Head held high, I walked out of the shelter with the dog others had deemed hopeless. Minutes later, I was banished from my own car by bared teeth and bristled fur, caught in the rain and dripping wet, foiled by the very creature whose cause I had just championed. Never in my life had I asked so many times, “What was I thinking?” When I rescued Buji, little did I know he would teach me some of life’s most valuable lessons—and all he had to do to get my attention was save my life. In Buji and Me, psychological therapist and animal behaviorist Wendy Kelly shares the principles of a dynamic, life-changing force that occurs when we allow our pets to become our teachers. If we are open and aware, they will guide us to being, well, better beings—present, honest, aware, focused, joyful, kind, and loving. Unleash the seven secrets of living the “pawsitive” life . . . starting today.

Explores the lives of survivors who were shipwrecked, banished, or abandoned during the past several centuries.

Desperate is for those who love their children to the depths of their souls but who have also curled up under their covers, fighting back tears, and begging God for help. It’s for those who have ever wondered what happened to all their ideals for what having children would be like. For those who have ever felt like all the “experts” have clearly never had a child like theirs. For those who have prayed for a mentor. For those who ever felt lost and alone in motherhood. In Desperate you will find the story of one young mother’s honest account of the desperate feelings experienced in motherhood and one experienced mentor’s realistic and gentle exhortations that were forged in the trenches of raising her own four children. Also in Desperate: QR codes and links at the end of each chapter that lead to videos with Sarah Mae and Sally talking about the chapter Practical steps to take during the desperate times Bible study and journal exercises in each chapter that will lead you to identify ways in which you can grow as a mom Mentoring advice for real-life situations Q & A section with Sally where she answers readers questions

All I needed was three steps to write these poems. I was an innocent human. I was broken. Then I gained the power and strength to raise my soul up. I transformed into a human angel. Read every word with your whole heart and each and every single one of you will feel a different emotion that comes from a place that I call home: the soul.

Books in general at an early age had a profound influence on me. In their expressions and images of every sort I discovered a vast landscape of truth and emotion. After studying advanced Philosophy in college I left home at age 20 and traveled around New England and settled on a little island south of Boston. My love of the written word grew as did my writings and collections of eastern writers and classical poets. After a decade and intent on getting back to a more organic lifestyle I moved east into an old beach house where I'd spent summers as a child. Over the next decade I would travel the coastline with nothing more than a backpack and live healthy of body, mind, spirit, and write. These excursions provided a setting for a compelling mix of natural and spiritual inquires that filled me with contexts of purpose. Now residing in the mountains of Hunterdon County with my wife and children my collections continue to grow and my home is crowded with works of art, music, poetry, and philosophy. Now as always I continue to sojourn outdoors in all weathers and write and live with the literary immortals as companions with an assimilation and appreciation of the years.

A celebration of the Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist who put Albany on the world’s literary map. Award-winning novelist William Kennedy is perhaps best known for his Albany Cycle, a series of novels that put Albany on the world’s literary map alongside James Joyce’s Dublin, Gabriel García Márquez’s Macondo, and William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County. Bootlegger of the Soul offers a fresh and authoritative overview of Kennedy’s long literary career and his astonishing trajectory from journalist to struggling novelist to Pulitzer Prize winner. Included here are reviews, interviews, and scholarly essays on Kennedy’s work, as well as essays, speeches, a play, and a short story by the author himself, together with more than fifty historical and personal photographs. Lively, readable, and brimming with the infectious wit and lyrical prose that animates Kennedy’s novels, Bootlegger of the Soul is a celebration of a writer still working hard at his craft at age ninety. “There are no dead sentences in [Kennedy’s] work. His language is vigorous, full of energy He’s just a pure writer.” — Saul Bellow “William Kennedy’s cycle of Albany novels may be one of the most exuberant literary feats of the past half-century.” — Colum McCann “Kennedy’s art is an eccentric triumph, a quirky, risk-taking imagination at play upon the solid paving stones, the breweries, the politicos, and pool sharks of an all-too-actual city.” — Thomas Flanagan