How My Breasts Saved the World: Misadventures of a Nursing Mother


Lisa Wood Shapiro - 2004
    Any woman can benefit from Shapiro's hard-won education."--"BUST magazine "Shapiro's memoir . . . offers a welcome real-life complement to weightier breastfeeding advice."--"Brain, Child magazine In this hilarious breastfeeding tell-all--the first of its kind-- Lisa Wood Shapiro recounts her misadventures of new motherhood from the delivery of her daughter and her rookie days as a food source to the bittersweet end of weaning. This may be the information age, but so much of nursing still exists in the smart gal's rumor culture. Only after Shapiro shares her own nursing saga, complete with lactation consultants, chocolate binges, and a new use for green cabbage, do her friends and relatives confess to their own travails. Breastfeeding may be natural, but it is not always instinctual, and one doesn't have to go it alone. There are professionals who can make it work without pain, and it does get easier. Whether or not your breasts have been involved in any world-saving activities, you won't be able to put this book down until you've read the last line.

Wedding Cake for Breakfast: Essays on the Unforgettable First Year of Marriage


Kim Perel - 2012
    Few plan for the day after. But once the cake has been cut, the dress has been worn and the band has played its last song, a marriage begins.From the thrill and dread that comes with an unplanned pregnancy to catching up with an ex and having second thoughts, Wedding Cake for Breakfast   offers an intimate and often surprising look at that first year of marriage through the eyes and lives of 23 acclaimed women writers. With humor and candor, this collection takes readers behind closed doors for close-ups and personal glimpses into the emotional joys and complications of creating a life together—all the while blending families, furniture, and traditions for the very first time.   Gathered together in this hilarious and heartwarming anthology some of today’s most renowned female voices, including New York Times bestselling authors Susan Jane Gillman, Joshilyn Jackson, and Jill Kargman, share their most touching and illuminating stories from the first 365 days of matrimony.

Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules


David SedarisTim Johnston - 2005
    Alone in his apartment, he reads stories aloud to the point he has them memorized. Sometimes he fantasizes that he wrote them. Sometimes, when they’re his very favorite stories, he’ll fantasize about reading them in front of an audience and taking credit for them. The audience in these fantasies always loves him and gives him the respect he deserves.David Sedaris didn’t write the stories in Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules . But he did read them. And he liked them enough to hand pick them for this collection of short fiction. Featuring such notable writers as Lorrie Moore, Alice Munro, Joyce Carol Oates, Jean Thompson, and Tobias Wolff, Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules includes some of the most influential and talented short story writers, contemporary and classic.Perfect for fans who suffer from Sedaris fever, Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules will tide them over and provide relief.2 hrs 56 mins

What My Mother and I Don't Talk About: Fifteen Writers Break the Silence


Michele Filgate - 2019
    It took her more than a decade to realize what she was actually trying to write: how this affected her relationship with her mother. When it was finally published, the essay went viral, shared on social media by Anne Lamott, Rebecca Solnit, and many others. The outpouring of responses gave Filgate an idea, and the resulting anthology offers a candid look at our relationships with our mothers. While some of the writers in this book are estranged from their mothers, others are extremely close. Leslie Jamison writes about trying to discover who her seemingly perfect mother was before ever becoming a mom. In Cathi Hanauer’s hilarious piece, she finally gets a chance to have a conversation with her mother that isn’t interrupted by her domineering (but lovable) father. André Aciman writes about what it was like to have a deaf mother. Melissa Febos uses mythology as a lens to look at her close-knit relationship with her psychotherapist mother. And Julianna Baggott talks about having a mom who tells her everything. As Filgate writes, “Our mothers are our first homes, and that’s why we’re always trying to return to them.” There’s relief in breaking the silence. Acknowledging what we couldn’t say for so long is one way to heal our relationships with others and, perhaps most important, with ourselves. Contributors include Cathi Hanauer, Melissa Febos, Alexander Chee, Dylan Landis, Bernice L. McFadden, Julianna Baggott, Lynn Steger Strong, Kiese Laymon, Carmen Maria Machado, André Aciman, Sari Botton, Nayomi Munaweera, Brandon Taylor, and Leslie Jamison.

