We End in Joy: Memoirs of a First Daughter offers an extraordinary perspective on public life in an intimate account from the daughter of a highly controversial southern governor and a widely beloved first lady. Angela Jordan enjoyed a comfortable and quiet life in Vicksburg, the small southern town in which she was reared. She was a thirty-five-year-old mother of three daughters, and a woman with a politically liberal bent, when, against all history's odds, Mississippians elected her conservative Republican father, Kirk Fordice, governor in 1991. Suddenly fate threw the whole Fordice family into the glaring lights of public life. They made headlines, enlivened the 6 o'clock television news, and provided fodder for every dinner table conversation and robust political speculation around the Southeast. As the Governor and First Lady Fordices' longstanding marriage dissolved slowly and publicly over two terms in office, everyone with a newspaper subscription or a cable connection watched the train wreck and high-profile betrayals. In honest, direct, sometimes poignant, and often funny prose, the author offers a rare glimpse into a profoundly complex family and its painfully public fall from grace. Though the book is the story behind the headlines of one of Mississippi's prominent families, Jordan's narrative will also resonate with anyone who has experienced humiliation, divorce, or loss, whether public or private. Through it all, Jordan finds a story of joy ascendant, and the wonder of discovering that in the deepest sorrow, light and love always shine through.

From bestselling author of The Book of Delights and award-winning poet, a book of lyrical mini-essays celebrating the everyday that will inspire readers to rediscover the joys in the world around us. In Ross Gay’s new collection of small, daily wonders, again written over the course of a year, one of America’s most original voices continues his ongoing investigation of delight. For Gay, what delights us is what connects us, what gives us meaning, from the joy of hearing a nostalgic song blasting from a passing car to the pleasure of refusing the “nefarious” scannable QR code menus, from the tiny dog he fell hard for to his mother baking a dozen kinds of cookies for her grandchildren. As always, Gay revels in the natural world—sweet potatoes being harvested, a hummingbird carousing in the beebalm, a sunflower growing out of a wall around the cemetery, the shared bounty from a neighbor’s fig tree—and the trillion mysterious ways this glorious earth delights us. The Book of (More) Delights is a volume to savor and share.

A “raw and honest” (Los Angeles Review of Books) memoir from the first Native American Poet Laureate of the United States. In this transcendent memoir, grounded in tribal myth and ancestry, music and poetry, Joy Harjo details her journey to becoming a poet. Born in Oklahoma, the end place of the Trail of Tears, Harjo grew up learning to dodge an abusive stepfather by finding shelter in her imagination, a deep spiritual life, and connection with the natural world. Narrating the complexities of betrayal and love, Crazy Brave is a haunting, visionary memoir about family and the breaking apart necessary in finding a voice.

Pierced by grief and charged with history, this new poetry collection from the award-winning author of Prelude to Bruise and How We Fight for Our Lives confronts our everyday apocalypses. In haunted poems glinting with laughter, Saeed Jones explores the public and private betrayals of life as we know it. With verve, wit, and elegant craft, Jones strips away American artifice in order to reveal the intimate grief of a mourning son and the collective grief bearing down on all of us. Drawing from memoir, fiction, and persona, Jones confronts the everyday perils of white supremacy with a finely tuned poetic ear, identifying moments that seem routine even as they open chasms of hurt. Viewing himself as an unreliable narrator, Jones looks outward to understand what’s within, bringing forth cultural icons like Little Richard, Paul Mooney, Aretha Franklin and Diahann Carroll to illuminate how long and how perilously we’ve been living on top of fault lines. As these poems seek ways to love and survive through America’s existential threats, Jones ushers his readers toward the realization that the end of the world is already here—and the apocalypse is a state of being.

Passionate Bible teacher Kay Warren shows women--even those who battle depression and anxiety--that a joy-filled life is within their reach.

