How do we align our end-of-life choices with our values? In a world experiencing a climate crisis and a culture that avoids discussions about death and dying, environmentalist and educator Mallory McDuff takes readers on a journey to discover new, sustainable practices around death and dying.

One of The New York Times's 100 notable books of 2021 "[George Packer's] account of America’s decline into destructive tribalism is always illuminating and often dazzling." —William Galston, The Washington Post Acclaimed National Book Award-winning author George Packer diagnoses America’s descent into a failed state, and envisions a path toward overcoming our injustices, paralyses, and divides In the year 2020, Americans suffered one rude blow after another to their health, livelihoods, and collective self-esteem. A ruthless pandemic, an inept and malign government response, polarizing protests, and an election marred by conspiracy theories left many citizens in despair about their country and its democratic experiment. With pitiless precision, the year exposed the nation’s underlying conditions—discredited elites, weakened institutions, blatant inequalities—and how difficult they are to remedy. In Last Best Hope, George Packer traces the shocks back to their sources. He explores the four narratives that now dominate American life: Free America, which imagines a nation of separate individuals and serves the interests of corporations and the wealthy; Smart America, the world view of Silicon Valley and the professional elite; Real America, the white Christian nationalism of the heartland; and Just America, which sees citizens as members of identity groups that inflict or suffer oppression. In lively and biting prose, Packer shows that none of these narratives can sustain a democracy. To point a more hopeful way forward, he looks for a common American identity and finds it in the passion for equality—the “hidden code”—that Americans of diverse persuasions have held for centuries. Today, we are challenged again to fight for equality and renew what Alexis de Tocqueville called “the art” of self-government. In its strong voice and trenchant analysis, Last Best Hope is an essential contribution to the literature of national renewal.

Mallory McDuff shows that churches and faith organizations are reconnecting with conservation and working to save the natural world.

"Built on her ... Modern Love column, 'When a Couch is More Than a Couch' (9/23/2016), a ... memoir of living meaningfully with 'death in the room' by the 38-year-old great-great-great granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson--mother to two young boys, wife of 16 years--after her terminal cancer diagnosis"--

"In her argument on how to raise our young adolescents, Laura Sessions Stepp helps us navigate this critical age, this last, best shot at helping our youngsters grow up to be responsible, happy adults. Ten- to fifteen-year-olds are often dismissed as moody, baffling creatures. Yet the years through which they pass - developmentally very different from the later teenage years - are perhaps the most critical time in the human life cycle, a fateful juncture at which unmatched physical and intellectual growth, expanding creativity, emerging moral sensibilities, awakening sexuality, and maturing emotions powerfully converge. Amid all this change it is easy for parents of young adolescents to feel unsure of what constitutes "normal" behavior; too often they can fail to distinguish between behaviors that signal healthy growth and those that indicate real trouble. Without understanding the difference, they are in danger of forfeiting their greatest opportunity to effect decisive changes."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Five years ago, Scarborough stood alone in predicting the collapse of the Republican majority and the economic chaos that has shaken the country. Now, the author issues a challenge to his own political party: reform or die.

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK OF 2018 LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE WINNER ALA CARNEGIE MEDAL WINNER THE STONEWALL BOOK AWARD WINNER Soon to Be a Major Television Event, optioned by Amy Poehler • One of the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century “A page turner . . . An absorbing and emotionally riveting story about what it’s like to live during times of crisis.” —The New York Times Book Review A dazzling novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying and after his friend Nico’s funeral, the virus circles closer and closer to Yale himself. Soon the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico’s little sister. Thirty years later, Fiona is in Paris tracking down her estranged daughter who disappeared into a cult. While staying with an old friend, a famous photographer who documented the Chicago crisis, she finds herself finally grappling with the devastating ways AIDS affected her life and her relationship with her daughter. The two intertwining stories take us through the heartbreak of the eighties and the chaos of the modern world, as both Yale and Fiona struggle to find goodness in the midst of disaster. Named a Best Book of 2018 by The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, NPR, San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, Buzzfeed, The Seattle Times, Bustle, Newsday, AM New York, BookPage, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Lit Hub, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, New York Public Library and Chicago Public Library

Lorraine Bracco is one of the world's most dynamic actresses, but when she reached her fifties, she felt she was losing her luster. During the long illnesses of her parents, she began to gain weight and felt her energy and self-confidence take a dive. Watching her parents die within 9 days of each other was her wake-up call to take charge of her life. She made a commitment to herself to stay healthy. In To the Fullest, Bracco presents her Clean Up Your Act Program, a comprehensive plan to help women over 40 look and feel younger. The program includes an intensive liver cleanse to reboot the body to start fresh on the path to optimal health by eliminating gluten, sugar, eggs, and dairy. Two weeks of meal plans and a varied list of meals and snacks illustrate that hunger is not part of the program and that eating clean has endless flavorful options. Her Clean Up Your Act Diet, which follows the cleanse, will help you lose pounds and deliver supercharged energy. Bracco adds her own mouthwatering recipes to ease the transition to clean eating and suggests an abundance of satisfying breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks. She gradually lost 35 pounds and has kept it off. The book also includes testimonials gathered from women who have participated in Rodale's 6-week test panel. With winning honesty, Bracco provides the perfect combination of humor, comfort, and motivational support that women need to rise to life's challenges. From attitude adjustments to style tips, from finding new passions to making movement a habit, her advice and personal insights both inspire and entertain.

This is the most powerful book you have ever read! After reading this book you need not to wander anywhere else to seek what it takes to live your Best Life! This book is a masterpiece based on 8 X-Factors on which our Best Life depends & covering all those factors the authors brings you the most powerful, the game changer success principles that have tremendous potential to transform you life and help you get wherever you wish and whatever you want! You will find yourself progressing with each chapter as you begin to implement what you learn. This Book helps you discover the A Class performer within you, changes your belief system, makes you regain control on your health, become more productive, create lasting wealth, build affectionate relationships & everything else, whatever it takes to become the best version of yourself. This Book Brings You the Wisdom of 10,000 Years from Gallant Ancient Kings to Modern Fortune 500 CEOs on How to Live Your Best Life! Caution - If you have not read this book so far, the best of you is yet to come.

If they are to survive, cities need healthy chunks of the world’s ecosystems to persist; yet cities, like parasites, grow and prosper by local destruction of these very ecosystems. In this absorbing and wide-ranging book, Eldredge and Horenstein use New York City as a microcosm to explore both the positive and the negative sides of the relationship between cities, the environment, and the future of global biodiversity. They illuminate the mass of contradictions that cities present in embodying the best and the worst of human existence. The authors demonstrate that, though cities have voracious appetites for resources such as food and water, they also represent the last hope for conserving healthy remnants of the world’s ecosystems and species. With their concentration of human beings, cities bring together centers of learning, research, government, finance, and media—institutions that increasingly play active roles in solving environmental problems. Some of the topics covered in Concrete Jungle: --The geological history of the New York region, including remnant glacial features visible today --The early days of urbanization on Manhattan Island, focusing on the history of Central Park, Collect Pond, and Manhattan Square --The history of early railway lines and the development of New York’s iconic subway system --The problem of producing enough safe drinking water for an ever-expanding population --Prominent civic institutions, including universities, museums, and zoos