New York Times Bestseller ""There is no writer quite like Dolly Alderton working today and very soon the world will know it.” —Lisa Taddeo, author of #1 New York Times bestseller Three Women “Dolly Alderton has always been a sparkling Roman candle of talent. She is funny, smart, and explosively engaged in the wonders and weirdness of the world. But what makes this memoir more than mere entertainment is the mature and sophisticated evolution that Alderton describes in these pages. It’s a beautifully told journey and a thoughtful, important book. I loved it.” —Elizabeth Gilbert, New York Times bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love and City of Girls The wildly funny, occasionally heartbreaking internationally bestselling memoir about growing up, growing older, and learning to navigate friendships, jobs, loss, and love along the ride When it comes to the trials and triumphs of becoming an adult, journalist and former Sunday Times columnist Dolly Alderton has seen and tried it all. In her memoir, she vividly recounts falling in love, finding a job, getting drunk, getting dumped, realizing that Ivan from the corner shop might just be the only reliable man in her life, and that absolutely no one can ever compare to her best girlfriends. Everything I Know About Love is about bad dates, good friends and—above all else— realizing that you are enough. Glittering with wit and insight, heart and humor, Dolly Alderton’s unforgettable debut weaves together personal stories, satirical observations, a series of lists, recipes, and other vignettes that will strike a chord of recognition with women of every age—making you want to pick up the phone and tell your best friends all about it. Like Bridget Jones’ Diary but all true, Everything I Know About Love is about the struggles of early adulthood in all its terrifying and hopeful uncertainty.

Everything I Know About Love

WINNER OF AUDIOBOOK OF THE YEAR AT THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS Read by the author, Patric Gagne. 'Deliciously wicked and insightful.' - The Guardian 'Addictively page-turning.' - The Telegraph 'Thought-provoking and surprisingly life-affirming.' - Cosmopolitan Sociopath: A Memoir is the astoundingly honest true story of a life lived on the edge of the law, and a fascinating account of one woman’s battle to understand her diagnosis. Jaw-dropping, moving and illuminating, it will challenge everything you thought you knew about sociopathy. 'Your friends would probably describe me as nice. But guess what? I can't stand your friends. I'm a liar. I'm a thief. I'm highly manipulative. I don't care what other people think. I'm capable of almost anything.' From stabbing elementary school classmates with pencils to stealing car keys from fellow frat party guests and joyriding around her college town, to breaking and entering, even stalking, Patric Gagne doesn’t hold back when it comes to describing the behaviour that, eventually, made her realize she is a sociopath. But her discovery forced her to question the official descriptions of sociopathy. After all, she had a plan for her life, had nurtured close relationships and was doing her best (most of the time) to avoid harming others. While her darker impulses warred against her attempts to live a settled, loving life with her partner, Patric began to wonder – was there a way for sociopaths to integrate happily into society? And could she find it before her own behaviour went a step too far? 'Surprising, thoughtful and deeply personal.' – Pandora Sykes 'Arresting and addictive.' - The Times 'She is compelling, like a movie character – a sociopath who’s beautiful, warm and funny, articulate and charming' - The Guardian

Sociopath

From eldest daughter Shari Franke, the shocking true story behind the viral 8 Passengers family vlog – now the subject of a new Disney+ docuseries – and the hidden abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother, and how, in the face of unimaginable pain, she found freedom and healing. Shari Franke’s childhood was a constant battle for survival. Her mother, Ruby Franke, enforced a severe moral code while maintaining a façade of a picture-perfect family for their wildly popular YouTube channel 8 Passengers, which documented the day-to-day life of raising six children for a staggering 2.5 million subscribers. But a darker truth lurked beneath the surface – Ruby’s wholesome online persona masked a more tyrannical parenting style than anyone could have imagined. As the family’s YouTube notoriety grew, so too did Ruby’s delusions of righteousness. Fueled by the sadistic influence of relationship coach Jodi Hildebrandt, together they implemented an inhumane and merciless disciplinary regime. Ruby and Jodi were arrested in Utah in 2023 on multiple charges of aggravated child abuse. On that fateful day, Shari shared a photo online of a police car outside their home. Her caption had one word: 'Finally'. For the first time, Shari will reveal the disturbing truth behind 8 Passengers and her family’s devastating involvement with Jodi Hildebrandt’s cultish life coaching program, 'ConneXions'. No stone is left unturned as Shari exposes the perils of influencer culture and shares for the first time her battle for truth and survival in the face of her mother’s cruelty.

The House of My Mother

Read by the author, Michelle Zauner, lead vocalist of Japanese Breakfast. 'A story that is both beautiful and heartbreaking; it is as raw as it is precious. I bawled my eyes out, but I also loved it and I hope you do too.' – Dua Lipa From the indie rockstar Japanese Breakfast, an unflinching, deeply moving memoir about growing up mixed-race, Korean food, losing her Korean mother, and forging her own identity. 'Incredible . . . It absolutely wrecked me . . . So, so emotional' – Natalie Portman 'Crying In H Mart destroyed me . . . It’s fantastic.' – Olivia Rodrigo 'As good as everyone says it is and, yes, it will have you in tears. An essential read for anybody who has lost a loved one, as well as those who haven't' – Marie Claire In this story of family and food, grief and joy, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humour and heart, she tells of growing up the only Asian-American kid at her school; of struggling with her mother’s expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food. As she grew up, her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live. It was her mother’s diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her. Vivacious and honest, Michelle Zauner’s voice is as alive as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes, Crying in H Mart is an audiobook to cherish and share. What readers are saying about Crying in H Mart: 'I recommend this for anyone who likes memoirs, food, and who’s ever felt lonely.' (Five Stars) 'I was captivated by this coming-of-age story which resonated with mine and other friends' stories.' (Five Stars) 'A must for people looking to be hooked in memories that span between joy, sadness and love.' (Five Stars) *Crying in H Mart was a #1 New York Times bestseller w/c 17.04.2023

Crying in H Mart

* #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER * MORE THAN 3 MILLION COPIES SOLD! A heartbreaking and hilarious memoir by iCarly and Sam & Cat star Jennette McCurdy about her struggles as a former child actor—including eating disorders, addiction, and a complicated relationship with her overbearing mother—and how she retook control of her life. Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction,” eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn’t tint hers?” She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income. In I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail—just as she chronicles what happens when the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly, she is thrust into fame. Though Mom is ecstatic, emailing fan club moderators and getting on a first-name basis with the paparazzi (“Hi Gale!”), Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame, and self-loathing, which manifest into eating disorders, addiction, and a series of unhealthy relationships. These issues only get worse when, soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spinoff Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants. Told with refreshing candor and dark humor, I’m Glad My Mom Died is an inspiring story of resilience, independence, and the joy of shampooing your own hair.

I'm Glad My Mom Died

Una relación que comenzó con intensa pasión y ternura se convirtió en controladora, humillante y años de abuso emocional. Tenía un buen trabajo, dos hijos maravillosos y muchos amigos. Sin embargo, estaba tan sometida que perdí mi brújula interior. Por fuera aparecíamos como una pareja feliz, una mujer independiente y un hombre cariñoso. Juntos construimos un fuerte muro contra el mundo exterior, e incluso mis seres queridos no tenían idea de lo que realmente estaba sucediendo detrás de escena. Esta es mi historia personal de cómo fue vivir con un hombre que eventualmente me derrumbó por completo. Es una historia sobre el infierno que llamé amor.

