Lost Stitches is a remarkable book that's part family memoir - full of family intrigue and heartbreak - part American history, part romance, and part love-letter to Jamaica. Told in a heartfelt yet humble, candid and relatable way, Danny recounts the

My almost sister-in-law thought I, Lizabett McDonald, would be the first of the Sisterhood of the Dropped Stitches to marry? True, I've confided to my friends that I've had a crush on Rick Keifer since childhood. But will he ever see me as more than his best friend's kid sister? The Sisterhood wants to give me a beauty makeover to catch his eye. I've been preoccupied with a spiritual makeover, and with starting my own wedding-planning business—no time for romance. Yet with Rick as best man, maybe as I give Marilee her dream wedding, my own dreams will also come true!

The New York Times bestseller from the author of Dusk, Night, Dawn, Hallelujah Anyway, Bird by Bird, and Almost Everything “Lamott’s …most insightful book yet, Stitches offers plenty of her characteristic witty wisdom…this slim, readable volume [is] a lens on life, widening and narrowing, encouraging each reader to reflect on what it is, after all, that really matters.”—People What do we do when life lurches out of balance? How can we reconnect to one other and to what’s sustaining, when evil and catastrophe seem inescapable? These questions lie at the heart of Stitches, Lamott’s profound follow-up to her New York Times–bestselling Help, Thanks, Wow. In this book Lamott explores how we find meaning and peace in these loud and frantic times; where we start again after personal and public devastation; how we recapture wholeness after loss; and how we locate our true identities in this frazzled age. We begin, Lamott says, by collecting the ripped shreds of our emotional and spiritual fabric and sewing them back together, one stitch at a time. It’s in these stitches that the quilt of life begins, and embedded in them are strength, warmth, humor, and humanity.

A Publishers Weekly Top Ten Best Book of the Year An Amazon.com Top Ten Best Book of 2009 A Washington Post Book World’s Ten Best Book of the Year A California Literary Review Best Book of 2009 An L.A. Times Top 25 Non-Fiction Book of 2009 An NPR Best Book of the Year, Best Memoir With this stunning graphic memoir, David Small takes readers on an unforgettable journey into the dark heart of his tumultuous childhood in 1950s Detroit, in a coming-of-age tale like no other. At the age of fourteen, David awoke from a supposedly harmless operation to discover his throat had been slashed and one of his vocal chords removed, leaving him a virtual mute. No one had told him that he had cancer and was expected to die. The resulting silence was in keeping with the atmosphere of secrecy and repressed frustration that pervaded the Small household and revealed itself in the slamming of cupboard doors, the thumping of a punching bag, the beating of a drum. Believing that they were doing their best, David’s parents did just the reverse. David’s mother held the family emotionally hostage with her furious withdrawals, even as she kept her emotions hidden — including from herself. His father, rarely present, was a radiologist, and although David grew up looking at X-rays and drawing on X-ray paper, it would be years before he discovered the shocking consequences of his father’s faith in science. A work of great bravery and humanity, Stitches is a gripping and ultimately redemptive story of a man’s struggle to understand the past and reclaim his voice.

The (bear) cubs were growing-Daddy said they had gained at least a pound each. They were also taking a lot of my time, which bothered me But Reeder and I took care of Princess and Blackie every day and could even pet them and take them for little walks When we ran, the cubs would run right along with us. Once when I tripped and fell, Princess rolled right over me. Then Blackie lumbered beside us and rolled on Princess. Reeder jumped right in and the four of us-bears and Reeder and I-rolled and ran, rolled and ran. Reeder and I hollered and laughed and the bear cubs barked and growled playfully. Luvella thought making a promise and being dedicated to fulfilling it were enough. Is it really possible for an 11-year-old to open her own store? Her love for her family and for the mountain where she has grown up answer yes, anything is possible. But with a theme of loss weaving through her life, Luvella discovers that the very people she loves innocently create the major setbacks to her success.