Book picks similar to
What We Do for Love by Ilene Beckerman
fiction
non-fiction
contemporary-fiction
literatura-estrangeira
Woolgathering
Patti Smith - 1992
She discovers often at night, often in nature the pleasures of rescuing a fleeting thought. Deeply moving, Woolgathering calls up our own memories, as the child glimpses and gleans, piecing together a crazy quilt of truths. Smith introduces us to her tribe, a race of cloud dwellers, and to the fierce, vital pleasures of cloud watching and stargazing and wandering.A radiant new autobiographical piece, Two Worlds (which was not in the original 1992 Hanuman edition of Woolgathering), and the author's photographs and illustrations are also included. Woolgathering celebrates the sacred nature of creation with Smith's beautiful style, acclaimed as glorious (NPR), spellbinding (Booklist), rare and ferocious (Salon), and shockingly beautiful (New York Magazine).
Eightysixed: Life Lessons Learned
Emily Belden - 2014
But if “figuring it all out” and “wanting it all” were Olympic sports, Emily would have been a gold medalist in both categories. Never one to admit defeat in the face of the enemy, Emily gets back in the dating ring again and again. But, the more she tries to make her therapist proud, the deeper down the rabbit hole she goes. While recovering the pieces of her broken heart, straight-A Emily’s dating world morphs into a mad soirée of drug addicts, embezzlers, perverts, and pimps. Just as she begins to believe that a bottle of wine might be her only shot at happiness, a chance encounter with a man she should never should have met resets Emily’s buttons. What she experience next satiates her heart, her soul, and her stomach, as she frees herself from the perils of her mid-twenties and becomes exactly who she is supposed to be.
Anne Frank's Tales from the Secret Annex: A Collection of Her Short Stories, Fables, and Lesser-Known Writings
Anne Frank - 1960
Here, too, are portions of the diary originally withheld from publication by her father. By turns fantastical, rebellious, touching, funny, and heartbreaking, these writings reveal the astonishing range of Anne Frank's wisdom and imagination--as well as her indomitable love of life. Anne Frank's Tales from the Secret Annex is a testaments to this determined young woman's extraordinary genius and to the persistent strength of the creative spirit.From the Paperback edition.
Of Time and Memory: My Parents' Love Story
Don J. Snyder - 1999
All his life Don had been too shy, too deeply pained to ask his father or grandparents to tell him the story of the lovely girl named Peggy Snyder--what delighted or troubled her, who her friends were, how she fell in love, what cut short her brief life.But then, nearing his fiftieth birthday and compelled by his father's failing health, Snyder embarked on a quest to find his mother. He traveled many times from his home in Maine down to his mother's small Pennsylvania town to trace her childhood and adolescence. He tracked down Peggy's high school friends, spent time with her teachers, probed the memories of the girls--now elderly women-- who had been her bridesmaids. Detail by detail, Don pieced together the harrowing story of Peggy's final year--her passionate love affair with her husband, the unexpected pregnancy, the sudden illness that consumed her, and the impossible choice she was forced to make.A heartbreaking, overwhelmingly beautiful book, Of Time and Memory is a story of remembering--and reclaiming--the fragile mystery of a beloved life.
Chicago Days/Hoboken Nights
Daniel Pinkwater - 1991
The story of a young man who finds himself somewhat unexpectedly a fine arts major in college, a fledgling sculptor in Chicago, a gadabout painter in Hoboken, and who eventually winds up a writer sometimes called "a born storyteller".The author of more than fifty books, Pinkwater now chronicles his own early life.
I'm Taking My Eggs and Going Home: How One Woman Dared to Say No to Motherhood
Lisa Manterfield - 2010
Five years later she was a baby addict, hiding her addiction, plotting a maternity ward heist, and threatening anything that got in her way, including her beloved husband and his pesky practicality. In this gritty and honest memoir, Manterfield traces her spiraling route from rational 21st century woman to desperate mama-wannabe. She examines the siren song of motherhood, the insidious lure of the fertility industry, and the repercussions of being childless in a mom-centric society. But this isn’t just another infertility story with another miracle baby ending, nor is it a sad introspective of a childless woman; this is a story about love, desire, and choices—and ultimately about hope. It is the story of a woman who escapes her addiction, not with a baby, but with her sanity, her marriage, and her sense-of-self intact.
Show Me the Way: A Memoir in Stories
Jennifer Lauck - 2004
In this luminous and mature work, Lauck offers an unflinching account of the joys and pains of modern motherhood. Show Me the Way touches upon the themes common to so many of Lauck's loyal readers: labor, delivery, and the physical delights of giving birth; the decision to have a second child; the struggle to maintain independence and, of course, a healthy sex life; the tenuous work/life balancing act; the gossamer threads that bind a family together; the soul-defining nature of caring for children; and the ultimate surrender of finally "getting it." A moving journey through a mother's dreams and memories, Show Me the Way is also a rewarding and inspiring conclusion for the author's many fans.
