. . yet. Here, for the first time, current twentysomethings come together on their own terms, in their own words, and begin to define this remarkably diverse and self-aware generation. Tackling an array of subjects–career, family, sex, religion, technology, art–they form a vibrant, unified community while simultaneously proving that there is no typical twentysomething experience.In this collection, a young father works the late-night shift at Wendy’s, learning the finer points of status, teamwork, and french fries. An artist’s nude model explains why she’s happy to be viewed as an object. An international relief worker wrestles with his choices as he starts to resent the very people who need his help the most. A devout follower of Joan Didion explains what New York means to her. And a young army engineer spends his time in Kuwait futilely trying to grow a mustache like his dad’s.With grace, wit, humor, and urgency, these writers invite us into their lives and into their heads. Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers is a rich, provocative read as well as a bold statement from a generation just now coming into its own.Praise for Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers“Being in your twenties is weird. The world tells you you’re a grown-up, but damn if you feel like one. With 29 sharply observant and well-written snapshots of life between the ages of 19 and 30, Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers couldn’t have captured this more perfectly.”–Nylon“You’ll devour this compilation of essays by funny, smart, insightful young writers in just a few hours.”–Jane Magazine “[Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers offers] a wide variety of experience. . . . If we are still looking for a voice for this generation, I’d nominate this eclectic choir instead.”–Orlando Sentinel“[Ranging] from playful and absurd to poignant and earnest . . . [Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers is] a bold reminder that this generation is extremely diverse and very capable. . . . These essays will speak to you no matter your age.”–Austinist.com “Delightful . . . Whether admitting they are only just beginning to see their own parents as people or struggling to balance graduate study and parenthood, the essayists blend morbid irony and idealism. . . . This highly readable collection of voices is more assured and memorable than one might have expected from such a venture.”–Publishers Weekly “Earnest, honest, and well-written . . . a propitious look at writers coming of age right now, and it’s a pleasant surprise.”–The Phoenix (Boston)“A slice of Gen Y life: everything from OCD, rape, and depression to a nude-art-class model, online communities, and how to find (and keep) a drummer. Pick up your copy.”–stuff@night (Boston)“The essays . . . have an urgency, an immediacy, even as the subject matter runs the gamut from sex to death.”–Los Angeles Times Book Review

    And, according to Oprah Winfrey, "Your real job in life is to figure out as soon as possible what that is, who you are meant to be, and begin to honor your calling in the best way possible."That journey starts right here.In her latest book, The Path Made Clear, Oprah shares what she sees as a guide for activating your deepest vision of yourself, offering the framework for creating not just a life of success, but one of significance. The book's ten chapters are organized to help you recognize the important milestones along the road to self-discovery, laying out what you really need in order to achieve personal contentment, and what life's detours are there to teach us.Oprah opens each chapter by sharing her own key lessons and the personal stories that helped set the course for her best life. She then brings together wisdom and insights from luminaries in a wide array of fields, inspiring readers to consider what they're meant to do in the world and how to pursue it with passion and focus. These renowned figures share the greatest lessons from their own journeys toward a life filled with purpose.Paired with over 100 awe-inspiring photographs to help illuminate the wisdom of these messages, The Path Made Clear provides readers with a beautiful resource for achieving a life lived in service of your calling - whatever it may be.

    Mary Anne Schwalbe is waiting for her chemotherapy treatments when Will casually asks her what she's reading. The conversation they have grows into tradition: soon they are reading the same books so they can have something to talk about in the hospital waiting room. The ones they choose range from classic to popular, from fantastic to spiritual, and we hear their passion for reading and their love for each other in their intimate and searching discussions. A profoundly moving testament to the power of love between a child and parent, and the power of reading in our lives.

