So much of modern-day diplomacy still takes place behind closed doors, away from cameras and prying eyes. So what does this vital role really look like in today’s world -and what does it take to do it well?

From 2009 to 2014, Cathy Ashton was the EU’s first High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security, effectively Europe's foreign policy supremo responsible for coordinating the EU's response to international crises. Arriving in Brussels as a relative novice to international diplomacy, she faced the challenge of representing the views and values of 28 nations during one of the most turbulent times in living memory. Decades-old certainties were swept away in days. Hope rose and fell, often in a matter of hours.

From the frozen conflict of Ukraine to the Serbia-Kosovo deal, there were challenges, failures and moments of success. She encountered dictators and war criminals, and witnessed the aftermath of natural disasters, military action, and political instability. Working with US politicians and counterparts including John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and Bill Burns, she negotiated historic settlements, such as the Iran nuclear deal. An ‘honest broker’, she navigated the needs of opposing politicians to chart a path towards collaboration and stability.

Now Ashton takes us behind the scenes to show us what worked and what didn’t, and how it felt to be in ‘the room where it happened’. From Serbia to Somalia, Libya to Haiti, she offers essential insight into how modern diplomacy works, examining the tools needed to find our way through the many challenges we face today.

‘A riveting, absorbing account of modern diplomacy by one of the greatest international diplomats of recent times’ General David Petraeus (US Army, Ret.), former Director of the CIA

‘If generations of Earthlings-to-be do indeed engage in cosmic negotiations with other lifeforms, it will be because of the success of Cathy and her diplomatic compatriots in bringing us to realise we are Earth-life, together.’ Rusty Schweickart, Apollo 9 astronaut

‘A must for students of politics and a treat for lovers of general non-fiction.’ Misha Glenny, Rector of the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna, and author of McMafia

‘riveting, deeply personal and wonderfully accessible’ Sir Kim Darroch, former British Ambassador to the USA, National Security Advisor, and UK Permanent Representative to the EU

‘Catherine Ashton’s gripping memoirs are not only a perfect combination of very precise facts and touching personal emotions, but for all foreign policy observers they convey important lessons of the past to serve for the crises of today.’ Pierre Vimont, former French ambassador to the EU and the USA

Was Lee Harvey Oswald a patsy, the fall guy in a sinister plot to assassinate President John F. Kennedy? Was Oswald the lone nut assassin like the Warren Commission claimed him to be? Tom Regan didn't believe the Warren Commission report, but he couldn't dispute their findings without having any tangible proof, evidence that Oswald had a double and he was caught up in a vast conspiracy. 593 Minutes

Social media stars of @WhatAboutBunny, Alexis Devine and Bunny the "talking" dog, deliver a memoir loaded with wit and passion for animals, as well as the vulnerability and authenticity of a woman who learned to take care of herself by learning to talk to her dogWhen Bunny, a fluffy, black-and-white sheepadoodle, was eight weeks old, her guardian Alexis presented her with an odd gift: a button programed to say "outside" when pressed. Within a few weeks, Bunny was using it all the time and Alexis, encouraged by Bunny's progress, continued to introduce more buttons and more words . . .Three years later, Bunny can now communicate using over one hundred buttons, stringing together important, relatable, philosophical phrases such as "Love you Mom," "Dad went poop," and "Ugh why?" In I Am Bunny, a memoir in essays and beautiful, full-color photographs, Alexis chronicles not only how Bunny learned to "talk," but also the profound impact their journey has had on her life. Caring for Bunny has revealed to Alexis a path to self-acceptance, if not complete self-love, and as their relationship developed and their ability to communicate deepened, Alexis was able to reflect on and reframe her past traumas in a newly vulnerable and healing way. Helping Bunny through her fear and reactivity allowed Alexis to examine these qualities in herself, and as she created a safe space for Bunny, she too found space for her own healing.Through charming anecdotes about day-to-day life with Bunny, explorations into prior animal language studies, and plenty of irreverent humor, daring, and heart, Alexis tells the story of how she and Bunny have become so inspiringly close, and explores the ancient and unique bond between dog and guardian that so many of us know leads to a deeper, more meaningful life.

