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In The Impossible Craft, Scott Donaldson explores the rocky territory of literary biography, the most difficult that biographers try to navigate. Writers are accustomed to controlling the narrative, and notoriously opposed to allowing intruders on their turf. They make bonfires of their papers, encourage others to destroy correspondence, write their own autobiographies, and appoint family or friends to protect their reputations as official biographers. Thomas Hardy went so far as to compose his own life story to be published after his death, while falsely assigning authorship to his widow. After a brief background sketch of the history of biography from Greco-Roman times to the present, Donaldson recounts his experiences in writing biographies of a broad range of twentieth-century American writers: Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Cheever, Archibald MacLeish, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Winfield Townley Scott, and Charlie Fenton. Donaldson provides readers with a highly readable insiders'introduction to literary biography. He suggests how to conduct interviews, and what not to do during the process. He offers sound advice about how closely biographers should identify with their subjects. He examines the ethical obligations of the biographer, who must aim for the truth without unduly or unnecessarily causing discomfort or worse to survivors. He shows us why and how misinformation comes into existence and tends to persist over time. He describes “the mythical ideal biographer,” an imaginary creature of universal intelligence and myriad talents beyond the reach of any single human being. And he suggests how its very impossibility makes the goal of writing a biography that captures the personality of an author a challenge well worth pursuing.

This National Book Award finalist is a revealing and beautifully written memoir and family history from acclaimed photographer Sally Mann. In this groundbreaking book, a unique interplay of narrative and image, Mann's preoccupation with family, race, mortality, and the storied landscape of the American South are revealed as almost genetically predetermined, written into her DNA by the family history that precedes her. Sorting through boxes of family papers and yellowed photographs she finds more than she bargained for:'deceit and scandal, alcohol, domestic abuse, car crashes, bogeymen, clandestine affairs, dearly loved and disputed family land... racial complications, vast sums of money made and lost, the return of the prodigal son, and maybe even bloody murder.'In lyrical prose and startlingly revealing photographs, she crafts a totally original form of personal history that has the page-turning drama of a great novel but is firmly rooted in the fertile soil of her own life.

From the author of funny classics like “How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes” and “The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody.” Here in “How to Be a Hermit” are humorous essays and stories discussing house cleaning, cooking, sardines, spinach, clams, lettuce, cabbage, beans, coffee, budgets, entertaining, and the holidays. Will Cuppy (1884-1949) wrote extensively on his life as a hermit, the natural world, and just about anything else that proved the world was out to get him. Think of this book like a humorous memoir by a financially-challenged book reviewer living alone in a shack on an island off Long Island, New York, in the 1920s. “How to be a Hermit” first published in 1929, now public domain, was his first bestseller. Hilarious stuff!

After killing her treacherous step-father, a girl tries to escape the country with a young vagabond. She dresses as a boy, they hop freight trains, quarrel with a group of hobos, and steal a car in their attempt to escape the police and reach Canada. A bestseller in 1924, in this vivid piece of outlaw history Jim Tully takes us across the seamy underbelly of pre-WWI America on freight trains, and inside hobo jungles and brothels while narrowly averting the cops. The author chose life on the road over a deadening job, through his teenage years of learning the ropes of the rails and living one meal to the next.

Why are so many teachers leaving the profession? They're burned out; they feel disrespected, and unsupported. After teaching remotely during a pandemic, they're returning to classrooms with under-socialized and sometimes out-of-control kids. What to do?Teaching with Heart chronicles the journey of a journalist-turned-teacher determined to make teaching work—despite its difficulties. Peek into Madame Nelson's classroom to see her trying to reach teens who dance, cry, and hit each other in French class; administrators who laud the latest pedagogical trends and testing regime; and parents who sometimes support—and sometimes interfere with—their children's education. Meet colleagues who save her from quitting, and her children who provide advice. Along the journey, she evolves from an aloof elitist into an empathetic listener to all sorts of teens.Isn't it time we create schools in which teachers want to stay and new ones enter? Without committed teachers, how can we prepare students to run our world? Teaching with Heart illuminates why it's so hard to hold on to classroom teachers these days—and what can be done to better the situation.

In her search to find healing and meaning in midlife, Glenda Goodrich undertakes a series of wilderness quests into the backcountry of Oregon, Washington, and California to discover what the natural world has to teach her about life, death, happiness, spirituality, and forgiveness.This book chronicles the sacred ceremonies that connected Goodrich to the land, wove her into nature's web, and transformed her from a woman who worked to please others into a woman who forged her own path. It is a brilliant collection of adventures—the touch of coyote fur, a snake's kiss, a ceremonial blood offering—and a profound reflection on the healing and restorative power of nature.

Raised by two loving parents in New Delhi, India, Kanchan Bhaskar has always been taught that marriage means companionship, tenderness, and mutual respect—so when she enters into an arranged marriage, this is the kind of partnership she anticipates with her new, seemingly wonderful, husband. But after they marry, she quickly discovers that his warmth is deceptive—that the man beneath the bright, charming façade is actually a narcissistic, alcoholic, and violent man.Trapped in a nightmare, Kanchan pleads with her husband to seek help for his issues, but he refuses. Meanwhile, Indian law is not on her side, and as the years pass, she finds herself with three children to protect—three children she fears she will lose custody of if she leaves. Almost overnight, she finds herself transformed into a tigress who will do whatever it takes to protect her cubs, and she becomes determined to free them from their toxic father. But it's not until many years later, when the family of five moves from India to the United States, that Kanchan is presented with a real opportunity to leave him—and she takes it.Chronicling Kanchan's gradual climb out of the abyss, little by little, day by day, Leaving is the empowering story of how—buoyed by her deep faith in a higher power and single-minded in her determination to protect her children best—she fought relentlessly to build a ramp toward freedom from her abuser. In this memoir, Kanchan clearly lays out the tools and methods she utilized in her pursuit of liberation—and reveals how belief in self and belief in the Universe can not only be weapons of escape but also beautiful foundations for a triumphant, purpose-driven life.

