An introverted yet raw description of emotional development, Living Still Life follows the lives of a quartet in their late twenties living in San Francisco. The four struggle to find clarity, purpose and themselves. Camille's musing forces herself to live like a hermit rather than experience life, Mea, a quick-witted artist reads lips to escape reality, Jack, a romantic pushover whose ambivalence forces him to choose between two unexpected lovers, and Royce, deviously self-involved but soon figures out that his life is a destructive and self-constructed ruse. Each is presented with a unique disruption to his or her everyday life and they begin to unravel over a period of nine days.
Do you want peace in your life? Are you ready to be free to live and love? Sometimes all it takes to change the course of our day is a simple, quiet moment of stillness in the midst of our chaotic living. When we choose to practice stillness with God, we open ourselves to His offer of strength, wisdom, clarity, direction and peace. It is from this still, quiet place that we discover the depth of God's commitment to us and His desire to continually restore and transform us into the people He designed us to be. In moments of stillness, God gives us the courage to look beyond our problems, fear, pain and insecurities and empowers us to make real and lasting change. Whether we have one primary struggle, or many, there is always hope for greater freedom and deeper peace. In Living Still, Abby Lewis shares her journey from the chaos of anxiety, depression, addiction, physical pain and broken personal relationships to a life of freedom that is full of love, peace and purpose. Presented with clarity and compassion, Lewis recounts how her spirit, mind and body were completely transformed by learning the practice of "living still." Her life's journey inspires us to practice stillness before God where we too can find the courage to identify anything that is holding us back from the abundant life God has for us, and where we find the freedom to be love and give love to those around us. Visit Abby at: http: //www.belovegivelove.com *If you discover you need help learning to practice stillness, then Abby encourages you to get her stillness CD, A Breath in Stillness. The CD compliments the powerful, life-changing principles in LIVING STILL. DIRECT LINKS: https: //www.createspace.com/2054186 http: //www.amazon.com/Breath%7E-In-Stillness-Abby-Lewis/dp/B008EMMFO0/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1340894747&sr=8-7&keywords=A+Breath+in+stillness ALSO AVAILABLE in MP3 DOWNLOAD: http: //www.amazon.com/A-Breath -In-Stillness/dp/B008FWV3VK/ref=tmm_msc_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1340976322&sr=8-4
For Gillian Marchenko, dealing with depression means learning to accept and treat it as a physical illness, while continuing as a wife and mother of four, two with special needs. How can she care for her family when she can't even get out of bed? Her story is real and raw, not one of quick fixes. But hope remains as she discovers that living with depression is still life.
Twelve shocking paintings. Eleven famous murders. One missing artist . . . and one woman driven to find her—this Reese's Book Club x Hello Sunshine Selection is a “stunning achievement” (Los Angeles Times). Kim Lord is an avant–garde figure, feminist icon, and agent provocateur in the L.A. art scene. Her groundbreaking new exhibition Still Lives is comprised of self–portraits depicting herself as famous, murdered women―the Black Dahlia, Chandra Levy, Nicole Brown Simpson, among many others―and the works are as compelling as they are disturbing, implicating a culture that is too accustomed to violence against women. As the city’s richest art patrons pour into the Rocque Museum’s opening night, all the staff, including editor Maggie Richter, hope the event will be enough to save the historic institution’s flailing finances. Except Kim Lord never shows up to her own gala. Fear mounts as the hours and days drag on and Lord remains missing. Suspicion falls on the up–and–coming gallerist Greg Shaw Ferguson, who happens to be Maggie’s ex. A rogue’s gallery of eccentric art world figures could also have motive for the act, and as Maggie gets drawn into her own investigation of Lord’s disappearance, she’ll come to suspect all of those closest to her. Set against a culture that often fetishizes violence, Still Lives is a page–turning exodus into the art world’s hall of mirrors, and one woman’s journey into the belly of an industry flooded with money and secrets. “It’s a thrilling mystery that will leave you wondering which characters you can and can’t trust . . . There’s a twist at the end that still keeps us up at night, it's THAT good.” —Reese Witherspoon (A Reese’s Book Club x Hello Sunshine Selection)
A stunning collection of homes and studios of 15 extraordinary artists, from painter Georgia O’Keeffe’s Abiquiú home and sculptor Isamu Noguchi’s Japanese retreat to new discoveries such as Gordon Onslow Ford’s California haven. Noted photographer Leslie Williamson’s latest book presents the homes and studios from a group of renowned artists, ranging from Barbara Hepworth to Joan Miró. Documented in her inimitable atmospheric style, the images capture how these artists lived and worked. Williamson’s images reveal not only these artists’ creative process as viewed through their studios, but also shows how they manifested their creativity in the stylish interiors and the personal touches in the spaces they called home. The spaces featured range from Vanessa Bell’s proto–shabby chic home Charleston in southern England to Andrew Wyeth’s Yankee-chic farmhouse in Pennsylvania. Taken together, Still Lives is a must-have document to inspire and illuminate for art lovers, interiors enthusiasts, and the cultured reader.