The One Who Runs and Hides: A True Story


Chris Merola - 2018
     The American Indians, depending on their tribe, had many names for the Creature: Sasahevas, Sasquatch, Bukwas (wild man of the woods), See’atco (one who runs and hides). What would Native American Indians have to gain from falsifying the existence of a Beast? The last name seemed the most appropriate to me. The One who runs and hides.

Yeah Baby!: The Modern Mama's Guide to Mastering Pregnancy, Having a Healthy Baby, and Bouncing Back Better Than Ever


Jillian Michaels - 2016
    In Yeah Baby!, Jillian, along with her team of top-notch experts, will change everything you think you know about pregnancy, arming you with the most cutting-edge information available, so you can make the right choices for you and your little one. They will help you navigate the hidden dangers in your immediate environment; understand the check-ups, tests, and treatments your doctor recommends; and provide powerful solutions for all your issues, from heartburn and swollen feet to more serious medical concerns. Also learn how to optimize every facet of your child's development, from IQ and long-term earning potential to future level of physical fitness and even taste preferences! Yeah Baby! also features a complete meal plan with delicious, nutrition-packed recipes, and a one-of-a-kind, trimester-specific fitness program, to ensure you bounce back stronger and better than ever.Expert Dream Team: Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz, MD is an Ob-Gyn, a Clinical Ayurvedic Specialist, and board certified in Integrative and Holistic Medicine. Andrea Orbeck is a PregnancyFitness Specialist who holds an advanced degree in Kinesiology and Intracellular Physiology. Katja VanHerle, MD is one of America's Top Physicians in Endocrinology as named by Consumer Research Council of America. Cheryl Forberg, RD is an award-winning registered dietitian, chef, and New York Times bestselling author. Jay Gordon, MD, FAAP is a pediatrician who specializes in infant nutrition and breastfeeding.

Loving Tiara: Memoir


Tiffani Goff - 2019
    At forty-five years old, my life’s mission was complete. If I died tomorrow, I would be proud of the life I lived.” - Loving Tiara Loving Tiara is a compelling memoir that will encompass your every thought, break your heart, fill you with hope, and leave you with a sense of awe. When Tiffani married the love of her life, Lou, after graduating from college, she assumed she would continue to live the affluent life she had always known, having grown up in Newport Beach, California. She never imagined she would soon be stalked by creditors, driving a car on the repossession list and forced to worry about providing basic necessities for her family, such as buying diapers and groceries. This increasingly desperate situation forced her to decide to return home to her parents with her baby and husband. After getting their life back on track, and with Tiffani in her final year of law school, they decided to have another baby. At eight months old, however, they discovered that their new daughter Tiara had Tuberous Sclerosis, a rare genetic disorder resulting in intractable epilepsy, developmental delay, chronic hospital admissions, and uncontrollable violent behaviors. So how did Tiffani cope with her new reality? She chose to fight. She challenged the doctors, battled the insurance companies, and refused to give up caring for Tiara even when her own life was at risk. The author’s story of unconditional love, unimaginable challenges, and, ultimately, triumph, is a compelling one, which will take hold of your heart and not let go. This memoir will, hopefully, inspire you to tackle fear, encourage you never to give up, and remind you always to trust your gut instincts.