El infierno que llamé amor

"Trenes tallades. Records d'una nena de Rússia", és el relat corprenedor dels anys d'exili forçat de la Roser Rosés, una nena de 12 anys, que l’any 1938 va ser enviada pels seus pares a la URSS per a salvaguardar-la dels estralls de la Guerra Civil, del que va tornar l’any 1947 convertida en una dona amb unasensibilitat i una formació incompatible amb l’Espanya franquista. És la història lúcida, tendra i intensa d'una infantesa i adolescència marcades per les guerres que ha tardat molts anys en poder ser explicada. «Quedaven enrere a l’URSS set anys i mig de la meva vida, set anys i mig de vivències inimaginables a través dels 12.000 quilòmetres de desplaçaments i perilloses evacuacions que havia hagut de fer a causa de la maleïda guerra; allà quedaven una part de la meva infantesa i tota la meva adolescència, en una estada que havia esdevingut molt més llarga del que ningú havia previst, en aquell immens país. M’emportava amb mi uns estudis, unes alegries —poques— i molta dissort. I la sensació de sentir-me forta i afortunada per haver sobreviscut a tot.»

Trenes tallades

Follem? és un assaig que examina la sexualitat i el plaer i ho fa des d'una exploració més enllà dels clixés i els tabús. Aquest llibre parteix d'un nou inici per mirar la sexualitat sense la vergonya, les imatges preconcebudes o els papers autoimposats. És una nova manera de mirar cap a l'interior del desig i dels cossos humans i també cap a l'exterior, cap a les persones amb les qui compartim aquest anhel. Escoltar al cos, a l'ànima i no fer cas a tot el que s'ha imposat per defecte. En Follem?, Bel Olid explica una nova forma d'explorar el plaer propi i el de l'altra persona. Bel Olid (Catalunya, 1977) és escriptora, traductora i professora de llengua. Es va llicenciar en Traducció i interpretació i des de llavors s'ha dedicat a la traducció. En 2008 va publicar la seva primera obra, un relat que va rebre el Premi Qwerty al millor relat infantil. Ha publicat més de deu obres de ficció, no-ficció i literatura juvenil i infantil, que han guanyat diversos premis, entre ells el premi Documenta 2010. Des de 2015 és presidenta de l'Associació d'escriptors en llengua catalana.

Llibres digitals

Follem?

Joan Margarit, que ha complert 80 anys aquest mes de maig, fa unes memòries d'infantesa que tenen una profunditat il·luminadora. El poeta no espigola agendes o àlbums familiars, no es deixa amanyagar gaire per la nostàlgia, ni el preocupa gens quedar bé, sinó que es capbussa de ple en els records que li han quedat clavats i tracta d'entendre per què són allà i de quina manera tenen a veure amb la construcció de la seva vida i de la seva poesia. Joan Margarit escriu per entendre la vida, no només la seva. Un bon poeta fa d'una anècdota personal un símbol universal. La intenció d'aquestes pàgines és descobrir el valor de la vida en una infantesa i adolescència que no sempre van ser amable. A la coberta, el lector veurà el nen Margarit en un balcó de Girona; també va viure a Sanaüja, a Rubí, a Figueres, a Barcelona, a Santa Coloma de Gramenet i finalment a la lluminosa ciutat de Santa Cruz de Tenerife, d'on anava i tornava en uns lents i solitaris vaixells de càrrega que han impregnat per sempre més els seus poemes. Narrat per Jordi Coromina. Amb la col·laboració de la Generalitat de Catalunya, Departament de Cultura.

A TOT VENT

Per tenir casa cal guanyar la guerra

Història dels meus límits «Fem mal per por. Un bloc enganxifós de culpa i vergonya, massa sovint invisible. Fucking New York, man. Van ser uns anys d'aventures majúscules, que són les que ens expliquen». Fucking New York. Història dels meus límits és la memoir d'una noia que fuig a Nova York per retrobar el seu lloc al món. La ciutat, imponent i descarnada, li farà el joc de la pròpia inseguretat i ella la utilitzarà, igual que les cases on viu i les persones que troba, per escriure un relat que sempre es mou entre els extrems. El pànic acabarà quatre anys més tard quan finalment la dona es fa responsable dels seus actes i comprèn l'amor.

L'ANCORA

Fucking New York

Mosaic és l'únic llibre que Víctor Català va escriure en primera persona. Ara el camí no el fa la imaginació: ella és el seu propi personatge, t'acull en la intimitat per mostrar-te com s'ha format l'artista i com ha batallat per ser lliure des de ben petita. Intimitats serà el primer de tres volums que recuperem a Club Editor, íntegres per primer cop. Les curadores, Agnès Prats i Blanca Llum Vidal, han descobert 17 peces inèdites del Mosaic al Fons Víctor Català de l'Escala: són els "Fòssils", records de la primera infància de Caterina Albert. Són episodis curts, impresos tan vivament en la memòria que esclaten en ser rescatats. N'hi ha de deliciosos, com quan juga amb les bestioles del jardí de la infància. I d'impressionants, com quan t'ensenya les parets que va pintar al menjador de casa, personals pintures rupestres. A la segona part del llibre hi ha el conte "Mon niu", on la Víctor descriu les golfes des d'on escriu —¿i no és aquesta la cambra pròpia? Cal posar Víctor Català al costat de les seves germanes Virginia Woolf, Alice Munro o Marguerite Duras.

Mosaic

A fascinating collection of letters from English poet Rupert Brooke. Description from the introductory note: The author started in May 1913 on a journey to the United States, Canada, and the South Seas, from which he returned next year at the beginning of June. The first thirteen chapters of this book were written as letters to the Westminster Gazette. He would probably not have republished them in their present form, as he intended to write a longer book on his travels; but they are now printed with only the correction of a few evident slips. The two remaining chapters appeared in the New Statesman, soon after the outbreak of war.

Letters from America

Born in Africa, at the age of twelve Fiori Giovanni's marriage was already arranged. By fourteen, she was recruited into the Eritrean army. Her destiny, like that of so many girls in Third World countries, had been dictated, defined and determined. It was yet, though, to be defied. At fifteen, Fiori made the agonizing decision to flee war-torn Eritrea without friends or family. She crossed five continents and twenty countries in search of knowledge, personal growth and wisdom, eventually settling in Australia where she's now a highly sought-after and respected business and executive coach, as well as a keynote speaker and media commentator. After repeatedly overcoming harrowing experiences and insurmountable obstacles, Fiori decoded her own steps to survival, transformation and success, creating a framework that empowers others to do the same. This framework is now available to you in her book, 'Defy Your Destiny', released in February 2019. After listening to this audiobook, you will be uplifted by Fiori's spirit, inspired by her courage, and motivated to take positive action in all areas of your life.

