Joyful, Anyway: Finding Delight in Impossible Times

by Kate Bowler

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 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 Is this it? Joy will there is more.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir

Audible Audio

Published April 9, 2026

About the author

Kate Bowler, PhD is a New York Times bestselling author, podcast host, and a professor at Duke University. She studies the cultural stories we tell ourselves about success, suffering, and whether (or not) we’re capable of change. She is the author of Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel and The Preacher’s Wife: The Precarious Power of Evangelical Women Celebrities.

After being unexpectedly diagnosed with Stage IV cancer at age 35, she penned the New York Times bestselling memoir, Everything Happens for a Reason (and Other Lies I’ve Loved) and her latest, No Cure For Being Human (and Other Truths I Need to Hear). Kate hosts the Everything Happens podcast where, in warm, insightful, often funny conversations, she talks with people like Malcolm Gladwell and Anne Lamott about what they’ve learned in difficult times. She lives in Durham, North Carolina with her family and continues to teach do-gooders at Duke Divinity School.

Reviews

[Heather Craven · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn’t sure where this book was heading but I’m glad I kept reading. Definitely not a prescription for joy self help book, rather a journey into what joy might be and how to raise awareness of the opportunities for experiencing joy.

[Amy B · Rating 1 out of 5]

Didn't finish it, way too wordy for me....toxic positivity explained.