Download or read book The Camera My Mother Gave Me written by Susanna Kaysen and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2002-10-08 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Susanna Kaysen, who wrote about her teenage depression in the bestseller Girl, Interrupted, now takes on another taboo: her vagina–which suddenly and inexplicably starts to hurt. And neither Kaysen’s cheery gynecologist, nor her internist, nor a laconic “vulvologist” has the cure. An alternative health nurse suggests direct application of tea, baking soda, and boric acid. Others recommend novocaine, oatmeal, “bio-feedback,” and anti-depressants. Nothing works. As sex becomes more and more painful, Kaysen’s relationship with her boyfriend disintegrates and she turns to her best friends, her wicked sense of humor, and finally wry self-reflection to get herself through. Using this unusual lens, Kaysen challenges us to think in new ways about the centrality and power of sexuality. The Camera My Mother Gave Me is an unexpected and revelatory book from one of our most candid, insightful and consistently surprising writers.
Download or read book Cambridge written by Susanna Kaysen and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2014 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two family sabbaticals across the Atlantic and a brilliant orchestra conductor shape the perspectives of a young woman from 1950s Harvard Square, who develops new ways of thinking about music, love, and art while struggling with feelings of being a perpetual outsider.
Download or read book My Mother was Nuts written by Penny Marshall and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2012 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From her humble roots in the Bronx to Laverne and Shirley and her unlikely ascent in Hollywood, the beloved actor and director tells the story of her incredible life.
Download or read book Girl Interrupted written by Susanna Kaysen and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-06-19 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 30th ANNIVERSARY EDITION • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In 1967, after a session with a psychiatrist she'd never seen before, eighteen-year-old Susanna Kaysen was put in a taxi and sent to McLean Hospital. Her memoir of the next two years is a "poignant, honest ... triumphantly funny ... and heartbreaking story" (The New York Times Book Review). WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR The ward for teenage girls in the McLean psychiatric hospital was as renowned for its famous clientele—Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, James Taylor, and Ray Charles—as for its progressive methods of treating those who could afford its sanctuary. Kaysen's memoir encompasses horror and razor-edged perception while providing vivid portraits of her fellow patients and their keepers. It is a brilliant evocation of a "parallel universe" set within the kaleidoscopically shifting landscape of the late sixties. Girl, Interrupted is a clear-sighted, unflinching document that gives lasting and specific dimension to our definitions of sane and insane, mental illness and recovery.
Download or read book Asa as I Knew Him written by Susanna Kaysen and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-05-12 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dinah Sachs and Asa Thayer have had a love affair, conducted in afternoons stolen from the office of the magazine where they work. But now that the affair is over, Dinah, in an act of lingering passion, invents a narrative of Asa's youth, imagining the events that shaped the "happy, handsome man" who, in her words, "was born to stomp on my heart." Witty and sexy, funny and immediate, Asa, As I Knew Him is a a seductive dialogue between love and memory, obsession and illusion.
Download or read book Are You My Mother written by Alison Bechdel and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2012-05-01 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times–bestselling graphic memoir about Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home, becoming the artist her mother wanted to be. Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home was a pop culture and literary phenomenon. Now, a second thrilling tale of filial sleuthery, this time about her mother: voracious reader, music lover, passionate amateur actor. Also a woman, unhappily married to a closeted gay man, whose artistic aspirations simmered under the surface of Bechdel's childhood…and who stopped touching or kissing her daughter good night, forever, when she was seven. Poignantly, hilariously, Bechdel embarks on a quest for answers concerning the mother-daughter gulf. It's a richly layered search that leads readers from the fascinating life and work of the iconic twentieth-century psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, to one explosively illuminating Dr. Seuss illustration, to Bechdel’s own (serially monogamous) adult love life. And, finally, back to Mother—to a truce, fragile and real-time, that will move and astonish all adult children of gifted mothers. A New York Times, USA Today, Time, Slate, and Barnes & Noble Best Book of the Year “As complicated, brainy, inventive and satisfying as the finest prose memoirs.”—New York Times Book Review “A work of the most humane kind of genius, bravely going right to the heart of things: why we are who we are. It's also incredibly funny. And visually stunning. And page-turningly addictive. And heartbreaking.”—Jonathan Safran Foer “Many of us are living out the unlived lives of our mothers. Alison Bechdel has written a graphic novel about this; sort of like a comic book by Virginia Woolf. You won't believe it until you read it—and you must!”—Gloria Steinem
Download or read book Far Afield written by Susanna Kaysen and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-08-21 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compulsively readable novel of enormous charm swimming in the cuisine and culture of the Faroe Islands from the author of Girl, Interrupted. Jonathan Brand, a graduate student in anthropology, has decided to do his fieldwork in the remote Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic. But, despite his Harvard training, he can barely understand, let alone "study," the culture he encounters. From his struggles with the local cuisine to his affair with the Danish woman the locals want him to marry, Jonathan is both repelled by and drawn into the Faroese way of life. Wry and insightful, Far Afield reveals Susanna Kaysen's gifts of imagination, satire, and compassion.