Mary Borden worked for four years in an evacuation hospital unit following the front lines up and down the European theater of the First World War. This beautifully written book, to be read alongside the likes of Sassoon, Graves, and Remarque, is a collection of her memories and impressions of that experience. Describing the men as they march into battle, engaging imaginatively with the stories of individual soldiers, and recounting procedures at the field hospital, the author offers a perspective on the war that is both powerful and intimate.

Beethoven's letters up to 1816. These include details of the theft of some of his music, trials caring for his nephew, difficulties in finding trustworthy servants, the sale of his music in England, his generally poor health, and many other interesting goings-on. The first volume of Ludwig van Beethoven's letters covers the period from his youth as an ambitious and fledgling young talent living in Vienna, to his peak years wherein he saw musical composition not merely as a career, but as his life's purpose. Early in his career, Beethoven's writings are divided between professional correspondence between members of the aristocracy who sponsored him; and tender missives to young women whom he desired to court; and a few close and valued friends. Reliant on the patronage of the wealthy, it is during this period that Beethoven penned many fine works. Beethoven was however hampered by romantic failures owing to his lower social class - Josephine Brunsvik, an aristocratic woman who reciprocated his advances, is eventually forced to break off the relationship. Later, in confessing his feelings to his'Immortal Beloved', it is apparent that Beethoven suffered with depression. (Amazon)

Teaching in the southern African nation of Botswana in the early 1980s, Richard Christensen faced a new world, one endlessly fascinating and challenging. Experiencing warm hospitality from many people, sharing both joyful celebrations and painful struggles with students, he and his family encountered a deeper sense of the true meaning of community. Travel in apartheid South Africa and war-weary Zimbabwe gave him a fuller understanding of the reality of oppression and how people of faith endured their plight and kept hope alive. In this experience, so surprising in many ways, he came to a deepened realization of the genuine freedom of the gospel and the hope it affords us. He saw that relationships are what save us, that the salvation of God in Christ is not merely personal and individual, but communal, and that we are thus more dependent upon one another than we realize. Learning to see the world with new eyes, he discovered not only a more expansive vision of the church and the world, but also a more honest and complete understanding of himself as a product of an affluent and segregated society.

The Pirate and Murderer, Executed on Bedloe's Island, New York Bay, on the 13th of July, 1860, for the Murder of Capt. Burr, Smith and Oliver Watts, on Board the Oyster Sloop E. A. Johnson. Containing the History of His Life (Written by Himself) from Childhood Up to the Time of His Arrest. With a Full Account of His Piracies, Murders, Mutinies, High-way Robberies, etc., Comprising the Particulars of Nearly One Hundred Murders! to which is added the Account of His Arrest, Imprisonment, Trial and Execution. Also, His Phrenological Character, as described by L. N. Fowler.

Between the Mountain and the Sky shows us the goodness that is possible when a single person--regardless of age--takes action to help another and, in the process, changes the lives of hundreds. Maggie's story begins in suburban New Jersey, in a comfortable middle-class family that supports her decision to travel the world during a gap year before starting college. During her travels, the trajectory of her life alters when she has a surprise encounter with a Nepali girl breaking rocks in a quarry. Maggie decides to invest her life savings of five thousand dollars to buy a piece of land and open a children's home in Nepal.That home becomes Kopila Valley Children's Home, and eventually, the nonprofit Maggie launches, the BlinkNow Foundation, also starts the Kopila Valley School, which provides tuition-free education for more than four hundred students. Maggie and BlinkNow's work have been recognized around the world for their innovative, sustainable work.However, this book isn't a how-to for fledging philanthropists or nonprofit founders--it's a coming-of-age story about a young woman suspended between two worlds, as well as the love, loss, healing, and hope she experiences along the way. And Maggie's inspiring, intimate tale shows readers an important truth: the power to change the world exists within all of us.

In this intimate national bestselling memoir, actress and musician Jamie Lynn Spears opens up for the first time, telling her unfiltered story on her own terms. You've read the headlines, but you don't know Jamie Lynn Spears. The world first met Jamie Lynn as a child star, when it was her job to perform, both on set and for the press. She spent years escaping into different characters—on All That, Zoey 101, and even in the role as Britney's kid sister. But as she grew up, faced a teen pregnancy, raised her daughter on her own, pursued a career, and learned to stand on her own two feet, the real Jamie Lynn started to take center stage - a raw, blemished, and imperfect woman, standing in her own power. Despite growing up in one of America's most tabloid-famous families, Jamie Lynn has never told her story in her own words. In Things I Should Have Said, she talks frankly about the highs and lows, sharing what it was like traveling the world as a kid, how she moved into acting and performing herself, what life as a child star took from her, and the life-changing reality of becoming a teen mom. She talks about how she finally found love and how the mistakes she has made have taught her more than anything else. She also shares vulnerably about how the ATV accident that nearly took her daughter's life brought her back to her faith and caused her to reevaluate and redirect her life. Frank, courageous, and inspiring, Things I Should Have Said is a portrait of a wife, momma, sister, daughter, actress, and musician doing the best she could to show up for herself and teach her daughters to have the courage to love every part of themselves, too.

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2022 BY THE NEW YORKER The incredible rags-to-riches story of acclaimed actor Brian Cox, best known as Succession's Logan Roy, from a troubled, working-class upbringing in Scotland to a prolific career across theatre, film and television. From Hannibal Lecktor in Manhunter to media magnate Logan Roy in HBO's Succession, Brian Cox has made his name as an actor of unparalleled distinction and versatility. We are familiar with him on screen, but few know of his extraordinary life story. Growing up in Dundee, Scotland, Cox lost his father when he was just eight years old and was brought up by his three elder sisters in the aftermath of his mother's nervous breakdowns and ultimate hospitalization. After joining the Dundee Repertory Theatre at the age of fifteen, you could say the rest is history — but that is to overlook the enormous effort that has gone into the making of the legend we know today. Rich in emotion and meaning, with plenty of laughs along the way, this seminal autobiography captures both Cox's distinctive voice and his very soul.

