Two lost young Parisians discover new paths for their lives in this charming pair of novellas by the international-bestselling author of Billie. Twenty-four-year-old Mathilde has abandoned her studies in art history for a job leaving anonymous negative comments on websites. One day she loses her bag in a café—a bag that happens to contain ten thousand Euros. When an unknown man returns it to her a week later, Mathilde becomes obsessed with the mysterious encounter. Twenty-six-year-old Yann works as a sales assistant in a home appliances store while he waits for better days to come. He wouldn’t say he is unhappy. But sometimes, late at night, when he is crossing a bridge over the River Seine, he imagines jumping. One day he does a favor for one of his neighbors and is asked to stay for dinner as thanks. The following morning Yann throws caution to the wind and decides to change his life entirely. These two novellas by bestselling author Anna Gavalda are among her most moving and inspiring. Life, Only Better is a touching, cleverly crafted book about choices and their consequences.

Along with all the perks of becoming an adult come challenges and the need to learn skills that help you self-regulate as you venture into new experiences. Highlighting five key areas of life — physical, mental, emotional, social, and financial — Be You, Only Better offers science- and experience-backed tools and easy-to-implement techniques for success. Skill-building and self-care practices — such as journaling, getting enough sleep and exercise, embracing nature, managing time and money, and practicing gratitude, mindfulness, and optimism — are presented, and each is illustrated with the story of a real young person. These practices will help you create a resilient foundation for your powerful future. You’ll discover a wonderfully accessible lifeline and a realistically inspiring guide to leading — and loving — your best possible life.

Like bubonic plague and stone cladding, no-one took Margaret Thatcher seriously until it was too late. Her first act as leader was to appear before the cameras and do a V for Victory sign the wrong way round. She was smiling and telling the British people to f*** off at the same time. It was something we would have to get used to.' Things Can Only Get Better is the personal account of a Labour supporter who survived eighteen miserable years of Conservative government. It is the heartbreaking and hilarious confessions of someone who has been actively involved in helping the Labour party lose elections at every level: school candidate: door-to-door canvasser: working for a Labour MP in the House of Commons; standing as a council candidate; and eventually writing jokes for a shadow cabinet minister. Along the way he slowly came to realise that Michael Foot would never be Prime Minister, that vegetable quiche was not as tasty as chicken tikki masala and that the nuclear arms race was never going to be stopped by face painting alone.

"Anyone who loves to read and wants our young people to develop a similar passion will savor" Better than Life "- an enchanting, beautifully written, and wise book."--Regie Routman An essential guide to helping children discover the pleasures of reading! In "Better than Life," Daniel Pennac shares the secrets that all book lovers treasure. Delving into his experiences as a parent, a writer and a teacher, he asks, how does the love of reading begin? How is it lost? And how can it be regained? This remarkable book explores simple ways to create a life-long devotion to reading: how reading aloud can ensure that a love of books beginswhy it is important that children develop a private relationship with bookswhat "The Reader's Bill of Rights" can do to guarantee children value reading This book reads like a novel with gripping anecdotes from literature and fresh insights into creating and nurturing enthusiastic readers.

If you want to be happy, fulfilled and energised its probably best not to obsess over being THE best. Why not focus on doing YOUR best? You don't need to completely transform yourself and become a shining beacon of wonderment and astonishing success—you should remain you . . . just a better version. You, Only Better is all about discovering what you're good at and focusing on that. It's about deciding what it is you really want from life and learning how to reach your full potential. Packed with the author's hand-drawn illustrations, helpful quotes, mini-case studies and Q&As you'll learn how to change your mindset for the better and think positively, take action to achieve your goals, fight against fatigue and get motivated and achieve long lasting happiness and contentment. You, Only Better offers techniques and methods for: Gaining energy and focus Managing your time effectively Setting your goals Honing your thinking and mindset Dealing with pressure and stress Making smart decisions Thinking creatively to solve problems Actually taking action and keeping up the momentum

Have you ever read a story and wondered what you would do in that situation? Would you run into the abandoned house after the killer? Or run screaming from the scene to analyze the whole thing with your friends? Would you be bold enough to flirt with your crush—even though he has a girlfriend? Or would you quietly back off, in hopes of meeting a better guy to crush on? In Your Life, But Better, you don’t just read a story—you become the story. Take a quick personality quiz at the end of each chapter, and find out how you would act if you were confronted with the scene you just read. Are you star material? Or the queen of romance? What will you learn about yourself?

