New York Times best-selling author Shauna Niequist invites you to look at the landscape of your own life, consider what it might look like to leave behind the pressure to be perfect, and begin the life-changing practice of simply being present in the middle of the mess and the ordinariness of life. Shauna offers an honest account of what led her to begin this journey and a compelling vision for an entirely new way to live: Soaked in rest, silence, simplicity, prayer, and connection with the people who matter most to us.

In Free to Learn, developmental psychologist Peter Gray argues that our children, if free to pursue their own interests through play, will not only learn all they need to know but will do so with energy and passion. Children come into this world burning to learn, equipped with the curiosity, playfulness, and sociability to direct their own education. Yet we have squelched such instincts in a school model originally developed to indoctrinate, not to promote intellectual growth.

As parents, we dream of creating a magical childhood for our kids, yet it can be so easy to slip into autopilot. Ainsley Arment-- a mother of five, founder of the thriving community Wild + Free, and bestselling author-- is no stranger to the barrage of decisions, opportunities, and daily tasks that each day brings. But what Ainsley has discovered is that the magic of life isn’t found in the hustle and bustle of constant activity but in the intentional ordinary decisions of our days.

Bringing Up Bébé meets Last Child in the Woods in this lively, insightful memoir about a mother who sets out to discover if the nature-centric parenting philosophy of her native Scandinavia holds the key to healthier, happier lives for her American children.

In this world, where our culture suggests more is better, do you long for simpler times where you could work less and have more time for yourself? Minimalist Home: Declutter Your Home and Simplify Your Life with Minimalist Living unveils how you can accomplish that dream with practical minimalism. One of the biggest time sinks in our daily lives is tending to our physical possessions - such as our home and the clutter that resides in it. Our environment has a profound effect on our productivity and who we are as people.

Inspired by the spirit of Henry David Thoreau—"All good things are wild and free"—mother of five Ainsley Arment founded Wild + Free. This growing online community of mothers and families want their children to receive a quality education at home by challenging their intellectual abilities and nurturing their sense of curiosity, joy, and awe—the essence of a positive childhood. The homeschool approach of past generations is gone—including the stigma of socially awkward kids, conservative clothes, and a classroom setting replicated in the home.

As a young mother and new home educator, Leah was overwhelmed by the breadth of available resources. How to know which to choose? What would best guide and inspire her children? Whose voices should she trust? That’s when she discovered the timeless work and words of Charlotte Mason. A groundbreaking and revolutionary voice in education, Charlotte breathed life and beauty back into childhood in a stiff archaic age, opening the eyes of parent-teachers and the hearts of students—and changing the future of home education.

Having less stuff is the key to happiness: Do you ever feel overwhelmed, instead of overjoyed, by all your possessions? Do you secretly wish a gale force wind would blow the clutter from your home? If so, it's time to simplify your life! The Joy of Less is a fun guide to minimalist living. Ready to sweep away the clutter? Just listen to this book, and you'll be on your way to a simpler, more streamlined, and more serene life. Francine has helped hundreds of thousands of people declutter their homes and simplify their lives with her bestselling book, The Joy of Less.

With humor, honesty and faith Becky Johnson and her daughter Rachel Randolph determine to tackle the stuff that is stressing them out, once and for all. From interviews with friends and lots of research they came up with The Ten Most Common Stressors That Mess with a Woman's Mind: daily challenges that routinely steal her sense of peace and joy. Together Becky and Rachel cook up a plan to live a less depleted and more nourished life.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, flour and vegetable seeds flew off the shelves. But homesteader and entrepreneur Jill Winger believes these longings for sourdough bread and fresh veggies are more than a trend. As our society races toward progress, we’ve left something important behind. We are more connected than ever before, yet we’re still feeling unfulfilled. In Old-Fashioned on Purpose, Winger shows how simplifying our lives and adopting retro skills such as gardening and handiwork can be the key to creating the happy and healthy life we’re yearning for.

Parents who are deeply invested in their children's education can be hard on themselves and their kids. When exhausted parents are living the day-to-day grind, it can seem impossible to muster enough energy to make learning fun or interesting. Author Julie Bogart distills decades of experience - homeschooling her five now grown children, developing curricula, and training homeschooling families around the world - to teach parents how to make education an exciting, even enchanting, experience for their kids, whether they're in elementary or high school.

Grace Not Perfection takes this message from a daily planner to an inspirational book that encourages women to simplify and prioritize. Designed with Emily Ley's signature aesthetic, this book gives women tangible ways to simplify their lives to give space to what matters most. With a focus on faith, Emily reminds listeners that God abundantly pours out grace on us - and that surely we can extend grace to ourselves.

Catherine de' Medici was a ruthless pragmatist and powerbroker who dominated the throne for 30 years. Her youngest daughter, Marguerite, the glamorous "Queen Margot," was a passionate free spirit, the only adversary whom her mother could neither intimidate nor control.

