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Book Flailing at Life

    Book Details:
  • Author : Sam Stall
  • Publisher : Running Press Adult
  • Release : 2019-10-15
  • ISBN : 9780762495528
  • Pages : 0 pages

Download or read book Flailing at Life written by Sam Stall and published by Running Press Adult. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tired of flailing at life? Let Toby the Wacky Waving Inflatable Tube Guy guide you on your path to happiness and success. You've seen him everywhere: Toby the Tube Guy is the ubiquitous, happily flapping denizen of car dealerships and strip malls -- but it wasn't always that way. Before he was a household name, Toby struggled with the same personal and professional problems that so often vex his human friends. After a great deal of flailing around -- literally and figuratively -- he found the motivation to live life to the fullest (and wackiest). Over the course of his rise to fame, Toby has learned a lot about life, happiness, and what it takes to succeed. In Flailing at Life, he shares this knowledge for the first time, teaching you how to be your own biggest fan, how to avoid letting problems deflate you, and how to know when you're stretched too thin. As an added bonus, Toby's iconic wave is animated for full effect with a lenticular cover!

Book Wacky Waving Inflatable Tube Guy

Download or read book Wacky Waving Inflatable Tube Guy written by Conor Riordan and published by RP Minis. This book was released on 2018-10-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The very first of its kind, this miniature Wacky Waving Inflatable Tube Guy is the perfect desktop companion, tiny marketing tool, or hilarious gift! Finally, the joyous dancing tube man -- who's been featured everywhere from Ricky Martin's stage to Broad City -- is available in a tiny, desk-friendly size. This box includes: An 18-inch waving tube man with fan in base to make him dance, wiggle, and shake just like the real thing (batteries not included) A 32-page mini book exploring the larger than life (and utterly surprising!) origins of everyone's favorite flailing arm man PLEASE NOTE: This product can be powered by a 9-volt battery or by a specific AC adapter. (Battery nor AC adapter included with purchase.) Please read and follow the instructions included in the box to ensure optimal performance. If using a battery: A rechargable Ni-MH battery is recommended for best performance and is a more cost-effective alternative to a common Alkaline (single-use) battery. If using an Alkaline battery, it must be NEW and preferably a PREMIUM brand. DO NOT use a Carbon-Zinc battery (often labeled "Heavy-Duty"). This type of battery cannot produce enough power to operate the motor. To get the most life out of the battery, use in intervals no greater than 5 to 10 minutes. Operating in this manner will yield approximately 45 minutes of use. If your tube guy begins to get stuck in a downward position, it is time to replace the battery or recharge if using a rechargeable battery. If using an AC adapter, it must follow the below specifications: Input: AC 100-240V (50-60 Hz) Output: DC 9V (1A or 2A)

Book Wacky Waving Inflatable Tube Elf

Download or read book Wacky Waving Inflatable Tube Elf written by Sam Stall and published by Running Press Miniature Editions. This book was released on 2020-10-13 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He's holly. He's jolly. He's perfect for gifting or for adorning your mantle this Christmas. He's the Wacky Waving Inflatable Tube Elf SPECIFICATIONS: 18-inch green waving tube elf with fan in base to let him wave, dance, flail, and spread cheer with you all holiday season (batteries not included) GREAT STOCKING STUFFER: A hilarious, cheerful item that makes the perfect stocking stuffer and white elephant gift INCLUDES MINI BOOK: Includes 32-page illustrated mini book exploring the fascinating (imagined) origins of the mini tube elf SPREAD HOLIDAY CHEER Bring joy to your home or office Never has so much joy come in such a small package PLEASE NOTE: This product can be powered by a 9-volt battery or by a specific AC adapter. (Battery nor AC adapter included with purchase.) Please read and follow the instructions included in the box to ensure optimal performance. If using a battery: A rechargable Ni-MH battery is recommended for best performance and is a more cost-effective alternative to a common Alkaline (single-use) battery. If using an Alkaline battery, it must be NEW. Refer to product information sheet included in box for recommended brands. DO NOT use a Carbon-Zinc battery (often labeled "Heavy-Duty"). This type of battery cannot produce enough power to operate the motor. To get the most life out of the battery, use in intervals no greater than 5 to 10 minutes. Operating in this manner will yield approximately 45 minutes of use. If your tube guy begins to get stuck in a downward position, it is time to replace the battery or recharge if using a rechargeable battery. If using an AC adapter, it must follow the below specifications: Input: AC 100-240V (50-60 Hz) Output: DC 9V (1A or 2A)

