I’ve been an avid reader and a professional writer my entire life—from writing for newspapers, magazines, and television to developing, producing, and writing award-winning projects for TV and film and writing best-selling fiction and nonfiction. My experience as a journalist, author, screenwriter, and producer has always interested me in headline news, historical subjects, and modern-day topics and issues that resonate with humanity. In doing so, I’ve consciously decided to create projects and share stories that entertain, inspire, educate, and uplift with themes that revolve around faith, family, hope, healing, forgiveness, timeless friendships, enduring romances, and the wondrous mysteries of life.
After her husband's death, thirty-six-year-old Sophie Stanton tries to hold it together, attempting to be a graceful widow à la Jackie Kennedy. However, Sophie is a mess, and in a funny and heartwarming fashion, the book chronicles Sophie’s rise from the ashes as she struggles to pull herself out of depression and forge a new life.
Anyone who has ever lost a loved one, partner, or spouse will relate to this book and Sophie’s grappling with keeping her sanity while facing a crushing loss.
A brilliantly funny and heartwarming debut about a young woman who stumbles, then fights to build a new life after the death of her husband. The perfect book for anyone who has ever been heartbroken, lost someone they loved, or eaten too many Oreos.
Thirty-six-year-old Sophie Stanton wants to be a good widow—a graceful, composed, Jackie Kennedy kind of widow. Alas, she's been drowning her sorrows in ice cream and showing up to work in her bunny slippers and bathrobe. Determined to start over, she moves to Ashland, Oregon, where she finds herself in the middle of a darkly madcap…
Enjoyable although the setting didn't come alive quite as successfully as some of Rebanks' writing about the English countryside. Some of the reason was perhaps that he drops in the names of flowers without mentioning much about them so the botanically ignorant (like me) couldn't picture them against the landscape. I also think there should have been either more or less about his relationship problems back home. I would have been happy with less! All that said, it is an impressive record of a dwindling Norwegian lifestyle, and of the astonishing Anna and I could feel the storms and wild weather that pinned them down. I also liked the fact that Rebanks is self-effacing and happy to accept that Anna is a stranger character than he is. I am glad I read it.
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'Enchanting' Telegraph 'Miraculous' Isabella Tree 'Exquisite' FT
From the No.1 bestselling author of The Shepherd's Life, an unforgettable story of friendship, redemption and a life-changing voyage of discovery on a remote Norwegian island
How far do you have to go to find yourself?
One afternoon many years ago, James Rebanks met an old woman on a remote Norwegian island. She lived and worked alone on a tiny rocky outcrop, caring for wild Eider ducks and gathering their down. Hers was a centuries-old trade that had once made men and women…
ALBA - Hidden Secrets is a tale of blood, broken dreams, and buried secrets.
When I was in high school, several young teenage boys died in car accidents, with tragic outcomes for all involved, and I wanted to honour their memory without specifically identifying them.
I grew up on farms, and have experienced the undercurrents that exist in small villages, which is why I like crime novels with rural settings. I worked as a couple counsellor for a while, which taught me that no fictional character can quite equal the real quirks and inconsistencies of real people—but I love those books which get close. Charles Dickens probably does it best! In my own novels I try to achieve something approaching this, in characters who break away from stereotypes and behave unpredictably. I like to think I manage to be witty sometimes, too—I really love humour, especially when it’s wordplay or subtly ironic.
This book caught my attention because it involves a house-sitter, just as my series does. But Morag’s story could not be more different. It depicts a terrible sequence of events arising from an innocent house-sitting assignment and a growing love for the place, which I as a reader very much shared. The house itself becomes both the setting and the main threat to the well-being of the ‘half-broken’ characters. The story is hauntingly compelling, the characters deeply likeable, and the writing a real delight. This has been one of my great favourites ever since I first read it.
A gripping tale of psychological suspense perfect for the readership of Minette Walters and Ruth Rendell, Half Broken Things is a novel that peers into the lives of three dangerously lost people…and the ominous haven they find when they find each other.
Jean is a house sitter at the end of a dreary career. Steph is nine months pregnant and on the run. And Michael is a thief. Through a mixture of deceit, good luck, and misfortune, these three damaged loners have come together at a secluded country home called Walden Manor. Now all three have found what they needed…
I’m someone who has had a lot of pets in my life––dogs, fish, birds, turtles, tortoises––which means I’m also someone who has had a lot of pets in my life die, because the worst thing about pets is they don’t live as long as we do. I spent ten years writing Good Grief, but really, I’ve been researching Good Grief my whole life, ever since my first pet died. This list includes some classics I loved when I was a kid, and some newer titles that I learned about while researching Good Grief. All are wonderful and will be a balm during a hard time.
