Vibrant yet darkly humorous comics for commiserating over life’s deepest concerns, from Instagram artist Alison Zai.
WEIRD TO EXIST:
Simple Comics About Complex Feelings
by Alison Zai
Ten Speed, April 2022
This bright, colorful book is divided into three intrinsic human acts—loving, creating, and existing–and, ultimately, comments on how weird it is to do all of that. Zai’s cheery anthropomorphic characters go through the motions of relationships, loneliness, creativity blocks, mental health concerns, social anxiety, and more. These comics voice the overwhelming dread and unpredictable chaos found in all aspects of being alive. With sharp levity and emotional complexity, WEIRD TO EXIST captures the feelings that are not easily communicated but widely felt. This collection features 30 never-before-published comics alongside a selection of beloved fan favorites from Zai’s Instagram account.
Alison Zai is a comics artist who has garnered success by sharing her art on Instagram and Tumblr. She lives in Los Angeles where she is expanding her career as an artist.
THE ELEMENTS focuses on fire, earth, air, and water, which each exist in everyone’s birth charts in unique concentrations that influence your personality, how you work, how you love, and how you understand other people. Knowing your elemental balance is almost like knowing your love language. Dr. Freed will show you how to use a few key pieces of information to understand how your elements influence you in 12 different areas of life (which correspond to the 12 houses of Astrology). She’ll teach someone with a fire/air concentration how to commit to daily routines that keep them happy and grounded. She’ll teach you how to support your watery partner in the way he needs. And she’ll teach you how to tap into the secret strengths of your unique elemental makeup.
For the 29.1 million users who posted cloud bread recipes and the 23 million who participated in the « whipped coffee challenge » here is the cookbook that offers an in-hand version of the hottest, highest trending, and most viral food posts on the platform. Published in partnership with TikTok, a curated list of 45 TikTok Creators (based on highest trending food content and largest platforms) contributed recipes and food hacks to this unique cookbook as well as “remember that?!?” food-adjacent content.
When BE HERE NOW was first published in 1971, it filled a deep spiritual emptiness, launched the ongoing mindfulness revolution, and established Ram Dass as perhaps the preeminent seeker of the twentieth century. Just ten years earlier, he was known as Professor Richard Alpert. He held appointments in four departments at Harvard University. He published books, drove a Mercedes and regularly vacationed in the Caribbean. By most societal standards, he had achieved great success. . . . And yet he couldn’t escape the feeling that something was missing. Psilocybin and LSD changed that. During a period of experimentation, Alpert peeled away each layer of his identity, disassociating from himself as a professor, a social cosmopolite, and lastly, as a physical being. Fear turned into exaltation upon the realization that at his truest, he was just his inner-self: a luminous being that he could trust indefinitely and love infinitely. And thus, a spiritual journey commenced. Alpert headed to India where his guru renamed him Baba Ram Dass—“servant of God.” He was introduced to mindful breathing exercises, hatha yoga, and Eastern philosophy. If he found himself reminiscing or planning, he was reminded to “Be Here Now.” He started upon the path of enlightenment, and has been journeying along it ever since.
In her debut book of inspiration, Najwa Zebian shares her revolutionary concept of home—the place of safety where you can embrace your vulnerability and discover your self-worth. It’s the place where your soul feels like it belongs, where you are loved for who you are. Too many of us build our homes in other people in the hope that they will deem us worthy of being welcomed inside, and then we feel abandoned and empty when those people leave. Building your home inside yourself—and never experiencing inner homelessness again—begins here. In WELCOME HOME, Zebian shares her personal story for the first time, powerfully weaving memoir, poetry, and deeply resonant teachings into her storytelling, from leaving Lebanon at sixteen, to coming of age as a young Muslim woman in Canada, to building a new identity for herself as she learned to speak her truth. After the profound alienations she experienced, she learned to build a stable foundation inside herself, an identity independent of cultural expectations and the influence of others. The powerful metaphor of home provides a structure for personal transformation as she shows you how to construct the following rooms: Self-Love, Forgiveness, Compassion, Clarity, Surrender, and The Dream Garden. With practical tools and prompts for self-understanding, she shows you how to build each room in your house, which form a firm basis for your self-worth, sense of belonging, and happiness. Written with her trademark power, candor, and warmth, WELCOME HOME is an answer to the pain we all experience when we don’t feel at peace with ourselves. Every human deserves their own home. WELCOME HOME provides the life-changing tools for building that inner space of healing and solace.