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.

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.

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.

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)

"Start from Joy is a proven recipe for living a life that matters." --Beth and Jeff McCord, founders of Your Enneagram Coach Breaking old patterns doesn't have to be so hard. You've heard it before: if you want to change, you have to try harder. Keep pushing through blood, sweat, and tears. Emotions don't matter. But what if that's all a lie? What if there's a better, healthier way to get life-changing results? Neal and Carly Samudre believe that joy is what's missing from our ability to make lasting change in our lives. Building on biblical insights and the latest findings in positive psychology, Start from Joy outlines an emotionally healthy approach to change--one where joy leads the way. This doesn't mean we choose happiness, become blindly optimistic, or force ourselves to have a positive mindset. Instead, we discover that real, lasting transformation can come free of shame, guilt, and fear. It can be fun. In Start from Joy, you'll discover: Why your bad habits are keeping you stuck--and how you can take steps toward freedom and positive change How the four gifts of joy can help you stick with healthy patterns How to heal your relationships with work, money, your body, and other people Leave shame, guilt, and fear behind--and create the fulfilling life you were always meant to live.

A 2018 Nautilus Book Award Winner for Business and Leadership! The founder of Menlo Innovations and author of the business culture cult classic Joy, Inc offers an inspirational guide to leaders seeking joy in the challenge of leading others. Rich Sheridan's Joy, Inc. told the story of how his tiny software company in Ann Arbor, Michigan achieved success and renown by embracing offbeat culture and human-centered values. In Chief Joy Officer, he turns his attention from culture to leadership, and draws on his experience running Menlo and consulting elsewhere to offer a wise, provocative guide on how anyone can build leadership capacity for joy within their own organization. Chief Joy Officer offers sage, hard-won advice to any manager or leader who yearns to make more of an impact on the lives of others, including: * Self-understanding is the cornerstone for every virtue of leadership: authenticity, trust, humility, and optimism. * Good leaders make more leaders: Learn to judge your performance not on whether people are doing what they're told, but whether they're developing independent leadership capacity. * Influencing up is just as important is influencing down: how to encourage different thinking in those above you in your organizations. Filled with colorful anecdotes from Sheridan's personal journey and wisdom from many leadership mentors, Chief Joy Officer offers an approachable, down-to-earth philosophy and practice that will help even the most disillusioned of middle managers bring a renewed sense of purpose to their work building others.

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.