In the spirit of her blockbuster #1 New York Times bestseller The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin embarks on a new project to make home a happier place. One Sunday afternoon, as she unloaded the dishwasher, Gretchen Rubin felt hit by a wave of homesickness. Homesick—why? She was standing right in her own kitchen. She felt homesick, she realized, with love for home itself. “Of all the elements of a happy life,” she thought, “my home is the most important.” In a flash, she decided to undertake a new happiness project, and this time, to focus on home.And what did she want from her home? A place that calmed her, and energized her. A place that, by making her feel safe, would free her to take risks. Also, while Rubin wanted to be happier at home, she wanted to appreciate how much happiness was there already.So, starting in September (the new January), Rubin dedicated a school year—September through May—to making her home a place of greater simplicity, comfort, and love. In The Happiness Project, she worked out general theories of happiness. Here she goes deeper on factors that matter for home, such as possessions, marriage, time, and parenthood. How can she control the cubicle in her pocket? How might she spotlight her family’s treasured possessions? And it really was time to replace that dud toaster.Each month, Rubin tackles a different theme as she experiments with concrete, manageable resolutions—and this time, she coaxes her family to try some resolutions, as well. With her signature blend of memoir, science, philosophy, and experimentation, Rubin’s passion for her subject jumps off the page, and reading just a few chapters of this book will inspire readers to find more happiness in their own lives. ReviewPraise for *The Happiness Project*“Once you’ve read Gretchen Rubin’s tale of a year spent searching for satisfaction, you’ll want to start your own happiness project and get your friends and family to join you. This is the rare book that will make you both smile and think—often on the same page.” –Daniel H. Pink, bestselling author of Drive"A friendly, approachable, and compulsively readable narrative that will not only make you want to start your own happiness project but will also make you want to invite Rubin out for a cup of coffee." –San Diego Union-Tribune "For those who generally loathe the self-help genre, Rubin's book is a breath of peppermint-scented air. Well-researched and sharply written." –The Cleveland Plain Dealer "The Happiness Project made me happier by just reading it." –Bookpage “An enlightening, laugh-aloud read…Filled with open, honest glimpses into [Rubin’s] real life, woven together with constant doses of humor.” –*Christian Science Monitor “Whether you devote a day or a year, The Happiness Project can give you the tools to find lasting fulfillment.” –Psychology Today “Gretchen's compelling voice, great stories, and first person-perspective…make the book simply irresistible.” –Bob Sutton, Stanford Professor and author of Weird Ideas That Work “A cross between the Dalai Lama’s The Art of Happiness and Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, *seamlessly buttressed by insights from sources as diverse as psychological scientists, novelists, poets, and philosophers, Gretchen Rubin’s book is one that readers will revisit again and again as they seek to fulfill their own dreams for happiness.” –Sonja Lyubomirsky, author of The How of HappinessReviewPraise for *The Happiness Project*“Once you’ve read Gretchen Rubin’s tale of a year spent searching for satisfaction, you’ll want to start your own happiness project and get your friends and family to join you. This is the rare book that will make you both smile and think—often on the same page.” –Daniel H. Pink, bestselling author of Drive"A friendly, approachable, and compulsively readable narrative that will not only make you want to start your own happiness project but will also make you want to invite Rubin out for a cup of coffee." –San Diego Union-Tribune "For those who generally loathe the self-help genre, Rubin's book is a breath of peppermint-scented air. Well-researched and sharply written." –The Cleveland Plain Dealer "The Happiness Project made me happier by just reading it." –Bookpage “An enlightening, laugh-aloud read…Filled with open, honest glimpses into [Rubin’s] real life, woven together with constant doses of humor.” –*Christian Science Monitor “Whether you devote a day or a year, The Happiness Project can give you the tools to find lasting fulfillment.” –Psychology Today “Gretchen's compelling voice, great stories, and first person-perspective…make the book simply irresistible.” –Bob Sutton, Stanford Professor and author of Weird Ideas That Work “A cross between the Dalai Lama’s The Art of Happiness and Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, *seamlessly buttressed by insights from sources as diverse as psychological scientists, novelists, poets, and philosophers, Gretchen Rubin’s book is one that readers will revisit again and again as they seek to fulfill their own dreams for happiness.” –Sonja Lyubomirsky, author of The How of Happiness Views: 109
