Download or read book This Is Not My Life written by Diane Schoemperlen and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-04-23 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Governor General’s Award winning author of Forms of Devotion, Our Lady of the Lost and Found and By the Book “Never once in my life had I dreamed of being in bed with a convicted killer.” For almost six turbulent years, award-winning writer Diane Schoemperlen was involved with a prison inmate serving a life sentence for second-degree murder. The relationship surprised no one more than her. How do you fall in love with a man with a violent past? How do you date someone who is in prison? This Is Not My Life is the story of the romance between Diane and Shane—how they met and fell in love, how they navigated passes and parole and the obstacles facing a long-term prisoner attempting to return to society, and how, eventually, things fell apart. While no relationship takes place in a vacuum, this is never more true than when that relationship is with a federal inmate. In this candid, often wry, sometimes disturbing memoir, Schoemperlen takes us inside this complex and difficult relationship as she journeys through the prison system with Shane. Not only did this relationship enlarge her capacity for both empathy and compassion, but it also forced her to more deeply examine herself.

Download or read book An Improvised Life written by Alan Arkin and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 2011-03-01 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a manner that is direct, down-to-earth, accessible, and articulate, Academy Award-winner (Little Miss Sunshine, Argo, The Kominsky Method) Alan Arkin reveals insights not only about himself (and his audience and students), but also truths for the rest of us about work, relationships, and sense of self. Alan Arkin knew he was going to be an actor from the age of five: "Every film I saw, every play, every piece of music fed an unquenchable need to turn myself into something other than what I was." An Improvised Life is the Oscar winner's wise and unpretentious recollection of the process--artistic and personal--of becoming an actor, and a revealing look into the creative mind of one of the best practitioners on stage or screen.

Download or read book Life s Work written by David Milch and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2023-09-12 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The creator of Deadwood and NYPD Blue reflects on his tumultuous life, driven by a nearly insatiable creative energy and a matching penchant for self-destruction. Life’s Work is a profound memoir from a brilliant mind taking stock as Alzheimer’s loosens his hold on his own past. “This is David Milch’s farewell, and it will rock you.”—Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: NPR, USA Today, Kirkus Reviews “I’m on a boat sailing to some island where I don’t know anybody. A boat someone is operating and we aren’t in touch.” So begins David Milch’s urgent accounting of his increasingly strange present and often painful past. From the start, Milch’s life seems destined to echo that of his father, a successful if drug-addicted surgeon. Almost every achievement is accompanied by an act of self-immolation, but the deepest sadnesses also contain moments of grace. Betting on racehorses and stealing booze at eight years old, mentored by Robert Penn Warren and excoriated by Richard Yates at twenty-one, Milch never did anything by half. He got into Yale Law School only to be expelled for shooting out streetlights with a shotgun. He paused his studies at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop to manufacture acid in Cuernavaca. He created and wrote some of the most lauded television series of all time, made a family, and pursued sobriety, then lost his fortune betting horses just as his father had taught him. Like Milch’s best screenwriting, Life’s Work explores how chance encounters, self-deception, and luck shape the people we become, and wrestles with what it means to have felt and caused pain, even and especially with those we love, and how you keep living. It is both a master class on Milch’s unique creative process, and a distinctive, revelatory memoir from one of the great American writers, in what may be his final dispatch to us all.

Download or read book Your Fully Charged Life written by Meaghan B Murphy and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-02-23 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A high-energy guide to living with presence, optimism, and joy--one yay at a time! Ever wish you were one of those upbeat, positive people who embrace every day with a can-do mindset that motivates others and simply makes life more fun? Longtime magazine editor Meaghan B Murphy is one of those high-energy people--and she's here to share her secrets for finding more yay every day. Your Fully Charged Life is Murphy's practical guide to bringing your best self to every moment, even when the pressures of daily life leave you feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and wallowing in negative thoughts (and a pint of your favorite gelato). Spanning health, work, family time, and more, this book reveals small changes in outlook and habits that yield big results, without ever sacrificing who you are. Informed by the latest research in neuroscience, positive psychology, and inspiring examples of women and men who live fully charged every day, the book presents simple ways to: • cultivate gratitude--and pass it along • make meaningful connections with the people around you • learn to say no--so you can fill your days with things that matter to you most • recharge when you need it • spread the positive charge to others to make the world a happier, healthier place Going beyond platitudes and shallow Insta-inspiration, this inspiring and empowering book provides a blueprint for feeling less stressed and genuinely making the most of your every day.

