Wellness

The multi-disciplinary artist and author of Like a Bird and How to Cure a Ghost explores the commodification and appropriation of wellness through the lens of social justice, providing resources to help anyone participate in self-care, regardless of race, identity, socioeconomic status or able-bodiedness. Growing up in Australia, Fariha Róisín, a Bangladeshi Muslim, struggled to fit in. In attempts to assimilate, she distanced herself from her South Asian heritage and identity. Years later, living in the United States, she realized that the customs, practices, and even food of her native culture that had once made her different—everything from ashwagandha to prayer—were now being homogenized and marketed for good health, often at a premium by white people to white people. In this thought-provoking book, part memoir, part journalistic investigation, the acclaimed writer and poet explores the way in which the progressive health industry has appropriated and commodified global healing traditions. She reveals how wellness culture has become a luxury good built on the wisdom of Black, brown, and Indigenous people—while ignoring and excluding them. Who Is Wellness For? is divided into four sections, beginning with The Mind, in which Fariha examines the art of meditation and the importance of intuition. In part two, The Body, she investigates the physiology of trauma, detailing her own journey with fatphobia and gender dysmorphia, as well as her own chronic illness. In part three, Self-Care, she argues against the self-care industrial complex but cautious us against abandoning care completely and offers practical advice. She ends with Justice, arguing that if we truly want to be well, we must be invested in everyone’s well being and shift toward nurturance culture.  Deeply intimate and revelatory, Who Is Wellness For? forces us to confront the imbalance in health and healing and carves a path towards self-care that is inclusionary for all.

Silence isn’t just the absence of noise. It’s a presence that brings us energy, clarity, and deeper connection. Justin Zorn and Leigh Marz take us on an unlikely journey—from the West Wing of the White House to San Quentin’s death row; from Ivy League brain research laboratories to underground psychedelic circles; from the temperate rainforests of Olympic National Park to the main stage at a heavy metal festival—to explore the meaning of silence and the art of finding it in any situation. Golden reveals how to go beyond the ordinary rules and tools of mindfulness. It’s a field guide for navigating the noise of the modern world—not just the noise in our ears but also on our screens and in our heads. Drawing on lessons from neuroscience, business, spirituality, politics, and the arts, Marz and Zorn explore why auditory, informational, and internal silence is essential for physical health, mental clarity, ecological sustainability, and vibrant community. With vital lessons for individuals, families, workplaces, and whole societies, Golden is an engaging and unexpected rethinking of the meaning of quiet. Marz and Zorn make the bold and convincing argument that we can repair our world by reclaiming the presence of silence in our lives.

When we are baffled by the insanity of the “other side”—in our politics, at work, or at home—it’s because we aren’t seeing how the conflict itself has taken over. That’s what “high conflict” does. It’s the invisible hand of our time. And it’s different from the useful friction of healthy conflict. That’s good conflict, and it’s a necessary force that pushes us to be better people. High conflict is what happens when discord distills into a good-versus-evil kind of feud, the kind with an us and a them. In this state, the brain behaves differently. We feel increasingly certain of our own superiority, and everything we do to try to end the conflict, usually makes it worse. Eventually, we can start to mimic the behavior of our adversaries, harming what we hold most dear. In this “compulsively readable” (Evan Osnos, National Book Award-winning author) book, New York Times bestselling author and award-winning journalist Amanda Ripley investigates how good people get captured by high conflict—and how they break free. Our journey begins in California, where a world-renowned conflict expert struggles to extract himself from a political feud. Then we meet a Chicago gang leader who dedicates his life to a vendetta—only to realize, years later, that the story he’d told himself about the conflict was not quite true. Next, we travel to Colombia, to find out whether thousands of people can be nudged out of high conflict at scale. Finally, we return to America to see what happens when a group of liberal Manhattan Jews and conservative Michigan corrections officers choose to stay in each other’s homes in order to understand one another better, even as they continue to disagree. All these people, in dramatically different situations, were drawn into high conflict by similar forces, including conflict entrepreneurs, humiliation, and false binaries. But ultimately, all of them found ways to transform high conflict into good conflict, the kind that made them better people. They rehumanized and recatego­rized their opponents, and they revived curiosity and wonder, even as they continued to fight for what they knew was right. People do escape high conflict. Individuals—even entire communities—can short-circuit the feedback loops of outrage and blame, if they want to. This is an “insightful and enthralling” (The New York Times Book Review) book—and a mind-opening new way to think about conflict that will transform how we move through the world.

