Dead Mom Walking

Dead Mom Walking
Author: Rachel Matlow
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2020-03-31
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0735236313

NATIONAL BESTSELLER SHORTLISTED for the 2021 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize SHORTLISTED for the 2021 Vine Award in Non-Fiction "A comedy for catastrophic times." --CBC "A hilarious memoir of effervescent misadventures." --Toronto Star "How am I laughing at someone's mother's cancer? How? We think we can't laugh about death, about cancer, about our mothers and their suffering . . . and we can't, but we can. And there's so much relief in that." --Carolyn Taylor, BARONESS VON SKETCH SHOW A whip-smart and darkly funny memoir about an unconventional family, the limits of wellness fads, and the mother of all catastrophes. Rachel Matlow’s eccentric mom, Elaine, never quite followed the script handed down to her. Her bold out-there-ness made it okay for Rachel to be their genderqueer self and live life on their own terms. But when Elaine decides to try to heal her cancer naturally, Rachel has to draw the line. What ensues is a tug of war between logical and magical thinking, an odyssey through New Age remedies ranging from herbal tinctures and juice cleanses to a countryside ayahuasca trip, and a portrait of a mother and child who’ve never been physically closer or ideologically further apart. In facing their inimitable mother’s death, Rachel has written a book bursting with life—the epic adventures and epic fails, the broken limbs and belly laughs. As hilarious as it is poignant, Dead Mom Walking is about writing the story of your life only to find out that life has other plans.

I'm Glad My Mom Died

I'm Glad My Mom Died
Author: Jennette McCurdy
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2022-08-09
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1982185821

A memoir by American former actress and singer Jennette McCurdy about her career as a child actress and her difficult relationship with her abusive mother who died in 2013

Dancing at the Pity Party

Dancing at the Pity Party
Author: Tyler Feder
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2022-04-05
Genre: Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN: 0525553037

This acclaimed graphic memoir that Kirkus calls “cathartic and uplifting” is the tale of losing a parent and what it feels like to grieve and to move forward. “I can’t recommend this kind, funny, and poignant memoir enough. It’s an intimate, life-affirming story of resilience that feels like a good friend.” —Mari Andrew, author of Am I There Yet? Tyler Feder had just white-knuckled her way through her first year of college when her super cool mom was diagnosed with late-stage cancer. Now, with a decade of grief and nervous laughter under her belt, Tyler shares the story of that gut-wrenching, heart-pounding, extremely awkward time in her life—from her mom’s first oncology appointment to her funeral through the beginning of facing reality as a motherless daughter. She shares the sting of loss that never goes away, the uncomfortable post-death firsts, and the deep-down, hard-to-talk-about feelings of the grieving process. Dancing at the Pity Party is a frank and refreshingly funny look at what it’s like to grieve—for anyone struggling with loss who just wants someone to get it.

Walking with the Dead

Walking with the Dead
Author: Lucy M. Falcone
Publisher: Kids Can Press Ltd
Total Pages: 202
Release: 2005
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1553377095

In this frightfully funny novel by L.M. Falcone, an ancient corpse launches two boys on a suspenseful journey through the netherworld.

Walking Backward

Walking Backward
Author: Catherine Austen
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Total Pages: 175
Release: 2009-10-01
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1554695554

When Josh's mother dies in a phobia-induced car crash, she leaves two questions for her grieving family: how did a snake get into her car and how do you mourn with no faith to guide you? Twelve-year-old Josh is left alone to find the answers. His father is building a time machine. His four-year-old brother's closest friend is a plastic Power Ranger. His psychiatrist offers nothing more than a blank journal and platitudes. Isolated by grief in a home where every day is pajama day, Josh makes death his research project. He tests the mourning practices of religions he doesn't believe in. He tries to mend his little brother's shattered heart. He observes, records and waits—for his life to feel normal, for his mother's death to make sense, for his father to come out of the basement. His observations, recorded in a series of journal entries, are funny, smart, insightful—and heartbreaking. His conclusions about the nature of love, loss, grief and the space-time continuum are nothing less than life-changing.

