Great Books

Widely considered the leading book involving nutrition and feeding infants and children, this revised edition offers practical advice that takes into account the most recent research into such topics as: emotional, cultural, and genetic aspects of eating; proper diet during pregnancy; breast-feeding versus; bottle-feeding; introducing solid food to an infant's diet; feeding the preschooler; and avoiding mealtime battles. An appendix looks at a wide range of disorders including allergies, asthma, and hyperactivity, and how to teach a child who is reluctant to eat. The author also discusses the benefits and drawbacks of giving young children vitamins.

Confused about feeding your baby or toddler? Child of Mine, by noted nutritionist Ellyn Satter, is an essential guide for every new parent concerned with nutrition and appetite. Satter's advice is thorough and straightforward: "You can't control or dictate the quantity of food your child eats, and you shouldn't try. You also can't control or dictate the kind of body your child develops, and you shouldn't try. What you can do, and it is a great deal, is set things up for your child so she, herself, can regulate her food intake as well as possible, and so she can develop a healthy body that is constitutionally right for her." Child of Mine provides information on all aspects of feeding, from pregnancy through the toddler years. Satter begins with historical and social perspectives on infant feeding, describing how formula was developed and discussing the social movement that lead to accepting a child's input into his or her own development. Nutrition during pregnancy, infant feeding, introducing solid foods, building positive eating relationships, and avoiding eating disorders are all discussed. The sections on breastfeeding vs. bottle feeding, and on the regulation of food intake (particularly the relationship between parental attitudes and children's eating habits) are especially recommended. Satter provides specific nutritional information (including charts, diagrams, and nutritional breakdowns) interspersed with a no-nonsense, experienced perspective that will help you establish good eating habits that your children will benefit from long after they're out of diapers. --Ericka Lutz

In eight new stories, a master of the form extends and magnifies her great themes--the vagaries of love, the passion that leads down unexpected paths, the chaos hovering just under the surface of things, and the strange, often comical desires of the human heart.Time stretches out in some of the stories: a man and a woman look back forty years to the summer they met--the summer, as it turns out, that the true nature of their lives was revealed. In others time is telescoped: a young girl finds in the course of an evening that the mother she adores, and whose fluttery sexuality she hopes to emulate, will not sustain her--she must count on herself.Some choices are made--in a will, in a decision to leave home--with irrevocable and surprising consequences. At other times disaster is courted or barely skirted: when a mother has a startling dream about her baby; when a woman, driving her grandchildren to visit the lakeside haunts of her youth, starts a game that could have dangerous consequences. The rich layering that gives Alice Munro's work so strong a sense of life is particularly apparent in the title story, in which the death of a local optometrist brings an entire town into focus--from the preadolescent boys who find his body, to the man who probably killed him, to the woman who must decide what to do about what she might know. Large, moving, profound--these are stories that extend the limits of fiction.

In the world of Alice Munro, the best route is not necessarily the shortest distance between two points. In her ninth superlative collection of short fiction, The Love of a Good Woman, the setting is once again western Canada, and the subject matter is classic Munro: secrets, love, betrayal, and the stuff of ordinary lives. But as is usual for this master of the short form, the path she takes is anything but ordinary. The stunning title story is a case in point. A narrative in four parts, it begins with the drowning of a small-town optometrist and ripples outward, touching first the boys who find the body, then a spiteful dying woman and her young practical nurse. Whose tale is this, anyway? Not the optometrist's, surely, though his death holds it together. The effect is not exactly Rashomon-like either, though each of the sections views him through a different eye. Instead, "The Love of a Good Woman" is as thorough and inclusive a portrait of small-town life as can be imagined--its tensions and its deceit, its involuntary bonds. Within its 75 pages it encompasses a world more capacious than that of most novels. As always, Munro's prose is both simple and moving, as when the letter-writing protagonist of "Before the Change" sends her love to an ex-fiancé: What if people really did that--sent their love through the mail to get rid of it? What would it be that they sent? A box of chocolates with centers like the yolks of turkey's eggs. A mud doll with hollow eye sockets. A heap of roses slightly more fragrant than rotten. A package wrapped in bloody newspaper that nobody would want to open. The fictions in this volume burn with a kind of dry-eyed anti-romanticism--even the ones whose plots verge on domestic melodrama (a baby's near-death in "My Mother's Dream"; an adulterous wife in "The Children Stay"). Densely populated, elliptical in construction, each story circles around its principal events and relationships like planets around a sun. The result is layered and complex, its patterns not always apparent on first reading: in other words, something like life. --Mary Park

Charts the four general types of marriage--the romantic, the rescue, the companionate, and the traditional--and the nine tasks essential to forging a successful one, based on intimate interviews with fifty couples who consider themselves happy. Reprint.

