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In Milkweed and Honey Cake: A Memoir in Ritual Moments, Wendy A. Horwitz shares stories about celebration, loss, change, and the best way to open a pomegranate.Holidays delight – and disappoint. A couple marrying in the pandemic finds a surprise after a rainstorm, and a topsy-turvy search for a gravestone honors her ancestors. When a graduation is cancelled, Horwitz serves pomp and circumstance on the front porch, and through the shifting seasons of a life, amid the scramble of pet guinea pigs and birthday parties, her children add wonder and comedy to tradition.With observations from nature, religion, and literature, Horwitz explores how ritual can exalt ordinary moments and frame the extraordinary. A blue heron, an old cupboard's scent, and the lingering feel of an engagement ring long gone prompt reflections laced with yearning and humor. Guiding us along a wooded path, to the kitchen table, in a messy garden, and under a tent reverberating with song, she traces the boundaries of ritual, considering what we do when ritual falls short, and how we might adapt each other's practices. And when the wider world seems broken, new rituals provide hope.Lyrical and funny, thought-provoking and deeply moving, Milkweed and Honey Cake is at once a meditation on our desire for meaning and the story of a woman's lifelong efforts to create it.

Driven by a long-standing desire, her education and her faith, mental health professional, Wendy Nordick, and her husband Bill Blair, a retired judge, plunged into a two-year assignment with Canadian University Services Overseas. She believed her 25 years of clinical social work were appropriate credentials to help a country with the highest rates of suicide in the world. Bill hoped to work for peace and justice. They felt they became laughingstocks when work visa delays left them homeless. Days before leaving, Wendy's father died. Once in Sri Lanka, she shivered in a rickety beer factory cum hospital where she taught mental health skills. A year later, she was transported into steamy, bombed out Jaffna, the epicenter of a civil war to teach a trauma team who worked with the war affected and tortured during the war. She was humbled by what she did not know and sought help from a previous refugee.

In 2020, after the longest and most expensive trial in Western Australian history, Bradley Robert Edwards was convicted of two of the Claremont Serial Killings, a series of unsolved murders that had haunted the state since the mid-1990s. But before he went to trial, before he started killing, Edwards violently assaulted a social worker while he was working on the telephone system at Hollywood Hospital. Not only did Edwards keep his job, but he was convicted only of common assault for the attack, a minor charge that left him off the police radar during their desperate hunt for the sexual predator responsible for the Claremont murders. Begun as way to deal with the resurgence of trauma after Edwards'arrest, this memoir looks at the pressure on women to minimise and excuse certain behaviours in others, and demonstrates the devastating consequences of not making a fuss.

Educator, activist, agent of change - the life and career of one of Australia's most influential women.'extraordinary'Georgie Dent'a trailblazing headline act'Sandra Sully'one of the great feminist superheroines'Jacqueline Maley'a pleasure and an education'Dr Anne Summers, AO'a national treasure'Dr Kerryn Phelps, AMWendy McCarthy has made her mark on Australia in many extraordinary ways. For more than 50 years, she has been on the leading edge of feminism and corporate and public life in this country and her trailblazing advocacy and leadership have made her a widely respected and revered figure. Wendy is a woman who shaped her times as much as she was shaped by them, and now, at 80 years of age, she shares her remarkable life and achievements, and the lessons she learned - and taught us all.From sheltered country schoolgirl to relentless campaigner for abortion and contraception, from passionate teacher to lifelong advocate for education, to smashing that glass ceiling again and again and showing the way to subsequent generations of women, Wendy has championed change across the public, private and community sectors - in education, family planning, human rights, public health, overseas aid and development, conservation, heritage, media and the Arts. This inspiring and enlightening memoir is filled with cautionary tales and insider stories about being female in Australia - as well as a few helpful survival tips. Above all, it encourages the reader to find her own voice and listen to it.

When star of Bravo's The Real Housewives of Potomac Dr. Wendy Osefo was growing up, her mother was her everything. But when she became a mother herself, everything changed. In this “exquisitely-drawn portrait of the intense bond that only a mother can have with a daughter” (Katie Haufner, author of Mother Daughter Me), Wendy explores how her Nigerian upbringing has affected her life, her success, and her role as a parent.Wendy Osefo's mother, Iyom Susan Okuzu, arrived in the United States from Nigeria with two things: a single suitcase and the fierce determination to make a better life for herself and her future family. And she succeeded: starting out working in a fast-food restaurant and ultimately becoming the director of nursing at a major metropolitan hospital. While Susan may have taken pride in triumphing over every financial and emotional challenge, in Nigerian culture, a parent is only as successful as his or her children. And so her daughter, with gratitude and appreciation for her mother's sacrifices, worked hard to meet every demand Susan made of her. With four advanced degrees and a position at Johns Hopkins University as a professor—as well as being a highly sought-after political commentator, a cherished wife, and a loving mother of three—Dr. Wendy has given her mother bragging rights for life. But at what cost to herself? In Tears of My Mother, the star of The Real Housewives of Potomac describes growing up as a first-generation American, balancing two distinct cultures. And she takes a critical look at the paradox of her mother's parenting: approval conditioned by achievement. As a teenager, Wendy struggled to carve out her own identity while still walking the narrow path of her mother's expectations. Unwavering family loyalty and obedience gave Wendy the road map to making it in America, but it also drove a wedge between mother and daughter, never more so than when she began to build her own family. “A love letter to Dr. Osefo's mother and first-generation immigrants all across America” (Library Journal), this book is for anyone who has faced conflict in the mother-daughter relationship or wondered how much of their own upbringing they want to pass on to the next generation.

