My Year Off
My Year Off

Author: Robert McCrum

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Published: 2015-06-18

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 1447289277

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

With an introduction by Henry Marsh, author of Do No Harm My brain, which had just let me down so badly, was perhaps never so active. The paramedics' question was a fundamental one. Who are you? Yes indeed. Who am I? Robert McCrum was forty-two when he suffered a massive stroke which left one side of his body totally paralysed, his speech drastically impaired, and his sense of himself radically altered. What followed was a prolonged period of recovery, full of heart ache and frustration, as he gradually regained sensation, movement and self-esteem and as his family pulled together in the extraordinary effort necessary to make him well again. My Year Off is a moving story of determination, courage and love that sings with wit and honesty. An invaluable insight into the reality of life after stroke, the moments of hope, the anger and despair, this is a touching classic that gives voice to millions.

A Year Off
A Year Off

Author: Alexandra Brown

Publisher: Chronicle Books

Published: 2018-09-18

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 145216469X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In this mix of memoir, guidebook, and travelogue, a married couple documents the year they took off from work and traveled the world together. Wait for me . . . Who knew these three words said to a near stranger would start an international travel adventure? A Year Off is one part memoir, one part travel essays and one part travel guide, documenting the story of Alexandra and David Brown, a couple who decided to take a year off from their jobs and “regular lives” to travel the world together after only knowing each other for four months. Each chapter tackles a different part of the journey, including: -Practical takeaways for how to take the same leap and travel, like tips on budgeting, planning, pacing and adjusting to culture shock -A look into David and Alexandra’s story as they traveled the world together and got to know one another -Colorful memories of their travels, like a dramatic kayak ride in Milford Sound, New Zealand, an emotional evening in India, a life-changing meal in the Loire Valley, France, a hilarious makeover in Romania . . . and many more This inspiring book is for all the dreamers, would-be adventurers and endearingly practical professionals looking to scratch the travel itch. With many gorgeous photographs and actionable travel advice, A Year Off captures all the beauty and magic of the wanderlust spirit, guiding readers on how to take the same leap and showing them just how doable a journey this type of round-the-world travel is. Praise for A Year Off “In A Year Off married couple Alexandra and David Brown chronicle a trip around the world and provide advice for travelers who may want to follow in their footsteps. Filled with personal stories, useful takeaways, beautiful photos and great design, chapters like “Identity Crisis” and “Financial Freak-outs” make it clear that the Browns haven’t airbrushed their story.” —BookPage “Have you ever dreamed of quitting the rat race and taking a year off—and then swiftly jolted back to reality? If so, A Year Off will give you the inspiration and the courage to make it happen in real life.” —The Independent

One Year Off
One Year Off

Author: David Elliot Cohen

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2015-06-16

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 1504014006

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Have you ever wanted to take a year off from your life? A meandering, serendipitous journey around the world with your family? It sounds impossible. But one day, David Elliot Cohen, co-creator of the bestselling Day in the Life and America 24/7 book series, decided to make this dream a reality. Over the course of six months, he and his wife sold their house, cars, and most of their possessions. He closed his business and pulled their three young children out of school. With only a suitcase, a backpack, and a passport per person, the Cohen family set off on a rollicking round-the-world journey filled with laugh-out-loud mishaps, heart-pounding adventures, and unforeseen epiphanies. In Botswana, the Cohens’s tiny motorboat is charged by a hippo. In Zimbabwe, lions ambush a buffalo outside the family’s tent. In Australia, their young daughter is caught in a riptide and nearly pulled out to sea. In One Year Off, you can join the family on a trek up a Costa Rican volcano, cruise the canals of Burgundy by houseboat, and ride ferries through the Greek Islands. Later, as the Cohens wander further off the tourist trail, you can drive through the villages of Rajasthan, traverse the vast Australian Nullarbor, and discover the charms of Cambodia’s Angkor Wat and the hidden shangri-las of northern Laos. Over the course of these adventures, the Cohens learn to live as a family twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and enjoy a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to spend time together without the distractions of modern life. The author rediscovers the world through his children’s eyes and gains new perspective of his own life. This humorous, heartfelt story is the next best thing to taking the trip yourself

Mirror, Mirror Off the Wall
Mirror, Mirror Off the Wall

Author: Kjerstin Gruys

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2014-07-01

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 158333548X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A scholar and bride-to-be spends a year without mirrors to get a better view of what really matters When Kjerstin Gruys became engaged, she was thrilled—until it was time to shop for a wedding dress. Having overcome an eating disorder years before, Gruys found herself struggling to maintain a positive self-image; so she decided to refocus her attention. Mirror, Mirror Off the Wall charts Gruys’s awakening as she vows to give up mirrors and other reflective surfaces, relying on friends and her fiancé to help her gauge both her appearance and outlook on life. The result? A renewed focus on what truly matters, regardless of smeared makeup or messy hair. With humorous and poignant scenes from Gruys’ life, Mirror, Mirror Off the Wall sparks important conversations about body image and reclaiming the power to define beauty.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation
My Year of Rest and Relaxation