This graphic memoir tells the story of the author, Jeff, a young professional in his forties whose life is thrown into chaos and uncertainty after he experiences a series of heart attacks. Once non-stop and deeply ambitious, Jeff was forced to slow down and take stock of how his lifestyle choices led him to experience this medical trauma. Accompanied by beautiful artwork in the author's signature style, the book is a collection of short musings and vignettes that each offer insight into experiences in hospital and on the long road to recovery. The author shares the journey towards renewal and a deeper self-knowledge, inspiring others who may be on a similar journey to do the same.

The gripping account of six young doctors enlisted to fight COVID-19, an engrossing, eye-opening book in the tradition of both Sheri Fink's Five Days at Memorial and Scott Turow's One L.In March 2020, soon-to-graduate medical students in New York City were nervously awaiting “match day” when they would learn where they would begin their residencies. Only a week later, these young physicians learned that they would be sent to the front lines of the desperate battle to save lives as the coronavirus plunged the city into crisis.Taking the Hippocratic Oath via Zoom, these new doctors were sent into iconic New York hospitals including Bellevue and Montefiore, the epicenters of the epicenter. In this powerful book, New York Times journalist Emma Goldberg offers an up-close portrait of six bright yet inexperienced health professionals, each of whom defies a stereotype about who gets to don a doctor's white coat. Goldberg illuminates how the pandemic redefines what it means for them to undergo this trial by fire as caregivers, colleagues, classmates, friends, romantic partners and concerned family members.Woven together from in-depth interviews with the doctors, their notes, and Goldberg's own extensive reporting, this page-turning narrative is an unforgettable depiction of a crisis unfolding in real time and a timeless and unique chronicle of the rite of passage of young doctors.

From Academy Award-winning multi-talent Jamie Foxx, a hilariously candid look at the joys and pitfalls of being the father of two daughters. Jamie Foxx has won an Academy Award and a Grammy Award, laughed with sitting presidents, and partied with the biggest names in hip-hop. But he is most proud of his role as father to two very independent young women, Corinne and Anelise. Jamie might not always know what he's doing when it comes to raising girls—especially when they talk to him about TikTok (PlikPlok?) and don't share his enthusiasm for flashy Rolls Royces—but he does his best to show up for them every single day. Luckily, he has a strong example to follow: his beloved late grandmother, Estelle Marie Talley. Jamie learned everything he knows about parenting from the fierce woman who raised him: As he puts it, she's “Madea before Tyler Perry put on the pumps and the gray wig.” In Act Like You Got Some Sense—a title inspired by Estelle—Jamie shares up close and personal stories about the tough love and old-school values he learned growing up in the small town of Terrell, Texas; his early days trying to make it in Hollywood; the joys and challenges of achieving stardom; and how each phase of his life shaped his parenting journey. Hilarious, poignant, and always brutally honest, this is Jamie Foxx like we've never seen him before.

At thirty-one, Kirsten has just returned to San Francisco from a bohemian year in Rome, ready to pursue a serious career as a writer and eventually, she hopes, marriage and family. When she meets Steve Beckwith, a handsome and successful attorney, she begins to see that future materialize more quickly than she'd dared to expect. Twenty-two years later, Steve has turned into someone quite different. Unemployed and addicted to opioids, he uses money and their two children to emotionally blackmail Kirsten. What's more, he's been having an affair with their real estate agent, who is also her close friend. So she divorces him—but after their divorce is finalized, Steve is diagnosed with colon cancer and dies within a year, leaving Kirsten with $1.5 million in debts she knew nothing about. It's then that she finally understands: The man she'd married was a needy, addictive person who came wrapped in a shiny package.As she fights toward recovery, Kirsten begins to receive communications from Steve in the afterlife—which lead her on an unexpected path to forgiveness. The Ghost Marriage is her story of discovery—that life isn't limited to the tangible reality we experience on this earth, and that our worst adversaries can become our greatest teachers.

Iconic actress Hayley Mills shares personal memories from her storied childhood, growing up in a famous acting family and becoming a Disney child star, trying to grow up in a world that wanted her to stay forever young. The daughter of acclaimed British actor Sir John Mills was still a preteen when she began her acting career and was quickly thrust into the spotlight. Under the wing of Walt Disney himself, Hayley Mills was transformed into one of the biggest child starlets of the 1960s through her iconic roles in Pollyanna, The Parent Trap, and many more. She became one of only twelve actors in history to be bestowed with the Academy Juvenile Award, presented at the Oscars by its first recipient, Shirley Temple, and went on to win a number of awards including a Golden Globe, multiple BAFTAs, and a Disney Legacy Award.Now, in her charming and forthright memoir, she provides a unique window into when Hollywood was still'Tinseltown'and the great Walt Disney was at his zenith, ruling over what was (at least in his own head) still a family business. This behind-the-scenes look at the drama of having a sky-rocketing career as a young teen in an esteemed acting family will offer both her childhood impressions of the wild and glamorous world she was swept into, and the wisdom and broader knowledge that time has given her. Hayley will delve intimately into her relationship with Walt Disney, as well as the emotional challenges of being bound to a wholesome, youthful public image as she grew into her later teen years, and how that impacted her and her choices--including marrying a producer over 30 years her senior when she was 20! With her regrets, her joys, her difficulties, and her triumphs, this is a compelling read for any fan of classic Disney films and an inside look at a piece of real Hollywood history.

