Showing results for "lifes a" in Literature & Fiction

A key figure in the metaphysical movement known as New Thought, Florence Scovel Shinn has influenced many modern spiritual leaders, including Dr. Wayne Dyer, Dr. Christiane Northrup, Deepak Chopra, May McCarthy, and Louise Hay. Through stories of real-life situations and biblical tenets, Shinn teaches that the empowering use of positive attitude and affirmations can create a path to wealth, good health, and loving relationships. Intuition, love, and prosperity can expand through intentional thoughts and prayer.

College student Joe Talbert has the modest goal of completing a writing assignment for an English class. His task is to interview a stranger and write a brief biography of the person. With deadlines looming, Joe heads to a nearby nursing home to find a willing subject. There he meets Carl Iverson, and soon nothing in Joe's life is ever the same. Carl is a dying Vietnam veteran-and a convicted murderer. With only a few months to live, he has been medically paroled to a nursing home after spending thirty years in prison for the crimes of rape and murder.

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara is an immensely powerful and heartbreaking novel of brotherly love and the limits of human endurance. When four graduates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they're broke, adrift and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success and pride.

When Addie La Rue makes a pact with the devil, she trades her soul for immortality. But there's always a price - the devil takes away her place in the world, cursing her to be forgotten by everyone. Addie flees her tiny home town in 18th-century France, beginning a journey that takes her across the world, learning to live a life where no one remembers her and everything she owns is lost and broken. Existing only as a muse, she learns to fall in love anew every single day. 

1944, in the ruined wine cellar of a Tuscan villa, as bombs fall around them, two strangers meet and share an extraordinary evening. Ulysses Temper is a young British soldier; Evelyn Skinner is a sexagenarian art historian and possible spy. She has come to Italy to salvage paintings from the wreckage and relive memories of the time she encountered EM Forster and had her heart stolen by an Italian maid in a particular Florentine room with a view.

What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right? During a snowstorm in England in 1910, a baby is born and dies before she can take her first breath. During a snowstorm in England in 1910, the same baby is born and lives to tell the tale. What if there were second chances? And third chances? In fact an infinite number of chances to live your life? Would you eventually be able to save the world from its own inevitable destiny? And would you even want to?

Detective Sam Helsdown hasn’t seen his daughter Zoe in two years and he’s excited and more than a little nervous to be at the airport picking her up for a visit. She’s 10 years old and has flown on her own for the first time. Flight BA631 from Athens has already landed and soon a trickle of people begins entering Arrivals. Among them is a little girl who runs towards him, head down, and throws herself into his arms saying ‘Daddy!’. But then he looks at her properly. This is not Zoe. This is not his daughter.

Fifteen years after graduating from Harvard, five close friends on the cusp of middle age are still pursuing an elusive happiness and wondering if they’ve wasted their youthful opportunities. Jules, already a famous actor when she arrived on campus, is changing in mysterious ways but won’t share what is haunting her. Mariam and Rowan, who married young, are struggling with the demands of family life and starting to regret prioritising meaning over wealth in their careers.

When Ruth Morris is moved into Banksia House by her workaholic son Michael, she is eighty-one years young, mourning her loss of independence, and missing her best friend Gladys terribly. So when she learns Gladys is dying a state over in Brisbane, Ruth is determined to say goodbye. Enlisting the help of her fellow residents, Ruth makes a daring departure from Banksia House alongside renowned escape-artist Keith, and her formidable new friend Beryl.

After traveling through time in Shadow of Night, the second book in Deborah Harkness's enchant­ing series, historian and witch Diana Bishop and vampire scientist Matthew Clairmont return to the present to face new crises and old enemies. At Matthew's ancestral home in France they reunite with their families - with one heart-breaking exception.

