Jonathan Safran Foer emerged as one of the most original writers of his generation with his best-selling debut novel, Everything Is Illuminated. Now, with humor, tenderness, and awe, he confronts the traumas of our recent history. What he discovers is solace in that most human quality, imagination. Meet Oskar Schell, an inventor, Francophile, tambourine player, Shakespearean actor, jeweler, pacifist, correspondent with Stephen Hawking and Ringo Starr. He is nine years old. And he is on an urgent, secret search through the five boroughs of New York. His mission is to find the lock that fits a mysterious key belonging to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11. An inspired innocent, Oskar is alternately endearing, exasperating, and hilarious as he careens from Central Park to Coney Island to Harlem on his search. Along the way he is always dreaming up inventions to keep those he loves safe from harm. What about a birdseed shirt to let you fly away? What if you could actually hear everyone's heartbeat? His goal is hopeful, but the past speaks a loud warning in stories of those who've lost loved ones before. As Oskar roams New York, he encounters a motley assortment of humanity who are all survivors in their own way. He befriends a 103-year-old war reporter, a tour guide who never leaves the Empire State Building, and lovers enraptured or scorned. Ultimately, Oskar ends his journey where it began, at his father's grave. But now he is accompanied by the silent stranger who has been renting the spare room of his grandmother's apartment. They are there to dig up his father's empty coffin.

"Giffin excels at creating complex characters and stories that ask us to explore what we really want from our lives."--Atlanta Journal-ConstitutionTessa Russo is the mother of two young children and the wife of a renowned pediatric surgeon. Despite her own mother's warnings, Tessa has recently given up her career to focus on her family and the pursuit of domestic happiness. From the outside, she seems destined to live a charmed life. Valerie Anderson is an attorney and single mother to six-year-old Charlie--a boy who has never known his father. After too many disappointments, she has given up on romance--and even to some degree, friendships--believing that it is always safer not to expect too much.Although both women live in the same Boston suburb, the two have relatively little in common aside from a fierce love for their children. But one night, a tragic accident causes their lives to converge in ways no one could have imagined. In alternating, pitch-perfect points of view, Emily Giffin creates a moving, luminous story of good people caught in untenable circumstances. Each being tested in ways they never thought possible. Each questioning everything they once believed. And each ultimately discovering what truly matters most.

Author and singer-songwriter Alex Woodard embarks on his third For the Senderbook; this one, Love Letters from Vietnam.A box with Love Letters From Vietnam etched on top holds letters written from a passionate yet deeply flawed soldier to his wife decades ago, but stays buried in a closet for years, until the Vietnam veteran is gunned down in the driveway of the home he rents for his mistress. As a way to work through her anger and sense of betrayal, his daughter, Jennifer, opens the box and sorts through the letters, answering four of them back in time to Vietnam . . . and then she writes to him in the heaven she hopes he has now found. She imagines how he would answer these letters and what kind of fatherly advice he would give as she continues to process her grief. Jennifer bundles the letters into a package with no address, because there's nowhere to send them.Until she is sitting in a theater in Austin, Texas, at a performance by Alex Woodard and hears him talk about writing songs inspired by letters. She sends him her package of letters, which launches Woodard on his own journey of exploring the dichotomy between dark and light as he imagines himself as Sergeant Fuller at war and begins to write songs sung from Fuller's heart. Woodard's quest to learn more about the man and the war he fights both in Vietnam and back at home leads him on an extraordinary journey, set against twenty days of nature's fury that destroys the world around Woodard and almost destroys what he loves the most.An album of songs included with the book propels this true story and features Woodard as Sergeant Fuller and Molly Jenson as Jennifer, singing songs based on the exchange of letters as a soundtrack that can hopefully lead to a final, redemptive father-daughter dance in Jennifer's heart.

“When I was thirty-five, my wife and I were both reported dead by the first paramedics to arrive at the scene of a seventy-five-mile-an-hour hit-and-run. My wife Marcy died instantly that day. With brain damage from a massive stroke and my body broken, I wasn’t expected to survive either.”So begins Rise and Shine, the dramatic story of Simon Lewis and his remarkable recovery from a horrific car accident. Told through the eyes of someone who has “lived through it” and successfully overcome the hurdles of the health insurance maze, Rise and Shine is a first-person account of unexpected tragedy and life-affirming courage, with lessons both medical and spiritual.Rise and Shine shows how much patients can achieve, beyond the limited horizons of insurance-based diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation, to attain maximum regeneration and rebuild their lives. An inspiring story about what it means to return to life after a near-death experience, Rise and Shine is, essentially, an exploration of the nature of consciousness itself, and an impassioned tale about survival and recovery.

