Book picks similar to
Toyo by Lily Chan


non-fiction
memoir
japan
biography

Barefoot in the Bindis


Angela Wales - 2019
    What he lacked in experience and expertise, he made up for in enthusiasm. Or so he hoped.When the family arrived on a lonely hill in northern New South Wales, they had no electricity, no running water, no telephone and no choice but to make that tangle of bush their home. From Angela Wales, eldest of the five kids, comes this extraordinarily vivid and evocative account of the next ten years as they tried to tame six thousand acres and navigate the challenges of country life.Filled with drama and hilarity, joy and back-breaking toil, Barefoot in the Bindis portrays a childhood spent in the bush, and is a sensational picture of Australia past.

Settle for More


Megyn Kelly - 2016
    She goes behind-the-scenes of her career, sharing the stories and struggles that landed her in the anchor chair and taught her to ask the tough questions. Speaking candidly about her decision to "settle for more"—a motto she credits as having dramatically transformed her life at home and at work—Megyn discusses how she abandoned a thriving legal career to follow her journalism dreams.Admired for her hard work, humor, and authenticity, Megyn sheds light on the news business, her time at Fox News, the challenges of being a professional woman and working mother, and her most talked about television moments. She also speaks openly about Donald Trump’s feud with her, revealing never-before-heard details about the first Republican debate, its difficult aftermath, and how she persevered through it all.Deeply personal and surprising, Settle for More offers unparalleled insight into this charismatic and intriguing journalist, and inspires us all to embrace the principles—determination, honesty, and fortitude in the face of fear—that have won her fans across the political divide.

Still Got It, Never Lost It


Louie Spence - 2011
    'Still Got It, Never Lost It!' is the autobiography from Louie Spence, star of Pineapple Dance Studios and Louie Spence's Showbusiness.

The Snitch, Houdini and Me: Humorous Tales of Death-defying Childhood Misadventure


Johnny Virgil - 2010
    No internet or smartphones, video games or HDTV -- nothing but time to kill and the endless potential of a summer day. Only parental threats and a newly-developed sense of right and wrong could steer Johnny Virgil and his two younger brothers away from trouble...or directly into it. Join Johnny on this hilarious and irreverent romp through his childhood as he recounts the stories that made him what he is today - an unimportant cog in a vast, corporate financial services machine. But he wasn't always this way, and this book is proof. Booby traps, severed deer legs, runaway bulldozers, young love and fresh cow pies -- all this and more, brought to life by Johnny's sometimes twisted, sometimes touching but always hilarious tales of suburban childhood. If you have kids of your own, these are the stories you don't want them to read. If you like to laugh even when it's wrong and long to return to a more innocent yet treacherous time, this book will leave you wishing Johnny's childhood had never ended. ************* Important Note: This book is not intended for young readers. It does contain some profanity and adult situations and may not be suitable for all audiences.

Muffins and Mayhem: Recipes for a Happy (If Disorderly) Life


Suzanne Beecher - 2010
    By turns funny and poignant, Suzanne is the reassuring friend across the kitchen table with a refreshing, jaunty attitude about life, even in the face of whatever difficulties it may bring.Suzanne has had her own share of troubles to overcome. Left home alone at an early age, she struggled with difficult and distant parents, dealt with heartbreak, became a hard-working single mom, and overcame two substance addictions and a physical impairment. But along the way, she found comfort in baking and sharing food with her friends and family. She learned to take the good with the bad, and now her life is inspiring proof that faith and persistence are the keys to success.This beautifully written celebration of food, friends, and family will nourish Suzanne's numerous fans and those who have yet to discover her simple, homespun magic.

The Lost Child of Philomena Lee: A Mother, Her Son and a 50 Year Search


Martin Sixsmith - 2009
    Fifty years later, Philomena decided to find him.Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, Philomena’s son was trying to find her. Renamed Michael Hess, he had become a leading lawyer in the first Bush administration, and he struggled to hide secrets that would jeopardize his career in the Republican Party and endanger his quest to find his mother.A gripping exposé told with novelistic intrigue, Philomena pulls back the curtain on the role of the Catholic Church in forced adoptions and on the love between a mother and son who endured a lifelong separation.

Caste Away: Growing Up in India's "Most Backward" Caste


Hill Krishnan - 2015
    Its pages are ripe with shame, honor, and survival-based decisions, such as a father killing his own daughter to preserve the family's reputation, a grandfather thieving a goat to feed his family and burying its bones in the night, and women employing natural poisons to kill their female infants in order to avoid the devastating costs of dowry.Perhaps it is also a story of how to survive as a "Most Backward" boy in a society that values light skin more than education, designated by British colonizers as "habitually criminal," where ancient caste rivalries persist even into an era of rapidly unfolding modernity. Is it possible, one wonders, for a boy to leave his caste identity behind and adopt new ways of seeing himself, shattering hundreds of years of prejudice?"Growing Up in India's 'Most Backward' Caste" illustrates the potential for faith, effort, and vision to overcome even the cruelest of abuses and biases. Its author, Dr. Hill Krishnan, later took on multiple identities disallowed by his roots: engineer, movie actor and performer, political scientist, professor, candidate for public office in the United States, motivational speaker, and now, as an author telling his story. In "Growing Up in India's 'Most Backward' Caste," one observes the earliest, most pivotal moments in which he first defies oppression."Growing Up in India's 'Most Backward' Caste" is truly eye-opening—a brave, intimate portrayal of life as a "Most Backward" child resisting all categorization, inspiring the rest of us to challenge our own perceived limitations.

