to be read
Items in this hypelist
collections of essays
A Very Easy Death
Simone De Beauvoir · 1985
On Women
Susan Sontag · 2023
You Have a New Memory
Aiden Arata · 2025
"If you told Aiden Arata in 1995 that the internet would one day crown her the "meme queen of depression" and mega corporations would fly her to conferences to speak about commodifying one's emotions for views, she would have asked you what a meme was. Now, in her highly anticipated debut, she brings us raw reportage from that liminal space between online and offline worlds, illuminating how we got here and where to go next. In this collection of kaleidoscopic essays, Aiden artfully explores what it means to exist on the internet, from fan fic forums to TikTok. She exposes influencer grifts from the perspective of a grifter, digs into the alluring aesthetic numbness of stay-at-home girlfriend content creators, and interrogates our online fetishization of doom to grapple with the real-world apocalypse. In her own words, "In some ways, the internet feels like a neutral energy in the way that money is a neutral energy, only as virtuous or wicked as the person using it. But then you have to follow that line of inquiry somewhere annoying like, Am I using it for good?" YOU HAVE A NEW MEMORY is a deeply human inventory of the digital sphere, a searing analysis of the present and a prescient assessment of the future. Aiden is the wry, unexpected voice we need to navigate existing simultaneously as creators, consumers, and products in our increasingly braver and newer world"--
Lifting Belly
Gertrude Stein · 1989
Book by Stein, Gertrude
Blue Nights
Joan Didion · 2011
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter, from the bestselling, award-winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking and Notes to John. A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Century Richly textured with memories from her own childhood and married life with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and daughter, Quintana Roo, this new book by Joan Didion is an intensely personal and moving account of her thoughts, fears, and doubts regarding having children, illness and growing old. As she reflects on her daughter’s life and on her role as a parent, Didion grapples with the candid questions that all parents face, and contemplates her age, something she finds hard to acknowledge, much less accept. Blue Nights—the long, light evening hours that signal the summer solstice, “the opposite of the dying of the brightness, but also its warning”—like The Year of Magical Thinking before it, is an iconic book of incisive and electric honesty, haunting and profound.
Let Me Tell You What I Mean
Joan Didion · 2021
The Book of (More) Delights
Ross Gay · 2023
Bad Feminist
Roxane Gay · 2014
Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays (FSG Classics)
Joan Didion · 2008
Celebrated, iconic, and indispensable, Joan Didion’s first work of nonfiction, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, is considered a watershed moment in American writing. First published in 1968, the collection was critically praised as one of the “best prose written in this country.”<br/><br/>More than perhaps any other book, this collection by one of the most distinctive prose stylists of our era captures the unique time and place of Joan Didion’s focus, exploring subjects such as John Wayne and Howard Hughes, growing up in California and the nature of good and evil in a Death Valley motel room, and, especially, the essence of San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury, the heart of the counterculture. As Joyce Carol Oates remarked: “[Didion] has been an articulate witness to the most stubborn and intractable truths of our time, a memorable voice, partly eulogistic, partly despairing; always in control.”
Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, The Flesh, and L.A. (New York Review Books Classics)
Eve Babitz · 2016
Black Swans: Stories
Eve Babitz · 2018
Play It as It Lays
Joan Didion · 2011
non-fiction
Notes to John
Joan Didion · 2025
The Courage to Be Disliked: The Japanese Phenomenon That Shows You How to Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness
Ichiro Kishimi, Fumitake Koga · 2024
Devotion (Why I Write)
Patti Smith · 2018
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
Susan Cain · 2013
Naked Lunch: The Restored Text
William S. Burroughs · 2007
<p><b>Since its original publication in Paris in 1959, <i>Naked Lunch</i> has become one of the most important novels of the twentieth century.</b></p><p>Exerting its influence on the relationship of art and obscenity, it is one of the books that redefined not just literature but American culture. For the Burroughs enthusiast and the neophyte, this volume—that contains final-draft typescripts, numerous unpublished contemporaneous writings by Burroughs, his own later introductions to the book, and his essay on psychoactive drugs—is a valuable and fresh experience of a novel that has lost none of its relevance or satirical bite.</p>
Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
James Clear · 2018
The #1 New York Times bestseller. Over 20 million copies sold!<br/><br/>Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results<br/><br/>No matter your goals, Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving--every day. James Clear, one of the world's leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results.<br/><br/>If you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don't want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Here, you'll get a proven system that can take you to new heights.<br/><br/>Clear is known for his ability to distill complex topics into simple behaviors that can be easily applied to daily life and work. Here, he draws on the most proven ideas from biology, psychology, and neuroscience to create an easy-to-understand guide for making good habits inevitable and bad habits impossible. Along the way, readers will be inspired and entertained with true stories from Olympic gold medalists, award-winning artists, business leaders, life-saving physicians, and star comedians who have used the science of small habits to master their craft and vault to the top of their field.<br/><br/>Learn how to:<br/><br/>make time for new habits (even when life gets crazy);<br/>overcome a lack of motivation and willpower; design your environment to make success easier; get back on track when you fall off course; ...and much more.<br/><br/>Atomic Habits will reshape the way you think about progress and success, and give you the tools and strategies you need to transform your habits--whether you are a team looking to win a championship, an organization hoping to redefine an industry, or simply an individual who wishes to quit smoking, lose weight, reduce stress, or achieve any other goal.
