'Very funny. He writes in a sort of whimsical stream of consciousness ... even his more random disquisitions contain glorious nuggets' - Observer With his trademark darkly humorous mix of personal story and social commentary, Leith attempts to answer the question: is everything really as bad as it seems? 'You'll read this book in a weekend ... Leith is, after all, a very good writer: succinct except when he's repeating himself for effect; amusing except when he's predicting the end of the world; perceptive except when he's pretending he can't remember who actually sang Pink Floyd's Time, or which Dutch explorer discovered Easter Island ... Leith's brain is sharper than most, and he deftly weaves solipsistic woe into more pressing concerns about the housing market and the failure of Western capitalism. This is a potentially important book for our times' Andrew Collins, Mail on Sunday

A hilarious, horrendous, and ultimately helpful memoir about hitting middle age and trying to hit back. William Leith, well-known for his jaw-droppingly candid columns about his dysfunctional and dissolute life, is no longer young. Given what he used to put his body through, before he gave up bingeing on drugs and drink and bad food, he is in fairly good shape. There is no getting past it, though: he’s getting past it. And bits of him are falling apart. What is happening to him? And what can be done about it? In his extraordinary chronicle The Hungry Years, Leith turned his merciless eye and magpie mind on his addictions and the chemistry, psychology, and philosophy behind them. Bits of Me Are Falling Apart is an even more ambitious and mordantly funny book, in which an unflinching memoir of his own, unique voyage into later life becomes an examination of the aging process in all humans - what science tells us about it and might be able to do to arrest it.

• A compelling memoir: Just when Stacy Morrison thought she had it all, her husband of ten years announced that he wanted a divorce. She was left alone with a new house that needed lots of work, a new baby who needed lots of attention, and a new job where she was called on to dispense advice on life and love to women across the country. With humor and heart, Stacy shares the unexpected lessons of grace, love, and forgiveness she learned as she struggled to put her life back together.. • An insider’s view of the magazine world: Stacy immerses her readers in the fascinating, high-pressure world of New York publishing. Yet, despite her high profile job, Stacy’s struggle with the stress of being a working mother while trying to make sense of her unraveling marriage—revealed with bracing honesty and intimacy—will resonate deeply with millions of women. . • For all those who loved Eat, Pray, Love : Despite all the expert relationship wisdom at her disposal through her job and the love and support of family and friends, Stacy realized that moving through her divorce was a journey she would have to make alone. Falling Apart in One Piece is the story of how she faced fear, panic, and heartbreak to find a sense of peace and reconciliation..

We plan, as the old proverb says, and God laughs. But most of us don't find it all that funny when things go wrong. Most of us want love, a nice home, good work, and happy children. Many of us grew up with parents who made these things look relatively easy and assumed we would get them, too. So what do you do if you don't? What do you do when you feel you've messed it all up and your friends seem to be doing just fine? For Christina Patterson, it was her job as a journalist that kept her going through the ups and downs of life. And then she lost that, too. Dreaming of revenge and irritated by self-help books, she decided to do the kind of interviews she had never done before. The resulting conversations are surprising, touching and often funny. There's Ken, the first person to be publicly fired from a FTSE-100 board. There's Winston, who fell through a ceiling onto a purple coffin. There's Louise, whose baby was seriously ill, but who still worried about being fat. And through it all, there's Christina, eating far too many crisps as she tries to pick up the pieces of her life. The Art of Not Falling Apart is a joyous, moving, and sometimes shockingly honest celebration of life as an adventure, one where you ditch your expectations, raise a glass, and prepare for a rocky ride.

In the tradition of Sarah Dessen, this powerful debut novel is a compelling portrait of a young girl coping with her mother’s cancer as she figures out how to learn from—and fix—her past mistakes. Few things come as naturally to Harper as epic mistakes. In the past year she was kicked off the swim team, earned a reputation as Carson High’s easiest hook-up, and officially became the black sheep of her family. But her worst mistake was destroying her relationship with her best friend, Declan. Now, after two semesters of silence, Declan is home from boarding school for the summer. Everything about him is different—he’s taller, stronger…more handsome. Harper has changed, too, especially in the wake of her mom’s cancer diagnosis. While Declan wants nothing to do with Harper, he’s still Declan, her Declan, and the only person she wants to talk to about what’s really going on. But he’s also the one person she’s lost the right to seek comfort from. As their mutual friends and shared histories draw them together again, Harper and Declan must decide which parts of their past are still salvageable and which parts they’ll have to let go of once and for all. In this honest and affecting tale of friendship and first love, Emily Martin brings to vivid life the trials and struggles of high school and the ability to learn from past mistakes over the course of one steamy North Carolina summer.

A selection of favorite quotes that the celebrated literary critic has collected over the decades. From Dwight Garner, the New York Times book critic, comes a rollicking, irreverent, scabrous, amazingly alive selection of unforgettable moments from forty years of wide and deep reading. Garner’s Quotations is like no commonplace book you’ll ever read. If you’ve ever wondered what’s really going on in the world of letters today, this book will make you sit up and take notice. Unputdownable!