Anna Sale

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

North Carolina

From the host of the popular WNYC podcast Death, Sex, & Money, Let's Talk About Hard Things is "like a good conversation with a friend" (The New Yorker) where "no topic is off-limits when it comes to creating meaningful connection" (Lori Gottlieb, author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone).

Anna Sale wants you to have that conversation. You know the one. The one that you've been avoiding or putting off, maybe for years. The one that you've thought "they'll never understand" or "do I really want to bring that up?" or "it's not going to go well, so why even try?"

Sale is the founder and host of WNYC's popular, award-winning podcast Death, Sex, & Money or as the New York Times dubbed her "a therapist at happy hour." She and her guests have direct and thought-provoking conversations, discussing topics that most of us are too squeamish, polite, or nervous to bring up. But Sale argues that we all experience these hard things, and by not talking to one another, we cut ourselves off, leading us to feel isolated and disconnected from people who can help us most.

In Let's Talk About Hard Things, Sale uses the best of what she's learned from her podcast to reveal that when we dare to talk about hard things, we learn about ourselves, others, and the world that we make together. Diving into five of the most fraught conversation topics--death, sex, money, family, and identity--she moves between memoir, fascinating snapshots of a variety of Americans opening up about their lives, and expert opinions to show why having tough conversations is important and how to do them in a thoughtful and generous way. She uncovers that listening may be the most important part of a tough conversation, that the end goal should be understanding without the pressure of reconciliation, and that there are some things that words can't fix (and why that's actually okay).

Let's Talk about Hard Things

0830fc2b-a270-4776-b069-bef0c885edc8-1

Damon Young

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Florida

A Memoir in Essays

From the cofounder of VerySmartBrothas.com, and one of the most read writers on race and culture at work today, a provocative and humorous memoir-in-essays that explores the ever-shifting definitions of what it means to be Black (and male) in America For Damon Young, existing while Black is an extreme sport. The act of possessing black skin while searching for space to breathe in America is enough to induce a ceaseless state of angst where questions such as “How should I react here, as a professional black person?” and “Will this white person’s potato salad kill me?” are forever relevant. What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker chronicles Young’s efforts to survive while battling and making sense of the various neuroses his country has given him. It’s a condition that’s sometimes stretched to absurd limits, provoking the angst that made him question if he was any good at the “being straight” thing, as if his sexual orientation was something he could practice and get better at, like a crossover dribble move or knitting; creating the farce where, as a teen, he wished for a white person to call him a racial slur just so he could fight him and have a great story about it; and generating the surreality of watching gentrification transform his Pittsburgh neighborhood from predominantly Black to “Portlandia . . . but with Pierogies.” And, at its most devastating, it provides him reason to believe that his mother would be alive today if she were white. From one of our most respected cultural observers, What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker is a hilarious and honest debut that is both a celebration of the idiosyncrasies and distinctions of Blackness and a critique of white supremacy and how we define masculinity.

What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker

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Casey Wilson

Alabama

Essays

Laugh-out-loud, deeply insightful, and emotion-filled essays from multi-talented actress, comedian, podcaster, and writer Casey Wilson.Casey Wilson has a lot on her mind and she isn't afraid to share. In this dazzling collection of essays, skillfully constructed and brimming with emotion, she shares her thoughts on the joys and vagaries of modern-day womanhood and motherhood, introduces the not-quite-typical family that made her who she is, and persuasively argues that lowbrow pop culture is the perfect lens through which to understand human nature. Whether she's extolling the virtues of eating in bed, processing the humiliation over her father's late in life perm, or exploring her pathological need to be liked, Casey is witty, candid, and full of poignant and funny surprises. Humorous dives into her obsessions -and areas of personal expertise-Scientology and self-help, nice guys, reality television shows-are matched by touching meditations on female friendship, grief, motherhood, and identity. Reading The Wreckage of My Presence is like spending time with a close friend-a deeply passionate, full-tilt, joyous, excessive, compulsive, shameless, hungry-for-it-all, loyal, cheerleading friend. A friend who is ready for any big feeling that comes her way and isn't afraid to embrace it.

