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Weep. Scream. Hate. Disbelieve. Go numb.

Breathe.

This beautiful book offers a gentle and honest guide for surviving the early days of grief—shock, trauma, disbelief—and beyond. In simple, easy-to-absorb pages composed of short, poetic text and spot illustrations, readers will begin to find the path they need to move through their grief, step by step. From grieving a sudden death or a long illness, someone hard to love or impossible to live without, anyone suffering a loss will see themselves and their grief reflected in these pages.

When author Paula Becker’s son was killed in 2017, she reached for grief books to help her understand how to proceed through the enormous grief engulfing her. Most grief books are tens of thousands of words long—helpful resources, but often too overwhelming for the newly bereaved to navigate with shattered attention spans and broken hearts. With A Little Book of Self-Care for Those Who Grieve, as only someone who knows grief intimately can, Paula Becker offers grievers a touchstone, quiet snippets of care and advice that can be returned to again and again as they travel the lifelong road of grief. A planned foreword from a notable voice in the grief community as well as a resources section rounds out this essential book.

In the vein of It’s OK That You’re Not OK, A Little Book of Self-Care for Those Who Grieve acknowledges the brokenness, the pain, and how grief alters your reality—and with great tenderness and gentle compassion, walks with readers in that new world.

“That day, I saw humanity at its best and worst. Humanity doesn’t have race, creed, or color—not when you look into the very souls of people.” —Christopher Braman, Army Sgt. 1st Class (ret.)

The terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001, were intended to tear apart the fabric of our country and our democracy. Instead, this brazen act served to show the world the heart of a nation and the true meaning of “united we stand.” The heroes at the Pentagon were extraordinary civilians and soldiers who made decisions to sacrifice their own safety to render aid to complete strangers. Twenty years later, these stories serve as a reminder of what it truly means to be American.

Meticulously researched and told with respect and reverence, American Phoenix sheds light on the remarkable individuals and events of that day, revealing stories never before told. Starting from the date the builders of the Pentagon broke ground on September 11, 1941, and culminating in the national Pentagon Memorial dedication in 2008, this is a tribute to those who sacrificed everything so that others might live.

Are you an entrepreneur trying to make it in the online space? How do you cut through all the conflicting advice and define what success means to you? How do you show up, help people, and make money along the way? And how do you do it all without losing your fucking mind?
Business coach, entrepreneur, and general Amanda King has the answers. Audacious AF teaches you how to throw the rule book out the fucking window and start leading your business from a place of authenticity. Outlining the thirteen most important moments of her own personal online entrepreneurial journey, King describes finding the courage to leave business norms behind, stand in her own power, and have the audacity to say, “Fuck that shit—I’ll do it my way.”

Audacious AF is a straightforward, empowering guide to being bold in business and unapologetic about who you are and what you bring to your entrepreneurial journey. Throughout, King shares the lessons she learned as she went from living life according to everyone else (and being broke as hell while doing it) to saying “fuck it” to everyone’s opinions, stepping into her true power, and creating a life she could have only dreamed of.

So take a deep breath: it’s time to own your shit, trust your intuition, and build an aligned, authentic AF business that lights up your soul, gives you the crotch tingles, and turns you the fuck on. Because when you are turned on, abundance can’t help but gravitate toward you—not to mention your bank account. Buckle up, bitches. It’s time to get Audacious AF.

“A gleefully apocalyptic page-turner . . .” —Kirkus Reviews

Meet Chloe and Elizabeth Yetti: antisocial, semi-homicidal eighteen-year-old twins casually surviving the AI apocalypse.

Ten years ago, a powerful machine intelligence unleashed a nanoengineered superdrug on humanity. Civilization is now a collection of mindless addicts confined to automated treatment centers that tower over drone-dominated cityscapes. Having escaped and grown up in the forests of Northern California alongside their younger brother and brilliant scientist/survivalist mother, Clo and El stayed safe while society collapsed around them.

But when a mysterious stranger and a demonic woodland creature appear and threaten their family, the twins are drawn back to a disintegrating, drug-addled San Francisco. There, biomechanical gods and monsters vie for control of what’s left of humanity’s consciousness. Armed with only a knife, an old hunting rifle, and their secret, cryptophasic twin language, Clo and El realize that surviving the apocalypse was just the beginning—now they’ve got to face it head-on.