Amid the frenzy of flashing cameras and shouting paparazzi at the 2006 Grammy Awards, a dark-haired six-foot-seven teenager emerged from a taxi and strode confidently along the red carpet in a sharp tuxedo. After glad-handing celebrities, mingling easily with music business notables, and duping an unsuspecting usher, young Jeremy Fall slipped casually into his seat next to a major industry power couple. But this brazen gate-crashing stunt was just the first in a succession of increasingly daring “fake it until you make it” self-promotion ploys that would take the success-driven Los Angeles high school student and nightclub doorman from his hardworking single mother’s modest apartment near Skid Row to the height of lifestyle TV fame as a popular celebrity chef-restaurateur. And yet, from his early days managing the velvet rope at hot Hollywood nightclubs like Les Deux while fielding text messages from young celebs like Lindsay Lohan and Ashton Kutcher to later overseeing his wildly popular breakfast-for-dinner joint Nighthawk, Fall was struggling 24-7 with Bob, the nagging inner voice bringing him down. Even as he effortlessly prepared his signature drunken challah French toast on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives after a frantic one-day crash cooking class with his staff, Bob’s endlessly looping “Fraud!” drumbeat pounded in his head. Well-known among the “in” crowd of Hollywood and music industry elites, no matter how much outward success he achieved with a million Instagram followers, Fall was drowning in self-doubt, anxiety, and depression as he battled imposter syndrome, a psychological condition that affects so many others worldwide. At its debilitating zenith, Fall announced on social media that he struggled with mental illness and then deleted his Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts. When he reappeared online after two months of deep soul searching, he was a changed person, fumbling his way determinedly toward authenticity and truth. In this heartfelt and heartbreaking coming-of-age story, Fall digs deep to share how he evolved from a teenager who was dogged by fear and confusion, into a successful marketing-and-branding campaign entrepreneur and beloved philanthropist in the burgeoning worldwide NFT and Web3 community of digital artists and collectors.

From the acclaimed author of Like a Mother comes a reflection on the state of caregiving in America, and an exploration of mothering as a means of social change. The Covid-19 pandemic shed fresh light on a long-overlooked truth: mothering is among the only essential work humans do. In response to the increasing weight placed on mothers and caregivers—and the lack of a social safety net to support them—writer Angela Garbes found herself pondering a vital question: How, under our current circumstances that leave us lonely, exhausted, and financially strained, might we demand more from American family life?  In Essential Labor, Garbes explores assumptions about care, work, and deservedness, offering a deeply personal and rigorously reported look at what mothering is, and can be. A first-generation Filipino-American, Garbes shares the perspective of her family's complicated relationship to care work, placing mothering in a global context—the invisible economic engine that has been historically demanded of women of color.  Garbes contends that while the labor of raising children is devalued in America, the act of mothering offers the radical potential to create a more equitable society. In Essential Labor, Garbes reframes the physically and mentally draining work of meeting a child's bodily and emotional needs as opportunities to find meaning, to nurture a deeper sense of self, pleasure, and belonging. This is highly skilled labor, work that impacts society at its most foundational level. Part galvanizing manifesto, part poignant narrative, Essential Labor is a beautifully rendered reflection on care that reminds us of the irrefutable power and beauty of mothering.

From friendships to Facebook to far-off countries, what do we do when our lives seem mired in conflict? How do we find connection when our differences are constantly on display and even exacerbated by algorithms and echo chambers? How do we build a kinder society? If you are tired of the anxiety, frustration, and fear that pervade your connections with other people, both online and in real life, Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers want you to know one thing--you are not alone. In this book they will help you understand the powerful connections you have with other people on a personal, community-based, national, and even international level. Then they show you how to - engage your family with a spirit of curiosity - listen closely to the anxieties and fears of your friends - explore shared values within your community - understand your work as a citizen in a diverse country - hold lightly those things that are beyond your control around the world The status quo isn't working. If you long to be a peacemaker and a positive influence in your spheres, Now What? is your door to a future that is characterized by hope, love, and connection despite our differences.

What was supposed to be a two week break has become a multi year journey of adjusting to the "new normal". With new variants and mandates and a lingering sense of unease, what in the world are we meant to do? Listen to what others have been doing during this time to cope, survive, and keep sane

The eagerly anticipated second essay collection from Jessi Klein, author of the acclaimed New York Times bestselling debut You’ll Grow Out of It. “Sometimes I think about how much bad news there is to tell my kid, the endlessly long, looping CVS receipt scroll of truly terrible things that have happened, and I want to get under the bed and never come out. How do we tell them about all this? Can we just play Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire and then brace for questions? The first of which should be, how is this a song that played on the radio?” In New York Times bestselling author and Emmy Award-winning writer and producer Jessi Klein’s second collection, she hilariously explodes the cultural myths and impossible expectations around motherhood and explore the humiliations, poignancies, and possibilities of midlife.  In interconnected essays like “Listening to Beyoncé in the Parking Lot of Party City,” “Your Husband Will Remarry Five Minutes After You Die,” “Eulogy for My Feet,” and “An Open Love Letter to Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent,” Klein explores this stage of life in all its cruel ironies, joyous moments, and bittersweetness. Written with Klein’s signature candor and humanity, I'll Show Myself Out is an incisive, moving, and often uproarious collection.

Welcome to the February/March 2022 audio issue of Clean Eating, a lifestyle approach to food and its preparation, leading to an improved life for the whole family. In this audio edition we cover tips for achieving healthy weight and energy levels, learning to embrace anxiety, and we explore why everyone is going mad for mushrooms. Make sure to catch all our featured articles in this audio edition of Clean Eating.

Combining the latest developments and research discoveries, board-certified gastroenterologist and medical host on CNN and Fox News, Dr. Roshini Raj shows the ways in which the microbiome impacts overall well-being, and helps readers reset their biological clocks by improving their gut health. With one in four Americans suffering from digestive health issues every day, gut health has become an increasingly important part of wellness. With the human body, so many issues can be improved upon, or cured, by balancing the microbiome. But the microbiome—a community of bacteria, viruses, and yeasts that dwell in the body—has long been something that the average person can find baffling—and maybe a little bit gross. By offering simple and straightforward answers to questions like what one should be eating, what probiotics are, which vitamins and medicines really work, Dr. Raj demystifies the gut. She uses the idea of a home renovation to show how different organs and parts of the body can be “renovated” in order to optimize the microbiome. After all, balancing one’s microbiome improves digestive health, brain function, emotional stability, the body’s response to inflammation, immunity, and lessens premature aging. Melding the latest developments and discoveries in microbiome research, along with Dr. Raj’s practical tips developed from her years of clinical experience, Gut Renovation shows readers how to turn back the biological clock and revamp the way they live forever. Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

“A truly beautiful, wise, raw, subtle book." —Robert MacFarlane, author of Underland My sister and I are driving south toward Graceland in her beat-up red Saturn, both in need of refuge, both running from different things. Her bumper sticker reads “Humanity Is Trying.” It’s a triple entendre, she explains: Humanity is exhausting. Humanity is struggle. Humanity is doing the best it knows how. Humanity Is Trying is several books in one. It’s a memoir about the love and the loss of a sister and a best friend. It’s the story of a series of escape attempts—cowardly, courageous, harmful, and hopeful—experiments in freedom from the stories that limit us. And it’s a record of spiritual, intellectual, and emotional growth with the help of friends, psychedelics, art, and spiritual practice. From Jason Gots, creator of the podcasts Think Again and Clever Creature, comes a philosophical love letter to the slow, messy work of building a life and living with your dreams in the face of reality.

