Books published by Simon & Schuster

Daring, sly, and unlike any other book you’ve read, this memoir-in-poems tackles cancer with a bawdy wit guaranteed to “make you laugh in cancer’s face” (Marisa Acocella Marchetto, author of Cancer Vixen).As a vibrant woman in her late thirties, a mother of two, poet, artist, and teacher, Micki Myers decided to confront her cancer diagnosis head on with the sharpest tools in her arsenal: namely, her sense of humor and unbridled poetic license. The result is a charming, poignant, laugh-out-loud collection that hits all the highs (morphine) and lows (everything else) of being a cancer patient and surviving with your spirit intact (even if your boobs are not). It’s Probably Nothing. . .* provides the perfect blend of wit and pathos to help you or a loved one achieve much-needed perspective on this frightening journey, whether recently diagnosed or reveling in remission. From losing your hair (even, ahem, down there) and gaining two bouncy silicone strangers, to the pitfalls of marijuana therapy and the endless chemo-room muzak “that makes you think / sur­vival might be overrated,” Myers reminds you that you’re not alone and that it’s okay to laugh.

Clinical psychologist and radio host Dr. Steven Craig offers a revolutionary book that helps couples identify the six different people they need to become over the course of their relationship in order to grow together rather than apart.Throughout his career as a marriage counselor, Dr. Craig has identified a common thread in strained relationships: the belief that change should be avoided at all costs. Determined to destroy this harmful myth, Dr. Craig presents a concept as straightforward as it is original: Marriages don’t fail when people change; they fail when people don’t change. In The 6 Husbands Every Wife Should Have, Dr. Craig divides the typical marriage into six stages, outlining both the common misconceptions and opportunities for growth at each level. From the earliest stage of becoming the right person for your spouse in the new marriage; to thinking and acting like a team; to adjusting to the dynamics of parenthood; to caring for older children and elderly parents; to adapting to the empty nest; and then to growing into the golden years and becoming a dependable companion, Dr. Craig offers new communication tools, rules for intimacy, checklists, and assessments designed to inspire change. The 6 Husbands Every Wife Should Have will revitalize readers’ notions of marriage and turn it into an ongoing activity that husband and wife can conquer actively—together.

When Christmas Eve comes to Elm Creek Manor, the tenor of the holiday is far from certain. Sylvia Bergstrom Compson, the Master Quilter, has her own reasons for preferring a quiet, even subdued, Christmas. Her young friend Sarah McClure, however, takes the opposite view and decides to deck the halls brightly. As she explores the trunks packed with Bergstrom family decorations that haven't been touched in more than fifty years, Sarah discovers a curious Christmas quilt. Begun in seasonal fabrics and patterns, the quilt remains unfinished. Sylvia reveals that the handiwork spans several generations and a quartet of Bergstrom quilters -- her great aunt, her mother, her sister, and herself. As she examines the array of quilt blocks each family member contributed but never completed, memories of Christmases past emerge. At Elm Creek Manor, Christmas began as a celebration of simple virtues -- joy and hope buoyed by the spirit of giving. As each successive generation of Bergstroms lived through its unique trials -- the antebellum era, the Great Depression, World War II -- tradition offered sustenance even during the most difficult times. For Sylvia, who is coping with the modern problem of family dispersed, estranged, or even forgotten, reconciliation with her personal history may prove as elusive as piecing the Christmas Quilt. Elm Creek Manor is full of secrets, from a Christmas tree with unusual properties to the sublime Bergstrom strudel recipe. Sylvia's tales at first seem to inform her family legacy but ultimately illuminate far more, from the importance of women's art to its place in commemorating our shared experience, at Christmastime and in every season.