The Wreckage of My Presence

c13aacd3-f240-479e-95ee-d71a800eb3a6

Amanda Blake Soule

Stephen Soule

Maryland

Discovering a Sense of Wonder Through the Seasons

Many of us with busy families yearn for a slower and simpler life with our kids--one that is connected to the seasons and the natural rhythm of the year, one that has our children spending more time out of doors rather than in, one that balances out some of the busyness of our lives--the computers, the televisions, the cell phones--with a deeper connection to the Earth and an appreciation for and understanding of the natural world. The Rhythm of Family is a guide to living such a life for any family.

Following the course of a year through the passing of the seasons, this book explores the ways we can create deep family connections and meaningful memories through living in tune with the cycles of nature. From stomping around in mud boots in the spring to gathering around the woodstove in winter, our activities naturally change from season to season--from the rhythms of the seasons comes the rhythms in our homes, our hearts, our families, and our every day. Paying attention to these changes slows us down, inspires new types of creative play and exploration, instills a sense of family togetherness, and deepens an awareness of nature and self that can make our lives, days, family, and earth grow stronger.

The Rhythm of Family explores what we learn and can gain as parents and families by encouraging and experiencing creativity and nature exploration with our children, the seasons can provide us with a rhythm that brings us close to the earth, and closer to our children.

The Rhythm of Family

95933736-6af7-411b-8475-17d2b7d3215e-1

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

Texas

Benjamin Franklin: A Biography in His Own Words i

Minnesota

Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls

de89e85a-36ae-43cc-af07-27a84835f773-1

#hardcover #nonfiction #autobiography #celebrity #fiction #biography #amyschumer #essays 

New York

#1 New York Times Bestseller "Amy Schumer's book will make you love her even more. For a comedian of unbridled (and generally hilarious) causticity, Schumer has written a probing, confessional, unguarded, and, yes, majorly humanizing non-memoir, a book that trades less on sarcasm, and more on emotional resonance." —Vogue "The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo is an alternatingly meditative, sexually explicit, side-splittingly hilarious, heart-wrenching, disturbing, passionately political, and always staggeringly authentic ride through the highs and lows of the comedic powerhouse's life to date." —Harper's Bazaar "This is your happy hour with Amy Schumer...It's Bossypants meets Trainwreck meets your long weekend." —TheSkimm “Amy’s got your back. She’s in your corner. She’s an honesty bomb. And she’s coming for you.” —Actress Tilda Swinton and Trainwreck co-star The Emmy Award-winning comedian, actress, writer, and star of Inside Amy Schumer and the acclaimed film Trainwreck has taken the entertainment world by storm with her winning blend of smart, satirical humor. Now, Amy Schumer has written a refreshingly candid and uproariously funny collection of (extremely) personal and observational essays. In The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo, Amy mines her past for stories about her teenage years, her family, relationships, and sex and shares the experiences that have shaped who she is—a woman with the courage to bare her soul to stand up for what she believes in, all while making us laugh. Ranging from the raucous to the romantic, the heartfelt to the harrowing, this highly entertaining and universally appealing collection is the literary equivalent of a night out with your best friend—an unforgettable and fun adventure that you wish could last forever. Whether she’s experiencing lust-at-first-sight while in the airport security line, sharing her own views on love and marriage, admitting to being an introvert, or discovering her cross-fit instructor’s secret bad habit, Amy Schumer proves to be a bighearted, brave, and thoughtful storyteller that will leave you nodding your head in recognition, laughing out loud, and sobbing uncontrollably—but only because it’s over.

The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo

1e08d891-5e3d-4600-ba2c-bf119f7b6c47-1

Mindy Kaling

Pennsylvania

Hollywood starlet Mindy Kaling Kaling shares her ongoing, laugh-out-loud journey to find contentment and excitement in her adult life.

