This book focuses on six women who are often seen as particularly tough-minded: Simone Weil (1909-1943, French philosopher), Hannah Arendt (1906-1975, German-American philosopher), Mary McCarthy (1912-1989, American writer), Susan Sontag (1933-2004, American writer), Diane Arbus (1923-1971, American photographer, and Joan Didion (1934, American writer). It traces the careers of these women and their challenges to the pre-eminence of empathy as the ethical posture from which to examine pain.

A collection of poetry and flash fiction tales dedicated to the healing powers of nature in her light and darkest hours.

From the author of the New York Times bestselling Bad Boys novels comes the second book in a dark, sexy contemporary trilogy. He’s a fighter who never loses, but is he tough enough to win her heart? There was a time when I had everything–a wonderful family, a bright future. Love. But all that was taken away in a single night, torn from me like flesh from bone. Since then, I’ve hidden away in my second-choice job as a makeup artist. But I prefer it that way, actually. I’m comfortable in the shadows, where no one can see my scars. Kiefer Rogan literally took my breath away the moment I met him. MMA champion-turned-actor, notorious playboy, charming to a fault—he’s everything I vowed to avoid. But he just wouldn’t stop until I opened up and let him in. Maybe I should’ve tried harder to resist him. Maybe I shouldn’t have fallen in love with him. Because I, of all people, know that everyone has secrets. Scars. And that they’re usually ugly and painful and destructive to the people we love most. I just never guessed that they could be deadly, too.

Originally published in the 1950s, these beautifully illustrated stories for young readers recount the adventures of the Tatums, a backwoods family, and their puppy, Tough Enough. Mainly set on a farm in Appalachia, the tales are noteworthy for their realistic portrayal of rural life. This collection features the first three books from the Tatum family series: Beanie: It's Beanie's birthday, and he gets the best gift of all: a new puppy, Tough Enough. The two new friends find more than they bargained for when they head off to the hills to go bear-hunting. Tough Enough: The Tatum family dog is a mischievous creature, but surely he can't be responsible for the farm's missing hens? Tough Enough's Trip: When the Tatums set off on a long trip to visit relatives, Tough Enough can't bear to be left behind and stows away in the family truck. He and the Tatums drive past villages and towns, farms and factories, and across rivers on their way to the ocean, meeting a host of lost animals along the way.

This book focuses on six brilliant women who are often seen as particularly tough-minded: Simone Weil, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, Susan Sontag, Diane Arbus, and Joan Didion. Aligned with no single tradition, they escape straightforward categories. Yet their work evinces an affinity of style and philosophical viewpoint that derives from a shared attitude toward suffering. What Mary McCarthy called a “cold eye” was not merely a personal aversion to displays of emotion: it was an unsentimental mode of attention that dictated both ethical positions and aesthetic approaches. Tough Enough traces the careers of these women and their challenges to the pre-eminence of empathy as the ethical posture from which to examine pain. Their writing and art reveal an adamant belief that the hurts of the world must be treated concretely, directly, and realistically, without recourse to either melodrama or callousness. As Deborah Nelson shows, this stance offers an important counter-tradition to the familiar postwar poles of emotional expressivity on the one hand and cool irony on the other. Ultimately, in its insistence on facing reality without consolation or compensation, this austere “school of the unsentimental” offers new ways to approach suffering in both its spectacular forms and all of its ordinariness.