Download or read book What My Mother and I Don t Talk About written by Michele Filgate and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “You will devour these beautifully written—and very important—tales of honesty, pain, and resilience” (Elizabeth Gilbert, New York Times bestselling author of Eat Pray Love and City of Girls) from fifteen brilliant writers who explore how what we don’t talk about with our mothers affects us, for better or for worse. As an undergraduate, Michele Filgate started writing an essay about being abused by her stepfather. It took her more than a decade to realize that she was actually trying to write about how this affected her relationship with her mother. When it was finally published, the essay went viral, shared on social media by Anne Lamott, Rebecca Solnit, and many others. This gave Filgate an idea, and the resulting anthology offers a candid look at our relationships with our mothers. Leslie Jamison writes about trying to discover who her seemingly perfect mother was before ever becoming a mom. In Cathi Hanauer’s hilarious piece, she finally gets a chance to have a conversation with her mother that isn’t interrupted by her domineering (but lovable) father. André Aciman writes about what it was like to have a deaf mother. Melissa Febos uses mythology as a lens to look at her close-knit relationship with her psychotherapist mother. And Julianna Baggott talks about having a mom who tells her everything. As Filgate writes, “Our mothers are our first homes, and that’s why we’re always trying to return to them.” There’s relief in acknowledging how what we couldn’t say for so long is a way to heal our relationships with others and, perhaps most important, with ourselves. Contributions by Cathi Hanauer, Melissa Febos, Alexander Chee, Dylan Landis, Bernice L. McFadden, Julianna Baggott, Lynn Steger Strong, Kiese Laymon, Carmen Maria Machado, André Aciman, Sari Botton, Nayomi Munaweera, Brandon Taylor, and Leslie Jamison.
Download or read book Mother Can You Not written by Kate Siegel and published by Crown Archetype. This book was released on 2016-04-05 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on the wildly popular Instagram account @CrazyJewishMom, Kate Siegel's essay collection about life with the woman who redefined the term "helicopter mom." There is nothing more wonderful than a mother’s love. There is also nothing more annoying. Who else can proudly insist that you’re perfect while simultaneously making you question every career, fashion, and relationship decision you have ever made? No one understands the delicate mother-daughter dynamic better than Kate Siegel—her own mother drove her so crazy that she decided to broadcast their hilarious conversations on Instagram. Soon, hundreds of thousands of people were following their daily text exchanges, eager to see what outrageous thing Kate’s mom would do next. Now, in Mother, Can You NOT?, Kate pays tribute to the woman who invented the concept of drone parenting. From embarrassing moments (like crashing Kate's gynecological exams) to outrageous stories (like the time she made Kate steal a cat from the pound) to hilarious celebrations (including but not limited to parties for Kate's menstrual cycles), Mother, Can you NOT? lovingly lampoons the lengths to which our mothers will go to better our lives (even if it feels like they’re ruining them in the process).