Welcome to the Winter 2021/2022 audio issue of Clean Eating, a lifestyle approach to food and its preparation, leading to an improved life for the whole family. In this audio edition we cover 100 Ways to be a better cook, essential tips for a healthy liver, and how to do intermittent fasting the right way, among other topics. Make sure to catch all our featured articles in this audio edition of Clean Eating.

Bestselling self-help author and award-winning personal development blogger Shelley Wilson takes the fear out of self-help and makes it fun, helping you to make easy, positive changes to improve your life right now. Includes her 31-day self-help toolkit. Have you ever felt helpless? Are you struggling to understand why you feel disconnected from your friends or family? Are you mystified by the words self-help, self-care, and personal development? Are you looking for answers but really have no idea where to begin? In this beginner’s guide to personal developmental and understanding self-care, Shelley Wilson will show you how looking after your own needs can be a powerful tool for your mental, physical, and emotional health so you can begin making important changes today. Discover what self-help means, how to become more self-aware, understand core values, and have fun mapping out what your best life looks like. Shelley includes tips, tools, and techniques and shares her 31-day self-help toolkit. Be the person you deserve to be and join bestselling self-help author and award-winning personal development blogger Shelley Wilson on a journey of self-discovery and recovery.

A new conversation about the media and radical self-love, A Body to Love provides lessons on positively navigating body image in a social media saturated world. Forming healthy relationships with the internet. To Angelina Caruso, recovery meant finding her tribe―a community that offered support, encouragement, and zero judgement. But she never imagined finding them online. Now a health and wellness blogger, she narrates the progression of a body image disorder and her unusual path to recovery.

10 principles for leading your family to True Resilience, from the bestselling author of Spartan Up and the CEO/founder of Spartan Joe De Sena has spent his life running toward challenge and discomfort. Why? Because how we react to challenging situations defines us and our families. The only tools we have as humans to survive the many peaks and valleys of a full life are preparedness, health, leadership, and most importantly, resilience. Why do so many parents struggle to finish things we start, delay gratification, and protect our health—and why do our kids continue to struggle in every facet of life? Because we haven’t showed them a path to resilience, and we haven’t fought for it ourselves.   In 10 Rules for Resilience Joe De Sena outlines his 10 principles for leading your family to True Resilience, a term he uses for a body and mind that have been carved out of hard work, challenge, and failure. It takes True Resilience to approach overwhelming situations with calm and confidence, to not get rattled, anxious, or angry, and even to embrace failure, setbacks, and redirections.

Explore real women’s tales of healthcare trauma and medical misogyny with this meticulously researched, in-depth examination of the women’s health crisis in America—and what we can do about it. When Anushay Hossain became pregnant in the US, she was so relieved. Growing up in Bangladesh in the 1980s, where the concept of women’s healthcare hardly existed, she understood how lucky she was to access the best in the world. But she couldn’t have been more wrong. Things started to go awry from the minute she stepped in the hospital, and after thirty hours of labor (two of which she spent pushing), Hossain’s epidural slipped. Her pain was so severe that she ran a fever of 104 degrees, and as she shook and trembled uncontrollably, the doctors finally performed an emergency C-section. Giving birth in the richest country on earth, Hossain never imagined she could die in labor. But she almost did. The experience put her on a journey to explore, understand, and share how women—especially women of color—are dismissed to death by systemic sexism in American healthcare. Following in the footsteps of feminist manifestos such as The Feminine Mystique and Rage Becomes Her, The Pain Gap is an eye-opening and stirring call to arms that encourages women to flip their “hysteria complex” on its head and use it to revolutionize women’s healthcare. This book tells the story of Hossain’s experiences—from growing up in South Asia surrounded by staggering maternal mortality rates to lobbying for global health legislation on Capitol Hill to nearly becoming a statistic herself. Along the way, she realized that a little fury might be just what the doctor ordered. Meticulously researched and deeply reported, this book explores real women’s traumatic experiences with America’s healthcare system—and empowers everyone to use their experiences to bring about the healthcare revolution women need.

CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta, MD, offers an accessible, data-packed answer to our biggest questions about Covid-19: What have we learned about this pandemic and how can we prepare for—or prevent—the next one? As America’s favorite frontline Covid-19 health journalist, Dr. Sanjay Gupta has barely left his primetime seat in his makeshift studio basement since the pandemic began (other than to perform brain surgery). He’s had insider access to the drama’s unfolding, including exclusive conversations with the world’s top public health experts and behind-the-scenes scientists racing to find treatments and cures. And now he’s sharing what he’s learned in a book that will answer not only all our questions about what happened, but also about how our world will change in the years ahead, even once we’re back to “normal.” Gupta argues that we need to prepare for a new era where pandemics will be more frequent, and possibly even more deadly. As the doctor who’s been holding America’s hand through the crisis with compassion, clarity, and well-earned wisdom, he gives you the unvarnished story behind the pandemic, including insights about the novel virus’s behavior, and offers practical tools to ready ourselves for what lies ahead. He answers critical questions: Can we stamp out the virus for good (and if not, how do we live with it)? Should we put our parents in a nursing home? Where should we live? What should we stockpile? What should we know before taking a trip? Does it make sense to spend more on health insurance to deal with any long-term effects? How do you decide when it’s safe to go to a public pool or schedule elective surgery? What should Covid survivors know about protecting their future health? What if you become a long-hauler with chronic health challenges stemming? World War C will give you hope for the future along with real information that leaves you more resilient and secure.

Manifest Your Dreams in a New World for Yourself and Others Our day-to-day choices, made individually, affect our culture and societal structures as a whole. With this in mind, Sacred Codes in Times of Crisis guides you through an extraordinary program of self-realization and empowerment to access your creative potential and manifest your dreams. Learn the art of true, conscious creation. We spend our lives searching for things that we think will make our lives better, more abundant, loving and fulfilling. Yet, as we take part in our day-to-day busy lives, we often get sidetracked from our truest dreams and desires. Instead of creating the life that we have always dreamed of, we get lost in an endless series of events where we are often unprepared, reactionary, and less tolerant. In order to create with consciousness, to manifest our soul’s wishes into reality, we need to believe there is a greater part of ourselves that is able to guide us, so that we can live our dreams by loving ourselves unconditionally. Embrace Change and transform alongside our interdependent, constantly changing world. If we want to stay up to date in an accelerated technological world, we need to adapt and be willing and open to learning new ways of communicating and inter-relating with ourselves and the world around us. In Sacred Codes in Times of Crisis, spiritual leaders Naomi Fay and Nathalie Moutia teach you: The interconnected nature of all things and the universal truth of oneness Awareness exercises and meditations to support the creation process Channeled text and wisdom teachings to aid conscious co-creation How to manifest your dreams

Offers strategies and guidance to building a happier family life by doing less not more, and parenting smarter not harder. Most modern parents work. And we have limited time, limited energy, limited patience, and too much to do. We are seldom at our best at the end of a long working day when the parenting shift kicks in. We want to do the right thing but, in the thick of it, with no time to think and no energy to spare, it's easy to miss the small changes that could make a big difference to our child's (and our own) wellbeing. This book moves the goalposts by suggesting ways to parent smarter not harder and to really tune in to the needs of our children and our families. Focusing on the quality of time and not the quantity, parents can learn to cultivate better family wellbeing and happiness. The Working Parent's Survival Guide: How to Parent Smarter Not Harder is essential listening for every working parent. Written by an expert in child development and parenting who has worked with thousands of stressed out working parents, it walks you through an approach to parenting that will transform family life—and which can be fitted into modern working patterns.

Modern life calls for modern relationship advice. Sex From Scratch is a love and dating guidebook that gleans real-life knowledge from smart people in a variety of nontraditional relationships. Instead of telling people how to snag a man, seduce a woman, or find "true love", the book sums up what dozens of diverse folks have learned the hard way over time. Sarah Mirk offers tips and stories from the steadfastly single to people making open relationships work, from people who've decided they're never going to have kids to parents who are consciously producing the next generation. No matter what type of relationship you're in or what type you want, Mirk's reporterly wisdom and sense of humor provides perspective, humor, and down to earth guidance. This is an essential, fun, insightful resource whose time has come.

