The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

About the Book

A magical debut novel for readers of Naomi Novik’s Uprooted, Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus, and Neil Gaiman’s myth-rich fantasies, The Bear and the Nightingale spins an irresistible spell as it announces the arrival of a singular talent with a gorgeous voice.

At the edge of the Russian wilderness, winter lasts most of the year and the snowdrifts grow taller than houses. But Vasilisa doesn’t mind—she spends the winter nights huddled around the embers of a fire with her beloved siblings, listening to her nurse’s fairy tales. Above all, she loves the chilling story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon, who appears in the frigid night to claim unwary souls. Wise Russians fear him, her nurse says, and honor the spirits of house and yard and forest that protect their homes from evil.

After Vasilisa’s mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa’s new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa is frightened, sensing that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows.

And indeed, crops begin to fail, evil creatures of the forest creep nearer, and misfortune stalks the village. All the while, Vasilisa’s stepmother grows ever harsher in her determination to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for either marriage or confinement in a convent.

As danger circles, Vasilisa must defy even the people she loves and call on dangerous gifts she has long concealed—this, in order to protect her family from a threat that seems to have stepped from her nurse’s most frightening tales.

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Bridget Jones’s Baby: The Diaries by Helen Fielding

Bridget Jones, beloved Singleton and global phenomenon, is back with a bump in Bridget Jones’s Baby: The Diaries. 
 
8:45 P.M. Realize there have been so many times in my life when have fantasized about going to a scan with Mark or Daniel: just not both at the same time.
 
Before motherhood, before marriage, Bridget with biological clock ticking very, very loudly, finds herself unexpectedly pregnant at the eleventh hour: a joyful pregnancy which is dominated, however, by a crucial but terribly awkward question – who is the father? Mark Darcy: honourable, decent, notable human rights lawyer? Or Daniel Cleaver: charming, witty, notable fuckwit?
 
9:45 PM It’s like they’re two halves of the perfect man, who’ll spend the rest of their lives each wanting to outdo the other one. And now it’s all enacting itself in my stomach.
 
In this gloriously funny, touching story of baby-deadline panic, maternal bliss, and social, professional, technological, culinary and childbirth chaos, Bridget Jones – global phenomenon and the world’s favorite Singleton – is back with a bump.

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Holding Up the Universe by Jennifer Niven

From the author of the New York Times bestseller All the Bright Places comes a heart-wrenching story about what it means to see someone—and love someone—for who they truly are.

Everyone thinks they know Libby Strout, the girl once dubbed “America’s Fattest Teen.” But no one’s taken the time to look past her weight to get to know who she really is. Following her mom’s death, she’s been picking up the pieces in the privacy of her home, dealing with her heartbroken father and her own grief. Now, Libby’s ready: for high school, for new friends, for love, and for EVERY POSSIBILITY LIFE HAS TO OFFER. In that moment, I know the part I want to play here at MVB High. I want to be the girl who can do anything.  

Everyone thinks they know Jack Masselin, too. Yes, he’s got swagger, but he’s also mastered the impossible art of giving people what they want, of fitting in. What no one knows is that Jack has a newly acquired secret: he can’t recognize faces. Even his own brothers are strangers to him. He’s the guy who can re-engineer and rebuild anything in new and bad-ass ways, but he can’t understand what’s going on with the inner workings of his brain. So he tells himself to play it cool: Be charming. Be hilarious. Don’t get too close to anyone. 

Until he meets Libby. When the two get tangled up in a cruel high school game—which lands them in group counseling and community service—Libby and Jack are both pissed, and then surprised. Because the more time they spend together, the less alone they feel. . . . Because sometimes when you meet someone, it changes the world, theirs and yours.

Jennifer Niven delivers another poignant, exhilarating love story about finding that person who sees you for who you are—and seeing them right back.

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What Light by Jay Asher

Sierra’s family runs a Christmas tree farm in Oregon—it’s a bucolic setting for a girl to grow up in, except that every year, they pack up and move to California to set up their Christmas tree lot for the season. So Sierra lives two lives: her life in Oregon and her life at Christmas. And leaving one always means missing the other. 

Until this particular Christmas, when Sierra meets Caleb, and one life eclipses the other.

By reputation, Caleb is not your perfect guy: years ago, he made an enormous mistake and has been paying for it ever since. But Sierra sees beyond Caleb’s past and becomes determined to help him find forgiveness and, maybe, redemption. As disapproval, misconceptions, and suspicions swirl around them, Caleb and Sierra discover the one thing that transcends all else: true love.

