Hunger
Summary
From the New York Times best-selling author of Bad Feminist, a searingly honest memoir of food, weight, self-image, and learning how to feed your hunger while taking care of yourself. "I ate and ate and ate in the hopes that if I made myself big, my body would be safe. I buried the girl I was because she ran into all kinds of trouble. I tried to erase every memory of her, but she is still there, somewhere.... I was trapped in my body, one that I barely recognized or understood, but at least I was safe." In her phenomenally popular essays and long-running Tumblr blog, Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and body, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health. As a woman who describes her own body as "wildly undisciplined", Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care. In Hunger, she explores her past - including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life - and brings listeners along on her journey to understand and ultimately save herself. With the bracing candor, vulnerability, and power that have made her one of the most admired writers of her generation, Roxane explores what it means to learn to take care of yourself: how to feed your hungers for delicious and satisfying food, a smaller and safer body, and a body that can love and be loved - in a time when the bigger you are, the smaller your world becomes.
©2016 Roxane Gay (P)2016 HarperCollins Publishers
The End of Gender
Summary
International sex researcher, neuroscientist, and columnist Debra Soh debunks popular gender myths in this fascinating, research-based, scientific examination of the many facets of gender identity. Is our gender something weâre born with, or are we conditioned by society? In The End of Gender, neuroscientist and sexologist Dr. Debra Soh uses a research-based approach to address this hot-button topic, unmasking popular misconceptions about the nature vs. nurture debate and exploring what it means to be a woman or a man in todayâs society. Both scientific and objective and drawing on original research and carefully conducted interviews, Soh tackles a wide range of issues, such as gender-neutral parenting, gender dysphoric children, and and the neuroscience of being transgender. She debates todayâs accepted notion that gender is a social construct and a spectrum and challenges the idea that there is no difference between how male and female brains operate. The End of Gender is a conversation-starting work that will challenge what you thought you knew about gender, identity, and everything in between. Timely, informative, and provocative, it will arm you with the facts you need to come to your own conclusions about gender identity and its place in the world today.
©2020 Dr. Debra Soh. All rights reserved. (P)2020 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.
Bad Feminist
Summary
A collection of essays spanning politics, criticism, and feminism from one of the most-watched young cultural observers of her generation, Roxane Gay. "Pink is my favorite color. I used to say my favorite color was black to be cool, but it is pink - all shades of pink. If I have an accessory, it is probably pink. I read Vogue, and I'm not doing it ironically, though it might seem that way. I once live-tweeted the September issue." In these funny and insightful essays, Roxane Gay takes us through the journey of her evolution as a woman (Sweet Valley High) of color (The Help) while also taking listeners on a ride through culture of the last few years (Girls, Django in Chains) and commenting on the state of feminism today (abortion, Chris Brown). The portrait that emerges is not only one of an incredibly insightful woman continually growing to understand herself and our society, but also one of our culture. >Bad Feminist is a sharp, funny, and spot-on look at the ways in which the culture we consume becomes who we are, and an inspiring call-to-arms of all the ways we still need to do better.
©2014 Roxane Gay (P)2014 HarperCollins Publishers
Not That Bad
Summary
Edited and with an introduction by Roxane Gay, the New York Times best-selling and deeply beloved author of Bad Feminist and Hunger, this anthology of first-person essays read by all 30 contributors, including Gabrielle Union, Ally Sheedy, and Lyz Lenz, tackles rape, assault, and harassment head-on. *Vogue, â10 of the Most Anticipated Books of Spring 2018â *Harperâs Bazaar, â10 New Books to Add to Your Reading List in 2018â *Elle, â21 Books Weâre Most Excited to Read in 2018â *Boston Globe, â25 Books We Canât Wait to Read in 2018â *Huffington Post, â60 Books We Canât Wait to Read in 2018â *Hello Giggles, â19 Books We Canât Wait to Read in 2018â *Buzzfeed, â33 Most Exciting New Books of 2018â In this valuable and revealing anthology, cultural critic and best-selling author Roxane Gay collects original and previously published pieces that address what it means to live in a world where women have to measure the harassment, violence, and aggression they face, and where they are "routinely second-guessed, blown off, discredited, denigrated, besmirched, belittled, patronized, mocked, shamed, gaslit, insulted, bullied" for speaking out. Contributions include essays from established and up-and-coming writers, performers, and critics, including actors Ally Sheedy and Gabrielle Union and writers Amy Jo Burns, Lyz Lenz, and Claire Schwartz. Covering a wide range of topics and experiences, from an exploration of the rape epidemic embedded in the refugee crisis to first-person accounts of child molestation, this collection is often deeply personal and is always unflinchingly honest. Like Rebecca Solnit's Men Explain Things to Me, Not That Bad will resonate with every listener, saying "something in totality that we cannot say alone". Searing and heartbreakingly candid, this provocative collection both reflects the world we live in and offers a call to arms insisting that "not that bad" must no longer be good enough. The full list of narrators includes: Roxane Gay, Gabrielle Union, Ally Sheedy, Amy Jo Burns, Lyz Lenz, Claire Schwartz, Aubrey Hirsch, Jill Christman, Lynn Melnick, Brandon Taylor, Emma Smith-Stevens, A.J. McKenna, Lisa Mecham, Vanessa Mártir, xTx, Sophie Mayer, Nora Salem, V.L. Seek, Michelle Chen, Liz Rosema, Anthony Frame, Samhita Mukhopadhyay, Miriam Zoila Pérez, Zoe Medeiros, Sharisse Tracey, Stacey May Fowles, Elisabeth Fairfield Stokes, Meredith Talusan, Nicole Boyce, and Elissa Bassist.