Skateboarder and Jackass star Brandon Novak comes clean about his crazy rise to fame, tailspin into addiction, and other death-defying stunts on the road to recovery ...At seven, Brandon was a skateboard prodigy. By the time he was fourteen, he was living the dream. Discovered by skate legends Bucky Lasek and Tony Hawk. Touring the US with the elite Powell-Peralta team. Signing autographs and appearing in films and magazines. Brandon had it all. Then he got hooked on heroin.Soon the up-and-coming star was living a down-and-out life in a garage, begging for change, and hustling to score his next fix. He stole from his family and friends. He pushed the fantasy that everything was okay, that he was going to rehab, getting help, and getting better. But it was all a lie.This is the story of an addict-a dreamseller who stopped believing the lies he was selling and started believing in himself. With the help of his celebrity buddy Bam Margera of Jackass fame, Brandon joined the cast of MTV's Viva La Bam and made an honest reach for sobriety. The road was hard, and he had some falls. But like any great skateboarder, Brandon Novak was always determined to get up again.

Skateboarder and Jackass star Brandon Novak comes clean about his crazy rise to fame, tailspin into addiction, and other death-defying stunts on the road to recovery ...At seven, Brandon was a skateboard prodigy. By the time he was fourteen, he was living the dream. Discovered by skate legends Bucky Lasek and Tony Hawk. Touring the US with the elite Powell-Peralta team. Signing autographs and appearing in films and magazines. Brandon had it all. Then he got hooked on heroin.Soon the up-and-coming star was living a down-and-out life in a garage, begging for change, and hustling to score his next fix. He stole from his family and friends. He pushed the fantasy that everything was okay, that he was going to rehab, getting help, and getting better. But it was all a lie.This is the story of an addict-a dreamseller who stopped believing the lies he was selling and started believing in himself. With the help of his celebrity buddy Bam Margera of Jackass fame, Brandon joined the cast of MTV's Viva La Bam and made an honest reach for sobriety. The road was hard, and he had some falls. But like any great skateboarder, Brandon Novak was always determined to get up again.

The moving memoir of a scientist coming of age as an immigrant in America who finds her calling at the forefront of the AI revolution.Wired called Dr. Fei-Fei Li "one of a tiny group of scientists-a group perhaps small enough to fit around a kitchen table-who are responsible for AI's recent remarkable advances."Known to the world as the creator of ImageNet, a key catalyst of modern artificial intelligence, Dr. Li has spent more than two decades at the forefront of the field. But her career in science was improbable from the start. As immigrants, her family faced a difficult transition from China's middle class to American poverty. And their lives were made all the harder as they struggled to care for her ailing mother, who was working tirelessly to help them all gain a foothold in their new land.Fei-Fei's adolescent knack for physics endured, however, and positioned her to make a crucial contribution to the breakthrough we now call AI, placing her at the center of a global transformation. Over the last decades, her work has brought her face-to-face with the extraordinary possibilities-and the extraordinary dangers-of the technology she loves.The Worlds I See is a story of science in the first person, documenting one of the century's defining moments from the inside. It provides a riveting story of a scientist at work and a thrillingly clear explanation of what artificial intelligence actually is-and how it came to be. Emotionally raw and intellectually uncompromising, this audiobook is a testament not only to the passion required for even the most technical scholarship but also to the curiosity forever at its heart.A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books.

A beautiful illustrated memoir from beloved Australian musician Kate Ceberano, featuring her inspirational song lyrics, stories, paintings and embroidery, and celebrating four decades of songwriting and recording on the release of her 30th album. Kate Ceberano is used to a hush descending as she draws breath to release that magnificent voice but when the whole world quietened in 2020, she found the silence disorientating. Without an audience or long hours of travel with her tribe of musicians, there was time to think. But what does an artist do when they can't make art? They find a way. With characteristic passion, abundance and joy, Kate liberated her unsung songs. They flowed through her paintbrush as she embellished guitars, her needle as she stitched quilts to envelop her beloveds and her pen as she unfurled stories, poems and songs. In Unsung Kate muses on the people and experiences that have inspired her, on what has humbled her, what hurts and what sustains. This is the story of a powerful woman in her prime, but also of a reflective, romantic and vulnerable artist making sense of the universe. It's proof of a lifetime lived in music. It's a tribute to songs, wherever they come from and wherever they go.

