A tender, witty, and sharp debut novel about the passions and peculiarities of modern love, by “an extraordinarily gifted writer” (Sally Rooney). Chuck and Joey meet in a bar. He’s in his mid-thirties; she’s twelve years younger. He long ago abandoned his ambition of being a novelist and works as a copywriter at a big ad agency. "Lead copywriter," he corrects himself. Joey is living paycheck to paycheck on her barista wages and privately dreams of making it as a poet. They go back to Chuck’s luxury flat—a world away from Joey’s cramped house-share, the crumbs in her bed. Soon, Joey is imagining a future between them and Chuck is moving on from a major change in his recent past. Amazing, how meeting a new person can make you feel so new. Funny, excruciating, and true, Jem Calder's I Want You to Be Happy is a sharp-eyed tale of two people searching for meaning and connection in modern times, missing the mark maybe, but still trying.

In der kleinen schottischen Hafenstadt Stromness auf den Orkney-Inseln, hoch im kalten europäischen Norden, lebt Paul, ein Schweizer Dekorateur und Inneneinrichter und geht seiner profanen Erwerbsarbeit nach, dem home staging: leerstehende Immobilien für potenzielle Käufer europaweit und zeitweilig so zu inszenieren, daß diese sich darin sofort ein Leben voller Schönheit und Sinn vorstellen können. Als er ausgerechnet von einem Designmagazin, das keinen Internetauftritt hat, dessen wechselnde Habitus-Ansagen ihn aber schon immer inspiriert und beeinflusst haben, einen zwar obskuren, aber lukrativen Auftrag aus Norwegen erhält, begibt er sich auf eine Reise, die ihn an seine Grenzen und weit darüber hinaus führt: Erst nach Stavanger, zu einem reichlich undurchsichtigen Redakteur namens Cohen und zum Green Mountain Data Centre, einem der größten Cloud-Speicher der Welt, einer Riesenanlage, die er innen befremdlicherweise in einem perfekten Weiß streichen soll, und anschließend bis ans Ende der erfahrbaren Welt. Christian Krachts verstörender Reiseroman aus dem Geiste einer radikalen Romantik erzählt eine faszinierende Geschichte, schon immer erinnert, aber noch nie gehört, vom Hier und vom Dort, und katapultiert uns aus unserem vielleicht auch nur geträumten Jetzt, aus unserer spätmodernen, leerlaufenden Zivilisation in eine gleissende, verspiegelte Landschaft der Literatur. Unser Leben: ein Traum.

A once-famous ballerina faces a final choice—to return to the world of Russian dance that nearly broke her, or to walk away forever—in this incandescent novel of redemption and love On a White Night in 2019, prima ballerina Natalia Leonova returns to St. Petersburg two years after a devastating accident stalled her career. Once the most celebrated dancer of her generation, she now turns to pills and alcohol to numb the pain of her past. She is unmoored in her old city as the ghosts of her former life begin to her loving but difficult mother, her absentee father, and the two gifted dancers who led to her downfall. One of those dancers, Alexander, is the love of her life, who transformed both Natalia and her art. The other is Dmitri, a dark and treacherous genius. When the latter offers her a chance to return to the stage in her signature role, Natalia must decide whether she can again face the people responsible for both her soaring highs and darkest hours. Painting a vivid portrait of the Russian ballet world, where cutthroat ambition, ever-shifting politics, and sublime artistry collide, City of Night Birds unveils the making of a dancer with both profound intimacy and breathtaking scope. Mysterious and alluring, passionate and virtuosic, Juhea Kim’s second novel is an affecting meditation on love, forgiveness, and the making of an artist in a turbulent world.

A groundbreaking exposé showing how the arts—alongside diet, sleep, exercise and nature—are the forgotten fifth pillar of healthFrom cradle to grave, engaging in the arts has remarkable effects on our health and well-being. Music supports the architectural development of children’s brains. Artistic hobbies help our brains to stay resilient against dementia. Dance and magic tricks build new neural pathways for people with brain injuries. Arts and music act just like drugs to decrease depression, stress, and pain, reducing our dependence on medication. Going to live music events, museums, exhibitions, and the theater decreases our risk of future loneliness and frailty. Engaging in the arts improves the functioning of every major organ system in the body, even helping us to live longer.This isn’t sensationalism, it’s the results of decades of studies gathering data from neuroimaging, molecular biomarkers, wearable sensors, cognitive assessments, and electronic health records. From professor Daisy Fancourt, an award-winning scientist and science communicator and director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Centre for Arts and Health, this book will fundamentally change the way you value and engage with the arts in your daily life and give you the tools to optimize how, when, and what arts you engage in to achieve your health goals. The arts are not a luxury in our lives. They are essential.