“I started reading this book and couldn’t stop…[Love Lockdown is] a clear-eyed, compassionate look at prison love stories, and I found every relationship riveting.”—Lisa Taddeo, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Three Women An evocative and gripping investigative look into romantic relationships between incarcerated people and their spouses on the outside from the author of the “mesmerizing” (Elle) Playing Dead. What is it like to fall in love with someone in prison? Over the course of five years, Elizabeth Greenwood followed the ups and downs of five couples who met during incarceration. In Love Lockdown, she pulls back the curtain on the lives of the husbands and wives supporting some of the 2.3 million people in prisons around the United States. In the vein of Modern Love, this book shines a light on how these relationships reflect the desire and delusion we all experience in our romantic pairings. Love Lockdown infiltrates spaces many of us have only heard whispers of—from conjugal visits to prison weddings to relationships between the incarcerated themselves. A fascinating and unputdownable deep-dive from the “quirky, engaging, and surprisingly uplifting” (Eric Weiner, New York Times bestselling author) journalist Elizabeth Greenwood, Love Lockdown will change the way you look at the American prison system and perhaps relationships in general.

Black women are beautiful, intelligent and capable —but mostly they embrace strong. Esteemed clinical psychologist, Dr. Inger Burnett-Zeigler, praises the strength of women, while exploring how trauma and adversity have led to deep emotional pain and shaped how they walk through the world.  Black women’s strength is intimately tied to their unacknowledged suffering. An estimated eight in ten have endured some form of trauma—sexual abuse, domestic abuse, poverty, childhood abandonment, victim/witness to violence, and regular confrontation with racism and sexism. Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen shows that trauma often impacts mental and physical well-being. It can contribute to stress, anxiety, PTSD, and depression. Unaddressed it can lead to hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, overeating, and alcohol and drug abuse, and other chronic health issues. Dr. Burnett-Zeigler explains that the strong Black woman image does not take into account the urgency of Black women’s needs, which must be identified in order to lead abundant lives. It interferes with her relationships and ability to function day to day. Through mindfulness and compassionate self-care, the psychologist offers methods for establishing authentic strength from the inside out. This informative guide to healing, is life-changing, showing Black women how to prioritize the self and find everyday joys in self-worth, as well as discover the fullness and beauty within both her strength and vulnerability. 

Called "such a sad, tough story, but finally so life-affirming, filled with spirit and love" by Anne Lamott, this is a raw and intensely affecting memoir by a young priest about loss of a child, its grief and its aftermath, and the hard-won joy that can follow. Liz Tichenor has taken her newborn son, five weeks old, to the doctor, from a cabin on the shores of Lake Tahoe. She is sent home to her husband and two-year-old daughter with the baby, who is pronounced "fine" by an urgent care physician. Six hours later, the baby dies in their bed. Less than a year and a half before, Tichenor's mother jumped from a building and killed herself after a long struggle with alcoholism. As a very young Episcopal priest, Tichenor has to "preach the Good News," to find faith where there is no hope, but she realizes these terrible parts of her own life will join her in the pulpit. The Night Lake is the story of finding a way forward through tragedies that seem like they might be beyond surviving and of carving out space for the slow labor of learning to live again, in grief.

