Not Fade Away

Not Fade Away
Author: Rebecca Alexander (Psychotherapist)
Publisher: Avery
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2014
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1592408311

"The inspiring memoir of a young woman who is slowly losing her sight and hearing yet continues to live each day with grace and purpose. Thirty-four-year-old Rebecca Alexander is a psychotherapist, a spin instructor, a volunteer, and an athlete. She is also almost completely blind, with significantly deteriorated hearing. Not Fade Away is a deeply moving exploration of the obstacles we all face-physical, psychological, and philosophical. Like The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Rebecca's story is an exquisite reminder to live each day to its fullest. When Rebecca was twelve, her parents were told that she would be completely blind before she turned thirty. At eighteen, she fell through a window, shattering her body. In college, she found out that due to a rare genetic disorder-Usher Syndrome Type III-she was losing her hearing as well. Since then, she has earned two Master's degrees from Columbia University, ridden a six-hundred-mile bike race, hiked the Inca Trail, and established a thriving career-all while maintaining a vibrant social life. In Not Fade Away, Rebecca charts her journey from a teenager who tried to hide her disabilities, to a woman who is able to face the world exactly as she is. She meditates on what she's lost-the sound of laughter and skies full of stars, which she can now only imagine (though, she quips, "It's not like anyone can see stars in New York anyway")-and what she's found in return: an exquisite sense of intimacy with family and friends who've stuck by her, and a profound appreciation for everything she still has. Even though Rebecca inhabits a gradually darkening world, she refuses to let that stop her from living life with joy and enthusiasm."--

To Throw Away Unopened

To Throw Away Unopened
Author: Viv Albertine
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2018-04-03
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0571326234

SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARDS 2018 What was I fighting for? Even now I'm not sure. Something so old and so deep, it has no words, no shape, no logic. Every memoir is a battle between reality and invention - but in her follow up to Clothes, Music, Boys, Viv Albertine has reinvented the genre with her unflinching honesty. To Throw Away Unopened is a fearless dissection of one woman's obsession with the truth - the truth about family, power, and her identity as a rebel and outsider. It is a gaping wound of a book, both an exercise in blood-letting and psychological archaeology, excavating what lies beneath: the fear, the loneliness, the anger. It is a brutal expose of human dysfunctionality, the impossibility of true intimacy, and the damage wrought upon us by secrets and revelations, siblings and parents. Yet it is also a testament to how we can rebuild ourselves and come to face the world again. It is a portrait of the love stories that constitute a life, often bringing as much pain as joy. With the inimitable blend of humour, vulnerability, and intelligence that makes Viv Albertine one of our finest authors working today, To Throw Away Unopened smashes through layers of propriety and leads us into a new place of savage self-discovery.

Kerried Away

Kerried Away
Author: Kerri Krysko
Publisher: Kas Confidential
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2015-09-25
Genre: Abused women
ISBN: 9780996633055

Kerried Away delves into the darker side of the life and the impending marriage from hell.In this dysfunctional and dangerous liaison she was to find herself face to face with a monster. The Beast she called him, one minute a man from a fairy tale and the next her worst nightmare. She had no one and he had everyone, the power of the patch she called it for a time, until her very darkness became her salvation and the world became her future.

Old Friend from Far Away

Old Friend from Far Away
Author: Natalie Goldberg
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2009-03-10
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1416535039

In her first book to focus solely on writing since her classic work "Writing Down the Bones," Goldberg reaffirms her status as one of the foremost teachers by redefining the practice of writing memoir.

What Falls Away

What Falls Away
Author: Mia Farrow
Publisher: Bantam
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2018-05-15
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1984800116

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A simply elegant memoir.”—Newsweek In this exquisitely written memoir, Mia Farrow takes us on a journey into her remarkable life. As the daughter of actress Maureen O’Sullivan and film director John Farrow, she lived what was by all appearances a charmed and privileged childhood. But below the surface, money troubles, marital tensions, drinking, and occasionally violence marred the Hollywood illusion. And when Mia was nine, she would be forever wrenched from childhood by the terrible isolation of a bout with polio. Her father’s death propelled her out into the world, where she embarked onto an acting career that included television, theater, and film—from her debut in Peyton Place to her first starring role in Rosemary’s Baby, and on to her thirteen films with Woody Allen. Here is a luminous memoir of childhood and motherhood, a thoughtful exploration of a spiritual journey, and a candid examination of her marriages to Frank Sinatra and André Previn and her close but troubled twelve-year relationship with Woody Allen. Told with grace and deep understanding, as well as humor, What Falls Away is an unforgettable book, an extraordinary record of an extraordinary life.

