My Wild and Sleepless Nights

Author: Clover Stroud
Publisher: Black Swan
ISBN: 9781784164119
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
'Raw, elemental and beautiful.' Telegraph 'This is quite simply the best book about motherhood I have ever read.' - Eleanor Mills in the Sunday Times Mother to five children, Clover Stroud has navigated family life across two decades, both losing and finding herself. In her touching, provocative and profoundly insightful book, she captures a sense of what motherhood really feels like - how intense, sensuous, joyful, boring, profound and dark it can be. My Wild and Sleepless Nights examines what it means to be a mother, and reveals with unflinching honesty the many conflicting emotions that this entails- the joy and the wonder, the loneliness and despair. MORE PRAISE FOR CLOVER STROUD- 'Clover's expertise is writing about family life in a way that feels both new and entirely familiar' - Pandora Sykes 'As tender, blazing, funny and unflinching as the love it describes. I want to give this triumphant book to every mother I know' - Rachel Joyce 'Stroud is always willing to rip open her very soul in order to reveal the truth about her life - and every time a woman tells the truth like this, it sets another woman free' - Elizabeth Gilbert 'I read in one greedy gulp and am still slightly reeling. Extraordinary writing... For mothers and those even vaguely interested in family dynamics it is fascinating' - Alexandra Heminsley Charting the course of one year, the first in her youngest child's life, Clover searches for answers to questions that many of us would be too afraid to admit to - not only about motherhood, but also about female sexuality and identity. Her story will speak to all mothers, and anyone about to embark on that journey.

The Wild Other

Author: Clover Stroud
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
ISBN: 1473630223
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 267

Book Description
'Extraordinary. I've never met anyone who has read it and doesn't rank it as one of their favourite books.' DOLLY ALDERTON 'So fierce and brave and visceral and raw - will stay with me forever. I loved it.' ELIZABETH GILBERT 'Full of heart, bravery and adventure.' AMY LIPTROT SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE Clover Stroud grew up in rural Wiltshire surrounded by animals and family. When she was just sixteen her adored mother had a horrific riding accident which left her permanently brain-damaged, and suddenly Clover was left to fend for herself. She embarked on an extraordinary journey to heal her broken heart, courting men and danger through two marriages and five children. The Wild Other is a grippingly honest account of love, sex and travelling to the darkest edges of human experience and back again. Powerful and deeply emotional, this is the story of an extraordinary life lived at its fullest. 'There is so much richly evoked life here... beautifully written.' Cathy Rentzenbrink, The Times 'This redemptive memoir will steal your heart; it will return it bruised but emboldened.' Mail on Sunday

Sleepless Nights

Author: Elizabeth Hardwick
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1590174380
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 145

Book Description
In Sleepless Nights a woman looks back on her life—the parade of people, the shifting background of place—and assembles a scrapbook of memories, reflections, portraits, letters, wishes, and dreams. An inspired fusion of fact and invention, this beautifully realized, hard-bitten, lyrical book is not only Elizabeth Hardwick’s finest fiction but one of the outstanding contributions to American literature of the last fifty years.

Wild Game

Author: Adrienne Brodeur
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
ISBN: 1328519031
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 255

Book Description
On a hot July night on Cape Cod, at the age of 14, Brodeur became a confidante to her mother's affair with her husband's closest friend. Malabar came to rely on her daughter to help, but when the affair had calamitous consequences for everyone involved, Brodeau was driven into a precarious marriage of her own, and then into a deep depression. In her memoir she examines how the people close to us can break our hearts simply because they have access to them, and the lies we tell in order to justify the choices we make. -- adapted from jacket

The Hungover Games

Author: Sophie Heawood
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316499056
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Book Description
This "funny, dark, and true" (Caitlin Moran) memoir is Bridget Jones's Diary for the Fleabag generation: What happens when you have an unplanned baby on your own in your mid-thirties before you've worked out how to look after yourself, let alone a child? This is the story of one woman's adventures in single motherhood. It's about what happens when Mr. Right isn't around so you have a baby with Mr. Wrong, a touring musician who tells you halfway through your pregnancy that he's met someone else, just after you've given up your LA life and moved back to England to attempt some kind of modern family life with him. So now you're six months along, sleeping on a friend's sofa in London, and waking up in the morning to a room full of taxidermied animals who seem to be staring at you. The Hungover Games about what it's like raising a baby on your own when you're more at home on the dance floor than in the kitchen. It's about how to invent the concept of the two-person family when you grew up in a traditional nuclear unit of four, and your kid's friends all have happily married parents too, and you are definitely not, in any way, ticking off the days until all those lovely couples get divorced. Unflinchingly honest, emotionally raw, and surprisingly sweet, The Hungover Games is the true story of what happens if you've been looking for love your whole life and finally find it where you least expect it.

How Do You Like Me Now?

