This morning, somewhere between your first step on the floor to your last step out the door, you stuffed your bag full. No, not your purse, or a diaper bag, or your child's lunch box, but one created in your mind. And you didn't stuff it with books, band-aids, or baby food-you filled it with burdens. The kind of burdens moms carry. The suitcase of guilt. A sack of discontent. You drape a duffel bag of weariness on one shoulder and a hanging bag of worry on the other. No wonder you're so tired at the end of the day. Toting those kind of bags is exhausting. Why don't you try traveling light? Try it for the sake of those you love so dearly: your husband, your children, your parents. Have you ever considered the impact that excess baggage has on relationships? God wants to use you, you know. But how can he if you're exhausted? Using the comforting message of the twenty-third Psalm, Max Lucado reminds mothers to listen to God's tender voice urging us to release those burdens we were never meant to bear.

This morning, somewhere between your first step on the floor to your last step out the door, you stuffed your bag full. No, not your purse, or a diaper bag, or your child's lunch box, but one created in your mind. And you didn't stuff it with books, band-aids, or baby food-you filled it with burdens. The kind of burdens moms carry. The suitcase of guilt. A sack of discontent. You drape a duffel bag of weariness on one shoulder and a hanging bag of worry on the other.No wonder you're so tired at the end of the day. Toting those kind of bags is exhausting. Why don't you try traveling light? Try it for the sake of those you love so dearly: your husband, your children, your parents. Have you ever considered the impact that excess baggage has on relationships? God wants to use you, you know. But how can he if you're exhausted? Using the comforting message of the twenty-third Psalm, Max Lucado reminds mothers to listen to God's tender voice urging us to release those burdens we were never meant to bear.

'This book is a not-so-small joy in itself.' NIGELLA LAWSON 'Parkinson has the gift of making you look with new eyes at everyday things. The perfect daily diversion.' JOJO MOYES 'Always funny and frank and full of insight, I absolutely love Parkinson's writing.' DAVID NICHOLLS 'I loved this book . . . Parkinson's writing transports you to unexpected places of joy and comfort . . . these pages contain happiness.' MARINA HYDE 'The twenty-first century feels a lot more bearable in Parkinson's company.' CHARLOTTE MENDELSON Drawn from the successful Guardian column, these everyday exultations and inspirations will get you through dismal days. Hannah Jane Parkinson is a specialist in savouring the small pleasures of life. She revels in her fluffy dressing gown ('like bathing in marshmallow'), finds calm in solo cinema trips, is charmed by the personalities of fonts ('you'll never see Comic Sans on a funeral notice'), celebrates pockets and gleefully abandons a book she isn't enjoying. Parkinson's everyday exaltations - selected from her immensely successful Guardian column - will utterly delight. FEATURES BRAND NEW MATERIAL 'A compendium of delights.' OBSERVER 'Delightful . . . a love letter to those little moments of bliss that get us through the daily grind.' RED

When college teacher Paula Makaikis finds herself with a new dog, a brand-new Ford Escape, and an eight-week leave of absence, she winds up at a wildlife rehabilitation center in northern Minnesota, and her life is changed forever.

How far can you get on two tacos, one Dr. Pepper, and a little bit of conversation? What happens when you're broke and you need to get to a new job, an ailing parent, a powwow, college, or a funeral on the other side of the country? And after decades of globalization, what kind of America will you glimpse through the window on your way? For five years, Kath Weston rode the bus to find out. Traveling Light is not just another book about people stuck in poverty. Rather, it's a book about how people move through poverty and their insights into the sweeping economic changes that affect us all. The result is a moving meditation on living poor in the world's wealthiest nation.

From the New York Times bestselling author and “masterful storyteller”* behind The Art of Arranging Flowers comes a new novel about the search for what really matters in life... Driving from North Carolina to New Mexico with her three-legged dog, a strange man’s ashes, and a waitress named Blossom riding shotgun isn’t exactly what Alissa Wells ever wanted to be doing. But it’s exactly what she needs... It all starts when Alissa impulsively puts a bid on an abandoned storage unit, only to become the proud new owner of Roger Hart’s remains. Two weeks later, she jumps in her car and heads west, thinking that returning the ashes of a dead man might be the first step on her way to a new life. She isn’t wrong. Especially when Blossom, who just graduated from high school, hitches a ride with her to Texas, and Alissa has to get used to letting someone else take the wheel. Posting about their road trip on Facebook, complete with photos of Roger at every stop, Blossom opens Alissa’s eyes to the road in front of her—and to how sometimes the best things in life are the ones you never see coming… READERS GUIDE INSIDE *Darien Gee, international bestselling author

“Don’t women with children travel?” Marybeth Bond and Pamela Michael enquire, in their book A Mother’s World: Journeys of the Heart (1998), when discovering the absence of portrayals of travelling mothers. Addressing this absence, our book Travellin’ Mama: Mothers, Mothering and Travel explores the multiple dimensions of motherhood and travel. Through a variety of compelling creative pieces and critical essays with a global outlook and wide-ranging historical, cultural, and national perspectives, Travellin’ Mama: Mothers, Mothering and Travel examines the vital contributions made to travel writing and representations of travel by mothers. Autoethnographical approaches inform many of the pieces in this book, illustrating the significance of the personal and writing the self in re-imagining our cultural narratives and representations of travel, and the mothers who undertake it. This book is about mothers who travel, for mothers who travel with their children, and all those readers who have travelled in any capacity, with or without family.