Download or read book Let s Take the Long Way Home written by Gail Caldwell and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2011-08-09 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER They met over their dogs. Gail Caldwell and Caroline Knapp (author of Drinking: A Love Story) became best friends, talking about everything from their love of books and their shared history of a struggle with alcohol to their relationships with men. Walking the woods of New England and rowing on the Charles River, these two private, self-reliant women created an attachment more profound than either of them could ever have foreseen. Then, several years into this remarkable connection, Knapp was diagnosed with cancer. With her signature exquisite prose, Caldwell mines the deepest levels of devotion, and courage in this gorgeous memoir about treasuring a best friend, and coming of age in midlife. Let’s Take the Long Way Home is a celebration of the profound transformations that come from intimate connection—and it affirms, once again, why Gail Caldwell is recognized as one of our bravest and most honest literary voices.

Download or read book Stephen Hawking written by Leonard Mlodinow and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2020 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An intimate and inspirational exploration of Stephen Hawking--the man, the friend, and the physicist. Stephen Hawking was one of the most famous and influential physicists in the world. He left a mark in our culture that touched the lives of millions. His books have inspired countless scientists-to-be, and his research on the laws of black holes and the origin of the universe charted new territory. Recalling his nearly two-decades as a friend and collaborator with Stephen Hawking, Leonard Mlodinow brings a complex man into focus like no one has before. He introduces us to Hawking the colleague, for whom no detail is too minor to get right, a challenge for a man who could only type one word per minute. We meet Hawking the friend, who creates such strong connections with those around him that he can communicate powerfully with just the raise of an eyebrow. We witness Hawking the genius, who, against all odds, flourishes after he is diagnosed with ALS and pours his mind into uncovering the mysteries of the universe. Brilliant, impish, and kind, Hawking endeared himself to almost everyone he came into contact with. This beautiful portrait is inpirational and is sure to stick with you long after you've read it.

Download or read book What Remains written by Carole Radziwill and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-06-05 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author traces her life and marriage to Anthony Radziwill, President Kennedy's nephew, in an account that describes her work as a journalist, her friendship with JFK, Jr., and his wife, and her husband's struggle with terminal cancer.

Download or read book Dinners with Ruth written by Nina Totenberg and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2024-03-05 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg examines her life, career, and female colleagues and relatives, focusing on her 50-year friendship with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Download or read book The Friend National Book Award Winner written by Sigrid Nunez and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-02-06 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING NAOMI WATTS “A beautiful book . . . a world of insight into death, grief, art, and love.” —Wall Street Journal “A penetrating, moving meditation on loss, comfort, memory . . . Nunez has a wry, withering wit.” —NPR “Dry, allusive and charming . . . the comedy here writes itself.” —The New York Times The New York Times bestselling story of love, friendship, grief, healing, and the magical bond between a woman and her dog. When a woman unexpectedly loses her lifelong best friend and mentor, she finds herself burdened with the unwanted dog he has left behind. Her own battle against grief is intensified by the mute suffering of the dog, a huge Great Dane traumatized by the inexplicable disappearance of its master, and by the threat of eviction: dogs are prohibited in her apartment building. While others worry that grief has made her a victim of magical thinking, the woman refuses to be separated from the dog except for brief periods of time. Isolated from the rest of the world, increasingly obsessed with the dog's care, determined to read its mind and fathom its heart, she comes dangerously close to unraveling. But while troubles abound, rich and surprising rewards lie in store for both of them. Elegiac and searching, The Friend is both a meditation on loss and a celebration of human-canine devotion.

Download or read book The Narrow Door written by Paul Lisicky and published by Graywolf Press. This book was released on 2016-01-19 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Narrow Door, Paul Lisicky creates a compelling collage of scenes and images drawn from two long-term relationships, one with a woman novelist and the other with his ex-husband, a poet. The contours of these relationships shift constantly. Denise and Paul, stretched by the demands of their writing lives, drift apart, and Paul's romance begins to falter. And the world around them is frail: environmental catastrophes like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, natural disasters like the earthquake in Haiti, and local disturbances make an unsettling backdrop to the pressing concerns of Denise's cancer diagnosis and Paul's impending breakup. Lisicky's compassionate heart and resilience seem all the stronger in the face of such searing losses. His survival--hard-won, unsentimental, authentic--proves that in turning toward loss, we embrace life.

