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ELENA VANISHING

“When I offered to help my daughter Elena write about her life with anorexia nervosa, I thought I already understood her disorder. Like most educated women, I’d been reading articles and watching focus pieces about it for years. But I quickly discovered how little I knew. Most of my basic assumptions were wrong.”

—Clare B. Dunkle

Seventeen-year-old Elena is vanishing. Every day means renewed determination, so every day means fewer calories. This is the story of a girl whose armor against anxiety becomes artillery against herself as she battles on both sides of a lose-lose war in a struggle with anorexia.

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HOPE AND OTHER LUXURIES

Clare Dunkle seemed to have an ideal life—two beautiful, high-achieving teenage daughters, a loving husband, and a satisfying and successful career as a children’s book novelist. But it’s when you let down your guard that the ax falls. Just after one daughter successfully conquered her depression, another daughter developed a life-threatening eating disorder. Co-published with Elena Vanishing, the memoir of her daughter, this is the story—told in brave, beautifully written, and unflinchingly honest prose—of one family’s fight against a deadly disease, from an often ignored but important perspective: the mother of the anorexic.

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WHATEVER…LOVE IS LOVE

The acclaimed actress and dedicated activist shares her personal journey of discovery, and destroys outdated ideas about partnership, love and family that will resonate with anyone in an unconventional life situation.

Actress and activist Maria Bello made waves with her essay, “Coming Out as a Modern Family,” in the New York Times popular “Modern Love” column, in which she recalled telling her son that she had fallen in love with her best friend, a woman—and her relief at his easy and immediate acceptance with the phrase “Whatever Mom, love is love.” She made a compelling argument about the fluidity of partnerships,

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ROCK, MEET WINDOW

A funny and poignant memoir that delves into the magic, fails, and meaning of fatherhood.

Humorist and family-man Jason Good is an only child with an atypical story to tell. His isn’t the usual rant about how hard it is to be a modern father or a tale about a damaging relationship with his father. Jason grew up with a charismatic, communicative, affectionate, and frustrated political science professor for a father–a man who taught him most everything about how to be a dad, how to live. Jason was figuring out how to parent his own two young boys when his dad was diagnosed with cancer and told he had nine months to live.

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MY GRANDFATHER WOULD HAVE SHOT ME

One of our recommended books is My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me by Jennifer Teege

Now in paperback: The New York Times bestselling memoir hailed as “haunting” (Washington Post), “unforgettable” (Publishers Weekly), and “stunning” (Booklist)

When Jennifer Teege, a German-born black woman, happened to pluck a library book from the shelf her life would be irrevocably altered. Recognizing photos of her mother and grandmother, she discovers a horrifying fact: Her grandfather was Amon Goeth, the vicious Nazi concentration camp commandant chillingly depicted by Ralph Fiennes in Schindler’s List. The more Teege reads about Goeth,

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THEY POURED FIRE ON US FROM THE SKY

One of our recommended books is They Poured Fire On Us From The Sky by Alphonsion Deng

Benjamin, Alepho, and Benson were raised among the Dinka tribe of Sudan. Their world was an insulated, close-knit community of grass-roofed cottages, cattle herders, and tribal councils. The lions and pythons that prowled beyond the village fences were the greatest threat they knew.

All that changed the night the government-armed Murahiliin began attacking their villages. Amid the chaos, screams, conflagration, and gunfire, five-year-old Benson and seven-year-old Benjamin fled into the dark night. Two years later, Alepho, age seven, was forced to do the same. Across the Southern Sudan, over the next five years, thousands of other boys did likewise,

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