In this vulnerable and enlightening book of life lessons, globally renowned performer Cynthia Erivo draws from her singular experience to show us how to embrace being âtoo muchâ and to live up to the fullest iteration of ourselves.
It is never too late to build the life youâre seeking.
Cynthia Erivo learned the music to Wicked a decade before she needed it, not knowing those same lyrics would change her life. Now she has performed those songs on the world stage, showing us there is always time to keep discovering ourselves. And to illustrate that itâs often the parts of ourselves we are told to bury that make us shine.
In a series of powerful, personal vignettes, Cynthia reflects on the ways she has grown as an actor and human and the practices sheâs learned over years of performing and reminds us all we are capable of so much more than we think.
We all have hopes and dreams that we want to bring across the finish line. We all falter and take missteps. In this book, Cynthia draws from her experiences running marathons, both real and metaphorical, onstage and onscreen, to show how each challenge can help us. She urges readers to lean into the wisdom of their bodies, to understand and strive for a physical and mental balance. Because when we chase our deepest desires, each small step leads us closer to where we want to go.
In this vulnerable exploration of personal identity, the New York Times bestselling author of Iâm Still Here chronicles her efforts to live as her full self in a society that wants womenâand Black women in particularâto do anything but that.
At the height of her success as an antiracism educator and writer, Austin Channing Brown reached a crossroads. âI love my work,â she writes, âand I am tired. Tired of protesting. Tired of âsaving democracy.' Tired of expending all the energy it takes to bust out of Americaâs tiny boxes.â She began to ask, âWhat do I deserve, not just as a citizen but as a human?â
Full of Myself is her answer to that question. Weaving personal narrative with perceptive social commentary, she offers a look at the mechanisms that limit who Black women are allowed to beâat work, at home, in communityâand the defining moments when she decided that all the women within her should be free. From skinny dipping in the ocean to becoming a mom, she delves into the drama of life and invites women to begin defining themselves not by the tiny boxes handed to us, but as a people born freeâfree in spirit, free in hope, free in joy.
For women seeking to understand the true roots of their burnout, or anyone wondering what it means to live joyfully in a hostile world, Full of Myself is a breath of fresh air and an invitation to full humanity.
A Chinese American woman spins tragedy into comedy when her life falls apart in a taut, wry debut novel that grapples with grief, motherhood, and mythsâperfect for fans of Joan Is Okay and Crying in H Mart.
A man and a woman walk into a restaurant. The woman expects a lovely night filled with endless plates of samosas. Instead, she finds out her husband is having an affair with a woman named Maggie. A short while after, her chest starts to ache. She walks into an examination room, where she finds out the pain in her breast isnât just heartbreakâitâs cancer. She decides to call the tumor Maggie.
Unfolding in fragments over the course of the ensuing months, Maggie; Or, a Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar follows the narrator as she embarks on a journey of grief, healing, and reclamation. She starts talking to Maggie (the tumor), getting acquainted with her bodyâs new inhabitant. She overgenerously creates a âGuide to My Husband: A Userâs Manualâ for Maggie (the other woman), hoping to ease the process of discovering her ex-husbandâs whims and quirks. She turns her childrenâs bedtime stories into retellings of Chinese folklore passed down by her own mother, in an attempt to make them fall in love with their shared cultureâand to maybe save herself in the process.
In the style of Jenny Offill and the tradition of Nora Ephronâs hilarious and devastating writing on heartbreak and womanhood, Maggie is a master class in transforming personal tragedy into a form of defiant comedy.
From the New York Times bestselling author of Kaikeyi comes an epic and daring novel that imagines an alternate version of 1960s India that was never liberated from the British, and a young womanâs struggle to change the tides of history.
Kalki Divekar grows up a daughter of Kingstonâa city the British built on the ashes of Bombay. The older generation, including her father, have been lost to the brutal hunt for rebels. Young men are drafted to fight wars they will never return from. And the people of her city are more interested in fighting one another than facing their true oppressors.
When tragedy strikes close to home, Kalki begins to play a dangerous game with small acts of resistance, tempered by cautious, level-headed Yashu and fortified by Fauzia, whose dreams of the future awaken Kalkiâs heart. Together, they found Kingstonâs new independence movement, obtaining jobs working for the British while secretly planning to destroy the empire from the inside out. But one wrong move means certain death, and when facing threats from all quarters, Kalki must decide whether itâs more important to be a hero or to survive.
Set over the course of a decade and told as ten moments from Kalkiâs life that mirror the Dashavatara, the ten avatars of Vishnu, Ten Incarnations of Rebellion is a sweeping, deeply felt speculative novel of empowerment, friendship, self-determination, and the true meaning of freedom.
In San Francisco 1866, an Irish nun, left pregnant and abandoned following a torrid relationship with a Chilean aristocrat, gives birth to a daughter named Emilia Del Valle. Raised by a loving stepfather, Emilia grows into an independent thinker and a self-sufficient young woman.
To pursue her passion for writing, she is willing to defy societal norms. At the age of sixteen, she begins to publish pulp fiction under a manâs pen name. When these fictional worlds can't contain her sense of adventure any longer, she turns to journalism, convincing an editor at the San Francisco Examiner to hire her. There she is paired with another talented reporter, Eric Whelan.
As she proves herself, her restlessness returns, until an opportunity arises to cover a brewing civil war in Chile. She seizes it, along with Eric, and while there, begins to uncover the truth about her father and the country that represents her roots. But as the war escalates, Emilia finds herself in danger and at a crossroads, questioning both her identity and her destiny.
A riveting tale of self-discovery and love from one of the most masterful storytellers of our time, My Name is Emilia del Valle introduces a character who will never let hold of your heart.