Book picks similar to
Here Lies My Heart: Essays on Why We Marry, Why We Don't, and What We Find There (A Beacon Anthology) by Amy Bloom
non-fiction
nonfiction
essays
memoirs
If It Was Easy, They'd Call the Whole Damn Thing a Honeymoon: Living with and Loving the TV-Addicted, Sex-Obsessed, Not-So-Handy Man You Married
Jenna McCarthy - 2011
With ballsy wit and bawdy humor, she explores everything from male domestic idiocy and the frustrating misfires in spousal communication to how to stay true to the peskiest of vows: forsaking all others. Part in-your-face guide, part brutal confession, this book is a must-read manifesto on surviving marriage in an age when everyone seems to live forever and getting a divorce is as easy as ordering a latte.
The May Queen: Women on Life, Love, Work, and Pulling It All Together in Your 30s
Andrea N. Richesin - 2006
In The May Queen, a wide array of women-including bestselling author Jennifer Weiner and star of the hit independent film Kissing Jessica Stein Heather Juergensen-describe the conflicting emotions they've felt in response to the "anything is possible" message women of their generation receive. And yet, all of the women featured in this book have found their thirties to be a time of great opportunity-a period in their lives in which they're taking the time to consider what they have lost, what they have gained, and what they still need to learn. This book gives a powerful voice to a new generation of women beginning to make its mark on the world.
Gifts: Mothers Reflect on How Children with Down Syndrome Enrich Their Lives
Kathryn Lynard Soper - 2006
Yet many who travel this path discover rich, unexpected rewards along the way. In this candid and poignant collection of personal stories, sixty-three mothers describe the gifts of respect, strength, delight, perspective, and love, which their child with Down syndrome has brought into their lives. perspectives, and draw from a wide spectrum of ethnicity, world views, and religious beliefs. Some are parenting within a traditional family structure; some are not. Some never considered terminating their pregnancy; some struggled with the decision. Some were calm at the time of diagnosis; some were traumatised. Some write about their pregnancy and the months after giving birth; some reflect on years of experience with their child. Their diverse experiences point to a common truth: the life of a child with Down syndrome is something to celebrate. These women have something to say - not just to other mothers but to all of us.
An Unspoken Hunger: Stories from the Field
Terry Tempest Williams - 1994
Williams weaves her observations in the naturalist field and her personal experience--as a woman, a Westerner, and a Mormon--into a resonant manifesto on behalf of the landscapes she loves, making clear as well that, through our disregard of this world, we have lost an essential connection to our deepest selves.
The Empathy Exams
Leslie Jamison - 2014
She draws from her own experiences of illness and bodily injury to engage in an exploration that extends far beyond her life, spanning wide-ranging territory—from poverty tourism to phantom diseases, street violence to reality television, illness to incarceration—in its search for a kind of sight shaped by humility and grace.
Wylie the Brave Street Dog Who Never Gave Up
Pen Farthing - 2014
But for Wylie, the gentle, cropped eared ball of fur, miracles seemed to happen quite regularly. Beaten and abused at the hands of uncaring humans, Wylie suffered terrible injuries that needed urgent treatment. Rescued close to death, with hacked off ears and a severed tail, he was attended to by soldiers who feared he would not last the night. Astonishingly he did, only to return days later with new injuries. However a lifeline came when he was handed over to animal welfare Charity Nowzad and flown to Britain in the hope of finding a new life. But would anyone take a chance on a seemingly undomesticated stray? Luckily for Wylie his biggest adventure yet was about to begin...
Drinking with Dead Women Writers
Elaine Ambrose - 2012
Vincent Millay, Margaret Mitchell, Carson McCullers, Flannery O'Connor, Sylvia Plath, Ayn Rand and Virginia Woolf. Facts about Dead Women Writers:Most early female writers used pen names because women weren't regarded as competent writers. Margaret Mitchell wrote only one published novel in her lifetime, but Gone with the Wind won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1937 and sold more than 30 million copies. Emily Dickinson was so paranoid that she only spoke to people from behind a door. Carson McCullers wrote The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter at age 22. Her husband wanted them to commit suicide in the French countryside, but she refused. Ambrose and Turner explore these and other intriguing facts about the most famous (but departed) women in literary history.
