Personal Memoirs

In this intimate, haunting, literary memoir read by the author, an American icon tells her story for the first time, in her own gorgeous words - about a challenging and lonely childhood, the craft that helped her find her voice, and a powerful emotional legacy that shaped her journey as a daughter and a mother.

In this deeply etched and haunting memoir, Vivian Gornick tells the story of her lifelong battle with her mother for independence. Gornick's groundbreaking book confronts what Edna O'Brien has called "the principal crux of female despair": the unacknowledged Oedipal nature of the mother-daughter bond. Born and raised in the Bronx, the daughter of "urban peasants," Gornick grows up in a household dominated by her intelligent but uneducated mother's romantic depression over the early death of her husband.

After the sudden death of her husband, Sheryl Sandberg felt certain that she and her children would never feel pure joy again. "I was in 'the void,'" she writes, "a vast emptiness that fills your heart and lungs and restricts your ability to think or even breathe." Her friend Adam Grant, a psychologist at Wharton, told her there are concrete steps people can take to recover and rebound from life-shattering experiences. We are not born with a fixed amount of resilience. It is a muscle that everyone can build.

Involuntarily single. That's the true story of where Catherine Tidd finds herself just three weeks after turning 31. Widowed with three children under six years old, a rusty resume, no fix-it skills, and no clue how to live life as a widow, Catherine can't help but be a little exasperated with her dead husband for leaving her to deal with life on her own. Catherine's now in charge of her life in a way she never wanted to be, in a way that would have most of us reeling and numb. But she soon realizes that when you call the shots, you can make pedicures one of the stages of grief....

Using the written word as her witness statement, Jessica Willis Fisher tells a lacerating story of finding her voice after two decades of silence and an unforgettable story of risk and faith.

Being “shook” is more than a rap lyric for Charlamagne; it’s his mission to overcome. While it may seem like he is ahead of the game and should have nothing to worry about, he is still plagued by anxieties - fear of being weak; fear of being a bad dad; fear of being a worse husband; and, ultimately, fear of failure. Shook One chronicles his journey to beat back those fears and empowers you to no longer be held back from your potential.

In Whistler's Walk: The Appalachian Trail in 142 Days, author Bill Monk brings readers his real-life, day-to-day account of hiking the Appalachian Trail in its entirety, from intense, necessary preparation at the start to the emotionally charged conclusion of summiting Mount Katahdin. Based on Monk's journal entries written daily along the way, readers are afforded the up-close and intimate privilege of witnessing his very real trials and triumphs, and each incredible, beautiful moment as he experienced it. Anyone who has hiked, or plans on hiking the Appalachian Trail, lovers of nature, ...

Addicts Are Everywhere Do you know one? Are you living with an alcoholic or addict? Is it somebody in your immediate family? Or how about another important interpersonal relationship? Have you noticed that this person you thought you knew has changed? Do you find yourself wishing you could understand, trying as best you can to bring this person back to the light--but not knowing how? Or is the only addict you see, day in and day out, the one in the mirror? Are you plagued by drug addiction, alcoholism or alcohol dependence? Have you denied it all this time? Broken and barren, struggling ...

Thousands of people have heard Kris "Tanto" Paronto speak about his experiences in Benghazi on September 11, 2012. But before he was a security contractor, Tanto was a US Army Ranger from Second Battalion 75th Ranger Regiment. Rangers are trained to lead by being pushed to their physical and mental limits so that they can perform against impossible odds in punishing situations. In The Ranger Way, Tanto shares stories from his training experiences that played a role in his team's heroic response in Benghazi.

Bruce Lee is a cultural icon, renowned the world over for his martial arts and film legacy. But Lee was also a deeply philosophical thinker, learning at an early age that martial arts are more than just an exercise in physical discipline - they are an apt metaphor for living a fully realized life. Now, in Be Water, My Friend, Lee’s daughter, Shannon, shares the concepts at the core of his philosophies, showing how they can serve as tools of personal growth and self-actualization.