Mindful Pregnancy: Meditation, Yoga, Hypnobirthing, Natural Remedies, and Nutrition – Trimester by Trimester


Tracy Donegan - 2020
    Becoming pregnant is a beautiful moment in any person's life, but we understand that it can be challenging to keep your body nurtured and supported throughout this journey. Don't worry, DK has got you covered!Introducing 'Mindful Pregnancy' - a practical and inspiring step-by-step photographic guide to keep you and your baby happy and healthy during your pregnancy journey. If you're a yoga-loving, mindful mum-to-be looking for sound advice on how to enjoy a natural, stress-free pregnancy, then this is the book for you!Inside the pages of this in-depth natural birth book you'll discover:-In-depth guide to pregnancy wellness organized trimester by trimester, including top tips and advice on various themes to match your stage of pregnancy and the development of your baby.-Clear, concise and easy to follow techniques which are presented step-by-step, grounded in their scientific benefits Discover all that this prenatal health book has to offer. Packed with up-to-date research alongside safe, strengthening and supportive sequences to guide you through your pregnancy journey, this is a must-have volume for expectant mothers keen to stay fit and supported throughout pregnancy, women who want to explore the benefits of doing yoga with their babies, or even mums-to-be experiencing any one of the common ailments of pregnancy, such as backache and are looking to remedy them naturally. In fact, recent studies suggest there are great health benefits to practicing yoga during pregnancy, including reducing anxiety and stress in mothers, as well as a reduction in the pain of labour. This mindful maternity book offers safe yoga, meditation, natural remedies and nutritional and hypnobirthing advice that are specifically tailored to each stage of pregnancy. This inspiring guide offers encouraging and practical advice that will help you understand your body, embrace change and fully prepare you for becoming a mum. The ideal gift for yoga-loving mindful mums to be, this guide is jam-packed with top tips and techniques for a mindful and stress-free pregnancy and natural birth. At DK, we believe in the power of discovery. So with Mindful Pregnancy by your side, we assure you will feel safe and supported during this special time in your life, as you count down the days to your new arrival!

Aquamarine Blue 5: Personal Stories of College Students with Autism


Dawn Prince-Hughes - 2002
    Aquamarine Blue 5 details the struggle of these highly sensitive students and shows that there are gifts specific to autistic students that enrich the university system, scholarship, and the world as a whole.Dawn Prince-Hughes presents an array of writings by students who have been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome or High-Functioning Autism, showing their unique ways of looking at and solving problems. In their own words, they portray how their divergent thinking skills could be put to great use if they were given an opportunity. Many such students never get the chance because the same sensitivity that gives them these insights makes the flicker of fluorescent lights and the sound of chalk on the board unbearable For simple—and easily remedied—reasons, we lose these students, who are as gifted as they are challenged.Aquamarine Blue 5 is a showcase of the strength and resilient character of individuals with Asperger’s Syndrome. It will be an invaluable resource for those touched by this syndrome, their friends and families, and school administrators.

Sleeping Solo: One Woman's Journey Into Life After Marriage


Audrey Faye - 2014
    It left little bits of brain and heart matter all over the walls, and the certain, irrevocable knowledge that my life had just radically changed shape forever. I’d been unceremoniously dumped out onto the road of a new journey. I expected it to be dusty and hard and short on food and water, a gut-wrenching endurance test that would take a long time to wind its way to ease and peace and a modicum of happiness. That’s not what happened at all. There have been hard days and dusty ones, and I do my best, in this missive from the road, to speak the truth of those moments. But the words clamoring at my door weren’t the dusty ones - they were the ones full of surprised pride in the journey that has actually happened instead. The ones full of abundance and purpose and happiness and the wild, bubbling need to dance. Yeah. Not what I expected from my post-marriage apocalypse either. Welcome to Sleeping Solo, my anthem song from the road. It's 17,000 words, or about 60 pages, and every one of them comes straight from my heart.