From renowned yogi meditation teacher and author of Do Your Om Thing Rebecca Pacheco comes Still Life, offering an in-depth exploration of mindfulness and meditation misconceptions to arm the reader with inspirational and practical tools for cultivating a consistent mindfulness practice. For years Rebecca Pacheco has taught readers and students alike how to embrace the wisdom of the yoga sutras and reap the mental, emotional, and spiritual benefits of the ancient tradition. Now, in Still Life, she turns her focus to mindfulness, demystifying a seemingly esoteric practice and giving readers practical, real-life tools to implement mindfulness in their own lives—regardless of experience level or lifestyle. Pacheco begins by deconstructing the common misperceptions about meditation—including the idea that is a cure-all for every malady—offering valuable insight into what mindfulness does entail, and why the process of cultivating more of it can improve not only our own lives, but also the lives of others. Pacheco also takes aim at the reductive “good vibes only” veneer commonly heard in the contemporary wellness community, which suggests mindfulness is steeped in positivity. A contemplative life, Pacheco argues, isn’t synonymous with bliss, but rather requires a degree of mental, emotional, and spiritual grappling. Still Life challenges readers to dig deep and develop the tools that can ultimately lead to joy—including to waking up in the present, reclaiming the moment, and living life fully.
*A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK* *A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK* “[A] winsome, large-hearted novel ... [Still Life] pulses from the page.” —Entertainment Weekly Set between World War II and the 1980s, Still Life is a beautiful, big-hearted story of strangers brought together by love, war, art, flood, and the ghost of E. M. Forster, from the bestselling, prize-winning author of Tin Man and When God Was a Rabbit. In the wine-cellar of a Tuscan villa, as the Allies advance and bombs fall around them, two people meet and share an extraordinary evening: Ulysses Temper is a young British soldier from London's East End; Evelyn Skinner is a worldly older art historian and possible spy. She has come to Italy to rescue paintings from the ruins and relive her memories of the time she encountered E.M. Forster and had her heart stolen by an Italian maid in a particular Florentine room with a view. Evelyn's talk of truth and beauty plants a seed in Ulysses's mind that night, one that will shape the trajectory of his life—and the lives of those who love him—for the next four decades. Moving from war-ravaged Tuscany to the boozy confines of The Stoat and Parrot pub in London and the piazzas of post-war Florence, Still Life is both sweeping and intimate, mischievous and deeply felt. It is a novel about beauty, love and fate, about the things that make life worth living, and the things we're prepared to die for.
“A brilliantly crafted novel, brimming with heart.”―Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage “Rich and compelling . . . Her characters are vividly, achingly real, including the tiny, furry one at the novel’s center.”―Ann Packer, author of The Dive From Clausen’s Pier “Stark and compelling . . . rigorously unsentimental yet suffused with emotion.”―Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Duncan Wheeler is a successful architect who savors the quotidian pleasures in life until a car accident leaves him severely paralyzed and haunted by the death of his young assistant. Now, Duncan isn’t sure what there is left to live for, when every day has become “a broken series of unsuccessful gestures.” Duncan and his wife, Laura, find themselves in conflict as Duncan’s will to live falters. Laura grows desperate to help him. An art conservator who has her own relationship to the repair of broken things, Laura brings home a highly trained helper monkey―a tufted capuchin named Ottoline―to assist Duncan with basic tasks. Duncan and Laura fall for this sweet, comical, Nutella-gobbling little creature, and Duncan’s life appears to become more tolerable, fuller, and funnier. Yet the question persists: Is it enough? Katharine Weber is a masterful observer of humanity, and Still Life with Monkey, full of tenderness and melancholy, explores the conflict between the will to live and the desire to die.
Mark Doty's prose has been hailed as "tempered and tough, sorrowing and serene" (The New York Times Book Review) and "achingly beautiful" (The Boston Globe). In Still Life with Oysters and Lemon he offers a stunning exploration of our attachment to ordinary things-how we invest objects with human store, and why.