In her newest audiobook, best-selling author and founder of Simplified Emily Ley brings a revolutionary exploration of how to live a life of more in a world that often overwhelms to the point of burnout. Emily empathizes with listeners in the throes of exhaustion and provides tools for nourishing their spirits and achieving a life where less becomes more.

Today's kids have adopted sedentary lifestyles filled with television, video games, and computer screens. But more and more, studies show that children need "rough and tumble" outdoor play in order to develop their sensory, motor, and executive functions. Disturbingly, a lack of movement has been shown to lead to a number of health and cognitive difficulties, such as attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), emotion regulation and sensory processing issues, and aggressiveness at school recess break.

If there is one thing Lincee Ray has learned over the years, it's that the majority of women on the planet struggle with insecurities. Our skinny jeans mock us. Our just-trying-to-help mothers are just driving us crazy. Our social media feeds taunt us with everyone else's picture-perfect lives. It's enough to send you on a gummy-bear bender while binge-watching Friends reruns and not showering for a week. Lincee knows. She's been there. Right there, in fact. Gummy bears and all.

A striking new collection of ten short stories and two novellas that explores the idea of property in every meaning of the word, from the acclaimed New York Times best-selling author of the National Book Award finalist So Much for That and the international best seller We Need to Talk About Kevin.

Unfiltered. Unapologetic. Older, but not wiser, Lancaster goes back to basics in this hilarious essay collection about everything from taking community policing classes to accidentally getting high with her waiter after a fancy dinner. These are the tales she'd tell if she met you in a bar... if she weren't too lazy to put on pants and go to a bar. Offering advice ranging from how to remain happily married to a man who refuses to blow his damn nose already to not creating An Incident at the cheese counter during an attempt at Whole30, she's you, only louder.

In Here, Now, Kate Merrick invites women to stop running away from their actual lives and to instead walk in the peace and fullness God offers when they quiet their souls, listen to what he's saying, and live with brave intentionality.

New York Times best-selling author Jen Lancaster has lived a life based on re-invention and self-improvement. From Bitter Is the New Black to The Tao of Martha, she’s managed to document her (and her generation’s) attempts to shape up, grow up, and have it all - sometimes with disastrous results...Mistakes are one thing; regrets are another. After a girls’ weekend in Savannah makes her realize that she is - yikes! - middle-aged (binge watching is so the new binge drinking), Jen decides to make a bucket list and seize the day.

Follow New York Times best-selling author Mary Roach - but be careful not to trip - as she weaves through personal anecdotes and everyday musings riddled with her uncanny wit and amazingly analytical eye. These essays, which found a well-deserved home within the pages of Reader's Digest as the column "My Planet," detail the inner workings of hypochondriacs, hoarders, and compulsive cheapskates. (Did we mention neurotic interior designers and professional list makers?) For Roach, humor is hidden in the most unlikely places, which means that nothing is off limits.

What Doesn't Kill You is the story of how Thomasina Hodges, a.k.a. Tee, loses her job and finds herself. Tee's evolution after her sudden and unexpected outplacement, is loosely based on the stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, relinquishing, readjusting, and reinvesting. For Tee, losing her job is like a death, but with time, and some bumps, bruises and a new attitude, she comes out on the other side, having reassessed what's important in her life.

Freshly disengaged from her fiancé and feeling that life has not turned out quite the way she planned, 30-year-old Ruth quits her job, leaves town, and arrives at her parents' home to find that situation more complicated than she'd realized. Her father, a prominent history professor, is losing his memory and is only erratically lucid. Ruth's mother, meanwhile, is lucidly erratic.

After almost 20 years of caring for elderly parents - first for their senile father and then for their cantankerous 93-year-old mother - author Plum Johnson and her three younger brothers have finally fallen to their middle-aged knees with conflicted feelings of grief and relief. Now they must empty and sell the beloved family home, 23 rooms bulging with history, antiques, and oxygen tanks. Plum thought, How tough will that be? I know how to buy garbage bags. But the task turns out to be much harder and more rewarding than she ever imagined.

A beautiful, vibrant memoir about growing up motherless in 1970s and 80s San Francisco with an openly gay father. After his wife dies in a car accident, bisexual writer and activist Steve Abbott moves with his two-year-old daughter to San Francisco. There they discover a city in the midst of revolution, bustling with gay men in search of liberation - few of whom are raising a child. Steve throws himself into San Francisco's vibrant cultural scene.

After finding Jesus at a suburban megachurch, young Jamie Wright trades in the easy life on the cul-de-sac for the green fields of Costa Rica. There, along with her husband, kids, and the family cat, she intends to serve God and make converts. But she soon loses faith and falls into a funk of cynicism and despair. Fortunately, Knives the cat is there, looking on with just enough disinterest to make her laugh...and dare her to try another way. That other way turns out to be telling the truth. She launches a renegade blog, Jamie the Very Worst Missionary, which wins a large following.

