Surfing in Ireland was once considered little more than a fringe and slightly lunatic pursuit. The treacherous coastline and ice waters of the Atlantic did not sit comfortably with the stereotype of surfing as the favoured pastime of the bronzed and privileged. But with the discovery in the past few years of the gargantuan Aileen’s wave at the Cliffs of Moher and other heavy waves, the Irish coast has become one of the worst kept secrets in world surfing. In Cliffs of Insanity, the Irish Times sportswriter Keith Duggan tells the story of a dedicated group of surfers in County Clare whose lives revolve around the pursuit of Ireland’s wildest waves. The book traces the evolution of Fergal Smith, the young Mayo man whose intuition for big waves has earned him a serious reputation and explores the world of Mickey Smith, the roving Cornish man who discovered Aileen’s and whose breathtaking surf photography has caught the Irish landscape in an entirely new and original light. Bitter cold days, broken bones, busted boards, scars, near drownings and countless hours in the freezing water trying to read the ocean is the price they pay for those few transcendent seconds when they master a wave. Cliffs of Insanity is about the importance of pursuing what matters in life but it is also about community and friendship, and the passionate pursuit of a way of life that flies in the face of everything championed in Ireland over the last decade.

From Cary Elwes, who played the iconic role of Westley in The Princess Bride, comes a first-person behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film.

An engagingly contemporary approach to Buddhism—through the lens of an iconic film and its memorable characters Humorous yet spiritually rigorous in the tradition of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and The Tao of Pooh, drawing from pop culture and from personal experience, The Dharma of “The Princess Bride” teaches us how to understand and navigate our most important personal relationships from a twenty-first-century Buddhist perspective. Friendship. Romance. Family. These are the three areas Ethan Nichtern delves into, taking as departure points the indelible characters from Rob Reiner’s perennially popular film—Westley, Fezzik, Vizzini, Count Rugen, Princess Buttercup, and others—as he also draws lessons from his own life and his work as a meditation teacher. Nichtern devotes the first section of the book to exploring the dynamics of friendship. Why do people become friends? What can we learn from the sufferings of Inigo Montoya and Fezzik? Next, he leads us through all the phases of illusion and disillusion we encounter in our romantic pursuits, providing a healthy dose of lightheartedness along the way by sharing his own Princess Buttercup List and the vicissitudes of his dating life as he ponders how we idealize and objectify romantic love. Finally, Nichtern draws upon the demands of his own family history and the film’s character the Grandson to explore the dynamics of “the last frontier of awakening,” a reference to his teacher Chogyam Trungpa’s claim that it’s possible to be enlightened everywhere except around your family. With The Dharma of “The Princess Bride” in hand, we can set out on the path to contemporary Buddhist enlightenment with the most important relationships in our lives.

Deep within the cavern-riddled chalk cliffs above the English Channel there brews a threat to the very sanity of the people of Britain. A startling madness infects the members of the Explorer’s Club in London, the debacle coinciding with the disappearance of Alice St. Ives and the murder of the lighthouse keeper at Beachy Head. Langdon St. Ives sets out to rescue his wife and to stop the accelerating train of events hurtling he and his friends into a dark tunnel of madness and death.

For fans of Fred Rogers in Won’t You Be My Neighbor? and Be Kind, a little bunny, who dreams of being a superhero, proves to her know-it-all older sister that kindness really is a superpower in this “infectiously joyful” picture book (Booklist). Some superheroes can leap tall buildings in a single bound, some can crawl up a wall, some grow wolf-sharp claws, and some have superhuman speed. And Superbuns? Her superpower is being kind. Super kind. She can’t help but be kind: watering a neighbor’s daisies; helping a friend cross the street; feeding a hungry goldfish. Superbuns’s older sister Blossom is a super know-it-all who doesn’t believe kindness is a superpower. Not one bit. And all this kindness is slowing them down on their way to Grammy’s house, where a yummy carrot cobbler awaits. But the sisters are being followed by a little fox, and when Blossom learns the fox is not after their cobbler but is lost, she discovers kindness really is a superpower after all.

From the award-winning author of Princess Princess Ever After comes The Tea Dragon Society, a charming all-ages book that follows the story of Greta, a blacksmith apprentice, and the people she meets as she becomes entwined in the enchanting world of tea dragons. After discovering a lost tea dragon in the marketplace, Greta learns about the dying art form of tea dragon care-taking from the kind tea shop owners, Hesekiel and Erik. As she befriends them and their shy ward, Minette, Greta sees how the craft enriches their lives--and eventually her own.

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NOW A MAJOR FILM, STARRING STEVE CARELL AND BAFTA AND GOLDEN GLOBE NOMINATED TIMOTHEE CHALAMET ‘It was like being in a car with the gas pedal slammed down to the floor and nothing to do but hold on and pretend to have some semblance of control. But control was something I'd lost a long time ago.’ Nic Sheff was drunk for the first time at age 11. In the years that followed, he would regularly smoke pot, do cocaine and ecstasy, and develop addictions to crystal meth and heroin. Even so, he felt like he would always be able to quit and put his life together whenever he needed to. It took a violent relapse one summer to convince him otherwise. In a voice that is raw and honest, Nic spares no detail in telling us the compelling true story of his relapse and the road to recovery. He paints an extraordinary picture for us of a person at odds with his past, with his family, with his substances, and with himself. Tweak is a raw, harrowing, and ultimately hopeful tale of the road from relapse to recovery and complements his father’s parallel memoir, Beautiful Boy. Praise for Nic Sheff:- ‘Difficult to read and impossible to put down.’Chicago Tribune 'Nic Sheff's wrenching tale is told with electrifying honesty and insight.' Armistead Maupin

Robert Pinsky, “our finest living example of [the American civic poet]” (New York Times), gathers poems that cope with the most extreme human emotions. Despair, mania, rage, guilt, derangement, fantasy: poetry is our most intimate source for the urgent, varied experience of human emotion. Poems get under our skin; they offer solace with the balm, and the sting, of understanding. In The Book of Poetry for Hard Times, former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky curates poems that explore the expanses of human emotion across centuries, from Shakespeare to Terrance Hayes, Dante to Patricia Lockwood. Each poem reveals something new about our most profound and universal experiences; taken together they offer a sweeping ode to the power of poetry. “For anyone who knows these human feelings—and almost everyone does—this book will become an essential companion.”—Eavan Boland

One word, plastic. Kidding. One word, connections. The stories, zany; the titles rhyme. Humans trying to tie everything together. Our portfolio includes an Easter boy and the crazed egg caper. A lizard man and more on the way. Waiter, there's an eye in my martini. And surprises in Orb's lab. Flies use their 'branes. Macy's Christmas window gets soaped. Ants get philosophical. There are Sing Sing criminals, and King Kong down to the Sweetie Burger. Love lasts forever. Yeah, well. Summer giggles; autumn ashes. The secret of an old friend I'm not thrilled to tell you. So, open the book, let the denizens breathe. It's getting cramped in there. And lonely. Kind of worrisome, and they have stuff to say. Okay?

"Originally serialized in the February, March, and April 1936 issues of Astounding stories"--Copyright page.