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Moving Miss Peggy: A Story of Dementia, Courage and Consolation
By Robert Benson. 2013
"I am not ever going to get to go home, am I?," she said one day. This is the story…
of moving Miss Peggy to a new place to live, to a new way of life, to a new kind of reality. All of which became necessary because Miss Peggy had begun to live a life colored by dementia. All of us who love her have begun to live that new life with her. Some of that story is here as well. In Moving Miss Peggy we also meet the story of siblings, grown apart over years, with nothing in common except for a mother who in wrestling through her own challenges gave each grown child the gift of a deeply felt reunion, long years after any of them suspected there was a possibility of reconciling grace. Written with grace, candor and bittersweet humor, Moving Miss Peggy tells a story that many others are now facing, bringing strength and wisdom and inspiration to readers. We learn (and learn again) along with Miss Peggy and her family some of the very basics for living life well.
Three Brothers: Memories of My Family
By Yan Lianke. 2009
From the Franz Kafka Prize–winning author. “Full of love, sorrow, and tenderness . . . a deeply heartfelt account of his family in…
the 1960s and 70s.” —Xiaolu Guo, award-winning author of Nine ContinentsWith lyricism and deep emotion, Yan Lianke chronicles the extraordinary lives of his father and uncles, as well as his own during the Cultural Revolution. Living in a remote village, Yan’s parents are so poor that they can only afford to use wheat flour on New Year and festival days, and while Yan dreams of fried scallion buns, and even steals from his father to buy sesame seed cakes. He yearns to leave the village, however he can, and soon novels become an escape. He resolves to become a writer himself after reading on the back of a novel that its author was given leave to remain in the city of Harbin after publishing her book. In the evenings, after finishing back-breaking shifts hauling stones at a cement factory, sometimes sixteen hours long, he sets to work writing. He is ultimately delivered from the drudgery and danger of manual labor by a career in the Army, but he is filled with regrets as he recalls these years of scarcity, turmoil, and poverty.A philosophical portrait of grief, death, home, and fate that gleams with Yan’s quick wit and gift for imagery, Three Brothers is a personal portrait of a politically devastating period, and a celebration of the power of the family to hold together even in the harshest circumstances.“This engaging book asks readers to consider the nature of life and death, city versus country, and the impact generations can have on each other.” —Winnipeg Free Press
The Château - Forever Home: The instant Sunday Times Bestseller, as seen on the hit Channel 4 series Escape to the Château
By Dick Strawbridge, Angel Strawbridge. 2023
Take a journey to Château-de-la-Motte Husson in the spellbinding memoir from Sunday Times bestselling authors, Dick and Angel Strawbridge.Dick and…
Angel recount the newest and biggest challenges they faced on the journey to transforming their once derelict and abandoned château in France's Pays de la Loire into a thriving family home and sustainable business.When the Covid-19 pandemic engulfs the world, the château faces a new challenge and the Strawbridges must find ways to adapt in order to keep their dream life in France alive. From the cancellation of the wedding season to finding new ways to complete renovations, living in an isolated bubble whilst continuing to film their TV series through to life after the pandemic, this is Dick and Angel at their most honest and heartfelt, revealing many details never seen on TV.As entertaining, warm and irresistible as ever, Join Dick and Angel on their remarkable journey to find their family's forever home.
Les lettres attachées: textes et réflexions
By David Goudreault. 2023
Véritable phénomène télévisuel, les lettres de David Goudreault à Bonsoir bonsoir ! ont été vues des millions de fois. Durant…
trois saisons, l'écrivain a mêlé humour et poésie dans de solides performances scéniques. Ce recueil rassemble ses quinze textes, accompagnés de ses commentaires et de portraits esquissés par Irina Pusztai. Une incursion privilégiée dans l'univers de David Goudreault, un passage de la scène à l'intime.
