The last thing Iris needs is a man with his head in the clouds. Most days Iris can’t believe that she actually left her home and country for a smooth-talking jerk who tossed her into the street first chance he got. A woman has to view that sort of thing as life lesson. Her mum raised her to be a survivor, and that includes understanding her worst enemy is herself when it comes to good-looking men. Besides… nice men don’t date broke women staying at hostels. And Lincoln Walker seems to be a very, very nice man. He has a growing list of rich, beautiful, and successful business women wanting to date him. Iris calls tending bar a career. They couldn’t be any less suited for each other. Imagine Cinderella never getting to the ball. Then imagine her turning forty and still scrubbing fireplaces for a living. That would be the fairytale version of Iris’s life. She’s got no time to waste on dating Prince Charming—or rather, Prince Walker. The man owns his own urban kingdom and yet chooses to fly balloons for a living. Iris, on the other hand, chooses to take down rowdy drunks in bars. Cupid better not shoot an arrow her way or she’ll take him down too. In her life, love and romance are temporary. That’s all Iris can afford.

Most people believe that they were either benefited or at least not harmed by being brought into existence. David Benatar presents a startling challenge to these assumptions. He argues that people systematically overestimate the quality of their life, and suffer quite serious harms by coming into existence.

"She didn't believe in love until a real-life Peter Pan stole her heart"--Front cover.

The author, a computer science professor diagnosed with terminal cancer, explores his life, the lessons that he has learned, how he has worked to achieve his childhood dreams, and the effect of his diagnosis on him and his family.

The new man in her life calls her Amazing Grace. Grace Under Fire is more like it. Grace Ward-Adams only ever loved one man. When Vance left her for a younger woman, their divorce felt like death to her. Now the only man she'd ever loved is dead for real and she's so mad at him she could scream. Not that Grace had been pining for Vance the entire decade that had passed because she hasn't been. She married twice after him... and divorced twice too. Yes, Vance's death had stunned her. The video he left stunned her too. How could Vance ask her to help the other discarded women in his life get over him? Two members of his harem were young enough to be her daughters. It was utterly selfish of him to ask such a thing and to make their inheritance her problem. She didn't need his millions. Grace felt like digging Vance up and shaking him until he died again. Her plan to get revenge is currently circling the drain as well. Dating the so-called "grief expert" his estate hired was supposed to be a joke where she got the last laugh. It turns out, though, that falling in love again isn't funny at all.

*Named Book of the Week by Maria Shriver’s The Sunday Paper* “If you’ve spent the last couple years untangling yourself from Hustle Culture, and trying to find who you are outside of your achievements and productivity, then we've got just the book for you. Fans of Untamed, this is your next favorite read.” —POPSUGAR “I’ve fallen in love with Jamie’s words and how she so effortlessly can make us feel united with them. She has a true gift of helping us realize that all of our ‘human’ moments are what make us so special. She is a real light in this world.” —Lucy Hale, Award-Winning Actress from Pretty Little Liars, The Hating Game, and more Blending memoir, sharp social insights, and unique practical tools, author Jamie Varon is your guide to radical contentment—a satisfied life outside the bounds of societal expectations. Too many of us are waiting for our lives to begin, putting our happiness on layaway for some future version where it all lines up, when we’ve accomplished it all, when we have the perfect career, bodies, partners, and when our lives finally feel “good enough.” But what is good enough? Who gets to decide? And when do we ever reach it? Jamie takes a sharp, incisive look at the industries that are constantly telling us to do more, be more, and keep striving, pushing, and hustling—and shows you how to radically opt out of societal conditioning. We’ve learned to be terrified of contentment, thinking it will lead us to complacency. Yet, being content in a world that profits off our dissatisfaction is not complacency. It’s revolutionary. Radically Content makes the case for a new framework of living. Exploring themes like guilt, I’ll be happy when…, anxiety, settling, control, healing, shame, self-trust, and being our own worst enemies—not only will you unlearn the dogma of that discontent, but learn practical tools to create a more satisfied life for yourself, including: Cultivating real self-trust Defining your own version of “success” Living with intention Rewriting your personal narrative Creating consistent and healing rituals Packed with revelatory insights, Radically Content is an exhale. A respite from the chaos of our current world. A calm place to land when you’ve had enough with trying to be enough.

Argues strongly for the need for abortion law reform right across the country - so that the tragedies of the past and the tragedy of the present can never occur again. Never, ever, again.

Three Lives Three short stories comprise Gertrude Stein’s first significant work, each a psychological portrait of a different woman. “The Good Anna” is a kindly but domineering German servant. “The Gentle Lena” apathetically endures her miserable life until she dies in childbirth. “Melanctha” is a young Black woman learning about sexuality and love. Different as they may be, all three women are bound by poverty—and all three face the restrictions of class, race, and sex with resignation. Tender Buttons Stein spoke of maintaining a “continuous present,” comprised of “moments of consciousness,” independent of time and memory. Nowhere is this more clear than in her prose poems Tender Buttons. Their repetitive sentences, juxtaposition of sounds, and simple language connote this continuous presence. To live in this state is “to begin again and again,” to “use everything.” Each of the three sections, “Objects,” “Food,” and “Rooms,” employs both this repetition and disjointed words to build images. Prose poetry at its most abstract expression, Tender Buttons “is to writing…what cubism is to art.” (W.G. Rogers)

National Theatre Connections 2024 draws together ten new plays for young people to perform, from some of the UK's most exciting and popular playwrights. These are plays for a generation of theatre-makers who want to ask questions, challenge assertions and test the boundaries, and for those who love to invent and imagine a world of possibilities. The plays offer young performers an engaging and diverse range of material to perform, read or study. Touching on themes like trans-rights, the mental health crisis, colonial history, disability activism, and climate change, the collection provides topical, pressing subject matter for students to explore in their performance. This 2024 anthology represents the full set of ten plays offered by the National Theatre 2024 Festival (eight brand-new plays, and two returning favourites), as well as comprehensive workshop notes that give insights and inspiration for building characters, running rehearsals and staging a production.

The Box tells the story of Rupert and Lucille; their lives, loves, families, achievements, and failures. Lucille is the last child born to a family of generationally poor dirt farmers, while Rupert is the only child born to multi-billionaire parents. Rupert and Lucille’s paths cross due to a confluence of seemingly random events, and, as their business relationship grows, so do their friendship, love, and respect grow for each other. The Box tells how a simple invention has the potential to transform not only their two lives, but the story tells how the invention has the potential to change the lives of thousands of people. Where does it all lead though? Does the invention lead to the good that Rupert first envisioned? Does the invention help Lucille out of her generational poverty? Does the invention help anybody? Or, is the old adage that says, “No good deed goes unpunished,” really true?