African American Naomi Jefferson struggles to find success in her career and personal life, from her school and college days in the 1960's and 1970's into her professional life in the 1980's.
Journalist and Salon writer Rebecca Traister investigates the 2008 presidential election and its impact on American politics, women and cultural feminism. Examining the role of women in the campaign, from Clinton and Palin to Tina Fey and young voters, Traister confronts the tough questions of what it means to be a woman in today’s America. The 2008 campaign for the presidency reopened some of the most fraught American conversations—about gender, race and generational difference, about sexism on the left and feminism on the right—difficult discussions that had been left unfinished but that are crucial to further perfecting our union. Though the election didn’t give us our first woman president or vice president, the exhilarating campaign was nonetheless transformative for American women and for the nation. In Big Girls Don’t Cry, her electrifying, incisive and highly entertaining first book, Traister tells a terrific story and makes sense of a moment in American history that changed the country’s narrative in ways that no one anticipated. Throughout the book, Traister weaves in her own experience as a thirtysomething feminist sorting through all the events and media coverage—vacillating between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and questioning her own view of feminism, the women’s movement, race and the different generational perspectives of women working toward political parity. Electrifying, incisive and highly entertaining, Big Girls Don’t Cry offers an enduring portrait of dramatic cultural and political shifts brought about by this most historic of American contests.
From the acclaimed bestselling authors of Living Large and A Whole Lotta Love come four romantic and sexy stories celebrating big, bold, and beautiful women. Includes stories by Hill, Brenda Jackson, Monica Jackson, and Francis Ray. Original.
Sometimes Mr. Right couldn't be more wrong… Thanks to a devastating revelation about her husband, Reenie Holbrook's once-perfect marriage is over. For eleven years she had the life she wanted—and now it's gone. Sometimes Mr. Wrong couldn't be more right… Reenie decides that the first step in recovering from her ordeal is to find work; after all, she has three young children to support. She's thrilled when she lands a job at Dundee High teaching history—until Isaac Russell, the man who triggered the unraveling of her marriage, accepts a temporary position teaching science. Then she's tempted to quit. Reenie doesn't care if the whole town admires Isaac…and she won't admit that, secretly, she admires him, too. She doesn't want to see him or his sister in "her" town. But a friendship with the most unlikely woman leads to a relationship with the most unlikely man….
Helene Thornton has lived a life of unequalled passion and hartache. In her fascinating memoirs she gives the definitive account of her daughter Paula Yates really was. From frail, lonely schoolgirl to voluptuous star of the stage and screen, wife, mother, lover, author and artist, in this dramtic autobiography. After a tough childhood in bleak post-war Blackpool where she suffered from bouts of debilitating sickness, at the hands of cruel bullies and from the impact of her mother's mential illness, Helene blossomed into a renowned beauty and went on to win Miss Blackpool 1954 where she first encountered TV producer and presenter Jess Yates. Joining the famous dancing troupe the Bluebell Girls, Helene toured Europe where she broke hearts and honed her dancing and acting skills before being reunited with Jess and embarking on a whirlwind and frequently steamy romance. After mere months, however, the fairy-tale marriage took a sinister and violent turn with Helene discovering one too many of Jess' secrets, and was forced to leave her husband with baby Paula in tow, as she battled life as a single mother, roaming Britain and then Europe in search of happiness and fulfillment. Writing candidly about the difficult mother-daughter relationship, Helene reveals her anguish at Paula's unsettled infancy and early signs of mental illness. She sets the record straight about one of Britain's best-loved - but least understood - stars, fondly recalling Paula's joy on meeting Bob Geldof, and writing of the childhood incidents that formed her relationships with family, friends and assoicates and the press. For the first time, she discusses the circumstances that lead to the revelation that Paula's true father was Hughie Green, and discloses the identities of some of her most cherished lovers. Explosive, moving, frank, but above all honest, Big Girls Don't Cry is a no-holds-barred account of the exciting highs and gut-wrenching lows of a life lived to a full.
When plus-sized beauty Isis and her sister, Egypt, start a new chapter of the Big Girls Book Club in Richmond, Virginia, they discover that drama follows them everywhere as they deal with family issues, scandalous new members, and betrayal.
Cousins Mari, Erica, Selena, and Gracie are inseparable. They aren't just family but best friends -- sharing secrets, traditions, and a fierce love for their abuelita. But their idyllic childhood ends when Mari's parents divorce, forcing her to move away. With Mari gone, the girls' tight-knit bond unravels.
Using the diary she kept as a teenager and through news accounts, Melba Pattillo Beals relives the harrowing year when she was selected as one of the first nine students to integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957.
'ONE OF OUR VERY BEST WRITERS' Sunday Times 'A tour de force' The Times 'Intoxicating' Daily Telegraph 'Devilishly delightful' New York Times Book Review 'Beautifully and compellingly written' Sunday Express 'Audacious' Times Literary Supplement The bestselling classic tale of a woman scorned, from a much-loved British author Ruth Patchett never thought of herself as particularly devilish. Rather the opposite in fact - simply a tall, not terribly attractive woman living a quiet life as a wife and mother in a respectable suburb. But when she discovers that her husband is having a passionate affair with the lovely romantic novelist Mary Fisher, she is so seized by envy that she becomes truly diabolic. Within weeks she has burnt down the family home, collected the insurance, made love to the local drunk and embarked on a course of destruction and revenge. A blackly comic satire of the war of the sexes, The Life and Loves of a She Devil is the fantasy of the wronged woman made real. PRAISE FOR FAY WELDON 'She's a Queen of Words' Caitlin Moran 'A national treasure' Literary Review 'The literary equivalent of a stiff drink, a dip in the Atlantic in January, a pep talk by a mildly sadistic coach' New York Times 'Times have changed and Weldon is one of the people who have changed them' The Times 'One of the great lionesses of modern English literature' Harper's Bazaar 'Fay Weldon's voice is as unmistakeable as her acerbic wit' Financial Times