G.I. Gurdjieff allows the reader in these narratives to become acquainted with a person that is up to this day to many, who have for instance read his "Beelzebub", still an enigma. You will meet a person, who is more often than not, as the esteemed Mulla Nassr Edin would say "into the deepest galoshes that have ever been worn on sweaty feet." In other words, you will meet G.I. Gurdjieff, the human being. The spiritual messages are hidden inside breathtaking adventures and a colorful description of really remarkable men and women and the time before and after the Russian Revolution.

Pull up a chair and gather in close with entrepreneur and content creator Kristin Johns as she shares her best-kept secrets: mouthwatering recipes, design inspiration, and ways we all can grow, celebrate, and find nourishment in every season of life. Kristin Johns long dreamed of putting together a book of favorite recipes, ideas for interiors, and reflections on faith, family, and love. Growing Seasons is a collection of stories, recipes, and inspiration that encourages us to step into each day with courage and authenticity, and to embrace every season of life.Just as each monthhas its own specific character, each season of life has its own unique challenges and opportunities, all with valuable life lessons to teach us. Walking through the calendar year from January to December, the book's twelve chapters feature:Kristin's favorite recipes like Christmas Morning Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls, CeCe's Famous Cajun Gumbo, a Sunny Citrus Kale Salad and, of course, Kristin's famous Chocolate Chunk Cookie recipeCreative projects such as Rustic Hand Dyed Linens, DIY Lavender Blue Tansy Skin Serum, and five easy tricks to minimize clutter and maximize coziness at homeFun ideas to entertain and connect with others through Summer Getaway Essentials and a guide to movie night at home complete with homemade pizza and caramel cornWhether you're looking for adventure or a chill night at home, Growing Seasons will meet you where you are and inspire where you are going.Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Brought to you by Penguin.

The seven rules to follow to realise your true purpose in life-distilled by Arnold Schwarzenegger from his own journey of ceaseless reinvention and extraordinary achievement, and available for absolutely anyone.

The world's greatest bodybuilder.
The world's highest paid movie star.
The leader of the world's sixth largest economy.

That these are the same person sounds like the setup to a joke. But this is no joke. This is Arnold Schwarzenegger. And this did not happen by accident.

Arnold's stratospheric success happened as part of a process. As the result of clear vision, big thinking, hard work, direct communication, resilient problem-solving, open-minded curiosity, and a commitment to giving back. All of it guided by the one lesson Arnold's father hammered into him above all: be useful. As Arnold conquered every realm he entered, he kept his father's adage close to his heart.

Written with his uniquely earnest, blunt, powerful voice, BE USEFUL takes readers on an inspirational tour through Arnold's toolkit for a meaningful life. Arnold shows us how to put those tools to work, in service of whatever fulfilling future we can dream up for ourselves. He brings his insights to vivid life with compelling personal stories, life-changing successes and life-threatening failures alike--some of them famous, some told here for the first time ever.

Too many of us struggle to disconnect from our self-pity and connect to our purpose. At an early age, Arnold forged the mental tools to build the ladder out of the poverty and narrow-mindedness of his rural Austrian hometown, tools he used to add rung after rung from there. Now he has shared that wisdom with all of us. As he puts it, no one is going to come rescue you -- you only have yourself. The good news, it turns out, is that you are all you need. (c)2023 Arnold Schwarzenegger (P)2023 Penguin Audio