The Long Goodbye

The Long Goodbye
Author: Meghan O'Rourke
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2011-04-14
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1101486554

"Anguished, beautifully written... The Long Goodbye is an elegiac depiction of drama as old as life." -- The New York Times Book Review From one of America's foremost young literary voices, a transcendent portrait of the unbearable anguish of grief and the enduring power of familial love. What does it mean to mourn today, in a culture that has largely set aside rituals that acknowledge grief? After her mother died of cancer at the age of fifty-five, Meghan O'Rourke found that nothing had prepared her for the intensity of her sorrow. In the first anguished days, she began to create a record of her interior life as a mourner, trying to capture the paradox of grief-its monumental agony and microscopic intimacies-an endeavor that ultimately bloomed into a profound look at how caring for her mother during her illness changed and strengthened their bond. O'Rourke's story is one of a life gone off the rails, of how watching her mother's illness-and separating from her husband-left her fundamentally altered. But it is also one of resilience, as she observes her family persevere even in the face of immeasurable loss. With lyricism and unswerving candor, The Long Goodbye conveys the fleeting moments of joy that make up a life, and the way memory can lead us out of the jagged darkness of loss. Effortlessly blending research and reflection, the personal and the universal, it is not only an exceptional memoir, but a necessary one.

Dead Mann Walking

Dead Mann Walking
Author: Stefan Petrucha
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2011-10-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1101544694

After Hessius Mann was convicted of his wife's murder, suppressed evidence came to light and the verdict was overturned-too bad he was already executed. But thanks to the miracles of modern science Hessius was brought back to life. Sort of. Now that he's joined the ranks of Fort Hammer's pulse-challenged population, Hessius attempts to make a "living" as a private investigator. But when a missing persons case leads to a few zombies cut to pieces, Hessius starts thinking that someone's giving him the run-around-and it's not like he's in any condition to make a quick getaway...

They Left Us Everything

They Left Us Everything
Author: Plum Johnson
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2016-07-26
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0399184112

A warm, heartfelt memoir of family, loss, and a house jam-packed with decades of goods and memories. After almost twenty years of caring for elderly parents—first for their senile father, and then for their cantankerous ninety-three-year old mother—author Plum Johnson and her three younger brothers have finally fallen to their middle-aged knees with conflicted feelings of grief and relief. Now they must empty and sell the beloved family home, twenty-three rooms bulging with history, antiques, and oxygen tanks. Plum thought: How tough will that be? I know how to buy garbage bags. But the task turns out to be much harder and more rewarding than she ever imagined. Items from childhood trigger difficult memories of her eccentric family growing up in the 1950s and ’60s, but unearthing new facts about her parents helps her reconcile those relationships, with a more accepting perspective about who they were and what they valued. They Left Us Everything is a funny, touching memoir about the importance of preserving family history to make sense of the past, and nurturing family bonds to safeguard the future.

My Mother was Nuts

My Mother was Nuts
Author: Penny Marshall
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 349
Release: 2012
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0547892624

From her humble roots in the Bronx to Laverne and Shirley and her unlikely ascent in Hollywood, the beloved actor and director tells the story of her incredible life.

The Quantity Theory of Insanity

The Quantity Theory of Insanity
Author: Will Self
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Total Pages: 187
Release: 2012-10-16
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0802193331

What is there is only a limited amount of sanity in the world and the real reason people go mad is because somebody has to? What if a mysterious tribe in the Amazon rainforest turn out to be the most boring people on earth? What if the afterlife is nothing more than a London suburb, where the dead get new flats, new jobs, and their own telephone directory? These are the sort of truths that emerge in this collection of stories by one of England's most gifted writers. In The Quantity Theory of Insanity, Will Self tips over the banal surfaces of everyday existence to uncover the hideous, the hilarious, and the bizarre. Psychiatry, anthropology, theology—and literature—will never be the same.