great fiction books 2020 Audiobooks

It’s Christmastime in Merritt, Alabama and magic is afoot!Professor Bebe Wellesley comes from a long line of psychics, but has inherited just enough of the family gifts to make her peculiar, rather than of very much use. The handsome bookseller who is so proficient at obtaining the obscure texts she needs to teach her college parapsychology classes caught her eye a while back, but why bother? She’s learned the hard way that men don’t like women with a supernatural bent—no matter how paltry their power.In an age when independent bookstores are nearing extinction, it takes all of Byron Masters’s time and energy to keep Creekview Books relevant and successful. He knows he must be crazy to finally pursue smart, pretty Bebe Wellesley at his busiest time of year, but he’s tired of flirting and watching her walk out the door.From their first date, Bebe can hardly believe her luck. She and Byron clicked with a harmony that she never dreamed possible. If only she can keep her “little something extra” a secret, she might be looking at happily ever after.Life seems perfect until Christmas decorations mysteriously begin to appear in Byron’s apartment. Convinced the culprit is a member of his staff, Byron begins to alienate them one by one with his accusations. Bebe knows different, but would he ever believe that the vintage Santa ornament he bought came with a benevolent spirit attached, who just wants to spread some holiday cheer?As Creekview’s once pleasant and thriving atmosphere disintegrates, dropping customers along the way, Bebe is unable to sit by and watch everything Byron has worked for unravel. She prepares to drop the bizarre bomb, bracing for the worst, but hoping for the best.Will Byron be the man who can accept her as she is?Or is it going to take some Christmas magic to save them all?

AN AMAZON BEST SELLING BOOK FOR KIDS! Only Losers Don't Have Cell Phones... That's what Sophie thinks in the beginning of this hilarious and heartwarming, illustrated chapter book about fitting in. She feels like an outsider because she's the only one in her class without a cell phone, and her crush, new kid Toby Johnson, has been calling her best friend Chloe. To fit in, Sophie changes who she is. Her plan to become popular works for a while, and she and Toby start to become friends. Things get more complicated when Sophie "borrows" a cell phone and gets caught. If her parents make her tell the truth, what will her friends think? Turns out Toby has also been hiding something, and Sophie discovers the best way to make true friends is to be yourself. Here's what Goodreads reviewers say about Sophie Washington: Things You Didn't Know About Sophie: "Sophie is a real character with flaws and it is fun reading how she matures. The story line was funny and realistic." "Virtues like honesty, friendship and being true to yourself are always in style, and this book teaches that in a fun way. Also, it's great to learn a little bit about Texas too!" "Very well written middle school book." This is the third book in the Readers' Favorite five star rated Sophie Washington book series.

Have you ever spent 10 minutes looking for your reading glasses, and they were on the top of your head? Or, have you walked into a room and forgotten why you went there? Where are your car keys? What’s normal aging? When should you be concerned? Is there anything you can do to maintain your brain health as you age? This book provides useful, achievable actions you can take, accurate information about identifying problems, and real solutions. Our team offers anecdotes and scientifically validated information -- important tools in separating myth from reality. Our book is different from others on the market because our information and recommendations are based on scientifically validated, peer-reviewed studies published in reputable journals by world-renowned researchers in the neuroscience field, including our authors. We separate fact from fiction to ensure that our recommendations are practical, useful, achievable, and measurable. Our authors are recognized experts in the field of aging, cognition, and brain health. Most of the competition is not. Written by a world-renowned cognitive specialist, an extraordinary housecall physician, and an award-winning author on eldercare issues – all of whom specialize in caring for those with cognitive impairment -- this book is based on our expertise, practical experience, and peer-reviewed research. In addition to providing scientifically validated information and practical advice, our book separates myth from reality. Brain health, cognitive impairment, and mood disorders are serious issues. With the Baby Boomer market growing older and growing concerned about their and their parents’ brain health, the marketplace has attracted frauds, charlatans, and some well-meaning but poorly informed people who offer unproven and often dangerous products. Our authors are recognized experts, our practical experience is solid, and our science is peer-reviewed and validated.

