Tom Brokaw

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

Virginia

Reflections on Faith, Doubt, and Repairing the World

PBS's Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, which Bob Abernethy conceived and anchors, has been described as "the best spot on the television landscape to take in the broad view of the spiritual dimension of American life . . ." by the Christian Science Monitor. "Finally," wrote the San Francisco Chronicle, "something intelligent on TV about religion." Now, together with his coauthor William Bole, Abernethy has turned his attention to making a book that asks all the big questions—and elicits the most surprising answers from a who’s-who of today’s serious religious and spiritual thinkers from across the spectrum of faiths and denominations. In this thoughtful collection, extraordinary people give their personal and private accounts of their own spiritual struggle. Their insights on community, prayer, suffering, religious observance, the choice to live with or without a god, and the meanings that are gleaned from everyday life form an elegant meditation on the desire for something beyond what we can see and measure. More than fifty contributors, including Jimmy Carter, Francis Collins, The Dalai Lama, Robert Franklin, Irving Greenberg, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Harold Kushner, Anne Lamott, Madeleine L’Engle, Thomas Lynch, Martin Marty, Mark Noll, Rachel Remen, Marilynne Robinson, Barbara Brown Taylor, Studs Terkel, Thich Nhat Hanh, Phyllis Tickle, Desmond Tutu, Jean Vanier, and Marianne Williamson.

The Life of Meaning

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Heather Busch

Burton Silver

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

A Theory of Feline Aesthetics

Offers a look at feline paintings, discusses aspects of their creativity, and examines everyday cat behavior

Why Cats Paint

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Chronicle Books Staff

Book is unread but took a fall so has some dings on bottom edge as  pictured 

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Great Writing on Oral Sex

Heading south? Is it the pleasure? The power? The giving? The taking? Finally you can plumb the depths of oral maneuvers in good company. This conveniently portable, stimulating volume fits easily in glove box, brief case, or evening clutch and is the perfect companion to or substitute for those private, climactic moments. Fiction, essay, poetry; here is an adventuresome literary collection to take you to provocative new heights. Sexy to shocking, dark musings to hilarious tales, Going Down is guaranteed to satisfy. Today, it's practically required reading in both the public and private sectors. Scores of notorious sexperts, including John Updike, Ana•s Nin, and Oscar Wilde, have given readers their views on oral encounters, as have Frank Zappa, Erica Jong, Harold Brodkey, Cynthia Heimel, and a host of other fresh and frank contemporary voices. Now we get the best writing, the hot low-down, all in one place. And why not? It's the topic on everyone's lips.

Going Down

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William Least Heat-Moon

Cover shows wear and first few pages have minor dent. Otherwise books is unread

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Stories from the Road

From the acclaimed author of Blue Highways, PrairyErth, and Roads to Quoz, a dazzling collection of travel tales from the road. HERE, THERE, ELSEWHERE draws together for the first time William Least Heat-Moon's greatest short-form travel writing. Personally selected by the writer, these pieces take us from Japan, England, Italy, and Mexico to Long Island, Oregon, Arizona, from small towns to big cities, ocean shores and inland mysteries. Including Heat-Moon's reflections on writing these pieces, HERE, THERE, ELSEWHERE is much more than the usual collection of amber; it is a coupled summation of craft and memory. A perfect treasury of prose and provocation for readers old and new, Heat-Moon's most recent work reveals his absolute mastery across pages many and few.

Here, There, Elsewhere

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Michael Finkel

The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit

-In 1986, twenty-year-old Christopher Knight left his home in Massachusetts, drove to Maine, and disappeared into the woods. He would not have a conversation with another human being until nearly three decades later when he was arrested for stealing food. Living in a tent even in winter, he had survived by his wits and courage, developing ingenious ways to store food and water to avoid freezing to death ... Based on extensive interviews with Knight himself, this is a ... detailed account of the why and how of his secluded life--as well as the challenges he has faced returning to the world---Publisher description.

The Stranger in the Woods

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Maria Semple

A brilliant novel from the author of Where'd You Go, Bernadette, about a day in the life of Eleanor Flood, forced to abandon her small ambitions and awake to a strange, new future. Eleanor knows she's a mess. But today, she will tackle the little things. She will shower and get dressed. She will have her poetry and yoga lessons after dropping off her son, Timby. She won't swear. She will initiate sex with her husband, Joe. But before she can put her modest plan into action-life happens. Today, it turns out, is the day Timby has decided to fake sick to weasel his way into his mother's company. It's also the day Joe has chosen to tell his office-but not Eleanor-that he's on vacation. Just when it seems like things can't go more awry, an encounter with a former colleague produces a graphic memoir whose dramatic tale threatens to reveal a buried family secret. TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT is a hilarious, heart-filled story about reinvention, sisterhood, and how sometimes it takes facing up to our former selves to truly begin living.