Didion and Babitz
Lili Anolik · 2024
Girl, Woman, Other
Bernardine Evaristo · 2020
Teeming with life and crackling with energy - a love song to modern Britain and black womanhood<br/>Girl, Woman, Other follows the lives and struggles of twelve very different characters. Mostly women, black and British, they tell the stories of their families, friends and lovers, across the country and through the years.<br/>Joyfully polyphonic and vibrantly contemporary, this is a gloriously new kind of history, a novel of our times: celebratory, ever-dynamic and utterly irresistible.
The Fall
Albert Camus · 1991
The Communism of Love: An Inquiry into the Poverty of Exchange Value
Richard Gilman-Opalsky · 2020
A reminder of the most powerful and sustaining force in our lives. And that it's under constant threat.<br/><br/>Exploring the meanings and powers of love from ancient Greece to the present day, Richard Gilman-Opalsky argues that what is called “love” by the best thinkers who have approached the subject is in fact the beating heart of communism—understood as a way of living, not as a form of government. Along the way, he reveals with clarity that the capitalist way of assigning value to things is incapable of appreciating what humans value most. Capitalism cannot value the experiences and relationships that make our lives worth living and can only destroy love by turning it into a commodity. The Communism of Love follows the struggles of love in different contexts of race, class, gender, and sexuality, and shows how the aspiration for love is as close as we may get to a universal communist aspiration.
My Lesbian Novel
Renee Gladman · 2024
<b>The latest in writer and visual artist Renee Gladman’s ever-expanding body of imaginative investigation is a sui generis novel of queerness and art-making, philosophy and sex.</b><br><br>The narrator of <i>My Lesbian Novel</i> is Renee Gladman, an artist and writer who has produced the same acclaimed body of experimental art and prose as real-life Renee Gladman, and who is now being interviewed by an unnamed interlocutor about a project in process, a seeming departure from her other works, a lesbian romance. <br> <br>Between reflections on art making and on the genre of lesbian romance—“though aspects of the formula drive me crazy . . . people who write these stories understand how beautiful women are”—a romance novel of her own takes shape on the page, written alongside the interview, which sometimes skips whole years between questions, so that time and aging become part of the process. <br> <br>The result is a beautifully orchestrated dialogue between reflection and desire, or clarity and confusion, between the pleasures of form and the pleasures of freedom in the unspooling of sentences over time.
A Book of Days
Patti Smith · 2022
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A deeply moving and brilliantly idiosyncratic visual book of days by the National Book Award–winning author of Just Kids and M Train, featuring more than 365 images and reflections that chart Smith’s singular aesthetic—inspired by her wildly popular Instagram.<br/><br/>ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Variety, Pitchfork, PopSugar<br/><br/>In 2018, without any plan or agenda for what might happen next, Patti Smith posted her first Instagram photo: her hand with the simple message “Hello Everybody!” Known for shooting with her beloved Land Camera 250, Smith started posting images from her phone including portraits of her kids, her radiator, her boots, and her Abyssinian cat, Cairo. Followers felt an immediate affinity with these miniature windows into Smith’s world, photographs of her daily coffee, the books she’s reading, the graves of beloved heroes—William Blake, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, Simone Weil, Albert Camus. Over time, a coherent story of a life devoted to art took shape, and more than a million followers responded to Smith’s unique aesthetic in images that chart her passions, devotions, obsessions, and whims. Original to this book are vintage photographs: anniversary pearls, a mother’s keychain, and a husband’s Mosrite guitar. Here, too, are photos from Smith’s archives of life on and off the road, train stations, obscure cafés, a notebook always nearby. In wide-ranging yet intimate daily notations, Smith shares dispatches from her travels around the world.<br/><br/>With over 365 photographs taking you through a single year, A Book of Days is a new way to experience the expansive mind of the visionary poet, writer, and performer. Hopeful, elegiac, playful—and complete with an introduction by Smith that explores her documentary process—A Book of Days is a timeless offering for deeply uncertain times, an inspirational map of an artist’s life.