'This book has a miraculous quality.... As a memoir this is hard to put down; if you are seeking a better American future you should pick it up.”—Timothy Snyder, New York Times best-selling author of On TyrannyINSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER | A celebrated foreign policy expert and key impeachment witness reveals how declining opportunity has set America on the grim path of modern Russia—and draws on her personal journey out of poverty, as well as her unique perspectives as an historian and policy maker, to show how we can return hope to our forgotten places.Fiona Hill grew up in a world of terminal decay. The last of the local mines had closed, businesses were shuttering, and despair was etched in the faces around her. Her father urged her to get out of their blighted corner of northern England: “There is nothing for you here, pet,” he said. The coal-miner's daughter managed to go further than he ever could have dreamed. She studied in Moscow and at Harvard, became an American citizen, and served three U.S. Presidents. But in the heartlands of both Russia and the United States, she saw troubling reflections of her hometown and similar populist impulses. By the time she offered her brave testimony in the first impeachment inquiry of President Trump, Hill knew that the desperation of forgotten people was driving American politics over the brink—and that we were running out of time to save ourselves from Russia's fate. In this powerful, deeply personal account, she shares what she has learned, and shows why expanding opportunity is the only long-term hope for our democracy.“Of every book written by anybody associated with the Trump administration, in any way, [this] is absolutely the one to read.”—Rachel Maddow A New York Times Bestseller | A Washington Post Bestseller | A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year | A Financial Times Best Book of the Year

An enduring peace is only possible through a genuine understanding of the past. To understand the Troubles is to set them in the context of the historical root causes of the conflict, in order to grapple with its pain and its horrors; to grieve and then, perhaps, to heal. This is the memoir of Patrick Magee, the man who planted the 1984 Brighton bomb – an attempt by the Provisional IRA to kill the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, and her cabinet. In an unflinching reckoning with the past, Magee recounts the events of his life. He chronicles the profound experience of meeting Jo Berry – whose father was one of five people killed in the bombing – and the extraordinary work they have done together. A chasm of misunderstanding endures around the Troubles and the history of British rule in Ireland. This memoir builds a bridge to a common understanding. It is written in the belief that anything is possible when there is honesty, inclusion and dialogue.

Serious Little Catholics follows Kathy Gereau, the oldest of seven children, as she grows up in the mid-'50s and'60s and makes her way through Catholic school alongside her siblings. Initially, she buys into the mysteries of faith and the litany of rules being spouted by the Sisters of Mercy. But when her fourth grade teacher tells the class that Kathy's sweet little Protestant grandmother would never be admitted into heaven, she begins to question the rigid dogma of the church. Later, she discovers that not all boys are as goofy as her brothers and struggles with the notion that it is a woman's responsibility to discourage men from the plague of impure thoughts. Even an innocent flirtation can sinfully lead men into a temptation they are not capable of resisting; it doesn't seem fair.Ultimately, with the help of her classmates and a few understanding teachers, she learns to laugh at the ridiculous bits of her religion—and discovers the spiritual message within.

A powerful, breathtaking memoir about a young man's descent into madness, and how running saved his life.“Voluntary or involuntary?” asked the nurse who admitted J. M. Thompson to a San Francisco psychiatric hospital in January 2005. Following years of depression, ineffective medication, and therapy that went nowhere, Thompson feared he was falling into an inescapable darkness. He decided that death was his only exit route from the torture of his mind. After a suicide attempt, he spent weeks confined on the psych ward, feeling scared, alone, and trapped. One afternoon during an exercise break he experienced a sudden urge. “Run, I thought. Run before it's too late and you're stuck down there. Right now. Run. ” The impulse that starts with sprints across a hospital rooftop turns into all night runs in the mountains. Through motion and immersion in the beauty of nature, Thompson finds a way out of the hell of depression and drug addiction. Step by step, mile by mile, his body and mind heal. In this lyrical, vulnerable, and breathtaking memoir, J. M. Thompson, now a successful psychologist, retraces the path that led him from despair to wellness, detailing the chilling childhood trauma that caused his depression, and the unorthodox treatment that saved him. Running Is a Kind of Dreaming is a luminous literary testament to the universal human capacity to recover from our deepest wounds.

Love across cultures is tested when Antonio, a penniless university student, and Evelyn, a strong-willed Peace Corps volunteer, succumb to their attraction to one another at the end of her two-year commitment in Peru and Evelyn gets pregnant. Deeply in love, the twenty-three-year-olds marry in Cusco—and decide to begin their married life in Northern California. Evelyn, like most wives of the'60s and'70s, expects her husband to support their family. And Antonio tries to take his place as head of the household, but he must first learn English, complete college, and find an adequate job. To make ends meet, Evelyn secures full-time positions, leaving their infant son in the care of others, and they both go on to attend college—she for two years, he for six. Then Antonio is offered a full-time professorship at the university he attended in Peru, and he takes it—leaving Evelyn a single parent. Parenthood, financial stress, the pull of both countries, and long visits from Antonio's mother threaten to destroy the bonds that brought them together.Clear-eyed and frank, Love in Any Language illustrates the trials and joys in the blending of two cultures.

A 2021 Kirkus Reviews'Best Indie Book of the YearLeora, a juvenile court judge, wife, mother, and daughter, is caught in the routine of work, taking care of her family and aging parents. But she's also a second-generation Holocaust survivor. It's an identity she didn't understand was hers until she accidentally discovered a secret file of handwritten notes addressed to her father. A further discovery of a seemingly random WWII postcard in a thrift store sets her on a collision course with the past in this lyrical memoir about secrets hidden within secrets, both present-day and buried deep within wartime Europe.

“This is a celebratory meld of memoir, biography and travelogue, intensely personal and all the better for it.” —Eleanor Fitzsimons, author of Wilde's WomenJohn Keats is one of Britain's best-known and most-loved poets. Despite dying in Rome in 1821, at the age of just twenty-five, his poems continue to inspire generations who reinterpret and reinvent the ways in which we consume his work.Apart from his long association with Hampstead, North London, he has not previously been known as a poet of ‘place'in the way we associate Wordsworth with the Lake District, for example, and for many years readers considered Keats's work remote from political and social context. Yet Keats was acutely aware of and influenced by his surroundings: Hampstead; Guy's Hospital in London where he trained as a doctor; Teignmouth where he nursed his brother Tom; a walking tour of the Lake District and Scotland; the Isle of Wight; the area around Chichester and in Winchester, where his last great ode, “To Autumn,” was composed.Suzie Grogan takes the reader on a journey through Keats's life and landscapes, introducing us to his best and most influential work. Utilizing primary sources such as Keats's letters to friends and family and the very latest biographical and academic work, it offers an accessible way to see Keats through the lens of the places he visited and aims to spark a lasting interest in the real Keats—the poet and the man.“Warm and worthwhile observations on how places as varied as the Lake District and the Isle of Wight shaped Keats's verse.” —Camden New Journal

