Nothing can change your life more than the people you meet. The mistake people make in networking is that they think it's transactional or functional--when it's far more exciting than that. This refreshingly entertaining how to guide gives the reader not only a replicable and proven process, but a blank check to create unlimited value from their own networking opportunities. Each chapter contains honest stories, perhaps more than occasional swear words, proven strategies and a To Do List to put you on the path of creating your own power network. "Fresh and irreverent, funny and relatable, "This Shit Works" is a must read for anyone who's ever died a little inside as they entered a room wearing a name tag."

There's a mantra that real writers know but wannabe writers don’t. And the secret phrase is this: NOBODY WANTS TO READ YOUR SH*T. Recognizing this painful truth is the first step in the writer's transformation from amateur to professional. From Chapter Four: “When you understand that nobody wants to read your shit, you develop empathy. You acquire the skill that is indispensable to all artists and entrepreneurs—the ability to switch back and forth in your imagination from your own point of view as writer/painter/seller to the point of view of your reader/gallery-goer/customer. You learn to ask yourself with ev­ery sentence and every phrase: Is this interesting? Is it fun or challenging or inventive? Am I giving the reader enough? Is she bored? Is she following where I want to lead her?

"Your life isn't over." My dad says this. "I mean, YOUR life isn't over. Beyond the kids. You'll go on living, doing things. This isn't it." I know, I assure him. I have the kids. They need me. They're my life now. "OK," he replies, then grunts—more of a brief hum. He only hums when he thinks I'm full of shit. Shockingly single. Amy Biancolli's life went off script more dramatically than most after her husband of twenty years jumped off the roof of a parking garage. Left with three children, a three-story house, and a pile of knotty psychological complications, Amy realizes the flooding dishwasher, dead car battery, rapidly growing lawn, basement sump pump, and broken doorknob aren't going to fix themselves. She also realizes that "figuring shit out" means accepting the horrors that came her way, rolling with them, slogging through them, helping others through theirs, and working her way through life with love and laughter. Amy Biancolli is an author and journalist whose column appears in the Albany Times Union. Before that, Amy served as film critic for the Houston Chronicle where her reviews, published around the country, won her the 2007 Comment and Criticism Award from the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors Association. Biancolli is the author of House of Holy Fools: A Family Portrait in Six Cracked Parts, which earned her Albany Author of the Year. Amy lives in Albany, New York, with her three children.

One of the "Best Books of 2020" by NPR's Book Concierge **Your Favorite Movies, Re-Watched** New York Times opinion writer and bestselling author Lindy West was once the in-house movie critic for Seattle's alternative newsweekly The Stranger, where she covered film with brutal honesty and giddy irreverence. In Shit, Actually, Lindy returns to those roots, re-examining beloved and iconic movies from the past 40 years with an eye toward the big questions of our time: Is Twilight the horniest movie in history? Why do the zebras in The Lion King trust Mufasa-WHO IS A LION-to look out for their best interests? Why did anyone bother making any more movies after The Fugitive achieved perfection? And, my god, why don't any of the women in Love, Actually ever fucking talk?!?! From Forrest Gump, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, and Bad Boys II, to Face/Off, Top Gun, and The Notebook, Lindy combines her razor-sharp wit and trademark humor with a genuine adoration for nostalgic trash to shed new critical light on some of our defining cultural touchstones-the stories we've long been telling ourselves about who we are. At once outrageously funny and piercingly incisive, Shit, Actually reminds us to pause and ask, "How does this movie hold up?", all while teaching us how to laugh at the things we love without ever letting them or ourselves off the hook. Shit, Actually is a love letter and a break-up note all in one: to the films that shaped us and the ones that ruined us. More often than not, Lindy finds, they're one and the same.