All About Love: New Visions
bell hooks · 2018
Men Who Hate Women
Laura Bates · 2020
<b>***Laura Bates' new book <i>Fix the System, Not the Women </i>is out now in paperback***</b><br> <br> '<b>A fascinating, mind-blowing and deeply intelligent book that should be recommended reading for every person on our planet'</b> SCARLETT CURTIS<br> <br> <b>'Laura Bates puts out books that perfectly describe growing problems and possible solutions. She's a proper hero at the coal mouth'</b> CAITLIN MORAN<br> <br> <b>'Brilliantly fierce and eye-opening' </b><i>OBSERVER</i><br> ________________________________________________________<br> <br> <b>The extremism nobody talks about</b><br> <b>And how it affects us all</b><br> <br> Imagine a world in which a vast network of incels and other misogynists are able to operate, virtually undetected. These extremists commit deliberate terrorist acts against women. Vulnerable teenage boys are groomed and radicalised.<br> <br> You don't have to imagine that world. You already live in it. Perhaps you didn't know, because we don't like to talk about it. But it's time we start.<br> <br> In this urgent and groundbreaking book, Laura Bates, bestselling author and founder of The Everyday Sexism Project, goes undercover to expose vast misogynist networks and communities. It's a deep dive into the worldwide extremism nobody talks about.<br> <br> Interviews with former members of these groups and the people fighting against them gives unique insights on how this movement operates. Ideas are spread from the darkest corners of the internet - via trolls, media and celebrities - to schools, workplaces and the corridors of power, becoming a part of our collective consciousness.<br> <br> <b>Uncensored, and sometimes both shocking and terrifying - this is the uncomfortable truth about the world we live in. And what we must do to change it.</b><br> _________________________________________________________<br> <br> <b>'Passionate and forensic, Bates produces a powerful feminist clarion call. The world needs to take notice. Things must change'</b><b> </b>ANITA ANAND<br> <br> <b>'This is how change is made: by looking at uncomfortable things directly in the eye and not turning away. This book is a rallying cry to end suffering, for both women AND men'</b> EMMA GANNON<br> <br> <b>'Laura Bates is showing us the path to both intimate and global survival'</b> GLORIA STEINEM
ARCHIVE
SOFIA COPPOLA · 2023
The Stranger Albert Camus
Albert Camus · 2021
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
Bessel van der Kolk · 2014
<b>#1 <i>New York Times </i>bestseller<br><br>“Essential reading for anyone interested in understanding and treating traumatic stress and the scope of its impact on society.” —Alexander McFarlane, Director of the Centre for Traumatic Stress Studies<br><br>A pioneering researcher transforms our understanding of trauma and offers a bold new paradigm for healing in this <b><b><b><i>New York Times</i> bestseller</b></b></b></b><br><br>Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world’s foremost experts on trauma, has spent over three decades working with survivors. In <i>The Body Keeps the Score</i>, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He explores innovative treatments—from neurofeedback and meditation to sports, drama, and yoga—that offer new paths to recovery by activating the brain’s natural neuroplasticity. Based on Dr. van der Kolk’s own research and that of other leading specialists, <i>The Body Keeps the Score </i>exposes the tremendous power of our relationships both to hurt and to heal—and offers new hope for reclaiming lives.
Le Deuxième Sexe
Simone de Beauvoir · 1953
The Feminine Mystique
Betty Friedan · 2013
<b>"If you’ve never read it, read it now." —Arianna Huffington, <i>O, The Oprah Magazine</i> </b><br><p>Landmark, groundbreaking, classic—these adjectives barely do justice to the pioneering vision and lasting impact of <i>The Feminine Mystique</i>. Published in 1963, it gave a pitch-perfect description of “the problem that has no name”: the insidious beliefs and institutions that undermined women’s confidence in their intellectual capabilities and kept them in the home. Writing in a time when the average woman first married in her teens and 60 percent of women students dropped out of college to marry, Betty Friedan captured the frustrations and thwarted ambitions of a generation and showed women how they could reclaim their lives. Part social chronicle, part manifesto, <i>The Feminine Mystique</i> is filled with fascinating anecdotes and interviews as well as insights that continue to inspire. This 50th–anniversary edition features an afterword by best-selling author Anna Quindlen as well as a new introduction by Gail Collins.</p>
It
Alexa Chung · 2013
M Train
Patti Smith · 2016
fiction
The Idiot A Novel
Elif Batuman · 2018
Public Library and Other Stories
Ali Smith · 2016
Written on the Body
Jeanette Winterson · 2013
The most beguilingly seductive novel to date from the author of The Passion and Sexing the Cherry. Winterson chronicles the consuming affair between the narrator, who is given neither name nor gender, and the beloved, a complex and confused married woman. “At once a love story and a philosophical meditation.” —New York Times Book Review.
