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My Parents Are Dead: What Now?
An approachable, expert-fueled guide to dealing with the legal, financial, and logistical hurdles of a parent’s death—without losing your sense of humor.
Whether you’ve recently lost a parent or you’re just trying to plan for the toughest day of your life so far, you’re probably experiencing a lot of dizzying emotions. Unfortunately, our legal and financial systems don’t care about your feelings. Whether you’re holding it together or falling apart, you are going to need to enter an overwhelming labyrinth of paperwork and bureaucracy.
But you don’t have to do it alone.
After losing both parents, Becky Robison devoted herself to making death and postdeath logistics easier on others—reading up on estate law, becoming a trained death doula, and starting the website DeadParentsWhatNow.com. She draws on her own experience, plus interviews with experts ranging from monument makers to morticians, to hold your hand through:
- Asking your parents about their end-of-life wishes while you can
- Getting a body buried, cremated, or donated to science
- Planning a funeral
- Securing a death certificate
- Dealing with your parent’s property—or debt
- Handling even more tricky issues you never wanted to be in charge of
- And still being able to laugh, a little, sometimes
Nothing about this is easy. The good news is you have someone on your side.
Posted by Christina Schillaci
Revisionaries
Find creative inspiration in this fascinating rummage through the wastebaskets, secret diaries, and abandoned files of 20 literary superstars.
If you like to write—whether it’s a pastime, a passion, or a profession—you’ve probably found yourself reading something brilliant and thinking, “I could never do this! I might as well give up.” But if there’s one thing every great author has in common, it’s this: they’ve all written some hot garbage.
Revisionaries takes you on an engrossing tour through the discarded drafts, false starts, and abandoned projects of influential writers. In the process, it dismantles some of our most deeply held—and most suffocating—ideas about what it takes to produce great creative work. You’ll learn that:
- Franz Kafka lacked confidence
- Octavia Butler had writer’s block blocked
- F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote bad drafts
- Ralph Ellison got overwhelmed
- Louisa May Alcott got off to a bad start
- And more deep, dark secrets about the authors you most admire
Written by an award-winning novelist and creative-writing professor, Revisionaries is a compelling peek behind the scenes of genius for writers and readers alike.
Posted by Gaby Iori
Cult Following
From the author of Cursed Objects and The United States of Cryptids comes an eye-popping compendium of the most infamous, audacious, and dangerous cults in history
Have you ever wondered how smart, normal people end up enmeshed in extreme cults? Weird history expert J. W. Ocker strives to answer that question in Cult Following. Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about history’s most notorious cults–and the psychology of the people who join them–is packed into this accessible, engaging volume. Walk in the footsteps of the followers who were lured into these sinister groups, including:
- Branch Davidians: Led by David Koresh, this cult was waiting out the apocalypse in 1993 when the FBI infamously raided their compound in Waco, Texas.
- Narcosatanists: This cult of drug traffickers in 1980s Mexico was led by Adolfo de Jesús Constanzo, who believed he had magic powers and committed human sacrifice.
- Brotherhood of the Seven Rays: The earliest known UFO cult, the infiltration and study of the Brotherhood by psychologists inspired the term “cognitive dissonance.”
- Ho No Hana Sanpogyo: The founder, Hogen Fukunaga, claimed to be able to tell someone’s fortune by examining their feet.
- Breatherianism: Breatherians believe that humans can live on air alone. Their founder, Wiley Brooks, claimed to have gone without food for nineteen years.
- NXIVM: This twenty-first century cult attracted several members of Hollywood and engaged in sex trafficking, forced labor, and racketeering under the guise of personal development seminars.
In Cult Following, Ocker sheds light on the terrifying attraction of cults, demonstrating the elasticity of belief, the desperateness of belonging, and the tragedy of trust.
Posted by Gaby Iori
Good Flow
With this empowering handbook, a better period is possible!
If you menstruate, you’ve probably experienced unpredictable cycles, mood swings, cravings, and unpleasant physical symptoms. We’re often encouraged to treat period discomfort as inevitable. The good news is that you don’t need to.
This handbook from two certified yoga and Ayurveda teachers will give you the information and tools you need to feel your best when you normally feel at your worst. Good Flow contains:
- Advice on eating, exercising, and introspecting for every stage of your cycle
- Recipes for herbal tonics to ease cramping and bloating, as well as personal rituals for soothing discomfort
- Journal prompts for reflecting on your cycle, your body, and how you care for yourself
- Monthly trackers to record and manage symptoms
- And more!
Learn how to take action no matter what kind of menstruation experience you’re having so you can feel like your best self.
Posted by Kim Ismael
The Darcy Myth
What if we’ve been reading Jane Austen and romantic classics all wrong? A literary scholar offers a funny, brainy, eye-opening take on how our contemporary love stories are actually terrifying.
Covering cultural touchstones ranging from Normal People to Taylor Swift and from Lord Byron to The Bachelor, The Darcy Myth is a book for anyone who loves thinking deeply about literature and culture—whether it’s Jane Austen or not.
You already know Mr. Darcy—at least you think you do! The brooding, rude, standoffish romantic hero of Pride and Prejudice, Darcy initially insults and ignores the witty heroine, but eventually succumbs to her charms. It’s a classic enemies-to-lovers plot, and one that has profoundly influenced our cultural ideas about courtship. But what if this classic isn’t just a grand romance, but a horror novel about how scary love and marriage can be for women?
In The Darcy Myth, literature scholar Rachel Feder unpacks Austen’s Gothic influences and how they’ve led us to a romantic ideal that’s halfway to being a monster story. Why is our culture so obsessed with cruel, indifferent romantic heroes (and sometimes heroines)? How much of that is Darcy’s fault? And, now that we know, what do we do about it?
Posted by Kim Ismael
We Are Not Alone
Do you want to believe? Explore our fascination with UFOs and extraterrestrial intelligence through exclusive interviews, archival photos, and strange but true stories from history.
After decades of cover-ups and denials, in a June 2021 report, the US government finally admitted what many people already knew: yes, UFOs are real, and no, we don’t know what (or who) they are. Writer and historian Marc Hartzman separates fact from fiction and provides a comprehensive tour through the skies, including:
- UFO sightings, from the famous to the obscure
- Alien abductions, including the Betty and Barney Hill abduction and the Pascagoula abduction
- Ancient aliens, from Biblical astronauts to the alien architects behind the pyramids
- Scientific evidence, including the “Wow!” radio signal and the interstellar ‘Oumuamua object
- Cover-ups and conspiracies, including the Roswell Incident and Area 51
- Governmental and military findings, from Project Blue Book to reports of UFOs at nuclear weapons sites
Deeply researched and highly entertaining, We Are Not Alone will inform and enchant anyone who’s ever doubted that we are really alone in the universe.
Posted by Kim Ismael