Defy Your Destiny: Make your most painful walk your most triumphant journey

Blind since birth, a once-spirited kid with big dreams now finds herself in a locked psychiatric facility—a wounded young woman in the midst of a global pandemic. This memoir spans decades and continents to tell a story of the beautiful similarities that make us all human. From meeting unlikely allies in the dirty streets of some of Latin America's most impoverished neighbourhoods, to discovering difficult truths about discrimination in her home country of Canada, Heather Hutchison offers poignant insight into mental health awareness, and what it means to strive for an ordinary life when you are often treated as anything but ordinary. At once heartbreakingly honest and strikingly witty, 'Holding On by Letting Go' is the unforgettable true story of one woman's journey through despair to acceptance and hope. Ultimately, it is a portrayal of the light that can be found in the darkest of times.

Holding On by Letting Go

Heavily in debt, and earning peanuts as a 'trolley dolly', Saskia Swann desperately needed to get her life back on track. After a chance meeting, she landed a job as cabin crew - but this time on a private jet. Suddenly, she found herself transported into the glittering world of oligarchs and billionaires where the hostesses wear Prada, seven-course meals are served on fine china, the bodyguards carry guns, and the mile-high shenanigans not only take place in luxury cabins, but in the cockpit itself. In this gripping exposé, Saskia Swann pulls back the first-class curtain on the lifestyles of the mega-rich and famous.

Above and Beyond

A journalist and folklorist explores the truths that underlie the stories we imagine—and reveals the magic in the everyday. “I’ve always felt that the term fairy tale doesn’t quite capture the essence of these stories,” writes Emily Urquhart. “I prefer the term wonder tale, which is Irish in origin, for its suggestion of awe coupled with narrative. In a way, this is most of our stories.” In this startlingly original essay collection, Urquhart reveals the truths that underlie our imaginings: what we see in our heads when we read, how the sight of a ghost can heal, how the entrance to the underworld can be glimpsed in an oil painting or a winter storm—or the onset of a loved one’s dementia. In essays on death and dying, pregnancy and prenatal genetics, radioactivity, chimeras, cottagers, and plague, Ordinary Wonder Tales reveals the essential truth: if you let yourself look closely, there is magic in the everyday.

Ordinary Wonder Tales

Buenos Aires in the 1920s was a fascinating destination for a young person looking for a new life: a place of fantasy, adventure and prospects of fast wealth. In Goodbye Buenos Aires Andrew Graham-Yooll weaves together a lightly fictionalized biography of his father, who arrived from Edinburgh, penniless, in 1928, and an account of twentieth-century Argentina. He provides a vivid description of the country, of the torment of emigration and of the catalogue of characters – from the Prince of Wales to Lawrence Durrell and Aristotle Onassis – who flaunted their fortunes and vented their fury about life in this city on the River Plate.

Goodbye Buenos Aires

«Hay unas pequeñas rosas rosadas sobre el escritorio. Qué extraña tristeza suelen desprender las rosas de otoño…» «Por primera vez en semanas, estoy aquí sola, dispuesta a retomar mi vida "real". Eso es lo extraño: que ni los amigos, ni siquiera los amores apasionados, son mi vida real, a menos que disponga de un tiempo a solas para explorar y descubrir cuanto está ocurriendo, o cuanto ya ha ocurrido». May Sarton espera abrirse camino «entre las abruptas y rocosas profundidades para llegar al núcleo de la matriz, donde aún quedan iras y violencias no resueltas. Mi necesidad de estar a solas siempre está en contrapunto con el miedo a todo aquello que sucederá si de repente, una vez adentrada en el enorme y vacío silencio, no puedo encontrar apoyo alguno». Sarton escribe con un riguroso sentido de la observación y una gran carga emocional sobre el mundo interior y exterior: las estaciones, la vida cotidiana, los libros, la gente, las ideas; y a medida que se detiene en todo ello, va conformando su viaje artístico y espiritual. En este libro nos encontramos más cerca que nunca de la esencia de su escritura.

Narrativas Gallo Nero

Diario de una soledad

* “A love story about the miracle of friendship.” —Maggie Smith * “Fearless and unflinching.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette * From the author of Group, a New York Times bestseller and Reese’s Book Club Pick, a poignant, funny, and emotionally satisfying memoir about Christie Tate’s lifelong struggle to sustain female friendship, and the extraordinary friend who changed everything. After more than a decade of dead-end dates and dysfunctional relationships, Christie Tate has reclaimed her voice and settled down. Her days of agonizing in group therapy over guys who won’t commit are over, the grueling emotional work required to attach to another person tucked neatly into the past. Or so she thought. Weeks after giddily sharing stories of her new boyfriend at Saturday morning recovery meetings, Christie receives a gift from a friend. Meredith, twenty years older and always impeccably accessorized, gives Christie a box of holiday-themed scarves as well as a gentle suggestion: maybe now is the perfect time to examine why friendships give her trouble. “The work never ends, right?” she says with a wink. Christie isn’t so sure, but she soon realizes that the feeling of “apartness” that has plagued her since childhood isn’t magically going away now that she’s in a healthy romantic relationship. With Meredith by her side, she embarks on a brutally honest exploration of her friendships past and present, sorting through the ways that debilitating shame and jealousy have kept the lasting bonds she craves out of reach—and how she can overcome a history of letting go too soon. “An outstanding portrait of self-excavation” (Publishers Weekly, starred review), BFF explores what happens when we finally break the habits that impair our ability to connect with others, and the ways that one life—however messy and imperfect—can change another.

From the author of the international bestseller Sweetbitter, a memoir of survival, starting over, and love in all its complicated guises. Even after achieving her dream of selling her debut novel, Stephanie Danler feels adrift in New York. Struggling in the throes of a doomed relationship and haunted by her tumultuous childhood, something nameless compels her to return home to Southern California. In a cottage in Laurel Canyon, as a new life begins to shape itself, she finally succumbs to memories of the past that have proved impossible to escape. A father who swung in and out of her life erratically, charming and mercurial and prone to addiction. A mother now disabled by years of alcoholism and an aneurysm, who cannot remember the abuse she inflicted. The looming, desolate mountains of Colorado, and a teenage freedom that nearly killed her. And above all, the painful love and forgiveness for those who failed her over and over again. ‘It's such a thrill to watch a writer open up her greediest thoughts, to slice open little pockets of her skin and root around underneath her flesh.’ New York Times Book Review ‘A compulsive, neck-breaking masterpiece.’ Lisa Taddeo ‘This is a story of triumph: the triumph of grit, talent, grace, and beauty over the dark pull of inner demons.’ Dani Shapiro

Stray

'A lovely tribute' Joan Baez 'Fascinating' The Dylan Review Izzy Young was a distinctive figure in the folk music and beatnik world. He set up the Folklore Center in New York’s Greenwich Village, where Patti Smith, Emmylou Harris and Allen Ginsburg performed, and he produced Bob Dylan’s first show in New York in the 1960s. In 1973, Izzy moved to Sweden, where he opened up a similar cultural centre. In Stockholm, the young Philomène and her father resided in the basement of the folklore centre, living a bohemian life, rich in culture and love. Thirty years later Izzy is fighting dementia. In a raw and unembellished manner, Philomène depicts the emotional rollercoaster of losing a beloved parent and a larger-than-life personality to an invisible, invincible foe. Interspersed are small moments of joy as the fog briefly parts to allow for a reconnection. Philomene masterfully intertwines the two timelines with a beautifully sparse language that vibrates with emotion. Don’t Forget Me is a deeply personal book, yet the story itself is highly universal.