The first book in the Babylon Twins trilogy, this epic adventure takes readers on a journey filled with sci-fi spectacle and darkly humorous twists and turns, not to mention some good old-fashioned butt-kicking. The second book in the series will be coming out in 2022.

Boys 2 MENtors® is a leadership program for middle and high school boys. This curriculum manual comprises 50 interactive sessions that address social emotional learning, leadership, and Common Core standards and that provide opportunities to link to the school day curriculum. Based on research on male adolescent development as well as direct classroom experience and application, the program has been designed to be facilitated over the course of a school year, engaging young men mentally and providing a distinctly physical component, sometimes light, sometimes rigorous. The curricular framework is scaffolded through six components:

• • LEAD UP—Introduction to leadership themes and expectations, creating a socially and emotionally safe and positive peer group.
• • WHAT’S UP?—Examining the diverse characteristics of identity among young men.
• • STEP UP—Developing a sense of collaboration among the group and honing interpersonal relationship skills.
• • OWN UP—Developing a sense of pride and accountability regarding life choices.
• • MAN UP—Determining the characteristics of a positive male role model.
• • RISE UP—Creating a vision and actionable plans for the future.

Feeling burned out? So done? Like you’ve got zero left to give? This guided journal will help shift your focus from giving up to gratitude and refuel your soul, one prompt at a time. Yeah, yeah, we know it sounds like another line, but gratitude really can improve your overall attitude and have profound effects on your life. Real-life, actual scientific studies have found that people who regularly practice gratitude and write about it have better relationships and are healthier and happier than people who don’t.

Use this journal to dig deep to find your f*cks, or focus on the ones right in front of your face. Sometimes you’ll want to fill pages with paragraphs, while other times a simple list will do. Skip around and work on the prompts that speak to you in the moment.

Thoughtful quotes from superwise and bad*ss people will inspire you, while quick tips, tricks, and suggestions for maximizing all that latent gratitude will help you make the most of even the sh*ttiest day. Even when life ships you crates of lemons, you can still make one super strong vodka lemonade and find that there are a whole lot of reasons to give a sh*t. Now let’s find those f*cks, one by one.

Near the death zone on K2, the world’s second-highest mountain, Lisa Thompson searched for the strength to continue climbing. Her choices were clear: give in to her doubts and descend or push past her own limits and continue up the mountain’s steep face. 

Defiance had provoked Thompson to enter the male-dominated world of high-altitude mountaineering, but defiance could only take her so far. After a harrowing battle with cancer, Lisa realized she needed to understand what motivated her to take greater and greater risks in the mountains. Finding Elevation chronicles Thompson’s path from novice climber to world-class mountaineer, as she becomes the second American woman to summit K2, which is considered by many to be the most dangerous mountain in the world. 

More than a climbing memoir, Finding Elevation is a deeply personal examination of motivation and the human spirit. It is a story of what can happen when we finally stop letting others define our limits and instead trust that we are capable of more. In this inspiring book, Thompson reaches beyond the mountain to tell a story of heartbreak, resilience, and the discovery that we are responsible for defining our own boundaries, finding our own happiness, and facing our fears head-on. 

IPPY Awards Gold Medal Winner in the memoir category

Colorado Independent Book Publishers Association (CIPA) Gold Medal Winner in the memoir category

National Indie Excellence Awards finalist in the new non-fiction category

A deeply personal memoir about finding family and belonging from White House staffer Robin F. Schepper. 

Growing up torn between her single Pan Am–stewardess mom and brothel-owning grandmother in 1960s New York City, Robin F. Schepper never imagined that she’d one day have an office in the East Wing of the White House. Her childhood in a German American neighborhood on the Upper East Side was peppered with half-truths, from the family secrets surrounding her grandmother’s immigration to deceptions about her biological father. 

In a world of self-absorbed adults, Robin largely raised herself: she secured a scholarship to a prestigious private school and worked several jobs as a teenager to pay her own living expenses before finally escaping to California for college. Street-smart and undeniably driven, once in the professional world Robin quickly ascended in the male-dominated political sphere, traveling the globe while being subjected to sexual harassment and assaults that echoed obstacles her mother and grandmother had faced. Through it all, Robin searched for her biological father. She felt that if she could understand why he abandoned her, she could free herself from secrets, lies, and shame. 