From an author of the best-selling women's health classic Our Bodies, Ourselves comes a bracingly forthright memoir about a life-long friendship across racial and class divides. A white woman's necessary learning, and a Black woman's complex evolution, make These Walls Between Us a “tender, honest, cringeworthy and powerful read.” (Debby Irving, author, Waking Up White.) In the mid-1950s, a fifteen-year-old African American teenager named Mary White (now Mary Norman) traveled north from Virginia to work for twelve-year-old Wendy Sanford's family as a live-in domestic for their summer vacation by a remote New England beach. Over the years, Wendy's family came to depend on Mary's skilled service—and each summer, Mary endured the extreme loneliness of their elite white beachside retreat in order to support her family. As the Black “help” and the privileged white daughter, Mary and Wendy were not slated for friendship. But years later—each divorced, each a single parent, Mary now a rising officer in corrections and Wendy a feminist health activist—they began to walk the beach together after dark, talking about their children and their work, and a friendship began to grow. Based on decades'worth of visits, phone calls, letters, and texts between Mary and Wendy, These Walls Between Us chronicles the two women's friendship, with a focus on what Wendy characterizes as her “oft-stumbling efforts, as a white woman, to see Mary more fully and to become a more dependable friend.” The book examines obstacles created by Wendy's upbringing in a narrow, white, upper-class world; reveals realities of domestic service rarely acknowledged by white employers; and draws on classic works by the African American writers whose work informed and challenged Wendy along the way. Though Wendy is the work's primary author, Mary read and commented on every draft—and together, the two friends hope their story will incite and support white readers to become more informed and accountable friends across the racial divides created by white supremacy and to become active in the ongoing movement for racial justice.

Do you think you are born a one-off, a unique individual entirely different from all others? Do you feel apart from others, or part of them, that you belong to yourself – responsible for yourself alone, or that you belong with and for others? For the author, who, as an identical twin, was factually one and the same as her twin before the egg split, these questions as to what constitutes the self and how it emerges from the cosmos have been particularly pressing. In separate cots, they cried every night for three years till put into the same bed. It was like a marriage from birth. In this one life on Earth, should these twins ever have been parted? Does science offer any clues as to what underlies the superficial appearance of separate consciousness, of separate people? This book is both a description of the transformative experience the author went through and a serious quest for understanding, enquiring into psychotherapy, philosophy and quantum physics. As this dilemma of separateness and relatedness is the human predicament intensified in twins, this story is about all of us.

“Many memories, many myths”—this is how Wendy Doniger begins the story of her parents'origins in Europe and sharply bifurcated life in America. Recalling their contrasting attitudes toward Judaism and religion in general—and acknowledging the mythologized narratives that keep bubbling up in those recollections—Doniger tells the story of their childhoods, their unusual marriage, their life in the post–World War II Jewish enclave of Great Neck, New York, and her own complex relationship with each of them.

'In these pointed and wide–ranging essays, Wendy Willis explores everything from personal resistance to the rise of political podcasts, civic loneliness to the exploitation of personal data, public outrage to the opioid crisis—all with a poet's gift for finding the sacred in the mundane, a hope in the dark.One of the country's sharpest observers of politics, art, and the American spirit, Willis returns often to the demanding question posed by Czech writer, activist, and politician Václav Havel: What does it mean to live in truth? Her view is honed by her place as a poet, as a mother, and, when necessary, as an activist. Together, the essays in These Are Strange Times, My Dear work within that largely unmapped place where the heartbreaks and uncertainties of one's inner life brush up against the cruelties and responsibilities of politics and government and our daily lives.'

Wendy Murphy was rendered with incomplete paraplegia following a motor vehicle accident in 1984. She has carried on with tenacious spirit, and her life and career choices have been anything but conventional. Determined to make a difference for the physically challenged community, Wendy threw herself front and center publicly. After she established herself as a sought-after model with a number of department stores and other high-profile advertisers, she moved on to commercial and acting roles. Her biggest achievement was finding her place in front of the camera as a broadcast journalist for eight years with City TV. Today Wendy sees total access for those in wheelchairs as both a community and a political issue and she dedicates herself accordingly, all with the goal of seeing change. Just as importantly, she hopes her life and all that she's accomplished will serve as an inspiration to others; a fact that has spurred her efforts to write this memoir. Wendy's advice to others with hopes and dreams?'Reach for the stars with good intentions and the universe is sure to answer!'

Every morning, so far, I'm alive is about what it's like to live in a world where shaking a stranger's hand, catching a taxi or touching a door handle are fraught with fear and dread.This memoir charts the author's breakdown after migrating from New Zealand to England: what begins as homesickness and career burn-out develops into depression, contamination phobia and OCD. Increasingly alienated from all the things that previously gave her life meaning and purpose - family, work, nature, literature - the author is forced to confront a question once posed by the young Virginia Woolf: ‘How is one to live in such a world?'In this fiercely honest memoir Wendy Parkins, a former English professor, explores what it means to belong and feel at home, and how we are shaped by our first environments, both familial and physical. Describing the gradual process of recovery - as well as its reversals - it shows that returning to health can be about rediscovering how we came to be who we are, without becoming trapped by our narratives of origin. Like coming home, recovery is never quite what we expect it to be, however much we long for it.Beautifully written, intensely moving and threaded with self-deprecating humour, Every morning, so far, I'm alive is about claiming the right to tell our own story and learning to embrace the risks that the messy unpredictability of life always entails.

The Unbinding chronicles a woman's experience of finding her way through and out of a twenty-year marriage rooted in domestic violence, as well as her continued unbinding from trauma. The abuse she survives is particularly insidious due to the fact that she is married to a pastor, and thus it includes not just emotional, psychological, physical, and sexual abuse, but also spiritual abuse. Settings and images of everyday life provide a gateway into a remarkable journey, the telling of which is vivid and dark, yet ultimately hopeful. The woman at the center of this journey survives due to her children--a manifestation to her of grace in the world--and her grit.