With a deluge of electronic conveniences and cable channels well into the hundreds, it's no wonder that many people aren't sitting down with a good old-fashioned book more often. Motivational speaker and lifelong reader Pat Williams is changing all of that, in this energetic book, Read for Your Life. With anecdotes and interviews from some of today's greatest icons in business, sports and academia, including Phoenix Suns' star Steve Nash (voted NBA's Most Valuable Player in 2005-06), Yankees' star Alex Rodriguez, Grant Hill of the Orlando Magic and former New York City mayor Rudy Guiliani, Read for Your Life will help readers discover how reading can enhance their personal and professional thinking. Read for Your Life features 11 ways to transform one's life through books. - Publisher.

The acclaimed author of What's Worth Knowing reveals the truth about aging: Old age often offers a richer, better, and more self-assured life than youth. From our earliest lives, we are told that our youth will be the best time of our lives-that the energy and vitality of youth are the most important qualities a person can possess, and that everything that comes after will be a sad decline. But in reality, says Wendy Lustbader, youth is not the golden era it is often made out to be. For many, it is a time riddled with anxiety, angst, confusion, and the torture of uncertainty. Conversely, the media often feeds us a vision of growing older as a journey of defeat and diminishment. They are dead wrong. As Lustbader counters, "Life gets better as we get older, on all levels except the physical." Life Gets Better is not a precious or whimsical tome on the quirky wisdom of the elderly. Lustbader-who has worked for several decades as a social worker specializing in aging issues-conducted firsthand research with aging and elderly people in all walks of life, and she found that they overwhelmingly spoke of the mental and emotional richness they have drawn from aging. Lustbader discovered that rather than experiencing a decline from youth, aging people were happier, more courageous, and more interested in being true to their inner selves than were young people. Life Gets Better examines through first-person stories, as well as Lustbader's own observations, how a lifetime of lessons learned can yield one of the most personally and emotionally fruitful periods of anyone's life. As an eighty-six-year-old who contributed her story to the book noted, "For me, being old is the reward for outlasting all the big and little problems that happen to all of us along life's pathway." The collected stories in Life Gets Better provide a hopeful corrective to the fear of aging aggressively instilled in us by the media. Don't dread the future: The best years of our lives just may be ahead.

A New York Times Bestseller From Dr. Phil show regular and author of the New York Times bestselling Best Self: Be You, Only Better, a plan for taking immediate steps to improving your life Foreword by Dr. Phil McGraw It is estimated that we make 35,000 decisions every day. Right now, at least one decision we make will have a powerful ripple effect across all aspects of our life. But One Decision isn't about taking one overwhelming big step; it's about starting with a single, important choice we can make every day: the decision to be authentic. It is the decision to know who you are, to be who you are, and express yourself authentically. Whether you find yourself up against a new challenge, deciding on a change in direction, or in need of a total reinvention, Coach Mike has created a powerful blueprint to help you connect with your authenticity so that your life reflects who you truly are. With the tools in this book, you can transform what the obstacles in your life into new opportunities. He shows you how to stop constantly over-thinking the "big" decisions and reconnect with your gut instincts and make all of your decisions with confidence and peace of mind. And, this book helps you navigate the forces that routinely drive your decision making, ensuring that you're motivated by facts instead of fears, clarity over confusion, and evidence over emotion. One Decision is an inspiring and practical action plan to help you improve your life, find your purpose, improve your mental health and relationships, work on your physical health, and even make more money. Drawing on twenty years of experience helping individuals from all walks of life make real and lasting change, Coach Mike has a refreshing approach for motivating you to take a risk, be bold, and take real action toward a better life. A PENGUIN LIFE TITLE

This isn’t about me. This story, I mean. So already you got a reason to hang it up. At least that’s what Mrs. Smith, our English teacher, says. But the story is about ten-year-old Laney Grafton and the new girl in her class—Lara Phelps, whom everyone bullies from the minute she shows up. Laney is just relieved to have someone else as a target of bullying. But instead of acting the way a bullied kid normally acts, this new girl returns kindness for a meanness that intensifies . . . until nobody remains unchanged, not even the reader. In a unique and multi-layered story, with equal parts humor and angst, Laney communicates the art of storytelling as it happens, with chapter headings, such as: Character, Setting, Conflict, Rising Action, Climax. And she weaves an unforgettable tale of a new girl who transforms an entire class and, in the process, reveals the best and worst in all of us. This is a powerful and emotional story, which School Library Journal called “Thoroughly enjoyable and unexpectedly wry, . . . as intelligent as it is succinct.”