From the author who brought you: Only in America: Memories of Faith Inspiration Love and Business: This amazing, emotional account of Emilia Zecchino's spiritual encounter with the powers of the divine will inspire anyone who is facing adversities and doubts the existence of a living God. Her personal experiences of relying on God's Word (the Bible) for answered prayers will encourage the reader to never give up. Her walk with the Lord will make you laugh, cry, and wonder that, if she found God, you can too. Her narrative is solely dedicated to expose the glory of a God who loves us unconditionally and can be found by anyone who believes He exists.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR • From the renowned author of “The Lottery” and The Haunting of Hill House, a spectacular new volume of previously unpublished and uncollected stories, essays, and other writings. Features “Family Treasures,” nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Short Story Shirley Jackson is one of the most important American writers of the last hundred years. Since her death in 1965, her place in the landscape of twentieth-century fiction has grown only more exalted. As we approach the centenary of her birth comes this astonishing compilation of fifty-six pieces—more than forty of which have never been published before. Two of Jackson’s children co-edited this volume, culling through the vast archives of their mother’s papers at the Library of Congress, selecting only the very best for inclusion. Let Me Tell You brings together the deliciously eerie short stories Jackson is best known for, along with frank, inspiring lectures on writing; comic essays about her large, boisterous family; and whimsical drawings. Jackson’s landscape here is most frequently domestic: dinner parties and bridge, household budgets and homeward-bound commutes, children’s games and neighborly gossip. But this familiar setting is also her most subversive: She wields humor, terror, and the uncanny to explore the real challenges of marriage, parenting, and community—the pressure of social norms, the veins of distrust in love, the constant lack of time and space. For the first time, this collection showcases Shirley Jackson’s radically different modes of writing side by side. Together they show her to be a magnificent storyteller, a sharp, sly humorist, and a powerful feminist. This volume includes a Foreword by the celebrated literary critic and Jackson biographer Ruth Franklin. Praise for Let Me Tell You “Stunning.”—O: The Oprah Magazine “Let us now—at last—celebrate dangerous women writers: how cheering to see justice done with [this collection of] Shirley Jackson’s heretofore unpublished works—uniquely unsettling stories and ruthlessly barbed essays on domestic life.”—Vanity Fair “Feels like an uncanny dollhouse: Everything perfectly rendered, but something deliciously not quite right.”—NPR “There are . . . times in reading [Jackson’s] accounts of desperate women in their thirties slowly going crazy that she seems an American Jean Rhys, other times when she rivals even Flannery O’Connor in her cool depictions of inhumanity and insidious cruelty, and still others when she matches Philip K. Dick at his most hallucinatory. At her best, though, she’s just incomparable.”—The Washington Post “Offers insights into the vagaries of [Jackson’s] mind, which was ruminant and generous, accommodating such diverse figures as Dr. Seuss and Samuel Richardson.”—The New York Times Book Review “The best pieces clutch your throat, gently at first, and then with growing strength. . . . The whole collection has a timelessness.”—The Boston Globe “[Jackson’s] writing, both fiction and nonfiction, has such enduring power—she brings out the darkness in life, the poltergeists shut into everyone’s basement, and offers them up, bringing wit and even joy to the examination.”—USA Today “The closest we can get to sitting down and having a conversation with . . . one of the most original voices of her generation.”—The Huffington Post

Over 2 million copies sold worldwide Let Me Tell You a Story is a tender and delicate book about the search for happiness. Demián is highly strung young man, curious about the world and himself, but he has difficulty facing some of life’s everyday problems, those concerning work, his love life, and relationships with friends and family. He is eager to know more about himself and to learn how to confront life with gusto and serenity. In short, he wants what all of us want: to be happy and fulfilled. Demián finds Jorge, an unconventional psychoanalyst who approaches Demián’s dilemma in an unconventional way. Every day, Jorge tells Demián a story. At times they are classic fables, others modern stories, or folk tales, stories that have been revisited and reshaped by the analyst to help his young friend overcome his doubts and find happiness. They are, in short, stories that can help every one of us better understand ourselves, our relationships, and our fears.

