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Trusting the Gold

(2021) A beautifully illustrated gift book to help us uncover and trust the innate goodness in ourselves and others.

We receive so many messages from our culture meant to divide us from one another or turn us against ourselves. Yet when we stop judging, stop avoiding, stop trying to resist that which makes us afraid or ashamed, we open to our true nature–a boundless field of awareness that is innately fearless and loving.

This recognition of our essential human goodness may be the most radical act of healing we can take. “The gold of our true nature can never be tarnished,” says Tara Brach. “In the moments of remembering and trusting this basic goodness of our Being, we open to happiness, peace, and freedom.”

In Trusting the Gold, Tara draws from more than four decades of experience as a meditation teacher and psychologist to share her most valuable practices for reconnecting with the beauty of our humanity–from timeless Buddhist wisdom to techniques adapted to the specific challenges of our modern age. Here you’ll explore three pathways of remembering and living from your full aliveness:

– Opening to the Truth of the present moment

– Turning toward Love in any situation

– Resting in the Freedom of our natural, radiant awareness

“Even in the midst of our deepest emotional suffering, self-compassion is the pathway that will carry us home,” Dr. Brach writes. “What a joy to pause and behold our basic goodness, and to see how it shines through each of us. Seeing that secret beauty, we fall in love with all of life.”

Discomfort of Evening

(2020) WINNER OF THE 2020 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE A stark and gripping tale of childhood grief from one of the most exciting new voices in Dutch literature Ten-year-old Jas lives with her strictly religious parents and her siblings on a dairy farm where waste and frivolity are akin to sin. Despite the dreary routine of their days, Jas has a unique way of experiencing her world: her face soft like cheese under her mother’s hands; the texture of green warts, like capers, on migrating toads in the village; the sound of “blush words” that aren’t in the Bible. One icy morning, the disciplined rhythm of her family’s life is ruptured by a tragic accident, and Jas is convinced she is to blame. As her parents’ suffering makes them increasingly distant, Jas and her siblings develop a curiosity about death that leads them into disturbing rituals and fantasies. Cocooned in her red winter coat, Jas dreams of “the other side” and of salvation, not knowing where this dreaming will finally lead her. A bestseller in the Netherlands, Marieke Lucas Rijneveld’s radical debut novel The Discomfort of Evening offers readers a rare vision of rural and religious life in the Netherlands. In it, they ask: In the absence of comfort and care, what can the mind of a child invent to protect itself? And what happens when that is not enough? With stunning psychological acuity and images of haunting, violent beauty, Rijneveld has created a captivating world of language unlike any other.

Abandon Me

(2018) Named One of the Best Books of 2017 by:

Esquire, Refinery29, LitHub, BookRiot, Medium, Electric Literature, The Brooklyn Rail, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Largehearted Boy, The Coil and The Cut. Winner of the Lambda Literary Jeanne Cordova Prize for Lesbian/Queer Nonfiction

Finalist, Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir/Biography

Finalist, Publishing Triangle’s Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction

An Indie Next Pick For readers of Maggie Nelson and Leslie Jamison, a fierce and dazzling personal narrative that explores the many ways identity and art are shaped by love and loss. In her critically acclaimed memoir, Whip Smart, Melissa Febos laid bare the intimate world of the professional dominatrix, turning an honest examination of her life into a lyrical study of power, desire, and fulfillment. In her dazzling Abandon Me, Febos captures the intense bonds of love and the need for connection — with family, lovers, and oneself. First, her birth father, who left her with only an inheritance of addiction and Native American blood, its meaning a mystery. As Febos tentatively reconnects, she sees how both these lineages manifest in her own life, marked by compulsion and an instinct for self-erasure. Meanwhile, she remains closely tied to the sea captain who raised her, his parenting ardent but intermittent as his work took him away for months at a time. Woven throughout is the hypnotic story of an all-consuming, long-distance love affair with a woman, marked equally by worship and withdrawal. In visceral, erotic prose, Febos captures their mutual abandonment to passion and obsession — and the terror and exhilaration of losing herself in another. At once a fearlessly vulnerable memoir and an incisive investigation of art, love, and identity, Abandon Me draws on childhood stories, religion, psychology, mythology, popular culture, and the intimacies of one writer’s life to reveal intellectual and emotional truths that feel startlingly universal.

One of Us Is Lying

(2021) The Breakfast Club meets Pretty Little Liars, One of Us Is Lying is the story of what happens when five strangers walk into detention and only four walk out alive. Everyone is a suspect, and everyone has something to hide.

Pay close attention and you might solve this.

On Monday afternoon, five students at Bayview High walk into detention.

Bronwyn, the brain, is Yale-bound and never breaks a rule.

Addy, the beauty, is the picture-perfect homecoming princess.

Nate, the criminal, is already on probation for dealing.

Cooper, the athlete, is the all-star baseball pitcher.

And Simon, the outcast, is the creator of Bayview High s notorious gossip app.

Only, Simon never makes it out of that classroom. Before the end of detention Simon’s dead. And according to investigators, his death wasn t an accident. On Monday, he died. But on Tuesday, he d planned to post juicy reveals about all four of his high-profile classmates, which makes all four of them suspects in his murder. Or are they the perfect patsies for a killer who s still on the loose?

