http://www.vertical-ink-agency.com/verticalinkhomepage daily 1.0 2025-02-11 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/1526240944287-M1NCF4YOUHFS8EB11FVD/BG_001.png About http://www.vertical-ink-agency.com/authorstitles daily 0.75 2026-03-20 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/1526240420000-JCLALTC73282P2J75AW7/BG_001.png Authors & Titles https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/35a8feeb-aec0-4277-99b2-8f224e73ef9b/Bell+-+Pegasus+Books+Nazi+Code+front+cover_001.jpg Authors & Titles - CRACKING THE NAZI CODE: The Untold Story of Agent A12 and the Solving of the Holocaust Code (Pegasus Books subtitle) The Untold Story of Canada’s Greatest Spy (HarperCollins Canada subtitle) (Pegasus Books h.c., April 2024/HarperCollins Canada h.c., September 2023; Optioned by Wildling Pictures; Portugal/Casa das Letras) VIA Rights—USA, Translation, Film HCC Rights—Canada, UK, World English Audio, 1st Serial The thrilling true story of Agent A12, the first enemy of the Nazis https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/4f9cc91e-4e51-41cc-a54f-845139ad53ac/Cohen-Sandler+ANYTHING+BUT+MY+PHONE+MOM+cover.jpg Authors & Titles - ANYTHING BUT MY PHONE, MOM!: Raising Emotionally Resilient Daughters in the Digital Age (Penguin Life trade p.b. original, February 15, 2022; Simplified Chinese/China Translation and Publishing; Greek/Minoas) Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. PVIA Rights—UK, North American Spanish, Translation, Film Penguin Life Rights—Audio, 1st Serial. The ractical advice for raising authentic, self-reliant teenage girls in the age of the internet from the experienced clinical psychologist Dr. Roni Cohen-Sandler. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/52824a97-f134-4fde-90fa-8fc30ee8f461/Dayle+Everything+Abridged+Overlook+Press+hc+cover.jpg Authors & Titles - EVERYTHING ABRIDGED (Overlook Press h.c., April 2022/trade p.b. May 2023) VIA Rights – Film Overlook Press Rights – UK, Translation, 1st Serial, Audio https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/bca41acb-e3c0-4380-a776-abbe5abafee2/Henry+EATING+SALAD+DRUNK+cover.jpg Authors & Titles - EATING SALAD DRUNK: Haikus for the Burnout Age by Comedy Greats (St. Martin’s Griffin h.c., February 22, 2022) VIA Rights – Film SMP Rights – UK, Translation, 1st Serial, Audio “I’m huge on Twitter.” ―An ancient proverb that means Lonely in real life. ―JOEL KIM BOOSTER https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/1435511d-9605-450f-98f3-056b4367338c/Kurzweil+TSIN.jpg Authors & Titles - THE SINGULARITY IS NEAR: When Humans Transcend Biology (Viking h.c., September 2005/trade p.b. reprint September 2006; Israel/Kinneret; UK/Duckworth; Korea/Gimmyoung; Japan/NHK; Italy/Apogeo; Czech/Anag; Turkey/Tubitak; Thailand/Matichon Publishing House; Holland/De Wereld; World Spanish/Lola Books; Germany/Lola Books Fuglsang; Hungary/Nebali; Romanian/Nemira; Polish/Kurhaus) Viking rights—1st Serial, Audio LBB rights—UK, Translation, Film https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/8a76750e-1117-4148-8fe3-ea1081d235c4/Kurzweil+MIND.jpg Authors & Titles - HOW TO CREATE A MIND: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed (Viking Books h.c., November 2012; Penguin Books trade p.b. reprint August 2013; UK/Duckworth; World Spanish/Lola Books; German/Lola Books; Holland/De Wereld; Russia/Eksmo; Brazil/Editora Aleph; Simplified Chinese; Cheers Publishing; Romanian/Paralela 45) Viking Rights—UK, Translation 1st Serial, Audio LBB Rights—Film The bold futurist and bestselling author of The Singularity Is Nearer explores the limitless potential of reverse-engineering the human brain https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/589e79e4-1cd7-4a99-adf1-ead118cf49ce/Kurzweil+Danielle.jpg Authors & Titles - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/fef716fe-af2f-4d1a-9a5d-36818d757497/Morra+ABLE+ARCHERS+cover.jpg Authors & Titles - THE ABLE ARCHERS - Book #1 in the Able Archers Series (Koehler Books, all formats, March 22, 2022; Optioned to Legendary Entertainment; Audio/Blackstone) VIA Rights – 1st Serial, Audio, Film Koehler Rights – UK, Translation https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/80beb134-4b0c-48aa-a3a8-1acad9a04dd0/Barsouk+cover.jpeg Authors & Titles - OUTSMARTING CANCER: Risk Reduction and the Power of Prevention (Johns Hopkins University Press, February 2026) A comprehensive guide to understanding and preventing cancer by addressing its root causes. Outsmarting Cancer reframes one of the most pressing medical challenges of our time: how to prevent cancer. In this timely and accessible book, physician and medical researcher Adam Barsouk, MD, presents a sweeping examination of cancer's true origins—biological, environmental, dietary, infectious, industrial, occupational, and behavioral—and makes a compelling case for why cancer prevention must become a central priority in public and personal health. With personal stories from his clinical practice and the latest research, Dr. Barsouk explains why more people are getting diagnosed with cancer—and at younger ages—than ever before. This book explores a wide range of overlooked and misunderstood risk factors, as well as how inequities in diagnosis, treatment, and prevention disproportionately impact underserved populations. Unlike typical cancer books that focus narrowly on diet or organ-specific disease, Outsmarting Cancer takes a comprehensive, systems-level view, urging readers to look beyond the symptoms and target the root causes. Dr. Barsouk explores the role of genetic predisposition to cancer alongside environmental, lifestyle, and public policy influences that may contribute to developing the disease. With rigorous scientific insight, he offers real-world, evidence-based strategies to reduce cancer risk in practical, meaningful ways. Honest, urgent, and empowering, Outsmarting Cancer challenges readers to rethink how we talk about cancer and how we can reduce its burden before it begins. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/61250c14-b5b9-4cae-b6a8-3fd4786cf84a/Baugh+SHORELINE+cover.jpg Authors & Titles - SHORELINE: A Nora Khalil Novel (Forge 2017) Shoreline is the second suspense novel featuring FBI agent Nora Khalil by Carolyn Baugh, acclaimed author of The View from Garden City. “Compelling, important, and completely engrossing―it will change the way you look at the world.”―Hank Phillippi Ryan, Mary Higgins Clark Award Winning author Officer Nora Khalil is a strong independent woman used to navigating different terrains. As an American-born Muslim, she loves her country and tries to honor the traditions of her people, but feels that she must constantly confront those who think she is alien. Assigned to the FBI office in Erie, Pennsylvania, she tries to fit into small-town America after a childhood growing up in the bustle of Philly’s dark streets. A series of horrific acts of violence are committed by a well-connected group of domestic terrorists eager to spark a national revolution. The town erupts in chaos and the eyes of the nation are on these events. In turn, this heats up the debate about the fabric of our nation…and how those who feel disenfranchised by our new multiculturalism are determined to take back their birthright and, in their own words, make our nation great again. Will Nora and her team be able to defuse the situation before the carnage goes national? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/414c9ba4-6ea2-46dc-8400-14d1bdc35b6e/Beall+-+Playing+Dirty+Cover+with+copy.jpg Authors & Titles - PLAYING DIRTY: Rediscovering Golf’s Soul in Scotland in an Age of Sportswashing and Civil War (Back Nine Press 2025) Greed and self-preservation have overtaken professional golf, with factions battling to buy and control its ecosystem without accounting for the cost and collateral damage of their ambitions. As the top level of golf threatens to tear itself in two, Golf Digest senior writer Joel Beall travels to Scotland, the birthplace of golf, to see if the soul of the sport is intact. Here, far from the boardroom battles, the game still breathes as it was meant to—pure and democratic. Links and life intertwine without ceremony: fairways spill into village squares, first tees lurk behind bus stops, flagsticks wave to fishermen. Duck into any pub and you'll find half the day's tee sheet has preceded you, scorecards spread across tables like battle maps, pints marking the spots where glory was found or lost. This is golf's last pure kingdom, where wealth is measured not in gold but in twilight rounds, where every weary wanderer can find refuge. Where the past feels present and the game never gets old, because good things never do. Not perfect, mind you; nothing wrapped in human hands ever is, yet Scotland golf is as unadulterated of a product as we get. It reminds us that all that is good with this beautifully dumb sport can continue in the face of the unknown. Whatever happens with the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia ... well, professional golf tournaments come and go, but Scotland golf is forever. With a hyper focus on the towns and courses and people that ensure the game of golf remains a game of the people, Beall examines golf’s roots hoping to find an answer to where the sport is headed, who decides its fate, and if the game can truly be bought ... before golf swallows itself whole. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/f948fcd5-da66-489f-ac65-c9320b98c66c/Cover+to+come.jpeg Authors & Titles - OPERATION SPARROW: The Incredible True Story of the Spies Who Tricked Hitler and Won the War (Hanover Square Press/HarperCollins Canada, September 2026) Three American special forces parachute into Nazi-allied Hungary in the dead of night, spring 1944. The three-man team is designed to look like the spear’s tip of an Allied invasion to help Hungary extract itself from Hitler’s grasp. The leader of the first Sparrow team is iron-jawed, barrel-chested Florimond Duke: all-American football player, big-time New York advertising executive, and knowing volunteer for a likely suicide mission, but he takes the risk because there is no one better suited for selling the Nazis on a lie. If their plan succeeds, they will be captured by the Germans, and Hitler will be fooled into sending reinforcements far from the coming Allied invasion at Normandy to counter a make-believe invasion instead of the real one. If it fails? German armor will destroy the coming Allied landing in France, and the war could be lost. But against enormous odds, Sparrow’s first stage is completely successful - the Nazis divert twelve divisions to counter the fake invasion. The next stage is Canada’s daring mission to keep Hitler’s forces pinned down - it is like Canada’s invasion at Dieppe, except an unmitigated success. Hitler was completely convinced by the plot, and the Canadian forces made him pay a high price for his mistake. Operation Sparrow was one of the most astoundingly risky and successful missions of WWII, yet its story has not been told, and Jason Bell’s Operation Sparrow will be the first book to tell the full story of one of the greatest yet least known operations of the war. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/9c98b477-e12e-40b9-abc6-a418b1a7c16b/Bell+-+Pegasus+Books+Nazi+Code+front+cover_001.jpg Authors & Titles - CRACKING THE NAZI CODE: The Untold Story of Agent A12 and the Solving of the Holocaust Code (Pegasus Books US 2024/HarperCollins Canada 2023) The thrilling true story of Agent A12, the first enemy of the Nazis In public life, Dr. Winthrop Picard Bell was a Harvard philosophy professor and wealthy businessman. As MI6 Secret Agent A12, he evaded gunfire and shook pursuers to break open the emerging Nazi conspiracy in electrifying 1919 Berlin. His reports, the first warning of the Nazi plot for WWII, went directly to the man known as C, the mysterious founder of MI6, and to prime ministers. But a powerful fascist politician quietly worked to suppress his alerts. Nevertheless, his intelligence sabotaged the Nazis in ways only now revealed. Bell became a spy once again in the face of WWII. In 1939, he was the first to crack Hitler’s deadliest secret code: the Holocaust. At that time the Führer was a popular politician who said he wanted peace. Could anyone believe Bell’s shocking warning? Fighting an epic intelligence war from Ukraine, Russia, and Poland to France, Germany, Canada and Washington, D.C., A12 was the real-life 007, waging a single-handed fight against madmen bent on destroying the world. Without Bell’s astounding courage, the Nazis might just have won the war. Cracking the Nazi Code, informed by recently declassified documents, is the first book to illuminate the astounding exploits of Winthrop Bell, Agent A12. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/415d3f63-127e-4840-a3cb-bcd334aa3025/Boyers+LDFM+cover.jpg Authors & Titles - LIFE DOESN’T FRIGHTEN ME 25th Anniversary Edition (Abrams 2018) The glorious picture book Life Doesn’t Frighten Me features the work of two legendary artists—poet Maya Angelou and artist Jean-Michel Basquiat—“a powerful exploration of emotion and its expression through the careful blend of words and art” (School Library Journal). Dr. Maya Angelou’s unforgettable poem is matched with the daring art of Jean-Michel Basquiat in this powerful ode to courage. Shadows on the wall Noises down the hall Life doesn’t frighten me at all Angelou’s brave, defiant poem celebrates the courage within each of us, young and old. From the scary thought of panthers in the park to the unsettling scene of a new classroom, fearsome images are summoned and dispelled by the power of faith in ourselves. Angelou’s strong words are matched by the bold vision of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose style reveals the powerful emotions and fanciful imaginings of childhood. Together, Angelou’s words and Basquiat’s paintings create a place where every child, indeed every person, may experience their own fearlessness. This brilliant introduction to poetry and contemporary art features brief biographies of Angelou and Basquiat and an afterword from the editor, Sara Jane Boyers. A selected bibliography of Angelou’s books and a selected museum listing of Basquiat’s works open the door to further inspiration through the fine arts. Presented as an impassioned ode to courage, the late poet Dr. Maya Angelou’s 1993 poem in this handsome anniversary edition will inspire a new generation of brave readers, no matter the challenge. Young readers will be inspired by poetry, by art, and by the tremendous talent of these two legendary creators in one beautiful picture book. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/758dcc0b-785f-4c6c-bfa3-c5a3b3d8125e/Cohen-Sandler+ANYTHING+BUT+MY+PHONE+MOM+cover.jpg Authors & Titles - ANYTHING BUT MY PHONE, MOM!: Raising Emotionally Resilient Daughters in the Digital Age (Penguin Life 2022) Practical advice for raising authentic, self-reliant teenage girls in the age of the internet from the experienced clinical psychologist Dr. Roni Cohen-Sandler. It may feel as though your preteen or teenage daughter is growing up in a different universe than you did. Between smartphones, social media, and cyberbullying, the world is changing. Technology is transforming how girls identify themselves, learn, develop social skills, and communicate with the people around them. Many mothers feel as though they are venturing into alien territory, with no idea how to navigate these unprecedented situations. But the good news is that regardless of your technological skill, you are still the best person to guide your daughter through all the chaos of adolescence. In Anything but My Phone, Mom!, Dr. Roni Cohen-Sandler shows mothers how to handle the modern challenges of parenting teenage girls, drawing upon dozens of interviews with teenagers and their mothers, decades of clinical experience, and her own experience raising a daughter. With clear, practical advice, she provides insights and strategies for how you can better understand your daughter and what she's going through, maintain a close and loving relationship with her, keep her safe, and help her become a resilient, capable, confident, and healthy young woman. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/6e86baa4-5bf1-4c8c-b1ad-efc4880515bb/Dayle+How+to+Dodge+a+Cannonball-cover.jpg Authors & Titles - HOW TO DODGE A CANNONBALL (Henry Holt, June 2025) *Publishers Weekly starred review* *Kirkus starred review* *An Amazon Best of the Month pick for June 2025* *One of People Magazine’s Best New Books for June 2025* “It takes an author of rare and exceptional talent to deliver such a knockout punch. Which is why “How to Dodge a Cannonball” establishes Dennard Dayle as a new heavyweight in town.” - the New York Times A cutting, revealing caricature of the American Civil War, told through the eyes of a white teenager who joins an all-Black regiment of soldiers, for fans of Colson Whitehead and James McBride Razor-sharp and hilarious, How to Dodge a Cannonball tells the story of Anders, a white teenager who volunteers to be a Union Army flag-twirler to escape his abusive mother. In desperate acts of self-preservation, he defects―twice― before joining a Black regiment at Gettysburg, claiming to be an octoroon. In his new and entirely incredulous unit, Anders becomes entangled with questionable military men and an arms dealer working for both sides. But more importantly he bonds with the other soldiers, finding friendship and a family he desperately needs. After deploying to New York City to suppress the draft riots and to Nevada to suppress Native Americans, Anders begins to see the war through the eyes of his newfound brothers. Dayle’s satire spares no one, whether he’s writing about Anders’s naivete and unexpected love interest, the quirks of Confederate and Union soldiers, those out to make a quick buck off the tragedy of war, or the theater of war itself (literal theater, as the novel includes a one-act play the troop obsesses over while they wait for action). Uproariously funny and revelatory, How to Dodge a Cannonball is an inimitable take on which America is worth fighting for. (Agent: Reeves Hamilton) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/24df1e7b-ca14-4687-9979-dcc1484aed29/Dayle+Everything+Abridged+Overlook+Press+hc+cover.jpg Authors & Titles - EVERYTHING ABRIDGED (Overlook Press 2022) A New Yorker Best Book of the Year, Dennard Dayle’s electrifying and wholly original collection of satirical stories create a bitingly funny portrait of American racism, capitalism, and politics. Framed as a reference work and inspired by the relentless technological chaos of Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash and the comic absurdity of Paul Beatty’s The Sellout, Everything Abridged is a collection of satirical “entries” that offer trenchant commentary on the current state of America, combining laconic definitions for words from “abolition” to “zygote” with short fiction on topics like the state of Black America, the advertising industry, post-human law enforcement practices, Olympic speed-walking, nuclear war...and babysitting. It combines the scope and wit of The Devil’s Dictionary with the mordant humor of Catch-22 and lays bare the struggle we face to keep hold of our sanity in a society collapsing into chaos and absurdity. Sprinkled in between the stories are reference entries that act as sudden punchlines to jokes you know you probably shouldn’t laugh at--reminding you that sometimes, despite everything, all you can do is laugh. (Agent: Reeves Hamilton) Praise for Everything Abridged “Hilarious … incredibly entertaining and so damn illuminating.” –Entertainment Weekly “An exciting new author … hilarious and f’ing incredible.” –Amran Gowani, Medium “A witty collection … Social commentary with a satirical twist.” –The New Yorker “Truly funny stuff.” –Vulture https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/98880a43-c723-4af7-a53e-3bd6719a5c61/Devi+SECRET+POWER+OF+YOGA+cover.jpg Authors & Titles - THE SECRET POWER OF YOGA: A Woman’s Guide to the Heart and Spirit of the Yoga Sutras (2nd Edition) (Harmony 2022) The definitive feminine interpretation of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, now expanded to include all four padas Yoga is best known for its power to create a healthy body, but the emotional and spiritual benefits of the practice are even greater. In The Secret Power of Yoga, Nischala Joy Devi offers a simple, elegant, and deeply personal interpretation of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras--the principles at the basis of Yoga practice. Hers is a heart-centered, intuitive, feminine perspective, and the first translation intended for women. Her interpretation beautifully captures the spirit of each sutra, and her suggested practices offer numerous ways to embrace the spirituality of Yoga throughout your day. The original edition summarized the final two padas with the intention of encouraging curiosity about further practice without overwhelming the reader. But today, there is more focus on the importance of understanding the foundation of yoga than ever. With so many making a commitment to the practice of Yoga to further their own spiritual growth and development, Devi believes now is the time to give more, and has provided additional commentary and practices, making The Secret Power of Yoga a complete scripture. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/00738ac9-4ba7-437f-921c-506e8961cf19/Edison+Sandymancer+cover+art+final.jpg Authors & Titles - SANDYMANCER (Tor 2023) A wild girl with sand magic in her bones and a mad god who is trying to fix the world he broke come together in SANDYMANCER, a genre-warping mashup of weird fantasy and hard science fiction. All Caralee Vinnet has ever known is dust. Her whole world is made up of the stuff; water is the most precious thing in the cosmos. A privileged few control what elements remain. But the world was not always a dust bowl and the green is not all lost. Caralee has a secret—she can draw up power from the sand beneath her feet. But when she does… she winds up summoning a monster: The former god-king who broke the world 800 years ago and has stolen the body of her best friend. Caralee will risk the whole world to take back what she’s lost. If her new companion doesn’t kill her first. Sandymancer is what happens when Oz meets Armageddon, with failed gods, lost magics, and murderous gigantic steel harpies. Caralee has always longed to see more of this broken world – but as she stumbles upon its secret roots, she may discover that their doomsday wasn’t quite what everyone thought. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/4ce25af2-27dc-4a3a-aad6-c849926949c3/Edison+WAKING+ENGINE+cover.jpg Authors & Titles - THE WAKING ENGINE (Tor 2014) Welcome to the City Unspoken, where Gods and Mortals come to die. Contrary to popular wisdom, death is not the end, nor is it a passage to some transcendent afterlife. Those who die merely awake as themselves on one of a million worlds, where they are fated to live until they die again, and wake up somewhere new. All are born only once, but die many times . . . until they come at last to the City Unspoken, where the gateway to True Death can be found. Wayfarers and pilgrims are drawn to the City, which is home to murderous aristocrats, disguised gods and goddesses, a sadistic faerie princess, immortal prostitutes and queens, a captive angel, gangs of feral Death Boys and Charnel Girls . . . and one very confused New Yorker. Late of Manhattan, Cooper finds himself in a City that is not what it once was. The gateway to True Death is failing, so that the City is becoming overrun by the Dying, who clot its byzantine streets and alleys . . . and a spreading madness threatens to engulf the entire metaverse. Richly imaginative, David Edison's The Waking Engine is a stunning debut by a major new talent. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/819584f6-d2c8-43b2-afed-2ae39d83724c/Feuereisen+INVISIBLE+GIRLS+cover.jpg Authors & Titles - INVISIBLE GIRLS: Speaking the Truth About Sexual Abuse (3rd Edition) (Seal Press 2020) A powerful source of healing for teen girls and young women who have experienced sexual abuse, Invisible Girls offers survivors agency and hope in an era when too many girls have suffered alone The statistics are staggering. One in four girls will experience sexual abuse by the time she is sixteen, and 48 percent of all rapes involve a young woman under the age of eighteen. It's not surprising then, that in a society where sexual abuse of young women is rampant, many women never share their stories. They remain hidden and invisible. In her pioneering work with young survivors through the last thirty years, Dr. Patti Feuereisen has helped teen girls and young women to find their voices, begin healing, and become visible. In this revised second edition, Dr. Patti's gentle guidance and the girls' powerful stories continue to create an encouraging message: Remarkable healing is possible if girls learn to share their stories in their teens and early twenties. With a new introduction, new chapters, and updated resources, this new edition of Invisible Girls has even more to offer girls, young women, and those who care about them. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/4ef2a92b-e105-4a3e-afab-def50d05f4a4/Flocken_Cover_FINAL.jpeg Authors & Titles - BE WELL (Heliotrope Books, June 2026) Fresh out of college and faced with the Great Recession of 2009, Ann Ward takes increasingly desperate measures to avoid moving back home while being drawn into a maybe-cult. What could go wrong? Summer 2009: Brand-new college graduate Ann Ward has sent out nearly three hundred job applications, but nobody will employ her. The last thing she wants to do is leave Los Angeles, return to her desert hometown, and live in the shadow of her fame-hungry televangelist father–and it's starting to look like that's her fate. Thankfully, Ann's luck turns after a humiliating failed job interview, when she meets the magnetic founder of upscale holistic wellness collective Sagebrush. She's quickly drawn deep into the privileged, demanding world of Sagebrush, inventing Annaliese - a dubious new persona - to fit in. But when her funds run out and her lies blow up, Ann must choose between facing reality or doing whatever she has to do in order to get the future she wants. Both a "funny ha-ha-" and a "funny oh no" read for anyone who survived the Great Recession, Be Well explores just how easy it is to believe in something unquestioningly–and lie to ourselves and others–when everything feels uncertain and the future isn't guaranteed. