But the true saga of her life has never been fully told. Now, drawing on unpublished manuscripts, letters, diaries, and land and financial records, Caroline Fraser—the editor of the Library of America edition of the Little House series—masterfully fills in the gaps in Wilder’s biography. Revealing the grown-up story behind the most influential childhood epic of pioneer life, she also chronicles Wilder's tumultuous relationship with her journalist daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, setting the record straight regarding charges of ghostwriting that have swirled around the books.The Little House books, for all the hardships they describe, are paeans to the pioneer spirit, portraying it as triumphant against all odds. But Wilder’s real life was harder and grittier than that, a story of relentless struggle, rootlessness, and poverty. It was only in her sixties, after losing nearly everything in the Great Depression, that she turned to children’s books, recasting her hardscrabble childhood as a celebratory vision of homesteading—and achieving fame and fortune in the process, in one of the most astonishing rags-to-riches episodes in American letters.Spanning nearly a century of epochal change, from the Indian Wars to the Dust Bowl, Wilder’s dramatic life provides a unique perspective on American history and our national mythology of self-reliance. With fresh insights and new discoveries, Prairie Fires reveals the complex woman whose classic stories grip us to this day.WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZEWINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDWINNER OF THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE HEARTLAND PRIZE FOR NON-FICTIONONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAROne of The New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of the YearThe first comprehensive historical biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the beloved author of the Little House on the Prairie books

    Written in an autobiographical style with beautiful artwork, Little Fish shows the challenges of being a young person facing the world on her own for the very first time and the unease—as well as excitement—that comes along with that challenge.

    With full-color photo essays, the author guides readers past good taste, sense and even logic into the magical, mayhem-ridden world known as his life.

    He has two Netflix comedy specials: DARK, a brilliant, laugh-out-loud meditation on our relationship with death; and Jigsaw, which needles apart the ideas of love, romantic relationships, and marriage–and according to Sloss, singlehandedly caused 160 divorces and 95,000 break-ups (he’s got the tweets to back up those numbers). His HBO special, Daniel Sloss Live: X, is a miraculous 85 minutes on the topic of male toxicity.Now, in his first book, he picks up where Jigsaw and his other specials left off, and goes after every conceivable kind of relationship–with one’s country (Daniel’s is Scotland), with America, with lovers, ex-lovers, ex-lovers who you hate, ex-lovers who hate you, with parents, with best friends (male and female), not-best friends, with children, and with siblings. In Everyone You Hate Is Going to Die, every relationship gets the hilarious, brutal (but always incisive) Sloss treatment as he explains why all of our relationships are fragile and ridiculous and awful–but, just maybe, also valuable and meaningful.

    This "rueful, riveting, piercingly funny" (Julia Cameron) book is written by a Harvard graduate--but it tells a story in which hearts trump brains every time. It's a tale about mothering a Down syndrome child that opts for sass over sap, and it's a book of heavenly visions and inexplicable phenomena that's as down-to-earth as anyone could ask for. This small masterpiece is Martha Beck's own story--of leaving behind the life of a stressed-out superachiever, opening herself to things she'd never dared consider, meeting her son for (maybe) the first time...and "unlearn[ing] virtually everything Harvard taught [her] about what is precious and what is garbage.""Beck [is] very funny, particularly about the most serious possible subjects--childbirth, angels and surviving at Harvard." --New York Times Book Review"Immensely appealing...hooked me on the first page and propelled me right through visions and out-of-body experiences I would normally scoff at." --Detroit Free Press"I challenge any reader not to be moved by it." --Newsday"Brilliant." --Minneapolis Star-Tribune

    For these two teenagers - brother and sister, black and white - the 1980s were a trial by fire.In this memoir, Scheeres takes us from the familiar Midwest, a land of cottonwood trees and trailer parks, to a place beyond her imagining. At home, the Scheeres kids must endure the usual trials of adolescence - high-school hormones, incessant bullying, and the deep-seated restlessness of social misfits everywhere - under the shadow of virulent racism neither knows how to contend with. When they start to crack (or fight back), they are packed off to Escuela Caribe. This brutal, prison-like "Christian boot camp" demands that its inhabitants repent for their sins - sins that few of them are aware of having committed. Julia and David's determination to make it though with heart and soul intact is told here with immediacy, candor, sparkling humor, and not an ounce of malice. Jesus Land is, on every page, a keenly moving ode to the sustaining power of love, and rebellion, and the dream of a perfect family.

    Catherine Porter, a newly minted international reporter, was on the ground in the immediate aftermath. Moments after she arrived in Haiti, Catherine found her first story. A ragtag group of volunteers told her about a “miracle child”—a two-year-old girl who had survived six days under the rubble and emerged virtually unscathed.Catherine found the girl the next day. Her family was a mystery; her future uncertain. Her name was Lovely. She seemed a symbol of Haiti—both hopeful and despairing.When Catherine learned that Lovely had been reunited with her family, she did what any journalist would do and followed the story. The cardinal rule of journalism is to remain objective and not become personally involved in the stories you report. But Catherine broke that rule on the last day of her second trip to Haiti. That day, Catherine made the simple decision to enroll Lovely in school and to pay for it with money she and her readers donated.Over the next five years, Catherine would visit Lovely and her family seventeen times, while also reporting on the country’s struggles to harness the rush of international aid. Each trip, Catherine’s relationship with Lovely and her family became more involved and more complicated. Trying to balance her instincts as a mother and a journalist, and increasingly conscious of the costs involved, Catherine found herself struggling to align her worldview with the realities of Haiti after the earthquake. Although her dual roles as donor and journalist were constantly at odds, as one piled up expectations and the other documented failures, a third role had emerged and quietly become the most important: that of a friend.A Girl Named Lovely is about the reverberations of a single decision—in Lovely’s life and in Catherine’s. It recounts a journalist’s voyage into the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, hit by the greatest natural disaster in modern history, and the fraught, messy realities of international aid. It is about hope, kindness, heartbreak, and the modest but meaningful difference one person can make.