A GLIMPSE BEHIND THE FACADE OF SUCCESS In The Illusion of Invincibility , Paul Williams and Andreas Krebs take a no-punches-held look at the stories we tell ourselves about business success. The rags-to-riches tale is tempting, but we don’t have to search far to see that most organizations rise for a time, only to experience a dramatic fall from grace. Just look at some of the companies that used to be household names: Nokia, AOL, Pan Am, Woolworth and Blockbuster. Move from good to great: You’ll learn the secrets to clear-eyed, value-driven leadership with stories from top managers from international companies, major family businesses, start-ups, consulting firms, the public sector, and NGOs. They offer lessons on how to be a successful and reflective boss in an age of digitization and disruption. Each chapter includes a “stress test” to help you to take an honest look at your own organization and yourself. Can leaders today be inspired by the Incas? You may be surprised. When the authors added a few days to a business trip to Peru, instead of relaxing, they found themselves exploring one of the greatest civilizations in human history...with unexpected lessons about successful businesses and great leadership. The Illusion of Invincibility examines the why of success and failure. It’s a smart, funny, and radical look at how to build and sustain a great organization, inspired by those who have done it well...in today's world and five hundred years ago.

Ecosystems require balance to survive, and when that balance is compromised, as in the extinction of a resource or a species, disaster can fall onto the system as a whole. This vital management of resources can be seen in economic systems, as well. A healthy ecosystem is like a healthy economy, with competing mechanics inadvertently working in concert to sustain itself. In both of these worlds, we observe that when a healthy distribution of resources is achieved, systems can not only function, but flourish. The United States’ recycling system has the potential to create over one million new jobs and remove a massive amount of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. A functional recycling system can also save money by providing manufacturers with high quality materials to generate new items. However, this potential has yet to be embraced. Unlike the layers of systems seen in a thriving and healthy forest, our recycling system is bottlenecked, clustered, and contaminated. How can the United States – one of the leading nations on innovation and technology – lag behind in the most obvious of resource recovery systems? Where in the history of recycling did we veer so far off course as to continue hovering at a dismal 34% recycling rate, while other nations have rates double that or more? In the years following World War II there was a rise in recycling efforts but in recent years there has been a great decline. Americans want to recycle, and to know that their actions make a difference. They want confirmation that their time spent sorting recyclables from trash isn’t wasted. But while we see many efforts to support recycling much of our waste still ends up in landfills. Throughout Reduce, Reuse, Re-imagine, Beth Porter provides a great resources about recycling, explaining the complexity, guiding individual action, and contextualizing its history. This book reveals how we arrived at this state of dysfunction, and what steps we need to employ to be an active participant in strengthening our recycling system. Nature knows how to recycle itself, decomposing waste back into the soil to continue the circle of growth. We should follow its lead.

He’s a killer for hire and the best in the business. But he’ll do the job only if the target is a truly bad guy. And now Billy wants out. But first there is one last hit. Billy is among the best snipers in the world, a decorated Iraq war vet, a Houdini when it comes to vanishing after the job is done. So what could possibly go wrong?

The first novel from award-winning author Gianfranco Calligarich to be published in English, Last Summer in the City is a witty and despairing classic of Italian literature. Biting, tragic, and endlessly quotable, this translated edition features an introductory appreciation from longtime fan New York Times bestselling author André Aciman. In a city smothering under the summer sun and an overdose of la dolce vita, Leo Gazarra spends his time in an alcoholic haze, bouncing between run-down hotels and the homes of his rich and well-educated friends, without whom he would probably starve. At thirty, he’s still drifting: between jobs that mean nothing to him, between human relationships both ephemeral and frayed. Everyone he knows wants to graduate, get married, get rich―but not him. He has no ambitions whatsoever. Rather than toil and spin, isn’t it better to submit to the alienation of the Eternal City, Rome, sometimes a cruel and indifferent mistress, sometimes sweet and sublime? There can be no half measures with her, either she’s the love of your life or you have to leave her. First discovered by Natalia Ginzburg, Last Summer in the City is a forgotten classic of Italian literature, a great novel of a stature similar to that of The Great Gatsby or The Catcher in the Rye. Gianfranco Calligarich’s enduring masterpiece has drawn comparisons to such writers as Truman Capote, Ernest Hemingway, and Jonathan Franzen and is here made available in English for the first time.

