River Rose Lullaby by Kelly Clarkson

In a world searching for happiness, best-selling author Max Lucado provides a personal plan for a life filled with lasting and fulfilling joy, supported by Jesus’ teaching and modern research.

Do you feel happy?

How long has it been since you felt a level of contagious, infectious, unflappable, unstoppable happiness? Maybe your answer is “All the time”. If so, God bless you! (And consider suggesting this audiobook to someone who needs it.) For many of us, the answer is, “Well, it’s been a while. I used to be happy, but then life took its toll.”

Only one-third of Americans surveyed said they were happy. How can this be? Education is accessible to most. We’ve made advancements in everything from medicine to technology, yet 66 percent of us can’t find an adequate reason to check the “yes” box on the happiness questionnaire.

Worldwide, people profess that happiness is their most cherished goal. Marketers get this. “Want to be happy?” they ask. Eat at this restaurant, drive this car, wear this dress. Happiness happens when you lose the weight, get the date, find the mate, or discover your fate. It’s wide, this way to happiness. Yet, for all its promise, it delivers a fragile joy; here one day, tomorrow scattered by the winds of comparison, disappointment, or unmet expectations.

Max writes, “There is another option. It requires no credit card, monthly mortgage, or stroke of fortune. Age and ethnicity aren’t factors...an unexpected door to joy.” 

In this audiobook, Max shares the unexpected path to a lasting happiness, one that produces reliable joy in any season of life. Based on the teachings of Jesus and backed by modern research, How Happiness Happens presents a surprising but practical way of living that will change you from the inside out.

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HOW HAPPINESS HAPPENS by Max Lucado | Devotional Two

Listen to an excerpt from UNLEASH THE POWER WITHIN by Tony Robbins, read by the author.

UNLEASH THE POWER WITHIN Audiobook Excerpt

What does it mean to write luxuriously? How can books be rich and generous? This month we’re talking about luxury in literature - and no, we don’t mean books about the 1% having spa days or flying first class. Instead, we’re talking about writing that explores the aesthetic, opulent, baroque and decadent. Through writers including Oscar Wilde, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sylvia Plath, we’ll be thinking about what makes writing luxurious, and why engaging with luxury can be a subversive act of resistance for marginalised communities. Our guest today is Shola von Reinhold, whose debut novel Lote is about present-day narrator Mathilda's fixation with the forgotten Black Scottish modernist poet, Hermia Druitt. It's also a beautiful meditation on aesthetics and beauty and who is allowed access to them. Listen in for all the usual recommendations, and a chance to find out if you're an Arcadian or a Utopian. So, come indulge with us in a little literary friction. 

Recommendations on the theme, Luxury: 
Octavia: Ariel by Sylvia Plath https://www.faber.co.uk/9780571236091-ariel-the-restored-edition.html
Carrie: The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/alan-hollinghurst/the-line-of-beauty/9781447275183

General Recommendations: 
Octavia: The Glass Hotel by Emily St John Mandel https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/emily-st-john-mandel/the-glass-hotel/9781509882809
Shola: Race, Sexuality and Identity in Britain and Jamaica: the Biography of Patrick Nelson by Gemma Romain https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/race-sexuality-and-identity-in-britain-and-jamaica-9781472588654/
Carrie: The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett https://britbennett.com/the-vanishing-half

Email us: litfriction@gmail.com 
Tweet us & find us on Instagram: @litfriction 

This episode is sponsored by Picador https://www.panmacmillan.com/picador

Literary Friction - Luxury With Shola Von Reinhold

We're still on our summer break, so we wanted to use this chance to bring you a re-run of one of our favourite shows from our archive. In 2018, we spoke to Thomas Page McBee about his book Amateur, which tells the true story of his quest to become the first trans man to box at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The theme of the show is Masculinity: what makes a man? Why do men fight? Is there a crisis of masculinity? These are some of the questions that authors from Ernest Hemingway to Grayson Perry have asked, and questions that Thomas Page McBee addresses head on in his searching, beautiful and wise book.

Literary Friction - RE-RUN: Masculinity with Thomas Page McBee

OPRAH&rsquo;S BOOK CLUB PICK &bull;&#160;The Pulitzer Prize&ndash;winning, bestselling author of&#160;The Warmth of Other Suns&#160;examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions. &#160; &ldquo;An instant American classic.&rdquo;&mdash;Dwight Garner, The New York Times &ldquo;As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power&mdash;which groups have it and which do not.&rdquo; &#160; In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. &#160; Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people&rsquo;s lives and behavior and the nation&rsquo;s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people&mdash;including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball&rsquo;s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others&mdash;she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity. Beautifully written, original, and revealing,&#160;Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents&#160;is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of American life today.

Caste (Oprah's Book Club) by Isabel Wilkerson, read by Robin Miles

Will Harris and Nick Makoha, prizewinning poets both, talk about Nick’s poems in the spring 2020 issue of The Poetry Review and how these poems exemplify his interest in song, story and myth, the parameters of self, reconfiguring the problem of the white lens, and how the act of writing poems produces unlooked-for discoveries. Nick gives electrifying readings of his poems ‘Codex 1’ and Codex 2, both published in the Review, and ‘Bird In Flames’ from his Forward-shortlisted debut Kingdom of Gravity.

