It’s The Answers For Me


Book Description

With three bestselling books published, Khaya Dlanga is one of South Africa’s favourite authors. His ability to write candidly and authentically about himself and his world has resonated with readers from all walks of life. In March 2020 Khaya found himself bereaved, alone and facing an indefinite lockdown as a result of COVID-19. Like most of us, he turned to social media to maintain some human connection and his followers came through and kept him going. It’s The Answers For Me is the result of Khaya’s ongoing Q&A interactions with his followers on Instagram. It’s evidence of the genuine communities that are formed on social media: intensely human, at times strange and shocking, sometimes touching and often really funny. And it’s a record of a nation going through what have been the most bizarre (and longest) years in recent history. Khaya’s enviable gift for storytelling makes people want to hear his stories and also to trust him with theirs. From the secrets our parents think they keep from us, to the real reasons we stay in relationships, and venturing into many other everyday issues and situations, It’s The Answers For Me captures our collective mgowo.




The Answers


Book Description

NAMED A TOP 10 NOVEL OF 2017 BY THE WALL STREET JOURNAL AND VOGUE, A BEST BOOK OF 2017 BY ESQUIRE, HUFFINGTON POST, POP SUGAR, ELECTRIC LITERATURE AND KIRKUS, AND A 2017 NPR GREAT READ. ONE OF DWIGHT GARNER'S TOP BOOKS OF 2017 IN THE NEW YORK TIMES. A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITOR'S CHOICE AND A FINALIST FOR THE CHICAGO REVIEW OF BOOKS FICTION AWARD. "Like Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, [The Answers] is also a novel about a subjugated woman, in this case not to a totalitarian theocracy but to subtler forces its heroine is only beginning to understand and fears she is complicit with." --Dwight Garner, New York Times Mary Parsons is broke. Dead broke, really: between an onslaught of medical bills and a mountain of credit card debt, she has been pushed to the brink. Hounded by bill collectors and still plagued by the painful and bizarre symptoms that doctors couldn’t diagnose, Mary seeks relief from a holistic treatment called Pneuma Adaptive Kinesthesia—PAKing, for short. Miraculously, it works. But PAKing is prohibitively expensive. Like so many young adults trying to make ends meet in New York City, Mary scours Craigslist and bulletin boards for a second job, and eventually lands an interview for a high-paying gig that’s even stranger than her symptoms or the New Agey PAKing. Mary’s new job title is Emotional Girlfriend in the “Girlfriend Experiment”—the brainchild of a wealthy and infamous actor, Kurt Sky, who has hired a team of biotech researchers to solve the problem of how to build and maintain the perfect romantic relationship, casting himself as the experiment’s only constant. Around Kurt, several women orbit as his girlfriends with specific functions. There’s a Maternal Girlfriend who folds his laundry, an Anger Girlfriend who fights with him, a Mundanity Girlfriend who just hangs around his loft, and a whole team of girlfriends to take care of Intimacy. With so little to lose, Mary falls headfirst into Kurt’s messy, ego-driven simulacrum of human connection. Told in Catherine Lacey’s signature spiraling, hypnotic prose, The Answers is both a mesmerizing dive into the depths of one woman’s psyche and a critical look at the conventions and institutions that infiltrate our most personal, private moments. As Mary struggles to understand herself—her body, her city, the trials of her past, the uncertainty of her future—the reader must confront the impossible questions that fuel Catherine Lacey’s work: How do you measure love? Can you truly know someone else? Do we even know ourselves? And listen for Lacey’s uncanny answers.




All The Answers


Book Description

A 2019 EISNER AWARD NOMINEE FOR BEST REALITY-BASED WORK A NPR BEST BOOK OF 2018 A VULTURE BEST COMIC OF 2018 A PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BEST BOOK OF 2018 A LIBRARY JOURNAL BEST BOOK OF 2018 A NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY BEST BOOK OF 2018 WINNER OF THE PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 2018 GRAPHIC NOVEL CRITICS POLL In this moving graphic memoir, Eisner Award-winning writer and artist Michael Kupperman traces the life of his reclusive father—the once-world-famous Joel Kupperman, Quiz Kid. That his father is slipping into dementia—seems to embrace it, really—means that the past he would never talk about might be erased forever. Joel Kupperman became one of the most famous children in America during World War II as one of the young geniuses on the series Quiz Kids. With the uncanny ability to perform complex math problems in his head, Joel endeared himself to audiences across the country and became a national obsession. Following a childhood spent in the public eye, only to then fall victim to the same public’s derision, Joel deliberately spent the remainder of his life removed from the world at large. With wit and heart, Michael Kupperman presents a fascinating account of mid-century radio and early television history, the pro-Jewish propaganda entertainment used to counteract anti-Semitism, and the early age of modern celebrity culture. All the Answers is both a powerful father-son story and an engaging portrayal of what identity came to mean at this turning point in American history, and shows how the biggest stages in the world can overcome even the greatest of players.




