#BookReview: The Girl Who Survived Auschwitz by Sara Leibovits & Eti Elbom

Synopsis: Poland, 1944 The train slowed and halted with a squeal of the brakes. It felt like we waited in the carriage for an eternity, but eventually, the heavy doors opened, directly into the chaos outside. Sara Leibovits, a 16-year-old Jewish girl, was a passenger on the train, together with her family. Within minutes, their horrific fate was sealed.
The little family spent their final minutes together on the platform at Auschwitz before they were ordered in all directions and each left to their own fate. Sara’s mother and baby brothers were sent to their deaths. Her father was made a Sonderkommando, one of the men forced to remove the bodies from the gas chambers, and was later executed. This is the powerful true story of Sara Leibovits and the incredible pain and hardships she went through during her time in the Death Camp. Yet despite the horrors she faced she always tried to maintain her families’ values ​​of courage, faith and kindness to others. Her story is intertwined with that of her daughter, Eti, seventy years later, who embodies the voice of the second generation and completes the Holocaust survivors' tale.

#BookReview: Essential Oils for Healing by @bindiyogass @StMartinsPress

Synopsis: An easy-to-use handbook for using essential oils every day ― now with a new foreword from the author

All over the world, people are turning toward homeopathic and alternative medicines. Essential Oils for Healing is an easy-to-use guide for anyone who wants to learn how to use essential oils to heal a multitude of ills. Ailments are listed in alphabetical order and are accompanied by hundreds of recipes you can re-create at home using the essential oils at your disposal. Tips on safe handling and usage, contraindications, and storage ensure that even the most novice of essential oils user can get the healing benefits from our planet's natural resources.

Did you know that a few drops of lavender oil can be added to your kids' shampoo to protect them from head lice? Or that a drop of clove oil mixed with orange oil can relieve a mind-numbing toothache? Common, everyday problems such as nausea, dry skin, and insect bites to more serious issues like migraines and arthritis are included along with all-natural remedies that are simple and accessible.

#BookReview: Summons to Berlin by @JoanneIntrator @shewritespress

Synopsis: On his deathbed, Dr. Joanne Intrator’s father poses two unsettling 

“Are you tough enough? Do they know who you are?”

Joanne soon realizes that these haunting questions relate to a center-city Berlin building at 16 Wallstrasse that the Nazis ripped away from her family in 1938. But a decade is to pass before she will fully come to grasp why her father threw down the gauntlet as he did.

Repeatedly, Joanne’s restitution quest brings her into confrontation with yet another of her profound fears surrounding Germany and the Holocaust. Having to call on reserves of strength she’s unsure she possesses, the author leans into her professional command of psychiatry, often overcoming flabbergasting obstacles perniciously dumped in her path.

The depth and lucidity of psychological insight threaded throughout Summons to Berlin makes it an attention-grabbing standout among books on like topics. As a reader, you’ll come away delighted to know just who Dr. Joanne Intrator is. You’ll also finish the book cheering for her, because in the end, she proves far more than tough enough to satisfy her father’s unnerving final demands.

#BookReview: Surrounded by Energy Vampires by Thomas Erikson @StMartinsPress

Synopsis: Vanquish the energy thieves in your life and at work.

Are there people in your life that leave you feeling drained, depleted, and just exhausted? Twenty minutes with these people and you feel as if you’ve just run a marathon. They demand limitless time, emotional support, attention, or affirmation; you dread interacting with them but don’t know how to change the dynamic.

You’ve just encountered a real-life vampire. Dracula has nothing on these ubiquitous social villains who take—time, energy, attention, emotional capacity— without reciprocating, and leave you too exhausted to protest. Energy vampires can be people, situations, or even your own mindset, but in Surrounded by Energy Vampires, internationally best-selling author Thomas Erikson identifies the different types of energy vampires and offers practical tools, fun self-assessments, and relatable stories to help you combat them.

Using the same simple, four-color behavior that made Surrounded by Idiots a runaway bestseller, Surrounded by Energy Vampires will help you slay the energy sucking interactions in your life whether they’re lurking at the office, amongst your friends, or in your own home.

This title will be released on October 3, 2023.

