Read Amy Boesky's blogs and view other content on the Penguin Community. The stirring true story of a woman who chose fearlessness in the face of a fatal family legacy and discovered the pleasure of living each moment to its fullest At thirty-two, Amy Boesky thought she had it all figured out: a wonderful new man in her life, a great job, and the (nearly) perfect home. For once, she was almost able to shake the terrible fear that had gripped her for as long as she could remember. Women in her family had always died young-from cancer-and she and her sisters had grown up in time's shadow. It colored every choice they made and was beginning to come to a head now that each of them approached thirty-five-the deadline their doctors prescribed for having preventive surgery with the hope they could thwart their family's medical curse. But Amy didn't want to dwell on that now. She wanted to plan for a new baby, live her life. And with the appreciation for life's smallest pleasures, she did just that. In What We Have, Amy shares a deeply transformative year in her family's life and invites readers to join in their joy, laughter, and grief. In a true story as compelling as the best in women's fiction, written with the sagacity of Joan Didion and the elegance of Amy Bloom, Amy Boesky's journey celebrates the promise of a full life, even in the face of uncertainty.

"A beautiful amalgam of memoir, travelogue, and investigative report that moves with the propulsive forward energy of a thriller. A haunting chronicle of loss and redemption." --Ron Chernow, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Alexander Hamilton In the wake of her mother's death, Jessica Pearce Rotondi uncovers boxes of letters, declassified CIA reports, and newspaper clippings that bring to light a family ghost: her uncle Jack, who disappeared during the CIA-led "Secret War" in Laos in 1972. The letters lead her across Southeast Asia in search of the truth that has eluded her family for decades. What she discovers takes her closer to the mother she lost and the mysteries of a secret war that changed the rules of engagement forever. In 1943, 19-year-old Edwin Pearce jumps from a burning B-17 bomber over Germany. Missing in action for months, his parents finally learn he is a prisoner of war in Stalag 17. Ed survives nearly three years in prison camp and a march across the Alps before returning home. Ed's eldest son and namesake, Edwin "Jack," follows his father into the Air Force. But on the night of March 29, 1972, Jack's plane vanishes over the mountains bordering Vietnam and Ed's past comes roaring into the present. In 2009, Ed's granddaughter, Jessica Pearce Rotondi, is grieving her mother's death when she stumbles across declassified CIA documents, letters, and maps that reveal her family's decades-long search for Jack. What We Inherit is Rotondi's story of her own hunt for answers as she retraces her grandfather's 1973 path across Southeast Asia in search of his son. An excavation of inherited trauma on a personal and national scale, What We Inherit reveals the power of a father's refusal to be silenced and a daughter's quest to rediscover her voice in the wake of loss. As Rotondi nears the last known place Jack was seen alive, she grows closer to understanding the mystery that has haunted her family for generations--and the destructive impact of a family secret so big it encompassed an entire war.

An instant New York Times bestseller! From Oliver Jeffers, world-renowned picture book creator and illustrator of The Crayons' Christmas, comes a gorgeously told father-daughter story and companion to the #1 New York Times bestseller Here We Are! What shall we build, you and I? Let's gather all our tools for a start. For putting together . . . and taking apart. A father and daughter set about laying the foundations for their life together. Using their own special tools, they get to work, building memories to cherish, a home to keep them safe, and love to keep them warm. A rare and enduring story about a parent's boundless love, life's endless opportunities, and all we need to build a together future. The perfect baby shower gift or gift for new parents! Praise for What We'll Build: "[Has] the offbeat, sweet style Jeffers' fans know and love." --Kirkus Reviews "An intensely personal statement of intergenerational fellowship and an obvious pick for library shelves best explored at home." --School Library Journal "Children will love his playbook for building a future of love and imagination, and they will delight in the special relationship the father and daughter share." --Booklist "Stroked in generous swaths of warm color and Jeffers's signature childlike scribbles . . . .. Jeffers's benediction portrays a parent who surrounds his child with love and steadies her as she learns how to bring her dreams to fruition." --Publishers Weekly

The increasing output-oriented effectivity and regulatory power of socio-economic structures fail to meet human potentials for personal, social and political unfolding. Targeting the patterns of behaviour that underlie these structures, the author investigates in possibilities for transformation that arise from the awareness of needs within the political subject. What can this awareness mean and what are possible ways to foster awareness of own needs? The author gives a critical overview of different understandings of needs and connects it to practical aspects, leading towards an own approach of doing what we have to do, in order to be who we are.

For the last 150 years, advertising has created a consumer culture in the United States, shaping every facet of American life—from what we eat and drink to the clothes we wear and the cars we drive. In the United States, advertising has carved out an essential place in American culture, and advertising messages undoubtedly play a significant role in determining how people interpret the world around them. This three-volume set examines the myriad ways that advertising has influenced many aspects of 20th-century American society, such as popular culture, politics, and the economy. Advertising not only played a critical role in selling goods to an eager public, but it also served to establish the now world-renowned consumer culture of our country and fuel the notion of "the American dream." The collection spotlights the most important advertising campaigns, brands, and companies in American history, from the late 1800s to modern day. Each fact-driven essay provides insight and in-depth analysis that general readers will find fascinating as well as historical details and contextual nuance students and researchers will greatly appreciate. These volumes demonstrate why advertising is absolutely necessary, not only for companies behind the messaging, but also in defining what it means to be an American.

Where others have oriented Wordsworth towards ideas of transcendence, nature worship, or - more recently - political repression, Paul H. Fry argues that underlying all this is a more fundamental insight - Wordsworth is most astonished not that the world he experiences has any particular qualities, but rather that it simply exists.