10 stories about odd encounters and personal exploration: A young man in search of meaning connects with his dead girlfriend's son. A group of men in Wisconsin start a poetry group while waiting for their favorite bar to be rebuilt. A woman discovers her husband has been hiding a secret. He also wants to rob a bank. A basketball player continually relives the last six seconds of his worst game. An amateur chess player encounters greatness. A girl attempts to leave a small town. But before she goes, she learns the story of one who stayed.

A dazzling debut collection of raw and explosive poems about growing up in a sexist, sensationalized world, from a thrilling new feminist voice. i’m a good girl, bad girl, dream girl, sad girl girl next door sunbathing in the driveway i wanna be them all at once, i wanna be all the girls I’ve ever loved —from “Girl” Lauded for the power of her writing and having attracted an online fan base of millions for her extraordinary spoken-word performances, Olivia Gatwood now weaves together her own coming-of-age with an investigation into our culture’s romanticization of violence against women. At times blistering and riotous, at times soulful and exuberant, Life of the Party explores the boundary between what is real and what is imagined in a life saturated with fear. Gatwood asks, How does a girl grow into a woman in a world racked by violence? Where is the line between perpetrator and victim? In precise, searing language, she illustrates how what happens to our bodies can make us who we are. Praise for Life of the Party “Delicately devastating, this book will make us all ‘feel less alone in the dark.’ ”—Miel Bredouw, writer and comedian, Punch Up the Jam “Gatwood writes about the women who were forgotten and the men who got off too easy with an effortlessness and empathy and anger that yanked every emotion on the spectrum out of me. Imagine, we get to live in the age of Olivia Gatwood. Goddamn.”—Jamie Loftus, writer and comedian, Boss Whom Is Girl and The Bechdel Cast “I’ve read every poem in Life of the Party. I’ve read each of them more than once. In some parts of the book the spine is already breaking because I’ve spent so much time poring over it and losing hours in this world Olivia Gatwood has partly created, but partly just invited the reader to enter on their own, caution signs be damned. This book is enlightening, inspiring, igniting, and f***ing scary. I loved every word on every page with a ferocity that frightened me.”—Madeline Brewer, actress, The Handmaid’s Tale, Orange Is the New Black, and Cam

The author seems to hold the "master word" that calls the people of fairyland and all the realms of fancy. With it he gathers at Miss Muffet's party all the children's favorites: Alice and her Friends from Wonderland, Sinbad the Sailor and the Forty Thieves, Mowgli and Bagheera, Rollo, Uncle Remus, Grimm's company, Hans Christian Andersen's heroes, and many others.

Praised by fan favorites including Hoda Kotb, Kim & Khloe Kardashian, and Jimmy Fallon! Inspired by the eagerly awaited birth of her daughter, Kaavia James Union Wade, New York Times bestselling author and award-winning actress Gabrielle Union pens a festive and universal love letter from parents to little ones, perfect for welcoming a baby to the party of life! Reminiscent of favorites such as The Wonderful Things You’ll Be by Emily Winfield Martin, I’ve Loved You Since Forever by Hoda Kotb, and Take Heart, My Child by Ainsley Earhardt, Welcome to the Party is an upbeat celebration of new life that you’ll want to enjoy with your tiny guest of honor over and over again. A great gift for all occasions, especially Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, baby showers, and birthdays.

Return to Burracombe in this warm and charming prequel to Lilian Harry's Burracombe series and journey back to where it all began . . . Devon, 1943. In the village of Burracombe, 'Dig for Victory' is more than just a wartime slogan. While the young men are away, everyone at home knows the war effort needs them too. Whether it's Land Girls on the farms, wives and mothers having to make do and mend, or the villagers knowing how to stretch rations to keep spirits bright, there is always something to be done to help. When the Barton is requisitioned as a children's home for war orphans, all of Burracombe rallies round to welcome their newest arrivals, particularly little Maddy Simmons. Still reeling from losing her mother and brother in the Plymouth blitz, and her father being killed at sea, now in a cruel twist, Maddy has been sent to a different children's home to her beloved sister. As Maddy explores the village and makes new friends, she begins to feel at home and realises that Burracombe is the kind of place where you will always have someone to turn to, even when times are hard. Could this be somewhere she could finally call home? This heart-warming story gives a different perspective to the village as it adapts to the struggles of wartime and explores the story of a much-loved character in the wonderful Burracombe series.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER A charmingly relatable and wise memoir-in-essays by acclaimed writer and bookseller Mary Laura Philpott, “the modern day reincarnation of…Nora Ephron, Erma Bombeck, Jean Kerr, and Laurie Colwin—all rolled into one” (The Washington Post), about what happened after she checked off all the boxes on a successful life’s to-do list and realized she might need to reinvent the list—and herself. Mary Laura Philpott thought she’d cracked the code: Always be right, and you’ll always be happy. But once she’d completed her life’s to-do list (job, spouse, house, babies—check!), she found that instead of feeling content and successful, she felt anxious. Lost. Stuck in a daily grind of overflowing calendars, grueling small talk, and sprawling traffic. She’d done everything “right” but still felt all wrong. What’s the worse failure, she wondered: smiling and staying the course, or blowing it all up and running away? And are those the only options? Taking on the conflicting pressures of modern adulthood, Philpott provides a “frank and funny look at what happens when, in the midst of a tidy life, there occur impossible-to-ignore tugs toward creativity, meaning, and the possibility of something more” (Southern Living). She offers up her own stories to show that identity crises don’t happen just once or only at midlife and reassures us that small, recurring personal re-inventions are both normal and necessary. Most of all, in this “warm embrace of a life lived imperfectly” (Esquire), Philpott shows that when you stop feeling satisfied with your life, you don’t have to burn it all down. You can call upon your many selves to figure out who you are, who you’re not, and where you belong. Who among us isn’t trying to do that? “Be forewarned that you’ll laugh out loud and cry, probably in the same essay. Philpott has a wonderful way of finding humor, even in darker moments. This is a book you’ll want to buy for yourself and every other woman you know” (Real Simple).