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From Willy Vlautin, award-winning author of Lean on Pete and The Motel Life, comes a powerful exploration of identity and loneliness pulled from deep within America's soul. Determined to prove his worth as a son abandoned by his biological parents, Horace Hopper, a half-Paiute, half-Irish ranch hand, leaves his aging caregivers and their Nevada ranch to become a champion boxer. To become a champion Horace must change not just the way he eats, trains, and thinks, but who he is. Reinventing himself as Hector Hildalgo, a scrappy Mexican boxer, he heads to Tucson and begins training and entering fights. His journey brings him to boxing rings across the Southwest and Mexico and finally, to the streets of Las Vegas, where Horace learns he can’t change who he is or outrun his destiny. A beautiful, wrenching portrait of a downtrodden man, Don’t Skip Out on Me narrates the struggle to find one's place in a vast and lonely world with profound tenderness, and will make you consider those around you—and yourself—differently.
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Mrs. : A Novelby Caitlin Macy In the well-heeled milieu of New York's Upper East Side, coolly elegant Philippa Lye is the woman no one can stop talking about. Despite a shadowy past, Philippa has somehow married the scion of the last family-held investment bank in the city. And although her wealth and connections put her in the center of this world, she refuses to conform to its gossip-fueled culture.
Then, into her precariously balanced life, come two women: Gwen Hogan, a childhood acquaintance who uncovers an explosive secret about Philippa's single days, and Minnie Curtis, a newcomer whose vast fortune and frank revelations about a penurious upbringing in Spanish Harlem put everyone on alert.
When Gwen's husband, a heavy-drinking, obsessive prosecutor in the US Attorney's Office, stumbles over the connection between Philippa's past and the criminal investigation he is pursuing at all costs, this insulated society is forced to confront the rot at its core and the price it has paid to survive into the new millennium.
Macy has written a modern-day House of Mirth, not for the age of railroads and steel but of hedge funds and overnight fortunes, of scorched-earth successes and abiding moral failures. A brilliant portrait of love, betrayal, fate and chance, Mrs. marries razor-sharp social critique and page-turning propulsion into an unforgettable tapestry of the way we live in the 21st century.
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In the aftermath of a devastating tornado that rips through the town of Tupelo, Mississippi, at the height of the Great Depression, two women who are worlds apart—one black, one white; one a great-grandmother, the other a teenager—fight for their families’ survival in this lyrical and powerful novel. When the tornado hits, Dovey, a local laundress, is flung by the terrifying winds into a nearby lake. Bruised and nearly drowned, she makes her way across Tupelo to find her small family—her hardworking husband, Virgil, her clever sixteen-year-old granddaughter, Dreama, and Promise, Dreama’s beautiful light-skinned three-month-old son. Slowly navigating the broken streets of Tupelo, Dovey stops at the house of the despised McNabb family. Inside, she discovers that the tornado has spared no one, including Jo, the McNabbs’ dutiful teenage daughter, who has suffered a terrible head wound. When Jo later discovers a baby in the wreckage, she is certain that she’s found her baby brother, Tommy, and vows to protect him. During the harrowing hours and days of the chaos that follows, Jo and Dovey struggle to navigate a landscape of disaster and to battle both the demons and the history that link and haunt them. Drawing on historical events, Minrose Gwin beautifully imagines natural and human destruction in the Deep South of the 1930s through the experiences of two remarkable women whose lives are indelibly connected by forces beyond their control. A story of loss, hope, despair, grit, courage, and race, Promise reminds us of the transformative power and promise that come from confronting our most troubled relations with one another.
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Just as opposites attract, they can also cause friction, and no one feels that friction more than Rex and Rosie’s daughter, Willow. Serious and unsentimental, Rex tapes checklists of chores on Willow’s bedroom door. Rosie is sparkling and enchanting and meets Willow in their tree house in the middle of the night to feast on candy.
After Rex and Rosie’s divorce, Willow finds herself navigating their two different worlds. She is clearly under the spell of her exciting, fun-loving mother. But as Rosie’s behavior becomes more turbulent, the darker underpinnings of her manic love are revealed.