Download or read book Your Life Is a Book And It s Time to Write It written by Kevin Quirk and published by Hillcrest Publishing Group. This book was released on 2011-04 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do you have a story that you just have to tell? Do you seek to preserve your life history as a gift for loved ones, or to pay tribute to those who have meant the most to you? Do you yearn to write about one major life experience to inspire others? You're not alone. The desire to write our life story is a timeless, universal urge. Somewhere inside us we know that writing a book about our life will touch those we love, while enriching our lives in today's cell phone-laptop lifestyle. Life is a book, and women and men from 19 to 99 are hearing the call to write it. Someone is waiting to hear you tell your life story: who you are, how you've lived, what you've learned. They want to hear all the stories that have shaped your life. Your Life Is a Book - And It's Time to Write It! An A-to-Z Guide to Help Anyone Write Their Life Story will take you on the journey of creating your memoir, autobiography, or life story. It doesn't matter how old or how young you are, or whether you've written a lot, a little, or not at all. Through practical tools, lively writing exercises, engaging questions, and helpful illustrations, you'll receive the guidance and encouragement you need from an expert life-writing teacher. Start writing your life story today! Kevin Quirk, M.A., has been helping ordinary people of all ages and backgrounds write their life stories as ghostwriter, personal historian, and Writing Your Life Story teacher since 1998. A former journalist and founder of Life Is a Book, he is coauthor of Brace for Impact: Miracle on the Hudson Survivors Share Their Stories of Near Death and Hope for New Life.

Download or read book Writing a Life written by Katherine Bomer and published by Heinemann Educational Books. This book was released on 2005 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Writing a Life, Katherine Bomer presents classroom-tested strategies for tapping memoir's power, including ways to help kids generate ideas to write about, elaborate on and make meaning from their memories, and learn craft from published memoirs.

Download or read book My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business written by Dick Van Dyke and published by Crown. This book was released on 2012-05-15 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A heartfelt memoir from one of Hollywood's greatest icons Dick Van Dyke, indisputably one of the greats of the golden age of television, is admired and beloved by audiences the world over for his beaming smile, his physical dexterity, his impeccable comic timing, his ridiculous stunts, and his unforgettable screen roles. His trailblazing television program, The Dick Van Dyke Show (produced by Carl Reiner, who has written the foreword to this memoir), was one of the most popular sitcoms of the 1960s and introduced another major television star, Mary Tyler Moore. But Dick Van Dyke was also an enormously engaging movie star whose films, including Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, have been discovered by a new generation of fans and are as beloved today as they were when they first appeared. A colorful, loving, richly detailed look at the decades of a multilayered life, My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business, will enthrall every generation of reader, from baby-boomers who recall when Rob Petrie became a household name, to all those still enchanted by Bert’s “Chim Chim Cher-ee.” This is a lively, heartwarming memoir of a performer who still thinks of himself as a “simple song-and-dance man,” but who is, in every sense of the word, a classic entertainer.

Download or read book Half a Life written by Darin Strauss and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-05-31 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this powerful, unforgettable memoir, acclaimed novelist Darin Strauss examines the far-reaching consequences of the tragic moment that has shadowed his whole life. In his last month of high school, he was behind the wheel of his dad's Oldsmobile, driving with friends, heading off to play mini-golf. Then: a classmate swerved in front of his car. The collision resulted in her death. With piercing insight and stark prose, Darin Strauss leads us on a deeply personal, immediate, and emotional journey—graduating high school, going away to college, starting his writing career, falling in love with his future wife, becoming a father. Along the way, he takes a hard look at loss and guilt, maturity and accountability, hope and, at last, acceptance. The result is a staggering, uplifting tour de force. Look for special features inside, including an interview with Colum McCann.

Download or read book My Life as a Goddess written by Guy Branum and published by Atria Books. This book was released on 2019-06-18 with total page 4 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Smart, fast, clever, and funny (As f*ck!)” (Tiffany Haddish), this collection of side-splitting and illuminating essays by the popular stand-up comedian, alum of Chelsea Lately and The Mindy Project, and host of truTV’s Talk Show the Game Show is perfect for fans of the New York Times bestsellers Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling and We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby. From a young age, Guy Branum always felt as if he were on the outside looking in. From a stiflingly boring farm town, he couldn’t relate to his neighbors. While other boys played outside, he stayed indoors reading Greek mythology. And being gay and overweight, he got used to diminishing himself. But little by little, he started learning from all the sad, strange, lonely outcasts in history who had come before him, and he started to feel hope. In this “singular, genuinely ballsy, and essential” (Billy Eichner) collection of personal essays, Guy talks about finding a sense of belonging at Berkeley—and stirring up controversy in a newspaper column that led to a run‑in with the Secret Service. He recounts the pitfalls of being typecast as the “Sassy Gay Friend,” and how, after taking a wrong turn in life (i.e. law school), he found stand‑up comedy and artistic freedom. He analyzes society’s calculated deprivation of personhood from fat people, and how, though it’s taken him a while to accept who he is, he has learned that with a little patience and a lot of humor, self-acceptance is possible. “Keenly observant and intelligent, Branum’s book not only offers uproarious insights into walking paths less traveled, but also into what self-acceptance means in a world still woefully intolerant of difference” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). My Life as a Goddess is an unforgettable and deeply moving book by one of today’s most endearing and galvanizing voices in comedy.

