Download or read book In Praise of Messy Lives Essays written by Katie Roiphe and published by Dial Press. This book was released on 2012-09-04 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This powerful collection of essays ranges from pop culture to politics, from Hillary Clinton to Susan Sontag, from Facebook to Mad Men, from Joan Didion to David Foster Wallace to—most strikingly—the author’s own life. For fans of the essays of John Jeremiah Sullivan and Jonathan Lethem. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times • The Wall Street Journal Katie Roiphe’s writing—whether in the form of personal essays, literary criticism, or cultural reporting—is bracing, wickedly entertaining, and deeply engaged with our mores and manners. In these pages, she turns her exacting gaze on the surprisingly narrow-minded conventions governing the way we live now. Is there a preoccupation with “healthiness” above all else? If so, does it lead insidiously to judging anyone who tries to live differently? Examining such subjects as the current fascination with Mad Men, the oppressiveness of Facebook (“the novel we are all writing”), and the quiet malice our society displays toward single mothers, Roiphe makes her case throughout these electric pages. She profiles a New York prep school grad turned dominatrix; isolates the exact, endlessly repeated ingredients of a magazine “celebrity profile”; and draws unexpected, timeless lessons from news-cycle hits such as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “love child” revelations. On ample display in this book are Roiphe’s insightful, occasionally obsessive takes on an array of literary figures, including Jane Austen, John Updike, Susan Sontag, Joan Didion, and Margaret Wise Brown, the troubled author of Goodnight, Moon. And reprinted for the first time and expanded here is her much-debated New York Times Book Review cover piece, “The Naked and the Conflicted”—an unabashed argument on sex and the contemporary American male writer that is in itself an exciting and refreshing reminder that criticism matters. As steely-eyed in examining her own life as she is in skewering our cultural pitfalls, Roiphe gives us autobiographical pieces—on divorce, motherhood, an emotionally fraught trip to Vietnam, the breakup of a female friendship—that are by turns deeply moving, self-critical, razor-sharp, and unapologetic in their defense of “the messy life.” In Praise of Messy Lives is powerfully unified, vital work from one of our most astute and provocative voices.
Download or read book The Violet Hour written by Katie Roiphe and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this category-defying book, Katie Roiphe takes an unexpected and liberating approach to the most unavoidable of subjects: death. She examines the final days of five great writers and artists--Susan Sontag, Sigmund Freud, John Updike, Dylan Thomas, and Maurice Sendak." --
Download or read book Messy written by A. J. Swoboda and published by Kregel Publications. This book was released on 2012-04-13 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christianity is messy. Unanswered prayers. Painful choices. Unresolved regrets. We’re called to have faith, and yet we doubt. We try to be perfect, but we fall short. This is the chaos. It’s all around us. There’s no limit to it. And there’s no quick fix for it.Both annoyingly honest and refreshingly humorous, Messy reassures Christians that God can reveal Himself in their clutter. Author and pastor A.J. Swoboda offers biblical insight and vivid, personal stories to redefine faith from something that must be perfect to something that is imperfect, but can still give beauty, meaning, and purpose to a messy life. As entertaining as it is challenging, this book teaches Christians what it means to trust in each other, in grace, in hope, and in a Savior who defied the rules of death. Here’s to finding joy in your chaos!
Download or read book Life s Messy Live Happy written by Cy Wakeman and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2022-03-29 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A simple shift in thinking can change everything you believe about your own happiness. By the time we become adults, most of us have joined the religion of suffering, which preaches that unless circumstances are controlled, life will be a mess. We compare ourselves to others and speculate about an impossible-to-know future, holding out hope for an improved life through getting ahead, fulfilling passion, or finding true love. But the idea that happiness comes from putting effort toward altering one’s circumstances is harmful and backward. What if we instead learned to understand that circumstances can rarely be controlled, and that life is, and always will be, messy? From that starting point, we could learn to use our minds to create happiness despite life’s ever-changing circumstances and events. Life’s Messy, Live Happy by Cy Wakeman is about dramatically changing the level of happiness you feel in your daily life, by learning to disconnect happiness from external forces, stop worrying about the future, and realize that most of your negative feelings are about things that never even happened. Wakeman is a credible, relatable teacher—a business owner, mother, and community member who has lived her philosophy and achieved profound happiness and success in a crazy, messy life. Filled with concrete daily practices and true stories that are hilarious, painful, and poignant, this book will change everything: your perspective, your focus, and your energy level for everyday life.