Glyph follows Ali Smith's 2024 novel Gliff and tells a story hidden in the first novel. Gliff is set in a near future rife with surveillance, where people can be labelled 'unverifiable' by the state. It follows siblings Briar and Rose as they attempt to survive in a world that strives to crush curiosity and meaning.

Lispector at her most philosophically radical. A meditation on the nature of life and time, Água Viva (1973) shows Lispector discovering a new means of writing about herself, more deeply transforming her individual experience into a universal poetry. In a body of work as emotionally powerful, formally innovative, and philosophically profound as Clarice Lispector’s, Água Viva stands out as a particular triumph.

In this audiobook edition of Becoming Wise, the voices of more than forty beloved guests of "On Being" are interwoven with Krista Tippett's reading in a deeply personal mode. "I'm a person who listens for a living. I listen for wisdom, and beauty, and for voices not shouting to be heard. This book chronicles some of what I've learned in what has become a conversation across time and generations, across disciplines and denominations." Peabody Award-winning broadcaster and National Humanities Medalist Krista Tippett has interviewed the most extraordinary voices examining the great questions of meaning for our time. The heart of her work on her national public radio program and podcast, On Being, has been to shine a light on people whose insights kindle in us a sense of wonder and courage. Scientists in a variety of fields; theologians from an array of faiths; poets, activists, and many others have all opened themselves up to Tippett's compassionate yet searching conversation. In Becoming Wise, Tippett distills the insights she has gleaned from this luminous conversation in its many dimensions into a coherent narrative journey, over time and from mind to mind. The book is a master class in living, curated by Tippett and accompanied by a delightfully ecumenical dream team of teaching faculty. The open questions and challenges of our time are intimate and civilizational all at once, Tippett says - definitions of when life begins and when death happens, of the meaning of community and family and identity, of our relationships to technology and through technology. The wisdom we seek emerges through the raw materials of the everyday. And the enduring question of what it means to be human has now become inextricable from the question of who we are to each other. This book offers a grounded and fiercely hopeful vision of humanity for this century - of personal growth but also renewed public life and human spiritual evolution. It insists on the possibility of a common life for this century marked by resilience and redemption, with beauty as a core moral value and civility and love as muscular practice. Krista Tippett's great gift, in her work and inBecoming Wise, is to avoid reductive simplifications but still find the golden threads that weave people and ideas together into a shimmering braid. One powerful common denominator of the lessons imparted to Tippett is the gift of presence, of the exhilaration of engagement with life for its own sake, not as a means to an end. But presence does not mean passivity or acceptance of the status quo. Indeed Tippett and her teachers are people whose work meets, and often drives, powerful forces of change alive in the world today. In the end, perhaps the greatest blessing conveyed by the lessons of spiritual genius Tippett harvests in Becoming Wise is the strength to meet the world where it really is, and then to make it better.

In a grand English country house in 1899, an aspiring art forger must unravel whether the man claiming to be her long-lost cousin is an impostor. An unwanted guest of her uncle’s family since childhood, Grace has grown up on the periphery of a once-great household. She has unusual predilections: for painting, particularly forgery; for deception; for other girls. Her life is altered when a letter arrives from the South Atlantic. The writer claims to be her cousin Charles, long presumed dead at sea. When he returns, a rift emerges between family members who claim he is an imposter and Grace’s aunt, who insists he is her son. Grace, whose intimate knowledge of fakes is her own closely guarded secret, is forced to decide who to believe and who to pretend to believe. In deciphering the truth about her cousin, she comes to understand other truths: how money is found and lost, and who deserves to be rich; what family means to queer people; and the value of authenticity, in art and in love.

One day, the mother was a mother but then, one night, she was quite suddenly something else... At home full-time with her two-year-old son, an artist finds she is struggling. She is lonely and exhausted. She had imagined - what was it she had imagined? Her husband, always travelling for his work, calls her from faraway hotel rooms. One more toddler bedtime, and she fears she might lose her mind. Instead, quite suddenly, she starts gaining things, surprising things that happen one night when her child will not sleep. Sharper canines. Strange new patches of hair. New appetites, new instincts. And from deep within herself, a new voice... With its clear eyes on contemporary womanhood and sharp take on structures of power, Nightbitch is an outrageously original, joyfully subversive read that will make you want to howl in laughter and recognition. Addictive enough to be devoured in one sitting, this is an unforgettable novel from a blazing new talent.

