Book picks similar to
Caged: Memoirs of a Cage-Fighting Poet by Cameron Conaway
non-fiction
memoir
amazon
biography
She's Not There
Marla Madison - 2011
. . Is the rising number of abused women who've gone missing a statistical anomaly? Or is a serial killer targeting this vulnerable group of women? When the Milwaukee Police Department refuses to investigate because no bodies have been discovered, Lisa Rayburn, the clinical psychologist who discovers the anomaly, is drawn into an investigation to discover the cause after one of her own clients goes missing. She finds herself forming an unlikely alliance with a former policewoman turned security consultant, TJ Peacock, and the husbands of two of the missing women who may themselves be murderers. When TJ is attacked, and a woman looking remarkably like Lisa is found murdered, they know . . . someone is willing to kill to protect his secret. Can they reveal the killer before he gets to them?
Dear Mr. You
Mary-Louise Parker - 2015
You renders the singular arc of a woman’s life through letters Mary-Louise Parker composes to the men, real and hypothetical, who have informed the person she is today. Beginning with the grandfather she never knew, the letters range from a missive to the beloved priest from her childhood to remembrances of former lovers to an homage to a firefighter she encountered to a heartfelt communication with the uncle of the infant daughter she adopted. Readers will be amazed by the depth and style of these letters, which reveal the complexity and power to be found in relationships both loving and fraught.
Back Story
David Mitchell - 2012
Despite what David Miliband might think
Love, Nina: Despatches from Family Life
Nina Stibbe - 2013
Nina Stibbe's Love, Nina: Despatches from Family Life is the laugh-out-loud story of the trials and tribulations of a very particular family.
Never Have I Ever: My Life (So Far) Without a Date
Katie Heaney - 2014
Not one boyfriend. Not one short-term dating situation. Not one person with whom I regularly hung out and kissed on the face."So begins Katie Heaney's memoir of her years spent looking for love, but never quite finding it. By age 25, equipped with a college degree, a load of friends, and a happy family life, she still has never had a boyfriend ... and she's barely even been on a second date.Throughout this laugh-out-loud funny book, you will meet Katie's loyal group of girlfriends, including flirtatious and outgoing Rylee, the wild child to Katie's shrinking violet, as well as a whole roster of Katie's ill-fated crushes. And you will get to know Katie herself -- a smart, modern heroine relaying truths about everything from the subtleties of a Facebook message exchange to the fact that "Everybody who works in a coffee shop is at least a little bit hot."Funny, relatable, and inspiring, this is a memoir for anyone who has ever struggled to find love, but has also had a lot of fun in the process.
Once We Were Sisters: A Memoir
Sheila Kohler - 2017
Stunned by the news, she immediately flew back to the country where she was born, determined to find answers and forced to reckon with his history of violence and the lingering effects of their most unusual childhood--one marked by death and the misguided love of their mother. In her signature spare and incisive prose, Sheila Kohler recounts the lives she and her sister led. Flashing back to their storybook childhood at the family estate, Crossways, Kohler tells of the death of her father when she and Maxine were girls, which led to the family abandoning their house and the girls being raised by their mother, at turns distant and suffocating. We follow them to the cloistered Anglican boarding school where they first learn of separation and later their studies in Rome and Paris where they plan grand lives for themselves--lives that are interrupted when both marry young and discover they have made poor choices. Kohler evokes the bond between sisters and shows how that bond changes but never breaks, even after death. "A beautiful and disturbing memoir of a beloved sister who died at the age of thirty-nine in circumstances that strongly suggest murder. . . . Highly recommended." --Joyce Carol Oates
The Bialy Pimps
Johnny B. Truant - 2012
The loathed customers are dealt the poor treatment they seem to deserve, bad rap music is played loudly, and The Rat is killed often enough to stem his immortality. And the insane homeless regulars -- like drunken Little Johnny Redbeard -- keep life interesting.But when a rival tricks the crew into thinking that the deli's closure is imminent, they do the only logical thing: instead of giving up, they decide to go out in a blaze of glory, handing their customers the humiliation and abuse that the pesky social contract had previously forbidden. But as insults turn to assaults and snide remarks turn to harassment and pro wrestling moves, a strange thing happens. Business goes up -- way up -- as people come back in droves, begging for more.But the flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long, and as pop-culture welcomes the parody musical group "The Bialy Pimps" and its frivolous merchandising machine -- and as the crew pushes to see how much bad behavior society will accept -- the violent road to fame begins to feel like a runaway train, out of control and headed for destruction…The Bialy Pimps is a tale that could only be spun by the twisted, vaguely profane mind of outspoken blogger Johnny B. Truant. Combining hilarity with questions about conformity and whether the tail or the dog is the one doing the wagging, this story can't help but raise a question for the reader: If the rest of your friends decided to submit to the Face-Kicking Machine, would you do it too?
