From the national bestselling author of Birds of America comes “a brilliant collection” (The Philadelphia Inquirer) of eight exquisite stories of men and women stumbling through their daily existence. In Like Life, Lorrie Moore’s men and women, unsettled and adrift and often frightened, can’t quite understand how they arrived at their present situations. Harry has been reworking a play for years in his apartment near Times Square in New York. Jane is biding her time at a cheese shop in a Midwest mall. Dennis, unhappily divorced, buries himself in self-help books about healthful food and healthy relationships. One prefers to speak on the phone rather than face his friends, another lets the answering machine do all the talking. But whether rejected, afraid to commit, bored, disillusioned or just misunderstood, even the most hard-bitten are not without some abiding trust in love.
"A quietly brilliant book that warms slowly in the hands." —Dwight Garner, The New York Times I am not talking about surviving. I am not talking about becoming human, but about how I came to realize that I had always already been human. I am writing about all that I wanted to have, and how I got it. I am writing about what it cost, and how I was able to afford it. Jan Grue was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy at the age of three. Shifting between specific periods of his life—his youth with his parents and sister in Norway; his years of study in Berkeley, St. Petersburg, and Amsterdam; and his current life as a professor, husband, and father—he intersperses these histories with elegant, astonishingly wise reflections on the world, social structures, disability, loss, relationships, and the body: in short, on what it means to be human. Along the way, Grue moves effortlessly between his own story and those of others, incorporating reflections on philosophy, film, art, and the work of writers from Joan Didion to Michael Foucault. He revives the cold, clinical language of his childhood, drawing from a stack of medical records that first forced the boy who thought of himself as “just Jan” to perceive that his body, and therefore his self, was defined by its defects. I Live a Life Like Yours is a love story. It is rich with loss, sorrow, and joy, and with the details of one life: a girlfriend pushing Grue through the airport and forgetting him next to the baggage claim; schoolmates forming a chain behind his wheelchair on the ice one winter day; his parents writing desperate letters in search of proper treatment for their son; his own young son climbing into his lap as he sits in his wheelchair, only to leap down and run away too quickly to catch. It is a story about accepting one’s own body and limitations, and learning to love life as it is while remaining open to hope and discovery.
A Wall Street Journal Bestseller “For nearly thirty years, my life’s work has been to help people like you find ways to bring the often warring aspects of life into greater harmony.” — Stew Friedman, from Leading the Life You Want You’re busy trying to lead a “full” life. But does it really feel full—or are you stretched too thin? Enter Stew Friedman, Wharton professor, adviser to leaders across the globe, and passionate advocate of replacing the misguided metaphor of “work/life balance” with something more realistic and sustainable. If you’re seeking “balance” you’ll never achieve it, argues Friedman. The idea that “work” competes with “life” ignores the more nuanced reality of our humanity—the interaction of four domains: work, home, community, and the private self. The goal is to create harmony among them instead of thinking only in terms of trade-offs. It can be done. Building on his national bestseller, Total Leadership, and on decades of research, teaching, and practice as both consultant and senior executive, Friedman identifies the critical skills for integrating work and the rest of life. He illustrates them through compelling original stories of these remarkable people: • former Bain & Company CEO and Bridgespan co-founder Tom Tierney • Facebook COO and bestselling author Sheryl Sandberg • nonprofit leader and US Navy SEAL Eric Greitens • US First Lady Michelle Obama • soccer champion-turned-broadcaster Julie Foudy • renowned artist Bruce Springsteen Each of these admirable (though surely imperfect) people exemplifies a set of skills—for being real, being whole, and being innovative—that produce a sense of purpose, coherence, and optimism. Based on interviews and research, their stories paint a vivid picture of how six very different leaders use these skills to act with authenticity, integrity, and creativity—and they prove that significant public success is accomplished not at the expense of the rest of life, but as the result of meaningful engagement in all its parts. With dozens of practical exercises for strengthening these skills, curated from the latest research in organizational psychology and related fields, this book will inspire you, inform you, and instruct you on how to take realistic steps now toward leading the life you truly want.