Everyone has secrets, right? What really matters is how far you would go to protect them.

Family Constellations

(2009) This user-friendly guide introduces a powerful therapeutic method that uses family history as a tool for understanding–and resolving–problems of the present

Mapping out a “family constellation,” explains Dr. Joy Manné, encompasses exploring previous powerful life events from accidents to adoptions and accessing the deepest dynamics in that family system. This process helps us recognize and then resolve deeply seated family patterns. For example, in order to understand a person’s inability to trust, the family history of betrayal must be uncovered and released. These insights replace resentment with respect, pain with understanding.

In this book, Dr. Manné uses the knowledge gained from her own practice as well as her educational experiences with Bert Hellinger–the founder of Family Constellations therapy–to clearly describe this unique therapeutic method. Most Family Constellation sessions are carried out in a group setting, with the facilitator first seeking clarity regarding the issue or problem the client has come to work out. Representatives are then chosen from among the group and the constellation is set up and worked in until it comes to resolution. This may be followed by a closing ritual and advice about how to integrate what the constellation has revealed. Through the use of real-life examples of Family Constellations, Dr. Manné makes this increasingly popular practice understandable and relatable.

Stress Management Handbook

(2020) Understand stress, uncover your triggers, calm your madness, and find your power!

In our search for happiness, many of us find ourselves pleasing everyone else over ourselves until we end up with feelings of resentment, frustration, and stress. Whether you’re looking for love, work, or the solutions to a problematic marriage or the pressures of facing an empty nest, The Stress Management Handbook will teach you how to speak and live from a place of love rather than a place of stress. Stress expert Dr. Eva will help you:

Understand the stress response

Get a hold on negative emotions

Redirect stress for good

Laugh and let go

These tools will teach you how to shift negativity to positivity in seconds, and finally home in on the cause of your stress and release it to create your own happiness.

Stress Less Color By Number Flowers

(2017) Relaxation is as easy as 1, 2, 3!

Stress Less Color-By-Number Flowers takes the guesswork out of creating stunning works of art.

Each of these seventy-five calming designs is divided into sections with numbers that correspond to a specific color. Simply select the one you wish to complete, fill in each section with the corresponding color, and soon a lovely floral scene will appear right before your eyes. It’s a fun, easy way to de-stress and create amazing, frame-ready art.

It doesn’t get more beautiful–or more relaxing–than Stress Less Color-By-Number Flowers!

Mandala Coloring Book Volume I

(2016) Enjoy these 100 beautiful mandalas for quiet contemplation and spiritual calm!

For centuries, mandalas have provided an elevated level of peace to anyone seeking comfort, stability, and inspiration. The Mandala Coloring Book, Volume II features 100 all-new customizable mandala drawings to guide you toward this tranquility as you use your imagination to create vibrant patterns. These intricate designs draw the eye inward, shifting focus toward your center and allowing you to fully express yourself through these beautifully complex illustrations.

Complete with expert instruction and helpful design tips, The Mandala Coloring Book, Volume II will help you find your inner calm and creativity every day.

Anxious People

(2021) An instant #1 New York Times bestseller, the new novel from the author of A Man Called Ove is a “quirky, big-hearted novel….Wry, wise and often laugh-out-loud funny, it’s a wholly original story that delivers pure pleasure” (People).

Looking at real estate isn’t usually a life-or-death situation, but an apartment open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes a group of strangers hostage. The captives include a recently retired couple who relentlessly hunt down fixer-uppers to avoid the painful truth that they can’t fix their own marriage. There’s a wealthy bank director who has been too busy to care about anyone else and a young couple who are about to have their first child but can’t seem to agree on anything. Add to the mix an eighty-seven-year-old woman who has lived long enough not to be afraid of someone waving a gun in her face, a flustered but still-ready-to-make-a-deal real estate agent, and a mystery man who has locked himself in the apartment’s only bathroom, and you’ve got the worst group of hostages in the world.

Each of them carries a lifetime of grievances, hurts, secrets, and passions that are ready to boil over. None of them is entirely who they appear to be. And all of them–the bank robber included–desperately crave some sort of rescue. As the authorities and the media surround the premises, these reluctant allies will reveal surprising truths about themselves and set in motion a chain of events so unexpected that even they can hardly explain what happens next.

Proving once again that Backman is “a master of writing delightful, insightful, soulful, character-driven narratives” (USA TODAY), Anxious People “captures the messy essence of being human….It’s clever and affecting, as likely to make you laugh out loud as it is to make you cry” (The Washington Post). This “endlessly entertaining mood-booster” (Real Simple) is proof that the enduring power of friendship, forgiveness, and hope can save us–even in the most anxious of times.

Stress Less Coloring Animals

(2015) Free your mind with these beautiful animal prints!

Stress Less Coloring: Animals inspires you to find peace and relaxation in the beauty of the animal kingdom. Filled with 100 captivating prints, this book helps you calm your mind and manage anxieties in a therapeutic way. Each stress-reducing page invites you to express yourself by using your own unique palette to fill in the animals. Soon, you’ll find yourself clearing all worries from your mind as you concentrate on coloring in these stunning black-and-white prints.

Whether you’re new to coloring or have been coloring for years, this book will help you find your inner calm and creativity–one page at a time.