Wendy Camilla Blackwell

Let Us Descend describes a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation. A journey that is as beautifully rendered as it is heart wrenching, the novel is “[t]he literary equivalent of an open wound from which poetry pours” (NPR). Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the listener’s guide. As she struggles through the miles-long march, Annis turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother.

On the face of it, a simple book of 26 poem fables sharing one man’s wisdom. But The Prophet is so much more than that. It has inspired people from John F Kennedy to The Beatles and became the '60s Bible of counterculture – all because of the timeless truths it shared. Each poem takes a different theme – pleasure, beauty, freedom, joy and sorrow – as the fictional Al Mustapha shares his thoughts and experiences as he prepares to travel back to his island home.

At the peak of his career and success, Ari Meisel nearly killed himself from exhaustion and overwork. He had to make a choice: He could let his "success" destroy him physically and mentally, or he could find a better way to live. He spent the next few years redesigning his life from scratch. Ultimately he found the way to reduce his workload by 80 percent while actually increasing results and success. Furthermore, he could spend time on what matters most: his family.