Shortlisted for the Peters Book of the Year. Seventeen-year-old Frank Palp lives in a grim little apartment, in a grim little building, in an exceedingly grim (and rather large) city. Cobbled streets and near-destroyed bridges lead one through Old Town and Old New Town, and war-damaged houses stand alongside post-war characterless, concrete hutches. Most people walk hunched over, a habit from avoiding snipers, but others are proud to stand tall and make the world take notice . . . This is a city full of contradictions, and Frank is no exception. He mostly hates his life, he definitely hates the ludicrous city he is forced to live in and he absolutely with complete certainty hates the idiots he's surrounded by . . . and yet he is in love. A love so pure and sparkling and colourful, Frank feels sure it is 'meant to be'. His love is a reward for all the terrible grey that he is surrounded by - which would be great, if the girl in question knew he existed. And then one day, the perfect sign lands in his lap. A message, in a bottle. A wish, for 'anything that isn't this'. The girl who wrote this is surely his soulmate - and now he just needs to find her.

Love vs. Anything That Isnt is about remembering why we are here. In a world focused on material success and so enamored of distraction, there seems to be little time to foster and maintain a conscious awareness of the higher reasons for life. Drawing a parallel between Love and what is conventionally thought of as God, Love vs. Anything That Isnt seeks to help us remember that the experience of our God-given peace as a way of being is available to all of us at all times. Love vs. Anything That Isnt is about looking at lifes challenges in a different way. Everything happens for a reason; we are here to learn and to grow, and that is all there is to it. Life is a game, but it is a game with a serious purpose: to become closer to the unknowable force we call God via the experience of Love. We are to strive to ascend as high as we can through this simple awareness. Its not that hard; it is within us always. The prize for such awareness is grandthe seemingly ever elusive inner peace. Making life much harder than it needs to be seems to be a ubiquitous human trait. In a society based on fear and the worship of so much that isnt necessary or even real, it is easy to become lost. Love vs. Anything That Isnt serves as a guide and source of inspiration to help bring us back to what is real, the place where true peace and meaningful happiness arise. Love vs. Anything That Isnt maintains that we learn what Love is by experiencing the pain of all it is notpain, suffering, disease, hatred, violence, and war. To come home to the Love we are is to become whole again. To come home to the Love we are is to be healed.

The drama-comedy show Girls—often under-rated by being perceived as Sex and the City for the Millennial generation—has made TV history and provoked controversy for its pitilessly accurate portrayal of four oddly sympathetic twenty-something female characters, notable for their self-absorption, empathy deficits, and ineptitude with relationships. Among other breakthroughs, it is the first show to depict the sex act among the alienated young as nearly always awkward and unfulfilling. In Girls and Philosophy, a team of diverse yet always sensitive, empathic, and ept philosophers approach the world of Girls from a variety of angles and philosophical points of view. Underlying this New York world is the new reality of ambitious yet unfocused young people from comparatively advantaged backgrounds having their expectations chilled by the severe and prolonged economic recession. The writers attack many fascinating issues arising from Girls, including the meaning of authenticity in the twenty-first century, coming of age in a society with no clear guidelines for most of what matters in life,Girls as the only TV show the pop-culture-hating professor Theodor Adorno might have admired, feminist appraisals of these not-very-feminist characters and their frustrations, what the wardrobes of the four mean philosophically, how each of the four deals with the anxiety that comes from inescapable freedom, whether we need to amend the traditional list of seven deadly sins in the context of present-day New York, how the speech of the Millennials illustrates Austin’s theory of speech acts, how the learning of Hannah, Shoshanna, Jessa, and Marnie compares with the ancient Greek theory of the education of the young, and of course, why we once again find it natural to think of women in their early- to mid-twenties as ‘girls’.

Bella left the life she knew for a simple one. She built her simple life at The Gathering and loves every minute of it. Looking forward to building more, she agrees to assist a new citizen of The Gathering. The girl simply needs assistance in making friends and establishing her own life, right? With new introductions and visits of the past, Bella wonders if life is really how she once thought it was.

"A fictionalized story about the life of young Booker T. Washington. Living in a West Virginia settlement after emancipation, nine-year-old Booker travels by lantern light to the salt works, where he labors from dawn till dusk. Although his stomach rumbles, his real hunger is his intense desire to learn to read.... [A] moving and inspirational story." -- School Library Journal, starred review

Why your business isn't succeeding and what you can do about it While business consultants are having you scour over profit and loss statements, the real truth is businesses don't fail; people quit. The Way You Do Anything Is the Way You Do Everything offers a realistic, sarcastic, and fiercely honest look at how business owners fail to commit. Business success is all about mindset, and author Suzanne Evans helps you uncover your goals and blast away the obstacles that are standing in your way. She offers ways to make more money, more quickly and eliminate everything that doesn't work. Offers specific daily practices to make more money even when every odd is stacked against you Delivers the road map to abandon a job you hate and follow your professional dreams Author Suzanne Evans went from a secretary to seven figure success, and her story has helped her to mentor thousands to change their lives, businesses, and finances forever Take complete control over your life, build wealth faster, and create a business that not only makes money but also makes a difference.

An up close and personal portrait of a legendary filmmaker, theater director, and comedian, drawing on candid conversations with his closest friends in show business and the arts—from Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep to Natalie Portman and Lorne Michaels. The work of Mike Nichols pervades American cultural consciousness—from The Graduate and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? to Angels in America, The Birdcage, Working Girl, and Primary Colors, not to mention his string of hit plays, including Barefoot in the Park and The Odd Couple. If that weren’t enough, he was also one half of the timelessly funny duo Nichols & May, as well as a founding member of the original improv troupe. Over a career that spanned half a century, Mike Nichols changed Hollywood, Broadway, and comedy forever. Most fans, however, know very little of the person behind it all. Since he never wrote his memoirs, and seldom appeared on television, they have very little sense of his searching intellect or his devastating wit. They don't know that Nichols, the great American director, was born Mikail Igor Peschkowsky, in Berlin, and came to this country, speaking no English, to escape the Nazis. They don't know that Nichols was at one time a solitary psychology student, or that a childhood illness caused permanent, life-altering side effects. They don't know that he withdrew into a debilitating depression before he "finally got it right," in his words, by marrying Diane Sawyer. Here, for the first time, Ash Carter and Sam Kashner offer an intimate look behind the scenes of Nichols' life, as told by the stars, moguls, playwrights, producers, comics and crewmembers who stayed loyal to Nichols for years. Life Isn't Everything is a mosaic portrait of a brilliant and original director known for his uncommon charm, wit, vitality, and genius for friendship, this volume is also a snapshot of what it meant to be living, loving, and making art in the 20th century.