This book is a compilation of extracts from letters written by Sayadaw U Jotika, a Burmese Buddhist monk, to his Western students - ten to fifteen years ago. These letters have been collated under the topics as indicated by the chapter headings below. Chapter 1. Mind, Mindfulness and Meditation Chapter 2. Solitude Chapter 3. Parental Love and Guidance Chapter 4. Life, Living and Death Chapter 5. Learning and Teaching Chapter 6. Value and Philosophy Chapter 7. Friendship, Relationships and Loving-kindness "Dhamma is in living your life, not in books. If you don’t understand your life, meaning your experience at this moment, you don’t understand Dhamma, no matter how much book knowledge you have. Without understanding your life, talking about Dhamma is just an intellectual game."

2009 Christy Award finalist! Julia DeSmit is finally learning to accept her new life. Optimistic and anxious to begin again after dropping out of college, she is taking fumbling steps down a challenging yet hope-filled road. But the careful existence Julia has begun to build falls hopelessly to pieces when her estranged mother, Janice, appears on the front porch one icy March night. Mother and daughter have not seen or talked in ten years, and a decade of anger, resentment, and bitterness follows in Janice's wake, along with a surprise Julia could never have anticipated. Julia is convinced that which is broken cannot be mended. Yet when she faces the very decision her mother did years before, she begins to realize what it means to truly accept grace. Will it be her undoing, or the impetus for a change she'd never dared hope for?

A major collection of entirely new poems from the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author of Time and Materials and The Apple Trees at Olema A new volume of poetry from Robert Hass is always an event. In Summer Snow, his first collection of poems since 2010, Hass further affirms his position as one of our most highly regarded living poets. Hass’s trademark careful attention to the natural world, his subtle humor, and the delicate but wide-ranging eye he casts on the human experience are fully on display in his masterful collection. Touching on subjects including the poignancy of loss, the serene and resonant beauty of nature, and the mutability of desire, Hass exhibits his virtuosic abilities, expansive intellect, and tremendous readability in one of his most ambitious and formally brilliant collections to date.

An unforgettable take on a favorite fairy tale by multi-award-winning author Jane Yolen Summer's life in the mountains of West Virginia feels like a fairy tale--her parents dote on her, and she's about to get a new baby brother. But when the baby dies soon after he's born, taking their mother with him, Summer's life turns grim. Things get even worse when her father marries a woman who brings poisons and magical mirrors into Summer's world. Stepmama puts up a pretty face and Summer's father is under her spell, but Summer suspects she's up to no good--and is afraid she is powerless to stop her.

Massive climate change has caused a winter that will not thaw, and it seems that the forces of nature have turned on humanity itself. But in the sleepy British village of Pateley, one special girl may hold the key to the earth s survival. Wyn, an orphan, has always known that she is different. Unable to feel the biting cold of wind and snow of Pateley s endless winter, she does what she can to blend in. But when mysterious figures start to appear in the village, insisting that she may have the power to restore order to the natural world, Wyn must look deep inside herself to face the secrets of her past that she has kept hidden even from herself. From debut author Kit Peel, Snow Summer is an immersive fantasy novel that expertly conveys the beauty of the natural world and its conflict with human development. A powerful allegory for climate change and global warming, it is nevertheless a timeless story, reminiscent of classics of the genre. "

Dry summer, wet winter climate? This is your must have plant guide. Selecting plants suited to your climate is the first step toward a thriving, largely self-sustaining garden that connects with and supports the natural world. With gentle and compelling text and stunning photographs of plants in garden settings, Gardening in Summer-Dry Climates by Nora Harlow and Saxon Holt is a guide to native and climate-adapted plants for summer-dry, winter-wet climates of North America's Pacific coast. Knowing what these climates share and how and why they differ, you can choose to make gardens that maintain and expand local and regional biodiversity, take little from the earth that is not returned, and welcome and accommodate the presence of wildlife. With global warming, it is now even more critical that we garden in tune with climate.

Deeply affecting and wonderfully evocative of old New York, Snow in August is a brilliant fable for our time and all time -- and another triumph for Pete Hamill. Brooklyn, 1947. The war veterans have come home. Jackie Robinson is about to become a Dodger. And in one close-knit working-class neighborhood, an eleven-year-old Irish Catholic boy named Michael Devlin has just made friends with a lonely rabbi from Prague. Snow in August is the story of that unlikely friendship -- and of how the neighborhood reacts to it. For Michael, the rabbi opens a window to ancient learning and lore that rival anything in Captain Marvel. For the rabbi, Michael illuminates the everyday mysteries of America, including the strange language of baseball. But like their hero Jackie Robinson, neither can entirely escape from the swirling prejudices of the time. Terrorized by a local gang of anti-Semitic Irish toughs, Michael and the rabbi are caught in an escalating spiral of hate for which there's only one way out -- a miracle....

Sparks and tempers fly when Ben comes to stay in Daisy’s holiday cottage Daisy likes routine. She goes to work, makes dinner for her son, then loses herself for an hour or two in her sewing. She’s not looking for change, until Ben crashes – literally – into her life. Ben is training for a triathlon, working himself to the limit in an attempt to forget a recent trauma. Daisy wants to help, but even as they draw closer with every week that passes, he pushes her away whenever things threaten to get serious. Can Ben open himself up to love again? And with Daisy’s life in the Yorkshire Dales and Ben’s in New York, can they have a future together even if he does? For fans of Trisha Ashley and Tilly Tennant, this is a perfect and much-needed slice of summer escapism. 'An utterly charming book, with interesting and compelling characters, where I was sucked into Daisy’s world. I found myself slowing down to savour both Snow’s writing and the delicious tension between Daisy and Ben. Highly recommend.' Jenni Keer, author of The Hopes and Dreams of Lucy Baker

The family's freezer held the secret of the snowman until he was shown to the town on a summer day. Grades 1-2.

From The New York Times bestselling author of Prayers for Sale comes the moving and powerful story of a small town after a devastating avalanche, and the life changing effects it has on the people who live there Whiter Than Snow opens in 1920, on a spring afternoon in Swandyke, a small town near Colorado's Tenmile Range. Just moments after four o'clock, a large split of snow separates from Jubilee Mountain high above the tiny hamlet and hurtles down the rocky slope, enveloping everything in its path including nine young children who are walking home from school. But only four children survive. Whiter Than Snow takes you into the lives of each of these families: There's Lucy and Dolly Patch—two sisters, long estranged by a shocking betrayal. Joe Cobb, Swandyke's only black resident, whose love for his daughter Jane forces him to flee Alabama. There's Grace Foote, who hides secrets and scandal that belies her genteel façade. And Minder Evans, a civil war veteran who considers his cowardice his greatest sin. Finally, there's Essie Snowball, born Esther Schnable to conservative Jewish parents, but who now works as a prostitute and hides her child's parentage from all the world. Ultimately, each story serves as an allegory to the greater theme of the novel by echoing that fate, chance, and perhaps even divine providence, are all woven into the fabric of everyday life. And it's through each character's defining moment in his or her past that the reader understands how each child has become its parent's purpose for living. In the end, it's a novel of forgiveness, redemption, survival, faith and family.