Billy Collins is a New York-born, California-educated poet, and his work combines the best of both coasts. Distinctly American in their narrative style, Collins’s poems evoke wit, wonder, and whimsy from the simplistic. In his way of lyrically illuminating the magical of the everyday, Collins teaches his reader how to reach back and grasp the open-hearted experience of youth, and how to search for it in small moments of our disillusioned grown-up lives. His fourth collection, Questions About Angels, was first published in 1991, and in the twenty-plus years since it first became available, the collection has lost neither its power of observation, its relevancy, nor its ability to charm a new generation.
EAT PRAY LOVE MADE ME DO IT: LIFE JOURNEYS INSPIRED BY THE BESTSELLING MEMOIR
In celebration of a decade of inspiration comes Eat Pray Love Made Me Do It, an anthology of forty-seven stories from men and women across the world who have been motivated by Liz’s journey to say yes to their own souls. There are stories of spirituality, loss, hunger, adventure, love, divorce, motherhood, and identity; what connects them is the very indefinable thing that makes Eat Pray Love so special. Each story is the case of a person, feeling lost in some area of their life, finding that their soul is offering them the answer to the question they didn’t know how to ask.
Edgar Allan Poe's Love Letter to Sarah Helen Whitman
Despite a lasting reputation for both the dark and delusional, Edgar Allan Poe could - on occasion - handle love with a gentle touch. This is evidenced in a letter he wrote to his once-fiance, poet Sarah Helen Whitman. She was a Transcendentalist, he was a Romantic. They met first through their love of words, when she composed a Valentine for him on the occasion of a holiday party (which he didn't attend). Upon hearing her poem, he replied with a poem of his own; thus began a correspondence that sparked a courtship.
Firstlight: Early Inspirational Writings of Sue Monk Kidd
Some of my favorite passages in the book are the author’s stories of what she learned in times when she was in service, whether as a nurse or working in a soup kitchen or homeless shelter. Often she sends the message that when one sets about to be of help, they ultimately find themselves gifted with help they didn’t know they needed. Her availability to others and her openness to learn, to allow new perspectives and insights to touch her, is one of her most admirable qualities. Her gift to her reader is to share some of her incessant wonderment – be it at the world, society, the beautiful sides of love and human nature, or the confounding lucidity of grace.
Firstlight: The Early Inspirational Writings of Sue Monk Kidd
Before becoming an international sensation and household name at the age of fifty-four with the publication of her first novel, Sue Monk Kidd was a writer of personal spiritual nonfiction. And earlier yet, writing was not her primary career at all. A longtime nurse, Kidd began her writing career by surprise when a piece she submitted to a contest was published by Guideposts, an interfaith publication founded in the 1940s. She went on to write for the magazine for twelve more years; thus began a superstar bestseller’s unexpected journey. From there, Kidd went on to write and publish an array of personal nonfiction, from pieces in magazines and eventually three memoirs on spirituality before she would ultimately publish The Secret Life of Bees. Her 2006 book Firstlight gathers together these early writings from her Guideposts years and other publications as well.
DROP THE STORYLINE: PEMA CHODRON ON LEARNING TO STAY WITH DIFFICULT EMOTIONS
th their focus on stillness, mindfulness, and letting go, the practices Pema puts forth in this book are a soul-filling glimpse at one of the world’s most beautiful and benevolent spiritual philosophies; and her intelligent, open-hearted rendering of the Buddhist language welcomes anyone to listen, to practice, and to grow. With her simple words on courage at the beginning of the epilogue, Pema summarizes all that’s needed to apply these practices in our lives not just to develop maitri – compassion for ourselves as a means toward compassion for others – but also so that we might contribute, as an enlightened society, to the ultimate survival and beautification of the natural world around us.