Too Precious For Earth

True story of a the lives changed by a miracle child of a mother who was told she could not have any more children. The child died shortly after birth and the story revolves around how those brief moments changed the life of the family and others around.

Young readers explore various forms of pollution and how people are cleaning up the environment.

2022 Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction Shortlist A humorous coming-of-age novel-in-stories and a sharp-edged look at how silence can shape a life, from the winner of the Journey Prize. A Chatelaine Summer Reads pick. “But wait, what happened to the girl?” “I don’t know,” I say. I don’t tell him that what will happen to her is what happens to every girl. Bright, hilarious, and sensitive fourteen-year-old Nina doesn’t say anything when her best friend begins to pull away, or when her crush on her English teacher intensifies. She doesn’t say anything when her mother tries to match her up with local Halifax Indian boys unfamiliar with her Saved by the Bell references, or when her worried father starts reciting Hindu prayers outside her bedroom door. (“How can your dad be happy when his only daughter is unsettled?”) And she won’t speak of the incident in high school that changes the course of her life. The Most Precious Substance on Earth tells stories of Nina’s life from the nineties to present day, when she returns to the classroom as a high school teacher with a haunting secret. And whether she’s pushing herself to deliver speeches at Toastmasters meetings, struggling through her MFA program, enduring the indignities of online dating, or wrestling with how to best guide her students, she will discover that the past is never far behind her. Darkly funny, deeply moving, unsettling, and at times even shocking, Shashi Bhat’s irresistible novel-in-stories examines the fraught relationships between those who take and those who have something taken. The Most Precious Substance on Earth is a sharp-edged and devastating look at how women are conditioned to hide their trauma and suppress their fear, loneliness, and anger, and an unforgettable portrait of how silence can shape a life.

A friend in disguise, a companion throughout the days when you feel like shit and don’t have the confidence to even do what you love. It’s your best friend who will love you, shower you with praises, spoil you with love while reminding you to love yourself too. Don’t you think you deserve the love and care that you give to others? Yes, in these pages, you will find the key to do the same and learn to appreciate yourself for being you. It’s your soft blanket that holds the warmth to make you feel secure. Don’t you want to experience these beautiful emotions for yourself? This is the book you have been searching for.

A nature therapy session for the soul--encounter the benevolence of the living world through 12 essays on the Earth-healing powers of self-compassion and empathy. When healing is needed at the deepest level, nature will always call us back home--not only to the oak woods or water-filled coves, but to the homes within ourselves. In a series of 12 lyrical nature essays, herbalist, writer, and Earth intuitive Asia Suler illuminates the healing power of the living Earth--and gives us permission to nurture self-compassion and empathy as forces for personal and ecological healing. In a time of unprecedented ecological devastation, it’s easy to feel hopeless and disconnected. It’s easier still to mask our inherent goodness--to imagine that our unique and precious gifts simply aren’t enough, or forget the power of our inborn empathy. For those of us who are highly sensitive, innately attuned to the workings and whispers of the natural world, it can be hard to embody the belief that we’re enough as we are--and that can heal the Earth. Here, Suler reveals the opposite: our goodness, our empathy, our intuitive connections, and our capacity for self-compassion are more than personal traits or antidotes to despair: they are, in fact, our most potent vehicles for planetary transformation. And as we learn to more deeply nurture and accept ourselves, we unlock living, healing connections to Earth. Combining poetic nature writing with exercises and reflection prompts at the end of each essay, Mirrors in the Earth coaxes us to come as we are: to discover and tend the inherent brilliance and medicine that lives in each of us. From the manatee-calm springs of wild Florida to the flower-dotted coves of the world’s most biodiverse mountains, Mirrors in the Earth is an invitation and encounter with the benevolence of the living world--and a nature therapy session for the soul.

Spiral Mirror is a science fiction thriller and passionate love story based on tapes recorded by a college professor, Karl Grayland, while trapped at the foot of Mt. St. Helens in 1980 as it is about to erupt. This event brings him into the jaws of death for the love of two women: Laura Russell, a young attorney who on their journey to Seattle reveals to Karl that she is pregnant with his child; and Ariel, a sprite of a girl whom they rescue along the way only to be lured by her to Mt. St. Helens on that fateful day in May. With the web of time shredded by the convulsing mountain, Karl, led by Arial, is thrust through a magic mirror fifty years into a future in which mankind's fate comes to rest squarely on him. He learns from his captors how he in a spectral guise can invade the minds of their rivals and control or destroy them at will. Karl soon discovers that his godlike powers come with a compelling need to deploy them. While on the attack, Karl finds a dying Laura and a daughter he never knew, and enlists them to help his captors protect the Spiral Mirror and with it access to all human history. Only after his bloodlust is spent, leaving untold death in its wake, does Karl come to grips with the enormity of his deeds and what it truly means to be human. After learning the true purpose of his ordeal, Karl is returned home by his captors where he and Laura must again face the Mountain's mighty blow.

In his sequel to "Healing Society, " Dr. Lee calls for readers to move past the artificial boundaries and institutions that prevent them from realizing they are all members of the human society.

Everyone knows the story of the star-crossed lovers but close attention to the language of the play can deepen and darken the legend. As icons of passion, Romeo and Juliet reveal the recklessness, as well as the idealism, of desire in a violent world. Catherine Belsey shows how you can tease out the play's subtle meanings and goes on to discuss key adaptations, including the classic Baz Lurhmann film.