So Dad's around lately. That's it. And I want to tell you things, throw fragments your way that I barely understand. Because it's just funny, flat out, the way someone you don't even know can get up in your face, tweak things that should be so ordinary. Or I think it's funny. Maybe you will too. Hailed by The New Yorker as "a fictional report from the strip-mall front lines of Generation Y," Important Things That Don't Matter is a provocative, moving, darkly funny portrait of family and divorce, a boy and his father, the eighties and nineties, and sex and intimacy that raises vital questions about a generation just now reaching adulthood.

“This beautiful book, full of wisdom and warmth, teaches us how to protect and preserve our most valuable possessions—the relationships with those we love. It shows that the things that matter definitely aren’t ‘things,’ and how to empower your life in the right direction.” —Dr. Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Four simple phrases—“Please forgive me,” “I forgive you,” “Thank you,” and “I love you”—carry enormous power to mend and nurture our relationships and inner lives. These four phrases and the sentiments they convey provide a path to emotional wellbeing, guiding us through interpersonal difficulties to life with integrity and grace. Newly updated with stories from people who have turned to this life-altering book in their time of need, this motivational teaching about what really matters reminds us how we can honor each relationship every day. Dr. Ira Byock, an international leader in palliative care, explains how we can practice these life-affirming words in our day-to-day lives. Too often we assume that the people we love really know that we love them. Dr. Byock demonstrates the value of “stating the obvious” and provides practical insights into the benefits of letting go of old grudges and toxic emotions. His stories help us to forgive, appreciate, love, and celebrate one another and live life more fully. Using the Four Things in a wide range of life situations, we can experience emotional healing even in the wake of family strife, personal tragedy, divorce, or in the face of death. With practical wisdom and spiritual power, The Four Things That Matter Most gives us the language and guidance to honor and experience what really matters most in our lives every day.

#1 New York Times Bestseller Over 10 million copies sold In this generation-defining self-help guide, a superstar blogger cuts through the crap to show us how to stop trying to be "positive" all the time so that we can truly become better, happier people. For decades, we’ve been told that positive thinking is the key to a happy, rich life. "F**k positivity," Mark Manson says. "Let’s be honest, shit is f**ked and we have to live with it." In his wildly popular Internet blog, Manson doesn’t sugarcoat or equivocate. He tells it like it is—a dose of raw, refreshing, honest truth that is sorely lacking today. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is his antidote to the coddling, let’s-all-feel-good mindset that has infected American society and spoiled a generation, rewarding them with gold medals just for showing up. Manson makes the argument, backed both by academic research and well-timed poop jokes, that improving our lives hinges not on our ability to turn lemons into lemonade, but on learning to stomach lemons better. Human beings are flawed and limited—"not everybody can be extraordinary, there are winners and losers in society, and some of it is not fair or your fault." Manson advises us to get to know our limitations and accept them. Once we embrace our fears, faults, and uncertainties, once we stop running and avoiding and start confronting painful truths, we can begin to find the courage, perseverance, honesty, responsibility, curiosity, and forgiveness we seek. There are only so many things we can give a f**k about so we need to figure out which ones really matter, Manson makes clear. While money is nice, caring about what you do with your life is better, because true wealth is about experience. A much-needed grab-you-by-the-shoulders-and-look-you-in-the-eye moment of real-talk, filled with entertaining stories and profane, ruthless humor, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is a refreshing slap for a generation to help them lead contented, grounded lives.

Every person who has walked the way of life has experienced some woes, frustrations, pain, set-ups and set backs. The issue is not so much in what we experience, but in how experienced we become in dealing with these challenging areas of our lives. In every life some its will come. In It Dont Matter, I simply address what many refer to as issues, I simply call them its. I challenge us all to not allow the its to be the final chapter in our lives.

I’ll spell it out for you. You’re in the hot seat, you have to make a decision about what you plan to do with the rest of your life, and no one is beating down the door to help you. We aren’t the 1 percent, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn and apply the same skills they do and have our efforts rewarded handsomely. Each of us has something that we were born to do, but most of us have too much in the way of seeing that. What if I could tell you ten things that could start your new normal in the right direction? What if each one of these things has the potential to do more than you are already doing? Staying in the moment, negotiating, effective goal making, budgeting, making an impression, and more—all simple skills to teach, all critical to making your life more of what you want it to be. I am a hacker; most of that is controlling people, not technology. This book won’t teach you how to hack a bank, but it can teach you how to hack your way to a pay raise, a better job, or a relationship that doesn’t fall apart. Life is about the decisions you make, but it also has a lot to do with the people you make those decisions with. Will your decisions help you retire at thirty-five, as mine did, or will you go further? This book is step 1 in how to get and appreciate anything you really want in your life.

Looking back on life after 85 years, Carroll V. Kroeger has many astute Observations from Life in the Real World. The author of Turning Points knows that life is a series of choices, and that even small decisions can make a huge difference in your life. The two most important Turning Points in his life were surviving an elite navy officer training program in World War II, and meeting Grace, his lovely wife of 64 years. His book illustrates why learning how to overcome disappointment and adversity is one of the most important lessons in life. Kroeger ignored the paths of least resistance and chose the less traveled ones that took him beyond his wildest dreams. We all reach our own Turning Points every day. Will you be ready to make your key choices?

The death of a child has a tremendous and overwhelming impact on parents and siblings, completely altering the psychological landscape of the family. In the aftermath of such a tragedy, parents face the challenge of not only dealing with their own grief, but also that of their surviving children. How can someone attempt to cease parenting a deceased child while maintaining this role with his/her other children? Is it possible for a mother or father to effectively deal with feelings of grief and loss while simultaneously helping their surviving children? Parenting After the Death of a Child: A Practitioner’s Guide addresses this complex and daunting dilemma. Following on the heels of a qualitative research study that involved interviewing bereaved parents, both fathers and mothers, Buckle and Fleming have put together several different stories of loss and recovery to create an invaluable resource for clinicians, students, and grieving parents. The authors present the experience of losing a child and its subsequent impact on a family in a novel and effective way, demonstrating the strength and importance of their book for the counseling field.