I’ve always been interested in what drives people, their passions, and whether or not they’ve gone after them. I love it when something inspires them to emerge from a dormant state and give it their all. Show me a person who graduates from college at 85 or skydives at 99. Those people are inspiring! People go through the most incredible situations and use them as fuel for their lives. I funneled all of this into my latest novel. It’s a universal story that’s singular only to the person going through it. We can all take something positive away from this type of story.
By any measure, Whoopi Goldberg has had an incredible career and life.
She’s an EGOT – Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony winner. Rare indeed! Nothing in her upbringing would have led anyone to believe she was destined to become a huge star. That is, except for her mom’s belief in her and her raw talent.
Now, in the wake of the deaths of both her mother and her brother, Whoopi shares the family dynamic that propelled her past any dreams she might have had, despite steep odds against her in the entertainment world.
An instant New York Times and USA Today bestseller!From multi-award winner Whoopi Goldberg comes a new and unique memoir of her family and their influence on her early life.If it weren't for Emma Johnson, Caryn Johnson would have never become Whoopi Goldberg. Emma gave her children the loving care and wisdom they needed to succeed in life, always encouraging them to be true to themselves. When Whoopi lost her mother in 2010--and then her older brother, Clyde, five years later--she felt deeply alone; the only people who truly knew her were gone.Emma raised her children not just to survive, but…
I can probably find a way to put this novel into every book category there is – I love it that much!
Elizabeth Zott is a brilliant chemist in the 1960s, a time when society accepted that only men could be brilliant or chemists. But through a series of opportunities and her defiance in the face of attempts to marginalize her, Elizabeth becomes a de facto leader of a small but mighty group of women who change their circumstances and thereby begin to change the world.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK • Meet Elizabeth Zott: a “formidable, unapologetic and inspiring” (PARADE) scientist in 1960s California whose career takes a detour when she becomes the unlikely star of a beloved TV cooking show in this novel that is “irresistible, satisfying and full of fuel. It reminds you that change takes time and always requires heat” (The New York Times Book Review).
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, Oprah Daily, Newsweek, GoodReads
"A unique heroine ... you'll find yourself wishing she wasn’t fictional." —Seattle Times
Sarah Polley’s success as an actor, writer, and director is well documented.
This book contains an essay about navigating her way through and past post-concussion syndrome. Although it’s not the entire point of this essay collection, in my mind, it’s the most powerful and persuasive part. It’s also where the title comes from.
Although I didn’t share her exact diagnosis, the lessons she learned from medical experts, applied to my own life, were transformative. Polley is a great writer, and the entire book is excellent.
FROM OSCAR-WINNING DIRECTOR AND SCREENWRITER OF WOMEN TALKING
'Fascinating, harrowing, courageous, and deeply felt... speaks to all who have encountered dark waters and have had to navigate them' MARGARET ATWOOD
Sarah Polley's work as an actor, screenwriter and director is celebrated for its honesty, complexity and deep humanity. She brings all those qualities, along with her exquisite storytelling skills, to these six essays. Each one captures a piece of Polley's life as she remembers it, while at the same time examining the fallibility of memory and the embodied reactions of children and women adapting and surviving. The guiding…
Mental illness, not thinking the way others do, seeing the world through your own lens, can be a superpower.
Just ask stand-up comedian Maria Bamford. Her quirky and unique comedy style comes to life in these pages as she navigates being “different” while cultivating an enviable career in entertainment.
She has tried everything to fit into society. She shares what works (or whether it even matters anymore) in this memoir. She’s a hoot.
From "weird, scary, ingenious" (The New York Times) stand-up comedian Maria Bamford, a brutally honest and hilariously frenetic memoir about show business, mental health, and the comfort of rigid belief systems-from Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People, to Suzuki violin training, to Richard Simmons, to 12-step programs.
Maria Bamford is a comedian's comedian (an outsider among outsiders) and has forever fought to find a place to belong. From struggling with an eating disorder as a child of the 1980s, to navigating a career in the arts (and medical debt and psychiatric institutionalization), she has tried just about…
Not much was known about Christina Applegate’s life story, and that’s the way she wanted it.
Now, stricken with MS and her acting career all but shelved for good, she’s telling everything. From a childhood with horrifying trauma to terrible, abusive relationships and ultimately a happy family life, she tells us all those things she kept to herself over the years.
Kelly Bundy was about as far from Christina Applegate’s own life as you can get. People don’t always get what they want. Sometimes they get a lot more.
'Candor and intelligence thread throughout her memoir ... Applegate evokes the hijinks of fame - there are more celebrity cameos here than in a Josh Safdie film - as well as her journey through chronic illness' Time
'Blunt ... without a filter ... not a safe, prim thing. It's raw and angry, lyrical and funny, and more than a bit dangerous. [Christina Applegate] charts the personal and career ups and downs of a veteran Hollywood comic actor with a rawness rarely found in today's memoirs...' Washington Post
Melanie Watson thought her dreams were behind her. For most of her life, she did what was expected. She put family first, took the practical path, and convinced herself that some dreams weren’t meant to be. Then she discovers something she can’t explain. As one impossible event leads to another, Melanie is forced to question everything she thought she knew about herself and the opportunities she thought she’d lost forever.
Little Voices is a story about second chances, hidden possibilities, and finding the courage to begin again.
A mother daughter sister story set in Southern California in the 1990's. It starts on the night of the O.J. Simpson slow speed freeway chase. The Simpson case provides background noise for the novel, but the story is not about Simpson. It's about a woman whose life is falling apart.
Charley Byrne isn’t really living. She hunkers down in her apartment above the bookstore she manages, until quirky activist Xander Wallace lures her out of social exile with the prospect of friendship and romance. Charley joins Xander’s circle of diverse friends and thrives, even leaving her comfort zone to join…
