Her beauty saved her -- and condemned her. Cilka is just sixteen years old when she is taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp in 1942, where the commandant immediately notices how beautiful she is. Forcibly separated from the other women prisoners, Cilka learns quickly that power,...  more

Her beauty saved her -- and condemned her. Cilka is just sixteen years old when she is taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp in 1942, where the commandant immediately notices how beautiful she is. Forcibly separated from the other women prisoners, Cilka learns quickly that power, even unwillingly taken, equals survival. When the war is over and the camp is liberated, freedom is not granted to Cilka: She is charged as a collaborator for sleeping with the enemy and sent to a Siberian prison camp. But did she really have a choice? And where do the lines of morality lie for Cilka, who was sent to Auschwitz when she was still a child? In Siberia, Cilka faces challenges both new and horribly familiar, including the unwanted attention of the guards. But when she meets a kind female doctor, Cilka is taken under her wing and begins to tend to the ill in the camp, struggling to care for them under brutal conditions. Confronting death and terror daily, Cilka discovers a strength she never knew she had. And when she begins to tentatively form bonds and relationships in this harsh, new reality, Cilka finds that despite everything that has happened to her, there is room in her heart for love. From child to woman, from woman to healer, Cilka's journey illuminates the resilience of the human spirit -- and the will we have to survive.

Author Jen Lancaster is here to help you chill the hell out. When did USA become shorthand for the United States of Anxiety? From the moment Americans wake up, we’re bombarded with all-new terrifying news about crime, the environment, politics, and stroke-inducing foods we’ve...  more

Author Jen Lancaster is here to help you chill the hell out. When did USA become shorthand for the United States of Anxiety? From the moment Americans wake up, we’re bombarded with all-new terrifying news about crime, the environment, politics, and stroke-inducing foods we’ve been enjoying for years. We’re judged by social media’s faceless masses, pressured into maintaining a Pinterest-perfect home, and expected to base our self-worth on retweets, faves, likes, and followers. Our collective FOMO, and the disparity between the ideal and reality, is leading us to spend more and feel worse. No wonder we’re getting twitchy. Save for an Independence Day-style alien invasion, how do we begin to escape from the stressors that make up our days? Jen Lancaster is here to take a hard look at our elevating anxieties, and with self-deprecating wit and levelheaded wisdom, she charts a path out of the quagmire that keeps us frightened of the future and ashamed of our imperfectly perfect human lives. Take a deep breath, and her advice, and you just might get through a holiday dinner without wanting to disown your uncle.

Samantha Irby is forty and increasingly uncomfortable in her own skin despite what inspirational instagram infographics have promised her. This is the life of a Hallmark Channel dream. She goes on bad dates with new friends, spends weeks in Los Angeles taking meetings with TV executives/amateur...  more

Samantha Irby is forty and increasingly uncomfortable in her own skin despite what inspirational instagram infographics have promised her. This is the life of a Hallmark Channel dream. She goes on bad dates with new friends, spends weeks in Los Angeles taking meetings with TV executives/amateur astrologers while being a cheese fry-eating, slightly damp Midwestern person with neck pain and no cartilage in her knees who still hides past-due bills under her pillow. The uproarious essays in this collection draw on the raw, hilarious particulars of Irby's new bourgeois life. Wow, No Thank You. is Irby at her most hysterical, relatable, and unflinching. Essays include: Into the Gross, Girls Gone Mild, Hung Up!, Late-1900s Time Capsule, Love and Marriage, Are You Familiar with My Work?, Hysterical!, Lesbian Bed Death, Body Negativity, Country Crock, A Guide to Simple Home Repairs, We Almost Got a Fucking Dog, Detachment Parenting, Season 1, Episode 1, Hollywood Summer, $$$, Hello, 911?, An Extremely Specific Guide to Publishing a Book Publisher's Note: This Hudson Bookseller edition contains an exclusive letter and a Q & A with the author.

A hilarious examination of faux pas for readers of Allie Brosh?s Hyperbole and a Half and Jenny Lawson?s Let?s Pretend This Never Happened Humankind is doomed. Especially you.   It?s already too late. From overstaying your welcome at a party, to leaving passive-aggressive post-its on your...  more

A hilarious examination of faux pas for readers of Allie Brosh?s Hyperbole and a Half and Jenny Lawson?s Let?s Pretend This Never Happened Humankind is doomed. Especially you.   It?s already too late. From overstaying your welcome at a party, to leaving passive-aggressive post-its on your roommate?s belongings, to letting your date know the extent of the internet reconnaissance you did on them?you're destined to embarrass yourself again and again. In You Blew It!, Josh Gondelman, comedian and co-creator of the ?Modern Seinfeld? twitter account, teams up with Joe Berkowitz, an equally wry and ruthless social-observer, to dissect a range of painfully hilarious faux pas. Breaking down the code violations of modern culture?particularly our fervent, ridiculous addiction to technology?Gondelman and Berkowitz will keep you laughing as they explore how social blunders are simply part of the mystery that is you.