About My Mother

About My Mother
Author: Peggy Rowe
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2018-11-13
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1948677172

A Message from Mike Rowe, the Dirty Jobs Guy: Just to be clear, About My Mother is a book about my grandmother, written by my mother. That’s not to say it’s not about my mother—it is. In fact, About My Mother is as much about my mother as it is about my grandmother. In that sense, it’s really a book about “mothers.” …It is not, however, a book written by me. True, I did write the foreword. But it doesn’t mean I’ve written a book about my mother. I haven’t. Nor does it mean my mother’s book is about her son. It isn’t. It’s about my grandmother. And my mother. Just to be clear.—Mike A love letter to mothers everywhere, About My Mother will make you laugh and cry—and see yourself in its reflection. Peggy Rowe’s story of growing up as the daughter of Thelma Knobel is filled with warmth and humor. But Thelma could be your mother—there’s a Thelma in everyone’s life. She’s the person taking charge—the one who knows instinctively how things should be. Today, Thelma would be described as an alpha personality, but while growing up, her daughter Peggy saw her as a dictator—albeit a benevolent, loving one. They clashed from the beginning—Peggy, the horse-crazy tomboy, and Thelma, the genteel-yet-still-controlling mother, committed to raising two refined, ladylike daughters. Good luck. When major league baseball came to town in the early 1950s and turned sophisticated Thelma into a crazed Baltimore Orioles groupie, nobody was more surprised and embarrassed than Peggy. Life became a series of compromises—Thelma tolerating a daughter who pitched manure and galloped the countryside, while Peggy learned to tolerate the whacky Orioles fan who threw her underwear at the television, shouted insults at umpires, and lived by the orange-and-black schedule taped to the refrigerator door. Sometimes it takes a little distance to appreciate the people we love.

Wired for Story

Wired for Story
Author: Lisa Cron
Publisher: Ten Speed Press
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2012-07-10
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1607742462

This guide reveals how writers can utilize cognitive storytelling strategies to craft stories that ignite readers’ brains and captivate them through each plot element. Imagine knowing what the brain craves from every tale it encounters, what fuels the success of any great story, and what keeps readers transfixed. Wired for Story reveals these cognitive secrets—and it’s a game-changer for anyone who has ever set pen to paper. The vast majority of writing advice focuses on “writing well” as if it were the same as telling a great story. This is exactly where many aspiring writers fail—they strive for beautiful metaphors, authentic dialogue, and interesting characters, losing sight of the one thing that every engaging story must do: ignite the brain’s hardwired desire to learn what happens next. When writers tap into the evolutionary purpose of story and electrify our curiosity, it triggers a delicious dopamine rush that tells us to pay attention. Without it, even the most perfect prose won’t hold anyone’s interest. Backed by recent breakthroughs in neuroscience as well as examples from novels, screenplays, and short stories, Wired for Story offers a revolutionary look at story as the brain experiences it. Each chapter zeroes in on an aspect of the brain, its corresponding revelation about story, and the way to apply it to your storytelling right now.

LOVE The Beat Goes On

LOVE The Beat Goes On
Author: Lynda Filler
Publisher:
Total Pages: 144
Release: 2020-08-28
Genre:
ISBN:

When you write a memoir, there's no place to hide. author Lynda Filler"Powerful and unforgettable" JackMagnus, 5 Star Readers' Favorite"This is a book every human alive should read and take away the lessons given. If I could give it ten stars, I would. It's that good."J. SikesWhen your cardiologist tells you to "Get your affairs in order, your heart condition is incurable," what do you do?Lynda shares her personal story in the typical fast-paced, edgy, in-your-face style she's known for in her writing. She will walk you through her journey to self-love sharing her belief in journals, love, prayer, soul, spirituality and positive mindset.She's hard-hitting but compassionate. She writes about romantic experiences that may shock you but makes no apologies for her unconventional lifestyle. Nor does she hold back taking responsibility for the things that she believes created her dis-ease.You will definitely question a woman who walks around in denial; then makes a decision to drive, all alone, from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico to Whistler, Canada with undiagnosed Idiopathic Dilated Cardiomyopathy. Men and women are often self-care-challenged and Lynda was no the exception.If you are fighting any kind of illness or dis-ease, you are not alone! Lynda has walked her talk, and after an experience in the summer of 2015 relating to Dr. Wayne Dyer, she is now ready to release her storyLynda knows how it feels to be told you're not healing or your condition is incurable. At no point will she undermine anything your physicians tell you to do. She is not a medical doctor. She will explain the powerful, yet simple concepts, beliefs, balance and faith that she believes led to her healing. Most of all, she will show you how she used these simple principles to design and live, the fully healed life she now enjoys in 2017.You will shake your head in wonder, laugh, and maybe cry too. If you want less pain, worry, and stress about dis-ease and life in general, you will want to read this simple yet powerful story.

