Visionary Life

After the death of his estranged father, Amit takes his parent's ashes to the Ganges to fulfill a deathbed promise. Instead of returning home, he wanders, his pain and grief leaving him confused about his future. Almost broke, unsure about his direction in life, and running from memories, he is led by fate to the Camino de Santiago, an ancient 550-mile pilgrimage route across northern Spain.

Before Joe Hart can stop the murder of John Lennon, he must die himself. When Joe Hart dies after leading a wasted life, he chooses to use his second chance to make the world better. Even when he thinks he knows what is coming, changing the past is difficult. What would you do, if you could do it all again?

An Ojibwe boy runs away from a North Ontario Indian School, not realizing just how far away home is. Along the way he's followed by Manitous, spirits of the forest who comment on his plight, cajoling, taunting, and ultimately offering him a type of comfort on his difficult journey back to the place he was so brutally removed from.

Orphaned as a boy, raised in the Czech countryside by his doting grandparents, Jakub Procházka has risen from small-time scientist to become the country's first astronaut. When a dangerous solo mission to Venus offers him both the chance at heroism he's dreamt of, and a way to atone for his father's sins as a Communist informer, he ventures boldly into the vast unknown.

An inspirational and heartwarming novel for lovers of Mitch Albom and Andy Andrews, blending elements of It's a Wonderful Life and Field of Dreams into a moving story all its own.

Sharing her more than 15 years of compelling research—including analysis of Sylvia Plath’s unpublished calendars, notebooks, scrapbooks, book annotations, and underlinings, as well as published memoirs, biographies, letters, journals, and interviews with Plath and her husband, friends, and family—Plath scholar Julia Gordon-Bramer reveals Sylvia Plath’s enduring interest and active practice in mysticism and the occult from childhood until her tragic death in 1963.

"The Great Lives of Antiquity" presents 23 lives of historical figures not as distant icons, but as vibrant personalities who faced challenges, made decisions, and forged destinies. You will meet Aesop, whose fables have transcended time; Hypatia, who enlightened Alexandria; and Cleopatra, whose intelligence and political savvy speak to the complexities of power in history.

For more than 30 years, Patience Gray, author of the celebrated cookbook Honey from a Weed, lived in a remote area of Puglia in southernmost Italy. She lived without electricity, modern plumbing, or a telephone, grew much of her own food, and gathered and ate wild plants alongside her neighbors in this economically impoverished region. She was fond of saying that she wrote only for herself and her friends, yet her growing reputation brought a steady stream of international visitors to her door.

Yuki Hirano is just out of high school when his parents enroll him, against his will, in a forestry training program in the remote mountain village of Kamusari. No phone, no internet, no shopping. Just a small, inviting community where the most common expression is “take it easy.” At first, Yuki is exhausted, fumbles with the tools, asks silly questions, and feels like an outcast. Kamusari is the last place a city boy from Yokohama wants to spend a year of his life. But as resistant as he might be, the scent of the cedars and the staggering beauty of the region have a pull.

Troubled by an inability to find any meaning in his life, the 25-year-old narrator of this deceptively simple novel quits university and eventually arrives at his brother's New York apartment. In a bid to discover what life is all about, he writes lists. He becomes obsessed by time and whether it actually matters. He faxes his meteorologist friend. He endlessly bounces a ball against the wall. He befriends a small boy who lives next door. He yearns to get to the bottom of life and how best to live it.

This audiobook is about the underlying events in the life of Jeff Bezos and the ways in which it influenced his life, the way he responded to them, and in the way he used them to his advantage. The story of Bezos traces a path through his life as a youth, looks at his action and his achievements, and deciphers the existence of his greatest achievement - Amazon - in a way that is reflective of his character, his intellect, and his upbringing.

Eliza Naumann, a seemingly unremarkable 9-year-old, expects never to fit into her gifted family: her autodidact father, Saul, absorbed in his study of Jewish mysticism; her brother, Aaron, the vessel of his father's spiritual ambitions; and her brilliant but distant lawyer-mom, Miriam. But when Eliza sweeps her school and district spelling bees in quick succession, Saul takes it as a sign that she is destined for greatness.

Unbeknownst to his adoring pupils, William Silver, a talented and charismatic young teacher, proves incapable of living up to the ideals he encourages in others. Emotionally scarred by failures in his personal life and driven to distraction by the overpowering carnality and beauty of Paris, Silver succumbs to a temptation that will change the course of his life. His fall will render him a criminal in the eyes of some and all too human in the eyes of others.

With simple yet descriptive prose, this novel gives voice to Nana the cat and his owner, Satoru, as they take to the road on a journey with no other purpose than to visit three of Satoru's longtime friends. Or so Nana is led to believe. With his crooked tail - a sign of good fortune - and adventurous spirit, Nana is the perfect companion for the man who took him in as a stray. And as they travel in a silver van across Japan, with its ever-changing scenery and seasons, they will learn the true meaning of courage and gratitude, of loyalty and love.

Not yet 16, Bellamy Larson - or Beam, as she'd rather be called - remembers everything. Truthfully, there's a lot she'd just rather forget. Beam never knew her father and doesn't ever want to. Her little brother died while saving her. And her mother self-medicates, leaving Beam to fend for herself. She doesn't need friends. She just needs to get away. Buzz Donovan is on a journey across America. Luckily for him, he has a friend - a dog named Hush. It's because of Hush, though, that Buzz is homeless. But that's his choice, because if it weren't for Hush, he'd be dead.

Eva Monroe is returning from a three-week business trip, one in which she left her five-year-old son in the care of her estranged ex-husband, when the plane that's taking her home crashes. The accident leaves her in a coma, unresponsive to doctors' attention and the urgings of her little boy. However, while Eva's body lies on the precipice of death, Eva's spirit has traveled to a place known as the In-Between - a world that is hovering in the clouds above our planet.

In infancy, Junior Thibodeaux is encoded with a prophesy: A comet will obliterate life on Earth in 36 years. Alone in this knowledge, he comes of age in rural Maine grappling with the question: Does anything I do matter? While the voice that has accompanied him since conception appraises his choices, Junior's loved ones emerge with parallel stories - his anxious mother.

Conceived jointly as an opera, The Age of Anxiety deals with mythic and operatic themes. Hallucinations and soundscapes haunt this novel, which on one level is an extended meditation on manic genius and the dark art of creativity.

Nathaniel Moon is the reluctant messiah. He has powers that define the word miraculous. But when he used those powers to help others, he brought about a world of trouble. Now Nathaniel lives a life of quiet obscurity, performing anonymous miracles. But, his anonymity has to end, because evil is coming to Middle Falls, Oregon, and threatens the people Nathaniel loves most. It's going to take a reluctant messiah to put things right.

Mrs Death has had enough. She is exhausted from spending eternity doing her job, and now she seeks someone to unburden her conscience to. Wolf Willeford, a troubled young writer, is well acquainted with death but until now hadn't met Death in person - a Black, working-class woman who shape-shifts and does her work unseen. Enthralled by her stories, Wolf becomes Mrs Death's scribe and begins to write her memoirs. Using their desk as a conduit, Wolf travels across time and place with Mrs Death to witness deaths of past and present and discuss what the future holds for humanity.