Nick Makoha talks to Will Harris

Why is there so much delight in discovering a juicy new word? Do you ever read the dictionary for fun? Is it annoying when people use obscure words too often? This month’s show is dedicated to the building blocks of all books: words. Joining us is the author Eley Williams, whose first novel The Liar’s Dictionary is both about words and delights in them. In the novel, Peter Winceworth, a disgruntled employee of Swansby’s New Encyclopedic Dictionary at the turn of the century, begins inserting his own invented words into the first edition. In the present day, intern Mallory is tasked with rooting out his mischievous insertions. We spoke to Eley about lots of things including our favourite words and reading the dictionary like a novel, so kick back and join us for an hour of lexical wonder and appreciation. 

Recommendations on the theme, The Joy of Words: 
Octavia: A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments by Roland Barthes 
https://monoskop.org/images/f/f7/Roland_Barthes_Roland_a_lover_s_discourse_1978.pdf
Carrie: A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess 
https://www.anthonyburgess.org/a-clockwork-orange/

General Recommendations:
Octavia: Blueberries by Ellena Savage 
https://scribepublications.co.uk/books-authors/books/blueberries
Eley: and what if we are all allowed to disappear by Tania Hershman 
https://www.guillemotpress.co.uk/poetry/tania-hershman
Carrie: The Fifth Season by N K Jemisin 
https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/n-k-jemisin/the-fifth-season/9780316229296/

Email us: litfriction@gmail.com 
Tweet us & find us on Instagram: @litfriction

Literary Friction -  The Joy of Words with Eley Williams

Listen to an excerpt from BLACKOUT by Candace Owens and read by Candace Owens

BLACKOUT Audiobook Excerpt

Listen to an excerpt from FORTUNE AND GLORY by Janet Evanovich and read by Lorelei King

FORTUNE AND GLORY Audiobook Excerpt

From the author of the bestselling More Beautiful Than Before comes an inspiring book about loss based on his most popular sermon. As the senior rabbi of one of the largest synagogues in the world, Steve Leder has learned over and over again the many ways death teaches us how to live and love more deeply by showing us not only what is gone but also the beauty of what remains. This inspiring and comforting book takes us on a journey through the experience of loss that is fundamental to everyone. Yet even after having sat beside thousands of deathbeds, Steve Leder the rabbi was not fully prepared for the loss of his own father. It was only then that Steve Leder the son truly learned how loss makes life beautiful by giving it meaning and touching us with love that we had not felt before. Enriched by Rabbi Leder's irreverence, vulnerability, and wicked sense of humor, this heartfelt narrative is filled with laughter and tears, the wisdom of millennia and modernity, and, most of all, an unfolding of the profound and simple truth that in loss we gain more than we ever imagined. Available for purchase at: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08D8J4D8Z?tag=randohouseinc7911-20">Amazon</a><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/?ean=9780593187562">Barnes & Noble</a><a href="http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-8373827-10747236?SID=PRHD39095A662--9780593187562&url=http://www.booksamillion.com/p/9780593187562">Books A Million</a><a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2186/9780593187555?prhc=PRHD39095A662">Bookshop.org</a><a href="http://www.hudsonbooksellers.com/book/9780593187555?utm_source=prh&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_term=301&utm_content=PRHD39095A662--9780593187555&utm_campaign=9780593187555">Hudson Booksellers</a><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780593187555?aff=penguinrandom">IndieBound</a><a href="http://www.powells.com/book/-9780593187555?utm_source=randomhouse&utm_campaign=randomhouse&utm_content=PRHD39095A662--9780593187555">Powell's</a><a href="http://goto.target.com/c/128773/81938/2092?subId1=PRHD39095A662--9780593187555&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.target.com%2Fs%3FsearchTerm%3D9780593187555">Target</a><a href="https://www.walmart.com/search/?query=9780593187555">Walmart</a><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1524211087?at=11l3IH&ct=PRHD39095A662--9780593187562">Apple Books</a><a href="https://google.prf.hn/click/camref:1011ld4r/pubref:PRHD39095A662--9780593187562/destination:https://play.google.com/store/search?q=9780593187562&c=books">Google Play Store</a><a href="http://click.linksynergy.com/link?id=VD9*lkiWNd8&offerid=258185.12829781935712206&type=2&u1=PRHD39095A662--9780593187562}&murl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kobo.com%2Fsearch%3FQuery%3D9780593187562">Kobo</a>

The Beauty of What Remains by Steve Leder, read by Steve Leder

Harper Audio proudly traces its roots back to 1952, when Dylan Thomas first recorded for our Caedmon label. For more than five decades, HarperAudio/Caedmon has been synonymous not only with distinguished poets reading their works, but also with equally distinguished authors and readers performing classic and contemporary texts.

HOW HAPPINESS HAPPENS by Max Lucado | Devotional Two

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