Terry Crews spent decades cultivating his bodybuilder physique and bravado. On the outside, he seemed invincible: he escaped his abusive father, went pro in the NFL, and broke into the glamorous world of Hollywood. But his fixation with appearing outwardly tough eventually turned into an exhausting performance in which repressing his emotions let them get the better of him—leading him into addiction and threatening the most important relationships in his life. Now Crews is sharing the raw, never-before-told story of his quest to find the true meaning of toughness.

When a scandalous news story splashed across mainstream media about an elite escort agency in Las Vegas, people were shocked to learn there was a tiny mastermind behind the company: a small town girl from Oregon named Jami Rodman who went by the pseudonym Haley Heston.

Nick Lavery is an active-duty Green Beret within the United States Army Special Forces. Although injuries sustained in combat resulted in the above-the-knee amputation of his leg—Nick not only remained in the Army, he returned to his Special Forces detachment and continues conducting combat operations to this day. Objective Secure is the methodology Nick employed to return to operational status. It is also the methodology he uses today as he continues this unprecedented journey in service to his country. It is a battle-tested guide forged by fire—literally.

At the end of her best-selling memoir Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert fell in love with Felipe, a Brazilian-born man of Australian citizenship who'd been living in Indonesia when they met. Resettling in America, the couple swore eternal fidelity to each other, but also swore to never, ever, under any circumstances get legally married. But providence intervened one day in the form of the United States government....

Almost every Latina has heard the phrase calladita te ves más bonita—you look most beautiful when you are silent. It's a message rooted in machismo passed from generation to generation, and one that poet and Latine therapist, Kim Guerra, grew up on. In Badass Bonita, Guerra tells a story of coming into her own power, and guides listeners through the process of finding their own. Rejecting what she was taught as a girl, she learned to use her voice and the more she listened to that inner niña, the more she unearthed her inner guerrera.

Overachiever Joe Theismann had reached the pinnacle of success as an elite NFL quarterback, with a Super Bowl victory and NFL MVP award. But the memory that sticks with many fans is the gruesome injury - his leg was shattered on Monday Night Football - that ended his career. The end of his days on the gridiron wasn't the end of life for Theismann, though. In How to Be a Champion Every Day, Theismann recounts stories from his impressive career, providing an inspirational guide for how to succeed on a team, in your career, and in your everyday life.

Eva Hagberg Fisher spent her lonely youth looking everywhere for connection: drugs, alcohol, therapists, boyfriends, girlfriends. Sometimes she found it, but always temporarily. Then, at age 30, an undiscovered mass in her brain ruptured. So did her life. A brain surgery marked only the beginning of a long journey, and when her illness hit a critical stage, it forced her to finally admit the long suppressed truth: she was vulnerable, she needed help, and she longed to grow. She needed true friendship for the first time.

Who is Ruth McBride Jordan? A self-declared "light-skinned" woman evasive about her ethnicity, yet steadfast in her love for her 12 Black children. James McBride, journalist, musician, and son, explores his mother's past, as well as his own upbringing and heritage, in a poignant and powerful debut, The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother.

Peg Holland became pregnant as a teenager in a conservative village in 1950s Ireland. She knew her life would never be the same again. She was sent away in shame only to find courage and wisdom deep within her soul. After her baby, Mary, is born, Peg and Mary are heckled and ridiculed by townspeople for nine months until Peg decides she must give Mary up for adoption so she can have a better life. This decision haunts Peg the rest of her life. Having nothing left to keep her in Ireland, Peg leaves home to work in America. Mick O'Hagan is swept away by Peg and wants to marry her. She refuses...

In this powerful true crime memoir, an award-winning identity theft expert tells the shocking story of the duplicity and betrayal that inspired her career and nearly destroyed her family. Axton Betz-Hamilton grew up in small-town Indiana in the early '90s. When she was 11 years old, her parents both had their identities stolen. Their credit ratings were ruined, and they were constantly fighting over money. This was before the age of the Internet, when identity theft became more commonplace, so authorities and banks were clueless and reluctant to help Axton's parents.