A Very Nice Girl
Imogen Crimp · 2022
<p><b>Selected for Malala's Book Club</b><br><b><br>“Imogen Crimp’s enjoyable debut novel... is an all-too-real reminder of what it is to be a woman in your 20s...” – <i>The</i> <i>New York Times</i></b><br><br><b>“</b><b>Tender, devastating, witty. And deeply true. <i>Sweetbitter </i>meets <i>Normal People</i>.”—Meg Mason, author of <i>Sorrow and Bliss</i></b><br><b><br>A bitingly honest, darkly funny debut about ambition, sex, power, and love, Imogen Crimp's <i>A Very Nice Girl</i> cracks open the timeless questions of what it is to be young, what it is to want to be wanted, and what it is to find your calling but lose your way to it.</b><br><br>Anna doesn’t fit in. Not with her wealthy classmates at the selective London Conservatory where she unexpectedly wins a place after university, not with the family she left behind, and definitely not with Max, a man she meets in the bar where she sings for cash. He’s everything she’s not—rich, tailored to precision, impossible to read—and before long Anna is hooked, desperate to hold his attention, and determined to ignore the warning signs that this might be a toxic relationship.<br><br>As Anna shuttles from grueling rehearsals to brutal auditions, she finds herself torn between two conflicting desires: the drive to nurture her fledgling singing career, which requires her undivided attention, and the longing for human connection. When the stakes increase, and the roles she’s playing—both on stage and off—begin to feel all-consuming, Anna must reckon with the fact that, in carefully performing what’s expected of her as a woman, she risks losing sight of herself completely.<br><br>Both exceedingly contemporary and classic, <i>A Very Nice Girl </i>reminds us that even once we have taken possession of our destinies we still have the power to set all we hold dear on fire.</p>
A Dolls House
Henrik Ibsen · 2014
The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions
Larry Mitchell · 1991
The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions is a beloved queer utopian text written by Larry Mitchell with lush illustrations by Ned Asta. Part-fable, part-manifesto, the book takes place in Ramrod, an empire in decline, and introduces us to the communities of the faggots, the women, the queens, the queer men, and the women who love women who are surviving the ways and world of men. Cherished by many over the four decades since its publication, The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions offers a trenchant critique of capitalism, assimilation, and patriarchy that is deeply relevant today.
Middlesex: A Novel
Jeffrey Eugenides · 2002
<p><i>"I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driver's license...records my first name simply as Cal."</i></p><p>So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, <i>Middlesex </i>is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.</p><p><i>Middlesex </i>is the winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.</p>
Intermezzo: A Novel
Sally Rooney · 2024
The Marriage Portrait: A novel
Maggie O'Farrell · 2022
Boy Parts
Eliza Clark · 2020
White Nights
Fyodor Dostoevsky · 2024
The Glass Menagerie
Tennessee Williams · 1999
Menagerie was Williams's first popular success and launched the brilliant, if somewhat controversial, career of our pre-eminent lyric playwright. Since its premiere in Chicago in 1944, with the legendary Laurette Taylor in the role of Amanda, the play has been the bravura piece for great actresses from Jessica Tandy to Joanne Woodward, and is studied and performed in classrooms and theatres around the world. The Glass Menagerie (in the reading text the author preferred) is now available only in its New Directions Paperbook edition. A new introduction by prominent Williams scholar Robert Bray, editor of The Tennessee Williams Annual Review, reappraises the play more than half a century after it won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award: "More than fifty years after telling his story of a family whose lives form a triangle of quiet desperation, Williams's mellifluous voice still resonates deeply and universally." This edition of The Glass Menagerie also includes Williams's essay on the impact of sudden fame on a struggling writer, "The Catastrophe of Success," as well as a short section of Williams's own "Production Notes." The cover features the classic line drawing by Alvin Lustig, originally done for the 1949 New Directions edition.