Whimsical, heartbreaking and uplifting, this is a novel about the many ways love can find you. Rosie Colored Glasses triumphs with the most endearing examples of how mothers and fathers and sons and daughters bend for one another.
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Song of a Captive Bird : A Novelby Jasmin DarznikAll through her childhood in Tehran, Forugh Farrokhzad is told that Persian daughters should be quiet and modest. She is taught only to obey, but she always finds ways to rebel—gossiping with her sister among the fragrant roses of her mother’s walled garden, venturing to the forbidden rooftop to roughhouse with her three brothers, writing poems to impress her strict, disapproving father, and sneaking out to flirt with a teenage paramour over café glacé. During the summer of 1950, Forugh’s passion for poetry takes flight—and tradition seeks to clip her wings. Forced into a suffocating marriage, Forugh runs away and falls into an affair that fuels her desire to write and to achieve freedom and independence. Forugh’s poems are considered both scandalous and brilliant; she is heralded by some as a national treasure, vilified by others as a demon influenced by the West. She perseveres, finding love with a notorious filmmaker and living by her own rules—at enormous cost. But the power of her writing only grows stronger amid the upheaval of the Iranian revolution. Inspired by Forugh Farrokhzad’s verse, letters, films, and interviews—and including original translations of her poems—this haunting novel uses the lens of fiction to capture the tenacity, spirit, and conflicting desires of a brave woman who represents the birth of feminism in Iran—and who continues to inspire generations of women around the world.
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Early one morning in the remote hill country of Texas, a panther savagely attacks a family of homesteaders, mauling a young girl named Samantha and killing her mother, whose final act is to save her daughter's life. Samantha and her half-brother Benjamin survive, but she is left traumatized, her face horribly scarred.
Narrated in Benjamin's beguilingly plainspoken voice, The Which Way Tree is the story of Samantha's unshakeable resolve to stalk and kill the infamous panther, rumored across the Rio Grande to be a demon, and avenge her mother's death. In their quest she and Benjamin, now orphaned, enlist a charismatic Tejano outlaw and a haunted, compassionate preacher with an aging but relentless tracking dog. As the members of this unlikely posse hunt the panther, they are in turn pursued by a hapless yet sadistic Confederate soldier with troubled family ties to the preacher and a score to settle.
In the tradition of the great pursuit narratives, The Which Way Tree is a breathtaking saga of one steadfast girl's revenge against an implacable and unknowable beast. Yet with the comedic undertones of Benjamin's storytelling, it is also a timeless tale full of warmth and humor, and a testament to the enduring love that carries a sister and brother through a perilous adventure with all the dimensions of a legend.
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From one of America’s top meditation teachers comes a revolutionary approach to everyday practice—especially if you don’t think you have the time or the patience.
Imagine you’re sitting on a cushion with your legs crossed, ready to tap into unlimited joy. There’s just one problem: You can’t get comfortable (let alone still), and your head is full of way too many thoughts. The problem is not with meditation, or you, though—the issue may be with your approach.
When properly understood and practiced, meditation should feel easy, calming, and comfortable. In Bliss More, maverick instructor Light Watkins provides the tools for making it E.A.S.Y. (Embrace, Accept, Surrender, Yield), dispels the biggest myths and misunderstandings, and shares real-world tips and straight talk for hacking into this ancient practice. The result: a happier and healthier you, inside and out. Watkins also shares candid testimonials from people whose lives have been enriched through his method, and extensive resources for transforming a daily chore into an enjoyable activity. Even the biggest skeptic will look forward to sitting for meditation every day.
Whether you’re a novice or experienced practitioner, Bliss More will shed light on the path to a clearer mind, better sleep, and more bliss in everyday life.
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For anyone curious about the nuts and bolts of human ingenuity, How Things Are Made is a fascinating exploration of the process behind the manufacture of everyday items. What are bulletproof vests made of? How do manufacturers get lipstick into the tube? How many layers are there in an iPhone screen? The answers to these questions and so much more fascinating information can be found in How Things Are Made, a behind-the-scenes look at the production everyday objects of all kinds, from guitars, sunscreen, and seismographs to running shoes, jet engines, and chocolate.
Thoroughly revised and redesigned from the best-selling 1995 edition, How Things Are Made also contains three new entries by author Andrew Terranova. Each page is filled with informative step-by-step text along with detailed but easy-to-follow illustrations, diagrams, and sidebars to tell the stories behind the things we sometimes take for granted. For example, did you know that Edison didn't really invent the light bulb? Or that the first bar code was on a pack of Wrigley's Spearmint gum? Or that a maple seed inspired the design for the helicopter? Discover these fascinating anecdotes and much more in How Things Are Made.
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Former special advisor and press secretary to President Ronald Reagan shares an intimate, behind-the-scenes look inside the Reagan presidency—told through the movies that they watched together every week at Camp David.
Over the course of eight years, Mark Weinberg traveled to Camp David each weekend with Ronald and Nancy Reagan. He was one of a few select members invited into the Aspen Lodge, where the First Family screened both contemporary and classic movies on Friday and Saturday nights. They watched movies in times of triumph, such as the aftermath of Reagan’s 1984 landslide, and after moments of tragedy, such as the explosion of the Challenger and the shooting of the President and Press Secretary Jim Brady.
Weinberg’s unparalleled access offers a rare glimpse of the Reagans—unscripted, relaxed, unburdened by the world, with no cameras in sight. Each chapter discusses a legendary film, what the Reagans thought of it, and provides warm anecdotes and untold stories about his family and the administration. From Reagan’s pranks on the Secret Service to his thoughts on the parallels between Hollywood and Washington, Weinberg paints a full picture of the president The New Yorker once famously dubbed “The Unknowable.”
Movie Nights with the Reagans is a nostalgic journey through the 1980s and its most iconic films, seen through the eyes of one of Hollywood’s former stars: one who was simultaneously transforming the Republican Party, the American economy, and the course of the Cold War.
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Reflexology is an ancient healing system that helps relieve existing health conditions and detect future ailments. Reflexology Plain & Simple introduces the history and basics of this form, from beginner’s techniques to more specialized treatments and the use of aromatic oils. Discover which areas of the feet and hands correspond to the body’s tissues, glands, and organs; how much pressure to apply and when not to proceed at all; and how to get started indulging friends, family, and even yourself or move on to your own practice. Detailed instructions guide you through each step of the process and helpful hints throughout provide additional insight.
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By the author of The Unpersuadables, this thrilling and ambitious book explores the mysterious power of the self and reveals the danger of our modern obsession with it. We live in the age of the individual. Every day, we’re bombarded with depictions of the beautiful, successful, slim, socially conscious, and extroverted individual that our culture has decided is the perfect self and we berate ourselves when we don’t measure up. This model of the perfect self and the impossibly high standards it sets can be extremely dangerous. People are suffering under the torture of this impossible fantasy, and unprecedented social pressure is leading to increases in depression and suicide. Journalist and novelist Will Storr began to wonder about this perfect self that torments so many of us: Where does this ideal come from? Why is it so powerful? Is there any way to break its spell? To answer these questions, Storr takes the reader on a journey from the shores of Ancient Greece, through the Christian Middle Ages, to the self-esteem evangelists of 1980s California, the rise of narcissism and the “selfie” generation, and right up to the era of hyper-individualism in which we live now. Selfie tells the epic tale of the person we all know so intimately—because it’s us.
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From the internationally acclaimed and Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea and the Benjamin Black mysteries--a vividly evocative memoir that unfolds around the author's recollections, experience, and imaginings of Dublin.
As much about the life of the city as it is about a life lived, sometimes, in the city, John Banville's "quasi-memoir" is as layered, emotionally rich, witty, and unexpected as any of his novels. Born and bred in a small town a train ride away from Dublin, Banville saw the city as a place of enchantment when he was a child, a birthday treat, the place where his beloved, eccentric aunt lived. And though, when he came of age and took up residence there, and the city became a frequent backdrop for his dissatisfactions (not playing an identifiable role in his work until the Quirke mystery series, penned as Benjamin Black), it remained in some part of his memory as fascinating as it had been to his seven-year-old self. And as he guides us around the city, delighting in its cultural, architectural, political, and social history, he interweaves the memories that are attached to particular places and moments. The result is both a wonderfully idiosyncratic tour of Dublin and a tender yet powerful ode to a formative time and place for the artist as a young man.
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