Choose Your Own Disaster
Dana Schwartz - 2018
Join Dana Schwartz on a journey revisiting all of the awful choices she made in her early twenties through the internet's favorite method of self-knowledge: the quiz. Part-memoir, part-VERY long personality test, Choose Your Own Disaster is a manifesto about the millennial experience and modern feminism and how the easy advice of "you can be anything you want!" is actually pretty fucking difficult when there are so many possible versions of yourself it seems like you could be. Dana has no idea who she is, but at least she knows she's a Carrie, a Ravenclaw, a Raphael, a Belle, a former emo kid, a Twitter addict, and a millennial just trying her best. This long-form personality quiz manages to combine humor with unflinching honesty as one young woman tries to find herself amid the many, many choices that your twenties have to offer.
I'm Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen
Sylvie Simmons - 2011
Cohen is also a man of complexities and seeming contradictions: a devout Jew, who is also a sophisticate and a ladies' man, as well as an ordained Buddhist monk whose name, Jikan—"ordinary silence"—is quite the appellation for a writer and singer whose life has been anything but ordinary.I'm Your Man is the definitive account of that extraordinary life. Starting in Montreal, Cohen's birthplace, acclaimed music journalist Sylvie Simmons follows his trail, via London and the Greek island of Hydra, to New York in the sixties, where Cohen launched his career in music. From there she traces the arc of his prodigious achievements to his remarkable retreat in the mid-nineties and his reemergence for a sold-out world tour almost fifteen years later. Whether navigating Cohen's journeys through the backstreets of Mumbai or his countless hotel rooms along the way, Simmons explores with equal focus every complex, contradictory strand of Cohen's life and presents a deeply insightful portrait of the vision, spirit, depth, and talent of an artist and a man who continues to move people like no one else.
Rhubarb
M.H. Van Keuren - 2012
After all, as a traveling salesman, he’s spent more than enough hours on the road listening to late-night talk radio to know about these things. The odd thing is that these aliens are coming to tiny Brixton, Montana…to eat at the truck stop.Martin, too, has been coming to Brixton for years. It’s a convenient crossroads town, but the real draw is Cheryl, the housekeeper who sets out the breakfast at the local motel. Martin has just about worked up the courage to ask her out when she disappears.When Martin begins to ask questions, what he uncovers about Cheryl’s family and Brixton’s history is far weirder than anything he’s ever heard on the radio. Especially if it’s true that Cheryl’s salvation lies in discovering a long-lost secret recipe for rhubarb pie—which might just be the best, and the most dangerous, pie in the galaxy.
The White Road: Journey Into an Obsession
Edmund de Waal - 2015
From his studio in London, he starts by travelling to three "white hills" - sites in China, Germany and England that are key to porcelain's creation. But his search eventually takes him around the globe and reveals more than a history of cups and figurines; rather, he is forced to confront some of the darkest moments of twentieth-century history.Part memoir, part history, part detective story, The White Road chronicles a global obsession with alchemy, art, wealth, craft and purity. In a sweeping yet intimate style that recalls The Hare with Amber Eyes, de Waal gives us a singular understanding of "the spectrum of porcelain" and the mapping of desire.