Book Freefall to Fly

    Book Details:
  • Author : Rebekah Lyons
  • Publisher : Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
  • Release : 2013-04-09
  • ISBN : 1414382448
  • Pages : 221 pages

Download or read book Freefall to Fly written by Rebekah Lyons and published by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.. This book was released on 2013-04-09 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Women today are fading. In a female culture built on Photoshopped perfection and Pinterest fantasies, we’ve lost the ability to dream our own big dreams. So busy trying to do it all and have it all, we’ve missed the life we were really designed for. And we are paying the price. The rise of loneliness, depression, and anxiety among the female population in Western cultures is at an all-time high. Overall, women are two and a half times more likely to take antidepressants than men. What is it about our culture, the expectations, and our way of life that is breaking women down in unprecedented ways? In this vulnerable memoir of transformation, Rebekah Lyons shares her journey from Atlanta, Georgia, to the heart of Manhattan, where she found herself blindsided by crippling depression and anxiety. Overwhelmed by the pressure to be domestically efficient, professionally astute, and physically attractive, Rebekah finally realized that freedom can come only by facing our greatest fears and fully surrendering to God’s call on our lives. This book is an invitation for all women to take that first step toward freedom. For it is only when we free-fall that we can truly fly.

Book A Life at Work

    Book Details:
  • Author : Thomas Moore
  • Publisher : Harmony
  • Release : 2009-01-06
  • ISBN : 0767922530
  • Pages : 210 pages

Download or read book A Life at Work written by Thomas Moore and published by Harmony. This book was released on 2009-01-06 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A job is never just a job. It is always connected to a deep and invisible process of finding meaning in life through work. In Thomas Moore’s groundbreaking book Care of the Soul, he wrote of “the great malady of the twentieth century…the loss of soul.” That bestselling work taught readers ways to cultivate depth, genuineness, and soulfulness in their everyday lives, and became a beloved classic. Now, in A Life’s Work, Moore turns to an aspect of our lives that looms large in our self-regard, an aspect by which we may even define ourselves—our work. The workplace, Moore knows, is a laboratory where matters of soul are worked out. A Life’s Work is about finding the right job, yes, and it is also about uncovering and becoming the person you were meant to be. Moore reveals the quest to find a life’s work in all its depth and mystery. All jobs, large and small, long-term and temporary, he writes, contribute to your life’s work. A particular job may be important because of the emotional rewards it offers or for the money. But beneath the surface, your labors are shaping your destiny for better or worse. If you ignore the deeper issues, you may not know the nature of your calling, and if you don’t do work that connects with your deep soul, you may always be dissatisfied, not only in your choice of work but in all other areas of life. Moore explores the often difficult process—the obstacles, blocks, and hardships of our own making—that we go through on our way to discovering our purpose, and reveals the joy that is our reward. He teaches us patience, models the necessary powers of reflection, and gives us the courage to keep going. A Life’s Work is a beautiful rumination, realistic and poignant, and a comforting and exhilarating guide to one of life’s biggest dilemmas and one of its greatest opportunities.

