The influential pastor and author of The Skeletons in God’s Closet invites those trapped in doubt, shame, or disappointment to discover afresh the life-transforming truth that God is always looking out for you.

Have you ever wondered if God is on your side? If he’s really for you?

It’s easy to answer “Yes!” when life is going well. It’s harder to believe when your marriage is imploding, your child is in the hospital, or a close friend betrays you.

Respected pastor and author Joshua Ryan Butler invites you to discover that, even when God feels like an aloof observer of your pain, he is right beside you, shielding and guiding you in ways you can’t imagine.

This book is for those haunted by a nagging sense that God is indifferent or disappointed in them. Tracing key moments in the life of Jesus from the gospel of John, Butler helps us see:

• How God is present even when he seems silent
• Why God’s love is not deterred by doubt or sin
• How to experience Jesus in a fresh way
• How to overcome guilt, insecurity, and shame

Butler helps us see that our greatest comfort is not what we’ve done to win God’s love, but all that God’s love has done to win us. There is no truth more transforming than this: God is on your side.

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An August 2025 Reading Is a Lifestyle Subscription Book Pick

Join bestselling author Amber Rae on the unexpected, heart-healing journey of a woman learning to trust herself.

Good wives don’t fall in love with other men. That’s what Amber Rae told herself when, in the midst of building a home with her husband in Mexico, she met the man she knew she was meant to spend the rest of her life with.

Maybe in another life, she thought. But the truth was, for years, she smiled and strived her way through a sexless and lonely marriage, never admitting her unhappiness to anyone—not even to herself. She thought that if she just tried harder, everything would fall into place. But as the voice inside her grew louder, she realized she had two choices: keep pretending everything’s fine and her needs don’t matter, or confront everything she thought she knew about love, loyalty, and her own limits.

LOVEABLE is a raw and intimate journey of a woman breaking free from the roles that confined her. This memoir isn’t about trading one life or one man for another—it’s about the painful, beautiful process of coming home to oneself. And this isn’t just Amber’s story-it’s a rallying cry to stop being good so you can start being free.

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Though many of us can point to patterns of brokenness in our lives, we don’t know why they’re there. No matter how hard we work, we can’t seem to outrun the very things that break our hearts. That’s because our everyday setbacks are rooted in our unaddressed wounds.

In Why Am I Like This? seminary-trained, licensed trauma therapist Kobe Campbell helps us understand why it’s so hard to break these patterns as she offers us a deeper understanding of how our past shapes our present. With tender wisdom, rare vulnerability, and profound honesty, Kobe reminds each reader that they’re not alone, empowering them to step into healing with evidence-based, faith-filled coping skills and resources.

In Why Am I Like This?, you will:

• gain an understanding of what trauma and healing really are,
• explore the roots of your dysfunctional patterns,
• learn how your trauma shows up in your everyday life, and
• find trauma-informed, faith-based coping mechanisms to heal your mind and deepen your intimacy with God.

Kobe marries theological insight with therapeutic principles to give readers the tools and insights needed to begin their journey of restoration.

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Tilda Finch is a successful businesswoman, a mother to two wonderful adult daughters, and besides an unexpected divorce, she’s living a relatively happy life. Until she wakes up one morning and her finger seems to have disappeared. She thinks back to the kombucha she drank the night before—perhaps it was spiked? Studying herself in the mirror, she discovers one of her ears has also disappeared! She rushes to the doctor, who after a multitude of tests says she’s sorry to inform her that she has invisibility, a disorder that affects millions of women worldwide, mostly after the age of forty—she is disappearing, and there is no cure.

Tilda isn’t overly surprised. She’s felt invisible for years. But after attending a support group for women like her and seeing how resigned they are to simply fading away, she thinks there must be a better way. Hesitant, she seeks out a controversial therapist who compels her to realize that she can’t expect the world to see her if she can’t first see herself. And the new man she meets, who she thinks is blind to her faults, might just see her more clearly than anyone has ever before. Because if we can get the voices in our heads to stop being so critical and be more compassionate, we might realize how wonderful we truly are.

Story Locale: Australia

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In her transformative book, Rewrite Your Rules, DeBaun delivers a powerful call to action: redefine the guiding principles of your life. This isn’t about minor adjustments; it’s about radically transforming what you believe is possible, challenging you to break free from societal expectations and design your own path.

In Rewrite Your Rules, DeBaun doesn’t just question the norms—she obliterates them. With the wisdom of a seasoned entrepreneur and the relatability of your most trusted friend, DeBaun offers a refreshing antidote to toxic hustle culture Her powerful three-part framework will guide you to:

●  Master Yourself: Uncover your true values, passions, and potential
●  Master Your Method: Align daily actions with your goals
●  Master Your Growth: Adapt continuously to life’s challenges and opportunities

Each chapter of the book provides practical steps for evaluating life’s big questions and dismantling outdated rules. Whether rethinking your career, relationships, or routines, Rewrite Your Rules puts you firmly back in the driver’s seat to focus on what matters most. This is a straight-talking resource you’ll want to return to, at any stage, to build a life that feels truly yours—one that balances financial achievement with deep personal fulfillment. DeBaun proves that true success is rooted in authenticity, purpose, and the courage to chart your own course.

