Personal Memoirs Women

After failing at 22 other jobs, Barbara Corcoran borrowed $1,000 from her boyfriend, quit her job as a diner waitress, and started a tiny real estate office in New York City. Using 24 unconventional lessons learned from her mom, Barbara built that tiny company into a $4 billion business, and today she's richer than her wildest childhood dreams.

A dramatic and remarkable narrative of an extraordinary teacher's determination, from the author of the Sunday Times bestsellers The Tiger's Child and One Child. Torey Hayden faced six emotionally troubled kids no other teacher could handle - three recent arrivals from battle-torn Northern Ireland, badly traumatized by the horrors of war; an eleven-year-old boy, who only knew life inside an institution; an excitable girl, aggressive and sexually precocious at the age of eight; and seven-year-old Leslie, perhaps the most hopeless of all, unresponsive and unable to speak.

When Sara Zaske moved from Oregon to Berlin with her husband and toddler, she knew the transition would be challenging, especially when she became pregnant with her second child. She was surprised to discover that German parents give their children a great deal of freedom - much more than Americans. In Berlin, kids walk to school by themselves, ride the subway alone, cut food with sharp knives, and even play with fire. German parents did not share her fears, and their children were thriving.

In April 2002, Janine Latus' youngest sister, Amy, wrote a note and taped it to the inside of her desk drawer. "Today Ron Ball and I are romantically involved", it read, "but I fear I have placed myself at risk in a variety of ways. Based on his criminal past, writing this out just seems like the smart thing to do. If I am missing or dead this obviously has not protected me...."

An exquisite and inspiring memoir about one mother's unimaginable choice in the face of oppression and abuse in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Devastating in its power, Dancing in the Mosque is a mother's searing letter to a son she was forced to leave behind. In telling her story—and that of Afghan women—Homeira challenges you to reconsider the meaning of motherhood, sacrifice, and survival. Her story asks you to consider the lengths you would go to protect yourself, your family, and your dignity.

As an incredible glass-ceiling breaker and the woman who brought timeless television shows like The Game and Being Mary Jane to cable, Debra Lee has been the visionary responsible for elevating Black images and storytelling for decades. Now she’s telling her own story, in an intimate and eye-opening tale about the triumphant and tricky moments of a career in entertainment.

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.

The shocking first true account from one of the young girls who lived through and survived the Rotherham sex abuse scandal. In the summer of 2014, the Rotherham sex abuse scandal sent shockwaves through the nation. A report revealed that since the 1990s, up to 1,400 young girls in the town had been regularly abused by sex gangs, predominantly comprised of Pakistani men.

Claire Dederer is a happily married mother of two, ages nine and 12, when she suddenly finds herself totally despondent and, simultaneously, suffering through a kind of erotic reawakening. This exuberant memoir shifts between her present experience as a middle-aged mom in the grip of mysterious new hungers and herself as a teenager - when she last experienced life with such heightened sensitivity and longing.

An inspiring and revealing essay about motherhood, self-acceptance, and overcoming the fears that hold you back by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Open Book.

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.

An inspirational, practical guide to success in business and life learned through the opportunities and challenges of growing up as the daughter of NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt, Sr., and becoming one of the most influential women in professional sports. A successful businesswoman shares her story of growing up in the world of NASCAR and the lessons she learned along the way.

During her career in sports broadcasting, Guerrero covered Super Bowls, Worlds Series, NBA Finals, and interviewed sports superstars. From the outside it seemed glamourous, but often she was miserable, told to smile more, argue less, and show a lot of leg and cleavage. Colleagues would joke—sometimes on national TV—that she clinched big interviews because of sexual acts rather than talent. She made a mistake on air during the opening game on Monday Night Football that cost her her sportscasting career... and almost her life.

Alexandra Fuller won worldwide attention, popular acclaim, and critical accolades for her memoir of her childhood in Africa, Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight. This engaging follow-up explores Fuller’s parents’ childhoods and charts the trajectories of their lives through all the British couple’s experiences in war-torn Africa. With the same sharply etched narrative that has earned the author such immense praise, Fuller expands on and offers new insights into her family’s remarkable trials and successes.

When Özlem Cekic became the first Muslim MP in the Danish Parliament, her email inbox was inundated with hate mail and threats, and her gut reaction was to delete and ignore each abusive message. But eventually, she decided to take a risk. She started replying to each message and inviting the senders to meet and engage in dialogue over coffee. And with time, understanding, and patience, she began to make a difference, both in the lives of those who hated her before even meeting her, and in her own life.

If Crazy Rich Asians and a Greek tragedy had a literary offspring, it would be the spitting image of Why Should Guys Have All the Fun? The true story of resolute immigration lawyer and activist Loida Lewis, Why Should Guys Have All the Fun? begins with Loida's adventure-packed Philippine upbringing. A torrid love affair with brilliant, irascible financier Reginald Lewis follows, as does regal living in Manhattan and Paris, and gut-wrenching loss, all before Loida shockingly commandeers a multibillion-dollar, multinational conglomerate and leads it with aplomb.

When Christa Brown first spoke out about the sexual abuse she endured in her Texas childhood church, she never imagined it would expose the ethical chasm at the core of the Southern Baptist Convention: male religious leaders so focused on institutional protection that they sacrifice the safety of children. A book about speaking out and speaking up, Baptistland weaves together Christa’s revealing story of hope amid Southern patriarchy and religious fundamentalism.

Forced by her father to marry a man three times her age, young Nujood Ali was sent away from her parents and beloved sisters and made to live with her husband and his family in an isolated village in rural Yemen. There she suffered daily from physical and emotional abuse by her mother-in-law and nightly at the rough hands of her spouse. Flouting his oath to wait to have sexual relations with Nujood until she was no longer a child, he took her virginity on their wedding night.

What is a “normal family,” and how do you go about making one? Chrysta Bilton’s magnetic, larger-than-life mother, Debra, yearned to have a child, but as a single gay woman in 1980s California, she had few options. Until one day, while getting her hair done in a Beverly Hills salon, she met a man and instantly knew he was the one she’d been looking for. Beautiful, athletic, artistic, and from a well-to-do family, Jeffrey Harrison appeared to be Debra’s ideal sperm donor.

Just when Stacy Morrison thought she had it all, her husband of 10 years announced that he wanted a divorce. She was left alone with a new house that needed lots of work, a new baby who needed lots of attention, and a new job in the high-pressure world of New York publishing. Morrison had never been one to believe in fairy tales. As far as she was concerned, happy endings were the product of the kind of ambition and hard work that had propelled her to the top of her profession.