Robin eventually rose to work for the First Lady of the United States Michelle Obama and, in the meantime, created her own family by adopting two sons from Kazakhstan. Intimate and captivating, Finding My Way follows an ambitious woman who reached the highest pinnacles of a political career while simultaneously fulfilling her own quest to heal from family trauma and discover her true identity. 

"Fyrian’s Fire is a thrilling debut. The characters are not only interesting but unique, and the story line is woven with delightful elements of the fantastical. Excited to see more from Emily!”—Lauren H. Brandenburg, Carol Award–winning author of The Death of Mungo Blackwell and The Books of the Gardener series

When Tess commits a grievous error, siege befalls her land—a siege only Tess’s magic can end.

The week of her wedding, Lady Tessamine Canyon is jilted by her betrothed, Prince Linden. Left utterly humiliated, Tess betrays a tightly guarded secret to an enemy spy—a decision that throws the Dione of Glademont into chaos. Hunted by bloodthirsty mercenaries, Tess flees into the Hinge Forest. There, with the help of a wild owl and a two-hundred-year-old bear, Tess begins to unlock the forgotten mysteries of her people.

Deep in the woods, the spirit of a long-dead dryad awaits the next Thane of a fierce weapon. To Tess’s amazement, it is she who is called to master the weapon’s power and save Glademont from an impending war.

When a surprising turn of events reunites Tess with Linden—the prince who called off their engagement—Tess must swallow her pride and join forces with him. But even if Tess can rescue her people, will that be enough to forgive her treason? Armed with a fiery magic, Tess is forced to make an impossible choice, one that might seal her fate as the next Thane—but forever extinguish any chance at following her heart.

"We love your work on Holistic Wealth!" —Oprah Daily Editors

WINNER of the 2024 American Legacy Award in the Self-Help: Motivational category

WINNER of the 2023 Best Books Award (American Book Fest) in the Self-Help: Motivational category

A Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper Recommended Book, December 2022

“In this terrific read, Keisha Blair gives us all the tools to thrive, no matter the obstacles we face. She defines prosperity as something beyond monetary figures. Holistic wealth is financial, physical, and emotional stability combined—and she shows us how to get there.” —Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper

Imagine facing life’s disruption with confidence, knowing how to regain your balance in times of uncertainty. By expanding on the teachings shared in the highly acclaimed first edition of her book and in her viral article, “My Husband Died at Age 34—Here Are 40 Life Lessons I Learned from It,” viewed by more than fifty million people globally, author Keisha Blair presents even more revolutionary strategies—curated for the challenges of today’s world—that will help you find balance and success. 

This updated edition of the classic book is fully revised throughout, and includes: 

• A new foreword by iconic actress and activist Kelly Rutherford, star of Gossip Girl, Melrose Place, and Dynasty
• Additional chapters on pandemic-related disruptions and how to face them 
• More than 50 practical tips and case studies from trailblazers, luminaries, and readers (including Certified Holistic Wealth Consultants™ trained by Keisha Blair) who have increased their income, overcome disruption and setbacks, and reinvented themselves using the original book as a guide. 
• New interviews from the Holistic Wealth Podcast with Keisha Blair 
• A Holistic Wealth framework broken down into four easy parts to enable you to assess and build wealth in all areas of your life 

2024 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Winner—Best Memoir in the Personal Struggles/Health Issues Category

Two-time 2023 NYC Big Book Award Winner—Memoir and Non-Fiction

2023 International Latino Book Award Winner—Most Inspiring Non-Fiction, Honorable Mention

Dear Son, I’m going to tell you a story, the most difficult one to share. 

As a young Latina and Native American lawyer and former wife of California’s attorney general and treasurer, Nadia Davis has long been subjected to public scrutiny. In this powerful homage to finding one’s worth in the face of mental health struggles, addiction, and public shaming, Davis shares her remarkable story. She reveals the depths of the darkness she went through, while gracefully offering transformational healing and an end to the choking grasp of shame. 

Lyrical and captivating, Home Is Within You recounts the author’s experience of trauma and addiction amid a highly publicized abusive relationship. Davis is brutally honest about her experiences and generous in revealing the paths she found to wholeness through spiritual advocacy, healthy co-parenting, and a dedication to preventing generational trauma. 

Home Is Within You shares one woman’s courageous journey to recovery as a mother and as a woman, and her narrative is a defense of privacy, parenthood, and autonomy. 

2022 INDIES Winner

Gold, Career (Adult Nonfiction)

Becky Margiotta’s Impact with Integrity: Repair the World Without Breaking Yourself is a call to action, but also an invitation to reclaim your agency and mobilize your creativity in order to enact meaningful, efficient, and effective social change. With authenticity, grit, and grace, Margiotta lays out a proven step-by-step framework for doing the inner work that is necessary for advancing social change. Examining yourself is key to supercharging your power to make the world a better place. In this essential guide, she weaves joy and well-being into the work of sustainable and transformational leadership. 

Not just for nonprofit leaders, social workers, activists, educators, and health professionals, Impact with Integrity is for all of us inspired to do good and make effective change in the world.

“Outstanding photography! This book is a valuable contribution to the public’s understanding of our remarkable ‘near relatives.’” —Robert Bateman, wildlife painter and environmental icon

“Just Like Us is an entertaining and informative read that illustrates how one ordinary person can be a catalyst for positive change.” —Jane Goodall, primatologist and bestselling author

"Just Like Us will be a classic and is a must read. The book adds much to what we can learn about ourselves. A beautifully written adventure with great apes, with some of the most difficult and stunning photographs of the great apes ever made." —Thomas Mangelsen, award-winning nature and wildlife photographer and conservationist

A stirring account of hope and survival for the planet's endangered great ape species.

For most of his life, veterinarian Rick Quinn ignored a deep longing to meaningfully protect the endangered animals that fascinated him. Then one day, he read two magazine clippings about the great apes and knew it was time to set aside excuses and find the means to help. Armed with his camera and an insatiable curiosity, Dr. Quinn set off for the front lines of great ape conservation.

Just Like Us is a gorgeous tribute to our not-too-distant relatives as well as the courageous people who are risking their lives to protect them.

In this remarkable memoir, we follow Dr. Quinn’s seven-year journey across seven African countries and Indonesia, where he photographed each great ape species in its natural habitat. Using inspiring stories juxtaposed with stunning photographs, he illuminates the threats to great ape survival as well as the complexity of saving them. The result delivers an empathetic sense that these magnificent beings really are—strikingly so—just like us.

Winner of 5 major book awards, including the Publishers Weekly U.S. 2021 Selfies Award for Best Adult Fiction and winner of the IndieReader 2021 Discovery Award

“L’Origine got me hooked—what a story! Milgrom brings the reader right along on her adventures as a copyist of one of the most well-known paintings in all the world.” —Harriet Welty Rochefort, author of French Fried, French Toast, Joie de Vivre, and Final Transgression

The riveting odyssey of one of the world’s most scandalous works of art.

In 1866, maverick French artist Gustave Courbet painted one of the most iconic images in the history of art: a sexually explicit portrait of a woman’s exposed genitals. Audaciously titled L’Origine du monde (The Origin of the World), the scandalous painting was kept hidden for a century and a half. Today, it hangs in the world-renowned Orsay Museum in Paris, viewed by millions of visitors a year.

As the first artist authorized by the Orsay Museum to re-create Courbet’s The Origin of the World, author Lilianne Milgrom was thrust into the painting’s intimate orbit, spending six weeks replicating every fold, crevice, and pubic hair. The experience inspired her to share her story and the painting’s riveting clandestine history with readers beyond the confines of the art world.

L’Origine is an entertaining and superbly researched work of historical fiction that traces the true story of the painting’s unlikely tale of survival, replete with French revolutionaries, Turkish pashas, and nefarious Nazi captains. But L’Origine is more than a riveting romp through history—it also sheds light on society’s complex relationship with the female body.

Today’s educators face a critical challenge that goes beyond the curriculum: they must nurture appropriate social and emotional behaviors by providing youth with the conflict-resolution and leadership skills necessary for modern life. The Leadership Program’s Violence Prevention Project delivers on that need with an approach that engages, informs, and empowers its early adolescent audience. 

The Violence Prevention Project Leadership Skills curriculum has been implemented in over 5,000 classrooms for over 150,000 Title 1 students—and has earned distinction from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention as the country’s top program of its kind. This guidebook includes thirty-seven lessons complete with step by-step instructions that make facilitation easy and accessible. Help your students get to the core of conflict and transform into leaders in your classroom and community.

A redemption story of family, faith, and forgiveness in small-town Louisiana. 

After a lifetime of abuse and loss, sixty-one-year-old Vernon Davidson is ready to get back at God, his coworkers, and everyone else in his northern Louisiana hometown. To numb his pain, he drinks too much, and he shuns his friends and embarrasses himself in the community. The once-cautious Vernon has spiraled into a reckless mess. 

When his brother becomes terminally ill, Vernon must track down his estranged nephew, Jody, in an effort to bring the younger man home to his dying father. Jody himself is struggling after a self-imposed exile—having fled his family for a new life thousands of miles away. As Vernon and Jody set off on their journey home, they find themselves on a path that takes them from loss to healing and will ultimately change their lives. 

Mustard Seed is a stirring portrait of small-town Louisiana men—grandfathers, fathers, sons, and brothers—that exposes their flaws while showcasing their inner strengths. It forms a doxology, a song of praise, for the male family bond and the emotional ties men hide from the world and each other. Ultimately, it examines an impossibly difficult question: After a man has faced countless tragedies and endless disappointments, how does he go about forgiving a God he has grown to despise—and find his way back to the bonds that sustain him?

This provocative startup tale of success exposes Silicon Valley's startup myths and sets forth a new approach for aspiring and current founders to build companies that make an impact.

In New Startup Mindset, Sandra Shpilberg, founder and CEO of Seeker Health, introduces a new mindset for starting and building a successful company. Shpilberg shows that Silicon Valley’s startup formula—a few young male cofounders attempting to build a unicorn funded by venture capital—is a broken system that puts excessive emphasis on hype and improbable outsized outcomes, disregards real results such as revenue and profit, and promotes limiting beliefs for the next generation of entrepreneurs.

When Shpilberg founded Seeker Health, a digital patient-finding platform, in 2015, she did almost everything differently than the blazed path: she chose to be a solo founder, didn't pursue an incubator, didn't accept outside funding, led development of software despite not being a programmer, and charged customers from month one. Instead of creating hype about fundraising based on fictitious valuations, Shpilberg focused on customer needs, yielding a startup with revenue, profit, and impact; and three years later, a large life science services company acquired her startup while she was still the sole owner.

In this expanded second edition, Shpilberg shares her success story of starting, building, and exiting her startup and provides readers with sage insights and practical tools to follow this approach. This book is simultaneously a needed dose of reality for Silicon Valley and a large serving of inspiration for those who want to create something from nothing. It is a must-read for aspiring startup founders and current entrepreneurs, especially those who may think they don't fit the mold of a Silicon Valley founder and are open to a new way of making a definitive and profound impact with the companies they create.

WINNER OF 29 BOOK AWARDS including the Writer’s Digest Grand Prize and the Rubery Book Award Book of the Year.

True stories of glamour, drama, and tragedy told through five generations of a Shanghai family, from the last days of imperial rule to the Cultural Revolution.

A high position bestowed by China’s empress dowager grants power and wealth to the Sun family. For Isabel, growing up in glamorous 1930s and ’40s Shanghai, it is a life of utmost privilege. But while her scholar father and fashionable mother shelter her from civil war and Japanese occupation, they cannot shield the family forever.

When Mao comes to power, eighteen-year-old Isabel journeys to Hong Kong, not realizing that she will make it her home—and that she will never see her father again. She returns to Shanghai fifty years later with her daughter, Claire, to confront their family’s past—one they discover is filled with love and betrayal, kidnappers and concubines, glittering palaces and underworld crime bosses.

Lavishly illustrated and meticulously researched, Remembering Shanghai follows five generations from a hardscrabble village to the bright lights of Hong Kong. By turns harrowing and heartwarming, this vivid memoir explores identity, loss and redemption against an epic backdrop.

The first in the Camille Delaney Mystery series, The Complication is a fast-paced legal and medical mystery filled with greed, murder, and intrigue.