#BookReview: Punished for Dreaming by @BLoveSoulPower @StMartinsPress

Synopsis: “I am an eighties baby who grew to hate school. I never fully understood why. Until now. Until Bettina Love unapologetically and painstakingly chronicled the last forty years of education ‘reform’ in this landmark book. I hated school because it warred on me. I hated school because I loved to dream.”
―Ibram X. Kendi, New York Times bestselling author of How to be an Antiracist

In the tradition of Michelle Alexander, an unflinching reckoning with the impact of 40 years of racist public school policy on generations of Black lives

In Punished for Dreaming Dr. Bettina Love argues forcefully that Reagan’s presidency ushered in a War on Black Children, pathologizing and penalizing them in concert with the War on Drugs. New policies punished schools with policing, closure, and loss of funding in the name of reform, as white savior, egalitarian efforts increasingly allowed private interests to infiltrate the system. These changes implicated children of color, and Black children in particular, as low performing, making it all too easy to turn a blind eye to their disproportionate conviction and incarceration. Today, there is little national conversation about a structural overhaul of American schools; cosmetic changes, rooted in anti-Blackness, are now passed off as justice.

It is time to put a price tag on the miseducation of Black children. In this prequel to The New Jim Crow , Dr. Love serves up a blistering account of four decades of educational reform through the lens of the people who lived it. Punished for Dreaming lays bare the devastating effect on 25 Black Americans caught in the intersection of economic gain and racist ideology. Then, with input from leading U.S. economists , Dr. Love offers a road map for repair, arguing for reparations with transformation for all children at its core.

This title will be released on September 12, 2023.

#BookReview: Happy AF by @BethRomeroBooks @shewritespress

Synopsis: Feeling crappy? Wanna be happier? Wanna up your game? 
Happy AF  is your comprehensive roadmap for happiness. Drawing heavily from neuroscience, positive psychology, and behavioral science, the straightforward strategies and exercises in this how-to guide will teach you how to strengthen your happiness muscle and live up to your greatest potential. Happiness junky Beth Romero serves up a life-affirming parable laced with contextual how-tos—all backed by clinical research—in fresh, insightful, and accessible language you can relate to. Kinda like your best friend giving it to you straight (with love) over cocktails. In this book, you will 
* the art of letting go 
* proven ways to jiu-jitsu your negative thoughts to transform your life
* how goals, vision, purpose are the stepping-stones to greatness
* the importance of gratitude and grace in your happiness journey
* the scientific link between sleep, morning routines, diet, and exercise on your mental well-being
* and much, much more!

Happiness  is  a choice—and it’s within your reach.  If you do the work . If you believe. Much like Dorothy with her ruby slippers, the power is always within you . . . just waiting for you to access it. So get ready to click your Manolos, Dr. Martens, or Adidas and find your happy place.

This title will be released on November 14, 2023. 

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#BookReview: Sufi Stories of Wisdom, Calm, and Wondrous Mystique by SagaTellers

Synopsis: Discover the wisdom and devotion of the Sufi mystics in this captivating hagiography. Through a skillful weaving of anecdotes from tradition and history, this book of Sufi Stories brings to life some of the most revered figures in Sufism. 

From their emphasis on love for God to their unwavering commitment to Salah, the Sufis were true embodiments of devotion. But their message went beyond fear and obligation – it was one of positivity, hope, and love. Through their stories, we are reminded of the infinite love of God and the contentment that comes from a life of piety. 

With each Sufi story in this book, I hope to spark a sense of wonder that awakens the reader’s heart and mind to the transformative power of this rich tradition. My hope is that these Sufi Stories will offer a guiding light for all of us towards greater spiritual understanding.

#BookReview: Ride or Die: A Husband's Memoir by @thedailymba @GoSparkPress

Synopsis: Modern society has a warped sense of the partner-caregiver role, especially for men. Too often, men are ill equipped to handle switching from provider to caregiver, and the “just suck it up” advice so many offer up falls as flat as the Kansas prairie in the face of the reality of life and death.

Ride or Die takes its audience through the intimate conversations and thoughts of a Gen-X latchkey-generation husband—a man who has always had to fend for himself and believed that it’s up to him to solve his own problems—as and after his wife, Jane, succumbs to a terminal disease.

Jarie Bolander wrote this raw, heartfelt tribute to Jane and her handling of her illness to help men and the people who love them through the experience of loss and grief. A frank chronicle of how an intimate relationship can change and grow—even when the people involved feel there is nothing left to give— Ride or Die offers a detailed exploration of the male experience of grief, in the hopes that others suffering through it will not feel so alone.

