Book picks similar to
American Bastard by Jan Beatty
memoir
adoption
nonfiction
signed-copy
So Sad Today: Personal Essays
Melissa Broder - 2016
In the fall of 2012, she went through a harrowing cycle of panic attacks and dread that wouldn't abate for months. So she began @sosadtoday, an anonymous Twitter feed that allowed her to express her darkest feelings, and which quickly gained a dedicated following. In So Sad Today, Broder delves deeper into the existential themes she explores on Twitter, grappling with sex, death, love, low self-esteem, addiction, and the drama of waiting for the universe to text you back. With insights as sharp as her humor, Broder explores—in prose that is both gutsy and beautiful, aggressively colloquial and achingly poetic—questions most of us are afraid to even acknowledge, let alone answer, in order to discover what it really means to be a person in this modern world.
We Danced: Our Story of Love and Dementia
Scott M. Rose - 2021
It opens with snapshots of her troubled childhood and early adult life in two difficult marriages. It quickly transitions to our first meeting, friendship, and relationship - not without their own complications. Through those trials, she showed tremendous strength and heart. We eventually married and lived a love story that others marveled at for years. We travelled, went to concerts, built a home, and remained completely devoted. While still in her early sixties, she lost a piece of herself. Words became harder to find. Steps to perform the simplest tasks became impossible to follow. We knew something was wrong but had no idea the severity of her condition. Our world turned upside down.The latter half of the book chronicles in exacting detail her diagnosis and life with Frontotemporal Degeneration, a dementia known as FTD. I cared for her for the three and a half years of this disease. Her mental state deteriorated rapidly. I changed to a more flexible job to stay with her more during the day as she lost even the most basic functions of eating alone, toileting, or using a phone. We still created tender moments and danced but she was losing a tremendous amount of weight and required greater and greater care.Financials not allowing me to quit work, I succumbed to the recommendations of multiple professionals and made the painful decision to place her in memory care. I visited her every day, two to three times per day, and we made the best of a horrible situation. We still shared many tender moments during this last year, including the moment I held her hand as she passed. The story is told in a vulnerable and unfiltered manner. It collects writings from both husband and wife through journals, letters, and social media posts integrated into the main narrative. It captures our real-life, undying love story through this incurable disease
Tainted Ladies: Female Outlaws, Renegade Women and Soiled Doves of the Wild West
Vickie Britton - 2012
Running from the Devil: How I Survived a Stolen Childhood
Sara Davies - 2006
When Sara was only five years old, her violent father began to sexually abuse her. She suffered in silence for many years, as her father took advantage of her innocence and her mother turned a blind eye to the horrors that were taking place in her own home. It was only when Sara found the courage to tell her mother what had happened that the truth about the trauma and abuse she had suffered came out. In an attempt to rebuild her life, as a teenager, Sara became a model but even this choice was to lead to more misery when she discovered that the agency had been drugging and abusing her. Despite the horrors that Sara has endured, she has survived and, partly by telling her story, has overcome the past to re-build her life.
The 100 Greatest Players In NHL History (And Other Stuff): An Arbitrary Collection of Arbitrary Lists
Greg Wyshynski - 2017
Then check out their other lists and insights from the first 100 years of the NHL, including: - The Top 10 Ways The NHL Will Be Different in 25 Years - The Top 10 Most Questionable Decisions Under Gary Bettman - The 10 Worst Teams In NHL History - And the biggest gripes the authors had with each other’s rankings All of this makes THE 100 GREATEST PLAYERS IN NHL HISTORY (AND OTHER STUFF) a must-read for sports fans who love raging debates and the glorious weirdness of hockey!
What the Stones Remember: A Life Rediscovered
Patrick Lane - 2004
He spent the first year of his sobriety close to home, tending his garden, where he cast his mind back over his life, searching for the memories he'd tried to drown in vodka. Lane has gardened for as long as he can remember, and his garden's life has become inseparable from his own. A new bloom on a plant, a skirmish among the birds, the way a tree bends in the wind, and the slow, measured change of seasons invariably bring to his mind an episode from his eventful past. What the Stones Remember is the emerging chronicle of Lane's attempt to face those memories, as well as his new self--to rediscover his life. In this powerful and beautifully written book, Lane offers readers an unflinching and unsentimental account of coming to one's senses in the presence of nature.
One Step at a Time: A Young Marine's Story of Courage, Hope and a New Life in the NFL
Josh Bleill - 2010
He awoke five days later with to learn of the catastrophic loss of his two friends and both of his legs. Recovering physically presented a great challenge, but the mental recovery was the toughest battle. For three and a half months he never left the hospital because he didn't want people to see his injured body. In One Step at a Time, Bleill shares the story of his own personal redemption and the many life-changing moments he encountered, from his enlistment to active duty in Fallujah, through two years of intensive rehabilitation, and ultimately to his job as the community spokesman for the Indianapolis Colts. Readers will be inspired by his undying enthusiasm, infectious joy, and sense of humor as he shares his message of going forward, one step at a time.
