In the small river town of La Luna, Louisiana, Calla Lily Ponder bursts into being, a force of nature as luminous as the flower she is named for. Under the loving light of the Moon Lady, the feminine force that will guide and protect her throughout her life, Calla enjoys a blissful childhood – until it is tragically cut short. From her mother, Calla learns compassion and healing through the humble womanly art of “fixing hair.” On the banks of the La Luna River, she discovers a sweet, succulent first love that is as enticing as the music, food, and dancing of her Louisiana home. When heartbreak hits, Calla leaves the familiarity of her hometown and heads downriver to the untamed city of New Orleans, where her destiny further unfolds.

The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder is the story of a pink-collar heroine whose willingness to remain vulnerable in the face of adversity opens our hearts to the possibility of love growing from sorrow.

Browse inside The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder.

There is also a reading guide for The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder.

About Rebecca Wells

Writer, actor, and playwright Rebecca Wells is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Ya-Yas in Bloom, Little Altars Everywhere, and Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, which was made into a feature film. A native of Louisiana, she now lives on an island in the Pacific Northwest. You can read more about her and her books at www.RebeccaWellsBooks.com.

Become a fan of Rebecca Wells on Facebook and keep up with news, events, and more!

Follow Rebecca Wells on Twitter: @rwellswrites.

Monday, March 8th: Thoughts From an Evil Overlord

Tuesday, March 9th: Wordlily

Wednesday, March 10th: Shhh I’m Reading

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Give Me, Get Me, Buy Me by Donna Corwin

Monday, March 8th:  Books on the Brain

Tuesday, March 9th:  The Book Faery Reviews

Wednesday, March 10th: Joe Taxpayer

Thursday, March 11th:  Not That You Asked

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The Wives of Henry Oades by Johanna Moran

Monday, March 8th:  Bibliofreak

Tuesday, March 9th: A Lifetime of Books

Wednesday, March 10th:  Starting Fresh

Thursday, March 11th:  Savvy Verse and Wit

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The Creation of Eve by Lynn Cullen

Monday, March 8th: Books and Movies

Tuesday, March 9th: Booking Mama

Wednesday, March 10th: The Tome Traveller RESCHEDULED

Thursday, March 11th: Peeking Between the Pages

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The Writing on My Forehead by Nafisa Haji

Monday, March 8th: Savvy Verse & Wit

Wednesday, March 10th: Bibliophile by the Sea

Thursday, March 11th: My Books. My Life.

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If You Follow Me by Malena Watrous

Tuesday, March 9th: Dolce Bellezza

Wednesday, March 10th: Take Me Away

Thursday, March 11th: Life in the Thumb

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If the Church Were Christian by Philip Gulley

Tuesday, March 9th: Evolving Beings

Wednesday, March 10th: Confessions of a Pagan Soccer Mom

Thursday, March 11th: Hugo Schwyzer

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What Should I Do With the Rest of My Life by Bruce Frankel

Monday, March 8th: Silver and Grace

Thursday, March 11th:  A Garden Carried in My Pocket reschedule

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Human relationships used to be built around satisfying needs. In Spiritual Partnership: The Journey to Authentic Power (HarperOne: April 27, 2010; $24.99, hardcover), bestselling author Gary Zukav writes “the old type of relationship helped the old humanity survive by focusing the attention of participants outward onto circumstances and people in order to change them. The new type of relationship enables us to grow spiritually by focusing the attention of partners inward onto the interior causes of their painful and joyful experiences.”

Zukav reveals a profound new relationship dynamic which enables us to reach our full potential and create authentic power – the fulfilling and joyful life that is calling to us all. Spiritual partnerships are not only for couples in marriage or relationships; they can be created anywhere two or more individuals decide to engage as equals for the purpose of spiritual development.

Filled with poignant examples and practical guidance, including specific guidelines, Spiritual Partnership empowers and enables us to explore our emotions, our intentions, our choices, and our intuition and to use them to create profound spiritual growth.  The world is changing around us and within us, and  Spiritual Partnership is the roadmap to that change.

About Gary Zukav

Gary Zukav is the author of The Dancing Wu Li Masters, winner of The American Book Award for Science; Soul Stories, a New York Times bestseller; and The Seat of the Soul, a New York Times, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, and Publishers Weekly #1 bestseller. His books have sold millions of copies and are published in sixteen languages. He is a graduate of Harvard and a former U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Beret) officer in Vietnam.

Gary’s gentle humor, sensitivity, and deep insights have endeared him to millions of readers and listeners. Through Genesis: The Foundation for the Universal Human, he participates in retreates, programs, and other events supporting the creation of authentic power and the experience of spiritual partnership.

