Olivia’s book selection of the month

On occasion, Olivia selects books she’s particularly fond of, and shares a little something about them with our loyal customers.

Olivia’s book picks for May:

A Lamp in the Darkness: Illuminating the Path Through Difficult Times by Jack Kornfield, $19.95

Where can we find illumination and support when we most need it?
“Inside each of us is an inner light that I call ‘The One Who Knows’,” writes Jack Kornfield. “Awakening to this wisdom can help us find our way through pain and suffering with courage, grace, and tenderness.”
For anyone seeking answers during a time of trial or confusion, he now offers A Lamp in the Darkness, a new book-and-CD programme filled with spiritual and psychological insights, hope-giving stories, and special guided meditations to navigate life’s inevitable storms. With deep understanding and compassionate warmth, Jack Kornfield illuminates a safe-and sane-pathway through difficulty, as we explore practices created for times of crisis but applicable and useful throughout our daily lives: Equanimity and Peace-how to hold the sorrows and struggles of our world and our selves in balance while seeing the great peace behind it all. Forgiveness -for releasing the past and breaking down barriers to all that is closed in the heart. Setting Your Highest Intention -a guide for awakening to the shining beauty and potential of the human spirit. With A Lamp in the Darkness, we have a trusted guide and friend with whom we can face the road ahead in presence, love, and openness.

Cradling Monsoons  by Sarah McKinstry-Brown, $15.95

Winner of the Academy of American Poets Prize, Sarah McKinstry-Brown studied poetry at the University of New Mexico, the University of Sheffield, England, and the University of Nebraska. In 2004, she won the Blue Light Poetry Prize for her collection When You Are Born and has since published everywhere from West Virginia’s standardized tests to Omaha bus benches. Her poems have been featured on poetryspeaks.com alongside the works of Emily Dickinson and Lord Byron and she’s been published in a number of poetry slam anthologies including The Spoken Word Revolution Redux, which featured Billy Collins, Ted Kooser, and Jeff Buckley. Most recently her work has been published in Nebraska Presence: An Anthology of Nebraska Writers, Plainsongs, The Sows Ear, Chicago Quarterly Review, and the Cimarron Review. Co-editor of  The Untidy Season: An Anthology of Nebraska Women Poets, Sarah received her MFA in poetry at the University of Nebraska and lives in Omaha with her husband, the poet Matt Mason, and their two beautiful, feisty daughters. To learn more about Sarah, visit sarah.midverse.com.