    Inspired by her own reflections on more than fifty years of life as a young girl, a woman, a wife, and a mother, She Walks in Beauty draws on poetry's eloquent wisdom to ponder the many joys and challenges of being a woman. Kennedy has divided the collection into sections that signify to her the most notable milestones, passages, and universal experiences in a woman's life, and she begins each of these sections with an introduction in which she explores and celebrates the most important elements of life's journey.The collection includes works by Elizabeth Bishop, Sharon Olds, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mary Oliver, Pablo Neruda, W. H. Auden, Adrienne Rich, Sandra Cisneros, Anne Sexton, W. S. Merwin, Dorothy Parker, Queen Elizabeth I, Lucille Clifton, Naomi Shahib Nye, and W.B. Yeats. Whether it's falling in love, breaking up, friendship, marriage, motherhood, or growing old, She Walks in Beauty is a priceless resource for anyone, male or female, who wants a deeper understanding and appreciation of what it means to be a woman.She walks in beautyGeorge Gordon, Lord ByronI She walks in beauty, like the nightOf cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and brightMeet in her aspect and her eyes:Thus mellow'd to that tender lightWhich heaven to gaudy day denies.II One shade the more, one ray the less,Had half impair'd the nameless graceWhich waves in every raven tress,Or softly lightens o'er her face;Where thoughts serenely sweet expressHow pure, how dear their dwelling-place.III And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,The smiles that win, the tints that glow,But tell of days in goodness spent,A mind at peace with all below,A heart whose love is innocent!

    Always remember that ... life is a gift and a blessing. In the tradition of such bestsellers as Tuesdays with Morrie and Riding the Bus with My Sister, this emotionally powerful collection of letters from grandfather to grandson will touch readers right down to their core. Award-winning radio host, newspaper columnist, and psychologist Daniel Gottlieb has created a truly inspirational work. When his grandson was born, Daniel Gottlieb began to write a series of heartfelt letters that he hoped Sam would read later in life. He planned to cover all the important topics -- dealing with your parents, handling bullies, falling in love, coping with death -- and what motivated him was the fear that he might not live long enough to see Sam reach adulthood. You see, Daniel Gottlieb is a quadriplegic -- the result of a near-fatal automobile accident that occurred two decades ago -- and he knows enough not to take anything for granted. Then, when Sam was only fourteen months old, he was diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disability, a form of autism, and suddenly everything changed. Now the grandfather and grandson were bound by something more: a disability -- and Daniel Gottlieb's special understanding of what that means became invaluable. A lovingly written, emotionally gripping book that offers unique -- and universal -- insights into what it means to be human. In addition to his thriving psychotherapy practice, Daniel Gottlieb serves as the host of Voices in the Family, an award-winning mental health call-in show on Philadelphia's much-respected public radio station, WHYY. He also writes a bimonthly column for the Philadelphia Inquirer entitled "On Healing," and is the author of two books. He lectures locally and nationally on a variety of topics affecting the well-being of people, families, and the larger community.

    Raised in the company of the lively Anne of Green Gables, the brave Pevensie children of Narnia, and the wise Austen heroines, she discovered reading early on as a daily gift, a way of encountering the world in all its wonder. But what she came to realize as an adult was just how powerfully books had shaped her as a woman to live a story within that world, to be a lifelong learner, to grasp hope in struggle, and to create and act with courage.She's convinced that books can do the same for you.Join Sarah in exploring the reading life as a gift and an adventure, one meant to enrich, broaden, and delight you in each season of your life as a woman. In Book Girl, you'll discover:how reading can strengthen your spiritual life and deepen your faith, why a journey through classic literature might be just what you need (and where to begin), how stories form your sense of identity, how Sarah's parents raised her to be a reader--and what you can do to cultivate a love of reading in the growing readers around you, and 20+ annotated book lists, including some old favorites and many new discoveries.Whether you've long considered yourself a reader or have dreams of becoming one, Book Girl will draw you into the life-giving journey of becoming a woman who reads and lives well.

    Pithy, provocative, poignant advice on a variety of self-help topics—in four well-chosen words.

    One day, Lori Gottlieb is a therapist who helps patients in her Los Angeles practice. The next, a crisis causes her world to come crashing down. Enter Wendell, the quirky but seasoned therapist in whose office she suddenly lands. With his balding head, cardigan, and khakis, he seems to have come straight from Therapist Central Casting. Yet he will turn out to be anything but. As Gottlieb explores the inner chambers of her patients' lives -- a self-absorbed Hollywood producer, a young newlywed diagnosed with a terminal illness, a senior citizen threatening to end her life on her birthday if nothing gets better, and a twenty-something who can't stop hooking up with the wrong guys -- she finds that the questions they are struggling with are the very ones she is now bringing to Wendell. With startling wisdom and humor, Gottlieb invites us into her world as both clinician and patient, examining the truths and fictions we tell ourselves and others as we teeter on the tightrope between love and desire, meaning and mortality, guilt and redemption, terror and courage, hope and change.Maybe You Should Talk to Someone is revolutionary in its candor, offering a deeply personal yet universal tour of our hearts and minds and providing the rarest of gifts: a boldly revealing portrait of what it means to be human, and a disarmingly funny and illuminating account of our own mysterious lives and our power to transform them.