Download or read book In Praise of Difficult Women written by Karen Karbo and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2018 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents information on female rule-breakers, including Josephine Baker, Jane Goodall, Margaret Cho, and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Download or read book The Morning After written by Katie Roiphe and published by Back Bay Books. This book was released on 1994-09-07 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Katie Roiphe arrived at Harvard in the fall of 1986, she found that the feminism she had been raised to believe in had been radically transformed. The women's movement, which had once signaled such strength and courage, now seemed lodged in a foundation of weakness and fear. At Harvard, and later as a graduate student at Princeton, Roiphe saw a thoroughly new phenomenon taking shape on campus: the emergence of a culture captivated by victimization, and of a new bedroom politics in the university, cloaked in outdated assumptions about the way men and women experience sex. Men were the silencers and women the silenced, and if anyone thought differently no one was saying so. Twenty-four-year-old Katie Roiphe is the first of her generation to speak out publicly against the intolerant turn the women's movement has taken, and in The Morning After she casts a critical eye on what she calls the mating rituals of a rape-sensitive community. From Take Back the Night marches (which Roiphe terms "march as therapy",and "rhapsodies of self-affirmation") to rape-crisis feminists and the growing campus concern with sexual harassment, Roiphe shows us a generation of women whose values are strikingly similar to those their mothers and grandmothers fought so hard to escape from - a generation yearning for regulation, fearful of its sexuality, and animated by a nostalgia for days of greater social control. At once a fierce excoriation of establishment feminism and a passionate call to our best instincts, The Morning After sounds a necessary alarm and entreats women of all ages to take stock of where they came from and where they want to go.
Download or read book Zara s Big Messy Day That Turned Out Okay written by Rebekah Borucki and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-04-05 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Young readers will join Zara, a clever, responsible, and sometimes anxious seven-year-old girl, in learning a fun and simple breathing exercise to help them mindfully manage their big messy emotions and find peace and calm in any situation. Like a lot of kids her age, Zara sometimes struggles with managing her emotions when confronted with stressful situations. Written by a mother-of-five and celebrated meditation guide Rebekah Borucki, Zara's Big Messy Day will help your child deal with everyday stress in simple but impactful way. Guided by Zara’s mother, both Zara and the reader will learn a kid-friendly breathing technique—a short visualization meditation—that will help them find peace and calm in any moment. And the best part: they'll learn to do it on their own after reading the book just one time! Zara’s Big Messy Day is used by teachers, guidance counselors, and social workers in elementary school cirriculum nationwide to teach students mindfulness and self-regulation. Get free gifts: You'll also get free access to downloadable coloring pages, an exclusive guided meditation for kids, and more! Just use the website link found inside the book to download your exclusive gifts. Praise for Zara's Big Messy Day: “Zara beautifully offers mindfulness for kids and adults alike.” — Rachel Ricketts, activist and author of Do Better “Friends, I cannot recommend these books enough. Get Zara for you, your kids, your nieces, your nephews... They’re just so beatitful!” — Jennifer Pastiloff, author of the National Bestseller, On Being Human
Download or read book Messy written by Heather Cocks and published by Poppy. This book was released on 2012-06-05 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sometimes life gets Messy. When sixteen-year-old Brooke Berlin catches a taste of fame and her movie-star father's attention, she decides it's time to take her career to the next level--by launching a blog that will position her as a Hollywood "It Girl" who tells it like it is. But between schoolwork, shopping, and spray-tan appointments, she hardly has the time to write it herself... Enter green-haired outsider Max McCormack, an aspiring author with a terrible after-school job pushing faux meat on the macrobiotic masses. Max loathes the celebrity scene almost as much as she dislikes Brooke, but wooed by an impressive salary, Max reluctantly agrees to play Brooke's ghost-blogger -- and the site takes off. How long will their lie last? Can the girls work together to stay on top, or will the truth come out and ruin everything they've built? Along with an entourage of fame-hungry starlets, scruffy rocker wannabes, and sushi-scarfing socialites, the case of Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan's dazzling debut, Spoiled, are back for another adventure in Tinseltown.
