Showing titles in Women

In 2009 Malala Yousafzai began writing a blog on BBC Urdu about life in the Swat Valley as the Taliban gained control, at times banning girls from attending school. When her identity was discovered, Malala began to appear in both Pakistani and international media, advocating the freedom to pursue education for all. In October 2012, gunmen boarded Malala's school bus and shot her in the face, a bullet passing through her head and into her shoulder. Remarkably, Malala survived the shooting. At a very young age, Malala Yousafzai has become a worldwide symbol of courage and hope.

This book follows Agrippina as a daughter born to the expected heir to Augustus’ throne and who was then orphaned; as a sister to Caligula, who raped his sisters and showered them with honours until they attempted rebellion against him and were exiled; as a seductive niece and then wife to Claudius, who gave her access to near unlimited power; and then as a mother to Nero, who adored her until he killed her. She was 44 when she died.

A consummate insider as the girlfriend of Lindsey Buckingham, Fleetwood Mac singer and guitarist, Carol Ann Harris leads fans into the very heart of the band's storms between 1976 and 1984. From interactions between the band and other stars - Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, and Dennis Wilson - to the chaotic animosity between band members, this memoir combines the sensational account of some of the world's most famous musicians with a thrilling love story. The parties, fights, drug use, shenanigans, and sex lives of Fleetwood Mac are presented in intimate detail.

A quarter of a century after the plane crash that claimed the lives of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn, and her sister Lauren, the magnitude of this tragedy remains fresh. Yet, Carolyn is still an enigmatic figure, a woman whose life in the spotlight was besieged with misogyny and cruelty. Elizabeth Beller explores the real person behind the tabloid headlines and media frenzy. When she began dating America’s prince, Carolyn was increasingly thrust into an overwhelming spotlight filled with relentless paparazzi who reacted to her reserve with a campaign of harassment and vilification.

A Wisdom of Age was sparked by the many conversations Jacinta Parsons has had recently with older women right around the country about the experience of being a woman and ageing. Over the course of these encounters, it became clear to Jacinta that the conversation about ageing for women is alive and bubbling with a kind of excitement – that is, women are ready to do ageing differently. For this audiobook, Jacinta mines wisdom directly from those who know how to do it well, those older women who say, This is what feels good.

Lit follows Mary Karr's descent into the inferno of alcoholism and madness - and her astonishing resurrection. Karr's longing for a solid family seems secure when her marriage to a handsome, Shakespeare-quoting poet produces a son they adore. But she can't outrun her apocalyptic past. She drinks herself into the same numbness that nearly devoured her charismatic but troubled mother, reaching the brink of suicide. A hair-raising stint in "The Mental Marriott" awakens her to the possibility of joy, and leads her to an unlikely faith.

This is my story, from a crumbling apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to the stage in New York City, and beyond. This is the path I took to finding my purpose and my strength, but also to finding my voice in a world that didn't always see me. As I wrote Finding Me, my eyes were open to the truth of how our stories are often not given close examination. They are bogarted, reinvented to fit into a crazy, competitive, judgmental world. So I wrote this for anyone who is searching for a way to understand and overcome a complicated past, let go of shame and find acceptance.

Jacinta Parsons believes that midlife is a crucial reckoning with despair and hope, a time when you are naked in the centre of the world and no one notices or perhaps cares to look. Midlife is a time when you take stock—to look back and understand how you were made as a woman, and to look forward into the future, to see how you might unmake yourself to live the life that perhaps you should be living.

One of the most beautiful and brilliant women of her time, Gladys Deacon dazzled as much as she puzzled the glittering social circles in which she moved. Born in Paris to American parents in 1881, she suffered a traumatic childhood after her father shot her mother's lover dead. Educated in America, she returned to Europe, where she captivated and inspired some of the greatest literary and artistic names of the Belle Époque.

What would you do if your husband suddenly left you with two kids to support? Go back to school? Go into real estate? Or start a new career as a pimp? Upon discovering that sex work is decriminalised in New Zealand, Antonia Murphy decides to build her own business: an ethical escort agency. It seems like a good idea, but she isn’t sure how it’s done, so she connects with the online sex worker community.

