Explore the common ground underlying the diverse expressions of the Buddha's teachings with two of Tibetan Buddhism's bestselling authors. Buddhism is practiced by hundreds of millions of people worldwide, from Tibetan caves to Tokyo temples to redwood retreats. To an outside viewer, it might be hard to see what they all have in common. In Buddhism, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and American Buddhist nun Thubten Chodron map out with clarity the convergences...

"An intimate, heart wrenching portrait of one small hospital that reveals the magnitude of America's health care crises. By following the struggle for survival of one small-town hospital, and the patients who walk, or are carried, through its doors, The Hospital takes readers into the world of the American medical industry in a way no book has done before. Americans are dying sooner, and living in poorer health. Alexander argues that no plan will...

Castle Waiting is the story of an isolated, abandoned castle, and the eccentric inhabitants who bring it back to life. A fable for modern times, it is a fairy tale thats not about rescuing the princess, saving the kingdom, or fighting the ultimate war between Good and Evil but about being a hero in your own home. The opening chapter tells the origin of the castle itself, which is abandoned by its princess in a comic twist on Sleeping Beauty when...

"A revelatory history of the trafficking of young Asian girls that flourished in San Francisco during the first century of Chinese immigration (1848-1943) and the "safe house" on the edge of Chinatown that became a refuge for those seeking their freedom From 1874, a house on the edge of San Francisco's Chinatown served as a gateway to freedom for thousands of enslaved and vulnerable young Chinese women and girls. Known as the Occidental Mission Home,...

"In his three previous books-Feathers, The Triumph of Seeds, and Buzz-Thor Hanson has taken his readers on unforgettable journeys into nature, rendered with great storytelling, the soul of a poet, and the insight of a biologist. In this new book, he is doing it again, but exploring one of the most vital scientific and cultural issues of our time: climate change. As a young biologist, Hanson by his own admission watched with some detachment as our...

"Fascinated by the recent creation of the 800-mile Oregon Desert Trail, an initiative by the conservation organization Oregon Natural Desert Association to link together and bring attention to eastern Oregon's lesser known but visually spectacular high desert and canyonlands, author Ellen Waterston seeks to write a book that both brings the landscape to the fore and also situates it in terms of the people who live there and care about the land, as...

"What would you do if you . . .were offered an obscene amount of money for your family's ancestral land? For Nalani and her mother, the money that could change their lives--at the sacrifice of everything they believe--is a double edged blade, and they're not sure they can trust the secretive tech billionaire holding it out to them as if it were an olive branch. But what happens when a man with unlimited wealth is given an answer he doesn't want to...

"The most translated book in the world after the Bible, the Tao Te Ching, or "Book of the Way," is a guide to cultivating a life of peace, serenity, and compassion. Through aphorisms and parable, it leads readers toward the Tao, or the "Way": harmony with the life force of the universe. Traditionally attributed to Lao Tzu, a Chinese philosopher who was a contemporary of Confucius, it is the essential text of Taoism, one of the three great religions...

"A gorgeous photography collection featuring home interiors and profiles of the people who have transformed these spaces into sanctuaries, calling you to create your own sacred space. Before she became an internationally renowned designer and photographer, Carley Summers suffered from alcoholism and addiction, spending nights in jail, emergency rooms, and rehab. As someone who celebrates recovery today, she knows firsthand the importance of a warm...

"Nora May French and Carrie Sterling arrive at Carmel-by-the-Sea at the turn of the 20th century with dramatically different ambitions. Nora, a stunning, brilliant, impulsive writer in her early twenties, seeks artistic recognition and Bohemian refuge among the most celebrated counter-culturalists of the era. Carrie, long-suffering wife of the poet George Sterling, wants the opposite: a semblance of the stability she thought her advantageous marriage...