#BookReview: Soul Archaeology by @ssapora @HachetteUS

Synopsis: Meet your ultimate You and cultivate real self-acceptance and true self-love in the present moment.

You want to love yourself. You want to let go of feeling invisible or unworthy or alone.  You want to break free of others’ expectations (and your own) and live life on your terms . Let’s do it!

In this highly anticipated debut, plus-size personal growth trailblazer Sarah Sapora redefines self-love, offering the knowing nod, the deep cleansing breath, and the older sister wisdom which women of all sizes have been waiting for. Soul Archaeology begins with a simple, illuminating “What’s hurting me right now?”  Acting as your guide, Sapora helps you through the sticky, liberating process of self-discovery to uncover your Ultimate You, allowing you Weaving together practical, transformative guidance with her own deeply personal narrative, Soul Archaeology teaches readers to cast off the chains of traditional Before-and-After thinking so often found in self-improvement. Instead, it offers a strategy for self-accountability, honesty, and compassion that can help each of us to grow into our greatest selves–a person not defined by weight or age, but by our commitment to a more loving, honest, and powerful life.

This title will be released on August 8, 2023.

#BookReview: She Rides by @AlenkaVrecek @shewritespress

Synopsis: At fifty-four, Alenka was running out of time to follow through on a dream she’d written down in her pocket-size Rumi book just after her first marriage crumbled. Years later, as she slowly rebuilt her life with her second husband, things started spiraling out of control. The only way she knew how to heal and connect all painful parts of her life was by riding her bike, and she didn’t want to have regrets. But was she brave enough to embark on an unknown path and risk losing everything . . . perhaps even her own life?

Determined to awaken her dying spirit and heal her battered body, Alenka loaded her mountain bike with 50 pounds’ worth of camping gear and set off on a 2,500-mile journey. Starting in Lake Tahoe California, she hoped to ride along the Sierra Nevada Mountain range to the tip of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula, following remote mountain trails. Alone.

What followed was an irrevocably transformational journey of love, hope, courage, and resilience—and here, Alenka tells that story in a voice stripped of self-pity and infused with a good dose of humor. She Rides is a galvanizing wake-up call for anyone who wants to unearth and follow their own deeply buried dreams—and reclaim their life. 

This title will be released on June 13, 2023.

#BookReview: @LlewellynBooks Complete Book of Meditation by @STubali

Synopsis: Free Your Awareness and Awaken Your Energies with 35 Worldwide Meditation Techniques Enjoy a healthier and happier life with reduced stress, decreased pain, improved sleep, lengthened attention span, and fewer age-related memory problems. The key to these and other benefits? Meditation. Appropriate for practitioners of all skill levels, this new addition to Llewellyn's Complete Book Series features thirty-five fundamental meditation techniques from traditions around the globe, including one unique method of author Shai Tubali's own creation. These • Zazen (Classical Zen Meditation) • Qigong Standing Meditation • Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Body Scan • Taoist Inner Smile • Osho’s Mystic Rose • Japanese Forest Bathing • Sufi Whirling • Gurdjieff ’s “I Am” Meditation • Christian Prayer of the Heart • Islamic Dhikr • Hindu Aum Meditation • Sikh Kirtan Kriya • Jewish Hitbodedut • Ramana Maharshi’s Self-Inquiry • Tantric Hindu Kriya Yoga • Tibetan Buddhist Dzogchen Shai presents each technique with its historical background, cultural context, potential benefits, and clear instructions for practicing it at home in a non-appropriative way. You will explore the fifteen purposes of meditation and the role of chakras. You will also learn how to align your mind and body, open your heart to love and compassion, use the hidden powers of sound, and more. This comprehensive, easy-to-understand guide introduces the magic of meditation in a way that is experiential, practical, and deeply researched. Every page encourages you to take your journey into the world of meditation further than ever before.