Not Easily Washed Away

Not Easily Washed Away
Author: Anon Beauty
Publisher: Gully Gods Publishing
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2011
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0983333009

Not Easily Washed Away is the true story of a young girl who was born to a Muslim family in Pakistan. She suffered through sexual, mental and physical abuse for fifteen years, which was perpetrated by her father Abdulla. Laila decides to take advantage of her father's incestuous addiction by having him acquire a visa for her to the United States, where she feels as if she can rid herself of a putrid past. The book is written from a psychological perspective in first person, as Laila shares her painful past with the reader, sparing no details of her ordeal as a child, teenager and young adult. After she realizes her father's diabolical plan is to keep her in Pakistan for himself, Laila decides to take fate into her own hands. Her new attitude helps her to turn the tables on her father, now living in America, and manipulate him into marrying an American woman to get Laila's visa to the United States. The United States is not the instantaneous answer to Laila's plight. She arrived in Seattle, Washington, in 2004 to start a new life away from her father, but ends up being unable to stop the incestuous relationship with him and later on, with her stepmother. Things get even worse for Laila, as she is now twenty years old, depressed, and worried that her family's fate back in Pakistan might be jeopardized if she leaves home. In the Spring of 2007 Laila's life changes when her younger sister arrived from Pakistan and when she meets an interesting, Christian, Jamaican man at school. The young man confronts Laila about the abuse, and when she realizes she has feelings for him, she tells him everything. The young man tries to convince Laila that she can become mentally stronger and free herself of her abusive father and stepmother by running away with him.

Strung Out

Strung Out
Author: Erin Khar
Publisher: Harlequin
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2020-02-25
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1488056323

“This is a story she needed to tell; and the rest of the country needs to listen.” — New York Times Book Review “This vital memoir will change how we look at the opioid crisis and how the media talks about it. A deeply moving and emotional read, STRUNG OUT challenges our preconceived ideas of what addiction looks like.” —Stephanie Land, New York Times bestselling author of Maid In this deeply personal and illuminating memoir about her fifteen-year struggle with heroin, Khar sheds profound light on the opioid crisis and gives a voice to the over two million people in America currently battling with this addiction. Growing up in LA, Erin Khar hid behind a picture-perfect childhood filled with excellent grades, a popular group of friends and horseback riding. After first experimenting with her grandmother’s expired painkillers, Khar started using heroin when she was thirteen. The drug allowed her to escape from pressures to be perfect and suppress all the heavy feelings she couldn’t understand. This fiercely honest memoir explores how heroin shaped every aspect of her life for the next fifteen years and details the various lies she told herself, and others, about her drug use. With enormous heart and wisdom, she shows how the shame and stigma surrounding addiction, which fuels denial and deceit, is so often what keeps addicts from getting help. There is no one path to recovery, and for Khar, it was in motherhood that she found the inner strength and self-forgiveness to quit heroin and fight for her life. Strung Out is a life-affirming story of resilience while also a gripping investigation into the psychology of addiction and why people turn to opioids in the first place.

Out of the Corner

Out of the Corner
Author: Jennifer Grey
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2022-05-03
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0593356713

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A deeply candid and refreshingly spirited memoir of identity lost and found from the star of the iconic film Dirty Dancing “A funny, dishy, occasionally heartbreaking coming-of-age story.”—The New York Times “Savage and engaging . . . Grey’s memoir is interesting not only for her journey out of darkness but also for what her story reveals about what women encounter in the entertainment business, and the fortitude required to make it.”—The Washington Post In this beautiful, close-to-the bone account, Jennifer Grey takes readers on a vivid tour of the experiences that have shaped her, from her childhood as the daughter of Broadway and film legend Joel Grey, to the surprise hit with Patrick Swayze that made her America’s sweetheart, to her inspiring season eleven win on ABC’s Dancing with the Stars. Throughout this intimate narrative, Grey richly evokes places and times that were defining for a generation—from her preteen days in 1970s Malibu and wild child nights in New York’s club scene, to her roles in quintessential movies of the 1980s, including The Cotton Club, Red Dawn, and her breakout performance in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. With self-deprecating humor and frankness, she looks back on her unbridled, romantic adventures in Hollywood. And with enormous bravery, she shares the devastating fallout from a plastic surgery procedure that caused the sudden and stunning loss of her professional identity and career. Grey inspires with her hard-won battle back, reclaiming her sense of self from a culture and business that can impose a narrow and unforgiving definition of female worth. She finds, at last, her own true north and starts a family of her own, just in the nick of time. Distinctive, moving, and powerful, told with generosity and pluck, Out of the Corner is a memoir about a never-ending personal evolution, a coming-of-age story for women of every age.

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.

Based on a True Story

Based on a True Story
Author: Norm Macdonald
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2016-09-20
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 0812993632

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Driving, wild and hilarious” (The Washington Post), here is the incredible “memoir” of the legendary actor, gambler, raconteur, and Saturday Night Live veteran. When Norm Macdonald, one of the greatest stand-up comics of all time, was approached to write a celebrity memoir, he flatly refused, calling the genre “one step below instruction manuals.” Norm then promptly took a two-year hiatus from stand-up comedy to live on a farm in northern Canada. When he emerged he had under his arm a manuscript, a genre-smashing book about comedy, tragedy, love, loss, war, and redemption. When asked if this was the celebrity memoir, Norm replied, “Call it anything you damn like.”