Why Not Me?

ac881ce8-01f2-482c-b525-ec64ce72b637-1

E. B. White

From Sea to Shining Sea

In 1922, just out of college and at loose ends, E.B. White set off across America in a Model T. He left his map at home, but packed his typewriter— his true destination, he tells us, was the world of letters. White wrote the richly humorous "Farewell to Model T" for The New Yorker in 1936; it was the first of his essays to bring him fame. In "From Sea to Shining Sea," White conjures the unspoiled America that remained his most enduring subject. The first essay of E. B. White's to become famous, "Farewell to Model T" originally appeared in 1936 in The New Yorker as "Farewell My Lovely." It is rich in comic descriptions of the eccentricities of the car, the demands it put on its devoted owners, and the hardware and decorative accessories—from 98-cent anti-rattlers to the "de-luxe flower vase of the cut-glass anti-splash type"—that kept them pouring over the Sears Roebuck catalog. If there was an owner's manual for the flivver, it didn't begin to divulge what the owner needed to know. That's where theory, speculation, superstition, and metaphysics came in: "I remember once spitting into a timer," White recalls, "not in anger, but in a spirit of research." It is published for the first time with "Sea to Shining Sea," in which White conjures the America that he had discovered as a 22-year old during a cross country trip in his Model T. (The year was 1922, the same the year that Fitzgerald and Hemingway went to Paris to find themselves.) In it he would write: "My own vision of the land—my own discovery of it—was shaped, more than by any other instrument, by a Model T Ford...a slow-motion roadster of miraculous design—strong, tremulous, and tireless, from sea to shining sea."

Farewell to Model T

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Kate Rowinski

Great gift for moms … think Mother’s Day!  Rates 4.3 out of 5 on Goodreads!

Contributors include: -Oprah Winfrey - Edith Wharton - Eleanor Roosevelt - Diana, Princess of Wales - William Blake - Barbara Kingsolver - Agatha Christie - Barbara Walters - Benjamin Spock - Harriet Beecher Stowe - Bette Davis - Harry S. Truman - Anna Quindlen - Mark Twain - Beatrix Potter - Pablo Picasso - Ann Landers - Dr. Joyce Brothers - William Shakespeare - Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

The Quotable Mom

3dffb5d7-2938-46d1-9069-32f522eb4f72-0

Marsha Serling Goldberg

Sonia Feldman

True Stories of Great Teachers

Teachers with Class celebrates teachers and the art of good teaching. Almost everyone has had a special teacher at some point-one who saw potential where others did not, one who made ideas come alive, one who taught more than what was in the textbook. In Teachers with Class, 30 famous and not-so-famous people thank their favorite teachers with essays that praise the difference a good teacher makes.James Earl Jones honors the high school English teacher who helped him overcome his stutter and learn to speak comfortably out loud. An architect recalls a teacher's belief in the unlikeliest student. Three-time Pulitzer Prize-winner, Thomas Friedman, remembers the teacher who inspired his career in journalism by imparting lessons that are relevant today. One man tells of the math teacher whose patience and guidance gave him the confidence to succeed as a physician and researcher. These stories will spark memories about the special teachers in your own life. You can use the dedication page provided at the beginning of the book to inscribe a note to say thank you to a favorite teacher. Or, to really say thank you, use the list of grants and awards for teachers featured in the book to nominate a teacher who made a positive impact on your life. A portion of the proceeds from Teachers with Class will go to the National Education Association (NEA) Foundation.

Teachers with Class

bb6fb3b6-4d1d-4d1d-8258-ae5d0dce32a9-1

Richard Greenberg

Never read so no spin crease. No dust sleeve. 

Nebraska

Causes and Causeries

In Rules for Others to Live By, Pulitzer finalist and Tony Award winning playwright Richard Greenberg shares stories from his life. Here are observations from two decades of residence on a three-block stretch of New York City and musings from his brilliant, if not a little unusual, mind. Spanning a range of conversational topics from friendship to writing, urban life to visiting parents, health crises to hypochondria and other paranoid tendencies, Greenberg's distinct and hilarious voice articulates our own mild obsessions and idiosyncrasies.

