English Houses

We live in a world obsessed with drinking. We drink at baby showers and work events, brunch and book club, graduations and funerals. Yet no one ever questions alcohol’s ubiquity—in fact, the only thing ever questioned is why someone doesn’t drink. It is a qualifier for belonging and if you don’t imbibe, you are considered an anomaly. As a society, we are obsessed with health and wellness, yet we uphold alcohol as some kind of magic elixir, though it is anything but.

On the eve of a popular rebellion, the Chinese government starts to crack down in cities across the country. Fleeing the turmoil, Wang Yuan, the son of a famous general and grandson of the patriarch of The Good Earth, leaves for America to study agriculture. When he returns to China six years later, he encounters a nation still in the grip of violent uprisings. Unprepared for the social upheaval, Wang is torn by the tensions between old traditions and new ways and by his formidable family, whose struggles he hopes to solve.

The three Blue sisters are exceptional—and exceptionally different. Avery, the eldest and a recovering heroin addict turned strait-laced lawyer, lives with her wife in London; Bonnie, a former boxer, works as a bouncer in Los Angeles following a devastating defeat; and Lucky, the youngest, models in Paris while trying to outrun her hard-partying ways. They also had a fourth sister, Nicky, whose unexpected death left the family reeling. A year later, as they each navigate grief, addiction and ambition, they find they must return to New York to stop the sale of the apartment they were raised in.

What would you do if you were sitting quietly in your living room when a mysterious couple appeared from out of nowhere-and then told you they were “ascended masters” who had come to reveal some shocking secrets of existence and teach you the miraculous powers of advanced forgiveness? When two such teachers appeared before Gary Renard in 1992, he chose to listen to them (and ask a lot of impertinent questions). The result is this startling book: an extraordinary record of 17 mind-bending conversations that took place over nearly a decade, reorienting the author’s life.

In many ways, we’re more comfortable than ever before. But could our sheltered, temperature-controlled, overfed, underchallenged lives actually be the leading cause of many our most urgent physical and mental health issues? In this gripping investigation, award-winning journalist Michael Easter seeks out off-the-grid visionaries, disruptive genius researchers, and mind-body conditioning trailblazers who are unlocking the life-enhancing secrets of a counterintuitive solution: discomfort.

The adventures of Laura Ingalls and her family continue as Pa, Ma, Laura, Mary, Carrie, and little Grace bravely face the hard winter of 1880-81 in their little house in the Dakota Territory. Blizzards cover the little town with snow, cutting off all supplies from the outside. Soon there is almost no food left, so young Almanzo Wilder and a friend make a dangerous trip across the prairie to find some wheat. Finally a joyous Christmas is celebrated in a very unusual way in this most exciting of all the Little House books.

In a boarded-up house on a dead-end street at the edge of the wild Washington woods lives a family of three. A teenage girl who isn’t allowed outside, not after last time. A man who drinks alone in front of his TV, trying to ignore the gaps in his memory. And a house cat who loves napping and reading the Bible. An unspeakable secret binds them together, but when a new neighbor moves in next door, what is buried out among the birch trees may come back to haunt them all.

For a long time, no one pulling the strings in the comedy world thought that a woman over fifty from rural Tennessee could make it in the industry. But Leanne Morgan has defied the odds, reaching millions with her musings on hormones, low-rise britches, Weight Watchers, and her opposites-attract relationship with her husband, Chuck. In her charming southern accent, Morgan brings listeners inside her quest to find her voice after spending many years trying to figure out what that meant.

Five hundred years before the birth of Jesus, a God-realized being named Lao-tzu in ancient China dictated 81 verses, which are regarded by many as the ultimate commentary on the nature of our existence. The classic text of these 81 verses, called the Tao Te Ching or the Great Way, offers advice and guidance that is balanced, moral, spiritual, and always concerned with working for the good.

When the firefighters of Ladder Company 189 pull Clare's friends out of a blazing cafe, she happily comes to their rescue. As a favor to the men, she visits their firehouse kitchen to teach them the finer points of operating their newly donated espresso machine. But more than their coffee turns out to be hot. Somebody's torching cafes around the city, and firefighters are beginning to die in suspicious ways....

Paige Barrett was living her dream as a journalist in New York City, racking up bylines as a staff writer at The Razor, a cutting-edge online magazine. But when she’s suddenly fired from her job and dumped by her boyfriend, she finds herself back home in the quaint seaside town of Shoreham, Florida, waiting tables and living in her sister’s guesthouse. Restless and itching for something meaningful to occupy her time, she decides to launch a true-crime podcast about the death of Jessica Cady, a beloved teacher who died mysteriously 20 years earlier.

When we talk about sex, we talk about womanhood and motherhood, infidelity and exploitation, consent and respect, fairness and egalitarianism, love and hate, pleasure and pain. And yet for many reasons—some complicated, some not—so many of us don’t talk about it. Our deepest, most intimate fears and fantasies remain locked away inside of us, until someone comes along with the key. Gillian Anderson collects and introduces the anonymous sexual fantasies of hundreds of women from around the world (along with her own anonymous fantasy).

After decades of research, world-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol S. Dweck discovered a simple but groundbreaking idea: the power of mindset. In this brilliant book, she describes how success in school, work, sports, the arts, and almost every area of human endeavor can be dramatically influenced by how we think about our talents and abilities. In this edition, Dweck offers new insights into her now famous and broadly embraced concept. She introduces a phenomenon she calls false growth mindset and guides people toward adopting a deeper, truer growth mindset.

The corpse of a beautiful woman, clad in only a bathing suit, is found strangled to death on a popular Sussex beach. When she is finally identified, it turns out she was a top profiler for the National Crime Faculty who was working on the case of a serial killer. And though she was a Bath resident, the authorities don't want Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond to investigate the murder. How strange. What could they be trying to hide?

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night. But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway - a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors.

DI Nathaniel Caslin’s life is a mess. He works the minimum, abuses substances to survive the day and drinks his nights away. A once-promising career is in freefall. Investigating the death of an ex-serviceman in police custody reveals the disappearance of a young family. No-one noticed. No-one seems to care.

As the American hostage crisis in Iran boiled into its seventh month in the spring of 1980, six heavily armed gunman barged into the Iranian embassy in London, taking twenty-six hostages. What followed over the next six days was an increasingly tense standoff, one that threatened at any moment to spill into a bloodbath.

It is fall. CIA analyst Jack Ryan, historian and former Marine, is vacationing in London with his wife and young daughter. Suddenly, right before his eyes, a terrorist group launches its deadly attack. Instinctively, he dives forward to break it up, and is shot. It is not until he wakes up in the hospital that he learns whose lives he has saved - the Duke and Duchess of Kent.

Kate McGuire’s life was sweet in Manhattan before she lost her restaurant job and fiancé both. But sometimes that’s just the way the cookie crumbles, and soon she finds herself starting from scratch in the island town of Coral Cay, Florida. It has everything she’s looking for: sunny beaches, friendly locals, and a Help Wanted sign in the bakery shop window. Once she convinces the shop’s crusty owner Sam Hepplewhite to hire her, Kate can’t tie on her apron fast enough. Little does she know that trouble, like warm dough, is on the rise.

As a passionate advocate for mental health, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau believes that in order to know and accept ourselves fully, we need to understand why we think and feel the way we do, and recognize the experiences, attitudes, and patterns that may be holding us back. And yet, all of us are capable of growth and positive change, if we're willing to stay open and curious throughout our lives.