The Girls, Alone: Six Days in Estonia
Bonnie J. Rough - 2015
In her latest work, award-winning author Bonnie J. Rough separates from her family for a surprising journey into the difficult past and precarious present of Estonia, the former Soviet state of her heritage. Embarking on a journey to learn the fate of her great-great-grandmother Anna, she encounters World War II ghosts, Vikings, crones, recycled meat, a seven-ton prehistoric bull, gray hairs, and the ultimate librarian, but finds no bully bigger than Putin—or is it her own self-doubt?—in an adventure that delivers surprising lessons from her foremothers about happiness, autonomy, women’s legacies and the writer’s life. From the ladies’ locker room to the edges of Russia, The Girls, Alone is a swift ride that brings its readers to the most unexpected places and triumphantly answers its own high stakes.Bonnie J. Rough is the author of the Minnesota Book Award-winning memoir Carrier: Untangling the Danger in My DNA. Her essays have appeared in dozens of publications including The New York Times, Huffington Post, The Sun magazine, and Brain, Child, as well as anthologies including The Best American Science and Nature Writing, Modern Love, and The Best Creative Nonfiction. With past lives in Minneapolis and Amsterdam, she now lives and writes in her hometown of Seattle.Cover design by Hannah Perrine Mode.
Skinhead... The Life I Chose: Memoirs of a Real Skin
Spike Pitt - 2014
It is NOT about Nazism, or Neo-Nazism, and definitely not about politics; it is the story of how the ebullience of youth can be corrupted and misinterpreted by propaganda and the media. Warning This story contains a lot of strong language, British slang and outspoken opinions that may be offensive to some; it is nevertheless the truth.
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.
Twirty-Something: A Young Woman's Guide to Giant Underwear
Ingrid Reinke - 2013
Twirty-Something: A Young Woman's Guide to Giant Underwear is a hilarious new Kindle Single from Award-Winning and Amazon Best-Selling author and humorist Ingrid Reinke.On the cold January day when Ingrid Reinke turned 30, she looked back upon the last decade of her life in deep thought before finally shaking her head and mumbling to herself the following insight: "Wow, what a shit show."So, she sat down, braless and alone, and penned a collection of laugh-out-loud essays about the ridiculous, shocking and occasionally horrifying things that happen to us as we ungracefully age from 20 to 30, try, semi-successfully, to leave our clueless years behind and become mature, responsible grown-up women.From weird hairs to boob sweat, OCD to weddings, Twirty-Something swings between a no-holds-barred conversation and a cautionary tale about aging and all the crap that comes along with it.Sometime instruction manual, sometime commiseration partner, get ready for Reinke's honest and occasionally potty-mouthed accounts of this tumultuous decade.So hike up your yoga pants, plop another ice cube in your Pinot Grigio and get ready to laugh at the author, young women in general, and most of all at yourself.
Who Says You Can't Herd Cats?
Faye Hicks - 2012
Meet Karl (the Joker), Boris (the Gladiator), Miss Winnifred Hardbottle, Buddy (the Little Whittler) and many more.
Mother's House Payment
Ronnie Schiller - 2011
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.
All in: What It Takes to Be the Best
Gene Chizik - 2011
As he recounts his journey, he opens up about the pivotal role his faith has played in his life and career, and he shares his time-tested secrets to success, both on and off the field."All In" is an inspirational must-read for football fans everywhere and for anyone who has ever struggled to overcome their own 5-19 season of life.
Nikola Tesla: Prophet Of The Modern Technological Age
Michael W. Simmons - 2016
He was a celebrity during the height of America’s Gilded Age. In this book, you will read about his friendship with Mark Twain, his furious competition with his former employer Thomas Edison, his uneasy relationship with billionaire J.P. Morgan, and his rivalry with Albert Einstein. During his lifetime, Tesla revolutionized the field of electrical engineering with his most famous invention: the induction motor. But that wasn’t all he contributed to the world of technology. His coils, turbines, robotic boats, and mysterious “death ray” continue to beguile the imagination and inspire the inventors of the 21st century. But who was Tesla really? This book will take you from his early childhood in Croatia, where he experienced strange optical visions and “luminous phenomenon” that gave him near super-human powers of memory and visualization, to the “War of the Currents”, Thomas Edison’s bizarre campaign to ruin Tesla’s reputation. From trying to fight the Spanish American War with robots, to electrifying the skies of the Colorado desert, and to starting an earthquake in the middle of New York city, learn how Nikola Tesla shaped the world we live in today.