Essays Life

“One should be light like a bird and not like a feather,” wrote the French poet Paul Valéry. In this collection of personal and playful essays, J. E. Chadwick explores lightness – how to let go of whatever weighs you down. Chadwick discovers the art of walking around European cities and the surprising truth about cooking for forty silent strangers. He reveals how to survive a narcissist (especially if it’s you), when to fire and rehire one’s mind, and offers three words to live by. Readers will meet Hirayama, the toilet-cleaning protagonist of Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days, and ...

Jiordan's family was never quite like everyone else's, with her father's mood swings, her mother's attempts at normalcy, and her two older sisters with a different last name. But on the surface, they fit in. Until the day the FBI came knocking on the door. After that, her father's mood plunged to a dangerous new low. After that, there was an investigation into his business and a sentencing in court. Soon Jiordan's father would have to leave home, and her family would change forever.

Grow Damn It! is a captivating work by Cheryl Oreglia, who uses uncommon honesty and arresting humor to draw you into her cantankerous life, forty-year marriage, and revolving empty nest. She claims the space between past and future is where our potential is created or destroyed. If you don't like where your life is going, dig deeper, and write a new story. By weeding out the things that clutter her life, she invites you into a refreshing space with some of her most popular posts from her beloved blog Living in the Gap.

Discover Hope, Healing, and Humanity in Every Page In a world shaken by pandemics, climate change, political division, and personal struggles, it’s easy to feel disconnected and overwhelmed. But bestselling author David Dye’s Tomorrow Together: Essays of Hope, Healing, and Humanity offers a much-needed antidote a collection of short, powerful essays that remind us of the beauty, strength, and resilience that connect us all. With warmth, vulnerability, and a touch of humor, Dye takes readers on a journey through the joys and challenges of modern life, exploring themes of personal growth,...

A hilarious, smart and incredibly singular debut from Raven Smith, whose exploration of the minutiae of everyday modern life and culture is totally unique and painfully relatable. Is being tall a social currency? Am I the contents of my fridge? Does yoga matter if you’re not filthy rich? Is a bagel four slices of bread? Are three cigarettes a meal?

Collection of 14 essays, and named after the most important essay in the collection. I hope you enjoy these reflections, and that they encourage you in your faith in Jesus Christ. (Matthew 6:22) www.1peter1three.weebly.com

Following in the tradition of Sara Ahmed (the originator of the concept "feminist killjoy"), Wunker brings memoir, theory, literary criticism, pop culture, and feminist thinking together in this collection of essays that take up Ahmed's project as a multi-faceted lens through which to read the world from a feminist point of view.

A sensational celebration of Annie Ernaux's work—Writing, the Other Life features collected writing by critics, journalists, and 24 previously unpublished pieces by the Nobel Prize winner herself—offering a full view of the author's life, writing style, reception by readers, and her thoughts and influence.

Featuring a brand new introduction by the author on how he willingly gave up his birthright as the heir apparent to a multi-million dollar commercial construction firm in order to pursue his writing passion, Pieces of Mind contains essays on topics as diverse as lost love, sex, divorce, coping with a child's severe depression, experiencing Carnival in Venice, to sharing a first beer with your teenage son. But every word is delivered under the umbrella of a full-time fiction writer and freelance journalist trying to make sense of the lush world that surrounds him.

How do we make a better life? That’s the question this collection of essays attempts to answer in various and, I hope, interesting ways. We know from the outset that a better life comes from a solid sense of self that can grow, contribute, appreciate, love fully, and parent well. A solid sense of self must be able to cope with stress and regulate uncomfortable emotions in ways that facilitate growth and well-being. It must be able to use emotional pain as a means of transcendence, not imprisonment. It must have an internal locus of control, a belief that one’s own actions can change ...

The "web" has become our most powerful ecological image of the interconnectedness of all creatures, yet this image predates science, it is present in every culture's anthology. Chief Seattle said "Whatever man does to the web, he does to himself." Award-winning journalist Richard Louv explores the fragile network that connects people and the strands that make it up: nature, childhood, adulthood, spirit, purpose, and community.

Which famous author died of caffeine poisoning? Why was Alice's Adventures in Wonderland banned in China? Who was the first British writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature? What was Truman Capote superstitious about? Here is a light-hearted book about books and the people who write them for all lovers of literature. A treasure trove of compelling facts, riveting anecdotes, and extraordinary characters, For the Love of Books is a book about books - and the inside stories about the people who write them.

What would you get if the Seinfeld, Reiner, Crystal, and Kagan families got together for dinner? You’d get fatter, guiltier, and hoarser from trying to get a word in edgewise and suffer muscle cramps from laughing. When you get into My Shorts, you get all that and more. An uproarious collection of true stories featuring a chubby Cheetos-loving Jewish middle child with overactive sweat glands and an abundant imagination.

Embodiment is not an easy business. From violence to illness, sexuality to racism, the fact of a body can be impossibly hard to inhabit. Olivia Laing draws on her own background in protest and alternative medicine to investigate the reasons why. Laing’s exploration of the complexities of bodily life takes in some of the most significant and beguiling figures of the past century, among them the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, the painters Francis Bacon and Agnes Martin and the singer and civil rights activist Nina Simone.

Short Stuff is a compilation of both narrative and poetic forms. I have always loved writing, but it took some jolts from my life journey to lead to more introspection and more freedom to hone these writings into some publishable form.

D. Eric Williams lives in north-central Idaho with his wife, a whole passel of kids and a laptop computer. His latest offering Quasimodo On Skis is a collection of quirky, witty, personal and downright hilarious shorts guaranteed to raise a laugh from even the most jaded. Join D. Eric Williams on a humorous ride through life from a cockeyed point of view.

Understanding humans and human nature is one of the toughest jobs. Many time what seems right and good or vice versa can be completely different if explored to proper depth. In many instances, we all form an opinion about the people we meet without actually knowing anything about them. But hearing and learning about such instances helps us to redefine our thought process and become wiser. Sudha Murty's book Wise and Otherwise will take you to a journey across the length and breadth of India through narrations of 51 stories inspired by the extensive travels of the author herself.

Embracing the possibilities and impossibilities of language, Kim rejoices in the similes of Korean, her mother tongue, and draws inspiration from K-dramas and writers across cultures who sustain her. As borders close in and nations enter lockdown, the journey that Kim traces is fraught-and at once illuminates that the act of remaining present has its own power, allowing boundless hope.

*Winner of the 2018 Gold Medal of Achievement for Best Overall Book from GardenComm: Garden Communicators International* Carol Michel, author of the award-winning blog May Dreams Gardens, has penned a delightful book of gardening stories recounting her years speed weeding, scolding plants for their poor manners, experiencing the magic of a clover lawn, searching for elusive "rare in cultivation" plants, narrowly avoiding tussles in the garden center, formally evicting drought from her garden, and offering advice for those new to gardening. Is it possible to be utterly charming and wickedly ...

By 1617, Donne had done it all. After being an MP, lawyer, womaniser, soldier, diplomat, father to twelve children by a secret wife, and the greatest poet of his age, he settled into the priesthood. Shortly thereafter, his wife died, prompting him to write a defence of suicide in God's eyes. She was soon followed by his 18 year old daughter died. Then Donne fell gravely ill. Physicians were called, but none could agree on what to do. It seemed certain that he would die.