Download or read book The Memoir Project written by Marion Roach Smith and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2011-06-09 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An extraordinary "practical resource for beginners" looking to write their own memoir—​now new and revised (Kirkus Reviews)! The greatest story you could write is one you've experienced yourself. Knowing where to start is the hardest part, but it just got a little easier with this essential guidebook for anyone wanting to write a memoir. Did you know that the #1 thing that baby boomers want to do in retirement is write a book—about themselves? It's not that every person has lived such a unique or dramatic life, but we inherently understand that writing a memoir—whether it's a book, blog, or just a letter to a child—is the single greatest path to self-examination. Through the use of disarmingly frank, but wildly fun tactics that offer you simple and effective guidelines that work, you can stop treading water in writing exercises or hiding behind writer's block. Previously self-published under the title, Writing What You Know: Raelia, this book has found an enthusiastic audience that now writes with intent.

Download or read book Because She Was A Memoir written by Shelley Brouwer and published by Outskirts Press. This book was released on 2019-04-13 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When her third child was born with disabilities and cognitive delays author Shelley Brouwer had more questions than answers, and was thrust into an uncertain world. With equal parts fear and determination she set out to help her family and her daughter thrive. Navigating the murky waters of an undiagnosed disability and a rare medical disorder, Shelley learned as she went, and discovered along the way, her young daughter was her greatest teacher. Then the unthinkable occurred, at the age of 22, this sweet daughter died. Written with deep insight and humor Brouwer invites you to walk with her through this universal tale of a mother's love. Grieve with her (for a minute or two) the child she imagined, and embrace with her the child that was. Share the emotional struggles her family sometimes faced, and the small triumphs (seemed huge) her daughter achieved. Then walk with her again, through grief turned hope after her after devastating loss. Out of longing for a book Brouwer couldn't find, Because She Was was written to offer a dose of reality, a bit of guidance, and a healthy dose of encouragement.

Download or read book As It Was A Memoir written by Robert M. Pennoyer and published by Easton Studio Press, LLC. This book was released on 2015-10-13 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Robert M. Pennoyer was born into a storied family - his maternal grandfather was the legendary J. P. Morgan. His irresistible memoir traces his sheltered childhood on the Gold Coast of Long Island; an adolescence overshadowed by the gathering clouds of World War II; and a young adulthood that survived one of the decisive engagements of the Pacific Theater - Iwo Jima. The author gives us as well a heartwarming account of a romance that blossomed into a lifelong matrimonial partnership and a close family life, tested nonetheless by crisis. And he chronicles a distinguished career, the early part of which was spent in the service of President Eisenhower and the latter part in private law practice and pro bono work. As It Was begins in an era of unprecedented wealth and privilege for some and great misery and poverty for others, - one that Mark Twain lampooned as the “Gilded Age,” and ends, coming in effect full circle, in our own era of the One Per Cent, as the income chasm in America reopens. What divides these periods, and is so impressively portrayed here, is the rise of American Progressivism led by the two Roosevelts. Most importantly, this book is itself a demonstration of the values that boosted America on its path to greatness and for which no finer exemplar could be found than its author. It bespeaks a belief in democracy that is passionate and unshakable, and builds on a deep appreciation of the institutions that enable it. The spirit that flows through these pages may be modest, but it is also filled with an irrepressible optimism and a faith in simple values that are both uplifting and marvelously contagious. As It Was is a lesson in a life well lived, and a tonic for dark and troubled times.” -- Scott Horton, author of Lords of Secrecy: The National Security Elite and America’s Stealth Warfare (2015), contributing editor,Harper’s Magazine.

Download or read book Memoir written by Ben Yagoda and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-11-12 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a critically acclaimed cultural and literary critic, a definitive history and analysis of the memoir. From Saint Augustine?s Confessions to Augusten Burroughs?s Running with Scissors, from Julius Caesar to Ulysses Grant, from Mark Twain to David Sedaris, the art of memoir has had a fascinating life, and deserves its own biography. Cultural and literary critic Ben Yagoda traces the memoir from its birth in early Christian writings and Roman generals? journals all the way up to the banner year of 2007, which saw memoirs from and about dogs, rock stars, bad dads, good dads, alternadads, waitresses, George Foreman, Iranian women, and a slew of other illustrious persons (and animals). In a time when memoir seems ubiquitous and is still highly controversial, Yagoda tackles the autobiography and memoir in all its forms and iterations. He discusses the fraudulent memoir and provides many examples from the past?and addresses the ramifications and consequences of these books. Spanning decades and nations, styles and subjects, he analyzes the hallmark memoirs of the Western tradition?Rousseau, Ben Franklin, Henry Adams, Gertrude Stein, Edward Gibbon, among others. Yagoda also describes historical trends, such as Native American captive memoirs, slave narratives, courtier dramas (where one had to pay to NOT be included in a courtesan?s memoir). Throughout, the idea of memory and truth, how we remember and how well we remember lives, is intimately explored. Yagoda's elegant examination of memoir is at once a history of literature and taste, and an absorbing glimpse into what humans find interesting--one another.

