Books

Leslie is the author of three nonfiction books and is (still) currently at work on her novel. The books are available in digital and print format and can be ordered from your local independent bookstore (please continue to support these important community-oriented gathering spots) or online through retailers like AmazonBarnes & Noble, and Apple’s iBooks app.

 

book_wishitWish It, Dream It, Do It: Turn the Life You’re Living into the Life You Want (Simon & Schuster/Fireside)

Getting what we want out of life takes more than gazing at stars or daydreaming about becoming a millionaire. We need to hold on tight to a dream while doing the hard work necessary to make it a reality. We need to wish it, dream it, and do it!

In fifty-two chapters—one for each week of the year—Wish It, Dream It, Do It: Turn the Life You’re Living into the Life You Want clearly, creatively, and gently shows you how to combine dreams and wishes with practical strategies to help follow our heart’s desire and achieve what you want most in life. Each chapter focuses on a weekly lesson, from “Embrace Your Imperfections” and “Unwrap Your Intuition” to “Break the Rules” and “Pick Your Heroes Carefully.” Every lesson provides:

  • Specific suggestions to jumpstart dreams
  • Proven strategies for facing and overcoming fears
  • Affirmations to help you stay positive along the dream-catching journey

Filled with prescriptive advice for bringing together inner resources and external sources of support, such as mentors, workshops, friends and family, this uplifting program gives us the means and inspiration to chart our course and follow it through to success.

 

book_icecreamIce Cream for Breakfast: If You Follow All the Rules, You Miss Half the Fun (McGraw-Hill)

How often do you break the rules? Not often enough!

Remember when you were a kid and life was governed by rule after rule? Clean your room. Eat your vegetables. Don’t talk back. But remember, too, how good it felt to assert your independence now and again and rebel against those rules? After all, misbehaving and being “bad”—even as a grown up—can make you feel pretty good.

In Ice Cream for Breakfast, Leslie serves up 52 ways to break the rules in order to bust out of the ho-hum routine of daily life. Think about it: breaking the rules can give you a fresh perspective, shake things up a bit, and force you to see life through a slightly different lens.

Filled with insight, humor, and honest wisdom, Ice Cream for Breakfast will remind you that it’s OK to:

  • Stay up past your bedtime
  • Play in the dirt
  • Sing at the top of your lungs
  • Dawdle
  • Take a nap
  • Talk back

Ice Cream for Breakfast is a poignant guide to countering life’s pesky little tyrannies. The perfect primer on savoring the smaller moments in life, the overall message is clear: bust out of that routine, break the rules and have fun!

 

book_willthisplaceWill This Place Ever Feel Like Home?
Simple Advice for Settling In After You Move 
(McGraw-Hill)

Whether changing jobs, retiring, or just making a fresh start, about 12 percent of the American population pulls up stakes each year and relocates. While the first few post-move weeks are filled with immediate concerns such as getting the gas and cable connected, it is establishing deeper connections to a new living space and community that is the real challenge. Will This Place Ever Feel Like Home? offers surefire strategies to help anyone who has recently moved make his or her new house and community feel like home.

This newly revised guide is packed with real-life tips both from people who have successfully settled in and nationally recognized relocation experts. Leslie Levine offers practical advice on everything from establishing a new daily routine to locating essential services (“How do I find a doctor?”) and shops (“Who will cut my hair?”), from dealing with emotional adjustments to combating new-school jitters. There is even information on helping your pet adjust to its new digs! Additional tips will show you how to successfully:

  • Move while maintaining your job
  • Manage feelings of loss
  • How to re-create a new home with warmth and comfort
  • Accommodate the needs of relating spouses, partners, and kids
  • Use the Internet as a relocation resource

Whether you are moving across town or across the ocean Will This Place Ever Feel Like Home? offers sensible solutions for feeling comfortable in your new home and connected to your new community.