After a decade of caring for crazy and keeping her mother's mental illness a secret from the outside world, twenty-year-old Paolina Milana longs for just one year free from the madness of her home. When she gets the chance to go to an out-of-state school, she takes it, but her family won't leave her be. Letter after letter arrives, constantly reminding her of the insanity rooted in her family tree. Even worse, the voices in her own head whisper words she's not sure are normal. “Please don't make me be like Mamma,” she prays to a God she's not sure is listening.The unexpected death of her father soon after she returns home leaves Paolina in shock—and in charge of her paranoid schizophrenic mother. But it isn't until she is twenty-seven and her sister two years her junior explodes in a psychotic episode and, just like Mamma, is diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and must be committed, that Paolina descends into her own despair, nearly losing herself to the darkness.Poignant and impactful, Committed is one woman's story of resilience as she struggles to stay sane despite the madness that surrounds her.

The most frank and intimate portrait of the Trump White House yetStephanie Grisham rose from being a junior press wrangler on the Trump campaign in 2016 to assuming top positions in the administration as White House press secretary and communications director, while at the same time acting as First Lady Melania Trump's communications director and eventually chief of staff. Few members of the Trump inner circle served longer or were as close to the first family as Stephanie Grisham, and few had her unique insight into the turbulent four years of the administration, especially the personalities behind the headlines.

From a contributor to The Cut, one of Vogue's most anticipated books'bravely and honestly'(Busy Philipps) talks about weight loss and sheds a light on Weight Watchers founder Jean Nidetch:'a triumphant chronicle'(New York Times). Marisa Meltzer began her first diet at the age of five. Growing up an indoors-loving child in Northern California, she learned from an early age that weight was the one part of her life she could neither change nor even really understand. Fast forward nearly four decades. Marisa, also a contributor to the New Yorker and the New York Times, comes across an obituary for Jean Nidetch, the Queens, New York housewife who founded Weight Watchers in 1963. Weaving Jean's incredible story as weight loss maven and pathbreaking entrepreneur with Marisa's own journey through Weight Watchers, she chronicles the deep parallels, and enduring frustrations, in each woman's decades-long efforts to lose weight and keep it off. The result is funny, unexpected, and unforgettable: a testament to how transformation goes far beyond a number on the scale.

For years, Alec Klein investigated cases where people faced the nightmare of wrongful accusations. Suddenly, he found himself on the other side, falsely accused himself.For years, Alec Klein investigated cases where people faced the nightmare of wrongful accusations. Suddenly, he found himself on the other side, falsely accused himself. In a coordinated media attack, he was accused of misconduct as a professor at a top U.S. university, and in a rush to judgment, before he had a chance to defend himself, his life was destroyed. What happens when you have little hope? In the aftermath, Alec gravitated to the unlikeliest of places, among the unlikeliest of people, doing the unlikeliest of things. This is a first-person true story about faith, forgiveness and redemption.

Some of the most interesting and genuinely commendable people in the world are systematically overlooked by our celebrity-obsessed media. This book is a reminder of just what a mistake that is--here you will meet some truly extraordinary people, from subsistence farmers, cattle ranchers, rodeo rascals, a miraculous middle school teacher, and a munificent unlicensed auto mechanic, to Italian Franciscans, out-of-the-box college and university professors, an independent-minded British poet, and a northern timber wolf. All of these characters have something to teach, but they do it in eccentric ways that will challenge your expectations and reward your willingness to break a mold or two yourself.

Why couldn't I occupy the world as those model-looking women did, with their flowing hair, pulling their tiny bright suitcases as if to say, I just arrived from elsewhere, and I already belong here, and this sidewalk belongs to me? When her marriage suddenly ends, and a diary documenting her beloved Opa's escape from Nazi-occupied Netherlands in the summer of 1942 is discovered, Naomi Lewis decides to retrace his journey to freedom. Travelling alone from Amsterdam to Lyon, she discovers family secrets and her own narrative as a second-generation Jewish Canadian. With vulnerability, humour, and wisdom, Lewis's memoir asks tough questions about her identity as a secular Jew, the accuracy of family stories, and the impact of the Holocaust on subsequent generations.

In this New York Times bestseller, host of one of the nation's top morning shows Elvis Duran shares his wildest stories and hardest-learned lessons with his trademark honesty and “bighearted, deliciously warm” (Barbara Corcoran, star of ABC's Shark Tank) humor.Elvis Duran's nationally syndicated radio program, Elvis Duran and the Morning Show, is America's most-listened-to Top 40 morning show and one of the 10 most-listened-to programs in all of radio, heard live by nearly ten million people every morning. But his success didn't happen overnight. Elvis spent years navigating the wild world of radio as a DJ for hire, working (and partying) in markets around the country before taking over the morning shift at the legendary Z100 in 1996. Over the last twenty years, he has become one of New York City's signature voices (Variety calls him “a permanent fixture of the area's daily commutes”) thanks to his show's exciting mix of music, new artist discovery, interviews, gossip, and live listener interaction. Along the way, Elvis has become known not just for his incisive interviews (and occasional feuds) with pop music's biggest stars, but for the show's commitment to kindness and positivity and Elvis's own candor and openness with his audience. Bold, funny, and totally candid, Where Do I Begin? is sure to be loved by anyone who listens to Elvis live every morning—or anyone who wants to know what really goes on behind the scenes of the pop music machine from the “man who has been as big a part of the industry's success as anyone” (Ryan Seacrest).

