The only way for an addict to stop is to hit bottom. But, what if your bottom has a basement? This heroin addict is learning the further you go to get high, the farther you dig down. Every act is desperately insane in The Gift Of Desperation. Follow along with his intense and crazy pursuit of one more high as it leads him into a gripping downward spiral. And discover how the 12 steps of recovery miraculously took that miserable desperation and turned it into absolute gratitude. (Book 2, The Gift Of Gratitude, coming soon!)

Claire Sebastian leads a secret life. By day she is a junior curator at the NMWA in D.C., and by night she likes booze and hot, insatiable men. Tasked with curating a show entitled Art and Healing, Claire begins to face her past. And with the help of her childhood friend Evi, a wounded warrior who returns to D.C., Claire begins her journey of recovery from desperation to hope.

This "blistering anti-romance" (Catherine Lacey) paints a riveting, cathartic story about love addiction and what it does to us. Wouldn’t I do anything to reverse my loss, the absence of him? In the first scene of this provocative gut-punch of a novel, our unnamed narrator meets a magnetic writer named Ciaran and falls, against her better judgment, completely in his power. After a brief, all-consuming romance he abruptly rejects her, sending her into a tailspin of jealous obsession and longing. If he ever comes back to her, she resolves to hang onto him and his love at all costs, even if it destroys her… Part breathless confession, part lucid critique, Acts of Desperation renders a consciousness split between rebellion and submission, between escaping degradation and eroticizing it, between loving and being lovable. With unsettling, electric precision, Nolan dissects one of life’s most elusive mysteries: Why do we want what we want, and how do we want it? Heralding the arrival of a stunning new literary talent, Acts of Desperation interrogates the nature of fantasy, desire, and power, challenging us to reckon honestly with our own insatiability. "Hot as viscera." —The New Republic

Mary Lou is leaving Hollywood and going home, the place she left years before in order to pursue her dream of becoming a great singer. That dream is dead along with her dreams of marriage and a future with her alcoholic lover, who is bent on drinking himself to death. She is destitute, ill and on the verge of a nervous collapse. She has no choice except to throw herself on the mercy of her father. She knows that even though her dad said she could come, of course he would never turn her away. The last time she came home, she created a scandal which he finds hard to forget. Her father, Aaron Gerhardt, owns a large ranch which he runs in partnership with his son and his family. Their lives consist of hard work, their devotion to God and their small country church. No sooner does Mary Lou arrive than she realizes she is in a particular hell from which there is no escape except to die. Failing suicide and coming to the realization she does not want to die, she has to find a way to live. Even though she doesn't believe in God, she becomes open to the idea that perhaps he is the answer. Along the way, she discovers that God has planned a life for her that is more exciting and satisfying than anything she could have envisioned for herself. This is God's story-a story of redemption, restoration, love, and forgiveness. "And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten," (Joel 2:25 KJV).

Eleven-year-old Tilly Martin is dragged from her suburban bedroom. Her mother, Cora, pleads for mercy but the kidnappers are clear: if they don't get their $5 million back in five days, Tilly dies. If anyone contacts police, Tilly dies. Journalist Jack Gannon's estranged sister, Cora, disappeared without a trace decades ago. Now she is frantically reaching out to him for help. Cora tells him about the shameful mistakes she's made—but she guards the one secret that may be keeping her daughter alive. A twenty-year-old assassin, haunted by the faces of the people he's executed, seeks absolution as he sets out to commit his last murders as a hired killer. In the U.S. and Mexico, police and the press go flat out on Tilly's case. But as Gannon digs deeper into his anguished sister's past, the hours tick down on his niece's life and he faces losing a fragment of his rediscovered family forever.