Download or read book The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap written by Wendy Welch and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2012-10-02 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An inspiring true story about losing your place, finding your purpose, and building a community one book at a time. Wendy Welch and her husband had always dreamed of owning a bookstore, so when they left their high-octane jobs for a simpler life in an Appalachian coal town, they seized an unexpected opportunity to pursue thier dream. The only problems? A declining U.S. economy, a small town with no industry, and the advent of the e-book. They also had no idea how to run a bookstore. Against all odds, but with optimism, the help of their Virginian mountain community, and an abiding love for books, they succeeded in establishing more than a thriving business - they built a community. The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap is the little bookstore that could: how two people, two cats, two dogs, and thirty-eight thousand books helped a small town find its heart. It is a story about people and books, and how together they create community.

Download or read book Big Friendship written by Aminatou Sow and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-07-14 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A close friendship is one of the most influential and important relationships a human life can contain. Anyone will tell you that! But for all the rosy sentiments surrounding friendship, most people don’t talk much about what it really takes to stay close for the long haul. Now two friends, Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman, tell the story of their equally messy and life-affirming Big Friendship in this honest and hilarious book that chronicles their first decade in one another’s lives. As the hosts of the hit podcast Call Your Girlfriend, they’ve become known for frank and intimate conversations. In this book, they bring that energy to their own friendship—its joys and its pitfalls. Aminatou and Ann define Big Friendship as a strong, significant bond that transcends life phases, geographical locations, and emotional shifts. And they should know: the two have had moments of charmed bliss and deep frustration, of profound connection and gut-wrenching alienation. They have weathered life-threatening health scares, getting fired from their dream jobs, and one unfortunate Thanksgiving dinner eaten in a car in a parking lot in Rancho Cucamonga. Through interviews with friends and experts, they have come to understand that their struggles are not unique. And that the most important part of a Big Friendship is making the decision to invest in one another again and again. An inspiring and entertaining testament to the power of society’s most underappreciated relationship, Big Friendship will invite you to think about how your own bonds are formed, challenged, and preserved. It is a call to value your friendships in all of their complexity. Actively choose them. And, sometimes, fight for them.

Download or read book The Hot One written by Carolyn Murnick and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-08 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Subtitle in pre-publication: A memoir of friendship, sex, and murder in the Hollywood Hills.

Download or read book These Walls Between Us written by Wendy Sanford and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-10-05 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From an author of the best-selling women’s health classic Our Bodies, Ourselves comes a bracingly forthright memoir about a life-long friendship across racial and class divides. A white woman’s necessary learning, and a Black woman’s complex evolution, make These Walls Between Us a “tender, honest, cringeworthy and powerful read.” (Debby Irving, author, Waking Up White.) In the mid-1950s, a fifteen-year-old African American teenager named Mary White (now Mary Norman) traveled north from Virginia to work for twelve-year-old Wendy Sanford’s family as a live-in domestic for their summer vacation by a remote New England beach. Over the years, Wendy's family came to depend on Mary’s skilled service—and each summer, Mary endured the extreme loneliness of their elite white beachside retreat in order to support her family. As the Black “help” and the privileged white daughter, Mary and Wendy were not slated for friendship. But years later—each divorced, each a single parent, Mary now a rising officer in corrections and Wendy a feminist health activist—they began to walk the beach together after dark, talking about their children and their work, and a friendship began to grow. Based on decades’ worth of visits, phone calls, letters, and texts between Mary and Wendy, These Walls Between Us chronicles the two women’s friendship, with a focus on what Wendy characterizes as her “oft-stumbling efforts, as a white woman, to see Mary more fully and to become a more dependable friend.” The book examines obstacles created by Wendy’s upbringing in a narrow, white, upper-class world; reveals realities of domestic service rarely acknowledged by white employers; and draws on classic works by the African American writers whose work informed and challenged Wendy along the way. Though Wendy is the work’s primary author, Mary read and commented on every draft—and together, the two friends hope their story will incite and support white readers to become more informed and accountable friends across the racial divides created by white supremacy and to become active in the ongoing movement for racial justice.

Download or read book How to be Loved written by Eva Hagberg and published by Ecco Press. This book was released on 2019 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hagberg Fisher spent her lonely youth looking everywhere for connection: drugs, alcohol, therapists, boyfriends, girlfriends. Sometimes she found it... temporarily. Then, at age thirty, an undiscovered mass in her brain ruptured, and so did her life. When her illness hit a critical stage, it forced her to finally admit the long-suppressed truth: she was vulnerable, she needed help, and she needed true friendship for the first time. Here she explores the isolation so many of us feel despite living in an age of constant connectivity, and writes about the friends who taught her to grow up and open her heart. -- adapted from jacket

Download or read book Friendship Matters written by Psy D Sanda Neshin Bernstein and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-01-27 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Friendships offer us room for personal growth, emotional support, and plenty of fun. Explore the meaning of friendship in a personal case study of two women who've been friends for years and have worked at having an enriching relationship that helps them through the many challenges of life. Authors Wendy Satin Rapaport and Sanda Neshin Bernstein are both clinical psychologists. In Friendship Matters, they use the example of their own friendship to explore the power of this connection. Friendship takes work, but it should be celebrated for the ways it can improve our lives and help us grow. Close friends are lifelines-the people who help us through the worst days and who cheer us on during the best. We can learn to nurture our friendships most effectively by keeping a few principles in mind. For example, though similarities are naturally comforting, it is also important to respect and celebrate differences because these are rich opportunities to learn. Anchored by a dialogue between these two close friends, this wisdom-filled guide shows us how to have more meaningful relationships. With good friends by our side, anything is possible.

Download or read book Friends Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing written by Matthew Perry and published by Headline Book Publishing. This book was released on 2024-03-14 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'There's never been a more honest or raw memoir ... and it may just save lives' Daily Mail 'Funny, fascinating, compelling ... also a wonderful read for fans of Friends' The Times The beloved star of Friends takes us behind the scenes of the hit sitcom and his struggles with addiction in this candid, funny, and revelatory memoir that delivers a powerful message of hope and persistence. This is the riveting story of acclaimed actor Matthew Perry, who takes us along on his journey from childhood ambition to fame to addiction and recovery in the aftermath of a life-threatening health scare. Before the frequent hospital visits and stints in rehab, there was five-year-old Matthew, who travelled from Montreal to Los Angeles, shuffling between his separated parents; fourteen-year-old Matthew, who was a nationally ranked tennis star in Canada; twenty-four-year-old Matthew, who nabbed a coveted role as a lead cast member on the talked-about pilot then called Friends Like Us. . . and so much more. In an extraordinary story that only he could tell - and in the heartfelt, hilarious, and warmly familiar way only he could tell it - Matthew Perry lays bare the fractured family that raised him (and also left him to his own devices), the desire for recognition that drove him to fame, and the void inside him that could not be filled even by his greatest dreams coming true. But he also details the peace he's found in sobriety and how he feels about the ubiquity of Friends, sharing stories about his castmates and other stars he met along the way. Frank, self-aware, and with his trademark humour, Perry vividly depicts his lifelong battle with addiction and what fuelled it despite seemingly having it all. Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing is an unforgettable memoir that is both intimate and eye-opening - as well as a hand extended to anyone struggling with sobriety. Unflinchingly honest, moving, and uproariously funny, this is the book fans have been waiting for. 'An unflinching and often harrowing must-read for 90s pop culture fans' Guardian 'Written with Chandler's trademark sarcasm and self-deprecation' Telegraph 'A hopeful read ... I started to think of [it] not as a celebrity memoir about addiction, but as an addiction memoir written by a man who understands his own history through the prism of showbiz' Independent