'Call the Midwife compellingly transposed from the East End of London to the Borneo rainforest'Lynne Tembey, Mothers'Union Worldwide President1959. Newcastle nurse Wendy Grey leaves her comfortable life and answers a call from people in Borneo to run a clinic in a place so remote, many there have never before seen a white woman. Until her arrival, medical witchcraft has been the norm. Nevertheless, Wendy quickly gains the trust of the locals, and they begin to flock to her for treatment. And - terrifyingly - when some require emergency surgery, she must also become anaesthetist and surgeon... or watch her patients die.From treacherous journeys on land and water to tea parties with the governor; from tussles with snakes and scorpions to Scrabble with nuns; from struggling with illness to suddenly falling in love - this unique glimpse into contrasting sides of a lost colonial world is possible thanks to Wendy's detailed diaries, written by the light of an oil lamp in her bamboo and palm-leaf house.Meanwhile, back home, churches throughout the UK are praying for the young woman in Borneo.'A heart-warming adventure... a spellbinding narrative... a step into another world.'Mark Beaumont, adventurer, author and broadcaster

_______________A RICHARD AND JUDY BOOK CLUB PICKTHE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERA BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEKSELECTED AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE TIMESSELECTED AS A SUMMER READ BY THE SUNDAY TIMES, FINANCIAL TIMES, DAILY TELEGRAPH, THE TIMES AND THE MAIL ON SUNDAY_______________'Anyone who knows a person living with dementia should read this book'- The Times'Revelatory'- Guardian'A miracle'- Telegraph'Remarkable'- Daily Mail'A landmark book'- Financial Times_______________How do you build a life when all that you know is changing?How do you conceive of love when you can no longer recognise those who mean the most to you?A phenomenal memoir, Somebody I Used to Know is both a heart-rending tribute to the woman Wendy Mitchell once was, and a brave affirmation of the woman dementia has seen her become.

RIFT VALLEY RAMBLES continues the story told in Rambles with my Family as Wendy returns to Kenya at the age of twenty four, leaving behind the jumbled misfortunes of life at home as she sets out to find new purpose and direction for her own life. At this time Kenya was on the verge of independence from colonial rule, so it was into this charged atmosphere of anticipation and expectation that she arrives with her own hopes and plans. These are quickly challenged as it remains a recurring feature in these rambles that nothing ever goes quite to plan. Setbacks impose themselves unpredictably in the same way that became an almost inescapable theme during the tempestuous times of Wendy's childhood and growing up, but this time she has a new family and new situations to confront. Family dynamics intervene alongside a shifting tide of history that in Africa has its own momentum and drama. The observation of these events with candid humour provides an antidote to misadventure, while all this takes place on a farm in the great wide, wild and glorious Rift Valley of Kenya during a time of political change and evolution.

“A brave and illuminating journey inside the mind, heart, and life of a person with early-onset Alzheimer's disease.”—Lisa Genova, author of Still Alice Wendy Mitchell had a busy job with the British National Health Service, raised her two daughters alone, and spent her weekends running and climbing mountains. Then, slowly, a mist settled deep inside the mind she once knew so well, blurring the world around her. She didn't know it then, but dementia was starting to take hold. In 2014, at age fifty-eight, she was diagnosed with young-onset Alzheimer's. In this groundbreaking book, Mitchell shares the heartrending story of her cognitive decline and how she has fought to stave it off. What lay ahead of her after the diagnosis was scary and unknowable, but Mitchell was determined and resourceful, and she vowed to outwit the disease for as long as she could. As Mitchell learned to embrace her new life, she began to see her condition as a gift, a chance to experience the world with fresh eyes and to find her own way to make a difference. Even now, her sunny outlook persists: She devotes her time to educating doctors, caregivers, and other people living with dementia, helping to reduce the stigma surrounding this insidious disease. Still living independently, Mitchell now uses Post-it notes and technology to remind her of her routines and has created a “memory room” where she displays photos—with labels—of her daughters, friends, and special places. It is a room where she feels calm and happy, especially on days when the mist descends. A chronicle of one woman's struggle to make sense of her shifting world and her mortality, Somebody I Used to Know offers a powerful rumination on memory, perception, and the simple pleasure of living in the moment. Philosophical, poetic, intensely personal, and ultimately hopeful, this moving memoir is both a tribute to the woman Wendy Mitchell used to be and a brave affirmation of the woman she has become.Praise for Somebody I Used to Know“Remarkable... Mitchell gives such clear-eyed insight that anyone who knows a person living with dementia should read this book.”—The Times (London)“A landmark book... The best reward for [Mitchell's] courage and candour would surely be fundamental changes in the way people with dementia are treated by society.”—Financial Times

LONG-LISTED FOR THE CARNEGIE MEDALReminiscent of the work of Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich, an astonishing collection of intimate wartime testimonies and poetic fragments from a cross-section of Syrians whose lives have been transformed by revolution, war, and flight.Against the backdrop of the wave of demonstrations known as the Arab Spring, in 2011 hundreds of thousands of Syrians took to the streets demanding freedom, democracy and human rights. The government's ferocious response, and the refusal of the demonstrators to back down, sparked a brutal civil war that over the past five years has escalated into the worst humanitarian catastrophe of our times. Yet despite all the reporting, the video, and the wrenching photography, the stories of ordinary Syrians remain unheard, while the stories told about them have been distorted by broad brush dread and political expediency. This fierce and poignant collection changes that. Based on interviews with hundreds of displaced Syrians conducted over four years across the Middle East and Europe, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled is a breathtaking mosaic of first-hand testimonials from the frontlines. Some of the testimonies are several pages long, eloquent narratives that could stand alone as short stories; others are only a few sentences, poetic and aphoristic. Together, they cohere into an unforgettable chronicle that is not only a testament to the power of storytelling but to the strength of those who face darkness with hope, courage, and moral conviction.

Author of the New York Times bestseller Chanel Bonfire, Wendy Lawless chronicles her twenties: the darkly funny story of a girl without a roadmap for life who leaves her disastrous past to find herself in the gritty heart of 1980s New York City.Before downtown Manhattan was scrubbed clean, gentrified, and overrun with designer boutiques and trendy eateries and bars, it was the center of a burgeoning art scene—both exciting and dangerous. Running from the shipwreck of her glamorous and unstable childhood with a volatile mother, Wendy Lawless landed in the center of it all. With an open heart and a thrift store wardrobe, Wendy navigated this demi-monde of jaded punk rockers, desperate actors, pulsing parties, and unexpected run-ins with her own past as she made every mistake of youth, looked for love in all the wrong places, and eventually learned how to grow up on her own. With the same “biting humor” (People) that made her “powerful” (USA TODAY) and “illuminating and inspiring” (Reader's Digest) New York Times bestseller Chanel Bonfire so captivating, Wendy turns her brutally honest and often hilarious spotlight on herself, recounting her tumultuous and giddy twenties trying to make it in the creative underbelly of New York City, all the while searching for love, a paying job, and occasionally, a free meal.