I have always had a soft spot for turtles and tortoises (I currently have two pet red-foot tortoises, Terrence and Twyla) and so I love this book because it deals with the loss of a more unusual pet.
Lots of people have dogs and cats, so often the death of a canine or feline pet is easier for others to understand––but people get sad about all kinds of pets dying, everything from tortoises to tarantulas. I wish I’d had this picture book when my first pet tortoise, Aristotle, ran away when I was in middle school.
Even people I know who love, love, love their dogs and cats didn’t fully get why I was so upset about “just a reptile.” But Nan Forler totally gets it! Tortoises are the best.
This comforting and gently humorous picture book about bereavement and the strength of friendship shows how a child overcomes the sadness of her beloved pet's death.
Bernadette and Rodney are the best of friends. Rodney's not so good at playing cards, but he's great at staring contests. His favorite food is lettuce, though he eats it VERRRRRRY SLOOOOOWLY. And he's such a joker! When Bernadette goes to sleep at night, Rodney is always there, watching over her from his tank.
As the seasons pass, Rodney moves slower and slower, until one day he stops moving at all. Without Rodney, Bernadette…
From the engaging (mostly—except for the villains!) characters to the twisty plot, this book challenged assumptions and preconceptions, and, as a true author will do, Tartt's conclusion is both unexpected and well-planned for.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2014 Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother and a reckless, largely absent father, survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Alone and rudderless in New York, he is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. He is tormented by an unbearable longing for his mother, and down the years clings to the thing that most reminds him of her: a small, strangely captivating painting that ultimately draws him into the criminal underworld. As he grows up, Theo learns to glide between the drawing rooms of the…
I’m an OB/GYN, passionate about adventuring beyond what’s expected. This has led me to pivot multiple times in my career, now focusing on writing. I’ve written a play, The Post-Roe Monologues, to elevate women’s stories. I cherish the curiosity that drives outer and inner exploration, and I love memoirs that skillfully weave the two. The books on this list feature extraordinary women who took risks, left comfort and safety, and battled vulnerability to step into the unknown. These authors moved beyond the stories they’d believed about themselves–or that others told about them. They invite you to think about living fuller and bigger lives.
I read this book in a day. The writing sparkles with intimacy, vulnerability, and humor. Levy, a journalist accustomed to traveling the world, finds herself lost while on assignment in Mongolia. There, she experiences a miscarriage within the context of a crumbling relationship.
She writes, “The future I thought I was meticulously crafting for years had disappeared, and with it have gone my ideas about the kind of life I’d imagined I was due.”
An Amazon.com Book of 2017 and an NPR Great Read of 2017
'Every deep feeling a human is capable of will be shaken loose by this short, but profound book' David Sedaris
'I wanted what we all want: everything. We want a mate who feels like family and a lover who is exotic, surprising. We want to be youthful adventurers and middle-aged mothers. We want intimacy and autonomy, safety and stimulation, reassurance and novelty, coziness and thrills. But we can't have it all.'
ALBA - Hidden Secrets is a tale of blood, broken dreams, and buried secrets.
When I was in high school, several young teenage boys died in car accidents, with tragic outcomes for all involved, and I wanted to honour their memory without specifically identifying them.
At age 13, the unthinkable happened and my father took his own life. Barely into adolescence, this trauma shaped the rest of my life. It created a deep compassion within me for the suffering of others and an understanding of the impact death can have. It ended everything and in learning to live, learning to laugh and smile, and dare to be happy again, I found my passion to help others rise to the surface in adult years. For anyone having to face the trauma of suicide, I am deeply sorry, and I know that there are no words that will alleviate the pain, but if you are looking for some comfort (when you are ready for it) I hope these books will help.
This book although released back in 1999 it is still relevant today. The author speaks openly and honestly about the different emotions including guilt and loneliness which really resonated with me. The book is full of stories of pain and heartache that I could relate to as well as courage and inspiration. This book is honest and felt like a group therapy session that I didn’t want to leave at times. This book doesn’t hide the brutality of suicide, the stigma, the tragedy, and most of all the suffering and pain of those left behind.
Suicide would appear to be the last taboo. Even incest is now discussed freely in popular media, but the suicide of a loved one is still an act most people are unable to talk about--or even admit to their closest family or friends. This is just one of the many painful and paralyzing truths author Carla Fine discovered when her husband, a successful young physician, took his own life in December 1989. And being unable to speak openly and honestly about the cause of her pain made it all the more difficult for her to survive.
