In this week’s Friday Five, we’re celebrating YOU! We have the perfect line-up of books to inspire and motivate every aspect of your life—from healthy eating, to brushing up on your parenting skills, to stimulating your senses and getting in touch with your inner inspiration, we have a book to help make 2013 your best year yet!

What’s on my iPod: Mean Street by Van Halen
What I’m reading: In The Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson
The last person I followed on Twitter: @qikipedia

1. How far would you go to save your life?

Author Amy B. Scher asks this question in her guest post on GALTime: “And so it turns out, that important question ‘How far will you go?‘ stretched my limits further than ever and led me to an answer that carried me across the world.” Read the rest here!

 

 

 

 

2. Your weekly dose of parenting wisdom

For the parents out there who are looking for a little insight, author of 52 Weeks of Parenting Wisdom, Meg Akabas is now dishing out her parenting strategy tips each week on Parenthood.com for busy parents to implement and master.

 

 

 

 

3. A healthy well-balanced lifestyle

For anyone wanting to improve what they eat and how they eat it, Rachel Khanna‘s new book  Live, Eat, Cook Healthy will help guide you in the right direction. In her book, you will find all the information you need to learn how to assess your lifestyle and eating, and how to feed your body with what it truly needs.

 

 

 

4. The Perfect Pair

To the wine lovers out there looking to expand and delight their senses, author of Wineocology, Caitlin Stansbury discusses the pleasure of pairing books with wine in her monthly guest post on She Reads.  This groundbreaking book takes the mystery out of Merlot and puts the pleasure back into picking and pairing wine.

 

 

 

 

 

5. A gluten-free approach for the budget-minded

For those who follow a gluten-free diet—avoiding all foods with even a trace of wheat, barley, and rye in their ingredients—don’t always have the quick and cheap food options that their friends do…until now. Gluten-free guru Nicole Hunn is back with her new book Gluten Free on a Shoestring – Quick and Easy. This unique time-saving book takes advantage of readily available gluten-free ingredients and kitchen shortcuts.