The life and times of a girl who has always loved animals, or how I went from dreaming about Rin Tin Tin to having dogs, cats, chickens, fish, cattle, turkeys, and guinea fowl, with guest appearances by horses, lions, and canaries.

    Now she’s distilled what she’s learned about how to live a more exhilarating and meaningful life into three words: find the good. It’s that simple--and that hard. Quirky and profound, individual and universal, Find the Good offers up short chapters that help us unlearn the habit--and it is a habit--of seeing only the negatives. Lende reminds us that we can choose to see any event--starting a new job or being laid off from an old one, getting married or getting divorced--as an opportunity to find the good. As she says, “We are all writing our own obituary every day by how we live. The best news is that there’s still time for additions and revisions before it goes to press.” Ever since Algonquin published her first book, the New York Times bestseller If You Lived Here, I’d Know Your Name, Heather Lende has been praised for her storytelling talent and her plainspoken wisdom. The Los Angeles Times called her “part Annie Dillard, part Anne Lamott,” and that comparison has never been more apt as she gives us a fresh, positive perspective from which to view our relationships, our obligations, our priorities, our community, and our world. An antidote to the cynicism and self-centeredness that we are bombarded with every day in the news, in our politics, and even at times in ourselves, Find the Good helps us rediscover what’s right with the world. “Heather Lende’s small town is populated with big hearts--she finds them  on the beach, walking her granddaughters, in the stories of ordinary peoples’ lives, and knits them into unforgettable tales. Find the Good is a treasure.” —Jo-Ann Mapson, author of Owen’s Daughter “Find the Good is excellent company in unsteady times . . . Heather Lende is the kind of person you want to sit across the kitchen table from on a rainy afternoon with a bottomless cup of tea. When things go wrong, when things go right, her quiet, commonsense wisdom, self-examining frankness, and good-natured humor offer a chance to reset, renew, rebalance.”  —Pam Houston, author of Contents May Have Shifted “With gentle humor and empathy [Lende] introduces a number of people who provide examples of how to live well . . . [Find the Good] is simple yet profound.”  —Booklist “In this cynical world, Find the Good is a tonic, a literary wellspring, which will continue to run, and nurture, even in times of drought. What a brave and beautiful thing Heather Lende has made with this book.” —John Straley, Shamus Award winner and former writer laureate of Alaska “Heather Lende is a terrific writer and terrific company: intimate, authentic, and as quirky as any of her subjects.” —Marilyn Johnson, author of The Dead Beat

    She croons over sweatpants. She finds the secret cause of romantic obsession. She hates Rush Limbaugh. She finds the hilarity in feminism. She shops for a new city for us to live in, away from Bible-thumping homophobes but near some trees. She finds romantic tranquility and gets bored. And her love affair with dogs gets to the point where we may have to perform an intervention.

    The Freedom Manifesto is an erudite, witty, and useful manual for anyone who wants to look after themselves and take responsibility for their own lives. Hodgkinson advises lowering personal standards, learning the guitar, cooperating with neighbors, throwing away credit cards, and embracing poverty. Peppered throughout are insights from such great minds as Rousseau, Ken Kesey, Nietzsche, and many others that reveal the secret happiness found in a free mind.

    And that s what makes being dumped by a woman friend so excruciating: you expect romantic relationships to break up eventually but you don t expect it from your friendships. And when it happens, you feel as though there should be an Adele song for you but there isn t. Dumped: Women Unfriending Women fills that void, exploring the universal experience of being discarded by those from whom you expected more. The essays in Dumped aren t stories of friendship dying a mutually agreed upon death, or of falling out of touch and reconnecting years later to find you haven t missed a beat. These are stories by established and emerging authors who, like you, may have found themselves erased, without context. These, like your own, are stories that stay with you, maybe for a lifetime."

    The essays in How to Ruin Everything range from the absurd (how he became an international ivory smuggler) to the comical (his middle-school rap battle dominance) to the revelatory (his experiences with epilepsy), yet all are delivered with the type of linguistic dexterity and self-awareness that has won Watsky more than 765,000 YouTube subscribers. Alternately ribald and emotionally resonant, How to Ruin Everything announces a versatile writer with a promising career ahead.