    An underground bestseller in its original self-published edition, Marlo Morgan's powerful tale of challenge and endurance has a message for us all.Summoned by a remote tribe of nomadic Aborigines to accompany them on walkabout, the woman makes a four-month-long journey and learns how they thrive in natural harmony with the plants and animals that exist in the rugged lands of Australia's bush. From the first day of her adventure, Morgan is challenged by the physical requirements of the journey—she faces daily tests of her endurance, challenges that ultimately contribute to her personal transformation.By traveling with this extraordinary community, Morgan becomes a witness to their essential way of being in a world based on the ancient wisdom and philosophy of a culture that is more than 50,000 years old.

    Not ready to settle down and in need of an escape from her fast-paced job as a sitcom writer, Kristin instead traveled the world, often alone, for several weeks each year. In addition to falling madly in love with the planet, Kristin fell for many attractive locals, men who could provide the emotional connection she wanted without costing her the freedom she desperately needed. Kristin introduces readers to the Israeli bartenders, Finnish poker players, sexy Bedouins, and Argentinean priests who helped her transform into "Kristin-Adjacent" on the road–a slower, softer, and, yes, sluttier version of herself at home.

    They are where history ends up.”Bill Bryson and his family live in a Victorian parsonage in a part of England where nothing of any great significance has happened since the Romans decamped. Yet one day, he began to consider how very little he knew about the ordinary things of life as he found it in that comfortable home. To remedy this, he formed the idea of journeying about his house from room to room to “write a history of the world without leaving home.” The bathroom provides the occasion for a history of hygiene; the bedroom, sex, death, and sleep; the kitchen, nutrition and the spice trade; and so on, as Bryson shows how each has figured in the evolution of private life. Whatever happens in the world, he demonstrates, ends up in our house, in the paint and the pipes and the pillows and every item of furniture.(front flap)

    He took her back to his mother's home, and from that first moment, their times together were filled with delight and discovery. Anna had an astonishing ability to ask--and to answer--life's largest questions. Her total openness and honesty amazed all who knew her. She seemed to understand with uncanny certainty the purpose of being, the essence of feeling, the beauty of love. You see, Anna had a very special friendship with Mister God. . . .

    The God who is in charge --2. Not who am I? but whose am I? --3. Where to hang your soul --4. A daughter, not a Son --5. Creation, woman for man --6. Jellyfish and pride --7. The right kind of pride --8. The weight of wings --9. Single life, a gift --10. One day at a time --11. Trust for separation --12. Self discipline and order --13. Whose battle? --14. Freedom through discipline --15. God sets no traps --16. A paradoxical principle --17. Masculine and feminine --18. The soul is feminine --19. Is submission stifling? --20. Twenty questions --21. A choice is a limitation --22. Commitment, gratitude, dependence --23. You marry a sinner --24. You marry a man --25. You marry a husband --26. You marry a person --27. Forsaking all others --28. Dynamic, not static --29. A union --30. A mirror --31. A vocation --32. What makes a marriage work --33. Acceptance of divine order --34. Equality is not a Christian ideal --35. Heirs of grace --36. Proportional equality --37. The humility of ceremony --38. Authority --39. Subordination --40. The restraint of power --41. Strength by constraint --42. Masters of ourselves --43. A universe of harmony --44. Be a real woman --45. The courage of the creator --46. The inner sanctum --47. Loyalty --48. Love is action --49. Love means a cross

    With no distracting verse numbers or stiff, formal language, the 66 books of Scripture unfold like a gripping novel.

    A young preacher from the Pennsylvania hills comes to New York City and influences troubled teenagers with his inspirational message.