Diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2008, Susan Gubar underwent radical debulking surgery, an attempt to excise the cancer by removing part or all of many organs in the lower abdomen. Her memoir mines the deepest levels of anguish and devotion as she struggles to come to terms with her body’s betrayal and the frightful protocols of contemporary medicine. She finds solace in the abiding love of her husband, children, and friends while she searches for understanding in works of literature, visual art, and the testimonies of others who suffer from various forms of cancer. Ovarian cancer remains an incurable disease for most of those diagnosed, even those lucky enough to find caring and skilled physicians. Memoir of a Debulked Woman is both a polemic against the ineffectual and injurious medical responses to which thousands of women are subjected and a meditation on the gifts of companionship, art, and literature that sustain people in need.

For any woman who has experienced illness, chronic pain, or endometriosis comes an inspiring memoir advocating for recognition of women's health issuesIn the fall of 2010, Abby Norman's strong dancer's body dropped forty pounds and gray hairs began to sprout from her temples. She was repeatedly hospitalized in excruciating pain, but the doctors insisted it was a urinary tract infection and sent her home with antibiotics. Unable to get out of bed, much less attend class, Norman dropped out of college and embarked on what would become a years-long journey to discover what was wrong with her. It wasn't until she took matters into her own hands--securing a job in a hospital and educating herself over lunchtime reading in the medical library--that she found an accurate diagnosis of endometriosis.In Ask Me About My Uterus, Norman describes what it was like to have her pain dismissed, to be told it was all in her head, only to be taken seriously when she was accompanied by a boyfriend who confirmed that her sexual performance was, indeed, compromised. Putting her own trials into a broader historical, sociocultural, and political context, Norman shows that women's bodies have long been the battleground of a never-ending war for power, control, medical knowledge, and truth. It's time to refute the belief that being a woman is a preexisting condition.

The study of sexual physiology - what happens, and why, and how to make it happen better - has been a paying career or a diverting sideline for scientists as far-ranging as Leonardo da Vinci and James Watson. The research has taken place behind the closed doors of laboratories, brothels, MRI centers, pig farms, sex-toy R&D labs, and Alfred Kinsey's attic. Mary Roach, "The funniest science writer in the country" (Burkhard Bilger of The New Yorker), devoted the past two years to stepping behind those doors. Can a person think herself to orgasm? Can a dead man get an erection? Is vaginal orgasm a myth? Why doesn't Viagra help women - or, for that matter, pandas? In Bonk, Roach shows us how and why sexual arousal and orgasm - two of the most complex, delightful, and amazing scientific phenomena on earth - can be so hard to achieve and what science is doing to slowly make the bedroom a more satisfying place.

The accomplishments of pioneering doctors such as John Peter Mettauer, James Marion Sims, and Nathan Bozeman are well documented. It is also no secret that these nineteenth-century gynecologists performed experimental caesarean sections, ovariotomies, and obstetric fistula repairs primarily on poor and powerless women. Medical Bondage breaks new ground by exploring how and why physicians denied these women their full humanity yet valued them as "medical superbodies" highly suited for medical experimentation. In Medical Bondage, Cooper Owens examines a wide range of scientific literature and less formal communications in which gynecologists created and disseminated medical fictions about their patients, such as their belief that black enslaved women could withstand pain better than white "ladies." Even as they were advancing medicine, these doctors were legitimizing, for decades to come, groundless theories related to whiteness and blackness, men and women, and the inferiority of other races or nationalities. Medical Bondage moves between southern plantations and northern urban centers to reveal how nineteenth-century American ideas about race, health, and status influenced doctor-patient relationships in sites of healing like slave cabins, medical colleges, and hospitals. It also retells the story of black enslaved women and of Irish immigrant women from the perspective of these exploited groups and thus restores for us a picture of their lives.

From award-winning novelist and journalist Omar El Akkad comes a powerful reckoning with what it means to live in the heart of an Empire which doesn’t consider you fully human.On Oct 25th, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet: “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.” This tweet was viewed over 10 million times. One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This chronicles the deep fracture which has occurred for Black, brown, indigenous Americans, as well as the upcoming generation, many of whom had clung to a thread of faith in western ideals, in the idea that their countries, or the countries of their adoption, actually attempted to live up to the values they espouse. This book is a reckoning with what it means to live in the west, and what it means to live in a world run by a small group of countries—America, the UK, France and Germany.  It will be The Fire Next Time for a generation that understands we’re undergoing a shift in the so-called ‘rules-based order,’ a generation that understands the west can no longer be trusted to police and guide the world, or its own cities and campuses. It draws on intimate details of Omar’s own story as an emigrant who grew up believing in the western project, who was catapulted into journalism by the rupture of 9/11. This book is his heartsick breakup letter with the west. It is a breakup we are watching all over the U.S., on college campuses, on city streets, and the consequences of this rupture will be felt by all of us. His book is for all the people who want something better than what the west has served up. This is the book for our time.