Never Grow Up
Jackie Chan - 2015
Whether it’s from Rush Hour, Shanghai Noon, The Karate Kid, or Kung Fu Panda, Jackie is admired by generations of moviegoers for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, and mind-bending stunts. In 2016—after fifty-six years in the industry, over 200 films, and many broken bones—he received an honorary Academy Award for his lifetime achievement in film. But at 64 years-old, Jackie is just getting started. Now, in Never Grow Up, the global superstar reflects on his early life, including his childhood years at the China Drama Academy (in which he was enrolled at the age of six), his big breaks (and setbacks) in Hong Kong and Hollywood, his numerous brushes with death (both on and off film sets), and his life as a husband and father (which has been, admittedly and regrettably, imperfect). Jackie has never shied away from his mistakes. Since The Young Master in 1980, Jackie’s films have ended with a bloopers reel in which he stumbles over his lines, misses his mark, or crashes to the ground in a stunt gone south. In Never Grow Up, Jackie applies the same spirit of openness to his life, proving time and time again why he’s beloved the world over: he’s honest, funny, kind, brave beyond reckoning and—after all this time—still young at heart.
Lies That Bind Us
Andrew Hart - 2018
She’s flying to Crete to reunite with friends she met there five years ago and relive an idyllic vacation. Basking in the warmth of the sun, the azure sea, and the aura of antiquity, she can once again pretend—for a little while—that she belongs. Her ex-boyfriend Marcus will be among them, but even he doesn’t know the secrets she keeps hidden behind a veil of lies. None of them really know her, and that’s only part of the problem.Then again, how well does she know them?When Jan awakens in utter darkness, chained to a wall, a manacle around her wrist, her echoing screams only give her a sense of how small her cell is. As she desperately tries to reconstruct what happened and determine who is holding her prisoner, dread covers despair like a hand clamped over her mouth. Because, like the Minotaur in the labyrinth in Greek myth, her captor will be coming back for her, and all the lies will catch up to her…
About My Sisters
Debra Ginsberg - 2004
As her hippie parents criss-crossed the globe, Debra, the oldest of five children, formed indelible bonds with her three sisters that last to this day. Separated by fifteen years among them, Debra and her sisters represent two different generations, each one of them having something to teach the other. Debra and Maya (the next oldest) became not only babysitters, but also playmates, problem solvers, teachers and surrogate mothers to the youngest two. And the shared experience of being the children of an unconventional, dope-smoking, non-career oriented, nomadic couple bonded them even more.Structured around the course of one year, About My Sisters examines these bonds through the prism of the events of that year, revealing not only a "different" family, but also a unique and amazing relationship that has weathered many storms but never foundered. The four sisters (as well as their parents and brother) still live within ten miles of one another and share meals, holidays, joys, pains, and babysitting duties with an astounding frequency. This is a heart-warming, funny, and poignant look at a family that's much like the one we all wish we had..
Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys
Viv Albertine - 2014
Her memoir tells the story of how, through sheer will, talent, and fearlessness, she forced herself into a male-dominated industry, became part of a movement that changed music, and inspired a generation of female rockers.After forming The Flowers of Romance with Sid Vicious in 1976, Albertine joined The Slits and made musical history in one of the first generations of punk bands. The Slits would go on to serve as an inspiration to future rockers, including Kurt Cobain, Carrie Brownstein, and the Riot Grrrl movement in the 1990s. This is the story of what it was like to be a girl at the height of punk: the sex, the drugs, the guys, the tours, and being part of a brilliant pioneering group of women making musical history. Albertine recounts helping define punk fashion, struggling to find her place among the boys, and her romance with Mick Jones, including her pregnancy and subsequent abortion. She also gives a candid account of what happened post-punk, beyond the break-up of The Slits in 1982, including a career in film, surviving cancer, and making music again, twenty-five years later.A truly remarkable memoir told in Viv’s frank, irreverent, and distinctive voice, Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. is a raw, thrilling story of life on the frontier.