Don't Forget Me

“You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll want to read it again.” —theSkimm “Fiercely funny, powerfully smart, and remarkably brave.” —Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild A hilarious and candid essay collection from New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Weiner that explores everything from motherhood to grief. Jennifer Weiner is many things: a bestselling author, a Twitter phenomenon, and an “unlikely feminist enforcer” (The New Yorker). She’s also a mom, a daughter, and a sister, a clumsy yogini, and a reality-TV devotee. In this “unflinching look at her own experiences” (Entertainment Weekly), Jennifer fashions tales of modern-day womanhood as uproariously funny and moving as the best of Nora Ephron and Tina Fey. No subject is off-limits in these intimate and honest essays: sex, weight, envy, money, her mother’s coming out of the closet, her estranged father’s death. From lonely adolescence to hearing her six-year-old daughter say the F word—fat—for the first time, Jen dives into the heart of female experience, with the wit and candor that have endeared her to readers all over the world.

Hungry Heart

'A beautiful book: funny, honest, revealing, heartfelt and moving' - Adam Kay, bestselling author of This is Going to Hurt' 'Vital, heartfelt and surprising, these tales from a life are told with humour, style and intelligence.' - Graham Norton 'A wonderful memoir by a glorious writer: funny, poignant, profound. I gobbled it up in one joyous sitting.' - Elizabeth Day 'An absolute jewel of a book. Gloriously readable, hilarious, painful, acute, sharply recalled and vividly brought to life' - Stephen Fry A dazzling 'tell-most' memoir: poignant and laugh-out-loud funny scenes from the life of actor Minnie Driver. I love stories. I have mostly told other people's but now, in telling my own, I realize how all our stories are connected by that great leveller of acclaim, loss, fortitude, and fortune: being human. When I look at my life from the alleged halfway point, some patterns are revealed: one, that the story does not necessarily begin or end where it should; two, happy endings are overrated. And three, happy endings are almost never the end. This book is memoir-ish. A tell-most. Largely because there's a lot I don't remember, and a lot that's not worth talking about. So, this is a collection of stories about how things not working out - worked out in the end. How reaching for the dream is easily more interesting, expansive, sad and funny than the dream itself coming true. I really hope you enjoy it. Love, Minnie x

Managing Expectations

“A beautifully written and well-researched cultural criticism as well as an honest memoir” (Los Angeles Review of Books) from the author of the popular New York Times essay, “To Fall in Love with Anyone, Do This,” explores the romantic myths we create and explains how they limit our ability to achieve and sustain intimacy. What really makes love last? Does love ever work the way we say it does in movies and books and Facebook posts? Or does obsessing over those love stories hurt our real-life relationships? When her parents divorced after a twenty-eight year marriage and her own ten-year relationship ended, those were the questions that Mandy Len Catron wanted to answer. In a series of candid, vulnerable, and wise essays that takes a closer look at what it means to love someone, be loved, and how we present our love to the world, “Catron melds science and emotion beautifully into a thoughtful and thought-provoking meditation” (Bookpage). She delves back to 1944, when her grandparents met in a coal mining town in Appalachia, to her own dating life as a professor in Vancouver. She uses biologists’ research into dopamine triggers to ask whether the need to love is an innate human drive. She uses literary theory to show why we prefer certain kinds of love stories. She urges us to question the unwritten scripts we follow in relationships and looks into where those scripts come from. And she tells the story of how she decided to test an experiment that she’d read about—where the goal was to create intimacy between strangers using a list of thirty-six questions—and ended up in the surreal situation of having millions of people following her brand-new relationship. “Perfect fodder for the romantic and the cynic in all of us” (Booklist), How to Fall in Love with Anyone flips the script on love. “Clear-eyed and full of heart, it is mandatory reading for anyone coping with—or curious about—the challenges of contemporary courtship” (The Toronto Star).

How to Fall in Love with Anyone

‘Grant whips up moments of intense emotion and life with the briefest of words and images. Throughout it all, food is the life source, comfort, energiser and inspiration bursting from the pages a la Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential.’ Stylist‘What a beautiful, rich, poetic memoir this is. Phyllis writes of longing, suffering, family, and food with such delicate power. Like the best chefs, she knows how to make a masterpiece from a few simple ingredients: truth, poignancy, and love. A wonderful book.’ Elizabeth Gilbert, author of 10 million copy bestseller Eat, Pray, LoveBake. I bake for others. Belgian waffles, French toast, crêpes, chocolate chip cookies. When I cook, I am calm, I am confident. There is comfort in the logic. Chef and award-winning writer Phyllis Grant’s life has been defined by food. First, as a dancer struggling to find her place at Julliard, when banana muffins with inch-thick streusel are the fuel for another day of training. Then, a lowly junior chef in high-pressure NYC four-star kitchens, as she masters the tarte Tatin and ice cream custard. Falling in love with her future husband and the garlicky tomato sauce he makes in his bare apartment. The quesadillas she can’t stop eating in LA before she realises she’s pregnant. These are the recipes that have accompanied Phyllis throughout the smooth and jagged stages of her life as she navigates the highs and lows of young adulthood, being a mother, and a career in the kitchen. Written with the transparency of a diarist and including tried-and-true recipes from her chef’s table, Everything Is Under Control is a raw and riveting story about food, family, love and loss.

Everything is Under Control

Does Max Nilsson live here?” These words from a woman I had never seen before changed my family’s lives entirely. This is a true story about a man who lived a double life: “A new day, a new life” was his motto. The man I fell in love with and who became my fiancé was a fraud. Being found out by chance brought out his madness. He started a campaign of persistent harassment, and I couldn’t get him out of my life. The more I delved into his life, the more appalling things I discovered. He screamed at me, telling me I could have anything I wanted if I stopped. Instead, I decided to discover the entire truth and was shocked by what I found out. I ran for my life.

Double Life: A True Story

‘IF YOU READ ANY BOOK THIS YEAR, READ THIS ONE – MARTINA COLE ‘A LIFE STORY FAR MORE INCREDIBLE THAN ANY BESTSELLER’ - JEFFREY ARCHER ‘Sometimes today I still cry for the lonely, frightened little boy I was then – so unhappy and so longing for love – and marvel at not only surviving the brutality and the other appalling abuse but also, in the end, triumphing over it all.’ Abused by those who were supposed to love and cherish him, Michael Seed had to fight for survival against his violent and emotionally deranged father in a broken family home. Born into a life of poverty, Michael was starved, beaten, and sexually abused by his father from the age of five. After losing his mother to suicide, a haunting depression grew inside the young boy and he long considered following in her footsteps. Yet, even in the midst of such tragedy and brutality, he always found that his desire to live outweighed his wish to end it all. Anchored by his faith, Michael overcame his horrific childhood to become an inspiration and a guide to others, both in the church and the secular community. Rather than dwell on the past, he has used it to change lives for the better. Nobody’s Child is a poignant, at times agonising, tale of abuse and loneliness that no child should ever have to endure. Above all, Michael’s words provide a lesson for us all in courage and the power of hope and forgiveness.