A neuroscientist transforms the way we think about our brain, our health, and our personal happiness in this clear, informative, and inspiring guide—a blend of personal memoir, science narrative, and immediately useful takeaways that bring the human brain into focus as never before, revealing the powerful connection between exercise, learning, memory, and cognitive abilities.Nearing forty, Dr. Wendy Suzuki was at the pinnacle of her career. An award-winning university professor and world-renowned neuroscientist, she had tenure, her own successful research lab, prestigious awards, and international renown.That's when to celebrate her birthday, she booked an adventure trip that forced her to wake up to a startling reality: despite her professional success, she was overweight, lonely, and tired and knew that her life had to change. Wendy started simply—by going to an exercise class. Eventually, she noticed an improvement in her memory, her energy levels, and her ability to work quickly and move from task to task easily. Not only did Wendy begin to get fit, but she also became sharper, had more energy, and her memory improved. Being a neuroscientist, she wanted to know why.What she learned transformed her body and her life. Now, it can transform yours.Wendy discovered that there is a biological connection between exercise, mindfulness, and action. With exercise, your body feels more alive and your brain actually performs better. Yes—you can make yourself smarter. In this fascinating book, Suzuki makes neuroscience easy to understand, interweaving her personal story with groundbreaking research, and offering practical, short exercises—4 minute Brain Hacks—to engage your mind and improve your memory, your ability to learn new skills, and function more efficiently.Taking us on an amazing journey inside the brain as never before, Suzuki helps us unlock the keys to neuroplasticity that can change our brains, or bodies, and, ultimately, our lives.

These are no ordinary rambles, and the family is no ordinary family. On the first page they trip innocently into a war zone and from there the story gathers pace as they flee from one hazard to the next. These perils do not end with the war as the family becomes nomadic, led by a headstrong intrepid father who is restless and driven. As his family ever more hopefully cling to dreams of normality, the story is by turns funny and tragic, quirky and poignant, but always compelling. 5.0 out of 5 starsA candid, brave and worthwhile book.BymacDuffon 21 September 2017Do not be fooled by the first title word, this book is neither slow nor off the mark. It is a cracking good read and write, leaving the reader wanting more. The author is endowed with that rare gift of candour which invites her audience into a world both hilariously funny at times and tragic at others. One is left not only having felt it a privilege to have embarked on this journey through personal events written with such sensitivity and integrity, but also more aware of the wider historical and cultural background in which it sits.CommentTruly wonderfulByAmazon Customeron 19 September 2017This is an incredible story of childhood dreams, family bonds, tragegies depicting an emotional journey through life, love and survival. I laughed and cried at the same time and felt I have been taken on a trip in a magical bygone world. Beautifully written with careful research and poignantly witty. A must read for any book lover!Comment|An excellent read.ByLynne P.on 4 September 2017This book is SO well written. I could imagine the places and the scenes as Wendy's ability to describe the events was outstanding. I could not put the book down and now I am waiting impatiently for book two.An excellent read.Comment|Absorbing family life storyByJean Highamon 20 September 2017I loved this book, I am looking forward to the sequel. It definitely left me wanting more

Wendy Bertrand has been a mother since 1966 and a registered California architect since 1978.She graduated from the University of California,Berkeley with a bachelor of architecture (1971), and with a master of architecture (1972) after study in France at the École des Beaux Arts in Aix-en Provence (1964) and in Montpellier (1965). She divides her time between her city house in San Francisco and her country cabin in Del Norte County, and frequently visits southern France, where her daughter, Chanette Manso, is one of the top internationally recognized light painters. She encourages women in architecture around the world and she is an active founder of the San Francisco Bay Area Organization of Women Architects and Design Professionals: owa-usa.org She hopes her memoir will trigger more women to write about their lives as architects as the public needs to learn about architecture from many different points of view.

Wendy Fairey grew up among books. As the shy and studious daughter of famed Hollywood columnist Sheilah Graham—F. Scott Fitzgerald's lover during the last years of his life—she began as a child reading her way through the library Fitzgerald had assembled for her mother and escaped into the landscape of classic English novels. Their protagonists became her intimates, starting with David Copperfield, whose sensibility and aspirations seemed so akin to her own. She felt as plain as Jane Eyre but craved the panache of Becky Sharp. English novels squired her to adulthood, and Bookmarked is a memoir of that journey.In a series of brilliant chapters that blend the genres of personal memoir and literary criticism, we follow Fairey, refracted through her reading, as student, wife, professor, mother, grandmother, and happily remarried writer. E. M. Forster's Howards End helps her cope with a failing marriage; Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Ramsay teaches important lessons about love and memory. Like Eliot's Daniel Deronda, she learns only as an adult of her Jewish heritage (and learns also the identity of her real father, the British philosopher A. J. Ayer). In this intimate and inspiring book, Wendy Fairey shows that her love of reading has been both a source of deep personal pleasure and key to living a fulfilling and richly self-examined life.Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