Bigger Than Me


Book Description

Have you wondered, Is this all there is? Somehow we’ve bought into the lie that the good life is a showy one. But the greatest adventures come when we stop living for self and what the world says is important—and start living for things that really matter. Nothing is duller, in the long run, than one more bag of money, one more business conquest, or one more round of earthly pleasure. The returns are depressingly diminishing. Bigger Than Me is a collection of candid reflections from a successful businessman about money, ego, truth, busyness, solitude, legacy, dying, faith, gratitude, and much more. His early worldly accomplishments taught him first hand that there are deeper, more satisfying goals in life than those our culture celebrates. If you’ve found yourself looking for deeper purpose and meaning, this book will inspire you to make a course correction that doesn’t involve sweeping the past aside. Rather, you can use all of life’s lessons to build something new and bigger than yourself.




Talk to Me


Book Description

“The perfect guide to interviewing . . . anyone who speaks with fellow humans to acquire information will find Nelson’s guidance priceless.” —Tom Foster, New York Times–bestselling author of How to Read Literature Like a Professor Interviewing is the single most important way journalists (and doctors, lawyers, social workers, teachers, human resources staff, and, really, all of us) get information. Yet to many, the perfect interview feels more like luck than skill—a rare confluence of rapport, topic, and timing. But the thing is, great interviews aren’t the result of serendipity and intuition, but rather the result of careful planning and good journalistic habits. And Dean Nelson is here to show you how to nail the perfect interview every time. Drawing on forty-years of award-winning journalism and his experience as the founder and host of the Writer’s Symposium by the Sea, Nelson walks you through each step of the journey from deciding whom to interview and structuring questions, to the nitty gritty of how to use a recording device and effective note-taking strategies, to the ethical dilemmas of interviewing people you love (and loathe). He also includes case studies of famous interviews to show how these principles play out in real time. Chock full of comprehensive, time-tested, gold-standard advice, Talk to Me is a book that demystifies the art and science of interviewing. “One of the best interviewers around.” —Anne Lamott, New York Times–bestselling author of Help, Thanks, Wow




These Things Really do Happen to Me


Book Description

Some people know Khaya Dlanga as a highly regarded marketing professional, who has worked for several advertising agencies and global-chip companies, but most people know Khaya as a collector and teller of stories. From his early vlogs to his lively discussions on various social media platforms, Khaya’s words have shown us how we all have stories to share and how stories can bring people together. In These Things Really Do Happen To Me, Khaya describes everyday experiences that have shaped his life. He recounts amusing anecdotes – from chasing horses as a child in rural Transkei, to the time he fell asleep next to President Thabo Mbeki – as well as moving stories, such as meeting his sister for the first time and only time. Not one to shy away from heavyweight topics, Khaya also shares why conversations about race are not controversial, what his feelings on feminism are, why we must bring back small talk, and how to take a sneaky break when your family is working you too hard.




What Do You Think of Me? Why Do I Care?


Book Description

Peer pressure, codependency, shame, low self-esteem--these are just some of the words used to identify how people are controlled by others' opinions. Why is it so important to be liked? Why is rejection so traumatic? Edward T. Welch's insightful, biblical answers to these questions show that freedom from others' opinions and genuine, loving ...




The Book of Answers


Book Description

25 years and over 1 million copies in print: An updated, repackaged edition of the bestselling divination tool and party favorite - ask a yes or no question, open the book, find your answer. Should you ask your boss for a raise? Call that cutie you met at a party? Sell your Google stock? Tell your best friend her boyfriend's cheating? The answer to these questions (and hundreds of others) is in this fun and weirdly wise little book that's impossible to put down. It's simple to use: just hold it closed in your hands and concentrate on your question for a few seconds. While visualizing or speaking your question, place one palm down on the book's front and stroke the edge of the pages back to front. When you sense the time is right, open to the page your fingers landed on and there is your answer! Fun, satisfying, and a lot less time-consuming than asking everyone you know for advice.




Foster


Book Description

An international bestseller and one of The Times’ “Top 50 Novels Published in the 21st Century,” Claire Keegan’s piercing contemporary classic Foster is a heartbreaking story of childhood, loss, and love; now released as a standalone book for the first time ever in the US It is a hot summer in rural Ireland. A child is taken by her father to live with relatives on a farm, not knowing when or if she will be brought home again. In the Kinsellas’ house, she finds an affection and warmth she has not known and slowly, in their care, begins to blossom. But there is something unspoken in this new household—where everything is so well tended to—and this summer must soon come to an end. Winner of the prestigious Davy Byrnes Award and published in an abridged version in the New Yorker, this internationally bestselling contemporary classic is now available for the first time in the US in a full, standalone edition. A story of astonishing emotional depth, Foster showcases Claire Keegan’s great talent and secures her reputation as one of our most important storytellers.




To Quote Myself


Book Description