Author: Holly Bourne
Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks
ISBN: 9781473667761
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
'The most perceptive book I have ever read about the female interior' DOLLY ALDERTON 'Identifiable, heart-breaking and wickedly funny. I'd say this is one of my favourite books of the year' GIOVANNA FLETCHER 'Bourne holds a mirror up to contemporary aspiration' SUNDAY TIMES ***** Everyone wants to be Tori Bailey. A straight-talking, bestselling author, she's inspired millions of women around the world with her self-help memoir and uplifting posts online. What's more, her perfect relationship with her long-term boyfriend is the envy of all their friends. But Tori isn't being honest. While everyone around her is getting engaged and having babies, Tori's boyfriend will barely look at her, let alone talk about marriage. And when her best friend Dee unexpectedly falls in love, suddenly Tori's in danger of being left behind. Tori's built a career out of telling women how to live their best life, but is she brave enough to admit it's not what she wants? ***** The debut adult novel by bestselling author Holly Bourne is a blisteringly funny, honest and moving exploration of love, friendship and navigating the emotional rollercoaster of your thirties. Everyone is raving about this book! Brutally honest, appallingly funny and very moving - so accurate on the female interior, and the loneliness life in the public gaze. I want to read everything Holly Bourne has written now' ROSIE WALSH 'It'll resonate with anyone trying to convince themselves that sticking it out is better than being alone.' EMERALD STREET 'Relatable for any woman navigating emotional time bombs' RED 'It speaks so many truths about being a woman in your thirties; friendships, love and what a fickle beast social media can be. ' CLEMMIE HOOPER 'Hilarious and painfully true' GRAZIA 'Sure toresonate with anyone navigating the emotional minefield of their thirties'RED ONLINE 'Funny, real and heartbreaking. I haven't been this obsessed with a book in years.' LUCY VINE 'Injected with such reality it can't help but be hilarious'TIMES 'A very funny novel that lives up to its hype' THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

The Wild Edge of Sorrow

Author: Francis Weller
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1583949763
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Book Description
The work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and be stretched large by them. As seen on All There Is with Anderson Cooper Noted psychotherapist Francis Weller provides an essential guide for navigating the deep waters of sorrow and loss in this lyrical yet practical handbook for mastering the art of grieving. Describing how Western patterns of amnesia and anesthesia affect our capacity to cope with personal and collective sorrows, Weller reveals the new vitality we may encounter when we welcome, rather than fear, the pain of loss. Through moving personal stories, poetry, and insightful reflections he leads us into the central energy of sorrow, and to the profound healing and heightened communion with each other and our planet that reside alongside it. The Wild Edge of Sorrow explains that grief has always been communal and illustrates how we need the healing touch of others, an atmosphere of compassion, and the comfort of ritual in order to fully metabolize our grief. Weller describes how we often hide our pain from the world, wrapping it in a secret mantle of shame. This causes sorrow to linger unexpressed in our bodies, weighing us down and pulling us into the territory of depression and death. We have come to fear grief and feel too alone to face an encounter with the powerful energies of sorrow. Those who work with people in grief, who have experienced the loss of a loved one, who mourn the ongoing destruction of our planet, or who suffer the accumulated traumas of a lifetime will appreciate the discussion of obstacles to successful grief work such as privatized pain, lack of communal rituals, a pervasive feeling of fear, and a culturally restrictive range of emotion. Weller highlights the intimate bond between grief and gratitude, sorrow and intimacy. In addition to showing us that the greatest gifts are often hidden in the things we avoid, he offers powerful tools and rituals and a list of resources to help us transform grief into a force that allows us to live and love more fully.

Operating Instructions

Author: Anne Lamott
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307761037
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Book Description
With the same brilliant combination of humor and warmth she brought to bestseller Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott gives us a smart, funny, and comforting chronicle of single motherhood. It’s not like she’s the only woman to ever have a baby. At thirty-five. On her own. But Anne Lamott makes it all fresh in her now-classic account of how she and her son and numerous friends and neighbors and some strangers survived and thrived in that all important first year. From finding out that her baby is a boy (and getting used to the idea) to finding out that her best friend and greatest supporter Pam will die of cancer (and not getting used to that idea), with a generous amount of wit and faith (but very little piousness), Lamott narrates the great and small events that make up a woman’s life. "Lamott has a conversational style that perfectly conveys her friendly, self-depricating humor." -- Los Angeles Times Book Review "Lamott is a wonderfully lithe writer .... Anyone who has ever had a hard time facing a perfectly ordinary day will identify." -- Chicago Tribune

Wild Nights

Author: Benjamin Reiss
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465094856
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Book Description
Why the modern world forgot how to sleep Why is sleep frustrating for so many people? Why do we spend so much time and money managing and medicating it, and training ourselves and our children to do it correctly? In Wild Nights, Benjamin Reiss finds answers in sleep's hidden history -- one that leads to our present, sleep-obsessed society, its tacitly accepted rules, and their troubling consequences. Today we define a good night's sleep very narrowly: eight hours in one shot, sealed off in private bedrooms, children apart from parents. But for most of human history, practically no one slept this way. Tracing sleep's transformation since the dawn of the industrial age, Reiss weaves together insights from literature, social and medical history, and cutting-edge science to show how and why we have tried and failed to tame sleep. In lyrical prose, he leads readers from bedrooms and laboratories to factories and battlefields to Henry David Thoreau's famous cabin at Walden Pond, telling the stories of troubled sleepers, hibernating peasants, sleepwalking preachers, cave-dwelling sleep researchers, slaves who led nighttime uprisings, rebellious workers, spectacularly frazzled parents, and utopian dreamers. We are hardly the first people, Reiss makes clear, to chafe against our modern rules for sleeping. A stirring testament to sleep's diversity, Wild Nights offers a profound reminder that in the vulnerability of slumber we can find our shared humanity. By peeling back the covers of history, Reiss recaptures sleep's mystery and grandeur and offers hope to weary readers: as sleep was transformed once before, so too can it change today.

The Last Illusion

Author: Porochista Khakpour
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1620403048
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Book Description
A kaleidoscopic tale inspired by a legend from the medieval Persian epic "Book of Kings" follows the coming-of-age of a feral Middle Eastern youth in New York City on the eve of the September 11 attacks. By the award-winning author of Sons and Other Flammable Objects. 25,000 first printing.