Labor and delivery nurse Penelope is an expert at her job but a complete mess when it comes to her personal life. After her boyfriend dumps her in favor of saving his marriage, Penelope discovers she’s pregnant. Now Penelope must face motherhood, her greatest fear, as a single parent or consider the alternative. Jesenia, a first-generation American, made her mark as a model then quit the business in favor of a nine-to-five and wedded bliss. After three years of fertility treatments and pressure from her family, she feels that trying to become a mother is a full-time job. But when her past mistakes threaten her chances, Nia will have to confront her youthful choices and over-involved family’s opinions on bloodlines if she wants to become a mother. If choosing a homebirth and nursing a toddler don’t make Lotus unconventional, growing up in a commune and choosing a polyamorous marriage certainly do. After her grandfather’s unexpected death and the inheritance of his Victorian home, Lotus just wants to run her business, take care of her family, and live in her version of normal. That peace is threatened by her husband’s former lover, the end of his sobriety, and a new love interest, all of which will turn her world upside down. Words We Cannot Say is told through three diverse voices as the women navigate friendship, motherhood, pregnancy, and loss. What happens when women tell the truth about themselves, their desires, and the sacrifices they’re willing—or unwilling—to make?

What explains the existence of the world and our place in it? Is there a primal cause beyond our comprehension because our intelligence is part of the very world we seek to understand? The author asserts that such a cause exists and identifies it as what ancient Indian thinkers termed the End of Knowledge. Far from simply reporting this concept, the author develops profound insights through inspired discussions, leading to two kinds of startling conclusions. First, these insights offer a new, deeper understanding of our own nature. Second, they present a sweeping revaluation of the nature of universal Space, Time, and Matter. Notably, the author details and explores the profound implications of the idea that time does not progress in a real sense. This book serves as an introduction to rationality within spiritual belief, paving the way for a harmonious integration of reason and spirituality.

Kotaro Suzumura is one of the world’s foremost thinkers in social choice theory and welfare economics. Bringing together essays that have become classics in the field, Choice, Preferences, and Procedures examines foundational issues of normative economics and collective decision making. Social choice theory seeks to critically assess and rationally design economic mechanisms for improving human life. An important part of Suzumura’s contribution over the past forty years has entailed fusion of abstract microeconomic ideas with an understanding of real-world economies in a coherent analysis. This volume of selected essays reveals the evolution of Suzumura’s thinking over his career. Groundbreaking papers explore the nature of individual and social choice and the idea of assigning value to freedom of choice, different forms of rationality, and concepts of individual rights, equity, and fairness. Suzumura elucidates his innovative approach for recognizing interpersonal comparisons in the vein of Adam Smith’s notion of sympathy and expounds the effect of paying due attention to nonconsequential features, such as the opportunity to choose and the procedure for decision making, along with the standard consequential features. Analyzing the role of economic competition, Suzumura points out how restricting competition may, in some circumstances, improve social welfare. This is not to recommend government regulation rather than market competition but to emphasize the importance of procedural features in a competitive context. He concludes with illuminating essays on the history of economic thought, focusing on the ideas of Vilfredo Pareto, Arthur Pigou, John Hicks, and Paul Samuelson.