Nobody's Child - Against All the Odds, He Managed to Escape the Horrors of a Stolen Childhood

“Absolutely not to be missed.” —Vogue “A muscular, canny memoir about labor and power and gender…I couldn’t put it down. What a fucking gorgeous book.” —Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House A queer teen rebel escapes small-town Appalachia and becomes Los Angeles’s Renowned Lesbian Dominatrix in this searing and darkly funny memoir that upends our ideas about desire, class, and power. The dominatrix is the id of American femininity. She says the words that we all wish we could say when we find ourselves frozen in the presence of men. No is principal among them. So writes Chris Belcher, who appeared destined for a life of conventional femininity after she took first place in an infant beauty contest—a minor glory that followed her around a working-class town of 1,600 people in rural West Virginia. But when she came out as queer, the conservative community that had once celebrated its prettiest baby turned on her. A decade later, living in Los Angeles and trying to stay afloat in the early years of a PhD program, Belcher plunges into the work of a pro domme. Branding herself as Los Angeles’s Renowned Lesbian Dominatrix, she specializes in male clients who want a domme to make them feel worthless, shameful, and weak—all the abuse regularly heaped upon women for free. A queer woman whom men can trust with the unorthodox sides of their sexualities, Belcher is paid to be the keeper of the fantasies that they can’t enact in their everyday relationships. But moonlighting as a sex worker also carries risks, like the not-so-submissive who tries to turn the tables and the jealous client out for revenge. As Belcher moves between the embodied world of the pro domme and the abstract realm of academia, she discovers how lessons from the classroom apply to the dungeon, and vice versa. Still, fear that her doctoral program won’t approve burdens her with a double life. Pretty Baby is her second coming out. In this sharp and discerning memoir, we see through Belcher’s eyes how power and desire can be renegotiated—or reinforced.

Pretty Baby

Comedian and star of The Office and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and host of The Great American Baking Show Ellie Kemper delivers a hilarious, refreshing, and inspiring collection of essays “teeming with energy and full of laugh-out-loud moments” (Associated Press). “A pleasure. Ellie Kemper is the kind of stable, intelligent, funny, healthy woman that usually only exists in yogurt commercials. But she’s real and she’s all ours!” —Tina Fey “Ellie is a hilarious and talented writer, although we’ll never know how much of this book the squirrel wrote.”—Mindy Kaling Meet Ellie, the best-intentioned redhead next door. You’ll laugh right alongside her as she shares tales of her childhood in St. Louis, whether directing and also starring in her family holiday pageant, washing her dad’s car with a Brillo pad, failing to become friends with a plump squirrel in her backyard, eating her feelings while watching PG-13 movies, or becoming a “sports monster” who ends up warming the bench of her Division 1 field hockey team in college. You’ll learn how she found her comedic calling in the world of improv, became a wife, mother and New Yorker, and landed the role of a bridesmaid (while simultaneously being a bridesmaid) in Bridesmaids. You’ll get to know and love the comic, upbeat, perpetually polite actress playing Erin Hannon on The Office, and the exuberant, pink-pants-wearing star of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. If you’ve ever been curious about what happens behind the scenes of your favorite shows, what it really takes to be a soul cycle “warrior,” how to recover if you accidentally fall on Doris Kearns Goodwin or tell Tina Fey on meeting her for the first time that she has “great hair—really strong and thick,” this is your chance to find out. But it’s also a laugh-out-loud primer on how to keep a positive outlook in a world gone mad and how not to give up on your dreams. Ellie “dives fully into each role—as actor, comedian, writer, and also wife and new mom—with an electric dedication, by which one learns to reframe the picture, and if not exactly become a glass-half-full sort of person, at least become able to appreciate them” (Vogue.com).

My Squirrel Days

‘Superbly reported, compelling . . . wonderfully captures the spirit of that time’ Financial Times 'Gripping and important' Observer __________________________________________________________________________ Nine days that set the course of a nation... Johannesburg, Easter weekend, 1993. Nelson Mandela has been free for three years and is in slow-moving power-sharing talks with President FW de Klerk when a white supremacist shoots Mandela’s popular young heir apparent, Chris Hani, in the hope of igniting an all-out civil war. Will he succeed in plunging South Africa into chaos, safeguarding apartheid for perhaps years to come? Or can Mandela and de Klerk overcome their differences and mutual suspicion and calm their followers, plotting a way forward? In The Plot to Save South Africa, acclaimed South African journalist Justice Malala recounts the riveting story of the next nine days – never before told in full – revealing rarely seen sides of both Mandela and de Klerk, the fascinating behind-the-scenes debates within each of their parties over whether to pursue peace or war, and their increasingly desperate attempts to restrain their supporters despite mounting popular frustrations. Flitting between the points of view of over a dozen characters on all sides of the conflict, Justice Malala offers an illuminating look at successful leadership in action… and a terrifying reminder of just how close a country we think of today as a model for racial reconciliation came to civil war. __________________________________________________________________________ ‘A dramatic work of history, prodigiously reported and beautifully crafted. Justice Malala is a first-rate storyteller, deftly weaving history with a narrative that reads like a novel. I couldn’t put it down’ Jonathan Eig, New York Times bestselling author of Ali: A Life ‘Magnificent, furious and unputdownable’ Andrew Harding, BBC Africa correspondent and author of These Are Not Gentle People

The Plot to Save South Africa

Harrison Scott Key, winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor, tells the shocking, “shot through with sharp humor” (The Washington Post), spiritually profound story of his journey through hell and back when infidelity threatens his marriage. One gorgeous autumn day, Harrison discovers that his wife—the sweet, funny, loving mother of their three daughters, a woman “who’s spent just about every Sunday of her life in a church”—is having an affair with a family friend. This revelation propels the hysterical, heartbreaking events in How to Stay Married, casting our narrator onto “the factory floor of hell,” where his wife was now in love with a man who “wears cargo shorts, on purpose.” What will he do? Kick her out? Set fire to all her panties in the yard? Beat this man to death with a gardening implement? Ask God for help in winning her back? Armed only with a sense of humor and a hunger for the truth, Harrison embarks on a hellish journey into his past, seeking answers to the riddles of faith and forgiveness. Through an absurd series of escalating confessions and betrayals, Harrison reckons with his failure to love his wife in the ways she needed most, resolves to fight for his family, and in a climax almost too ridiculous to be believed, finally learns that love is no joke. “A fiercely memorable account of marital devotion against all odds” (Publishers Weekly, starred review), How to Stay Married is a comic romp unlike any in contemporary literature, a wild ride through the hellscape of marriage and the mysteries of mercy.