Warrior and writer, genius and crank, rider in the British cavalry's last great charge and inventor of the tank--Winston Churchill led Britain to fight alone against Nazi Germany in the fateful year of 1940 and set the standard for leading a democracy at war.Like no other portrait of its famous subject, Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill is a dazzling display of facts more improbable than fiction, and an investigation of the contradictions and complexities that haunt biography. Gretchen Craft Rubin gives readers, in a single volume, the kind of rounded view usually gained only by reading dozens of conventional biographies.With penetrating insight and vivid anecdotes, Rubin makes Churchill accessible and meaningful to twenty-first-century readers with forty contrasting views of the man: he was an alcoholic, he was not; he was an anachronism, he was a visionary; he was a racist, he was a humanitarian; he was the most quotable man in the history of the... Views: 107
The Project is in transition, their future in doubt. Selena Connor is no longer part of the active field unit, and she misses the action and excitement. When she's approached to translate a thirteenth century Templar document written in code, she jumps at the chance. The document reveals a clue to the location of the legendary Templar treasure, lost for seven hundred years.Nick and Selena follow the clue to Portugal, thinking they'll get a little vacation time while they search for something to tell them what happened to the treasure. But the vacation turns into a nightmare and launches the Project team on a deadly race against time. There's something hidden with the gold. If the Project can't prevent it from falling into the hands of the Black Templars, a terrible darkness will descend upon the world.Can they succeed against the odds? Views: 99
They have the house, the two kids, and the minivan. They have a well-meaning but shallow church. What Sherry doesn't know is that Doug has a shameful struggle with his thought life. When an exotic dancer's life intersects theirs, this suburban couple has to make a hard choice: do they risk their convenience and security for her sake, or do they cross to the other side of the road? The dark forces will not easily give up their most important pawn. But Ronnie must come out of the darkness, for only she can unravel a plot of devastating destruction."Who knew Christian fiction could be so exciting--and so relevant to the times? A fascinating tale of people caught up in temptation, spiritual mediocrity, and high-tech terrorism, The Lights of Tenth Street is an edge-of-your-seat spiritual thriller." Bill McCartney Founder and President, Promise Keepers "The Light Shines in Darkness..." At either end of Tenth Street in... Views: 92
Milo Milton Hastings was an American inventor, author, and nutritionist. He invented the forced-draft chicken incubator and Weeniwinks, a health-food snack. He wrote about chickens, science fiction, and health, among other things. Views: 84
The Road to Sparta is the story of the 153-mile run from Athens to Sparta that inspired the marathon and saved democracy, as told—and experienced—by ultramarathoner and New York Times bestselling author Dean Karnazes.In 490 BCE, Pheidippides ran for 36 hours straight from Athens to Sparta to seek help in defending Athens from a Persian invasion in the Battle of Marathon. In doing so, he saved the development of Western civilization and inspired the birth of the marathon as we know it. Even now, some 2,500 years later, that run stands enduringly as one of greatest physical accomplishments in the history of mankind.Karnazes personally honors Pheidippides and his own Greek heritage by recreating this ancient journey in modern times. Karnazes even abstains from contemporary endurance nutrition like sports drinks and energy gels and only eats what was available in 490 BCE, such as figs, olives, and cured meats. Through vivid details and internal... Views: 82
WHITE JADE spins a web of deceit and murder across the globe, against the backdrop of a deadly international power game.Former Recon Marine Nick Carter is a man with a dark history of emotional and physical scars. He works for the PROJECT, a covert counter-terrorism unit reporting to the President. Selena Connor is a beautiful, strong and skilled linguist. When her wealthy uncle is murdered by someone looking for an ancient book about the elixir of immortality, she's thrown into Nick's dangerous world. Nick is assigned to protect Selena and help her recover the missing text. It's the beginning of a life and death adventure reaching from San Francisco to Beijing, from Washington to the hidden chambers of Tibet. Someone is determined to take over China and attack America--and Nick and Selena are right in the line of fire.International intrigue, terrorist acts and the threat of nuclear war form the core of this fast-paced thriller, the first volume in a series featuring Nick, Selena and the PROJECT. Views: 71
The brutal death of a Swedish spy sends Nick Carter, Selena Connor and the Project team to Stockholm, where they find themselves pitted against a terrorist network hiding among the refugees flooding into the country.
A fourth century artifact looted from the Middle East plunges the team into a search for the most elusive relic of Christendom: the Holy Grail. A prophecy warns that if the Grail falls into the wrong hands, it will bring about the End of Days.
It's not just the project that's looking for the Grail: the murderous fanatics of ISIS are determined to find it. They'll stop at nothing to retrieve it.
