**A GUARDIAN, OBSERVER AND FINANCIAL TIMES 'BOOKS OF 2021' PICK**
**A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2021**

From the bestselling, award-winning author of Fun Home comes this Christmas's must-gift graphic novel.

All her life, Alison Bechdel has searched for an elusive secret...

The secret to superhuman strength.

She has looked for it in her favourite books, the lives of her heroes, celibacy, polyamory, activism, therapy, and most obsessively, in her lifelong passion for exercise. Skiing, running, karate, cycling, yoga, weightlifting - you name it, she's tried it. "Oh, to be self-sufficient! Hard as a rock! An island!"

But as she gets older, her body isn't getting any stronger. And in a changing, sometimes overwhelming world, are "cantaloupe-sized guns" all a person needs? Maybe the all-important secret is not where she expected to find it . . .

'The Secret to Superhuman Strength practically glows with a beguiling mixture of intellect, warmth and humour' Daily Telegraph

In this, her third graphic memoir, Alison Bechdel has written a deeply layered, personal story about selfhood, self-sabotage, mortality, addiction, bliss, wonder, and the concerns of a generation. This is an extraordinary, laugh-out-loud chronicle of the conundrums we all grapple with as we seek our true place in the world. Truly, a must-gift book this Christmas.

"Astonishing . . . How on earth does she do it? The ingenious concision, the warmth of feeling . . . I cannot hope to capture all that this extraordinarily generous and roomy book contains." - Observer, *Graphic Novel of the Month*

"Drawing is often seen as a cartoonist's primary skill, but Bechdel can also really write . . . Fresh, clever and moving . . . It [The Secret to Superhuman Strength] is probably her most beautiful [work]." - Sunday Times

"The long-anticipated return of . . . one of the most acclaimed authors in the genre, this should be one of the year's highlights." - Bookseller *Graphic Novels Spotlight*

"Every bit as deep, searching and multi-layered as Bechdel's previous efforts . . . The new book is fun, too . . . A sort of very sweaty A Portrait of an Artist." - Bookseller

"Alison Bechdel's literary, illustrated dive into a lifetime of fitness fads - from skiing to karate to yoga - is characteristically expansive and profound." - Vanity Fair

"Funny and moving." - i

"Astonishing... Through her precise drawings, we can feel the yearning for a sense of equilibrium, an attempt to abolish the dissonance of being fully alive while racing down a ski slope, at the same time knowing with certainty that one day she will die." - Financial Times

"Gorgeous...The Secret to Superhuman Strength feels perfectly pitched to meet the nervy uncertainties of our almost-post-lockdown moment. It's a wise, wry, generous look at selfhood, ageing and mortality, a sort of hymn to transformation, to the importance of forging connections and the necessity of letting things go." - Guardian

"The Secret to Superhuman Strength practically glows with a beguiling mixture of intellect, warmth and humour, the suppleness of which is helped by a surprisingly lavish use of colour." - Daily Telegraph