Download or read book Life written by Keith Richards and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2010-11-12 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The long-awaited autobiography of Keith Richards, guitarist, songwriter, singer, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. With The Rolling Stones, Keith Richards created the songs that roused the world, and he lived the original rock and roll life. Now, at last, the man himself tells his story of life in the crossfire hurricane. Listening obsessively to Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters records, learning guitar and forming a band with Mick Jagger and Brian Jones. The Rolling Stones's first fame and the notorious drug busts that led to his enduring image as an outlaw folk hero. Creating immortal riffs like the ones in "Jumping Jack Flash" and "Honky Tonk Women." His relationship with Anita Pallenberg and the death of Brian Jones. Tax exile in France, wildfire tours of the U.S., isolation and addiction. Falling in love with Patti Hansen. Estrangement from Jagger and subsequent reconciliation. Marriage, family, solo albums and Xpensive Winos, and the road that goes on forever. With his trademark disarming honesty, Keith Richard brings us the story of a life we have all longed to know more of, unfettered, fearless, and true.

Download or read book And Then Life Happens written by Auma Obama and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2012-04-24 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A moving account by Auma Obama about her life in Africa and Europe, and her relationship with her brother, Barack Obama. While her younger brother Barack grew up in the U.S. and Indonesia, Auma Obama's childhood played out at the other end of the world in a remote village in Kenya, the birthplace of the siblings' shared father. Barack and Auma met for the first time in the 1980s, and they built a lasting relationship which lead to travels together in Kenya, research into their family history and finally Auma's support for her brother's political career and eventual bid for the U.S. presidency. Auma spent sixteen years studying and living in Germany, moved to England for love, and gave birth to a daughter there. The tension between her original and chosen worlds and cultures was a constant challenge, and eventually Auma returned to Africa and worked to support young men and women in shaping their futures. In And Then Life Happens, her candid and emotional memoir, Auma shares her own story as well as recollections of and experiences with her famous brother, who says about their first encounter: "I hugged her, we looked at each other, and laughed. I knew right then that I loved her."

Download or read book A Wild and Precious Life written by Edie Windsor and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2019-10-08 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lively, intimate memoir from a marriage equality icon of the gay rights movement, describing gay life in the 1950s and 60s New York City and her longtime activism. "Brash, funny and brave." —NPR “A captivating and inspiring story of a queer woman who believed in her right to take up space and be seen.”—BuzzFeed "Windsor’s story fighting for what she believed in is one that will leave readers inspired." —NBC OUT Edie Windsor became internationally famous when she sued the US government, seeking federal recognition for her marriage to Thea Spyer, her partner of more than four decades. The Supreme Court ruled in Edie’s favor, a landmark victory that set the stage for full marriage equality in the US. Beloved by the LGBTQ community, Edie embraced her new role as an icon; she had already been living an extraordinary and groundbreaking life for decades. In this memoir, which she began before passing away in 2017 and completed by her co-writer, Edie recounts her childhood in Philadelphia, her realization that she was a lesbian, and her active social life in Greenwich Village's electrifying underground gay scene during the 1950s. Edie was also one of a select group of trailblazing women in computing, working her way up the ladder at IBM and achieving their highest technical ranking while developing software. In the early 1960s Edie met Thea, an expat from a Dutch Jewish family that fled the Nazis, and a widely respected clinical psychologist. Their partnership lasted forty-four years, until Thea died in 2009. Edie found love again, marrying Judith Kasen-Windsor in 2016. A Wild and Precious Life is remarkable portrait of an iconic woman, gay life in New York in the second half of the twentieth century, and the rise of LGBT activism.

Download or read book This Is Not My Beautiful Life written by Victoria Fedden and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2016-06-07 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ONE OF PUBLISHERS WEEKLY'S TEN MOST ANTICIPATED MEMOIRS OF THE SEASON IF YOU THINK IT SUCKS TO LIVE WITH YOUR PARENTS WHEN YOU’RE THIRTY-SIX AND NINE MONTHS PREGNANT, JUST WAIT TILL THE DEA COMES KNOCKING (WITH THE IRS IN TOW): WELCOME TO VICTORIA FEDDEN’S LIFE. When a squad of federal agents burst through her parents’ front door, Victoria Fedden felt ill-prepared to meet them: She was weeks away from her due date and her T-shirt wasn’t long enough to hide her maternity undies. As for the question of how to raise a child when you’ve just discovered that your mother and stepfather have allegedly masterminded a pump-and-dump scheme? She was pretty sure that wasn’t covered in What to Expect When You’re Expecting—and she really hoped that Bradford Cohen, the noted criminal defense attorney who famously waived his exemption on The Apprentice, would prove them innocent. This Is Not My Beautiful Life is the story of how Victoria lost her parents to prison and nearly lost her mind. No one ever said motherhood would be easy, but as she struggles to change diapers, install car seats, and find the right drop-off line at pre-school—no easy task, when each one is named for a stage in the lifecycle of a f*cking butterfly—she’s also forced to ask herself whether a jump-suit might actually complement her mom’s platinum-blonde extensions and fend off the cast of shady, stranger-than-fiction characters (like the recovering addict who scored a reality show when he started an escort service for women) who populated her parents’ world. A real-life Arrested Development that could only unfold in southern Florida, This Is Not My Beautiful Life is a hilariously funny and unexpectedly moving memoir of a just-functional family you’ll never forget.