My Dark Vanessa: A Novel
Kate Elizabeth Russell · 2020
The Decay Of Lying
Oscar Wilde · 2010
Lady Windermere's Fan
Oscar Wilde · 2017
Red Classics Orlando
Virgina Woolf · 2006
Letters to a Young Poet
Rainer Maria Rilke · 2002
A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing
Eimear McBride · 2014
Cleopatra and Frankenstein
Coco Mellors · 2022
Valley of the Dolls
Jacqueline Susann · 2008
Three women seek escape as they learn about the bitterness, corruption, and falsehoods of the show-business world.
Death in Her Hands
Moshfegh Ottessa · 2021
Lapvona
Ottessa Moshfegh · 2022
Before We Were Innocent
Ella Berman · 2023
'Beautifully written, suspenseful coming-of-age story... I loved it.' The Daily Mail'Two BFFs are accused of murder in this novel that feels like true crime.' -- Cosmopolitan'A haunting and dazzling page-turner.' - Laura Hankin'It's a compulsive thriller, and you won't want to put down Berman's second book.'-- Shondaland'Slices to the core of a fraught friendship on the brink of disaster.' -- PopSugarThe truth depends on who you ask...This is the story of three perfectly imperfect women who hurt each other in all the most obvious ways, but who loved each other enough for a lifetime. And it doesn't end here.Ten years ago, after a sun-soaked summer spent in Greece, Bess and Joni were cleared of having any involvement in their best friend Evangeline's death. But that didn't stop the media from tearing them to shreds, turning two flawed young women into depraved thrill-seekers who led their friend down a twisted and deadly path.Now Joni needs a favour, and when she turns up at her old friend's doorstep asking for an alibi, Bess has no choice but to say yes. She still owes her. But as the two friends try desperately to shake off their past, they have to face reality.Can you ever be an innocent woman when everyone wants you to be guilty?
Set My Heart on Fire
Izumi Suzuki · 2024
The first novel from Izumi Suzuki to be published in English: a candid, intimate exploration of passion, music and transgression Hope I’m in for a good time, I thought. Even if it’s just for tonight. Set in the underground bar and club scene of 1970s Tokyo, Set My Heart On Fire tells the story of Izumi in her turbulent twenties. Through a series of disarmingly frank vignettes, author Izumi Suzuki presents an unforgettable portrait of a young woman encountering missteps and miscommunication, good music and unreliable men, powerful drugs and disorientating meds. Izumi usually keeps her relationships short but complicated, until she meets Jun. Set My Heart on Fire is a visceral novel about mistaken relationships and the convolutions of desire, about regret and acceptance. Pulsing through the narration is the protagonist’s love of music, a vital soundtrack spanning the Zombies, T. Rex and the Rolling Stones as well as underground Japanese psychedelic-rock bands such as the Tigers and the Tempters.
poetry
The Wild Iris
Louise Gluck · 2022
Envelope Poems
Emily Dickinson · 2016
Open Me Carefully : Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson
Emily Dickinson · 1998
For the first time, selections from Emily Dickinson's thirty-six year correspondence to her neighbor and sister-in-law, Susan Huntington Dickinson, are compiled in a single volume. Open Me Carefully invites a dramatic new understanding of Emily Dickinson's life and work, overcoming a century of censorship and misinterpretation.<br/><br/>For the millions of readers who love Emily Dickinson's poetry, Open Me Carefully brings new light to the meaning of the poet's life and work. Gone is Emily as lonely spinster; here is Dickinson in her own words, passionate and fully alive.<br/><br/>"With spare commentary, Smith ... and Hart ... let these letters speak for themselves. Most important, unlike previous editors who altered line breaks to fit their sense of what is poetry or prose, Hart and Smith offer faithful reproductions of the letters' genre-defying form as the words unravel spectacularly down the original page." Renee Tursi, THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
On Sun Swallowing
Dakota Warren · 2022
On Sun Swallowing is a sweet and bloody collection of poetry, prose and journal extracts, dancing in the spaces between girlhood and godhood, satin and switchblades, salvation and damnation. Warren navigates her youth and all things soft, dreamy and delicate - drenched in gasoline and set ablaze. Her sharp lyricism and cutthroat vulnerability dares you to haunt your ghosts back; to relish in duality, dismantle dichotomy and exist as yourself; deliciously undefinable.<br/>Think: Philosophy between cotton sheets, existentialism cross-legged on the shower floor, cheap cigarettes, even cheaper wine, and an oath to reach hell by midnight and be home in time for work in the morning.<br/><br/>On Sun Swallowing is Dakota Warren's debut poetry collection. The first edition of this title can also be purchased from purenowhere.com, where it is independently published, printed and distributed.
Life of the Party
Olivia Gatwood · 2019
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