Stories to Tell

Stories to Tell
Author: Richard Marx
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2021-07-06
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1982169478

*National Bestseller* Legendary musician Richard Marx offers an enlightening, entertaining look at his life and career. Richard Marx is one of the most accomplished singer-songwriters in the history of popular music. His self-titled 1987 album went triple platinum and made him the first male solo artist (and second solo artist overall after Whitney Houston) to have four singles from their debut crack the top three on the Billboard Hot 100. His follow-up, 1989’s Repeat Offender, was an even bigger smash, going quadruple platinum and landing two singles at number one. He has written fourteen number one songs in total, shared a Song of the Year Grammy with Luther Vandross, and collaborated with a variety of artists including NSYNC, Josh Groban, Natalie Cole, and Keith Urban. Lately, he’s also become a Twitter celebrity thanks to his outspokenness on social issues and his ability to out-troll his trolls. In Stories to Tell, Marx uses this same engaging, straight-talking style to look back on his life and career. He writes of how Kenny Rogers changed a single line of a song he’d written for him then asked for a 50% cut—which inspired Marx to write one of his biggest hits. He tells the uncanny story of how he wound up curled up on the couch of Olivia Newton-John, his childhood crush, watching Xanadu. He shares the tribulations of working with the all-female hair metal band Vixen and appearing in their video. Yet amid these entertaining celebrity encounters, Marx offers a more sobering assessment of the music business as he’s experienced it over four decades—the challenges of navigating greedy executives and grueling tour schedules, and the rewards of connecting with thousands of fans at sold-out shows that make all the drama worthwhile. He also provides an illuminating look at his songwriting process and talks honestly about how his personal life has inspired his work, including finding love with wife Daisy Fuentes and the mystery illness that recently struck him—and that doctors haven’t been able to solve. Stories to Tell is a remarkably candid, wildly entertaining memoir about the art and business of music.

Running with Scissors

Running with Scissors
Author: Augusten Burroughs
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2010-04-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1429902523

The #1 New York Times bestselling memoir from Augusten Burroughs, Running with Scissors, now a Major Motion Picture! Running with Scissors is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of Anne Sexton) gave him away to be raised by her psychiatrist, a dead-ringer for Santa and a lunatic in the bargain. Suddenly, at age twelve, Augusten Burroughs found himself living in a dilapidated Victorian in perfect squalor. The doctor's bizarre family, a few patients, and a pedophile living in the backyard shed completed the tableau. Here, there were no rules, there was no school. The Christmas tree stayed up until summer, and Valium was eaten like Pez. And when things got dull, there was always the vintage electroshock therapy machine under the stairs.... Running with Scissors is at turns foul and harrowing, compelling and maniacally funny. But above all, it chronicles an ordinary boy's survival under the most extraordinary circumstances.

Survival Stories

Survival Stories
Author: Kathryn Rhett
Publisher: Doubleday Books
Total Pages: 424
Release: 1997
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN:

Memoirs of crisis--of depression, alienation, divorce, illness, death--have recently become tremendously popular among both readers and critics alike. When poet Kathryn Rhett experienced her own crisis, she found comfort in others' stories of adversity and related to their survival tales. A teacher at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, Rhea taught a course in memoir. She soon came to realize that many memoirs are actually stories of survival and so her new course, survival stories, was born. Survival Stories is an outgrowth of this workshop. A collection of memoirs of crisis, "Survival Stories speaks to our need to write and read about life-changing experiences. Here twenty writers-including Lucy Grealy, Rick Moody, Reynolds Price, and William Styron-reveal the variety and power of crisis memoir. Whether it be Lauren Slater talking about obsessive compulsive disorder, Christopher Davis coping with his brother's murder, or Christina Middlebrook reliving her bone marrow transplant, each of these essays speaks to a fundamental human need to come to terms with difficulty and loss. The writers and readers of crisis memoirs are survivors, the ones left to tell the story, the ones left to live. The experience of crisis is universal, it is the moment of decision or upheaval that profoundly changes the course of a life. "Survival Stories is a celebration of memoir as an art form and the human instinct to survive and adapt to adversity.

Stories for Boys: A Memoir

Stories for Boys: A Memoir
Author: Gregory Martin
Publisher: Hawthorne Books
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2012-08-20
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0983850461

In this memoir of fathers and sons, Gregory Martin struggles to reconcile the father he thought he knew with a man who has just survived a suicide attempt; a man who had been having anonymous affairs with men throughout his thirty-nine years of marriage; and who now must begin his life as a gay man. At a tipping point in our national conversation about gender and sexuality, rights and acceptance, Stories for Boys is about a father and a son finding a way to build a new relationship with one another after years of suppression and denial are given air and light. Martin’s memoir is quirky and compelling with its amateur photos and grab-bag social science and literary analyses. Gregory Martin explores the impact his father’s lifelong secrets have upon his life now as a husband and father of two young boys with humor and bracing candor. Stories for Boys is resonant with conflicting emotions and the complexities of family sympathy, and asks the questions: How well do we know the people that we think we know the best? And how much do we have to know in order to keep loving them?

