Thanking The Monkey

The animal rights movement has reached a tipping point. No longer a fringe extremist cause, it has become a social concern that leading members of society endorse and young people embrace. From Michael Vick's dog fighting scandal to CNN’s airing of the eye-opening film Blackfish, animal rights issues have hit the headlines—and are being championed by students and senators, pop stars and producers, and actors and activists. Don't you want to be part of the conversation? In Thanking the Monkey, Karen Dawn covers pets, fur, fashion, food, animal testing, activism, and more. But as the title playfully suggests, this isn't like any previous animal rights book. Thanking the Monkey is light on lectures meant to make you feel guilty if you're not yet a leather-eschewing vegan. It lets you have fun as you learn why so many of your favorite actors and musicians won't eat or wear animals. And you'll laugh over scores of cartoons by Dan Piraro'sBizzaro and other animal-friendly comics. This fun primer for a smart and socially committed generation delivers some serious surprises in the form of facts and figures about the treatment of animals. Yes, it will shock you with tales of primates still used in animal testing on nicotine or killed for oven cleaner. But it will also let you lighten up and laugh a little as we work out how to do a better job of thanking the monkey.

The very things we do to control anxiety can make anxiety worse. This unique guide offers a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)-based approach to help you recognize the constant chatter of your anxious “monkey mind,” stop feeding anxious thoughts, and find the personal peace you crave. Ancient sages compared the human mind to a monkey: constantly chattering, hopping from branch to branch—endlessly moving from fear to safety. If you are one of the millions of people whose life is affected by anxiety, you are familiar with this process. Unfortunately, you can’t switch off the “monkey mind,” but you can stop feeding the monkey—or stop rewarding it by avoiding the things you fear. Written by psychotherapist Jennifer Shannon, this book shows you how to stop anxious thoughts from taking over using proven-effective cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and mindfulness techniques, as well as fun illustrations. By following the exercises in this book, you’ll learn to identify your own anxious thoughts, question those thoughts, and uncover the core fears at play. Once you stop feeding the monkey, there are no limits to how expansive your life can feel. This book will show you how anxiety can only continue as long as you try to avoid it. And, paradoxically, only by seeking out and confronting the things that make you anxious can you reverse the cycle that keeps your fears alive.

George shows his gratitude in this story starring everyone’s favorite monkey! George is thrilled to get a thank-you card in the mail from his friend Betsy. It makes him want to send thank-you cards to everyone he knows. Who can he thank? George tries to remember all the people who have been nice to him. But tracking them down to deliver his homemade cards soon becomes a challenge . . .

Greedy Monkey makes every effort to cheat Turtle out of the bananas that rightfully belong to her.

Hear that voice inside your head? The one that nitpicks all your new ideas? That's your monkey. This hypercritical little critter loves to make you second-guess yourself. It stirs up doubt. It kills your creativity. But it can be stopped. And acclaimed author Danny Gregory is here to show you how. After battling it out with his own monkey, he knows how to shut yours down. Gregory provides insight into the inner workings of your inner critic and teaches you how to put it in its place. Soon you'll be able to silence that voice and do what you want to do—create. Now follow his lead and Shut Your Monkey.

“A brilliantly crafted novel, brimming with heart.”―Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage “Rich and compelling . . . Her characters are vividly, achingly real, including the tiny, furry one at the novel’s center.”―Ann Packer, author of The Dive From Clausen’s Pier “Stark and compelling . . . rigorously unsentimental yet suffused with emotion.”―Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Duncan Wheeler is a successful architect who savors the quotidian pleasures in life until a car accident leaves him severely paralyzed and haunted by the death of his young assistant. Now, Duncan isn’t sure what there is left to live for, when every day has become “a broken series of unsuccessful gestures.” Duncan and his wife, Laura, find themselves in conflict as Duncan’s will to live falters. Laura grows desperate to help him. An art conservator who has her own relationship to the repair of broken things, Laura brings home a highly trained helper monkey―a tufted capuchin named Ottoline―to assist Duncan with basic tasks. Duncan and Laura fall for this sweet, comical, Nutella-gobbling little creature, and Duncan’s life appears to become more tolerable, fuller, and funnier. Yet the question persists: Is it enough? Katharine Weber is a masterful observer of humanity, and Still Life with Monkey, full of tenderness and melancholy, explores the conflict between the will to live and the desire to die.

From the National Book Award-winning author of Just Kids and M Train, a profound, beautifully realized memoir in which dreams and reality are vividly woven into a tapestry of one transformative year. Following a run of New Year's concerts at San Francisco's legendary Fillmore, Patti Smith finds herself tramping the coast of Santa Cruz, about to embark on a year of solitary wandering. Unfettered by logic or time, she draws us into her private wonderland with no design, yet heeding signs--including a talking sign that looms above her, prodding and sparring like the Cheshire Cat. In February, a surreal lunar year begins, bringing with it unexpected turns, heightened mischief, and inescapable sorrow. In a stranger's words, "Anything is possible: after all, it's the Year of the Monkey." For Smith--inveterately curious, always exploring, tracking thoughts, writing--the year evolves as one of reckoning with the changes in life's gyre: with loss, aging, and a dramatic shift in the political landscape of America. Smith melds the western landscape with her own dreamscape. Taking us from California to the Arizona desert; to a Kentucky farm as the amanuensis of a friend in crisis; to the hospital room of a valued mentor; and by turns to remembered and imagined places, this haunting memoir blends fact and fiction with poetic mastery. The unexpected happens; grief and disillusionment set in. But as Smith heads toward a new decade in her own life, she offers this balm to the reader: her wisdom, wit, gimlet eye, and above all, a rugged hope for a better world. Riveting, elegant, often humorous, illustrated by Smith's signature Polaroids, Year of the Monkey is a moving and original work, a touchstone for our turbulent times.

Caldecott Medalist Brian Selznick and debut children's book author David Serlin create a dazzling new format especially for young children! A New York Times Bestselling Book An Amazon Best Book of the Year A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year Parents Magazine Best Early Reader of the Year "A marvel." --The New York Times "Inventive... fabulously expressive..." --San Francisco Chronicle Who is Baby Monkey? He is a baby. He is a monkey. He has a job. He is Baby Monkey, Private Eye! Lost jewels? Missing pizza? Stolen spaceship? Baby Monkey can help... if he can put on his pants! Baby Monkey's adventures come to life in an exciting blend of picture book, beginning reader, and graphic novel. With pithy text and over 120 black and white drawings accented with red, it is ideal for sharing aloud and for emerging readers.