The True History of the First Mrs. Meredith and Other Lesser Lives

The True History of the First Mrs. Meredith and Other Lesser Lives
Author: Diane Johnson
Publisher: New York Review of Books
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2020-06-23
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1681374463

A classic of alternative biography and feminist writing, this empathetic and witty book gives due to a "lesser" figure of history, Mary Ellen Peacock Meredith, who was brilliant, unconventional, and at odds with the constraints of Victorian life. “Many people have described the Famous Writer presiding at his dinner table. . . . He is famous; everybody remembers his remarks. . . . We forget that there were other family members at the table—a quiet person, now muffled by time, shadowy, whose heart pounded with love, perhaps, or rage.” So begins The True History of the First Mrs. Meredith and Other Lesser Lives, an uncommon biography devoted to one of those “lesser lives.” As the author points out, “A lesser life does not seem lesser to the person who leads one.” Such sympathy and curiosity compelled Diane Johnson to research Mary Ellen Peacock Meredith (1821–1861), the daughter of the famous artist Thomas Love Peacock (1785–1866) and first wife of the equally famous poet George Meredith (1828–1909). Her life, treated perfunctorily and prudishly in biographies of Peacock or Meredith, is here exquisitely and unhurriedly given its due. What emerges is the portrait of a brilliant, well-educated woman, raised unconventionally by her father only to feel more forcefully the constraints of the Victorian era. First published in 1972, Lesser Lives has been a key text for feminists and biographers alike, a book that reimagined what biography might be, both in terms of subject and style. Biographies of other “lesser” lives have since followed in its footsteps, but few have the wit, elegance, and empathy of Johnson’s seminal work.

Hardwired

Hardwired
Author: Meredith Wild
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2015-04-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1473526973

Determined to overcome a difficult past, Erica Hathaway learns early on to make it on her own. Days after her college graduation, she finds herself face to face with a panel of investors who will make or break her fledgling start-up website. The only thing she didn't prepare for was going weak in the knees over an arrogant and gorgeous investor who seems determined to derail her plans. Billionaire and rumoured hacker Blake Landon has already made his fortune in software, and he’s used to getting what he wants. Captivated by Erica’s drive and unassuming beauty, he’s wanted nothing more than to possess her since she stepped into his boardroom. Determined to win her over, he breaks down her defences and fights for her trust, even if it means sacrificing a level of control he’s grown accustomed to. But when Blake uncovers a dark secret from Erica’s past, he threatens not just her trust, but the life she’s fought so hard to create. The perfect new addiction for fans of Fifty Shades of Grey and Sylvia Day's Bared To You series.

If I Was Your Girl

If I Was Your Girl
Author: Meredith Russo
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2016-05-03
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1250078407

Amanda Hardy only wants to fit in at her new school, but she is keeping a big secret, so when she falls for Grant, guarded Amanda finds herself yearning to share with him everything about herself, including her previous life as Andrew.

Aftertaste:

Aftertaste:
Author: Meredith Mileti
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2011-05-26
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0758274513

Mira Rinaldi lives life at a rolling boil. Co-owner of Grappa, a chic New York City trattoria, she has an enviable apartment, a brand-new baby, and a frenzied schedule befitting her success. Everything changes the night she catches her husband, Jake, "wielding his whisk" with Grappa's new Mâitress d'. Mira's fiery response earns her a court-ordered stint in anger management and the beginning of legal and personal predicaments as she battles to save her restaurant and pick up the pieces of her life. Mira falls back on family and friends in Pittsburgh as she struggles to find a recipe for happiness. But the heat is really on when some surprising developments in New York present her with a high stakes opportunity to win back what she thought she had lost forever. For Mira, cooking isn't just about delicious flavors and textures, but about the pleasure found in filling others' needs. And the time has come to decide where her own fulfillment lies—even if the answers are unexpected. Keenly observed and deeply satisfying, Aftertaste is a novel about rebuilding and rediscovery, about food passionately prepared and unapologetically savored, and about the singular contentment that comes with living—and loving—with gusto. "A delicious debut." --Jamie Cat Callan, author of French Women Don't Sleep Alone Meredith Mileti lives in Pittsburgh with her husband and their three, mostly grown children. She is a graduate of Hamilton College and the University of Pittsburgh where she earned a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology, and subsequently served on the faculty. Since taking her first home economics course in junior high, Meredith has loved to cook. An adventurous and eclectic diner, she appreciates any well-cooked meal, whether from a lobster shack in Bar Harbor, Maine, a friggitorie in Naples, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Paris or a Deluxe Double Egg & Cheese at Primanti's in Pittsburgh. Aftertaste is her first novel.