This Will Only Hurt a Little

This Will Only Hurt a Little
Author: Busy Philipps
Publisher: Gallery Books
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2019-10-22
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1501184725

A hilarious, heartfelt, and refreshingly honest memoir and New York Times bestseller by the beloved comedic actress known for her roles on Freaks and Geeks, Dawson’s Creek, and Cougar Town who has become “the breakout star of Instagram stories...Imagine I Love Lucy mixed with a modern lifestyle guru” (The New Yorker). There’s no stopping Busy Philipps. From the time she was two and “aced out in her nudes” to explore the neighborhood (as her mom famously described her toddler jailbreak), Busy has always been headstrong, defiant, and determined not to miss out on all the fun. These qualities led her to leave Scottsdale, Arizona, at the age of nineteen to pursue her passion for acting in Hollywood. But much like her painful and painfully funny teenage years, chasing her dreams wasn’t always easy and sometimes hurt more than a little. In a memoir “that often reads like a Real World confessional or an open diary” (Kirkus Reviews), Busy opens up about chafing against a sexist system rife with on-set bullying and body shaming, being there when friends face shattering loss, enduring devastating personal and professional betrayals from those she loved best, and struggling with postpartum anxiety and the challenges of motherhood. But Busy also brings to the page her sly sense of humor and the unshakeable sense that disappointment shouldn’t stand in her way—even when she’s knocked down both figuratively and literally (from a knee injury at her seventh-grade dance to a violent encounter on the set of Freaks and Geeks). The rough patches in her life are tempered by times of hilarity and joy: leveraging a flawless impression of Cher from Clueless into her first paid acting gig, helping reinvent a genre with cult classic Freaks and Geeks, becoming fast friends with Dawson’s Creek castmate Michelle Williams, staging her own surprise wedding, conquering natural childbirth with the help of a Mad Men–themed hallucination, and of course, how her Instagram stories became “the most addictive thing on the internet right now” (Cosmopolitan). Busy is the rare entertainer whose impressive arsenal of talents as an actress is equally matched by her storytelling ability, sense of humor, and sharp observations about life, love, and motherhood—“if you think you know Busy from her Instagram stories, you don’t know the half of it” (Jenni Konner). Her conversational writing reminds us what we love about her on screens large and small. From “candid tales of celebrity life, mom life, and general Busy-ness” (W Magazine), This Will Only Hurt a Little “is everything we’ve been dying to hear about” (Bustle).

Boy, Lost

Boy, Lost
Author: Kristina Olsson
Publisher: Univ. of Queensland Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2013
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0702248932

A powerful family memoir from the award-winning author of The China Garden Kristina OlssonOCOs mother lost her infant son, Peter, when he was snatched from her arms as she boarded a train in the hot summer of 1950. She was young and frightened, trying to escape a brutal marriage, but despite the violence and cruelty sheOCOd endured, she was not prepared for this final blow, this breathtaking punishment. Yvonne would not see her son again for nearly 40 years. Kristina was the first child of her motherOCOs subsequent, much gentler marriage and, like her siblings, grew up unaware of the reasons behind her motherOCOs sorrow, though PeterOCOs absence resounded through the family, marking each one. Yvonne dreamt of her son by day and by night, while Peter grew up a thousand miles and a lifetime away, dreaming of his missing mother. Boy, Lost tells how their lives proceeded from that shattering moment, the grief and shame that stalked them, what they lost and what they salvaged. But it is also the story of a family, the cascade of grief and guilt through generations, and the endurance of memory and faith."

Four Funerals and a Wedding

Four Funerals and a Wedding
Author: Jill Smolowe
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2014-04-08
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 1938314735

When journalist Jill Smolowe buried her husband, sister, mother, and mother-in-law in the space of seventeen months, she assumed that it was only a matter of time before she fell apart. That’s what all the movies and memoirs say will happen, after all. But when she never “lost it”—and when friends began to insist that her strength was amazing and unusual—she began to think there might be something freakish about her way of grieving, so she did what any self-respecting journalist would: she researched it. In Four Funerals and a Wedding, Smolowe jostles preconceptions about caregiving, defies clichés about losing loved ones, and reveals a stunning bottom line: far from being uncommon, resilience like hers is the norm among the recently bereaved. With humor and quiet wisdom, and with a lens firmly trained on what helped her tolerate so much sorrow and rebound from so much loss in her own life, she offers answers to questions we all confront in the face of loss, and ultimately reminds us all that grief is not only about endings—it’s about new beginnings.