After her friend Dallas Jackson suffers a fatal complication during routine surgery, Seattle attorney Camille Delaney is determined to find out why. Dallas was like a father to Camille, and she feels she owes it to him and his family to get answers. Knowing she could lose her partnership at her high-profile law firm for undertaking such an investigation, Camille takes a huge risk and starts her own firm, determined to bring Dallas’s killer to justice. She turns for help to her friend Trish Seaholm, a quick-witted chameleonlike private investigator with an uncanny knack for blending into any situation.

As the two dive headfirst into a dangerous investigation, they discover disturbing evidence that Dallas’s case is not an isolated incident. A shocking number of patients are dying during run-of-the-mill surgeries at small-town hospitals—at the hands of the same two surgeons. Can Camille uncover the reason for these unexplained deaths before more patients fall victim? Or will her search for answers land her in the crosshairs of a killer?

Perfect for fans of Emily Giffin and Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Palace at Dusk explores the complexity of love in an illicit office romance. 

Harvard-educated corporate attorney Jasmine “Jae” Phillips promised herself that she wouldn’t date anyone at the office. She’s too focused on the job, and her meh dating history can be summed up with a shrug. Then came Brad Summers. 

When Jae’s colleague Brad enters her office—boyish and handsome with his tousled hair and sparkling green-gold eyes—and asks if she’d like to grab a drink, she’s flattered. Their conversation makes her feel alive, fascinating, and fun, and the lonely Jae can’t help but bask in Brad’s attention. Soon Jae is breaking her never-date-at-the-office rule. And when she later discovers that Brad has a wife and child, she finds herself breaking a much more serious rule. 

After Jae spends years in love with a man who isn’t hers and jeopardizes her career in the process, a series of unexpected developments shake her awake and force her to confront the cost—and the future—of their affair. She needs to make a choice, but love stories are rarely black and white, and the right path isn’t so clear. With her head and her heart pulling her in opposite directions, Jae must somehow chart a course between them in order to find her happily ever after. 

2022 Best Book Awards Finalist in Fiction: Women's Fiction

2022 Independent Press Awards Winner in Chick-Lit

2022 Independent Press Awards Winner in Romantic Comedy 

From Charming Falls Apart author Angela Terry comes a story about finding the courage to face your past, be true to your heart, and live your best life. Fans of Sophie Kinsella and Emily Giffin will enjoy cheering for Adeline Turner as she navigates the twists and turns of her newly complicated life in this fun, heartwarming novel.

Thirty-three-year-old corporate attorney Adeline Turner has built her adult life around stability. Her professional life is thriving, but her personal life . . . not so much. Deep down she wants more, but finds it’s easier to brush aside her dreams and hide behind her billable hours. That is, until a new client and a chance encounter with her high school crush have her taking leaps she never planned. Suddenly, unadventurous, nose-to-the-grindstone Adeline finds herself moving across the country from her predictable life in Chicago to San Francisco, falling into messy romantic situations, and trying to unravel an office-sabotage plot before it ruins her career.

Without the safety net of her old life in Chicago, Adeline must become her own advocate and learn that people aren’t always who they seem. Which makes her wonder if the key to having the future she desires lies in uncovering the truth of the past.

From a remote cabin in the rugged rainforest of the Alaskan wilderness, where the untamed landscape tumbles into the ocean, a remarkable yellow Labrador retriever named Woody helped an exile from corporate America seek a fierce freedom.

A young Ward Serrill arrived in Southeast Alaska in 1982, dispatched by his Seattle accounting firm to a remote native village to audit their new corporation. Within a year Serrill had ditched the job, with designs on forging another life up north, a new Labrador retriever puppy in tow. Woody—named after Guthrie—was of champion bloodline and seemed ready for any adventure.

After a stint working with Tlingit elders in the village of Saxman, Serrill was adopted into the clan. Some called him Dleit Yéil, or White Raven. But over time, his connection to the village began to fray as his relationships there unearthed dark aspects of his own family history. Only his friendship with Woody remained unshakable, and it was time to move on.

