Joyful, Anyway
Releases April 7, 2026
Bestselling author and Duke University professor Kate Bowler reveals the surprising magic of joy—and how we can access it even when happiness feels out of reach.
Joy won’t cure you, but it will carry you.
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 5-step plan. But the type that sneaks in unexpectedly, seemingly out of nowhere. A lemur sunbathing. A belly laugh at a funeral. A dive into the Atlantic with a shark wrangler.
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—feel more—by making room for small extraordinary moments. For anyone who has ever felt stuck, who is achy 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.
Joy won’t cure you…
but it will carry you.
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“With luminous clarity and unsentimental grace, Kate Bowler delivers a meditation on the sacred, vivid, heartbreaking absurdity of being alive. Her prose is both razor sharp and tender, avoiding easy answers (which never help us anyway) well extending a spirit of friendship to all who have suffered and who long to carry on. A deeply moving everyday masterpiece. I loved it”
—Elizabeth Gilbert
#1 New York Times bestselling author of EAT PRAY LOVE and BIG MAGIC, and speaker of one of the most-viewed TED Talks of all time
“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
New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author of ENCHANTMENT and WINTERING, and host of the podcast How We Live Now
“Bowler’s richest and wisest book yet, and if possible, the most charming. Absolutely lovely. It changed me.”
—Anne Lamott
New York Times bestselling author of HELP, THANKS, WOW and BIRD BY BIRD, and beloved voice on grace, writing, and the messiness of being human
“If it feels like joy is missing from your life, drop what you’re doing and read this book. Kate Bowler is a beacon—she radiates light even when the world seems dark. Her wisdom is perfect for our turbulent times.”
—Adam Grant
#1 New York Times bestselling author of HIDDEN POTENTIAL and THINK AGAIN, and host of the podcast Re:Thinking
“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
Bestselling Author of FOUR THOUSAND WEEKS
