Cate Padgett was the bridesmaid, four times over, in Always the Bridesmaid. Now she’s finally the blushing bride—for better, for worse… Cate couldn’t wait for her own wedding so she could do it right, after all she’d learned from the mistakes her friends made before her. And Ethan was the perfect husband-to-be. If only something, anything, else was perfect… First her engagement ring disappears. Then Ethan’s ex-girlfriend shows up—and keeps showing up. Cate’s mother has a stranglehold on the planning, Cate’s on the verge of turning into bridezilla, and Ethan’s meddling cousin is making Cate regret inviting her to join the wedding party. She wants to marry her one true love. But her special day is making her want to run the other way…
THE NEW BOOK FROM THE MUCH-LOVED AUTHOR OF THE GRAN TOUR, A CHIP SHOP IN POZNAN AND THE MARMALADE DIARIES Food fights, fishing and French cooking - bestselling author Ben Aitken's year of actively pursuing fun Ben Aitken wasn't getting enough. He knew it and so did everyone else. He was grumpy, increasingly boring, mostly joyless. So, he joined a lawn bowls club. A week later, he doubled down on the doldrums by learning to dance like they do in Bollywood. Then - with an almost entirely reformed selfhood winking appealingly just around the corner - he started swimming in cold water and was back to square one. Despite the setbacks (and hyperventilation), it was becoming clear to him that the very pursuit of fun was a great way of not feeling naff. And so he made a vow to have as much of the f-stuff as he possibly could. Taking a liberal approach to the subject, he sought out things that he used to find fun a long time ago (i.e. food fights and wrestling); things that he'd never done before but reckoned could be fun (boozy French cooking classes, tantric sex); things whose fun-factor was less obvious and more down to earth (nostalgia, volunteering, edible gardening, watching chickens); and things that he wasn't at all sure about but were fun according to other people (gym classes, caving, TikTok). Unsurprisingly, the results were mixed, but he was undoubtedly left feeling ... better. Which left him asking, if fun is the finest medicine, why do we stop doing it?
In the summer of 2010, brothers-in-law Marty and Jim embark on a cycling trip along the Great Allegheny Passage and C&O Canal, a 335-mile trek from their home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Jim's boyhood home in Washington, DC. Chance encounters with colorful local characters and other surprising escapades during five days on the trail make for nonstop laughs. As they travel through forests and along winding rivers, they experience the breathtaking scenery of western Pennsylvania, Maryland and West Virginia, exploring early American history while learning more about each other as well as themselves. This true story is for adventurers and cyclists as well as couch potatoes looking for a lighthearted take on friendship and some hilarious fun.
The authors seeks to capture all the excitement and suspense of waiting on a footbridge high above a railway track. William, Chloe and their dad wait, watch and listen. And then, in the distance is a little speck, coming nearer and nearer. Here comes the train
When Jet McDonald cycled four thousand miles to India and back, he didn’t want to write a straightforward account. He wanted to go on an imaginative journey. The age of the travelogue is over: today we need to travel inwardly to see the world with fresh eyes. Mind is the Ride is that journey, a pedal-powered antidote to the petrol-driven philosophies of the past. The book takes the reader on a physical and intellectual adventure from West to East using the components of the bike as a metaphor for philosophy, which is woven into the cyclist's experience. Each chapter is based around a single component, and as Jet travels he adds new parts and new philosophies until the bike is 'built'; the ride to India is completed; and the relationship between mind, body and bicycle made apparent.
