The final book in the bestselling How To series: simple, refreshing meditations of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh give us inspiration and tools for transforming our suffering and cultivating happiness

In inspiring passages and simple exercises, Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh teaches us what he calls “the art of suffering.” He gives us teachings and tools for transforming suffering as well as ways to touch moments of happiness and smile even while suffering is still there.
Written with characteristic simplicity and wisdom, these insightful meditations—born from the Zen master’s lifetime of Zen practice and peacemaking—teach us how to come back to ourselves, calm our body and mind, and not let suffering overwhelm us. When we’re willing to face our suffering and look deeply into it, we begin to understand its origins. Transformation and healing become possible, and along with it a greater capacity to understand the suffering of others and resolve conflicts in our relationships. Creating peace and understanding in ourselves and our relationships in this way is essential for helping create true understanding and peace in our communities, society, and the world. Thich Nhat Hanh offers practices for transforming our own suffering, listening deeply to the suffering of others, and especially how to cultivate our own smile and happiness.
All Mindfulness Essentials books are illustrated with playful sumi-ink drawings by California artist Jason DeAntonis.

Series Overview: The Mindfulness Essentials series is a back-to-basics collection from world-renowned Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh that introduces everyone to the essentials of mindfulness practice. The books, pocket-sized and perfect for placement at point of sale, all come with original sumi-ink artwork by California artist Jason DeAntonis.

A haunting, unforgettable novel of obsession, pride, and forgiveness, exploring the friendship and rivalry between two gifted boys in harrowing circumstances, from the acclaimed writer of The Removed

Milton Muleborn has envied Matthew Echota, a talented Cherokee artist, ever since they were locked up together in a dangerous juvenile detention center in the late 1980s. Until Matthew escaped, that is.

A novel within a novel, we read here Milton’s dark, sometimes comic, and possibly unreliable account of the story of their childhood even as, years later, he remains jealous of Matthew’s extraordinary abilities and unlikely success. Milton reveals secrets about their friendship, their families, and their nightmarish, surreal, experience of imprisonment. In revisiting the past, he explores the echoing traumas of incarceration and pride.

Filled with Brandon Hobson’s swirling yet visceral writing, and punctuated with original artwork, The Devil Is a Southpaw is an ambitious, elegant, and propulsive novel in the spirit of Vladimir Nabokov and Gabriel García Márquez.

Kabwe, Zambia: Sali, a working mother of three, stands trial for the murder of her husband, Kasunga. The prosecutor claims Sali shot him after a heated fight in their bedroom. There are no witnesses. Sali pleads not guilty.

But her story does not begin with a gun. It begins fourteen years earlier—with her rebellion against the pressure to find a husband, her affair with a wealthy married man called Doc, and her discovery that she’s pregnant on the same day of Doc’s unexpected death.

To avoid the shame of being an unwed mother, Sali accepts Kasunga’s proposal, and finds herself suddenly thrust into the shipikisha club: her society’s expectations that it is a wife’s duty to endure. Over the years, Sali navigates her husband’s infidelities and alcohol-filled nights, their money troubles, and her postpartum depression in silence. Until the day she speaks her mind, and Kasunga puts a gun in her face.

The trial is a national scandal. Many are called to testify—the maid, Kasunga’s mother, and Ntashé, Sali's fifteen-year-old daughter. Even after Sali’s diary is dissected and laid bare for all to see, Sali calls no witnesses to her defense. With Kasunga gone, only Sali will ever know the truth. But is the truth enough?

Told through the rotating perspectives of Sali, Ntashé, and Sali’s mother Peggy, The Shipikisha Club is a riveting story of gender politics in Zambia and the world at large—a must-read for fans of Peace Adzo Medie, Abi Daré, Tayari P. Jones, and On Becoming a Guinea Fowl.

The big-hearted, bestselling South Korean memoir co-written by two best friends flouting gender norms and societal expectations with their decision to grow old together under one roof.

When most of their peers were moving in with romantic partners and having children, Kim Hana and Hwang Sunwoo chose independence—savoring solitude, quiet mornings, and the unmitigated freedom of living alone. But in their forties, something shifted, and they were met with a new, unexpected loneliness. Refusing to settle for the outdated choice between marriage or isolation, Hana and Sunwoo made a radical decision: to buy a home and live together—not as lovers, not as roommates, but as chosen family.