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 See No Stranger written by Valarie Kaur and published by One World. This book was released on 2020-06-16 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An urgent manifesto and a dramatic memoir of awakening, this is the story of revolutionary love. Finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize • “In a world stricken with fear and turmoil, Valarie Kaur shows us how to summon our deepest wisdom.”—Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love How do we love in a time of rage? How do we fix a broken world while not breaking ourselves? Valarie Kaur—renowned Sikh activist, filmmaker, and civil rights lawyer—describes revolutionary love as the call of our time, a radical, joyful practice that extends in three directions: to others, to our opponents, and to ourselves. It enjoins us to see no stranger but instead look at others and say: You are part of me I do not yet know. Starting from that place of wonder, the world begins to change: It is a practice that can transform a relationship, a community, a culture, even a nation. Kaur takes readers through her own riveting journey—as a brown girl growing up in California farmland finding her place in the world; as a young adult galvanized by the murders of Sikhs after 9/11; as a law student fighting injustices in American prisons and on Guantánamo Bay; as an activist working with communities recovering from xenophobic attacks; and as a woman trying to heal from her own experiences with police violence and sexual assault. Drawing from the wisdom of sages, scientists, and activists, Kaur reclaims love as an active, public, and revolutionary force that creates new possibilities for ourselves, our communities, and our world. See No Stranger helps us imagine new ways of being with each other—and with ourselves—so that together we can begin to build the world we want to see.

Download or read book When Rabbit Howls written by Truddi Chase and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1990-04-01 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A woman diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder reveals her harrowing journey from abuse to recovery in this #1 New York Times bestselling autobiography written by her own multiple personalities. Successful, happily married Truddi Chase began therapy hoping to find the reasons behind her extreme anxiety, mood swings, and periodic blackouts. What emerged from her sessions was terrifying: Truddi’s mind and body were inhabited by the Troops—ninety-two individual voices that emerged to shield her from her traumatizing childhood. For years the Troops created a world where she could hide from the pain of the ritualized sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her own stepfather—abuse that began when she was only two years old. It was a past that Truddi didn’t even know existed, until she and her therapist took a journey to where the nightmare began... Written by the Troops themselves, When Rabbit Howls is told by the very alter-egos who stayed with Truddi Chase, watched over her, and protected her. What they reveal is a spellbinding descent into a personal hell—and an ultimate, triumphant deliverance for the woman they became.

Download or read book The Beautiful Ones written by Prince and published by One World. This book was released on 2019-10-29 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The brilliant coming-of-age-and-into-superstardom story of one of the greatest artists of all time, in his own words—featuring never-before-seen photos, original scrapbooks and lyric sheets, and the exquisite memoir he began writing before his tragic death NAMED ONE OF THE BEST MUSIC BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND THE GUARDIAN • NOMINATED FOR THE NAACP IMAGE AWARD Prince was a musical genius, one of the most beloved, accomplished, and acclaimed musicians of our time. He was a startlingly original visionary with an imagination deep enough to whip up whole worlds, from the sexy, gritty funk paradise of “Uptown” to the mythical landscape of Purple Rain to the psychedelia of “Paisley Park.” But his most ambitious creative act was turning Prince Rogers Nelson, born in Minnesota, into Prince, one of the greatest pop stars of any era. The Beautiful Ones is the story of how Prince became Prince—a first-person account of a kid absorbing the world around him and then creating a persona, an artistic vision, and a life, before the hits and fame that would come to define him. The book is told in four parts. The first is the memoir Prince was writing before his tragic death, pages that bring us into his childhood world through his own lyrical prose. The second part takes us through Prince’s early years as a musician, before his first album was released, via an evocative scrapbook of writing and photos. The third section shows us Prince’s evolution through candid images that go up to the cusp of his greatest achievement, which we see in the book’s fourth section: his original handwritten treatment for Purple Rain—the final stage in Prince’s self-creation, where he retells the autobiography of the first three parts as a heroic journey. The book is framed by editor Dan Piepenbring’s riveting and moving introduction about his profound collaboration with Prince in his final months—a time when Prince was thinking deeply about how to reveal more of himself and his ideas to the world, while retaining the mystery and mystique he’d so carefully cultivated—and annotations that provide context to the book’s images. This work is not just a tribute to an icon, but an original and energizing literary work in its own right, full of Prince’s ideas and vision, his voice and image—his undying gift to the world.