';Rachel beautifully illustrates that loving fiercely and grieving deeply are often two halves of the same whole. Her story will break you down and lift you up.' Glennon Doyle, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Love Warrior and founder of Together RisingWhile on her way to teach a yoga retreat in March 2014, Rachel Brathen collapses at an airport, brought to her knees by excruciating stomach pains. She is rushed to the hospital on the tiny island of Bonaire, and hours later forced to undergo surgery. When she wakes up from anesthesia, her boyfriend is weeping at her bedside. While Rachel was struck down with seemingly mysterious pain, her best friend, Andrea, sustained fatal injuries as a result of a car accident. Rachel and Andrea had a magical friendship. Though they looked nothing alikeone girl tall, blond, and Swedish, the other short, brunette, and Colombianeveryone called them gemelas: twins. Over the three years following Andrea's death, at what might appear from the outside to be the happiest timewith her engagement to the man she loves and a blossoming career that takes her all over the worldRachel faces a series of trials that have the potential to define her life. Unresolved grief and trauma from her childhood make the weight of her sadness unbearable. At each turn, she is confronted again and again with a choice: Will she lose it all, succumb to grief, and grasp for control that's beyond her reach? Or can she move through the loss and let go? When Rachel and her husband conceive a child, pregnancy becomes a time to heal and an opportunity to be reborn herself. As she recounts this transformative period, Rachel shares her hard-won wisdom about life and death, love and fear, what it means to be a mother and a daughter, and how to become someone who walks through the fire of adversity with the never-ending practice of loving hard and letting go.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER WITH A NEW CHAPTER

Winner of Autobiography of the Year at the National Book Awards 2018
Shortlisted for the Waterstones Book of the Year 2018
Now containing a new chapter on Everything I Know At Thirty.

When it comes to the trials and triumphs of becoming a grown up, journalist and former Sunday Times dating columnist Dolly Alderton has seen and tried it all. In her memoir, she vividly recounts falling in love, wrestling with self-sabotage, finding a job, throwing a socially disastrous Rod-Stewart themed house party, getting drunk, getting dumped, realising that Ivan from the corner shop is the only man you've ever been able to rely on, and finding that that your mates are always there at the end of every messy night out. It's a book about bad dates, good friends and - above all else - about recognising that you and you alone are enough.

Glittering, with wit and insight, heart and humour, Dolly Alderton's powerful debut weaves together personal stories, satirical observations, a series of lists, recipes, and other vignettes that will strike a chord of recognition with women of every age - while making you laugh until you fall over.

Everything I know About Love is about the struggles of early adulthood in all its grubby, hopeful uncertainty.

Brought to you by Penguin.Winner of the 2020 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word AlbumWinner of the 2020 Audie Award for Autobiography/MemoirAn intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir; 17 million copies sold worldwideTHE NO. 1 BESTSELLERBRITISH BOOK AWARDS, NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEARTHE SUNDAY TIMES, MEMOIR OF THE YEARBOOKS OF THE YEAR: THE TIMES, OBSERVER, GUARDIAN, EVENING STANDARD'A polished pearl of a memoir' New York Times In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America - the first African American to serve in that role - she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the United States and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she showed us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare. In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her -- from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world's most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it -- in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations -- and whose story inspires us to do the same.'A genuine page-turner, full of intimacies and reflections' Evening Standard'A rich, entertaining and candid memoir. And overall Obama's a fun person to sit alongside as she tells you the story of her life . . . it is as beautifully written as any piece of fiction' i'Offers new insights into her upbringing on the south side of Chicago and the highs and lows of life with Barack Obama. . . a refreshing level of honesty about what politics really did to her. I have read Barack Obama's two books so far, and this is like inserting a missing piece of reality into the narrative of his dizzying journey' Guardian'I found myself lifting my jaw from my chest at the end of every other chapter . . . this was not the Obama I thought I knew. She was more' Independent'An inspirational memoir that also rings true' Daily Telegraph'It seems a wonderful privilege to have the former First Lady speaking her own words straight into your ear, and her own reading gives the anecdotes extra meaning and emotion' Daily MailMICHELLE OBAMA'S NEXT BOOK, THE LIGHT WE CARRY, IS AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW(c)2018 Michelle Obama (P)2018 Penguin Books Ltd