The Day of Judgment draws near and nuclear Armageddon threatens America. Time is running out. Finding the Grail is the only thing that can prevent disaster.
Kings, emperors and thieves have searched for the cup for more than a thousand years, to no avail. All have failed. Will the Project succeed before it's too late?
You won't want to put this book down.
** Views: 71
From the winner of the National Book Award and the National Books Critics’ Circle Award—and one of the most original thinkers of our time—a riveting collection of essays about places in dramatic transition.
Far and Away collects Andrew Solomon’s writings about places undergoing seismic shifts—political, cultural, and spiritual. Chronicling his stint on the barricades in Moscow in 1991, when he joined artists in resisting the coup whose failure ended the Soviet Union, his 2002 account of the rebirth of culture in Afghanistan following the fall of the Taliban, his insightful appraisal of a Myanmar seeped in contradictions as it slowly, fitfully pushes toward freedom, and many other stories of profound upheaval, this book provides a unique window onto the very idea of social change. With his signature brilliance and compassion, Solomon demonstrates both how history is altered by individuals, and how personal identities are altered when governments alter.
A journalist and essayist of remarkable perception and prescience, Solomon captures the essence of these cultures. Ranging across seven continents and twenty-five years, Far and Away takes a magnificent journey into the heart of extraordinarily diverse experiences, yet Solomon finds a common humanity wherever he travels. Illuminating the development of his own genius, his stories are always intimate and often both funny and deeply moving.
**Review
"Andrew Solomon is every bit as magnificent a traveler as he is a writer — in fact, it's difficult at times to determine which is the greater talent. Thankfully, the reader gets to experience both gifts throughout the pages of this deeply impressive and profoundly moving collection. Here is man whose curiosities are vast (politics, art, food, psychology, anthropology), and whose intellect is beautifully honed, but whose spirit is humble and whose heart is enormous. You will not only know the world better after having seen it through Solomon's eyes, you will also care about it more." (Elizabeth Gilbert)
"This is a beautiful book, inspired by love of ‘away' and uncertainty about ‘home,' a celebration of freedom which valuably warns that freedom must sometimes be learned. Much more than 'travel writing,' it's a portrait of our world, made by someone who has been there." (Salman Rushdie)
"From Cape Town to Bucharest, and Hangzhou to Tripoli, Andrew Solomon’s Far and Away is positively Whitmanian in its openness to difficulty and its embodiment of wonder. I felt exposed and expanded. This book is an ecstatic provocation to understand ourselves not as citizens of nations but as citizens of the entire world, a world whose territories are glorious and troubled and desperately connected." (Leslie Jamison)
"Agile, informative, even revelatory pieces that, together, show us both the great variety of humanity and the interior of a gifted writer's heart." (Kirkus, starred review)
“Journalist and psychologist Solomon gamely plunges into global tragedies, hot spots, and cultural ferment. . . . Solomon’s writing captures the sweep of history and social upheaval through vivid, fine-grained reportage that’s raptly attuned to individual experience.” (Publishers Weekly)
“Andrew Solomon’s magisterial Far and Away collects a quarter-century of soul-shaking essays.” (Vanity Fair)
“The meaty dispatches—from Russia, Afghanistan, Brazil, Myanmar, Antarctica, Libya, and other locales—are brilliant geopolitical travelogues that also comprise a very personal and reflective resume of the National Book Award winner’s globe-trotting adventures.” (Elle)
“Far and Away is a reminder that, although foreign reporting isn’t easy, and that American journalists probably get places wrong as often as they get them right, deep work is worth doing and worth paying for, both to encourage cultural exchange and because a skilled writer who reports at length may create literature.” (Pacific Standard)
About the Author
Andrew Solomon is a professor of psychology at Columbia University, president of PEN American Center, and a regular contributor to The New Yorker, NPR, and The New York Times Magazine. A lecturer and activist, he is the author of Far and Away: Essays from the Brink of Change: Seven Continents, Twenty-Five Years; the National Book Critics Circle Award-winner Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity, which has won thirty additional national awards; and The Noonday Demon; An Atlas of Depression, which won the 2001 National Book Award, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and has been published in twenty-four languages. He has also written a novel, A Stone Boat, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times First Fiction Award and The Irony Tower: Soviet Artists in a Time of Glasnost. His TED talks have been viewed over ten million times. He lives in New York and London and is a dual national. For more information, visit the author’s website at AndrewSolomon.com. ** Views: 67