Become a fan of Gary on Facebook.

God Is Not One is a major book in the tradition of classics like Karen Armstrong’s A History of God and Jack Miles’s God: A Biography. Author and religion scholar Stephen Prothero’s controversial follow-up to his New York Times bestseller Religious Literacy debunks the popular myth that all religions are “different paths to the same God.” Contrary to what many popular religion writers (Wayne Dyer, Huston Smith) say, we actually disrespect the core of each religious tradition when we treat them as if they were indistinguishable. And we do so at our own peril.

God Is Not One shows how the world’s religions ask different questions, tackle different problems, and aim at different goals. In Religious Literacy, Prothero revealed how little Americans know about their own religions and why religious studies should be taught in public schools. Now, Prothero provides readers with this much-needed content about each of the major religions. He begins with Islam, which of all the great religions has had the greatest contemporary impact. He then moves on (in order of influence) to Christianity, Confucianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Yoruba religion, and Daoism. Along the way, he highlights the unique aspects of these religions and argues for their preservation as separate paths to different gods and different goals.

To claim that all religions are the same is to misunderstand that each tradition attempts to solve a different aspect of the human condition. For example:

• Islam: the problem is pride / the solution is submission
• Christianity: the problem is sin / the solution is salvation
• Confucianism: the problem is chaos / the solution is social order
• Buddhism: the problem is suffering / the solution is enlightenment
• Hinduism: the problem is the endless cycle of reincarnation / the solution is release
• Judaism: the problem is exile / the solution is our return back to God and to our true home

When we gloss over these differences we fail to appreciate each religion on its own terms.

Prothero provides an up-to-date look at the religions that continue to shape the spiritual lives of billions of people around the globe and in many cases determine their economic and political destinies. His polemical argument that the great religions are different paths up different mountains creates a new context for the study of religion in the 21st century and disproves the assumptions most of us make about the way the major religions work.

About Stephen

Stephen Prothero is a professor in the Department of Religion at Boston University and the author of numerous books, most recently American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2003) and the New York Times bestseller Religious Literacy: What Americans Need to Know (HarperOne, 2007). He has commented on religion on dozens of National Public Radio programs, and on television on CNN, NBC, MSNBC, FOX, and PBS. He was also a guest on “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart and “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” A regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, he has also written for the New York Times Magazine, the New York Times Book Review, Slate, Salon, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Boston Globe. Prothero received his BA from Yale in American Studies and his PhD in the Study of Religion from Harvard. He lives on Cape Cod, and he tweets @sprothero.

Visit Stephen’s website at stephenprothero.com.

In the tradition of Sean Wilsey’s Oh The Glory of It All and Augusten Burrough’s Running With Scissors, the great-great-great-great granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt gives readers a grand tour of the world of wealth and WASPish peculiarity, in her irreverent and darkly humorous memoir.

For generations the Burdens were one of the wealthiest families in New York, thanks to the inherited fortune of Cornelius “The Commodore” Vanderbilt. By 1955, the year of Wendy’s birth, the Burden’s had become a clan of overfunded, quirky and brainy, steadfastly chauvinistic, and ultimately doomed bluebloods on the verge of financial and moral decline-and were rarely seen not holding a drink. In Dead End Gene Pool, Wendy invites readers to meet her tragically flawed family, including an uncle with a fondness for Hitler, a grandfather who believes you can never have enough household staff, and a remarkably flatulent grandmother.

At the heart of the story is Wendy’s glamorous and aloof mother who, after her husband’s suicide, travels the world in search of the perfect sea and ski tan, leaving her three children in the care of a chain- smoking Scottish nanny, Fifth Avenue grandparents, and an assorted cast of long-suffering household servants (who Wendy and her brothers love to terrorize). Rife with humor, heartbreak, family intrigue, and booze, Dead End Gene Pool offers a glimpse into the fascinating world of old money and gives truth to an old maxim: The rich are different.

About Wendy

Wendy Burden is a confirmed New Yorker who, to her constant surprise, lives in Portland, Oregon.  She is the great-great-great-great granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt, which qualifies her to comment freely on the downward spiral of the blue blood families.  She has worked as an illustrator, a zookeeper, and a taxidermist; and as an art director for a pornographic magazine from which she was fired for being too tasteful.  She was also the owner and chef of a small French restaurant, Chez Wendy.  She has yet to attend mortuary school, but is planning on it.

Monday, March 1st:  Rundpinne

Tuesday, March 2nd:  Peeking Between the Pages

Wednesday, March 3rd:  A High and Hidden Place

Thursday, March 4th:  The Literate Housewife Review

Friday, March 5th:  Stephanie’s Confessions of a Book-aholic

If the Church Were Christian

Monday, March 1st: Bibliofreak

Wednesday, March 3rd: Waving or Drowning?