This PEN/Hemingway Award winner about coming of age in Los Angeles is a “little gem of a novel . . . a masterwork of Hollywood fiction” (Salon). He’s a child of 1940s Hollywood—specifically, Casa Fiesta, a ranch in the Malibu hills that he shares with his mother, a onetime Broadway headliner, and his father, a star of Westerns. But when his parents fall out of favor in Tinseltown, the narrator of this exquisitely crafted dark comedy loses his youthful idyll and accompanies his lovesick mother on a vodka-soaked international quest for romance and redemption. Meanwhile, his father lives in “diminished circumstances” in California, clinging to his silver-screen mementos, trusting that, someday soon, his ex-wife and his career will return. Tired of tending bar at his mother’s parties and listening to his father’s sad tales of former glory, the boy moves in with his best friend’s family in Beverly Hills. But nothing in La-La Land is quite what it seems, and when his new home turns out to be just as dysfunctional as the last, our teenage hero must somehow learn to accept his parents while finding the courage to break free and become his own man. This award-winning novel, “a kind of Catcher in the Rye for the Cheap Trick generation” (GQ), was cited by the Guardian as one of the “ten best neglected literary masterpieces.” Written by a New York Times–bestselling author who was a child of Hollywood movie stars himself, it has been praised for its “spectacularly deadpan humor” by the Atlantic Monthly and called “an insightful coming-of-age tale” by the Austin Chronicle.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • At last, a book that shows you how to build—design—a life you can thrive in, at any age or stage • “Life has questions. They have answers.” —The New York Times Designers create worlds and solve problems using design thinking. Look around your office or home—at the tablet or smartphone you may be holding or the chair you are sitting in. Everything in our lives was designed by someone. And every design starts with a problem that a designer or team of designers seeks to solve. In this book, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans show us how design thinking can help us create a life that is both meaningful and fulfilling, regardless of who or where we are, what we do or have done for a living, or how young or old we are. The same design thinking responsible for amazing technology, products, and spaces can be used to design and build your career and your life, a life of fulfillment and joy, constantly creative and productive, one that always holds the possibility of surprise.
How do you love and not like the same thing at the same time? This was the riddle that met Mississippi writer B. Brian Foster when he returned to his home state to learn about Black culture and found himself hearing about the blues. One moment, Black Mississippians would say they knew and appreciated the blues. The next, they would say they didn't like it. For five years, Foster listened and asked: "How?" "Why not?" "Will it ever change?" This is the story of the answers to his questions. In this illuminating work, Foster takes us where not many blues writers and scholars have gone: into the homes, memories, speculative visions, and lifeworlds of Black folks in contemporary Mississippi to hear what they have to say about the blues and all that has come about since their forebears first sang them. In so doing, Foster urges us to think differently about race, place, and community development and models a different way of hearing the sounds of Black life, a method that he calls listening for the backbeat.
Debbie Macomber is an international bestseller whose fans the world over have fallen in love with her inspirational and heartwarming love stories. In this classic tale of faith and trust, a shy librarian marries a Montana rancher--sight unseen! A shy Louisiana librarian, Mary Warner fears she'll always be alone—so she answers a personals ad from a rancher in Montana. Never before has she done anything so reckless, casting the only life she knows aside to travel to a strange place and marry a man she's never met. But something about this man calls to her—and she knows this may be her very last chance at happiness. Tragedy made Travis Thompson the guardian of three orphaned children—and determination leads him to do whatever it takes to keep the kids out of foster homes. When he decides to take a long shot on a personals ad, the results are surprising, and before he knows it, he has agreed to marry a mysterious Southern woman sight unseen. It could be the mistake of a lifetime. But Mary Warner may be exactly what this broken family needs. And with a little faith, a little trust, and a lot of love, two lonely hearts might just discover the true meaning of miracles.
You can lose weight like crazy, and you can achieve anything! Autumn Calabrese shares the revolutionary step-by-step approach to lose weight that made her one of the top fitness and nutrition celebrities in the world. No cutting corners and no BS: In this book she reveals the personal struggles that shaped her approach to overcome excuses that led to this 30-day plan to succeed at weight loss, and life! Hey there! I’m Autumn Calabrese. I’m a Midwest girl, a single working mom who really had no business being in the business of health and fitness. But I found my passion in helping people achieve their weight-loss and health goals. I turned myself into a mini mega-mogul of nutrition and fitness with two of Beachbody’s most successful programs ever: 21 Day Fix and The Ultimate Portion Fix. I’ve led a crazy life and it’s still crazy—probably a lot like yours. I’ve faced tremendous hardships and disappointments that have deflated my self-confidence. But I’ve found a way to turn “failures” into “redirections” that have transformed my life. And you can do it, too! Over the past five years, I’ve helped hundreds of thousands of people finally get control of food and lose 10, 20, 30, even more than 100 pounds with my breakthrough weight-loss programs. And, now I’m going to do the same for you! Imagine enjoying your favorite CARBS, WINE AND COCKTAILS, AND EVEN CHOCOLATE CAKE and still melt fat to build the lean, fit, healthy body you’ve always wanted! Here’s my proposition: Give me just 30 days of your time, trust my process, GO ALL IN, and see what happens to your body. If you’ve ever struggled to lose weight before, I know why, and I have the solution. Lose Weight Like Crazy is NOT a DIET. There’s Zero Deprivation. It works by automatically controlling your portion sizes, eliminating those unhealthy, sugary processed foods that trigger cravings, and filling you up on a proven ratio of healthy whole foods. It’s simple. It’s backed by science. And it works. You Won't Count Calories! You won’t feel hungry or deprived! You can enjoy dessert! You can have a cocktail with your friends! You can speed up your results by adding fast, fun exercise routines that you’ll love! (free lifetime access to my 2 new workout videos included with the book!) You can maintain your new body and feel amazing—for life!