Beloved, best-selling science writer Mary Roach’s classic, now with a new epilogue. For two thousand years, cadavers—some willingly, some unwittingly—have been involved in science’s boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. They’ve tested France’s first guillotines, ridden the NASA Space Shuttle, been crucified in a Parisian laboratory to test the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, and helped solve the mystery of TWA Flight 800. For every new surgical procedure, from heart transplants to gender confirmation surgery, cadavers have helped make history in their quiet way. Stiff investigates the strange lives of our bodies postmortem and answers the question: What should we do after we die?

The Bluest Eye is Toni Morrison's first novel, a book heralded for its richness of language and boldness of vision. Set in the author's girlhood hometown of Lorain, Ohio, it tells the story of black, eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove. Pecola prays for her eyes to turn blue so that she will be as beautiful and beloved as all the blond, blue-eyed children in America. In the autumn of 1941, the year the marigolds in the Breedloves' garden do not bloom. Pecola's life does change—in painful, devastating ways. With its vivid evocation of the fear and loneliness at the heart of a child's yearning, and the tragedy of its fulfillment. The Bluest Eye remains one of Toni Morrison's most powerful, unforgettable novels- and a significant work of American fiction.

Two competing meteorologists are forced to find common ground in this opposites attract, When Harry Met Sally inspired romance, from New York Times bestselling author B.K. Borison. Jackson Clark and Delilah Stewart have had their fair share of run-ins over the years, often ending in disaster. While Jackson thrives on routine and organization from the comfort of his radio booth, Delilah loves the spontaneity and adventure out in the field. When they’re partnered against their will to cover the snowstorm of the century, they find themselves scrambling to figure out how to work together. Eager to be taken seriously as a journalist, Delilah offers Jackson a deal. If he can help her ace this assignment, she’ll help him rediscover his long-lost fun side. With an undiscovered chemistry burning beneath their clashes, the unlikely partnership quickly tumbles into an easy and surprising friendship. But when other feelings start to enter the equation, can Jackson and Delilah withstand the storm? Or does what happens in the mountains, stay in the mountains?

From bestselling author Meagan Church comes a haunting exploration of identity, motherhood, and the suffocating grip of societal expectations that will leave you questioning the lives we build―and the lies we live.  They called it hysteria. She called it survival. Lulu Mayfield has spent the last five years molding herself into the perfect 1950s housewife. Despite the tragic memories that haunt her and the weight of exhausting expectations, she keeps her husband happy, her household running, and her gelatin salads the talk of the neighborhood. But after she gives birth to her second child, Lulu's carefully crafted life begins to unravel. When a new neighbor, Bitsy, moves in, Lulu suspects that something darker lurks behind the woman's constant smile. As her fixation on Bitsy deepens, Lulu is drawn into a web of unsettling truths that threaten to expose the cracks in her own life. The more she uncovers about Bitsy, the more she questions everything she thought she knew―and soon, others begin questioning her sanity. But is Lulu truly losing her mind? Or is she on the verge of discovering a reality too terrifying to accept? In the vein of The Bell Jar and The Hours, The Mad Wife weaves domestic drama with psychological suspense, so poignant and immersive, you won't want to put it down.