Download or read book As It Happened written by William S. Paley and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-06-24 with total page 657 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As it Happened is a landmark memoir, the first of its kind by a giant of the communications media. It is the intimate and straightforward story of an original, the life and growth of an extraordinary man and the company he built, CBS. In the book, William S. Paley reminisced about his personal life and his life with CBS—from the celebrities of the entertainment world to the business and political leaders of America to the journalistic controversies still in the news. Paley bought CBS when it was a small struggling company called United Independent Broadcasting and when he was a young man still in his twenties. Within months he had begun a transformation which shaped CBS into one of the world's greatest communications empires. And still he found time to enjoy the "Roaring Twenties" in Paris, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and New York. A brilliant and creative businessman dealing for high stakes, Paley foresaw the cultural and informational impact of radio, and later, television. With an uncanny eye for spotting entertainment talent, he "discovered" for radio Bing Crosby, Kate Smith, Will Rogers, Frank Sinatra, and Paul Whiteman; and those he did not discover, he lured to CBS: Jack Benny, Amos and Andy, George Burns, Red Skelton, and a host of others. But this book covers more than radio and television—it is about the tastes and trends of American culture, written by the man who helped to create and refine many of them. William S. Paley was CBS. His life touched virtually every major event of the twentieth century. This is a fascinating and revealing work about a man who perhaps more than any other, brought the great events of our times to us.

Download or read book Drinking written by Caroline Knapp and published by Dial Press. This book was released on 1999-08-02 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fifteen million Americans a year are plagued with alcoholism. Five million of them are women. Many of them, like Caroline Knapp, started in their early teens and began to use alcohol as "liquid armor," a way to protect themselves against the difficult realities of life. In this extraordinarily candid and revealing memoir, Knapp offers important insights not only about alcoholism, but about life itself and how we learn to cope with it. It was love at first sight. The beads of moisture on a chilled bottle. The way the glasses clinked and the conversation flowed. Then it became obsession. The way she hid her bottles behind her lover's refrigerator. The way she slipped from the dinner table to the bathroom, from work to the bar. And then, like so many love stories, it fell apart. Drinking is Caroline Kapp's harrowing chronicle of her twenty-year love affair with alcohol. Caroline had her first drink at fourteen. She drank through her yeras at an Ivy League college, and through an award-winning career as an editor and columnist. Publicly she was a dutiful daughter, a sophisticated professional. Privately she was drinking herself into oblivion. This startlingly honest memoir lays bare the secrecy, family myths, and destructive relationships that go hand in hand with drinking. And it is, above all, a love story for our times—full of passion and heartbreak, betrayal and desire—a triumph over the pain and deception that mark an alcoholic life. Praise for Drinking “Quietly moving . . . Caroline Knapp dazzles us with her heady description of alcohol's allure and its devastating hold.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review “Filled with hard-won wisdom . . . [a] perceptive and revealing book.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Eloquent . . . a remarkable exercise in self-discovery.”—The New York Times “Drinking not only describes triumph; it is one.”—Newsweek

Download or read book Based on a True Story written by Norm Macdonald and published by Random House. This book was released on 2016-09-20 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Driving, wild and hilarious” (The Washington Post), here is the incredible “memoir” of the legendary actor, gambler, raconteur, and Saturday Night Live veteran. When Norm Macdonald, one of the greatest stand-up comics of all time, was approached to write a celebrity memoir, he flatly refused, calling the genre “one step below instruction manuals.” Norm then promptly took a two-year hiatus from stand-up comedy to live on a farm in northern Canada. When he emerged he had under his arm a manuscript, a genre-smashing book about comedy, tragedy, love, loss, war, and redemption. When asked if this was the celebrity memoir, Norm replied, “Call it anything you damn like.”