#BookReview: Surviving the Sand by Helen Lingscheit Heavirland

Synopsis: "Dad's eyes danced. His grin held happiness...hope. 'We're home!' he announced. Mom stared out the pickup window. Silent. Lifeless...Tufts of skinny grass and small grayish green bushes surrounded us. The land lay flat in every direction as far as I could see." Helen Lingscheit Heavirland spent her early years in western Oregon's beautiful woods, where her father Wayne Lingscheit's work as a logger provided a comfortable home. But Wayne dreamed of farming, and Columbia Basin Project irrigation opened a new opportunity. In 1954 he and his wife Gladys moved their family--seven-year-old Helen, baby Hazel, twelve-year-old Frank, and fifteen-year-old Emma--to raw land in Pasco, Washington, that was mostly bunchgrass and sagebrush. The only structures were a roofless outhouse, an eight-foot by sixteen-foot wooden shack, and a pen for sheep and goats. In Surviving the Sand, Helen shares her family's hardscrabble yet heartwarming story, chronicling common hardships many faced in the Columbia Basin Project's early settlement days. She describes breaking sod, plants destroyed by wind-whipped sand, and a harrowing first winter sleeping outside after a storm shredded their tent, but also simple joys like fresh apricots, Crokinole games, and letters from loved ones. Most of all, she relates how--despite the heartache, arduous work, and tough times--her family loves, laughs, and works together as they chase her father's seemingly impossible dream.

#BookReview: Ride or Die: A Husband's Memoir by @thedailymba @GoSparkPress

Synopsis: Modern society has a warped sense of the partner-caregiver role, especially for men. Too often, men are ill equipped to handle switching from provider to caregiver, and the “just suck it up” advice so many offer up falls as flat as the Kansas prairie in the face of the reality of life and death.

Ride or Die takes its audience through the intimate conversations and thoughts of a Gen-X latchkey-generation husband—a man who has always had to fend for himself and believed that it’s up to him to solve his own problems—as and after his wife, Jane, succumbs to a terminal disease.

Jarie Bolander wrote this raw, heartfelt tribute to Jane and her handling of her illness to help men and the people who love them through the experience of loss and grief. A frank chronicle of how an intimate relationship can change and grow—even when the people involved feel there is nothing left to give— Ride or Die offers a detailed exploration of the male experience of grief, in the hopes that others suffering through it will not feel so alone.

This title will be released on September 5, 2023.

#BookReview: Underwater Daughter by Antonia Deignan @shewritespress

Synopsis: Tuni’s father began sexually abusing her when she was just four years old. Her mother, though aware of the abuse, was a silent witness—one either incapable or unwilling to intervene—and the abuse continued until Tuni was eleven. Three years later, when Tuni was fourteen, she was raped by an adult actor who was part of her cast in a professional theater production. These traumas would go on to shape much of her life.

Underwater Daughter follows how Tuni grappled with her relationship with her parents, the aftermath of her rape, an eating disorder, drug and alcohol excesses, and shame as she came of age and began to build a life. In order to not lose her inner innocence, in order to protect herself, in order to believe in love, she began early on to create imaginary worlds into which she could escape—to use dreams to transport her away from her fears. By early adulthood, she was well practiced at slapping lipstick (pink, frosty, kiss-me, gloss-over, perfect lipstick) over whatever darkness might be bubbling beneath. Hired by a dance company right out of high school, she found success as a dancer in Chicago and New York, but in her personal and emotional life, she continued to struggle. Ultimately, it took her decades of dancing, hiding, faking, fucking, costuming, implanting, dissociating, marrying, divorcing, and purging—all while staying silent about her past trauma—before a bike accident at age fifty-five forced her to stop and truly take stock of her life. As she did, she came to a resting place, finally, in regard to her father; developed the loving relationship she’d always wanted with her mother; and came to understand that, in the end, love is all anyone wants—or needs.

#BookReview: Unfinished Business by Melanie Smith @shewritespress

Synopsis: Melanie Smith knows from experience how complex and immovable grief and trauma can feel. She used that experience to fuel her research into the issues of trauma, loss, and finding happiness, which led to the creation of Unfinished Business—an eight-step, actionable process that will help you overcome heartbreak, emotional wounds, limiting beliefs, old patterns, and unconscious habits, as well as the negative self-talk, self-judgment, overwhelm, and misalignment that have held you back from succeeding in love, relationships, business, finance, and health.  
 Grounded in a scientifically supported and solution-based methodology, this system has already transformed people’s lives globally through her one-on-one and group coaching sessions; now Melanie has put it on the page so everyone can access it and change their lives once and for all. With her guidance, you will clear out the heartbreak, trauma, and grief of your past and make space for joy, hope, and possibility—giving you the self-awareness, clarity of vision, and courage to create the purpose-filled life that was meant for you.

This title will be released on August 8, 2023.