Ordures !: Journal d'un vidangeur
By Simon Paré-Poupart. 2024
L’univers du déchet s’est révélé à moi comme j’aimerais qu’il se révèle à vous dans ce livre. Par surprise. Un…
heureux hasard, car j’aime ce travail. En racontant mon histoire, je veux partager ma passion. Je veux sortir de l’oubli les vidangeurs. Je veux surtout que vous cessiez de croire que vos ordures disparaissent par magie, comme le propose la très récente pub de 1-800-GOT-JUNK. Rien ne disparaît par magie. Laissons ces illusions aux enfants et rentrons dans le vrai monde. Beau et sale, comme le sont les vidangeurs.» En lisant ce journal d’un vidangeur, vous ferez la découverte d’un monde dont vous ne soupçonniez pas l’existence. Un rassemblement d’excentriques et de personnages plus ou moins intégrés à la vie normale qui travaillent sur la ligne de crête entre ce que notre société considère propre et ce qu’elle juge sale. Qui sont ces athlètes qui courent nos rues chaque semaine derrière des camions, qu’il neige, qu’il pleuve ou qu’il fasse trop chaud? Quelle est leur vision du compostage, du recyclage, de la récupération? Qu’ont-ils à raconter sur une époque qui génère en abondance des ordures? Voilà autant de questions auxquelles répond ce récit captivant. Simon Paré-Poupart ramasse les ordures depuis vingt ans. Ses études universitaires en sociologie et en administration internationale, ainsi que son expérience comme intervenant social n’auront pas eu raison de sa vocation de vidangeur.
Stone Lands: A Journey of Darkness and Light Through Britain’s Ancient Places
By Fiona Robertson. 2025
'Superb' Telegraph'There's a real sense of peace and magic in this beautiful book' Daisy Buchanan'Utterly endearing' Dr James Canton'A fantastic…
book for weird walkers and megalith-obsessives alike' Weird WalkJourneying across Britain, from West Penwith and Avebury to the Lake District and Orkney, Stone Lands uncovers the magic and rich history of our incredible prehistoric standing stones. It conveys the delight that lies in tracking them down, as well as the solace these ancient places offer in times of darkness.A few months after discovering that her beloved husband, Stephen, had incurable cancer, Fiona Robertson began to write this book. A long-time megalith enthusiast, she found the ancient stones resonated with her more profoundly than ever as she faced the prospect of losing him. Set upright thousands of years ago, the megaliths are symbols of endurance and survival, standing in contrast to our ephemeral human lives. Infused with folklore, legend and mystery, they enchant the landscape and bring magic to our modern world. This enthralling memoir is woven delicately around great grief but is ultimately about embracing life, joy and ancient wonder - a luminous reminder of what it means to exist on this earth.Stone Lands is beautifully illustrated inside with stunning black and white line drawings by the illustrator and printmaker Philip Harris. Find out more about his work: www.philipharrisillustration.com'A reminder that the ancient stones can be sources of reassurance and solidity, even in our times of greatest upheaval and loss' Angeline Morrison
'Krystal Evans is a born writer - from the first page you know you are in the hands of someone…
who knows what the hell she's doing. This a wonderful book: funny, heart breaking, beautifully paced - I don't expect to read a better memoir for a very long time.' ROBERT WEBB, author of How Not To Be A Boy'Funny and heart breaking in equal measure, Krystal's cool, clear voice cuts through the noise of growing up in chaos' FERN BRADY, author of Strong Female Character'The guiltiest of literary pleasures: a memoir that you open with trepidation and stay up til 6am to finish' KATE SPICER, author of Lost Dog.'Krystal's writing is compelling, edgy and always hilarious. Hottest Girl At Burn Camp is so much more than your average comedian's memoir. Absolutely essential reading.' JOSIE LONGWhen Krystal Evans was 14, the house that she shared with her mother and little sister burned down. Narrowly escaping by breaking a window and jumping out head-first Krystal suffered burns, smoke inhalation, and the unimaginable tragedy of losing her sister. That Evans has written such a warm and disarmingly funny memoir about what led the family to that fatal night, and how they coped with its aftermath, is nothing less than astonishing.This is a spellbinding story of growing up poor in America, living with a mentally ill mother, and having a wolf for a pet (really). From the indignities of being rejected from a summer camp for burn victims, to putting up with a succession of her mom's increasingly shady friends and partners, Krystal and Katie's childhoods were marked by adult chaos, inappropriate behaviour, and never knowing what the next day would bring.But, writing with joy, skill and candour, we witness Krystal growing as a person from the ashes of disaster into the confident, funny, and (reasonably) well-hinged adult, mother and comedian that she is today.At the same time, funny, tragic and inspiring, it is the story of a family dangerously close to the edge, and of a girl struggling to make her way into adulthood, once the smoke clears.