What Light is a love story that’s moving and life-affirming and completely unforgettable.

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Radical Beauty: How to Transform Yourself From the Inside Out by Deepak Chopra and Kimberly Snyder

Feel more beautiful, healthy, and energized than you have in years! Now, a revolutionary new way of helping you realize the true beauty that is your birthright!
 
Deepak Chopra, a leading pioneer of integrative medicine and New York Times bestselling author of What Are You Hungry For?, and Kimberly Snyder, a Hollywood superstar nutritionist and New York Times bestselling author of The Beauty Detox Solution, offer an exciting and practical program to help transform you from the inside out. Through six pillars of healthy living that focus on internal and external nourishment, sleep, living naturally, avoiding excessive stress, and better understanding the relationship between emotions and inflammatory foods, the authors offer practical tips, tools, innovative routines, and foods that will allow you to achieve your highest potential of beauty and health. 

Here is the latest information on foods to support your metabolism and how to best promote circulation of beauty-boosting nutrients; the use of the most effective skin-care ingredients coupled with traditional Ayurvedic medicine; and how to work with your skin to balance your nervous system, thus slowing aging. Further, Chopra and Snyder will show you how positive emotion-based living and peace foster natural and timeless beauty. All of this comes together to help you in developing a more healthy body and mind, increasing your natural glow, magnetic presence, and radiant vitality.

With powerful DIY home skin care and beauty remedies and treatments to address everything from acne to dry skin and wrinkles, techniques to promote your natural beauty by syncing with the power of rhythms found in nature, strategic dietary tips, and delicious recipes, Radical Beauty will help you feel more confident, achieve more beautifully smooth illuminating skin, healthy hair, bright eyes, and—perhaps best of all—the ability to tap into and be in touch with the true beauty that is already within you.

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Hot Flash Holidays by Nancy Thayer

The intrepid women of The Hot Flash Club are back for the holidays, soothing jingled nerves and stressed shoppers in their exclusive spa and celebrating the joys of the season. In her witty and delightfully wisecracking prose, Nancy Thayer tells a heartwarming tale packed with fun, secrets, romance–and an ample dose of good cheer.

When the Hot Flash friends gather at the spa to trim the Christmas tree, they share steaming mugs of hot chocolate, a few laughs, and a vow to make this holiday one to remember. And it is–but not in the cheerful, ho-ho-ho way they expected. Instead, Christmas brings family conflicts, household accidents, plane delays–and that’s just the beginning.

After a hazardous holiday season, the women make resolutions that they intend to keep . . . in a perfect world. But life–and their friends and relatives–cause complications. Shirley lends financial support to her boyfriend’s schemes, which infuriates Alice, whose own son commits an act she’s not sure she can accept. Marilyn travels to Scotland and falls in love, but her octogenarian mother needs her at home. And when Polly and Faye find themselves pitted against each other by a younger woman, an they overcome this clash to make a new, entrepreneurial dream come true? Then real disaster strikes, bringing new challenges and surprising revelations. 

Just as every month of the year throws new problems at us all, so too does the end of the year give us the chance to reunite and put these problems into their proper perspective. And when the Hot Flash Five get together for the holidays, we should expect nothing less than the unexpected.

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The Wellness Mama Cookbook by Katie Wells

With six kids, a popular blog, and no free time, Katie Wells, creator of the incredibly popular Wellness Mama website, knows firsthand how difficult it is to cook a healthy, homemade dinner every night. Faced with her own health challenges, and also concerned about the frightening statistics on the future health of her children’s generation, Katie began to evaluate the foods she was eating and feeding to her family. She became determined to find a way to create and serve meals that were wholesome, easy to prepare, budget-friendly, and family approved. The Wellness Mama Cookbook is a compilation of all that she has learned, with 200 simple, delicious recipes using all-natural ingredients; meal plans; time-saving tips; and advice that will take the guesswork out of dinner.

The recipes and practical advice Katie offers will help you eliminate processed foods and move toward more healthy, home-cooked meals that are easily prepared—most in thirty minutes or less. The recipes focus on whole foods that are free of grains and refined sugars and without harmful fats, but are still delicious and full of flavor. With a variety of slow-cooker and one-pot meals, light lunches, dinners, and desserts, you’ll be eating better in every way in no time at all. Recipes include Sesame Chicken with Sugar Snap Peas, Sweet Potato Crusted Quiche Lorraine, Beef and Zucchini Stir Fry, and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies, as well as recipes for bone broths, fermented foods, and super food drinks and smoothies. Katie also shares pantry-stocking advice, two weeks of meal plans for at home and on-the-go, shopping lists, and more. This is the ultimate cookbook that readers need to incorporate healthy eating knowledge into their daily practices.