Painting the Past: A Guide for Writing Historical Fiction

Painting the Past: A Guide for Writing Historical Fiction
Author: Meredith Allard
Publisher: Copperfield Press
Total Pages: 146
Release: 2021-02-16
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN:

Do you want to write historical fiction? Join Meredith Allard, the executive editor of The Copperfield Review, the award-winning literary journal for readers and writers of historical fiction, as she shares tips and tricks for creating believable historical worlds through targeted research and a vivid imagination. Give in to your daydreams. Do the work. Let your creativity loose into the world so you can share your love of history and your passion for the written word with others.

Without a Map

Without a Map
Author: Meredith Hall
Publisher: Beacon Press
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2024-04-09
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0807016314

The national best-selling memoir about banishment, reconciliation, and the meaning of family "This sobering portrayal of a pregnant teen exiled from her small New Hampshire community is a testament to the importance of understanding and even forgiving the people who . . . have made us who we are” —O, The Oprah Magazine A New York Times Bestseller, now with an epilogue from the author Meredith Hall’s moving but unsentimental memoir begins in 1965, when she becomes pregnant at sixteen. Shunned by her insular New Hampshire community, she is then kicked out of the house by her mother. Her father and stepmother reluctantly take her in, hiding her before they finally banish her altogether. After giving her baby up for adoption, Hall wanders recklessly through the Middle East, where she survives by selling her possessions and finally her blood. She returns to New England and stitches together a life that encircles her silenced and invisible grief. Her lost son tracks her down when he turns twenty-one, and Hall learns that he grew up in gritty poverty with an abusive father in her own father’s hometown. Their reunion is tender, turbulent, and ultimately redemptive. Hall’s parents never ask for her forgiveness, yet as they age, she offers them her love. Here, loss and betrayal evolve into compassion, and compassion into wisdom.

Birthday

Birthday
Author: Meredith Russo
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2019-05-21
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 1250129842

“Lovers who surmount the odds have always been intense emotional fodder, but rarely have we seen a story like Birthday...true and raw, haunting and undeniable.” —The New York Times Book Review Two best friends. A shared birthday. Six years... ERIC: There was the day we were born. There was the minute Morgan and I decided we were best friends for life. The years where we stuck by each other’s side—as Morgan’s mom died, as he moved across town, as I joined the football team, as my parents started fighting. But sometimes I worry that Morgan and I won’t be best friends forever. That there’ll be a day, a minute, a second, where it all falls apart and there’s no turning back the clock. MORGAN: I know that every birthday should feel like a new beginning, but I’m trapped in this mixed-up body, in this wrong life, in Nowheresville, Tennessee, on repeat. With a dad who cares about his football team more than me, a mom I miss more than anything, and a best friend who can never know my biggest secret. Maybe one day I’ll be ready to become the person I am inside. To become her. To tell the world. To tell Eric. But when? Six years of birthdays reveal Eric and Morgan’s destiny as they come together, drift apart, fall in love, and discover who they’re meant to be—and if they’re meant to be together. From the award-winning author of If I Was Your Girl, Meredith Russo, comes a heart-wrenching and universal story of identity, first love, and fate. “Beautifully written, Birthday is an altogether singular contribution to the gradually growing body of transgender literature and, indeed, to mainstream literature, as well.” —ALA Booklist, starred review

The New Old Me

The New Old Me
Author: Meredith Maran
Publisher: Penguin Group
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2024-09-03
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0399574158

