A brilliant probe into the political and psychological effects of our changing relationship with social media Former social media executives tell us that the system is an addiction-machine. We are users, waiting for our next hit as we like, comment and share. We write to the machine as individuals, but it responds by aggregating our fantasies, desires and frailties into data, and returning them to us as a commodity experience. The Twittering Machine is an unflinching view into the calamities of digital life: the circus of online trolling, flourishing alt-right subcultures, pervasive corporate surveillance, and the virtual data mines of Facebook and Google where we spend considerable portions of our free time. In this polemical tour de force, Richard Seymour shows how the digital world is changing the ways we speak, write, and think. Through journalism, psychoanalytic reflection and insights from users, developers, security experts and others, Seymour probes the human side of the machine, asking what we’re getting out of it, and what we’re getting into. Social media held out the promise that we could make our own history–to what extent did we choose the nightmare that it has become?

“I was here. I saw beauty. I embraced it.”—Kara Tippetts How do you live out extravagant love in the everyday moments? How do you celebrate grace when your life turns out differently than the one you dreamed? Kara Tippetts discovered how to find joy in the small moments of life. She learned how to hold tight to hope even while battling intense physical and emotional pain. And she lived out the truth that God can redeem any story. In her final book, Kara offers gentle reflections on living and dying well. She invites us to cultivate soft hearts even when we face great disappointment. Her ideas for living are hard-won, wrestled with in the crucible of family, illness, and faith. And her constant reminder is that whether we are in the midst of dark days or mundane moments Jesus is always there, life is surprisingly beautiful, and God is forever good.

Popular author and Bible teacher Dee Brestin draws on her own grief experience to help readers find their way into the arms of God during times of pain and loss. Brestin demonstrates how speaking the truth to our souls with the help of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs can calm the grieving heart and help it rest like a child in the arms of a loving parent.

A hilarious and spunky new heroine in the vein of the heroines of such beloved books as Ramona the Pest, Ivy and Bean, and Clementine, from Crystal Allen—the acclaimed author of How Lamar’s Bad Prank Won a Bubba-Sized Trophy. Nine-year-old Mya Tibbs is boot-scootin’ excited for the best week of the whole school year—SPIRIT WEEK! She and her megapopular best friend, Naomi Jackson, even made a pinky promise to be Spirit Week partners so they can win the big prize: special VIP tickets to the Fall Festival! But when the partner picking goes horribly wrong, Mya gets paired with Mean Connie Tate—the biggest bully in school. And she can’t get out of it. Good gravy. Now Naomi is friend-ending mad at Mya for breaking a promise—even though Mya couldn’t help it—and everyone at school is calling Mya names. Can Mya work with Mean Connie to win the VIP tickets and get her best friend back?

A touching and funny story of one girl’s journey to discover where she came from and the unlimited possibilities of who she can become, from Crystal Allen, the acclaimed author of How Lamar’s Bad Prank Won a Bubba-Sized Trophy and The Magnificent Mya Tibbs: Spirit Week Showdown. Laura Dyson wants two things in life: to be accepted by her classmates and to be noticed by ultracute baseball star Troy Bailey. But everyone at school teases her for being overweight, and Troy won’t give her a second glance. Until one day, their history teacher announces a field trip to the run-down slave shack on her grandmother’s property. Heck to the power of no way! Her grandmother insists that it’s more than just an old shack; it’s a monument to the strong women in their family—the Laura Line. But Laura knows better: her classmates will never accept her once they see the shack. So she comes up with the perfect plan to get the trip canceled . . . but when a careless mistake puts the shack—and the Laura Line—in jeopardy, Laura must decide what’s truly important to her. Can Laura figure out how to get what she wants at school while also honoring her family’s past?

Ten-year anniversary exhibition catalog for Dyke Action Machine (DAM!), the New York City-based public art duo founded by photographer, Sue Schaffner and painter, Carrie Moyer. "Straight to Hell: 10 Years of Dyke Action Machine!" published concurrent with DAM!'s retrospective exhibition at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA, May 4-July 14, 2002.