Today, women everywhere clamor for the latest erotic bestselling novels--their scenes of daring sexual exploits have fired up our collective imagination. But before we turned to fiction for our turn-ons, Nancy Friday unleashed a sexual revolution with her collections of uninhibited writings--the "real "fantasies of "real "women, in books that broke "all "the rules. . . .
FORBIDDEN FLOWERS
After "My Secret Garden," Nancy Friday's first boundary-shattering collection, rocked America and freed women to put their most private longings and secret desires into words for all to read, hundreds more were inspired to do just that: From the seeds sown in "My Secret Garden "grew "Forbidden Flowers," an even more explicit and colorful gathering of daring imaginings, uninhibited dreamings, and real-life experimental encounters experienced by women just like you. More fun than fiction, more supremely sexy than you ever imagined, here are the kinds of fantasies that dare you to cross a line and pluck some forbidden flowers of your very own.

Following her internationally bestselling book The Good Women of China, Xinran has written one of the most powerful accounts of the lives of Chinese women. She has gained entrance to the most pained, secret chambers in the hearts of Chinese mothers--students, successful businesswomen, midwives, peasants--who, whether as a consequence of the single-child policy, destructive age-old traditions, or hideous economic necessity, have given up their daughters. Xinran beautifully portrays the "extra-birth guerrillas" who travel the roads and the railways, evading the system, trying to hold on to more than one baby; naive young girl students who have made life-wrecking mistakes; the "pebble mother" on the banks of the Yangtze River still looking into the depths for her stolen daughter; peasant women rejected by their families because they can't produce a male heir; and Little Snow, the orphaned baby fostered by Xinran but confiscated by the state.
For parents of adopted Chinese children and for the children themselves, this is an indispensable, powerful, and intensely moving book. Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother is powered by love and by heartbreak and will stay with readers long after they have turned the final page.

A quest is never what you expect it to be.

Elizabeth Madeline Martin spends her days in a retirement home in Cape Town, watching the pigeons and squirrels on the branch of a tree outside her window. Bedridden, her memory fading, she can recall her early childhood spent in a small wood-and-iron house in Blackridge on the outskirts of Pietermaritzburg. Though she remembers the place in detail – dogs, a mango tree, a stream – she has no idea of where exactly it is. ‘My memory is full of blotches,’ she tells her daughter Julia, ‘like ink left about and knocked over.’

Julia resolves to find the Blackridge house: with her mother lonely and confused, would this, perhaps, bring some measure of closure? A journey begins that traverses family history, forgotten documents, old photographs, and the maps that stake out a country’s troubled past – maps whose boundaries nature remains determined to resist. Kind strangers, willing to assist in the search, lead to unexpected discoveries of ancestors and wars and lullabies. Folded into this quest are the tender conversations between a daughter and a mother who does not have long to live.

Taken as one, The Blackridge House is a meditation on belonging, of the stories we tell of home and family, of the precarious footprint of life.

"The word "love" is most often defined as a noun, yet...we would all love to better if we used it as a verb," writes bell hooks as she comes out fighting and on fire in All About Love. Here, at her most provacative and intensely personel, the renowned scholar, cultural critic, and feminist skewers our view of love as romance. In its place she offers a proactive new ethic for a people and a society bereft with lovelessness.

As bell hooks uses her incisive mind and razor-sharp pen to explode th question "What is love?" her answers strike at both the mind and heart. In thirteen concise chapters, hooks examines her own search for emotional connection and society's failure to provide a model for learning to love. Razing the cultural paradigm that the ideal love is infused with sex and desire, she provides a new path to love that is sacred, redemptive, and healing for the individuals and for a nation. The Utne Reader declared bell hooks one of the "100 Visionaries Who Can Change Your Life." All About Love is a powerful affirmation of just how profoundly she can.

In a world with more than 7 billion people, 196 countries, 7,000 spoken languages, and close to 30 religions, the probability of one group or one person intentionally or unintentionally offending another group or another person is absolutely certain. Many people limit themselves in life based on their inability to get along with others, and too often we allow ourselves to be ruled by our emotions. When we're emotionally reactive, we're not our best selves, nor do we produce the smartest outcomes. Emotional reactions create winners and losers. And winning directly at the expense of another is actually losing in disguise, due to the resentment it inspires in the loser. Often, people get stuck in a pattern of reacting emotionally, long past the time when the combativeness that once served them no longer does; long past the time when the pattern has become destructive without them being aware of it. For everyone who wants to change that part of themselves-everyone who wants more peaceful interactions and more successful outcomes, but doesn't know how to achieve that-Quiet the Rage is the answer.

The conflict between a mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law has existed throughout all of history. In the Old Testament, Rebekah complained that her daughters-in-law were making her so miserable, she'd rather be dead. Now, thousands of years later, we're still complaining about our in-laws, often even hoping they really won't ever come visit.In Mothers-in-Law vs. Daughters-in-Law, author Elisabeth Graham examines this in-law conflict with aims to draw readers into a different perspective: that women will learn to recognize their in-laws as a beneficial relationship--a gift--to and for the entire family.With sound biblical wisdom and clever insights, Graham teaches women to find peace in all aspects of their relationships with their in-laws.

Serving others is a vital part of the Christian life. Time and again Christ demonstrated the importance of putting others first and giving what we can to help those less fortunate. As adults, we recognize the importance of instilling these values in our children and youth, but simply telling them to love their neighbor isn't enough; to leave a lasting impression, they need to see and experience love in action. 77 Ways Your Family Can Make a Difference is an easy-to-use resource that parents can use to cultivate compassion in their children and engage their family in acts of service. Filled with suggestions, activities, Bible verses, and topics for discussion, this re-usable manual inspires families to look for ways to make the world a better place by making a difference in the lives of others. Features include: Creative activities that can be adapted to fit your unique family Service ideas for a variety of budgets Bible verses at the end of each activity to help children connect the practical aspects of God's truth to their lives Interactive discussion questions to help teens understand the importance of each activity and correlate it to God s Word Suggestions that encourage whole families--parents, kids, grandparents, and other relatives--to spend time together as they practice biblical servanthood In addition to families, these ideas and activities can be easily adapted to use with youth groups, Sunday School classes, home school curriculums, small-groups, and church-wide community projects.