How to Stay Married

SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM 20TH CENTURY FOX Two reckless but lovable all-American bros make a strong case for maturing slowly through their outrageous yet enlightening misadventures across this great country of ours. My brother and I are looking for wedding dates for our cousin’s wedding. We’ve been told by the bride that bringing dates is “mandatory” so we “won’t harass all of my friends all night” and “stay under control.” Rather than ask some fringe women in our lives to go and face the inevitable ‘does this mean he wants to take it to the next level?!’ questions, we’d rather bring complete strangers and just figure it out… We’re both in our 20s, single, dashingly tall, Anglo-Saxon, respectfully athletic, love to party, completely house trained…love our mother, have seen Love Actually several times…raw, emotional, sensitive, but still bad boys.…You should be attractive or our aunts will judge you, but not TOO attractive or one of our uncles might grope you. Dave and Mike Stangle thought nothing of it when they boozily decided to turn to the “activity partners” section of Craigslist to solicit dates to their cousin’s wedding. The hilarious, out-of-this-world ad that they came up with—featuring a picture of the two brothers as centaurs—immediately went viral, eventually landing these Wayfarers-wearing, moped-riding, completely reckless but ultimately loveable bros in the annals of the “Internet famous.” In Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, the Stangle brothers bring their trademark, off-color humor to everything from their most embarrassing adolescent experiences (like getting beat up by a girl on their front lawn...in front of their dad), to the most outrageous predicaments (like tripping on mushrooms with their bulldog, Frank), to proper sexting etiquette, and finally to breaking up a midget bar fight (you have to shoo them away). With the incredible comedic chemistry of Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson in Wedding Crashers and the uncensored honesty of Tucker Max, Mike and Dave insist there’s nothing wrong with just seeing where life takes you.

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates

In her midforties and settled into the responsibilities and routines of adulthood, Dani Shapiro found herself with more questions than answers. Was this all life was—a hodgepodge of errands, dinner dates, e-mails, meetings, to-do lists? What did it all mean? Having grown up in a deeply religious and traditional family, Shapiro had no personal sense of faith, despite repeated attempts to create a connection to something greater. Feeling as if she was plunging headlong into what Carl Jung termed "the afternoon of life," she wrestled with self-doubt and a searing disquietude that would awaken her in the middle of the night. Set adrift by loss—her father's early death; the life-threatening illness of her infant son; her troubled relationship with her mother—she had become edgy and uncertain. At the heart of this anxiety, she realized, was a challenge: What did she believe? Spurred on by the big questions her young son began to raise, Shapiro embarked upon a surprisingly joyful quest to find meaning in a constantly changing world. The result is Devotion: a literary excavation to the core of a life. In this spiritual detective story, Shapiro explores the varieties of experience she has pursued—from the rituals of her black hat Orthodox Jewish relatives to yoga shalas and meditation retreats. A reckoning of the choices she has made and the knowledge she has gained, Devotion is the story of a woman whose search for meaning ultimately leads her home. Her journey is at once poignant and funny, intensely personal—and completely universal.

Devotion

At the age of 31, Doug Wilson underwent a 14-hour operation to remove a life-threatening brain tumour. Just over a year later, he set a Guinness World Record by becoming the first person to run 7 competitive marathons on 7 continents in under 7 days. In this gripping and fast-paced memoir, he shares the story of his struggles with drug and alcohol addiction, mental illness and physical disability - and the extraordinary journey of healing that helped him to turn his life around.

Kundalini Running

Sunday Times Bestseller‘Passionate and well-researched’ Tatler ‘A must-read’ Independent A social history of Labradors, and how they have become the world’s most beloved dogs, by writer, presenter and long-time dog lover Ben Fogle. Labradors are the most popular breed of dog in the world. Not only a great family companion, they also excel at hunting, tracking, retrieving, guiding and rescuing. But where did the breed originally come from? How did it develop? When did black, yellow and chocolate Labradors first appear? Did they really all come from Labrador in Canada and are they really all related to just one dog? In this first history of the Labrador, Ben Fogle goes in search of what makes Labradors so special. Their extraordinary companionship, intelligence, work ethic and loyalty is captured by Ben as he weaves the story of the breed into his own story of his beloved Inca. Ben visits Canada, discovers hair-raising stories of early Labrador exploits and uncovers stories of RNIB Labradors and Labradors at war, Labradors as working dogs and every other manifestation of the Labrador’s character. Exploring their origin, early characteristics, their use as gun dogs, as therapy dogs, as police dogs, as search and rescue dogs and last – and absolutely not least – as family pets, Ben tells the story of a dog breed which has captured our imagination and love for hundreds of years.

Labrador

'Persistently funny, ill-advisedly honest and deadly accurate' – Caitlin Moran 'This book is a delight - very real and very entertaining' – Bob Mortimer Music journalist, self-professed creep and former winner of the coveted ‘Fittest Girl in Year 11’ award, Harriet Gibsone lives in fear of her internet searches being leaked. Harriet spent much of her young life feeding neuroses and insecurities with obsessive internet searching (including compulsive googling of exes, prospective partners, and their exes), and indulging in whirlwind ‘parasocial relationships’ (translation: one-sided affairs with celebrities she has never met). Suddenly, with a diagnosis of early menopause in her late twenties, her relationship with the internet takes a darker turn, as her online addictions are thrown into sharp relief by the corporeal realities of illness and motherhood. An outrageously funny, raw and painfully honest account of trying to find connection in the age of the internet, Is This Ok? is the launch of an exciting new comic voice. The audiobook is narrated by Harriet Gibsone and includes an exclusive audio Q&A with Harriet. 'Very funny and deeply moving' – Sara Pascoe 'Hilarious and brutal! I could not put it down' – Lou Sanders

Is This OK?

Emil Zátopek won five Olympic medals, set 18 world records, and went undefeated over 10,000 metres for six years. He redefined the boundaries of endurance, but his toughness was matched by a spirit of friendship and a joie de vivre that transcended the darkest days of the Cold War. His triumphs put his country on the map, yet when Soviet tanks moved in to crush Czechoslovakia's new freedoms in 1968, Zátopek paid a heavy price for his defence of 'socialism with a human face'. Rehabilitated two decades later, the world had all but forgotten him. Today We Die a Little strips away the myths to tell the complex and deeply moving story of the most inspiring Olympic hero of them all.

Today We Die a Little

What if every day was like Sunday? Closed shops and roast dinners. Bulky newspapers and the hum of lawnmowers. Strolls to nowhere in particular and visiting snoozing grandparents. Television theme tunes cueing bath time and a sudden dread of the looming week ahead… Through an assortment of rituals and activities, Sundays came to be the unique day in our week – whether tedious, pleasant or somewhere in-between. But how did they change over time? Has anything interesting ever happened on a Sunday? Have we forgotten how to do Sunday? And, in our rushed modern lives, should we now try to recapture that distinctive, unhurried Sunday feel? Offering answers to those questions and more through a mix of travelogue and social history, Sunday Best entertainingly charts the story of what author Daniel Gray argues is the People’s Day. Told through Sundays whiled away in places from the Hebrides to Hyde Park – via Sunderland, Scarborough, The Peak District and beyond – Gray’s latest book is a charming journey in time and place. Sunday Best offers nostalgia, people’s history and affectionate, absorbing writing – a book drenched in the scent of gravy and summoning the faint sound of church bells.

Sunday Best

This book moved me to my very core' Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for AutobiographyNamed a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, NPR, Time, The Boston Globe, Real Simple, Buzzfeed, Jezebel and Bustle Growing up in a sheltered Oregon town, Nicole Chung was the only Korean she knew. Taunted in the playground, and constantly reminded that she was different, she dreamt of one day looking in the mirror and feeling as thought she belonged. The story her mother told her about her birth parents was always the same: they had made the ultimate sacrifice in the hopes of giving her a better life. But years later, grown up and expecting a child of her own, Nicole begins to wonder if her mother's story is the whole truth. As she embarks on a search for the people who gave her up, she discovers that the deeper she digs, the darker and more surprising the truth. Heart-rending yet endlessly hopeful, All You Can Ever Know is a compelling memoir about adoption, race, and how it feels to lose your roots – and then find them in the least expected of places.

