The Best of Meby David Sedaris

“Genius… It is miraculous to read these pieces… You must read The Best of Me.” –Andrew Sean Greer, New York Times Book Review

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice
A CNN and Christian Science Monitor Best Book of the Month

For more than twenty-five years, David Sedaris has been carving out a unique literary space, virtually creating his own genre. A Sedaris story may seem confessional, but is also highly attuned to the world outside. It opens our eyes to what is at absurd and moving about our daily existence. And it is almost impossible to read without laughing.

Now, for the first time collected in one volume, the author brings us his funniest and most memorable work. In these stories, Sedaris shops for rare taxidermy, hitchhikes with a lady quadriplegic, and spits a lozenge into a fellow traveler’s lap. He drowns a mouse in a bucket, struggles to say “give it to me” in five languages, and hand-feeds a carnivorous bird.

But if all you expect to find in Sedaris’s work is the deft and sharply observed comedy for which he became renowned, you may be surprised to discover that his words bring more warmth than mockery, more fellow-feeling than derision. Nowhere is this clearer than in his writing about his loved ones. In these pages, Sedaris explores falling in love and staying together, recognizing his own aging not in the mirror but in the faces of his siblings, losing one parent and coming to terms–at long last–with the other.

Taken together, the stories in TheBest of Me reveal the wonder and delight Sedaris takes in the surprises life brings him. No experience, he sees, is quite as he expected–it’s often harder, more fraught, and certainly weirder–but sometimes it is also much richer and more wonderful.

Full of joy, generosity, and the incisive humor that has led David Sedaris to be called “the funniest man alive” (Time Out New York), The Best of Me spans a career spent watching and learning and laughing–quite often at himself–and invites readers deep into the world of one of the most brilliant and original writers of our time.

Life Loves You: 7 Spiritual Practices to Heal Your Lifeby Robert Holden

Life loves you and you have the power within you to create a life you love.

Life loves you is one of Louise Hay’s best-loved affirmations. It is the heart thought that represents her life and her work. Together, Louise and Robert Holden look at what life loves you really means – that life doesn’t just happen to you; it happens for you. In a series of intimate and candid conversations, they dig deep into the power of love, the benevolent nature of reality, the friendly universe, and the heart of who we really are.

Life Loves You is filled with inspiring stories and helpful meditations, prayers, and exercises. Louise and Robert present a practical philosophy based on seven spiritual practices.

Key themes cover:

• The Mirror Principle – practicing the how of self-love
• Affirming your Life – healing the ego’s basic fear
• Following Your Joy – trusting your inner guidance
• Forgiving the Past – reclaiming your original innocence
• Be Grateful Now – cultivating basic trust
• Learn to Receive – being undefended and open
• Healing the Future – choosing love over fear

The Granddaughtersby Margaret Belle

Underestimated by crooks and cops alike, three “over-the-hill” women become formidable amateur sleuths when they find themselves entangled in a decades-old, unsolved crime.

Mystery writer Ellie Russo invites her cousins Sandy McCabe and Franny Baker to join her, as she travels to picturesque Orange Lake in Newburgh, New York to research a story for her newest book.

Looking forward to staying in the lake house their grandmother once owned, the mini-reunion turns dangerous for these “women of an age”, when they become targets of the criminals they seek to expose.

Having overcome personal loss, and suffering from ailments not uncommon to older women, Ellie, Sandy, and Franny find that age has not diminished their strength or personal capabilities, and that they are willing to do whatever it takes to protect each other – including murder.

The Women of Chateau Lafayetteby Stephanie Dray

The International Bestseller!

Most castles are protected by men. This one by women.

A founding mother…
1774. Gently-bred noblewoman Adrienne Lafayette becomes her husband, the Marquis de Lafayette’s political partner in the fight for American independence. But when their idealism sparks revolution in France and the guillotine threatens everything she holds dear, Adrienne must renounce the complicated man she loves, or risk her life for a legacy that will inspire generations to come.

A daring visionary…
1914. Glittering New York socialite Beatrice Chanler is a force of nature, daunted by nothing—not her humble beginnings, her crumbling marriage, or the outbreak of war. But after witnessing the devastation in France firsthand, Beatrice takes on the challenge of a lifetime: convincing America to fight for what’s right.

A reluctant resistor…
1940. French school-teacher and aspiring artist Marthe Simone has an orphan’s self-reliance and wants nothing to do with war. But as the realities of Nazi occupation transform her life in the isolated castle where she came of age, she makes a discovery that calls into question who she is, and more importantly, who she is willing to become.

Intricately woven and powerfully told, The Women of Chateau Lafayette is a sweeping novel about duty and hope, love and courage, and the strength we take from those who came before us.