Childhood Memories

Azar Nafisi, author of the beloved international best seller Reading Lolita in Tehran, now gives us a stunning personal story of growing up in Iran, memories of her life lived in thrall to a powerful and complex mother, against the background of a country's political revolution.

"I learned about conflict from my parents." So begins Christina McKenna's haunting memoir of her lonely early life. Recounting scenes from her childhood in Ulster, she paints a memorable and poignant picture of violence and oppression with her uncaring father and protective mother, whose retaliation to her husband's penny-pinching came in the form of a secret yellow dress. Her formative years and her foray into the world, which begin with the daily trudge to and from school, are peopled by a troupe of bizarre and unforgettable characters dancing in and out of her life, filling her with awe ...

Last night I dreamt of Woodlands .... this has been a reoccurring dream all my life, a place of childhood memories where it is always summer. Long days exploring the countryside full of flowers and magic, lost in time itself between the hills, fields down to the Jurassic shoreline of Somerset. This book takes you through my early childhood with memories and snippets of history about the places I lived in, we moved houses several times in Somerset until we finally settled in the Midlands. We continued to visit our family for the summer holidays for many years and my heart is in those country...

Alberta Scaglione's spinster aunt had some secrets - like the fortune she squirreled away and a secret lake house in Tranquility, New Jersey. More surprising: She's left it all to Alberta. Alberta, a widow, is no spring chicken, and she's gotten used to disappointment. So having a beautiful view, surrounded by hydrangeas, honeysuckle, and her cat, Lola, sounds blissful after years of yelling and bickering and cooking countless lasagnas. But Tranquility isn't as peaceful as it sounds. There's a body in the water - and it belongs to Alberta's childhood nemesis.

"As you read this book you will be in the company of someone whose childhood was interwoven into the fabric of West Cork and who still loves the soul of his own place" - Alice Taylor, international best-selling author of "To School Through The Fields" In Klondike House, John Dwyer recounts his memories of growing up on the remote but beautiful Beara Peninsula in West Cork, Ireland. The author's vivid and colorful stories describe his hard but happy life as part of an isolated but close-knit community, such as: - Early school days spent in a building with no running water or electricity - An...

What makes a boy tick? Has our view of boys evolved as society has changed? Is boyishness in the genes or learned after birth? John Redwood shares with the reader his experiences as a young boy growing up in post War Britain when boys were told to be boys. With an unusually long memory of childhood stretching for him back into the pram he takes us through what it felt like to be a baby then a boy responding to the adult world around him. Sitting on a chair was an exercise in mountaineering. Trying those first steps instead of crawling fast around the floors were dogged by fears of falling ...

Rosemary Penfold's beautiful and evocative memoir of her life growing up in the fields of the English countryside is a moving testament to a forgotten world and a disappearing and misunderstood people. Born in 1938 in a traditional Gypsy wagon, surrounded by the love of her parents and extended family in a small but close-knit community, Rosemary paints a vivid and touching portrait of a way of life that no longer exits.

Were you a kid in the 60s and 70s? Then you’ll love this book. It’s chock full of short stories about growing up during that period in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A time when life was about playing outside, exploring the woods, riding bikes, and playing games in the street. There were no cell phones, internet, or social media. The news came wrapped in a rubber band and landed on your doorstep thrown by a kid on a bicycle. Nobody wore helmets when they rode their bikes and nobody used seatbelts. You could disappear all day and your parents didn’t even know where you were. Just as long ...

In 1947 Tilly’s grandmother bought an island. Its name is Småhølmene and it sits just off the coast of Norway. At first sight, the island seems bare, hardly more than a collection of rocks rising determinedly out of the water. Glittering and bittersweet, Island Summers lovingly portrays three generations of women and the island that became so irrevocably part of their lives. Now Mor-mor’s great-grandchildren are taking their turn, enjoying endless summers on Småhølmene, continuing the story that was begun over 50 years ago.

Young Mendel, from age four to 14, tells in vivid detail the wretched journey in cramped cattle cars through frigid Russia, the indignities of being forced labor, the shame of begging for bread just to survive, and death of those closest to him. The family's plight includes abandonment, hunger, and separation (and later remarkable twists of fate and reunion) quite unlike other Holocaust stories.

