Clive Barker, Tom Cruise, Larry Hagman, Laurell K. Hamilton, Stephen King, Brad Meltzer, Sir Ian McKellen, Carolyn See, Stuart Woods and many others describe their humorous and frequently touching journeys to success. This motivational volume is hosted by the ever-controversial 'Aunt Bessie, ' who some refer to as a dangerous cross between Eminem and Ann Landers.

Carol Milford grows up in a mid-sized town in Minnesota before moving to Chicago for college. After her education, during which she’s exposed to big-city life and culture, she moves to Minneapolis to work as a librarian. She soon meets Will Kennicott, a small-town doctor, and the two get married and move to Gopher Prairie, Kennicott’s home town. Carol, inspired by big-city ideas, soon begins chafing at the seeming quaintness and even backwardness of the townsfolk, and their conservative, self-satisfied way of life. She struggles to try to reform the town in her image, while finding meaning in the seeming cultural desert she’s found herself in and in her increasingly cold marriage. Gopher Prairie is a detailed, satirical take on small-town American life, modeled after Sauk Centre, the town in which Lewis himself grew up. The town is fully realized, with generations of inhabitants interacting in a complex web of village society. Its bitingly satirical portrayal made Main Street highly acclaimed by its contemporaries, though many thought the satirical take was perhaps a bit too dark and hopeless. The book’s celebration and condemnation of small town life make it a candidate for the title of the Great American Novel. Main Street was awarded the 1921 Pulitzer Prize, but the decision was overturned by the prize’s Board of Trustees and awarded instead to Edith Wharton for The Age of Innocence. When Lewis went on to win the 1926 Pulitzer for Arrowsmith, he declined it—with the New York Times reporting that he did so because he was still angry at the Pulitzers for being denied the prize for Main Street. Despite the book’s snub at the Pulitzers, Lewis went on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1930, with Main Street being cited as one of the reasons for his win. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.

Set in the small town of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, the Main Street takes place in the 1910s, with references to the start of World War I, the United States' entry into the war, and the years following the end of the war, including the start of Prohibition. It relates the life and struggles of Carol Milford Kennicott as she comes into conflict with the small-town mentality of the residents of Gopher Prairie.

The American novelist Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) wrote a novel entitled "Main Street" based on Sauk Centre, Minnesota, his home town. An image of a photograph of the original "Main Street" in Sauk Centre is available online.

Bessie Mae and Julia grew up together, became secretaries and married; Bessie Mae to a lawyer who became a district court judge (who died of a heart attack as the story was beginning), Julia to the owner of a boutique. Julia had three children (the youngest, Aaron was a lawyer), and Bessie Mae had none so she and her husband became spare parents for Julias family. When Harold died, Julia suggested that Bessie Mae get a pet as a companion, and so the story began with Julia narrating. Imagine a dirty, bedraggled waif of a puppy in an animal shelter as the central figure in a case of fraud, intellectual theft, murder and destruction of a major pharmaceutical companys laboratory. It wasnt his fault, but he was a central figure when a young researchers formula for a cure for certain types of cancer was stolen and patented by the owner of Rogitech Labs. When it became apparent that the formula was valid but would need at least two years work before FDA approval, Weldon, the owner of the labs, decided he needed money now and sold spaces on the list of people who would get first dibs on the formula to those who had no other chance for survival. The treasurer Jeffrey Katz was aware that money was being siphoned off but had no way to prove it. He was told to make a second set of books that would show massive increases in costs to the lab, but he had no paperwork to back it up and assumed that he was being set up and was planning to get out. He was also aware that the formula that was supposed to be costing so much belonged to the young man who had brought it in and wasnt aware that Weldon had patented it as belonging to Rogitech. When it became clear to Weldon that his dream of instant money was two years in the future, he decided to take what he had already scammed and get out after, making it look like Olaf Dalgren, the oncologist he had hired to do the work, had destroyed the lab and run off with the money. That worked until the body of the man was found in a Dumpster twenty-two miles away, but Weldon was gone by then, and Katz was on the hook.

Aunt Bessie assumes that she'll have the beach all to herself on a cold, wet, and windy March morning just after sunrise, then she stumbles (almost literally) over a dead body. Elizabeth (Bessie) Cubbon, aged somewhere between free bus pass (60) and telegram from the Queen (100), has lived her entire adult life in a small cottage on Laxey beach. For most of those years, she's been in the habit of taking a brisk morning walk along the beach. Dead men have never been part of the scenery before. Aunt Bessie assumes that the dead man died of natural causes, then the police find the knife in his chest. Try as she might, Bessie just can't find anything to like about the young widow that she provides tea and sympathy to in the immediate aftermath of finding the body. There isn't much to like about the rest of the victim's family either. Aunt Bessie assumes that the police will have the case wrapped up in no time at all, then she finds a second body. Can Bessie and her friends find the killer before she ends up as the next victim?

Brought up on a Quaker farm near Philadelphia at the brink of the Civil War, plainspoken Rebecca Albright is expected to be charitable, peace-loving, and submissive. But she is feeling anything but. A feisty abolitionist, Rebecca is determined to aid the Underground Railroad no matter the cost, until her path collides with slave-catcher Sheriff Clay Dalton who's grimly fighting battles of his own. When tensions between the North and South escalate, the two find themselves propelled on a journey to discover just who God has called them to be—and whether friendship needs a common enemy.

Collection of ten Western stories built around the title selection which is based on a true episode in Montana's gold-mining past in which three unlikely characters form an amazing bond.

Live More, Want Less give readers a user-friendly non-judgmental approach to simplifying their lives in a week-at-a-time format. Offering personal narratives, a reflection on a Taoist-inspired "way" toward more meaning, and a list of daily practices that bring tangible change, Live More, Want Less provides universal guidelines for every reader's unique issue. Covering themes like shopping addictions, procrastination, prioritizing, "busyness", weight loss, and more, Mary's "been there, done that" approach reassures the tentative that greater clarity can be gained by voluntarily living with less, and that de-cluttering both physically and mentally can allow one to experience life more fully.