One day, the mother was a mother but then, one night, she was quite suddenly something else... At home full-time with her two-year-old son, an artist finds she is struggling. She is lonely and exhausted. She had imagined - what was it she had imagined? Her husband, always travelling for his work, calls her from faraway hotel rooms. One more toddler bedtime, and she fears she might lose her mind. Instead, quite suddenly, she starts gaining things, surprising things that happen one night when her child will not sleep. Sharper canines. Strange new patches of hair. New appetites, new instincts. And from deep within herself, a new voice... With its clear eyes on contemporary womanhood and sharp take on structures of power, Nightbitch is an outrageously original, joyfully subversive read that will make you want to howl in laughter and recognition. Addictive enough to be devoured in one sitting, this is an unforgettable novel from a blazing new talent.

In a grand English country house in 1899, an aspiring art forger must unravel whether the man claiming to be her long-lost cousin is an impostor. An unwanted guest of her uncle’s family since childhood, Grace has grown up on the periphery of a once-great household. She has unusual predilections: for painting, particularly forgery; for deception; for other girls. Her life is altered when a letter arrives from the South Atlantic. The writer claims to be her cousin Charles, long presumed dead at sea. When he returns, a rift emerges between family members who claim he is an imposter and Grace’s aunt, who insists he is her son. Grace, whose intimate knowledge of fakes is her own closely guarded secret, is forced to decide who to believe and who to pretend to believe. In deciphering the truth about her cousin, she comes to understand other truths: how money is found and lost, and who deserves to be rich; what family means to queer people; and the value of authenticity, in art and in love.

"Too honest. Too real. Too helpful." – #autismmom "Inspirational in a way that makes you grateful to be normal." – Ableism Magazine “Not bad for an Autistic person.” – Passive Discrimination Weekly If autism has touched your life and you’re feeling overwhelmed from confusion and questions, enter the visceral world of Orion Kelly to gain a better understanding and appreciation for how Autism Feels … from the perspective of an everyday Autistic guy, husband and father to an Autistic child. With his razor-sharp perception and laugh-or-you’ll-cry humour, Orion sorts the damaging myths from deep Autistic truths as he explores the signs and reasons behind Autistic meltdown, shutdown and burnout, and how to aid recovery from sensory overload. Using real examples and vastly practical tips, Autism Feels … casts welcome light on a new approach to Autistic/neurotypical communication, interactions and relationship as well as insightful methods to support your Autistic child to achieve success. Orion’s life mission to improve the opportunities and life experiences of Autistic and neurodivergent people everywhere is making huge waves as he refuses to passively accept the status quo of discrimination and misconceptions Autistic people experience in every aspect of a neurotypical, foreign world. “Read it and learn Earthlings. ” – Orion Kelly

A once-famous ballerina faces a final choice—to return to the world of Russian dance that nearly broke her, or to walk away forever—in this incandescent novel of redemption and love On a White Night in 2019, prima ballerina Natalia Leonova returns to St. Petersburg two years after a devastating accident stalled her career. Once the most celebrated dancer of her generation, she now turns to pills and alcohol to numb the pain of her past. She is unmoored in her old city as the ghosts of her former life begin to her loving but difficult mother, her absentee father, and the two gifted dancers who led to her downfall. One of those dancers, Alexander, is the love of her life, who transformed both Natalia and her art. The other is Dmitri, a dark and treacherous genius. When the latter offers her a chance to return to the stage in her signature role, Natalia must decide whether she can again face the people responsible for both her soaring highs and darkest hours. Painting a vivid portrait of the Russian ballet world, where cutthroat ambition, ever-shifting politics, and sublime artistry collide, City of Night Birds unveils the making of a dancer with both profound intimacy and breathtaking scope. Mysterious and alluring, passionate and virtuosic, Juhea Kim’s second novel is an affecting meditation on love, forgiveness, and the making of an artist in a turbulent world.