President Bill Clinton's National Economic Adviser addresses the main issues that were at the center of debate in Bush's second term: Social security reform, outsourcing, and deficit reduction.After two consecutive elections in which Democratic candidates failed to turn clear economic advantages into electoral victory, a debate is raging over what the Democrats should do now. The narrow, red state-blue state argument between chest-beating populists and soulless centrists offers the answer to neither the country's economic future nor the political future of the Democrats. In The Pro-Growth Progressive,President Clinton's longest-serving national economic advisor, Gene Sperling, argues that the best economic strategy for our nation—and the best strategy for progressives whether they be Democrat, Republican, or Independent—is to pursue policies that are both progressive and pro-growth, that promote progressive values of upward mobility, fair starts, and economic dignity as well as embrace markets and innovation. Sperling describes how both parties offer the American public impoverished choices: Democrats in the-sky-is-falling party too often pretend that the way to promote progressive values and expand the American middle class is to slow the pace of the global economy, stop all outsourcing, and intervene in the market. Republicans of the don't-worry-be-happy party hold fast to the bankrupt vision that the best thing for economic growth is the smallest government possible, and have made the conservative deficit hawks of the 1990s an endangered species. But The Pro-Growth Progressive is neither an all-out assault on the Bush agenda nor a partisan call for Democrats to move further left. Both conservatives and progressives have to accept hard truths about the limitations of their approaches. Drawing on his years of policy experience, Sperling lays out a third way on the issues that are dominating the news and Bush's second term: social security, ownership, globalization, and deficit reduction. He explains the policy alternatives that respect the power of free markets while giving government a role in ensuring that the markets benefit all working families. Focused and timely, The Pro-Growth Progressive offers a realistic vision of free enterprise and economic growth in which government can improve education, reduce poverty, and restore the country to fiscal sanity.

Enter the terrifying world of the drug-lord demons of the Colombian Medellin cartel, a handful of billionaire kingpins who run an international drug-smuggling enterprise that is more efficient than many multinational corporations. They have saturated America and the world with cocaine. Here is the most complete and revealing investigative history of this infamous organization.

The urgent truth about the privatization of America’s national security that exposes where this industry came from, how it operates, where it’s heading—and why we should be concerned: “A brisk, disturbing account” (Kirkus Reviews).Thirty years ago there were no private military and security companies (PMSCs); there were only mercenaries. Now the PMSCs are a bona-fide industry, an indispensable part of American foreign and military policy. PMSCs, such as the former Blackwater, assist US forces in combat operations and replace them after the military withdraws from combat zones; they guard our embassies; they play key roles in US counterterrorism strategies; and Homeland Security depends on them. Their services include maritime security, police training, drone operations, cyber security, and intelligence analysis (as Edward Snowden has famously revealed). Even the United Nations employs them. When did this happen? The turning point came when the US found itself in a prolonged war with Iraq, but without adequate forces. So the Bush Administration turned to the PMSCs to fill the gap. Private contractors and subcontractors eventually exceeded the traditional troops. The industry has never scaled back. PMSCs are an industry as essential as they are ubiquitous. Ann Hagedorn penetrates the mystery surrounding them, and her account will inspire a national dialogue about a little-known international industry on which our security rests. “The strength of The Invisible Soldiers is the impressive depth of Hagedorn’s reporting: copious interviews, generous use of sources, and a compelling narrative…The Invisible Soldiers also reports on the people behind these private companies, some of whom are seemingly the stuff of fiction” (Los Angeles Times).

Appendix includes a list of the songs co-written by Carole Bayer Sager.