Thursday, March 4th: Missional Church Network

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Life Sentences

Monday, March 1st: Raging Bibliomania

Wednesday, March 3rd: Caribousmom

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Seeing Stars

Monday, March 1st: Lit and Life

Thursday, March 4th: BookNAround RESCHEDULED

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Winter’s Awakening

Monday, March 1st: 2 Kids and Tired Books

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The Writing on My Forehead

Monday, March 1st: Literary Feline

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Give Me, Get Me, Buy Me

Tuesday, March 2nd:  This Full House

Thursday, March 4th:  Overstuffed

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The Forgotten Legion

Tuesday, March 2nd: It’s All About Books

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The Creation of Eve

Wednesday, March 3rd: Scandalous Women

Thursday, March 4th: Café of Dreams

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The Believers

Thursday, March 4, 2010: Write for a Reader

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• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Gotham; Reprint edition (April 6, 2010)

The instant New York Times bestseller, now in paperback: a moving tribute to female friendships, with the inspiring story of eleven girls and the ten women they became, from the coauthor of the million-copy bestseller The Last Lecture

As children, they formed a special bond, growing up in the small town of Ames, Iowa. As young women, they moved to eighth different states, yet they managed to maintain an extraordinary friendship that would carry them through college and careers, marriage and motherhood, dating and divorce, the death of a child, and the mysterious death of the eleventh member of their group. Capturing their remarkable story, The Girls from Ames is a testament to the enduring, deep bonds of women as they experience life’s challenges, and the power of friendship to overcome even the most daunting odds.

The girls, now in their forties, have a lifetime of memories in common, some evocative of their generation and some that will resonate with any woman who has ever had a friend. The Girls from Ames demonstrates how close female relationships can shape every aspect of women’s lives-their sense of themselves, their choice of men, their need for validation, their relationships with their mothers, their dreams for their daughters-and reveals how such friendships thrive, rewarding those who have committed to them. With both universal events and deeply personal moments, it’s a book that every woman will relate to and be inspired by.

Check out the website for The Girls from Ames HERE.

Meet the girls and see all their photos HERE.

Read an excerpt HERE.

About Jeffrey Zaslow

Coauthor of the international bestseller The Last Lecture, award-winning journalist Jeffrey Zaslow writes the Wall Street Journal’s “Moving On” column, which has inspired several Oprah segments. He has also written for Time and USA Weekend.

Monday, February 22nd: Books on the Brain- Reading Series Discussion

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The Body Scoop for Girls by Dr. Jennifer Ashton

Monday, February 22nd: Feminist Review

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The Believers by Zoë Heller

Monday, February 22, 2010: A Reader’s Respite

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Winter’s Awakening by Shelley Shepard Gray

Monday, February 22nd: My Own Little Corner of the World

Tuesday, February 23rd: Heart 2 Heart

Wednesday, February 24th: Overstuffed

Thursday, February 25th: Book Splurge

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The Cougar Club by Susan McBride

Monday, February 22nd: Clever Girl Goes Blog

Tuesday, February 23rd: Simply Stacie

Wednesday, February 24th: My Reading Room

Thursday, February 25th: Write Meg

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The Wives of Henry Oades by Johanna Moran

Monday, February 22nd:  Jenn’s Bookshelves

Tuesday, February 23rd: The 3 R’s Blog

Wednesday, February 24th:  Savvy Verse and Wit – Reschedule

Thursday, February 25th:  It’s All About Books

Friday, February 26th:  Thoughts of an Evil Overlord

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Home is Where the Wine Is by Laurie Perry

Monday, February 22nd:  Bookfoolery and Babble

Tuesday, February 23rd:  Booking Mama

Wednesday, February 24th:  Gaysknits…

Thursday, February 25th:  Stumbling Over Chaos

Friday, February 26th:  Tripping Towards Lucidity

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Dream House by Valerie Laken

Monday, February 22nd: Wordsmithonia

Wednesday, February 24th: The Book Zombie

Thursday, February 25th: All About {n}

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American Rust by Philipp Meyer

Monday, February 22nd: Lit and Life

Thursday, February 25th: Steph and Tony Investigate

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Tainted by Brooke Morgan

Tuesday, February 23rd: Cozy Little House

Wednesday, February 24th: In the Shadow of Mt. TBR

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Living Well on Bad Credit by Chris Balish and Geoff Williams

Tuesday, February 23rd: Green Panda Treehouse

Wednesday, February 24th:  My Pretty Pennies

Thursday, February 25th:  Fiscal Fizzle

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The Weight of Heaven by Thrity Umrigar

Tuesday, February 23rd: BookNAround

Wednesday, February 24th: Dreadlock Girl Reads

Thursday, February 25th: Book Chatter

Friday, February 26th: Booksie’s Blog

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• Reading level: Young Adult
• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: HCI Teens (July 1, 2010)

Everyone else is doing it. It’s lies like this one that often get young women, particularly ages 10 to 20, to put aside their own nagging thoughts about what is right—and wrong—and make choices they might regret long-term. Boys Lie is a collection of the most common untruths proliferated by boys and an assessment of the exaggerations and misinformation behind them.