    Now they must empty and sell the beloved family home, which hasn't been de-cluttered in more than half a century. Twenty-three rooms bulge with history, antiques, and oxygen tanks. Plum remembers her loving but difficult parents who could not have been more different: the British father, a handsome, disciplined patriarch who nonetheless could not control his opinionated,extroverted Southern-belle wife who loved tennis and gin gimlets. The task consumes her, becoming more rewarding than she ever imagined. Items from childhood trigger memories of her eccentric family growing up in a small town on the shores of Lake Ontario in the 1950's and 60's. But unearthing new facts about her parents helps her reconcile those relationships with a more accepting perspective about who they were and what they valued.They Left Us Everything is a funny, touching memoir about the importance of preserving family history to make sense of the past and nurturing family bonds to safeguard the future.

    For the next fifteen years, Beija would be the one constant in her life. Through depression, relationships gone awry, and an unmoored young adulthood played out against the backdrop of the Portland punk scene, Beija was there, wearing her “Don’t Pet Me” bandana.   Georges’s gorgeous graphic novel Fetch chronicles their symbiotic, codependent relationship and probes what it means to care for and be responsible to another living thing—a living thing that occasionally lunges at toddlers. Nicole turns to vets, dog whisperers, and even a pet psychic for help, but it is the moments of accommodation, adaption, and compassion that sustain them. Nicole never successfully taught Beija “sit,” but in the end, Beija taught Nicole how to stay.

    It's all here: the Bakker family's public disgrace, the fall of the PTL (Praise The Lord) media empire, and Bakker's subsequent plunge into a morass of anxiety and selfdestruction. But Son of a Preacher Man is more than a tell-all -- it is a story that dramatizes the human toll of this tragedy on the Bakker family, with insight into the seismic shifts that nearly destroyed his father and wrecked his parents' longtime marriage. It is the story of a prodigal son's return to the true meaning of God's love and acceptance. It is the story of a boy who was lost, but on the journey back from ruin finds a better way to understand and live life. It is the story of discovering God's grace and of becoming a man.Despite years of disillusionment, alcoholism, and heartbreak, Bakker managed to continue on his spiritual quest. First he worked to redeem his father...then his faith. Bakker began his service with Revolution, a ministry for skateboarders, punk rockers, and hippiesthe street kids he knew best. He shared the message that saved his life -- the message of Jesus that God's love is infinitely generous. Now Bakker has a large and growing ministry among the tattooed and pierced of downtown Atlanta who feel rejected by the traditional Church yet flock to hear his message of grace and love.Ultimately, Son of a Preacher Man is a story about resurrection -- of one lost young man, of his disgraced and imprisoned father, and of the hope that can't be destroyed by the machinations of power-hungry preachers, The long, lonely road that Bakker traveled taught him that you can't earn or make yourself worthy of the love of God, but if you are willing to let go and open up, that infinite love is waiting to welcome you home with open arms.

    Finally allowing herself to be vulnerable enough to open up to others, she learned that it’s worth risking possible rejection for a chance at genuine relationships.Ultimately, it was Amy’s faith, as well as the support and encouragement of her community of loving family and good friends, that saw her through the dark times and allowed her to realize her greatest dreams and beyond. Amy’s memoir is an inspiring and at times heart-wrenching account of resilience and the strength of the human spirit to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

    Women are making massive strides in gender equality, edging out men as the new majority in the workforce. But, because of their brief window for childbearing, this also means a drastically shifting paradigm for motherhood and family planning. In this 2nd edition, Lehmann-Haupt has updated the inspiring, honest account of her own efforts to reconcile modern love with modern life with the latest medical research. In Her Own Sweet Time will resonate with a generation of young women who want it all—career, family, and the perfect partner— but haven’t yet figured out how it all fits together. Join Lehmann-Haupt as she interviews women and travels the world to explore and understand the new frontiers of family.

    . . racial complications, vast sums of money made and lost, the return of the prodigal son, and maybe even bloody murder."In lyrical prose and startlingly revealing photographs, she crafts a totally original form of personal history that has the page-turning drama of a great novel but is firmly rooted in the fertile soil of her own life.

    But no matter where she was transplanted--no matter how awkward the fit or forbidding the landscape--she was able to turn to our world's fierce and funny creatures for guidance."What the peacock can do," she tells us, "is remind you of a home you will run away from and run back to all your life." The axolotl teaches us to smile, even in the face of unkindness; the touch-me-not plant shows us how to shake off unwanted advances; the narwhal demonstrates how to survive in hostile environments. Even in the strange and the unlovely, Nezhukumatathil finds beauty and kinship. For it is this way with wonder: it requires that we are curious enough to look past the distractions in order to fully appreciate the world's gifts.Warm, lyrical, and gorgeously illustrated by Fumi Nakamura, World of Wonders is a book of sustenance and joy.

    What unfolds in this best-selling memoir is a hilarious, heartbreaking love story that sees eldercare and making peace with the past in a most unexpected way. Bonus material includes an author Q&A, Mama Jo's Favorite Cookie award-winning recipe, caregiving tips, discussion questions, and links to the trailer and short film "The Doll Dilemma" by Jacob Rosdail. Suitable for age 15+