Letters of Note, the book based on the beloved website of the same name, became an instant classic on publication in 2013, selling hundreds of thousands of copies. This new edition sees the collection of the world's most entertaining, inspiring, and unusual letters updated with 14 riveting new missives and a new introduction from curator Shaun Usher.

When it comes to health, there is one criminally overlooked element: sleep. Good sleep helps you shed fat for good, stave off disease, stay productive, and improve virtually every function of your mind and body. That's what Shawn Stevenson learned when a degenerative bone disease crushed his dream of becoming a professional athlete. Like many of us, he gave up on his health and his body...until he decided there must be a better way.

Dickens was one of the first true celebrity authors. Thousands of fans in Britain and America eagerly awaited each new installment of his stories, and flocked to see him on his legendary speaking tours. Not only did he create an incredible cast of characters on the page, but he was also a dazzling mimic and storyteller, and he wrote, stage-managed, and acted in plays for the public. Throughout his life, from his childhood performances to his legendarily powerful reading tours, Dickens was fanatical about the stage.

"Chekhov is probably better known in Britain for his plays than for his prose. For many, however, it is his short stories that mark the high water of his genius. It might at first glance be hard for those not used to his style of narrative to see what the fuss is about - and fuss there is: for most authors and lovers of literature Chekhov is incomparably the greatest short story writer there ever was."

Can you imagine writing to Father Christmas and actually getting a reply? Every year, the children of J.R.R. Tolkien would write to Father Christmas, and the letters they received told wonderful stories of his adventures at the North Pole. These humorous tales are brought to life by Derek Jacobi as Father Christmas, John Moffatt as Polar Bear, and Christian Rodska as Ilbereth the Elf, complete with specially composed music.

With Quiet, Susan Cain urged our society to cultivate space for the undervalued, indispensable introverts among us, thereby revealing an un­tapped power hidden in plain sight. Now she em­ploys the same mix of research, storytelling, and memoir to explore why we experience sorrow and longing, and how embracing the bittersweetness at the heart of life is the true path to creativity, con­nection, and transcendence.

In the more than 25 years since she co-founded Omega Institute - now the world's largest center for spiritual retreat and personal growth - Elizabeth Lesser has been an intimate witness to the ways in which people weather change and transition. In a beautifully crafted blend of moving stories, humorous insights, practical guidance, and personal memoir, she offers tools to help us make the choice we all face in times of challenge: Will we be broken down and defeated, or broken open and transformed?

At the age of 31, Betty Eadie died after routine surgery. The events that followed can only be described as the most profound and extensive near-death experience ever recorded. During the time she was clinically dead, Betty was given knowledge of the afterlife that would make even the greatest skeptic think twice. As she traveled through the spiritual realm, she learned more about the laws and history of the universe than perhaps anyone before her.

The Story of a Soul conveys St. Therese of Lisieux's "Little Way" of spiritual childhood - her "elevator" to Heaven, as she called it. This method was approved by Pope Pius XI as a way for all to grow in holiness through unfailing confidence and childlike delight in God's merciful love. Again and again in this audiobook, St. Therese shows us how her "Little Way" of love and trust comes straight from Sacred Scripture.

The Ripple Effect is about the phenomenal effect rippling through many lives that were moved to deep interest in what awaits us in heaven and how to live life on Earth. This is a challenging book because it details many strong graphic examples shared by listeners who found an outlet to express themselves and were looking for help.

Where do we go when we die? Or is there nowhere to go? Is death something we can do or is it just something that happens to us? Now in his ninth decade, former Bishop of Edinburgh, Richard Holloway, has spent a lifetime at the bedsides of the dying, guiding countless men and women towards peaceful deaths. In The Last Bus, he presents a positive, meditative and profound exploration of the many important lessons we can learn from death.

Ever since she was a little girl, Roma has seen butterflies as a reminder of God's presence. They have appeared to her in moments when she needed encouragement and reminded her she is not alone. In this deeply personal book, Roma shares stories from her life, alongside quotes, poems, and Scripture that she prays will uplift you as they have her. Each grace-filled chapter of this beautiful book covers topics such as courage, loss, gratitude, love, and kindness.

When Rabbi Naomi Levy came across this poignant letter by Einstein it shook her to her core. His words perfectly captured what she has come to believe about the human condition: That we are intimately connected, and that we are blind to this truth. Levy wondered what had elicited such spiritual wisdom from a man of science? Thus began a three-year search into the mystery of Einstein’s letter, and into the mystery of the human soul.

Gleaned from Rainer Maria Rilke's voluminous, never-before-translated letters to bereaved friends and acquaintances, The Dark Interval is a profound vision of the mourning process and a meditation on death's place in our lives. Following the format of Letters to a Young Poet, this book arranges Rilke's letters into an uninterrupted sequence, showcasing the full range of the great author's thoughts on death and dying as well as his sensitive and moving expressions of consolation and condolence.

Based on the NPR series of the same name, This I Believe features 80 Americans—from the famous to the unknown—completing the thought that begins with the book's title. The pieces that make up the program compel listeners to re-think not only what and how they have arrived at their own personal beliefs, but also the extent to which they share them with others.

