Empfehlungen basierend auf "The World According to Joan Didion"

The extraordinary life of Cher can be told by only one person . . . Cher herself.After more than seventy years of fighting to live her life on her own terms, Cher finally reveals her true story in intimate detail, in a two-part memoir.Her remarkable career is unique and unparalleled. The only woman to top Billboard charts in seven consecutive decades, she is the winner of an Academy Award, an Emmy, a Grammy, and a Cannes Film Festival Award, and an inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame who has been lauded by the Kennedy Center.She is a longtime activist and philanthropist.As a dyslexic child who dreamed of becoming famous, Cher was raised in often-chaotic circumstances, surrounded by singers, actors, and a mother who inspired her in spite of their difficult relationship.With her trademark honesty and humor, Cher: The Memoir traces how this diamond in the rough succeeded with no plan and little confidence to become the trailblazing superstar the world has been unable to ignore for more than half a century.Cher: The Memoir, Part One follows her extraordinary beginnings through childhood to meeting and marrying Sonny Bono—and reveals the highly complicated relationship that made them world-famous, but eventually drove them apart.Cher: The Memoir reveals the daughter, the sister, the wife, the lover, the mother, and the superstar.It is a life too immense for only one book.

A literary treasure of over one hundred unpublished letters from seminal American author and National Book Award-winner, Flannery O'Connor, the subject of the biographical film, "Wildcat" (2024) starring Maya Hawke (directed by Ethan Hawke).Good Things Out of Nazareth contains many of O'Connor's previously unpublished letters. These epistolary gems deepen our knowledge of this master of the short story in ongoing "revelations" The letters enable "moviegoers" just discovering O'Connor, as well as her enduring readers to deepen their understanding as O'Connor traces her efforts in the 1960s to write the searing stories later featured in "Wildcat." The letters reveal O'Connor's own comments about her fiction and the writings of her peers.. The collection also contains the beautiful letters from O'Connor's Jesuit priest/ friend consoling those mourning her death..Good Things is the only collection that features invaluable historical context of the tumultuous times when O'Connor was writing in the 1960s. The editor, Ben Boatwright Alexander, studied with one of O'Connor's teachers himself. He knew some of her literary friends and visited with O'Connor's family in Milledgeville, Georgia. He even read in 2004 at a literary event "Good Country People" aloud in the wee hours at O'Connor's house, Andalusia. These rare experiences enable Dr. Alexander to provide an historical backdrop to O'Connor's letters little known or taught today. His collection forms a riveting literary portrait of O'Connor as well as her friends--— such as fellow believers, Walker Percy (The Moviegoer) and Caroline Gordon (None Shall Look), famed publisher, Robert Giroux and movie critic, Stanley Kauffmann. Here we find their joys and loves, as well as their trials and tribulations as they struggle with doubt and illness while relying on faith to chart a path in an uncertain world.Praise for Good Things Out of Nazareth"An epistolary group portrait that will appeal to readers interested in the Catholic underpinnings of O'Connor's life and work . . . These letters by the National Book Award-winning short story writer and her friends alternately fit and break the mold. Anyone looking for Southern literary gossip will find plenty of barbs. . . . But there's also higher-toned talk on topics such as the symbolism in O'Connor's work and the nature of free will."—Kirkus Reviews"A fascinating set of Flannery O'Connor's correspondence . . . The compilation is highlighted by gems from O'Connor's writing mentor, Caroline Gordon. . . . While O'Connor's milieu can seem intimidatingly insular, the volume allows readers to feel closer to the writer, by glimpsing O'Connor's struggles with lupus, which sometimes leaves her bedridden or walking on crutches, and by hearing her famously strong Georgian accent in the colloquialisms she sprinkles throughout the letters. . . . This is an important addition to the knowledge of O'Connor, her world, and her writing."—Publishers Weekly

