A Better Bad Idea

Laurie Devore's new YA novel is a searing look at a forgotten girl who has no good choices left, but one better bad idea . . . Evelyn Peters is desperate. Desperate for a way out of McNair Falls, the dying southern town that’s held her captive since the day she was born. Desperate to protect her little sister from her mother’s terrifying and abusive boyfriend. And desperate to connect with anyone, even fallen golden boy Ashton Harper, longtime boyfriend of the girl Evelyn can never stop thinking about — beautiful, volatile, tragically dead Reid Brewer. Until a single night sends Evelyn and Ashton on a collision course that starts something neither of them can stop. With one struck match, their whole world goes up in flames. The only thing left to do is run—but leaving McNair Falls isn’t as easy as just putting distance between here and there and some secrets refuse to stay left behind. A reckoning is coming . . . and not everyone is getting out alive.

Do you like to be wrong? Shouldn’t you? Why do you think “wrong” is “bad”? In The Very Best Bad Idea, Kirk Westwood steamrolls the long-held premise that right is good and wrong is bad. He paves the way to give anyone who sees situations differently the permission to be proud of their brilliantly unbridled “bad ideas.” In this book, you'll learn about: -- The History of Thinking, and how we might be wired incorrectly for the society we live in today. -- An in depth analysis of popular cliches like “don’t reinvent the wheel” and “build a better mousetrap” and why we might need to “make friends with the mouse”. -- Why people should start embracing their unique views of the world as they are the true genesis of innovation and creativity. And so much more! This book speaks to the entrepreneurs, the creatives, the innovators, and the outcasts as they seek out the secret to conquering innovation. It’s an unconventional look at a conventional problem. If you’re ready to release the “Kreative” and embrace your individual perspective, get ready for the The Very Best Bad Idea.

Repeat after me: stay away from the hot girl. The beautiful girl. The f**king ray of sunshine in the middle of your delivery route. Layla Barros is everything I never knew I wanted. Everything I'll never have.She's an innocent young student. I'm a convicted felon. She's a rich girl from a nice family. I've got nothing but a broken home.But if I'm an addict, she's my drug. I can't stay away, even though I know I'll ruin her in the end. She might be the girl of my dreams, but I was always a bad idea.

Today the classics of the western canon, written by the proverbial ''dead white men,'' are cannon fodder in the culture wars. But in the 1950s and 1960s, they were a pop culture phenomenon. The Great Books of Western Civilization, fifty-four volumes chosen by intellectuals at the University of Chicago, began as an educational movement, and evolved into a successful marketing idea. Why did a million American households buy books by Hippocrates and Nicomachus from door-to-door salesmen? And how and why did the great books fall out of fashion? In A Great Idea at the Time Alex Beam explores the Great Books mania, in an entertaining and strangely poignant portrait of American popular culture on the threshold of the television age. Populated with memorable characters, A Great Idea at the Time will leave readers asking themselves: Have I read Lucretius's De Rerum Natura lately? If not, why not?

An unlikely birder traces his indoctrination into the hobby by a pair of obsessive fellow enthusiasts and their zealous nation-wide search for rare and noteworthy species, in an account that describes their haphazard encounters with human and natural challenges. Reprint.

Most people just want to be happy and to make a difference in the world. We're often told we'll achieve this by being ourselves - but when we begin to reflect, that's not quite as simple as it sounds. All sorts of questions and countercultural notions arise. Maybe trying to 'be yourself' is not such a good idea after all? In this book Graham Tomlin dares us to let go of some of the assumptions we make about life. Drawing on current research, contemporary events and ancient wisdom, he offers an invitation to journey to places we may never have imagined before. In doing so, he vividly reveals how the revolution that Christianity began can still make remarkable sense of our experience of wonder, love, evil, justice, identity and freedom. Exploring these universal experiences in a down to earth, easy to read manner, Why Being Yourself is a Bad Idea is a book for anyone struggling with the search for identity and self-discovery, and will leave you uplifted and reassured that seeking God can and will help you to make sense of life. 'Intriguing and provocative, speaking to our deepest concerns and heaviest questions.' James Mumford, author of Vexed: Ethics beyond political tribes 'I kept saying "YES!" as I turned the pages of this book.' Pete Greig, author of How to Pray

Now an original movie on Prime Video starring Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine! When Solène Marchand, the thirty-nine-year-old owner of a prestigious art gallery in Los Angeles, takes her daughter, Isabelle, to meet her favorite boy band, she does so reluctantly and at her ex-husband’s request. The last thing she expects is to make a connection with one of the members of the world-famous August Moon. But Hayes Campbell is clever, winning, confident, and posh, and the attraction is immediate. That he is all of twenty years old further complicates things. What begins as a series of clandestine trysts quickly evolves into a passionate relationship. It is a journey that spans continents as Solène and Hayes navigate each other’s disparate worlds: from stadium tours to international art fairs to secluded hideaways in Paris and Miami. And for Solène, it is as much a reclaiming of self, as it is a rediscovery of happiness and love. When their romance becomes a viral sensation, and both she and her daughter become the target of rabid fans and an insatiable media, Solène must face how her new status has impacted not only her life, but the lives of those closest to her.

For centuries we've believed that work was where you learned discipline, initiative, honesty, self-reliance--in a word, character. A job was also, and not incidentally, the source of your income: if you didn't work, you didn't eat, or else you were stealing from someone. If only you worked hard, you could earn your way and maybe even make something of yourself. In recent decades, through everyday experience, these beliefs have proven spectacularly false. In this book, James Livingston explains how and why Americans still cling to work as a solution rather than a problem--why it is that both liberals and conservatives announce that "full employment" is their goal when job creation is no longer a feasible solution for any problem, moral or economic. The result is a witty, stirring denunciation of the ways we think about why we labor, exhorting us to imagine a new way of finding meaning, character, and sustenance beyond our workaday world--and showing us that we can afford to leave that world behind.