My hand trembles as I stare at the anonymous text. On this sunny Saturday morning, our twin ten-year-old boys were playing in the park just down our tree-lined street. But only one of them has come home… and it’s all my husband’s fault. I race to Leo’s study and demand answers. As his face turns white, I know: one of his affairs has turned deadly. I always smell the unfamiliar perfume on his shirt. I try to pretend we are a happy family, for the sake of the children… but now, my child is in terrible danger.

On a summer evening in 1931, Lilly Blackwood glimpses circus lights from the grimy window of her attic bedroom. Lilly isn't allowed to explore the meadows around Blackwood Manor. She's never even ventured beyond her narrow room. Momma insists it's for Lilly's own protection, that people would be afraid if they saw her. But on this unforgettable night, Lilly is taken outside for the first time - and sold to the circus sideshow.

One boy, one boat, one tiger.... British comedian, actor and broadcaster Sanjeev Bhaskar, OBE performs this brilliant edition of a work of fiction that is loved by fans around the world. After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, a solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a 16 year-old boy named Pi, a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), a female orangutan - and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger. The scene is set for an extraordinary adventure.

After successfully matchmaking within the Sydney desi community for years, Nas has decided to open a marriage agency to help all Australians find love. With 17 years of marriage to his dream woman Tasnim under his belt, he's keen to help others find the same happiness that he's had. But what he sees as a perfect, happy match isn't necessarily what something others agree on - including Tasnim. Before long, the cracks in Nas and Tasnim's marriage are beginning to show, and Salima, their 16-year-old daughter, is caught in the middle.

As she gears up for her sister’s destination wedding in Hawaii, the countdown is on for Gigi to find a date. Just someone to prove to her friends and family that she's ok, and to stop the pitying looks would be great! Of course she can’t wait to be bridesmaid for her sister, but it’s just not ideal that the best man is also her ex… especially when he is bringing his hot new reality star girlfriend! But when Gigi arrives at the hotel in Hawaii to find there has been a mix-up with her room, and she’s been upgraded to a suite, things start to look up.

Come with us to an Enchanted Place, a forest where Winnie-the-Pooh lived with Piglet, Rabbit, Owl, Eeyore, Kanga, and Little Roo. The stories are about Christopher Robin and these good companions having wonderful times getting in and out of trouble. It is all very exciting and, really, quite thrilling no matter how young or old you may be. It is painful to try and imagine what the world would be like without them.

A.J. Fikry, the grumpy owner of Island Books, is going through a hard time: his bookshop is failing, he has lost his beloved wife, and his prized possession - a rare first edition book has been stolen. Over time, he has given up on people, and even the books in his store, instead of offering solace, are yet another reminder of a world that is changing too rapidly. But one day A.J. finds two-year-old Maya sitting on the bookshop floor, with a note attached to her asking the owner to look after her. His life - and Maya's - is changed forever.

When a simple mix-up leaves their father Joe’s estate to Eden, their long-absent mother, Clare and Aaron decide it’s finally time to track Eden down. But it’s been over thirty years since she left their remote outback mining town, and they’ve never heard from her again. Aaron is dealing with a new marriage that’s currently trapped in immigration limbo, and his teenage daughter Cady is clearly going through a personal crisis of her own.

Eizo is a middle-aged, overworked software engineer who loves cats. One night after working late, he saves an injured cat from a speeding truck. The cat survives, but Eizo does not... Luckily, that cat turns out to be a god-like being who offers him a second chance in another world! Eizo decides that he wants a slower life, one where he can live off the things he creates with his own hands. So, why not become a blacksmith? He does have one other stipulation: a cat companion for his quiet life.

'Out of the blue, my perfect life imploded. Let's look at my situation, sans rose tinted specs. I have: no husband, no self-esteem, no money, a six-year-old son, a boisterous puppy, a crush on my son's teacher...and an online dating profile, apparently! I am the subject of village gossip, pursued by the mafia (playground variety), turning 40 in a matter of weeks. And...my life has just gone viral!' A deliciously romantic and humorous book about love, loss and starting again.