sible."--BOOK JACKET.

Love has, quite unfairly, come to be associated in some quarters with being happy. But it is, naturally, one of the most reliable routes to misery. We tend to treat our sadness as if it were highly unique and shameful. But as this book explains, there are some solidly founded reasons why love should be at times highly sorrowful. The good news is that by understanding our romantic troubles and griefs, seeing them in their proper context and appreciating their prevalence, we will cease to feel so alone and so cursed. The essay is not a study in despair, it is a guide to a more consoling, humane and in its own way joyful perspective on the complexities of love.

The forces that shaped the institution of slavery in the American South endured, albeit in altered form, long after slavery was abolished. Toiling in sweltering Virginia tobacco factories or in the kitchens of white families in Chicago, black women felt a stultifying combination of racial discrimination and sexual prejudice. And yet, in their efforts to sustain family ties, they shared a common purpose with wives and mothers of all classes. In Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow, historian Jacqueline Jones offers a powerful account of the changing role of black women, lending a voice to an unsung struggle from the depths of slavery to the ongoing fight for civil rights.

A fresh approach to modern working life, offering thoughtful solutions on how to cope with professional challenges.

“An engrossing tale [that] provides plenty of food for thought” (People, Best New Books pick), this playful, wise, and profoundly moving second novel from the internationally bestselling author of How Proust Can Change Your Life tracks the beautifully complicated arc of a romantic partnership. We all know the headiness and excitement of the early days of love. But what comes after? In Edinburgh, a couple, Rabih and Kirsten, fall in love. They get married, they have children—but no long-term relationship is as simple as “happily ever after.” The Course of Love explores what happens after the birth of love, what it takes to maintain, and what happens to our original ideals under the pressures of an average existence. We see, along with Rabih and Kirsten, the first flush of infatuation, the effortlessness of falling into romantic love, and the course of life thereafter. Interwoven with their story and its challenges is an overlay of philosophy—an annotation and a guide to what we are reading. As The New York Times says, “The Course of Love is a return to the form that made Mr. de Botton’s name in the mid-1990s….love is the subject best suited to his obsessive aphorizing, and in this novel he again shows off his ability to pin our hopes, methods, and insecurities to the page.” This is a Romantic novel in the true sense, one interested in exploring how love can survive and thrive in the long term. The result is a sensory experience—fictional, philosophical, psychological—that urges us to identify deeply with these characters and to reflect on his and her own experiences in love. Fresh, visceral, and utterly compelling, The Course of Love is a provocative and life-affirming novel for everyone who believes in love. “There’s no writer alive like de Botton, and his latest ambitious undertaking is as enlightening and humanizing as his previous works” (Chicago Tribune).

Love. Of all the virtues that have been passed on to us through the ages, from the great poets to the saints and scholars, throughout history and literature, love is the one virtue that we as a society cannot live without. The ability to love well and to love wisely is the most important trait that parents can pass on to their children. As children grow, the longing to share this love as well as receive it will remain strong throughout their lives. Bestselling author Andrew M. Greeley and his sister, Dr. Mary G. Durkin have complied a beautiful and inspiring anthology that will help us comprehend this the most important of virtues and also help us express and understand what it means to love, and how to love wisely. The Book of Love is a perfect gift for a parent to give to a child, for relatives or friends to share, or for those who are coming to know this virtue in all its glory. People of all nations, creeds, colors, and denominations will appreciate this treasury of essays, poems, stories, and songs reflecting the one human need that has remained constant: Love. It has been written about in the Bible, and it was passed down orally in myth and legend. It was discussed by the Chinese philosopher Confucius and in the Koran, and it inspired great works of literature and the pages of popular fiction. The Book of Love is a testament to the enduring nature of our own good, a good expressed through the human bond. In the tradition of William J. Bennett's The Book of Virtue, The Book of Love is a collection to be treasured, and shared, but most of all, it will guide us to express and to pass on the greatest of life's virtues: Love. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The Sorrows of an American is a soaring feat of storytelling about the immigrant experience and the ghosts that haunt families from one generation to another When Erik Davidsen and his sister, Inga, find a disturbing note from an unknown woman among their dead father's papers, they believe he may be implicated in a mysterious death. Siri Hustvedt's The Sorrows of an American tells the story of the Davidsen family as brother and sister uncover its secrets and unbandage its wounds in the year following their father's funeral. Returning to New York from Minnesota, the grieving siblings continue to pursue the mystery behind the note. While Erik's fascination with his new tenants and emotional vulnerability to his psychiatric patients threaten to overwhelm him, Inga is confronted by a hostile journalist who seems to know a secret connected to her dead husband, a famous novelist. As each new mystery unfolds, Erik begins to inhabit his emotionally hidden father's history and to glimpse how his impoverished childhood, the Depression, and the war shaped his relationship with his children, while Inga must confront the reality of her husband's double life. A novel about fathers and children, listening and deafness, recognition and blindness; the pain of speaking and the pain of keeping silent, the ambiguities of memory, loneliness, illness, and recovery. Siri Hustvedt's exquisitely moving prose reveals one family's hidden sorrows through an extraordinary mosaic of secrets and stories that reflect the fragmented nature of identity itself.

The Romanian and Serbian Canis lupus rest in an uneasy peace. One of their own, Sally Miklos, the young and powerful gypsy healer, aids Perizada in her quest to defeat Volcan, a long forgotten nightmare returned to our world. These two packs watch as their brothers across the world, wolves from Spain, Ireland, and America, join their own forces in the battle against the evil dark fae. At the same time, the packs hope against hope that their presence might reveal a mate bond between a pack member and one of the five recently discovered gypsy healers. While Jacque and Jen miss Sally, their longtime best friend, they have bided their time dealing with their own domestic issues. Jacque and Fane are anticipating the birth of their first child and Jen and Decebel face the challenges of caring for an infant. Both girls are eagerly awaiting Sally’s return, and have Perizada’s word that she will be back in time for the birth of Jacque’s baby. Vasile and Alina, the Alpha pair of the Romanian pack, are enjoying this time of peace. But Vasile did not become the most powerful Alpha in centuries by being a fool. He has lived long enough to know that there is always another battle on the horizon. As long as evil exists in this world, his race must step forward and stand in the gap, shielding those who cannot protect themselves. But the battle he is anticipating is bigger than he could have ever imagined. As Perizada has recently discovered, creatures of the night that have for so long remained hidden from the human realm, have slithered from their underground lairs and begun preying on the young and innocent. The high fae has declared war, and she expects Vasile and his wolves to be the ones to carry out the attack. The Alpha is more than happy to oblige. But with his first grandchild on the way, and the gift of five vulnerable healers coming under the wolves’ protection, he understands that he must be very careful not to place any of them in harm’s way. Such is the job of the Alpha, protector, and provider. He and those he leads must stand as sentinels and warriors to safeguard those they love, and the humans who know nothing of the supernatural world. It will be their job to destroy the creatures that threaten to expose them all. And if they fail, the world as they know it, both human and supernatural, will never be the same.