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Silence by Erling Kagge, read by Atli Gunnarsson.Behind a cacophony of traffic noise, iPhone alerts and our ever-spinning thoughts, an elusive notion - silence - lies in wait. But what really is silence? Where can it be found? And why is it more important now than ever?Erling Kagge, the Norwegian adventurer and polymath, once spent fifty days walking solo in Antarctica with a broken radio. In this meditative, charming and surprisingly powerful book, he explores the power of silence and the importance of shutting out the world. Whether you're in deep wilderness, taking a shower or on the dance floor, you can experience perfect stillness if you know where to look. And from it grows self-knowledge, gratitude, wonder and much more.Take a deep breath, and prepare to submerge yourself in Silence. Your own South Pole is out there, somewhere.

Twelve early pieces never before collected that offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of Joan Didion.Mostly drawn from the earliest part of her astonishing five-decade career, the wide-ranging pieces in this collection include Didion writing about a Gamblers Anonymous meeting, a visit to San Simeon, and a reunion of WWII veterans in Las Vegas, and about topics ranging from Nancy Reagan to Robert Mapplethorpe to Martha Stewart.Here are subjects Didion has long written about - the press, politics, California robber baronsac, women, the act of writing, and her own self-doubt. Each piece is classic Didion: incisive and, in new light, stunningly prescient.

At the 16 week foetal stage, Paul Whymark's brain development was frozen as a consequence of the drug, Thalidomide. His journey is one of considerable self discovery, but also reveals greater societal insights. "16 Weeks and Everything After..."uncovers the remarkable fact that over the last 50-60 years the establishment has failed to genuinely independently review Thalidomide, and as a consequence, harms on developing life continue to have the potential to occur into the future. Worse is that the insidious nature of many of the unacknowledged harms of Thalidomide are still not related to the drug. Hence such consequences are unrecognised and are at odds with official and textbook accounts even over 50 years on. Therefore, as well as appealing to general readers and other professionals, this book urgently needs to be on every medical personnel's (or trainee personnel's) required reading list. "16 Weeks and Everything After…" manages to communicate the minutia of subtle but all-important detail to uncover a quite different picture to that has been reported thus far. It has been written in an uplifting and heart-warming way, with the attitude of turning negatives into positives, but without losing sight of the underlying issues. The author has sought to stand up for his late mother, who like all mothers of children harmed by drugs consumed during pregnancy, carry the resulting additional challenges. This has sustained Paul's drive through the years of both official impasse and life's ups and downs. The book comprises a set of micro-narratives, but join together to reveal a significant personal journey in addition to a much larger and wider untold picture.

Gaia was groomed, abused and enslaved - but then she fought backGaia Cooper is just 14 years old when she is groomed by a criminal gang and forced to commit organised credit card fraud.Despite being placed in care - somewhere Gaia should feel safe - she is left even more vulnerable, and is horrifically abused and exploited by the men manipulating her.Will the authorities save Gaia - or will she have to save herself?

A Best Book of 2024 by Harper's Bazaar * PureWow * Brit & Co ';As hilarious as it is heart-wrenching…[A] gift of storytelling, and an act of reclamation.' —Ashley C. Ford, New York Times bestselling author A deeply personal memoir about workaholism, the addictive nature of ambition, and the humbling process of picking yourself up when the world lets you down—an anti-girlboss tale for our times for readers of Drinking: A Love Story and Uncanny Valley.After years of relentlessly racing up the professional ladder, Jennifer Romolini reached the kind of success many crave: a high-profile, C-suite dream job, a book well-received enough that reporters wanted to know the secrets to her success, and a gig traveling around the country giving speeches on ';making it.' She had a handsome and clever husband, a precocious child. But beneath this polished surface was a powder keg of unresolved trauma and chronic overwork. It was all about to blow. Written with self-deprecation and wit, Ambition Monster is a gutsy and powerful look at workaholism and the addictive nature of achievement, the lingering effect of childhood trauma, and the failures of our modern rat race. This is a Cinderella story of success and a brutal appraisal of the cost of capitalism—perfect for people pleasers, overachievers, and those whose traumas have driven them to strike for ';goodness,' no matter the cost. With its timely and resonant deconstructing of the American Dream, Ambition Monster is a singular excavation of selfhood, an essential interrogation about the way we work, and an inspiring and affirming call to always bet on yourself.

