Selected by Harper's Bazaar, Elle, Parade, Oprah.com, and MSN.com as one of the best books to read this summer! The seductive story of a dangerous love triangle, inspired by the infamous Nabokov marriage, with a spellbinding psychological thriller at its core. In the 1920s, Zoya Andropova, a young refugee from the Soviet Union, finds herself in the alien landscape of an elite all-girls New Jersey boarding school. Having lost her family, her home, and her sense of purpose, Zoya struggles to belong, a task made more difficult by the malice her peers heap on scholarship students and her new country's paranoia about Russian spies. When she meets the visiting writer and fellow Russian émigré Leo Orlov--whose books Zoya has privately obsessed over for years--her luck seems to have taken a turn for the better. But she soon discovers that Leo is not the solution to her loneliness: he's committed to his art and bound by the sinister orchestrations of his brilliant wife, Vera. As the reader unravels the mystery of Zoya, Lev, and Vera's fate, Zoya is faced with mounting pressure to figure out who she is and what kind of life she wants to build. Grappling with class distinctions, national allegiance, and ethical fidelity--not to mention the powerful magnetism of sex--Invitation to a Bonfire investigates how one's identity is formed, irrevocably, through a series of momentary decisions, including how to survive, who to love, and whether to pay the complicated price of happiness.

Anna and her mother have lived and worked all Anna's life for the royal Romanov family. When her mother dies suddenly she is hidden by her friends to avoid homelessness. Several chance encounters with the princess make her more careful but what will become of her as winter approaches? Trying to make adult decisions is difficult when you are twelve, but she is assured that prayer will help her find God's plan. Will He tell her in time what she should do?

Groundhog Day meets Ling Ma’s Severance in this “brilliant” (PopSugar) and “exhilarating” (The Millions) comedic novel about two young women trying to save their friendship as the world collapses around them. Bertie and Kate have been best friends since high school. Bertie is a semi-failed cartoonist, working for a prominent Silicon Valley tech firm. Her job depresses her, but not as much as the fact that Kate has recently decided to move from San Francisco to Los Angeles. When Bertie’s attempts to make Kate stay fail, she suggests the next best thing: a trip to Paris that will hopefully distract the duo from their upcoming separation. The vacation is also a sort of last hurrah, coming during the ceasefire in a series of escalating world conflicts. One night in Paris, they meet a strange man in a bar who offers them a private tour of the Louvre. The women find themselves alone in the museum, where nothing is quite as it seems. Caught up in a day that keeps repeating itself, Bertie and Kate are eventually separated, and Bertie is faced with a mystery that threatens to derail everything. In order to make her way back to Kate, Bertie has to figure out how much control she has over her future—and her past—and how to survive in an apocalypse when the world keeps refusing to end.

There are laws that govern our universe that are far beyond the material world that we experience. Over time the world's leading scientists, astronomers and physicists have uncovered what the general public would perceive as magic but are in fact the basic laws of our universe. By understanding these laws we can tap into the magic that is available and manifest our goals and dreams. Bonfire Lessons is written in a story fashion built on fact. This is done so that the reader can readily understand some of the more complex concepts presented. Uncle Jack is a 79-year-old friend and mentor, who provides lessons about the universe, relativity, E=mc2, quantum mechanics and manifestation in nightly bonfire chats. Three people receive timely invitations to join him for a week that will ultimately change their lives.

The Bonfire of the Vanities defined an era--and established Tom Wolfe as our prime fictional chronicler of America at its most outrageous and alive. With A Man in Full, the time the setting is Atlanta, Georgia--a racially mixed late-century boomtown full of fresh wealth, avid speculators, and worldly-wise politicians. Big men. Big money. Big games. Big libidos. Big trouble. The protagonist is Charles Croker, once a college football star, now a late-middle-aged Atlanta real-estate entrepreneur turned conglomerate king, whose expansionist ambitions and outsize ego have at last hit up against reality. Charlie has a 28,000-acre quail-shooting plantation, a young and demanding second wife--and a half-empty office tower with a staggering load of debt. When star running back Fareek Fanon--the pride of one of Atlanta's grimmest slums--is accused of raping an Atlanta blueblood's daughter, the city's delicate racial balance is shattered overnight. Networks of illegal Asian immigrants crisscrossing the continent, daily life behind bars, shady real-estate syndicates, cast-off first wives of the corporate elite, the racially charged politics of college sports--Wolfe shows us the disparate worlds of contemporary America with all the verve, wit, and insight that have made him our most phenomenal, most admired contemporary novelist. A Man in Full is a 1998 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction.

This invaluable, time-saving resource provides intercultural ideas for every month of the year. For each festival and tradition you will find background information, key vocabulary, detailed lists of possible teaching activities and optional pupil sheets. Ideas range from making cards and reading/writing poems to playing game and cooking traditional recipes.