Download or read book Code Girls written by Liza Mundy and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2017-10-10 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The award-winning New York Times bestseller about the American women who secretly served as codebreakers during World War II--a "prodigiously researched and engrossing" (New York Times) book that "shines a light on a hidden chapter of American history" (Denver Post). Recruited by the U.S. Army and Navy from small towns and elite colleges, more than ten thousand women served as codebreakers during World War II. While their brothers and boyfriends took up arms, these women moved to Washington and learned the meticulous work of code-breaking. Their efforts shortened the war, saved countless lives, and gave them access to careers previously denied to them. A strict vow of secrecy nearly erased their efforts from history; now, through dazzling research and interviews with surviving code girls, bestselling author Liza Mundy brings to life this riveting and vital story of American courage, service, and scientific accomplishment.
Download or read book Mothers Before written by Edan Lepucki and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who was your mother before she was a mother? Essays and photos from Brit Bennett, Jennifer Egan, Danzy Senna, Laura Lippman, Jia Tolentino, and many more. In this remarkable collection, New York Times–bestselling novelist Edan Lepucki gathers more than sixty original essays and favorite photographs to explore this question. The daughters in Mothers Before are writers and poets, artists and teachers, and the images and stories they share reveal the lives of women in ways that are vulnerable and true, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, and always moving. Contributors include: Brit Bennett * Jennine Capó Crucet * Jennifer Egan * Angela Garbes * Annabeth Gish * Alison Roman * Lisa See * Danzy Senna * Dana Spiotta * Lan Samantha Chang * Laura Lippman * Jia Tolentino * Tiffany Nguyen * Charmaine Craig * Maya Ramakrishnan * Eirene Donohue * and many others
Download or read book Playing Catch with My Mother written by Greg Lichtenberg and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2000-09-05 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With this candid, poignant, and funny memoir, Greg Lichtenberg opens an extraordinary window on the changed landscape of masculinity. Born into an idealistic, egalitarian family, he sees his parents' marriage shattered by violence and divorce even as society begins to view all things male with suspicion. He becomes a boy who questions everything about being a boy: walking a fine line between schoolyard cruelties and the secret romances of eight-year-olds, between love of football and fear of aggression, between politically correct friendships with teenage girls and the explosive desires and confusions of sexual awakening. The result is a visceral book alive to the flash points where a young man discovers what his world now expects of him--and how he will respond.
Download or read book Dog Flowers written by Danielle Geller and published by One World. This book was released on 2022-04-12 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A daughter returns home to the Navajo reservation to retrace her mother’s life in a memoir that is both a narrative and an archive of one family’s troubled history. “A candid and achingly fractured memoir of [Geller’s] mother, her family, her Navajo heritage and her own journey to self-discovery and acceptance.”—Ms. SHORTLISTED FOR: The Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize, The Jim Deva Prize for Writing That Provokes • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Esquire, She Reads When Danielle Geller’s mother dies of alcohol withdrawal during an attempt to get sober, Geller returns to Florida and finds her mother’s life packed into eight suitcases. Most were filled with clothes, except for the last one, which contained diaries, photos, and letters, a few undeveloped disposable cameras, dried sage, jewelry, and the bandana her mother wore on days she skipped a hair wash. Geller, an archivist and a writer, uses these pieces of her mother’s life to try and understand her mother’s relationship to home, and their shared need to leave it. Geller embarks on a journey where she confronts her family's history and the decisions that she herself had been forced to make while growing up, a journey that will end at her mother's home: the Navajo reservation. Dog Flowers is an arresting, photo-lingual memoir that masterfully weaves together images and text to examine mothers and mothering, sisters and caretaking, and colonized bodies. Exploring loss and inheritance, beauty and balance, Danielle Geller pays homage to our pasts, traditions, and heritage, to the families we are given and the families we choose.