©2018 Roxane Gay (Compilation and introduction) (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers
Ayiti
Summary
From New York Times best-selling powerhouse Roxane Gay, Ayiti is a powerful collection exploring the Haitian diaspora experience. Originally published by a small press, this edition will make Gayâs debut widely available for the first time, including several new stories. In Ayiti, a married couple seeking boat passage to America prepares to leave their homeland. A young woman procures a voodoo love potion to ensnare a childhood classmate. A mother takes a foreign soldier into her home as a boarder, and into her bed. And a woman conceives a daughter on the bank of a river while fleeing a horrific massacre, a daughter who later moves to America for a new life but is perpetually haunted by the mysterious scent of blood. These early stories showcase Gayâs prowess as "one of the voices of our ageâ (National Post, Canada).
©2011, 2018 Roxane Gay. Recorded by arrangement with Grove Atlantic, Inc. (P)2018 Audible, Inc.
Difficult Women
Summary
Award-winning author and powerhouse talent Roxane Gay burst onto the scene with An Untamed State and the New York Times best-selling essay collection Bad Feminist (Harper Perennial). Gay returns with Difficult Women, a collection of stories of rare force and beauty, of hardscrabble lives, passionate loves, and quirky and vexed human connection. The women in these stories live lives of privilege and of poverty, are in marriages both loving and haunted by past crimes or emotional blackmail. A pair of sisters, grown now, have been inseparable ever since they were abducted together as children and must negotiate the elder sister's marriage. A woman married to a twin pretends not to realize when her husband and his brother impersonate each other. A stripper putting herself through college fends off the advances of an overzealous customer. A black engineer moves to Upper Michigan for a job and faces the malign curiosity of her colleagues and the difficulty of leaving her past behind. From a girls' fight club to a wealthy subdivision in Florida where neighbors conform, compete, and spy on each other, Gay delivers a wry, beautiful, haunting vision of modern America reminiscent of Merritt Tierce, Jamie Quatro, and Miranda July.
©2017 Roxane Gay. Produced by arrangement with Grove Atlantic (P)2017 Audible, Inc.
Graceful Burdens
Summary
Audible narration by Samira Wiley (The Handmaidâs Tale). From New York Times bestselling author Roxane Gay comes an unforgettable tale of nightmarish bureaucracy in which genetic profiling has redefined the âunfit mother.â A trip to the library prompts one woman to question her fate in this galvanizing short story. For a woman like Hadley, deemed not acceptable to procreate, thereâs only one recourse. Unlicensed for motherhood, she can alleviate her grief and frustration at a âbaby library,â where a curiously endless supply of infants is available for a two-week loan. But the borrowed life that serves as a temporary balm leads to a journey of self-discovery that will forever change the direction of Hadleyâs future. Roxane Gayâs Graceful Burdens is part of Out of Line, an incisive collection of funny, enraging, and hopeful stories of womenâs empowerment and escape. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.
©2020 Roxane Gay (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
An Untamed State
Summary
Roxane Gay is a powerful new literary voice whose short stories and essays have already earned her an enthusiastic audience. In An Untamed State, she delivers an assured debut about a woman kidnapped for ransom, her captivity as her father refuses to pay and her husband fights for her release over 13 days, and her struggle to come to terms with the ordeal in its aftermath.
