In What Love Is, philosopher Carrie Jenkins offers a bold new theory on the nature of romantic love that reconciles its humanistic and scientific components. Love can be a social construct (the idea of a perfect fairy-tale romance) and a physical manifestation (those anxiety-inducing heart palpitations); we must recognize its complexities and decide for ourselves how to love. Motivated by her own polyamorous relationships, she examines the ways in which our parameters of love have recently changed—to be more accepting of homosexual, interracial, and non-monogamous relationships—and how they will continue to evolve in the future. Full of anecdotal, cultural, and scientific reflections on love, What Love Is is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand what it means to say “I love you.” Whether young or old, gay or straight, male or female, polyamorous or monogamous, this book will help each of us decide for ourselves how we choose to love.

    It all comes down to communication and this is one book that has no problem with telling it how it is.

    One story had ended, and Don was unsure how to start another.But he gets rescued by two movie producers who want to make a movie based on his memoir. When they start fictionalizing Don's life for film--changing a meandering memoir into a structured narrative--the real-life Don starts a journey to edit his actual life into a better story. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years details that journey and challenges readers to reconsider what they strive for in life. It shows how to get a second chance at life the first time around.

    Edited by bestselling author Rebecca Walker, this anthology invites us to step into the center of a range of different domestic arrangements and take a good look around. From gay adoption to absentee fathers, from open marriages to green-card marriages, the reality of the American household has altered dramatically over the last three decades. With changing values and expectations, fluid gender roles, and a shifting economy, along with increase in infertility, adoption, and the incidence of mixed-race couples, people across the country are redefining the standard arrangement of family life. In a collection of eighteen honest, personal, and deeply affecting essays from an array of writers, One Big Happy Family offers a fresh look at how contemporary families are adapting to this altering reality. Each writing from the perspective of his or her own unique domestic arrangements and priorities, the authors of these essays explore topics like transracial adoption, bicultural marriage and children, cohousing, equal parenting, and the creation of virtual families. Dan Savage writes about the unexpected responsibilities of open adoption. Jenny Block tells of the pros and cons of her own open marriage. ZZ Packer explores the ramifications of, and her own self-consciousness about, having a mixed-race child. asha bandele writes of her decision to have a child with a man in prison for life. And Min Jin Lee points to the intimacy shared by a mother and her child’s hired caregiver. All of these pieces smartly discuss the various cultural pressures, issues, and realities for families today, in a manner that is inviting and accessible—sometimes humorous, sometimes moving, sometimes shocking, but always fascinating.

    You'll have a blast reading this and then date...or not date anyone because you are living your best single life with new best friend Roberson by your side." - Phoebe Robinson, New York Times bestselling author of You Can't Touch My Hair

    Instead, she discovered she’d been granted an invaluable chance to witness firsthand what she calls the “spiritual work of dying”—the work of finding or making meaning of one’s life, the experiences it’s contained and the people who have touched it, the betrayals, wounds, unfinished business, and unrealized dreams. Instead of talking, she mainly listened: to stories of hope and regret, shame and pride, mystery and revelation and secrets held too long. Most of all, though, she listened as her patients talked about love—love for their children and partners and friends; love they didn’t know how to offer; love they gave unconditionally; love they, sometimes belatedly, learned to grant themselves. This isn’t a book about dying—it’s a book about living. And Egan isn’t just passively bearing witness to these stories. An emergency procedure during the birth of her first child left her physically whole but emotionally and spiritually adrift. Her work as a hospice chaplain healed her, from a brokenness she came to see we all share. Each of her patients taught her something—how to find courage in the face of fear or the strength to make amends; how to be profoundly compassionate and fiercely empathetic; how to see the world in grays instead of black and white. In this poignant, moving, and beautiful book, she passes along all their precious and necessary gifts.

