Women Memoirs

Jada Pinkett Smith was living what many would view as a fairy-tale of Hollywood success. But appearances can be deceiving, and as she felt more and more separated from her sense of self, emotional turmoil took hold. Sparing no detail, Worthy chronicles her life.

After years of relentlessly racing up the professional ladder, Jennifer Romolini reached the kind of success many crave: a high-profile, C-suite dream job, a book well-received enough that reporters wanted to know the secrets to her success, and a gig traveling around the country giving speeches on “making it.” She had a handsome and clever husband, a precocious child. But beneath this polished surface was a powder keg of unresolved trauma and chronic overwork. It was all about to blow.

It was not easy being a woman of ambition in early 20th-century England, much less one who wished to be a scientist. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin overcame prodigious obstacles to become a woman of many firsts: the first to receive a PhD in astronomy from Radcliffe College, the first promoted to full professor at Harvard, the first to head a department there. And, in what has been called "the most brilliant PhD thesis ever written in astronomy", she was the first to describe what stars are made of.

Jody Wilson-Raybould was raised to be a leader. Inspired by the example of her grandmother, who persevered throughout her life to keep alive the governing traditions of her people, and raised as the daughter of a hereditary chief and Indigenous leader, Wilson-Raybould always knew she would take on leadership roles and responsibilities.

Goldie Hawn's life is an ongoing tableau of stories, and she has a born knack for telling them. In this candid and insightful book, Goldie invites us to join her in a look back at the people, places, and events that have touched her. It is the spiritual journey of a heart in search of enlightenment.

The megatalented creator of Grey's Anatomy and Scandal and executive producer of How to Get Away with Murder chronicles how saying yes for one year changed her life - and how it can change yours, too.

When her husband passed away after a long, trying illness, Annie Dodds was forced to sell almost everything to settle his estate. Homeless, with little money, she wondered if it might be time to pursue a decades-old dream of living a quiet, self-sufficient life alone, off-grid. One day, when her son told her he knew of an old house on 50 acres, she knew it was time.

Not long before her 50birthday, Mackenzie Phillips walked into Los Angeles International Airport. She was on her way to a reunion of One Day at a Time, the hugely popular 70s sitcom on which she once starred as the loveable rebel Julie Cooper. Within minutes, Mackenzie was in handcuffs, arrested for possession of cocaine and heroin. But the star who turned up High on Arrival has finally come back down to earth - to stay.

Gina Frangello spent her early adulthood trying to outrun a youth marked by poverty and violence. Now a long-married wife and devoted mother, the better life she carefully built is emotionally upended by the death of her closest friend. Soon, awakened to fault lines in her troubled marriage, Frangello is caught up in a recklessly passionate affair, leading a double life while continuing to project the image of the perfect family. When her secrets are finally uncovered, both her home and her identity will implode, testing the limits of desire, responsibility, love, and forgiveness.

To achieve an Olympic gold is impressive; to be part of a couple doing this in the same sport is rare; to do it 10 times between you is unprecedented. Britain's most successful female and male Olympians give us the inside track on becoming a champion. Hear their take on how they became the best in the world while finding in each other the perfect partner.

In June of 1968, Irene Izak, a young French teacher from Scranton, Pennsylvania, was pulling an all-nighter on the road toward the promise of a new life in Quebec. The last time she was seen alive was at 2:09 a.m. by a toll collector at Thousand Island Bridge, who claimed Irene was visibly afraid. Less than a half-hour later, Irene was found bludgeoned to death in a ravine bordering DeWolf Point State Park. There were no signs of robbery or sexual assault. For reasons unknown, Irene had been compelled to pull off the interstate and abandon her car, only to be brutally murdered.

Sarah Kurchak is autistic. She hasn’t let that get in the way of pursuing her dream to become a writer, or to find love, but she has let it get in the way of being in the same room with someone chewing food loudly and of cleaning her bathroom sink. In I Overcame My Autism and All I Got Was This Lousy Anxiety Disorder, Kurchak examines the Byzantine steps she took to become “an autistic success story”, how the process almost ruined her life, and how she is now trying to recover.

Delving into the long, extraordinary life of renowned French fashion designer Coco Chanel, Karen Karbo has written a new kind of book, exploring Chanel’s philosophy on a range of universal themes—from style to passion, from money and success to femininity and living life on your own terms.

In a coming-of-age memoir about a woman who loved being a girl and what made her finally grow up, Kelly Corrigan brilliantly explores the "middle place" between childhood and adulthood and how one woman made the leap to the other side.

I Am, I Am, I Am is Maggie O'Farrell's astonishing memoir of the near-death experiences that have punctuated and defined her life. The childhood illness that left her bedridden for a year, which she was not expected to survive. A teenage yearning to escape that nearly ended in disaster. An encounter with a disturbed man on a remote path. And, most terrifying of all, an ongoing, daily struggle to protect her daughter - for whom this book was written - from a condition that leaves her unimaginably vulnerable to life's myriad dangers.

Jennifer McGaha never expected to own a goat named Merle, or to be rescuing opossums from her barn and calling it "date night." When Jennifer discovered that she and her husband owed back taxes - a lot of back taxes - her world changed. Now desperate to save money, they foreclosed on their beloved suburban home and moved their family to a 100-year-old cabin in a North Carolina holler. Soon enough, Jennifer's life began to more closely resemble the lives of her Appalachian ancestors than the life she experienced in her middle class upbringing.

"La femme en moi" est un témoignage poignant et courageux, une histoire de liberté, de célébrité, de maternité, de survie, de foi et d’espoir. En juin 2021, le monde entier a pu entendre Britney Spears s’exprimer sur sa mise sous tutelle lors de son audience publique. Son intervention a fait bouger les lignes. En faisant entendre sa voix — et sa vérité —, elle a non seulement changé sa vie mais aussi celle de nombreuses personnes. "La femme en moi" dévoile pour la première fois l’incroyable odyssée et la force inouïe d’une des plus grandes stars de la pop de tous les temps.

In 1914 collisions between motor cars and horse-drawn carriages are an everyday occurrence on the streets of Paterson, New Jersey. But when an out-of-control driver smashes into a buggy driven by Constance, Norma, and Fleurette Kopp, their lives change forever. Constance, the oldest, demands payment for the damages but quickly realizes that she is dealing with a madman.

Hillary Clinton is running for president as an "advocate of women and girls", but there is another shocking side to her story that has been carefully covered up - until now. This stunning exposé reveals for the first time how Bill and Hillary Clinton systematically abused women and others - sexually, physically, and psychologically - in their scramble for power and wealth.

“Any story that starts will also end.” As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart.