A woman discovers her marriage is built on an illusion in this harrowing and ultimately inspiring memoir. “Be forewarned: You won’t sleep until you finish the last page.”—Caroline Leavitt, author of Cruel Beautiful World One night. One email. Two realities... Before: Jen Waite has met the partner of her dreams. A handsome, loving man who becomes part of her family, evolving into her husband, her best friend, and the father of her infant daughter. After: A disturbing email sparks suspicion, leading to an investigation of who this man really is and what was really happening in their marriage. In alternating Before and After chapters, Waite obsessively analyzes her relationship, trying to find a single moment form the past five years that isn't part of the long con of lies and manipulation. Instead, she finds more lies, infidelity, and betrayal than she could have imagined. With the pacing and twists of a psychological thriller, A Beautiful, Terrible Thing looks at how a fairy tale can become a nightmare and what happens when “it could never happen to me” actually does.
Sherman Smith saw the most terrible thing happen. At first he tried to forget about it, but soon something inside him started to bother him. He felt nervous for no reason. Sometimes his stomach hurt. He had bad dreams. And he started to feel angry and do mean things, which got him in trouble. Then he met Ms. Maple, who helped him talk about the terrible thing that he had tried to forget. Now Sherman is feeling much better. This gently told and tenderly illustrated story is for children who have witnessed any kind of violent or traumatic episode, including physical abuse, school or gang violence, accidents, homicide, suicide, and natural disasters such as floods or fire. An afterword by Sasha J. Mudlaff written for parents and other caregivers offers extensive suggestions for helping traumatized children, including a list of other sources that focus on specific events.
It's 1895, and after the death of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma's reception there is a chilly one. To make things worse, she's being followed by a mysterious young Indian man, a man sent to watch her. But why? What is her destiny? And what will her entanglement with Spence's most powerful girls - and their foray into the spiritual world - lead to?
Bible scholar Christian Brady, an expert on Old Testament lament, was as prepared as a person could be for the death of a child—which is to say, not nearly well enough. When his eight-year-old son died suddenly from a fast-moving blood infection, Brady heard the typical platitudes about accepting God's will and knew that quiet acceptance was not the only godly way to grieve. With deep faith, knowledge of Scripture, and the wisdom that comes only from experience, Brady guides readers grieving losses and setbacks of all kinds in voicing their lament to God, reflecting on the nature of human existence, and persevering in hope. Brady finds that rather than an image of God managing every event and action in our lives, the biblical account describes the very real world in which we all live, a world full of hardship and calamity that often comes unbidden and unmerited. Yet, it also is a world into which God lovingly intrudes to bring comfort, peace, and grace.
"Struggling to raise her little brother Donal, eight-year-old Wavy is the only responsible adult around. Obsessed with the constellations, she finds peace in the starry night sky above the fields behind her house, until one night her star-gazing causes an accident. After witnessing his motorcycle wreck, she forms an unusual friendship with one of her father's thugs, Kellen, a tattooed ex-con with a heart of gold. By the time Wavy is a teenager, her relationship with Kellen is the only tender thing in a brutal world of addicts and debauchery"--
A tale of acceptance from the bestselling author of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Barnaby Brocket is an ordinary eight-year-old boy in most ways, but he was born different in one important way: he floats. Unlike everyone else, Barnaby does not obey the law of gravity. His parents, who have a fear of being noticed, want desperately for Barnaby to be normal, but he can't help who he is. And when the unthinkable happens, Barnaby finds himself on a journey that takes him all over the world. Drifting from Brazil to New York, from Canada to Ireland, and even to space, the floating boy meets all sorts of different people--and discovers who he really is along the way. This whimsical novel will delight middle-graders, while readers of all ages will find themselves questioning what it means to be "normal."