The New York Times BestsellerNational Book Critics Circle Award FinalistLambda Literary Award winnerFrom Roxane Gay, the New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminist, a memoir in weight about eating healthier, finding a tolerable form of exercise, and exploring what it means to learn, in the middle of your life, how to take care of yourself and how to feed your hunger.New York Times bestselling author Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and bodies, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health. As a woman who describes her own body as “wildly undisciplined,” Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care. In Hunger, she casts an insightful and critical eye on her childhood, teens, and twenties—including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life—and brings readers into the present and the realities, pains, and joys of her daily life.With the bracing candor, vulnerability, and authority that have made her one of the most admired voices of her generation, Roxane explores what it means to be overweight in a time when the bigger you are, the less you are seen. Hunger is a deeply personal memoir from one of our finest writers, and tells a story that hasn’t yet been told but needs to be.

“Rarely do memoirs of grief combine anguish, love, and fury with such elegance.” ― Entertainment Weekly In 2002, Ann Hood’s five-year-old daughter Grace died suddenly from a virulent form of strep throat. Stunned and devastated, the family searched for comfort in a time when none seemed possible. Hood―an accomplished novelist―was unable to read or write. She could only reflect on her lost daughter―“the way she looked splashing in the bathtub ... the way we sang ‘Eight Days a Week.’” One day, a friend suggested she learn to knit. Knitting soothed her and gave her something to do. Eventually, she began to read and write again. A semblance of normalcy returned, but grief, in ever new and different forms, still held the family. What they could not know was that comfort would come, and in surprising ways. Hood traces her descent into grief and reveals how she found comfort and hope again―a journey to recovery that culminates with a newly adopted daughter.

Constance's mother systematically abused her daughter throughout her childhood. Regularly beaten and starved, she tried to get herself taken into care without success and even drank bleach. When she was 13, her mother left her to fend for herself but Constance found the courage to survive and this is her story.

From a rising literary star and the author of how to be a good girl comes a brilliant, biting, and beautifully wrought memoir of trauma and the cost of survival"Hood descends into the terrifying dark of the unsayable with the dimmest of flashlights and returns bearing verbal gems, treasures, and marvels. Trauma Plot is a glass case of such wonders."—Torrey Peters, bestselling author of Detransition, BabyIn the thick of lockdown, 2020, poet, critic, and memoirist Jamie Hood published her debut, how to be a good girl, an interrogation of modern femininity and the narratives of love, desire, and violence yoked to it. The Rumpus praised Hood’s “bold vulnerability,” and Vogue named it a Best Book of 2020.In Trauma Plot, Hood draws on disparate literary forms to tell the story that lurked in good girl’s margins—of three decades marred by sexual violence and the wreckage left behind. With her trademark critical remove, Hood interrogates the archetype of the rape survivor, who must perform penitence long after living through the unthinkable, invoking some of art’s most infamous women to have played the role: Ovid’s Philomela, David Lynch’s Laura Palmer, and Artemisia Gentileschi, who captured Judith’s wrath. In so doing, she asks: What do we as a culture demand of survivors? And what do survivors, in turn, owe a world that has abandoned them?Trauma Plot is a scalding work of personal and literary criticism. It is a send-up of our culture's pious disdain for “trauma porn,” a dirge for the broken promises of #MeToo, and a paean to finding life after death.

“Nietfeld’s gifts for capturing the fury of living at the mercy of bad circumstances, for critiquing the hero’s journey even while she tells it, make Acceptance a remarkable memoir.” —The New York Times Book Review A hard-hitting and hilarious memoir of ambition, desperation, and the dark side of grit Growing up in a house filled with dirty feather boas and fearless mice, Emi Nietfeld dreams of escaping to the Ivy League. Emi’s single mom believes in her, but can’t stop hoarding—catapulting Emi into the underworld of troubled teen treatment, foster care, and homelessness. When her shot arrives to trade sleeping in her car for the hallowed halls of an elite college, Emi must decide: How far will she go to market herself as a perfect “overcomer” when her problems are far from over? And what will it cost to maintain that illusion at Harvard and into adulthood? From journalist, mental health advocate, and software engineer Emi Nietfeld, this searing coming-of-age story is both a chronicle of the American Dream and an indictment of it. Exposing the price of trading a troubled past for the promise of a bright future, Nietfeld explores whether any amount of success can make trauma worth it. With a ribbon of dark humor, Acceptance challenges our ideas of what it means to overcome—and live on your own terms.