A rich and comic portrait of the radical changes in American life and the literary world over the last eighty years.

An autobiography usually requires a justification. The great autobiographiesthose by Benvenuto Cellini, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Benjamin Franklin, and Henry Brooks Adamswere justified by their authors living in interesting times, harboring radically new ideas, or participating in great events. Joseph Epstein qualifies on none of these counts. His life has been quiet, lucky in numerous ways, and far from dramatic. But it has also been emblematic of the great changes in our country since World War II.

He grew up in a petit-bourgeois, Midwestern milieu, and the city of Chicago looms large in his life. He drew a lucky ticket in the parent lottery and his was a happy boyhood spent on playgrounds and hanging around drug stores. At high school dances, he was the rhumba king and at drive-in movies he was never allowed to go as far with girls as he so ardently desired. At twenty-six, after two years in the army, he found himself married, the father or stepfather of four children, and living in New York on the meager salary of a magazine subeditor. He was ablaze with ambition and fettered by frustration. He broke out by moving to Little Rock, Arkansas, to direct the city's anti-poverty program at the height of the Civil Rights movement. His writing career blossomed, he began teaching at Northwestern University, and, for twenty-five years, edited one of great intellectual magazines.

Never Say You've Had a Lucky Life is an intimate look at one life steeped in radical change: from a traditionally moral culture to a therapeutic one, from an era when the extended family was strong to its current diminished status, from print to digital life featuring the war of pixel on print, and on. But for all the seriousness of Epstein's themes, this book is memorable for its comic point of view and the constant reminder of how unpredictable, various, and wondrously rich life can be.

'Rose Cartwright breaks all our old certainties and liberates us to approach our mental struggles with new humanity and creativity. The book cannot fail to interest anyone concerned with their mind's bewildering beautiful complexities' ALAIN DE BOTTON'Radically open-minded. An extraordinary, paradigm-shifting work' NATHAN FILER Featuring interviews with leading figures including Amanda Fielding, Michael Pollan and Gabor Mate What if treating misery as a medical problem is making us miserable?What if our intense distress is not a symptom of illness, but a desperate expression of our need for love and connection?Someone dies by suicide every 40 seconds. Antidepressant use in the West has more than doubled in the last twenty years. And there is still no biological test which can diagnose any mental health problem.So where are we going wrong?In this revolutionary book, Rose Cartwright reveals how the failure of the mental health system to cure her OCD led her to radical action. While she explored her trauma through a series of mind-bending psychedelic trips, she began to interrogate our dominant medical paradigm.Part radical manifesto, part revealing memoir, The Maps We Carry provides a new path to understanding and re-evaluating our approaches to mental health. This is a book is for everyone who has questioned why they are the way they are.

A revelatory memoir that earnestly reckons with whiteness.As the product of progressive parents and a liberal upbringing, Garrett Bucks prided himself on the pursuit of being a ';good white person.' The kind of white person who treats their privilege as a responsibility and not a burden; the kind of white person who people of color see as the peak example of racial allyship; the kind of white person who other white people might model their own aspirations of being ';better' after. But it's Bucks obsession with ';goodness' that prevents him from building meaningful relationships, particularly those who look like him. The Right Kind of White charts Garrett's intellectual and emotional odyssey in his pursuit of this ideal whiteness, the price of its admission, and the work he's doing to bridge the divide from those he once sought distance from.