The post Rewrite Your Rules: The Journey to Success in Less Time with More Freedom first appeared on Shelves Bookstore.

As David Brooks observes, “There is one skill that lies at the heart of any healthy person, family, school, community organization, or society: the ability to see someone else deeply and make them feel seen—to accurately know another person, to let them feel valued, heard, and understood.”

And yet we humans don’t do this well. All around us are people who feel invisible, unseen, misunderstood. In How to Know a Person, Brooks sets out to help us do better, posing questions that are essential for all of us: If you want to know a person, what kind of attention should you cast on them? What kind of conversations should you have? What parts of a person’s story should you pay attention to?

Driven by his trademark sense of curiosity and his determination to grow as a person, Brooks draws from the fields of psychology and neuroscience and from the worlds of theater, philosophy, history, and education to present a welcoming, hopeful, integrated approach to human connection. How to Know a Person helps readers become more understanding and considerate toward others, and to find the joy that comes from being seen. Along the way it offers a possible remedy for a society that is riven by fragmentation, hostility, and misperception.

The act of seeing another person, Brooks argues, is profoundly creative: How can we look somebody in the eye and see something large in them, and in turn, see something larger in ourselves? How to Know a Person is for anyone searching for connection, and yearning to be understood.

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For her work as a co-creator of the Apple Store cultural experience, Denise Young has been deemed by leadership experts as one of the most emotionally intelligent leaders of her era. In this stirring narrative, part-memoir, part blueprint for action, she shares her vision of what it means to be truly seen at our places of work. As a “first and only” woman of color in boardrooms and leading roles across the Bay Area’s booming tech industry, Denise was a trailblazer in a business that was never built for her. The first black and female senior executive under both Steve Jobs and Tim Cook, Denise was often in “the room where it happened.” But within a white male-centric professional culture, she still had to work harder, smarter, and differently to get heard. She speaks candidly to that experience in these pages, offering lessons to those coming up behind her.

In When We Are Seen, Denise shares insights on using your own story, empathy, intuition, and more to unlock the potential in yourself and others. Her story serves as both solace and strategy for anyone who has ever felt left out, unseen, ostracized; anyone who has been an only or a first. This is a book for anyone interested in upending perpetual cycles of exclusion, and in reclaiming our individual agency in the ongoing quest to thrive and belong.

Denise argues that bringing your truest self to work—from wearing your beloved locs to sharing your artistic passion—and, in turn, holistically seeing the attributes others have to offer is not a passive experience; it is a specific skill we can and should build. And the result is a deeper understanding of what it means to be inclusive, and powerfully human on the job.

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Belonging brings out the best in everyone. Whether you’re a parent, teacher, community organizer, or leader of any sort, your group is unlikely to thrive if the individuals don’t feel welcomed, included, and valued for who they are.

The good news is that you can use design to create feelings of inclusion in your organization: rituals that bring people together, spaces that promote calm, roles that create a sense of responsibility, systems that make people feel respected, and more. You can’t force feelings, but in Design for Belonging, author and educator Susie Wise explains how to use simple levers of design to set the stage for belonging to emerge. For example, add moveable furniture to a meeting space to customize for your group size; switch up the role of group leader regularly to increase visibility for everyone; or create a special ritual for people joining or leaving your organization to welcome fresh per­spectives and honor work well done.

Inspiration and stories from leaders and scholars are paired with frameworks, tools, and tips, providing an opportunity to try on different approaches. By the end of the book, you’ll be able to spot where a greater sense of belonging is needed and actively shape your world to cultivate it—whether it’s a party, a high-stakes meeting, or a new national organization.

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Why do so-called life hacks leave us drowning in tasks, schedules, and unfulfilled expectations? In her straightforward, humorous style, author Kendra Adachi reveals why the problem is not you.

Most time management systems prioritize optimization and greatness in service to an imagined future, but what if that’s not your goal? What if you long for a book that helps you live wholeheartedly today? The PLAN is the answer.

Using the memorable acronym “PLAN,” you will learn to prepare, live, adjust, and notice like a Lazy Genius, all through the lens of what matters to you in your current season:

• Discover two beliefs that will change time management forever

• Integrate your hormones, personality, and life stage into your planning process
• Learn the Lighten the Load to-do list framework to help you get your stuff done
• Use The PLAN Pyramid to help you visualize a balanced life
• Experience freedom from the crushing pressure of greatness, potential, and hustle

Refreshingly compassionate and immediately practical, The PLAN is the book–and the framework–you’ve been waiting for.

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Family can be a source of connection, and a source of conflict. In this exercise-filled workbook, licensed therapist and bestselling relationship expert Nedra Glover Tawwab offers powerful insights along with thought-provoking questions to help you unpack what’s really going on—and express your needs and expectations going forward.

Whether you are coping with a long-term pattern of emotional neglect, addiction, or abuse, or trying to understand a new conflict that’s come up with a parent, sibling, or in-law, you will find empowering information and tools to help you manage these complex relationships in a way that offers psychological safety and honors the person you truly are.

The post The Drama Free Workbook: Practical Exercises for Managing Unhealthy Family Relationships first appeared on Shelves Bookstore.