For the first 13 years of her life, Flor Edwards grew up in the Children of God. The group's nomadic existence was based on the belief that, as God's chosen people, they would be saved in the impending apocalypse that would envelop the rest of the world in 1993. Flor would be 13 years old. The group's charismatic leader, Father David, kept the family on the move, from Los Angeles to Bangkok to Chicago, where they would eventually disband, leaving Flor to make sense of the foreign world of mainstream society around her.

Something was nagging Marina Shifrin. As a freshly minted adult with student loan payments and a “real” job she hated that paid her enough to get by if she also worked two other jobs, something needed to change. Marina and her friend each made lists of 30 things they’d do before the age of 30. The first thing on Marina’s list was, “Quit My Shitty Job”. So she did, and just like that the List powered her through her twenties. Told with humor and heart, 30 Before 30 will entertain, motivate, and challenge listeners to get out of their comfort zones and live their best lives.

What makes you happy? Others share how they found their passion, purpose, and joy in life in these 101 personal and exciting stories that are sure to inspire and encourage listeners to find their own happiness. Chicken Soup for the Soul: Find Your Happiness will encourage listeners to pursue their dreams, find their passion and seek joy in their life with its 101 personal and inspiring stories. This book continues Chicken Soup for the Soul’s focus on inspiration and hope, reminding us that we all can find our own happiness.

Leaving Home brings together three previously published short pieces, each dealing with a variation on the theme of leaving home. The first, "Weights and Measures", deals with the tragic loss of a child; the second is a non-fiction letter Picoult wrote to her eldest son as he left for college; and “Ritz” tells the story of a mother who takes the vacation all mothers need sometime.

Slow is an inspirational guide on creating a life filled with the things that really matter, and it is meant for anyone seeking peace, meaning, and joy in their otherwise rapid lives.

We've all heard the mind-boggling statistics about technology and social media use. The numbers don't lie; our obsession with smartphones and social media is slowly eroding the very essence of our homes and families. We see it. We feel it. We know it. So what do we do about it? Spoiler alert: Forget parental control apps, time limits, or reward charts. This revolutionary path takes us into the heart of the beast itself: the social media algorithm.

How often do you interrupt? How often do people interrupt you? Can you remember the last time someone listened to you all the way through your thinking? In her new book, Nancy Kline, best-selling author of Time to Think, makes this radical proposal: 'I won't interrupt you' is a promise that changes everything. It deepens relationships, spawns dignity, raises the intelligence of groups and enriches every conversation. It may, in fact, be the most important promise we ever make. And the hardest to keep.

In The Influential Mind, neuroscientist Tali Sharot takes us on a thrilling exploration of the nature of influence. We all have a duty to affect others - from the classroom to the boardroom to social media. But how skilled are we at this role, and can we become better? It turns out that many of our instincts - from relying on facts and figures to shape opinions, to insisting others are wrong or attempting to exert control - are ineffective because they are incompatible with how people's minds operate.

How many times did you fail and gave up out of frustration or discouragement? How often does failure ruin your resolve and send you back to square one, only to fail over and over again, with little hope anything will ever change? Written by best-selling author Martin Meadows, From Failure to Success reveals what failure really is and how to deal with it in a constructive way that will help you achieve success. The author has suffered through multiple failures in his own life. In the book, he shares his vast experience of how he turned failure into a friend.

All of us have to deal with difficult people. Whether we’re asking our neighbour to move a fence or our boss for a pay rise, we can struggle to avoid arguments and get what we want. Laurence and Emily Alison are world leaders in forensic psychology and they specialise in the most difficult interactions imaginable: criminal interrogations. They advise and train the police, security agencies, the FBI and the CIA on how to deal with extremely dangerous suspects when the stakes are high.

Author and coach Thibaut Meurisse wants you to reclaim your focus. In his latest book, you’ll learn exactly how to develop laser-sharp focus so that you can complete your key projects and achieve your major goals. Master Your Focus is a clear and concise walkthrough that demonstrates how to use the power of focus to achieve tangible results. Using Thibaut’s straightforward instructions, you’ll learn how to zero-in on key tasks and stick to them until you complete them 100 percent.

Looking for peace and happiness? Slow Living, is your guide on how to slow down your life and live peacefully. Helena Woods, author and creator of popular YouTube channel Simple Joys, reveals the wisdom she has learned by moving abroad from the US and living a slower life in France. With beautiful prose, she provides inspiration and guidance to create a simple living environment wherever you are.

Practical, compassionate, and downright funny, How to Hold a Grudge reveals everything we need to know about the many different forms of grudge, the difference between a grudge and not-a-grudge (not as obvious as it seems), when we should let a grudge go, and how to honor a grudge and distill lessons from it that will turn us into better, happier people - for our own benefit and for the sake of spreading good and limiting harm in the world.

Are you tired inside and out? Are you trying your best to measure up - yet you still feel as if you're losing ground and missing out on the best parts of life? You are not alone. Jennie Allen understands the daily struggle so many of us face with inadequacy and insecurity and the fear that we are not enough. And she invites us into a different experience, one in which our souls overflow with contentment and joy.