In this book, Maura Preszler shares her bittersweet journey from pain and trauma to recovery and healing. Growing up in an abusive home, receiving negative and painful messages about her value and worth, Maura was set on a path filled with mental, emotional, and physical suffering. Finding herself battling an eating disorder and a tremendous fear of vulnerability to others, particularly men, Maura was determined to face her demons and do whatever it took to find healing. Through her tremendous faith in God and her determination to persist in the hard work of therapy, Maura has found her way to freedom and the kind of love-filled life for which she once yearned. Maura's story serves as a model and inspiration for those seeking a way forward from trauma and into a future filled with hope.

Country music singer Julie Roberts is no stranger to overcoming hard times through determination, hard work, and strength. Having escaped the emotional residue of her alcoholic father’s actions and insults, Julie moved from South Carolina to Nashville, Tennessee, to attend Belmont University and work as a receptionist at Mercury Records—all while secretly pursuing her dream of becoming a singer. Filling her nights with music and booking shows at obscure venues, the one requirement when Julie was hired at Universal Music Group was that she not be an aspiring singer. Yet, despite her best efforts to keep quiet, Julie knew God had placed music within her as a child and that it was bound to come out sooner or later. Raw, honest, and sometimes painful, Julie’s lyrics resonated quickly with country music fans, and her emotion-soaked debut album—a reflection of her own painful past—was an instant success. Just as Julie’s dreams were coming true, her life began to unravel. Soon, she was battling debilitating physical illness, the rising waters of Nashville’s hundred-year flood, and a stalled career. Instead of succumbing to despair, Julie proved miraculously resilient—taking the steps she needed to face adversity head on and rebuild her life through her characteristic optimism, hard work, and faith. Journey with Julie as she walks through the highs and lows of her career, the personal struggles she’s endured, the lessons she’s learned, and her sense of purpose as she rebuilds her singing career and contributes her voice to the work of supporting others with multiple sclerosis. Julie’s courage combined with her joyful personality and love for God will encourage readers in a uniquely powerful way.

Breaking down the structure of the photograph as truth and the book as narrative, Joshua Lutz's second monograph, HESITATING BEAUTY, it is an intimate portrait unlike other photographic models. Rethinking how photographs and text can function, Lutz blends family archives, interviews and letters with his own photographic practice seamlessly into a precious, fictitious experience of a life and family consumed by mental illness. Instead of showing us what it looks like, HESITATING BEAUTY is able to play with our own conceptions of reality to show us what it feels like. Joshua Lutz: ""Holding on so tightly to what I believed was sanity and being consumed by fear of depression and schizophrenia prevented me from being fully present to my mother's reality. The past few years, as she slipped away from the aggressive paranoia and depression of my youth to an almost calming sense of delusion, made it much easier for me to rid the anger that veiled my life and attempt to find a place of empathy and compassion as I managed her care. In making this work and simultaneously falling deeper into her psychosis, I tried to imagine a time when the past, present, and future collided; a place where the weight of memory is heavier than reality.""

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Cheryl McGuinness kissed her husband good-bye as he headed off to work. She never saw him again. Tom McGuinness was the co-pilot of American Airlines Flight 11 -- the first airplane to crash into the World Trade Center. On that day, Cheryl's world fell apart. But since that day, Cheryl McGuinness has learned how to hope again. Through her powerful story, the rest of us can find our way to hope as well. Cheryl's message of renewal, recovery, and faith is a message that resonates with every aching heart. As you read through this intimate look at heartbreak and joy, you will discover an incredible sense of the good that is yet to be, and you will find in yourself a growing conviction that with God's help, you can face any sorrow or pain.

Mascara will help and eyeliner too, but the surest way to a beautiful you doesn't require hours at the cosmetics counter. The best beauty routine starts within. Choosing Beauty guides you through a day-by-day inner makeover that will give you a glow that can only come through a life infused with the virtues. Learn how to step away from gossip, grow in courage, practice mercy and enter more fully into the qualities that will allow your inner light to shine. Suitable for individual or group study, Choosing Beauty includes lively reflections on the virtues and questions for discussion in a user-friendly format.

One of the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century Winner of the 2006 Orange Prize for Fiction, another bestselling masterwork from the celebrated author of Swing Time and White Teeth "In this sharp, engaging satire, beauty's only skin-deep, but funny cuts to the bone." —Kirkus Reviews Having hit bestseller lists from the New York Times to the San Francisco Chronicle, this wise, hilarious novel reminds us why Zadie Smith has rocketed to literary stardom. On Beauty is the story of an interracial family living in the university town of Wellington, Massachusetts, whose misadventures in the culture wars—on both sides of the Atlantic—serve to skewer everything from family life to political correctness to the combustive collision between the personal and the political. Full of dead-on wit and relentlessly funny, this tour de force confirms Zadie Smith's reputation as a major literary talent.

A FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, SMITHSONIAN, AND WALL STREET JOURNAL A major reimagining of how evolutionary forces work, revealing how mating preferences—what Darwin termed "the taste for the beautiful"—create the extraordinary range of ornament in the animal world. In the great halls of science, dogma holds that Darwin's theory of natural selection explains every branch on the tree of life: which species thrive, which wither away to extinction, and what features each evolves. But can adaptation by natural selection really account for everything we see in nature? Yale University ornithologist Richard Prum—reviving Darwin's own views—thinks not. Deep in tropical jungles around the world are birds with a dizzying array of appearances and mating displays: Club-winged Manakins who sing with their wings, Great Argus Pheasants who dazzle prospective mates with a four-foot-wide cone of feathers covered in golden 3D spheres, Red-capped Manakins who moonwalk. In thirty years of fieldwork, Prum has seen numerous display traits that seem disconnected from, if not outright contrary to, selection for individual survival. To explain this, he dusts off Darwin's long-neglected theory of sexual selection in which the act of choosing a mate for purely aesthetic reasons—for the mere pleasure of it—is an independent engine of evolutionary change. Mate choice can drive ornamental traits from the constraints of adaptive evolution, allowing them to grow ever more elaborate. It also sets the stakes for sexual conflict, in which the sexual autonomy of the female evolves in response to male sexual control. Most crucially, this framework provides important insights into the evolution of human sexuality, particularly the ways in which female preferences have changed male bodies, and even maleness itself, through evolutionary time. The Evolution of Beauty presents a unique scientific vision for how nature's splendor contributes to a more complete understanding of evolution and of ourselves.

To get the best answer-in business, in life-you have to ask the best possible question. Innovation expert Warren Berger shows that ability is both an art and a science. It may be the most underappreciated tool at our disposal, one we learn to use well in infancy-and then abandon as we grow older. Critical to learning, innovation, success, even to happiness-yet often discouraged in our schools and workplaces-it can unlock new business opportunities and reinvent industries, spark creative insights at many levels, and provide a transformative new outlook on life. It is the ability to question-and to do so deeply, imaginatively, and “beautifully.” In this fascinating exploration of the surprising power of questioning, innovation expert Warren Berger reveals that powerhouse businesses like Google, Nike, and Netflix, as well as hot Silicon Valley startups like Pandora and Airbnb, are fueled by the ability to ask fundamental, game-changing questions. But Berger also shares human stories of people using questioning to solve everyday problems-from “How can I adapt my career in a time of constant change?” to “How can I step back from the daily rush and figure out what really makes me happy?” By showing how to approach questioning with an open, curious mind and a willingness to work through a series of “Why,” “What if,” and “How” queries, Berger offers an inspiring framework of how we can all arrive at better solutions, fresh possibilities, and greater success in business and life.

“[Beauty Sick] will blow the top off the body image movement…provocative and necessary.” — Rebellious Magazine An award-winning psychology professor reveals how the cultural obsession with women's appearance is an epidemic that harms women's ability to get ahead and to live happy, meaningful lives, in this powerful, eye-opening work in the vein of Peggy Orenstein and Sheryl Sandberg. Today’s young women face a bewildering set of contradictions when it comes to beauty. They don’t want to be Barbie dolls but, like generations of women before them, are told they must look like them. They’re angry about the media’s treatment of women but hungrily consume the outlets that belittle them. They mock modern culture’s absurd beauty ideal and make videos exposing Photoshopping tricks, but feel pressured to emulate the same images they criticize by posing with a "skinny arm." They understand that what they see isn’t real but still download apps to airbrush their selfies. Yet these same young women are fierce fighters for the issues they care about. They are ready to fight back against their beauty-sick culture and create a different world for themselves, but they need a way forward. In Beauty Sick, Dr. Renee Engeln, whose TEDx talk on beauty sickness has received more than 250,000 views, reveals the shocking consequences of our obsession with girls’ appearance on their emotional and physical health and their wallets and ambitions, including depression, eating disorders, disruptions in cognitive processing, and lost money and time. Combining scientific studies with the voices of real women of all ages, she makes clear that to truly fulfill their potential, we must break free from cultural forces that feed destructive desires, attitudes, and words—from fat-shaming to denigrating commentary about other women. She provides inspiration and workable solutions to help girls and women overcome negative attitudes and embrace their whole selves, to transform their lives, claim the futures they deserve, and, ultimately, change their world.

From burlesque show to fashion runway, magazine cover to Internet video, fashion icon and “burlesque superheroine” (Vanity Fair) Dita Von Teese has undergone more strokes of red lipstick, bursts of hair spray, boxes of blue-black hair dye and pats of powder in a month than a drag queen could dream of in a lifetime. Whether she’s dazzling audiences swirling in a towering martini glass in Swarovski-covered pasties and stilettos or sparking camera flashes on the red carpet, one reality is constant: for this self-styled star, beauty is an art. Now, for the first time in her Technicolor career, Dita divulges the beauty wisdom that keeps her on international best-dressed lists and high-profile fashion show rosters in this illustration and photography-filled opus. In Your Beauty Mark: The Ultimate Guide to Eccentric Glamour, Dita and co-writer Rose Apodaca take you through every step of Dita’s glamour arsenal, and includes friends—masters in makeup, hair, medicine, and exercise as well as some of the world’s most eccentric beauties—for authoritative advice. This 400-page book is packed with sound nutrition and exercise guidance, skincare and scent insight, as well as accessible techniques for creating bombshell hairstyles and makeup looks. Among the hundreds of lavish color photographs, instructive step-by-step images and original illustrations by Adele Mildred, this inspiring resource shares the skills, history, and lessons you need to enhance your individual gifts and realize your own beauty mark.