Seventeen-year-old Abby Turnerâs summer isnât going the way sheâd planned. She has a not-so-secret but definitely unrequited crush on her best friend, Cooper. She hasnât been able to manage her motherâs growing issues with anxiety. And now sheâs been rejected from an art show because her work âhas no heart.â
So when she gets another opportunity to show her paintings, Abby isnât going to take any chances. Which is where the list comes in.
Abby gives herself one month to do ten things, ranging from face a fear (#3) to learn a strangerâs story (#5) to fall in love (#8). She knows that if she can complete the list, sheâll become the kind of artist sheâs always dreamed of being.
But as the deadline approaches, Abby realizes that getting through the list isnât as straightforward as it seems . . . and that maybeâjust maybeâshe canât change her art if she isnât first willing to change herself.
Rahel Sayana is desperate to escape the life her parents have planned for her. She runs away to the dangerous port city of Whitesun and becomes an outcaste: a person of no caste and few rights.
From backbreaking labor on the docks to fighting off bullies, Rahel learns the lessons that propel her to the life of her dreams. However, happiness does not last. A planetary threat pulls her into the biggest battle in Alsean history, then into a treacherous game of power.
The loss of both her honor and caste sends her reeling, but Rahel has always made her own fate. She gambles everything on one final chance. Will giving up her hopes lead to the highest honor of all?
From Rupi Kaur, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of milk and honey, comes her long-awaited second collection of poetry. A vibrant and transcendent journey about growth and healing. Ancestry and honoring oneâs roots. Expatriation and rising up to find a home within yourself.
Divided into five chapters and illustrated by Kaur, the sun and her flowers is a journey of wilting, falling, rooting, rising, and blooming. A celebration of love in all its forms.
this is the recipe of life
said my mother
as she held me in her arms as i wept
think of those flowers you plant
in the garden each year
they will teach you
that people too
must wilt
fall
root
rise
in order to bloom
Forest Dark is a profound, mesmerizing novel of metamorphosis and self-realization, bursting with life and humor. It is a tale of personal transformation that interweaves the stories of two disparate individuals whose transcendental search leads them to the same Israeli desert.
Jules Epstein, a man whose drive, avidity, and outsized personality have been a force to be reckoned with for sixty-eight years, is undergoing a metamorphosis. In the wake of his parents' deaths, his divorce from his wife of more than thirty years, and his retirement from the New York legal firm where he was a partner, he feels an irresistible need to give away his possessions, alarming his children and perplexing the executor of his estate. With the last of his wealth, he travels to Israel with a nebulous plan to honor his parents.
In Tel Aviv, he is sidetracked by a charismatic American rabbi planning a reunion for the descendants of King David, who insists that Epstein is part of that storied dynastic line. He meets the rabbi's beautiful daughter, who convinces Epstein to become involved in her own projectâa film about the life of David being shot in the desertâwith life-changing consequences.
But Epstein isn't the only seeker embarking on a metaphysical journey that dissolves his sense of self, place, and history. Leaving her family in Brooklyn, a young, well-known novelist arrives at the Tel Aviv Hilton where she has stayed every year since birth. Troubled by writer's block and a failing marriage, she hopes that the hotel can unlock a dimension of reality and her own perception of life that has been closed off to her. But when she meets a retired literature professor who proposes a project she can't turn down, she's drawn into a mystery that alters her life in ways she could never have imagined.
Cyril Avery is not a real Avery â or at least, that's what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn't a real Avery, then who is he?
Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamorous and dangerous Julian Woodbead.
At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from â and over his many years, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country, and much more.
In this, Boyne's most transcendent work to date, we are shown the story of Ireland from the 1940s to today through the eyes of one ordinary man. The Heart's Invisible Furies is a novel to make you laugh and cry while reminding us all of the redemptive power of the human spirit.
George and Lizzie is an emotionally riveting debut novel from âAmericaâs librarianâ 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 familyâhis father an orthodontist, his mother a stay-at-home momâwhile 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 changedâGeorge is happy; Lizzie remainsâŚunfulfilled. When a shameful secret from Lizzieâs past resurfaces, sheâll 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.
Patina, or Patty, runs like a flash. She runs for many reasonsâto escape the taunts from the kids at the fancy-schmancy new school sheâs been sent to since she and her little sister had to stop living with their mom.
She runs from the reason WHY sheâs not able to live with her ârealâ mom any more: her mom has The Sugar, and Patty is terrified that the disease that took her momâs legs will one day take her away forever.
So Pattyâs also running for her mom, who canât. But can you ever really run away from any of this?
As the stress builds up, itâs building up a pretty bad attitude as well. Coach wonât tolerate bad attitude. No day, no way. And now he wants Patty to run relayâŚwhere you have to depend on other people? Howâs she going to do THAT?