    Based rigorous research with thousands of men, Shaunti delivers one revelation after another , including:- Why your respect means more to him than your love.- How he feels deep inside about his role as provider.- What it means for a man to be so visually "wired."- Why sex for him is primarily emotional, not physical.- What he most wishes he could say to you.

    His life and this book remind us that America remains the land of the brave and generous.” — Tom Brokaw Like many young idealists, Eric Greitens wanted to make a difference, so he traveled to the world’s trouble spots to work in refugee camps and serve the sick and the poor. Yet when innocent civilians were threatened with harm, there was nothing he could do but step in afterward and try to ease the suffering. In studying humanitarianism, he realized a fundamental truth: when an army invades, the weak need protection. So he joined the Navy SEALs and became one of the world’s elite warriors. Greitens led his men through the unforgettable soul-testing of SEAL training and went on to deployments in Kenya, Afghanistan, and Iraq, where he faced harrowing encounters and brutal attacks. Yet even in the deadliest combat situations, the lessons of his humanitarian work bore fruit. At the heart of this powerful story lies a paradox: sometimes you have to be strong to do good, but you also have to do good to be strong. The heart and the fist together are more powerful than either one alone. “If you're restless or itching for some calling you can't name, read this book. Give it to your son and daughter. The Heart and the Fist epitomizes — as does Mr. Greitens's life, present and future — all that is best in this country, and what we need desperately right now.” — Steven Pressfield, author of Gates of Fire “Vivid and compelling . . . a great read.” — Washington Times A Hudson Booksellers Top Ten Nonfiction Book of the Year A USA Today and Publishers Weekly Bestseller WITH A NEW AFTERWORD

    So where is it? Well, for reasons this book makes crystal clear, that pill will never exist—but as a result of the research that’s gone into it, scientists in the last few years have learned more about how women’s sexuality works than we ever thought possible, and Come as You Are explains it all.The first lesson in this essential, transformative book by Dr. Emily Nagoski is that every woman has her own unique sexuality, like a fingerprint, and that women vary more than men in our anatomy, our sexual response mechanisms, and the way our bodies respond to the sexual world. So we never need to judge ourselves based on others’ experiences. Because women vary, and that’s normal.Second lesson: sex happens in a context. And all the complications of everyday life influence the context surrounding a woman’s arousal, desire, and orgasm. Cutting-edge research across multiple disciplines tells us that the most important factor for women in creating and sustaining a fulfilling sex life, is not what you do in bed or how you do it, but how you feel about it. Which means that stress, mood, trust, and body image are not peripheral factors in a woman’s sexual wellbeing; they are central to it. Once you understand these factors, and how to influence them, you can create for yourself better sex and more profound pleasure than you ever thought possible.And Emily Nagoski can prove it.

    As a result, romantic hopes are often replaced with disappointment in the home. But it doesn’t have to stay that way.The Love Dare, as featured in the popular new movie Fireproof (from the makers of Facing the Giants), is a 40-day challenge for husbands and wives to understand and practice unconditional love. Whether your marriage is hanging by a thread or healthy and strong, The Love Dare is a journey you need to take. It’s time to learn the keys to finding true intimacy and developing a dynamic marriage. Take the dare!

    The connection is electric. They fall in love, marry and have amazing sex. Soon there are children, and then grandchildren. They grow old, loving one another for the rest of their lives. What’s wrong with this picture? Absolutely nothing, if you are one of the relatively small group of people whose lives work out this way.What’s wrong is that we’ve defined this as “normal,” which makes most of us “abnormal.”In The New Sex, Dr. Chris Donaghue describes the holes in society’s definition of “normal,” taking a sharp eye to institutions such as marriage, cheating, virginity, identity, and sexual orientation. He also examines all the ways that accepting society’s “truths” have led to the demise of long-term relationships and sexual pleasure. All of this misinformation is showing up in your bedroom and preventing you from having the sex life you’re entitled to.In Donaghue’s years of training in sex and couples therapy, he has developed highly successful methods for freeing clients from sexual hang-ups, enabling them to let go of shame and embarrassment. Donaghue pulls apart cultural phobias with a “sex positive” therapy practice, a kind of sexual deprograming that helps people see and accept the desires they have—even if they don’t align with societal expectations—are really natural, healthy, and part of having a great sex life.