Journalist and screen/life balance expert Catherine Price argues persuasively that our always-on, tech-addicted lifestyles have led us to obsess over intangible concepts such as happiness while obscuring the fact that real happiness lies in the everyday experience of fun. We often think of fun as indulgent, even immature and selfish. We claim to not have time for it, even as we find hours a day for what Price calls "Fake Fun"--bingeing on television, doom-scrolling the news, or posting photos to social media, all in hopes of filling some of the emptiness we feel inside.. In this follow-up to her hit book, How to Break Up with Your Phone, Price makes the case that True Fun--which she defines as the magical confluence of playfulness, connection, and flow--will give us the fulfillment we so desperately seek. If you use True Fun as your compass, you will be happier and healthier. You will be more productive, less resentful, and less stressed. You will have more energy. You will find community and a sense of purpose. You will stop languishing and start flourishing. And best of all? You'll enjoy the process. Weaving together scientific research with personal experience, Price reveals the surprising mental, physical, and cognitive benefits of fun, and offers a practical, personalized plan for how we can achieve better screen/life balance and attract more True Fun into our daily lives--without feeling overwhelmed.

With lush illustrations and buoyant prose, Venessa Vida Kelley blends historical fantasy with epic romance at the turn of the 20th century in this unforgettable New York fairytale of queer identity and found family. Benigno “Benny” Caldera knows an orphaned Boricua blacksmith in 1910s New York City can’t call himself an artist. But the ironwork tank he creates for famed Coney Island playground, Luna Park, astounds everyone, especially the eccentric sideshow proprietor who commissioned it. Benny’s work earns him an invitation to join the show’s eclectic crew of performers—his first welcome in the city—and share in their astonishing secret: the tank Benny built is a cage for their newest exhibit, a living, breathing, in-the-flesh merman stolen from the banks of the East River under a gleaming full moon. The merman is more than a mythic marvel, though. Benny comes to know Río as a clever philosopher, an observant traveler, and a kindred spirit more beautiful and compassionate than any human he’s ever met. Despite their different worlds, what begins as a friendship of necessity deepens to love, leading Benny’s heart into uncharted waters where he can no longer ignore the agonizing truth of Río’s captivity—and his own. A cage is no place for a merman to survive. Though releasing Río means betraying his new family, bankrupting their home, and losing his soulmate forever, Benny must look within for the courage to do what’s right, and find a love strong enough to free them both.

The pioneering novel of physical disability, transatlantic travel, and black international politics. A vital document of black modernism and one of the earliest overtly queer fictions in the African American tradition. Published for the first time. Buried in the archive for almost ninety years, Claude McKay's Romance in Marseille traces the adventures of a rowdy troupe of dockworkers, prostitutes, and political organizers--collectively straight and queer, disabled and able-bodied, African, European, Caribbean, and American. Set largely in the culture-blending Vieux Port of Marseille at the height of the Jazz Age, the novel takes flight along with Lafala, an acutely disabled but abruptly wealthy West African sailor. While stowing away on a transatlantic freighter, Lafala is discovered and locked in a frigid closet. Badly frostbitten by the time the boat docks, the once-nimble dancer loses both of his lower legs, emerging from life-saving surgery as what he terms "an amputated man." Thanks to an improbably successful lawsuit against the shipping line, however, Lafala scores big in the litigious United States. Feeling flush after his legal payout, Lafala doubles back to Marseille and resumes his trans-African affair with Aslima, a Moroccan courtesan. With its scenes of black bodies fighting for pleasure and liberty even when stolen, shipped, and sold for parts, McKay's novel explores the heritage of slavery amid an unforgiving modern economy. This first-ever edition of Romance in Marseille includes an introduction by McKay scholars Gary Edward Holcomb and William J. Maxwell that places the novel within both the "stowaway era" of black cultural politics and McKay's challenging career as a star and skeptic of the Harlem Renaissance.

Selected as an Evening Standard 'one to watch in 2023' It's the early 1990s, and in the Irish village of Crossmore, Lucy feels out of place. Despite her fierce friendships, she's always felt this way, and the conventional path of marriage and motherhood doesn't appeal to her at all. Not even with handsome and doting Martin, her closest childhood friend. Lucy begins to make sense of herself during a long hot summer, when a spark with her school friend Susannah escalates to an all-consuming infatuation, and, very quickly, to a desperate and devastating love. Fearful of rejection from her small and conservative community, Lucy begins living a double life, hiding the most honest parts of herself in stolen moments with Susannah. But with the end of school and the opportunity to leave Crossmore looming, Lucy must choose between two places, two people and two futures, each as terrifying as the other. But only one can offer her real happiness. Sunburn is an astute and tender portrayal of first love, adolescent anxiety and the realities of growing up in a small town where tradition holds people tightly in its grasp.