Most Christians view the book of Ecclesiastes as an enigma, a puzzle from which we might draw a few aphorisms but little else. Douglas Wilson's fresh, lucid treatment of this wonderful book enables us to see that its message is not a confused riddle but an incisive indictment of "the wisdom of this world." We learn that what we call "modernity" is simply a term for men sinning in the old ways with new toys and tools. There is truly nothing new "under the sun"; man's problems today are exactly what they have been since the Fall. And the answer to man's problem is just as old, yet forever new - "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." (Steve Wilkins)

What do we all humans have in common? We are all incorrigible seekers of bliss or joy. Our minds are wired to be happy. At least that is what our modern scientific studies contend. Yet most of us know we are not joyful. In fact, we struggle most of time to be and stay happy. What has gone wrong? I have attempted to answer this question in this book. It has been my own journey to arrive at lasting happiness and joy. It builds on the informational, computational foundation of our universe developed in the first book of this series, Road to Digital Divine. It combines latest science of mind and matter with spirituality, putting forth a new concept of our self, the quantum self rooted in the informational nature of our being. Most of us are familiar with our physical self that we see in the mirror. It, however, does not define us completely. What is critical for us to know is our informational self. Knowing the true nature of this self and acting accordingly is essential for us humans to achieve good emotional health and realize lasting joy in our lives. In fact, not knowing or ignoring the messages from this essential nature of our self is the leading reason for suffering in our human society. I paint this self as a tale of three minds: emotional, rational, and cosmic. The three minds computationally synchronized lead to the birth of informational self. This self is a computationally astute structure. It computes using two modes of computation. Each of these modes lead to two extreme personalities. One, binary computation, which leads to a nature of self that courts “I, me, and mine” tendencies. I have called this as our binary self. And the other, quantum computation, which leads to a nature of self with “us, we, and ours” tendencies. I call this as our quantum self. Both these nature of self are quite familiar in today’s society. The binary information processing leads to egoic entity, which is present in most of us. It dominates today’s human society. It is responsible for incredible progress that humans have made as a surviving species, but it is also responsible for most of the sufferings that modern humans face today. The quantum self has saintlike nature. It feels love, empathy, and oneness with others. It is truthful and always stays in the company of divinity. It is responsible for widespread altruism in nature and in humans. With two selves of very different nature in one body, modern humans have learned the meaning of the word “suffering.” Which self will win? Which is our true self? Understanding of this fact is not trivial. In fact, it is nothing short of enlightenment as I explain how the understanding of our true self can lead one on to this path. It can make a profound change in one’s perspective. The joy pouring from deep within is at the root of this reality.

What separates happy marriages from miserable ones? Surprisingly, it’s not healthy communication. It’s not conflict resolution skills. It’s actually the size of the marriage’s joy gap . Joy Gap/joi gap/ (n.)-1. The length of time between moments of shared joy When the joy gap gets bigger, problems are more likely to overwhelm you, resentment creeps in, and you start to feel distant and alone in your marriage. When the joy gap is smaller, you regularly feel connected and happy, problems feel manageable, and your marriage becomes a reliable source of joy. But how do you ensure that you’re experiencing joy regularly? Marcus Warner and Chris Coursey have studied relationships (and neuroscience) and discovered four habits that keep joy regular and problems small. Some couples do them naturally, but anyone can learn. That’s why each chapter includes 15-minute exercises that boost joy and re-train your brain to make joy your default setting. You’ll learn new skills including how to: return to joy more quickly after disconnection create stronger bonds and elongate times of happiness boost your enjoyment of physical and emotional intimacy Find out what your marriage looks like after a little work and a whole lot of joy.

In his collection Risking Everything, Housden addressed love’s many aspects. Now, in Dancing with Joy, he assembles 99 poems from 69 poets that celebrate the many colors of joy. Anything can be a catalyst for joy, these poems reveal. For Wislawa Szymborska, the catalyst is a dream; for Robert Bly, being in the company of his ten-year-old son; for Gerald Stern, it is a grapefruit at breakfast; for Billy Collins, a cigarette. Dancing with Joy includes English and Italian classical and romantic works; early Chinese and Persian verse; and poets from Chile, France, Sweden, Poland, Russia, Turkey, and India, plus a range of contemporary American and English poets. Whether inspiration is what you need, or an affirmation of what is already joyful in life, Dancing with Joy is a welcome treat for Housden’s numerous fans, as well as anyone looking for sheer happiness, marvelously expressed.