Parenting Memoir

When it first appeared, A Rumor of War brought home to American readers, with terrifying vividness and honesty, the devastating effects of the Vietnam War on the soldiers who fought there. And while it is a memoir of one young man's experiences and therefore deeply personal, it is also a book that speaks powerfully to today's students about the larger themes of human conscience, good and evil, and the desperate extremes men are forced to confront in any war.

In this remarkable dual memoir, film legend Martin Sheen and accomplished actor/filmmaker Emilio Estevez recount their lives as father and son. In alternating chapters—and in voices that are as eloquent as they are different—they narrate stories spanning more than 50 years of family history, and reflect on their journeys into two different kinds of faith.

Lilly Singh isn’t just a superstar. She’s Superwoman—which is also the name of her wildly popular YouTube channel. Funny, smart, and insightful, the actress and comedian covers topics ranging from relationships to career choices to everyday annoyances. It’s no wonder she’s garnered more than a billion views. But Lilly didn’t get to the top by being lucky—she had to work for it. Hard.

It's a crazy idea: trying to name the phrases that make love and connection possible. But that's just what Kelly Corrigan has set out to do here. In her New York Times best-selling memoirs, Corrigan distilled our core relationships to their essences, showcasing a warm, easy storytelling style. Now, in Tell Me More, she's back with a deeply personal, unfailingly honest, and often hilarious examination of the essential phrases that turn the wheel of life.

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.

Twentysomething Nora McInerny Purmort bounced from boyfriend to boyfriend and job to job. Then she met Aaron, a charismatic art director and her kindred spirit. They made mixtapes (and pancakes) into the wee hours of the morning. They finished each other's sentences. They just knew. When Aaron was diagnosed with a rare brain cancer, they refused to let it limit their love. They got engaged on Aaron's hospital bed and married after his first surgery. They had a baby when he was on chemo.

"[I]f I have only one audiobook to buy, shouldn't I go for the helpful one?" Let's compare: Those "know-it-all" books tell you how to have a happy, healthy pregnancy. My book mentions a squirrel. Those books tell you how to care for a newborn child. My book describes how tired I am.Those books give you essential information you can use in a life-threatening emergency. My book has some very amusing anecdotes about poop. So really, it's up to you.

Coach Mike Krzyzewski reveals his personal principles for leadership, from dealing with adversity in life or on the basketball court, to taking responsibility for your actions and learning how to trust your heartfelt instincts in times of trouble. Leading with the Heart is about bringing out the best and demanding the best, from ourselves, from those around us, and from any organization that is playing to win.

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.

In this "incendiary" memoir, a woman fights the criminal justice system to release her incarcerated sister after she kills her longtime abuser (Publishers Weekly).

Love for a Deaf Rebel introduces listeners to a vivacious Canadian woman who was born into a silent world and with the foundation for schizophrenia. With pathos and nostalgia, the author recounts his roller-coaster ride with Pearl, a vivacious deaf maverick, who, unknown to him, had paranoid schizophrenia. We follow their encounters through actual notes written before Derrick learns sign language; we go on their motorcycle ride to Mexico and Guatemala; we watch as the happy couple moves to Bowen Island, a British Columbia community with just three paved roads.

Where does a moderately popular internet star who never leaves her house look for potential suitors? Online. Tinder, Bumble, Match.com, OkCupid - I tried them all. My 31-year-old self clicked and swiped her little heart out, leading to more dates than I could count, and more disappointment than I was prepared for. Maybe you can relate. Maybe you know all too well the perils of modern dating.

Like an urban Dian Fossey, Wednesday Martin decodes the primate social behaviors of Upper East Side mothers in a brilliantly original and witty memoir about her adventures assimilating into that most secretive and elite tribe. After marrying a man from the Upper East Side and moving to the neighborhood, Wednesday Martin struggled to fit in. Drawing on her background in anthropology and primatology, she tried looking at her new world through that lens, and suddenly things fell into place.

Held against her will and raped by her 38-year-old boss, 19-year-old Anna tries to make sense of her unbelievable situation. How did an innocent friendship with her boss turn into weeks of forced sex and the inability to leave her oppressor's side? Furthermore, what happens when weeks of rape result in a pregnancy? This true-life novel depicts a graphic and raw recounting of the unimaginable horrors of the Summer of 2010.

As an award-winning stuntwoman, Kimberly Shannon Murphy was intimate with pain. For years, she propelled her body through dangerous spaces—medicating the trauma of her childhood sexual abuse with the adrenaline rush that came from pushing herself to the absolute limit. But as Kimberly learned, no matter how much you suppress your past, it always catches up with you.

You Should Fall for Someone Who Doesn’t You reflects on many facets of love and relationships: everything from the lows of longing for someone who doesn’t want you back to the highs of a relationship finally going right to the serene place in between when you realize you’ve finally healed a broken heart. Filled with insight, wit, truth, and compassion, these essays will take you on a journey that mirrors love itself.

Letters From My Sister began with a simple letter about a bad job interview or a bad hair day, seeking comfort from hundreds of miles away. One letter plus its response became two, two became four, and four became one hundred and twenty over the course of a year in which Faye approaches college graduation in Chicago while Eve establishes her career in New York City.

In this deeply etched and haunting memoir, Vivian Gornick tells the story of her lifelong battle with her mother for independence. Gornick's groundbreaking book confronts what Edna O'Brien has called "the principal crux of female despair": the unacknowledged Oedipal nature of the mother-daughter bond. Born and raised in the Bronx, the daughter of "urban peasants," Gornick grows up in a household dominated by her intelligent but uneducated mother's romantic depression over the early death of her husband.

Being “shook” is more than a rap lyric for Charlamagne; it’s his mission to overcome. While it may seem like he is ahead of the game and should have nothing to worry about, he is still plagued by anxieties - fear of being weak; fear of being a bad dad; fear of being a worse husband; and, ultimately, fear of failure. Shook One chronicles his journey to beat back those fears and empowers you to no longer be held back from your potential.

Liz Murray was born to loving but drug-addicted parents in the Bronx. In school she was taunted for her dirty clothing and lice-infested hair, eventually skipping so many classes that she was put into a girls' home. At age 15, Liz found herself on the streets when her family finally unraveled. She learned to scrape by, foraging for food and riding subways all night to have a warm place to sleep. Then, when Liz's mother died of AIDS, she decided to take control of her own destiny.