The winter can be a cold and lonesome period with days spent contemplating long hours away.  We ask ourselves where we’ve been and what’s on the horizon.  Family, friends, and aging are often the center of swirling thoughts that wander in search of answers.  And these are the same subjects confronted by authors in a selection of books currently on the shelves here at FSB.  To help persevere during this cold season, we hope the following books offer you insight, guidance, companionship and a warm smile or two.

Falling Apart in One Piece by Stacy Morrison

Just when Stacy Morrison thought everything in her life had come together, her husband of ten years announced that he wanted a divorce. She was left alone with a new house that needed a lot of work, a new baby who needed a lot of attention, and a new job in the high-pressure world of New York magazine publishing.

Told with humor and heart, her honest and intimate account of the stress of being a working mother while trying to make sense of her unraveling marriage offers unexpected lessons of love, forgiveness, and dignity that will resonate with women everywhere.

Falling Apart in One Piece from Simon & Schuster is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Changing Shoes by Tina Sloan

In Changing Shoes, Tina Sloan addresses the issues and feelings most women eventually have to deal with, using humorous personal anecdotes from her personal life (starting with her first pair of Chanel pumps) and her twenty-six years on Guiding Light (where she started out in a pair of white high heels and a fitted nurse’s uniform and finished off in sneakers and modern nurse’s scrubs).  Changes in her looks, love life, career, and family are managed with footwear to match: broken-in black flats when taking care of her aging parents, lavender “Cinderella” shoes to seduce her husband, and pink snow boots to hike Mount Kilimanjaro.

Changing Shoes from Gotham Books is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Tales From the Yoga Studio by Rain Mitchell

In Los Angeles, yoga teachers have become celebrities and designer tank tops can cost a small fortune.  Still, many students flock to the relatively unglamorous Edendale Yoga in the hip, out-of-the-way Silver Lake neighborhood.  It’s here where Lee uses her extraordinary teaching skills and unusual empathy to help students gain control of their bodies and possibly their lives as well. But will  Lee’s students have learned enough from their beloved teacher to help her when she faces financial problems and a marital crisis of her own?

Tales From the Yoga Studio is a warm, funny, and gripping novel about the gift of connection and the joys of discovery, featuring five amazing women you will never forget.

Tales From the Yoga Studio from Plume is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

The Longevity Project by Howard S. Friedman

For years we have been told to make lists and obsessively monitor when we’re angry, what we eat, how much we worry, and how often we go to the gym.  So why isn’t everyone healthy? Now, based on the most extensive study of long life ever conducted, The Longevity Projectreveals what really matters across the long run — the personality traits, relationships, experiences, and career paths that naturally keep you vital.

With self-tests that illuminate your own best paths to longer life, and a deeper scientific understanding than we have seen before of the true causes of long-term health, this book will change the conversation about what it really takes to optimize your chances for a long, healthy life.

The Longevity Project from Hudson Street Press is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.