Performed by the author featuring original music by Nick Cordero. Amanda Kloots bravely reflects on love, loss, and life with her husband, Broadway star, and Tony Award nominee Nick Cordero, whose public battle with COVID-19 and tragic death made headlines around the world. In March 2020, Broadway star and Tony Award nominee Nick Cordero was hospitalized for what he and his wife, Amanda Kloots, believed to be a severe case of pneumonia. Entering the hospital, they had every reason to believe that Nick—a young father and otherwise healthy man—would return home. After an eventual diagnosis of COVID-19 that led to Nick’s being placed on a ventilator, Amanda took to documenting their journey on social media, showing the dangers COVID-19 posed to everyone, regardless of age. Her updates quickly captivated millions, inspiring people around the globe to dance each day to Nick’s song “Live Your Life” and offer positive thoughts and prayer. When he passed away after ninety-five grueling days in the ICU, the world grieved for Amanda, her infant son, Elvis, and the future COVID-19 had snatched away from them. Live Your Life is the story of Nick and Amanda’s life together—of their beautiful relationship, of Nick’s dramatic fight for survival, of those sudden tragic months that permanently changed her world and ours—and of their interrupted future as a family. From the confusing early days of his illness to searching for signs of hope in every update from the doctors to the healing sound of Elvis’s laughter, Amanda details how she approached even the most devastating moments with the personal optimism and faith that have shaped her life. Written with her sister Anna Kloots, who was with her every step of this journey, Live Your Life explores how Amanda’s willingness to accept help from an entire community of people—friends, family, and even total strangers—played a vital role in enduring this hardship. In the process, she offers a touching meditation on how even the worst times have silver linings that deepen our connections to the world around us and to the people who matter most. What emerges is an inspiring and unexpectedly uplifting message for life in the time of COVID, a vision of courage for anyone coping with overwhelming loss or the collective trauma of what the pandemic has taken from us. A poignant reflection on love, hope, motherhood, and the transformational power of music, Live Your Life is a love letter to Nick and a reminder that, sometimes, celebrating life today is the only path through tomorrow’s darkness.

Excel at the Game of Life with Research-Backed Strategies We all understand the basics of physical fitness, and many resources teach mindfulness, business skills, and entrepreneurial chutzpah. But often undermining these goals are less-tangible roadblocks — mental and emotional baggage, deep-seated insecurity, self-judgment, and overwhelming stress and anxiety. In The Full Spirit Workout, Kate Eckman draws from her multifaceted training (as an athlete, executive leadership coach, and meditation teacher) to present a program that will empower you to break through these blocks and accomplish your goals. It’s a rewarding workout made up of daily mind-body-spirit exercises and neuroscience-based practices that bolster resilience and inner strength. Best of all, Coach Eckman builds in creativity, flexibility, and delight so that each “rep” feels less like work and more like play.

A sometimes hilarious, occasionally heartbreaking, and always entertaining joint memoir by Joseph Fink, cocreator of Welcome to Night Vale, and his wife, writer and performer Meg Bashwiner, chronicling the first ten years of their relationship from both sides. There are two sides to every love story. In 2009, 22-year-old Joseph Fink, newly arrived to New York City from the West Coast, was juggling odd jobs to pay the rent and volunteering with a theater company in the East Village so he could snag free tickets to their shows. Meg Bashwiner, a 22-year-old aspiring performer and playwright, was living with her parents in New Jersey, working a desk job and commuting to her internship with that same East Village theater company. Joseph and Meg's stories meet when they both find themselves selling tickets in a cramped box office. They quickly became friends. Within a year, they were a couple. Within five years they were touring the world, performing on some of the world's greatest and not so great stages. In this candid, soul-baring memoir, Joseph and Meg recount their first ten years together, each telling their story as they remember it, without having consulted the other. We hear both sides of their first kiss, first breakup, first getting back together, the death of a father, marriage, international fame, world tours, mental illness, and discussions about having children. Sometimes, they recall things differently—neither agrees on who paid for the morning after pill on their first date. Sometimes they remember the exact same details in the same way—but still have their own narrative on just what those details mean. Poignant, funny, and real, alternately told in Joseph and Meg’s remarkably different, yet equally compelling voices, The First Ten Years is the story of two individuals finding their way in the world and becoming "adults" as they learn to become a couple.