More than 400 years after her death, Mary Queen of Scots remains one of the most romantic and controversial figures in British history. Antonia Fraser's classic biography of her won the James Tait Prize when it was first published in 1969. It became an international best-seller and was translated into nine languages.

"I was one of 28 children born to my dad and his three wives. Indoctrinated to believe that the outside world was evil, and that I resided among the righteous, I was destined to marry a man chosen for me by the Prophet. I would then live in harmony with my sister-wives, bear many children, and obey and serve my future husband in this life and throughout eternity. But my innocence didn't last long." Flora goes on from there to tell the dramatic true story of how she ultimately escaped and has been rescuing women and children from the FLDS.

The first book from Ruth Bader Ginsburg since becoming a Supreme Court Justice in 1993 - a witty, engaging, serious, and playful collection of writings and speeches from the woman who has had a powerful and enduring influence on law, women's rights, and popular culture. My Own Words is a selection of writings and speeches by Justice Ginsburg on wide-ranging topics, including gender equality, the workways of the Supreme Court, on being Jewish, on law and lawyers in opera, and on the value of looking beyond US shores when interpreting the US Constitution.

Sharon Osbourne has lived - in her own words - 'fifty lives in fifty years'. As the daughter of notorious rock manager Don Arden, Sharon's childhood was a chaotic mix of glamour and violence, villains and diamonds. In rock star Ozzy Osbourne, Sharon found her soul mate, yet Ozzy's drug- and alcohol-fuelled excesses - which culminated in his attempt to strangle her - made their marriage a white-knuckle ride from the start; only her devotion to their three children gave her the will to survive.

Brunhild was a Visigothic princess, raised to be married off for the sake of alliance-building. Her sister-in-law, Fredegund, started out as a lowly palace slave. And yet - in sixth-century Merovingian France, where women were excluded from noble succession and royal politics was a blood sport - these two iron-willed strategists reigned over vast realms for decades, changing the face of Europe. The two queens commanded armies, developed taxation policies, established infrastructure and negotiated with emperors and popes.

Nancy Wake, nicknamed 'the white mouse' for her ability to evade capture, tells her own story. As the Gestapo's most wanted person, and one of the most highly decorated servicewomen of the war, it's a story worth telling. After living and working in Paris in the 1930's, Nancy married a wealthy Frenchman and settled in Marseilles. Her idyllic new life was ended by World War II and the invasion of France. Her life shattered, Nancy joined the French Resistance and, later, began work with an escape-route network for Allied soldiers.

Molly Roden Winter was a mother of small children with a husband, Stewart, who often worked late. One night when Stewart missed the kids’ bedtime—again—she stormed out of the house to clear her head. At a bar, she met Matt, a flirtatious younger man. When Molly told her husband that Matt had asked her out, she was surprised that Stewart encouraged her to accept. So began Molly’s unexpected open marriage and, with it, a life-changing journey of self-discovery. Molly signs up for dating sites, enters into passionate flings, and has sex in hotels and public places around New York City.

An intrepid voyage out to the frontiers of the latest thinking about love, language, and family. A timely and genre-bending memoir that offers fresh and fierce reflections on motherhood, desire, identity and feminism. At the centre of The Argonauts is the love story between Maggie Nelson and the artist Harry Dodge, who is fluidly gendered. As Nelson undergoes the transformations of pregnancy, she explores the challenges and complexities of mothering and queer family making.

At 24, life was good for Georgie Dent. After graduating with top marks she landed her dream job at a prestigious Sydney law firm and moved in with a boyfriend she adored. She had the world at her feet and no right to break. But she did. Badly. Within a year Georgie was unemployed, back living with her parents and suffering such crippling anxiety that she ended up in a psychiatric hospital. Breaking Badly is the story of a nervous breakdown in slow motion, a life that fell apart and what it took to put it back together again.

The amazing life story of Britain's world conquering triathlete, Chrissie Wellington. Chrissie Wellington is the world's No 1 female Ironman triathlete, the current quadruple World Champion and World Record holder. In 2009 she was voted 'Sunday Times Sportswoman of the Year' and in 2010 was awarded the MBE. She is the undefeated champion of Triathlon, having won nine Ironman titles from nine races.