Download or read book Remembering Mother Finding Myself written by Patricia Commins and published by Health Communications Incorporated. This book was released on 1999-04-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The loss of a mother is one of the most traumatic experiences of a woman’s life. At any age, a mother’s death may leave a daughter with feelings of anger, abandonment and profound sadness that taint the way she views herself, her world and every other relationship around her. In this breakthrough book, author Patricia Commins, who lost her mother at 26, shows readers that the key to escaping the sorority of sorrow is by understanding their mothers as women and by feeling an ongoing connection with them. From this perspective —outside the parent-child relationship that is so fraught with conflict and complex emotions — women gain key insights into their mothers and themselves. By addressing the psychological and spiritual connection that remains after a mother’s death, Remembering Mother, Finding Myself offers the essential element that is missing from other books on motherless daughters. The Path of Understanding —a unique experiential process based on journaling, conversations with friends and relatives, and meditative exercises— does not seek to negate the loss a woman feels when her mother dies. It instead gently leads her beyond the grief and pain to a new awareness, freeing her from forever trying to be the perfect daughter. Through her own illuminating experiences and those of other women, Commins shows women how to reconnect their deceased mothers while finding peace and self-acceptance. Included are interviews with dozens of women, including such notables as writers Joyce Maynard and Nancy Friday and psychiatrist Elizabeth Kubler-Ross.
Download or read book Run Like a Mother written by Dimity McDowell and published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. This book was released on 2010-09-14 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two elite runners share inspirational advice and practical strategies to help multitasking women make running part of their busy lives. Dimitry McDowell and Sarah Bowen Shea understand how the forces of everyday life—both external and internal—can keep a wife, mother, or working woman from lacing up her shoes and going for a run. As multihyphenates themselves, they have faced the same challenges. In Run Like a Mother, they share their running expertise and real-world experience in ensuring that running is part of their lives. More than a simple running guide, Run Like a Mother is like a friendly conversation aimed at strengthening a woman's inner athlete. Real achievement is a healthy mix of inspiration and perspiration, which is why the authors have grounded Run Like a Mother in a host of practical tips on shoes, training, racing, nutrition, and injuries, all designed to help women balance running with their professional and personal lives./
Download or read book Lips Unsealed written by Belinda Carlisle and published by Crown. This book was released on 2011-04-05 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A spellbinding and shocking look at Belinda Carlisle’s role in forming the Go-Go’s and her rise, fall, and eventual rebirth as a wife, mother, and sober artist “An unflinching look back . . . with heartbreaking honesty and a wry sense of humor.”—USA Today The women of the iconic eighties band the Go-Go’s will always be remembered as they appeared on the back of their debut record: sunny, smiling, each soaking in her own private bubble bath with chocolates and champagne. The photo is a perfect tribute to the fun, irreverent brand of pop music that the Go-Go’s created, but it also conceals the trials and secret demons that the members of the group—in particular, its lead singer, Belinda Carlisle—struggled with on their rise to stardom. Lips Unsealed is Belinda’s story in her own words—from her crazy days on tour with the Go-Go’s to her private problems with abusive relationships, self-esteem, and a thirty-year battle with addiction. Ultimately, it is a love letter to music, the lifelong friendships between the members of the Go-Go’s, the beloved husband and son who led Belinda to sobriety, and a life which, though deeply flawed, was—and is still—fully lived.
Download or read book Motherland written by Fern Schumer Chapman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2001-04-01 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A moving account of a mother and daughter who visit Germany to face the Holocaust tragedy that has caused their family decades of intergenerational trauma, from the author of Brothers, Sisters, Strangers Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award In 1938, when Edith Westerfeld was twelve, her parents sent her from Germany to America to escape the Nazis. Edith survived, but most of her family perished in the death camps. Unable to cope with the loss of her family and homeland, Edith closed the door on her past, refusing to discuss even the smallest details. Fifty-four years later, when the void of her childhood was consuming both her and her family, she returned to Stockstadt with her grown daughter Fern. For Edith the trip was a chance to reconnect and reconcile with her past; for Fern it was a chance to learn what lay behind her mother's silent grief. Together, they found a town that had dramatically changed on the surface, but which hid guilty secrets and lived in enduring denial. On their journey, Fern and her mother shared many extraordinary encounters with the townspeople and—more importantly—with one another, closing the divide that had long stood between them. Motherland is a story of learning to face the past, of remembering and honoring while looking forward and letting go. It is an account of the Holocaust’s lingering grip on its witnesses; it is also a loving story of mothers and daughters, roots, understanding, and, ultimately, healing.
