Debra Ollivier

In 1962, on a stunning stretch of land bordering the Pacific Ocean in Big Sur, California, two Stanford graduates named Michael Murphy and Dick Price founded a small retreat and workshop center called The Esalen Institute, otherwise known simply as Esalen. Their goal was to create a space...

"Life is a pilgrimage," Swami Sivananda once wrote. "The wise man does not rest by the roadside inns. He marches direct to the illimitable domain of eternal bliss, his ultimate destination." These days, however, when Google Earth can peer into every patch of our planet, finding solace off-the-grid on those...

Ever since Joan of Arc battled the British, we Anglo-Saxons have loved and hated French women in equal doses. Samantha Brick's dishy tirade against new First Lady Valerie Trierweiler --- "Think I'm in love with myself? I'm a shrinking violet next to man-stealing French women like the new...

"Life is a precious gift, and I don't intend to waste a day of it." So writes Jai Pausch at the end of her new book Dream New Dreams: Reimagining My Life After Loss, summing up the wisdom accrued on her journey literally rebuilding new dreams after her...

Most people can't remember what they ate for dinner yesterday, never mind how they celebrated their 17th birthday or what headlined the news that day. Marilu Henner, on the other hand, can remember virtually every day of her life. Henner, who many remember as the character Elaine O'Connor Nardo on...

When the wife of former French president Giscard d'Estaing was asked what she wanted to do as France's First Lady, Anne-Aymone Giscard d'Estaing said: "To no longer be one." Similarly, when the second wife of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was asked about the role of First Lady (Sarkozy has...

In the first chapter of his book Rebounders: How Winners Pivot from Setback to Success, U.S. News & World Report Chief Business Correspondent Rick Newman quotes German philosopher Nietzsche, who unbeknownst to many (including yours truly) brought us the oft-cited aphorism: "What doesn't kill me makes me stronger."...

Behind every great band there's often great drama, and Fleetwood Mac was no exception. The band marked the 70s with huge hits, including its album Rumours, which produced four top-ten singles, stayed on the charts for 31 weeks, sold over 40 million copies and won a Grammy Award for Album...

In "The Perfect Family," Kathleen Turner plays Eileen Cleary, a devout Roman Catholic who's been nominated for "Catholic Woman of the Year." But Eileen's "perfect family" is not so perfect: her daughter Shannon (Emily Deschanel) is gay, pregnant through artificial insemination, and about to marry her live-in girlfriend Angela (Angelique...

God's Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine is a fascinating book about physician Victoria Sweet's 20-year experience working at Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco -- a ramshackle but charming former almshouse where Sweet was able to practice what she calls...

Reversals of fortune and the artifice of self-presentation are the subjects of author Deborah Copaken Kogan's superb new novel, "The Red Book".

The red book, from which the book takes its title, is a Harvard class report published every five years with brief autobiographical overviews written by...

Sylvia Allen had run a successful PR/marketing firm for 34 years when her life path radically changed. She was teaching a class called "How To Ask for Money" at the Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising when she was approached by a man who invited her on a humanitarian mission to...

Forget bingo and donuts. Social entrepreneur and aging expert Tim Carpenter is quietly revolutionizing senior living. Carpenter is the Founder and Executive Director of EngAGE, a nonprofit organization that offers affordable senior arts colonies focused on wellness, life-long learning, community building, and intergenerational arts programs. An operative word...

Keith Famie began his career as a chef, lived in France, worked all over the world, had restaurants, won food and wine awards, became a celebrity chef on The Food Network, and ended up on "Survivor: The Australian Outback." (He was the last one voted off.) But when his father...

Long before French women became the marketing phenomenon they are today, American women of all stripes quietly made their way to France and were shaped on a deep level by their experiences abroad. They returned to America imbued with, as Alice Kaplan put it, "a kind of confidence in themselves...

For decades, and unbeknownst to many, Charlotte Rogan quietly wrote novels while raising triplets in Dallas, Texas. A chance encounter with a "New York Times" journalist several years ago, after her kids were grown, led her to a literary agent. Rogan sent off two manuscripts to the agent -- one...

Millions of Americans in the so-called sandwich generation are struggling with a complex set of challenges: how to simultaneously parent one's aging parents and one's own children while trying to make a living and save for retirement and college. Beginning April 17, NPR's Morning Edition will broadcast "

In 1958, Don Kirshner was an unknown 23-year-old kid from the Bronx. Two years later, he was on his way to becoming one of America's most powerful and influential music producers. In five years, through his company Aldon Music, Kirshner launched Carole King, Neil Sedaka and Bobby Darin, among others,...

Author Diane Ackerman was on a book tour promoting "An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain" when her husband, Paul West, suffered a massive stroke that radically combusted the alchemy in his own brain. West, a brilliant writer himself, was left with devastating global...

Carole King is one of our most iconic singer-songwriters, whose earthy, soulful music evokes rhapsodic memories for an entire generation of post 50s. King's first hit was "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," recorded by The Shirelles, which topped the charts in 1961. But it was the success of Tapestry ten...