#BookReview: A Smoke and a Song: A Memoir by @SherryFLYYoga @shewritespress

Synopsis: January 2021, ten months into the global pandemic, Sherry Sidoti’s mother is diagnosed with terminal cancer—so Sherry prioritizes a trip to Manhattan over long-awaited empty-nesting and her “second chance” with fiancé Jevon. With new life blooming and loss looming, she is beckoned to answer the question that has haunted her since is freedom found in “letting go,” as the spiritual teachers (and her mother) insist—or is it found by digging our heels deeper into the earth and holding on to our humanness?

A Smoke and a Song is Sherry’s story of her quest to make meaning from the memories homed in her body. Told with tenacity, tenderness, and wry humor, Sherry stumbles towards self-actualization, spiritual awakening—and, despite it all, love. This is a story steeped in art and spirituality that explores the complexities of transgenerational maternal bonds, attachment, loss, and leaning in to our wounds to find the wisdom.

This title will be released on August 1, 2023.

#BookReview: Baby Making for Everybody by Ray Rachlin & Maria Goodman

Synopsis: This inclusive, straightforward guide to fertility is What to Expect Before You’re Expecting for families outside the heterosexual nuclear family model—perfect for LGBTQ+ and solo parents who want to have kids but don’t know where to start.   
 
In  Baby Making for Everybody,  queer millennial midwives Ray Rachlin and Marea Goodman use their professional expertise to demystify the dizzying process of pursuing parenthood as queer and solo people, offering detailed, gender-affirming, body-positive advice on topics  
The result is a much-needed compassionate step-by-step guide for every aspect of the complicated, messy, and glorious process of building a family. Combining practical information with personal narratives and first-person community wisdom, this book provides prospective parents with the information they need to grow their families.
 

#BookReview: Reconfigured: A Memoir by Barbara Wolf Terao

Synopsis: When Barbara Terao moves into a new home in Washington, two thousand miles from her husband in Illinois, she doesn’t know when—or if—she’ll ever live with him again. Her diagnosis of breast cancer three months later changes both of them in ways they never imagined.


In the ensuing months, Barbara’s husband and adult children show up to help her through a year of difficult treatments and surgery, and Barbara, in her Whidbey Island cottage, learns to listen to her heart and intuition. Nurtured by Douglas fir forests, the Salish Sea, and her community, she changes her life from the inside out. Her journey, she realizes, wasn’t about leaving her husband so much as finding herself. Reconfigured in body, mind, and spirit, Barbara finally has words for what she wants to say—and the strength to be a survivor.

This title will be released on July 18, 2023.

#BookReview: Baby Making for Everybody by Ray Rachlin, LM, CPM & Marea Goodman, LM, CPM @HachetteUS

Synopsis: This inclusive, straightforward guide to fertility is What to Expect Before You’re Expecting for families outside the heterosexual nuclear family model—perfect for LGBTQ+ and solo parents who want to have kids but don’t know where to start.   
 
In  Baby Making for Everybody,  queer millennial midwives Ray Rachlin and Marea Goodman use their professional expertise to demystify the dizzying process of pursuing parenthood as queer and solo people, offering detailed, gender-affirming, body-positive advice on topics  
The result is a much-needed compassionate step-by-step guide for every aspect of the complicated, messy, and glorious process of building a family. Combining practical information with personal narratives and first-person community wisdom, this book provides prospective parents with the information they need to grow their families.

#BookReview: You Could Make This Place Beautiful by @maggiesmithpoet

Synopsis: Keep Moving offers a lush and heartrending memoir exploring coming of age in your middle age.

“Life, like a poem, is a series of choices.”

In her memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful, poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself in lyrical vignettes that shine, hard and clear as jewels. The book begins with one woman’s personal, particular heartbreak, but its circles widen into a reckoning with contemporary womanhood, traditional gender roles, and the power dynamics that persist even in many progressive homes. With the spirit of self-inquiry and empathy she’s known for, Smith interweaves snapshots of a life with meditations on secrets, anger, forgiveness, and narrative itself. The power of these pieces is cumulative: page after page, they build into a larger interrogation of family, work, and patriarchy.

You Could Make This Place Beautiful, like the work of Deborah Levy, Rachel Cusk, and Gina Frangello, is an unflinching look at what it means to live and write our own lives. It is a story about a mother’s fierce and constant love for her children, and a woman’s love and regard for herself. Above all, this memoir is an argument for possibility. With a poet’s attention to language and an innovative approach to the genre, Smith reveals how, in the aftermath of loss, we can discover our power and make something new. Something beautiful.

This title will be released on April 11, 2023.