The How of Happiness

The How of Happiness
Author: Sonja Lyubomirsky
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2007-12-27
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1101202807

Learn how to achieve the happiness you deserve "A guide to sustaining your newfound contentment." —Psychology Today "Lyubomirsky's central point is clear: a significant portion of what is called happiness . . . is up for grabs. Taking some pages out of the positive psychology playbook, she coaches readers on how to snag it." —The New York Review of Books You see here a different kind of happiness book. The How of Happiness is a comprehensive guide to understanding the elements of happiness based on years of groundbreaking scientific research. It is also a practical, empowering, and easy-to-follow workbook, incorporating happiness strategies, excercises in new ways of thinking, and quizzes for understanding our individuality, all in an effort to help us realize our innate potential for joy and ways to sustain it in our lives. Drawing upon years of pioneering research with thousands of men and women, The How of Happiness is both a powerful contribution to the field of positive psychology and a gift to people who have sought to take their happiness into their own hands.

Sonja's Run

Sonja's Run
Author: Richard Hoyt
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2005-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0765306158

At the 1852 Christmas party hosted by Tsar Nicholas I, the plucky half-Chinese, half-Russian poet Sonja Sankova decks Peter "Colonel Cut" Koslov, who is infamous for his necklace of ears taken from serfs and Jews. In London that same night, American Jack Sandt, the Matthew Brady of Asia, conspires with Karl Marx to con the tsar into letting him take daguerreotype images inside Russia. So begins this immaculately researched, wildest of romantic wild rides, an odyssey of two lovers fleeing for their lives through the vast reaches of the Russian empire. The period details are splendid: a supper with Ivan Turgenev; a visit with the craftsmen who designed and cut gems for the Romanov tsars, a ball in a frontier town in the Urals, a glimpse of life inside the yurts of nomadic herdsmen. With Koslov and his special unit, the Wolfpack, in hot pursuit, Sonja and Jack flee St. Petersburg, cross European Russia, and go down the Urals, there risking their lives on a turbulent mountain river. Sonja and Jack take turns telling their story, as they fall in love and marry in a Siberian chapel. In a narrow escape, Jack shoots Koslov in the ankle. A sadistic Kyrghyz nomad grabs Sonja and spirits her away. Jack and a Cossack pursue the nomad and his men across the Asian steppe, but Koslov gets to him first. Koslov takes Sonja to a fabled mountain near Lake Baikal, where he is to retrieve rubies destined for a new Romanov throne. He waits, vowing revenge for his stiff ankle. Jack rescues his wife, and with their lives and a fortune of rubies at stake---and real wolves howling in a blizzard---Sonja and Jack face down Colonel Cut and the Wolfpack.

All the Best People

All the Best People
Author: Sonja Yoerg
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2017-05-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0399583491

An intricately crafted story of madness, magic and misfortune across three generations from the author of The Middle of Somewhere and House Broken... Vermont, 1972. Carole LaPorte has a satisfying, ordinary life. She cares for her children, balances the books for the family’s auto shop and laughs when her husband slow dances her across the kitchen floor. Her tragic childhood might have happened to someone else. But now her mind is playing tricks on her. The accounts won’t reconcile and the murmuring she hears isn’t the television. She ought to seek help, but she’s terrified of being locked away in a mental hospital like her mother, Solange. So Carole hides her symptoms, withdraws from her family and unwittingly sets her eleven-year-old daughter Alison on a desperate search for meaning and power: in Tarot cards, in omens from a nearby river and in a mysterious blue glass box belonging to her grandmother. An exploration of the power of courage and love to overcome a damning legacy, All the Best People celebrates the search for identity and grace in the most ordinary lives. CONVERSATION GUIDE INCLUDED

Jo Sonja A Life in Folk Art

Jo Sonja A Life in Folk Art
Author: Jo Sonja
Publisher: All American Crafts Publishing
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012-04-01
Genre: Crafts & Hobbies
ISBN: 9781936708123

Jo Sonja: A Life in Folk Art, presented by the National Museum of Decorative Painting, presents a collection of over 180 color images of Sonja's iconic work including a CD ROM with instructions and patterns for 10 never before published projects. Jo Sonja's artistic career has encompassed over 45 years of painting, teaching, and designing. Her first book was published in 1974 and she has since published 66 instructional books, filmed instructional videos and DVD's, produced the Artist's Journal quarterly magazine, and much more.

Sir Fig Newton and the Science of Persistence

Sir Fig Newton and the Science of Persistence
Author: Sonja Thomas
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2022-03-22
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1534484949

From the Desk of Zoe Washington meets Ways to Make Sunshine in this “noteworthy” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) middle grade novel about a determined young girl who must rely on her ingenuity and scientific know-how to save her beloved cat. Twelve-year-old Mira’s summer is looking pretty bleak. Her best friend Thomas just moved a billion and one miles away from Florida to Washington, DC. Her dad is job searching and he’s been super down lately. Her phone screen cracked after a home science experiment gone wrong. And of all people who could have moved into Thomas’s old house down the street, Mira gets stuck with Tamika Smith, her know-it-all nemesis who’s kept Mira in second place at the school science fair four years running. Mira’s beloved cat, Sir Fig Newton, has been the most stable thing in her life lately, but now he seems off, too. With her phone gone and no internet over the weekend at her strict Gran’s house, Mira must research Fig’s symptoms the old-fashioned way: at the library. She determines that he has “the silent cat killer” diabetes. A visit to the vet confirms her diagnosis, but that one appointment stretched family funds to the limit—they’ll never be able to afford cat insulin shots. When Mira’s parents tell her they may have to give Fig up to people who can afford his treatment, Mira insists she can earn the $2,000 needed within a month. Armed with ingenuity, determination, and one surprising ally, can Mira save her best (four-legged) friend before it’s too late?