Przemysl, Poland, 1939. Two-year-old Renata is woken by her Mamusia in the middle of the night and bundled into the basement. The peacock quilt she is wrapped in reminds her of a story about a giant who guards a mysterious place called the Underworld. She drifts back to sleep as the sound of thunder rages around them. No one has explained to Renata what war is. She knows her Tatus, a doctor, is in Europe with the Polish Army and that her beautiful Mamusia is not allowed to work at the university anymore. But, more than anything, she notices that their frequent visitors - among them Great Aunt Zuzia and Uncle Julek with their gifts of melon and lovely clothes - have stopped coming entirely. One morning Mamusia returns home with little yellow, six-pointed stars for them to wear. Renata thinks that they will keep them safe. June, 1942. Two soldiers in grey-green uniforms burst into their apartment carrying guns. Renata, Mamusia and grandmother 'Babcia' are taken to the Ghetto and crammed into one room with other frightened families. The adults are forced to work long hours at the factory and to survive on next to no food. One day Mamusia and Babcia do not return from their shifts. Renata is five years old. Utterly alone, she is passed from place to place and survives through the willingness of ordinary people to take the most deadly risks. Her unlikely blonde hair and blue eyes and other twists of fate save her life but stories become her salvation. A true story of the horrors of war, Let Me Tell You a Story is a powerful and moving memoir of growing up in extraordinary times, and of the magical discovery of books.

Being alive is already a gift that nature has bestowed on you. You need to appreciate your life both past and present. And live your life well. Every life is a masterpiece. Therefore, it is worth taking notes, pondering, and sharing. Record your thoughts, feelings, experiences, hopes, dreams. And it is a premise for you to constantly improve and improve yourself. Be confident in telling and sharing the stories of your life. Never forget: on the highway of life, you may have gone further than some others. You have had a valuable experience. And the lesson you get is very useful and valuable to others. Your life is a gift. So it deserves to be cherished and given to others. That will give you a truly meaningful life. You feel that you are helping others, that your life has a purpose. Happiness is giving. Happiness is sharing.

In Stars and Keys: Folktales and Creolization in the Southwest Indian Ocean, Lee Haring introduces readers to the rich folklore traditions of the islands of the southwest Indian Ocean. The culture of Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles, Réunion, and the Comoros is a unique blend of traditions that have been brought from Africa, South Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. The folktales from these islands reflect the diversity of this culture and provide a rare opportunity to observe the fluidity of traditions and the process of creolization. Haring presents the tales in a uniquely innovative style: he interrupts the text as if he were reading aloud and directly addresses the reader. His words and those of the storytellers are clearly distinguished, making this folktale collection useful to a wide range of readers and scholars.

Split is a story of purity and faithfulness. Split is about a young virgin, born to parents who did not want her, as she was put up for adoption before her birth, but for some reason, her mother decided to keep her. This young virgin loved God to the point that she did not want to disappoint him and chose to be faithful unto him. Her faithfulness to him included staying a virgin until she got married and then being faithful to her husband. During her childhood, she spent part of her growing up in the projects of Chicago, where she witnessed very little faithfulness or purity around her, even in her household. No matter where she lived as a child, people in her age group considered her a reject. Since most of her young life, she had no friends in her own age group, this drew her closer to God. At the tender age of nine years old, she accepts Christ into her life and gets baptized. After she is baptized, a woman at the church where she was baptized, befriends her, and later asks her if she would marry her son. At nine years old, she agrees to marry the woman's son, whom she has never met. The woman tells her that she will train her to be the wife of her son and that they will get married when she turns twenty-one years old. She tells the child that she will bring her son to church on the following Sunday. From then on, every other Sunday, the young virgin would go to the woman's house for training, until she was grown. During those years of training, the young man she was to marry kept trying to get her to have sex with him and even tried to take it by force. She, on the other hand, let him know that she has chosen to be a virgin bride. In her twentieth year, with only one year to go before their wedding, things go all wrong because of him. Twenty-one more years will pass before they are united in marriage. During those extended twenty-one years, they never lost love for each other, in spite of what happens in their separate lives. The young virgin becomes a virgin bride, but not as expected. Over the years, she strides to live a pure and faithful life unto God, through her first love.