I think of myself as a listener and life in progress. As a poet and author, I’m always listening to the words that move through my heart. I’m also a spiritual seeker, always looking for the Divine in the world around me and almost always surprised by the ways it shows up when I’m paying attention. Yet, there’s another part of me that is a Jersey girl through and through, looking for humor or irreverence in the face of life’s challenges. All these aspects come together in an unusual harmony, creating an openness to being changed by the things that come into my life. Hence, a list of life-changing books.
This book was released at a time of great personal reflection for me. I was involved with an organization called Coming To the Table, through which I was learning more about the legacy of enslavement in the United States. Dr. McGowan’s book provides an opportunity for deep listening to the experiences of a Black woman in America. The words and experiences were challenging to sit with because of the depth of the pain, but that is what deep listening is about, being able to be still with what I am hearing and do my best to be with it.
The poems in this collection allowed me to take a glimpse into Dr. McGowan’s life for a short time and feel the darkness she is surrounded by in our country simply because of the color of her skin. It was not an easy or comfortable experience to read i am the…
I am the Rage is not just a poetry book. It is a call-to-action. This evocative collection of thirty poems puts readers in the position of feeling, reflecting, and empathizing with what it means to be Black in America today. Dr. Martina McGowan, a doctor and grandmother who has been a victim of and an advocate against social, racial, and sexual injustices, uses powerful free verse poetry to express the range of emotions, thoughts, and grief she had following the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests, and the ongoing attacks against the Black…
I am a professor of philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where I work on ethics and related questions about human agency and human knowledge. My interest in adversity is both personal and philosophical: it comes from my own experience with chronic pain and from a desire to revive the tradition of moral philosophy as a medium of self-help. My last book was Midlife: A Philosophical Guide, and I have also written about baseball and philosophy, stand-up comedy, and the American author H. P. Lovecraft.
One of the most profound attempts to capture grief in prose is due to the British experimental novelist B. S. Johnson. Published in 1969, The Unfortunatesis a book in a box: twenty-seven booklets to be read in any order, except for “First” and “Last.”Its narrator is a journalist returning to a city he last knew seven years ago, visiting an old friend, Tony, who later died of metastatic cancer. The visit triggers memories that arrive in random order, scattered through the day’s events as chance dictates. Grief has no narrative order, the book in a box seems to warn; and any closure is temporary. Grief can be opened and reshuffled again and again.
B.S. Johnson's lost classic has been showered with praise: New York Magazine named The Unfortunates one of their Ten Best Books of 2008, listed in The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2008, and The Los Angeles Times declared it to be "his most daring work."
A legendary 1960s experiment in form, The Unfortunates is B. S. Johnson's famous "book in a box," in which the chapters are presented unbound, to be read in any order the reader chooses. A sportswriter, sent to a Midlands town on a weekly assignment, finds himself confronted by ghosts from the past when…
I am a scholar of international politics and history who has taught in Northern Uganda, spent years interviewing political and military elites in Congo, Eritrea, and Sudan, and worked on climate agriculture and water in Ethiopia and Somalia. In my work on the continent and at Oxford, Cambridge, and Columbia University, I try not only to understand the material realities that define the options available to diverse African communities but also the ideas, in all their potential and contradictions, that give shape to how African societies interact internally and engage the outside world. I hope the books on this list will inspire you as much as they did for me.
If some books inspire a rethink of recent history through hundreds of pages of forensic evidence or rigorous theory, Emtithal Mahmoud’s poetry recasts big questions that African societies have struggled with by weaving together hard-hitting metaphors and stunning phrases to open up new worlds of possibility and loss.
I find Emi’s writing an incredible call for solidarity, compassion, and the shattering of barriers—whether through the tender or the raw, the unspeakable or the gushing, the blistering and the comforting. A set of poems I return to regularly for perspective, whether on personal dilemmas, the contraptions of unity and division, or the political currency of love and othering.
2015 World Poetry Slam Champion and Woman of the World co-Champion Emtithal "Emi" Mahmoud presents her hauntingly beautiful debut poetry collection.
Brimming with rage, sorrow, and resilience, this collection traverses an expansive terrain: genocide; diaspora; the guilt of surviving; racism and Islamophobia; the burdens of girlhood; the solace of sisterhood; the innocence of a first kiss. Heart-wrenching and raw, defiant and empowering, Sisters' Entrance explores how to speak the unspeakable.
