From the bestselling author of When Things Fall Apart, an open-hearted call for human connection, compassion, and learning to love the world just as it is during these most challenging times. In her first new book of spiritual teachings in over seven years, Pema Chödrön offers a combination of wisdom, heartfelt reflections, and the signature mix of humor and insight that have made her a beloved figure to turn to during times of change. In an increasingly polarized world, Pema shows us how to strengthen our abilities to find common ground, even when we disagree, and influence our environment in positive ways. Sharing never-before told personal stories from her remarkable life, simple and powerful everyday practices, and directly relatable advice, Pema encourages us all to become triumphant bodhisattvas--compassionate beings--in times of hardship. Welcoming the Unwelcome includes teachings on the true meaning of karma, recognizing the basic goodness in ourselves and the people we share our lives with--even the most challenging ones, transforming adversity into opportunities for growth, and freeing ourselves from the empty and illusory labels that separate us. Pema also provides step-by-step guides to a basic sitting meditation and a compassion meditation that anyone can use to bring light to the darkness we face, wherever and whatever it may be.

Grizzly leads a tour of Grouchland with Elmo following close behind in a colorful "Pictureback Shape Book."

Kait’s volcanic temper has already scared most of her friends away, and a bad breakup with her college boyfriend Lutz has left her crippled by guilt and painful memories. So, when she learns that her best friend Alice is planning a three-day sabbatical in a secluded mountain cabin, Kait jumps at the chance to tag along, convinced that rekindling their fractured friendship is the key to fixing whatever’s breaking down inside of her. She should have known… Lutz would never let her go so easily. After a chance roadside meeting, Kait’s jealous ex-boyfriend pursues her into the foothills, revealing the monster under his skin for the first time: a body-snatching inhuman entity capable of assimilating and adopting the guise of any human host. Lutz is determined to prove his twisted love to Kait, even if it means carving his monument to his devotion in the pilfered flesh of her closest friends. Now, with miles of snow-hushed Appalachia between them and civilization, Kait must unite her friends against this horrifying threat, and learn to embrace her own inner monster, before the shadows of her past swallow up her life for good.

A gay teenage American vampire adjusts to life at a prestigious—and mysterious—English boarding school and its dangerous headmaster in this YA adventure. Archangel Academy is more than a school to Michael Howard. Within its majestic buildings and serene English grounds, he’s found friends, new love, and a place that feels more like home than Nebraska ever did. But the most important gift of Archangel Academy is immortality . . . Life as a just-made vampire is challenging for Michael, even with Ronan, an experienced vamp, to guide him. Michael’s abilities are still raw and unpredictable. To add to the turmoil, the ancient feud between rival vampire species is sending ripples of discord through the school. And beneath the new headmaster’s charismatic front lies a powerful and very personal agenda. Yet the mysteries lurking around the Academy pale in comparison to the secrets emerging from Michael’s past. And choosing the wrong person to trust—or to love—could lead to an eternity of regret . . .

An anti-coming-of-age story, set between the U.S. and China, that examines themes of escapism and toxic masculinity. In the years following his graduation from college, Cole Chen has been back and forth between the U.S. and China, struggling to navigate his transition into adulthood. Estranged from his parents, he returns to Hunan province to work for his friends, while also attempting to write a memoir based on his experiences. During the course of this year abroad, he meets a young woman named Harmony under initially dubious circumstances, whom he dates briefly, before returning to live with his brother in California, where he is forced to confront a dark reality from his past. With perspectives shifting between Cole's rose-colored accounts of his time in Hunan and his friends and family members' less flattering portrayals of him in the States, the novel attempts to inspect the extent to which one's surroundings (both geographical and cultural) shape conceptions of self-identity, while also raising a more complicated discussion about the ways in which men are taught to view the opposite sex. The #MeToo movement has changed the way we tell stories, and more importantly, the way we listen. This story is an attempt to reflect honestly on the problems of misogyny and toxic masculinity endemic to our society. Too often, representations of sexual abuse at the hands of male authors tend toward the exploitative (gratuitous depictions of violence, the use of female trauma as a redemptive tool, the co-opting of victims' stories, etc.), but Unwelcomeactively (and repeatedly) challenges the credibility of its protagonist, to the point that, in the end, his version of events is denied primacy. Unwelcome is reminiscent of Garth Greenwell's What Belongs to You (a fraught relationship abroad) and Teju Cole's Open City (an introspective/aborted personal reckoning).

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"This book examines how American colleges and universities since the mid-nineteenth century have used students' race, religion, and ethnicity in deciding whom to admit and how to shape enrolled students' campus social life"--