The bestselling author and Duke University professor discovers the true magic of how joy: that even when we can’t be happy, we 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 5-step plan. But the type kind that sneaks in when you least expect it. A lemur sunbathing. A surprising 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.

This book is 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. A delicious, insightful tour through the questions that sit in the deepest part of our souls, Joyful, Anyway proves that for every time we ask: Is this it? Joy will answer: there is more.

Author Biography

Kate Bowler is the three-time New York Times bestselling author of Everything Happens for a Reason, No Cure for Being Human, Good Enough, The Lives We Actually Have, Blessed, and The Preacher’s Wife and hosts the popular podcast Everything Happens. A Duke University professor, she earned a master’s of religion from Yale Divinity School and a PhD at Duke University.

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