Bored Bookworm | Parenting

Studies have shown that parents have more influence over their child, both emotionally and physically, during pregnancy and the first years after birth than at any other point in life. With The Attachment Pregnancy, you will learn how to use this important time to form a deeper connection and introduce your child to a loving environment--even before birth. Childbirth experts Tracy Wilson Peters and Laurel Wilson guide you through each stage of development with advice for providing consistent and nurturing care as your baby grows, so that you can ensure that every need is always met.

From the moment your child is conceived to the day of delivery, The Attachment Pregnancy shows you how to strengthen your bond and give your baby the best life possible from the very beginning.

• Escapism at its best!
• A hard to put down, debut novel
• Best romance ever
• A book to lose yourself in

• "Dramatic highland location? Check. Drop-dead gorgeous alpha male? Check. Suitably feisty heroine? Check. (Plus) Stellar cast of supporting characters . . ."
• "I am not normally a fan of modern romance, so the fact that 'Tall Dark and Kilted' held me spellbound says it all."
• "The relationship between Ruairi and Fliss sparkles like finest Champagne. How that girl keeps her hands off him for so long I'll never know!"  
• "I fell in love with Ruairi Urquhart, myself - who wouldn't fall in love with a man who calls you - 'a chuisle mo chroi' - pulse of my heart?"

• Fliss's romantic view of the highlands populated by hunky Men in Kilts is shattered when she has an up close and very personal encounter with the Laird of Kinloch Mara, Ruairi Urquhart. He's determined to pull the plug on the business, bring his eccentric family to heel and eject undesirables from his estate - starting with Fliss. Faced with the dole queue once more, Fliss resolves to make sexy, infuriating Ruairi revise his unflattering opinion of her, turn the therapy centre around and sort out the dysfunctional Urquharts. 
• Can Fliss tame the Monarch of the Glen and find the happiness she deserves? 

How to recognize and combat the external factors that cause weight gain and make it difficult to lose weight

Tackling a weight problem is often viewed as a personal responsibility that requires making healthier choices. The latest research, however, shows that external factors—from family and friendships to advertising and the workplace environment—have an equal, if not greater, impact on America's growing waistline. Just look at the stats: A person's chance of becoming obese increases by 57 percent if a close friend is obese, 40 percent if a sibling is obese, and 37 percent if a spouse is obese.

That's where Thinfluence comes in. Through a research-based examination of the various social, environmental, and policy-based issues that are influencing the nation's health, Harvard researchers Dr. Walter Willett and Dr. Malissa Wood examine how relationships, workplace, media, and other factors are affecting readers' weight. The book offers a clear three-step action plan—analyze, act, influence—for readers to identify hidden factors affecting weight, develop a personal toolbox to combat external effects, and become positive influences on others around them.

Thinfluence doesn't tell readers to ditch their friends and family, change jobs, or move to another state. It helps them identify barriers to weight loss success and arms them with the tools to overcome these negative forces. This book takes a fresh look at today's weight control discussion, taking it where it has seldom gone before: outside of the individual.

In her new book, the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author of Damaged tells the story of the Dawn, a sweet and seemingly well-balanced girl whose outward appearance masks a traumatic childhood of suffering at the hands of the very people who should have cared for her.

Dawn was the first girl Cathy Glass ever fostered. Sweet and seemingly well balanced girl, Dawn’s outward appearance masked a traumatic childhood so awful, that even she could not remember it.

During the first night, Cathy awoke to see Dawn looming above Cathy’s baby’s cot, her eyes staring and blank. She sleepwalks – which Cathy learns is often a manifestation in disturbed children. It becomes a regular and frightening occurrence, and Cathy is horrified to find Dawn lighting a match whilst mumbling it’s not my fault in her sleep one night.

Cathy discovers Dawn is playing truant from school, and struggling to make friends. More worryingly she finds her room empty one night, and her pillow covered in blood. Dawn has been self-harming in order to release the pain of her past.

When Dawn attempts suicide, Cathy realises that she needs more help than she can give. Dawn’s mother eventually confides in her that Dawn was sent away to live with relatives in Ireland between the ages of 5 and 9, and Cathy soon realises that the horrors Dawn was exposed to during this time have left her a very disturbed little girl.

"With the ball about to cross the line, Spanner took an almighty kick at it, missed, followed through and kicked himself full in the face, ever the competitor, he had his arm in the air claiming a foul before he had even hit the floor." If you've ever been involved in kids football; Manager, coach, bucket-carrier, supporter, parent, player, whatever, this book will bring it all flooding back, the good, the bad, and the downright funny.

A profound expansion of David McCullough, Jr.'s popular commencement speech—a call to arms against a prevailing, narrow, conception of success viewed by millions on YouTube—You Are (Not) Special is a love letter to students and parents as well as a guide to a truly fulfilling, happy life.

Children today, says David McCullough—high school English teacher, father of four, and son and namesake of the famous historian—are being encouraged to sacrifice passionate engagement with life for specious notions of success. The intense pressure to excel discourages kids from taking chances, failing, and learning empathy and self-confidence from those failures.

In You Are (Not) Special, McCullough elaborates on his now-famous speech exploring how, for what purpose, and for whose sake, we're raising our kids. With wry, affectionate humor, McCullough takes on hovering parents, ineffectual schools, professional college prep, electronic distractions, club sports, and generally the manifestations, and the applications and consequences of privilege. By acknowledging that the world is indifferent to them, McCullough takes pressure off of students to be extraordinary achievers and instead exhorts them to roll up their sleeves and do something useful with their advantages.