Book picks similar to
When Mama Can't Kiss it Better: A Journey of Unconditional Love, Loss and Acceptance by Lori Gertz
non-fiction
memoirs
netgalley
true-story-swear
Dancing with a Porcupine: Parenting wounded children without losing your self
Jennie Lynn Owens - 2019
So what do you do when you're parenting a child who has experienced trauma or has extra challenges? You often feel alone and inadequate. You want so much to help your child, but you are at the end of your own rope. You feel guilty that sometimes you want to just quit.What can you do -- how can you make it through the day -- how can you help your child while also taking care of yourself?Maybe someone you love is parenting a traumatized child. Or perhaps you are a social worker, counselor, or other professional who sees families like these every day. You want to know how to better help them.In Dancing with a Porcupine, Jennie Owens shares with humor and raw honesty the compelling story of her struggle to save her own life while caring for three children she and her husband adopted from foster care. How could she stay loving, giving, and forgiving in the midst of a daily battle with children acting out the rage, resentment, and pain of their own traumatic pasts?When faith, endurance, and creativity are not enough, what's next?
Boat Girl: A Memoir of Youth, Love & Fiberglass
Melanie Neale - 2012
Throughout the 1980's and 90's, Melanie's family lived aboard a 47-foot sailboat, spending their summers along the US East Coast and their winters in the Bahamas. But the cruising life was not all fun in the sun. The family had to work hard to pay for their way of life. They dodged hurricanes, overzealous federal agents and bullying land-kids. And they endured a boatload of family drama. As her father published articles about how living on a boat brings families together, Melanie secretly struggled with an eating disorder, the alienation of being a boat kid, and confusion over her developing sexuality. As an adult, she lived aboard her own 28-foot sailboat and had several relationships trying to find someone who wasn't intimidated by her stubborn independence and free-spirited lifestyle. "Boat Girl" weaves all this together into a story about a girl who, once all is said and done, simply wants her own boat and her own life. Melanie paints a vivid picture of the trials and tribulations of family life aboard a sailboat without drowning the reader in the technical details of sailing. "Boat Girl" strikes a perfect balance between a coming of age story and a sea tale, enjoyable for boaters and land-lovers alike.
Can You Keep a Secret?
Katie Collins - 2012
Katie’s sexual odyssey began before she was even sixteen. She started out stripping on webcam for an audience of strangers and soon she was meeting and having increasingly adventurous sex with numerous men each week, determined to expand her sexual horizons and explore her submissive nature. When Katie discovered the secretive swingers’ scene, her behaviour escalated as she found the perfect outlet for her voracious sexual appetite. After her first nervous encounters with experienced swingers, she threw herself into the anything-goes lifestyle and became the most popular girl on the scene, proudly taking centre stage at fifty-strong sex parties. Katie’s uncontrollable sexual urge eventually led her to experiment with women, explore S&M fetishes and have sex with up to ten men in one night. Katie sought out ever more extreme sexual experiences and she eventually began to wonder if her behaviour was really an expression of her sexual freedom, or if it had grown out of something darker.Can You Keep a Secret? is the brutally honest and sometimes unsettling account of a young girl’s journey into the sexual underworld.Available via Amazon.com and iBooks.
The Easy Way for Women to Stop Drinking
Allen Carr - 2016
It has helped millions of smokers from all over the world to quit. In The Easy Way for Women to Stop Drinking, Allen Carr's Easyway method has been applied to problem drinking for women, acknowledging that women who want to stop drinking face particular difficulties-and tailored to their needs.By explaining why you feel the need to drink and with simple step-by-step instructions to set you free, Allen Carr shows you how to escape from the alcohol trap. This book comes with several assurances: You won't feel like you're being talked down to; there are no scare tactics or gimmicks; you won't feel deprived; and you won't miss drinking.
What people say about Allen Carr's Easyway method:
"The Allen Carr program was nothing short of a miracle."
Anjelica Huston
"It was such a revelation that instantly I was freed from my addiction."
Sir Anthony Hopkins
"His skill is in removing the psychological dependence."