Love and Respect for a Lifetime: Gift Book: Women Absolutely Need Love. Men Absolutely Need Respect. Its as Simple and as Complicated as That...
Emerson Eggerichs - 2010
Emerson Eggerichs leads couples through the intricacies of a marriage built on Love and Respect. He explores the differences in men and women and how a husband�s need for respect can be balanced by a wife�s need for love. When these needs are mutually recognized and made a priority, a fulfilling and meaningful marriage will be the inevitable result.Love and Respect for a Lifetime makes the ideal gift:It�s all color, photo-filled design makes it inviting for couples to look at together. It is a compilation of Dr. Eggerichs best Love & Respect tips: a quick and easy read that proves enticing to a spouse that might be apprehensive of working through an entire study or book. It�s engaging message validates the core needs of each spouse and gives a message of hope, encouragement and practical time-tested solutions for every marriage rather than focusing on placing blame or judging. It�s ideal as a gift for dating or engaged couples, as well as a wedding or anniversary gift. It�s elegant design invites the recipients to open, read it together and leave out as a display for others to take a closer look at what it means to love her and to respect him.
I Work at a Public Library: A Collection of Crazy Stories from the Stacks
Gina Sheridan - 2014
Throughout these pages, she catalogs her encounters with local eccentrics as well as the questions that plague her, such as, "What is the standard length of eyebrow hairs?" Whether she's helping someone scan his face onto an online dating site or explaining why the library doesn't have any dragon autobiographies, Sheridan's bizarre tales prove that she's truly seen it all.Stacked high with hundreds of strange-but-true stories, I Work at a Public Library celebrates librarians and the unforgettable patrons that roam the stacks every day.
Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
Anne Helen Petersen - 2017
It's not that she's an outcast (she might even be your friend or your wife, or your mother) so much as she's a social variable. Sometimes, she's the life of the party; others, she's the center of gossip. She's the unruly woman, and she's one of the most provocative, powerful forms of womanhood today. There have been unruly women for as long as there have been boundaries of what constitutes acceptable "feminine" behavior, but there's evidence that she's on the rise--more visible and less easily dismissed--than ever before. In Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud, Anne Helen Petersen uses the lens of "unruliness" to explore the ascension of eleven contemporary powerhouses: Serena Williams, Melissa McCarthy, Abbi Jacobson, Ilana Glazer, Nicki Minaj, Kim Kardashian, Hillary Clinton, Caitlyn Jenner, Jennifer Weiner, and Lena Dunham. Petersen explores why the public loves to love (and hate) these controversial figures, each of whom has been conceived as "too" something: too queer, too strong, too honest, too old, too pregnant, too shrill, too much. With its brisk, incisive analysis, Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud will be a conversation-starting book on what makes and breaks celebrity today.
It Ended Badly: Thirteen of the Worst Breakups in History
Jennifer Wright - 2015
In the throes of heartbreak, Emperor Nero had just about everyone he ever loved-from his old tutor to most of his friends-put to death. Oscar Wilde's lover, whom he went to jail for, abandoned him when faced with being cut off financially from his wealthy family. And poor volatile Caroline Lamb sent Lord Byron one hell of a torch letter and enclosed a bloody lock of her own pubic hair.
