Singer-songwriter Folds, the former frontman of the alternative rock band Ben Folds Five, will be the first to tell you he's an unconventional icon, more normcore than hardcore. Here he looks back at his life so far in a charming and wise chronicle of his artistic coming of age, infused with the wry observations of a natural storyteller. As Folds digs deep into the life experiences that shaped him, his essays embody the message he has been singing...

Folds's masterful new collection isn't so much a statement as it is an offering, an open hand reaching out to all those wounded and bewildered by a world that seems to make less and less sense every day. The album marks Folds's first new studio release in eight years, and it's a bold, timely, cinematic work, one that examines the tragic and the absurd in equal measure as it reckons with hope and despair, gratitude and loss, identity and perspective....