'There's never been a more honest or raw memoir ... and it may just save lives' Daily Mail 'Funny, fascinating, compelling ... also a wonderful read for fans of Friends' The Times The beloved star of Friends takes us behind the scenes of the hit sitcom and his struggles with addiction in this candid, funny, and revelatory memoir that delivers a powerful message of hope and persistence. This is the riveting story of acclaimed actor Matthew Perry, who takes us along on his journey from childhood ambition to fame to addiction and recovery in the aftermath of a life-threatening health scare. Before the frequent hospital visits and stints in rehab, there was five-year-old Matthew, who travelled from Montreal to Los Angeles, shuffling between his separated parents; fourteen-year-old Matthew, who was a nationally ranked tennis star in Canada; twenty-four-year-old Matthew, who nabbed a coveted role as a lead cast member on the talked-about pilot then called Friends Like Us. . . and so much more. In an extraordinary story that only he could tell - and in the heartfelt, hilarious, and warmly familiar way only he could tell it - Matthew Perry lays bare the fractured family that raised him (and also left him to his own devices), the desire for recognition that drove him to fame, and the void inside him that could not be filled even by his greatest dreams coming true. But he also details the peace he's found in sobriety and how he feels about the ubiquity of Friends, sharing stories about his castmates and other stars he met along the way. Frank, self-aware, and with his trademark humour, Perry vividly depicts his lifelong battle with addiction and what fuelled it despite seemingly having it all. Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing is an unforgettable memoir that is both intimate and eye-opening - as well as a hand extended to anyone struggling with sobriety. Unflinchingly honest, moving, and uproariously funny, this is the book fans have been waiting for. 'An unflinching and often harrowing must-read for 90s pop culture fans' Guardian 'Written with Chandler's trademark sarcasm and self-deprecation' Telegraph 'A hopeful read ... I started to think of [it] not as a celebrity memoir about addiction, but as an addiction memoir written by a man who understands his own history through the prism of showbiz' Independent
Around you the world is swirling - you pass through a submerged town; the bakery, a wheelbarrow, a bike floating on its side on the main street, its steeples and trees barely visible through the thick water. In the distance the wreck of the gunship HMS Elizabeth lolls on a sandbank a couple of miles from the shore. Oil slicks the canals of the capital and even now in the midst of the bombing, the old men still tell tales of mermaids in the shallows. A pool, empty of water save for a brackish puddle at one end that has escaped the summer heat. A mess of fine bones and hanks of fur - the remains of mice or possums that have tumbled in, lured perhaps by the water. Two boys stand by its edge, watching a stolen bracelet flash through the humid air into the deep end. In bestselling author Chris Womersley's first short fiction collection, twenty macabre and deliciously enjoyable tales linked by the trickle of water that runs through them all will keep readers spellbound until their final, unexpected and unsettling twist... LONGLISTED FOR THE COLIN RODERICK AWARD 2020 PRAISE FOR CHRIS WOMERSLEY 'By interweaving the trivial, the humorous and the grisliest of the grisly, Chris Womersley straps us in for a shivery ride.' New York Times 'Unrepentantly daring.' The Age 'Poetic and original.' The Monthly 'Brilliantly compelling.' Australian Women's Weekly 'A master storyteller.' Australian Book Review PRAISE FOR A LOVELY AND TERRIBLE THING 'Womersley has the chops to write prose that looks realist, then seamlessly turns vertiginously weird. His deployment of the macabre has sufficient restraint, his imagination sufficient turn, that these stories maintain the power to shock' The Australian 'There is a formal elegance to his writing, even when the language is vernacular and the settings are domestic. This creates gloomily atmospheric stories with creepy momentum that bring to mind shades of Shirley Jackson and Edgar Allan Poe, but these are not horror stories per se.' The Age 'These stories, published between 2006 and 2017, stand the test of time and assert Womersley as a powerful writer of the short form.... This collection is playful, and skips between the known and unknown, the palatable and uncomfortable. Like water, these stories are unpredictable, often turbulent, and contain great depth.' Readings Books 'The stories are weird and wonderful, heartbreaking and inspiring ... It's one with the lot.' Herald Sun 'A Lovely and Terrible Thing is a collection of taut, dark-edged, and very successful stories. Chris Womersley's novels have a well-deserved following, and this transition to short fiction will add to his readership and acclaim.' Australian Book Review 'There is a poetic lilt to Womersley's prose. And he certainly knows how to end a story. In this collection the excellent endings are masterful: some leave you contemplating what might happen even after the story ends; others effect a satisfactory full stop to the narrative.' Artshub