Please Live: The Chechen Wars, My Mother and Me
By Lana Estemirova. 2025
A RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK 'Powerful . . . a coming-of-age story with a twist' Guardian'Heart-wrenching . .…
. We need accounts like this haunting, compelling book' Telegraph'Haunting' Radio Times'Please live' were the last words fifteen-year-old Lana said to her mother. Shortly afterwards Natalia Estemirova was kidnapped outside their apartment block in Grozny, Chechnya. On 15th July 2009, she was murdered for telling the truth. A mountainous sliver of land which creates a natural boundary between Europe and Asia, for centuries Chechnya had been a sharp bone in Russia's throat. Three years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, frustrated by the continued presence of the independence movement within Chechnya, Russia invaded.It was a war of extraordinary brutality. It turned Lana's mother, Natalia Estemirova, from a teacher into a human rights investigator. She became a dedicated member of Memorial, intent on exposing the kidnappings, bombings, torture and murders committed by Russian forces and Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed Chechen President. Natalia Estemirova's life, assassination, and the impunity that followed it, tell the story of Putin's Russia. This is Lana's story of growing up in a war. Of the intense bond between a mother and daughter, desperate to be together even though it was so much safer for Lana to live elsewhere, often for months at a time. It is a book both about being brave and about being ordinary in extraordinary times. It's the fulfilment of a promise Lana made at her mother's grave.
Stone Lands: A Journey of Darkness and Light Through Britain’s Ancient Places
By Fiona Robertson. 2025
'Superb' Telegraph'There's a real sense of peace and magic in this beautiful book' Daisy Buchanan'Utterly endearing' Dr James Canton'A fantastic…
book for weird walkers and megalith-obsessives alike' Weird WalkJourneying across Britain, from West Penwith and Avebury to the Lake District and Orkney, Stone Lands uncovers the magic and rich history of our incredible prehistoric standing stones. It conveys the delight that lies in tracking them down, as well as the solace these ancient places offer in times of darkness.A few months after discovering that her beloved husband, Stephen, had incurable cancer, Fiona Robertson began to write this book. A long-time megalith enthusiast, she found the ancient stones resonated with her more profoundly than ever as she faced the prospect of losing him. Set upright thousands of years ago, the megaliths are symbols of endurance and survival, standing in contrast to our ephemeral human lives. Infused with folklore, legend and mystery, they enchant the landscape and bring magic to our modern world. This enthralling memoir is woven delicately around great grief but is ultimately about embracing life, joy and ancient wonder - a luminous reminder of what it means to exist on this earth.Stone Lands is beautifully illustrated inside with stunning black and white line drawings by the illustrator and printmaker Philip Harris. Find out more about his work: www.philipharrisillustration.com'A reminder that the ancient stones can be sources of reassurance and solidity, even in our times of greatest upheaval and loss' Angeline Morrison
Please Live: The Chechen Wars, My Mother and Me
By Lana Estemirova. 2025
A RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK 'Powerful . . . a coming-of-age story with a twist' Guardian'Heart-wrenching . .…
. We need accounts like this haunting, compelling book' Telegraph'Haunting' Radio Times'Please live' were the last words fifteen-year-old Lana said to her mother. Shortly afterwards Natalia Estemirova was kidnapped outside their apartment block in Grozny, Chechnya. On 15th July 2009, she was murdered for telling the truth. A mountainous sliver of land which creates a natural boundary between Europe and Asia, for centuries Chechnya had been a sharp bone in Russia's throat. Three years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, frustrated by the continued presence of the independence movement within Chechnya, Russia invaded.It was a war of extraordinary brutality. It turned Lana's mother, Natalia Estemirova, from a teacher into a human rights investigator. She became a dedicated member of Memorial, intent on exposing the kidnappings, bombings, torture and murders committed by Russian forces and Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed Chechen President. Natalia Estemirova's life, assassination, and the impunity that followed it, tell the story of Putin's Russia. This is Lana's story of growing up in a war. Of the intense bond between a mother and daughter, desperate to be together even though it was so much safer for Lana to live elsewhere, often for months at a time. It is a book both about being brave and about being ordinary in extraordinary times. It's the fulfilment of a promise Lana made at her mother's grave.