A certified sex educator and intimacy expert shows women how to gain control of their love life and find the relationship they want in this modern guide. “Boodram’s brand of relationship advice . . . focuses on empowering single women with the tools they need to succeed in the digital dating era.” —Refinery29 We all have that friend . . . the one who wants to capture hearts in real life and online without breaking her own. The one who can’t seem to overcome ghosting, orbiting and flaking. The one who wants to inspire like Oprah and seduce like a stripper. The one who looks for love and loses herself. You might have that friend (or be that friend), but congratulations—you have found the solution. The Game of Desire will teach you the self- and social awareness to make dating your new favorite hobby. The truth is that we live in a world where dissatisfaction and disenchantment with dating aren’t just normal—they’re expected. Sexologist and intimacy expert Shan Boodram has analyzed the competitive dating landscape as well as the common pitfalls women face in the pursuit of passion and has developed a five-phase strategy to help down-on-love daters achieve romantic success. Testing out this strategy is a group of chronically single women eager to learn how to attract, approach and seduce any partners they desire. By challenging this group to empower themselves through identifying and tackling bad habits, and by debunking dating myths through real-life experiments, Boodram empowers you to take control of your love story and to manifest the life you know you are meant to live. Featuring exclusive workshops from a range of experts, surprising techniques and revelations on why good intentions just aren’t good enough anymore—this book will inspire you to give your best self a chance to come out and play to win. Hilarious, poignant and insightful, The Game of Desire is a must for everyone tired of the new normal. “In a world thought to be run by males, sexologist Shan Boodram levels the dating playing field for all sexes with her educated dissection of the human mind, emotions, dating and sex.” —Winnie Harlow, supermodel “For The Game of Desire, a new self-help dating guide from Shan Boodram, the sexologist enlisted five women for a romance boot camp, designed to teach them to flirt better, identify matches and communicate with purpose . . . the bulk of her advice is sound: learn what you want and create the circumstances to get it.” —TIME magazine

Declutter your mind and do the important sh*t you've been putting off with this New York Times bestseller from the author of The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck and You Do You. The no-f*cks-given, no-holds-barred guide to living your best life. Ever find yourself stuck at the office-or even just glued to the couch—when you really want to get out (for once), get to the gym (at last), and get started on that "someday" project you're always putting off? It's time to get your sh*t together. In The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck, "anti-guru" Sarah Knight introduced readers to the joys of mental decluttering. This book takes you one step further—organizing the f*cks you want and need to give, and cutting through the bullsh*t cycle of self-sabotage to get happy and stay that way. You'll discover: • The Power of Negative Thinking • Three simple tools for getting your sh*t together • How to spend less and save more • Ways to manage anxiety, avoid avoidance, and conquer your fear of failure • And tons of other awesome sh*t! Praise for Sarah Knight: "Genius." —Cosmopolitan "Self-help to swear by." —The Boston Globe "Hilarious . . . truly practical." —Booklist

"A brilliant account of the politics of shit. It will leave you speechless." Written in Paris after the heady days of student revolt in May 1968 and before the devastation of the AIDS epidemic, History of Shit is emblematic of a wild and adventurous strain of 1970s' theoretical writing that attempted to marry theory, politics, sexuality, pleasure, experimentation, and humor. Radically redefining dialectical thought and post-Marxist politics, it takes an important—and irreverent—position alongside the works of such postmodern thinkers as Foucault, Deleuze, Guattari, and Lyotard. Laporte's eccentric style and ironic sensibility combine in an inquiry that is provocative, humorous, and intellectually exhilarating. Debunking all humanist mythology about the grandeur of civilization, History of Shit suggests instead that the management of human waste is crucial to our identities as modern individuals—including the organization of the city, the rise of the nation-state, the development of capitalism, and the mandate for clean and proper language. Far from rising above the muck, Laporte argues, we are thoroughly mired in it, particularly when we appear our most clean and hygienic. Laporte's style of writing is itself an attack on our desire for "clean language." Littered with lengthy quotations and obscure allusions, and adamantly refusing to follow a linear argument, History of Shit breaks the rules and challenges the conventions of "proper" academic discourse.