In this revelatory memoir, Doctor Cynthia Li shares the truth about her disabling autoimmune illness, the limitations of Western medicine, and her hard-won lessons on healing—mind, body, and spirit. Li had it all: a successful career in medicine, a loving marriage, children on the horizon. But it all came crashing down when, after developing an autoimmune thyroid condition, mysterious symptoms began consuming her body. Test after test came back'within normal limits,'baffling her doctors—and baffling herself. Housebound with two young children, Li began a solo odyssey from her living room couch to find a way to heal.Brave New Medicine details the physical and existential crisis that forces a young doctor to question her own medical training. She dives into the root causes of her illness, learning to unlock her body's innate intelligence and wholeness. Li relates her story with the insight of a scientist, and the humility and candor of a patient, exploring the emotional and spiritual shifts beyond the physical body.Millions of people worldwide are affected by autoimmune disease. While complex conditions like chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) are gaining attention, patients struggling with these mysterious ailments remain largely dismissed by their doctors, families, and friends. This is the harsh reality that doctor-turned-'difficult patient'Li faced firsthand.Drawing on cutting-edge science, ancient healing arts, and the power of intuition, this memoir offers support, validation, and a new perspective for doctors and patients alike. Through her story, you can find the wisdom and heart to start your own healing journey, too.

A PULITZER PRIZE FINALISTA Publishers Weekly Best Book of the YearNational Book Award-winning biographer Deirdre Bair explores her fifteen remarkable years in Paris with Samuel Beckett and Simone de Beauvoir, painting intimate new portraits of two literary giants and revealing secrets of the biographical art.In 1971 Deirdre Bair was a journalist and recently minted Ph.D. who managed to secure access to Nobel Prize-winning author Samuel Beckett. He agreed that she could be his biographer despite her never having written—or even read—a biography before. The next seven years comprised of intimate conversations, intercontinental research, and peculiar cat-and-mouse games. Battling an elusive Beckett and a string of jealous, misogynistic male writers, Bair persevered. She wrote Samuel Beckett: A Biography, which went on to win the National Book Award and propel Deirdre to her next subject: Simone de Beauvoir. The catch? De Beauvoir and Beckett despised each other—and lived essentially on the same street. Bair learned that what works in terms of process for one biography rarely applies to the next. Her seven-year relationship with the domineering and difficult de Beauvoir required a radical change in approach, yielding another groundbreaking literary profile and influencing Bair's own feminist beliefs. Parisian Lives draws on Bair's extensive notes from the period, including never-before-told anecdotes. This gripping memoir is full of personality and warmth and gives us an entirely new window on the all-too-human side of these legendary thinkers.

The first volume of the former Israeli prime minister's journals from the nation's early years.My Struggle for Peace is a remarkable political document offering insights into the complex workings of the young Israeli political system, set against the backdrop of the disintegration of the country's fragile armistice with the Arab states. Replete with Moshe Sharett's candid comments on Israel's first-generation leaders and world statesmen of the day, the diary also tells the dramatic human story of a political career cut short—the removal of an unusually sensitive, dedicated, and talented public servant. My Struggle for Peace is, above all, an intimate record of the decline of Sharett's moderate approach and the rise of more “activist-militant” trends in Israeli society, culminating in the Suez/Sinai war of 1956. The diary challenges the popular narrative that Israel's confrontation with its neighbors was unavoidable by offering daily evidence of Sharett's statesmanship, moderation, diplomacy, and concern for Israel's place in international affairs.This is the first volume in the 3-volume English abridgement of Sharett's Yoman Ishi [Personal diary] (Ma'ariv, 1978) maintains the integrity, flavor, and impact of the 8-volume Hebrew original and includes additional documentary material that was not accessible at the time. The volumes are also available to purchase as a set or individually.“The editors... vastly improved on the Hebrew version by adding Sharett's speeches, reports, cabinet minutes, and other sources to the text'.... These additions makes this work so important and welcome by all who aspire to understand the foreign and defense policies of Israel in its first decade.” —Israel Studies Review

This book examines a selection of prison memoirs by five renowned African writers: Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Ruth First, Wole Soyinka, Nawal El Saadawi and Jack Mapanje. Detained across the continent from the 1960s onward due to their writing and political engagement, each writer's memoir forms a crucial yet often overlooked part of their wider literary work. The author analyses the varied and unique narrative strategies used to portray the prison, formulating a theory of prison memoir as genre that reads the texts alongside postcolonial, trauma, life-writing and prison theory. The book also illustrates the importance of these memoirs in the telling of their historical moment, from apartheid South Africa to post-independence Kenya, Nigeria, Egypt and Malawi.

Kuwasi Balagoon was a participant in the Black Liberation struggle from the 1960s until his death in prison in 1986. A member of the Black Panther Party and defendant in the infamous Panther 21 case, Balagoon went underground with the Black Liberation Army (BLA). Captured and convicted of various crimes against the State, he spent much of the 1970s in prison, escaping twice. After each escape, he went underground and resumed BLA activity. Balagoon was unusual for his time in several ways. He combined anarchism with Black nationalism, he broke the rules of sexual and political conformity that surrounded him, he took up arms against the white-supremacist state—all the while never shying away from developing his own criticisms of the weaknesses within the movements. His eloquent trial statements and political writings, as much as his poetry and excerpts from his prison letters, are all testimony to a sharp and iconoclastic revolutionary who was willing to make hard choices and fully accept the consequences. Balagoon was captured for the last time in December 1981, charged with participating in an armored truck expropriation in West Nyack, New York, an action in which two police officers and a money courier were killed. Convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, he died of an AIDS-related illness on December 13, 1986. The first part of this book consists of contributions by those who knew or were touched by Balagoon. The second section consists of court statements and essays by Balagoon himself, including several documents that were absent from previous editions and have never been published before. The third consists of excerpts from letters Balagoon wrote from prison. A final fourth section consists of a historical essay by Akinyele Umoja and an extensive intergenerational roundtable discussion of the significance of Balagoon's life and thoughts today.

Named by Esquire as one of the Best Nonfiction Books of the Year: Chanel Miller's Know My Name meets Cheryl Strayed's Wild and Anthony Swofford's Jarhead in this powerful literary memoir of a young soldier driven to prove herself in a man's world.Raised by powerful women in a restrictive, sheltered Christian community in New England, Ryan Dostie never imagined herself on the front lines of a war halfway around the world. But then a conversation with an Army recruiter in her high-school cafeteria changes the course of her life. Hired as a linguist, she quickly has to find a space for herself in the testosterone-filled world of the Army barracks, and has been holding her own until the unthinkable happens: she is raped by a fellow soldier.Struggling with PTSD and commanders who don't trust her story, Dostie finds herself fighting through the isolation of trauma amid the challenges of an unexpected war. What follows is a riveting story of one woman's extraordinary journey to prove her worth, physically and mentally, in a world where the odds are stacked against her.

