Finding balance in life is a goal many of us strive to achieve. Whether it's through a healthy diet, exercise regimen, state of mind, relationship, or other activity (or all of the above), we spend our days trying to be, and become, our best selves. But what happens when all that focus starts to dominate our lives? When our desire for "perfect health" trumps everything else, perhaps without us even realizing it? What happens when our solution starts becoming the problem? These are questions that author and popular blogger Jordan Younger faced when she decided that her extreme, plant-based lifestyle just wasn't working in favor of her health anymore--and questions that you may be facing too. In Breaking Vegan, Jordan reveals how obsessive "healthy" dieting eventually led her to a diagnosis of orthorexia, or a focus on healthy food that involves other emotional factors and ultimately becomes dysfunctional, even dangerous. In candid detail, Jordan shares what it was like to leave veganism, the downfall of her desire to achieve nutritional perfection, and how she ultimately found her way to recovery. In addition to this, Jordan outlines an "anti-diet," whole-foods-based eating plan featuring more than 25 recipes to help inspire others to find similar balance in their own lives. Breaking Vegan is about tolerance and forgiveness. And ultimately, forging one's own path toward happiness.

How do you gain influence for an idea? In Breaking Out, idea developer and adviser John Butman shows how the methods of today’s most popular “idea entrepreneurs”—including dog psychologist Cesar Millan, French lifestyle guru Mireille Guiliano (French Women Don’t Get Fat), TOMS founder Blake Mycoskie, and many others—can help you take an idea public and build influence for it. It isn’t easy. Butman argues that the rise of the “ideaplex” (TED, Twitter, NPR, YouTube, online learning, and all the rest) has caused such an explosion in the creation and sharing of ideas that it has become much easier to go public—yet much harder to gain influence. But it can be done. Based on his own experience in advising content experts worldwide, Butman shows how the idea entrepreneur breaks out—by combining personal narrative with rich content, creating many forms of expression (from books to live events), developing real-world practices, and creating “respiration” around the idea such that other people can breathe it in and make it their own. The resulting idea platform can reach many different audience groups and continue to build influence for many years and even decades. If you have an idea and want to make a difference in your organization, build a change movement in your community, or improve the world in some way—this book will get you started on the journey to idea entrepreneurship.

Do depictions of crazy cat ladies obscure more sinister structural violence against animals hoarded in factory farms? Highlighting the frequent pathologization of animal lovers and animal rights activists, this book examines how the “madness” of our relationships with animals intersects with the “madness” of taking animals seriously. The essays collected in this volume argue that “animaladies” are expressive of political and psychological discontent, and the characterization of animal advocacy as mad or “crazy” distracts attention from broader social unease regarding human exploitation of animal life. While allusions to madness are both subtle and overt, they are also very often gendered, thought to be overly sentimental with an added sense that emotions are being directed at the wrong species. Animaladies are obstacles for the political uptake of interest in animal issues-as the intersections between this volume and established feminist scholarship show, the fear of being labeled unreasonable or mad still has political currency.

“Next-level revelatory." —Sarah Knight, New York Times bestselling author of The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck “Excellent...Rina really knows her shit...I'm so thankful for this book.” —Jameela Jamil, actress and host of I Weigh Journalist Rina Raphael looks at the explosion of the wellness industry: how it stems from legitimate complaints, how seductive marketing targets hopeful consumers–and why women are opening up their wallets like never before. Wellness promises women the one thing they desperately desire: control. Women are pursuing their health like never before. Whether it’s juicing, biohacking, clutching crystals, or sipping collagen, today there is something for everyone, as the wellness industry has grown from modest roots into a $4.4 trillion entity and a full-blown movement promising health and vitality in the most fashionable package. But why suddenly are we all feeling so unwell? The truth is that deep within the underbelly of self-care—hidden beneath layers of clever marketing—wellness beckons with a far stronger, more seductive message than health alone. It promises women the one thing they desperately desire: control. Vividly told and deeply reported, The Gospel of Wellness reveals how this obsession is a direct result of women feeling dismissed, mistreated, and overburdened. Women are told they can manage the chaos ruling their life by following a laid-out plan: eat right, exercise, meditate, then buy or do all this stuff. And while wellness may have sprung from good intentions, we are now relentlessly flooded with exploitative offerings, questionable ideas, and a mounting pressure to stay devoted to the divine doctrine of wellness. What happens when the cure becomes as bad as the disease? With a critical eye, humor, and empathy, wellness industry journalist Rina Raphael examines how women have been led down a kale-covered path promising nothing short of salvation. She knows: Raphael was once a disciple herself—trying everything from “clean eating” to electric shock workouts—until her own awakening to the troubling consequences. Balancing the good with the bad, The Gospel of Wellness is a clear-eyed exploration of what wellness can actually offer us, knocking down the false idols and commandments that have taken hold and ultimately showing how we might shape a better future for the movement—and for our well-being.

Reading Veganism: The Monstrous Vegan, 1818 to Present focuses on the iteration of the trope 'the monstrous vegan' across two hundred years of Anglophone literature. Explicating, through such monsters, veganism's relation to utopian longing and challenge to the conceptual category of the 'human,' the book explores ways in which ethical identities can be written, represented, and transmitted. Reading Veganism proposes that we can recognise and identify the monstrous vegan in relation to four key traits. First, monstrous vegans do not eat animals, an abstinence that generates a seemingly inexplicable anxiety in those who encounter them. Second, they are hybrid assemblages of human and nonhuman animal parts, destabilising existing taxonomical classifications. Third, monstrous vegans are sired outside of heterosexual reproduction, the product of male acts of creation. And finally, monstrous vegans are intimately connected to acts of writing and literary creation. The principle contention of the book is that understandings of veganism, as identity and practice, are limited without a consideration of multiplicity, provisionality, failure, and insufficiency within vegan definition and lived practice. Veganism's association with positivity, in its drive for health and purity, is countered by a necessary and productive negativity generated by a recognition of the horrors of the modern world. Vegan monsters rehearse the key paradoxes involved in the writing of vegan identity.

Whether you want to improve your overall health, shed a few pounds, demonstrate your compassion for animals, or help the environment, Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, dubbed "The Vegan Martha Stewart" by VegNews magazine, holds your hand every step of the way, giving you the tools, resources, and recipes you need to make the vegan transition - healthfully, joyfully, and deliciously. In this one-stop, comprehensive guide, Patrick-Goudreau: debunks common nutrition myths and explains the best sources of such nutrients as calcium, protein, iron, and omega-3 fatty acids helps you become a savvy shopper, eat healthfully affordably, restock your kitchen, read labels, and prepare nutrient-rich meals without feeling overwhelmed offers practical strategies for eating out, traveling, hosting holiday gatherings, and attending social events provides delicious, nutrient-rich, easy plant-based recipes empowers you to experience the tangible and intangible benefits of living a healthy, compassionate life, including achieving healthful numbers for cholesterol, blood pressure, weight, and more.

Towards a Vegan Jurisprudence: The Need for a Reorientation of Human Rightsargues that, in order to give effect to animal rights, human society is obliged to question the extent to which our social norms permit us to manifest compassionate justice to other animals. Jeanette Rowley posits a new perspective on the theory and practice of human rights to accommodate the demands of vegans for rights for nonhuman animals, recognizing the existing argument that the idea grounding human rights is our ethical responsibility to the precarious, mortal other. Rowley develops this principle to ground the rights claims of vegans in the ethics of alterity, applying the concept to nonhuman others to ground the protection of other animals and provide a new approach to human rights litigation to accommodate vegans, calling for the reconceptualization of the very idea of human rights.