In 1992, Brian Francis placed a personal ad in a local newspaper. He was a twenty-one-year-old university student, still very much in the closet, and looking for love. He received twenty-five responses, but there were thirteen letters that went unanswered and spent years tucked away, forgotten, inside a cardboard box. Now, nearly thirty years later, and at a much different stage in his life, Brian has written replies to those letters. Using the letters as a springboard to reflect on all that has changed for him as a gay man over the past three decades, Brian's responses cover a range of topics, including body image, aging, desire, the price of secrecy, and the courage it takes to be unapologetically yourself.Missed Connections is an open-hearted, irreverent, often hilarious, and always bracingly honest examination of the pieces of our past we hold close -- and all that we lose along the way. It is also a profoundly affecting meditation on how Brian's generation, the queer people who emerged following the generation hit hardest by AIDS, were able to step out from the shadows and into the light. In an age when the promise of love is just a tap or swipe away, this extraordinary memoir reminds us that our yearning for connection and self-acceptance is timeless.

    Years later, now a newspaper reporter, she returns to gain a deeper understanding of the lives of sex workers.Daughters of the Red Light is a searing look at the poverty, injustice and stigma that keep entire families from escaping India's notorious sex industry. Seervai takes readers to Mumbai’s grittiest alleyways to discover the stories of these women and girls. As she unravels the brutal web entangling them, she finds an unexpected reason for hope. ABOUT THE AUTHORShanoor Seervai is an Indian writer and journalist. Her work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Beast, Guernica Magazine, The Caravan and The Indian Express. Born and raised in Mumbai, she now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she is pursuing an advanced degree in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.EARLY PRAISE FOR DAUGHTERS OF THE RED LIGHT"This is a meaningful and important piece of writing that contributes in a significant way toward understanding the lives of sex workers and their families and how we might help alleviate their marginalization and suffering. Shanoor Seervai's book shows you the humanity of the mothers and children in the red light district, as she takes you on her journey of discovery into their world and her place in the world at large. It gave me new insight into the lives of the sex workers and their children, and how the tireless work of some offers real hope—the greatest gift of all."— Geeta Anand, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of The Cure"Most writing about India's underbelly treats people as passive victims. It is far too easy to find stories of misery in Indian cities and hold them up as one-dimensional examples of the country's uneven progress. Shanoor Seervai does not do cutouts. She dives into the world of Mumbai's sex workers, introducing us to real women with families and dreams we recognize. She brings the reader along for her journey, which is journalistic as well as personal, as she navigates the gender norms and class divides of urban India with sharp observations and true empathy. I've been visiting Mumbai all my life and feel I understand it better having read this heartfelt work."— Shashank Bengali, South Asia bureau chief, Los Angeles Times"A thought-provoking headlong dive into a little known culture."— Sonia Faleiro, Award-winning author of Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay’s Dance Bars."With this honest and insightful memoir, Shanoor Seervai peels back a tattered curtain to reveal the complex and brutal world of Mumbai’s commercial sex trade. Through her eyes, we begin to really see the women — and children — behind the makeup. Through her journey we are challenged to consider our common humanity; and our own, personal response to the injustices that land (and keep) millions of the world’s most vulnerable children in the hell we call the 'Red Light.'"— Laura Entwistle, Founder and CEO of EmancipAction, an international non-profit organization working to end child sex trafficking around the world

    After 22 years, spent across four continents, with two children – Louis and Marcel – in 1990 Anne and Paul Theroux decided to separate.For that year, Anne – later a professional relationship therapist herself – kept a diary, noting not only her day-to day experiences as a busy freelance journalist and broadcaster, but the contrasts in her feelings between despairing grief and hope for a new future.With reflections on truth and fiction, literature and art and the nature of marriage, alongside commentary on notable political and cultural events, and interviews with prominent writers of the time, including Kingsley Amis and Barbara Cartland, The Year of the End offers a unique insight into the unravelling of a relationship and the attempts to rebuild a life.

    Her father served in the military, and she traveled the world with him and her family. His assignments took them to Alaska, Virginia, Japan, Texas, and Germany, as part of the US Army's responsibilities in policing the world. This candid memoir recounts her family's life in new places and cultures following World War II. What was it like to be a child living in Japan seven years after the war? What was it like to be a thirteen-year-old living in Germany twelve years after the war? What was it like to grow up moving between cultures? This is the story of one family bound to service in the military at a time when the world was being redefined. For a young girl, it was the adventure of a lifetime as she learned the secrets of finding her own way in that new world. The author's story was informed by reading her father's diary, which offers up intimate and candid insight into the life of a typical soldier in a time of war. His entries describe his time serving aboard a battleship built for 800 soldiers--but carrying 6,000 to war. His tales--told from the perspective of a young soldier in southern England, Wales, and Scotland from 1943 to 1945--are glimpses into a life many will never know firsthand.

