Other books that might interest you

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  A Quest for the Hidden Lands -...

  Norman Levine

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  My budding career as a literary scholar was suddenly hijacked by a singular seemingly random event. It was 1976 when I tiptoed into a tiny Buddhist shrine room in a farmhouse nestled into the Black Mountains of Wales and there beheld a Tibetan master, the 16th Karmapa, sitting on a throne performing a ceremony known as The Black Hat. My mind came to an immediate stop, suspended. It felt familiar, like the secret garden of childhood.I can still remember every detail like it was yesterday:Karmapa occupies the throne completely. He has a spiritual dignity that makes it his rightful seat, just as the lion proclaims his natural dominion. The force of his presence alone brings a hushed silence to the room. It feels like it has expanded into a cathedral. Two monks blow long Tibetan horns in a haunting wail so loud and long it startles thought patterns, blowing them away like clouds. The Karmapa slowly opens the Black Hat-box, takes the black silk crown in his hand, and puts it on his head holding it down with one hand. With the other hand he fingers a crystal rosary moving it deftly, twirling the beads around three times. The horns continue while he gazes with eyes that seem to dissolve the fiction of time and the boundaries of space. Time is standing still.That glimpse into enlightened mind became embedded like a seed and grew into a quest over the next decades to find the key places on our planet called the Hidden Lands.The legend came alive while I was living in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the Himalayas. I met Tibetans who had been to the supreme Hidden Land of Pemako while escaping from the Chinese invasion of Tibet. They made it sound like the ‘promised land’ with streams flowing with milky water. There were certain plants that could induce enlightenment.Why did it take decades to get there? What made the right ingredients emerge to penetrate this sacred sanctuary?  And the big question: Who hid it and why?

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  Greyhound - A Memoir

  Joanna Pocock

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  Combining history, reportage, and nature writing with intimate moments of reflection, Greyhound tells of the journey from miscarriage to parenthood, and the purpose creativity gives to our lives when we feel purposeless 
   
  In 2006, in the wake of several miscarriages, Joanna Pocock traveled by Greyhound bus across the United States from Detroit to Los Angeles. Seventeen years later, she undertakes the same journey, revisiting the cities, edgelands, highways, and motels in the footsteps of the few women writers—Simone de Beauvoir, Ethel Mannin, and Irma Kurtz—who also chronicled their road trips across the United States. Combining memoir, reportage, environmental writing, and literary criticism, Greyhound is a moving and immersive book that captures an America in the throes of late capitalism with all its beauty, horror, and complexity.

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  Legends Lore and Secrets of New...

  Arlene Nicholson, Thomas D’Agostino

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  New England's history is marked with witch executions, curses, and an untold number of cemeteries hiding mysteries beneath their stones. In this sometimes harsh landscape, the truth is often stranger than fiction. Examine the footprints burned into the ledge of Devil's Foot Rock in Rhode Island. Spend a night at the Kennebunk Inn in Maine, where the mischievous specter of Silas Perkins still resides. Traverse an old dirt road near Sterling, Connecticut, where the Darn Man's frozen body was uncovered in 1863. Authors Thomas D'Agostino and Arlene Nicholson uncover the history behind the region's best-kept secrets and lore. As you hear these New England's legends, tread lightly—you just might find a story that will follow you home.

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  40 Great Stained Glass Projects

  Michael Johnston

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  Create suncatchers, picture frames, and more with this “nice collection of small stained-glass projects that would make fine gifts” (Library Journal).   Stained glass artist and teacher Michael Johnston provides patterns and detailed instructions for forty projects—along with one thousand step-by-step photos—in this informative guide.   With his pro tips on soldering, working with lead and foil, building 3-D projects, and more, even a beginner can make stunning candleholders, mirrors, angels, garden ornaments, boxes, and other useful and decorative items that capture light—and captivate with their rich color and timeless beauty.

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  Tired and Tested: The Wild Ride...

  Sophie McCartney

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  Welcome to the jungle… 
  When you’ve grown up thinking your twenties are all about working hard, playing hard and trying not to get pregnant, life comes at you fast when you go from hump to bump. 
  So you thought adulthood would mean a high-flying career and a luxury lifestyle, but instead have ended up with a Lycra-based wardrobe and a deep fear of what lies at the bottom of the ball-pit in soft play? 
  Join comedian Sophie McCartney as she voyages deep into the uncharted territories of mating, birthing, feral offspring, mums overdoing it at the watering hole, and the perilous viper’s nest of the school WhatsApp group. 
  With laugh out loud humour and eye-watering honesty, Sophie shows how whether you’ve had a day full of whining or a night full of wine, there’s joy to be had in the perfectly imperfect wild ride into parenthood. 
  In Tired and Tested, Sophie McCartney, a top-notch comedian, explores the wild terrain of relationships, childbirth, and the health challenges that come with it. This bestseller is a humorous autobiography that delves into the realities of motherhood and family life, making it a must-read for anyone navigating the same journey. 
  For fans of Laura Belbin (No Shame), Sarah Turner (The Sober Revolution), Laura Clery (Idiot), Sophie Martin (The Infertile Midwife), and Hayley Morris (Me vs Brain). 
  HarperCollins 2022

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  The Olive Route - A Personal...

  Carol Drinkwater

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  The author of acclaimed memoirs about life on a French olive farm explores the larger history and culture of the Mediterranean delicacy. Carol Drinkwater has a passion for olive trees and the fruit they bear—“bitter berries” that are transformed into savory delights and pressed into precious oil. Already intimately familiar with the fruit thanks to her olive farm in the South of France, she decided to travel throughout the Mediterranean basin—from Marseille to Malta, Israel to Tunisia—in a quest to learn about their ancient history, their spread throughout the world, and the tastes and traditions they represent. A culinary travelogue and a celebration of a humble, healthful food that inspires devotion among so many, The Olive Route is filled with unusual characters and fascinating anecdotes from “a storyteller of great economy and deftness” (The Telegraph). “Drinkwater has a sharp eye for character, and the people who populate The Olive Route will not disappoint her fans.” —The Independent

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