In this irresistible memoir, the New York Times best-selling author and winner of the Pulitzer Prize Anna Quindlen writes about looking back and ahead - and celebrating it all - as she considers marriage, girlfriends, our mothers, faith, loss, all the stuff in our closets, and more. Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake is filled with the sharp insights and revealing observations that have long confirmed Quindlen’s status as America’s laureate of real life.

Canny Granny: How to Be the Favorite Grandparent reveals generations of grandparenting secrets. Hear good and bad news first, delight in random calls and texts from your grandkids, enjoy more holiday time, linger with mom and dad over coffee and dessert, share meaningful outings with your grandchildren, improve divorced grandparenting and long-distance grandparenting, give thoughtful gifts that resonate from generation to generation, and more!

With her trademark wisdom and humor, Anna Quindlen reflects on how her life has unfolded in tandem with her dog Beau's, and on the lessons she's learned by watching him: to roll with the punches, to take things as they come, to measure herself not in terms of the past or the future but of the present, to raise her nose in the air from time to time and, at least metaphorically, to holler, "I smell bacon!"

Workaholic, career-obsessed Francesca is fiercely independent and successful in all areas of life except one: family. She struggles to make time for her relationship with her teenage daughter, Allegra, and the two have become practically strangers to each other. When Allegra hangs out with a new crowd and is arrested for drug possession, Francesca gives in to her mother's wish that they take one epic summer vacation to trace their family roots in Italy. What she never expected was to be faced with the choice of a lifetime....

Toddlers hold the secrets to having more fun and living a fulfilling life. These are secrets we once knew, and ones that a Harvard-trained physician can help us rediscover.