From the Grammy-nominated singer, drummer, and percussionist who is world renowned for her contributions throughout the music industry, a moving memoir about the healing power of music and spiritual growth inspired by five decades of life and love on the stage.She was born Sheila Escovedo in 1957, but the world knows her as Sheila E. She first picked up the drumsticks and started making music at the precocious age of three, taught by her legendary father, percussionist Pete Escovedo. As the goddaughter of Tito Puente, music was the heartbeat of her family, and despite Sheila's impoverished childhood in Oakland, California, her family stayed strong, inspired by the music they played nightly in their living room. When she was only five, Sheila delivered her first solo performance to a live audience. By nineteen, she had fallen in love with Carlos Santana. By twenty-one, she met Prince at one of her concerts. Sheila E. and Prince would eventually join forces and collaborate for more than two decades, creating hits that catapulted Sheila to her own pop superstardom. The Beat of My Own Drum is both a walk through four decades of Latin and pop music—from her tours with Marvin Gaye, Lionel Richie, Prince, and Ringo Starr to her own solo career. At the same time, it's also a heartbreaking, ultimately redemptive look at how the sanctity of music can save a person's life. Having repeatedly endured sexual abuse as a child, Sheila credits her parents, music, and God with giving her the will to carry on and to build a lasting legacy. Rich in musical detail, pop, and Latin music history, this is a fascinating walk through some of the biggest moments in music from the'70s and'80s. But as Sheila's personal story, this memoir is a unique glimpse into a world-famous drummer's singular life—a treat for both new and longtime fans of Sheila E. And above all, The Beat of My Own Drum is a testament to how the positive power of music has fueled Sheila's heart and soul—and how it can transform your life as well.

After her mother took her own life, Wendy Parmley learned firsthand the heartache, despair, and loneliness that accompanies suicide loss. Reinvent your definition of saved, perfect, and forgiveness as you read this true narrative of a woman opening her heart years after her mother's suicide and learn how to overcome any loss in your own life.

Wendy Davis has had her share of tough fights. Raised by a single mother with a ninth-grade education, Davis began working after school at age fourteen to contribute to the family finances. By the time she was nineteen, she was living in a trailer park with a baby daughter and holding down two jobs. But rather than succumb to the cycle of poverty that threatened to overwhelm her, Davis managed to attend community college and Texas Christian University, graduate from Harvard Law School, and go on to serve nine years on the Fort Worth City Council. She set her sights on the Texas state senate—and in 2008 defeated a longtime GOP incumbent in a race widely considered one of the biggest recent upsets in Texas politics.But it wasn't until June 2013 that the rest of America was acquainted with the spirited Texas state senator. Davis became an overnight political sensation and a hero to women's rights supporters across the country when she single-handedly filibustered Governor Rick Perry's sweeping bill that aimed to close all but five abortion clinics in her state. During her historic nearly thirteen hours on the floor of the state legislature, Davis wasn't allowed to eat, drink, sit, use the bathroom, speak off topic, or lean against any furniture. When it was over, President Obama tweeted support to his millions of Twitter followers, and Wendy Davis—with her pink sneakers—was suddenly a household name.She is now the first Democrat to make a serious run for governor of Texas in two decades, and her personal story is a testament to the enduring power of the American dream and an inspiration to countless women looking for a way out of desperate circumstances. Told in her own refreshingly forthright voice, Forgetting to be Afraid is the exhilarating and deeply moving story behind one of the nation's brightest young political stars.

In the vein of Erin Brockovich, The Departed, and T. J. English's Savage City comes Busted, the shocking true story of the biggest police corruption scandal in Philadelphia history, a tale of drugs, power, and abuse involving a rogue narcotics squad, a confidential informant, and two veteran journalists whose reporting drove a full-scale FBI probe, rocked the City of Brotherly Love, and earned a Pulitzer Prize.In 2003, Benny Martinez became a Confidential Informant for a member of the Philadelphia Police Department's narcotics squad, helping arrest nearly 200 drug and gun dealers over seven years. But that success masked a dark and dangerous reality: the cops were as corrupt as the criminals they targeted.In addition to fabricating busts, the squad systematically looted mom-and-pop stores, terrorizing hardworking immigrant owners. One squad member also sexually assaulted three women during raids. Frightened for his life, Martinez turned to Philadelphia Daily News reporters Wendy Ruderman and Barbara Laker.Busted chronicles how these two journalists—both middle-class working mothers—formed an unlikely bond with a convicted street dealer to uncover the secrets of ruthless kingpins and dirty cops. Professionals in an industry shrinking from severe financial cutbacks, Ruderman and Laker had few resources—besides their own grit and tenacity—to break a dangerous, complex story that would expose the rotten underbelly of a modern American city and earn them a Pulitzer Prize. A page-turning thriller based on superb reportage, illustrated with eight pages of photos, Busted is modern true crime at its finest.

In her stunning memoir, Wendy Lawless tells the often heartbreaking tale of her unconventional upbringing with an unstable alcoholic and suicidal mother—a real-life Holly Golightly turned Mommie Dearest—and the uncommon sense of resilience that allowed her to rise above it all.Georgann Rea didn't bake cookies or go to PTA meetings; she wore a mink coat and always had a lit Dunhill plugged into her cigarette holder. She'd slept with too many men and a few women, and she didn't like dogs or chil­dren. Georgann possessed the icy beauty of a Hitchcock heroine with the cold heart to match. From living at the Dakota in 1960s Manhattan to London's swinging town houses and beyond, Wendy Lawless and her younger sister navigated day-to-day life as their unstable and fabulously neglectful mother, Georgann, chased her delusions, suffered dramatic breakdowns, and survived suicide attempts. With clear-eyed grace and flashing wit, Lawless portrays the highs and lows of her unhinged upbringing—and how she survived her mother's endlessly destructive search for glamour and fulfillment—in “a searing memoir that reads like a novel” (Anne Korkeakivi, An Unexpected Guest).

Monogamy is one of the most important vows we make in our marriages. Yet it is a rare spouse who does not face some level of temptation through the allure of other people. Sometimes the issues are resolved before anyone is hurt. But sometimes, as with Wendy Plump's marriage, the fallout is confronted head-on-when not one but both spouses cheat.In early 2005, Wendy Plump found out about her husband's second family. They lived just a mile from the home she shared with her sons in the farmlands of Pennsylvania. But the discovery followed betrayals of her own, earlier in the marriage. Most discussions of infidelity focus on one side and therefore provide a skewed perspective. In this unique, 360-degree look, Plump delivers a searing, confessional story about the challenges of marriage that reads like a conversation between old friends. From the view of both betrayer and betrayed, Plump looks at the ordeal of finding out, the recovery, the ebb and flow of passion, the daily play of personality that can lead to fulfillment or disillusionment, family and friends and therapists, illicit attraction, the lovers, the lies, the alibis, even the undeniable pleasures affairs gave her as a younger woman.As she explores the wreckage of her own marriage, Plump offers a beautifully told narrative of hope, recovery, and wonder for the pull of couplehood that reawakens a belief in the value of fidelity and commitment.