Download or read book Messy written by Tim Harford and published by Little Brown GBR. This book was released on 2016-10-06 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The urge to tidiness seems to be rooted deep in the human psyche. Many of us feel threatened by anything that is vague, unplanned, scattered around or hard to describe. We find comfort in having a script to rely on, a system to follow, in being able to categorise and file away. We all benefit from tidy organisation - up to a point. A large library needs a reference system. Global trade needs the shipping container. Scientific collaboration needs measurement units. But the forces of tidiness have marched too far. Corporate middle managers and government bureaucrats have long tended to insist that everything must have a label, a number and a logical place in a logical system. Now that they are armed with computers and serial numbers, there is little to hold this tidy-mindedness in check. It's even spilling into our personal lives, as we corral our children into sanitised play areas or entrust our quest for love to the soulless algorithms of dating websites. Order is imposed when chaos would be more productive. Or if not chaos, then . . . messiness. The trouble with tidiness is that, in excess, it becomes rigid, fragile and sterile. In Messy, Tim Harford reveals how qualities we value more than ever - responsiveness, resilience and creativity - simply cannot be disentangled from the messy soil that produces them. This, then, is a book about the benefits of being messy: messy in our private lives; messy in the office, with piles of paper on the desk and unread spreadsheets; messy in the recording studio, the laboratory or in preparing for an important presentation; and messy in our approach to business, politics and economics, leaving things vague, diverse and uncomfortably made-up-on-the-spot. It's time to rediscover the benefits of a little mess.
Download or read book Ten Stupid Things Men Do to Mess Up Their Lives written by Laura Schlessinger and published by Dr. Laura Schlessinger. This book was released on 2002-12-03 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For every woman who wants to know what her man is thinking. Internationally syndicated radio superhost and columnist, controversial psycho-therapist, and author of the break-out New York Times bestsellers How Could You Do That?! and Ten Stupid Things Women Do to Mess Up Their Lives, Dr. Laura Schlessinger is back with Ten Stupid Things Men Do to Mess Up Their Lives. In ten vital, compelling chapters, Dr. Laura speaks her mind on: Stupid Chivalry By getting involved with the wrong woman (weak, flaky, damaged, needy, desperate, stupid, untrustworthy, immature, etc.) you think that your love will save/transform her. Stupid Independence Unwilling to admit "need" for bonding and intimacy, you hide in excesses of work, play, drink, drugs, porn, and meaningless sex. Stupid Ambition Unable to comfortably and proudly accept your inherent importance to society and family as husband and father, you bow to the false idols of money, toys, power, and status. Stupid Strength Uncomfortable with feeling weak, vulnerable, useless, powerless, or rejected, you use intimidation, force, or passive-aggressiveness to regain control. Stupid Sex Taking an attraction, opportunity, or erection as a "sign," you measure your masculinity and power by sexual conquests, infidelities, and orgasms. Stupid Matrimony Lacking a mature sense of the purpose, meaning, or value of marriage, you realize too late you've gone down the aisle with the wrong woman for the wrong reasons and feel helpless to "fix it." Stupid Husbanding Thinking that marriage is the honorable discharge from loving courtship, you continue to live as though you were single and your "mommy-wife" will take care of everything else. Stupid Parenting Believing that only women/mothers nurture children, you withdraw from hands-on parenting to assert your masculine importance, missing out on the true "soul food" of a child's hug. Stupid Boyishness Having not yet worked out a comfortable emotional and social understanding with your mother, you form relationships with women that become geared to avenge, resolve, or protect you from your ties to Mommy. Stupid Machismo Understanding the true and meaningful difference between being male and a man, you can become a man.
Download or read book Tacky written by Rax King and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An irreverent and charming collection of deeply personal essays about the joys of low pop culture and bad taste, exploring coming of age in the 2000s in the age of Hot Topic, Creed, and frosted lip gloss—from the James Beard Award-nominated writer of the Catapult column "Store-Bought Is Fine” Tacky is about the power of pop culture—like any art—to imprint itself on our lives and shape our experiences, no matter one's commitment to "good" taste. These fourteen essays are a nostalgia-soaked antidote to the millennial generation's obsession with irony, putting the aesthetics we hate to love—snakeskin pants, Sex and the City, Cheesecake Factory's gargantuan menu—into kinder and sharper perspective. Each essay revolves around a different maligned (and yet, Rax would argue, vital) cultural artifact, providing thoughtful, even romantic meditations on desire, love, and the power of nostalgia. An essay about the gym-tan-laundry exuberance of Jersey Shore morphs into an excavation of grief over the death of her father; in "You Wanna Be On Top," Rax writes about friendship and early aughts girlhood; in another, Guy Fieri helps her heal from an abusive relationship. The result is a collection that captures the personal and generational experience of finding joy in caring just a little too much with clarity, heartfelt honesty, and Rax King's trademark humor. A VINTAGE ORIGINAL