'Krystal Evans is a born writer - from the first page you know you are in the hands of someone…
who knows what the hell she's doing. This a wonderful book: funny, heart breaking, beautifully paced - I don't expect to read a better memoir for a very long time.' ROBERT WEBB, author of How Not To Be A Boy'Funny and heart breaking in equal measure, Krystal's cool, clear voice cuts through the noise of growing up in chaos' FERN BRADY, author of Strong Female Character'The guiltiest of literary pleasures: a memoir that you open with trepidation and stay up til 6am to finish' KATE SPICER, author of Lost Dog.'Krystal's writing is compelling, edgy and always hilarious. Hottest Girl At Burn Camp is so much more than your average comedian's memoir. Absolutely essential reading.' JOSIE LONGWhen Krystal Evans was 14, the house that she shared with her mother and little sister burned down. Narrowly escaping by breaking a window and jumping out head-first Krystal suffered burns, smoke inhalation, and the unimaginable tragedy of losing her sister. That Evans has written such a warm and disarmingly funny memoir about what led the family to that fatal night, and how they coped with its aftermath, is nothing less than astonishing.This is a spellbinding story of growing up poor in America, living with a mentally ill mother, and having a wolf for a pet (really). From the indignities of being rejected from a summer camp for burn victims, to putting up with a succession of her mom's increasingly shady friends and partners, Krystal and Katie's childhoods were marked by adult chaos, inappropriate behaviour, and never knowing what the next day would bring.But, writing with joy, skill and candour, we witness Krystal growing as a person from the ashes of disaster into the confident, funny, and (reasonably) well-hinged adult, mother and comedian that she is today.At the same time, funny, tragic and inspiring, it is the story of a family dangerously close to the edge, and of a girl struggling to make her way into adulthood, once the smoke clears.
Marcus of Umbria: what an Italian dog taught an American girl about love
By Justine Van der Leun. 2010
A funny and insightful coming-of-age memoir that traces the author's childhood and adolescent challenges fitting into American society in rural…
Pennsylvania after his family fled Saigon in 1975. Some descriptions of sex. Some violence. Strong language
Marcel's letters: a font and the search for one man's fate
By Carolyn Porter. 2017
A graphic designer's search for inspiration leads to a cache of letters and the mystery of one man's fate during…
World War II. Seeking inspiration for a new font design in an antique store in small-town Stillwater, Minnesota, graphic designer Carolyn Porter stumbled across a bundle of letters and was immediately drawn to their beautifully expressive pen-and-ink handwriting. She could not read the letters they were in French but she noticed all of them had been signed by a man named Marcel and mailed from Berlin to his family in France during the middle of World War II. As Carolyn grappled with designing the font, she decided to have one of Marcel's letters translated. Reading words of love combined with testimony of survival inside a labor camp transformed Carolyn's curiosity into an obsession to find out whether he ever returned to his beloved wife and daughters after the war
The blessing: a memoir
By Gregory Orr. 2019
Hailed on its original publication as "eloquent testimony to the engaging power of art in a man's life" ( Washington…
