Literary Nonfiction. Art. Mandy-Suzanne Wong does something far beyond 'giving voice' to animals and the artists that record them. She listens: quietly, carefully, truthfully. And the animals speak for themselves. Listen, we all bleed is a powerful and much needed book for our times. Now more than ever, we need to listen to the voices of all beings. And collectively, hopefully, we can save our beautiful Earth.--Kathryn Eddy In this beautifully subtle, intricately woven text, Mandy-Suzanne Wong entreats you to listen, to really listen, to the nonhuman. And even if this listening makes you feel uncomfortable, ashamed, guilty, she dares you to persist. Moving seamlessly among the works of artists devoted to nonhuman voices, she manages to relay a myriad of worlds beyond our own, each with its own infinite complexity and beauty. Reading this book, hearing and loving the nonhuman, should prompt you to be passionate about saving this world that we have so thoroughly ravaged.--Tracy McDonald Haunting, vivid, confrontational, unafraid--a new beat to penetrate our hearts and lead an awakening dance in which we stop refusing to see. Wong's descriptions call up Sue Coe in prose. To read about my own work this way--alchemized from sounds in the air and projections on walls and embroidered onto the page--is pure and powerful magic.--Colleen Plumb LISTEN, WE ALL BLEED is both an informative and invigorating shock to the system...with striking and evocative prose...Wong's text compels the reader to brave the often ignored sounds of nonhumans and endure the raw emotion behind them. Whether the bleating sheep now turned leg of lamb or the symphonic wanderings of lost snails, in that moment the reader doesn't just listen--we become. As we hurt alongside the torment of nonhumans, Wong gently exposes our very hand in causing it. This book is a heart-wrenching albeit imperative rattling of the human soul. A must read for any Earth-goer.--Rich Andrew

I reflect on the many routes I travelled and I see the variety of landscapes my eyes beheld. I think of the many slopes and the stale hills. I walked through valleys and rivers, big and small. I remember the great few mountains I gazed upon and the trees young, old, and tall. I walked different trails and opened my eyes in different places. I had seen grass dancing with the breeze and a clear blue sky. I remember a sunset waving to say goodnight and a moon trying to outshine the stars. I remember lying under the shade of a tree, watching a worm crawling on its stump. I have seen ants going about their business and insects great and small. I strolled between weeds and shrubs and played with their stems. As for my body, it knows how it feels to lie on meadows. I walked on sand and felt the tiny stones between my toes. Some late afternoons I heard birds singing with operatic voices. As a child I played in the rain and heard the thunder above my head. After the rain I saw the promise of God in the skya rainbow. Ive watched the flow if a stream breaking on pebbles, and when I gazed up to the sky I saw clouds moving by. I already heard the wind in its fury and witnessed the ocean in its rage. I have seen a desert storm and hid my face from its rusty desert sand. I have seen flowers bloom and bees buzzing for their nectar. I know how to greet every new day with my prayers and give gratitude to the Creator for the creation. My journey is the recorded history of my time and in my time. I have seen what I have seen and know in my heart that life is a special gift. But I have also seen despair and troubled times. I had many encounters with dark days, but I rose from the pain. I have tasted my tears and seen my own blood. Every day I see my reflection in the mirror, then I remind myself that I am more than what I see. I go through bad times and also through good times. I sometimes fight fear, doubt, and tears, but I stand for the human race because it is my passion. I have seen human tears, emotional pain, and human fears. Therefore, within me there is a warrior that knows how to bleed and survive. Each day I learn to cope with the pressures of life, and I never give up on a grain of hope. I breathe, I laugh, I cry, but I am here and I exist. I was in my yesterday and will be in my tomorrow. At this moment I am now. I am the sentinel of my life and with my voice I announce that I am who I am and I am here with you on the same planet called Earth. Now you know who I am; I am mortal flesh.

In Seven Thousand Ways to Listen, Nepo offers ancient and contemporary practices to help us stay close to what is sacred. In this beautifully written spiritual memoir, Nepo explores the transformational journey with his characteristic insight and grace. He unfolds the many gifts and challenges of deep listening as we are asked to reflect on the life we are given. A moving exploration of self and our relationship to others and the world around us, Seven Thousand Ways to Listen unpacks the many ways we are called to redefine ourselves and to name what is meaningful, as we move through the changes that come from experience and ageing and the challenge of surviving loss. Filled with questions to reflect on and discuss with others, and meditations on how to return to what matters throughout the day, this enlightening book teaches us how to act wholeheartedly so we can inhabit the gifts we are born with and find the language of our own wisdom. Seven Thousand Ways to Listen weaves a tapestry of deep reflection, memoir and meditation to create a remarkable guide on how to listen to life and live more fully.

Of course, each thing has its own sides to every story. In a dark and crooked lane in an unnamed city where it never ceases to snow, a small white box falls from a coat pocket. It is made of paper strips woven tightly together; there is no apparent way to open it without destroying it. What compels a passing witness, a self-described anthrophobe not inclined to engage with other people, to pick up the box and chase after the stranger who dropped it? The Box follows an impenetrable rectangular cuboid as it changes hands in a collapsing metropolis, causing confluences, conflicts, rifts, and disasters. Different narrators, each with a distinctive voice, give secondhand accounts of decisive moments in the box's life. From the anthrophobe to a newly hired curator of a renowned art collection, from a couple who own an antiquarian bookshop to a hotel bartender hiding from a terrible past, the storytellers repeat rumours and rely on faulty memories, grasping at something that continually escapes them. Haunting their recollections in one mysterious woman who, convinced of the box's good or evil powers, pursues it with deadly desperation. In this mesmerizing, intricately constructed puzzle of a novel, Mandy-Suzanne Wong challenges our understanding of subject and objects, of cause and effect. Is it only humans who have agency? What is or isn't animate? What do we value and what do we discard?

From New York Times bestselling author Heather Morris comes the memoir of a life of listening to others. In Listening Well, Heather will explore her extraordinary talents as a listener—a skill she employed when she first met Lale Sokolov, the tattooist at Auschwitz-Birkenau and the inspiration for her bestselling novel. It was this ability that led Lale to entrust Heather with his story, which she told in her novel The Tattooist of Auschwitz and the bestselling follow up, Cilka's Journey. Now Heather shares the story behind her inspirational writing journey and the defining experiences of her life, including her profound friendship with Lale, and explores how she learned to really listen to the stories people told her—skills she believes we can all learn. "Stories are what connect us and remind us that hope is always possible."—Heather Morris

Fifty is the first book of poetry from the promising new poet, Nathan Brisby. Brisby explores modern poetic forms with an impressive depth of skill and meaning. Exploring topics such as coming out, Christianity, sex, friendship, and music, Brisby leaves readers with some of the most intense closing lines that you are likely to read in this form.

In this book, Eva Pilch cleverly expresses the way she sees things through her eyes in inspiring poetry. She also shows you the things she literally saw through her eyes in photographs, which include everything from awe-inspiring nature to her own unique displays of various messages. Explore the mind, love, hate, happiness, struggles, social injustice and even the age old question of the meaning of life. There are also some surprises. It is a book that will capture you into curling up with it on the couch. Then you’ll want to leave it on your coffee table to flip through and entertain your guests with.