Now a bustling household of two women and four cats, Hana and Sunwoo still value solitude, but can do so while sharing a life and its meaning with someone else. Together they navigate the challenges and comforts of cohabiting in midlife, the growing pains of interdependence and the unexpected rewards of compromise when you’ve grown set in your ways. From sick days to career wins to aging parents and beach-side retirement plans, they are redefining domestic bliss on their own terms, where love, partnership, and home are defined not by tradition, but by choice.

With warmth, wit, and sharp social insight, Hana and Sunwoo share their blueprint for building a life outside the scripts of marriage and society’s expectations for women. Two Women Living Together is a quiet revolution—a celebration of female friendship, community, and the many forms that love and family can take.

Like a West African and African Diaspora-inspired Spirited Away, Abeni's Song follows a reluctant apprentice witch out of her village and into a world of spirits on a quest to save her friends. This is P. Djèlí Clark's kids' debut.

On the day of the spirits festival, the old woman who lives in the forest appears in Abeni's village with a terrible message:

You ignored my warnings. It’s too late to run. They are coming.

The old woman hasn't come to save them, only to collect one child as payment for her years of service and protection. When warriors with burning blades storm the village and a man with a cursed flute plays an impossibly alluring song, everyone Abeni has ever known and loved is captured and marched toward far-off ghost ships set for even more distant lands.

But not Abeni. Abeni escapes the warriors in the clutches of the old woman, magically whisked into the forest away from all she’s ever known. And there she begins her unwanted magical apprenticeship, her journey to escape the witch, and her impossible mission to bring her people home.

Abeni’s Song is the beginning of a timeless, enchanting fantasy adventure about a reluctant apprentice, a team of spirit kids, and the town they set out to save from the evil Witch Priest who enslaved Abeni’s people.

From seed to harvest, from loom to shop, to a gift for Girma, this lyrical story of the Ethiopian Gabi is a beautiful celebration of weaving, community and culture.

Written in the cadence of The House That Jack Built, this vibrant and lushly illustrated tale pays tribute to the Gabi— a traditional Ethiopian cloth that is used to celebrate both community and culture. From the tiny seed to the fluffy white cotton, from the steady hands of the farmer to the swift fingers of the weaver, from the busy shopkeeper, to a gift for a loved one, follow the journey of the Gabi that Girma wore in this lively and rhythmic tale that’s perfect to read aloud.

In Gauthier, love isn’t just found. It’s forever.

Phylicia “Phil” Simmons has built her life around restoring the past. Her craftsmanship and eye for beauty have made her one of Louisiana’s most sought-after artisans, but taking on the renovation of Belle Maison, a once grand bed and breakfast in her hometown, means more than reviving an old house. It means facing Jamal Johnson, the ambitious architect whose bold ideas test her patience as much as they stir something she isn’t ready to name.

He believes in innovation. She believes in preservation. But the more they clash over blueprints and late-night plans, the harder it becomes to fight the pull between them.

In the heart of a small Southern town where history lingers and hearts rarely rest, two people on opposite sides of a dream begin to blur the line between rebuilding what was lost and reaching for something that could last always and forever.

This pioneering and pathbreaking book brings together the rich spirituality of Black literary giants with the profound spirituality of the Buddhist tradition. Never before have we been informed and transformed with this unprecedented encounter—and our catastrophic times require it! —Dr. Cornel West

Black, queer, feminist, Buddhist: The Fire Inside casts a fresh new light on the radical literary legacies of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde

Includes meditation exercises

The Fire Inside explores the writings of Audre Lord and James Baldwin through a Dharmic lens, revealing for the first time how two of America’s greatest literary voices reflect—and expand—Buddhism’s most timeless truths toward justice and liberation.