Post ), this deeply moving memoir, long out of print, is reissued with an illuminating new afterword. When acclaimed poet Gregory Orr was twelve years old, he shot and killed his brother in a hunting accident. From the immediate aftermath, a period of shock, sadness, and isolation it quickly became clear that support and guidance would not be coming from his distant mother. Nor would it come from his father, a philandering country doctor addicted to amphetamines. Left to his own devices, the boy suffered. Guilt weighed on him throughout a childhood split between the rural Hudson Valley and jungles of Haiti. As a young man, his feelings and a growing sense of idealism prompted him to activism in the civil rights movement, where he marched and was imprisoned, and then scarred again by a terrifying abduction. Eventually, Orr's experiences led him to understand that art, particularly poetry, could work as a powerful source of healing and meaning to combat the trauma he carried. Throughout The Blessing , Orr articulates his journey in language as lyrical as it is authentic, gifting us all with a singular tale of survival, and of the transformation of suffering into art. Adult. Strong language
Abundant beauty: the adventurous travels of Marianne North, botanical artist
By Marianne North. 2010
"In 1871, Marianne North, a brilliant artist with a keen interest in botany, set-forth to travel the world on a…
quest to paint indigenous plants in their natural habitat. Encouraged by her friend Charles Darwin, North travelled by boat, train, mule, foot and palanquin to every continent except Antarctica. She circled the globe twice over fifteen years and accumulated an extensive and valuable collection of more than eight hundred paintings, which today comprise the esteemed Marianne North Gallery at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, London. North high-spirited, indefatigable, and brave also kept detailed journals, which were posthumously published in three volumes in the late 1800s. Abundant Beauty collects the most engaging writings from those journals in one edition, including rich descriptions of botanica and delightful accounts of local people and customs from her sometimes dangerous travels. Abundant Beauty is a fascinating and informative read for botanists, gardeners, historians, and armchair travellers." -- WorldCat
Dying to Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing
By Anita Moorjani. 2022
In this truly inspirational memoir, Anita Moorjani relates how, after fighting cancer for almost four years, her body began shutting…
down—overwhelmed by the malignant cells spreading throughout her system. As her organs failed, she entered into an extraordinary near-death experience where she realized her inherent worth . . . and the actual cause of her disease. Upon regaining consciousness, Anita found that her condition had improved so rapidly that she was released from the hospital within weeks—without a trace of cancer in her body! Within these pages, Anita recounts stories of her childhood in Hong Kong, her challenge to establish her career and find true love, as well as how she eventually ended up in that hospital bed where she defied all medical knowledge. As part of a traditional Hindu family residing in a largely Chinese and British society, Anita had been pushed and pulled by cultural and religious customs since she was a little girl. After years of struggling to forge her own path while trying to meet everyone else&’s expectations, she had the realization, as a result of her epiphany on the other side, that she had the power to heal herself . . . and that there are miracles in the Universe that she&’d never even imagined. In Dying to Be Me, Anita freely shares all she has learned about illness, healing, fear, "being love," and the true magnificence of each and every human being! This is a book that definitely makes the case that we are spiritual beings having a human experience . . . and that we are all One!
