WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE Averno is a small crater lake in southern Italy, regarded by the ancient Romans as the entrance to the underworld. That place gives its name to Louise Glück's tenth collection: in a landscape turned irretrievably to winter, it is a gate or passageway that invites traffic between worlds while at the same time resisting their reconciliation. Averno is an extended lamentation, its long, restless poems no less spellbinding for being without conventional resoltution or consolation, no less ravishing for being savage, grief-stricken. What Averno provides is not a map to a point of arrival or departure, but a diagram of where we are, the harrowing, enduring present. Averno is a 2006 National Book Award Finalist for Poetry.

53 SHORT ESSAYS FOR BUSY PEOPLE . . . BY 49 AMAZING AUTHORS. Too tired to think? No time to read books? Zibby Owens gets it. Award-winning podcaster of Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books and mother of four (ages six to fourteen) compiled fifty-three essays by forty-nine authors to help the rest of us feel understood, inspired, and less alone. The authors, all previous guests on her podcast (go listen!), include fifteen New York Times bestselling authors, five national bestsellers, and twenty-nine award-winning/notable/critically acclaimed writers. The super short essays were inspired by a few other things moms don't have time to do: sleep, get sick, write, lose weight, and see friends. Read one a week and you'll finish the whole book in a year: accomplishment! Topics range from taking care of an aging grandmother, mourning the loss of a family member, battling insomnia, wrestling with body image, coping with chronic illness, navigating writer's block, the power of women's friendship, and more juicy stuff. You'll laugh, cry, think, and feel like you just had coffee with a close friend. If that best friend were a world-renowned author. Contributors include: Aimee Agresti, Esther Amini, Chandler Baker, Adrienne Bankert, Andrea Buchanan, Terri Cheney, Jeanine Cummins, Stephanie Danler, KJ Dell'Antonia, Lydia Fenet, Michael Frank, Elyssa Friedland, Melissa Gould, Nicola Harrison, Kristy Woodson Harvey, Joanna Hershon, Angela Himsel, Richie Jackson, Shelli Johannes, Lily King, Jean Kwok, Heather Land, Brooke Adams Law, Caroline Leavitt, Jenny Lee, Shannon Lee, Elizabeth Lesser, Gigi Levangie, Emily Liebert, Lynda Loigman, Abby Maslin, Sarah McColl, Jeanne McCulloch, Malcolm Mitchell, Arden Myrin, Carla Naumburg, Rex Ogle, Zibby Owens, Camille Pagán, Elizabeth Passarella, Allison Pataki, Lindsay Powers, Susie Orman Schnall, Susan Shapiro, Melissa T. Shultz, Claire Bidwell Smith, Rev. Lydia Sohn, Laura Tremaine, and Cecily von Ziegesar.

Elana Sztokman arrived in Israel in 1993 as a young religious mother wearing a long skirt and a hat covering her hair. Today, nearly 30 years later, after spending years fighting for women's rights in Orthodoxy, writing books about gender in religion, and eventually leaving that world behind, she confronts the personal struggles behind the public persona, revealing the traumas from her past that affected her entire relationship with her body. From two-time winner of the National Jewish Book Council Award comes a refreshing and very personal exploration of cultures of the female body in Jewish life. This collection of essays - marking the 25-year anniversary of her feminist awakening and spanning a diverse career of research, writing, and advocacy around Jewish women's experiences - offers political and personal insights and retrospectives on some of the most burning issues today. Topics include: sexuality, relationships, body-image, body-cover, ritual immersion, fat-shaming, slut-shaming, domestic violence, and sexual abuse. Elana brings her characteristic honesty, courage, wit, and profound insight into her writing, and shares some of her own traumas that set her on a sometimes tortuous life path.