Rules for Others to Live By

7b29262b-8673-49f5-9d0c-10140d8ef7c8-1

Colorado

Edwin Arlington Robinson Centenary Essays

Betches

How to Find Love and Sh*t Like That

The New York Times bestselling authors of Nice Is Just a Place in France and creators of the online humor and advice phenomenon BetchesLoveThis.com explain the brutal truths of how to date like a true betch, with insights from the Head Pro. In the age of Tinder, Hinge, or any other dating app that matches you with randos (or serial killers), the dating game has grown complex and confusing. Cue the Betches—first, we helped you win at basically everything, and now we’re going to help you win the most important battle a betch can face. Maybe you’re a Delusional Dater who needs to get in touch with reality (seriously, he’s just NOT that f***ing into you) or perhaps you’re a TGF who needs to stop being so desperate and start playing the game. Or maybe you’re just tired of swiping left and ready for the pro of your dreams to put a 15-karat diamond ring on it so you can stop pretending to do work. Either way, we’ve got you covered. With insight from the Betches’ own Head Pro, this book is a must-have bible for any betch looking for love. So put away the Ben & Jerry’s fro-yo (just because it’s low fat doesn’t mean it’s okay to eat the whole tub) and start dating like a winner.

I Had a Nice Time and Other Lies...

c9f84d17-46cd-4623-9b59-2721723709d7-1

Lena Dunham

Massachusetts

A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned"

From the acclaimed creator, producer, and star of HBO's Girls comes a hilarious, wise, and fiercely candid collection of personal essays that establishes Lena Dunham as one of the most original young talents writing today. In Not That Kind of Girl, Dunham illuminates the experiences that are part of making one's way in the world: falling in love, feeling alone, being ten pounds overweight despite eating only health food, having to prove yourself in a room full of men twice your age, finding true love, and, most of all, having the guts to believe that your story is one that deserves to be told. "Take My Virginity (No, Really, Take It)" is the account of Dunham's first time, and how her expectations of sex didn't quite live up to the actual event ("No floodgate had been opened, no vault of true womanhood unlocked"); "Girls & Jerks" explores her former attraction to less-than-nice guys--guys who had perfected the "dynamic of disrespect" she found so intriguing; "Is This Even Real?" is a meditation on her lifelong obsession with death and dying--what she called her "genetically predestined morbidity." And in "I Didn't Fuck Them, but They Yelled at Me," she imagines the tell-all she will write when she is eighty and past caring, able to reflect honestly on the sexism and condescension she has encountered in Hollywood, where women are "treated like the paper thingies that protect glasses in hotel bathrooms--necessary but infinitely disposable." Exuberant, moving, and keenly observed, Not That Kind of Girl is a series of dispatches from the frontlines of the struggle that is growing up. "I'm already predicting my future shame at thinking I had anything to offer you," Dunham writes. "But if I can take what I've learned and make one menial job easier for you, or prevent you from having the kind of sex where you feel you must keep your sneakers on in case you want to run away during the act, then every misstep of mine will have been worthwhile."

Not That Kind of Girl

6321cb1d-60b1-4bbd-b5f3-92398c909cfb-1

#hardcover #stories #recipes #reminiscences #food #family #essays

Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table

When Molly Wizenberg's father died of cancer, everyone told her to go easy on herself, to hold off on making any major decisions for a while. But when she tried going back to her apartment in Seattle and returning to graduate school, she knew it wasn't possible to resume life as though nothing had happened. So she went to Paris, a city that held vivid memories of a childhood trip with her father, of early morning walks on the cobbled streets of the Latin Quarter and the taste of her first pain au chocolat. She was supposed to be doing research for her dissertation, but more often, she found herself peering through the windows of chocolate shops, trekking across town to try a new patisserie, or tasting cheeses at outdoor markets, until one evening when she sat in the Luxembourg Gardens reading cookbooks until it was too dark to see, she realized that her heart was not in her studies but in the kitchen.At first, it wasn't clear where this epiphany might lead. Like her long letters home describing the details of every meal and market, Molly's blog Orangette started out merely as a pleasant pastime. But it wasn't long before her writing and recipes developed an international following. Every week, devoted readers logged on to find out what Molly was cooking, eating, reading, and thinking, and it seemed she had finally found her passion. But the story wasn't over: one reader in particular, a curly-haired, food-loving composer from New York, found himself enchanted by the redhead in Seattle, and their email correspondence blossomed into a long-distance romance.In A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table, Molly Wizenberg recounts a life with the kitchen at its center. From her mother's pound cake, a staple of summer picnics during her childhood in Oklahoma, to the eggs she cooked for her father during the weeks before his death, food and memories are intimately entwined. You won't be able to decide whether to curl up and sink into the story or to head straight to the market to fill your basket with ingredients for Cider-Glazed Salmon and Pistachio Cake with Honeyed Apricots.

