Today I sat down to think about the last 13 years of my life in a relationship and decided to share my memories with you. I decided to tell you about it because today I feel like a woman who has found the way to be happy both alone and in company. I am immensely selfish when it comes to my well-being and above all my happiness. I learned that in life we must build relationships with ties that bind you together and not with chains that tie you down. Though I have to tell you that I packaged this story in a tale, with characters that existed and currently exist in my life. I hope you enjoy it, Sincerely yours, Nena C

Whether you’re newly together and eager to make it work or a longtime couple looking to strengthen and deepen your bond, Eight Dates offers a program of how, why, and when to have eight basic conversations with your partner that can result in a lifetime of love. “Happily ever after” is not by chance, it’s by choice– the choice each person in a relationship makes to remain open, remain curious, and, most of all, to keep talking to one another. From award-winning marriage researcher and bestselling author Dr. John Gottman and fellow researcher Julie Gottman, Eight Dates offers an ingenious and simple-to-implement approach to effective relationship communication. Here are the subjects that every serious couple should discuss: Trust. Family. Sex and intimacy. Dealing with conflict. Work and money. Dreams, and more. And here is how to talk about them—how to broach subjects that are difficult or embarrassing, how to be brave enough to say what you really feel. There are also suggestions for where and when to go on each date—book your favorite romantic restaurant for the Sex & Intimacy conversation (and maybe go to a yoga or dance class beforehand). There are questionnaires, innovative exercises, real-life case studies, and skills to master, including the Four Skills of Intimate Conversation and the Art of Listening. Because making love last is not about having a certain feeling—it’s about both of you being active and involved.

The author of the most well-known and trusted relationship book of all time returns with an updated guide for today's generation. Two decades ago, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus revolutionized the way we thought about love and partnership. John Gray's work has helped countless readers improve and even save their relationships. But as society evolves, relationships do, too. It's time to move beyond Mars and Venus, toward a new relationship model for modern couples. Today, men and women are no longer trapped by rigid societal roles. Now more than ever, we have the freedom to be our authentic selves. Women can access their masculine side, and men can embrace their feminine side. This new freedom is a good thing, but it also brings new challenges. Men and women still need the right tools and skills to help build stronger relation- ships. While previous generations sought "role mate" relationships, based on the more rigid gender roles of the time, today's couples need a new kind of relationship: a "soul mate" relationship. These more emotionally satisfying relationships require a deeper understanding of our partners' individual needs. In Beyond Mars and Venus, Gray teaches you how to strengthen your bond and grow in love together, so you and your loved one can meet each other's needs in the best way possible, bringing you lasting happiness and a fulfilling partnership.

It is possible to find true love through dating. In True Love Dates, Debra Fileta encourages singles not to "kiss dating goodbye" but instead to experience a season of dating as a way to find real love. Through powerful, real-life stories and Fileta's personal journey, this book offers profound insights from the expertise of a professional counselor. Christians are looking for answers to finding true love. They are disillusioned with the church that has provided little practical application in the area of love and relationships. They're bombarded by Christian books that shun dating, idolize courting, fixate on spirituality, and in the end, offer little real relationship help. True Love Dates provides honest help for dating by providing a guide into vital relationship essentials. Debra is a professional Christian counselor who reaches millions with her popular blog, Truelovedates.com, and her book offers sound advice grounded in Christian spirituality. She delivers insight, direction, and counsel when it comes to entering the world of dating and learning to do it right the first time around. Drawing on the stories and struggles of hundreds of young men and women who have pursued the search for true love, Fileta helps readers bypass unnecessary pain while focusing on the things that really matter in the world of dating.