Room for Doubt is Wendy Lesser's account of three separate but interlocking occasions for doubt: her stay in Berlin, a city she had never expected to visit; her unwritten book on the philosopher David Hume; and her long friendship with the writer Leonard Michaels, which constantly broke down and yet endured. Through this unusual journey, Lesser in the end shows us how, once examined, things are never quite what she thought they were.

A compendium of ways to capture the pioneer spirit of the classic American author from a Little House on the Prairie expert.In her spirited memoir The Wilder Life, Wendy McClure strapped on her sunbonnet and journeyed into the world of beloved Little House on the Prairie author Laura Ingalls Wilder. In Don't Trade the Baby for a Horse, she shares what she learned from her crash course in “Lauraology,” along with her fiercely rekindled—even deepened—love for the series. McClure found that her encounters with the world of Little House proved instructive; after all, Laura's world wasn't all horehound candy and pig-bladder balloons. Somewhere between wandering in the Big Woods and wading through Plum Creek, McClure absorbed many notable lessons in “the Laura experience.” In Don't Trade the Baby for a Horse, she recommends scores of tips, tricks, and observations gleaned in her pioneer pilgrimage, from the surprising intelligence of muskrats to the wonders of home-churned butter and the fierceness of bustles. Clever, warm and hilarious, Don't Trade the Baby for a Horse is the definitive guide to living your life on the Wilder side—and essential reading for any fan of the Little House books.

When Wendy Pabich received a monthly water bill for 30,000 gallons (for a household of two people and one dog), she was chagrined. After all, she is an expert on sustainable water use. So she set out to make a change. Taking on Water is the story of the author's personal quest to extract and implement, from a dizzying soup of data and analysis, day-to-day solutions to reduce water use in her life. She sets out to examine the water footprint of the products she consumes, process her own wastewater onsite, revamp the water and energy systems in her home, and make appropriate choices in order to swim the swim. Part memoir, part investigation, part solution manual, the book is filled with ruminations on philosophy, science, facts, figures, and personal behavioral insights; metrics, both serious and humorous, to track progress; and guidelines for the general public for making small (or perhaps monumental) but important changes in their own lives. Told with humor and grace, Taking on Water offers a raw account of how deep we need to dig to change our wasteful ways.

On a rainy Tuesday morning in 1996, Wendy Reed's car hydroplaned, crossed an interstate median, and crashed into an oncoming car, whose driver was killed. Though Reed and her son were unharmed and Reed initially described herself as'fine,'in the months that followed she would be engulfed in a storm of guilt and recrimination, as well as jarring legal proceedings over the accident.In An Accidental Memoir, Reed, an award-winning documentary filmmaker, points the lens at herself and explores that accident and a succession of personal experiences through fact and fiction. Told from unusual perspectives and in highly figurative language, the stories draw on the Southern Gothic tradition of Flannery O'Connor and feature dark humor, flawed people, disastrous events, and moments of spiritual grace.Taken together, this collection of deliberately fragmented essays and short stories become a meditation on subjects such as work, family responsibilities, death, and raising a child.

After a seemingly insignificant fall off of his brothers shoulders at a high school soccer game, thirteen-year-old Devin Weckstein was diagnosed with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. The bright, musically talented, and energetic boy turned into a debilitated young man seemingly overnight. His parents sought every treatment possible, but no one could have imagined the challenges that lay ahead. The Burning Truth chronicles the incredible journey of mother and son as they not only deal with chronic pain, but also attempt to find a cure for Devins illness. With a deeply honest voice, Weckstein relives their frustrations with physicians and the medical care system, the special education within the school system, the inconceivable misconceptions regarding pain in children, and the daunting world of medical marijuana. Two tireless years of diligent searching later, the Wecksteins learned about Dr. David Sherry from the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia. Despair turned to hope. During his five grueling weeks at the hospital, Devin underwent the aggressive treatment that would bring this courageous young man back to life. Told from a mothers perspective, The Burning Truth reveals the heartache, courage, and strength of the Weckstein family in their search to help Devin; it ultimately proves the power of family, love, and the human spirit.

Every woman plans for the big wedding day. Few plan for the day after. But once the cake has been cut, the dress has been worn and the band has played its last song, a marriage begins.From the thrill and dread that comes with an unplanned pregnancy to catching up with an ex and having second thoughts, Wedding Cake for Breakfast offers an intimate and often surprising look at that first year of marriage through the eyes and lives of 23 acclaimed women writers. With humor and candor, this collection takes readers behind closed doors for close-ups and personal glimpses into the emotional joys and complications of creating a life together—all the while blending families, furniture, and traditions for the very first time. Gathered together in this hilarious and heartwarming anthology some of today's most renowned female voices, including New York Times bestselling authors Susan Jane Gillman, Joshilyn Jackson, and Jill Kargman, share their most touching and illuminating stories from the first 365 days of matrimony.

For anyone who has ever wanted to step into the world of a favorite book, here is a pioneer pilgrimage, a tribute to Laura Ingalls Wilder, and a hilarious account of butter-churning obsession. Wendy McClure is on a quest to find the world of beloved Little House on the Prairie author Laura Ingalls Wilder-a fantastic realm of fiction, history, and places she's never been to, yet somehow knows by heart. She retraces the pioneer journey of the Ingalls family- looking for the Big Woods among the medium trees in Wisconsin, wading in Plum Creek, and enduring a prairie hailstorm in South Dakota. She immerses herself in all things Little House, and explores the story from fact to fiction, and from the TV shows to the annual summer pageants in Laura's hometowns. Whether she's churning butter in her apartment or sitting in a replica log cabin, McClure is always in pursuit of'the Laura experience.'Along the way she comes to understand how Wilder's life and work have shaped our ideas about girlhood and the American West. The Wilder Life is a loving, irreverent, spirited tribute to a series of books that have inspired generations of American women. It is also an incredibly funny first-person account of obsessive reading, and a story about what happens when we reconnect with our childhood touchstones-and find that our old love has only deepened.

