Parenting Memoir

Could you be happier? When Hugh van Cuylenburg went to India on a teaching trip he met a joyful 10-year-old student who taught him lessons that changed his life. Since setting up The Resilience Project, Hugh has shared what he learned with over a million Australians through his show GEM, a series of comical anecdotes, moving stories and practical methods for leading a happier and more resilient life.

Ashley is a young single mum raising her daughter, Eden, and working hard to do the very best job she can - until one night she can't find a babysitter and makes the decision to leave Eden home alone for a couple of hours, asleep inside a wardrobe. It is an action that begins a terrible downward spiral for both of them. When Eden arrives at experienced foster carer Louise Allen's home, she has entered the care system because her mother is in prison. Eden is five years old and will not speak to any human.

On October 5, 2017, the New York Times published an article by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey - and then the world changed. For months, Kantor and Twohey had been having confidential discussions with top actresses, former Weinstein employees, and other sources, learning of disturbing long-buried allegations. But nothing could have prepared them for what followed the publication of their Weinstein story. With superlative detail, insight, and journalistic expertise, Kantor and Twohey take us for the first time into the very heart of this social shift.

When Bo Seo was 8 years old, he and his family migrated from Korea to Australia. At the time, he did not speak English, and, unsurprisingly, struggled at school. But, then, in fifth grade, something happened to change his life: he discovered competitive debate. Immediately, he was hooked. It turned out, perhaps counterintuitively, that debating was the perfect activity for someone shy and unsure of himself. It became a way for Bo not only to find his voice, but to excel socially and academically. And he’s not the only one.

Deena Kastor was a star youth runner with tremendous promise, yet her career almost ended after college, when her competitive method - run as hard as possible, for fear of losing - fostered a frustration and negativity and brought her to the brink of burnout. On the verge of quitting, she took a chance and moved to the high altitudes of Alamosa, Colorado, where legendary coach Joe Vigil had started the first professional distance-running team. There she encountered the idea that would transform her running career: the notion that changing her thinking - shaping her mind to be more encouraging, kind, and resilient - could make her faster than she’d ever imagined possible.

Losing a young daughter to murder is the worst nightmare that a mother could possibly imagine, but what if the killer was her son? Charity Lee was thrust into this unimaginable situation when her 13-year-old son, Paris, murdered her beloved four-year-old daughter, Ella. This book is a meditation on grief, loss, and forgiveness unlike any other. It's also an inspirational story of a true survivor. Well-written and haunting How Now, Butterfly? is a book that no listener will soon forget.

Before: Jen Waite has met the partner of her dreams. A handsome, loving man who becomes part of her family, evolving into her husband, her best friend, and the father of her infant daughter. After: A disturbing email sparks suspicion, leading to an investigation of who this man really is and what was really happening in their marriage. In alternating before and after chapters, Waite obsessively analyzes her relationship, trying to find a single moment form the past five years that isn't part of the long con of lies and manipulation.

Stephen Alter was raised by American missionary parents in the hill station of Mussoorie, in the foothills of the Himalayas, where he and his wife Ameeta, now live. Their idyllic existence was brutally interrupted when four armed intruders invaded their house and viciously attacked them, leaving them for dead. The violent assault and the trauma of almost dying left him questioning assumptions he had lived by since childhood. For the first time, he encountered the face of evil and the terror of the unknown.

When it comes to divorce, forewarned is forearmed. This book delivers both in a story you won't be able to pause. Equal parts suspense thriller and how-to manual, Tim’s memoir is a must read for anyone who’s facing a divorce with children, or loves somebody who is. While most intuitively understand that divorce brings out the worst in people, and many have heard that separating can be extremely costly and frustrating, few approach the process aware of its greatest pitfalls, how truly terrible they are, and just how prevalent they’ve become.

When we first meet the young man at the center of this extraordinary and moving story, he is one of 13 children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday, or any of the things a child might learn in school. And he has no serious experience playing organized football.

In her midforties, Gwendolyn Bounds attended a dinner party where someone asked a little girl: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” It struck Bounds: In middle age, no one asks you that anymore. So she put the question to herself. The answer set her on an unexpected five-year path of transformation from an unathletic office executive glued to her screens to an age-group medalist and world championship competitor in obstacle course racing—a demanding military-style sport requiring speed, endurance, mobility, and strength.

If you’ve ever had a friend, relative, or colleague with cancer, this is the book for you. Wondering what to say, how to help, and/or what to know about your friend with cancer? Now, for the first time, your questions will be answered in this supportive and instructional guide on how to be there for your loved one in his or her time of need.

Aged nine Joss came home from school to discover her father's suicide. She's never got over it. This is the true story of Joss, 13, who is angry and out of control. At the age of nine, Joss finds her father's dead body. He has committed suicide. Then more recently her mother remarries, and Joss bitterly resents her stepfather, who abuses her mentally and physically.

After selling her first novel - a dream she'd worked long and hard for - Stephanie Danler knew she should be happy. Instead, she found herself driven to face the difficult past she'd left behind a decade ago: a mother disabled by years of alcoholism, further handicapped by a tragic brain aneurysm; a father who abandoned the family when she was three, now a meth addict in and out of recovery.

At the age of five, Megan Phelps-Roper began protesting homosexuality and other alleged vices alongside fellow members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. Founded by her grandfather and consisting almost entirely of her extended family, the tiny group would gain worldwide notoriety for its pickets at military funerals and celebrations of death and tragedy.

The author tells the story as told to him of Anne Hobbs, a woman who went to Alaska in the 1920s to teach, but who had trouble due to her kindness to the Indians there.

Where does a moderately popular internet star who never leaves her house look for potential suitors? Online. Tinder, Bumble, Match.com, OkCupid - I tried them all. My 31-year-old self clicked and swiped her little heart out, leading to more dates than I could count, and more disappointment than I was prepared for. Maybe you can relate. Maybe you know all too well the perils of modern dating.

Leanne Friesen thought she knew a lot about bereavement. She had studied it in school and preached at memorial services. But only when her own sister died from cancer did she learn, in her very bones, what grieving people don't need—and what they do. In Grieving Room, Friesen writes with vulnerability, wisdom, and somehow even wit about the stark and sacred lessons learned at deathbeds and funerals, and pushes back against a world that wants to minimize our sorrow and avoid our despair.

Brooke Shields never had what anyone would consider an ordinary life. She was raised by her Newark-tough single mom, Teri, a woman who loved the world of show business and was often a media sensation all by herself. Brooke's iconic modeling career began by chance when she was only 11 months old, and Teri's skills as both Brooke's mother and her manager were formidable. But in private she was troubled and drank heavily.

Retired wreckhead Catherine Gray, author of surprise best seller The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober, is now in her ninth sober year and has learnt a damn sight more. This hotly anticipated sequel enlists the help of experts and case studies, turning a curious, playful gaze onto provocative questions. Is alcohol a parenting aid? Why are booze and cocaine such a horse and carriage? Once an addict, always an addict? How do you feel safe—from alcohol, others and yourself—in sobriety?