Unholy Pilgrims: How One Man Thought Walking 800 Kilometres Across Spain Would Sort Out His Life


Tom Trumble - 2011
    So he takes up an offer to go on a seriously long walk – the ancient Christian pilgrimage of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, the domain of the devout.Despite his good intentions, Tom's route takes him into every bar along the way while crossing paths with the loopy and the wise, the pious and the distinctly ungodly. He finds himself contending with song-happy evangelists, unlikely scholars and enlightened globetrotters, and randy backpackers out to bed every pilgrim they meet. Not to mention his own very restless demons, some of which lead him to confront troubles he thought he'd left at home.Unholy Pilgrims is an irreverent and engaging take on figuring out what the hell to do with your life.

Death in the A Shau Valley: L Company LRRPs in Vietnam, 1969-70


Larry Chambers - 1998
    But his unit's mission stayed the same: act as the eyes and ears of the 101st deep in the dreaded A Shau Valley--where the NVA ruled.Relentless thick fog frequently made fighter bombers useless in the A Shau, and the enemy had furnished the nearby mountaintops with antiaircraft machine guns to protect the massive trail network that snaked through it. So, outgunned, outmanned, and unsupported, the teams of L Company executed hundreds of courageous missions. Now, in this powerful personal record, Larry Chambers recaptures the experience of the war's most brutal on-the-job training, where the slightest noise or smallest error could bring sudden--and certain--death. . . .

Optimism: Reflections on a Life of Action


Bob Brown - 2014
    That's me." - Bob Brown.Bob Brown, former Senator and Parliamentary Leader of the Australian Greens, is one of Australia's most thoughtful and recognized public figures. Since his retirement from public life in 2012, Bob has had time to consider the things that are truly important. One is the power of human thought to influence change and this book, the first time that Bob has spoken about his life since retirement, illustrates through his stories why he remains optimistic about the future. Optimism reflects on the simple things, the moments that are meaningful, and the big questions that have concerned Bob Brown. It is a powerful read as well as a meditation on the great and the small. Inspirational, compassionate and outraged, Bob's stories are rich with metaphor, entertaining and full of warmth. His stories reveal a complex man with a quick wit, a passion for activism and a joy for life.

My Year of Dirt and Water: Journal of a Zen Monk's Wife in Japan


Tracy Franz - 2018
    An Alaskan alone—and lonely—in Japan, she begins to pay attention.My Year of Dirt and Water is a record of that journey. Allowed only occasional and formal visits to see her cloistered husband, Tracy teaches English, studies Japanese, and devotes herself to making pottery. Her teacher instructs her to turn cup after cup—creating one failure after another. Past and present, East and West intertwine as Tracy is twice compelled to return home to Alaska to confront her mother’s newly diagnosed cancer and the ghosts of a devastating childhood. Revolving through the days, My Year of Dirt and Water circles hard questions: What is love? What is art? What is practice? What do we do with the burden of suffering? The answers are formed and then unformed—a ceramic bowl born on the wheel and then returned again and again to dirt and water.

A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea


Masaji Ishikawa - 2000
    This feeling only deepened when his family moved from Japan to North Korea when Ishikawa was just thirteen years old, and unwittingly became members of the lowest social caste. His father, himself a Korean national, was lured to the new Communist country by promises of abundant work, education for his children, and a higher station in society. But the reality of their new life was far from utopian.In this memoir translated from the original Japanese, Ishikawa candidly recounts his tumultuous upbringing and the brutal thirty-six years he spent living under a crushing totalitarian regime, as well as the challenges he faced repatriating to Japan after barely escaping North Korea with his life. A River in Darkness is not only a shocking portrait of life inside the country but a testament to the dignity—and indomitable nature—of the human spirit

Chronicles of a Cruise Ship Crew Member: Answers to All the Questions Every Passenger Wants to Ask


Joshua Kinser - 2012
    Chronicles of a Cruise Ship Crew Member goes below the waterline to explore the cramped, dirty, and dimly lit crew areas on a revealing tour of the ship's underworld. Go where no passenger has gone before and learn what the crew eats, where they sleep, how they party, and finally understand why all of the officers on a cruise ship are Italian.Climb aboard an adventure on the high seas and witness the wonderful side of ship life where crew members have whirlwind escapades while traveling the world aboard a massive sailing city.Drawing from his experiences working as a musician aboard cruise ships for more than five years, Joshua tells the laugh-out-loud funny and also beautifully poignant story of what cruise ship crew members experience from the minute they first step onto a ship to the day they walk down that gangway for the last time.

Where's Me Plaid?: A Scottish Roots Odyssey


Scott Crawford - 2013
    Armed with a newfound swagger, the author transforms a much anticipated, romantic holiday with his wife into a decidedly unromantic, though highly romanticized roots tour with comic results. Crammed into their tiny rental car (a Fiat Crumb or some such model), the couple scour the countryside, from castles to trailer parks, looking for something more to commemorate Crawford history than a family crest refrigerator magnet - and ultimately discover something altogether richer: a thriving country with the most beautiful and haunting scenery imaginable, a romantic history full of blood, intrigue and heroism, and some of the friendliest and most fiercely loyal people in the world. Award-winning travel writer Scott Crawford resides in the British Virgin Islands. A professional educator, he has a keen interest in travel and history, which infuse his writings. Where's Me Plaid is his first book.

Dirt Classroom: An inspiring true adventure through the Australian Outback


Matt Chadwick - 2016
    Over the next 2 years, I was attacked by a few wild animals, experienced unexplained phenomenon, had a massive learning curve and truly experienced the Australian outback. If you are after a story that was written to appeal to the masses and that mainstream publishers love, then this probably isn't for you. If you are after a lighthearted read that provides the raw truth about life out bush and my experience of it, then click away. I hope you enjoy. Note - mature themes.