This empowering exercise guide is big on attitude, giving plus-size women the motivation and information they need to move their bodies and improve their health. Hanne Blank, proud fat girl and personal trainer, understands the physical and emotional roadblocks that overweight women face in the word of exercise. In this one-of-a-kind guide that combines exercise advice with a refusal to fat-bash, Hanne shows readers how to choose workout options from WiiFit to extreme sports, avoid common sports injuries, get proper nutrition, source plus-size work out gear, and more.

“Finally—a fitness book for the rest of us! . . . [Big Fit Girl] is sure to usher in a new generation of tough, curvy athletes.” —Jessamyn Stanley, author of Every Body Yoga In Big Fit Girl, Louise Green describes how the fitness industry fails to meet the needs of plus-size women and thus prevents them from improving their health and fitness. By telling her own story of how she stopped dieting, got off the couch, and unleashed her inner athlete—as well as showcasing similar stories from other women—Green inspires other plus-size women to do the same. Green also provides concrete advice, based on the latest research, about how to get started, how to establish a support team, how to choose an activity, what kind of clothing and gear work best for the plus-size athlete, how to set goals, and how to improve one’s relationship with food. And she stresses the importance of paying it forward—for it is only by seeing plus-size women in leadership roles that other plus-size women will be motivated to stop trying to lose weight and get fit instead. “Big Fit Girl impressed me tremendously. Green combines compelling storytelling with practical tips—true to what we know about science—in a unique way that will get you moving.” —Linda Bacon, PhD, scientist, and author of Health at Every Size “Inspiring and empowering.” —Taryn Brumfitt, producer and director, founder of the Body Image Movement “I’m thrilled to live in a world where Big Fit Girl will be part of the health section. Thank you Louise—it’s time for every person of every size to have access to this information!” —Jes Baker, The Militant Baker

The first book to comprehensively discuss the function of the psoas in posture, movement, and exercise, The Psoas Solution identifies the functional anatomy, biomechanics, and motor control of the psoas and its role in core and hip stabilization. Integrating research with clinical experience, Evan Osar identifies the psoas's role on the hip, pelvis, and low back and demonstrates how to incorporate the psoas into functional movement patterns including squatting, lunging, and bending. The Psoas Solution includes corrective and functional exercise progressions for improving and integrating the psoas into daily activities. Health and fitness professionals will find this a valuable resource full of applicable strategies and exercises to incorporate into current rehabilitation or training programs. Abundantly illustrated with full-color images throughout, this book also provides most complete review on the relevant research on the psoas available. For years the psoas has been a muscle mired in controversy. It has been linked to common postural and movement dysfunction including anterior pelvic tilt, hyperlordosis of the lumbar spine, and low back pain. Strategies to improve posture and reduce pain have primarily involved stretching the psoas and strengthening its antagonist, the glutes. However, recent clinical research has revealed that the psoas is much more than a simple hip flexor and plays an integral role in both posture and movement. This professional treatment manual for health care practitioners and students gives an overview of the ways that non-optimal use of the psoas can affect breathing, posture, and movement. It outlines specific treatment strategies that enable patients to develop awareness and utilization of the psoas muscle to achieve three-dimensional breathing and improve balance and body mechanics.

From the two defining personalities of post-cyberpunk SF, a brilliant collaboration to rival 1987's The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling

It's surprising that the term "heterosexuality" is less than 150 years old and that heterosexuality's history has never before been written, given how obsessed we are with it. In Straight, independent scholar Hanne Blank delves deep into the contemporary psyche as well as the historical record to chronicle the realm of heterosexual relations--a subject that is anything but straight and narrow. Consider how Catholic monasticism, the reading of novels, the abolition of slavery, leisure time, divorce, and constipation of the bowels have all at some time been labeled enemies of the heterosexual state. With an extensive historical scope and plenty of juicy details and examples, Straight provides a fascinating look at the vagaries, schisms, and contradictions of what has so often been perceived as an irreducible fact of nature.

More than 150 poems from her seven books of poetry written between 1963 and 1982.

A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2017 An electrifying first collection from one of the most exciting short story writers of our time "I can’t recall the last time I laughed this hard at a book. Simultaneously, I’m shocked and scandalized. She’s brilliant, this young woman."—David Sedaris Ottessa Moshfegh's debut novel Eileen was one of the literary events of 2015. Garlanded with critical acclaim, it was named a book of the year by The Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle, nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award, short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, and won the PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction. But as many critics noted, Moshfegh is particularly held in awe for her short stories. Homesick for Another World is the rare case where an author's short story collection is if anything more anticipated than her novel. And for good reason. There's something eerily unsettling about Ottessa Moshfegh's stories, something almost dangerous, while also being delightful, and even laugh-out-loud funny. Her characters are all unsteady on their feet in one way or another; they all yearn for connection and betterment, though each in very different ways, but they are often tripped up by their own baser impulses and existential insecurities. Homesick for Another World is a master class in the varieties of self-deception across the gamut of individuals representing the human condition. But part of the unique quality of her voice, the echt Moshfeghian experience, is the way the grotesque and the outrageous are infused with tenderness and compassion. Moshfegh is our Flannery O'Connor, and Homesick for Another World is her Everything That Rises Must Converge or A Good Man is Hard to Find. The flesh is weak; the timber is crooked; people are cruel to each other, and stupid, and hurtful. But beauty comes from strange sources. And the dark energy surging through these stories is powerfully invigorating. We're in the hands of an author with a big mind, a big heart, blazing chops, and a political acuity that is needle-sharp. The needle hits the vein before we even feel the prick.