Now in a Spanish-language edition: the definitive biography of Senator Marco Rubio, the youngest Speaker of the Florida Statehouse and the biggest rising star in the Republican Party.SENATOR MARCO RUBIO has been called the Michael Jordan of Republican politics and a crown prince of the Tea Party. He is a political figure who inspires fierce passions among his supporters—and his detractors. From his family’s immigrant roots to his ascent from small-town commissioner to the heights of the United States Senate, The Rise of Marco Rubio traces a classic American odyssey. Rubio’s grandfather was born in a humble thatched-palm dwelling in a sugar cane–growing region of Cuba, more than fifty years before Rubio’s parents left the island for a better life in Miami. His father worked as a bartender, his mother as a maid and stock clerk at Kmart. Rubio was quick on his high school football field, and even quicker in becoming a major voice on everything from immigration to the role of faith in public life and one of the great hopes of the Republican Party. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and documents, Washington Post reporter Manuel Roig-Franzia shows how Rubio cultivated a knack for apprenticing himself to the right mentor, learning the issues, and volunteering for tough political jobs that made him shine. He also has a way with words and the instinct to seize opportunities that others don’t see. As Mike Huckabee says, Rubio “is our Barack Obama with substance.” The Rise of Marco Rubio elegantly tells us why. *** THE RISE OF MARCO RUBIO A POLITICIAN IN THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME A slender, delicate right shoulder knifed downward; a cane flipped sideways. Nancy Reagan was crashing. But before the crowd’s applause gave way to gasps, Marco Rubio, his hair parted just so, a valedictorian’s smile on his face, tugged the aging icon toward him. He caught the ninety-year-old almost parallel to the floor and bound for a bone-chipping thud. Extraordinary political careers can build momentum from an accretion of perfect moments, and this was just one more for Marco Rubio. Rubio’s reflexes had only sharpened the impression that a party looking for heroes had found a figure with great promise. American politics had never seen anything like him. A FAMILY THAT FACED THE CHALLENGES OF IMMIGRATION In the summer of 1962 Rubio’s Cuban grandfather Pedro Víctor asked his bosses for a vacation, and this time they granted it. And so it was that on August 31, 1962, he took an incredibly risky step. He boarded Pan American Airlines Flight 2422 bound for Miami. His troubles began not long after the plane landed. A LEGISLATOR FULL OF AMBITION In Marco Rubio’s second year at the Florida capital, a committee was formed to redraw voting district lines. As usual, Rubio’s timing was good and his instincts were spot-on. Redistricting was a once-in-a-decade ritual, and it presented him with a once-in-a-decade opportunity. Not yet thirty, he volunteered to help. In doing so he took the same route he had traveled before, making himself an apprentice in a good position to impress the older generation. Volunteering for the task meant substantial face time with the leaders of the state house. And the leaders noticed him.

The executive producer of "Morning Joe" recounts how a brain aneurysm nearly ended his life, describing his emergency room experiences and the lessons that caused him to rededicate himself to his job and his family.

At the time of his death, Charles Addams was working on this project, a cookbook with never-before-seen artwork and never before tasted and very macabre recipes—published here for the first time, along with some classic Addams cartoons about food and cooking.Food and eating were a couple of Charles Addams's favorite subjects. Hungry cannibals, witches gathering around a cauldron, or a king over his blackbird pie often populated his celebrated cartoons. And, of course, Morticia of the "Addams Family" was an avid cook, adding a touch of eye of newt or popping over to the neighbors for a cup of cyanide. So it should come as no wonder that in the 1960s Charles Addams was dabbling with a "cookbook" idea. Addams discovered and compiled some bizarre recipes from antiquated and out-of-the-way sources. These recipes have very Addams-like names, such as "Mushrooms Fester" or "Hearts Stuffed," and serve as a perfect complement to his drawings. Chas Addams™ Half-Baked Cookbook is a collection of his work on the world of food and eating, featuring many Addams drawings that have never been seen before, as well as some of his all-time classics.

From the bestselling author of Recipe for Love and You Might Just Get Burned comes an engaging novel about a group of single women who come up with a plan to try and meet Mr. Right.

In 1999, when Napster made music available free online, the music industry found itself in a fight for its life. A decade later, the most important and misunderstood story—and the one with the greatest implications for both music lovers and media companies—is how the music industry has failed to remake itself. In Fortune’s Fool, Fred Goodman, the author of The Mansion on the Hill, shows how this happened by presenting the singular history of Edgar M. Bronfman Jr., the controversial heir to Seagram’s, who, after dismantling his family’s empire and fortune, made a high-stakes gamble to remake both the music industry and his own reputation. Napster had successfully blown the industry off its commercial foundations because all that the old school label heads knew how to do was record and market hits. So when Bronfman took over the Warner Music Group in 2004, his challenge was to create a new kind of record executive. Goodman finds the source of the crisis in the dissolution of the old Warner Music Group, the brilliant conglomerate of Atlantic, Elektra, and Warner Bros. Records. He shows how Doug Morris, the head of Atlantic Records, rose through the ranks and rode the CD bonanza of the 1990s to enormous corporate and personal profit before becoming embroiled in an ego-driven corporate turf war, and how all of Warner’s record executives were blindsided when AOL/Time-Warner announced in 2003 that it wanted nothing more to do with the record industry. When the music group was finally sold to Bronfman, it was a ghost of itself. Bronfman built an aggressive, streamlined team headed by Lyor Cohen, whose relentless ambition and discipline had helped build Def Jam Records. They instituted a series of daring initiatives intended to give customers legitimate online music choices and took market share from Warner’s competitors. But despite these efforts, illegal downloads still outnumber legitimate ones 19–1. Most of the talk of a new world of music and media has proven empty; despite the success of iTunes, even wildly popular sites like YouTube and MySpace have not found a way to make money with music. Instead, Warner and the other labels are diversifying and forcing young artists to give them a cut of their income from touring, publishing, and merchandising. Meanwhile, the average downloader isn’t even meeting forward-thinking musicians halfway. Each time a young band finds a following through music websites, it’s a unique story; no formula has emerged. If one does, Warner is probably in a better position than anyone to exploit it. But at the end of the day, If is the one-word verdict on Bronfman’s big bet.