“A beautifully written and well-researched cultural criticism as well as an honest memoir” (Los Angeles Review of Books) from the author of the popular New York Times essay, “To Fall in Love with Anyone, Do This,” explores the romantic myths we create and explains how they limit our ability to achieve and sustain intimacy. What really makes love last? Does love ever work the way we say it does in movies and books and Facebook posts? Or does obsessing over those love stories hurt our real-life relationships? When her parents divorced after a twenty-eight year marriage and her own ten-year relationship ended, those were the questions that Mandy Len Catron wanted to answer. In a series of candid, vulnerable, and wise essays that takes a closer look at what it means to love someone, be loved, and how we present our love to the world, “Catron melds science and emotion beautifully into a thoughtful and thought-provoking meditation” (Bookpage). She delves back to 1944, when her grandparents met in a coal mining town in Appalachia, to her own dating life as a professor in Vancouver. She uses biologists’ research into dopamine triggers to ask whether the need to love is an innate human drive. She uses literary theory to show why we prefer certain kinds of love stories. She urges us to question the unwritten scripts we follow in relationships and looks into where those scripts come from. And she tells the story of how she decided to test an experiment that she’d read about—where the goal was to create intimacy between strangers using a list of thirty-six questions—and ended up in the surreal situation of having millions of people following her brand-new relationship. “Perfect fodder for the romantic and the cynic in all of us” (Booklist), How to Fall in Love with Anyone flips the script on love. “Clear-eyed and full of heart, it is mandatory reading for anyone coping with—or curious about—the challenges of contemporary courtship” (The Toronto Star).

#1 New York Times Bestseller Over 10 million copies sold In this generation-defining self-help guide, a superstar blogger cuts through the crap to show us how to stop trying to be "positive" all the time so that we can truly become better, happier people. For decades, we’ve been told that positive thinking is the key to a happy, rich life. "F**k positivity," Mark Manson says. "Let’s be honest, shit is f**ked and we have to live with it." In his wildly popular Internet blog, Manson doesn’t sugarcoat or equivocate. He tells it like it is—a dose of raw, refreshing, honest truth that is sorely lacking today. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is his antidote to the coddling, let’s-all-feel-good mindset that has infected American society and spoiled a generation, rewarding them with gold medals just for showing up. Manson makes the argument, backed both by academic research and well-timed poop jokes, that improving our lives hinges not on our ability to turn lemons into lemonade, but on learning to stomach lemons better. Human beings are flawed and limited—"not everybody can be extraordinary, there are winners and losers in society, and some of it is not fair or your fault." Manson advises us to get to know our limitations and accept them. Once we embrace our fears, faults, and uncertainties, once we stop running and avoiding and start confronting painful truths, we can begin to find the courage, perseverance, honesty, responsibility, curiosity, and forgiveness we seek. There are only so many things we can give a f**k about so we need to figure out which ones really matter, Manson makes clear. While money is nice, caring about what you do with your life is better, because true wealth is about experience. A much-needed grab-you-by-the-shoulders-and-look-you-in-the-eye moment of real-talk, filled with entertaining stories and profane, ruthless humor, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is a refreshing slap for a generation to help them lead contented, grounded lives.

A husband-and-wife doctor team offers fresh and startling perspective on one of our most cherished and misunderstood institutions. Drs. Astro and Danielle Teller know better than most that finding the right partner in life doesn’t always happen the first time around. Through their own divorces they learned how widely held cultural assumptions and misinformation that nobody thinks to question—what they refer to as “sacred cows”—create unnecessary heartache for people who are already suffering through a terrible time. Do you think, for example, that the divorce rate in the United States is rising? Or that children are harmed by divorce? Most people do, but it turns out that neither of these notions is supported by the data. Combining the rigor that has established them as leaders in their respective fields along with a dose of good-natured humor, the Tellers ask readers to take a fresh look at seven common sacred cows: the Holy Cow, the Expert Cow, the Selfish Cow, the Defective Cow, the Innocent Victim Cow, the One True Cow, and the Other Cow. This is not a book that is “for” marriage or “for” divorce, but “for” the freedom to decide how to live most honestly and happily either as part of a couple or a single person.