Read Wendy Shanker's blogs and other content on the Penguin Community.From the author of The Fat Girl's Guide to Life—an insightful and humorous memoir of one woman's quest to navigate the world of alternative healing. At age 33, Wendy Shanker was on the verge of Have It All-itis: a Midwestern girl living in Manhattan, writing for television, mingling with celebrities, and publishing her first book. Plus, she had a fierce haircut. Life was good. Then suddenly, it wasn't. Diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease, Wendy knew she was in for it- at the very least a cocktail of chemo and steroids (certain to challenge her body image), a bustling career put on hold, and a major hurdle to her dating life. When she ran out of medical options, Wendy found herself exploring everything from acupuncture, colonics, and energy healing to detox retreats, tarot card readers, and an intuitive therapist who wanted her to talk to her liver. Surely there must be a guru somewhere who can fix everything-right?Watch a Video

In the tradition of Sean Wilsey's Oh The Glory of It All and Augusten Burrough's Running With Scissors, the great-great-great granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt gives readers a grand tour of the world of wealth and WASPish peculiarity, in her irreverent and darkly humorous memoir. For generations the Burdens were one of the wealthiest families in New York, thanks to the inherited fortune of Cornelius'The Commodore'Vanderbilt. By 1955, the year of Wendy's birth, the Burden's had become a clan of overfunded, quirky and brainy, steadfastly chauvinistic, and ultimately doomed bluebloods on the verge of financial and moral decline-and were rarely seen not holding a drink. In Dead End Gene Pool, Wendy invites readers to meet her tragically flawed family, including an uncle with a fondness for Hitler, a grandfather who believes you can never have enough household staff, and a remarkably flatulent grandmother. At the heart of the story is Wendy's glamorous and aloof mother who, after her husband's suicide, travels the world in search of the perfect sea and ski tan, leaving her three children in the care of a chain- smoking Scottish nanny, Fifth Avenue grandparents, and an assorted cast of long-suffering household servants (who Wendy and her brothers love to terrorize). Rife with humor, heartbreak, family intrigue, and booze, Dead End Gene Pool offers a glimpse into the fascinating world of old money and gives truth to an old maxim: The rich are different.

Set primarily in Omaha and small towns throughout Nebraska,'Nerdy Thirty'comically recounts the author's'nerdy'experiences in elementary school, high school, college, and her twenties, leading up to her 30th birthday. The book celebrates awkward and unusual situations she found herself in, including: camping for the first time; spending a weekend at a rodeo; masquerading for a night as Audrey Hepburn; socializing at a lesbian bar; and finding her voice as a writer.

Wendy Davis inherited this affection for India and its people. In Dal & Rice she chronicles the memories of her childhood and offers a poignant and measured character study of her father. Her story is part social history, part travelogue, but mostly a very personal account of a relationship with an exotic, chaotic, and often mysterious country.

The Eagles are the bestselling, and arguably the tightest-lipped, American group ever. Now band member and guitarist Don Felder finally breaks the Eagles'years of public silence to take fans behind the scenes. He shares every part of the band's wild ride, from the pressure-packed recording studios and trashed hotel rooms to the tension-filled courtrooms, and from the joy of writing powerful new songs to the magic of performing in huge arenas packed with roaring fans.

Known as a'shock jock diva,'Wendy Williams has had a following in the nation's number one media market, New York City, and across the nation from the time she became a top-rated radio personality and'It Girl'in the mid-1990s—whether she's hosting her nationally syndicated television talk show The Wendy Williams Show or doing commentary for the VH1 Fashion Awards, her fans know that Wendy's Got the Heat.Wendy Williams is the kind of media personality that artists love because she builds them up—and fear because she can bring them down. She's interviewed many of the biggest names in entertainment—Jennifer Lopez, Whitney Houston, and Queen Latifah among them—and is known for her ability to disarm and get them to reveal their secrets. Known as both a'shock jock diva'and'the biggest mouth in New York,'Wendy Williams is always at the top of her game, whether she's doing commentary for the VH1 Fashion Awards or giving romantic advice. But there's more to the Queen of Urban Radio than meets the mike. Wendy's Got the Heat is her story—about growing up in a predominately white suburb, recovering from drug addiction, struggling to launch a successful career in one of the most male-dominated media industries—and it's by turns painful, hilarious, triumphant, and totally true.

Wendy Merrill is in recovery from...just about everything. Alcoholism, anorexia, you name it, she's battled it. And as far as men, well, it might have been an early warning sign when she took a college class called Dating and Marriage and got an F. On the surface, she was a good girl, determined to excel. Secretly she was looking for love in all the wrong places-from strangers'beds to barstools- and falling into manholes every step of the way. With honesty, humor, and style, Merrill explores relationships, self-esteem (and the lack thereof), and going to any lengths to discover what truly matters.

With a focus squarely on the Midwest, Wendy Bilen pieces together the history of her grandmother, Josie Broadhead, born in 1911 and raised on the North Dakota prairie. Josie married a Wisconsin farmer and moved to a large dairy farm outside La Crosse; along the way she began taking in people in need of a home:'... beggars and drunks and children of drunks, mentally ill children and children with mentally ill parents. Brothers and cousins and sisters and in-laws and strangers.'By taking on these challenges that no one else wanted, Josie left an almost mythical legacy. Years after Josie's death, Bilen embarks on a journey to unearth Josie's story and quickly realizes that the search is about her, too. As she discovers her grandmother's complicated nature ('a woman proud and humble, loving and unaffectionate, strict and visionary, joyful and troubled, a woman held together by contradictions like an arch and its capstone'), she learns much about herself and her own choices. And as she breathes life into Josie and her family, friends, and neighbors, the author evokes a powerful sense of place of small towns and farms, of prairie, of Josie's home, all of which feel both fresh and satisfyingly familiar. Much more than mere memoir or family history, this dual story about Bilen's journey illuminates the surprising ways our lives intersect with our ancestors'. An extraordinary story about a seemingly ordinary woman, Finding Josie will inspire readers to explore their own family history in their own way.

