Part story, part treatise, part inquiry, part self-help guide--The Tao of Hoop is a raw, poetic, and captivating read you will have a hard time putting down.
Join us and Ann Humphreys author of The Tao of Hoop: On the Transformational Practice of Hula Hooping (Seriously, though)
Sunday, August 28th @ 3pm at Auntie’s Bookstore
Ann will be doing a reading and signing at Auntie's Bookstore followed by a hula hoop lesson across the street in Riverfront Park!
(Hula hoops will be provided)
RSVP below for this FREE event
About the book
The Tao of Hoop is a philosophical memoir about how the humble hula-hoop transformed one woman's life...but, seriously, though! Ann Humphreys was not aware that she didn't understand how to feel--something we don't learn about in school--until she very randomly (through crushing on a hot dude) found the hula-hoop at age 35.
Having endured a life-altering loss as a teenager, Ann had learned to handle grief and pain through the time-honored Southern traditions of denial and repression. The hula-hoop broke those old patterns, allowing her to meet a new wave of challenges with a clear mind and an open heart.
"The Tao of Hoop is that rare gem: a memoir as dramatic as it is profound."
-- Dalton Conley, author of You May Ask Yourself
"This book is about so much more than hooping—it’s about love and loss and childhood memories; it’s about desire, the body, truth, and the idea that 'feeling could be an experience distinct from thought'....Ann Humphreys has a stalwart heart and her Tao of Hoop is a sincere and moving journey."
-- Belle Boggs, author of The Art of Waiting
"This book is a song of wisdom, of vision. Inside the rhythms of The Tao of Hoop, we feel ourselves dance inside The Flow!"
-- Kevin McIlvoy, author of One Kind Favor
About the author
Ann Humphreys grew up in North Carolina and graduated Phi Beta Kappa with high honors from Barnard College. She obtained her MFA in Poetry Writing from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers in 2000. Her first book, a collection of poetry called Which Lies Are Necessary?, was published by Hollyridge Press in 2005.
In 2006–after she spied a hot guy doing it–the hula-hoop overtook her life completely. She spent many years traveling and teaching hoopdance as an embodied practice with her teacher and partner, Jonathan Baxter (the hot guy) of the HoopPath. Since lovingly parting ways with Bax in 2010, Ann has continued to teach hooping as a movement meditation, focusing on how the dance feels in the body as opposed to routines or tricks.
After many years of discussions with agents, editors, and publishers about the uncategorizable nature of her philosophical memoir, Ann raised 10K through her community in the summer of 2020, and published The Tao of Hoop: On the Transformational Practice of Hula-Hooping (Seriously, Though). She also performed and edited her own audiobook, and is currently sprinting up the steeply pitched mountain of learning how to market it.
The Tao of Hoop is a philosophical memoir about how the humble hula-hoop transformed one woman's life...but, seriously, though Ann Humphreys was not aware that she didn't understand how to feel--something we don't learn about in school--until she very randomly (through crushing on a hot dude) found the hula-hoop at age 35.