Uncommon Courageis an invitation to be your courageous best self every day. It's also an antidote to the overwhelm, fear, and rage rolling around the world. This book opens a path to inner contentment, peace, and happiness, and a path to meaningful action. It brings you an opportunity to reflect. What if there was another way? What if we could do something about the bigger issues facing our world? What if we could make meaningful change? Well, we can. Despite today's turmoil-which we can utilize as a springboard to action-a transformational journey is possible for all of us. Uncommon Courage is as practical, funny, and grounded in optimism as Andrea herself, and it's your toolkit for a deep-dive journey towards joy, purpose, and the kind of inner transformation that will make a real difference in the world we all share. In this book, you will discover 108 interlinking strategies to shift your thinking, improve your mood, and lighten your heart. This book helps you take on anger, parenting, climate change, self-awareness, and career change. Some of the stories are funny, while others may lovingly push your buttons. Living a full life takes courage and this book is designed to help you build yours. Read it, reflect, laugh, and enjoy. Reactions from early readers: "Reading Uncommon Courage is like going to a dinner party and being seated with an experienced CEO, a spiritual guru, and a wise old grandma." Tara Moody, marketing and culture speaker, strategist, content creator "This is not a quick-fix self-help book, but rather a personal travel guide for you that will help you lead yourself and your life." Andrew Bryant, CSP, author, Self-Leadership: How to be a More Successful, Efficient and Effective Leader from the Inside Out "Written from the depths of her soul, Andrea's vulnerability encourages us to reflect on how we are living our lives." Shirley Taylor, CSP, author, Connecting the Dots to Inspire the Leader in You "Andrea's stories takes us through the streets of Calcutta, where she meets Mother Teresa, to being chased, robbed, and nurturedin some of the most dangerous countries on the planet-to learning unconditionally how to say YES to life. Epic." John Vincent Gordon, CEO Expat Choice Media "Uncommon Courage is a kick in the butt and a spark in the heart." Anupama Singal, author, SYZYGYmoments "These stories about travel, challenges, conflicts, people and planetary urgency remind me of sitting around a bonfire and absorbing experiences of the well-travelled wise. Uncommon Courage rocks!" Kevin Cottam, author, The Nomadic Mindset: Never Settle... for Too Long Andrea T Edwards CSP, the Digital Conversationalist, is an award-winning B2B communications professional with over 20 years' experience. She speaks on social leadership and integrity in the digital age to professionals around the world. Her travels currently have her living on an island with her husband, two sons, a dog, and two neurotic cats.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A candid and moving memoir of how one woman’s pregnancy forced her to confront her definition of how to live a successful life “Slyly ironic, frequently hilarious, [Martha] Beck’s memoir charts the journey from being smart to becoming wise.”—Time This edition includes a new afterword about Adam. From the moment Martha and her husband, John, accidentally conceived their second child, all hell broke loose. They were a couple obsessed with success. After years of matching IQs and test scores with less driven peers, they had two Harvard degrees apiece and were gunning for more. They’d plotted out a future in the most vaunted ivory tower of academe. But when their unborn son, Adam, was diagnosed with Down syndrome, doctors, advisers, and friends in the Harvard community warned them that if they decided to keep the baby, they would lose all hope of achieving their carefully crafted goals. Fortunately, that’s exactly what happened. By the time Adam was born, Martha and John were propelled into a world in which they were forced to redefine everything of value to them, put all their faith in miracles, and trust that they could fly without a net. And it worked. Expecting Adam captures the abject terror and exhilarating freedom of facing impending parenthood, being forced to question one’s deepest beliefs, and rewriting life’s rules.

An NPR Best Book of the Year Winner of the 2015 PEN Southwest Book Award Shortlisted for the IAFA Crawford Award “Endlessly powerful. . . . Here is one you should not miss, a gratifying feast in lush, lyrical, and full-throated form.” —NPR.org Lulu can't sing. Since the traumatic birth of her daughter, the internationally renowned soprano hasn't dared utter a note. She's afraid that her body is too fragile and that she may have lost her talent to a long-dreaded curse afflicting all of the mothers in her family. When Lulu was a child, her strong-willed grandmother Ada filled her head with fables of the family's enchanted history in the Polish countryside. A fantastical lore took hold—an incantatory mix of young love, desperate hope, and one sinister bargain that altered the family's history forever. Since that fateful pact, Ada tells Lulu, each mother in their family has been given a daughter, but each daughter has exacted an essential cost from her mother. Ada was the first to recognize young Lulu's transcendent talent, spotting it early on in their cramped Chicago apartment, then watching her granddaughter ascend to dizzying heights in packed international concert halls. But as the curse predicted, Lulu's mother, a sultry and elusive jazz singer, disappeared into her bitterness in the face of Lulu's superior talent—before disappearing from her family's life altogether. Now, in the early days of her own daughter's life, Lulu now finds herself weighing her overwhelming love for her child against the burden of her family's past. In incandescent prose, debut novelist Adrienne Celt skillfully intertwines the sensuous but precise physicality of both motherhood and music. She infuses The Daughters with the spirit of the rusalka, a bewitching figure of Polish mythology that inspired Dvorák's classic opera. The result is a tapestry of secrets, affairs, and unimaginable sacrifices, revealing a family legacy laced with brilliance, tragedy, and most mysterious and seductive of all—the resonant ancestral lore that binds each mother to the one that came before.

Typography Essentials: 100 Design Principles for Working with Type is a practical, hands-on resource that distills and organizes the many complex issues surrounding the effective use of typography. An essential reference for designers since 2009, Typography Essentials is now completely refreshed with updated text, new graphics and photos, and a whole new look. Divided into four sections—The Letter, The Word, The Paragraph, and The Page—the text is concise, compact, and easy to reference. Each of the 100 principles, which cover all practical aspects of designing with type, has an explanation and inspiring visual examples drawn from international books, magazines, posters, and more. Typography Essentials is for designers of every medium in which type plays a major role, and is organized and designed to make the process enjoyable and entertaining, as well as instructional.