Nothing brings people together like a common enemy, and witches were the greatest enemy of all. Scotland, 1563: Crops failed. People starved. And the Devil's influence was stronger than ever—at least, that's what everyone believed. If you were a woman living in Scotland during this turbulent time, there was a very good chance that you, or someone you knew, would be tried as a witch. During the chaos of the Reformation, violence against women was codified for the first time in the Witchcraft Act—a tool of theocratic control with one chilling to root out witches and rid the land of evil. What followed was a dark and misogynistic chapter in history that fanned the flames of witch hunts across the globe, including in the United States and beyond. In How to Kill a Witch, Zoe Venditozzi and Claire Mitchell, hosts of the popular Witches of Scotland podcast, unravel the grim yet absurdly bureaucratic process of identifying, accusing, trying, and executing women as witches. With sharp wit and keen feminist insight, they reveal the inner workings of a patriarchal system designed to weaponize fear and oppress women. This captivating (and often infuriating) account, which weaves a rich tapestry of trial transcripts, witness accounts, and the documents that set the legal grounds for the witch hunts, exposes how this violent period of history mirrors today's struggles for justice and equality. How to Kill a Witch is a powerful, darkly humorous reminder of the dangers of superstition, bias, and ignorance, and a warning to never forget the past… while raising the question of whether it could ever happen again.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Rinnavation and The Big Fun Sexy Sex Book comes the first memoir from beloved actress, Housewife, and pop culture icon, Lisa Rinna. From her career, to her personal life, to spilling all the tea. If she’s experienced it... you better believe she’s gonna talk about it! “This mouth has gotten me in so much trouble.” —Lisa Rinna For decades, Lisa Rinna has been captivating audiences—whether as a soap opera icon, reality TV powerhouse, fearless social media provocateur or slaying in haute couture down the catwalks of Paris. But even though she’s always said it like she means it, there’s still so much more to the woman whose lips launched a thousand memes. In You Better Believe I’m Gonna Talk About It, Lisa peels back the curtain on her rollercoaster career and her unapologetic approach to life, dishing on the highs, the lows, and the “did-she-really-just-say-that?” moments that made her a household name. Yes, she’s spilling all the tea from the soundstages of Days of Our Lives to the drama of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, but she’s also opening up about what it means to grow older in an industry obsessed with youth, the lessons she’s learned about reinvention, parenting a daughter with a chronic illness, keeping her well-documented marriage alive and healthy, and being forced to grieve in public after the loss of her mother and beloved Beverly Hills fan favorite, Lois. Bold, brash, refreshingly honest, and told with her signature wit and candor, You Better Believe I’m Gonna Talk About It is the story of a woman who understands that you go the furthest by playing by your own rules. It’s the story of a woman who realizes aging is just a chance at a new chapter. It’s the story of a Hollywood icon who refuses to let the world script her story for her. And she’s owning every bit of it, baby!

From the New York Times bestselling author of Rinnavation and The Big Fun Sexy Sex Book comes the first memoir from beloved actress, Housewife, and pop culture icon, Lisa Rinna. From her career, to her personal life, to spilling all the tea. If she’s experienced it... you better believe she’s gonna talk about it! “This mouth has gotten me in so much trouble.” —Lisa Rinna For decades, Lisa Rinna has been captivating audiences—whether as a soap opera icon, reality TV powerhouse, fearless social media provocateur or slaying in haute couture down the catwalks of Paris. But even though she’s always said it like she means it, there’s still so much more to the woman whose lips launched a thousand memes. In You Better Believe I’m Gonna Talk About It, Lisa peels back the curtain on her rollercoaster career and her unapologetic approach to life, dishing on the highs, the lows, and the “did-she-really-just-say-that?” moments that made her a household name. Yes, she’s spilling all the tea from the soundstages of Days of Our Lives to the drama of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, but she’s also opening up about what it means to grow older in an industry obsessed with youth, the lessons she’s learned about reinvention, parenting a daughter with a chronic illness, keeping her well-documented marriage alive and healthy, and being forced to grieve in public after the loss of her mother and beloved Beverly Hills fan favorite, Lois. Bold, brash, refreshingly honest, and told with her signature wit and candor, You Better Believe I’m Gonna Talk About It is the story of a woman who understands that you go the furthest by playing by your own rules. It’s the story of a woman who realizes aging is just a chance at a new chapter. It’s the story of a Hollywood icon who refuses to let the world script her story for her. And she’s owning every bit of it, baby!

He placed a notice in a Chicago paper, an advertisement for "a reliable wife." She responded, saying that she was "a simple, honest woman." She was, of course, anything but honest, and the only simple thing about her was her single-minded determination to marry this man and then kill him, slowly and carefully, leaving her a wealthy widow, able to take care of the one she truly loved. What Catherine Land did not realize was that the enigmatic and lonely Ralph Truitt had a plan of his own. And what neither anticipated was that they would fall so completely in love. Filled with unforgettable characters, and shimmering with color and atmosphere, A Reliable Wife is an enthralling tale of love and madness, of longing and murder.