God has given us all a story that is woven around our purpose, whether we choose to live a life that fulfills it or not. Our true purpose is to love, even though we donaEUR(tm)t know how much time we have. Life is filled with many options and so many people that it is sometimes hard to know which to choose and who to actually listen to. IaEUR(tm)m grateful to God for placing some recognizably wise people in my life who are there to encourage me in making good choices.The aftermath and far reach for the spiritual resolve of a seemingly unfulfilled existence can cause prolonged and inexplicable grief. It is in the complete acceptance of humanityaEUR(tm)s biggest certainty, death, that one will start to acknowledge it as part of life and, in doing so, come back to life.Life almost faked them out! Hosea and India may never have had a successful life together on this plane due to their extreme differences in callings; their true purposes; and overall lifeaEUR(tm)s expectancy, desires, and dreams. Yet they had real love as real as Romeo and JulietaEUR(tm)s. A woman by the name of Jeanette Winterson was onto something that hinges on authenticity (aEURoereal talkaEUR) as she penned the following quote in a book called Written on the Body:aEURoeYouaEUR(tm)ll get over itaEUR|aEUR ItaEUR(tm)s the clichA(c)s that cause the trouble. To lose someone you love is to alter your life forever. You donaEUR(tm)t get over it because aEUR~itaEUR is the person you loved. The pain stops, there are new people, but the gap never closes. How could it? The particularness of someone who mattered enough to grieve over is not made anodyne by death. This hole in my heart is in the shape of you, and no-one else can fit it. Why would I want them to?

The author, a computer science professor diagnosed with terminal cancer, explores his life, the lessons that he has learned, how he has worked to achieve his childhood dreams, and the effect of his diagnosis on him and his family.

A teen plunges into a downward spiral of addiction in this classic cautionary tale. January 24th After you’ve had it, there isn't even life without drugs… It started when she was served a soft drink laced with LSD in a dangerous party game. Within months, she was hooked, trapped in a downward spiral that took her from her comfortable home and loving family to the mean streets of an unforgiving city. It was a journey that would rob her of her innocence, her youth—and ultimately her life. Read her diary. Enter her world. You will never forget her. For thirty-five years, the acclaimed, bestselling first-person account of a teenage girl’s harrowing decent into the nightmarish world of drugs has left an indelible mark on generations of teen readers. As powerful—and as timely—today as ever, Go Ask Alice remains the definitive book on the horrors of addiction.

Following the triumph of his Booker Prize–winning True History of the Kelly Gang, Peter Carey ventures into the Far East with a novel shot through with mysteries at once historical, literary, and personal. Sarah Wode-Douglass, the editor of a London poetry magazine, had grown up knowing the famous and infamous John Slater. And because he figured prominently in the disaster that was her parents’ marriage, when Slater proposes that she accompany him to Malaysia, Sarah embarks out of curiosity on a journey that becomes, instead, a lifelong obsession. Her discoveries spiral outward from Christopher Chubb, a destitute Australian she meets by chance in the steamy, fetid city of Kuala Lumpur. He is mad, Slater warns her, explaining the ruinous hoax Chubb had committed decades earlier. But lurking behind the man’s peculiarity and arrogance, Sarah senses, is artistic genius, in the form of a manuscript he teases her with and which she soon would do anything to acquire. The provenance of this work, she gradually learns, is marked by kidnapping, exile, and death — a relentless saga that reaches from Melbourne to Bali, Sumatra, and Java, and that more than once compels her back to Malaysia without ever disclosing all of its secrets, only the power of the imagination and the price it can exact from those who would wield it. Astonishing, mesmerizing, and ultimately shocking, My Life as a Fake is the most audacious novel yet in Peter Carey’s extraordinary career.

“Guides readers toward the road less consumptive, offering practical advice and moral support while making a convincing case that individual actions . . . do matter.” —Elizabeth Royte, author, Garbage Land and Bottlemania Like many people, Beth Terry didn’t think an individual could have much impact on the environment. But while laid up after surgery, she read an article about the staggering amount of plastic polluting the oceans, and decided then and there to kick her plastic habit. In Plastic-Free, she shows you how you can too, providing personal anecdotes, stats about the environmental and health problems related to plastic, and individual solutions and tips on how to limit your plastic footprint. Presenting both beginner and advanced steps, Terry includes handy checklists and tables for easy reference, ways to get involved in larger community actions, and profiles of individuals—Plastic-Free Heroes—who have gone beyond personal solutions to create change on a larger scale. Fully updated for the paperback edition, Plastic-Free also includes sections on letting go of eco-guilt, strategies for coping with overwhelming problems, and ways to relate to other people who aren’t as far along on the plastic-free path. Both a practical guide and the story of a personal journey from helplessness to empowerment, Plastic-Free is a must-read for those concerned about the ongoing health and happiness of themselves, their children, and the planet.

“Fake News! That’s Fake News!” In a few short years, the phrase “Fake News” has earned a place in dictionaries, in national discourse, and in our daily lives. But Fake News is not new. Fake News began when people first interpreted the Bible to advance their own agenda. Commonly-held beliefs about what the Bible says regarding women, LGBTQ folks, slavery, immigrants, and Jews trumpets Fake News that is destroying people’s lives. What is the best way to counter Fake News? With the truth. To do so, Episcopal priest Elizabeth Geitz turns to the #1 bestselling book year after year—the Bible. Sexism, racism, anti-Semitism, and heterosexism are experiencing an alarming resurgence today. It is time for an accessible book that sets the record straight on what the Bible really says regarding the many “isms” affecting all of us. It is time for the Fake News about the Bible to come to a screeching halt. The 101 eye-opening reflections in Spiritual Truth in the Age of Fake News are a call to action for people of different faiths or no faith at all. This a must-read for anyone exhausted by the daily barrage of Fake News who is seeking the relief of the authentic.

From USA TODAY bestselling author Stefanie London comes the first book in her scorching-hot miniseries Close Quarters! Security expert Owen Fletcher and Detective Hannah Anderson are going undercover…as husband and wife. Their marriage may be fake, but the attraction burning between them is dangerously real! Owen Fletcher is the most irritating man I’ve ever met…and the hottest fantasy I’ve never forgotten. I haven’t seen him since he left the police force to work as a security expert in New York, but now he’s back in Melbourne to help my department break up a ring of jewel thieves. The catch? We’re going undercover as husband and wife. Getting up close and personal with Owen is messing with my professional focus. I should definitely not be dreaming about running my hands through Owen’s hair and kissing his smart-ass mouth. But there’s a solution: a no-strings affair to get him out of my system. For one night, I’ll take charge of my own pleasure and invite Owen to explore the red-hot chemistry that’s threatening to combust at any moment…