Combining neuroscience, psychology, and personal experiences, Change What Happened to You shares Odille and Steve Remmert’s unique, proven memory-editing process with the power to transform your mind, behavior, and happiness. With step-by-step techniques for foundational self-love, this guide will help you change your implicit memories so you can heal from the negativity of your childhood and reroute your life toward the positive destination you desire.

In Spirit of a Hummingbird, Felicia Thai Heath, the daughter of Vietnamese and Chinese immigrants who met in the United States, gives us a disquieting, eventful memoir based on her early childhood on the run with her father—a notorious Vietnamese kingpin and escaped convict—and her conflicted mother. Clever and mature beyond her age, young Felicia experienced poverty and witnessed abuse as her dysfunctional family bounced around in the United States and Canada. Amid all the tumult and terror, she found ways to love her family, educate herself, navigate her world, and discover her potential.

Bill Bryson's hilarious memoir of growing up in middle America in the Fifties, complete, unabridged and read by the author. Born in 1951 in the middle of the United States, Des Moines, Iowa, Bill Bryson is perfectly positioned to mine his memories of a totally all-American childhood for 24 carat memoir gold.

Welcome to clean, babbling streams, emerald meadows, sun-dappled corn, wheat and bean fields, windswept weeping willows, rustic red and white barns, pine-scented woods and other hidden nooks and crannies alongside America’s back roads. The warm-hearted country folk and critters, friendly and threatening alike, know sweet secrets of life and love that you’ll likely never discover in the city. In Country Memories, a collection of 50 rural recollections, find a comfortable old chair, inhale the fresh air that whispers of wild roses while you read about: Introduction 1. Broadway At The Barn...

This book is about one of my childhood friends; it is a tribute to him.

Tony Benn, the Labour politician was a great diary keeper. When asked why he did this, he observed that keeping a diary means that you experience life three times. Once during the experience; again, when you write about it and a third time when you later read it. That partly explains why I wrote this book. Be aware, though, that it isn’t a diary; it isn’t a eulogy and it certainly isn’t a novel. You'll read some character-forming memories of a wartime baby who became a cripplingly shy teenager and, eventually, a slightly egotistical performing show off. Chapter Titles 1. EARLY ARRIVAL...

A touching literary discovery, 402 Avalon follows a boy's journey during the 1950s through one of San Francisco's most mysterious houses that was built during the 1880s. This curious true story about a neglected boy, his uncommon family, the gushing growth of San Francisco and the infamous house is part intrigue, part innocence and part discovery. 402 Avalon is a stunning portrait of a child wanting guidance, living in the haunted three-story wooden structure that was dangerous.

Uri Shulevitz, one of FSG BYR’s most acclaimed picture-book creators, details the eight-year odyssey of how he and his Jewish family escaped the terrors of the Nazis by fleeing Warsaw for the Soviet Union in Chance. It was during those years, with threats at every turn, that the young Uri experienced his awakening as an artist, an experience that played a key role during this difficult time. By turns dreamlike and nightmarish, this account of determination, courage, family loyalty, and the luck of coincidence is a true publishing event.

Memories and Scenes: Shtetl, Childhood, Writers is the first English translation of 11 autobiographical short stories by the beloved and successful 19th century Eastern European Yiddish writer Jacob Dinezon (1852 -1919). Friend and mentor to almost every major Jewish literary figure of his day, including Sholem Abramovitsh (Mendele Moykher Sforim), I.L. Peretz, Sholem Aleichem, S. An-ski, and Abraham Goldfaden, Dinezon played a central role in the development of Yiddish as a modern literary language.

These are the exotic, funny and sometimes bittersweet family stories and photos of an overseas childhood told by the daughter of a State Department diplomat about her family's travels and experiences living overseas from 1957 to 1972. She and her six brothers spent their childhoods in South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, and Ethiopia. Through her stories, the listener can begin to appreciate the adaptability of children to other cultures and the fortitude and courage of parents trying to raise their children to be good citizens of the world as well as good Americans.