Today Will Be Different

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Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Story of O 

Jennifer McCartney

The Secret Art of Being Lazy and Getting Away with It

For anyone who’s ever heard a motivational speech and immediately vomited, a guide to ignoring society’s obsession with success Sit around, leave sh*t all over the place, drink, forget about deadlines . . . being lazy is pretty easy. The real art in being chill is when someone without any real ambition can fly under the radar, and live unscathed by the never-ending reams of self-help and inspiration rained upon anyone who just wants to watch Netflix. The magical place where doing what comes naturally keeps the do-ers at arm’s length. Rather than doing less, do just enough. So screw TED Talks, Instagram images of a beach that say "Fail Better" in gold cursive, marathon training, tips for keeping plants alive, and all self-aggrandizing social media. Ninety-nine percent of people on this planet are just pretty average. We're doing our thing. Trying to get out of bed in the morning. Hey, are you awake right now? Reading a sentence? You know what? That's success in my book. Being a person is hard enough without all the pressure to be good at it.

The Joy of Doing Just Enough

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Thug Kitchen

Eat Like You Give a F*ck

Thug Kitchen started their wildly popular web site to inspire people to eat some Goddamn vegetables and adopt a healthier lifestyle. Beloved by Gwyneth Paltrow ("This might be my favorite thing ever") and named Saveur’s Best New Food blog of 2013--with half a million Facebook fans and counting--Thug Kitchen wants to show everyone how to take charge of their plates and cook up some real f*cking food. Yeah, plenty of blogs and cookbooks preach about how to eat more kale, why ginger fights inflammation, and how to cook with microgreens and nettles. But they are dull or pretentious as hell--and most people can’t afford the hype. Thug Kitchen lives in the real world. In their first cookbook, they’re throwing down more than 100 vegan recipes for their best-loved meals, snacks, and sides for beginning cooks to home chefs. (Roasted Beer and Lime Cauliflower Tacos? Pumpkin Chili? Grilled Peach Salsa? Believe that sh*t.) Plus they’re going to arm you with all the info and techniques you need to shop on a budget and go and kick a bunch of ass on your own. This book is an invitation to everyone who wants to do better to elevate their kitchen game. No more ketchup and pizza counting as vegetables. No more drive-thru lines. No more avoiding the produce corner of the supermarket. Sh*t is about to get real.

Thug Kitchen: the Official Cookbook

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Jenny Lawson

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Jenny Lawson comes her most personal book yet. As Jenny Lawson’s hundreds of thousands of fans know, she suffers from depression. In Broken, she explores her experimental treatment of transcranial magnetic stimulation with brutal honesty. But also with brutal humor. Jenny discusses the frustration of dealing with her insurance company in “An Open Letter to My Insurance Company,” which should be an anthem for anyone who has ever had to call their insurance company to try and get a claim covered. She tackles such timelessly debated questions as “How do dogs know they have penises?” We see how her vacuum cleaner almost set her house on fire, how she was attacked by three bears, business ideas she wants to pitch to Shark Tank, and why she can never go back to the post office. Of course, Jenny’s long-suffering husband Victor—the Ricky to Jenny’s Lucille Ball—is present throughout. A treat for Jenny Lawson’s already existing fans, and destined to convert new ones, Broken is a beacon of hope and a wellspring of laughter. Includes Photographs and Illustrations

Broken (in the Best Possible Way)

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Dave Eggers

A book for all ages offers a novelization of the movie Where the Wild Things Are, based on the classic children's book of the same name by Maurice Sendak, in which a boy flees his home only to end up in the land of the Wild Things. Movie tie-in.

The Wild Things

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Melissa de la Cruz

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Blue Bloods: Within New York City's most elite families, there lurks a secret society: its members are powerful, wealthy and unhuman. They are the Blue Bloods, an ancient group of vampires. Schuyler Van Alen has never fit in at her prestigious New York City private school. She prefers baggy, vintage clothes to Prada and pearls. But when she turns fifteen, Schuyler's life changes dramatically: haunted by the death of a classmate, she craves raw meat and finds herself the romantic interest of Jack Force, the most popular boy in school. As one discovery leads to the next, Schuyler finds herself drawn into the elusive social circle of the Blue Bloods-and a mystery that threatens to destroy them all. Masquerade: Schuyler wants an explanation for the mysterious deaths of young vampires, and travels to Italy in the hope of finding the one man who can help her grandfather. Meanwhile, back in New York, glamorous Blue Bloods prepare for the Four Hundred Ball an exclusive gala hosted by the city's powerful undead but it's at the after-party masquerade that the real danger lurks. Hidden behind the masks is a revelation that will change the course of a young vampire's destiny. Revelations: Schuyler's heritage is under scrutiny: is the young vampire in fact a Blue Blood, or is the sinister Silver Blood coursing through her veins? As controversy swirls, Schuyler is stranded in the Force household, trapped with her nemesis, Mimi Force, and her forbidden crush, Jack Force. But when an ancient center of power is threatened, the Blue Bloods need Schuyler on their side. Romance, glamour, and vampire lore collide in Melissa de la Cruz's best-selling Blue Bloods series.

