Nonfiction Memoir

Writing your memoir will take you on a magical journey to self-discovery. We've never known a memoir writer who didn't feel changed by writing their story. The magic is in the unveiling of the sweet moments, treasured memories, and unresolved mysteries of your life. It will change not only your relationships with others but your relationship with yourself, as well. Nothing could be more powerful than that. This book guides you through six steps of good memoir writing. Clear and concise, it offers tips garnered from the authors' many years of helping people write their stories. You'll see ...

Anyone can survive, but it takes gumption to thrive. “Usually, patients with a chronic illness become mentally ill.” Suzana Sandoval’s doctor commented. “I’m in awe as to how well you tolerate your disease. You’re different than our regular patients.” He continued, “We can’t justify billing your insurance for a psychiatrist. Instead, we’re going to use you as a case study to help other transplant patients.” Are you kidding? I’m in awe that I’m still alive. But don’t you think for a minute, Doc, that I don’t get the insanity slump. All the rules to keep me from ...

In 1981, detective Kay Schucker was the lead investigator in the high-profile missing persons case of Old Dominion University student Janice Starr. The beautiful co-ed disappeared without a trace from ODU's Norfolk, Virginia campus. Among the only leads was Janice's diary, which included detailed journal entries about her daily activities. As Kay studied the diary—going several years back—she learned that Janice, a US Army veteran, had faced the same challenges in the military that Kay did in law enforcement. They were both women trying to succeed in a man's world.

In 1978, the bloody conflict in Northern Ireland, known as The Troubles, had reached a boiling point. Hundreds of members of the Irish Republican Army, determined to drive the hated British out of the province—killing soldiers and police, detonating bombs, while arming themselves with firearms and explosives—had been arrested and incarcerated in the notorious British prison known as the Maze.

Please note this book can be read as a standalone. “It’s not about being a former detective. It’s about being a mom. It’s that mama bear love. It’s that mom determination that I gave birth to this child and, so help me God, I am going to take care of this child until I die.” Josephine Wentzel (Good Morning America)“I have said it before, and I will say it again, McLeod messed with the wrong mother!” Summer Stephan, District Attorney, San Diego DA’s Office Without argument, one of the hardest things that can happen to anyone in life is the murder of a child. The Capture ...

God's Good Works: Stories to Treasure and Tales to Ponder is a heartfelt faith-based collection of anecdotes and insightful lessons drawn from everyday experiences. It also examines the current American and global political climates through the lens of biblical eschatology. Beginning in 2020, the battle between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Darkness exploded with Black Lives Matter, COVID-19, and the January 6, 2021 “Capitol insurrection.” Could we be living in the final days before the coming New World Order and the rapture of the Bible-believing Church? 2023 International Book...

A classic portrait of immigrant life in the early decades of the twentieth century, A Walker in the City is a tour of tenements, subways, and synagogues—but also a universal story of the desires and fears we experience as we try to leave our small, familiar neighborhoods for something new.

**Awards:** New Mexico-Arizona Book Award Finalist, 2024; Royal Dragonfly First Place in Letters, Diaries, and Journals, 2024; Global Book Awards Silver Medalist in Biography and Memoir, 2024. Do you want to get away from it all? Meet Kent. Overwhelmed by the indifference of his South Dakota undergraduate students and fed up with American politics of the 1980s, he yearns for a life of adventure. Then, he discovers sailboats. While retirement seems financially out of reach, living on a sailboat opens up a world of exhilarating possibilities. Imagine letting the wind guide your family ...

From the beloved, best-selling author of All over but the Shoutin', a delectable, rollicking food memoir, cookbook, and loving tribute to a region, a vanishing history, a family, and, especially, his mother. In The Best Cook in the World, Rick Bragg finally preserves his heritage by telling the stories that framed his mother's cooking and education, from childhood into old age. Because good food always has a good story.

What could possibly go wrong in a wealthy matriarch's country home when her dilettante son, his restless wife, and his widowed brother live there together? Strong Passions, rooted in the beguiling times of Edith Wharton's "old New York," recounts the true story of a tumultuous marriage.