Our Oaken Bones: Reviving a Family, a Farm and Britain’s Ancient Rainforests
By Merlin Hanbury-Tenison. 2025
An enormously moving and inspiring story about war, trauma, nature and rebirth, written with infectious passion and unsparing honesty. I…
loved it. - DOMINIC SANDBROOKScholarly, wise, funny, charming, terrifying and thrilling... I adored it all, every page. - JOANNA LUMLEYThis is a lovely book - wise, brave, thoughtful, painfully intimate - but with a remarkable spiritual and environmental vision. - RORY STEWARTAn extraordinarily courageous, urgent and powerful book. - ISABELLA TREEDeeply compelling... emotional, informative, pleasurable. I believe that this is an important work with planet-sized dreams and ambitions. Perhaps the greatest philosophy or teachable lesson that came to me off the page is that dominion comes with responsibility. - RUSSELL CROWEI love this book. - RICK STEINPowerfully enchanting, written with verve and imbued with hope. - GUY SHRUBSOLEI lie on the rock to let my limbs dry after my immersion in the river. My bones warm. I have no towel but the moss is grateful for the additional moisture that I bring as the water runs off me and into its spongy web of roots and branches. I look up through the canopy and time freezes as the oak leaves drift gently backwards and forwards, dappling the light as it falls onto my body.I am home.Reeling from the pain of devastating miscarriages and suffering from PTSD after military adventures in Afghanistan, Merlin and his wife Lizzie decide to leave the bustle of London and return to Merlin’s childhood home, a Cornish hill farm called Cabilla in the heart of Bodmin Moor.There, they are met by unexpected challenges: a farm slipping ever further into debt, the discovery that the overgrazed and damaged woods running throughout the valley are in fact one of the UK’s last remaining fragments of Atlantic temperate rainforest, and the sudden and near catastrophic strickening by Covid of Merlin’s father, the explorer Robin. As they fall more in love with the rainforest that Merlin had adventured in as a child, so begins a fight to save not only themselves and their farm, but also one of the world’s most endangered habitats.Our Oaken Bones is an honest and intimate true story about renewal, the astonishing healing power of nature, and our duty to heal it in return.For fans of The Salt Path and The Lost Rainforests of Britain.
Colorful Palate: A Flavorful Journey Through a Mixed American Experience
By Raj Tawney. 2024
WINNER, 2025 IPPY AWARD, MULTICULTURAL NON-FICTION – ADULT (GOLD)WINNER, 2024 BEST INDIE BOOK AWARD, CULINARY MEMOIRWINNER, 2024 LIVING NOW BOOK…
AWARD, INSPIRATIONAL MEMOIR – MALE (BRONZE)A NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY & FOREWORD REVIEWS BOOK OF THE DAY • NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2023 BY ZED BOOK CLUB & INDIA CURRENTS • LA WEEKLY BOOK PICK • RECOMMENDED BY BOOK RIOT & ELECTRIC LITERATUREA timely self-examination of the “mixed” American experience featuring exclusive recipes and photographs from the author’s multicultural family.As citizens continue to evolve and diversify within the United States, the ingredients that make up each flavorful household are waiting to be discovered and devoured. In Colorful Palate, author Raj Tawney shares his coming-of-age memoir as a young man born into an Indian, Puerto Rican, and Italian-American family, his struggles with understanding his own identity, and the mouthwatering flavors of the melting pot from within his own childhood kitchen.While the world outside can be cruel and unforgiving, it’s even more complicated for a mixed-race kid, unsure of his place in the world. Turning to his mother and grandmother for guidance, Tawney assists in the kitchen, providing intimate moments and candor as he listened to the tales behind each culinary delicacy and the women who perfected it. Each lovingly prepared meal offered another opportunity to learn more about his extraordinary heritage. The ability to create delicious fare with his family wasn’t just a duty for the grand ladies who raised him; it was a survival tactic for navigating new and unknown cultures, not always willing to accept them at first or even a hundredth glance. As Tawney examines both himself and his loved ones through the formative stages of his life, from boyhood through adulthood, he begins to realize, through all of the chaos and confusion, just how “American” he actually was.In this contemporary coming-of-age tale, Tawney tackles personal hot-button issues about race and identity through poignant, heartfelt moments centered on delicious meals. From succulent tandoori chicken to delectable arroz con habichuelas to scrumptious spaghetti and meatballs, Tawney shares his family recipes along with the intimate stories he overheard in the kitchen as he played sous chef to hundreds of recipes that not only span continents but also come with their own personal histories attached. Colorful Palate is a tale of the mixed experience, one of the millions that rarely get told, undefined by a single group or birthright and unapologetic about its lack of classification.
Blood of Two Streams: Gender Balance in Parental Legacy
By Francis Mading Deng. 2021
This book—part memoir, part political statement—examines the influence of the author’s maternal and paternal ancestry on his life. Delving into…
the rich history of Francis Mading Deng’s heritage, Blood of Two Streams acts as a bridge to cross-cultural understanding and multidisciplinary connection between the personal, the communal, and the universal.