Download or read book Just as I Am written by Cicely Tyson and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-01-26 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “In her long and extraordinary career, Cicely Tyson has not only succeeded as an actor, she has shaped the course of history.” –President Barack Obama, 2016 Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony “Just as I Am is my truth. It is me, plain and unvarnished, with the glitter and garland set aside. In these pages, I am indeed Cicely, the actress who has been blessed to grace the stage and screen for six decades. Yet I am also the church girl who once rarely spoke a word. I am the teenager who sought solace in the verses of the old hymn for which this book is named. I am a daughter and a mother, a sister and a friend. I am an observer of human nature and the dreamer of audacious dreams. I am a woman who has hurt as immeasurably as I have loved, a child of God divinely guided by his hand. And here in my ninth decade, I am a woman who, at long last, has something meaningful to say.” –Cicely Tyson

Download or read book Apropos of Nothing written by Woody Allen and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-03-23 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Long-Awaited, Enormously Entertaining Memoir by One of the Great Artists of Our Time—Now a New York Times, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, and Publisher’s Weekly Bestseller. In this candid and often hilarious memoir, the celebrated director, comedian, writer, and actor offers a comprehensive, personal look at his tumultuous life. Beginning with his Brooklyn childhood and his stint as a writer for the Sid Caesar variety show in the early days of television, working alongside comedy greats, Allen tells of his difficult early days doing standup before he achieved recognition and success. With his unique storytelling pizzazz, he recounts his departure into moviemaking, with such slapstick comedies as Take the Money and Run, and revisits his entire, sixty-year-long, and enormously productive career as a writer and director, from his classics Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Annie and Her Sisters to his most recent films, including Midnight in Paris. Along the way, he discusses his marriages, his romances and famous friendships, his jazz playing, and his books and plays. We learn about his demons, his mistakes, his successes, and those he loved, worked with, and learned from in equal measure. This is a hugely entertaining, deeply honest, rich and brilliant self-portrait of a celebrated artist who is ranked among the greatest filmmakers of our time.

Download or read book Things I ve Said But Probably Shouldn t Have written by Bruce Dern and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2007-04-20 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bruce Dern has worked with practically every iconic actor and director in the last 50 years, and he's not afraid to say what he thinks about all of them. In this uniquely funny memoir, he looks back over his amazing career, telling one memorable story after another.

Download or read book What Comes Next and How to Like It written by Abigail Thomas and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-03-24 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "From the bestselling author of A Three Dog Life ... [comes a] memoir about aging, family, creativity, tragedy, friendship, and the richness of life"--Amazon.com.

Download or read book Born a Crime written by Trevor Noah and published by One World. This book was released on 2016-11-15 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • More than one million copies sold! A “brilliant” (Lupita Nyong’o, Time), “poignant” (Entertainment Weekly), “soul-nourishing” (USA Today) memoir about coming of age during the twilight of apartheid “Noah’s childhood stories are told with all the hilarity and intellect that characterizes his comedy, while illuminating a dark and brutal period in South Africa’s history that must never be forgotten.”—Esquire Winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor and an NAACP Image Award • Named one of the best books of the year by The New York Time, USA Today, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, Esquire, Newsday, and Booklist Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle. Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life. The stories collected here are by turns hilarious, dramatic, and deeply affecting. Whether subsisting on caterpillars for dinner during hard times, being thrown from a moving car during an attempted kidnapping, or just trying to survive the life-and-death pitfalls of dating in high school, Trevor illuminates his curious world with an incisive wit and unflinching honesty. His stories weave together to form a moving and searingly funny portrait of a boy making his way through a damaged world in a dangerous time, armed only with a keen sense of humor and a mother’s unconventional, unconditional love.

Download or read book Safekeeping written by Abigail Thomas and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2011-08-03 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A beautifully crafted and inviting account of one woman’s life, Safekeeping offers a sublimely different kind of autobiography. Setting aside a straightforward narrative in favor of brief passages of vivid prose, Abigail Thomas revisits the pivotal moments and the tiny incidents that have shaped her life: pregnancy at 18; single motherhood (of three!) by the age of 26; the joys and frustrations of three marriages; and the death of her second husband, who was her best friend. The stories made of these incidents are startling in their clarity and reassuring in their wisdom. This is a book in which silence speaks as eloquently as what is revealed. Openhearted and effortlessly funny, these brilliantly selected glimpses of the arc of a life are, in an age of excessive confession and recrimination, a welcome tonic.