The abolitionist legacies of Orville Brown and his son, Spencer, live on in this historic and daring 19th-century account. Journeying apart from each other, but with similar passion, Orville and Spencer's stories span virtually every major abolitionist event: from the battles of Bleeding Kansas and the establishment of the free-soil movement to the river wars of Memphis, Vicksburg, and Shiloh. Listeners will follow Orville west as he strikes out for Kansas Territory to help ensure its entry as a free state.

Blending years of deep reporting with distinctive, powerful prose, Scott C. Johnson’s unique true crime narrative recounts the tale of the brilliantly cunning imposter who carved a path of financial and emotional destruction across the world. Gifted with a diabolical flair for impersonation, manipulation, and deception, the Con Queen used their skill with accents and deft psychological insight to sweep through the entertainment industry.

In the turbulent world of Chicago politics, Boss dives deep into the captivating life and legacy of Richard J. Daley, the influential politician and mastermind behind the city's Democratic Party machine. Mike Royko's scathing and meticulously researched account follows Richard J. Daley's rise to power, from his inauspicious youth on Chicago's South Side through his rapid climb to the seat of power as the city's mayor. This engrossing biography brings to life the most powerful political figure of his time.

When the AIDS epidemic hit in the early 1980s, Strub was living in New York and soon found himself attending "more funerals than birthday parties". Scared and angry, he turned to radical activism to combat discrimination and demand research. Strub takes you through his own diagnosis and inside ACT UP, the organization that transformed a stigmatized cause into one of the defining political movements of our time.

On the eve of a major treaty conference between Iroquois leaders and European colonists in the distant summer of 1722, two White fur traders attacked an Indigenous hunter and left him for dead near Conestoga, Pennsylvania. This act of brutality set into motion a remarkable series of criminal investigations and cross-cultural negotiations that challenged the definition of justice in early America. Leading historian Nicole Eustace reconstructs the crime and its aftermath, bringing us into the overlapping worlds of white colonists and Indigenous peoples in this formative period.

Known for his meaty seriocomic novels–expansive works that are simultaneously lowbrow and highbrow–Tom Robbins has also published over the years a number of short pieces, predominantly nonfiction. His travel articles, essays, and tributes to actors, musicians, sex kittens, and thinkers have appeared in publications ranging from Esquire to Harper’s, from Playboy to the New York Times, High Times, and Life.

Germany's success in the Second World War was built upon its tank forces; however, many of its leading generals, with the notable exception of Heinz Guderian, are largely unknown. This biographical study of four German panzer army commanders serving on the Eastern Front is based upon their unpublished wartime letters to their wives. David Stahel offers a complete picture of the men conducting Hitler's war in the East, with an emphasis on the private fears and public pressures they operated under.

For 700 years, Japan was ruled by military commanders who waged war against one another incessantly. Shogun tells the fascinating story of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the man who finally unified and brought lasting peace to the nation. He established a new central government which enabled his descendants to rule Japan for the next 260 years—a period in which Japanese culture as we know it today flourished.

"Back in the saddle" isn't just a cliché or a metaphor. For Crissi McDonald, it describes where she's spent four decades of her life, and a challenge she wasn't sure she'd still be able to meet. On an ordinary sunny afternoon in 2014, Crissi's world falls apart. Waking up in the hospital after a freak accident with her horse, the doctors tell her that a small bleed in her brain has stopped and that she's dodged brain surgery. As the news sinks in, she realizes the facade of her confidence has crumbled. She’s at a crossroads: either find ways to overcome the fear that now engulfs her or ...

Ken Paulson’s memoir could be described as Hunter S. Thompson “lite.” With a good dollop of Jean Shepherd mixed in. As the son of a federal bureaucrat known as an “office fixer,” he quickly learned that putting down roots was tricky when you regularly moved from town to town. Add to that a slightly-neurodivergent, curious and sharp mind, and you could have guessed how this was likely to go. The path to finding yourself is often bumpy. Sometimes, you will find boulders in the middle of the road. In this coming-of-age story, by turns hilarious, heartbreaking and a little horrifying,...