Dr. Rima Vesely-Flad dives deeply into a dharma of liberation as lived by Baldwin and Lorde, offering timely lessons to help us each meet this moment. She explores the writers’ enduring legacies to show that liberation depends not only on organizing and mass movements, but the generative power of inner well-being, authenticity, art, and embodiment. Each chapter shares how looking inward is the way forward, examining Baldwin and Lorde through key Buddhist principles:

* Suffering as a teacher: how Baldwin and Lorde investigated suffering in their own lives—and how expanded and disrupted interpretations of the Dharma
* Denial, impermanence, and death: on Baldwin’s exploration of white supremacy and fear of death and Lorde’s understanding of illness and inevitable change
* Ultimate and relative reality: how honoring race, gender, sexuality, and difference lies at the heart of Buddhist liberation
* Karma and not-self: how the doctrine of karma can be reclaimed to cultivate inner liberation and support activists working to dismantle oppression
* Anger and compassion: how we metabolize internalized rage, reject hatred, and embrace compassion toward transformation
* Erotic paths to enlightenment: on the power of sensuality and erotic energy; rejecting dominant heteronormativity; and attaining enlightenment through sexual union

This book offers space for emerging conversations within spiritual communities—ones that don’t shy away from difficult or uncomfortable truths; that center—and celebrate—Black, queer, radical thought; and that embrace the ways our inner lives, creative fire, sensuality, and expressions of love can ignite and sustain revolutionary liberation.

Cold.

The first thing that comes to mind when I think of her.

Why you running from me?

The first question comes to mind each time she turns her back on me.

Rigid and cool to the touch, her heart had ice around it. She’d put it in the deepest, darkest hole and dared anyone to try and fetch it. A man that appreciates a challenge took this one on head first. And, with little bruising, I retrieved it. The red, barely recognizable organ was lifeless. Day by day, I nurtured it, nurtured her, and eventually, it began to beat again. Not just for anyone, but for me. Its revival was life’s greatest reward. The victory didn’t last very long. My lack of experience with handling something so precious led me to make rookie mistakes, ones that cost me her heart and mine, too.

Different.

That’s what I believe him to be.

Who sent you after my heart?

It’s the question that plagued me each time he set out on my path.

His pockets were stuffed and his accounts were limitless, affording him luxuries that not everyone had when it came to me. He didn’t flinch at the notion that he had to pay to play. It enticed him. That was my type. He was my type. But, he knew no boundaries. His quest commenced the second our eyes met, my body hypnotizing him and everyone else in the room around us. Sadly, they were a blur. All I saw was him. Tenacity was his specialty. He was as confident as he was persistent, tireless in his efforts to retrieve the one part of me that I’d buried for safekeeping. And, once he had it in his grasp, like every other man I’d shamefully given it to, he crushed it.

“Jemma had me at hello... but she was somebody’s wife.”
Dr. Ezekiel Green is ready to make a fresh start in a new city after
the divorce from his high school sweetheart. What was supposed to be a
professional business dinner with a future colleague quickly trans‐
formed into a love at first sight encounter... or so he thought. Dr.
Jemma Holiday was spirited, brilliant, beautiful, and another man’s
wife.

“Doesn’t he know I’m somebody’s wife? Does he care? Shit... do I care?”
Dr. Jemma Holiday had the perfect life, love, marriage, and family in
the public’s eye. But behind closed doors, betrayal and mundane
monotony were suffocating. A marriage of situational necessity. What
was supposed to be a pleasurable evening out with her sorority sisters,
abruptly transitioned to the one-night stand of her dreams... or so she
thought.

What’s the worst that could happen?

Some promises are meant to be broken.

When Josie’s sister Megan spirals into addiction, she makes a sacred vow: if anything happens to Megan, Josie will take care of her young son, Sunny. Three days later, Megan is dead―and Josie’s promise becomes a life sentence.

Haunted by guilt over failing to save her sister, Josie welcomes her troubled nephew into her home. But as the initial shock of grief fades, unsettling questions surface. Megan wasn’t alone on the night she died. Was it really her addiction that killed her, or something more sinister?

As her family begins to fracture, Josie feels her grip on reality slipping. Strange incidents multiply. Items disappear. Whispered conversations stop when she enters rooms. Is Sunny’s presence causing these disturbances, or is Josie’s guilt-ridden grief making her paranoid? When the people she trusted most begin to doubt her stability, she’s forced to question everything she thought she knew.

Because some promises don’t just bind us―they blind us to the truth.

A claustrophobic psychological thriller about family loyalty, deadly secrets and the price of keeping your word, perfect for fans of Lisa Jewell and Shari Lapena.