Inspirational Fiction

The only thing more beautiful than Beyoncé is God, and God is a black woman sipping rosé and drawing a lavender bath, texting her mom, belly laughing in the therapist's office, feeling unloved, being on display, daring to survive. Morgan Parker stands at the intersections of vulnerability and performance, of desire and disgust, of tragedy and excellence. Unrelentingly feminist, tender, and ruthless, these poems are an altar to the complexities of black American womanhood in an age of non-indictments and déjà vu.

In the tumult of our contemporary moment, poetry has emerged as an inviting, consoling outlet with a unique power to move and connect us, to inspire fury, tears, joy, laughter, and surprise. This generous anthology pairs fifty illuminating poems with poet and podcast host Pádraig Ó Tuama's appealing, unhurried reflections. With keen insight and warm personal anecdotes, Ó Tuama considers each poem's artistry and explores how its meaning can reach into our own lives.

The Preacher's Daughter is the first in a captivating new series, Annie's People, and introduces an Amish community in Paradise, Pennsylvania--a heavenly-sounding place, but one that has seen its share of heartache and mystery. A moving story of friendship, secrets, and love.

1939. Seventeen-year-old Nora Jennings has spent her life secure in the certainty of a bright, happy future - until one night of passion has more catastrophic consequences than she ever could have anticipated. Labelled a moral defective and sectioned under the Mental Deficiency Act, she is forced to endure years of unspeakable cruelty at the hands of those who are supposed to care for her.

Thousands of readers have come home to Mitford, the little town with the big heart, whose endearing and eccentric residents have become like family members. But now change is coming to the hamlet. Father Tim, the Episcopal rector, and his wife Cynthia are pondering retirement; a brash new mayoral candidate is calling for aggressive development; a suspicious realtor with plans for a health spa is eyeing the beloved house on the hill; and, worst of all, the Sweet Stuff Bakery may be closing.

A recent Civil War widow, Charity Burk must find a man to plow the tough prairie sod. When she discovers Beau Claxton - mauled by a ravenous wolf - she believes he's the answer to her prayers. She drags the dying man to her cabin, convinced God wants them to marry. But does this unconscious stranger have room in his heart for God or for her?

Much-Afraid begins her journey, crippled and disfigured, with the cry, "Oh, if only I could escape from this Valley of Humiliation altogether and go to the High Places." She leaves her Fearing relatives behind, and presses on to the Realm of Love. As the Chief Shepard explains, no Fears can live in this realm, because "perfect love casts out fears and everything that torments".

Robert is a successful attorney who has everything in life, and nothing at all. Focused on professional achievement and material rewards, Robert has lost sight of his wife, family and, ultimately, himself. An eight-year-old Nathan is losing his beloved mother, Maggie, to cancer. But Nathan and his family are building a simple yet full life, and struggling to hold on to every moment they have.

Charles Bukowski turns to the bottle in this revelatory collection of poetry and prose that includes some of the writer’s best and most lasting work. A self-proclaimed “dirty old man”, Bukowski used alcohol as muse and as fuel, a conflicted relationship responsible for some of his darkest moments, as well as some of his most joyful and inspired. In On Drinking, Bukowski expert Abel Debritto has collected the writer’s most profound, funny, and memorable work on his ups and downs with the hard stuff.

The Jesus Storybook Bible is very different from every other kids’ Bibles. While other kids’ Bibles contain stories from the Old and New Testaments, The Jesus Storybook Bible tells the Story beneath all the stories in the Bible, pointing to Jesus as our Savior.

Dr. Christopher Ringle is the last person you'd expect to find moonlighting as Santa Claus at the mall on the day after Thanksgiving. But it is there that he meets a young man named Molar Alan, who desperately needs a new perspective on the underlying value of Christmas. Dr. Ringle recruits Mo and his older brother as volunteers at a nearby children's hospital for the holiday season. At the hospital Mo is tasked to help bring holiday cheer to the young cancer patients on the fifth floor.

Donna VanLiere's books movingly portray ordinary people reaching for more meaningful lives. In The Christmas Promise, she follows two seemingly separate individuals and shows how their lives intersect. Chaz McConnell realizes that his life is empty—and he's made it that way. He goes home every night to a bare apartment. For the first time in his life, he's working at a job that will last more than a few weeks, as security for Wilson's Department Store. Trying to reach out, he befriends 4-year-old Donovan, whose mother is part of the janitorial team at Wilson's.

In 2007, when a new edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary - widely used in schools around the world - was published, a sharp-eyed reader soon noticed that around 40 common words concerning nature had been dropped. Apparently they were no longer being used enough by children to merit their place in the dictionary. Ten years later, Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris set out to make a “spell book” that will conjure back 20 of these lost words and the beings they name, from acorn to wren.

An American woman is summoned by a remote tribe of nomadic Aboriginals who call themselves the “Real People” to accompany them on a four-month-long walkabout through the Outback. While traveling barefoot with them through 1,400 miles of rugged desert terrain, she learns a new way of life, including their methods of healing, based on the wisdom of their 50,000-year-old culture. Ultimately, she experiences a dramatic personal transformation.

When little Zanna's oldest brother died just before Christmas, she was left with the gift she had made for him - a picture that only he would have understood. Every Christmas, Zanna's gift is brought out and displayed as a way of including their lost brother in the celebration. This is the story of the life of that family, and of the many gifts they gave each other that could only be understood with love.

In this simple but profound tale, four colleagues meet a remarkable gardener whose unique philosophy will forever change their lives. That philosophy is equally powerful for the listener. The wisdom within this book comes in the form of a straightforward message that is accessible to all who will open their hearts to it. 

There is a gift so simple that it requires no ribbons for wrapping yet which is so miraculous, it has the power to transform our lives. This is The Gift of Story, a tale of love and wisdom from Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, eminent psychoanalyst and author. When an old woman flees to a hut in a lonely forest, begins Dr. Estés, she seeks safety from the savage war that has devastated her village. What sustains her is the greatest of all gifts: a story.

Eve is a bold, unprecedented exploration of the creation narrative, true to the original texts and centuries of scholarship - yet with breathtaking discoveries that challenge traditional misconceptions about who we are and how we're made. As The Shack awakened listeners to a personal, nonreligious understanding of God, Eve will free us from faulty interpretations that have compromised human relationships since the Garden of Eden.

The Dylan Thomas Collection includes modern recordings of some of Dylan Thomas' most iconic works, read by renowned Welsh actor, Iwan Rheon, and cast. Dylan Thomas was born in 1914 in Swansea, Wales. Considered to be one of the greatest Welsh poets of all time, Thomas is largely known for his imaginative use of language and vivid imagery in his poems and radio plays.

Jodie and Bethan are about as different as two young women can be, but growing up they develop a strong bond of friendship in the quiet town of Harmony, North Carolina. As the world plunges into war, though, their friendship is tested by a devastating loss.