    In Lecretia’s Choice, Matt tells the story of their life together, and how it changed when his proud, fiercely independent wife was diagnosed with a brain tumour and forced to confront her own mortality. The death she faced—slow, painful, dependent—was completely at odds with how she had lived her life. Lecretia wanted to die with dignity, to be able to say goodbye well, and not to suffer unnecessarily—but the law denied her that choice. With her characteristic spirit, she decided to mount a challenge in New Zealand’s High Court, but as the battle raged, Lecretia’s strength faded. She died on 5 June 2015, at the age of forty-two, the day after her family learned that the court had ruled against her. Lecretia’s Choice is not only a moving love story but compulsory reading for everyone who cares about the dignity we afford terminally ill people who want to die on their own terms. In 2015 Matt Vickers supported his wife, Lecretia Seales, in her campaign to gain the right to choose how she died. Lecretia’s Choice is his first book.

    But as the days passed with no word from Kirsty, a loving daughter who spoke to her mum every day, Cathy became increasingly anxious, until the day the police arrived at her door to tell her they had found a body, when she knew her worst fears had been realised... Through a Mother’s Tears is the poignant and heartbreaking story of how Cathy lost not only Kirsty, her youngest daughter, but Kirsty’s big sister Hayley, who died of heartbreak when the agony of her baby sister’s loss became too much to bear.

    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.

    I wanted to be cool. I wanted to fit in. Whatever it took.” She was attractive, popular and determined to grow up in a hurry. How would she have known that at age thirteen, during her first teenage drinking party, her life would play out in such a way that it would rule her life decisions going forward? The handsome boys and pretty girls were guzzling a certain punch, and she wanted to be like them. Tentatively, she ladled the jungle juice from the punch bowl and had her first sip of alcohol. She wanted more. It couldn’t have come at a better time. This is what she’d been searching for –relief. Instant relief. Getting drunk becomes her rite of passage as she careens through junior and senior high school caving in to peer pressure for her need to feel accepted. Through secretarial school and early jobs, her twenties are a blur. Quicker than she can take a tequila shot in a Mexican café, change her lovers weekly, and party with the dregs of society, as well as the socialites and future executives – Nancy finds a lifestyle that seems to work for her. She continues on and drinks and uses cocaine through the snows of Aspen, the desert heat of Scottsdale, the California coast and her Pennsylvania homelands, only to find herself alone and desperate in her quest for love and her own identity. Milk, she decides, has a longer shelf life than her romantic interludes. Surfer Boy, Boston Boy, Blondie Boy. Her big question becomes, who is going to marry her? As she approaches her early 30’s, she thinks getting married will fix her. “I am sitting on my couch finishing up a second bottle of Two Buck Chuck, watching Sarah Jessica Parker on “Sex and the City,” crying and wondering why I’m still single. I understand why Sarah is single. She spends too much money on shoes, and no one wants to marry a shoe whore. She had the perfect man too. She was a fool to let Aidan get away. Ever since high school the perennial question from my parents and friends was always the same, “Are you going to marry him?” It never occurred to Nancy to blame her loneliness on her beverages of choice. She’d kept her career going. She wasn’t an alcoholic. In fact, she relished hearing confessions of real alcoholics so she could assure herself that they—and not she—had a problem. Hello, Black Kettle? This is Pot calling! Terribly alone after receiving her second DUI at age 37, Nancy experiences a moment of clarity. She’s been looking for answers everywhere but the place she least wants to examine: the mirror. What glares back at her is over twenty-four years of living life in the fast lane, zooming by all the red flags. “Sitting in the jail cell I thought about hitting bottom. I could stop digging now. My life couldn’t get any worse….How could years of my free-wheeling lifestyle as a partier, mainly a social drinker, bring me to this place?” Compelled by a judge, Nancy walks into an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and begins the hellacious journey of rethinking her life to finally find what she’d been searching for – her true self. Now sober for over ten years, married and with a thriving career, Nancy wants to tell other young women what she wishes someone had told her.