    The author takes readers there, in a thrilling psychological read. Sequestered where bizarre cult-like techniques become the norm, see for yourself exactly what the controversy is about. Should we mold a child's behavior using the tools of brainwashing? With coarse, brutal dialog and authentic source materials, this nonfiction memoir, the first in a series, exposes the secrets and tells it all. Dead, Insane, or in Jail: A CEDU Memoir is named for the range of options open to the author at 14, if he ran away from the cult his parents inadvertently inducted him into. This is the first time he has told his story. And it’s a doozy. Too many people can relate to this account, unfortunately. Although Rocky Mountain Academy has closed its doors, several hundred residential teen-treatment programs, religious reeducation camps, and places that commit spiritual assassination still operate without oversight in the United States. Imagine (or remember) being a confused teenager. Now imagine that the only solution your parents can devise is sending you away to be “fixed.” Zack’s touching, true account of being trapped in the “scared straight” industry just might be the book your reluctant teenage reader has been seeking. Barbara J. Danis Literacy Specialist / Coach Zack Bonnie’s work is a gift to those interested in the history and dynamics of coercive residential teen-treatment programs. With gut-level insight, humor and frankness, he describes the inner experience of a precocious 14 year-old who was engulfed and overwhelmed by these bizarre, yet legal, forms of psychological abuse. Marcus Chatfield, Author, Institutionalized Persuasion It is sad the abuse of teenagers to tough love programs by mis-informed parents and politicians did not end with the revelations concerning the concept originator Synanon. To be stopped eventually, stories like this must keep being told. Paul Morantz, Esq. Author, Escape: My Life Long War Against Cults It’s often hard to describe how traumatic and damaging “troubled teen” programs for young people are. This important perspective from someone who lived it offers a vivid portrait of hell that is sold as therapy. Maia Szalavitz Author, Help At Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids In the tradition of Darkness At Noon, Zack’s history puts the reader into the life that too many “survivors” experienced, and he does this in a finely crafted page-turner. Philip Elberg, Esq. Zack Bonnie’s memoir is a riveting tale of shame, intimidation, coercion, and frank abuse in the name of “treatment.” The continued existence of programs like CEDU should be considered a national disgrace. Christopher Bellonci, MD Zack Bonnie’s book sheds light on the larger concerns of many families, then and now. Well-meaning parents are vulnerable to programs like Rocky Mountain Academy. Although it was closed years ago, many more such facilities have been established. These schools and programs take good money from families, and harm their children, all the while masquerading as therapy programs. I join Zack in advocating for regulation and reform so that facilities like RMA can no longer manipulate and harm entire families. Robin C Bernhard, LCSW, MEd, BCN Thank you, Zack. Your book succeeds on so many levels – as autobiography, as social criticism, as just a good story – I hope you make a million dollars. John Bodine, Rocky Mountain Academy Alumnus In the years of composing DIJ it became clear that there was lack of detailed information from the inside, and from a young person's point of view, that would ever be considered accurate. I wanted to close the gap and disrupt the secrecy. I wanted to document, in the most realistic way that words would allow, my memories of the time I was at RMA. Zack Bonnie, Author, Dead, Insane, or in Jail: A CEDU Memoir

     It took college freshman Aaron Karo only one week to realize that college was a joke -- an especially funny one that he could share with his friends in a regular email newsletter about life on campus. By his senior year, Ruminations on College Life had become an international phenomenon. Now, for the first time in print, here is the best of the original ezine, previously unpublished material, and brand new introductions to each section by the author. Share in the absurdity and insanity of the college experience with Karo as you read his outrageous inside account of scheming students, crazy professors, confused parents, and rowdy frat boys. Perfect for anyone who is destined for college, currently surviving it, or already a veteran, this book is a cult classic readers can enjoy alone or read out loud at their next party for tons of laughs.

    Straight-talking, honest and with touches of humour, Shelley Wilson shares her journey as she sets out to prove that being a 40-something, single mum with back fat and grey hairs isn't the end of life as we know it.From fighting flab to writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days, Shelley covers a wide variety of themes as she tackles twelve challenges in twelve months.Packed with affirmations, tips, steps and links, How I Changed My Life in a Year will keep you motivated for the year to come and beyond.Based on the popular Resolution Challenge blog, Shelley shows how one year can change your life.

      But things don’t go quite as expected. Once in Bali, she finds that her beloved yoga teacher and all of her yogamates wake up every morning to drink a large, steaming mug…of their own urine. Sugar is a mortal sin. Spirits inhabit kitchen appliances. And the more she tries to find her higher self, the more she faces her cynical, egomaniacal, cigarette-, wine-, and chocolate-craving lower self.  Yoga Bitch chronicles Suzanne’s hilarious adventures and misadventures as an aspiring yogi who might be just a bit too skeptical to drink the Kool-Aid. But along the way she discovers that no spiritual effort is wasted; even if her yoga retreat doesn’t turn her into the gorgeously calm, wise believer she hopes it will, it does plant seeds that continue to blossom in surprising ways over the next decade of her life.suzannemorrison.blogspot.com

    She fretted about everything. Her age. Her size. Her romantic prospects. How likely it was that she would get hit by a bus on the way home. Until a couple years ago, when, in her mid-forties, she decided to fight back against her debilitating anxieties by spending a year doing little things that scared her--things that the average person might consider doing for a half second before deciding: "nope." Things like: attending a fellatio class. She did that. She also spent an afternoon in a sensory deprivation tank, got (legally) high in the middle of a workday, had a session with a professional cuddler, braved twenty-eight first dates, and (perhaps scariest of all) actually met someone who might possibly appreciate her for who she is.

    8 pages of illustrations.