Inciting Joy
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“Ross Gay is as insightful and lyrical as an essayist as he is as a poet. His essays are as trenchant as they are moving, finding in the minutiae of life the grand themes of human existence.”
Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize–winning author
An Amazon Editor’s Top Pick
An BookPage Top Pick of 2022's Best Audiobooks
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year
A Rumpus Pick of November Book Club Books
From New York Times bestselling author Ross Gay comes an intimate and electrifying collection of essays about the joy that comes from connection.
In these gorgeously written and timely pieces, prizewinning poet and author Ross Gay considers the joy we incite when we care for each other, especially during life's inevitable hardships. Throughout Inciting Joy, he explores how we can practice recognizing that connection, and also, crucially, how we can expand it.
Taking a clear-eyed look at injustice, political polarization, and the destruction of the natural world, Gay shows us how we might resist, how the study of joy might lead us to a wild, unpredictable, transgressive, and unboundaried solidarity.
In fact, it just might help us survive. In an era when divisive voices take up so much airspace, Inciting Joy offers a vital alternative: What might be possible if we turn our attention to what brings us together, to what we love?
"Brilliant. Inciting Joy is a book that will break your heart." —Ada Limón, US poet laureate
"A gift that's meant to be shared." —The Washington Post
"It's impossible to read [these essays] without feeling a shift in your awareness of joy and its unexpected possibilities." -The Boston Globe
Winner of the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for Memoir/ Nonfiction
Boston Globe Best Books
Publishers Weekly Best Books
Shelf Awareness Best Adult Books
Salon.com Favorite Books
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