On the maiden voyage of their dogyak—a specially fitted kayak—Woody and Serrill rounded a point into a half-moon bay with rugged coastline. There, sixteen miles from town on the rough, steep bank, accessible only by boat, sat a small gray house on stilts. In the shadow of ancient spruce and cedars, with a waterfall on one side and the ocean below, he and Woody took up their years-long vigil in the place he came to call Shakri-La.

His experiment in self-isolation helped Serrill to confront the reality and the emotional cost of running away—physically and emotionally—all his life. Looking inward and facing his darkness, Serrill discovered an unexplored region of his heart that offered the true possibility of healing and belonging, made possible by the steadfast devotion of a very special dog.

An extraordinary journey of the heart and soul from the award-winning filmmaker and director of The Heart of the Game, To Crack the World Open is a poignant, adventure-driven Alaskan story of self-discovery, with one of life’s most essential relationships—a man and his dog—at its heart.

A memoir of the author’s twenty-five-year, self-designed experiment with a nonpharmaceutical approach to multiple sclerosis and of the indomitable mother who taught her to meet trouble with active resistance. 

When novelist Edith Forbes experienced her first episode of multiple sclerosis in 1993, few treatments existed. The famously crippling disease was a medical mystery, its cause unknown and its course unpredictable. The only medical advice Forbes received then was to “simply live your life.” She had other ideas.

Forbes grew up on a ranch in Wyoming, raised by a widowed mother who met challenges head on. Besides shouldering responsibility for seven children and a cattle ranch, Forbes’s dynamo mother had ambitions to change the world. As a forward-thinking woman in a largely male business, she became a model of tenacity and independence for her daughter.

After her MS diagnosis, Forbes turned her fear into action, immersing herself in the medical literature to search for ideas. Finding an unexpected connection between the medical information and her own knowledge of agriculture, she embarked on a self-designed experiment that continues to this day.

Tracking a Shadow weaves together the story of Forbes’s personal twenty-five-year medical experiment with a memoir of the mother whose constant determination to look for better answers shaped the author’s unique approach to her disease.

A Buzzfeed Pick of The Best Main Characters We've Gotten To Know in 2022

A Scary Mommy Pick of New Books We Can’t Wait to Cozy Up with This Fall 

A Chatelaine Pick Of New Romances To Fall Into A New Season

The life and work of Upper Skagit tribal elder Vi Hilbert, who, more than anyone, revitalized her native language—Lushootseed—and shared it and the culture it expresses with the world.

In 1978, Seattle writer Janet Yoder took a Lushootseed class at the University of Washington. She was expecting to learn a little about this Salish language, and while Yoder did begin her Lushootseed lessons, what followed was lifelong learning and lots of adventures with Skagit tribal elder Vi Hilbert.

Drawn from thirty years of friendship and interviews, Where the Language Lives is a tribute to Vi Hilbert’s life, work, and her quest to preserve her native language. Vi carried her culture by the example of her life as she shared her beloved Lushootseed language through her teaching, speaking, storytelling, recording, and publishing. Without her diligent research and her transcription and translation of early recordings in Lushootseed, much of the language could have been lost to the world. Her historical preservation efforts were recognized with a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, presented by First Lady Hillary Clinton. She was also named a Washington State Living Treasure in 1989. Vi tasked Yoder with this collaborative book as a way of bearing witness, sometimes referring to Yoder as her “chronicler” and showing appreciation for the essays written during her life.

To celebrate the legacy of her dear friend and mentor, Yoder poured decades of Vi’s teachings and stories, along with her experience of knowing Vi, into these essays. Ultimately, Where the Language Lives is a tribute to the memory of a woman who profoundly impacted a culture, a history, and the longevity of a language.

Vi’s commitment to preserving Lushootseed contributed greatly to the renaissance of interest in Lushootseed and the growth of tribal language programs across western Washington.

These essays cover the cultural significance of canoes, baskets, blankets, the bone game, naming ceremonies, stories, and story places, as well as the ritual burning of Vi’s parents’ house in order to send it to them in the spirit world and how Vi came to commission the Healing Heart Symphony.

One foreword note is written by Vi Hilbert’s granddaughter, Jill La Pointe, and the second by Vi’s great-granddaughter Sasha La Pointe. Sasha, who carries Vi’s traditional name, is the author of the forthcoming memoir Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk (Counterpoint Press).