This thinking man's meditation on marriage and its discontents is an eloquentexploration of the temperament of modern manhood.

From the international bestselling author of Black, White, and Jewish comes a "wonderfully insightful" (Associated Press) book that's destined to become a motherhood classic. Now in trade. Like many women her age, thirty-four-year-old Rebecca Walker was brought up to be skeptical of motherhood. As an adult she longed for a baby but feared losing her independence. In this very smart memoir, Walker explores some of the larger sociological trends of her generation while delivering her own story about the emotional and intellectual transformation that led her to motherhood.

In paperback at last: Rivka Galchen’s beloved baby bible—slyly hilarious, surprising, and absolutely essential reading for anyone who has ever had, held, or been a baby In this enchanting miscellany, Galchen notes that literature has more dogs than babies (and also more abortions), that the tally of children for many great women writers—Jane Bowles, Elizabeth Bishop, Virginia Woolf, Janet Frame, Willa Cather, Patricia Highsmith, Iris Murdoch, Djuna Barnes, Mavis Gallant—is zero, that orange is the new baby pink, that The Tale of Genji has no plot but plenty of drama about paternity, that babies exude an intoxicating black magic, and that a baby is a goldmine.

In this timely, insightful, and darkly funny investigation, the acclaimed author of Against Love asks: what does living in dystopic times do to our ability to love each other and the world? COVID-19 has produced new taxonomies of love, intimacy, and vulnerability. Will its cultural afterlife be as lasting as that of HIV, which reshaped consciousness about sex and love even after AIDS itself had been beaten back by medical science? Will COVID end up making us more relationally conservative, as some think HIV did within gay culture? Will it send us fleeing into emotional silos or coupled cocoons, despite the fact that, pre-COVID, domestic coupledom had been steadily losing fans? Just as COVID revealed our nation to itself, so did it hold a mirror up to our relationships. In Love in the Time of Contagion, Laura Kipnis weaves (often hilariously) her own (ambivalent) coupled lockdown experiences together with those of others and sets them against a larger backdrop: the politics of the virus, economic disparities, changing gender relations, and the ongoing institutional crack-ups prompted by #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, mapping their effects on the everyday routines and occasional solaces of love and sex.

“An immersive, heartbreaking story about war, passion, and the road not taken.” — People "One of the most beautiful and moving love stories you’ll read this year." — Nylon Magazine NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • The New York Post • Vulture • Real Simple • Bustle • Nylon • Thrillist • Mental Floss • Self magazine • Booklist • Refinery 29 An emotionally riveting debut novel about war, family, and forbidden love—the unforgettable saga of two ill-fated lovers in Korea and the heartbreaking choices they’re forced to make in the years surrounding the civil war that still haunts us today. When the communist-backed army from the north invades her home, sixteen-year-old Haemi Lee, along with her widowed mother and ailing brother, is forced to flee to a refugee camp along the coast. For a few hours each night, she escapes her family’s makeshift home and tragic circumstances with her childhood friend, Kyunghwan. Focused on finishing school, Kyunghwan doesn’t realize his older and wealthier cousin, Jisoo, has his sights set on the beautiful and spirited Haemi—and is determined to marry her before joining the fight. But as Haemi becomes a wife, then a mother, her decision to forsake the boy she always loved for the security of her family sets off a dramatic saga that will have profound effects for generations to come. Richly told and deeply moving, If You Leave Me is a stunning portrait of war and refugee life, a passionate and timeless romance, and a heartrending exploration of one woman’s longing for autonomy in a rapidly changing world.

Resistant. Oppositional. Borderline. Mental health professionals commonly use such terms to describe patients who, despite expressing a strong desire to reduce their emotional distress, repeatedly reject or ignore their therapist's interpretations andadvice. When this continues session after session, both patient and therapist end up feeling stuck and frustrated.This book offers an alternative interpretation of patients' apparent resistance, termed pathological ambivalence, which is rooted in early experience, biological functioning, and psychological narrative. The concept of pathological ambivalence draws from several established theoretical perspectives in explaining why some people seem to sabotage their progress in psychotherapy and how some therapists become unintentional enablers.

You're miserable, in pain, frustrated. He says he loves you, but he's never available. Wtf? No matter what you do, no matter how successful you are, you can't seem to break the pattern of dating unavailable, avoidant guys, and you're sick of it. "Girl Rebuilt" is designed for women who are seeking to avoid dating those partners. It requires asking yourself a tough question: could you be a love addict? Tracy Shields is the bestie you need to talk it out with. She offers up fresh, intense insight on how to reconfigure your defense mechanisms, ditch your fears of abandonment, and become the person you need to be to experience healthy love.

Fiction. >2014 Finalist Award in the GENERAL FICTION/NOVEL category of the 2014 Next Generation Indie Book Awards! Set in a village in central France, an American man attempts to sit quietly in a room by himself for one hour, a method promoted by the 17th century philospher Blaise Pascal as the prescription for all mankind's ills. Tempted by almost everything--fine wines, the grandeur of French cuisine, the beauty of the countryside, our hero soldiers on in pursuit of his special brand of solitude and uncertainty, despite the distractions of neighbors and a highly intelligent female companion. "...a narrative of literary beauty and philosophical depth "--Renate Stendhal, LAMBDA Award-winning writer and editor "Fuller makes something wonderful here, out of almost nothing: the attempt to sit quietly in a room alone for a least one hour. That he does so in a small village in the middle of France makes it all the more remarkable. Nothing will get in the way of his journey...not love or friendship, not fine wine or cigarettes, not Marcel Duchamp or the grandeur of French cuisine. Lovable and exasperating, a courageous weakling, MONSIEUR AMBIVALENCE is a friend to all of us who cannot seem to live with ourselves, but who cannot stop hoping to believe that someday we can."--Jean-Pierre Bezoux

Passionate, strong-minded nonfiction from the National Book Award-winning author of The Corrections Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections was the best-loved and most-written-about novel of 2001. Nearly every in-depth review of it discussed what became known as "The Harper's Essay," Franzen's controversial 1996 investigation of the fate of the American novel. This essay is reprinted for the first time in How to be Alone, along with the personal essays and the dead-on reportage that earned Franzen a wide readership before the success of The Corrections. Although his subjects range from the sex-advice industry to the way a supermax prison works, each piece wrestles with familiar themes of Franzen's writing: the erosion of civic life and private dignity and the hidden persistence of loneliness in postmodern, imperial America. Recent pieces include a moving essay on his father's stuggle with Alzheimer's disease (which has already been reprinted around the world) and a rueful account of Franzen's brief tenure as an Oprah Winfrey author. As a collection, these essays record what Franzen calls "a movement away from an angry and frightened isolation toward an acceptance--even a celebration--of being a reader and a writer." At the same time they show the wry distrust of the claims of technology and psychology, the love-hate relationship with consumerism, and the subversive belief in the tragic shape of the individual life that help make Franzen one of our sharpest, toughest, and most entertaining social critics.

Analysis of sexual ambivalence in antiquity, which was both deeply threatening to the social order and profoundly attractive.