Blue Bloods 3-Book Boxed Set

b50730c4-23e3-42e8-b2a9-f7e3a0c9a032-1

J. M. Farkas

Unread. Just been sitting on a shelf. Clever! Would make a great gift 

(or, How to Find Love Underwater)

A blackout poetry version of the classic fairy tale "The Little Mermaid," offering a new, spare, and lovely tale of empowerment, body acceptance, and knowing where you belong You know the story of the Little Mermaid--the girl who traded her tail for legs, her beloved sea for sand, to land the prince. Or do you? In this refreshingly subversive blackout poetry version of the classic fairy tale, a new and empowering message emerges from the depths: Our girl pines for land and that prince, but this daughter of water discovers she loves the sea and her body--mermaid tail and all--more.

The Little Mermaid

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Bumped bottom corner; otherwise excellent condition 

Everly Shaw hasn't spent a decade working black ops for one of the most elite government contractors just to play nanny. But she also understands the devastation a broken family can leave behind. So when she learns a four-year-old girl was torn from her home in the dead of the night, she agrees to go undercover. Only once inside the father's Costa Rican fortress, she discovers that the intel doesn't line up with reality. Soon, she's caught between the people she's grown to care about and her team, the only family she's ever known.Playing single dad while building a company could be the most difficult mission Austin Hix has ever undertaken. He's sacrificed everything to keep his daughter safe, including his career in the US special forces. The new nanny is supposed to bring Austin peace, but she's a distraction all her own. She's everything he wants, but none of what he needs. Just when Austin thinks he could have it all, Everly turns from friend to foe and threatens everything Austin loves.

No Remorse

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A Manhunters Novel

Forced into early retirement, former black ops operator, Ian Heller, has a couple of choices-playing security guard to an entitled hip-hop mogul or working for the civilian counterpart of his elite military unit, Manhunters, Inc. Tasked with terminating a cell of counterfeiters, who open the door to a fresh wave of terrorists, Ian must get close to the ex-wife of a key suspect. Sparks ignite between them, but Ian knows crossing the line with this woman would be the last thing he needs on his first assignment with his new team. Savannah Bishop is trapped. Her ex-husband, the sheriff of Hazard County, Montana, runs his department the same way he tried to control his marriage-with intimidation and force. With her divorce final, Savannah can her taste freedom-until she is hit with a custody suit. Desperate to escape the daily harassment and hold onto her young son, Savannah accepts help from the only man in town willing to defy her ex. But when she discovers Ian is as much a chameleon as her ex, Savannah's hopes for both a new love and a fresh start are threatened.

Grave Secrets

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This concise book will guide children chronologically through key periods in world history. Thousands of bulleted facts are accompanied by hundreds of illustrations, diagrams and maps, divided into seven sections, including: Early Civilizations, The Medieval World, An Age of Discovery and Industry and Empire.

Encyclopedia of History - 384 Page

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Dark Life

#hardcover #biography #literaryfigure book is like new but cover has some sticker residue and bumped edges 

The Biography

Appointed by Philip Roth and granted independence and complete access, Blake Bailey spent years poring over Roth's personal archive, interviewing his friends, lovers, and colleagues, and engaging Roth himself in breathtakingly candid conversations. The result is an indelible portrait of an American master and of the postwar literary scene.

Bailey shows how Roth emerged from a lower-middle-class Jewish milieu to achieve the heights of literary fame, how his career was nearly derailed by his catastrophic first marriage, and how he championed the work of dissident novelists behind the Iron Curtain.

Bailey examines Roth's rivalrous friendships with Saul Bellow, John Updike, and William Styron, and reveals the truths of his florid love life, culminating in his almost-twenty-year relationship with actress Claire Bloom, who pilloried Roth in her 1996 memoir, Leaving a Doll's House.

Tracing Roth's path from realism to farce to metafiction to the tragic masterpieces of the American Trilogy, Bailey explores Roth's engagement with nearly every aspect of postwar American culture.

