The compelling, groundbreaking guide to creative writing that reveals how the brain responds to storytelling Stories shape who we are. They drive us to act out our dreams and ambitions and mold our beliefs. Storytelling is an essential part of what makes us human. So, how do master storytellers compel us? In The Science of Storytelling, award-winning writer and acclaimed teacher of creative writing Will Storr applies dazzling psychological research and cutting-edge neuroscience to our myths and archetypes to show how we can write better stories, revealing, among other things, how storytellers—and also our brains—create worlds by being attuned to moments of unexpected change. Will Storr’s superbly chosen examples range from Harry Potter to Jane Austen to Alice Walker, Greek drama to Russian novels to Native American folk tales, King Lear to Breaking Bad to children’s stories. With sections such as “The Dramatic Question,” “Creating a World,” and “Plot, Endings, and Meaning,” as well as a practical, step-by-step appendix dedicated to “The Sacred Flaw Approach,” The Science of Storytelling reveals just what makes stories work, placing it alongside such creative writing classics as John Yorke’s Into the Woods: A Five-Act Journey into Story and Lajos Egri’s The Art of Dramatic Writing. Enlightening and empowering, The Science of Storytelling is destined to become an invaluable resource for writers of all stripes, whether novelist, screenwriter, playwright, or writer of creative or traditional nonfiction.

Teach your little ones to soothe their worries and practice gratitude every day in this gorgeous, uplifting picture book that encourages mindfulness. Whenever I am feeling sad or life feels hard or wrong or bad, I focus for a little while on little things that make me smile . . . What are the things that make YOU feel happy? From swinging high on playground swings to licking melting ice cream, there are lots of small things that can cheer up a grey day. This reassuring, uplifting picture book celebrates the little things that bring us joy and happiness. We all have bad days and sad days, but sometimes it's the smallest things that make us smile!

This exploration of model storytelling projects shows librarians how to expand their roles as keepers of the stories while strengthening their communities. Community life is built on its stories. Our history and culture—those of society and of individuals—are passed from generation to generation through stories. Engaging Community through Storytelling: Library and Community Programming examines a wide variety of model storytelling projects across the country, reflecting how storytelling can encourage community attachment, identity, and expression in libraries, community centers, and schools. The contributed essays—written by experts in their fields, many of whom served as developer, fundraiser, director, and implementer of their project—provide detailed information about the inner workings of a wide variety of model storytelling projects from across the country. The authors delineate the need, scope, and audience for each project and offer riveting anecdotes that evaluate the success of that project. Many of the articles are accompanied by one or more photographs documenting the work or practical how-to-do-it guides to encourage and enable replication. Thoughtful commentary on and review of the key concepts in each chapter are provided by the book's editors.

Fiction. Spanning two continents, BLACK WINGS is the story of Laila and Yasmeen, a mother and daughter, struggling to meet across the generations, cultures, and secrets that separate them. Their shared grief, as well as the common bond of unhappiness in their marriages, allows them to reconnect after seventeen years of frustration, anger and misunderstandings.

A New York Times New & Noteworthy Book One of the Daily Beast’s 5 Essential Books to Read Before the Election A collection of the New Yorker’s groundbreaking reporting from the front lines of climate change—including writing from Bill McKibben, Elizabeth Kolbert, Ian Frazier, Kathryn Schulz, and more Just one year after climatologist James Hansen first came before a Senate committee and testified that the Earth was now warmer than it had ever been in recorded history, thanks to humankind’s heedless consumption of fossil fuels, New Yorker writer Bill McKibben published a deeply reported and considered piece on climate change and what it could mean for the planet. At the time, the piece was to some speculative to the point of alarmist; read now, McKibben’s work is heroically prescient. Since then, the New Yorker has devoted enormous attention to climate change, describing the causes of the crisis, the political and ecological conditions we now find ourselves in, and the scenarios and solutions we face. The Fragile Earth tells the story of climate change—its past, present, and future—taking readers from Greenland to the Great Plains, and into both laboratories and rain forests. It features some of the best writing on global warming from the last three decades, including Bill McKibben’s seminal essay “The End of Nature,” the first piece to popularize both the science and politics of climate change for a general audience, and the Pulitzer Prize–winning work of Elizabeth Kolbert, as well as Kathryn Schulz, Dexter Filkins, Jonathan Franzen, Ian Frazier, Eric Klinenberg, and others. The result, in its range, depth, and passion, promises to bring light, and sometimes heat, to the great emergency of our age.