If necessity has been the mother of invention throughout the history of professional football, it could also be said that desperation is the father. Rare are the football innovations that have occurred without an owner, general manager, coach, or player up against the wall and reaching for a way to succeed anyway. In this meticulously researched, lively book, Bleacher Report lead NFL scout Doug Farrar traces the schematic history of the pro game through these "if this/then that" moments—paradigm shifts in the game from 1920 through the present. More than just a book about schemes and strategies, The Genius of Desperation: The Schematic Innovations that Made the Modern NFL also tells the stories of the game's most prominent innovators, the adversities they endured, and the ways in which they learned to exceed their own expectations on the path to true greatness. Everyone from George Halas to Greasy Neale, Paul Brown to Sid Gillman, Bill Walsh to Chip Kelly is featured, as well as many more. The Genius of Desperation is a narrative arc through the history of the game as it's never been told before.

Experiencing God's power in our desperate moments.

What's a Desperation Dinner? How to feed your family well when your spouse is late, the kids are losing it, and the dog is scratching at the door. Features over 250 tempting, nutritious recipes that take brilliant advantage of convenience foods-from individual quick-frozen chicken breasts to chopped ginger in a jar-plus innovative techniques to cut time and "push" flavor. Desperation Dinners Promise: 1. These recipes are not hard. 2. These recipes do not require expensive equipment. 3. These recipes do not lie-every one can be made in 20 minutes, start to finish. 4. Expect to be working, but only for those 20 minutes. 5. These recipes taste good. A Slightly Desperate Cook's Answer to "What's for Dinner?" Skillet Shepherd's Pie Topsail Spaghetti Pork au Poivre Chicken Chili Quesadillas Garlic-Roasted Salmon Buttered Rum-Glazed Ham Fish Florentine Confetti Stuffed Peppers And When You're Really Desperate Southwestern Chicken on the Spot Minute Minestrone Tuna and Fusilli Alfresco Miracle Baked Pork Chops Practically Perfect Peach Crisp "The dinner dilemma is solved! The Desperation ladies deserve to be stove-side in every busy home." -Nathalie Dupree, author of Nathalie Dupree Cooks Quick Meals for Busy Days

A New York Times bestseller from the author of Dusk, Night Dawn, Hallelujah Anyway, Bird by Bird, and Almost Everything. Author Anne Lamott writes about the three simple prayers essential to coming through tough times, difficult days and the hardships of daily life. Readers of all ages have followed and cherished Anne Lamott’s funny and perceptive writing about her own faith through decades of trial and error. And in her new book, Help, Thanks, Wow, she has coalesced everything she knows about prayer to these fundamentals. It is these three prayers – asking for assistance from a higher power, appreciating what we have that is good, and feeling awe at the world around us – that can get us through the day and can show us the way forward. In Help, Thanks, Wow, Lamott recounts how she came to these insights, explains what they mean to her and how they have helped, and explores how others have embraced these same ideas. Insightful and honest as only Anne Lamott can be, Help, Thanks, Wow is the everyday faith book that new Lamott readers will love and longtime Lamott fans will treasure.

The Panic of 1893 and the depression it triggered mark one of the decisive crises in American history. Devastating broad sections of the country like a tidal wave, the depression forced the nation to change its way of life and altered the pattern and pace of national development ever after. The depression served as the setting for the transformation from an agricultural to an industrial society, exposed grave economic and social problems, sharply tested the country's resourcefulness, reshaped popular thought, and changed the direction of foreign policy. It was a crucible in which the elements of the modern United States were clarified and refined. Yet no study to date has examined the depression in its entirety. This is the first book to treat these disparate matters in detail, and to trace and interpret the business contraction of the 1890s in the context of national economic, political, and social development. Steeples and Whitten first explain the origins of the depression, measure its course, and interpret the business recovery, giving full coverage to structural changes in the economy; namely, the growing importance of manufacturing, emergence of new industries, consolidation of business, and increasing importance of finance capitalism. The remainder of the book examines the depression's impact on society—discussing, for example, unemployment, birth rate, health, and education—and on American culture, politics and international relations. Placing the business collapse at the center of the scene, the book shows how the depression was a catalyst for ushering in a more modern America.