Philip Roth

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The author of the "New York Times" bestseller "The Time Traveler's Wife" returns with another evocative "novel in pictures," the much-anticipated follow-up to 2005's "The Three Incestuous Sisters. The Adventuress" follows the dreamlike journey of an alchemist's daughter. After she is kidnapped by a lascivious baron, she turns herself into a moth and flees to the garden of a charming butterfly collector named Napoleon Bonaparte. The story of how the two become lovers, and how their affair ends in tragedy and transcendence, is told through Niffenegger's spare prose and haunting aquatint etchings. With a stunning and distinctive visual style reminiscent of the work of Edward Gorey, this gothic romance packs the emotional heft of the world's great fairy tales. It will delight fans of the author's previous works and enchant an entirely new legion of readers.

The Adventuress

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Five Free Boys Kidnapped into Slavery and Their Astonishing Odyssey Home

A gripping and true story about five boys who were kidnapped in the North and smuggled into slavery in the Deep South--and their daring attempt to escape and bring their captors to justice, reminiscent of Twelve Years a Slave and Never Caught.

Philadelphia, 1825: five young, free black boys fall into the clutches of the most fearsome gang of kidnappers and slavers in the United States. Lured onto a small ship with the promise of food and pay, they are instead met with blindfolds, ropes, and knives. Over four long months, their kidnappers drive them overland into the Cotton Kingdom to be sold as slaves. Determined to resist, the boys form a tight brotherhood as they struggle to free themselves and find their way home.

Their ordeal--an odyssey that takes them from the Philadelphia waterfront to the marshes of Mississippi and then onward still--shines a glaring spotlight on the Reverse Underground Railroad, a black market network of human traffickers and slave traders who stole away thousands of legally free African Americans from their families in order to fuel slavery's rapid expansion in the decades before the Civil War.

Impeccably researched and breathlessly paced, Stolen tells the incredible story of five boys whose courage forever changed the fight against slavery in America.

Stolen

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#paperback #siddhayoga #gurumayi cover shows lots of shelf wear, pages are clear and tight

A Collection of Talks on the Spiritual Life

This collection is an invitation to discover courage and internal contentment, creating a life of happiness, abundance, and service.

Courage and Contentment

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A New Nonfiction in Two Movements

Set in Burlington, Vermont, rural Central and Eastern Europe, and beneath a 24-hour sun at the North Pole, this innovative work of nonfiction storytelling is an unforgettable study of experience, mortality, and the artistic impulse to both capture the truth and to provide an individual framework for the artist's sublime understanding about the meaning of life. Facing his father's imminent death, and the unresolved conflict between them, Jay Kirk, award-winning magazine writer, flees on a whirlwind assignment from Transylvania to the Arctic Circle. A surreal, high-wire act of narrative nonfiction that will redefine the genre, Avoid the Day is part detective story, part memoir, and part meditation on the value of experience, with a dark pulse of existential horror. Seeking to answer the mystery of a missing manuscript by Béla Bartók, and using the assignment to avoid his father's deathbed, Kirk first travels to Transylvania. There he visits the same villages where the "Master," like a vampire in search of fresh plasma, had found his new material in the folk music of the peasants. With these stolen songs, transmuted by fire, Bartók redefined music in the 20th Century. The author begins to lose his tether as he sees himself in Bartók's darkest and most personal work, the Cantata Profana, which revolves around fathers and sons. Convinced by an old college friend, now a documentary filmmaker, that he needs to get away from civilization period, following a psychotic episode in Eastern Europe under the spell of Bartók, Kirk joins his friend on a posh eco-tourist cruise to the Arctic. But under the influence of the midnight sun, they scrap the documentary to make a horror film instead--shot under the noses of the unsuspecting passengers and crew. Playing one of the main characters who finds himself inexplicably trapped on a ship at the end of the world, alone, Kirk gets lost in his own cerebral maze, struggling to answer his most plaguing question: can we find meaning in experience? Does any experience have meaning, even a father's death?

Avoid the Day

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A Novel

"From the critically acclaimed bestselling author of Ahab's Wife, Four Spirits, and Abundance comes a new novel, The Fountain of St. James court or Portrait of the artist as an old woman."--

The Fountain of St. James Court; or, Portrait of the Artist As an Old Woman

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"Nothing short of astonishing."  -- New Yorker

"A thing of beauty--lucidly written, artfully ordered, riddled with riddles and undergirded with dark layers of philosophical meditations."  -- Los Angeles Times



For all of her life, 44 year old Reta Winters has enjoyed the useful monotony of happiness: a loving family, good friends, growing success as a writer of light 'summertime' fiction. But this placid existence is cracked wide open when her beloved eldest daughter, Norah, drops out to sit on a gritty street corner, silent but for the sign around her neck that reads 'GOODNESS.' Reta's search for what drove her daughter to such a desperate statement turns into an unflinching and surprisingly funny meditation on where we find meaning and hope.

The final book from Pulitzer Prize-winner Carol Shields, Unless, is a harrowing but ultimately consoling story of one family's anguish and healing, proving Shields's mastery of extraordinary fictions about ordinary life.

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