Memoir Relationship

In honest, confessional prose, Born on the Bayou - a roller-coaster rags-to-riches story - transports us to a pocket of the South where Lourd learns how to be a man from the two people he looks up to the most: his larger-than-life father, "Puffer", a prominent figure in the oil business; and his successful older brother, Bryan.

Clover Stroud's idyllic childhood in rural England was shattered when a horrific riding accident left her mother permanently brain damaged. Just 16, she embarked on a journey to find the sense of home that had been so savagely broken. Travelling from gypsy camps in Ireland to the rodeos of West Texas and then to Russia's war-torn Caucasus, Clover eventually found her way back to England's lyrical Vale of the White Horse.

Planet Claire is the story of the untimely death of the author's wife and a candid account of the following year of madness and grief. With Claire's death, Jeff Porter tries to imagine life without her but struggles with the bewilderment that follows. There was no gradual transition, no chance to say good-bye or resolve unfinished business. The grief is crushing, her death the psychological equivalent of Pearl Harbor. But as Jeff's life unravels, he analyzes his sadness with growing interest.

With great humor and frankness, Ilyssa Goodman offers insights on what "having it all" means in the 21th century.

Joy's rise from single mother of three to the nation's most celebrated female inventor is truly what dreams are made of. Full of twists and turns, work and love, obstacles encountered and overcome, Inventing Joy is a binge-worthy book in every aspect. Dive in and be swept along for the ride as she relives her incredible and inspiring journey to joy. But there's more: Throughout her story, Joy points out her very own personal lightbulb moments - lessons she learned the hard way and principles she still relies on today.

When they were children in the suburbs of Los Angeles in the 1950s, Diane Keaton and her younger brother, Randy, were best friends and companions: They shared stories at night in their bunk beds; they swam, laughed, dressed up for Halloween. Their mother captured their American-dream childhoods in her diaries, and on camera. But as they grew up, Randy became troubled, then reclusive. By the time he reached adulthood, he was divorced, an alcoholic, a man who couldn't hold on to full-time work - his life a world away from his sister's, and from the rest of their family.

From the creator of the blog Renegade Mothering, Janelle Hanchett's forthright, darkly funny, and ultimately empowering memoir chronicling her tumultuous journey from young motherhood to abysmal addiction and a recovery she never imagined possible. Pregnant at 21 by a man she'd known three months, Janelle Hanchett embraced motherhood with the determined optimism of the recklessly self-confident. After giving birth, she found herself bored, directionless, and seeking relief in wine, which she justified as sophisticated and going well with chicken.

When Laura Fraser's husband leaves her for his high school sweetheart, she takes off, on impulse, for Italy, hoping to leave some of her sadness behind. There, on the island of Ischia, she meets M., an aesthetics professor from Paris with an oversized love of life. What they both assume will be a casual vacation tryst turns into a passionate, transatlantic love affair, as they rendezvous in London, Marrakech, Milan, the Aeolian Islands, and San Francisco.

In the vein of The Liar's Club and The Glass Castle, Jenny Forrester's memoir perfectly captures both place and a community situated on the Colorado Plateau between slot canyons and rattlesnakes, where she grew up with her mother and brother in a single-wide trailer proudly displaying an American flag. Forrester's powerfully eloquent story reveals a rural small town comprising God-fearing Republicans, ranchers, Mormons, and Native Americans.

In this harrowing and intimate memoir, Harriet Alida Lye explores how, at just 15 years old, she was diagnosed with a form of leukemia called Natural Killer, named "the rarest and worst malignancy". The average survival time of patients with this diagnosis is 58 days. There are no known survivors. There were no known survivors. Fifteen years after Harriet's diagnosis, she became pregnant, despite having been told that her chemotherapy treatment would likely make conception impossible. To be a mother is to make a death, as death is bound up in life.

From brass knuckle beatdowns on the schoolyard to showdowns with the SEC on the national news, every second of Deaton’s life has been a fight for survival. This book is the raw, wild John Deaton story, straight from the source. Born in one of the worst neighborhoods in Detroit--the kind of place the city cordoned off with warning signs--and growing up surrounded by hustlers, addicts, abusers, gang bangers, and the downtrodden, Deaton became a fighter, with violence becoming second nature.

When Rachel Krantz met and fell for Adam, he told her that he was looking for a committed partnership—just one that did not include monogamy. Intrigued and more than a little nervous, Krantz decided to see whether their love could coexist with the freedom to date other people. Could they strike an exquisite balance between intimacy and independence, and find a way to feel passion for each other once the honeymoon phase ended?

Abby Maslin shares an inspiring story of resilience and commitment in a deeply affecting new memoir. After her husband suffered a traumatic brain injury, the couple worked together as he recovered - and they learned to love again.

In 2003, already an older father, National Book Award–winning novelist Tim O’Brien resolved to give his young sons what he wished his own father had given to him—a few scraps of paper signed “Love, Dad.” Maybe a word of advice. Maybe a sentence or two about some long-ago Christmas Eve. Maybe some scattered glimpses of their rapidly aging father, a man they might never really know. For the next fifteen years, the author talked to his sons on paper, as if they were adults, imagining what they might want to hear from a father who was no longer among the living.

The night before her father dies, 18-year-old Jeannie Vanasco promises she will write a book for him. But this isn't the book she imagined. The Glass Eye is Jeannie's struggle to honor her father, her larger-than-life hero but also the man who named her after his daughter from a previous marriage, a daughter who died. After his funeral, Jeannie spends the next decade in escalating mania, in and out of hospitals - increasingly obsessed with the other Jeanne. Obsession turns to investigation as Jeannie hunts for clues into the mysterious circumstances of her death.

KISS did not become one of the most successful rock bands in history by accident. Long before they first took the stage, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley had a clear-cut operating plan for their business. Over the past forty years, KISS has sold over 100 million CDs and DVDs worldwide and manages over 3,000 licensed merchandise items. In addition to KISS, Simmons’ lucrative ventures include two hit reality shows, a professional sports team, a restaurant chain, and a record company.

When detective Maggie Oliver first discovered that children as young as 10 were being groomed, abused and trafficked for sex by gangs of men in the Rochdale area, she felt like a lonely voice calling for people to act. Banging on closed doors, it seemed that nobody was able or willing to help her save these vulnerable girls, but she couldn't just sit back while countless lives were being destroyed forever in plain sight. Instead, she launched a one-woman campaign to bring down these sickening gangs.

Pregnant from her first sexual encounter, a teenager living in a town of 3,000 Catholics keeps her secret from everyone until six weeks before the baby's due date. Hustled out of town and hidden in the Iowa countryside within hours of finally confiding in her mother, she concocts a scheme that will allow her to raise her child, but can she win over any of the people who might help her? As her pregnancy and its looming consequences unfold, she realizes that her life of lies and secrets has only just begun.

Five years into fatherhood, Calvin Hennick is plagued by self-doubt and full of questions. How can he teach his son to be a man when his own father figures abandoned him? As a white man, what can he possibly teach his biracial son about how to live as a black man in America? And what does it even mean to be a man today, when society's expectations of men seem to change from moment to moment?

In the Country of Women is a valuable social history and a personal narrative that reads like a love song to America and indomitable women. In inland Southern California, near the desert and the Mexican border, Susan Straight, a self-proclaimed book nerd, and Dwayne Sims, an African-American basketball player, started dating in high school. After college, they married and drove to Amherst, Massachusetts, where Straight met her teacher and mentor, James Baldwin, who encouraged her to write.