All You Can Ever Know

From the former editor-in-chief of Nylon comes a provocative and intimate collection of personal and cultural essays featuring eye-opening explorations of hot button topics for modern women, including internet feminism, impossible beauty standards in social media, shifting ideals about sexuality, and much more. Gabrielle Korn starts her professional life with all the right credentials. Prestigious college degree? Check. A loving, accepting family? Check. Instagram-worthy offices and a tight-knit group of friends? Check, check. Gabrielle’s life seems to reach the crescendo of perfect when she gets named the youngest editor-in-chief in the history of one of fashion’s most influential publication. Suddenly she’s invited to the world’s most epic parties, comped beautiful clothes and shoes from trendy designers, and asked to weigh in on everything from gay rights to lip gloss on one of the most influential digital platforms. But behind the scenes, things are far from perfect. In fact, just a few months before landing her dream job, Gabrielle’s health and wellbeing are on the line, and her promotion to editor-in-chief becomes the ultimate test of strength. In this collection of inspirational and searing essays, Gabrielle reveals exactly what it’s truly like in the fashion world, trying to find love as a young lesbian in New York City, battling with anorexia, and trying not to lose herself in a mirage of women’s empowerment and Instagram perfection. Through deeply personal essays, Gabrielle recounts her struggles to reconcile her long-held insecurities about her body while coming out in the era of The L Word, where swoon-worthy lesbians are portrayed as skinny, fashion-perfect, and power-hungry. She takes us with her everywhere from New York Fashion Week to the doctor’s office, revealing that the forces that try to keep women small are more pervasive than anyone wants to admit, especially in a world that’s been newly branded as woke. From #MeToo to commercialized body positivity, Korn’s biting, darkly funny analysis turns feminist commentary on its head. Both an in-your-face take on impossible beauty standards and entrenched media ideals and an inspiring call for personal authenticity, this powerful collection is ideal for fans of Roxane Gay and Rebecca Solnit.

Everybody (Else) Is Perfect

ONE OF TIME 100'S MUST-READ BOOKS OF 2024 • A DEBUTIFUL BEST BOOK OF 2024 • FEATURED IN NYLON • W MAGAZINE • GLAMOUR • BOOK RIOT • HEYALMA • BUSTLE • ELECTRIC LITERATURE • ROMPER • AND MORE! ""Tender, funny, angry, and sharp as hell. This is an essential book for anyone with a body, anyone with a heart."" —Helen Rosner, James Beard Award-winning food journalist and New Yorker staff writer An unflinching and deeply reported look at the realities of binge-eating disorder from a rising culture commentator and writer for Vogue. Millions of us use restrictive diets, intermittent fasting, IV therapies, and Ozempic abuse to shrink until we are sample-size acceptable. But for the 30 million Americans who live with eating disorders, it isn’t just about less. More, Please is a chronicle of a lifelong fixation with food—its power to soothe, to comfort, to offer a fleeting escape from the outside world—as well as an examination of the ways in which compulsory thinness, diet culture, and the seductive promise of “wellness” have resulted in warping countless Americans’ relationship with healthy eating. Melding memoir, reportage, and in-depth interviews with some of the most prominent and knowledgeable commentators currently writing about food, fatness, and disordered eating—Virginia Sole-Smith, Virgie Tovar, Aiyana Ishmael, Leslie Jamison, and others—Emma Specter explores binge-eating disorder as both a personal problem and a societal one. In More, Please, she provides a context, a history, and a language for what it means to always want more than you’ll allow yourself to have.

More, Please

WINNER OF THE 2024 WAINWRIGHT PRIZE WINNER OF THE 2023 RICHARD JEFFERIES AWARD FOR NATURE WRITING 'Inspirational' - THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE 'A bright, fierce hope for the future' - THE IRISH TIMES 'An astonishing read' - AMY LIPTROT 'Irresistible' - SARA BAUME 'Will leave you aching with world-love' - ABI ANDREWS 'Simply mesmerising' - JESSICA J. LEE 'A tender, marvellous book' - NICK HUNT This is a book about falling in love with vanishing things Late Light is the story of Michael Malay's own journey, an Indonesian Australian making a home for himself in England and finding strange parallels between his life and the lives of the animals he examines. Mixing natural history with memoir, this book explores the mystery of our animal neighbours, in all their richness and variety. It is about the wonder these animals inspired in our ancestors, the hope they inspire in us, and the joy they might still hold for our children. Late Light is about migration, belonging and extinction. Through the close examination of four particular 'unloved' animals - eels, moths, crickets and mussels - Michael Malay tells the story of the economic, political and cultural events that have shaped the modern landscape of Britain. For readers of Robert Macfarlane, Raynor Winn and Helen Macdonald, Late Light is a rich blend of memoir, natural history, nature writing, and a meditation on being and belonging, from a vibrant new voice.

Late Light

This explosive “must-read for anyone who cares about the future of our democracy” (Brian Stelter, New York Times bestselling author) chronicles the rise of the MAGA movement from acclaimed political journalist Tina Nguyen, who began her career—and her education—on the ground levels of the conservative recruiting machine. Her very first job was working for a little-known journalist named Tucker Carlson. She’s chugged Mountain Dews with the first Breitbart writers, poured over conspiracy theories from COVID-19 deniers, and visited the apocalyptic Patriot Church deep in the woods of the Pacific Northwest. The right is now a MAGA cult. And Tina Nguyen knows because she was raised by it, back when it wasn’t one. In 2008, in the weeks leading up to the election of Barack Obama, Nguyen was a history-loving, politics-obsessed college student at Claremont McKenna College, drawn there by a boyfriend—and a research institute called the Salvatori Center for the Study of Individual Freedom. Swept up by pro-America rhetoric and promises of a career in journalism, Nguyen was drawn into the world of right-wing student activism, and the early days of the movement now known as MAGA. In The MAGA Diaries, she tells not only her story of loving and leaving the conservative movement but the history of the right wing, painting a shocking picture of how they recruit, train, and indoctrinate generations of young people and shape them into the influential leaders and the supporting cast of tomorrow’s Republican party. They are ruthless in building robust networks of power, even if it means demolishing entire civic institutions, from women’s rights to fair elections—and staging a coup when it doesn’t work out. In this “sobering, endlessly readable fly-on-the-wall account of creeping fascism” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), Nguyen pulls back the curtain on the conservative machine, shining a light on the systematized on-ramp for young Republicans. These are the new leaders of the right, and it’s urgent we start paying attention.