Book The Fangirl Life

Download or read book The Fangirl Life written by Kathleen Smith and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-07-05 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are You a Fangirl? • Do you survive boring classes or meetings by imagining your favorite TV couple making out? • Have you posted a lengthy diatribe on the Internet defending a fictional character? • Have you gotten carsick from reading fan fiction on your smartphone? • Has Netflix presented you with the “Are you still watching?” button at least once? If you answered yes, you are a fangirl. (But you already knew that!) Fangirling is more than a hobby; it’s a way of life for an enormous community. As a fangirl, you are a passionate, intelligent, and creative creature. But sometimes focusing on the fictional can keep you from putting those qualities to use in your everyday life. Rather than using your pop culture obsessions to avoid your real-life problems, you can tackle issues like stress, anxiety, and low self-esteem by turning obsession into inspiration. If you enjoy flailing over badass fictional ladies or speculating endlessly over plot points, but would like to carve more space for the narrative of your own life, this is the book for you. Written by a proud fangirl who is also a licensed therapist, The Fangirl Life is a witty guide to putting your passions to use in your offline life, whether it’s learning how writing fan fiction can be a launching point for greater career endeavors, or how to avoid the myths that fictional romance perpetuates. If you’re ready to start translating those fictional obsessions into some bold personal moves, let The Fangirl Life help you become your own ultimate fangirl.

Book Living the Life Unexpected

Download or read book Living the Life Unexpected written by Jody Day and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2016-02-25 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘The book to recommend to patients when they face coming to terms with unavoidable childlessness.' – British Medical Journal In Living the Life Unexpected, Jody Day addresses the experience of involuntary childlessness and provides a powerful, practical guide to help those negotiating a future without children come to terms with their grief; a grief that is only just beginning to be recognized by society. This friendly, practical, humorous and honest guide from one of the world’s most respected names in childless support offers compassion and understanding and shows how it’s possible to move towards a creative, happy, meaningful and fulfilling future – even if it’s not the one you had planned. Millions of people are now living a life without children, almost double that of a generation ago and the numbers are rising still. Although some are childfree by choice, many others are childless due to infertility or circumstance and are struggling to come to terms with their uncertain future. Although most people think that those without children either 'couldn't' or 'didn't want’ to be parents, the truth is much more complex. Jody Day was forty-four when she realized that her quest to be a mother was at an end. She presumed that she was through the toughest part, but over the next couple of years she was hit by waves of grief, despair and isolation. Eventually she found her way and in 2011 created Gateway Women, the global friendship and support network for childless women which has now helped almost two million people worldwide. This edition, previously titled Rocking the Life Unexpected, has been extensively revised and updated, with significant additional content and case studies from forty involuntarily childless people (mostly women) from around the world.

Book The Worrier s Guide to Life

    Book Details:
  • Author : Gemma Correll
  • Publisher : Andrews McMeel Publishing
  • Release : 2015-05-26
  • ISBN : 1449470300
  • Pages : 128 pages

Download or read book The Worrier s Guide to Life written by Gemma Correll and published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. This book was released on 2015-05-26 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In her hugely popular comic drawings, Gemma Correll dispenses dubious advice and unreliable information on life as she sees it, including The Dystopian Zodiac, Reward Stickers for Grown-Ups, Palm Reading for Millennials, and a Map of the Introvert's Heart. For all you fellow agonizers, fretters, and nervous wrecks, this book is for you. Read it and weep...with laughter

Book I Swear I ll Make It Up to You

Download or read book I Swear I ll Make It Up to You written by Mishka Shubaly and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2016-03-08 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An odyssey of family, heartbreak, violence, punk rock, brokenness, broke-ness, sex, love, loss, drinking, drinking, drinking, and an unlikely savior: distance running. A misfit kid at the best of times, Mishka Shubaly had his world shattered when, in a twenty-four-hour span in 1992, he survived a mass shooting on his school's campus, then learned that his parents were getting divorced. His father, a prominent rocket scientist, abandoned the family and their home was lost to foreclosure. Shubaly swore to avenge the wrongs against his mother, but instead plunged into a magnificently toxic love affair with alcohol. Almost two decades later, Shubaly's life changed again when a fateful five-mile run after a bar fight inspired him to clean up his life. And when he finally reconnected with his estranged father, he discovered the story of his childhood was radically different from what he thought he knew. In this fiercely honest, emotional, and self-laceratingly witty book, Shubaly relives his mistakes, misfortunes, and infrequent good decisions: the disastrous events that fractured his life; his incendiary romances; his hot-and-cold career as a rock musician; meeting his newborn nephew while out of his gourd on cough syrup. I Swear I'll Make It Up to You is an apology for choices Shubaly never thought he'd live long enough to regret, a journey so far down the low road that it took him years of running to claw his way back.