Altared: Bridezillas, Bewilderment, Big Love, Breakups, and What Women Really Think About Contemporary Weddings
Colleen Curran - 2007
In this unexpected, heartwarming, thought-provoking collection, more than two dozen of our most perceptive and entertaining writers offer a wide range of takes on the modern wedding. It's all here. Fantasies. Realities. Fond memories. A few regrets. From planning it to doing it and everything in between. Original essays by Top Women WritersJulianna Baggott, Curtis Sittenfeld, Catherine Ingrassia, Elizabeth Crane, Lara Vapnyar, Lisa Carver, Carina Chocano, Rory Evans, Jennifer Armstrong, Elise Mac Adam, Janelle Brown, Daisy de Villeneuve, Meghan Daum, Amy Sohn, Samina Ali, Farah L. Miller, Gina Zucker, Kathleen Hughes, Jacquelyn Mitchard, Ruth Davis Konigsberg, Lori Leibovich, Julie Powell, Jill Eisenstadt, Anne Carle, Amanda Eyre Ward, Amy Bloom, Dani Shapiro.
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader
Anne Fadiman - 1998
For Fadiman, as for many passionate readers, the books she loves have become chapters in her own life story. Writing with remarkable grace, she revives the tradition of the well-crafted personal essay, moving easily from anecdotes about Coleridge and Orwell to tales of her own pathologically literary family. As someone who played at blocks with her father's 22-volume set of Trollope ("My Ancestral Castles") and who only really considered herself married when she and her husband had merged collections ("Marrying Libraries"), she is exquisitely well equipped to expand upon the art of inscriptions, the perverse pleasures of compulsive proof-reading, the allure of long words, and the satisfactions of reading out loud. There is even a foray into pure literary gluttony: Charles Lamb liked buttered muffin crumbs between the leaves, and Fadiman knows of more than one reader who literally consumes page corners. Perfectly balanced between humor and erudition, Ex Libris establishes Fadiman as one of our finest contemporary essayists.
Couplehood
Paul Reiser - 1994
A veteran comic performer, Reiser is best-known as the co-creator and star of the highly-rated NBC comedy, "Mad About You," which "Time" Magazine called "The season's best new sitcom"in its 1992 debut. Every Thursday night more than twenty million viewers watch as Paul Reiser reveals the most intimate and hilarious scenes of a marriage. Now for the first time, Reiser brings his trademark wit to the page in a book that will delight his eagerly-awaiting audience, and anyone else who has ever fallen in love--or tried not to. In Couplehood, a "New York Times" bestseller for more than 40 weeks, Reiser reflects on what it means to be half of a couple -- everything from the science of hand holding, to the technique of tag-team storytelling, to the politics of food and why it always seems to come down to chicken or fish.NBC's hit comedy, "Mad About You," has collected his comic observationsabout life and love in" Couplehood," a New York Times bestseller for morethan 40 weeks.In "Couplehood," Reiser reflects on what it means to be half of a couple-- everything from the science of hand holding, to the technique of tag-teamstorytelling, to the politics of food and why it always seems to come down tochicken or fish.Cited by "Time" magazine as "the season's best new sitcom" in its 1992debut,
What Makes a Marriage Last: 40 Celebrated Couples Share with Us the Secrets to a Happy Life
Marlo Thomas - 2020
president.Marlo and Phil are a beloved couple who have been married for forty years, yet have rarely spoken publicly about their relationship, and have never written a book together. Now, for the first time, they also include the secrets to what has kept their own marriage alive and loving. Inspiring and insightful, What Makes a Marriage Last offers practical and hard-won wisdom for couples of all ages. Learn about soul-deep passion from Sting and Trudy Styler; how Billy and Janice Crystal keep the love and laughter alive; and why Judges Judy and Jerry Sheinlin’s divorce didn’t last but their marriage did. Also included in this impressive collection: Arlene and Alan Alda, Elton John and David Furnish, John McEnroe and Patty Smyth, George Stephanopoulos and Ali Wentworth, Lisa and Mehmet Oz, Bob Woodward and Elsa Walsh, and Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, who take the prize as the book’s longest married couple—seventy-four years, and counting. What Makes a Marriage Last includes forty-three black-and-white and color photos throughout the book and on the endpapers.