This Is Where We Live

This fun and informational picture book follows five friends as they explore their community during a street fair. The children find adventure close to home while learning about the businesses, public spaces and people in their neighborhood. Young readers will be inspired to re-create the fun-filled day in their own communities.

A collection of twenty-five short stories by North Carolina writers showcases the southern flavors and literary pyrotechnics born of this state's rich storytelling traditions. Simultaneous.

A “wildly entertaining” (San Francisco Chronicle) novel about a young marriage unraveling under the pressure of a subprime mortgage and ruthless Hollywood economics—from the New York Times bestselling author of Watch Me Disappear “Part social satire, part melodrama, part intimate domestic portrait . . . Brown has an uncanny eye for contemporary characters and settings.”—Los Angeles Times Claudia and Jeremy, a young married couple (she’s an aspiring filmmaker, he’s an indie musician), are on the verge of making it. Her first film was a sensation at Sundance and is about to have its theatrical release; he’s got a new band that is a few songs shy of an album. They’ve recently purchased their first home—a mid-century bungalow with a breathtaking view of Los Angeles—with the magical assistance of an adjustable-rate mortgage. But a series of seismic events—the tanking of Claudia’s film, the return of Jeremy’s manipulative, art-star ex-girlfriend, and the staggering adjustment of their monthly mortgage payments—threaten to deal a crushing blow to their dreams of the bohemian life and their professional aspirations and make them question their shared vision of the future.

A “wildly entertaining” (San Francisco Chronicle) novel about a young marriage unraveling under the pressure of a subprime mortgage and ruthless Hollywood economics—from the New York Times bestselling author of Watch Me Disappear “Part social satire, part melodrama, part intimate domestic portrait . . . Brown has an uncanny eye for contemporary characters and settings.”—Los Angeles Times Claudia and Jeremy, a young married couple (she’s an aspiring filmmaker, he’s an indie musician), are on the verge of making it. Her first film was a sensation at Sundance and is about to have its theatrical release; he’s got a new band that is a few songs shy of an album. They’ve recently purchased their first home—a mid-century bungalow with a breathtaking view of Los Angeles—with the magical assistance of an adjustable-rate mortgage. But a series of seismic events—the tanking of Claudia’s film, the return of Jeremy’s manipulative, art-star ex-girlfriend, and the staggering adjustment of their monthly mortgage payments—threaten to deal a crushing blow to their dreams of the bohemian life and their professional aspirations and make them question their shared vision of the future.

In the spirit of Gretchen Rubin’s megaseller The Happiness Project and Eric Weiner’s The Geography of Bliss, a journalist embarks on a project to discover what it takes to love where you live The average restless American will move 11.7 times in a lifetime. For Melody Warnick, it was move #6, from Austin, Texas, to Blacksburg, Virginia, that threatened to unhinge her. In the lonely aftermath of unpacking, she wondered: Aren’t we supposed to put down roots at some point? How does the place we live become the place we want to stay? This time, she had an epiphany. Rather than hold her breath and hope this new town would be her family’s perfect fit, she would figure out how to fall in love with it—no matter what. How we come to feel at home in our towns and cities is what Warnick sets out to discover in This Is Where You Belong. She dives into the body of research around place attachment—the deep sense of connection that binds some of us to our cities and increases our physical and emotional well-being—then travels to towns across America to see it in action. Inspired by a growing movement of placemaking, she examines what its practitioners are doing to create likeable locales. She also speaks with frequent movers and loyal stayers around the country to learn what draws highly mobile Americans to a new city, and what makes us stay. The best ideas she imports to her adopted hometown of Blacksburg for a series of Love Where You Live experiments designed to make her feel more locally connected. Dining with her neighbors. Shopping Small Business Saturday. Marching in the town Christmas parade. Can these efforts make a halfhearted resident happier? Will Blacksburg be the place she finally stays? What Warnick learns will inspire you to embrace your own community—and perhaps discover that the place where you live right now . . . is home.

The author writes of her experiences dealing with the death of her husband and adjusting to life in the city after leaving the ranchlands of southwest Saskatchewan.

Discusses the many factors that affect where humans choose to live, including the availability of food and water, jobs, and the need for safety.