Inner Peace for Busy People


Book Description

This “simple, powerful, and fun” guide for anyone who is ‘crazy busy’ offers advice on how to manage stress and find inner peace in the face of never-ending to-do lists (Richard Carlson, author of the Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff series) Why have we allowed busyness to become a badge of honor and a jaw-clenching, mind-bending competition? Slaves to phones, beepers, e-mails, faxes, piles of snail mail, to-do lists, congested traffic, and pushy telemarketers who call during dinner, many people are also trying to balance the demands of family and career. As a result, they often feel squeezed out of their own lives, and unable to extend the kindness and care to their loved ones that they would really like to. The paradox of this century is that Americans are wealthier than ever before—yet we are more stressed, depressed, anxious, and overwhelmed than at any time in our history. We have very little peace of mind. Inner Peace for Busy People is here to help with 52 weekly inspirational entries that will help readers change their lives life and their attitudes. Through story and science, spirituality and humor, it offers easily learnable skills for recovering inner peace, one week at a time. You don’t have to be a monk devoted to hours of special practice to walk your life’s journey with graciousness and joy. All that is required is to pay attention, choose wisely, live with purpose and passion, laugh often, and live with fierce commitment to honesty and kindness. Every day brings a choice: to practice stress or to practice peace. With a little common sense, we can learn to understand and tame the dirty tricks department of the mind, live with kindness and love, enjoy the shelter of one another, and grow in wisdom and creativity. The 52 brief lessons and stories in the book are an enduring and practical guide to developing inner peace in a busy world.







The Convalescent


Book Description

“One of the most amusing and poignant anti-heroes since Gunter Grass’s The Tin Drum” lives up to his misfit heritage in this ribald debut (Spike Magazine). Ask Rovar Ákos Pfliegman about himself and he’ll say: “I have no life. I have no known relatives, no known friends. I’m barely human. I’m a hairy little Hungarian pulp. I am a sorry gathering of organs. That is all.” But there is more to Rovar than meets the eye. He has a pet beetle named Mrs. Kipner, he is a butcher plagued by rare ailments, he sells meat out of a broken-down bus next to a river in suburban Virginia, and he is the last of the Pfliegman line, a not-too-bright pagan clan that reaches back to pre-medieval Hungary. He also believes he’ll fulfill the ignoble destiny of inbred self-destruction that has wiped out all Pfliegmans before him. But against all odds, and the cruel laws of nature, this unlikely loner, seller of fresh mutton at unbeatable prices, unloved lover, and historian of the unimportant is still capable of being reborn in the most extraordinary way. “Innocent and wise, grave and hilarious, bleak and hopeful, fast-paced and meditative, heartbreaking and heart healthy, evanescent and concrete” (Heidi Julavits), The Convalescent “nods to all sorts of greats—Kafka, Rushdie, Darwin and Grass, to name a few. But Anthony’s style—funny, immediate and unapologetically cerebral—carves out a space all its own” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).







Paws to Reflect


Book Description

Wisdom and encouragement from the animals that touch our lives.




The Particulars of Peter


Book Description

"This might be one of the month’s, if not the year’s, sweetest books — zaniest, too.” ―The Washington Post "A hilarious addition to the dogoir canon.” ―People "Perhaps the greatest love story ever told.” ―Refinery29 "The feel-good book the world needs." —PopSugar From one of the Internet's most original voices, a hilarious journey through the odd corners of obsessive dog ownership and the author's own infatuation with her perfect dog Peter. The author met Peter in the spring of 2017. He -- calm, puppy-eyed, with the heart of a poet and the soul of, also, a poet -- came to her first as a foster. He was unable to stay with his previously assigned foster for reasons that are none of your business, but which we will tell you were related to frequent urination. The rescue needed someone free of the sort of responsibilities that would force her to regularly leave the house for either work or socializing, and a writer was the natural choice. Thus began a love story for the ages. The Particulars of Peter is a funny exploration of the joy found in loving a dog so much it makes you feel like you're going to combust, and the author's potentially codependent relationship with her own sweet dog, Peter. Readers will follow Peter and his owner to Woofstock, "the largest outdoor festival for dogs in North America," and accompany them to lessons in Canine Freestyle, a sport where dogs perform a routine set to music, creating the illusion that they're dancing with their owners. From learning about Peter's DNA, to seeing if dogs can sense the presence of ghosts, The Particulars of Peter will give readers a smart, entertaining respite from the harsh world of humans into the funny little world of dogs. Readers will accompany this lovable duo through exciting trips, lessons, quiet moments of connection, and probably a failure or two. By fusing memoir and infotainment, The Particulars of Peter promises to refresh the perennially popular dog lit category in a scrumptiously bighearted barnstormer of a book.




God's Big Idea


Book Description

The author starts with God's plan to create a new world and guides the child through the six days of Creation, and ends up with God's plan for a new earth. In between, children solve many of life's lesser mysteries (do fish sleep?) and think about a few of the greater ones (why am I here?). And every fascinating fact about the world we live in becomes a doorway to big truths about life.




The Not So Little Merman


Book Description

Kit Rees is one of the many children of the King of the Southern Silver Isles. Despite being a prince and third in line for the throne, he is too chubby, too loud, and too unsophisticated to truly fit in with the rest of the southern court. He lives a luxurious but lonely life, unnoticed in the castle and quietly wishing for the freedom to simply be himself. Tack Muir is the crown prince of the infamous Northern Silver Isles. He has a reputation for being cold and pragmatic, but even the strongest merfolk have weaknesses. Tack's happens to be a cute, red-headed merman from a rivaling kingdom. When an arranged marriage gives the two kingdoms a chance to form an alliance, Tack gets the chance to be with the one person he longs for most. The problem is that Tack's family curse ensures that he cannot touch any living being. Tack has learned to live with the curse, and he's also learned the danger of hoping for more. Hope, however, is a sneaky little bugger, and the more time Tack spends with Kit, the more he hopes for the impossible. To find their own paths to happiness, the two men must break a centuries old curse. However, family enemies, old magic, and their own stubbornness just might stop them.




Association Men


Book Description