Download or read book The Mentor written by Jay Quinn and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-04-23 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examine a moving, personal narrative about growing up gay in the south! Students, teachers, and anyone interested in gay studies and experiences will find that The Mentor: A Memoir of Friendship and Gay Identity (a 2001 Lambda Literary Foundation Gay Male Biography/Autobiography Award finalist) delivers a captivating and honest look into the challenges of growing up gay through the context of firsthand experiences, revelations, and realizations. This unique book is an intelligent and personal narrative that considers the social, religious, and emotional aspects of what it is like to grow up as a gay male in the south and examines the enormous social changes regarding homosexuality that have taken place in America during the last half of the century. Written to reveal the importance of the author's mentor in helping him form his self-identity and educating him about being gay, this book challenges the stereotypical idea that, unlike heterosexuals, gay men are not able to form nurturing, fulfilling bonds between themselves. The Mentor delivers an inspiring story about accepting and understanding your sexuality with the help and guidance of other men who have traveled the road to a successful gay identity. This unique book offers the courage, strength, and support of a mentor to help guide you through the trials that many young gay men experience, such as: recognizing the possibilities of exploitation by older gay men due to a lack of emotional and social experience creating a loyal relationship with a man that does not include sex but which satisfies emotional needs that many gay men need and long for discovering the importance of a mentor to gay youths, since there are few homosexual role models to learn from Sincere and well-written, The Mentor provides insight into everything from the author's experience with intolerance of homosexuality by certain religions to struggles with fidelity and infidelity, illustrating the difficult yet universal challenges of life relationships. The Mentor contains suggestions that will help you recognize that your feelings of desire and love and your quest for human connection as a gay man are not the distorted reflections of a heterosexual image, but a healthy gay identity. With this unique book, you will discover how to make the shift from confusion to full acceptance of your gay identity, you will understand that you are not alone, and perhaps you will be encouraged to pass on the legacy of a mentor to other young gay men.

Download or read book My Glory Was I Had Such Friends written by Amy Silverstein and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-06-27 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this moving memoir about the power of friendship and the resilience of the human spirit, Amy Silverstein tells the story of the extraordinary group of women who supported her as she waited on the precipice for a life-saving heart transplant. Nearly twenty-six years after receiving her first heart transplant, Amy Silverstein’s donor heart plummeted into failure. If she wanted to live, she had to take on the grueling quest for a new heart—immediately. A shot at survival meant uprooting her life and moving across the country to California. When her friends heard of her plans, there was only one reaction: “I’m there.” Nine remarkable women—Joy, Jill, Leja, Jody, Lauren, Robin, Valerie, Ann, and Jane—put demanding jobs and pressing family obligations on hold to fly across the country and be by Amy’s side. Creating a calendar spreadsheet, the women—some of them strangers to one another—passed the baton of friendship, one to the next, and headed straight and strong into the battle to help save Amy’s life. Empowered by the kind of empathy that can only grow with age, these women, each knowing Amy from different stages of her life, banded together to provide her with something that medicine alone could not. Sleeping on a cot beside her bed, they rubbed her back and feet when the pain was unbearable, adorned her room with death-distracting decorations, and engaged in their “best talks ever.” They saw the true measure of their friend’s strength, and they each responded in kind. My Glory Was I Had Such Friends is a tribute to these women and the intense hours they spent together—hours of heightened emotion and self-awareness, where everything was laid bare. Candid and heartrending, this once-in-a-lifetime story of connection and empathy is a powerful reminder of the ultimate importance of “showing up” for those we love.

Download or read book Truth Beauty written by Ann Patchett and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A loving testament to the work and reward of the best friendships, the kind where your arms can’t distinguish burden from embrace.” — People New York Times Bestselling author Ann Patchett’s first work of nonfiction chronicling her decades-long friendship with the critically acclaimed and recently deceased author, Lucy Grealy. Ann Patchett and the late Lucy Grealy met in college in 1981, and, after enrolling in the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, began a friendship that would be as defining to both of their lives as their work. In Gealy's critically acclaimed and hugely successful memoir, Autobiography of a Face, she wrote about losing part of her jaw to childhood cancer, years of chemotherapy and radiation, and endless reconstructive surgeries. In Truth & Beauty, the story isn't Lucy's life or Ann's life, but the parts of their lives they shared together. This is a portrait of unwavering commitment that spans twenty years, from the long cold winters of the Midwest, to surgical wards, to book parties in New York. Through love, fame, drugs, and despair, this is what it means to be part of two lives that are intertwined...and what happens when one is left behind. This is a tender, brutal book about loving the person we cannot save. It is about loyalty and being uplifted by the sheer effervescence of someone who knew how to live life to the fullest.

Download or read book A Memoir of Friendship written by Carol Shields and published by Viking. This book was released on 2007 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Memoir of Friendship is a rich collection of the letters Shields and Howard exchanged from 1975 to 2003. Carol Shields took her place on the world literary stage when she won the Pulitzer Prize for The Stone Diaries. Blanche Howard, 22 years older than Carol and herself a published, award-winning author, became Shields's mentor and confidante.Written with humour and insight, this window into their daily lives explores their friendship, their disappointment and joys, their ambitions, and their thoughts on other writers and the craft of writing.