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/2322410d-5c81-48f2-a0d9-6ee30d749287/Franek+ASN+Cover.jpg Authors & Titles - AMERICAN SOCCER NATION: The Remarkable 150-Year History of Yanks on a Roll, from Mob Football to the Modern Game (BenBella Books, April 2026) A comprehensive recounting of the beautiful game on American soil . . . and a look at soccer’s boundless potential in the USA Soccer is the most popular game in the world, but does it truly belong in the heart of American sports culture? The answer is a resounding yes—and the 150-year journey of elite men’s soccer in the US is filled with drama, surprises, reversals, and triumphs that rival any world-class match. With meticulous research and lifelong passion, Mark C Franek delivers a fast-paced, foundational soccer book that also serves as a celebration of American soccer. This book is a must-have for all fans, players, parents, coaches, and professionals across the sport. In brisk, punchy prose that moves in a confident tiki-taka style, Franek explores: The soccer-like games played by Native Americans long before the arrival of Europeans How organized soccer predates gridiron football, started in American colleges, and was carried forward by immigrant communities Why soccer has always been more inclusive and immigrant-friendly than other professional sports The rise and fall of the original ASL and the Golden Age of American soccer America’s Olympic and World Cup highs and lows dating back to the early 20th century Soccer’s growing popularity today, from MLS and USL to elite youth academies The accordion-like journey of the USMNT over the past 40 years, leading to the USA’s co-hosting of the 2026 World Cup A roadmap for how the US can go from good to great on the international stage—based on firsthand accounts from professional athletes and experts in the sport With forewords by Cavan Sullivan and Tim Howard, American Soccer Nation is the definitive text affirming that the US really is a soccer nation. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/eb558f7d-cd20-4f4b-bbe7-d0c0442f61d7/Henry+EATING+SALAD+DRUNK+cover.jpg Authors & Titles - EATING SALAD DRUNK: Haikus for the Burnout Age by Comedy Greats (St. Martin’s Griffin 2022) One of Vulture's Best Comedy Books of 2022, EATING SALAD DRUNK features work by Jerry Seinfeld, Margaret Cho, Ray Romano, Mike Birbiglia, Janeane Garofalo, Roy Wood Jr., Michael Ian Black, Bob Odenkirk, George Wallace, Maria Bamford, and other titans of comedy. “I’m huge on Twitter.” ―An ancient proverb that means Lonely in real life. ―JOEL KIM BOOSTER Jokes and haikus have a common goal: to pack the greatest punch in the most succinct way possible. In Eating Salad Drunk, today's biggest names in comedy come together to do just that, with hilarious, poignant, and (sometimes) dirty haikus about living and coping in our modern "burnout age." Contributors include Jerry Seinfeld, Michael Ian Black, Aubrey Plaza, Margaret Cho, Maria Bamford, Ray Romano, Aparna Nancherla, Ziwe Fumudoh, Chris Gethard, Sasheer Zamata, Colin Mochrie, Zach Woods, and many more! Curated by Gabe Henry, author and manager of the popular Brooklyn comedy venue Littlefield, Eating Salad Drunk's topics include: -Modern Romance -Friends & Family -Screentime -Nature Calls -Food -Entertainment -The Struggle is Real -Words of Wisdom, and -Self Love & Loathing The book also includes 50 super-relatable black and white drawings by New Yorker cartoonist Emily Flake, as well as a foreword by stand-up comedian and actor Aparna Nancherla (Crashing, BoJack Horseman, Inside Amy Schumer). Eating Salad Drunk is the perfect gift for any fan of humor as an escape from our dystopian present. *All author proceeds go towards Comedy Gives Back, a nonprofit that provides mental health, medical, and crisis support resources for comedians. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/fd61e347-1a68-47d8-9ea1-6669dca012b4/Cover+to+come.jpeg Authors & Titles - AMNESTY DAY (Or How to Talk About the Hard Stuff) (Bloomsbury Academic, June 2027) When Stuart Horwitz wrote a piece for Today.com in June 2020 titled "Amnesty Day: How I Got My Teenager to Tell Me the Truth", he recounted how he and his eldest daughter, Fifer, developed an agreement before she left for college where, once a month, she could tell him absolutely anything she had done without punishment. The only stipulation: they had to talk about it. Since then, the piece has garnered over 641 million impressions, with syndication to Scary Mommy, MSN, and Yahoo! Life. And thus, Amnesty Day the book project was born. Picking up where Anne Lamott's Operating Instructions left off, the book recounts each of Fifer and Stuart's Amnesty Days and tells the story of how a father and daughter grew closer and learned so much about each other and about life through their own form of honest communication. Incorporating expert advice and analysis throughout, Stuart also draws on his own experiences dealing with abuse, trauma, addiction, and recovery to detail how he tried to help guide Fifer away from making some of the same mistakes he made, and toward entering adulthood as a young woman who knew how to make good decisions while staying true to herself. And while it maybe a controversial parenting approach to some, Amnesty Day is meant to spark a conversation, and in the end the evolution of their father-daughter relationship is a truly moving and inspiring story. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/03df7b04-458e-4ba0-bc2b-2990e67cfbd6/Hudson+-+Absence+cover.jpeg Authors & Titles - ABSENCE (Soho Press, May 2026) In this moving, richly detailed speculative crime debut, the world is unraveling from an epidemic of human vanishing. Two novice investigators are dispatched to small-town Kansas to interview a woman who claims to have returned from Absence, offering answers to everything. People are “popping,” disappearing one-by-one, into thin air: an ongoing global cataclysm known as Spontaneous Human Absence. In a world where prospects for survival are increasingly grim, hopelessness prevails, political rifts widen, and doomsday predictions flourish. Harvey Ellis works the night shift for the Bureau of Depopulation Affairs, an ad hoc federal agency meant to contain and catalogue the crisis. His job: to investigate claims of Absence, and, if validated, issue a standard government stipend to boost morale. Still recovering from losses of his own, Harvey is content in his routine—until his life is shaken up by an unexpected assignment from the central office. A woman long thought Absent has reappeared in her hometown of Dawnville, Kansas, claiming she’s been to the other side and back. Is her story true, or is she just the latest false prophet, offering hope to a world desperate for answers? Together with his no-BS partner Shonda Erins, Harvey travels to Dawnville to find out. A sweeping portrait of a world beset by confusion and dismay, Andrew Dana Hudson’s debut novel is a vividly imagined speculative mystery of cosmic proportions, examining the stories we tell to get by. (Agent: Reeves Hamilton) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/449b47ad-a18e-4be2-98fd-51798875b19e/Kelly+HEAVEN%27S+DITHC+cover.jpg Authors & Titles - HEAVEN’S DITCH: God, Gold, and Murder on the Eerie Canal (St. Martin’s Griffin 2017) A page-turning narrative, Heaven's Ditch offers an excitingly fresh look at a heady, foundational moment in American history. The technological marvel of its age, the Erie Canal grew out of a sudden fit of inspiration. Proponents didn't just dream; they built a 360-mile waterway entirely by hand and largely through wilderness. As excitement crackled down its length, the canal became the scene of the most striking outburst of imagination in American history. Zealots invented new religions and new modes of living. The Erie Canal made New York the financial capital of America and brought the modern world crashing into the frontier. Men and women saw God face to face, gained and lost fortunes, and reveled in a period of intense spiritual creativity. Heaven's Ditch by Jack Kelly illuminates the spiritual and political upheavals along this "psychic highway" from its opening in 1825 through 1844. "Wage slave" Sam Patch became America's first celebrity daredevil. William Miller envisioned the apocalypse. Farm boy Joseph Smith gave birth to Mormonism, a new and distinctly American religion. Along the way, the reader encounters America's very first "crime of the century," a treasure hunt, searing acts of violence, a visionary cross-dresser, and a panoply of fanatics, mystics, and hoaxers. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/c11070ab-594f-491f-a763-bbdfff3e5075/MPK+SCORCESE+cover.jpg Authors & Titles - MARTIN SCORSESE: A Journey (2nd Edition) (Grand Central 2022) In time for Scorsese's 80th birthday and the release of Killers of the Flower Moon, a new edition of the seminal oral history tracing Scorsese's journey from young filmmaker to legend, featuring a foreword by Steven Spielberg Few filmmakers, if any, make the kind of impact that Martin Scorsese has made on American cinema. The winner of every prestigious film award, including the Oscar, Scorsese is a living legend. Bestselling author and award-winning filmmaker Mary Pat Kelly's groundbreaking biography reveals how this working-class boy from Manhattan's Little Italy became one of our most acclaimed, celebrated, and influential filmmakers. Martin Scorsese: A Journey maps Scorsese's personal and artistic evolution though his films, from early works like student films and Mean Streets through cinematic masterpieces like Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, Goodfellas. Across interviews with Scorsese himself; stars like Robert De Niro, Paul Newman, Liza Minelli, and Nick Nolte; colleagues including screenwriters and cinematographers; as well as family and friends, it reveals the story of a man in a way that only his community and fellow artists can, giving us unprecedented, intimate access to the making of these iconic films and the extraordinary mind behind them. Brimming with insight into Scorsese's life, values, process, humor, and inspirations, it is a remarkable account of America's premiere director, the shepherd of countless imaginations. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/9e87c04c-f35f-4982-9db2-2ce9db4f5015/Cover+to+come.jpeg Authors & Titles - ARTIFICIAL GENERAL INTELLIGENCE IS HERE! (Viking, January 2029) New York Times bestselling author of THE SINGULARITY IS NEARER Ray Kurzweil’s ARTIFICIAL GENERAL INTELLIGENCE IS HERE!, about the impending arrival of AGI, its economic and ethical implications, and humanity’s transition to Superintelligent AI. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/93b2ce2a-89a5-4b77-9d33-a49e911e130f/Cover+to+come.jpeg Authors & Titles - WHERE DOES THE TIME GO? An Autobiography (BenBella Books, September 2027) A love letter to Ray Kurzweil’s family, friends, and life’s work, this autobiography offers readers an intimate look into his extraordinary career and personal journey. Blending heartfelt reflection with compelling insights into technology, AI, and the future, the book invites longtime followers and new readers alike into a more personal, conversational portrait of one of the most visionary minds of our time. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/936e5558-0978-4cf7-91ae-44a9e10bad99/Kurzweil+SingularityIsNearer_REVISED.jpg Authors & Titles - THE SINGULARITY IS NEARER: When We Merge With Computers (Viking Penguin 2024) AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ONE OF TIME'S 100 MOST INFLUENTUAL PEOPLE IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE The noted inventor and futurist's successor to his landmark book The Singularity Is Near explores how technology will transform the human race in the decades to come Since it was first published in 2005, Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity Is Near and its vision of an exponential future have spawned a worldwide movement. Kurzweil's predictions about technological advancements have largely come true, with concepts like AI, intelligent machines, and biotechnology now widely familiar to the public. In this entirely new book Ray Kurzweil brings a fresh perspective to advances toward the Singularity--assessing his 1999 prediction that AI will reach human level intelligence by 2029 and examining the exponential growth of technology--that, in the near future, will expand human intelligence a millionfold and change human life forever. Among the topics he discusses are rebuilding the world, atom by atom with devices like nanobots; radical life extension beyond the current age limit of 120; reinventing intelligence by connecting our brains to the cloud; how exponential technologies are propelling innovation forward in all industries and improving all aspects of our well-being such as declining poverty and violence; and the growth of renewable energy and 3-D printing. He also considers the potential perils of biotechnology, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence, including such topics of current controversy as how AI will impact employment and the safety of autonomous cars, and "After Life" technology, which aims to virtually revive deceased individuals through a combination of their data and DNA. The culmination of six decades of research on artificial intelligence, The Singularity Is Nearer is Ray Kurzweil's crowning contribution to the story of this science and the revolution that is to come. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/fe9839ec-9fc8-4a35-82dd-b9e8f9b155d2/Kurzweil+TSIN.jpg Authors & Titles - THE SINGULARITY IS NEAR: When Humans Transcend Biology (Viking Penguin 2005) Publishers Weekly Starred Review New York Times Bestseller “Startling in scope and bravado.” (Janet Maslin, The New York Times) “Artfully envisions a breathtakingly better world.” (Los Angeles Times) “Elaborate, smart and persuasive.” (The Boston Globe) “A pleasure to read.” (The Wall Street Journal) “An important book.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer One of CBS News’ Best Fall Books of 2005 Among St Louis Post-Dispatch’s Best Nonfiction Books of 2005 One of Amazon.com’s Best Science Books of 2005 Celebrated futurist Ray Kurzweil, hailed by Bill Gates as “the best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence,” presents an “elaborate, smart, and persuasive” (The Boston Globe) view of the future course of human development. At the onset of the twenty-first century, humanity stands on the verge of the most transforming and thrilling period in its history. It will be an era in which the very nature of what it means to be human will be both enriched and challenged as our species breaks the shackles of its genetic legacy and achieves inconceivable heights of intelligence, material progress, and longevity. While the social and philosophical ramifications of these changes will be profound, and the threats they pose considerable, The Singularity Is Near presents a radical and optimistic view of the coming age that is both a dramatic culmination of centuries of technological ingenuity and a genuinely inspiring vision of our ultimate destiny. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/12ee5fd6-1ed9-485e-a1eb-ab57a57571fb/Kurzweil+MIND.jpg Authors & Titles - HOW TO CREATE A MIND: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed (Viking Penguin 2012) NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The bold futurist and renowned author of The Singularity Is Near explores the limitless potential of reverse-engineering the human brain. "This book is a Rosetta Stone for the mystery of human thought."--Martine Rothblatt, chairman and CEO, United Therapeutics, and creator of Sirius XM Satellite Radio "Kurzweil's vision of our super-enhanced future is completely sane and calmly reasoned, and his book should nicely smooth the path for the earth's robot overlords, who, it turns out, will be us."--The New York Times In How to Create a Mind, Ray Kurzweil presents a provocative exploration of the most important project in human-machine civilization: reverse-engineering the brain to understand precisely how it works and using that knowledge to create even more intelligent machines. Kurzweil discusses how the brain functions, how the mind emerges, brain-computer interfaces, and the implications of vastly increasing the powers of our intelligence to address the world's problems. He also thoughtfully examines emotional and moral intelligence and the origins of consciousness and envisions the radical possibilities of our merging with the intelligent technology we are creating. Drawing on years of advanced research and cutting-edge inventions in artificial intelligence, How to Create a Mind is an incredible synthesis of neuroscience and technology and provides a road map for the future of human progress. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/8a1245d7-3b10-4791-9d8b-c3131f52a275/Kurzweil+TASM.jpg Authors & Titles - THE AGE OF SPIRITUAL MACHINES: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence (Viking Penguin 1999) NATIONAL BESTSELLER - Bold futurist Ray Kurzweil, author of The Singularity Is Near, offers a framework for envisioning the future of machine intelligence--"a book for anyone who wonders where human technology is going next" (The New York Times Book Review). "Kurzweil offers a thought-provoking analysis of human and artificial intelligence and a unique look at a future in which the capabilities of the computer and the species that invented it grow ever closer."--BILL GATES Imagine a world where the difference between man and machine blurs, where the line between humanity and technology fades, and where the soul and the silicon chip unite. This is not science fiction. This is the twenty-first century according to Ray Kurzweil, the "restless genius" (The Wall Street Journal), "ultimate thinking machine" (Forbes), and inventor of the most innovative and compelling technology of our era. In his inspired hands, life in the new millennium no longer seems daunting. Instead, it promises to be an age in which the marriage of human sensitivity and artificial intelligence fundamentally alters and improves the way we live. More than just a list of predictions, Kurzweil's prophetic blueprint for the future guides us through the inexorable advances that will result in: - Computers exceeding the memory capacity and computational ability of the human brain (with human-level capabilities not far behind) - Relationships with automated personalities who will be our teachers, companions, and lovers - Information fed straight into our brains along direct neural pathways Eventually, the distinction between humans and computers will have become sufficiently blurred that when the machines claim to be conscious, we will believe them. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/2499bb43-8d98-4b1e-88e8-74ff6d1cc552/Kurzweil+TRANSCEND.jpg Authors & Titles - TRANSCEND: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever (Co-Authored with Terry Grossman, M.D.) (Rodale 2009) In Transcend, famed futurist Ray Kurzweil and his coauthor Terry Grossman, MD, present a cutting edge, accessible program based on the vanguard in nutrition and science. They've distilled thousands of scientific studies to make the case that new developments in medicine and technology will allow us to radically extend our life expectancies and slow the aging process. Transcend gives you the practical tools you need to live long enough (and remain healthy long enough) to take full advantage of the biotech and nanotech advances that have already begun and will continue to occur at an accelerating pace during the years ahead. To help you remember the nine key components of the program, Ray and Terry have arranged them into a mnemonic: Talk with your doctor, Relaxation, Assessment, Nutrition, Supplements, Calorie reduction, Exercise, New technologies, Detoxification. This easy-to-follow program will help you transcend the boundaries of your genetic legacy and live long enough to live forever. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/5bd652f5-7197-428c-be3f-8dfe07c69271/Kurzweil+FV.jpg Authors & Titles - FANTASTIC VOYAGE: The Science Behind Radical Life Extension - Live Long Enough to Live Forever (Co-Authored by Terry Grossman, M.D.) (Rodale 2004) One of the most respected scientists and futurists in America teams up with an expert on human longevity, to show how we can tap today's revolution in biotechnology and nanotechnology to virtually live forever. Startling discoveries in the areas of genomics, biotechnology, and nanotechnology are occurring every day. The rewards of this research, some of it as spectacular as what was once thought of as science fiction, are practically in our grasp. Already it is possible to analyze our individual genetic makeups and evaluate our predisposition for breast cancer or other deadly diseases on a case-by-case basis. And once we've isolated these genes, the ability to repress or enhance them through biotechnology is just around the corner. Soon, for example, it will be feasible for 10% of our red blood cells to be replaced by artificial cells, radically extending our life expectancy and enhancing our physical and even mental abilities beyond what is humanly possible today. In Fantastic Voyage, Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman will show us how amazingly advanced we are in our medical technology, and how incredibly far each of us can go toward living as long as we dare imagine. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/61d6bf9d-236d-43c4-874f-9692656e2e04/Kurzweil+Danielle.jpg Authors & Titles - DANIELLE: Chronicles of a Superheroine with HOW YOU CAN BE A DANIELLE and A CHRONICLE OF IDEAS: A Guide for Superheroines (and Superheroes) (WordFire Press 2019) Ray Kurzweil, legendary inventor and author of The New York Times bestsellers The Singularity Is Near and How to Create a Mind, unveils his first YA novel, and an unforgettable character—Danielle—to help convey some of his most important ideas. Danielle: Chronicles of a Superheroine tells the story of a precocious girl who uses her intelligence and accelerating technology to solve humanity’s grandest challenges. Written as an alternative history, Danielle’s journey as a driven young girl brings her face to face with many historical figures from our modern world. Told through the eyes of Danielle’s equally remarkable sister Claire, a girl adopted from Haiti after surviving the earthquake, this story shows all readers a hopeful vision of humanity’s future—and how to achieve it. The novel features 24 graphic novel-style illustrations, one for each year of Danielle’s life, by New Yorker cartoonist and Ray’s daughter, Amy Kurzweil (author of Flying Couch: A Graphic Memoir, a New York Times Editor’s Pick and one of Kirkus Reviews Best Memoirs of 2016). Also available are two separate nonfiction companion books for Danielle - a literary first. How You Can Be a Danielle is a concise call to action, providing pragmatic, thought-provoking, and clear guidance on how readers can be inspired to emulate Danielle and help her bring about a better world. And A Chronicle of Ideas: A Guide for Superheroines (and Superheroes) provides Kurzweil’s—and Danielle’s—unique spin on 282 concepts presented in the novel. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/21a88b65-aeb0-446e-8a97-1667ca8a1d1d/Lore-Rose+Pathfinder+3.0+cover.jpeg Authors & Titles - THE PATHFINDER 3.0: How to Choose or Change Your Career for a Lifetime of Satisfaction and Success (3rd Edition) (Avid Reader Press, April 2025) This newly updated edition of a classic bestseller is THE ultimate job-hunting guide for college grads and career-changers alike! Now you can utilize The Pathfinder’s proven and practical techniques and tools to discover exactly what career path is right for you and make it happen. Whether you are a seasoned professional in search of a career change or just starting out, The Pathfinder can guide you toward more engaging, fulfilling work. Based on breakthrough techniques developed by the author’s award-winning career coaching organization, Rockport Institute, The Pathfinder has already helped hundreds of thousands of people custom design a career that fits their interests and lifestyle perfectly. This completely revised and updated new edition offers more than fifty self-tests, diagnostic tools, and the widely lauded Rockport Career Design Method to help you choose an entirely new career, an entrepreneurial path, or a better-fitting job in your current field. Learn how to: * Design your new career step-by-step: identify a realistic, attainable career where you’ll use your talents to the fullest doing something you really care about, where you’ll be successful, respected, and engaged in tasks you do well and enjoy * Successfully deal with complacency and “what-ifs” that keep you going back to the same old uninspiring job, day after day * Land the perfect job in a new field using personal marketing and networking (even for those who hate to network) Comprehensive, insightful, and empowering, The Pathfinder proves that there really is a career that you were born to do, and gives you the most complete set of cutting-edge career coaching tools find it. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/008a535c-c4fa-4f44-bdd0-6f64a3182cd7/Cover+to+come.jpeg Authors & Titles - MONUMENTS TO A MYSTERY The Forgotten WWII Story of the Four Chaplains (Knox Press, November 2027) Monuments to a Mystery will reintroduce the remarkable story of the Four Chaplains – a Catholic priest, two Protestant ministers, and a Jewish rabbi – who sacrificed their own lives to save shipmates during the sinking of the U.S. Army Transport Dorchester on February 3, 1943 as it was headed to a US military base in Greenland. It is a story that instantly became hugely famous in America, to such an extent that hundreds of monuments were built to the Four Chaplains all across the country. But as time wore on and memories faded, their story was largely lost to history, with generations passing by the monuments without any understanding of why they were built. Peter Lovenheim became fascinated by the story, and he vowed to undertake a trip to visit as many of the monuments as he could to answer some key questions: · For Americans today—especially young people—does a story that celebrates selflessness still make sense? Does it resonate? · Can re-learning the Four Chaplains story help us, as a society, embrace the values the story symbolizes, such as sacrificing for the common good? What causes some people, but not others, to make selfless choices? And can those values again be a common bond that helps unite us? · How can regular people (the author included) measure the value of their lives against what the Chaplains did in just 27 minutes? Monuments to a Mystery is a story of extraordinary heroism and selflessness, and also an examination of what America used to be, and what it has become today. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/d77c6f0f-ba86-46aa-8df5-7776c5aa6009/Lovenheim+Gift+Shop+of+Gratitude.jpg Authors & Titles - GIFT SHOP OF GRATITUDE: A Journal to Explore the Journey of Your Life (G&D Media 2024) WRITE YOUR LEGACY… Visit a museum, a national park, a castle in Europe, or even the local zoo these days, and you’ll likely be directed to “exit through the gift shop.” A gift shop can be a metaphor for life. And that’s how award-winning journalist Peter Lovenheim found the inspiration for this book as a gift shop of gratitude. Through the lens of twenty common gift shop souvenirs, you are prompted to recall and organize all the things in life you’re most grate­ful for. Consider the snow globes and ball caps, the T-shirts, postcards, and jewelry—and let them bring to mind the people, places, and life experiences you hold most dear. After reading a chapter about the evolution of scented candles, what do you remember about the aroma of your mother’s cooking? Do key chains prompt memories of a friend or mentor who opened important doors for you? Does a bobblehead recall a beloved teacher or athletic coach? This special book will surprise and delight you with the memo­ries it evokes. Then, by journaling your answers in the Gratitude Pages to these thought-provoking prompts, you’ll create your own personal memory book. Perfect gift for parents and grandparents to chronicle their family legacy Evokes cherished memories that can be shared for generations Become the co-author of this book about your own life Create a treasured family heirloom for children, grandchildren, and those https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/d52ea5ba-f688-4745-bc86-b33547d9b881/Morra+RIGHTEOUS+ARROWS+cover.jpg Authors & Titles - THE RIGHTEOUS ARROWS (Book #2 in the Able Archers Series) (Koehler Books 2024) The highly anticipated new installment of the series #1 New York Times bestselling author Jack Carr calls "terrifying." "...delivers a story that is both realistic and riveting. Readers will not be able to put it down!" -Michael Morell, former Acting Director and Deputy Director CIA "If you're the kind of reader who enjoys being educated and entertained through historical fiction ... this is just for you. These are wildly fascinating stories." -First Coast News, WTLV "A cracking Cold War read!" -Ian Sanders, founder and editor of Cold War Conversations "A fast-paced thriller centered around the Soviet war in Afghanistan. ⁣It's a wonderful piece of historical fiction!⁣" -Buddy Book Club WHO CAN YOU TRUST WHEN A COLD WAR HEATS UP AND CONFLICT SEEMS INEVITABLE? After collaborating to thwart nuclear war in The Able Archers, Kevin Cattani and his Soviet counterpart, Ivan Levchenko, developed a deep mutual respect-but in The Righteous Arrows they are working against each other. Cattani, despite serious misgivings, conducts a perilous covert mission inside a Soviet bunker and barely escapes with his life, putting himself on a collision course with Levchenko. Their ultimate confrontation comes on a battlefield during the brutal Soviet war in Afghanistan, where Levchenko issues the American an ominous warning that will echo for decades. Foreshadowing the global war on terror, former Air Force Intelligence officer Brian Morra illuminates the stubbornly persistent rivalry between the US and Russia in this heart-stopping story of international espionage and war. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/fef716fe-af2f-4d1a-9a5d-36818d757497/Morra+ABLE+ARCHERS+cover.jpg Authors & Titles - THE ABLE ARCHERS (Book #1 in the “Able Archers” Series) (Koehler Books 2022) In the fall of 1983, Operation Able Archer 83 commenced, and the world came as close to the brink of nuclear annihilation as it ever had…while almost no one knew it was happening. It’s a heart-stopping true story of Cold War intelligence and espionage, and Brian J. Morra, an Air Force intelligence officer at the time, was deeply involved in those events. Now a major novel, The Able Archers plays out over several months from the skies of the northern Pacific to the dark alleys of East Berlin. As the two main characters – US Air Force Intelligence Officer, Captain Kevin Cattani, and Russian GRU Colonel Ivan Levchenko – alternate narrating the story, they are forced to work together to defuse a major world crisis: a massive NATO nuclear war exercise believed by Kremlin leadership to be an imminent first strike by the US. The stakes are existential, and only Cattani and Levchenko can ensure the survival of civilization and of humanity itself. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/0ea2aeb0-08f9-405e-bb43-344781a62c75/Mullarkey+S%26SI+cover.jpg Authors & Titles - STRANGE AND SURPRISING IRELAND: The People, the Land, the Odd & the Extraordinary (Ulysses Press, May 2025) Discover the magical folktales, peculiar stories, and charming figures of the Emerald Isle in this giftable book perfect for lovers of Irish culture, language, and Ireland itself. This captivating book takes you on a journey through the heart of Irish culture, unraveling quirky traditions, little-known myths, and fascinating stories that have shaped the unique spirit of Ireland. From fairies and mythical beasts to curious customs and age-old legends, you’ll explore the hidden gems of Irish history that often go unnoticed. Whether you’re a lover of folklore, a history buff, or simply curious about the world’s most enchanting island, Strange and Surprising Ireland offers bite-sized tidbits, trivia, and stories sure to fascinate and enchant. Let this book be your guide to the unique and delightful world of Ireland, where every story has a twist and every tradition hides a secret. Perfect for the curious traveler, the avid reader, the trivia lover, or anyone in search of the unexpected. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/b70ccd06-223a-4cba-aff6-d93876e831c0/Mullarkey+FU+I%27M+IRISH+cover.jpg Authors & Titles - F*CK YOU I’M IRISH Why We Irish Are Awesome (Ulysses Press Re-Release 2024) AN IN-YOUR-FACE COLLECTION OF TRIVIA THAT'S SURE TO INSPIRE CHEST-THUMPING PRIDE IN EVERYONE OF IRISH DESCENT (Seamus Mullarkey writing as “Rashers Tierney”) Is there anyone who does not think the Irish are the greatest people on Earth? Before stepping outside to convince them, first peacefully impart upon any misinformed bar patrons the incontrovertible evidence presented in F*ck You, I'm Irish. Amazing accomplishment or astounding person, if it bleeds kelly green and it's feckin' great, it's in this book. Irish pride has sparked parades, breakfast cereal, beer, riots, international holidays, the fame of Liam Neeson, sports mascots, more beer, and now, this fun and fascinating book. In its pages, Irish culture, history, and general weirdness come to life with snappy entries on everything from snake-chasing saints, cute hoors, and ruthless independence fighters to acclaimed authors, superstar rock bands, and fair-skinned super models. Forget about the leprechaun dolls, T-shirts, hats, wigs, and green beer that people buy every St. Paddy's Day! With true stories of immigrant struggles, rollicking wakes, hurling shenanigans, and Guinness-fueled escapades, F*ck You, I'm Irish offers a far better way to celebrate one's heritage than a manky "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" button. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/9e116afd-3a7f-4c12-9b3b-25770f53bad6/Nepo+BoA+cover.jpg Authors & Titles - THE BOOK OF AWAKENING: Having the Life You Want By Being Present to the Life You Have (Red Wheel 20th Anniversary Edition 2020) A new edition of the #1 NYT’s bestseller by Mark Nepo, who has been called “one of the finest spiritual guides of our time” and “a consummate storyteller.” Philosopher-poet and cancer survivor Mark Nepo opens a new season of freedom and joy―an escape from deadening, asleep-at-the wheel sameness―that is both profound and clarifying. His spiritual daybook is a summons to reclaim aliveness, liberate the self, take each day one at a time, and savor the beauty offered by life's unfolding. Reading his poetic prose is like being given second sight, exposing the reader to life's multiple dimensions, each one drawn with awe and affection. The Book of Awakening is the result of Nepo’s journey of the soul and will inspire others to embark on their own. He speaks of spirit and friendship, urging readers to stay vital and in love with this life, no matter the hardships. Encompassing many traditions and voices, Nepo's words offer insight on pain, wonder, and love. Each entry is accompanied by an exercise that will surprise and delight the reader in its mind-waking ability. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/39754cbe-6909-473e-9ffc-ecedccdb917d/Nepo+LITTLE+BoA+cover.jpg Authors & Titles - THE LITTLE BOOK OF AWAKENING (Red Wheel Re-Release 2024) Weekly wisdom from The New York Times bestseller, The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo. The Book of Awakening has become a modern classic, a spiritual guide for living in hard times and good times that speaks to the hearts of hundreds of thousands of readers. Now, this spiritual favorite, chosen as one of Oprah Winfrey's favorite things, is available in a special pocket-size paperback edition. The Little Book of Awakening takes some of the very best wisdom from The Book of Awakening and distills it into a set of weekly readings. Each week explores a theme, such as abundance, awareness, blessing, interdependence, presence, opportunity, being heard, being real, and facing our suffering. Award-winning author Mark Nepo writes about spirit and friendship, urging readers to stay vital and in love with life, no matter the hardships. Encompassing many traditions and voices, his words offer insight on pain, wonder, and love. The Little Book of Awakening is the ideal inspirational gift for any occasion. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/f84af76c-d47e-471a-bfe0-7b38c8aa8cee/Nepo+FINDING+INNER+COURAGE+cover.jpg Authors & Titles - Finding Inner Courage (Red Wheel 10th Anniversary Edition 2020) In this truly inspiring book, Mark Nepo offers us all an invitation to stand by the courage of our convictions in challenging times. Through the stories of ordinary people, political activists, artists, writers, spiritual teachers from a variety of traditions, Mark Nepo shows how we too can discover our own inner courage. Finding Inner Courage is divided into three sections finding our inner core, standing by our inner core, and sustaining the practice of living from that place. Each of the nearly 60 brief essays and stories elucidates and inspires. Nepo's broad range of stories and people, of traditions and insights, offers myriad ways for readers to relate to their own search for courage. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/463e8a6d-49e2-4c5b-8221-7bbc81db3b37/O%27Hanlon+cover.jpg Authors & Titles - DO ONE THING DIFFERENT: Ten Simple Ways to Change Your Life (20th Anniversary Edition) (William Morrow 2019) “If you do one thing different, read this book! It is filled with practical, creative, effective, down-to-earth solutions to life’s challenging problems.”—Michele Weiner-Davis, author of Divorce Busting The 20th anniversary edition of a self-help classic, updated with a new preface: Tapping into widespread popular interest in highly effective, short-term therapeutic approaches to personal problems, author Bill O’Hanlon offers 10 Solution Keys to help you free yourself from "analysis paralysis" and quickly get unstuck from aggravating problems. Tired of feeling stuck all the time when you’re trying to solve a problem or are facing conflict? Do you get easily flustered or angry when a negative confrontation arises? Have you ever wished you could communicate more easily with your spouse, kids, colleagues, or anyone else you have a difference in opinion with? In this newly updated edition of Do One Thing Different, Bill O’Hanlon will arm you with his ten easy Solution Keys so that you can move quickly from "stuck" to "smooth sailing" in all aspects of your life. Humorous, direct, and—most important of all—effective, these keys will help you change how you view and "do" your problems—from difficult relationships to enhancing sexuality and resolving conflicts of all kinds. The next time you have a problem, try one of these Solution Keys: Break Problem Patterns: Change any one of what you usually do in the problem situation by doing one thing different! Example: If you usually get angry and defensive, sit quietly and listen. Find and Use Solution Patterns: Import solutions from other situations where you felt competent. Examples: What do you know on the golf course that you forget when you get behind the wheel of your car? What do you say to resolve a problem with an angry customer that you don't say to your angry partner? Shift Your Attention: Focus on what you would like to have happen rather than on what is happening. Grounded in therapeutic practice, Do One Thing Different will put you back in control of your emotions and your life. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/856ce2a9-a540-4ab1-b6cc-3072ae632395/Okon+WPP.jpg Authors & Titles - WITCHES PROTECTION PROGRAM (WordFire Press 2019) “Ghostbusters” with witches! Wes Rockville, a disgraced law enforcement agent, is given one last chance to prove himself and save his career when he's reassigned to a 232-year-old secret government organization, The Witches Protection Program. His first assignment: uncover a billion-dollar cosmetics company's diabolical plan of using witchcraft for global domination, while protecting its heiress Morgan Pendragon from her aunt's evil deeds. Reluctantly paired with veteran witch protector, Alastair Verne, Wes must learn to believe in both witches and himself. Filled with adventure, suspense and a rousing good time, Okon creates a tongue-in-cheek alternate reality where witches cast spells and wreak havoc in modern day New York City. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/5ac27645-ddd4-4239-9d52-1376fc30b00a/Okon+Monsterland+Reanimated.jpg Authors & Titles - MONSTERLAND REANIMATED (WordFire Press 2018) After Monsterland has imploded, the entire world is thrown into chaos. World leadership is gone, economies have collapsed, and communications are non-existent. Wyatt must go beyond the boundaries of his small town to re-establish contact with the outside world, and alert the government about a traitor-in-chief. During his journey he discovers a new threat released from the bowels of the defunct theme park. When an army of relentless mummies, a life-sucking ooze called The Glob, and a hybrid reanimated Behemoth rise from the depths of Monsterland, who will survive? "Another true gem of dark fantasy action/adventure by a master of the genre, Michael Okon's "Monsterland Reanimated" is unreservedly recommended for community library Contemporary Fantasy Fiction collections." - Midwest Book Review https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/8d349969-b45d-49fd-9ee2-b651c58ab4b2/Okon+Monsterland.jpg Authors & Titles - MONSTERLAND (WordFire Press 2017) “Jurassic Park” with monsters! Welcome to Monsterland—the scariest place on Earth. Wyatt Baldwin's senior year is not going well. His parents divorce, then his dad mysteriously dies. He’s not exactly comfortable with his new stepfather, Carter White, either. An ongoing debate with his best friends Melvin and Howard Drucker over which monster is superior has gotten stale. He’d much rather spend his days with the beautiful and popular Jade. However, she’s dating the brash high-school quarterback Nolan, and Wyatt thinks he doesn’t stand a chance. But everything changes when Wyatt and his friends are invited to attend the grand opening of Monsterland, a groundbreaking theme park where guests can interact with vampires in Vampire Village, be chased by werewolves on the River Run, and walk among the dead in Zombieville. With real werewolves, vampires and zombies as the main attractions, what could possibly go wrong?" https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/5caea54b-bec2-4d1c-8f2f-6fd7e08423b0/Pawelski+Happy+Together.jpg Authors & Titles - HAPPY TOGETHER: Using the Science of Positive Psychology to Build Love That Lasts (TarcherPerigee 2018) How do you get to “happily ever after”? In fairy tales, lasting love just happens. But in real life, healthy habits are what build happiness over the long haul. Happy Together, written by positive psychology experts and husband-and-wife team Suzann Pileggi Pawelski and James O. Pawelski, is the first book on using the principles of positive psychology to create thriving romantic relationships. Combining extensive scientific research and real-life examples, this book will help you find and feed the good in yourself and your partner. You will learn to develop key habits for building and sustaining long-term love by: • Promoting a healthy passion • Prioritizing positive emotions • Mindfully savoring experiences together • Seeking out strengths in each other Through easy-to-follow methods and fun exercises, you’ll learn to strengthen your partnership, whether you’re looking to start a relationship off on the right foot, weather difficult times, reignite passion, or transform a good marriage into a great one. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/8db5dadb-391d-4427-8f86-c283a24b7d7e/Rebeck+GLAD+ABOUT+YOU+cover.jpg Authors & Titles - I’M GLAD ABOUT YOU (Putnam 2016) “Crazy, Stupid, Love meets Notting Hill. About an actress making it big and the complicated relationship she has with the guy she met as a teenager. You’ll read it in two days” —The Skimm Their meeting in a parking lot outside a high school football game was both completely forgettable and utterly life-changing. Because no matter how you look at it, it is piss-poor luck to meet the love of your life before your life has even started. Fierce and ambitious, Alison transforms into a rising TV star in New York City while her first love, Kyle, all heart and spiritual yearning, becomes a pediatrician in suburban Cincinnati, married to the wrong woman. What could these mismatched souls have to do with each other? Everything and nothing. Even as their fates rocket them forward and apart, neither can fully let go of the past. As their lives inevitably intersect, Alison and Kyle must face each other in the revealing light of their decisions. I’m Glad About You is a glittering study of how far the compromises two people make will take them from the lives they were meant to live. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/2250a38a-d130-43bb-bfbd-ab219e5bea4b/Solomon+A+BRUTAL+DESIGN+Lanternfish+Press+cover.jpeg Authors & Titles - A BRUTAL DESIGN (Lanternfish Press 2024) "A superbly bizarre Götterdämmerung.”—Wall Street Journal “An uncompromising portrait of the human psyche”—Soon Wiley, author of When We Fell Apart After the fascist takeover of his homeland and the murder of his parents, Jewish architecture student Samuel Zelnik thinks that he and his friends are bound for the gulag—or worse. Instead, he receives an unexpected offer of freedom working in the experimental utopian city of Duma. Awed by the city’s dramatic architecture but confused by the other residents’ strange behavior, Zelnik searches for his long-lost uncle who emigrated to Duma before him. His wanderings reunite him with Miriana Grannoff, an exiled avant-garde artist who was once his teacher. Her memorial installations hidden around the city equally enchant and repel him. And gradually, they begin to reveal a truth: Duma is not the workers’ paradise it pretends to be. From its opening sentence, A BRUTAL DESIGN’s narrative is disorienting, ominous, and enigmatic. Its spare and urgent prose transports readers to a city with familiar contours, but with its own twisted, alien logic. As its breathless plot ratchets up the tension, Zelnik is inexorably driven toward a fate he can’t imagine or control, culminating in a frantic and shattering conclusion that offers a stark warning - art can liberate the human spirit, or it can become the artifice that makes us complicit in our own oppression. Treading the line between speculative SF and upmarket lit, A BRUTAL DESIGN presents a dark take on the classic refugee’s story imbued with the paranoia of 1984 and the existential dread of The Stranger. (Agent: Reeves Hamilton) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/1276f3e2-734c-403f-abba-ba4a8b02087a/Steinhorn+DotR+cover.jpg Authors & Titles - DREAMING OF THE RIVER: A Mother and Daughter’s Fight for Survival During the Holocaust (Amsterdam Publishers, April 2026) “Mom’s stories became my stories. I dreamt of running through the forest away from the heavy footsteps of German soldiers, and being trapped in a packed cattle car with Mom and Bubbe…When I woke gasping, the train whistles I heard were confusing. Was I on a train headed to a concentration camp, or was that the B&O train lumbering over the tracks near our rowhouse in Northwest Baltimore?”—from the Author’s Note Bronia Feldman never imagined she would become the backbone of an underground medical lifeline, least of all inside the brutal forced-labor system of the HASAG munitions factory in occupied Poland. Torn from her family in September 1942, she arrives there shattered by grief. The only force strong enough to keep her alive is the chance to save others. Left behind in the ghetto of Skarzysko-Kamienna are her husband and two young daughters. Her 13-year-old daughter, Hajuta, has been sent to a nearby labor site. Bronia seizes a rare opportunity to escape and manages to reach her daughter. After their brief reunion, she faces an impossible choice: flee into the forest to join the partisans or slip back to the place she has just escaped. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/011c13fc-9c40-4e69-bee6-bc06f93a8a87/Robb+WAKE+UP+CALLS+cover.jpg Authors & Titles - WAKE UP CALLS (Montlake, May 2026) A woman’s surprising inheritance opens the door to her family’s secrets in a moving novel about healing, forgiveness, and second chances by New York Times bestselling author Mariah Stewart. Kit Porterfield is coping with the personal upheavals of her life when another one blindsides her. Maxine Meadows, an aunt she never knew existed, has bequeathed her a rustic campground in Maine. With it, a long-buried family secret that Kit's late mother took great pains to hide for her entire life. When Kit arrives to tenuously claim her inheritance, she learns the history of the town and finds the lakeside sporting camp and its beautiful wooded acres in need of restoration to their former glory. But it's kit's own history that compels her to stay, and she's not returning home until she uncovers the secrets that tore two sisters apart so many years ago. Kit soon discovers clues in old photographs and in the tale of a tragic and enduring love story, but the most startling revelations are yet to come. For Kit, they could be the path to understanding the mystery that defined her mother's life - and her own. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/74ea548c-3933-4390-a198-8abce6ef1473/Stewart+THTWTC.jpg Authors & Titles - THE HEAD THAT WEARS THE CROWN (Montlake 2023) A fortysomething woman’s ordinary life takes a royal detour in an engaging novel about embracing a family legacy and stepping up when it matters most Annaliese―Annie―Gilberti is a divorced South Philadelphia mother of two with a nine-to-five job when a shocking discovery turns another average day upside down: her late grandmother was the exiled ruler of a small European country, and Annie is next in line to wear the crown and restore the monarchy. The would-be grand duchess of the Grand Duchy of Saint Gilbert has vacation time coming, enough to take a quick trip to check it out. It’s easy to fall in love with Saint Gilbert’s villagers; its mysteries (why does everyone look decades younger than they claim to be?); her family’s ancestral home, Castle Blanc (so many hidden rooms and passages!); and maybe―just a little―with the dashing Maximilien Belleme, the captain of the castle guard. Never one to walk away from a challenge, Annie steps up, determined to be worthy of the crown that’s been offered. As she, her sisters, and her children work to bring Saint Gilbert into the modern age, Annie discovers a legacy of courageous women and that no threat is too great to deny the grand duchess’s right to the throne. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/e22604b4-63be-4f27-b4ed-e80201062bc7/Stewart+ATWA.jpg Authors & Titles - ALL THAT WE ARE (Book #3 of the “Wyndham Beach” Series") (Montlake 2022) A hopeful and emotional novel about twists of fate, enduring friendships, and life’s never-ending surprises by New York Times bestselling author Mariah Stewart. In the decade since Emma Dean’s husband died, she’s maintained a peaceful and organized life in her hometown of Wyndham Beach—until she finds evidence of her husband’s longtime affair. How, Emma wonders, can a man who’s been gone for ten years still break her heart? Still reeling from the betrayal, Emma must focus on the group of artists she’s invited to take up residence at the art center she founded, one of whom is secretly seeking refuge from her abusive ex. Toss in a charming businessman who’s returned to town with eyes for only Emma, and it’s becoming a most interesting summer. And the biggest surprise of all is about to ring Emma’s doorbell and turn her life completely upside down yet again. As Emma struggles between what was and what is, she discovers that the life she really wants—however unexpected—is just within reach, if she’s willing to fight for it. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/52d3ad4a-5043-4ad1-9fd2-da2444707d15/Stewart+GA.jpg Authors & Titles - GOODBYE AGAIN (Book #2 of the “Wyndham Beach” Series) (Montlake 2022) A woman strives to move beyond her devastating past in an uplifting novel filled with hope and second chances by New York Times bestselling author Mariah Stewart. In the wake of her daughter’s unexplained suicide and her husband Jim’s sudden abandonment, Liddy Bryant is determined to move on and make some positive changes in her life. In her hometown of Wyndham Beach, the neglected and shuttered bookstore is also in need of renewal, and Liddy recognizes an opportunity to get herself and the bookshop back on track. With a little help from her friends, she’s well on her way. Local contractor Tuck Shelby has been a friend of Liddy’s forever. He’s made himself indispensable in the rehab of her shop—and in her life—but now he wants out of the friend zone. Then Jim returns with a long-overdue apology, hoping for forgiveness and a chance to start over, and Liddy has a life-changing choice to make. Into a year when Liddy’s faced changes and the shocking truth of a well-kept secret comes not only a second chance at love, but a second chance at life. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/b3ec850f-2cfe-44b9-8073-7166ab0ea2f4/Stewart+Inv+Summer.jpg Authors & Titles - AN INVINCIBLE SUMMER (Book #1 of the “Wyndham Beach” Series) (Montlake 2021) An “Amazon First Reads” selection for April 2021 An endearing novel of friendship, forgiveness, and second chances by New York Times bestselling author Mariah Stewart. It was a lifetime ago that recently widowed Maggie Flynn was in Wyndham Beach. Now, on the occasion of her fortieth high school reunion, she returns to her hometown on the Massachusetts coast, picking up right where she left off with dear friends Lydia and Emma. But seeing Brett Crawford again stirs other emotions. Once, they were the town’s golden couple destined for one another. He shared Maggie’s dreams—and eventually, a shattering secret that drove them apart. Buying her old family home and resettling in Wyndham Beach means a chance to start over for Maggie and her two daughters, but it also means facing her rekindled feelings for her first love and finally confronting—and embracing—the past in ways she never thought possible. Maggie won’t be alone. With her family and friends around her, she can weather this stormy turning point in her life and open her heart to the future. As for that dream shared and lost years ago? If Maggie can forgive herself, it still might come true. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/8052b251-85b8-442a-9966-fab5b1a30d6d/Stewart+Goodbye+Cafe.jpg Authors & Titles - THE GOODBYE CAFE (Book #3 of the “Hudson Sisters” Series) (Gallery 2019) The last book in Mariah Stewart’s popular Hudson Sisters series, which follows a trio of reluctant sisters who set out to fulfill their father’s dying wish and discover themselves in the process in this “sweet reminder of the importance of family” (First for Women). California girl Allie Hudson Monroe can’t wait for the day when the renovations on the Sugarhouse Theater are complete so she can finally collect the inheritance from her father and leave Pennsylvania. After all, her life and her fourteen-year-old daughter are in Los Angeles. But Allie’s divorce left her tottering on the edge of bankruptcy, so to keep up on payments for her house and her daughter’s private school tuition, Allie packed up and flew out east. But fate has a curve-ball or two to toss in Allie’s direction—she just doesn’t know it yet. She hadn’t anticipated how her life would change after reuniting with her estranged sister, Des, or meeting her previously unknown half-sister, Cara. And she’d certainly never expected to find small-town living charming. But the biggest surprise was that her long-forgotten artistry would save the day when the theater’s renovation fund dried up. With opening day upon the sisters, Allie’s free to go. But for the first time in her life, she feels like the woman she was always meant to be. Will she return to the West Coast and resume her previous life, or will the love of “this amazing, endearing family of women” (Robyn Carr, #1 New York Times bestselling author) be enough to draw her back to the place where the Hudson roots grow so deep? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/0c984252-98c7-43a3-9150-fa7227c7e108/Stewart+Sugarhouse+Blues.jpg Authors & Titles - THE SUGARHOUSE BLUES (Book #2 of the “Hudson Sisters” Series) (Gallery 2018) More “catnip for women's fiction fans” (Booklist) from New York Times bestselling author Mariah Stewart in the second novel of the Hudson Sisters series! Allie, Des, and Cara, each having her own reasons for wanting a share of their father's estate, meet in the grand Victorian home in which he grew up, only to be greeted by another secret he purposely hid from them: his sister Bonnie. The women reluctantly band together to take on Fritz's challenge, working with a local contractor to begin the renovations financed by an account Fritz had set up for the task. While the restoration appears to go smoothly at first, it soon becomes apparent that the work will be more extensive than originally thought, and Des, elected to handle the money, needs to find ways to stretch out the remaining savings while searching for new sources of funding. As strangers linked only by their DNA try to become a family, the Hudson sisters also try to come to terms with the father they only thought they knew. In the process, each woman discovers her own capacity for understanding, forgiveness, love, and the true meaning of family. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/63434b15-5a98-498c-ad4d-5c415b4f66be/Stewart+LCM.jpg Authors & Titles - THE LAST CHANCE MATINEE (Book #1 of the “Hudson Sisters” Series) (Gallery 2017) The first novel in New York Times bestselling author Mariah Stewart’s The Hudson Sisters series follows a trio of reluctant sisters as they set out to fulfill their father’s dying wish. In the process, they find not only themselves, but the father they only thought they knew. When celebrated and respected agent Fritz Hudson passes away, he leaves a trail of Hollywood glory in his wake—and two separate families who never knew the other existed. Allie and Des Hudson are products of Fritz’s first marriage to Honora, a beautiful but troubled starlet whose life ended in a tragic overdose. Meanwhile, Fritz was falling in love on the Delaware Bay with New Age hippie Susa Pratt—they had a daughter together, Cara, and while Fritz loved Susa with everything he had, he never quite managed to tell her or Cara about his West Coast family. Now Fritz is gone, and the three sisters are brought together under strange circumstances: there’s a large inheritance to be had that could save Allie from her ever-deepening debt following a disastrous divorce, allow Des to open a rescue shelter for abused and wounded animals, and give Cara a fresh start after her husband left her for her best friend—but only if the sisters upend their lives and work together to restore an old, decrepit theater that was Fritz’s obsession growing up in his small hometown in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains. Guided by Fritz’s closest friend and longtime attorney, Pete Wheeler, the sisters come together—whether they like it or not—to turn their father’s dream into a reality, and might just come away with far more than they bargained for. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/f9a2f790-ae1e-4463-b5e0-6209c7f2a135/Stewart+Dune+Drive+cover.jpg Authors & Titles - DUNE DRIVE (Book #12 of the “Chesapeake Diaries” Series) (Pocket Books 2018) New York Times bestselling author Mariah Stewart returns to her beloved Chesapeake Diaries series with a charming beachside romance that is “everything you love about small-town romance” (#1 New York Times bestselling author Barbara Freethy) Always believing she was an ugly duckling, Chrissy Jenkins thought she had finally turned into a swan when her real-life Prince Charming swept her off her feet. But as his true character began to crack his perfect facade, Chrissy realized that not only was she better off without him, but that she was the only one who had the power to transform her life. Returning to her ancestral home on Cannonball Island for a family wedding, Chrissy is reintroduced to a legacy she’d all but forgotten. In choosing to stay on the island, she reboots her life, successfully reinventing herself as a chef at Blossoms, an up-and-coming restaurant in St. Dennis. But despite her newfound self-confidence, she still doesn’t trust her taste in men. So when she meets Jared Chandler, a handsome ship salvager staying at the inn while he conducts a nearby recovery operation, Chrissy’s certain she can keep him as a friend—even though he’s everything any woman would want in a man. As fellow newcomers, together they discover the charm of the historic bayside town and explore the idyllic island. But when Chrissy agrees to be Jared’s date for his father’s wedding, they embark on a weekend that will find them each seeing the other in a completely different light, one that will change their lives foreve https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/e84072cd-5983-437b-99f0-2a91d7139a17/Stewart+Chesapeake+Bride+cover.jpg Authors & Titles - THE CHESAPEAKE BRIDE (Book #11 of the “Chesapeake Diaries” Series) (Pocket Books 2017) From New York Times bestselling author Mariah Stewart comes a new chapter in her celebrated Chesapeake Diaries series, featuring her signature “rich characterization, charming setting, and a romance you’ll never forget” (Robyn Carr, #1 New York Times bestselling author) Architect Cassidy Logan has sworn off good-looking adventurers. Newly divorced, she’s focused on building ecologically friendly, historically accurate homes on the Chesapeake Bay for her father’s construction company. Traveling to Cannonball Island—where there has been no new construction in nearly one hundred years—Cass is sensitive to the heritage of the island, and has come up with plans so perfect she’s determined to buy a home for herself. Even the fact that Owen Parker—a local who she dismisses as a lightweight and a player—seems to be everywhere isn’t enough to deter her from building her dream house. Owen Parker is and always has been sinfully handsome and wickedly clever, a magnet for mischief as well as girls. He’s a rolling stone, going and doing whatever appeals to him, from flying a mail plane in Alaska, to working on a cattle ranch in Australia, a shrimp boat in Louisiana, and surfing and diving in Costa Rica. When an old friend offers him a job salvaging a sunken ship on the Chesapeake Bay, Owen gladly accepts. Something has been telling him it was time to head home to Cannonball Island, and a job is as good an excuse as any. And he’s totally smitten by the pretty architect on the scene, but it seems he’s finally met a woman who’s immune to his charms. Sooner or later, Owen will have to face the reason why he always runs, because this time, leaving just might be harder than staying. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/6763c7ab-836f-4431-97d2-df852c622968/Urofsky+AFFIRMATIVE+ACTION+PUZZLE+cover.jpg Authors & Titles - THE AFFIRMATIVE ACTION PUZZLE: A Living History from Reconstruction to Today (Pantheon 2020) A rich, multifaceted history of affirmative action from the Civil Rights Act of 1866 through today's tumultuous times From an acclaimed legal historian, a history of affirmative action from its beginning with the Civil Rights Act of 1866 to the first use of the term in 1935 with the enactment of the National Labor Relations Act (the Wagner Act) to 1961 and John F. Kennedy's Executive Order 10925, mandating that federal contractors take "affirmative action" to ensure that there be no discrimination by "race, creed, color, or national origin" down to today's American society. Melvin Urofsky explores affirmative action in relation to sex, gender, and education and shows that nearly every public university in the country has at one time or another, successfully or not, instituted some form of affirmative action plan. Urofsky traces the evolution of affirmative action through labor and the struggle for racial equality, writing of World War I and the exodus that began when some six mil­lion African Americans moved northward between 1910 and 1960, one of the greatest internal migrations in the country's history. He describes how Harry Truman, after becoming president in 1945, fought for Roosevelt's Fair Employment Practice Act and, surprising everyone, appointed a distinguished panel to serve as the President's Commission on Civil Rights, as well as appointing the first black judge on a federal appeals court in 1948 and, by executive order later that year, ordering full racial integration in the armed forces. In this important, ambitious, far-reaching book, Urofsky writes about the affirmative action cases decided by the Supreme Court: cases that either upheld or struck down particular plans that affected both governmental and private entities. We come to fully understand the societal impact of affirmative action: how and why it has helped, and inflamed, people of all walks of life; how it has evolved; and how, and why, it is still needed. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/a398091a-1ff2-45d4-8381-f07bfdc9031e/Valerdi+-+The+Five-Tool+Team_cover.jpeg Authors & Titles - THE FIVE-TOOL TEAM: Decision Making as a Team Sport (Regalo Press, September 2026) Engineering professor, cost-forecasting specialist, military advisor . . . huge sports fan. Rooted in his academic research and real-world application but explained through the lens of sport, The Five-Tool Team and its FLASH model of decision analysis is Ricardo Valerdi’s masterclass in making better decisions. Few environments illustrate the cost and consequence of decision making better than sports. One bad decision can derail a lifetime of preparation in front of millions. The right decision can lead to fame, wealth, and glory. And sometimes, the best decision results in a loss—but it was still the right call. Many of us are armchair experts at decision-making in our favorite sport. Should the batter have bunted in the bottom of the ninth? Should the quarterback have run the ball on third down? Sports are familiar to almost everyone, and that familiarity makes them the ideal field of play for learning how to make better decisions—whether in business, education, nonprofit work, or everyday life. Drawing from decades of experience in academia, industry, and sports, Valerdi introduces the FLASH model: Focus on the Questions: what, when, who, how, and why of decision making Look at the data, change your perspective then look at the data again Analyze the consequences of your decisions before making them Scrutinize the options being considered Humanize your decision-making approach These five tools mirror the five-tool evaluation system used in baseball scouting, where elite players are assessed on hitting for average, hitting for power, running, fielding, and arm strength. But in this book, the goal isn’t to become a five-tool decision maker alone—it’s to build a five-tool team. In The Five-Tool Team: Decision Making as a Team Sport, Ricardo Valerdi reframes decision making not as an individual skill, but as a team competence. Inspired by sports legends like UCLA coach John Wooden—who famously began each season by teaching players how to properly put on their socks—Valerdi shows how small decisions can have outsized consequences. He shares his own story of a costly real estate mistake, illustrating how poor decision-making processes can have long-term impacts. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/ed736d9f-26f9-4258-8dc2-7768154ce65d/Weigel+Pomp+Circumstance+cover.jpg Authors & Titles - POMP, CIRCUMSTANCE, AND UNSOLICITED ADVICE Commencement Addresses and University Lectures (Ignatius Press 2025) The Catholic Church invented what we know as the “university,” including the cultural tradition of free and open debate on disputed questions. Catholic colleges and universities thus stand poised to help reform institutions of higher learning at a moment of crisis in academic life throughout the western world. In his commencement addresses to colleges and universities large and small, George Weigel challenges graduates to understand an academic degree as a summons to become the trustee of a great tradition. In his lectures to university audiences, Weigel addresses a host of issues in the contemporary Church and its interaction with the world with depth and insight. Written in the vivid, often bracing style characteristic of one of contemporary Catholicism’s leading intellectuals, these addresses and lectures exemplify what Pope St. John Paul II called the Catholic “diakonia of the truth.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/f7dd47d4-2371-4101-98f7-2e43adbfe672/Weigel+Sanctify+World.jpg Authors & Titles - TO SANCTIFY THE WORLD: The Vital Legacy of Vatican II (Basic Books 2022) Why the teachings of the Second Vatican Council are essential to the Church's future—and the world's The Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) was the most important Catholic event in the past five hundred years. Yet sixty years after its opening on October 11, 1962, its meaning remains sharply contested and its promise unfulfilled. In To Sanctify the World, George Weigel explains the necessity of Vatican II and explores the continuing relevance of its teaching in a world seeking a deeper experience of freedom than personal willfulness. The Council’s texts are also a critical resource for the Catholic Church as it lives out its original, Christ-centered evangelical purpose. Written with insight and verve, To Sanctify the World recovers the true meaning of Vatican II as the template for a Catholicism that can propose a path toward genuine human dignity and social solidarity. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/baa08000-fa2c-4a2c-85d1-91d9c60c6c2b/Weigel+Jesuit.jpg Authors & Titles - JESUIT AT LARGE: Essays and Reviews by Paul V. Mankowski, SJ - Edited and with an Introduction by George Weigel (Ignatius Press 2021) Father Paul Mankowski, S.J. (1953–2020), was one of the most brilliant and scintillating Catholic writers of our time. His essays and reviews, collected here for the first time, display a unique wit, a singular breadth of learning, and a penetrating insight into the challenges of Catholic life in the postmodern world. Whether explicating Catholic doctrines like the Immaculate Conception, dissecting contemporary academic life, deploring clerical malfeasance, or celebrating great authors, Father Mankowski's keen intelligence is always on display, and his energetic prose keeps the pages turning. Whatever his topic, however, Paul Mankowski's intense Catholic faith shines through his writing, as it did through his life. Jesuit at Large invites its readers to meet a man of great gifts who suffered for his convictions but never lost hope in the renewal of Catholicism, a man whose confidence in the truth of what the Church proposed to the world was never shaken by the failures of the people of the Church. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/4bc929b2-cbf4-49df-857c-3914ca2f0a58/Weigel+Not+Forgotten.jpg Authors & Titles - NOT FORGOTTEN: Elegies For, and Reminiscences Of, a Diverse Cast of Characters, Most of Them Admirable (Ignatius Press 2021) The world is full of interesting people, and it has been George Weigel's good fortune to have known many such personalities in a variety of fields: politics, religion, the arts and sciences, journalism, the academy, entertainment, and sports. In this collection of reminiscences and elegies, the best-selling author of the definitive biography of Pope Saint John Paul II remembers these men and women from inside the convictions that formed them. Whether he is sketching the lives of Nobel Prize–winning scientists, major league baseball managers, princes of the Church, television personalities, or history-making political leaders, Weigel tries to understand, and help readers understand, the deep truths of the human condition illuminated by each of these not-forgotten lives. Written with verve, insight, and an appreciation for the consequential lives that have touched his own, Not Forgotten fills out the autobiographical portrait that George Weigel began painting in Lessons in Hope: My Unexpected Life with Saint John Paul II, while offering a backstage view of some of the men and women who have shaped the turbulent history of our times. The 60 intriguing lives that he writes about are a wide diversity of unique characters and personalities, including Albert Einstein, William F. Buckley, Flannery O'Connor, Franz Jägerstätter, John Paul II, Jackie Robinson, Charles Krauthammer, Sophie Scholl, Henry Hyde, James Schall, S.J., Dietrich Von Hildebrand, Charles Colson, Fr Richard J. Neuhaus and many more. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/14450772-225c-4677-8e4e-81f2b9c3595d/Weigel+Next+Pope.jpg Authors & Titles - THE NEXT POPE: The Office of Peter and a Church in Mission (Ignatius Press July 7, 2020) The Catholic Church is on the verge of a transition of great consequence. As Catholic theologian, historian, and papal biographer George Weigel notes, the next pope will probably have been a teenager or a very young man during the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965); he may even have been a child during those years. Thus the next pope will not have been shaped by the experience of the Council and the immediate debates over its meaning and reception like Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis. The next pope, Weigel writes, "will be a transitional figure in a different way than his immediate predecessors. So it seems appropriate to ponder now what the Church has learned during the pontificates of these three conciliar popes—and to suggest what the next pope might take from that learning." Drawing on his personal discussions with John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis, as well as his decades of experience with Catholics from every continent, George Weigel examines the major challenges confronting the Catholic Church and its 1.3 billion believers in the twenty-first century: challenges the next pontificate must address as the Church enters new, uncharted territory. To what is the Holy Spirit calling this Church-in-transition? What are the qualities needed in the man who will lead the Church from the Chair of Saint Peter? Taking lessons from the pontificates of John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis, George Weigel proposes what the Catholic leaders of the future, especially the next pope, must do to remain faithful to the Holy Spirit's summons to renewed evangelical witness, intensified missionary fervor, and Christ-centered reform in the wake of grave institutional failures, mission confusion, counter-witness, and the secularist challenge to biblical faith. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/0b55418c-af77-46d1-8a42-45d276fcbb47/Weigel+Irony.jpg Authors & Titles - THE IRONY OF MODERN CATHOLIC HISTORY: How the Church Rediscovered Itself and Challenged the Modern World to Reform (Basic Books 2019) A powerful new interpretation of Catholicism's dramatic encounter with modernity, by one of America's leading intellectuals Throughout much of the nineteenth century, both secular and Catholic leaders assumed that the Church and the modern world were locked in a battle to the death. The triumph of modernity would not only finish the Church as a consequential player in world history; it would also lead to the death of religious conviction. But today, the Catholic Church is far more vital and consequential than it was 150 years ago. Ironically, in confronting modernity, the Catholic Church rediscovered its evangelical essence. In the process, Catholicism developed intellectual tools capable of rescuing the imperiled modern project. A richly rendered, deeply learned, and powerfully argued account of two centuries of profound change in the church and the world, The Irony of Modern Catholic History reveals how Catholicism offers twenty-first century essential truths for our survival and flourishing. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/3b5ee05b-3653-4e27-8ded-22791813c34e/Weigel+Fragility.jpg Authors & Titles - THE FRAGILITY OF ORDER: Catholic Reflections on Turbulent Times (Ignatius Press 2018) One of America's most prominent public intellectuals brings thirty-five years of experience in Washington and Rome to bear in analyzing the turbulence that characterizes world politics, American public life, and the Catholic Church in the early twenty-first century. In these bracing essays, George Weigel reads such events as the First World War, the collapse of Communism, and the Obama and Trump presidencies through a distinctive cultural and moral lens, even as he offers new insights into Pope Francis and his challenging pontificate. Throughout, two of Weigel's key convictions—that ideas have consequences for good and ill, and that the deepest currents of history flow through culture—illuminate political and economic life, and the life of the Church, in ways not often appreciated or understood. Many of the chapters in this book originated in George Weigel's annual William E. Simon Lecture, which since 2001 has become a major event in Washington, D.C. They are unique in their application of philosophical and theological perspectives to the issues of history and politics, https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57729a802e69cf3014d25a63/3097b491-3ce1-49f4-9d90-54193755e6a9/Weigel+Not+Lessons.jpg Authors & Titles - LESSONS IN HOPE: My Unexpected Life with St. John Paul II (Basic Books 2017) A preeminent authority on the Catholic Church and papal biographer describes what he learned from chronicling the life of Pope John Paul II. In Lessons in Hope, George Weigel tells the story of his unique friendship with St. John Paul II. As Weigel learns the pope "from inside," he also offers a firsthand account of the tumult of post-Vatican II Catholicism and the Cold War's endgame, introducing readers to the heroes who brought down European communism. Later, he shows us the aging pope grappling with the post-9/11 world order and teaching new lessons in dignity through his own suffering. 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