After learning that a guardian spirit has mysteriously protected her since childhood, a desperate runaway discovers she has the same power—and must use it to protect the woman she loves.Ren Cole is at the end of her rope. Consumed by the guilt of her father’s death, the eighteen-year-old runaway is desperate and alone until two strangers explode into her life on an icy October night. One is a protectress named Lailah—an ethereal apparition who Ren will learn has safeguarded her fro...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of My Morning Routine written by Benjamin Spall and Michael Xander, read by Arthur Morey, Dominic Hoffman, Sumalee Montano, Will Damron, Kaleo Griffith, Karissa Vacker, Hillary Huber, and Fred Sanders.In My Morning Routine, talented creatives and successful business people share their secrets to unlocking greater energy, focus and calm - starting first thing in the morning. For example, Arian...

In her introduction to this year’s The Best American Essays, guest editor Vivian Gornick states that her selections “contribute materially to the long and honorable history of the personal essay by way of the value they place on lived experience.” Provocative, daring, and honest at a time when many writers are deliberately silencing themselves in the face of authoritarian and populist censorship movements, the twenty-one essays collected here reflect their authors’ unapologetic ob...

A collection of the year’s best short stories, selected by National Book Award finalist Min Jin Lee and series editor Heidi Pitlor.“Without stories, we cannot live well,” shares guest editor Min Jin Lee, describing how storytelling affects and nurtures readers. The Best American Short Stories 2023 features twenty pieces of short fiction that reflect a world full of fractured relationships, but also wondrous hope. A lifelong friendship may become a casualty...

Award-winning writer, columnist, and journalists Carl Zimmer selects twenty science and nature essays that represent the best examples of the form published in 2022.“What's most compelling about a scientific story is the way it challenges us to think about the concepts we take for granted,” writes guest editor Carl Zimmer in his introduction. The essays in this year’s Best American Science and Nature Writing probe at the ordinary and urge us to think more ...

""Excellent....Taken as a whole, the volume moves beyond food’s sensory pleasures to investigate it as a cultural vessel, a symbol of inequality, and more. It’s a standout addition to the series."" —Publisher's Weekly (starred review)A collection of the year’s top food writing, selected by prolific food writer and author of How to Cook Everything Mark Bittman.""In almost any culture, at any time, you can find food writing,...

A collection of the year’s best essays, selected by award-winning writer Alexander Chee.Alexander Chee, an essayist of “virtuosity and power” (Washington Post), selects twenty essays out of thousands that represent the best examples of the form published the previous year.Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Do you aspire to live a more peaceful, intentional life of mindfulness, positivity, and gratitude?Njuta (pronounced “nyutah”), which means “enjoy” or “delight in,” is the Swedish art of savoring the moment. Focused on finding happiness in even the smallest things, njuta can be applied to every area of life:Daily ritualsCreating a comfortable homeNature and friluftsliv (open-air life)Meal times and fika (...

Why policies should be based on careful consideration of their costs and benefits rather than on intuition, popular opinion, interest groups, and anecdotes. Opinions on government policies vary widely. Some people feel passionately about the child obesity epidemic and support government regulation of sugary drinks. Others argue that people should be able to eat and drink whatever they like. Some people are alarmed about climate change and favor aggressive government intervention. Others do...

“Short stories have to accomplish a nearly impossible magic trick: to introduce a world often much stranger than our own and make you care about it in a matter of pages,” writes R. F. Kuang in her introduction. “The most important part of this magic trick is just a willingness to get weird.” The stories in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2023 are brimming with bizarre and otherworldly premises. Women can’t lie or fall in love. Fathers feed their children ghost preser...

From a New York Times bestselling author ("One of our wisest storytellers"), a story collection that is funny and tragic in equal measure, about crimes large and small (Rebecca Makkai, author of The Great Believers).Beloved author Jill McCorkle offers an intimate look at the moments when a person’s life changes forever. A woman uses her hearing impairment as a way to guard herself from her husband’s commentary. A telephone lineman strains to commu...

Americans seldom deify their Founding Fathers any longer, but they do still tend to venerate the Constitution and the republican government that the founders created. Strikingly, the founders themselves were far less confident in what they had wrought, particularly by the end of their lives. In fact, most of them—including George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson—came to deem America's constitutional experiment an utter failure that was unlikely to last beyon...