    In His Needs, Her Needs, Willard Harley identifies the ten most vital needs of men and women and shows husbands and wives how to satisfy those needs in their spouses. He provides guidance for becoming irresistible to your spouse and for loving more creatively and sensitively, thereby eliminating the problems that often lead to extramarital affairs. The revised anniversary edition of His Needs, Her Needs is a celebration of how the book has helped thousands of couples revitalize their marriages during the last fifteen years. This best-seller identifies the causes of marital difficulties and instructs couples on how to prevent them, guiding them to build a relationship that sustains romance and increases intimacy. With today's soaring divorce rate and prevalence of affairs, Harley's insights are needed more than ever before.An unabridged recording of His Needs, Her Needs, the 15th anniversary edition, is now available as an audio book.

    This book is about them, the so-called "mole people" living alone and in communities, in the frescoed waiting rooms of long-forgotten subway tunnels and in pick-axed compartments below busway platforms. It is about how and why people move underground, who they are, and what they have to say about their lives and the treacherous "topside" world they've left behind. There are even the voices of young children taken down to the tunnels by parents who are determined to keep their families together, although as one tunnel dweller explains, "once you go down there, you can't be a child anymore." Though they maintain an existence hidden from the world aboveground, tunnel dwellers form a large and growing sector of the homeless population. They are a diverse group, and they choose to live underground for many reasonssome rejecting society and its values, others reaffirming those values in what they view as purer terms, and still others seeking shelter from the harsh conditions on the streets. Their enemies include government agencies and homeless organizations as well as wandering crack addicts and marauding gangs. In communities underground, however, many homeless people find not only a place but also an identity. On these pages Jennifer Toth visits underground New York with various straight-talking guides, from outreach workers and transit police to vetern tunnel dwellers, graffiti artists, and even the "mayor" of a large, highly structured community several levels down. In addition to chilling and poignant firsthand accounts of tunnel life, she describes the fascinating and labryrinthine physical world beneath the city and discusses the literary allusions and historical points of view that prejudice our culture against those who "go underground". Toth has gained unprecedented access to a strange and frightening world, but The Mole People is not a daredevil jo

    Having finally slipped into the mainstream - on MTV, Boston Legal, Entourage, magazines, movies, and just about every respectable blog - sexuality historian and threesome dabbler Victoria Vantoch offers practical and humorous advice on our most popular fantasy. Featured in The Threesome Handbook: - The perks of three: hotter sex, more love - Strategies to prevent freak-outs, jealousy, and general messiness - How to find the perfect third - Discovering your inner queer - When a ménage turns into love - how to create a successful triad relationship - Communication skills for couples - Knowing when to break it off - And much, much more. Drawing on personal experience, historical research, advice from pros, and hundreds of interviews with veteran and novice threesome adventurers, Vantoch covers the gamut of possibilities in threesome sex and triad relationships. The Threesome Handbook is the essential road map for couples and singles to explore new territory or just spice things up in the sack.

    In a raw, first-person account, Waite recounts each heartbreaking discovery, every life-destroying lie, and reveals what happens once the dust finally settles on her demolished marriage.After a disturbing email sparks Waite's suspicion that her husband is having an affair, she tries to uncover the truth and rebuild trust in her marriage. Instead, she finds more lies, infidelity, and betrayal than she could have imagined. Waite obsessively analyzes her relationship, trying to find a single moment from the last five years that isn't part of the long-con of lies and manipulation. With a dual-timeline narrative structure, we see Waite's romance bud, bloom, and wither simultaneously, making the heartbreak and disbelief even more affecting.