Nineteen year old Paula rubbed the mosquito bite she'd gotten at a family picnic. She expected it would go away in a day or two.But by the end of the week she lay in a coma, paralyzed from the waist down with a doctor's dire prognosis mapping out a bedridden future of hopelessness.Plucky Paula refused to accept life on these terms. She had two weapons at her disposal to defeat the enemy seeking to rob her of all she'd dreamed of in life: A praying parent and an unwavering resolve to persevere until victory was won!"I'm no victim. I will walk again. My life will be full. Failure is not an option!"

This acclaimed graphic memoir that Kirkus calls “cathartic and uplifting” is the tale of losing a parent and what it feels like to grieve and to move forward. “I can’t recommend this kind, funny, and poignant memoir enough. It’s an intimate, life-affirming story of resilience that feels like a good friend.” —Mari Andrew, author of Am I There Yet? Tyler Feder had just white-knuckled her way through her first year of college when her super cool mom was diagnosed with late-stage cancer. Now, with a decade of grief and nervous laughter under her belt, Tyler shares the story of that gut-wrenching, heart-pounding, extremely awkward time in her life—from her mom’s first oncology appointment to her funeral through the beginning of facing reality as a motherless daughter. She shares the sting of loss that never goes away, the uncomfortable post-death firsts, and the deep-down, hard-to-talk-about feelings of the grieving process. Dancing at the Pity Party is a frank and refreshingly funny look at what it’s like to grieve—for anyone struggling with loss who just wants someone to get it.

Discover an "absurd, funny, and thought-provoking" book perfect for "anyone who has ever felt socially awkward or inadequate" (Louis Sachar, author of Holes and the Wayside School series). Dear weird toes, crooked nose, stressed out, left out, freaked out Dear missing parts, broken hearts, picked-on, passed up, misunderstood, Dear everyone, you are cordially invited, come as you are, this party's for you Welcome to Pity Party, where the social anxieties that plague us all are twisted into funny, deeply resonant, and ultimately reassuring psychological thrills. There's a story about a mood ring that tells the absolute truth. One about social media followers who literally follow you around. And one about a kid whose wish for a new, improved self is answered when a mysterious box arrives in the mail. There's also a personality test, a fortune teller, a letter from the Department of Insecurity, and an interactive Choose Your Own Catastrophe. Come to the party for a grab bag of delightfully dark stories that ultimately offers a life-affirming reminder that there is hope and humor to be found amid our misery.

June Hall is a remarkable person. Her down-to-earth advice has been the cornerstone of her nationally distributed newspaper column, and her words have inspired and comforted millions of loyal readers every day.

“A sensitive look at the social and political barriers that deny disabled people their most basic civil rights.”—The Washington Post “The primer for a revolution.”—The Chicago Tribune “Nondisabled Americans do not understand disabled ones. This book attempts to explain, to nondisabled people as well as to many disabled ones, how the world and self-perceptions of disabled people are changing. It looks at the rise of what is called the disability rights movement—the new thinking by disabled people that there is no pity or tragedy in disability and that it is society’s myths, fears, and stereotypes that most make being disabled difficult.”—from the Introduction

When liberals don't have reason, authority, or the American people on their side, they turn to the one thing they never run out of: Pity. For decades, conservatives have chafed at being called "heartless" and "uncaring" by liberals who maintain that our essential choice as a nation is between the politics of kindness and the politics of cruelty. In The Pity Party, political scientist William Voegeli turns the tables on this argument, making the case that "compassion" is neither the essence of personal virtue nor the ultimate purpose of government. Over the years, liberals have built a remarkable edifice of government programs that are justified by appeals to compassion: Head Start, immigration reform, gun control, affirmative action, and entitlements, to name only some. As Voegeli amply demonstrates, the liberals who promote these massive programs are weirdly indifferent as to whether they succeed. Instead, when the problems they are intended to solve fail to disappear, liberals double down, calling for yet more programs and ever greater expenditures in the name of "compassion." Meanwhile, conservatives who challenge the effectiveness of these programs are slandered as "heartless right-wingers." Yet rather than challenge this tendentious liberal argument, the many conservatives it intimidates feel it necessary to insist that they really do "care." However, liberal compassion's good intentions consistently fail to translate into good results. Voegeli walks the reader through a plethora of programs that have become battlefields between conservatives fighting for more efficiency and liberals fighting for more budget-busting federal programs to address an ever-expanding catalog of social ills. Along the way, he explains the underpinnings of the liberal philosophy that reinforce this misapplied ideal and shows why today's self-described compassionate liberals are ultimately unfit to govern.