“A funny, seasoned take on dashed illusions.”—O Magazine “I love everything Meredith Maran writes. She is insightful, funny, and human, and the things she writes about matter to me deeply. Her memoir, The New Old Me, is a book I don’t just want to read—I need to read it. So does everyone else who’s getting older and wants to live fully, with immediacy and enjoyment, which is to say, everyone.”—Anne Lamott, author of Hallelujah Anyway For readers of Anne Lamott, Abigail Thomas, and Ayelet Waldman comes one woman's lusty, kickass, post-divorce memoir of starting over at 60 in youth-obsessed, beauty-obsessed Hollywood. After the death of her best friend, the loss of her life’s savings, and the collapse of her once-happy marriage, Meredith Maran leaves her San Francisco freelance writer’s life for a 9-to-5 job in Los Angeles. Determined to rebuild not only her savings but also herself while relishing the joys of life in La-La land, Maran writes “a poignant story, a funny story, a moving story, and above all an American story of what it means to be a woman of a certain age in our time” (Christina Baker Kline, number-one New York Times–bestselling author of Orphan Train). Praise for The New Old Me: “High time we had a book that celebrates becoming an elder! Meredith Maran writes of the difficulties of loss and change and aging, but makes it clear that getting on can be more interesting, more fun, and a lot more exciting than youth.”—Abigail Thomas, author of the New York Times bestseller What Comes Next and How to Like It “By turns poignant and funny, the book not only shows how one feisty woman coped with a ‘Plan B life’ she didn't want or expect with a little help from her friends. It also celebrates how she transformed uncertainty into a glorious opportunity for continued late-life personal growth. A spirited and moving memoir about how ‘it's never too late to try something new.’”—Kirkus

What It's Like to Live Now

What It's Like to Live Now
Author: Meredith Maran
Publisher: Bantam Books
Total Pages: 360
Release: 1995
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

"Like the heart-to-heart conversations you share with your funniest, most honest, most unshockable woman friend, What It's Like to Live Now reveals the intimate details of a singular life as it is lived by a member of a singular generation." "In 1968 Meredith Maran was expelled from the elite Bronx High School of Science for leading protests against the Vietnam War. She was an active member of the generation that pledged to change the world, end injustice, and stay young forever. Today (despite all expectations to the contrary) she is forty-three, with an ex-husband, a lover, two teenage sons, and a mortgage on her dream house at the edge of the Oakland ghetto." "One thing hasn't changed: Meredith is still asking big questions. How do you justify your decision to stay in the inner city when your son wants to carry a knife to junior high to protect himself? How do you create a happy healthy family when nothing in your childhood taught you how - and your new life partner is a woman? How do you keep your heart open when breast cancer and AIDS are attacking your closest friends? And how do you stay true to your hopes for a better world when there's a living to be made and a homeless man at the front gate?" "Happily, Meredith Maran navigates these dilemmas without ever losing her subversive sense of humor. Whether she is challenging the nutritionally correct with her death-by-chocolate birthday cake or agonizing over what kind of nightgown to pack for her first weekend with a woman lover, her eye for life's contradictions is hilariously accurate." "What Its Like to Live Now is a poignant exploration of the gap between the dreams of the sixties and the realities of the nineties - and a reminder that even as youthful idealism goes gray at the temples, life can be lived with love, commitment, and integrity. Reflected in the mirror Meredith Maran holds up to her choices and experiences, you are certain to catch a glimpse of your own."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Why We Write

Why We Write
Author: Meredith Maran
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2013-01-29
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0452298156

Twenty of America's bestselling authors share tricks, tips, and secrets of the successful writing life. Anyone who's ever sat down to write a novel or even a story knows how exhilarating and heartbreaking writing can be. So what makes writers stick with it? In Why We Write, twenty well-known authors candidly share what keeps them going and what they love most—and least—about their vocation. Contributing authors include: Isabel Allende David Baldacci Jennifer Egan James Frey Sue Grafton Sara Gruen Kathryn Harrison Gish Jen Sebastian Junger Mary Karr Michael Lewis Armistead Maupin Terry McMillan Rick Moody Walter Mosley Susan Orlean Ann Patchett Jodi Picoult Jane Smiley Meg Wolitzer