Inspired by the hope that the experience of satisfied husbands and wives might provide useful lessons to others, Wallerstein, a clinical psychologist and specialist on divorce, and Sandra Blakeslee, who writes frequently for The New York Times, interviewed 50 predominantly middle-class, northern California couples who had been married nine years or more and had at least one child. These strong marriages flourish, they argue, because every partner confronted a series of psychological tasks including separating emotionally from the family of childhood, carving out his or her autonomy and creating an environment where anger and conflict could be safely vented. The couples reveal their interior lives in rich, explicit detail.

Once the relationship was healthy.And now it's in trouble. Rather than working unproductively, feeling confused, and grasping for tired solutions that seem complicated and irrelevant, do something about it. This book will show you how to sort through all the pain and confusion in your relationship, put your finger on exactly what's been causing all your troubles, and find the precise way to eliminate them.Psychotherapist and bestselling author Mira Kirshenbaum has identified ten Love Killers that cause all the painful and mysterious problems couples get into. By answering simple questions, you'll be able to diagnose your individual case and identify the lover killer for your specific problems. For every love killer, there is a corresponding Love Builder -- a prescription tailor-made for your particular problem that can help heal your relationship. These solutions grew out of fourteen years of pioneering research into ways couples solve their problems, delving into every aspect of life together, from sex to money, from affection to conversatiion, from watching TV to planning for the future -- all based on what happens to real love between real people amid the stress and distraction of real life.If you're longing for the closeness and passion that once was yours, find out now what's wrong with your relationship, and exactly how to fix it -- and make your love better than ever.

What turns a happy, healthy relationship into a pairing full of boredom or even anger and hostility? Couples therapist Kirshenbaum, author of the bestselling Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay, has identified 10 "love killers" that cause people to lose the good feelings that brought them together in the first place. "Think of a love killer as the equivalent of a ... condition like pneumonia," she writes. "If properly treated, it can easily and reliably be cured." Among the most common diseases threatening romantic happiness: letting your relationship slide as life pressures sap your time and energy, excessive criticism, not opening up emotionally, or the feeling by one or both partners that the other isn't meeting his or her needs. Because relationship problems often aren't what they seem, the book provides questionnaires for determining where the trouble is coming from, as well as a variety of prescriptions for working things out. Don't be fooled by the overly cute chapter headings, each of which is taken from a popular song title--this is an informative, very usable book that is sure to save more than a few relationships from slipping away without either person knowing just what went wrong. --Ben Kallen, Personal Growth editor

Using simple techniques drawn from mindfulness practice, each of these intimate and fun activities will help readers feel closer, more connected, and more deeply in love with their intimates. The meditations, affirmations, and observations will foster gratitude, kindness, trust, and empathy. In the course of these practices, readers can learn new ways to deal with conflict and daily stress. (Five Good Minutes is a trade mark of New Harbinger Publications, Inc.)

"God wants me to try harder." "God blesses me when I'm good and punishes me when I'm bad." "God is angry with me." We all have ideas that we tell ourselves about God and how he works in our lives. Some are true--but many are false. James Bryan Smith believes those thoughts determine not only who we are, but how we live. In fact, Smith declares, the most important thing about a person is what they think about God. The path to spiritual transformation begins here. Turning to the Gospels, Smith invites you to put your ideas to the test to see if they match up with what Jesus himself reveals about God. Once you've discovered the truth in Scripture, Smith leads you through a process of spiritual formation that includes specific activities aimed at making these new narratives real in your body and soul as well as your mind. At the end of each chapter you'll find an opportunity for soul training, engaging in spiritual practices that reinforce the biblical messages on your mind and heart. Because the best way to make a complete and lasting change is to go through the material in community, small group discussion questions also accompany each chapter. Those who are leading apprentice groups will also find additional help and opportunities to interact with other leaders at the Apprentice website. This deep, loving and transformative book will help you discover the narratives that Jesus lived by--to know the Lord he knew and the kingdom he proclaimed--and to practice spiritual exercises that will help you grow in the knowledge of our good and beautiful God.

Written by a psychologist who is a leader in the field of pet bereavement, this practical but sympathetic guide validates the survivor’s often misunderstood feelings, explains the importance of the human-animal bond, and offers strategies for working through the grieving process. Some of the coping techniques include memorializing the pet, recognizing problematic thinking, and finding support. The book also covers dealing with guilt and explaining the pet’s death to a child.

A series of tender exchanges between a mother and child make this a wonderful little book to share at tuck-in time. Full-color illustrations.