Written by an expert with years of clinical experience with thousands of teens, Boys Lie is the first sexual and social health book of its kind. Based on a large national survey, this timely guide sets the record straight on what guys lie about, arming girls with straightforward advice that is understandable, concise, and totally relatable. And while the title may seem anti-boy, it’s more like pro-girl, helping to foster healthier relationships between the sexes.

Boys Lie unearths:

About the authors:

Belisa Vranich, Psy.D., is a renowned clinical psychologist, author, and public speaker who specializes in women’s health issues. She is a regular guest on CNN, The Today Show, Good Morning America, Fox, and Inside Edition. She has been interviewed as an expert in hundreds of publications, including Cosmopolitan, Men’s Health, AARP, and The New York Post. Dr. Vranich has a decade of experience in developing educational campaigns, presenting, and lecturing nationwide.  She is the co-author of He’s Got Potential: A Field Guide to Shy Guys, Bad Boys, Intellectuals, Cheaters, and Everything in Between.  Click HERE to visit Dr. Belisa’s website.

Holly Eagleson is the former features editor for Cosmopolitan and Seventeen, who writes regularly for Seventeen, Glamour, CosmoGirl, Everyday With Rachael Ray, and AOL. She also authored Mirror, Mirror: Discover Your Inner Beauty, a guide for girls 14-17 funded by the Dove Self-Esteem Fund for Girl Scouts of America.

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TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS for BOYS LIE:

Tuesday, July 6th:  Feminist Review

Thursday, July 8th:  Shooting Stars Mag

Monday, July 12th:  The Brain Lair

Tuesday, July 13th:  Book Junkie

Wednesday, July 14th:  I Swim for Oceans

Monday, July 19th:  Suko’s Notebook

Monday, February 15th:  Luxury Reading

Tuesday, February 16th:  Stephanie’s Confessions of a Book-aholic – reschedule

Wednesday, February 17th:  Book Club Classics!

Thursday, February 18th:  My Friend Amy

Friday, February 19th:  Beth Fish Reads

The Believers by Zoe Heller

Monday, February 15, 2010: Book Club Classics!

Tuesday, February 16, 2010: lit*chick

Wednesday, February 17, 2010: Sasha and the Silverfish

Thursday, February 18, 2010: Nonsuch Book

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American Rust by Philipp Meyer

Monday, February 15th: Bibliofreak

Tuesday, February 16th: Books on the Brain

Thursday, February 18th: So Many Precious Books, So Little Time

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The Cougar Club by Susan McBride

Monday, February 15th: This That and the Other Thing

Wednesday, February 17th: Stacy’s Books

Thursday, February 18th: All About {n}

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The Dream House by Valerie Laken

Monday, February 15th: Devourer of Books

Wednesday, February 17th: Educating Petunia

Thursday, February 18th: Dolce Bellezza

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The Weight of Heaven by Thrity Umrigar

Monday, February 15th: Lit and Life

Wednesday, February 17th: Raging Bibliomania

Thursday, February 18th: Booksie’s Blog RESCHEDULED

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Home Is Where the Wine Is by Laurie Perry

Tuesday, February 16th:  Luxury Reading

Wednesday, February 17th:  Rundpinne

Thursday, February 18th:  Knitting Knot

Friday, February 19th:  Knit Read Cats Hockey

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Winter’s Awakening by Shelley Shepard Gray

Tuesday, February 16th: Creative Madness

Thursday, February 18th: Woven By Words

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The Forgotten Legion by Ben Kane

Tuesday, February 16th: My Two Blessings

Thursday, February 18th: Rundpinne

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The Summer We Fell Apart by Robin Antalek

Tuesday, February 16th: Write Meg

Wednesday, February 17th: All About {n}

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Living Well with Bad Credit by Chris Balesh and Geoff Williams

Tuesday, February 16th:  My Journey to Millions

Wednesday, February 17th:  My Next Buck

Thursday, February 18th:  Financial Samurai

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Tainted by Brooke Morgan

Thursday, February 18th: Bookworm With a View

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