Parenting Memoir

"One life I’ve lived was liminal—I was not what I had been, but I had yet to become what I will be.” In her memoir Crowded Tables and Bonus Tracks, Ashley McLain moves from an adopted child in 1970s Dallas to a pioneering environmental consultant who co-founded and sold a thriving company. At 53, she found the courage to search for her biological family, confronting questions of identity, belonging, and what it means to define “enough.

For years, Amy Thunig thought she knew all the details about the day she was born, often demanding that the story of her birth be retold. Years later, heavily pregnant with her own first child, she learns what really happened that day. It’s a tale that exemplifies many of the events of her early life, where circumstances sometimes dictated that things be slightly different from how they might seem–including what is meant by her dad being away for ‘work’ and why her legal last name differs from her family’s.

Victoria Vanstone grew up in 1980s England in a happy home full of laughter, booze and a disturbing amount of fancy-dress parties. From her youthful days downing cheap wine at the local park to dodging disastrous relationships and a messy run-in with a firework, her reliable mate alcohol was never far from reach. Eventually, Victoria found herself in Australia with a husband and a child on the way. After sobering up for her first pregnancy, becoming a boring, bottom-wiping, cleaning machine meant she soon returned to her binge-drinking ways.

In this moving narrative of resilience and pure love, three mothers share their experiences and learnings about life alongside autism. Kate Swenson, Adrian Wood and Carrie Cariello are from different parts of the country and backgrounds, but they were brought together by a singular experience...

This is the story of John McGahern's childhood - of his mother's death, his father's anger and bafflement, and of his own discovery of literature and his ambition to become a writer. At the heart of the book is an unembarrassed homage by a loving son to a woman who protected him and his sisters from his father's unpredictable moods. His joy in her presence is recovered with great lyrical tact.

After years of suffering multiple forms of abuse, a vulnerable young girl flees her home only to land straight into the arms of her biological father - a sexual predator. My Daddy the Pedophile tells the harrowing true story of a teenage girl’s affair with her manipulative sociopathic father. After a terrible dark secret comes to light, the real story unfolds and her courageous journey of healing begins.

"Like wildflowers growing by the side of a country road, we were innately beautiful, yet left to find our own way . . ."In this lyrically moving debut memoir set in the American South, Julie Edwards Jones reveals the profound ripple effects of growing up in a home shaped by mental illness, addiction, and instability. Woven with raw honesty and heart, this is the story of a mother's childhood trauma and its cascading effect on her own children-a legacy of financial crises, alcoholism, constant upheaval, and a life-altering disability.

Born into one of the wealthiest families in America—he was the youngest son of Standard Oil scion John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and the celebrated patron of modern art Abby Aldrich Rockefeller—David Rockefeller has carried his birthright into a distinguished life of his own. His dealings with...

This book is about the universal struggle between who we think we are and who we've actually become. It's about the fine line between being the life of the party and being destructively out of control. It's about learning that vulnerability isn't weakness and that sometimes the bravest thing you can do is admit you need help.

Based partly on the author's experience, partly on her in-depth interviews, and partly on a questionnaire she developed with psychologist Holly Barrett to which almost 600 women responded, Father Loss provides the clearest portrait yet of a very special group of women. As a group, they express their insecurities ("Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be able to love a man totally...because that would mean I didn't love my father anymore." - Leslie).

Brendan Murray redefines memoir in this haunting excavation of his own experiences as a child, teacher and parent to discover why imagination is so important throughout our lives. Why do some children grow up into happy lives, and others never make it? Brendan James Murray's childhood was one of...

When Kat Ward put down her pen after finishing the seventh book in her “KERI” series, she considered her mission complete. Nearly twenty years had passed since her therapist originally recommend writing as a means of healing her childhood wounds. And after taking listeners on a stomach-twisting journey through her hellish formative years, she was ready to look in the mirror again.

Unlimited” is an empowering story of an ordinary life suffocated by unrealised potential that unfolds as an extraordinary journey of personal transformation. The author's life story is marked by a pivotal decision at the age of 15, when he turned away from his boyhood dream of becoming a professional football player in England. Instead, he succumbed to cigarettes and alcohol, and often chose the easier road. For two decades, he carried the weight of "I could have", until, at 34, he embarked on a radical shift.

For more than two years, BBC Radio 4's The Archers ran a disturbing storyline centred on Helen Tichener's abuse at the hands of her husband Rob. Not the kind of abuse that leaves a bruise, but the sort of coercive control that breaks your spirit and makes it almost impossible to walk away. As she listened to the unfolding story, Helen Walmsley-Johnson was forced to confront her own agonising past. Helen's first husband controlled her life, from the people she saw to what was in her bank account.

Rewritten is a transformative guide for anyone who is learning to heal after heartbreak, rebuild their identity, and break the patterns that have held them back for years. Through poetry, vulnerable storytelling, and raw honesty, Emily Orta offers the truth so many of us forget: time doesn’t heal you, you do.

How much better would your world be if you deliberately trained and developed your confidence, competence, discipline, motivation, mental toughness, and more - like an elite member of the Special Operations community? Whether fighting the war against terrorism or applying their mentality and leadership principles in the marketplace and at home, this book is for anyone who wants to cultivate the champion mindset required to do more and win.

In this deeply human memoir, Lisa Plumb confronts the reality of being abused by those entrusted with her care, and how that harm continued to shape her life long after childhood ended. With clarity and courage, she traces her path through abuse, addiction, and survival, revealing how mental health, legal, and social systems meant to help instead compounded her trauma well into adulthood.“There was a time I couldn’t even imagine a life like this, stable, peaceful, purposeful. As a child, I knew only fear, confusion, and the ache of being unprotected.

"This is the third in Cohen’s series of published diaries, and I think they’re just the bee’s knees. In this one, he chronicles a year juggling Housewives, his precocious son, and a newborn daughter. There’s self-reflection, self-effacement, gossip, humor. I mean, there should be a...

Growing up with him was like being in my own war zone, living in perpetual fear of when the bombs would fall. I was terrified of becoming him, and in moments I could feel I might. He still lives within me grimly like some battered demon spright. And I’m fearful of his shadow. The rage, and his...

In the vein of The Noonday Demon and When Breath Becomes Air, a father's "remarkable and revelatory" account of navigating his own neurological decline while watching in wonder as his young daughter's brain activity blossoms, a stunning examination of neurology, loss, and the meaning of life...