Personal Memoirs

"A blisteringly funny, wrenching account of wrestling way too close to—and later loose from—booze, sex and drugs and his adorable, infuriating mother. Bravo!" —Mary Karr, New York Times bestselling author of The Liars' Club "Whoever said you can't get sober for someone else never met my...

How did a bank, which boasts ‘we’re committed to helping protect the world’s financial system on which millions of people depend, by only doing business with customers who meet our high standards of transparency’ come to facilitate Mexico’s richest drug baron? And how did a bank that as recently as 2002 had been named ‘one of the best-run organisations in the world’ become so entwined with such a criminal? Too Big to Jail is an extraordinary story brilliantly told by writer, commentator, and former editor of The Independent.

In 1996, a small Irish press approached Nuala O'Faolain to publish a collection of her opinion columns from the Irish Times. She offered to write an introduction to explain the life experience that had shaped this Irish woman's views. Convinced that none but a few diehard fans of the columns...

In this volume, you’ll hear some stories that take place as recently as a few years ago, while others date back as far as the 1930s. There’s the story of a young Russian immigrant who came to the United States seeking the exciting lifestyle he’d seen on television, only to be stabbed, set on fire, and left to die in the desert by his own friends. There’s also the story of a brawny railway worker who couldn’t control his steroid-fueled rage. There’s one of a brawny railway worker who couldn’t control his steroid-fueled rage. And more.

Best-selling author Rafe Esquith, the only teacher to receive the National Medal of Arts, has garnered the American Teacher Award and numerous other honors. Still teaching fifth graders in a small, leaky classroom in downtown Los Angeles, Esquith fosters a wholesome climate where character, humility, and diligence matter and support is unconditional. For his mostly poor and Hispanic students, Esquith models two maxims: Be nice and work hard, and There are no shortcuts. And his students thrive!

In April 2002, Janine Latus' youngest sister, Amy, wrote a note and taped it to the inside of her desk drawer. "Today Ron Ball and I are romantically involved", it read, "but I fear I have placed myself at risk in a variety of ways. Based on his criminal past, writing this out just seems like the smart thing to do. If I am missing or dead this obviously has not protected me...."

Solitude is the inspirational core for many writers, artists, and thinkers. Alone with our thoughts, we can make discoveries that matter not only to us but to others. To be solitary is not only to draw sustenance from being alone, but to know that our ultimate responsibility is not only to our partner or our own offspring, but to a larger community. Fenton Johnson's lyrical prose and searching sensibility explores what it means to choose to be solitary and celebrates the notion that solitude is a legitimate and dignified calling.

In November 2000, Chicago journalist and music critic Jim DeRogatis received an anonymous fax that alleged R. Kelly had a problem with “young girls”. Weeks later, DeRogatis broke the shocking story, publishing allegations that the R&B superstar and local hero had groomed girls, sexually abused them, and paid them off. DeRogatis thought his work would have an impact. Instead, Kelly’s career flourished. No one seemed to care: not the music industry, not the culture at large, not the parents of numerous other young girls. But for more than 18 years, DeRogatis stayed on the story.

From the star of TLC's My Big Fat Fabulous Life and the YouTube sensation "A Fat Girl Dancing" comes an empowering memoir about letting go of your limitations and living the life you deserve. Right now. Whitney Way Thore stands five feet two inches tall and weighs well over 300 pounds, and she is totally, completely, and truly...happy. But she wasn't always the vivacious, confident woman you see on TV. Growing up as a dancer, Whitney felt the pressure to be thin.

This follow-on audiobook to Tough Times, Tough People continues Chicken Soup for the Soul’s focus on inspiration and hope in these difficult times. These inspirational stories remind us that each day holds something to be thankful for - whether it is having the sun shine or having food on the table. Power outages and storms, health scares and illnesses, job woes and financial insecurities, housing challenges and family worries test us all. But there is always a silver lining.

Larry had dreamed of sailing around the world ever since he first stepped foot into a sailboat at the age of 13. He held onto that dream for 30 years, until one day he realized that "it's now or never". He left his corporate job, trading his comfortable executive life for adventure. A true story memoir packed with lessons from the ocean that served as a teacher of seamanship, personal strength, growth, leadership, and perseverance, while Larry and his crew discovered themselves, and the world.

John H. Johnson, the remarkable entrepreneur who founded the Ebony publishing empire, tells the story of his success. The wealthiest African-American in the US today, Johnson shares his rags to riches saga, from the many obstacles that confronted him to his ultimate triumph.

As the “Seeing Eye Girl” for her blind, artistic, and mentally ill mother, Beverly Armento was intimately connected with and responsible for her, even though her mother physically and emotionally abused her. Beverly’s mother regained her sight and went on to enjoy a moment of fame as an artist, but these positive turns did nothing to stop her disintegration into delusions. In this memoir, Beverly shares the coping strategies she invented to get herself through the trials of her young life, and the ways in which school and church served as refuges over the course of her journey.

As a journalist, Kate Legge often seeks answers to how people reckon with bad luck or bad decisions. When faced with her husband's affair, she discovered a fault line of betrayal running through four generations of his family, which began a search for answers both close to home and more universally. Infidelity and Other Affairs begins with this puzzle: is unfaithfulness a predisposition or a learned behavior? From there, Legge contemplates a vast catalog of behaviors as she strives to understand how we become who we are.

From Denne Michele Norris and Electric Literature, a vital anthology of essays by trans and gender-nonconforming writers of color, sharing stories of joy, heartbreak, rage, and self-discovery. Featuring seventeen essays by trans people of color—spanning writers, scientists, actors, activists...

This captivating and deeply emotional memoir pulls back the curtain on the complex relationship women have between their bodies, love, and the way the two work together. Kerry Cohen is eleven years old when she recognizes the power of her body in the leer of a grown man. Her parents are recently...

From failure to fusilli, this deliciously hilarious story of Giulia Melucci's fizzled romances and the mouth-watering recipes she used to seduce her men, smooth over the lumps, and console herself when the relationships flamed out. From an affectionate alcoholic, to the classic New York City commitment-phobe, to a hipster aged past his sell date, and not one, but two novelists with Peter Pan complexes, Giulia has cooked for them all.

When Amber Portwood debuted on MTV's hit reality series 16 & Pregnant, no one could have predicted that the teenager from Anderson, Indiana, with the dry sense of humor would go on to become one of the most controversial young celebrities in reality TV history. But soon after Amber stepped into the public eye, her life spiraled into chaos.

In 2006, Matthew Specktor moved into a crumbling Los Angeles apartment opposite the one in which F. Scott Fitzgerald spent the last moments of his life. Fitz had been Specktor's first literary idol, someone whose own passage through Hollywood had, allegedly, broken him. Freshly divorced, professionally flailing, and reeling from his mother's cancer diagnosis, Specktor was feeling unmoored. But rather than giving in or "cracking up", he embarked on an obsessive journey to make sense of the mythologies of "success" and "failure" that haunt the artist's life and the American imagination.

In 1950 Gerald Frank, a determined Black man, arrived in Seattle at the age of eighteen. Fleeing the violence of Detroit and the suffocating grip of Jim Crow Laws, Gerald carried nothing but dreams and drumsticks in his heart. His unwavering belief that he could carve out a better life set the stage for an incredible journey. Today, over seventy years later, the real estate empire forged by Gerald and his wife, Theresa, continues to flourish under the guidance of the third generation of the Frank family. But theirs was not a journey paved with silver spoons.