Yes, You Can Get Pregnant: Natural Ways to Improve Your Fertility Now and into Your 40s


Aimee E. Raupp - 2012
    A nationally renowned women’s health and fertility expert, Aimee Raupp has helped thousands of women optimize their fertility and get pregnant. Now, in Yes, You Can Get Pregnant, she provides her complete program for improving your chances of conceiving and overcoming infertility, including the most effective complementary and lifestyle approaches, the latest nutritional advice, and ways to prepare yourself emotionally and spiritually. In a friendly, understanding, and inspirational manner, Yes, You Can Get Pregnant provides hope, scientifically-backed knowledge, and emotional support to help you improve your health and fertility from the inside out so that you can become the mother you want to be.

The Fire She Set


Leigh Overton Boyd - 2020
    They did not talk about their mom's extended absences or why their dad put Scotch tape on the backdoor frame. To cover up the chaos, they kept their clothes neat and got good grades. But when they were teenagers, an arson fire destroyed their home and killed their parents. Rumors were thick that summer that smart, angry, fourteen-year-old Lisa set the blaze. Then, adult powers they did not understand squelched the investigation. As teenagers accustomed to keeping silent, they packed up and moved on.Forty years later, Leigh, the oldest, decided it was time to find out who killed their parents. She obtained copies of the police and fire investigations and began unwrapping the past. This memoir is the story of that investigation as Leigh tried to piece together the truth, but found more lies instead. With the help of her sisters, Leigh was able to reconstruct much of what happened to them in the beach towns around Atlantic City in the early 1970s. After the fire, one sister turned to heroin and another to alcohol; Leigh became Miss Atlantic City. Then, one by one, they each moved to California and shut the door on their past, even though they privately wondered whether one of them killed Frank and Nancy Overton. It's funny. They never wondered whether one of their parents was trying to kill them.

Exodus, Revisited: My Unorthodox Journey to Berlin


Deborah Feldman - 2021
    She was determined to find a better life for herself, away from the oppression and isolation of her Satmar upbringing in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. And in Exodus, Revisited she delves into what happened next--taking the reader on a journey that starts with her beginning life anew as a single mother, a religious refugee, and an independent woman in search of a place and a community where she can belong. Originally published in 2014, Deborah has now revisited and significantly expanded her story, and the result is greater insight into her quest to discover herself and the true meaning of home. Travels that start with making her way in New York expand into an exploration of America and eventually lead to trips across Europe to retrace her grandmother's life during the Holocaust, before she finds a landing place in the unlikeliest of cities. Exodus, Revisited is a deeply moving examination of the nature of memory and generational trauma, and of reconciliation with both yourself and the world.

Beautiful Eyes: A Father Transformed


Paul Austin - 2014
    He was a medical student and she was a nurse. Everything changed the moment the doctor rushed their infant daughter from the room just after her birth, knowing instantly that something was wrong. Sarah had almond-shaped eyes, a single crease across her palm instead of three, and low-set ears all of which suggested that the baby had Down syndrome.Beginning on the day Sarah is born and ending when she is a young adult living in a group home, Beautiful Eyes is the story of a father's journey toward acceptance of a child who is different. In a voice that is unflinchingly honest and unerringly compassionate, Austin chronicles his life with his daughter: watching her learn to walk and talk and form her own opinions, making decisions about her future, and navigating cultural assumptions and prejudices all the while confronting, with poignancy and moving candor, his own limitations as her father.It is Sarah herself, who, in her own coming of age and her own reconciling with her difference, teaches her father to understand her. Time and again, she surprises him: performing Lady Gaga s "Poker Face" at a talent show; explaining how the word "retarded" is hurtful; reacting to the events of her life with a mixture of love, pain, and humor; and insisting on her own humanity in a world that questions it. As Sarah begins to blossom into herself, her father learns to look past his daughter's disability and see her as the spirited, warmhearted, and uniquely wise person she is.

Our House in Arusha


Sara Tucker - 2011
    Within months, she is the wife of a French safari guide and the stepmother of an eleven-year-old. The year that follows is a test of courage and resilience as each member of the family struggles to make a place for himself in a tantalizing and dangerous world. Part love story, part adventure saga, Our House in Arusha explores the meaning of second chances.