When Annie Brown dies suddenly, her husband, children and closest friend are left to find a way forward without the woman who has been the linchpin of all their lives. Bill is overwhelmed without his beloved wife, and Annemarie wrestles with the bad habits her best friend had helped her overcome. And Ali, the eldest of Annie’s children, has to grow up overnight, to care for her younger brothers and even her father and to puzzle out for herself many of the mysteries of adult life. Over the course of the next year, what saves them all is Annie --- ever-present in their minds, loving but not sentimental, caring but nobody’s fool, a voice in their heads that is funny, sharp and remarkably clear. The power she has given to those who loved her is the power to go on without her. The lesson they learn is that no one beloved is ever truly gone.

What really matters in life? What truly lasts in our hearts and minds? Where can we find community, history, humanity? In WRITE FOR YOUR LIFE, the answer is clear: through writing. This is a book for what Anna Quindlen calls “civilians,” those who want to use the written word to become more human, more themselves. It argues that there has never been a more important time to stop and record what we are thinking and feeling. Using examples from past, present and future --- from Anne Frank to Toni Morrison, from love letters written after World War II to journal reflections from nurses and doctors today --- WRITE FOR YOUR LIFE vividly illuminates the ways in which writing connects us to ourselves and to those we cherish.

Before blogs even existed, Anna Quindlen became a go-to writer on the joys and challenges of family, motherhood and modern life, in her nationally syndicated column. Now she’s taking the next step and going full nana in the pages of this lively, beautiful and moving book about being a grandmother. Quindlen offers thoughtful and telling observations about her new role, no longer mother and decision-maker but secondary character and support to the parents of her grandson. She writes, “Where I once led, I have to learn to follow.” Eventually a close friend provides words to live by: “Did they ask you?”

In this treasure of a book, Anna Quindlen, the bestselling novelist and columnist, reflects on what it takes to “get a life” --- to live deeply every day and from your own unique self, rather than merely to exist through your days. Her mother died when Quindlen was 19: “It was the dividing line between seeing the world in black and white, and in Technicolor. The lights came on for the darkest possible reason.... I learned something enduring, in a very short period of time, about life. And that was that it was glorious, and that you had no business taking it for granted.” But how to live from that perspective, to fully engage in our days? In A SHORT GUIDE TO A HAPPY LIFE, Quindlen guides us with an understanding that comes from knowing how to see the view, the richness in living.

Before blogs even existed, Anna Quindlen became a go-to writer on the joys and challenges of family, motherhood and modern life, in her nationally syndicated column. Now she’s taking the next step and going full nana in the pages of this lively, beautiful and moving book about being a grandmother. Quindlen offers thoughtful and telling observations about her new role, no longer mother and decision-maker but secondary character and support to the parents of her grandson. She writes, “Where I once led, I have to learn to follow.” Eventually a close friend provides words to live by: “Did they ask you?”

Some days, Nora Nolan thinks that she and her husband, Charlie, lead a charmed life --- except when there’s a crisis at work, a leak in the roof at home, or a problem with their twins at college. And why not? New York City was once Nora’s dream destination, and her clannish dead-end block has become a safe harbor, a tranquil village amid the urban craziness. The owners watch one another’s children grow up. They use the same handyman. They trade gossip and gripes, and they maneuver for the ultimate status symbol: a spot in the block’s small parking lot. Then one morning, Nora returns from her run to discover that a terrible incident has shaken the neighborhood, and the enviable dead-end block turns into a potent symbol of a divided city.

Some days Nora Nolan thinks that she and her husband, Charlie, lead a charmed life --- except when there’s a crisis at work, a leak in the roof at home, or a problem with their twins at college. And why not? New York City was once Nora’s dream destination, and her clannish dead-end block has become a safe harbor, a tranquil village amid the urban craziness. Then one morning she returns from her run to discover that a terrible incident has shaken the neighborhood, and the fault lines begin to open: on the block, at her job, especially in her marriage.

For generations, the Millers have lived in Miller’s Valley. Mimi Miller tells about her life with intimacy and honesty. As Mimi eavesdrops on her parents and quietly observes the people around her, she discovers more and more about the toxicity of family secrets, the dangers of gossip, the flaws of marriage, the inequalities of friendship, and the risks of passion, loyalty and love. Home, as Mimi begins to realize, can be “a place where it’s just as easy to feel lost as it is to feel content.”

STILL LIFE WITH BREAD CRUMBS begins with an imagined gunshot and ends with a new tin roof. Between the two is a wry and knowing portrait of Rebecca Winter, a photographer whose work made her an unlikely heroine for many women. Her career is now descendent, her bank balance shaky, and she has fled the city for the middle of nowhere. There she discovers, in a tree stand with a roofer named Jim Bates, that what she sees through a camera lens is not all there is to life.

Anna Quindlen’s latest novel begins with an imagined gunshot and ends with a new tin roof. Between the two is a wry and knowing portrait of Rebecca Winter, a photographer whose work made her an unlikely heroine for many women. After fleeing the city for the middle of nowhere, she discovers --- in a tree stand with a roofer named Jim Bates --- that what she sees through a camera lens is not all there is to life.

In her new memoir, the New York Times bestselling author and winner of the Pulitzer Prize Anna Quindlen writes about looking back and ahead --- and celebrating it all --- as she considers marriage, girlfriends, our mothers, faith, loss, all the stuff in our closets, and more.

Blessings, the bestselling novel by the author of Black and Blue, One True Thing, Object Lessons, and A Short Guide to a Happy Life, begins when, late at night, a teenage couple drives up to the estate owned by Lydia Blessing and leaves a box.