Educated, A Memoir

 

Credit: Educated

Overview

Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home. Credit: Educated.

 

Writers Series - Where Minds Meet

 

Credit: Writers Series | Sasha Laghonh

Sasha Talks is Proud to Present the Writers Series -- Where Minds Meet!

Catch a glimpse into the lives of accomplished writers featuring different genres of writing.

Contact to Learn More.

​​Sasha Talks Terms of Service & Disclaimers Apply.

Drive by Daniel H. Pink

 

Credit: Drive by Daniel H. Pink

Overview

Forget everything you thought you knew about how to motivate people—at work, at school, at home. It's wrong. As Daniel H. Pink (author of To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Motivating Others) explains in his paradigm-shattering book Drive, the secret to high performance and satisfaction in today's world is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world. Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does—and how that affects every aspect of our lives. He demonstrates that while the old-fashioned carrot-and-stick approach worked successfully in the 20th century, it's precisely the wrong way to motivate people for today's challenges. In Drive, he reveals the three elements of true motivation:

• Autonomy: the desire to direct our own lives
• Mastery: the urge to get better and better at something that matters
• Purpose: the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves

Learn more about Drive here. Credit: Apple Books.

When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron

 

Credit: When Things Fall Apart

Overview

Pema Chödrön's perennially best-selling classic on overcoming life's difficulties cuts to the heart of spirituality and personal growth--now in a newly designed 20th-anniversary edition with a new afterword by Pema--makes for a perfect gift and addition to one's spiritual library. How can we live our lives when everything seems to fall apart—when we are continually overcome by fear, anxiety, and pain? The answer, Pema Chödrön suggests, might be just the opposite of what you expect. Here, in her most beloved and acclaimed work, Pema shows that moving toward painful situations and becoming intimate with them can open up our hearts in ways we never before imagined. Drawing from traditional Buddhist wisdom, she offers life-changing tools for transforming suffering and negative patterns into habitual ease and boundless joy. Credit: When Things Fall Apart

Meet the Author

Pema Chödrön is an American Buddhist nun in the lineage of Chögyam Trungpa. She is resident teacher at Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia, the first Tibetan monastery in North America established for Westerners. She is also the author of many books and audiobooks, including the best-selling When Things Fall Apart and Don't Bite the Hook. Credit: Shambala Publications.

How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

 

Credit: Dale Carnegie

Overview

With Dale Carnegie's timeless advice in hand, more than six million people have learned how to eliminate debilitating fear and worry from their lives and to embrace a worry-free future. In this classic work, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, Carnegie offers a set of practical formulas that you can put to work today. It is a book packed with lessons that will last a lifetime and make that lifetime happier!

Discover How To:

• Eliminate fifty percent of business worries immediately
• Reduce financial worries
• Avoid fatigue — and keep looking young
• Add one hour a day to your waking life

Fascinating to read and easy to apply, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living deals with fundamental emotions and life-changing ideas. There's no need to live with worry and anxiety that keep you from enjoying a full, active life! Credit: Barnes & Noble.

#Reading | Books To Read As We Embrace 2023

 

NYT - Best Books of 2022 

The Universe Has Your Back

Credit: The Universe Has Your Back

Overview

In her book, The Universe Has Your Back,New York Times best-selling author Gabrielle Bernstein teaches readers how to transform their fear into faith in order to live a divinely guided life. Each story and lesson in the book guides readers to release the blocks to what they most long for: happiness, security and clear direction. The lessons help readers relinquish the need to control so they can relax into a sense of certainty and freedom. Readers will learn to stop chasing life and truly live. Making the shift from fear to faith will give readers a sense of power in a world that all too often makes them feel utterly powerless. When the tragedies of the world seem overwhelming, this book will help guide them back to their true power.

Gabrielle says, “My commitment with this book is to wake up as many people as possible to their connection to faith and joy. In that connection, we can be guided to our true purpose: to be love and spread love. These words can no longer be cute buzz phrases that we merely post on social media. Rather, these words must be our mission. The happiness, safety, and security we long for lies in our commitment to love.” When readers follow this path, they’ll begin to feel a swell of energy move through them. They will find strength when they are down, synchronicity and support when they’re lost, safety in the face of uncertainty, and joy when they are otherwise in pain. Follow the secrets revealed in this book to unleash the presence of your power and know always that The Universe Has Your Back. Credit: The Universe Has Your Back

Meet the Author

Gabrielle Bernstein is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Universe Has Your Back, Super Attractor and has written six additional bestsellers including her latest book, Super Attractor. Gabrielle was featured on Oprah’s SuperSoul Sunday as a “next-generation thought leader,” and The Oprah Winfrey Network chose Gabby to be part of the “SuperSoul 100,” a dynamic group of 100 trailblazers whose vision and life’s work are bringing a higher level of consciousness to the world. The New York Times identified her as “a new role model.” Credit: Gabrielle Bernstein.

The People We Keep

 

Credit: The People We Keep

Overview

Little River, New York, 1994: April Sawicki is living in a motorless motorhome that her father won in a poker game. Failing out of school, picking up shifts at a local diner, she’s left fending for herself in a town where she’s never quite felt at home. When she “borrows” her neighbor’s car to perform at an open mic night, she realizes her life could be much bigger than where she came from. After a fight with her dad, April packs her stuff and leaves for good, setting off on a journey to find a life that’s all hers. Driving without a chosen destination, she stops to rest in Ithaca. Her only plan is to survive, but as she looks for work, she finds a kindred sense of belonging at Cafe Decadence, the local coffee shop. Still, somehow, it doesn’t make sense to her that life could be this easy. The more she falls in love with her friends in Ithaca, the more she can’t shake the feeling that she’ll hurt them the way she’s been hurt. As April moves through the world, meeting people who feel like home, she chronicles her life in the songs she writes and discovers that where she came from doesn’t dictate who she has to be. Credit: The People We Keep.

Meet the Author - Allison Larkin

Allison Larkin is the internationally bestselling author of the novels Stay, Why Can’t I Be You, and Swimming for Sunlight. Her short fiction has been published in the Summerset Review and Slice, and nonfiction in the anthologies, I’m Not the Biggest Bitch in This Relationship and Author in Progress. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, with her husband, Jeremy, and their fearful, faithful German Shepherd, Stella. Credit: Allison Larkin.