Download or read book The Magic of Memoir written by Linda Joy Myers and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-11-15 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Magic of Memoir is a memoirist’s companion for when the going gets tough. Editors Linda Joy Myers and Brooke Warner have taught and coached hundreds of memoirists to the completion of their memoirs, and they know that the journey is fraught with belittling messages from both the inner critic and naysayers, voices that make it hard to stay on course with the writing and completion of a book. In The Magic of Memoir, 38 writers share their hard-won wisdom, stories, and writing tips. Included are Myers's and Warner's interviews with best-selling and widely renown memoirists Mary Karr, Elizabeth Gilbert, Dr. Azar Nafisi, Dani Shapiro, Margo Jefferson, Raquel Cepeda, Jessica Valenti, Daisy Hernández, Mark Matousek, and Sue William Silverman. This collection has something for anyone who's on the journey or about to embark on it. If you're looking for inspiration, The Magic of Memoir will be a valuable companion. Contributors include: Jill Kandel, Eanlai Cronin, Peter Gibb, Lynette Charity, Lynette Charity, Roseann M. Bozzone, Carol E. Anderson, Bella Mahaya Carter, Krishan Bedi, Sarah Conover, Leza Lowitz, Nadine Kenney Johnstone, Lynette Benton, Kelly Kittel, Robert W. Finertie, Rita M. Gardner, Robert Hammond, Marina Aris, LaDonna Harrison, Jill Smolowe, Alison Dale, Vanya Erickson, Sonvy Sammons, Laurie Prim, Ashley Espinoza, Jing Li, Nancy Chadwick-Burke, Dhana Musil, Crystal-Lee Quibell, Apryl Schwab, Irene Sardanis, Jude Walsh, Fran Simone, Rosalyn Kaplus, Rosie Sorenson, Rosie Sorenson, Jerry Waxler, and Ruthie Stender.

Download or read book A Normal Life written by Kim Rich and published by Graphic Arts Books. This book was released on 2018-04-03 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After an unconventional childhood that ended in the tragic death of her mother and the murder of her Alaskan mobster father, Kim Rich was left on her own at the young age of fifteen to fend for herself. Ever since then, she began a nearly lifelong pursuit in chasing what most others had—a normal life. Rich tugs at your heartstrings as you follow her journey toward normalcy, from her teen years, freshly orphaned, through her high school years spent couch-surfing at local families’ homes, then through her college years, a failed first marriage, and a rising career as a journalist. Through frank and down-to-earth storytelling, Rich also tells of her grandfather’s kidnapping, a frightening health crisis, and a six-year attempt to have children. Picking up right where her first memoir, Johnny’s Girl, left off, A Normal Life recounts the author’s vivid story of being an ordinary girl faced with extraordinary circumstances—at seemingly every turn in life—with grace, humility, and wit.

Download or read book Life in the Balance written by Thomas B. Graboys and published by Union Square Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chronicles the author's descent from a top cardiologist to a patient slowly succumbing to Parkinson's disease and dementia, including how he struggles with the feelings he experiences daily and the impact of the diseases in his life.

Download or read book Engineering a Life written by Krishan K. Bedi and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-04-03 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Included on BookBub’s "The Most Exciting Memoirs Coming Out in 2018” list Krishan Bedi came to the United States in December of 1961 at the tender age of twenty. He had only $300 in his pocket, and he had made it out of his small village in India on sheer faith, determined to get education in the US. For him, there was no option but to succeed—so he began his new life in Knoxville, Tennessee, where he had to adapt to the culture shock not only of being in the US but a Punjabi man in the South in the 1960s. Engineering a Life is an examination of Bedi’s life, and how he has handled the plethora of curve balls thrown his way with determination, humor, and an unwavering faith that everything would work out. This is a book about values and faith and the importance of friendship, family, and hard work. It’s a story about achieving the American Dream, proving that no matter how thoroughly you map out your life’s journey, no matter how many blueprints you draw up, when you veer off the course you’ve plotted—as we all do, somehow, in the end—you end up where you’re supposed to be.