Mireille Duval Jameson is living a fairy tale. The strong-willed youngest daughter of one of Haitiâs richest sons, she has an adoring husband, a precocious infant son, by all appearances a perfect life. The fairy tale ends one day when Mireille is kidnapped in broad daylight by a gang of heavily armed men, in front of her fatherâs Port au Prince estate. Held captive by a man who calls himself The Commander, Mireille waits for her father to pay her ransom. As it becomes clear her father intends to resist the kidnappers, Mireille must endure the torments of a man who resents everything she represents.
An Untamed State is a novel of privilege in the face of crushing poverty, and of the lawless anger that corrupt governments produce. It is the story of a willful woman attempting to find her way back to the person she once was, and of how redemption is found in the most unexpected of places.
©2014 Roxane Gay. Recorded by arrangement with Grove/Atlantic, Inc. (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
The Model Thinker
Summary
Work with data like a pro using this guide that breaks down how to organize, apply, and most importantly, understand what you are analyzing in order to become a true data ninja. From the stock market to genomics laboratories, census figures to marketing email blasts, we are awash with data. But as anyone who has ever opened up a spreadsheet packed with seemingly infinite lines of data knows, numbers aren't enough: we need to know how to make those numbers talk. In The Model Thinker, social scientist Scott E. Page shows us the mathematical, statistical, and computational models - from linear regression to random walks and far beyond - that can turn anyone into a genius. At the core of the book is Page's "many-model paradigm", which shows the listener how to apply multiple models to organize the data, leading to wiser choices, more accurate predictions, and more robust designs. The Model Thinker provides a toolkit for business people, students, scientists, pollsters, and bloggers to make them better, clearer thinkers, able to leverage data and information to their advantage.  PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.Â
©2018 Scott E. Page (P)2021 Hachette Audio
Out of Line
Summary
What happens when women step out of line and take control of their own stories? Big fears, small frustrations, and the power of hope collide as seven award-winning authors explore the possibilities. From demanding equal pay to resisting a genetically engineered future, this collection offers up visions that are grimly funny, deeply touching, and chillingly conceivable. THIS TELLING, by Cheryl Strayed, read by Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars) A genealogy test sparks a womanâs reflection on the two accounts of her life - the real one and the one sheâs always told the world - in this poignant short story by the bestselling author of Wild. GRACEFUL BURDENS, by Roxane Gay, read by Samira Wiley (The Handmaidâs Tale) From the New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminist comes an unforgettable tale of nightmarish bureaucracy in which genetic profiling has redefined the âunfit mother.â SWEET VIRGINIA, by Caroline Kepnes, read by Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars) Whatâs a woman to do when she fails to live up to feminine ideals? It depends on what sheâs willing to give up in this dark rom-com dream by the bestselling author of You. THE CONTRACTORS, by Lisa Ko, read by Lea Salonga (Aladdin) A split-screen view of the tech industryâs underbelly - and the unifying campaign of two distant women seeking to expose their employer - from the award-winning author of The Leavers. HALFWAY TO FREE, by Emma Donoghue, read by Samira Wiley (The Handmaidâs Tale) Raising a family is the ultimate luxury as the human race teeters on the brink of extinction in this modern nightmare by Emma Donoghue, the bestselling author of Room. BEAR WITNESS, by Mary Gaitskill, read by Margo Martindale (Mrs. America) In the wake of a brutal crime, three people cross paths in this unflinching deconstruction of moral uncertainty, shifting perceptions, and sexual violence, from the critically acclaimed author of Bad Behavior. SHINE, PAMELA! SHINE!, by Kate Atkinson, read by Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones) Thoroughly divorced but ever the optimist, Pamela faces the realities of aging and the leaps of faith required to put a âsparkleâ on her daily life in this small miracle of a short story by the bestselling author of Life After Life.
©2020 This Telling © 2020 by Cheryl Strayed. Graceful Burdens © 2020 by Roxane Gay. Sweet Virginia © 2020 by Caroline Kepnes. The Contractors © 2020 by Lisa Ko. Halfway to Free © 2020 by Emma Donoghue. Bear Witness © 2020 by Mary Gaitskill. Shine, Pamela! Shine! © 2020 by Kate Costello Ltd. (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.