In Americaâs Daughter, the second book of the trilogy, the author arrives in the United States in the company of Catherine Murray, an American high-school teacher. Her adjustment to a new culture includes shocking doses of American-style racial discrimination and Nhambuâs discovery that she must learn to be a Black American. She graduates from college, thus fulfilling her dream of becoming a teacher, and teaches high school in the inner city. She marries, has two children, and establishes herself in the American way of life.
Then a visit to Africa, and especially to Tanzania, reawakens the drumbeats and dancing that she carries in her soul. On her return home, she teaches Swahili and African Studies, performs African dance at schools, and creates Aerobics With SoulÂŽ, a fitness workout based on African dance. She both finds and creates the family she longed for as a child and connects with her unknown background.
The first book of the trilogy, Africaâs Child, was released in 2016. The final book of her memoir seriesâDrum Beats, Heart Beatsâreveals more of Nhambuâs life as she searches for her father.
You'll Grow Out of It hilariously and candidly explores the journey of the twenty-first-century woman.
As both a tomboy and a late bloomer, comedian Jessi Klein grew up feeling more like an outsider than a participant in the rites of modern femininity.
In You'll Grow Out of It, Klein offersâthrough an incisive collection of real-life storiesâa relentlessly funny yet poignant take on a variety of topics she has experienced along her strange journey to womanhood and beyond. These include her transformation from a Pippi Longstocking-esque tomboy to an "are-you-a-lesbian-or-what" tom man, attempting to find watchable porn, and identifying the difference between being called "ma'am" and "miss" ("Miss" sounds like you weigh ninety-nine pounds).
Raw, relatable, and consistently hilarious, You'll Grow Out of It is a one-of-a-kind book by a singular and irresistible comic voice.
Sacred artists follow a thousand Paths to power, using their souls to control the forces of the natural world.
Lindon is Unsouled, forbidden to learn the sacred arts of his clan.
When faced with a looming fate he cannot ignore, he must defy his family's rules...and forge his own Path.
From the New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminist: a searingly honest memoir of food, weight, self-image, and learning how to feed your hunger while taking care of yourself.
âI ate and ate and ate in the hopes that if I made myself big, my body would be safe. I buried the girl I was because she ran into all kinds of trouble. I tried to erase every memory of her, but she is still there, somewhere. . . . I was trapped in my body, one that I barely recognized or understood, but at least I was safe.â
In her phenomenally popular essays and long-running Tumblr blog, Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and body, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health. As a woman who describes her own body as âwildly undisciplined,â Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care.
In Hunger, she explores her pastâincluding the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young lifeâand brings readers along on her journey to understand and ultimately save herself.
With the bracing candor, vulnerability, and power that have made her one of the most admired writers of her generation, Roxane explores what it means to learn to take care of yourself: how to feed your hungers for delicious and satisfying food, a smaller and safer body, and a body that can love and be lovedâin a time when the bigger you are, the smaller your world becomes.
A young cage fighter is diagnosed with a strange genetic disorder that requires a bone marrow transplant. It happened so quickly that the matter is now one of life and death; he has twenty-four weeks to live. Martin needs a relative for a donor, but his parents died in a car crash and he has no siblings or other close relatives. A mixed-raced man he casually met at Nandos, who later became a friend, volunteers to go for the test and is found to be a match.
Though it is possible that someone from the general public can be a match, Leroy feels there is more to his relationship with Martin than just friendship. He begins his journey to unveil the power of DNA testing in light of today's medical science, tracing back to two hundred years ago and the slave trade. The result is shocking the whole world, showing that the stranger who crosses your path can possibly be related to you!
This story is based on partly true events.
The Idiot, a novel by Elif Batuman, is a portrait of the artist as a young woman, exploring the themes of self-discovery and inventing oneself. Set in the year 1995, when email was a new phenomenon, we follow Selin, the daughter of Turkish immigrants, as she begins her freshman year at Harvard. Without any preconceived plans, she enrolls in classes on unfamiliar subjects, forges a friendship with the charismatic and worldly Serbian classmate Svetlana, and, almost by chance, starts corresponding with Ivan, a Hungarian mathematics student.
Despite their limited face-to-face interactions, Selin and Ivan develop a complex relationship through their email exchanges, with each message adding new and mysterious layers to the act of writing. As the school year concludes, Ivan departs for Budapest, and Selin embarks on a teaching assignment in the Hungarian countryside, a position arranged by one of Ivan's friends. Her journey also includes a two-week sojourn in Paris with Svetlana.
Unlike the typical narratives of American college students abroad, Selin's experiences in Europe lead her on an introspective journey. She confronts the bewildering and exhilarating turmoil of first love and comes to an important realization: she is destined to become a writer. The Idiot is a candid reflection on the complexities of becoming an adult, filled with exquisite emotional and intellectual sensitivity, mordant wit, and a writing style that captures the unpredictable nature of memory itself.
