Personal Memoirs

What matters most to you? Should you focus on earning a living, pursuing your passions, or devoting yourself to the causes that inspire you? The surprising truth is that you don’t have to choose—and that you’ll find more success if you don’t. That’s the breakthrough message of the TOMS One for One movement. You don’t have to be rich to give back and you don’t have to retire to spend every day doing what you love. You can find profit, passion, and meaning all at once—right now.

The Mama Sutra spans an 18-year journey through motherhood as a spiritual practice, chronicling Cushman’s first pregnancy, her daughter's tragic stillbirth, the joyful birth of her son, the “home retreat” of early motherhood, the challenges of parenthood, the diagnosis and gifts of her son’s developmental differences, the meltdown of her nuclear family and its reconfiguration into a new and joyful form, and more. This is a powerful story of the rawness and beauty of life.

Jes Baker burst onto the body positivity scene when she created her own ads mocking Abercrombie and Fitch for discriminating against all body types - a move that landed her on the Today show and garnered a loyal following for her raw, honest, and attitude-filled blog missives. Building on the manifesta power of Things, this memoir goes deeply into Jes' inner life, from growing up a fat girl to dating while fat. With material that will have listeners laughing and crying along with Jes' experience, this new book is a natural fit with her irreverent, open-book style.

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.

A mesmerizing and courageous memoir: the story of two sisters uncovering the depth of their love through the life-and-death experience of a bone marrow transplant. Throughout her life Elizabeth Lesser has sought understanding about what it means to be true to yourself and, at the same time, truly connected to the ones you love. But when her sister, Maggie, needs a bone marrow transplant to save her life, and Lesser learns that she is the perfect match, she faces a far more immediate and complex question about what it really means to love.

From brass knuckle beatdowns on the schoolyard to showdowns with the SEC on the national news, every second of Deaton’s life has been a fight for survival. This book is the raw, wild John Deaton story, straight from the source. Born in one of the worst neighborhoods in Detroit--the kind of place the city cordoned off with warning signs--and growing up surrounded by hustlers, addicts, abusers, gang bangers, and the downtrodden, Deaton became a fighter, with violence becoming second nature.

In The Anatomy of a Calling, Lissa Rankin, MD, makes a simple yet revolutionary claim: We are all, every single one of us, heroes. We are all on what Joseph Campbell calls "a hero's journey"; we are all on a mission to step into our true nature and fulfill the assignment our souls were sent to Earth to fulfill. Navigating the hero's journey, Dr. Rankin argues, is one of the cornerstones of living a meaningful, authentic, healthy life.

From the best-selling author of With the End in Mind, this is a book about the conversations that matter and how to have them better - more honestly, more confidently and without regret. A child coming out to their parent. A family losing someone to terminal illness. A friend noticing the first signs of someone’s dementia. A career’s advisor and a teenager with radically different perspectives. There are moments when we must talk, listen and be there for one another.

Army leadership is a sophisticated endeavour that has kept pace with societal change and the challenges of the modern world. In the military, exceptional leadership is crucial every day. Drawing on the latest research in military history, sociology, psychology and behavioural science and with compelling illustration from British Army operations across the centuries, Lt Col Langley Sharp MBE goes beyond the latest leadership fads to distil into one peerlessly authoritative work the essence of leading and leadership from one of the world's most revered institutions.

Delving into gender, class, racial, and ethnic complexities, as well as into the complex relationships between Korean women - sisters, mothers and daughters, grandmothers and grandchildren, aunts and nieces - Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related. describes in visceral, lyrical prose the painful ripple effects that follow a child's removal from a family, and the rewards that can flow from both struggle and forgiveness.

Dr. Temple Grandin gets to the real issues of autism, the ones parents, teachers, and individuals on the spectrum face every day. Temple offers helpful dos and don'ts, practical strategies, and try-it-now tips, all based on her insider perspective and a great deal of research.

After a bizarre encounter with his lost cousin, Jonathan Landry is compelled to travel across the planet to retrieve letters and mementos that carry the extraordinary secrets that Julian discovered throughout his life. On a remarkable journey that includes visits to the sensual tango halls of Buenos Aires, the haunting catacombs of Paris, the gleaming towers of Shanghai and the mystical deserts of Sedona, The Secret Letters of The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari reveals astounding insights on reclaiming your personal power, being true to yourself, and fearlessly living your dreams.

Andi Dorfman, star of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, talks candidly about what it's like to be courted by 25 handsome single men in this juicy insider's peek at dating - and breaking up - on national TV. She shares entertaining and heartfelt stories about her fellow Bachelor alums - many of who are still close friends - comes clean about calling out bachelor number 18, Juan Pablo, for bad behavior, and reflects on her personal challenges.

"I'll never forget that night. It was like a romance novel, an old Broadway musical, and a John Wayne western rolled into one. Out for a quick drink with friends, I wasn't looking to meet anyone, let alone a tall, rugged cowboy who lived on a cattle ranch miles away from my cultured, corporate hometown. But before I knew it, I'd been struck with a lightning bolt... and I was completely powerless to stop it."

By the time Will Schwalbe was a junior at college, he had already met everyone he cared to know: the theater people, writers, visual artists and comp lit majors, and various other quirky characters including the handful of students who shared his own major, Latin and Greek. He also knew exactly who he wanted to avoid: the jocks. The jocks wore baseball caps and moved in packs, filling boisterous tables in the dining hall, and on the whole seemed to be another species entirely, one Will might encounter only at his own peril.

Death is not for the faint of heart, and sometimes the best way to cope is through humor. No one knows this better than comedian Laurie Kilmartin. She made headlines by live-tweeting her father's time in hospice and her grieving process after he passed and channeled her experience into a comedy special, 45 Jokes About My Dead Dad. Dead People Suck is her hilarious guide to surviving (sometimes) death, dying, and grief without losing your mind.

Follow Ruth through a rip-roaring, hilarious decade of not quite making it as a supermodel. Fueled by little more than cigarettes and the stress of her spiraling debt she crisscrosses the world in pursuit of fame and fortune. But how far is she willing to go for this wildly unrealistic dream?

Heer and Sumira share the tale of a friendship thriving despite the diversity of transgender experiences, Adira speaks to the affect of parental disaffection on the blossoming of a first love, Sudipta digs into the past to speak of an unlikely queertopia they’d found and HSW shares a journey of coming to terms with asexuality. To hear about these, and many more, join us as we explore the varying hues and journeys of queerness through this anthology of first-person LBT narratives.

First published in 1994, The Warren Buffett Way gave investors their first in-depth look at the innovative investment and business strategies behind this living legend's spectacular success. Tracing Warren Buffett's career from the beginning, Hagstrom revealed to listeners exactly how, starting with an initial investment of only $100, Buffett built a business empire worth $19.4 billion.

When Jennifer McGaha's grandmother was in her late eighties, Jennifer asked her what her favorite age so far had been. "Fifty-five," her grandmother answered. So, in her own fifty-fifth year, Jennifer began to take note. She jotted down her impressions of simple, everyday things that struck her as beautiful or humorous or intriguing and kept a list of all the accomplishments, large and small, that actually mattered to her. These observations became Jennifer's Joy Document, a radical act of reclaiming joy and an exercise in paying attention.