Three Women
Lisa Taddeo - 2019
Starved for affection, Lina battles daily panic attacks and, after reconnecting with an old flame through social media, embarks on an affair that quickly becomes all-consuming. In North Dakota we meet Maggie, a seventeen-year-old high school student who allegedly has a clandestine physical relationship with her handsome, married English teacher; the ensuing criminal trial will turn their quiet community upside down. Finally, in an exclusive enclave of the Northeast, we meet Sloane—a gorgeous, successful, and refined restaurant owner—who is happily married to a man who likes to watch her have sex with other men and women.Based on years of immersive reporting and told with astonishing frankness and immediacy, Three Women is both a feat of journalism and a triumph of storytelling, brimming with nuance and empathy. “A work of deep observation, long conversations, and a kind of journalistic alchemy” (Kate Tuttle, NPR), Three Women introduces us to three unforgettable women—and one remarkable writer—whose experiences remind us that we are not alone.
Hippie
Paulo Coelho - 2018
In the Dam Square in Amsterdam, long-haired young people wearing vibrant clothes and burning incense could be found meditating, playing music and discussing sexual liberation, the expansion of consciousness and the search for an inner truth. They were a generation refusing to live the robotic and unquestioning life that their parents had known.At this time, Paulo is a young, skinny Brazilian with a goatee and long, flowing hair who wants to become a writer. He sets off on a journey in search of freedom and a deeper meaning for his life: first, with a girlfriend, on the famous “Death Train to Bolivia,” then on to Peru and later hitchhiking through Chile and Argentina.His travels take him further, to the famous square in Amsterdam, where Paulo meets Karla, a Dutch woman also in her 20s. She convinces Paulo to join her on a trip to Nepal, aboard the Magic Bus that travels across Europe and Central Asia to Kathmandu. They embark on a journey in the company of fascinating fellow travelers, each of whom has a story to tell, and each of whom will undergo a transformation, changing their priorities and values, along the way. As they travel together, Paulo and Karla explore their own relationship, an awakening on every level that brings each of them to a choice and a decision that sets the course for their lives thereafter.
The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border
Francisco Cantú - 2018
Haunted by the landscape of his youth, Cantú joins the Border Patrol. He and his partners are posted to remote regions crisscrossed by drug routes and smuggling corridors, where they learn to track other humans under blistering sun and through frigid nights. They haul in the dead and deliver to detention those they find alive.Cantú tries not to think where the stories go from there. Plagued by nightmares, he abandons the Patrol for civilian life. But when an immigrant friend travels to Mexico to visit his dying mother and does not return, Cantú discovers that the border has migrated with him, and now he must know the whole story. Searing and unforgettable, The Line Becomes a River makes urgent and personal the violence our border wreaks on both sides of the line.
Bringing Home the Birkin: My Life in Hot Pursuit of the World's Most Coveted Handbag
Michael Tonello - 2008
With a fabled waiting list of more than two years to purchase one, the average fashionista has a better chance of climbing Mount Everest in Prada pumps than of possessing this coveted carryall. Unless, of course, she happens to know Michael Tonello. . . . With down-to-earth wit, Michael Tonello chronicles the unusual ventures that took him to nearly every continent� and from eBay to Paris auction houses and into the lives of celebrities and poseurs alike� on the road to becoming a successful entrepreneur and Robin Hood to thousands of desperate rich women.
A Cat in the Window
Derek Tangye - 1962
From the first moment Derek, who was not until then a cat-lover, met a tiny bundle of fur with Jeannie, through to the pet's old age when he would still walk down to the stream to make 'Monty's Leap', this is a touching story of friendship between two people and their cat.
All At Sea: One man. One bathtub. One very bad idea.
Tim FitzHigham - 2009
The book follows the author's death-defying 200-mile journey in his antique Thomas Crapper bath - not just across the Channel, but around Kent - right up to the tremendous reception and huge media attention which awaited him under Tower Bridge. Tim met the Queen, and his bath now resides in the National Maritime Museum of Great Britain.
Penny Candy
Jean Kerr - 1966
15 new, extremely funny, pieces by the author of "Please Don't Eat the Daisies." These stories run the gamut from home entertaining to Twiggy with a laugh every step of the way.
A Place for Us: A Greek Immigrant Boy's Odyssey to a New Country and an Unknown Father
Nicholas Gage - 1989
Inthis sequel to the bestselling ELENI Nicholas gage tells the moving story of meeting his father and growing up in Worcester, Mass.