In This Is How We Survive: Revolutionary Mothering, War, and Exile in the 21st Century, Mai'a Williams shares her experiences working in conflict zones and with liberatory resistance communities as a journalist, human rights worker, and midwife in Palestine, Egypt, Chiapas, Berlin, and the U.S., while mothering her young daughter Aza. She first went to Palestine in 2003 during the Second Intifada to support Palestinians resisting the Israeli occupation. In 2006, she became pregnant in Bethlehem, West Bank. By the time her daughter was three years old, they had already celebrated with Zapatista women in southern Mexico and survived Israeli detention, and during the 2011 Arab Spring they were in the streets of Cairo protesting the Mubarak dictatorship. She watched the Egyptian revolution fall apart and escaped the violence, like many of her Arab comrades, by moving to Europe. Three years later, she and Aza were camping at Standing Rock in protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline and co-creating revolutionary mothering communities once again. This is a story about mothers who are doing the work of deep social transformation by creating the networks of care that sustain movements and revolutions. By centering mothers in our organizing work, we center those who have the skills and the experience of creating and sustaining life on this planet. This Is How We Survive illuminates how mothering is a practice essential to the work of revolution. It explores the heartbreak of revolutionary movements falling apart and revolutionaries scattering across the globe into exile. And most importantly, how mamas create, no matter the conditions, the resilience to continue doing revolutionary work.

A memoir of heartbreak, thousand-mile races, the endless Alaskan wilderness and many, many dogs from one of only a handful of women to have completed both the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod.In 2009, after a crippling divorce that left her heartbroken and directionless, Kristin decided to accept an offer to live at a friend's cabin outside of Denali National Park in Alaska for a few months. In exchange for housing, she would take care of her friend's eight sled dogs. That winter, she learned that she was tougher than she ever knew. She learned how to survive in one of the most remote places on earth and she learned she was strong enough to be alone. She fell in love twice: first with running sled dogs, and then with Andy, a gentle man who had himself moved to Alaska to heal a broken heart. Kristin and Andy married and started a sled dog kennel. While this work was enormously satisfying, Kristin became determined to complete the Iditarod -- the 1,000-mile dogsled race from Anchorage, in south central Alaska, to Nome on the western Bering Sea coast.THIS MUCH COUNTRY is the story of renewal and transformation. It's about journeying across a wild and unpredictable landscape and finding inner peace, courage and a true home. It's about pushing boundaries and overcoming paralyzing fears.

For fans of Cheryl Strayed, the gripping story of a biologist's human-powered journey from the Pacific Northwest to the Arctic to rediscover her love of birds, nature, and adventure.During graduate school, as she conducted experiments on the peculiarly misshapen beaks of chickadees, ornithologist Caroline Van Hemert began to feel stifled in the isolated, sterile environment of the lab. Worried that she was losing her passion for the scientific research she once loved, she was compelled to experience wildness again, to be guided by the sounds of birds and to follow the trails of animals.In March of 2012, she and her husband set off on a 4,000-mile wilderness journey from the Pacific rainforest to the Alaskan Arctic, traveling by rowboat, ski, foot, raft, and canoe. Together, they survived harrowing dangers while also experiencing incredible moments of joy and grace -- migrating birds silhouetted against the moon, the steamy breath of caribou, and the bond that comes from sharing such experiences.A unique blend of science, adventure, and personal narrative, The Sun is a Compass explores the bounds of the physical body and the tenuousness of life in the company of the creatures who make their homes in the wildest places left in North America. Inspiring and beautifully written, this love letter to nature is a lyrical testament to the resilience of the human spirit.Winner of the 2019 Banff Mountain Book Competition: Adventure Travel

As seen on the Today Show: This true story of an unforgettable mother, her devoted daughter, and their life in the Detroit numbers of the 1960s and 1970s highlights'the outstanding humanity of black America'(James McBride).In 1958, the very same year that an unknown songwriter named Berry Gordy borrowed $800 to found Motown Records, a pretty young mother from Nashville, Tennessee, borrowed $100 from her brother to run a numbers racket out of her home. That woman was Fannie Davis, Bridgett M. Davis's mother.Part bookie, part banker, mother, wife, and granddaughter of slaves, Fannie ran her numbers business for thirty-four years, doing what it took to survive in a legitimate business that just happened to be illegal. She created a loving, joyful home, sent her children to the best schools, bought them the best clothes, mothered them to the highest standard, and when the tragedy of urban life struck, soldiered on with her stated belief:'Dying is easy. Living takes guts.'A daughter's moving homage to an extraordinary parent, The World According to Fannie Davis is also the suspenseful, unforgettable story about the lengths to which a mother will go to'make a way out of no way'and provide a prosperous life for her family -- and how those sacrifices resonate over time.

We stopped to watch the helicopters swoop down to fill the water baskets, like hummingbirds at a feeder. That was when we saw a new plume of smoke rising to the southwest. Four years after Therese Greenwood and her husband moved to Fort McMurray, Alberta, their new community was devastated by one of the worst wildfires in Canadian history. As the flames approached, they had only minutes to pack, narrowly escaping a fire that would rage for weeks, burn more than 85,000 hectares and force 80,000 people to flee. This skillfully told first-person account is more than a disaster narrative: Greenwood's experience and skill as a journalist and a mystery writer engages and maintains suspense. Her portrayal of how people behave in an emergency and how a community comes together is uplifting. Her stories of what she saved from the fire will resonate with anyone who has lived through a crisis, and help make sense of a life-changing event that garnered interest throughout the world.

