For me, thisis the new Bible for healing from complex trauma.
First off, Foo
offers a spoiler alert: that the book has a happy ending. She also invites the reader to skip the pages (if it’s triggering) where she describes her abusive
childhood, resulting in her complex PTSD, and then maps out her journey to
recovery (still in process), bringing a brilliant journalist’s eye view to numerous
therapeutic approaches and the individual’s context in widespread generational
trauma.
I loved this book because Foo is extremely funny, brave, brutally
honest, and a riveting storyteller, and because
it helped me understand my own history.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A searing memoir of reckoning and healing by acclaimed journalist Stephanie Foo, investigating the little-understood science behind complex PTSD and how it has shaped her life
“Achingly exquisite . . . providing real hope for those who long to heal.”—Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, NPR, Mashable, She Reads, Publishers Weekly
By age thirty, Stephanie Foo was successful on paper: She had her dream job as an award-winning radio producer at This American Life and…
Between Two
Kingdoms describes the author’s personal journey through leukemia in her early
twenties and a hundred-day road trip to survive her own survival.
From the
harrowing landscapes of hospital interiors to the Grand Canyon and the Rio
Grande to the depths of the human heart. Jaouad introduces us to the forest of
people she meets (loves, collides with, loses) on her epic and ephemeral path,
bringing us into the powerful and fragile network of relationships she lives
within.
I loved this book because, for me, it cut straight to the core of the
mystery of being alive and because I quite literally could not put it down.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A searing, deeply moving memoir of illness and recovery that traces one young woman’s journey from diagnosis to remission to re-entry into “normal” life—from the author of the Life, Interrupted column in The New York Times
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, The Rumpus, She Reads, Library Journal, Booklist • “I was immersed for the whole ride and would follow Jaouad anywhere. . . . Her writing restores the moon, lights the way as we learn to endure the unknown.”—Chanel Miller, The New…
Both memoir
and communal history, this book is an homage to the author’s extraordinary
mother, who became an entrepreneur in an underground economy during a time when
virtually all other opportunities were denied her because of the color of her
skin.
Against all odds, Fannie Davis uplifted her family and community by
earning her living as a numbers runner, supporting Black life in the time of
red lining--a story that illuminates the tragedy and triumph inherent in such
an enterprise.
I loved this book because it taught me about an important slice
of American history and because it is a testament to the power of women in
general and Black women in particular.
As seen on the Today Show: This true story of an unforgettable mother, her devoted daughter, and their life in the Detroit numbers of the 1960s and 1970s highlights "the outstanding humanity of black America" (James McBride).
In 1958, the very same year that an unknown songwriter named Berry Gordy borrowed $800 to found Motown Records, a pretty young mother from Nashville, Tennessee, borrowed $100 from her brother to run a numbers racket out of her home. That woman was Fannie Davis, Bridgett M. Davis's mother.
Part bookie, part banker, mother, wife, and granddaughter of slaves, Fannie ran her numbers…
Arriving in a rain-swept
city after a solo bus journey, eighteen-year-old Talia’s world breaks wide
open. Soon, she is chasing chickens, telling bad jokes to a prospective boss,
fielding a roommate’s insults about her décor, all the while homesick for a place
that never existed. Funny, harsh, touching, and uniquely observant, Talia
speaks to the reader as if to a best friend.
In a chance encounter, Talia
meets George, a young man whose passion for building sailboats sparks a
conversation that leads to much more.
When a sailing job takes George away to
Mexico, Talia struggles with ghosts from her troubled past until a growing
faith in herself brings her to a bold decision, stepping into the unknown in a
way she never has before.