At once a style guide, an inspirational tome, and a how-to volume on creating one’s home, this book will serve as a go-to reference for all those seeking to spur their own creativity as they embark on the creation of home. When Diane Keaton decided that she wanted to build her own home from the ground up, she took the advice of her dear friend, film director Nancy Meyers, and took to the boards of Pinterest to find inspiration. There she discovered the practical and the fantastical, elements and styles long adored and ones that she never knew she was drawn to. Keaton’s dream house was officially under way and this book that resulted is a compelling account of her that house, from idea to realization in brick, stone, and wood. The House that Pinterest Built defines what home and house mean to the celebrated movie star, who is known for her love affair with houses and design. Filled with ideas that reveal a personal yet engaging aesthetic, this volume includes compelling photos from Keaton’s past homes and those she admires, as well as a multitude of details from every corner of those spaces and objects that excite and inspire the house designer and dreamer—dramatic staircases and magical light fixtures, film stills and book covers, pottery and art—drawn from the visual treasure trove known as Pinterest and Keaton’s private collection, as she creates and designs her newest house. Rich imagery is accompanied by Keaton’s ideas for selecting furniture, kitchen layout, and bedroom design; she talks about the importance of lighting in the bathroom and why the living room needs to be reimagined. Beyond the interior, she explores curb appeal and environmental sensitivity, always with an eye to making home the way it should be—a place of tranquility, a place where one is restored and where one returns to dream again and again. The book culminates in the dream realized, the house she has imagined, designed, and made, now shared with the world for the first time in all-new photography. “If you want to explore. If you love to see. If you’re looking to look; this book is an example of a home made from the gifts of other people’s addictive yearnings for the perfect home, with the perfect landscape and the perfect interior. It illustrates my choices of your choices. Who knows, you might find one of your pins here. You might smile. You might shake your head and say, ‘This isn’t what I had in mind.’ You might think: ‘Hey that’s my kitchen. She copied my kitchen.’ But the truth is, as much as I tried, I could never entirely recreate the light filled photograph of a kitchen that led the way to the journey that brought me here. No one can.” – Diane Keaton

Enter a world of interiors by Atelier AM, where classical proportions, varied finishes, and exquisite furnishings are masterfully combined, resulting in bold yet tranquil environments. A deft hand at creating interiors that mix materials, both rough-hewn and luxurious, antique and modern, marks the work of Alexandra and Michael Misczynski, the husband-and-wife team behind the Los Angeles–based firm Atelier AM. Only ten years after establishing their business, the couple has garnered a keen reputation for creating environments that are sensory experiences—visually sublime interiors enhanced with subtle, textural palettes. Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century furniture commingle with modernist pieces and ancient objects. Background colors and materials are muted and refined. Interiors Atelier AM showcases a selection of residences—each exhibiting the firm’s skill at mixing furniture and objects with backgrounds such as antique flooring and Venetian plaster, with bold and modern results. Their high-profile clients include Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise and the Michael Eisners. The photography of François Halard beautifully documents each project, educating and inspiring a new generation of interior designers and connoisseurs.

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM FOX 2000 STARRING MILO VENTIMIGLIA, AMANDA SEYFRIED, AND KEVIN COSTNERMEET THE DOG WHO WILL SHOW THE WORLD HOW TO BE HUMANThe New York Times bestselling novel from Garth Stein—a heart-wrenching but deeply funny and ultimately uplifting story of family, love, loyalty, and hope—a captivating look at the wonders and absurdities of human life . . . as only a dog could tell it.“Splendid.” —People“The perfect book for anyone who knows that compassion isn’t only for humans, and that the relationship between two souls who are meant for each other never really comes to an end. Every now and then I’m lucky enough to read a novel I can’t stop thinking about: this is one of them.” —Jodi Picoult “It’s impossible not to love Enzo.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune “This old soul of a dog has much to teach us about being human. I loved this book.” —Sara Gruen

The New York Times bestseller - of how six bonobo apes change the lives of three humans, from master storyteller Sara Gruen, author of the international bestseller, Water for Elephants.These bonobos are no ordinary apes. Like others of their species, they are capable of reason and carrying on deep relationships - but, unlike most bonobos, they also know American Sign Language.Isabel Duncan, a scientist at the Great Ape Language Lab, doesn't understand people, but animals she gets, especially the bonobos. Isabel feels more comfortable in their world than she's ever felt among humans . . . until she meets John Thigpen, a very married reporter who braves the ever-present animal rights protesters outside the lab to see what's really going on inside.When an explosion tears apart the lab, severely injuring Isabel and 'liberating' the apes to an unknown destination, John's human interest piece turns into the story of a lifetime.

In her latest book, five-time #1 New York Times bestselling author Dr Brené Brown, writes, "If we want to find the way back to ourselves and each other, we need language and the grounded confidence to both tell our stories, and to be stewards of the stories that we hear. This is the framework for meaningful connection."In Atlas of the Heart, Brown takes us on a journey through 87 of the emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human. As she maps the necessary skills and lays out an actionable framework for meaningful connection, she gives us the language and tools to access a universe of new choices and second chances - a universe where we can share and steward the stories of our bravest and most heart-breaking moments with one another in a way that builds connection.Over the past two decades, Brown's extensive research into the experiences that make us who we are has shaped the cultural conversation and helped define what it means to be courageous with our lives. Atlas of the Heart draws on this research, as well as Brown's singular skills as a researcher/storyteller, to lay out an invaluable, research-based framework that shows us that naming an experience doesn't give the experience more power, it gives us the power of understanding, meaning and choice.Brown shares, "I want this to be an atlas for all of us, because I believe that, with an adventurous heart and the right maps, we can travel anywhere and never fear losing ourselves. Even when we have no idea where we are."