The Eagles are the bestselling, and arguably the tightest-lipped, American group ever. Now band member and guitarist Don Felder finally breaks the Eagles'years of public silence to take fans behind the scenes. He shares every part of the band's wild ride, from the pressure-packed recording studios and trashed hotel rooms to the tension-filled courtrooms, and from the joy of writing powerful new songs to the magic of performing in huge arenas packed with roaring fans.

Listen is a memoir of voices, the voices of parents that linger in the ears of children until the day when those children are able to sound their own note. A domineering father and a professor of languages and literature in the 1950s and'60s, Victor has four women trapped in his orbit-his long-suffering wife and his three well-behaved daughters.'Teacher, poet, translator'is how he wants his gravestone to read, and in life he is dedicated to passing on to his family the great cultural achievements of western civilization-poetry, philosophy, religion, music, art. But he leaves darker gifts as well, in particular to his daughter Wendy the most traumatic legacy of all: incest. A major achievement and a stunning debut, Listen is about how families shape their memories and how even things that are never spoken about have potent echoes. It's also a memoir that chronicles a poet's apprenticeship to words, the story of a daughter who listened and who, with the gift for poetry her father gave her, learned to translate the darkest secrets of their past.

In this poignant, lyric memoir, a sister's tragic death prompts a woman's unbidden journey into her turbulent African past.A comfortable suburban housewife with three children living in Connecticut, Wendy Kann thought she had put her volatile childhood in colonial Rhodesia—now Zimbabwe—behind her. Then one Sunday morning came a terrible phone call: her youngest sister, Lauren, had been killed on a lonely road in Zambia. Suddenly unable to ignore her longing for her homeland, she decides she must confront the ghosts of her past.Wendy Kann's is a personal journey, set against a backdrop as exotic as it is desolate. From a privileged colonial childhood of mansions and servants, her story moves to a young adulthood marked by her father's death, her mother's insanity, and the viciousness of a bloody civil war. Through unlikely love she finds herself in the incongruous sophistication of Manhattan; three children bring the security of suburban America, until the heartbreaking vulnerability of the small child her sister left behind in Africa compels her to return to a continent she hardly recognizes.With honesty and compassion, Kann pieces together her sister's life, explores the heartbreak of loss and belonging, and finally discovers the true meaning of home.

Raised in Manhattan by her overprotective sex-therapist mother (who wore “nine inches of shoulder pads”), Wendy Spero has always sought excitement in microthrills, the small, strange highs that give her life meaning—from finding a strip tease video of her grandmother to selling knives door-to-door. As a little girl, Spero passed the time sniffing fruit-scented markers and breaking up arguments between her imaginary friends. As an adult, in her first office job, she formed an unusual relationship with her boss that involved as much marijuana-smoking as it did mentoring. Called “a profoundly funny human being” by Time Out New York, Spero is now a comedian living in L.A., grappling with such grown-up issues as trying to kick her addiction to eating candy in bed and learning how to drive.

A hilarious and sometimes poignant look at the absurdities of weight-loss culture from an appealing and original voice. I'm Not The New Me is about coming to terms with a family heritage of fat and drastic surgeries, and about self-esteem issues that are nobody's business but your own. It's wondering what's left of yourself after you lose weight-and just who the hell you are if you gain it back. It's about the absurdities of online identities and fat girl clichés, and the sheer terror of appearing live and in person in your very own life.

Deana Martin's captivating, heartfelt memoir of her father, Dean MartinCharming, debonair, and impeccably attired in a black tuxedo, Dean Martin was coolness incarnate. His music provided the soundtrack of romance, and his image captivated movie and television audiences for more than fifty years. His daughter Deana was among his most devoted fans, but she also knew a side of him that few others ever glimpsed. In this heartfelt memoir, Deana recalls the constantly changing blended family that marked her youth, along with the unexpected moments of silliness and tenderness that this unusual Hollywood family shared. She candidly reveals the impact of Dean's fame and characteristic aloofness, but delights in sharing wonderful, never-before-told stories about her father and his pallies known as the Rat Pack. This enchanting account of life as the daughter of one of Hollywood's sexiest icons will leave you entertained, delighted, and nostalgic for a time gone by.

A New York Times Notable Book and a San Francisco Chronicle Book of the Year: A look at the pleasures and surprises of rereading. Compared with reading, the act of rereading is far more personal—it involves a complex interaction of our past selves, our present selves, and literature. With candor and humor, this “inspired intellectual romp, part memoir, part criticism” takes us on a guided tour of the author's own return to books she once knew—from the plays of Shakespeare to twentieth-century novels by Kingsley Amis and Ian McEwan, from the childhood favorite I Capture the Castle to classic novels such as Anna Karenina and Huckleberry Finn, from nonfiction by Henry Adams to poetry by Wordsworth—as she reflects on how the passage of time and the experience of aging has affected her perceptions of them (Lawrence Weschler). A cultural critic and the acclaimed author of Why I Read, Wendy Lesser conveys an infectious love of reading and inspires us all to take another look at the books we've read to find the unexpected treasures they might offer. “Delightful.” —Diane Johnson, author of Le Divorce “Anyone who has ever approached a once favorite book later in life... will find in this memoir moments of bittersweet recognition.” —The New York Times Book Review “Reflect[s] deeply and candidly on how a reader's life experiences alter her perceptions of literature... [Lesser] has truly fascinating and original things to say about a compelling assortment of writers, including George Orwell, George Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, Dostoyevsky, and Shakespeare.” —Booklist