The Sunday Times
Loose Balls: Easy Money, Hard Fouls, Cheap Laughs, & True Love in the NBA
Jayson Williams - 2000
From revelations about the meanest, softest, and smelliest players in the league, to Williams’s early days as a “young man with a lot of money and not a lot of sense,” to his strong and powerful views on race, privilege, and giving back, Loose Balls is a basketball book unlike any other.No inspirational pieties or chest-thumping boasting here—instead, Jayson Williams gives us the real insider tales of refs, groupies, coaches, entourages, and all the superstars, bench warmers, journeymen, clowns, and other performers in the rarefied circus that is professional basketball.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Confessions Of A Parish Priest
Andrew M. Greeley - 1988
In these uncensored memoirs, he shares his thoughts and bares his soul. Here is the most unorthodox book yet from this controversial man of the cloth.
The Lucky Few: Finding God's Best in the Most Unlikely Places
Heather Avis - 2017
That's what adoptive mom Heather Avis learned, and that's the invitation of this book.As the mother of three adopted children - two with Down syndrome - Heather Avis has learned that it's truly the lucky few who get to live a life like hers, who actually recognize that God's plans are best, even when they seem so radically different from the plans we have for ourselves.When Heather started her journey into parenthood she never thought it would look like this, never planned to have three adopted children, and certainly never imagined that two of them would have Down syndrome. But like most things God does, once she stepped into the craziness and confusion that comes with the unknown and the unplanned, she realized that they were indeed among the lucky few.Discover in this book what 70,000+ followers of Heather's hit Instagram account @macymakesmyday already know: the power of faith and family can help us stay strong in the toughest times. This book will also be especially touching to those with adopted family members or children with Down syndrome in their lives.
My Best Race
Chris Cooper - 2013
But whether they are twenty-mile-a-day elite marathoners or twenty-mile-a-week recreational runners, each of them can invariably point to a singular performance as “the best race I ever ran.”MY BEST RACE is a collection of those singular performances. In this inspirational collection, fifty runners, from Olympians and World Champions, to courageous disabled athletes and middle-of-the-packers, share their personal accounts of what they consider the best race they ever ran...and why.Contributors include:Jeff Galloway: A top marathoner sacrifices his place on the Olympic marathon team by pacing his friend to the third and final qualifying spot at the Olympic Trials. Trisha Meili: The woman once known only as “The Central Park Jogger” crosses the finish line in the race she founded to benefit disabled athletes, fourteen years after being left for dead from a brutal attack that gripped the nation. Ed Eyestone: The unheralded runner comes out of nowhere to beat a previously undefeated state champion in a high school cross-country race, giving him the confidence to eventually become a four-time NCAA champion and two-time Olympian. Kathrine Switzer: The woman they tried to physically remove from the male-only Boston Marathon in 1967 had no one but herself to blame forty-three years later as she struggled through the 2,500th anniversary of the original marathon in Greece.Through interviews with the author, fifty runners recount their inspiring races and personal achievements with excitement, laughter, and sometimes tears.
In the Company of Legends
Joan Kramer - 2015
These were recognized as high-quality, definitive film portraits, which revitalized the genre and made it a mainstay of television programming.This is their insiders’ view of the famous and the powerful: Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart, Johnny Carson, Frank Sinatra, Lew Wasserman, Ronald Reagan, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Jane Fonda, Richard Dreyfuss, Audrey Hepburn, and Bette Davis, among others. Kramer and Heeley’s behind the scenes stories of the productions and the personalities involved are amusing, sometimes moving, often revealing, and have never been told before.
The Black Widow: My web of secrets and the truth about my murder conviction
Linda Calvey - 2019
Growing up after the war in the East End of London, Linda fell in with local gangsters including the Krays, Freddie Forman and Ronnie Cook. And in 1990, the so-called 'Black Widow' was convicted of killing her lover Cook. She served a double sentence because she wouldn't confess.Her 18 years behind bars made her Britain's longest serving female prisoner. She moved to 14 different prisons during her time inside, sharing a prison with Rose West and Myra Hindley.Since her release she has led a quiet, low-key life marrying a local businessman called George. Sadly George too is now dead..
Every Night's A Saturday Night: The Rock 'n' Roll Life of Legendary Sax Man Bobby Keys
Bobby Keys - 2012
In his early teens, Keys bribed his way into Buddy Holly's garage band rehearsals. He took up the saxophone because it was the only instrument left unclaimed in the school band, and he convinced his grandfather to sign his guardianship over to Crickets drummer J.I. Allison so that he could go on tour as a teenager.Keys spent years on the road during the early days of rock 'n' roll with hitmakers like Bobby Vee and the various acts on Dick Clark's Caravan of Stars Tour, followed by decades as top touring and session sax man for the likes of Mad Dogs and Englishmen, George Harrison, John Lennon, and onto his gig with The Rolling Stone from 1970 onward. Every Night's a Saturday Night finds Keys setting down the many tales of an over-the-top rock 'n' roll life in his own inimitable voice.Augmented by exclusive contributions with famous friends like Keith Richards, Joe Crocker, and Jim Keltner, Every Night's a Saturday Night paints a unique picture of the coming-of-age of rock 'n' roll.
