Syndicated gay humorist Kevin Isom is back—with more hilarious and thought-provoking takes on queer life. In this follow-up to his book Tongue in Cheek and Other Places: A Seriously Humorous Look at Queer Life, Isom takes a cue from his latest interest—couples dancing—and looks at queer life as a dance. From chapters like Couples Waltz (a mostly upbeat dance with occasional dips and unexpected turns) to Last Tango (when your dance partnership has exceeded its sell-by date), and from Lead or Follow (stereotypes just can’t boogie) to Queer as Polka (sometimes it’s just plain odd), Isom shows us a Dancin’ Queen who knows how to get into the gay groove. Tap your toe to the rhythm, and read on, baby! Kevin Isom is the author of Tongue in Cheek and Other Places: A Seriously Humorous Look at Queer Life. His syndicated humor column, “Tongue in Cheek,” appears in gay and lesbian newspapers and magazines across the United States, Australia, and Canada. His upcoming book is a novel titled Like Fruit on the Vine, and he may be reached at [email protected].

You Only Hurt the Ones You Love is a collection of short plays by David J. Holcombe. The subject matter varies from food poisoning to Czech folk dancing, with lots of odd topics in between. The common denominator remains a keen sense of social observation and a desire to translate those findings into meaningful theater. While it is understood that many people want to be entertained rather than educated or harangued, most of these plays deal with weighty and sometimes controversial topics, often approached with humor. Artists have the responsibility to translate our world, so chaotic, disturbing, or even repulsive, into something concise, poignant, and beautiful, a far cry from simply entertaining. If you can learn something, so much the better.

In this highly atmospheric thriller from the Bram Stoker Award–nominated author of The Violence, a young woman hopes to reinvent herself at an isolated artists’ colony . . . only to be drawn into its dark, twisted past. Sarah Carpenter is starting over. She’s on the run—leaving behind her unsupportive, narcissistic ex-boyfriend and alcoholic, abusive mother—and headed for a new beginning at Tranquil Falls, a secluded artists’ colony on the grounds of a closed hotel. There, with no cell signal or internet to distract her, she hopes to rediscover her love for pottery and put the broken pieces of her life back together. But when Sarah uncovers the body of a young woman while digging a hole for a pit kiln, things start to fall apart. Her fellow artists begin to act in troubling ways. The eccentric fiber artist knits an endless scarf. The musician plays the same carousel song over and over until his fingers bleed. The calligrapher grins with ink-stained teeth. Not to mention the haunting dreams Sarah has night after night. When she discovers glass shards in her clay, Sarah wonders if someone is out to get her—or if she’s losing her grip on reality out here in the wilds, where the pounding of the waterfall never, ever fades. As she investigates the beautiful valley and the crumbling resort looming over them all, she unearths a chilling past that refuses to remain buried . . .

Includes the decisions of the Supreme Courts of Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Texas, and Court of Appeals of Kentucky; Aug./Dec. 1886-May/Aug. 1892, Court of Appeals of Texas; Aug. 1892/Feb. 1893-Jan./Feb. 1928, Courts of Civil and Criminal Appeals of Texas; Apr./June 1896-Aug./Nov. 1907, Court of Appeals of Indian Territory; May/June 1927-Jan./Feb. 1928, Courts of Appeals of Missouri and Commission of Appeals of Texas.

A hilarious, heartfelt, and refreshingly honest memoir and New York Times bestseller by the beloved comedic actress known for her roles on Freaks and Geeks, Dawson’s Creek, and Cougar Town who has become “the breakout star of Instagram stories...Imagine I Love Lucy mixed with a modern lifestyle guru” (The New Yorker). There’s no stopping Busy Philipps. From the time she was two and “aced out in her nudes” to explore the neighborhood (as her mom famously described her toddler jailbreak), Busy has always been headstrong, defiant, and determined not to miss out on all the fun. These qualities led her to leave Scottsdale, Arizona, at the age of nineteen to pursue her passion for acting in Hollywood. But much like her painful and painfully funny teenage years, chasing her dreams wasn’t always easy and sometimes hurt more than a little. In a memoir “that often reads like a Real World confessional or an open diary” (Kirkus Reviews), Busy opens up about chafing against a sexist system rife with on-set bullying and body shaming, being there when friends face shattering loss, enduring devastating personal and professional betrayals from those she loved best, and struggling with postpartum anxiety and the challenges of motherhood. But Busy also brings to the page her sly sense of humor and the unshakeable sense that disappointment shouldn’t stand in her way—even when she’s knocked down both figuratively and literally (from a knee injury at her seventh-grade dance to a violent encounter on the set of Freaks and Geeks). The rough patches in her life are tempered by times of hilarity and joy: leveraging a flawless impression of Cher from Clueless into her first paid acting gig, helping reinvent a genre with cult classic Freaks and Geeks, becoming fast friends with Dawson’s Creek castmate Michelle Williams, staging her own surprise wedding, conquering natural childbirth with the help of a Mad Men–themed hallucination, and of course, how her Instagram stories became “the most addictive thing on the internet right now” (Cosmopolitan). Busy is the rare entertainer whose impressive arsenal of talents as an actress is equally matched by her storytelling ability, sense of humor, and sharp observations about life, love, and motherhood—“if you think you know Busy from her Instagram stories, you don’t know the half of it” (Jenni Konner). Her conversational writing reminds us what we love about her on screens large and small. From “candid tales of celebrity life, mom life, and general Busy-ness” (W Magazine), This Will Only Hurt a Little “is everything we’ve been dying to hear about” (Bustle).