Leap into story time with four beautiful Angelina Ballerina favorite mini books in a collectible padded box!

In this heart-wrenching speculative YA, eighteen-year-old Victoria takes a trip to New Orleans with her estranged best friend to find a vampire to save her father, who's dying from cancer. It's THE COLDEST GIRL IN COLDTOWN meets THEY BOTH DIE AT THE END.

From the author of Today Tonight Tomorrow comes a magical romance in the vein of Groundhog Day about a girl forced to relive her disastrous first day of college-only to discover that her nemesis is stuck in the time loop with her. Barrett Bloom is hoping college will be a fresh start after a messy high school experience. But when school begins on September 21st, everything goes wrong. She's humiliated by the know-it-all in her physics class, she botches her interview for the college paper, and at a party that night, she accidentally sets a frat on fire. She panics and flees, and when she realizes her roommate locked her out of their dorm, she falls asleep in the common room. The next morning, Barrett's perplexed to find herself back in her dorm room bed, no longer smelling of ashes and crushed dreams. It's September 21st. Again. And after a confrontation with Miles, the guy from Physics 101, she learns she's not alone-he's been trapped for months. When her attempts to fix her timeline fail, she agrees to work with Miles to find a way out. Soon they're exploring the mysterious underbelly of the university and going on wild, romantic adventures. As they start falling for each other, they face the universe's biggest unanswered question yet: what happens to their relationship if they finally make it to tomorrow?

Harris sets his tale against the decadent eccentricities of a wealthy California beach community. At the center is Harry, a handsome gallery owner, an epicurean lover of all things beautiful, a man who counted his late wife among his most valuable possessions. When he hires Velda Venn, an unsophisticated yet powerfully sexual housekeeper, the order of his exquisite household is gradually subverted. Like the pull of the ocean waves outside his window, Velda draws Harry from calm self-absorption to erotic obsession. He must possess her - and a spectacular painting that changes everything, a painting that seems the very mirror of his strange, uncontrollable desire.

Illuminating the experiences of life in small-town America, award-winning writer for CBS News Peter Davis pens an ode to a small town thirty miles north of Cincinnati—documenting its strengths and struggles over the course of a year.After a scandal involving a high school teacher caught his interest, award-winning news writer Peter Davis spent a year studying life in Hamilton, Ohio. While examining the small town during an intense time of change, including segregation of schools and economic decline, Davis shares an honest, full scope view of the life in a small town during the 1960s. Hometown takes readers into the forces that unite and divide the small-town community of Hamilton through a look at politics, sports, marriage, crime, and social lives in a variety of classes.

In this down and dirty tale of modern fatherhood, Mohr shares his stories as a first-time parent. "No Wonder My Parents Drank" reveals the details behind Mohr's humiliating test-tube conception attempts and then recounts the trauma of not only having to keep this child alive, but also having to spend time alone with him.

A complete and stunning collection of twenty years of work by one of the most well-known sports illustrators and photographers of the 90s, Robert Riger.As an illustrator, Robert Riger had his work regularly printed in publications such as Esquire, The Saturday Evening Post, and Sports Illustrated. When he began to take photos in 1950, what started as a research tool for his illustrations quickly evolved into the talent Riger is most known for. Now, for the first time ever, The Athlete features an entire showcase of Riger’s work, including writings, illustrations, and some of the more than 90,000 photographs he took over his time as a celebrated illustrator and photographer within the sports world.