms, offices, and stores of the village, anger and gossip have started to swirl. And in Tyler's darkest hour, a startling discovery will test his congregation's humanity—and his own will to endure the kinds of trials that sooner or later test us all.

In prose incandescent and artful, Elizabeth Strout draws readers into the details of ordinary life in a way that makes it extraordinary. All is considered—life, love, God, and community—within these pages, and all is made new by this writer's boundless compassion and graceful prose.

Grieving: A Beginner's Guide

Grieving: A Beginner's Guide provides a compassionate and insightful guide to navigating the complex journey of grief. It details all that comes with bereavement and offers practical advice for those who are accompanying grieving individuals.

Jerusha Hull McCormack emphasizes that there is no sure route through grieving. Instead, she provides a series of signposts to help readers find their own path to a new life. As she writes, "We are all amateurs at grief; it comes to us all; we must all go through it. To treat grief as a problem to be fixed, or (worse still) to medicalize it, is to rob us of the extraordinary privilege of encountering this experience on our terms. Each of us has our own way of grieving, and each of us has something special to learn from the process."

This book is designed to help those in pain—and specifically those who have lost someone through death—to imagine the path before them. It is a path of suffering, but it is also a path that may lead to unexpected discoveries and peace.

Interpreter of Maladies

2005

by Jhumpa Lahiri

Interpreter of Maladies brings to life the stories of characters navigating between the Indian traditions they've inherited and the new world they find themselves in. These elegant, touching stories explore the search for love beyond the barriers of culture and generations.

In "A Temporary Matter," a young Indian-American couple faces the heartbreak of a stillborn birth while their Boston neighborhood copes with a nightly blackout. In the title story, an interpreter guides an American family through the India of their ancestors and hears an astonishing confession. Lahiri writes with deft cultural insight and a nuanced depth, charting the emotional journeys of her characters with compassion and understanding.

The Secret Garden

The Secret Garden by Victorian author Frances Hodgson Burnett is a cherished classic that has captivated readers for over a century. The story's heart lies with Mary Lennox, a young English girl who moves to England from India after losing both her parents to a cholera outbreak. Mary's character is initially marked by rudeness and tantrums, a reflection of her parents' neglectful attitudes.

Upon arrival at her Uncle Archibald Craven's home, Misselthwaite Manor, in the dreary Yorkshire moors, Mary's journey of transformation begins. The discovery of a secret, walled garden and the mysterious sobbing within the mansion ignites her curiosity and spurs a series of events that lead to self-discovery and growth.

The story is a tapestry woven with themes of mystery, spirituality, and the redeeming power of nature. Through compassion, common sense, and the belief in human goodness, Mary, along with other characters, experience profound changes that resonate with readers of all ages.

As a testament to its enduring appeal, The Secret Garden has seen numerous adaptations across stage, film, and television, and continues to be a treasured narrative of childhood's journey into maturity.

The Giving Tree

Once there was a tree...and she loved a little boy. So begins a story of unforgettable perception, beautifully written and illustrated by the gifted and versatile Shel Silverstein.

Every day the boy would come to the tree to eat her apples, swing from her branches, or slide down her trunk...and the tree was happy. But as the boy grew older, he began to want more from the tree, and the tree gave and gave and gave.

This is a tender story, touched with sadness, aglow with consolation. Shel Silverstein has created a moving parable for readers of all ages that offers an affecting interpretation of the gift of giving and a serene acceptance of another's capacity to love in return.

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