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Mozza at Home by Nancy Silverton and Carolynn Carreno

As an award-winning chef and the owner of six busy restaurants across two continents, Nancy Silverton was so consumed by her life in the professional kitchen that for years she almost never cooked at home. With her intense focus on the business of cooking, Nancy had forgotten what made her love to cook in the first place: fabulous ingredients at the height of their season, simple food served family style, and friends and loved ones gathered around the dinner table. Then, on a restorative trip to Italy—with its ripe vegetables, magnificent landscapes, and long summer days—Nancy began to cook for friends and family again, and rediscovered the great pleasures (and great tastes!) of cooking and eating at home. 

Now, in Mozza at Home, Nancy shares her renewed passion and provides nineteen menus packed with easy-to-follow recipes that can be prepared in advance (with no fancy restaurant equipment needed!) and are perfect for entertaining. Organized by meal, each menu provides a main dish along with a complementary selection of appetizers and side dishes. Under Nancy’s guidance you can mix and match all the options depending on the size of your gathering. Make a few sides for a small dinner party with friends, or make them all for a delicious family feast! And don’t forget dessert—there’s an entire chapter dedicated to end-of-meal treats such as Devil’s Food Rings with Spiced White Mountain Frosting and Dario’s Olive Oil Cake with Rosemary and Pine Nuts that can be prepared hours before serving so that the host gets to relax during the event too.

Whether it’s Marinated Olives and Fresh Pecorino and other appetizers that can be put out while you’re assembling the rest of the meal . . . salads, such as Endive Salad with Date Anchovy Dressing, composed of sturdy lettuces that won’t wilt . . . simple sides, such as Roasted Carrots and Chickpeas with Cumin Vinaigrette, that are just as delicious served at room temperature as they are warm . . . or show-stopping mains such as the Flattened Chicken Thighs with Charred Lemon Salsa Verde—there is something here for everyone and every occasion. With clever tips on how to organize your table and your time when serving many guests, Mozza at Home helps you throw the perfect dinner party—one that’s positively stress-free and delicious!

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The Love and Lemons Cookbook by Jeanine Donofrio

Sometimes all you need is a little spark of inspiration to change up your regular cooking routine. The Love & Lemons Cookbook features more than one hundred simple recipes that help you turn your farmers market finds into delicious meals. 
 
The beloved Love & Lemons blog has attracted buzz from everyone from bestselling author Heidi Swanson to Saveur Magazine, who awarded the blog Best Cooking Blog of 2014. 
 
Organized by ingredient, The Love & Lemons Cookbook teaches readers how to make beautiful food with what’s on hand, whether it’s a bunch of rainbow-colored heirloom carrots from the farmers market or a four-pound cauliflower that just shows up in a CSA box. The book also features resources to show readers how to stock their pantry, gluten-free and vegan options for many of the recipes, as well as ideas on mixing and matching ingredients, so that readers always have something new to try.

Stunningly designed and efficiently organized, The Love & Lemons Cookbook is a resource that you will use again and again.

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Oh She Glows Every Day by Angela Liddon

Angela Liddon’s eagerly awaited follow-up to the New York Times bestseller The Oh She Glows Cookbook, featuring more than one hundred quick-and-easy whole-foods, plant-based recipes to keep you glowing every day of the year.
 
Angela Liddon’s irresistible and foolproof recipes have become the gold standard for plant-based cooking. Her phenomenally popular blog and New York Times–bestselling debut, The Oh She Glows Cookbook, have amassed millions of fans eager for her latest collection of creative and accessible recipes. Now, in this highly anticipated follow-up cookbook, Liddon shares wildly delicious recipes that are perfect for busy lifestyles, promising to make plant-based eating convenient every day of the week—including holidays and special occasions! Filled with more than one hundred family-friendly recipes everyone will love, like Oh Em Gee Veggie Burgers, Fusilli Lentil-Mushroom Bolognese, and Ultimate Flourless Brownies, Oh She Glows Every Day also includes useful information on essential pantry ingredients and tips on making recipes kid-, allergy-, and freezer-friendly. A beautiful go-to cookbook from one of the Internet’s most beloved cooking stars, Oh She Glows Every Day proves that it’s possible to cook simple, nourishing, and tasty meals—even on a busy schedule.

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