Download or read book Class Mom written by Laurie Gelman and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2017-08-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Laurie Gelman’s clever debut novel about a year in the life of a kindergarten class mom—a brilliant send-up of the petty and surprisingly cutthroat terrain of parent politics. Jen Dixon is not your typical Kansas City kindergarten class mom—or mom in general. Jen already has two college-age daughters by two different (probably) musicians, and it’s her second time around the class mom block with five-year-old Max—this time with a husband and father by her side. Though her best friend and PTA President sees her as the “wisest” candidate for the job (or oldest), not all of the other parents agree. From recording parents’ response times to her emails about helping in the classroom, to requesting contributions of “special” brownies for curriculum night, not all of Jen’s methods win approval from the other moms. Throw in an old flame from Jen’s past, a hyper-sensitive “allergy mom,” a surprisingly sexy kindergarten teacher, and an impossible-to-please Real Housewife-wannabe, causing problems at every turn, and the job really becomes much more than she signed up for. Relatable, irreverent, and hilarious in the spirit of Maria Semple, Class Mom is a fresh, welcome voice in fiction—the kind of novel that real moms clamor for, and a vicarious thrill-read for all mothers, who will be laughing as they are liberated by Gelman’s acerbic truths.

Download or read book Yoga Pant Nation written by Laurie Gelman and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2021-07-13 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Good Morning America Buzz Pick From the author of Class Mom and You've Been Volunteered comes a new book on one mom's challenges through parenting and life, keeping her on her toes and perpetually in yoga pants. Jen Dixon of Overland Park, Kansas—fearless mother of a fifth-grade boy and two thirty-something daughters—is used to juggling a lot, from her mission to become a spin instructor, to stepping in as the most acerbic class mom ever (again), to taking care of her two-year-old granddaughter. But when the PTA president throws her a mandate to raise $10,000 for the fifth-grade class, even unflappable Jen is going to need more than her regular spin class to get her through this final year at William Taft Elementary School. In the midst of new complications—organizing the class overnight to Topeka, an unexpected spin class fan in the form of her husband’s crazy ex-wife, and trying to navigate her parents’ sudden descent into apparent delusions—Jen hardly has the patience to listen to yet another half-baked idea (come on, ladies, another wrapping paper sale?) from WeFUKCT (We Fundraise Until Kingdom Come Team), her fundraising committee. But if anyone can get elementary parents to pull off the impossible, it’s Jen Dixon. With her always irreverent and laugh-out-loud humor—boldly holding forth on those things you’re thinking, but would never dare say out loud—Laurie Gelman shines a light on the indignities and hilarities of modern parenting.

Download or read book You ve Been Volunteered written by Laurie Gelman and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2019-07-23 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the eagerly anticipated follow-up to Laurie Gelman’s "irreverent and hilarious" (The New York Post) hit Class Mom, brash, lovable Jen Dixon is back with a new class and her work cut out for her If you’ve ever been a room parent or school volunteer, Jen Dixon is your hero. She says what every class mom is really thinking, whether in her notoriously frank emails or standup-worthy interactions with the micromanaging PTA President and the gamut of difficult parents. Luckily, she has the charm and wit to get away with it—most of the time. Jen is sassier than ever but dealing with a whole new set of challenges, in the world of parental politics and at home. She’s been roped into room-parenting yet again, for her son Max’s third grade class, but as her husband buries himself in work, her older daughters navigate adulthood, and Jen’s own aging parents start to need some parenting themselves, Jen gets pulled in more directions than any one mom, or superhero, can handle. Refreshingly down-to-earth and brimming with warmth, Dixon’s next chapter will keep you turning the pages to find out what’s really going on under the veneer of polite parent interactions, and have you laughing along with her the whole way.

Download or read book Smells Like Tween Spirit written by Laurie Gelman and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2022-08-02 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Even with the cutthroat days of being Class Mom behind her, as a freshly minted mat mom of the Pioneer Middle School (PMS) wrestling team, Jen Dixon cannot catch a break. This year, as her son joins the ranks of the PMS wrestlers, Jen faces mystifying new social dynamics with her trademark combination of reluctance and resigned acceptance. The sights and smells of her son’s wrestling matches are more than enough for her to deal with, but Jen also finds herself fully immersed in sports-mom competitiveness. These parents all seem perfectly unassuming until their kids start to wrestle, and then some become raging momsters. Jen steels herself for the indignities of middle school life, but she cannot quite fathom the extents to which some kids (and moms) will go for the sweet taste of victory. Add to this some truly bizarre encounters with students from her spin class and deeper challenges managing her parents, and Jen has more gum than she can chew...and even her riotously funny one-liners might not get her through it this time.

