To Be Read January 2026 Edition

but what if we don’t have the tools to understand our narrative outside of what’s been told to us?  What if we don’t have access to our own story due to trauma? What if we are unable to share our truth with the world? In Narrative Healing, she empowers readers to identify, understand and tap into the healing power of their stories. 

Following her own personal healing journey, Lisa draws upon twenty years of experience to offer a new paradigm for personal growth, self-care and community action through an embodied writing practice. Combining somatic practices, creative prompts, and mindfulness exercises, Lisa guides you through the six steps of healing through storytelling: awaken, listen, express, inspire, connect, and grow. Incorporating creativity as a core part of the process, Narrative Healing provides writers and non-writers a comforting yet equally empowering process to find a path to themselves and find deep connection with the world around them. 

The premise here is simple: our stories have a healing purpose and are meant to be shared.  As we are able to better know our own stories, we are better able to take in the humanity of those around us.

* Prioritising your wellness
* Being aware of your own needs
* Taking steps to protect your energy every day
* Taking care of yourself first before attempting to take care of others
* Taking time away from what you ‘should’ be doing
* Devotion to the rituals that keep you grounded and centred
* Building inner resilience and increasing our capacity to deal with the infinite challenges of life

In our complex world, there is a growing need for self-help, self-care and self- love. This is a must-have guide to authentic and real self-care, perfect as a gift for you or for someone else. Reclaim what it really means to take care of you! 

Houseplants are so much more than a living decorative accent for your home or a relaxing hobby, and caring for houseplants should not be a mindless task. Instead, it’s an opportunity to check in with yourself as you check in with your plants. You’ll learn how houseplants can help you avoid burnout and bring a healthy focus to your own self-care. As it turns out, when you tend to your houseplants, you’re also tending to yourself. 

Houseplants have a lot of lessons to teach about relationships and the importance of a little give and take, including how to focus on the ones who love you back and how–like getting rid of a dead leaf or a mealybug–sometimes you gotta cut bait and bail on relationships that are bringing you down. Author Kamili Bell Hill used houseplants to exit the stress highway that was overtaking her life and she knows they can do the same for you. 

Easy houseplant-care tips to help build your confidence in growing, combined with wise and witty words on everything from managing “devil-spawn fungus gnats” to making your houseplant leaves shine like the top of the Chrysler Building, Happy Plants, Happy You is part self-exploration, part houseplant handbook. In a nutshell, it’s a plant-based roadmap to a happier you. 

You’ll get the lowdown on:

• How to choose the right plants for you as a person, not just for your growing conditions
• Advice on avoiding “vampire relationships” with plants (and people!) that suck you dry
• A wish list of the best tools for houseplant parents 
• How to date several plants before settling on the best ones for you
• The art of letting go of things that aren’t thriving
• Giving up on the illusion of control–and being totally okay with it

As your plants grow, you will too. Houseplants are a guilt-free path to peace, and the result of stepping into an intentional plant-care/self-care routine will be happy plants and a happy you.

Each text has been carefully edited and annotated for student readers.

As his writing reflects, Melville was extraordinarily well read. “Contexts” collects important sources for each novel, including writings by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Amasa Delano, and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

“Criticism” includes twenty-eight essays about the novels sure to promote classroom discussion. Contributors include Leo Marx, Elizabeth Hardwick, Frederick Busch, Robert Lowell, Herschel Parker, Carolyn L. Karcher, Thomas Mann, and Hannah Arendt.

A Selected Bibliography is included.

Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State–and to do it alone. She had no experience as a long-distance hiker, and the trail was little more than “an idea, vague and outlandish and full of promise.” But it was a promise of piecing back together a life that had come undone.

Strayed faces down rattlesnakes and black bears, intense heat and record snowfalls, and both the beauty and loneliness of the trail. Told with great suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild vividly captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.

He walks at eight months, communicates with animals, and seems to possess extraordinary athletic talent. But when the older brother who has been caring for him dies, Gabriel is taken in by his devout Amish grandparents who disapprove of all the attention and hide him away from the English world.

But it’s hard to hide forever when you’re nearly eight feet tall. At seventeen, Gabriel is spotted working in a hay field by the local football coach. What happens next transforms not only Gabriel’s life but the lives of everyone he meets.

Life, and Death, and Giants is a moving story of faith, family, buried secrets, and everyday miracles.