Joyful, Anyway

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. She was alive. Blessed, even. But still she 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.

Witty and honest, in Joyful, Anyway, Bowler shows 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 or achy for meaning, who has been undone by loss, or who believes that joy is just out of reach and 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.