Ghostbread

Ghostbread
Author: Sonja Livingston
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2010-09-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0820337501

A memoir of growing up poor and hungry in 1970s western New York: “Like an American version of Angela’s Ashes.”—Kathleen Norris, New York Times-bestselling author of The Cloister Walk When you eat soup every night, thoughts of bread get you through. One of seven children brought up by a single mother, Sonja Livingston was raised in areas of western New York that remain relatively hidden from the rest of America. From an old farming town to an Indian reservation to a dead-end urban neighborhood, Livingston and her siblings follow their nonconformist mother from one ramshackle house to another on the perpetual search for something better. Along the way, the young Sonja observes the harsh realities her family encounters, as well as small moments of transcendent beauty that somehow keep them going. While struggling to make sense of her world, Livingston perceives the stresses and patterns that keep children—girls in particular—trapped in the cycle of poverty. Informed by cultural experiences such as Livington’s love for Wonder Woman and Nancy Drew and her experiences with the Girl Scouts and Roman Catholicism, this lyrical memoir firmly eschews sentimentality, offering instead a meditation on what it means to hunger and showing that poverty can strengthen the spirit just as surely as it can grind it down. “[A]n absolutely astonishing debut…harrowing and hilarious.”—Caroline Leavitt, New York Times-bestselling author of With or Without You “Livingston reveals the daily challenges poverty-stricken young children face.”—Booklist “Weaves together a child’s experience of not belonging, the perilous ease of slipping into failure, and the deep love that can flow from even a highly troubled parent.”—Dinty W. Moore, author of The Accidental Buddhist

Clever as a Fox

Clever as a Fox
Author: Sonja Ingrid Yoerg
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2002
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 9780674008700

Researched, Clever as a Fox will challenge your previously held notions about animals and the measure of intelligence, both theirs and ours.

House Broken

House Broken
Author: Sonja Yoerg
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2015-01-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0698177924

In this compelling and poignant debut novel, a woman skilled at caring for animals must learn to mend the broken relationships in her family.… For veterinarian Geneva Novak, animals can be easier to understand than people. They’re also easier to forgive. But when her mother, Helen, is injured in a vodka-fueled accident, it’s up to Geneva to give her the care she needs. Since her teens, Geneva has kept her self-destructive mother at arm’s length. Now, with two slippery teenagers of her own at home, the last thing she wants is to add Helen to the mix. But Geneva’s husband convinces her that letting Helen live with them could be her golden chance to repair their relationship. Geneva isn’t expecting her mother to change anytime soon, but she may finally get answers to the questions she’s been asking for so long. As the truth about her family unfolds, however, Geneva may find secrets too painful to bear and too terrible to forgive. CONVERSATION GUIDE INCLUDED

Sophie's Quest

Sophie's Quest
Author: Sonja Anderson
Publisher: Sunberry Books
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2015-06
Genre: Children's stories
ISBN: 9781907984464

Sophie Topfeather loves to collect people-things with which to decorate her life and home. When she finds a golden necklace, she is intrigued by its shape and shows it to her grandfather, the Great Wise Horned Owl of the Park. His reaction only stirs her interest even more; he calls it a holy symbol, and then a 't' for 'trouble'! All of which sets our young owl off on a Quest to learn its true meaning. Little does she know that a day-dreaming, over-protected, adventure-seeking Pirate - er, mouse - named Timley has leapt into the brim of her hat as Sophie flies off on her Quest! And suddenly, their adventure takes its own turn as they find themselves on board a ship bound for the Holy Land. Thorns and thistles! Has the trouble started already? Can Timley convince Sophie she should not--I repeat, NOT--eat him? This is also the story of the mysterious Sky Painter, who seems to be with them--no, leading them--on their Quest. So, why is he always leading them straight into trouble? Was the Great Wise Horned Owl right all along? Come along on the Quest to find out! Cross oceans with Sophie and Timley to a land of mosques and synagogues, markets and Bedouin tents, and, like our unlikely friends, you may never be the same again! Author Sonja Anderson has a Master's degree in Education and a Bachelor's degree in History, has worked as an elementary school teacher, a resident counsellor in a children's home, taught Sunday School, and has served for 12 years as the Christian Formation Coordinator for the North Pacific Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church. She is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators and the NW Christian Writers Association. Married with two daughters, she has called Seattle home for over 20 years.

When You Know What I Know

When You Know What I Know
Author: Sonja K. Solter
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2020-03-24
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0316535419

This harrowing, and ultimately hopeful novel in verse sensitively depicts a girl's journey through the aftermath of abuse. One day after school, on the couch in the basement, Tori's uncle did something bad. Afterward, Tori tells her mom. Even though telling was a brave thing to do, her mom still doesn't believe her at first. Her grandma still takes his side. And Tori doesn't want anyone else—even her best friend—to know what happened. ​ Now Tori finds herself battling mixed emotions—anger, shame, and sadness—as she deals with the trauma. But with the help of her mom, her little sister, her best friend, and others, can Tori find a way to have the last word? From debut author Sonja K. Solter comes a heartbreaking yet powerful novel that will strike a chord with readers of Jacqueline Woodson and Tony Abbott.