Book Flotsam

    Book Details:
  • Author : David Wiesner
  • Publisher : HarperCollins
  • Release : 2006-09-04
  • ISBN : 0547759304
  • Pages : 45 pages

Download or read book Flotsam written by David Wiesner and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2006-09-04 with total page 45 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this extraordinary Caldecott Medal winner and New York Times bestseller by David Wiesner, a beach day is the springboard to a wildly imaginative exploration of fantastical mysteries of the deep—and of human connections through time. A young boy comes to the beach eager to collect and examine flotsam—anything floating that has been washed ashore. But nothing among his usual finds compares with the discovery of a barnacle-encrusted underwater camera with its own secrets to share...and to keep. Meet unexpected underseas denizens and enter fascinating worlds within worlds in this entrancing celebration of imagination, creativity, and the impulse to share that which delights and amazes us. A beautiful picture book by a master of the form, David Wiesner, who has been awarded the Caldecott Medal three times and the Caldecott Honor twice.

Book Always Crashing in the Same Car  On Art  Crisis  and Los Angeles  California

Download or read book Always Crashing in the Same Car On Art Crisis and Los Angeles California written by Matthew Specktor and published by Tin House Books. This book was released on 2021-07-27 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Best Book of the Year at The Atlantic Los Angeles Times Bestseller "[An] absorbing and revealing book. . . . nestling in the fruitful terrain between memoir and criticism." —Geoff Dyer, author of Out of Sheer Rage Blending memoir and cultural criticism, Matthew Specktor explores family legacy, the lives of artists, and a city that embodies both dreams and disillusionment. In 2006, Matthew Specktor moved into a crumbling Los Angeles apartment opposite the one in which F. Scott Fitzgerald spent the last moments of his life. Fitz had been Specktor’s first literary idol, someone whose own passage through Hollywood had, allegedly, broken him. Freshly divorced, professionally flailing, and reeling from his mother’s cancer diagnosis, Specktor was feeling unmoored. But rather than giving in or “cracking up,” he embarked on an obsessive journey to make sense of the mythologies of “success” and “failure” that haunt the artist’s life and the American imagination. Part memoir, part cultural history, part portrait of place, Always Crashing in the Same Car explores Hollywood through a certain kind of collapse. It’s a vibrant and intimate inspection of failure told through the lives of iconic, if under-sung, artists—Carole Eastman, Eleanor Perry, Warren Zevon, Tuesday Weld, and Hal Ashby, among others—and the author’s own family history. Through this constellation of Hollywood figures, he unearths a fascinating alternate history of the city that raised him and explores the ways in which curtailed ambition, insufficiency, and loss shape all our lives. At once deeply personal and broadly erudite, it is a story of an art form (the movies), a city (Los Angeles), and one person’s attempt to create meaning out of both. Above all, Specktor creates a moving search for optimism alongside the inevitability of failure and reveals the still-resonant power of art to help us navigate the beautiful ruins that await us all.

Book The Life You Can Save

    Book Details:
  • Author : Peter Singer
  • Publisher : Random House Trade Paperbacks
  • Release : 2010
  • ISBN : 0812981561
  • Pages : 242 pages

Download or read book The Life You Can Save written by Peter Singer and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2010 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Argues that for the first time in history we're in a position to end extreme poverty throughout the world, both because of our unprecedented wealth and advances in technology, therefore we can no longer consider ourselves good people unless we give more to the poor. Reprint.

Book My Life as a Potato

Download or read book My Life as a Potato written by Arianne Costner and published by Yearling. This book was released on 2022-03-15 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For anyone who has ever felt like a potato in middle school, this hilarious story about a boy forced to become the dorkiest school mascot ever will have readers cheering! "A grade A, spudtastic (not to mention FUNNY) debut. Arianne Costner sure knows middle school and middle schoolers!" --Chris Grabenstein, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library Ben Hardy believes he's cursed by potatoes. And now he's moved to Idaho, where the school's mascot is Steve the Spud! Yeah, this cannot be good. After accidentally causing the mascot to sprain an ankle, Ben is sentenced to Spud duty for the final basketball games of the year. But if the other kids know he's the Spud, his plans for popularity are likely to be a big dud! Ben doesn't want to let the team down, so he lies to his friends to keep it a secret. No one will know it's him under the potato suit . . . right? Life as a potato is all about not getting mashed! With laugh-out-loud illustrations throughout, hand to fans of James Patterson, Gordan Korman, Jeff Kinney, and Chris Grabenstein! "A hilarious, relatable story for any kid who has ever felt out of place." --Stacy McAnulty, author of The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl

Book Doomed

    Book Details:
  • Author : Chuck Palahniuk
  • Publisher : Anchor
  • Release : 2013-10-08
  • ISBN : 0385533152
  • Pages : 284 pages

Download or read book Doomed written by Chuck Palahniuk and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2013-10-08 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Madison Spencer, the liveliest and snarkiest dead girl in the universe, continues the afterlife adventure begun in Chuck Palahniuk’s bestseller Damned. Just as that novel brought us a brilliant Hell that only he could imagine, Doomed is a dark and twisted apocalyptic vision from this provocative storyteller. The bestselling Damned chronicled Madison’s journey across the unspeakable (and really gross) landscape of the afterlife to confront the Devil himself. But her story isn’t over yet. In a series of electronic dispatches from the Great Beyond, Doomed describes the ultimate showdown between Good and Evil. After a Halloween ritual gone awry, Madison finds herself trapped in Purgatory—or, as mortals like you and I know it, Earth. She can see and hear every detail of the world she left behind, yet she’s invisible to everyone who’s still alive. Not only do people look right through her, they walk right through her as well. The upside is that, no longer subject to physical limitations, she can pass through doors and walls. Her first stop is her parents’ luxurious apartment, where she encounters the ghost of her long-deceased grandmother. For Madison, the encounter triggers memories of the awful summer she spent upstate with Nana Minnie and her grandfather, Papadaddy. As she revisits the painful truth of what transpired over those months (including a disturbing and finally fatal meeting in a rest stop’s fetid men’s room, in which . . . well, never mind), her saga of eternal damnation takes on a new and sinister meaning. Satan has had Madison in his sights from the very beginning: through her and her narcissistic celebrity parents, he plans to engineer an era of eternal damnation. For everyone. Once again, our unconventional but plucky heroine must face her fears and gather her wits for the battle of a lifetime. Dante Alighieri, watch your back; Chuck Palahniuk is gaining on you.

Book How Hard Can It Be

    Book Details:
  • Author : Allison Pearson
  • Publisher : Macmillan + ORM
  • Release : 2018-06-05
  • ISBN : 1250086108
  • Pages : 397 pages

Download or read book How Hard Can It Be written by Allison Pearson and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2018-06-05 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Look, I was doing OK. I got through the oil spill on the road that is turning forty. Lost a little control, but I drove into the skid just like the driving instructors tell you to and afterwards things were fine again, no, really, they were better than fine. Kate Reddy had it all: a nice home, two adorable kids, a good husband. Then her kids became teenagers (read: monsters). Richard, her husband, quit his job, taking up bicycling and therapeutic counseling: drinking green potions, dressing head to toe in Lycra, and spending his time—and their money—on his own therapy. Since Richard no longer sees a regular income as part of the path to enlightenment, it’s left to Kate to go back to work. Companies aren’t necessarily keen on hiring 49-year-old mothers, so Kate does what she must: knocks a few years off her age, hires a trainer, joins a Women Returners group, and prepares a new resume that has a shot at a literary prize for experimental fiction. When Kate manages to secure a job at the very hedge fund she founded, she finds herself in an impossible juggling act: proving herself (again) at work, dealing with teen drama, and trying to look after increasingly frail parents as the clock keeps ticking toward her 50th birthday. Then, of course, an old flame shows up out of the blue, and Kate finds herself facing off with everyone from Russian mobsters to a literal stallion. Surely it will all work out in the end. After all, how hard can it be? Hilarious and poignant, How Hard Can It Be? brings us the new adventures of Kate Reddy, the beleaguered heroine of Allison Pearson's groundbreaking New York Times bestseller I Don't Know How She Does It.