The Inexplicable Logic of My Life is a warmly humane look at universal questions of belonging, infused with humor, from the bestselling author of Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. Sal used to know his place with his adoptive gay father, their loving Mexican American family, and his best friend, Samantha. But itâs senior year, and suddenly Sal is throwing punches, questioning everything, and realizing he no longer knows himself. If Salâs not who he thought he was, who is he?
This novel is set on the American border with Mexico and beautifully explores themes of family, friendship, life, and death, focusing on one teen struggling to understand what his adoption does and doesn't mean about who he is.
Many people dream of escaping modern life, but most will never act on it. The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit tells the remarkable true story of Christopher Knight, a man who lived alone in the woods of Maine for 27 years, not out of anger at the world, but simply because he preferred to live on his own.
In 1986, a shy and intelligent twenty-year-old named Christopher Knight left his home in Massachusetts, drove to Maine, and disappeared into the forest. He would not have a conversation with another human being until nearly three decades later, when he was arrested for stealing food. Living in a tent even through brutal winters, he had survived by his wits and courage, developing ingenious ways to store edibles and water, and to avoid freezing to death. He broke into nearby cottages for food, clothing, reading material, and other provisions, taking only what he needed but terrifying a community never able to solve the mysterious burglaries.
Based on extensive interviews with Knight himself, author Michael Finkel provides a vividly detailed account of Knight's secluded lifeâwhy did he leave? what did he learn?âas well as the challenges he has faced since returning to the world. It is a gripping story of survival that asks fundamental questions about solitude, community, and what makes a good life, and a deeply moving portrait of a man who was determined to live his own way, and succeeded.
A young woman follows winter across five continents on a physical and spiritual journey that tests her body and soul, in this transformative memoir, full of heart and courage, that speaks to the adventurousness in all of us.
Steph Jagger had always been a force of nature. Dissatisfied with the passive, limited roles she saw for women growing up, she emulated the men in her lifeâchasing success, climbing the corporate ladder, ticking the boxes, playing by the rules of a masculine ideal. She was accomplished. She was living The Dream. But it wasn't her dream.
Then the universe caught her attention with a sign: Raise Restraining Device. Steph had seen this ski lift sign on countless occasions in the past, but the familiar words suddenly became a personal call to shake off the life she had built in a search for something different, something more.
Steph soon decided to walk away from the success and security she had worked long and hard to obtain. She quit her job, took a second mortgage on her house, sold everything except her ski equipment and her laptop, and bought a bundle of plane tickets. For the next year, she followed winter across North and South America, Asia, Europe, and New Zealandâand up and down the mountains of nine countriesâon a mission to ski four million vertical feet in a year.
What hiking was for Cheryl Strayed, skiing became for Steph: a crucible in which to crack open her life and get to the very center of herself. But she would have to break herself downâfirst physically, then emotionallyâbefore she could start to rebuild. And it was through this journey that she came to understand how to be a woman, how to love, and how to live authentically.
Electrifying, heartfelt, and full of humor, Unbound is Steph's storyâan odyssey of courage and self-discovery that, like Wild and Eat, Pray, Love, will inspire readers to remove their own restraining devices and pursue the life they are meant to lead.
Trapped, his family missing â how can ancient wisdom tell him how to survive? This powerful, true-life drama shows us how to triumph over every darkness.
Home in India on holiday, Viral Dalal is vacationing with his family when a 7.7 magnitude earthquakeâone of the most ferocious in historyâcollapses the high-rise building where, just the night before, he had celebrated being together with his family. Now, buried under tons of rubble, in total darkness, without food, water, light, or the ability to even moveâand with the ceiling hanging precariously just inches above his headâall Viral wants is to find his family. The cement box he is trapped in, however, will not yield â and hours crawl by. Then a full day, and another, and anotherâŚ
Is anyone even looking for him? Or is he buried alive? Forgotten? What would you do, trapped in such a predicament? What is going to help him now?
This bold, challenging, breathtaking tale of courage reveals the source of willpower that drove a man who would not give up. What he learned, we can all learn - about ourselves, and about life. In every life, there is a source of strength. Do you know yours? What Viral learned by going to his sources of inner strength can change your perspective on living. It can empower you to face anything⌠once you, too, know how to choose light.
A shining, inspirational story you will not be able to put down⌠or ever forget.
You belong to humanity, and you are nothing without humanity. If you donât know humanity, then you know nothing about yourself and the society around you. Knowing nothing about yourself and your society leaves you questioning your purpose in life.
Discover yourself and society by reading âHumanityâ. This book is crafted after delving into ancient, medieval, and modern philosophy to find answers about humans and whatâs beneficial for humans in ideologies, politics, rules, laws, and resources.
By reading âHumanityâ, you can understand yourself and human society, as this book is full of wisdom. It offers insights into the reality of human society and guides you in inquiring about what is good in human society.
If you care about yourself and the society around you, and wish to discover what is beneficial for you and for society, then this book could be your guide. Itâs about the âHumanityâ in us.