A groundbreaking novel exploring the intersection between race, class and mental health in the UK'A strong and humane work of fiction' Jackie Kay'That is the glory of being a mental patient. Nothing is impossible.'It is the 1990s, and Gloria is living in a London psychiatric ward. She is unapologetically loud, audacious and eternally on the brink of bursting into song.After several months of uninterrupted routine, she is joined by another young black woman - Merle - who is full of silences and fear.Unable to confide in their doctors, they agree to journal their pasts. Whispered into tape recorders and scrawled ferociously at night, the remarkable stories of their lives are revealed.In this tender, deeply-moving depiction of mental health, Roy creates a striking portrait of two women finding strength in their shared vulnerability, as they navigate a system that fails to protect them. Life-affirming and fearlessly hopeful, this is an unforgettable story.'This is a novel of daring - enjoyable, surprising and original.' Bernardine Evaristo'A striking commentary' Scotsman'A strong, humorous and moving piece of fiction . . . such is the life injected into the characters that by the end of the novel there remains that reluctance to part with people you have come to love' calabash'A joy' Pride'Unflinchingly told . . . harrowing but also shockingly funny' Big Issue

A memoir in essays that expands on the viral sensation “The Crane Wife” with a frank and funny look at love, intimacy, and self in the twenty-first century. From friends and lovers to blood family and chosen family, this “elegant masterpiece” (Roxane Gay, New York Times bestselling author of Hunger) asks what more expansive definitions of love might offer us all.A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: TIME, THE GUARDIAN, GARDEN & GUN"Hauser builds their life's inventory out of deconstructed personal narratives, resulting in a reading experience that's rich like a complicated dessert—not for wolfing down but for savoring in small bites." —The New York Times“Clever, heartfelt, and wrenching.”—Time“Brilliant.”—Oprah DailyTen days after calling off their wedding, CJ Hauser went on an expedition to Texas to study the whooping crane. After a week wading through the gulf, they realized they'd almost signed up to live someone else's life.What if you released yourself from traditional narratives of happiness? What if you looked for ways to leave room for the unexpected? In Hauser’s case, this meant dissecting pop culture touchstone, from The Philadelphia Story to The X Files, to learn how not to lose yourself in a relationship. They attended a robot convention, contemplated grief at John Belushi’s gravesite, and officiated a wedding. Most importantly, they mapped the difference between the stories we’re asked to hold versus those we choose to carry.Told with the late-night barstool directness of your wisest, most bighearted friend, The Crane Wife is a book for everyone whose path doesn't look the way they thought it would; for everyone learning to find joy in the not-knowing and to build a new sort of life story, a new sort of family, a new sort of home to live in.

This collection of one girl's real, unflinching diary entries about slowly dying of a terminal illness is an unparalleled exploration of the human spirit and what it means to truly live.Many of the feelings I write about are too difficult to share while I'm alive, so I'm keeping everything in my journal password-protected until the end.Mallory Smith was no ordinary girl, and this is no ordinary story. At age three, Mallory was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis--a disease that attacks the internal organs and would eventually kill her.Despite living on borrowed time, Mallory pursued her passions: volleyball; writing; the environment; her boyfriend, family, and friends. Most importantly, every day she chose to embody the mantra "live happy."Mallory also had her struggles--everything from love and sex to living with illness and just being a human on this planet. And she chronicled every bit of it, writing thousands of diary entries before her death in her twenties.This is the poignant, true story of a young woman who refused to be defined by chronic illness. Her light and her life are shared here in her own words to encourage everyone to live life to the fullest, as she did, even as she was dying.