Author: Ottessa Moshfegh

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2018-07-10

Total Pages: 189

ISBN-13: 0525522123

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

From one of our boldest, most celebrated new literary voices, a novel about a young woman's efforts to duck the ills of the world by embarking on an extended hibernation with the help of one of the worst psychiatrists in the annals of literature and the battery of medicines she prescribes Our narrator should be happy, shouldn't she? She's young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn't just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It's the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong? My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful answer to that question. Through the story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world, Moshfegh shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, it is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers.

The Year of Magical Thinking
The Year of Magical Thinking

Author: Joan Didion

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2007-02-13

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0307279723

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • From one of America’s iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion that explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage—and a life, in good times and bad—that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child. Several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill with what seemed at first flu, then pneumonia, then complete septic shock. She was put into an induced coma and placed on life support. Days later—the night before New Year’s Eve—the Dunnes were just sitting down to dinner after visiting the hospital when John Gregory Dunne suffered a massive and fatal coronary. In a second, this close, symbiotic partnership of forty years was over. Four weeks later, their daughter pulled through. Two months after that, arriving at LAX, she collapsed and underwent six hours of brain surgery at UCLA Medical Center to relieve a massive hematoma. This powerful book is Didion’ s attempt to make sense of the “weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness ... about marriage and children and memory ... about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself.

Book 1: Escaping the Fire
Book 1: Escaping the Fire

Author: Emma Bland Smith

Publisher: ABDO

Published: 2019-08-01

Total Pages: 51

ISBN-13: 1532135661

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

It's the last week of summer vacation. Gavin McNally's parents announce the family is taking the following year off to travel the country in an RV! One night in a California campground, Gavin sees a red glow in the distance. Fire! The McNallys must make quick decisions to get to safety. Just as they think they're in the clear, they find an abandoned dog. Do they have time to rescue her and still escape the fire? Aligned to Common Core standards and correlated to state standards. Spellbound is an imprint of Magic Wagon, a division of ABDO.

The Tao of Martha
The Tao of Martha

Author: Jen Lancaster

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2014-05-06

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 045141764X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

One would think that with her impressive list of bestselling self-improvement memoirs Jen Lancaster would have it all together by now. One would be wrong. After all, she’s no Martha Stewart. And that’s why Jen is going to Martha up and live her life according to the advice of America’s overachieving older sister—the woman who turns lemons into lavender-infused lemonade. By immersing herself in Martha’s media empire, Jen embarks on a yearlong quest to take herself, her house, her husband (and maybe even her pets) to the next level—from closet organization to party planning. Maybe Jen can avoid food poisoning if she follows Martha’s dictates on proper storage. Maybe she can rid her workout clothes of meatball stains by using Martha’s laundry tips. Maybe she can create a more meaningful anniversary celebration than getting drunk in the pool with her husband. Again. And maybe she’ll discover that the key to happiness does, in fact, lie in Martha’s perfectly arranged cupboards and charcuterie platters.

The Bright Hour
The Bright Hour

Author: Nina Riggs

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2017-06-06

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1501169351

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"Built on her ... Modern Love column, 'When a Couch is More Than a Couch' (9/23/2016), a ... memoir of living meaningfully with 'death in the room' by the 38-year-old great-great-great granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson--mother to two young boys, wife of 16 years--after her terminal cancer diagnosis"--

Men in My Situation
Men in My Situation

Author: Per Petterson

Publisher: Graywolf Press

Published: 2022-02-01

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 1644451654

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A tender, merciless portrait of a life going to pieces by the internationally acclaimed author of Out Stealing Horses. Men in My Situation, Per Petterson’s evocative and moving new novel, finds Arvid Jansen in a tailspin, unable to process the grief of losing his parents and brothers in a tragic ferry accident. In the aftermath, Arvid’s wife, Turid, divorced him and took their three daughters with her. One year later, Arvid still hasn’t recovered. He spends his time drinking, falling into fleeting relationships with women, and driving around in his Mazda. When Turid unexpectedly calls for a ride home from the train station, he has to face the life they’ve made without him. Critics have already hailed Men in My Situation as the equal of Petterson’s international bestseller Out Stealing Horses, in part for his unflinching portrayal of Arvid’s dark night of the soul. In this moment of faltering hope and despair, Arvid’s daughter Vigdis—who he’s always felt understood him best—has a crisis of her own and reaches out. Now he must find a way to respond to someone who, after everything, still needs him. Reaching the heights of Petterson’s best work, Men in My Situation is a heartrending, indelible story from a celebrated author.