Book The Ten Things to Do When Your Life Falls Apart

Download or read book The Ten Things to Do When Your Life Falls Apart written by Daphne Rose Kingma and published by New World Library. This book was released on 2010-10-06 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Add layoffs, foreclosures, and skyrocketing health-care costs to the inevitable crises of every life, and you have today’s landscape. Amid these challenges, even those who thought they had solid coping skills feel that their center cannot hold as things fall apart. In her first book in many years, bestselling author Daphne Rose Kingma takes us on a path of emotional and spiritual healing, with particular attention to the complex and frequently overwhelming circumstances of our lives right now. The perfect combination of empathic friend, sage counselor, savvy problem solver, and even gallows humorist, Kingma looks straight into the predicaments so many of us face. She then offers ten deceptively simple yet profoundly effective strategies for coping on practical, emotional, and spiritual levels. The devastating events cannot be changed, but after reading this book, you will be, having recovered a sense of equanimity, spirit, and strength. Whether you’re struggling with money issues, job loss, relationship problems, an unexpected health crisis, or all of the above, this book will light your path and heal your heart.

Book The Dream Life of Astronauts

Download or read book The Dream Life of Astronauts written by Patrick Ryan and published by Dial Press. This book was released on 2016-07-05 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For readers of Tom Perrotta and Lorrie Moore, these nine unforgettable stories, all set in and around Cape Canaveral, showcase Patrick Ryan’s masterly understanding of regret and hope, relationships and family, and the universal longing for love. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY St. Louis Post Dispatch • Refinery 29 • Electric Literature The Dream Life of Astronauts balances heartbreak with wry humor as its characters try to make sense of the paths they find themselves on. A would-be Miss America auditions for a shady local talent scout over vodka and Sunny D; a NASA engineer begins to wonder if the woman he’s having an affair with is slowly poisoning her husband; a Boy Scout troop leader, recovering from a stroke, tries to protect one of his scouts from being bullied by his own sons; an ex-mobster living in witness protection feuds with the busybody head of his condo board; a grandmother, sentenced to driver’s ed after a traffic accident, surprises herself by falling for her instructor. Set against landmark moments—the first moon launch, Watergate, the Challenger explosion—these private dramas unfurl in startling ways. The Dream Life of Astronauts ratifies the emergence of an indelible new talent in fiction. Praise for The Dream Life of Astronauts “[Ryan] displays a gift for excavating the dashed hopes and yearnings that lie beneath. He is especially adept at capturing the point of view of children, with a Salingeresque understanding of their alienation, their vulnerability, their keen powers of observation.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times “Quietly commanding . . . A wry and smart collection—a beam of intelligent life from an author who clearly likes to probe the outer edges of the familiar.”—Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air “Ryan is a master of that old-fashioned, captivating storytelling that deceptively reads as effortless. . . . Ryan never actually sends his characters into space; but his orbits of the human heart are enough.”—The New York Times Book Review “Ryan brings a wry sense of intimacy to these dreamers who are always searching for a better life, for something new.”—BBC “Patrick Ryan’s short stories go down lightly—but that doesn’t mean they’re lightweight. In the best of them, Ryan’s transparent prose and seemingly casual tone sneakily ensnare you in tough moments and wryly rueful deflations of the heart and spirit.”—The Seattle Times “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to appreciate this funny collection of stories set around Cape Canaveral. Moon missions and shuttle launches take a backseat to the earthly predicaments faced by the eclectic cast of Boy Scouts, gangsters, grandmothers and beauty queens.”—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution “There is humanity and heart in each one of these tales, all rendered with nuance and depth that will leave a mark on your thoughts long past the final pages.”—Refinery29 “Patrick Ryan’s characters are people who are a little more beaten down than they know. They are not introspective by default, and yet, due to circumstances, they are forced to look into themselves and find something that, in his own phrase, feels like life.”—Literary Hub “The author illuminates [his] characters with pitch-perfect dialogue and period references that capture the various decades in which the stories take place.”—Publishers Weekly