When words of love do not come to you on their own, then listen to these letters. Complete, actual love letters of great men like Lord Byron, John Keats, and Voltaire. Leaders like Henry VIII, George Washington, and Napoléon, who wrote to his beloved Joséphine, "I awake consumed with thoughts of you...." Artists like van Gogh, Mozart, and Beethoven, who famously penned, "Though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved...."

The death of a child is that unimaginable loss no parent ever expects to face. In Beyond Tears, nine mothers share their individual stories of how to survive in the darkest hour. They candidly share with other bereaved parents what to expect in the first year and long beyond.

When Stalin came into power in 1924, the Communist government began persecuting dissident writers. Though Stalin spared the life of Boris Pasternak - whose novel in progress, Doctor Zhivago, was suspected of being anti-Soviet - he persecuted Boris' mistress, typist, and literary muse, Olga Ivinskaya. Boris' affair with Olga devastated the straitlaced Pasternaks, and they were keen to disavow Olga's role in Boris' writing process.

Every one of us sooner or later walks through hell. The hell of being hurt, the hell of hurting another. The hell of cancer, the hell of a reluctant, thunking shovel full of earth upon the casket of someone we deeply loved, the hell of betrayal, the hell of betraying, the hell of divorce, the hell of a kid in trouble...the hell of knowing that this year, like any year, may be our last. We all walk through hell. The point is not to come out empty-handed.... There is real and profound power in the suffering we endure if we transform that suffering into a more authentic, meaningful life.

Charlotte Brontë's life contained all the drama and tragedy of the great Gothic novels it inspired. Like Jane Eyre, she was raised motherless on remote Yorkshire moors and sent away to a brutally strict boarding school at a young age. Charlotte grew up and watched helplessly as, one by one, her five beloved siblings sickened and died; by the end of her short life, she was the only child of the Brontë clan remaining.

Werther, a sensitive young artist, finds himself in Wahlheim, a quiet, attractive village in Germany where he seeks solace from the turmoils of love. It is a young spring, and he hopes that arcadian solitude will prove a genial balm to his mind. But his romantic tendency rules otherwise, and he falls in love with Charlotte - Lotte - even though he knows she is affianced to another.

After the untimely death of Prince Albert, the Queen and her nation were plunged into a state of grief so profound that this one event would dramatically alter the shape of the British monarchy. For Britain had not just lost a prince: during his 20-year marriage to Queen Victoria, Prince Albert had increasingly performed the function of King in all but name. The outpouring of grief after Albert's death was so extreme that its like would not be seen again until the death of Princess Diana 136 years later.

Perhaps no one but Kay Redfield Jamison---who combines the acute perceptions of a psychologist with writerly elegance and passion---could bring such a delicate touch to the subject of losing a spouse to cancer. In spare and at times strikingly lyrical prose, Jamison looks back at her relationship with her husband, Richard Wyatt, a renowned scientist who battled severe dyslexia to become one of the foremost experts on schizophrenia.

Ranier Maria Rilke challenges you, "...to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answers." Rilke's ability to combine the sensual and the spiritual into an inspired vision of the art of living is brought to vivid life in his letters. Through his eyes, the everyday difficulties of love, sex, solitude, sadness, and doubt are seen as the archetypal elements of the drama called life.

In her new book, Stasi Eldredge meets listeners in their painful realities and offers an invitation to a joy that is defiant in the face of this broken world. This joy does not Pollyannaish-ly ignore life's heartache; rather, it insists that sorrow and loss do not have the final say. This kind of joy is present to both goodness and grief and interprets them in the light of heaven.

Evie and Thomas experience a very different war. Frustrated by life as a privileged young lady, Evie longs to play a greater part in the conflict - but how? - and as Thomas struggles with the unimaginable realities of war, he also faces personal battles back home, where War Office regulations on press reporting cause trouble at his father's newspaper business. Through their letters Evie and Thomas share their greatest hopes and fears - and grow ever fonder from afar. Can love flourish amid the horror of the First World War, or will fate intervene?

Written as a series of letters, Poor People tells the tragic tale of a petty clerk and his impossible love for a young girl. Longing to help her and her family, he sells everything he can, but his kindness leads him only into more desperate poverty, and ultimately into debauchery. As a typical "man of the underground", he serves as the embodiment of the belief that happiness can only be achieved with riches.

Nietzsche wrote that all philosophy is autobiographical, and in this vividly compelling, myth-shattering biography, Sue Prideaux brings listeners into the world of this brilliant, eccentric, and deeply troubled man, illuminating the events and people that shaped his life and work. I Am Dynamite! is the essential biography for anyone seeking to understand history's most misunderstood philosopher.

Charlotte Gordon's new work is a fresh look at the lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley, who together comprise one of the most illustrious and inspiring mother-daughter pairs in history.

From National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize­–winning author Alice Walker and edited by critic and writer Valerie Boyd, comes an unprecedented compilation of Walker’s fifty years of journals drawing an intimate portrait of her development over five decades as an artist, human rights and women’s activist, and intellectual.