The MAGA Diaries

Essayistic inquiries come together into a sustained meditation on writers and their works, on the spaces of reading and writing fiction, and how these spaces take shape inside a life. In A Horse at Night, Amina Cain contemplates how to be honest, open and free, as a person and a writer, even (and perhaps especially) during a time of great change. She moves elegantly through a personal canon of authors – including Marguerite Duras, Elena Ferrante and Annie Ernaux – and topics as timely and various as female friendships, neighbourhood coyotes, landscape painting and the politics of excess, to profound and joyous effect. An individual reckoning with the contemporary moment and a quietly brilliant contribution to the lineage of Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own or William H. Gass's On Being Blue, A Horse at Night is a virtuosic argument for – and beautiful demonstration of – the essential unity of writing and life. 'An exceptional book, a work of depth and elegance, with Amina Cain's bright intelligence threaded into its very seams. An exquisite creation.' Doireann Ni Ghriofa

A Horse at Night

In the style of Crying in H Mart and Minor Feelings, filmmaker Jill Damatac blends memoir, food writing, and colonial history as she cooks her way through recipes from her native-born Philippines and shares stories of her undocumented family in America. Jill Damatac left the United States in 2015 after living there as an undocumented immigrant with her family for twenty-two years. America was the only home she knew, where invisibility had become her identity and where poverty, domestic violence, ill health, and xenophobia were everyday experiences. First traveling to her native Philippines, Damatac eventually settled in London, England, where she was free to pursue an education at the University of Cambridge, fully investigate her roots, and process what happened to her and her family. After nine years, she was granted British citizenship, and returned to the United States, for the first time without fear of deportation or retribution. Damatac weaves together forgotten colonial history and long-buried Indigenous tradition, taking us through her time in America, and cooking her way through Filipino recipes in her kitchen as she searches for a sense of self and renewed possibility. With emotional intelligence, clarity, and grace, Dirty Kitchen explores fractured memories to ask questions of identity, colonialism, immigration, and belonging, and to find ways in which the ritual, tradition, and comfort of food can answer them.

Dirty Kitchen

Have you ever looked at your email, then texts, then Facebook, then Twitter, then email, then Instagram, then Candy Crush, then texts, then Snapchat, then texts again, and now you’ve wasted the time you had set aside for more important things? Jedediah Bila has solved her own Obsessive Compulsive Tech Disorder, and she did it without throwing away her devices. It's time to switch on airplane mode and settle into Jedediah Bila’s #DoNotDisturb: How I Ghosted My Cell Phone to Take Back My Life. In this timely, entertaining and inspiring book, Jedediah Bila chronicles her chaotic, confusing, and all-consuming love-hate relationship with - her cell phone. Stepping back from the whirlwind of texting, social media, and an endless sea of apps, Bila questions how our relationships, character, and sanity have suffered from our deep dive into the digital abyss. Exploring the toll that tech addiction took on her life, Bila reveals her missteps and mistakes, including several upending, life-altering months swirling in an ex-boyfriend’s cell-phone-enabled double life, and how a low-tech millennial later stole her heart. Travel with Jedediah through the embarrassing and catastrophic consequences of Ménage-a-Tech relationships, social media's Perception Deception, and the One-Potato-Chip-Problem of trying to resist Silicon Valley's hypnotic, slot-machine software designed to lure you in. Bila reveals how she navigated away from an unhealthy, oversaturated diet of tech junk food to striking just the right balance with technology to let her unplugged, real-life moments take charge. In #DoNotDisturb, Bila applies her trademark no-nonsense, common-sense, personal responsibility and accountability-centered approach, warning us that if we don’t stop acting like robots, our very humanity is at stake. Through warm anecdotes and cold, hard truths, Bila reveals how she pulled her way out of the tech fog to keep her eyes focused on the life right in front of her. And how you can too.

#DoNotDisturb

The new face of risky drinking is female. The problem: a global epidemic of bingeing. The solution: a brave new approach to female recovery. Eight years ago, Ann Dowsett Johnston was an award-winning journalist and vice-principal of McGill University. In private, she was wrestling the demon that had undone her own mother; the same demon increasing numbers of women are now battling across the world: alcohol. Aware of her growing dependency, Ann began to document her experiences with drink – the rules she set, and inevitably broke. The diary told a story that was not hers alone. From the 17-year-old heart attack victim to the mother of a child with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, women have bravely shared their own journeys through addiction, creating an alarming composite of the female face of dangerous drinking. In this startlingly honest book Ann Dowsett Johnson reveals why the relationship between women and alcohol has spiralled out of control. Showing how women can escape from this destructive affair, ‘Drink’ is essential reading for any woman who thinks she has a problem, and for those who care about her.

Drink

Comedian Iain Stirling is best known as the brilliantly funny voice of the BAFTA-award winning smash hit Love Island. Despite his many accolades, and his mum telling him he’s her ‘special little soldier’ every day, Iain still struggles with everyday adult life. What a textbook millennial. From the brilliantly funny voice behind the BAFTA-winning smash hit Love Island comes a scrutinising dissection of millennial life, giving the finger to ‘adulthood’ (whatever that means) along the way. Throughout life millennials have been taught that they are perfect and should live a perfect life. They’ve been told, whatever happens, don’t screw up. So is it any wonder they have acquired an image of being self-obsessed, work-shy, mollycoddled egomaniacs? Iain argues that beneath this facade is a misunderstood generation with a crippling fear of failure. And it’s time for this to change. Provocative and full of his razor-sharp wit, Not F*cking Ready to Adult is Iain’s guide to what life is really like for millennials and how they can navigate it better.

Not F*cking Ready To Adult

INCLUDES A NEW AUDIO AFTERWORD! NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING CHLOË GRACE MORETZ A “captivating” (The New York Times Book Review), award-winning memoir and instant New York Times bestseller that goes far beyond its riveting medical mystery, Brain on Fire is a powerful account of one woman’s struggle to recapture her identity. When twenty-four-year-old Susannah Cahalan woke up alone in a hospital room, strapped to her bed and unable to move or speak, she had no memory of how she’d gotten there. Days earlier, she had been on the threshold of a new, adult life: at the beginning of her first serious relationship and a promising career at a major New York newspaper. Now she was labeled as violent, psychotic, a flight risk. What happened? In an “unforgettable” (Elle), “stunningly brave” (NPR), and breathtaking narrative, Susannah tells the astonishing true story of her descent into madness, her family’s inspiring faith in her, and the lifesaving diagnosis that almost didn’t happen. “A fascinating look at the disease that…could have cost this vibrant, vital young woman her life” (People), Brain on Fire is an unforgettable exploration of memory and identity, faith and love, and a profoundly compelling tale of survival and perseverance.

Brain on Fire

The highly anticipated first book from award-winning comedian, writer, producer and actress, Amy Schumer. One of AudioFile Magazine’s Best Audiobooks of 2016. In The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo, Amy shares stories about her family, her relationships, her career, good – and bad – sex, recounting the experiences that have shaped who she is today: from the riches to rags story of her childhood to her teenage quest for popularity (and boys) to becoming one of the most sought-after comedians on the planet and an outspoken advocate for women’s rights. Whether she’s experiencing lust at first sight in the queue at the airport, discovering her boot camp instructor’s secret bad habit, or candidly discussing her father’s multiple sclerosis, Amy Schumer proves to be a fearless, original, and always entertaining storyteller. Her book will move you, make you laugh, catch you completely off guard, and answer this burning question: is it okay for a 35 year-old woman to still sleep with her childhood teddy bears?

The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo

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Books in category 'Autobiographies & Memoirs'

Autobiographies & Memoirs

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Autobiographies & Memoirs

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