"I was born at the tail end of a unique and delightful era and raised on one of the last showboats to struggle for survival against the devastating crunch of progress.... Our showboat's express purpose was carrying entertainment to hundreds of thousands of river-bottom farmers along our water-bordered frontier." —from the book Betty Bryant was a river rat. The Floating Theater was her home, and the river was her back yard. While other children were learning to walk, she was learning to swim. She knew how to set a trotline, gig a frog, catch a crawdad, and strip the mud vein out of a carp by the time she was four. In this colorful memoir, Betty shares her own piece of Americana, the small, family-owned showboat of the early twentieth century. Billy Bryant's Showboat plied the inland waterways of the Ohio River watershed from before the First World War until 1942, bringing a blend of melodrama and vaudeville, laughter and therapeutic tears, into the lives of isolated people in rural communities along the way. Betty made her first professional appearance at the age of six weeks when she played a baby in "Uncle Tom's Cabin." In her twenty years of touring, she acted, danced, and grew up in the tradition of "family entertainment, by families, for families." Here Comes the Showboat! is told with the ageless wonder of a child who loved the showboat and the eager audiences its uniquely American entertainment touched. It is a treasure trove of humorous anecdotes, touching remembrances, and delightful photographs of Betty, the three generations who ran the family showboat, miners, musselers, shantyboaters, farmers, merchants, and actors whose lives intersected along the Ohio River.
Liven up your teaching and your therapy interventions with music activities and songs. For each activity, the book provides it's therapeutic value, a list of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy skills reinforced, materials needed, and instructions. No musical background is required to successfully use the activities. The book includes several guided imagery suggestion scripts. Reproducible lyric sheets are provided for the songs; and for those who do have musical background, guitar chords are provided. The original songs in this book are available on a companion CD titled "You'll Make It Through the Rain." "This book is a useful source of ideas for DBT therapists who want to incorporate music into skills training groups." - Cedar R. Koons, MSW, LISW "Deborah does a masterful job of integrating DBT Skills and music which makes learning fun and interesting". -Miles Dial, Ph.D "I finally tried out a group around Deborah Spiegel's "Pro's and Con's" chant from her book with the adolescents today! I started with body percussion, moving into using percussion instruments. The adolescents LOVED IT! They talked about how bored they are sitting in DBT groups where it's all talking so to have them practice mindfulness and discuss the skills around something active was very successful! " Katelyn M, Board-Certified Music Therapist
From the New York Times bestselling author Kristin Hannah comes a powerful novel of love, loss, and the magic of friendship. . . . now a #1 Netflix series! In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the "coolest girl in the world" moves in across the street and wants to be her friend. Tully Hart seems to have it all—beauty, brains, ambition. On the surface they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn. Tully, steeped in glamour and mystery, but with a secret that is destroying her. They make a pact to be best friends forever; by summer's end they've become TullyandKate. Inseparable. So begins Kristin Hannah's magnificent new novel. Spanning more than three decades and playing out across the ever-changing face of the Pacific Northwest, Firefly Lane is the poignant, powerful story of two women and the friendship that becomes the bulkhead of their lives. From the beginning, Tully is desperate to prove her worth to the world. Abandoned by her mother at an early age, she longs to be loved unconditionally. In the glittering, big-hair era of the eighties, she looks to men to fill the void in her soul. But in the buttoned-down nineties, it is television news that captivates her. She will follow her own blind ambition to New York and around the globe, finding fame and success . . . and loneliness. Kate knows early on that her life will be nothing special. Throughout college, she pretends to be driven by a need for success, but all she really wants is to fall in love and have children and live an ordinary life. In her own quiet way, Kate is as driven as Tully. What she doesn't know is how being a wife and mother will change her . . . how she'll lose sight of who she once was, and what she once wanted. And how much she'll envy her famous best friend. . . . For thirty years, Tully and Kate buoy each other through life, weathering the storms of friendship—jealousy, anger, hurt, resentment. They think they've survived it all until a single act of betrayal tears them apart . . . and puts their courage and friendship to the ultimate test. Firefly Lane is for anyone who ever drank Boone's Farm apple wine while listening to Abba or Fleetwood Mac. More than a coming-of-age novel, it's the story of a generation of women who were both blessed and cursed by choices. It's about promises and secrets and betrayals. And ultimately, about the one person who really, truly knows you—and knows what has the power to hurt you . . . and heal you. Firefly Lane is a story you'll never forget . . . one you'll want to pass on to your best friend.