A Homemade Life

e913f7f8-5986-4f66-844a-a654176cd36a-1

#hardcover #nonfiction #biography #mindykaling #fiction #autobiography #essays 

#hardcover #nonfiction #thewitchesarecoming #essays #feminism #humor #readers #adult #protectivecover #formerlibrarybook

California

The firebrand New York Times columnist and bestselling author of Shrill--soon to be a Hulu series starring Aidy Bryant--provides a brilliant and incisive look at how patriarchy, intolerance, and misogyny have conquered not just politics but American culture itself. What do Adam Sandler, Donald Trump, and South Park have in common? Why are myths like "reverse sexism" and "political correctness" so seductive? And why do movie classics of yore, from Sixteen Candles to Revenge of the Nerds, make rape look like so much silly fun? With Lindy West's signature wit and in her uniquely incendiary voice, THE WITCHES ARE COMING lays out a grand theory of America that explains why Trump's election was, in many ways, a foregone conclusion. As West reveals through fascinating journeys across the landscapes of pop culture, the lies that fostered the catastrophic resentment that boiled over in the 2016 presidential race did not spring from a vacuum. They have in fact been woven into America's DNA, cultivated by generations of mediocre white men and fed to the masses with such fury that we have become unable to recognize them as lies at all. Whether it be the notion overheard since the earliest moments of the #MeToo movement that feminism has gone too far or the insistence that holding someone accountable for his actions amounts to a "witch hunt," THE WITCHES ARE COMING exposes the lies that many have chosen to believe and the often unexpected figures who have furthered them. Along the way, it unravels the tightening link between culture and politics, identifying in the memes, music, and movies we've loved the seeds of the neoreactionary movement now surging through the nation. Sprawling, funny, scorching, and illuminating, THE WITCHES ARE COMING shows West at the top of her intellectual and comic powers. As much a celebration of America's potential as a condemnation of our failures, some will call it a witch hunt. To which West would reply, so be it: "I'm a witch and I'm hunting you."

The Witches Are Coming

21e173d1-35bf-40a6-92e8-43ae046401c6

#hardcover #scribnerbooks #essays #upupdowndown #chestonknapp

Oregon

For fans of John Jeremiah Sullivan and Wells Tower, a “glittering,” (Leslie Jamison), “always smart, often hilarious, and ultimately transcendent” (Anthony Doerr) linked essay collection from the managing editor of Tin House that brilliantly explores the nature of identity. Daring and wise, hilarious and tender, Cheston Knapp’s exhilarating collection of seven linked essays, Up Up, Down Down, tackles the Big Questions through seemingly unlikely avenues. In his dexterous hands, an examination of a local professional wrestling promotion becomes a meditation on pain and his relationship with his father. A profile of UFO enthusiasts ends up probing his history in the church and, more broadly, the nature and limits of faith itself. Attending an adult skateboarding camp launches him into a virtuosic analysis of nostalgia. And the shocking murder of a neighbor expands into an interrogation of our culture’s prevailing ideas about community and the way we tell the stories of our lives. Even more remarkable, perhaps, is the way he manages to find humanity in a damp basement full of frat boys. Taken together, the essays in Up Up, Down Down amount to a chronicle of Knapp’s coming-of-age, a young man’s journey into adulthood, late-onset as it might appear. He presents us with formative experiences from his childhood to marriage that echo throughout the collection, and ultimately tilts at what may be the Biggest Q of them all: what are the hazards of becoming who you are? With “an ordnance of wit” (Wells Tower) and “a prose style that feels both extravagant and exact, and a big, booming heart” (Maggie Nelson), Up Up, Down Down signals the arrival of a truly one-of-a-kind voice.

