Memoir Relationship

A unique memoir that weaves together stories of personal triumph, love, loss, and lessons learned, Notes for the Children follows Patrick Priestner throughout his life as a son, a brother, a car salesman, an award-winning automotive entrepreneur—and his most rewarding roles, as a husband and a father.

Anne Lamott meets Elizabeth Gilbert in this inspirational, side-splittingly funny exploration of the power of living with love, forgiveness, and honesty. Glennon Melton became a sensation when her personal essays started going viral. Giving language to our universal (yet often secret) experiences, her hilarious and poignant observations were read by millions, shared among friends, discussed at water coolers, quoted in The New York Times, and have inspired a social movement.

Despite what appeared to be a glamorous existence full of globetrotting adventures, behind the scenes, Anna felt invisible in her own life. Consumed by a marriage that left no space for her own desires and creativity, she chose to reframe the failure of her marriage as an opportunity to begin again.

As the son that worked by his dad’s side, Brian Proctor was often asked what it was like to grow up as Bob Proctor’s son. In My Father Knew the Secret, Brian answers that question by sharing stories, lessons, and deeply personal experiences, in an easy-to-listen conversation that lets you into the private world of Bob Proctor. You will find many benefits within this audiobook as you learn from behind-the-scenes wisdom and strength.

Matt Dahlia was a recent college grad with no direction in his life: his business was dead on arrival and all his friends had left town. He was broke and searching for belonging in a world that didn’t understand him. That is, until he serendipitously met Thomas, who not only felt the same way he did, but had a project in mind: Together, along with two more like-minded strangers, they were going to move into a one-bedroom apartment and film themselves doing 30 things they had never done before in 30 days.

Samantha Irby’s career has taken her to new heights. She dodges calls from Hollywood and flop sweats on the red carpet at premieres (well, one premiere). But nothing is ever as it seems online, where she can crop out all the ugly parts. Irby got a lot of weird emails about Carrie Bradshaw, and not only is there diarrhea to avoid, but now—anaphylactic shock. She is turned away from restaurants for being inappropriately dressed and looks for the best ways to cope, i.e., reveling in the offerings of QVC and adopting a deranged pandemic dog.

In her midforties, Gwendolyn Bounds attended a dinner party where someone asked a little girl: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” It struck Bounds: In middle age, no one asks you that anymore. So she put the question to herself. The answer set her on an unexpected five-year path of transformation from an unathletic office executive glued to her screens to an age-group medalist and world championship competitor in obstacle course racing—a demanding military-style sport requiring speed, endurance, mobility, and strength.

Six-year-old Amelie lives with her mother, Kelly, who suffers from bipolar disorder. After Kelly attempts to burn down their family house, it becomes clear that her daughter is in grave danger. Amelie is quickly taken into care. When she arrives with foster carer Casey Watson, Amelie acts much younger than her age. Casey must get to the root of Amelie’s behaviour, while doing what she can to keep the family together. Will Amelie ever find the safety of home?

Séamas O’Reilly’s mother died when he was five, leaving him, his ten (!) brothers and sisters, and their beloved father in their sprawling bungalow in rural Derry. It was the 1990s; the Troubles were a background rumble, but Séamas was more preoccupied with dinosaurs, Star Wars, and the actual location of heaven than the political climate. ­

Natalie Goldberg has been writing for the past fifty years. But at the beginning of the pandemic, she suddenly wasn’t able to write anymore. Her imaginative wellspring had dried up, and she was forced to ask herself: what do I do when what has always worked for me doesn’t work anymore? In this beautifully written, inspiring personal account, Natalie shares her harrowing journey out of creative paralysis and back onto the page.

Celina Caesar-Chavannes digs deep into her childhood and her life as a young Black woman entrepreneur and politician, and shows us that effective and humane leaders grow as much from their mistakes and vulnerabilities as from their strengths. Both memoir and leadership book, Can You Hear Me Now? is a funny, self-aware, poignant, confessional, and fierce look at how failing badly and screwing things up completely are truly more powerful lessons in how to conduct a life than extraordinary success.

Jean Carnahan was the first lady of Missouri when her husband, Governor Mel Carnahan, who was running for the U.S. Senate, and their son, were killed in a plane crash. When Mel Carnahan was elected posthumously (beating John Ashcroft), Jean agreed to take his seat in Washington and served in the U.S. Senate during 9/11, the anthrax attacks, and the vote to go to war in Iraq. During a time of intense and almost unimaginable personal loss, she managed to keep her head up and her heart open.

When a scandalous news story splashed across mainstream media about an elite escort agency in Las Vegas, people were shocked to learn there was a tiny mastermind behind the company: a small town girl from Oregon named Jami Rodman who went by the pseudonym Haley Heston.

For seventy years, Queen Elizabeth ruled over an institution and a family. During her lifetime she was constant in her desire to provide a steady presence and to be a trustworthy steward of the British people and the Commonwealth. But times change. Recent years have brought grief and turmoil to the House of Windsor. In The New Royals, journalist Katie Nicholl provides a nuanced look at Elizabeth’s remarkable and unrivalled reign, with new stories from Palace courtiers and aides, documentarians, and family members.

Leslie Morgan Steiner met the love of her life at age 22, soon after graduating from Harvard and starting her first job at Seventeen magazine in New York. She fell for his self-deprecating wit and street smarts - and especially his unabashed worship of her. They married and spent four years together. At first Leslie felt like the woman of his dreams. Then she discovered her husband had been beaten as a child, taught by his parents that intimacy and rage danced together.

Daniel Sloss' stand-up comedy engages, enrages, offends, unsettles, educates, comforts, and gets audiences roaring with laughter - all at the same time. In his groundbreaking specials, seen on Netflix and HBO, he has brilliantly tackled everything from male toxicity and friendship to love, romance, and marriage - and claims (with the data to back it up) that his on-stage laser-like dissection of relationships has single-handedly caused more than 300 divorces and 120,000 breakups.

The story fast forwards to 1996 when a suspicious death in the family leaves the fate of two young boys in the hands of Tom’s dysfunctional family. Tom, the quintessential lifetime bachelor, and geeky Don Draper is thrust headfirst back into the mayhem of his family’s hippie lifestyle.

When Bo Seo was 8 years old, he and his family migrated from Korea to Australia. At the time, he did not speak English, and, unsurprisingly, struggled at school. But, then, in fifth grade, something happened to change his life: he discovered competitive debate. Immediately, he was hooked. It turned out, perhaps counterintuitively, that debating was the perfect activity for someone shy and unsure of himself. It became a way for Bo not only to find his voice, but to excel socially and academically. And he’s not the only one.

The book is cordoned by fantastical and scientific stories comparing her family’s world and personality traits with those of wrens. It also contains a creative history of Worcester, a former factory town plagued by poverty, addiction, and violence—a cycle that Mal, unlike her brother and father, was able to escape.

It’s a freezing winter’s night in 1954. A baby boy, a few hours old, is left by his mother, wrapped in nothing but two sheets of newspaper and hidden amongst the undergrowth by a canal bank. An hour later, a late-shift postman is walking wearily home when he hears a faint cry. He finds the newspaper parcel and discovers the newborn, white-cold and whimpering, inside. After being rushed to hospital and against all odds, the baby survives. He’s baptised by the hospital chaplain as Richard.