Prior to 1990, fewer than five percent of domestic infant adoptions were open. In 2012, ninety percent or more of adoption agencies are recommending open adoption. Yet these agencies do not often or adequately prepare either adopting parents or birth parents for the road ahead of them! The adult parties in open adoptions are left floundering. There are many resources on why to do open adoption, but what about how? Open adoption isn't just something parents do when they exchange photos, send emails, share a visit. It's a lifestyle that may feel intrusive at times, be difficult or inconvenient at other times. Tensions can arise even in the best of circumstances. But knowing how to handle these situations and how to continue to make arrangements work for the child involved is paramount. This book offers readers the tools and the insight to do just that. It covers common open-adoption situations and how real families have navigated typical issues successfully. Like all useful parenting books, it provides parents with the tools to come to answers on their own, and answers questions that might not yet have come up. Through their own stories and those of other families of open adoption, Lori and Crystal review the secrets to success, the pitfalls and challenges, the joys and triumphs. By putting the adopted child at the center, families can come to enjoy the benefits of open adoption and mitigate the challenges that may arise. More than a how-to, this book shares a mindset, a heartset, that can be learned and internalized, so parents can choose to act out of love and honesty throughout their child’s growing up years, helping that child to grow up whole.

AN AMAZON BEST SELLING BOOK FOR KIDS! This entertaining, illustrated, middle grade chapter book is the series opener. Sign up for the spelling bee? No way! If there's one thing 10-year-old Texan Sophie Washington is good at, it's spelling. She's earned straight 100s on all her spelling tests to prove it. Her parents want her to compete in the Xavier Academy spelling bee,but Sophie wishes they would buzz off. That's until her irritating classmate, Nathan Jones, challenges her. There's no way she can let Mr. Know-It-All win. Studying is hard when you have a pesky younger brother and a busy social calendar. Can Sophie ignore the distractions and become Queen of the Bee? Here's what Goodreads reviewers say about Sophie Washington: Queen of the Bee: "Another great Sophie Washington book. Super cute. My 11-year-old loves these books." "As someone with a 10-year niece who is in fifth grade like Sophie, I believe that she would love this book and the rest of the Sophie Washington series by Tonya Duncan Ellis." "This series will go far. The story is down to earth, realistic and easy to read." This is the first book in the Readers' Favorite five star rated Sophie Washington book series that includes: Sophie Washington: Queen of the Bee (Book 1) Sophie Washington: The Snitch (Book 2) Sophie Washington: Things You Didn't Know About Sophie (Book 3) Sophie Washington: The Gamer (Book 4) Sophie Washington: Hurricane (Book 5) Sophie Washington: Mission Costa Rica (Book 6) Sophie Washington: Secret Santa (Book 7) Sophie Washington: Code One (Book 8) Sophie Washington: Mismatch (Book 9) Sophie Washington: My BFF (Book 10) Kids Ages 8-12 Click above to get your copy today!

You will be known by the company you keep! Successfully steer your own life instead of having it determined by others, advises Tobias Beck in this German bestseller narrated in his pithy, to-the-point style. Tobias provides the coaching needed to liberate ourselves from chronic complainers. Killjoys, energy vampires, and chronic complainers. Everyone knows a Debbie Downer, moaning the whole day long because nothing ever goes right. The weather is miserable, it’s Monday, and to top it all off, the doughnut has a hole! Tobias shows us a way out: simply not to bother with such acquaintances at all. Positive thinking for peak performance. Polarizing, provocative and exaggerated, the Liberated® philosophy urges readers to free themselves from negative people in order to live successfully and authentically. With success factors based on 15 years of personal experience in the field of personality development and behavioral psychology, you’ll learn how to: Think in terms of chances and opportunities rather than problems and risks Motivate yourself, forge your own path, and let yourself be guided by your dreams and vision Seek out people who support you and who let you grow and move forward Amusing stories, funny illustrations, and proven techniques. With success stories that are as entertaining as they are instructive, this book is as easy to read as it is unconventional. Part workbook and part self-help and nonfiction, this narrative book includes funny comics to illustrate proven-to-work strategies. If you enjoyed books like The Four Agreements, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, The Empath’s Survival Guide, and The 5 Types of People Who Can Ruin Your Life, then you’ll love Unbox Your Life.