Up up, down Down

d0fb9075-f871-4955-92dd-0ddc42ce2ccb-1

Amy Poehler

Illinois

In a perfect world . . . We'd get to hang out with Amy Poehler, watching dumb movies, listening to music, and swapping tales about our coworkers and difficult childhoods. Because in a perfect world, we'd all be friends with Amy—someone who seems so fun, is full of interesting stories, tells great jokes, and offers plenty of advice and wisdom (the useful kind, not the annoying kind you didn't ask for, anyway). Unfortunately, between her Golden Globe-winning role on Parks and Recreation, work as a producer and director, place as one of the most beloved SNL alumni and cofounder of the Upright Citizens' Brigade, involvement with the website Smart Girls at the Party, frequent turns as acting double for Meryl Streep, and her other gig as the mom of two young sons, she's not available for movie night. Luckily we have the next best thing: Yes Please, Amy's hilarious and candid book. A collection of stories, thoughts, ideas, lists, and haikus from the mind of one of our most beloved entertainers, Yes Please offers Amy's thoughts on everything from her "too safe" childhood outside of Boston to her early days in New York City, her ideas about Hollywood and "the biz," the demon that looks back at all of us in the mirror, and her joy at being told she has a "face for wigs." Yes Please is chock-full of words and wisdom to live by.

Yes Please

a20c676c-0246-4e30-a47f-8fbc6c62604f

#hardcover #nonfiction #satire #humor #comedy #essays #davidsedaris 

Wisconsin

Jon Winokur

This book would make a great gift for the dog lover in your life

A collection of quotations, anecdotes, folklore, and essays from the likes of Mark Twain and Emily Dickinson offers a comical and poignant view of man's best friend

Mondo Canine

cf773cf4-2b68-43d5-88df-53fcd86a9627-1

#hardcover #nonfiction #humor #comedy #amypoehler #autobiography #biography #essays 

Robert Fulghum

First Edition 
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
I once began a list of the contradictory notions I hold:
Look before you leap.
He who hesitates is lost.
Two heads are better than one.
If you want something done right, do it yourself.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Better safe than sorry.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
You can't tell a book by its cover.
Clothes make the man.
Many hands make light work.
Too many cooks spoil the broth.
You can't teach an old dog new tricks.
It's never too late to learn.
Never sweat the small stuff.
God is in the details.
And so on. The list goes on forever. Once I got so caught up in this kind of thinking that I wore two buttons on my smock when I was teaching art. One said, "Trust me, I'm a teacher." The other replied, "Question Authority."

Second Thoughts from a Secret Life

Down-to-earth, personal, and often humorous accounts of the factors and events that led 64 modern philosophers to love philosophy.

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Anna Sale

Let's Talk about Hard Things

Damon Young

What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker

Casey Wilson

The Wreckage of My Presence

Amanda Blake Soule; Stephen Soule

The Rhythm of Family

Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin: A Biography in His Own Words i

David Sedaris

Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls

Amy Schumer

The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo

Mindy Kaling

Why Not Me?

E. B. White

Farewell to Model T

Kate Rowinski

The Quotable Mom

Marsha Serling Goldberg; Sonia Feldman

Teachers with Class

Richard Greenberg

Rules for Others to Live By

Ellsworth Barnard

Edwin Arlington Robinson Centenary Essays

Betches

I Had a Nice Time and Other Lies...

Lena Dunham

Not That Kind of Girl

Molly Wizenberg

A Homemade Life

Mindy Kaling

Why Not Me?

Lindy West

The Witches Are Coming

Cheston Knapp

Up up, down Down

Amy Poehler

Yes Please

David Sedaris

Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls

Jon Winokur

Mondo Canine

Amy Poehler

Yes Please

Robert Fulghum

Maybe (Maybe Not)