Showing results for "life" in Diaries & Journals

From her mooring in Macclesfield in the north-west of England to the storied Bristol Channel, Jo invites listeners to join her on a 30-day odyssey, beginning with the end of a tempestuous relationship and echoing a journey previously taken by LTC Rolt, a legendary engineer and advocate of the waterways.

The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon is a fascinating, detailed account of Japanese court life in the closing years of the 10th century. Written by a lady of the court at the height of Heian culture, this book enthrals with its lively gossip, witty observations and subtle impressions. Lady Shōnagon was an erstwhile rival of Lady Murasaki, whose novel, The Tale of Genji, fictionalized the elite world Lady Shōnagon so eloquently relates.

When Delia's beloved first husband, Jerry, died of cancer in 2015, after 35 years of marriage, she struggled without him. Focusing on the day-to-day, she decided to make one small move forward and cancel Jerry's dedicated landline. This spiralled into days of frustration, prompting Delia to turn to words to process her grief and bewilderment. Her New York Times piece about the woes of customer service caught the eye of Peter, who emailed to commiserate.

UG Krishnamurti has been called the ‘anti-guru’, the ‘raging sage’ and the ‘thinker who shuns thought’. UG does not give lectures, has no organizations, does not write books, holds no gatherings and peddles no mantras. Yet he is the most talked-about thinker in India. This biography, that topped best-seller lists for nine months after it was first published, uravels the man who talks of enlightenment as a neurobiological state of being, utterly free of religious, psychological or mystical implications.

A Lowcountry Heart: Reflections on a Writing Life by Pat Conroy is a new nonfiction collection of letters, interviews, and magazine articles spanning Conroy's long literary career, supplemented by touching pieces from the beloved author's many friends. The book collects some of Conroy's most charming pieces of short nonfiction, many of them addressed directly to his listeners, with his habitual greeting: "Hey, out there".

Diaries hold all manner of things: they allow us a moment to be completely personal, to self-aggrandise, to focus on self-reflection without concern of what someone on the outside might think. Discovered or published diaries of the past have also provided glimpses into history, eras and minds gone by, especially the inner lives otherwise unknown.

A hungry pythoness on the prowl for Eternal Truth ... Why you should choose me over my competition is because I write from my experience that comes from being exposed to both the eastern and western style of living, where in the first half of my life it was east while the other half of my life in the west, which means it puts the burden of being that missing link that is needed to unite the east and the west!

Dark night of the soul, spirituality, ascension. These were all new concepts to KR. A whole new world had opened up to him. Willing to explore this new world, KR embraced the future with an open mind. And then there was Theresa, the catalyst that awakened him, sending him on a quest for answers that led him to a juncture of two paths, where anything could be manifested.

How does one record an extraordinary time? Confined to his Delhi apartment, Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee unravels the intimate paradoxes of the life he encounters in the first weeks of a global pandemic. His stories about local fish sellers, gardeners, barbers, and lovers merge with his concerns for the exodus of migrant labourers, the challenges faced by health workers, and a mother braving check posts to bring her son home.

James Tully's father is dead, like "Jesus dead and door nailed". His fiancée has moved out, and his world is as rootless as a fallen tree. He will travel home along the river that bound him and that bound his father to the constant rain and the residue of his past, to the last days of his father’s life long suicide, what seemed to kill them both. James is a product of his past, of his parents’ push and pull.

Meet Anne Lister, the 18th-century landowner, industrialist, explorer, lesbian and feminist icon. This is her story.... Anne was different from society’s expectations of a woman at the time: she not only did not wish to marry, but she also did not want to conform. Anne was interested only in women and had ‘marriage’ ceremonies with Mariana Lawton and later Ann Walker. She spent a great deal of time studying, managed her own estates, sought business opportunities, travelled widely and climbed mountains.