I Love God's Sense of Humor; I Just Wish He'd Let Me in on the Joke

I Love God's Sense of Humor; I Just Wish He'd Let Me in on the Joke
Author: Stan Toler
Publisher: Beacon Hill Press
Total Pages: 156
Release: 2006
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 9780834122499

Toler addresses the awkward moments of life and the silence that fills the air after trouble or tragedy has occurred. With humor and insight, he revisits the lives of biblical heroes who struggled to find the humor in horrifying situations and the faith to overcome obstacles.

God Has Never Failed Me, But He's Sure Scared Me to Death a Few Times

God Has Never Failed Me, But He's Sure Scared Me to Death a Few Times
Author: Stan Toler
Publisher: David C Cook
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2009
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 1434765954

Celebrated author Stan Toler has a gift for finding the humor in life's most challenging situations. Now two of Toler's most beloved books are available with an updated look. These freshly designed books will introduce Toler's heartwarming insights to a new audience and generation, while delivering his trademark tales filled with hope and laughter. In God Has Never Failed Me, Toler offers a collection of stories that will encourage us in the waiting room between "Help!" and Rescue. Combining a rich blend of spiritual truths with humorous insights, these engaging stories and anecdotes will remind readers of God's unfailing love for His children.

The Sense of an Ending

The Sense of an Ending
Author: Julian Barnes
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 158
Release: 2011-10-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307957330

BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A novel that follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he never much thought about—until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance: one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. A novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single setting, The Sense of an Ending has the psychological and emotional depth and sophistication of Henry James at his best, and is a stunning achievement in Julian Barnes's oeuvre. Tony Webster thought he left his past behind as he built a life for himself, and his career has provided him with a secure retirement and an amicable relationship with his ex-wife and daughter, who now has a family of her own. But when he is presented with a mysterious legacy, he is forced to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.

The Richest Person in the World

The Richest Person in the World
Author: Stan Toler
Publisher:
Total Pages: 164
Release: 2007
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780736920438

This engaging, modern-day parable reveals important keys to discovering what truly matters most--strengthening relationships, and establishing healthy priorities.

A Little Life

A Little Life
Author: Hanya Yanagihara
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 833
Release: 2016-01-26
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0804172706

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. Look for Hanya Yanagihara’s latest bestselling novel, To Paradise.

I Want You to Want Me

I Want You to Want Me
Author: Erika Kelly
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2015-07-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0698180402

From the award-winning author of You Really Got Me comes the next romance in her red-hot Rock Star Romance series, about a rocker who lives for his music—and loves with all his heart. Derek Valencia finally has the success he’s worked so hard for. His band is touring its debut album and great reviews are rolling in. But when pictures of him tossing naked groupies off a balcony go viral, it’s damage-control time. He’s assigned a “babysitter” whose sole job is to keep him out of trouble. Violet Davis swore she’d never work in the music industry again, but being a minder for a rock star will earn her enough to pay off the mortgage on her wildflower farm. And for a girl brought up in the foster care system, owning her own home means more to her than anything. Though at first the two bang heads, the rocker and the farm girl soon grow close and realize that they make sweet music together. But can a girl who craves the stability of life on a farm really make it work with a man whose life is spent on the road with his band?

A Prayer in the Garden

A Prayer in the Garden
Author: Efrem Triplett
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
Total Pages: 158
Release: 2018-10-19
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1984554603

Ailina’s life changes after a tragic event as a child. She was once a good girl who was well-trusted and loved by her parents, but something happened that caused her to move in with her grandparents. Being unable to control herself, she goes on a suicide attempt only to have it lead her into a mental institution. Years later, she meets an abusive older guy who only wants to control and misuse her. She escapes the abusive relationship and meets another man who seems to grow fond of her. But she makes a crucial decision that almost costs her her life and her marriage.

Inside Jokes

Inside Jokes
Author: Matthew M. Hurley
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 374
Release: 2011
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 026201582X

Some things are funny -- jokes, puns, sitcoms, Charlie Chaplin, The Far Side, Malvolio with his yellow garters crossed -- but why? Why does humor exist in the first place? Why do we spend so much of our time passing on amusing anecdotes, making wisecracks, watching The Simpsons? In Inside Jokes, Matthew Hurley, Daniel Dennett, and Reginald Adams offer an evolutionary and cognitive perspective. Humor, they propose, evolved out of a computational problem that arose when our long-ago ancestors were furnished with open-ended thinking. Mother Nature -- aka natural selection -- cannot just order the brain to find and fix all our time-pressured misleaps and near-misses. She has to bribe the brain with pleasure. So we find them funny. This wired-in source of pleasure has been tickled relentlessly by humorists over the centuries, and we have become addicted to the endogenous mind candy that is humor.

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
Author: ZZ Packer
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2004-02-03
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9781573223782

The acclaimed debut short story collection that introduced the world to an arresting and unforgettable new voice in fiction, from multi-award winning author ZZ Packer Her impressive range and talent are abundantly evident: Packer dazzles with her command of language, surprising and delighting us with unexpected turns and indelible images, as she takes us into the lives of characters on the periphery, unsure of where they belong. We meet a Brownie troop of black girls who are confronted with a troop of white girls; a young man who goes with his father to the Million Man March and must decide where his allegiance lies; an international group of drifters in Japan, who are starving, unable to find work; a girl in a Baltimore ghetto who has dreams of the larger world she has seen only on the screens in the television store nearby, where the Lithuanian shopkeeper holds out hope for attaining his own American Dream. With penetrating insight, ZZ Packer helps us see the world with a clearer vision. Fresh, versatile, and captivating, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is a striking and unforgettable collection, sure to stand out among the contemporary canon of fiction.

Tiny Beautiful Things

Tiny Beautiful Things
Author: Cheryl Strayed
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2012-07-10
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0307949338

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Soon to be a Hulu Original series • The internationally acclaimed author of Wild collects the best of The Rumpus's Dear Sugar advice columns plus never-before-published pieces. Rich with humor and insight—and absolute honesty—this "wise and compassionate" (New York Times Book Review) book is a balm for everything life throws our way. Life can be hard: your lover cheats on you; you lose a family member; you can’t pay the bills—and it can be great: you’ve had the hottest sex of your life; you get that plum job; you muster the courage to write your novel. Sugar—the once-anonymous online columnist at The Rumpus, now revealed as Cheryl Strayed, author of the bestselling memoir Wild—is the person thousands turn to for advice.