From the bestselling author of Cultish and host of the podcast Sounds Like a Cult, a delicious blend of cultural criticism and personal narrative that explores our cognitive biases and the power, disadvantages, and highlights of magical thinking.Utilizing the linguistic insights of her ';witty and brilliant' (Blyth Roberson, author of America the Beautiful?) first book Wordslut and the sociological explorations of her breakout hit Cultish, Amanda Montell now turns her erudite eye to the inner workings of the human mind and its biases in her most personal and electrifying work yet. ';Magical thinking' can be broadly defined as the belief that one's internal thoughts can affect unrelated events in the external world: Think of the conviction that one can manifest their way out of poverty, stave off cancer with positive vibes, thwart the apocalypse by learning to can their own peaches, or transform an unhealthy relationship to a glorious one with loyalty alone. In all its forms, magical thinking works in service of restoring agency amid chaos, but in The Age of Magical Overthinking, Montell argues that in the modern information age, our brain's coping mechanisms have been overloaded, and our irrationality turned up to an eleven. In a series of razor sharp, deeply funny chapters, Montell delves into a cornucopia of the cognitive biases that run rampant in our brains, from how the ';Halo effect' cultivates worship (and hatred) of larger than life celebrities, to how the ';Sunk Cost Fallacy' can keep us in detrimental relationships long after we've realized they're not serving us. As she illuminates these concepts with her signature brilliance and wit, Montell's prevailing message is one of hope, empathy, and ultimately forgiveness for our anxiety-addled human selves. If you have all but lost faith in our ability to reason, Montell aims to make some sense of the senseless. To crack open a window in our minds, and let a warm breeze in. To help quiet the cacophony for a while, or even hear a melody in it.

Named a most anticipated book of 2024 by Vulture, LitHub, The Guardian, and Cosmopolitan A fascinating, revelatory memoir revealing the author's struggle to come to terms with her own sociopathy and shed light on the often maligned and misunderstood mental disorder.Patric Gagne realized she made others uncomfortable before she started kindergarten. Something about her caused people to react in a way she didn't understand. She suspected it was because she didn't feel things the way other kids did. Emotions like fear, guilt, and empathy eluded her. For the most part, she felt nothing. And she didn't like the way that ';nothing' felt.She did her best to pretend she was like everyone else, but the constant pressure to conform to a society she knew rejected anyone like her was unbearable. So Patric stole. She lied. She was occasionally violent. She became an expert lock-picker and home-invader. All with the goal of replacing the nothingness with...something.In college, Patric finally confirmed what she'd long suspected. She was a sociopath. But even though it was the very first personality disorder identifiedwell over 200 years agosociopathy had been neglected by mental health professionals for decades. She was told there was no treatment, no hope for a normal life. She found herself haunted by sociopaths in pop culture, madmen and evil villains who are considered monsters. Her future looked grim.But when Patric reconnects with an old flame, she gets a glimpse of a future beyond her diagnosis. If she's capable of love, it must mean that she isn't a monster. With the help of her sweetheart (and some curious characters she meets along the way) she embarks on a mission to prove that the millions of Americans who share her diagnosis aren't all monsters either.This is the inspiring story of her journey to change her fate and how she managed to build a life full of love and hope.

';A haunting, beautifully written celebration of found sisterhood.' Publishers Weekly (starred review) ';A fearless, engaging, and important memoir.' Library Journal (starred review) ';[A] gorgeously rendered peek behind the curtain of military life.' Booklist (starred review) A captivating memoir that tells the story of one woman's experience of joining a community of army wives after leaving her New York City joba profoundly intimate look at marriage, friendship, and the power of human connection.When her new husband joins an elite Army unit, Simone Gorrindo is uprooted from New York City and dropped into Columbus, Georgia. With her husband frequently deployed, Simone is left to find her place in this new world, aloneuntil she meets the wives. Gorrindo gives us an intimate look into the inner lives of a remarkable group of women and a tender, unflinching portrait of a marriage. A love story, an unforgettable coming-of-age tale, and a bracing tour of the intractable divisions that plague our country today, The Wives offers a rare and powerful gift: a hopeful stitch in the fabric of a torn America.