Download or read book Have You Found Her written by Janice Erlbaum and published by Villard. This book was released on 2008-02-12 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: And every week, there was the unspoken question, the one I didn’t know enough to ask myself : Have you found her yet? The one who reminds you of you? Twenty years after she lived at a homeless shelter for teens, Janice Erlbaum went back to volunteer. Now thirty-four years old and a successful writer, she’d changed her life for the better; now she wanted to help someone else–someone like the girl she’d once been. Then she met Sam. A brilliant nineteen-year-old junkie savant, the product of a horrifically abusive home, Sam had been surviving alone on the streets since she was twelve and was now struggling for sobriety against the adverse health effects of long-term drug abuse. Soon Janice found herself caring deeply for Sam, following her through detoxes and psych wards, halfway houses and hospitals, becoming ever more manically driven to save her from the sickness and sadness leftover from Sam’s terrible past. But just as Janice was on the verge of becoming the girl’s legal guardian, she made a shocking discovery: Sam was sicker than anyone knew, in ways nobody could have imagined. Written with startling candor and immediacy, Have You Found Her is the story of one woman’s quest to save a girl’s life–and the hard truths she learns about herself along the way. “A rich and compelling account . . . Ultimately this is a book about the narrator’s journey and the dangers that attend the urge within us all to believe we can save another soul. A terrific read.” –Cammie McGovern, author of Eye Contact

Download or read book One Good Mama Bone written by Bren McClain and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2017-02-14 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A mama cow’s devotion to her calf provides lessons in motherhood to a poor Southern woman in this novel of family, survival, and human-animal bonds. South Carolina, 1950s. Homemaker Sarah Creamer has been left to care for young Emerson Bridge, the product of an affair between Sarah’s husband and her best friend. But beyond the deep wound of their betrayal, Sarah is daunted by the prophecy of her mother’s words, seared in her memory since childhood: “You ain’t got you one good mama bone in you, girl.” When Sarah finds Emerson a steer to compete at an upcoming cattle show, the young calf cries in distress on her farm. Miles away, his mother breaks out of a barbed-wire fence to find him. When Sarah finds the young steer contently nursing a large cow, her education in motherhood begins. But Luther Dobbins is desperate to regain his championship cattle dynasty, and he will stop at nothing to win. Emboldened by her budding mama bone, Sarah is committed to victory even after she learns the winning steer’s ultimate fate. Will she too stop at nothing, even if it means betraying her teacher? One Good Mama Bone explores the strengths and limitations of parental love and the ethical dilemmas of raising animals for food.

Download or read book The Voluntourist written by Ken Budd and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2012-05-08 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ken Budd’s The Voluntourist is a remarkable memoir about losing your father, accepting your fate, and finding your destiny by volunteering around the world for numerous worthy causes: Hurricane Katrina disaster relief in New Orleans, helping special needs children in China, studying climate change in Ecuador, lending a hand—and a heart—at a Palestinian refugee camp in the Middle East, to name but a few. Ken's emotional journey is as inspiring and affecting as those chronicled in Little Princes and Three Cups of Tea. At once a true story of powerful family bonds, of sacrifice, of self-discovery, The Voluntourist is an all-too-human, real-life hero whom you will not soon forget.

Download or read book I Have Been Assigned the Single Bird written by Susan Cerulean and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2020-08-01 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Susan Cerulean’s memoir trains a naturalist’s eye and a daughter’s heart on the lingering death of a beloved parent from dementia. At the same time, the book explores an activist’s lifelong search to be of service to the embattled natural world. During the years she cared for her father, Cerulean also volunteered as a steward of wild shorebirds along the Florida coast. Her territory was a tiny island just south of the Apalachicola bridge where she located and protected nesting shorebirds, including least terns and American oystercatchers. I Have Been Assigned the Single Bird weaves together intimate facets of adult caregiving and the consolation of nature, detailing Cerulean’s experiences of tending to both. The natural world is the “sustaining body” into which we are born. In similar ways, we face not only a crisis in numbers of people diagnosed with dementia but also the crisis of the human-caused degradation of the planet itself, a type of cultural dementia. With I Have Been Assigned the Single Bird, Cerulean reminds us of the loving, necessary toil of tending to one place, one bird, one being at a time.

