Best-selling author Mary Randolph Carter is back at it with a full-throated celebration of junk and thrifting. The Joy of Junk shows us how to live stylishly and creatively with the personally meaningful objects we love to collect for our homes. From the author who taught us that "junk" in not a four-letter word, and drawing on her years of experience as a passionate thrifter and collector, Carter highlights her favorite junking moments, revels in the thrill of the hunt and imparts many personal tips for finding treasures in flea markets, yard sales, estate sales, shops, on the web, or wherever you may find yourself. With her passion for self-expression and her personal approach to decor, Carter speaks to our desire to surround ourselves with belongings that bring beauty and meaning to our lives. Along the way, Carter interviews other designers and high-profile collectors--such as Lisa Eisner, Bunny Williams, and Mike Wolfe from "American Pickers," among others--revealing their favorite treasure hunts and showing us how they live with their collections. Inspiring and liberating, The Joy of Junk shows how we can integrate our passions and histories to live creatively and happily with the special and quirky objects that give our homes soul.

A guide to decorating the home using objects acquired at flea markets, auctions, and garage sales features before-and-after photographs, prices, a listing of auction houses, and tips on bargaining, cleaning, and camouflage.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING AUTHOR Imagine what it would be like if you could eat all the comfort foods you love—from General Tso’s Chicken and Buffalo Wings to Strawberry Cheesecake and Chocolate Chip Ice Cream—but without the calories. But instead of feeling bloated, heavy, and lethargic, you felt light, alive, and healthy. It sounds like a dream, doesn’t it? This dream is, in fact, reality, and New York Times best-selling author Joy Bauer is here to prove it. In From Junk Food to Joy Food, Bauer lays out the secrets to transforming everyone’s favorite comfort foods into healthier versions of themselves—just like she does in her popular segment on the TODAY show. With a few simple tweaks, readers can create sumptuous, healthy comfort food dishes with the flavors and textures they crave but without the negative side effects. Instead of making them feel tired and weighed down, these foods will help readers lose weight, alleviate arthritis pain, boost energy, enhance heart health, normalize blood pressure, minimize wrinkles, and so much more. Packed with more than 100 recipes and stunning four-color before-and-after food photography, this recipe book presents some of the most delicious (and typically fattening!) meals, snacks, desserts and drinks—but with a healthy twist. So get set to gobble down Chicken Parmesan for dinner and top it off with Boston Cream Pie, and still drop two dress sizes in a few weeks. It’s all possible when you turn your favorite junk food into Joy food.

First time in trade paperback The dramatic, behind-the-scenes story of an ambitious Roman politician whose fateful decision changes the course of history.

A hilarious debut novel about an eclectic group of merchants at a Kansas antique mall who become implicated in the kidnapping of a local beauty pageant star. The city of Wichita, Kansas, is wracked with panic over the abduction of toddler pageant princess Lindy Bobo. However, the dealers at The Heart of America Antique Mall are too preoccupied by their own neurotic compulsions to take much notice. Postcards, perfume bottles, Barbies, vinyl records, kitschy neon beer signs—they collect and sell it all. Rather than focus on Lindy, this colorful cast of characters is consumed by another drama: the impending arrival of Mark and Grant from the famed antiques television show Pickin’ Fortunes, who are planning to film an episode at The Heart of America and secretly may be the last best hope of saving the mall from bankruptcy. Yet the mall and the missing beauty queen have more to do with each other than these vendors might think, and before long, the group sets in motion a series of events that lead to surprising revelations about Lindy’s whereabouts. As the mall becomes implicated in her disappearance, will Mark and Grant be scared away from all of the drama or will they arrive in time to save The Heart of America from going under? Equally comical and suspenseful, Heart of Junk is also a biting commentary on our current Marie Kondo era. It examines why certain objects resonate with us so deeply, rebukes Kondo’s philosophy of wholesale purging, and argues that “junk” can have great value—connecting us not only to our personal pasts but to our shared human history. As author Luke Geddes writes: “A collection was a record of a life lived, maybe not well or happily but at least with attention and passion. It was autobiography made whole.”

The reigning Queen of Junk marries America's flea market fervor with its garden mania in a book which issues an invitation to track down and rescue garden treasures wherever they lurk, from thrift shops to country auctions. Carter reveals how to revamp garden tools, refinish old paint, and provides hints on hunting and bargaining. A directory of 200 thrift shops, flea markets, and other "junking sites" is included. 400+ color photos.

Journal with Purpose is the ultimate reference for journaling, packed with over 1000 motifs that you can use to decorate and enhance your bullet or dot journal pages. Copy or trace direct from the page, or follow one of the quick exercises to improve your skills. Featuring all the journal elements you could wish for – banners, arrows, dividers, scrolls, icons, borders and alphabets – this amazing value book will be a constant source of inspiration for journaling and an 'instant fix' for people who find the more artistic side of journaling a challenge.

A must for all collectors and kitchen junk afficionados, this colourful guide is packed with over 400 full-colour photographs.

For all those who choose to live "imperfectly" with the messy things they love, this book shows how to do so creatively, happily, and with considerable style ideas from leading designers. A beautiful and inspiring volume, A Perfectly Kept House is the Sign of A Misspent Life focuses on living well with everything that makes a house a home. If you have been influenced by the picturesquely cluttered studios of Pablo Picasso or Alexander Calder, or by the art- and book-filled house of Vanessa Bell, this unique style book will stimulate you with its creative ideas.This volume explores how real-life tastemakers (photographers, textile designers, fashion designers, writers, artists) integrate their life and interiors to live well with their passions, histories, conveniences, and inconveniences. In inspiring essays, Mary Randolph Carter muses on such key housekeeping concerns as clutter versus mess; open windows; and unmade beds. Combining practical tips with liberating philosophy—"Don’t scrub the soul out of your home"; "Make room for what you love"—this volume celebrates living beautifully and happily, not messily. Lavishly illustrated with intimate photographs of different living spaces, Carter exalts in the beauty of imperfection and in living perfectly in our "imperfect" homes. Life isn’t perfect—why should your house be?

For fans of Rebecca Stead and Jennifer L. Holm, this is the perfect middle grade summer beach read. Twelve-year-old Shayne Whittaker has always spent summers on the Maine coast, visiting her grandmother Bea and playing with her BFF Poppy. Both Shayne and Bea are collectors, in their own ways: Shayne revels in golden memories of searching for sea glass and weaving friendship bracelets with Poppy, while Bea scours flea markets for valuable finds, much of which she adds to a growing pile in her house that Shayne jokingly calls Junk Mountain. This summer, though, everything has changed. Poppy would rather talk about boys than bracelets, and Bea's collecting mania has morphed into hoarding. Only Linc, the weird Civil War-obsessed kid next door, pays attention to her. Turns out Linc's collected a secret of his own, one that could enrage the meanest lobsterman on the planet, his grandpa. What begins as the worst summer of Shayne's life becomes the most meaningful, as she wages an all-out battle to save her friendships, rescue her grandmother, and protect the memories she loves the most.