Thirty-five entertaining and touching stories that show how family moments can bring the greatest spiritual rewards. We find everything we need for spiritual growth as we picnic with the children, go to the grocery store, and pick up the morning paper. The author's intimate approach invites us to recognize the grace that exists within our own lives. We needn't pull over and look for enlightenment; the divine is always present, even in the carpool lane.

Being a mom is a roller-coaster ride of exhilarating joys and pull-out-your-hair frustrations. Sometimes a sweet infusion of humor is just what you need to lift your heart to new heights, to heal the hurts of a bad day, or to instill your soul with inspiration. Samplings from some of your favorite authors -- including Patsy Clairmont, Martha Bolton, Dave Meurer, Nancy Kennedy, and many more -- will energize any worn-out mom and remind you of the joys of motherhood. Take a deep breath, inhale the joy, soak up the merriment, and you'll surely find that your heart is lighter, your day brighter, and your soul hilariously refreshed.

Motherhood can be one of the most intense and transformative experiences of a woman's life. While there are many books that offer the "do's and don'ts" of effective parenting, few offer guidance on navigating the tumultuous inner experience of being a mother, with all its joy, pain, change, and uncertainty. This collection of writing by psychologists, poets, novelists, spiritual teachers, and everyday moms explores the rich, transformative journey of motherhood. • Poet and novelist Louise Erdrich captures the sheer wonder and awe of early motherhood. • Self-described "hip momma" Ariel Gore reflects on the challenges of dealing with her daughter's adolescent rebellion. • Journalist Joan Peters highlights the rise of the "Power Mom" and the risks of overparenting to our children and ourselves. • Zen teacher Cheri Huber shares a spiritual perspective: sometimes it's us parents who need a "time out" so that we can be more fully present and loving with our children. Previously published under the title Your Children Will Raise You.

Over the years, cars have helped to define the experiences and self-perceptions of women in complex and sometimes unexpected ways. When women take the wheel, family structure and public space are reconfigured and re-gendered, creating a context for a literary tradition in which the car has served as a substitute for, an escape from, and an extension of the home, as well as a surrogate mother, a financial safeguard, and a means of self-expression. Driving Women examines the intersection of American fiction—primarily but not exclusively by women—and automobile culture. Deborah Clarke argues that issues critical to twentieth-century American society—technology, mobility, domesticity, and agency—are repeatedly articulated through women's relationships with cars. Women writers took surprisingly intense interest in car culture and its import for modern life, as the car, replete with material and symbolic meaning, recast literal and literary female power in the automotive age. Clarke draws on a wide range of literary works, both canonical and popular, to document women's fascination with cars from many perspectives: historical, psychological, economic, ethnic. Authors discussed include Wharton, Stein, Faulkner, O’Connor, Morrison, Erdrich, Mason, Kingsolver, Lopez, Kadohata, Smiley, Senna, Viramontes, Allison, and Silko. By investigating how cars can function as female space, reflect female identity, and reshape female agency, this engaging study opens up new angles from which to approach fiction by and about women and traces new directions in the intersection of literature, technology, and gender.

From Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ingrassia comes an American cultural history that explores how cars have both propelled and reflected the national experience--from the Model T to the Prius.

Cable and Carol Withers were vacationing in the mountains of western North Carolina when they happened upon a little girl sitting alone in a canoe on the banks of a river in the southern part of the Cherokee Reservation. Taking her to the nearest law office in Birdtown they turned her over to Sheriff Conners. After an extensive search for her parents or relatives they were allowed to adopt her and take her home to Durham where she grew into a beautiful young woman. After the tragic death of her adopted parents Celine Withers, along with her fiancé Marsh and best friends Irene and Mark, returns to the Great Smokey Mountains for a much needed vacation only to find something more sinister lurking in the shadows. Looking for answers to her haunting dreams she finds that she is now running for her life. As she begins to remember the past, finds comfort in her new found heritage and long lost family she is brought to the edge of losing it all again.