Download or read book Joan Rivers Confidential written by Melissa Rivers and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2017-10-24 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A gorgeous scrapbook of the late icon’s life—featuring clippings, letters, and dozens of finely honed quips from her famous-joke files.” —Vanity Fair Joan Rivers is an enduring icon of the twentieth century, and her wildly popular humor has appealed to generations of fans. With a career that began in the late 1950s, Joan kept mementos over the course of her entire working life, and Joan Rivers Confidential is a compilation of never-before-seen personal archives. Assembled by her daughter Melissa with Scott Currie, the book contains scripts and monologues, letters from famous friends, exchanges with fans, rare photographs, as well as classic and never-before-heard jokes—many simply scribbled on everything from hotel stationery to airplane boarding passes. Touching on subjects from her 50 years in show business (The Tonight Show, Las Vegas, Elizabeth Taylor, Heidi Abromowitz, the red carpet, and Fashion Police), this is a revelatory and humor-filled insider look at the popular, multitalented comedian. “It’s easy to forget, in this era of Amy Schumer and Sarah Silverman, how revolutionary it was for a meticulously coiffed, nice Jewish girl from Brooklyn—born in 1933!—to get up onstage and crack jokes about hookers, the Holocaust, and her vagina. What fun it is to be reminded.” —W Magazine “From joke cards and contracts to personal letters from pals like Nancy Reagan and Prince Charles, Rivers’ mountain of memorabilia was mostly sealed and largely unseen—until now.” —Women’s Wear Daily “For fans, this is a gold mine. For others who are simply curious about this unstoppable force, it’s a fun, loving tribute.” —Southern Jewish Life

Download or read book Shadow Spinner written by Susan Fletcher and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-10-18 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every night, Shahrazad begins a story. And every morning, the Sultan lets her live another day -- providing the story is interesting enough to capture his attention. After almost one thousand nights, Shahrazad is running out of tales. And that is how Marjan's story begins.... It falls to Marjan to help Shahrazad find new stories -- ones the Sultan has never heard before. To do that, the girl is forced to undertake a dangerous and forbidden mission: sneak from the harem and travel the city, pulling tales from strangers and bringing them back to Shahrazad. But as she searches the city, a wonderful thing happens. From a quiet spinner of tales, Marjan suddenly becomes the center of a more surprising story than she ever could have imagined.

Download or read book A Series of Catastrophes and Miracles written by Mary Elizabeth Williams and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2016 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A wry, witty account of what it is like to face death--and be restored to life. After being diagnosed in her early 40s with metastatic melanoma--a "rapidly fatal" form of cancer--journalist and mother of two Mary Elizabeth Williams finds herself in a race against the clock. She takes a once-in-a-lifetime chance and joins a clinical trial for immunotherapy, a revolutionary drug regimen that trains the body to vanquish malignant cells. Astonishingly, her cancer disappears entirely in just a few weeks. But at the same time, her best friend embarks on a cancer journey of her own--with very different results. Williams's experiences as a patient and a medical test subject reveal with stark honesty what it takes to weather disease, the extraordinary new developments that are rewriting the rules of science--and the healing power of human connection.

Download or read book Remember Me Like This written by Bret Anthony Johnston and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2015-02-03 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Enthralling . . . [an] exquisitely moral mystery of how we struggle to accept and love the people we call family.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editor’s Choice) NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Esquire • BookPage A gripping novel with the pace of a thriller but the nuanced characterization and deep empathy of some of the literary canon’s most beloved novels, Remember Me Like This introduces Bret Anthony Johnston as one of the most gifted storytellers writing today. With his sophisticated and emotionally taut plot and his shimmering prose, Johnston reveals that only in caring for one another can we save ourselves. Four years have passed since Justin Campbell’s disappearance, a tragedy that rocked the small town of Southport, Texas. Did he run away? Was he kidnapped? Did he drown in the bay? As the Campbells search for answers, they struggle to hold what’s left of their family together. Then, one afternoon, the impossible happens. The police call to report that Justin has been found only miles away, in the neighboring town, and, most important, he appears to be fine. Though the reunion is a miracle, Justin’s homecoming exposes the deep rifts that have diminished his family, the wounds they all carry that may never fully heal. Trying to return to normal, his parents do their best to ease Justin back into his old life. But as thick summer heat takes hold, violent storms churn in the Gulf and in the Campbells’ hearts. When a reversal of fortune lays bare the family’s greatest fears—and offers perhaps the only hope for recovery—each of them must fight to keep the ties that bind them from permanently tearing apart. Praise for Remember Me Like This “An achingly beautiful and psychologically insightful portrait of a family . . . [a] fully immersive novel in which the language is luminous and the delivery almost flawless.”—The Boston Globe “Riveting . . . flows like it was plotted by Dennis Lehane but feels like it was written by Jonathan Franzen.”—Esquire “Tremendously moving . . . There’s real humanity in Johnston’s writing, and it’s heartening to spend time with these folks as they relearn how to be a family.”—Ron Charles, The Washington Post “Deeply empathetic and masterfully constructed . . . a novel that has both the feel of a great epic and the focused intensity of standing on a highwire.”—Salon