A survivor takes those struggling with anorexia and/or bulimia on “a passionate, heartbreaking to humorous road from rock bottom to recovery” (Robert Tuchman, author of Young Guns).Imagine waking in a hospital bed to find your frail, pale arm punctured by an IV transferring fluids and nutrients into your weak, stiff body. What happened? You're an adult, age twenty-six, and you just had a seizure precipitated by your chronic, secretive, decades-long struggle with unacknowledged eating disorders. You have no friends and no normal young-adult experiences. Living Full is written by Danielle Sherman-Lazar, a woman who passed through the eating disorder crucible to recovery, sharing the most intimate and shameful details of her mental illness. Living Full is Danielle's story.Eating disorders in young adults are hardly talked about, but are pervasive. Eating disorders are kept hidden out of shame. A groundbreaking 2012 study published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders found that about thirteen percent of women over age fifty exhibit eating disorder symptoms.Living Full chronicles the author's step-by-step descent into the full-blown eating disorder nightmare and her path to recovery. Recovery comes from the Maudsley Approach, a regimen of supervised controlled eating or refeeding by out-patient helpers that eventually can result in recovery.Benefits of reading Living Full: See how to confront your eating disorder demon Learn from someone who won her eating disorder battle Discover a new and beautiful life

LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSLLER • WINNER OF THE NAUTILUS BOOK AWARD • “In a world full of spiritual seekers, Megan Griswold is an undisputed all-star. What a delightful journey!”—Elizabeth Gilbert, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Big Magic and Eat, Pray, LoveThe Book of Help traces one woman's life-long quest for love, connection, and peace of mind. A heartbreakingly vulnerable and tragically funny memoir-in-remedies, Megan Griswold's narrative spans four decades and six continents—from the glaciers of Patagonia and the psycho-tropics of Brazil, to academia, the Ivy League, and the study of Eastern medicine. Megan was born into a family who enthusiastically embraced the offerings of New Age California culture—at seven she asked Santa for her first mantra and by twelve she was taking weekend workshops on personal growth. But later, when her newly-wedded husband calls in the middle of the night to say he's landed in jail, Megan must accept that her many certificates, degrees and licenses had not been the finish line she'd once imagined them to be, but instead the preliminary training for what would prove to be the wildest, most growth-insisting journey of her life.

A Syrian American surgeon chronicles her path to becoming one of New York City's first female ring-side boxing doctors in this exhilarating memoir.Fresh out of medical school, Linda Dahl began her surgical residency in the Bronx as a total fish out of water. Growing up in a Middle Eastern family in the American Midwest, she was a born outsider, and in her new community in New York, she felt even more isolated. Even at work she struggled to fit in: among her fellow specialists, she was one of the only women.One night, at her husband's urging, Dahl watched a boxing match between Shane Mosley and Oscar De La Hoya. Seeing Mosley survive against the odds gave Dahl hope that she, too, could find her footing. As her fandom grew, boxing became a way to connect with her patients and community. Later, when she was in practice on the Upper East Side, Dahl received a phone call from the New York State Athletic Commission. They were looking for a fight doctor. Dahl accepted.Tooth and Nail chronicles the years Dahl spent as an ear, nose and throat surgeon by day and a ringside physician by night. Intrepid, adrenaline-fueled and loaded with behind-the-scenes takes on famous boxers, including Mike Tyson, Wladimir Klitschko and Miguel Cotto, Dahl's story offers a modern examination of sexism, dislocation, the theater of boxing and a road map for how to excel in two very different male-dominated worlds.A Boston Globe Best Sports Book of 2018Praise for Tooth and Nail“In examining the classic fight to survive with a lens that feels paradoxically universal and unique, Dahl has written a memoir with enough fisticuffs for the fight fan, enough medicine for the scalpel supplicant and enough human drama for anyone who has ever felt alienated... Dahl's punchy prose maintains two feet squarely on the ground, plugging away at the challenges she faced in the male-dominated worlds of medicine and boxing... In atavistic victory or poleaxed defeat, Dahl views her powerful reflection in a blood-sprayed mirror.” —Paste Magazine“Entertaining.... Dahl offers a unique look at the world of boxing in this uplifting story about realizing one's destiny.” —Publishers Weekly“Dahl makes funny observations about the macho ringside crowd.... This is one fascinating tale.” —Booklist

Ursula Martin never thought she would walk 3700 miles around Wales, but following a cancer diagnosis it seemed like the only reasonable thing to do. In 17 months, she traversed beaches and mountains, farms and urban sprawl. She received unimaginable support – people offered beds, food, cups of tea, donated to her chosen charities. Walking Wales rooted her in the country and in herself; her account of the physical and mental challenges painting a unique portrait of the natural landscape of a country and its people.

Linda I. Meyers was twenty-eight and the mother of three little boys when her mother, after a lifetime of threats, killed herself. Staggered by conflicting feelings of relief and remorse, Linda believed that the best way to give meaning to her mother's death was to make changes to her own life. Bolstered by the women's movement of the seventies, she left her marriage, went to college, started a successful family acting business, and established a fulfilling career. Written with irony and humor and sprinkled with Yiddish, The Tell is one woman's inspirational story of before and after, and ultimately of emancipation and purpose.

In this vividly wrought memoir, author James S. Rockefeller Jr. recalls the moments and milestones in his long, adventurous life. From his old-fashioned childhood—filled with characters and wildlife—as a grandson of William G. Rockefeller and Sarah “Elsie” Stillman, to expeditions as a young man on his Indian motorcycle and his sailboat, Mandalay, to the fateful evening on Cumberland Island, Georgia, when his heart was stolen by the luminous author Margaret Wise Brown, Rockefeller recounts his youth with wit and clarity. As he matures, his adventurous spirit takes him from Maine to Tahiti to Norway and back again. Throughout his travels, he embraces deep loss and wondrous turns of fortune, including danger, love, death, marriage, fatherhood, and—always—an enduring passion for planes, boats, and engines—a passion that leads him to establish the Owls Head Transportation Museum. A brilliant storyteller, Rockefeller writes the remembrance of a time gone by with the perspective of a 20th-century wayfarer; a voyager on the seas of time. His memoir stands as a moment “between the old and what was to come” and reveals with perspicacity and humor what he calls “this slender crack of time.”