Home is Burning
Dan Marshall - 2015
First diagnosed when he was only ten years old, she was the model of resilience throughout his childhood, fighting her disease with tenacity and a mouth foul enough to make a sailor blush. But just as she faces a relapse, her husband —a successful businessman and devoted father—is diagnosed with ALS. He is told that in a few months' time, he be unable to walk, eat, or breathe on his own. Dan, a recent college graduate living the good life in Los Angeles, has no choice but to return home to help. Reinstalled in his parents' basement (in one of the only non-Mormon homes in a Salt Lake City subdivision) Dan is reunited with his siblings. His older sister Tiffany is resentful, having stayed closer to home to bear the brunt of their mother's illness. Younger brother Greg comes to lend a hand, giving up a journalism career and evenings cruising Chicago gay bars. Younger sister Michelle is a sullen teenager experimenting with drinking and flirting with her 35-year-old soccer coach. And baby sister Chelsea—the oddest duck in a family of misfits—can only think about dance. Together they form Team Terminal, going to battle against their parents' illnesses and cracking plenty of jokes along the way. As Dan steps into his role as caregiver, wheelchair wrangler, and sibling referee, he watches pieces of his previous life slip away, and comes to realize that you don't get to choose when it's time to grow up.
Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited
Elyse Schein - 2007
You discover that she has the same birthday, the same allergies, the same tics, and the same way of laughing. Looking at this person, you are able to gaze into your own eyes and see yourself from the outside. This identical individual has the exact same DNA as you and is essentially your clone.We don’t have to imagine.Elyse Schein had always known she was adopted, but it wasn’t until her mid-thirties while living in Paris that she searched for her biological mother. When Elyse contacted her adoption agency, she was not prepared for the shocking, life-changing news she received: She had an identical twin sister. Elyse was then hit with another bombshell: she and her sister had been separated as infants, and for a time, had been part of a secret study on separated twins.Paula Bernstein, a married writer and mother living in New York, also knew she was adopted, but had no inclination to find her birth mother. When she answered a call from the adoption agency one spring afternoon, Paula’s life suddenly divided into two starkly different periods: the time before and the time after she learned the truth. As they reunite and take their tentative first steps from strangers to sisters, Paula and Elyse are also left with haunting questions surrounding their origins and their separation. They learn that the study was conducted by a pair of influential psychiatrists associated with a prestigious adoption agency. As they investigate their birth mother’s past, Paula and Elyse move closer toward solving the puzzle of their lives.In alternating voices, Paula and Elyse write with emotional honesty about the immediate intimacy they share as twins and the wide chasm that divides them as two complete strangers. Interweaving eye-opening studies and statistics on twin science into their narrative, they offer an intelligent and heartfelt glimpse into human nature. Identical Strangers is the amazing story of two women coming to terms with the strange and unbelievable hand fate has dealt them, an account that broadens the definition of family and provides insight into our own DNA and the singularly exceptional imprint it leaves on our lives.
On the Nose: A Lifelong Obsession with Yosemite's Most Iconic Climb
Hans Florine - 2016
Destroying Their God: How I Fought My Evil Half-Brother to Save My Children
Wallace Jeffs - 2018
After he built a successful business, the church required him to marry a second wife. Wallace fathered twenty children, but he never felt comfortable with polygamy or many other FLDS beliefs.As his prophet-brother increasingly manipulated him, Wallace started hearing about FLDS atrocities. On the day the FBI arrested Warren Jeffs for child rape, the prophet was en route to reclaim Wallace's second wife for himself. Wallace defied the prophet and soon ended up in a coma. Though Wallace feared FLDS sabotage caused his car crash, he kept fighting the sect.With today's movement against male abusers, Wallace's story reminds us that power and position don't corrupt all men. In 2018, Wallace found resolution by marrying an LDS woman in the Salt Lake Temple. At the same time, he renews our concern for the thousands who still live under FLDS control, including some of Wallace's own children.