When the Bride finally learns to say No… Outing her cheating fiancé in the middle of her marriage ceremony was not how Deanne Harrison planned to spend her day as a bride. Worse, when the evening ends with Deanne sharing a perfect kiss with the handsome stranger, Sean. Since that fateful day, Deanne’s life has become a disaster. When all she wants is to ride out her Honeymoon of Hurt and hide in her cotton-wool-world of sameness, free from men forever. That is until Sean tracks her down…

“Angela Balcita's love story takes a couple of artsy wanderers off the road and into the bright, scary world of transplants, dialysis, and neonatal intensive care.” —Marion Winik, author of The Glen Rock Book of the Dead From the pages of the New York Times’ Modern Love column comes one woman’s moving and uproarious story of how love and laughter rescued her from life-threatening illness. Angela Balcita’s cathartic memoir of finding love while wrestling with kidney failure will strike a chord with anyone yearning for a poignant, true-to-life romance…with a real fairy tale ending.

'What a read!' MARIAN KEYES 'Deeply moving and very funny...I loved it' LOUISE O'NEILL 'The funniest book you'll read this year' LAUREN BRAVO Katherine lives by the rules, ticks all the boxes and prepares for the worst, even while she hopes for the best. Then the worst actually happens and, as she tries to navigate life as a young widow, it turns out she was not prepared at all. Nothing scares Katherine more than stopping, but everyone insists she needs to take some time for herself. Head to a wellness retreat, they said. Enjoy some me-time, they said... Except this retreat isn't the pity party she was hoping for. Instead of massages, she has erotic meditation, and instead of spa treatments she has scream therapy. Katherine has never lost control in her life. In fact, she's fairly certain that if she starts screaming she might never stop. But she's about to let go, and everyone had better stand back... Hilarious, heartbreaking and honest, this is a story about learning how to stop playing it safe in a world that feels so dangerous - and showing up to the party, even when it feels impossible. *** 'Thought-provoking, charming, cathartic and hilariously vivid' SARAH KNIGHT 'Hilarious, moving and unexpected' REBECCA WAIT 'A standout novel - heartbreaking, observant, deeply relatable and impossibly funny' ROSIE WALSH 'Pity Party is perfection' LINDSEY KELK 'Unbelievably good' LUCY VINE 'I laughed, I cried, I screamed, I devoured every page... a laugh-out-loud balm' NIKKI MAY 'Daisy Buchanan makes me laugh out loud' KATHERINE HEINY 'Wonderfully funny. Her best book yet' NINA STIBBE 'Crackling with energy, humour, warmth, and quirk' JENNY MUSTARD 'Every line in this book is a wonder' CAROLINE CORCORAN 'Moving, funny and wise all at once' KATE RIORDAN 'Smart, sexy, and will grab hold of your heart' JADE BEER 'Nobody writes about the messiness of life like Daisy' JULIE OWEN MOYLAN 'Gloriously readable...I tore through it!' MARINA O'LOUGHLIN 'Original, moving and totally addictive' ROXY BOURDILLON

Ryan Knighton's humorous and perceptive tales of fatherhood take us inside an unusual new family, one bound by its father's particular darkness and light. C'mon Papa is Ryan Knighton's heartbreaking and hilarious voyage through the first year of fatherhood. Becoming a father is a stressful, daunting rite of passage to be sure, but for a blind father, the fears are unimaginably heightened. Ryan will have to find novel ways to adapt to nearly every aspect of parenting: the most basic skills are nearly impossible to contemplate, let alone master. And how will Ryan get to know this pre-verbal bundle of coos and burps when he can't see her smile, or look into her eyes for hints of the person to come? But this is no pity party, and Ryan has no time for sentimentality. Tackling these hurdles with grace and humour, Ryan is determined to do his part - and this is where the fun starts. From holding his daughter as she wails into the night to their first nerve-wracking walk to the cafe, no activity between father and daughter is without its pitfalls. In his struggle to "see" Tess, Ryan reimagines the relationship between father and child during that first chaotic year.