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Why should you need to be doing something important or impressive to get a pep talk? Two comedians offer hilarious encouragement for your most mundane struggles.

Anybody can tell you “You can do it!” before the big job interview, or before you walk down the aisle, or before you head out onto the field to make the game-winning kick at the Super Bowl. But what about the other 99.99% of stuff you do? Who’s going to gas you up for all those low-stakes situations where you need an extra push?

That’s where Tiny Pep Talks comes in. Comedians Paula Skaggs and Josh Linden are rooting for you, and they’re here to cheerlead you through your everyday challenges. You’ll find specific, constructive, and—most of all—very funny motivation for:

• Parallel parking (cars just weren’t meant to go sideways!)
• Sending a scary email (if you died and came back as a ghost, wouldn’t it suck if this was your unfinished business?)
• Making a doctor’s appointment (think how good you’ll feel when you’re finished—like a runner’s high without the chafing!)
• Doing your taxes (just round to the nearest dollar! The IRS could never be mad at you—not with a face like that)
• Getting through a breakup (did you know the grocery store will sell you a cake on any day for any reason?)
• Remembering that all your friends are not secretly mad at you (they’re busy worrying all their friends are secretly mad at them)
• …and many more!

If you’re going through it, have ever gone through it, or will maybe go through it in the future, let Tiny Pep Talks give you the boost you need.

Find creative inspiration in this fascinating rummage through the wastebaskets, secret diaries, and abandoned files of 20 literary superstars.

If you like to write—whether it’s a pastime, a passion, or a profession—you’ve probably found yourself reading something brilliant and thinking, “I could never do this! I might as well give up.” But if there’s one thing every great author has in common, it’s this: they’ve all written some hot garbage.

Revisionaries takes you on an engrossing tour through the discarded drafts, false starts, and abandoned projects of influential writers. In the process, it dismantles some of our most deeply held—and most suffocating—ideas about what it takes to produce great creative work. You’ll learn that:

• Franz Kafka lacked confidence
• Octavia Butler had writer’s block blocked
• F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote bad drafts
• Ralph Ellison got overwhelmed
• Louisa May Alcott got off to a bad start
• And more deep, dark secrets about the authors you most admire

Written by an award-winning novelist and creative-writing professor, Revisionaries is a compelling peek behind the scenes of genius for writers and readers alike.

From the author of Cursed Objects and The United States of Cryptids comes an eye-popping compendium of the most infamous, audacious, and dangerous cults in history

Have you ever wondered how smart, normal people end up enmeshed in extreme cults? Weird history expert J. W. Ocker strives to answer that question in Cult Following. Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about history’s most notorious cults–and the psychology of the people who join them–is packed into this accessible, engaging volume. Walk in the footsteps of the followers who were lured into these sinister groups, including:

• Branch Davidians: Led by David Koresh, this cult was waiting out the apocalypse in 1993 when the FBI infamously raided their compound in Waco, Texas.

• Narcosatanists: This cult of drug traffickers in 1980s Mexico was led by Adolfo de Jesús Constanzo, who believed he had magic powers and committed human sacrifice.

• Brotherhood of the Seven Rays: The earliest known UFO cult, the infiltration and study of the Brotherhood by psychologists inspired the term “cognitive dissonance.”

• Ho No Hana Sanpogyo: The founder, Hogen Fukunaga, claimed to be able to tell someone’s fortune by examining their feet.

• Breatherianism: Breatherians believe that humans can live on air alone. Their founder, Wiley Brooks, claimed to have gone without food for nineteen years.

• NXIVM: This twenty-first century cult attracted several members of Hollywood and engaged in sex trafficking, forced labor, and racketeering under the guise of personal development seminars.

In Cult Following, Ocker sheds light on the terrifying attraction of cults, demonstrating the elasticity of belief, the desperateness of belonging, and the tragedy of trust.

A smart, funny crash course in 25 iconic horror movies, from Psycho to Hereditary, for people who love getting the reference but hate being scared.

You don’t have to miss out just because you don’t like to be frightened! Stop trying to read nonsensical Wikipedia plot summaries (we know you’re doing it), and let an expert tell you everything you need to know about the most influential horror films of the past 60 years—without a single jump scare or a drop of gore.

With a rundown of the history and significance of horror cinema, explanations of common tropes, and detailed entries on 25 important movies ranging from Night of the Living Dead to The Blair Witch Project to Get Out, Horror for Weenies will turn even the scarediest of cats into a confident connoisseur.

Each entry includes:

• A detailed plot summary, with enough jokes that it won’t freak you out
• Smart, illuminating analysis of the film’s themes and cultural significance
• Descriptions of iconic scenes you definitely do not want to look at
• Talking points for impressing even the biggest scary-movie buffs

Never get left out of a conversation again!

“The Unmothers is a triumph of folk horror that will gratify lovers of Midsommar and The Handmaid’s Tale.”—Library Journal, starred review

In this raw and lyrical folk horror novel, a journalist sent to a small town begins to unravel a dark secret that the women of the town have been keeping for generations.

Marshall is still trying to put the pieces together after the death of her husband. After she is involved in a terrible accident, her editor sends her to the small, backwards town of Raeford to investigate a clearly ridiculous rumor: that a horse has given birth to a healthy, human baby boy.

When Marshall arrives in Raeford, she finds an insular town that is kinder to the horses they are famous for breeding than to their own people. But when two horribly mangled bodies are discovered in a field—one a horse, one a human—she realizes that there might be a real story here.

As she’s pulled deeper into the town and its guarded people, her sense of reality is tipped on its head. Is she losing her grip? Or is this impossible story the key to a dark secret that has haunted the women of Raeford for generations?

Unbearably tense and utterly gripping, this atmospheric tale of female rage, bodily autonomy, and generational trauma hails the arrival of a masterful storyteller.

For fans of Ashley Winstead, a razor-sharp debut about what happens when one of the first child stars of the social media age grows up . . . and goes missing.

Hazel Davis is drifting: she’s stalled in her career, living in a city she hates, and less successful than her younger sister @evelyn, a lifestyle influencer. Evie came of age on the family YouTube channel after a viral video when she was five. Ten years older and spotlight-averse, Hazel managed to dodge the family business—so although she can barely afford her apartment, at least she made her own way.

Evie is eighteen now, with a multimillion-dollar career, but Hazel is still protective of her little sister and skeptical of the way everyone seems to want a piece of her: Evie’s followers, her YouTuber boyfriend and influencer frenemies, and their opportunistic mother. So when Evie disappears one day during an unsettling live stream that cuts out midsentence, Hazel is horrified to have her worst instincts proven right.

As theories about Evie’s disappearance tear through the internet, inspiring hashtags, Reddit threads, and podcast episodes, Hazel throws herself into the darkest parts of her sister’s world to untangle the truth. After all, Hazel knows Evie better than anyone else . . . doesn’t she?