Download or read book Messy Wonderful Us written by Catherine Isaac and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-11-28 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE PERFECT ESCAPIST COMFORT READ 'An impossibly seductive love story, underpinned by a heart-breaking secret' ROSIE WALSH ‘What a stunning novel. That hot, sultry setting - Allie's refreshing straightforwardness, Ed's absolute swooniness - I loved it’ BETH O'LEARY ‘An emotional and uplifting book about secrets, family and identity. Such a joy! So rich and engaging, 5 stars’ ADELE PARKS In late 1983, a letter arrives, containing secrets so unthinkable that it is hidden away, apparently forever. More than three decades later, it is found . . . by the last person who was ever supposed to see it. When Allie opens an envelope in her grandmother’s house, it changes everything she knows about her family - and herself. With the truth liable to hurt those she loves most, she hires a private detective to find out what happened to her late mother in the summer before Allie was born. Taking leave from her job as a research scientist, she is led far from home, accompanied by her best friend Ed. But the secrets that emerge go far beyond anything they were expecting. Now, Allie must find the courage to confront her family’s tangled past and reshape her own future. From Richard & Judy Book club author Catherine Isaac comes the emotional and uplifting story of love, loss, friendship and a letter that changes everything. Praise for MESSY, WONDERFUL US ‘If you want a book that’ll keep you hooked, make you cry...this is the perfect read’ Fabulous Magazine ‘Uplifting, emotional and surprising’ Hannah Beckerman ‘I adored it… a gorgeous sunny setting, exploring love, friendship and the twistiest of family entanglements’ Jill Mansell 'A gorgeous location, a story full of twists and turns and tension and some heart-stopping romance – what more do you want from a love story?' Red 'Intriguing and pacy' Libby Page 'Family secrets and hidden love – the perfect combination for a mesmerising read' Santa Montefiore ‘A gorgeous book saturated with sunshine that will fill your heart with joy’ Milly Johnson 'Secrets come to the surface in this tale of love and loss' Woman ‘Intricately crafted, beautifully written, an emotional roller-coaster' Iona Grey 'Such a good book. Tender and evocative' Andy Jones 'I fell head over heels in love with this book! A page-turning mystery, a wonderfully uplifting story about love in all its forms and characters so real, I still wonder what they're doing' Katy Regan 'I absolutely loved it, what a rich and engaging story' Dani Atkins 'This novel is a delight' Goop
Download or read book Crazy Messy Beautiful written by Carrie Arcos and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-02-07 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From National Book Award finalist Carrie Arcos--a fresh take on happily ever after, and friendship, that is anything but a love story. When your namesake is Pablo Neruda—the greatest love poet of all time—finding “the one” should be easy. After all, sixteen-year-old aspiring artist Neruda Diaz has been in love many times before. So it’s only a matter of time before someone loves him back. Callie could be that someone. She’s creative and edgy, and nothing like the girls Neruda typically falls for, so when a school assignment brings them together, he is pleasantly surprised to learn they have a lot in common. With his true love in reach and his artistic ambitions on track, everything is finally coming together. But as Neruda begins to fall faster and harder than ever before, he is blindsided by the complicated nature of love—and art—in more ways than one. And when the relationships he’s looked to for guidance threaten to implode, Neruda must confront the reality that love is crazier, messier, and more beautiful than he ever realized—and riskier, too, than simply saying the words. Praise for Crazy Messy Beautiful: "This satisfying and unconventional love story explores the various meanings of the word." --Kirkus Reviews "Arcos has written a classic story of a budding artist finding out the reality behind the artifice, and does sowhile keeping a wonderful sense of humor." --Booklist "Arcos capably probes the mysterious without attempting to solve it as Neruda discovers the difference between crushing on someone he doesn’t know and loving someone he does, learning that friendship, too, is a kind of love." --Publishers Weekly "With readily relatable characters who, nonetheless, surprise readers as they tackle life’s many challenges and gifts, Crazy Messy Beautiful . . . explores the complexities of human emotions, aspirations, creativity, and relationships. This eminently readable book will appeal to male and female readers alike." --VOYA "The thematic thread of love as work between flawed people is woven through both language and situations, its subtlety affording different readings; romantics like Neruda will empathize with his frustration and failures, while more pragmatic readers may feel wryly superior and even slightly amused at the ways his heightened expectations butt up against modern high school life and characters."--BCCB
