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Joyful, Anyway
- Author
- Kate Bowler
- Narrator
- Kate Bowler
- Publisher
- Bloomsbury Publishing
- Publish Date
- 9 April 2026
- Run Time
- 5 hours 59 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
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What to expect
'A deeply moving everyday masterpiece. I loved it' Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love
'A delight from start to finish, Joyful, Anyway embodies the mix of pleasure and aching that makes us human' Katherine May, author of Wintering
You can't always be happy, but you can be joyful, anyway.
After surviving a stage-four cancer diagnosis, Kate Bowler knew she was supposed to be grateful. Alive. Blessed. But she still ached – for more connection, more surprise, less resentment on an ordinary day. So she went looking for joy. Not the toxic positivity kind. Not a five-step plan. But the type that sneaks in unexpectedly, seemingly out of nowhere.
In Joyful, Anyway, Bowler takes us on a hilarious and tender journey through big questions and small delights. With wry wit and deep honesty, she explores how joy can surprise us even in the middle of pain, boredom and longing.
This is not a book about fixing your life. It is about how we can all find more and feel more, by making room for small extraordinary moments. For anyone who has ever felt stuck, who is aching for meaning, who feels undone by loss, who feels that joy is just out of reach, who wants, simply, to have more fun, Joyful, Anyway is a delicious, insightful tour through the questions that sit in the deepest part of our souls. It proves that for every time we ask: Is this it? Joy will answer: there is more.
Critics Review
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With luminous clarity and unsentimental grace, Kate Bowler delivers a meditation on the sacred, vivid, heartbreaking absurdity of being alive
ELIZABETH GILBERT, author of Eat, Pray, Love
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If it feels like joy is missing from your life, drop what you’re doing and read this book. Kate Bowler's wisdom is perfectly timed for our tumultuous times
ADAM GRANT, #1 New York Times bestselling author
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A delight from start to finish, Joyful, Anyway embodies the mix of pleasure and aching that makes us human. A book to take you through life’s aftermaths
KATHERINE MAY, author of Wintering
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Bowler interrogates the idea of a meaningful life, not just for ourselves but for others, too. I value her work so much
PANDORA SYKES, author of How Do We Know We're Doing It Right?
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A profoundly wise, hilarious, large-hearted and down-to-earth meditation on the fundamental unsolvability of being human – and how it's in the very middle of the mess that joy is waiting to be found. I know I'll be returning to this book again and again
OLIVER BURKEMAN, author of Four Thousand Weeks
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Bowler’s richest and wisest book yet, and if possible, the most charming. Absolutely lovely. It changed me
ANNE LAMOTT, author of Bird by Bird
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Joyful, Anyway is colourful and layered, unafraid of the occasional gut-punch of raw feeling and vulnerability – much like Kate Bowler herself. She suffers no fools, especially the toxic optimists. With her signature mix of tenderness and ache, Bowler lingers comfortably in the strange terrain where joy and pain don’t alternate, but constantly intertwine
JERRY SEINFELD
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Details
- Author
- Kate Bowler
- Narrator
- Kate Bowler
- Duration
- 5 hours 59 minutes
- Release Date
- 9 April 2026
- ISBN
- 9781037202612
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Bloomsbury Publishing
- Genre
- Self-help, personal development and practical advice, Memoirs, Mind, body, spirit: thought and practice, Coping with / advice about personal, social and health topics
Synopsis
Bloomsbury presents Joyful, Anyway written and read by Kate Bowler'A deeply moving everyday masterpiece. I loved it' Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love'A delight from start to finish, Joyful, Anyway embodies the mix of pleasure and aching that makes us human' Katherine May, author of WinteringYou can't always be happy, but you can be joyful, anyway.After surviving a stage-four cancer diagnosis, Kate Bowler knew she was supposed to be grateful. Alive. Blessed. But she still ached – for more connection, more surprise, less resentment on an ordinary day. So she went looking for joy. Not the toxic positivity kind. Not a five-step plan. But the type that sneaks in unexpectedly, seemingly out of nowhere. In Joyful, Anyway, Bowler takes us on a hilarious and tender journey through big questions and small delights. With wry wit and deep honesty, she explores how joy can surprise us even in the middle of pain, boredom and longing.This is not a book about fixing your life. It is about how we can all find more and feel more, by making room for small extraordinary moments. For anyone who has ever felt stuck, who is aching for meaning, who feels undone by loss, who feels that joy is just out of reach, who wants, simply, to have more fun, Joyful, Anyway is a delicious, insightful tour through the questions that sit in the deepest part of our souls. It proves that for every time we ask: Is this it? Joy will answer: there is more.
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