Words Memoir

Born into a household ruled by generational trauma, this memoir chronicles one woman’s journey from childhood abuse and self-loathing to healing and self-mastery. Raised by a narcissistic mother and a passive father, she endured years of emotional and physical abuse, leaving her insecure, hypervigilant, and grappling with complex PTSD. At age 40, fate intervened, setting her on a 12-year path to confront the roots of her pain—in past lives, DNA, and deeply buried trauma—and to spiritually awaken.

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.

Winston Churchill understood and wielded the power of words throughout his six decades in the public eye. His wartime writings and speeches revealed both his vision for the future and his own personal feelings, fascinating generation after generation with their powerful style and thoughtful reflection. In this book Churchill's official biographer, Martin Gilbert, has skilfully selected 200 extracts from his entire oeuvre of books, articles and speeches that reflect his life story, career and philosophy.

Do you have strong feelings about the word “irregardless”? Have you ever tried to define the word “is”? Brimming with intelligence and personality, this vastly entertaining account of how dictionaries are made is a must-read for word mavens. Many of us take dictionaries for granted, and...

Dame Emma Thompson, DBE, is one of Britain's most acclaimed actresses and scriptwriters. In this collection we hear - in her own words - about her early career as a comic and scriptwriter. She discusses some of her most famous works, including Fortunes of War, Sense and Sensibility, Remains of...

Bloomsbury presents In Other Words written and read by Jhumpa Lahiri _______________ 'A passionate love letter to language and to Italy ... a bold and quirkily engaging self-portrait' - Lee Langley, Spectator 'A writer of uncommon elegance and poise' - New York Times 'A fascinating account of...

At once a beautifully poetic memoir and an exploration of the various ways we live in the world, A Language Older Than Words explains violence as a pathology that touches every aspect of our lives and indeed affects all aspects of life on Earth. This chronicle of a young man's drive to transcend domestic abuse offers a challenging look at our worldwide sense of community and how we can make things better.

Paret lay on the ground, quivering gently, a small froth on his mouth. The house doctor jumped into the ring. He knelt. He pried Paret's eyelid open. He looked at the eyeball staring out. He let the lid snap shut. He reached into his satchel, took out a needle, jabbed Paret with a stimulant. Paret's back rose in a high arch. He writhed in real agony. They were calling him back from death. One wanted to cry out, "Leave the man alone. Let him die."

From the best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize winner, a powerful nonfiction debut—an “honest, engaging, and very moving account of a writer searching for herself in words.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred) In Other Words is a revelation. It is at heart a love story—of a long and...

This book will leave you with grins that you did not know you had within. Questions you didn't know you wanted the answers to. Answers that you didn't know had questions for them. Tears that you thought were held behind walls made of diamonds. Unable to break. To Put It Into Words, this book is an emotional nuclear bomb that is waiting for you to set off. I went from a musical theater kid to the cringe kid on TikTok. The “Imma slide in” to my “divorce cake” idea. Now it’s poetry. Regardless of what genre. I always want to make people feel. To feel seen, heard, safe, understood, or loved.

A Life in Words, the first complete translation of Ismat Chughtai's celebrated memoir Kaghazi hai Pairahan, provides a delightful account of several crucial years of her life. Along side vivid descriptions of her childhood years are the conflicted experiences of growing up in a large Muslim...

Claude Debussy is regarded by many as the quintessential French composer, with music that invited both warm applause and frosty criticism in his day. While our ears no longer hear him as controversial, his works heralded the dawn of an artistic period founded on innovation and experiment, and a desire to break with the past in search of new expressive means. With never a dull moment, Debussy went from being a musical misfit at the Paris Conservatoire to bohemian life amongst the Symbolist poets and some scandalous love affairs.

In interviews ranging from 1963 to 2009, Shirley Bassey talks about her childhood in Tiger Bay; being a tomboy, and how she began her singing career. As well as clothes, concerts and controversially performing in Sun City (South Africa) she also talks in detail about her long career in show...

Real Words With Sam tells the true story of a father who, after two decades, discovers that his autistic son has been fully aware, perceptive, and engaged all along. Through spelled communication, Sam’s inner voice emerges, revealing insight, humor, and emotional depth that challenge long-standing assumptions about disability and intelligence. What many experts labeled as “behaviors” and a “learning disorder” is actually apraxia—a condition affecting output, not input or understanding.

Bestselling author John Kenney writes a luminous, powerful memoir about the long tail of grief—the ways it hides, the ways it shapes us, and what it means, finally, to mourn someone fully, even if it takes half a lifetime to find the words. When John Kenney's mother died, the Boston Globe ran her obituary. After writing his bestselling novel about an obituary writer, I See You've Called in Dead, Kenney couldn't stop thinking about the impossibility of summing up a person's life in that small format, in just 74 words.

Is there any music more instantly recognizable and beautifully scored than Tchaikovsky’s wildly popular ballet Swan Lake? These and other works have become enduring classics, yet they were not uncontroversial in Tchaikovsky’s day, and there are those that still wonder if his style is fundamentally European or ardently Russian. Find out more about Tchaikovsky’s childhood obsession with music, his turbulent relationships with friends and colleagues, and how he overcame the deepest of personal crises to transcend all with an ambition that has left us with some of the greatest music ever written.

Joseph Juliana, nee Geoffrey Giuliano, nee Sripada Jaganntha Dasa, is a man of many faces and adventures. A plumber's son from Western, New York now in his early seventies, this transient iconic soul has experienced a wide swath of poverty, riches, fame, anonymity, hedonism, and piety. At the same time 50% monk and 50% monkey, Giuliano is best known as the author of a shelfful of books on the Beatles and other rock icons, a well-known film actor, world traveler, vegetarian activist, and very public devotee of Sri Krishna.

Praised as one of Stewart's most revealing and personal works yet, Words Never Spoken details his journey as a songwriter, entrepreneur, and playwright, and his self-discovery as a gay Black man living in Atlanta. Stewart writes candidly about his private conversations with media mogul Tyler Perry, and why Perry dubbed Stewart's work brilliant, but opted not to help him.

At the beginning of his physical transition from female to male, then-17-year-old Skylar Kergil posted his first video on YouTube. In the months and years that followed, he recorded weekly update videos about the physical and emotional changes he experienced. Skylar’s openness and positivity attracted thousands of viewers, who followed along as his voice deepened and his body changed shape. Through surgeries and recovery, highs and lows, from high school to college to the real world, Skylar welcomed others on his journey.

Last words are never easy—since, let’s face it, they’re mostly spoken by people in the worst health of their lives. But even if they aren’t eloquent, they can offer a glimpse into the speaker’s true self. Some are clever, others are loving, heartbreaking, or occasionally shocking. In Any Last Words?, Joseph Hayden explores the last words of more than two hundred actors, athletes, writers, musicians, politicians, intellectuals, criminals, and more. What was the last thing Bogart said to Bacall? What did Marie Antoinette say to her executioner?