“We can do extraordinary things when we lead with love,” Barbara Becker reminds us in her debut memoir Heartwood. When her earliest childhood friend is diagnosed with a terminal illness, Becker sets off on a quest to immerse herself in what it means to be mortal. Can we live our lives more fully knowing some day we will die? With a keen eye towards that which makes life worth living, interfaith minister, mom and perpetual seeker Barbara Becker recounts stories where life and death intersect in unexpected ways. She volunteers on a hospice floor, becomes an eager student of the many ways people find meaning at the end of life, and accompanies her parents in their final days. Becker inspires listeners to live with the end in mind and proves that turning toward loss rather than away from it is the only true way to live life to its fullest. Just as with the heartwood of a tree—the central core that is no longer alive yet supports the newer growth rings—the dead become an enduring source of strength to the living. With life-affirming prose, Becker helps us see that that grief is not a problem to be solved, but rather a sacred invitation—an opportunity to let go into something even greater…a love that will inform all the days of our lives. A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books "Becker’s eloquence is a salve for confronting a difficult topic...This will be a comfort for anyone contemplating their own mortality, or those in search of advice for others. " —Publishers Weekly, starred review

The Best Graphic Book of 2021 by Publishers Weekly | A New York Times Best Graphic Novel of 2021 | A New York Times Notable Book | An Autostraddle Best Queer Book of the Year | A Boston Globe Best Book of the Year | A St. Louis Post Dispatch Best Book of the Year | NPR, 12 Books NPR Staffers Loved | Shelf Awareness Best Books of 2021  From the author of Fun Home, a profoundly affecting graphic memoir of Bechdel's lifelong love affair with exercise, set against a hilarious chronicle of fitness fads in our times Comics and cultural superstar Alison Bechdel delivers a deeply layered story of her fascination, from childhood to adulthood, with every fitness craze to come down the pike: from Jack LaLanne in the 60s ("Outlandish jumpsuit! Cantaloupe-sized guns!") to the existential oddness of present-day spin class. Readers will see their athletic or semi-active pasts flash before their eyes through an ever-evolving panoply of running shoes, bicycles, skis, and sundry other gear. But the more Bechdel tries to improve herself, the more her self appears to be the thing in her way. She turns for enlightenment to Eastern philosophers and literary figures, including Beat writer Jack Kerouac, whose search for self-transcendence in the great outdoors appears in moving conversation with the author’s own. This gifted artist and not-getting-any-younger exerciser comes to a soulful conclusion. The secret to superhuman strength lies not in six-pack abs, but in something much less clearly defined: facing her own non-transcendent but all-important interdependence with others. A heartrendingly comic chronicle for our times.

From the host of the popular WNYC podcast Death, Sex, & Money, Let’s Talk About Hard Things is “like a good conversation with a friend” (The New Yorker) where “no topic is off-limits when it comes to creating meaningful connection” (Lori Gottlieb, author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone). Anna Sale wants you to have that conversation. You know the one. The one that you’ve been avoiding or putting off, maybe for years. The one that you’ve thought “they’ll never understand” or “do I really want to bring that up?” or “it’s not going to go well, so why even try?” Sale is the founder and host of WNYC’s popular, award-winning podcast Death, Sex, & Money or as the New York Times dubbed her “a therapist at happy hour.” She and her guests have direct and thought-provoking conversations, discussing topics that most of us are too squeamish, polite, or nervous to bring up. But Sale argues that we all experience these hard things, and by not talking to one another, we cut ourselves off, leading us to feel isolated and disconnected from people who can help us most. In Let’s Talk About Hard Things, Sale uses the best of what she’s learned from her podcast to reveal that when we dare to talk about hard things, we learn about ourselves, others, and the world that we make together. Diving into five of the most fraught conversation topics—death, sex, money, family, and identity—she moves between memoir, fascinating snapshots of a variety of Americans opening up about their lives, and expert opinions to show why having tough conversations is important and how to do them in a thoughtful and generous way. She uncovers that listening may be the most important part of a tough conversation, that the end goal should be understanding without the pressure of reconciliation, and that there are some things that words can’t fix (and why that’s actually okay).

Bestselling author and Mr. Jollytologist Allen Klein's latest book will helps readers escape the everyday ruts of our lives and help them open their eyes and find the awe around them.