Personal Memoirs Women

On the first day of high school, Kristina Ellis' mom - a single, working mother who lost her husband to cancer - informed her that she could not financially support her after graduation. Kristina would need to find her own way to pay for college. As an average student with less-than-impressive test scores, Kristina realized she would have to sell herself to scholarship committees if she wanted to stand out. That's when she devised the plan that led to her receiving over $500,000 in scholarships.

When her once-glamorous and witty novelist-mother got Alzheimer's, Eleanor Cooney moved her from her beloved Connecticut home to California in order to care for her. In tense, searing prose, punctuated with the blackest of humor, Cooney documents the slow erosion of her mother's mind, the powerful bond the two shared, and her own descent into drink and despair.

When Lu Spinney's 29-year-old son, Miles, flies up on his snowboard, "he knows he is not in control as he is taken by force up the ramp," writes his mother, "skewing sideways as his board clips the edge and then he is hurtling, spinning up, up into the free blue sky ahead.... " He lands hard on the ice and falls into a coma. Thus begins the erratic loss - Miles first in a coma and then trapped in a fluctuating state of minimal consciousness - that unravels over the next five years.

In the winter of 2020, Annabel Abbs-Streets experienced a series of losses: her stepfather, then father, and finally her family’s puppy. Unmoored by grief, she couldn’t sleep. But she discovered something surprising: during her wakeful nights, the darkness became a place of sanctuary, filled with creativity, reflection, and wonder. And once she stopped fighting her insomnia, Annabel tapped into something mysterious and beguiling: her Night Self.

Like so many American women, Shauna M. Ahern spent decades feeling not good enough about her body, about money, and about her worth in this culture. For a decade, with the help of her husband, she ran a successful food blog, wrote award-winning cookbooks, and raised two children. In the midst of this, at age 48, she suffered a mini-stroke. Tests revealed she would recover fully, but when her doctor impressed upon her that emotional stress can cause physical damage, she dove deep inside herself to understand and let go of a lifetime of damaging patterns of thought.

For more than two years, BBC Radio 4's The Archers ran a disturbing storyline centred on Helen Tichener's abuse at the hands of her husband Rob. Not the kind of abuse that leaves a bruise, but the sort of coercive control that breaks your spirit and makes it almost impossible to walk away. As she listened to the unfolding story, Helen Walmsley-Johnson was forced to confront her own agonising past. Helen's first husband controlled her life, from the people she saw to what was in her bank account.

She was beautiful, talented, irascible, ruthless, vulnerable, and a true Hollywood legend. From abused child to dance-hall entertainer to silent-film actress, she went on to become one of Hollywood's screen goddesses with films such as Possessed opposite Clark Gable, with whom she began a torrid off-screen affair, Grand Hotel, and Mildred Pierce, her Academy Award-winning film.

As a 12-year-old girl, Maria Housden's vision of a happy future included everything that society expects girls to yearn for: a home, a husband, and, of course, children. Life had other plans.

Prolific cookbook author Brigit Binns's coming-of-age memoir—costarring her alcoholic actor father Edward Binns and glamorous but viciously smart narcissistic mother—reveals how simultaneous privilege and profound neglect lead Brigit to seek comfort in the kitchen, eventually allowing her to find some sense of self-worth. Peppered with humor and seasoned with optimism, Brigit's story is an entertaining tribute to female resilience.

USA Today and New York Times best-selling author Karen Kingsbury is beloved across the nation for her moving tales of faith and redemption. In A Treasury of Miracles for Women, Kingsbury recounts uplifting true stories in which mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters are touched by God’s presence in extraordinary ways.

This book honors all the women who ride motorcycles and inspires others with rebel souls to do the same. Women Who Ride is a delightful compilation by, and for, women motorcycle riders, filled with true stories from both youngsters and those with a lifetime of riding experience.

Soraya was just 15 when she was given the honor of presenting a bouquet of flowers to Colonel Gaddafi, the "Guide", on a visit he was making to her school the following week. This one meeting, a presentation of flowers, a pat on the head from Gaddafi, changed Soraya’s life forever. Soon afterwards, she was summoned to Bab al-Azizia, Gaddafi’s palatial compound near Tripoli, where she joined a number of young women who were violently abused, raped and degraded by Gaddafi.

Katie Piper's extraordinary story of strength and recovery after a brutal rape and acid attack has captivated Britain. In this powerful sequel to her bestselling memoir, Katie tells the remarkable story of what's happened in the years since she bravely left the safety of her parents' home. With her trademark honesty, humour and heartfelt emotion, Katie shares the highs and lows she has faced as her life changed in ways she never thought possible.

A wide range of women—actors, athletes, academics, CEOs, writers, small-business owners, birth workers, physicians, and activists—share their experiences of becoming mothers in this multifaceted, moving, and revealing collection.

CEO of Hint, Inc., and author Kara Goldin turned her unsweetened flavored water into one of the most successful beverage businesses of our time. As she started to achieve her goals, Kara found herself being called “fearless”, “confident” and even “unstoppable”, but nothing could be further from the truth. In Undaunted, she shares real stories about her own fears and doubts, the challenges she encountered and what she did to overcome them to eventually build a great business and a life she loves.

When Meaghan O'Connell got accidentally pregnant in her twenties and decided to keep the baby, she realized that the book she needed - a brutally honest, agenda-free reckoning with the emotional and existential impact of motherhood - didn't exist. So she decided to write it herself. And Now We Have Everything is O'Connell's exploration of the cataclysmic, impossible-to-prepare-for experience of becoming a mother. With her dark humor and hair-trigger B.S. detector, O'Connell addresses the pervasive imposter syndrome that comes with unplanned pregnancy, among other issues.

In A Coat of Yellow Paint, Naomi shares new stories, time-stamped as intimate and vulnerable essays, exploring her faith, personal heartaches, challenges balancing a home life with career, motherhood, and her struggles with infertility. Along the way, Naomi illustrates the urgency of celebrating life’s most important things - family, faith, friendship, and an upright piano painted bright yellow - ignoring the critics.

In this hilarious and intimate essay collection, Alyssa navigates life as a wild-hearted woman and her thrilling career as a sex, relationship, and celebrity writer in New York City. From double-booking an interview with Sarah Jessica Parker and an abortion appointment and unsuccessfully quitting sex and men entirely to have a baby via an anonymous sperm donor, Alyssa's essays paint a deeply genuine, romantic, and uproarious portrait of a woman who craves both love and lust, and refuses to settle or sacrifice her fierce inner-spirit, sometimes to her own regret and detriment.

Spending the night in juvie wasn't the worst thing to happen to seven-year-old Teresa that summer. When her much-anticipated cross-country vacation turns to abduction, Teresa is forced to care for her mother, sister, and twin brothers. Homeless, abused, and afraid in the slums of San Francisco's Tenderloin District, Teresa finds joy in her adventures while fantasizing of a better life. Keeping this dream alive throughout her childhood is what drives her to end the cycle of abuse and poverty.

Finally, a self-help book for the millennial party girl who hates bullshit advice from "experts" who know nothing about the trauma of drinking and sex, the acute pressure of keeping up with the rest of the Adderall poppin' world, and the insecurity that comes along with feeling like you have to be thin and gorgeous and sparkly in order to be seen.