    On Mann’s naughty list: mothers who go way overboard with their Elf on the Shelf, overzealous carolers who can’t take a hint, and people who write their Christmas cards in the third person (“Joyce is enjoying Bunko. Yeah, Joyce, we know you wrote this letter.”). And on her nice list . . . well, she’s working on that one. Here, no celebration is off-limits. The essays include:• You Can Keep Your Cookies, I’m Just Here for the Booze• Nice Halloween Costume. Was Skank Sold Out?• Why You Won’t Be Invited to Our Chinese New Year PartyFrom hosting an ill-fated Chinese New Year party, to receiving horrible gifts from her husband on Mother’s Day, to reluctantly telling her son the truth about the Easter Bunny, Mann knows the challenge of navigating the holidays while keeping her sanity intact. And even if she can’t get out of attending another Christmas cookie exchange, at least she can try again next year.Praise for Spending the Holidays with People I Want to Punch in the Throat “Mann’s writing has transcended from witty anecdotes and complaints to notable satire. Hidden among the many laugh-out-loud zingers are lessons on how we relate to each other, and how ridiculous parenting culture has become.”—Associated Press “Following the success of her first book, she is now punching throats at holidays, starting from her being age two and continuing to the present, where she is a harried mother bemoaning not just Christmas but all holidays. . . . Harried holiday haters will chuckle and perhaps see themselves somewhere in Mann’s lifetime dislike of and misbehavior during America’s increasingly commercialized celebrations.”—Booklist “The cure for my cold holiday spirit this year is the sidesplitting new book by Jen Mann. . . . Mann delivers her signature punch lines and sharp critique on the oftentimes ridiculous shenanigans of the modern family. Her ability to make an otherwise boring subject come alive with colorful personalities, biting sarcasm, and impressively astute observations on suburban culture is what makes Mann so much fun to read and so easy to relate to.”—The Huffington Post “A lighthearted, laugh-out-loud book . . . with a feel of peeking into a diary.”—Mommy’s Memorandum “It really does make you laugh out loud.”—Shooting Stars Mag “A quick and delightful read that you can sneak in right before bed or when the kids are finally napping.”—FangirlNation “Grab a cup of hot cocoa, sit back and enjoy Jen’s latest collection of humorous rants dissecting the ‘most wonderful time’ of the year. She unleashes her biting wit and hilarious opinions on everything from cookie exchanges to annual humblebrag Christmas letters from overachieving moms to horrifying Christmases of her childhood.”—Creating Serenity “[Mann] has really mastered the short story format. . . . She packs the maximum amount of funny into the fewest words, and many of these essays are downright hilarious. . . . If you’ve read and liked her other books, you will definitely want to read this one, too.”—Bug Bug Book Reviews

    He was forced to choose which path he was going to take: continue the cycle of family poverty or break it. The Mindset is an inspirational memoir of Ace Bowers’ personal transformation from janitor to millionaire. Bowers began his journey uneducated, overweight, addicted to cigarettes, in debt, and depressed. Revealing the skeletons in his closet for the first time set the scene for how he got to the point of cleaning a motel for $6 an hour. Bowers’ detailed accounts of his turbulent and traumatizing childhood illustrated what it is like growing up in a poor, alcoholic, and abusive family. The metamorphosis began as soon as he changed his mindset. Within five years, Bowers was able to completely turn his life around, going from trash to technology. This memoir illuminates step by step his unconventional path to wealth, health, and happiness.

    Mark Cannizzaro goes behind the scenes of the exclusive competition, covering wide-ranging topics including green jacket rituals, tales from The Crow's Nest atop the clubhouse, the extreme lengths some fans have gone to acquire tickets, and what goes on outside the gates during Masters week. Also featuring some of the most memorable and dramatic moments from the tournament's history, this is an essential, expansive look at golf's favorite event.

    She learns that her mother has passed on a genetic illness as a parting shot, and she must adjust to growing up with Bipolar Disorder.As she approaches her 30th year, she works hard to pick up the loose threads of her life and tie them into a lifeline for her future. It is a tale of survival, endurance, and acceptance through understanding.

    Through her remarkable journey, we see more clearly the light that can shine through our own broken places and ultimately heal us: body, mind, and soul.At once tragic and heartwarming, Tana’s story integrates cutting-edge psychology and proven wellness techniques from the Amen Clinics in a moving exploration of the healing available to each one of us, no matter the pain in our past. “What a journey! With in-your-face honesty, Tana reveals how she was able to turn her pain into purpose. For anyone who has been faced with unspeakable loss, this message is so important.”  —Jay Shetty, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Like a Monk, storyteller, purpose coach, and former monk

    His travel stories have had millions of views online and are collected within for the first time. The content of Wayward was written during a yearlong trip around the world, during which the author lived in twelve countries over twelve months. Gates' writing has been described as “evocative”, “hilarious” and “brilliant.” He has been described as a “wanker”, “kind of a dipshit” and “retarded”.Wayward is a must-read for anyone who needs a shrink and likes to travel.

    Louis. For most of his life, he was an all-around normal kid. He excelled in sports and academics, and cherished his time at home with his family. It wasn’t until he turned fifteen that things went seriously wrong. While attending his first high school party, he was introduced to pot and alcohol. Needless to say, he gave in to the pressure. A month after that, he discovered heroin. The drug had just made its way into the suburban party scene, and Jude was sure that he could get away with doing it only once. He was sadly mistaken. Within a few short months, his entire life was in shambles. His fate appeared certain, but it was just the beginning.​In a series of events that leaves you grasping for the next page, Jude spares no amount of detail in his account of his near-decade long struggle with drug addiction, and the horrors he witnessed along the way.