And so you’ve reached that time in life when you’re starting to “pick investments over adventure, / And clean over scenic, and comfortable over intense”; when, even though in your heart of hearts you’re much younger, the rest of you is (how did it happen?) forty. Judith Viorst, the wise and witty lady of It’s Hard to Be Hip Over 30 and Other Tragedies of Married Life, is here to guide you through these forty-ish years with poems that reflect the highs, the lows, and the everything-in-betweens of midlife. Viorst playfully considers the prospects of sagging kneecaps, awkward college reunions, and fantasies of love in the afternoon; being baffled by one’s Buddhist bisexual vegetarian Maoist offspring; cholesterol counts, adult-education courses and other atrocities of midlife—which somehow aren’t as painful when you can laugh at them. Filled with warmth, humor, and insight, How Did I Get to Be 40 & Other Atrocities is Judith Viorst at her best.

40 Things to Do When You Turn 40 is a collection of illuminating, instructive, and thought-provoking essays that speak to the reader who has or will soon turn 40.

How to turn forty: 1. Set yourself a personal challenge. 2. Clear wardrobe of all age inappropriate clothing. 3. Relax. How not to turn forty: 1. Have a complete meltdown . . . High flier Matt Beckford's sole ambition is to turn forty with his life sorted. And with a Porsche on the drive and a job that requires him to spend more time in BA's club lounge than his own lounge, it looks like things are going in the right direction. But when Matt's wife unexpectedly calls time on their marriage, a chain of events is set in motion that very quickly sees him facing forty broke, homeless and completely alone. But all is not lost because Matt has a plan . . . Wise, witty and wonderful . . . a triumph! Jenny Colgan Look out for Mike's new novel, Half a World Away, available to pre-order now!

A WALL STREET JOURNAL SUMMER PICK A WASHINGTON POST BESTSELLER Warrior and writer, genius and crank, rider in the British cavalry’s last great charge and inventor of the tank, Winston Churchill led Britain to fight alone against Nazi Germany in the fateful year of 1940 and set the standard for leading a democracy at war. With penetrating insight and vivid anecdotes, Gretchen Rubin makes Churchill accessible and meaningful to twenty-first-century readers by analyzing the many contrasting views of the man: he was an alcoholic, he was not; he was an anachronism, he was a visionary; he was a racist, he was a humanitarian; he was the most quotable man in the history of the English language, he was a bore. Like no other portrait of its famous subject, Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill is a dazzling display of facts more improbable than fiction. It brings to full realization the depiction of a man too fabulous for any novelist to construct, too complex for even the longest narrative to describe, and too significant ever to be forgotten.

More than four hundred "over 40" women share their views on the joys and challenges of life after 40, including some outrageous 40th birthday stories and Liz Curtis Higgs' own hilarious observations of life on the other side of 40. It's all original and mostly true! Not to mention, very funny.

We've all had situations in our lives that seem beyond our control or that have no clear remedy. In this concise, inspirational guide, bestselling self-help guru Melody Beattie shows us that we have the ability to make a miracle for almost any circumstance we're facing. She offers a distillation of what she knows about gratitude, surrender, and connecting with our essential power. She challenges us to be more present each day and details a six-week action plan, the Miracle Exercise, to jump-start transformation in our lives.--From publisher description.