Download or read book Looking for God in Messy Places written by Jake Owensby and published by Abingdon Press. This book was released on 2021-04-16 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This is beautiful and brilliant stuff, profound and plain, incredibly human, wise and charming. I trusted and enjoyed every word.” –Anne Lamott, New York Times bestselling author about Looking for God in Messy Places For any who feel frustrated and world-weary, and who want more than just wishful thinking or superficial spirituality, this book is for you! In these pages, my friend Jake Owensby poignantly shows how LOVE is what can truly give us hope to carry on: real love, God's love for us, our love for each other, right here, right now in all the struggles of this messy life. And God knows, we need this book NOW! —Bishop Michael Curry, Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church and author of Love is the Way: Holding on to Hope in Troubling Times Life is messy. We can get discouraged by setbacks, overwhelmed by busyness, and shaken by worry. Hope is the power that gets us out of bed in the morning and gives us the courage to face adversity. Looking for God in Messy Places by Jake Owensby is a book about how love gives us an inextinguishable hope. This book is for anyone who has ever been frozen in place by loss or regret, anyone who has endured suffering, cruelty, or rejection. From word to word and page to page, readers will experience themselves as God’s beloved—so that they can be hopeful. From the introduction [This book is] For those whose struggles have been long and for those who are growing weary from heavy burdens. For those facing an unforeseen crisis or for those enduring a slow personal train wreck. For those whose throats have grown raw from crying for justice and for those whose wounds have gone unhealed. This is a book about hope, and I have written it especially for those who refuse to yield to discouragement and despair. Topics include: - The power of love to give us hope - The ways that God shows up in our daily lives - Recognizing God’s call in our lives - Becoming your true self - Having a sense of belonging - Forming a friendship with Christ - Contemplative faith
Download or read book It s Messy written by Amanda de Cadenet and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-09-19 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “10 New Books We’re Dying to Read in September” --The Zoe Report In this deeply personal collection of essays, creator of the The Conversation Amanda de Cadenet shares the hard-won advice and practical insights she’s gained through her experiences as businesswoman, friend, wife, and mother. Amanda is on a mission to facilitate conversations that allow all women to be seen, heard, and understood. Through her multimedia platform The Conversation, she interviews some of today’s most bad ass women—from Hillary Clinton to Lady Gaga—in no-holds-barred conversations that get to the heart of what means to be female. Now, in It’s Messy, Amanda offers readers an extension of that conversation, inviting them into her life and sharing her own story. From childhood fame to a high-profile marriage (and divorce) to teen motherhood to the sexism that threatened to end her career before it started, Amanda shares the good, the bad, and the messy of her life, synthesizing lessons she’s learned along the way. Through it all, she offers an original perspective as a feminist on the front lines of celebrity culture. Edgy, irreverent, poignant and provocative, It’s Messy addresses the issues, concerns, and experiences relevant to women today.
Download or read book Messy Spirituality written by Mike Yaconelli and published by HarperChristian + ORM. This book was released on 2009-12-15 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Find freedom from legalism's should's and discover the deep spirituality of being loved by the God who meets and transforms you in the midst of a messy and unpredictable life. Do you ever feel like you don't pray enough, read your Bible enough, share your faith enough, love God enough . . . and ultimately that you're not a very good Christian? Welcome to the club. Messy Spirituality was written for the silent majority of us who are convinced we just don't do Christianity right. Mike Yaconelli dares to suggest that imperfection, unfinishedness, and messiness are, in fact, the earmarks of true Christianity; that real Christianity is messy, erratic, lopsided . . . and gloriously liberating. In these pages, he challenges you to let go of the legalism that holds you back and embrace the grace freedom that God offers. He opens your eyes to the one-size-fits-all spirituality churches often want us to embrace and shares what it truly means to walk with God in a deep, intimate, life-changing way. Full of innovative ideas and concepts, Messy Spirituality is a classic that offers timeless wisdom for anyone ready to be free from the bonds of perfectionism. Spanish edition also available.
Download or read book Messy Grace written by Caleb Kaltenbach and published by WaterBrook. This book was released on 2015-10-20 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sometimes, grace gets messy. Caleb Kaltenbach was raised by LGBT parents, marched in gay pride parades as a youngster, and experienced firsthand the hatred and bitterness of some Christians toward his family. But then Caleb surprised everyone, including himself, by becoming a Christian…and a pastor. Very few issues in Christianity are as divisive as the acceptance of the LGBT community in the church. As a pastor and as a person with beloved family members living a gay lifestyle, Caleb had to face this issue with courage and grace. Messy Grace shows us that Jesus’s command to “love your neighbor as yourself” doesn’t have an exception clause for a gay “neighbor”—or for that matter, any other “neighbor” we might find it hard to relate to. Jesus was able to love these people and yet still hold on to his beliefs. So can you. Even when it’s messy. “Messy Grace is an important contribution to the conversation about sexual identity for churches and leaders. Caleb's story is surprising and unique, and he weaves it together compellingly. He states his views clearly, leaves room for disagreement, and champions love no matter where you are in this conversation.” —Jud Wilhite, Sr. Pastor, Central Christian Church