The best columns by the Pulitzer Prize–winning Chicago Tribune writer, on diverse topics like family, loss, mental health, advice, and the Windy City. Over the last two decades, Mary Schmich’s biweekly column in the Chicago Tribune has offered advice, humor, and discerning commentary on a broad array of topics including family, milestones, mental illness, writing, and life in Chicago. Schmich won the 2012 Pulitzer for Commentary for “her wide range of down-to-earth columns that reflect the character and capture the culture of her famed city.” This second edition—updated to include Schmich’s best pieces since its original publication—collects her ten Pulitzer-winning columns along with more than 150 others, creating a compelling collection that reflects Schmich’s thoughtful and insightful sensibility. The book is divided into thirteen sections, with topics focused on loss and survival, relationships, Chicago, travel, holidays, reading and writing, and more. Schmich’s 1997 “Wear Sunscreen” column (which has had a life of its own as a falsely attributed Kurt Vonnegut commencement speech) is included, as well as her columns focusing on the demolition of Chicago’s infamous Cabrini-Green housing project. One of the most moving sections is her twelve-part series with U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow, as the latter reflected on rebuilding her life after the horrific murders of her mother and husband. Schmich’s columns are both universal and deeply personal. The first section of this book is dedicated to columns about her mother, and her stories of coping with her mother’s aging and eventual death. Throughout the book, Schmich reflects wisely and wryly on the world we live in, and her fond observances of Chicago life bring the city in all its varied character to warm, vivid life.
Praised by The New York Times; O, The Oprah Magazine; Bitch Magazine; Slate; Publishers Weekly; and more, this is “a bracing corrective to a national mythology” (New York Times) around the civil rights movement. The civil rights movement has become national legend, lauded by presidents from Reagan to Obama to Trump, as proof of the power of American democracy. This fable, featuring dreamy heroes and accidental heroines, has shuttered the movement firmly in the past, whitewashed the forces that stood in its way, and diminished its scope. And it is used perniciously in our own times to chastise present-day movements and obscure contemporary injustice. In A More Beautiful and Terrible History award-winning historian Jeanne Theoharis dissects this national myth-making, teasing apart the accepted stories to show them in a strikingly different light. We see Rosa Parks not simply as a bus lady but a lifelong criminal justice activist and radical; Martin Luther King, Jr. as not only challenging Southern sheriffs but Northern liberals, too; and Coretta Scott King not only as a “helpmate” but a lifelong economic justice and peace activist who pushed her husband’s activism in these directions. Moving from “the histories we get” to “the histories we need,” Theoharis challenges nine key aspects of the fable to reveal the diversity of people, especially women and young people, who led the movement; the work and disruption it took; the role of the media and “polite racism” in maintaining injustice; and the immense barriers and repression activists faced. Theoharis makes us reckon with the fact that far from being acceptable, passive or unified, the civil rights movement was unpopular, disruptive, and courageously persevering. Activists embraced an expansive vision of justice—which a majority of Americans opposed and which the federal government feared. By showing us the complex reality of the movement, the power of its organizing, and the beauty and scope of the vision, Theoharis proves that there was nothing natural or inevitable about the progress that occurred. A More Beautiful and Terrible History will change our historical frame, revealing the richness of our civil rights legacy, the uncomfortable mirror it holds to the nation, and the crucial work that remains to be done. Winner of the 2018 Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize in Nonfiction