Download or read book Grayson s Vow written by Mia Sheridan and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2023-07-04 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A marriage-of-convenience spicy standalone romance from the New York Times bestselling author of Archer's Voice. Some vows are meant to be broken, but others are worth risking everything for...even your heart. Kira Dallaire is desperate. She must get married, and fast, to access the inheritance her late grandmother left her. Otherwise, she'll find herself at the mercy of her wealthy, abusive father. With little money and even fewer options, she uses her quick wit and impulsive heart to come up with a plan. Grayson Hawthorn is losing hope. A convicted felon with limited capital and dwindling resources, his vow to resurrect his family's struggling vineyard seems destined to fail. That is, until a young woman enters his office with an outlandish proposal—a win-win business marriage he can't refuse. But what begins as a temporary arrangement soon threatens to become more, as vibrant, spirited Kira challenges detached, arrogant Grayson to want more from life. To want more for himself. As their wills clash and fiery passion ignites, the two realize that sometimes the past creates walls too difficult to climb, and lies and deception rarely precede a happily ever after.

Download or read book The Possibility of You written by Pamela Redmond and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-02-21 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestselling author Pamela Redmond delivers a beautifully written novel about three generations of women in New York City and the experiences that shape and connect them to each other. The Possibility of You weaves together three interlocking stories involving three women dealing with issues of pregnancy and motherhood at key moments in history of the last century: On the brink of the First World War and the dawn of the modern age; as the liberalism of the ’60s and ’70s gave way to Reagan’s 1980s; and during the autumn of Barack Obama’s election. Contemporary heroine Cait, an African-American journalist raised by white adoptive parents, goes on a search for her birth mother inspired by her own unplanned pregnancy. Orphan Billie travels from her hippie upbringing in San Francisco to discover the upscale New York grandmother she never knew existed. And Irish nanny Bridget loses the boy she cares for and loves in the 1916 polio epidemic, only to try and replace him with a child of her own. Delving into the complex emotions that lie at the heart of unplanned pregnancy, motherhood, and the definition of family, this sweeping inter-generational saga illuminates the struggles of these very different women—and shows how the search for belonging is a connection that remains universal.

Download or read book The Final Deception written by Heather Graham and published by MIRA. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do you confront a threat that is hiding in plain sight? FBI agent Craig Frasier and psychologist Kieran Finnegan hunt an escaped serial killer in the latest explosive thriller in the New York Confidential series. It was one of Kieran’s most chilling cases: her assessment of a murderer known as the Fireman. There was no doubt that the man needed to be locked away. Now Craig is called to a gruesome crime scene that matches the killer’s methods, and news breaks that the Fireman has escaped prison. Amid a citywide manhunt, Kieran and Craig need to untangle a web of deceit, privilege and greed. They suspect that those closest to the killer have been drawn into his evil, or else someone is using another man’s madness and cruelty to disguise their crimes. When their investigation brings the danger right to the doorstep of Finnegan’s Pub, Kieran and Craig will have to be smarter and bolder than ever before, because this time it’s personal, and they have everything to lose.

Download or read book Confessions of a Domestic Failure written by Bunmi Laditan and published by MIRA. This book was released on 2017-05-02 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the creator of The Honest Toddler comes a fiction debut “perfect for readers looking for a funny, realistic look at motherhood” (Booklist, starred review). There are good moms and bad moms . . . and then there are hot-mess moms. Confessions of a Domestic Failure introduces readers to Ashley Keller, career girl turned stay-at-home mom who’s trying to navigate the world of Pinterest-perfect mommies. When Ashley gets the chance to enroll in a mommy-blog maven’s Motherhood Better boot camp, she jumps at the chance to become the perfect mom she’s always wanted to be. But the pursuit of perfection has a way of going perfectly wrong. With her razor-sharp wit, Bunmi Laditan creates an unforgettable and hilariously relatable character while lambasting the social pressures every new mother faces. “Freaking hilarious. This is the novel moms have been waiting for.” —Jenny Lawson, #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Let’s Pretend This Never Happened

Download or read book The Paris Wife written by Paula McLain and published by Turtleback Books. This book was released on 2012-11-27 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For use in schools and libraries only. Follows the life of Ernest Hemingway's first wife, Hadley, as she navigates 1920s Paris.