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"As a deadly cancer spread inside her brain, leading neuroscientist Barbara Lipska was plunged into madness--only to miraculously survive with her memories intact. In the tradition of My Stroke of Insight and Brain on Fire, this powerful memoir recounts her ordeal and explains its unforgettablelessons about the brain and mind. In January 2015, Barbara Lipska--a leading expert on the neuroscience of mental illness--was diagnosed with melanoma that...
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"A funny, biting, and entertaining memoir about coming of age in the shadow of celebrity and finding your own way in the face of absolute chaos, one that is both a moving portrait of a complicated family and an exploration of the cost of fame." --
Roseanne Barr's success as a comedian catapulted the family from the Rockies to star-studded Hollywood, with its toxic culture of money, celebrity, and prying tabloids that was destabilizing for a child...
44) The Swedish art of aging exuberantly: life wisdom from someone who will (probably) die before you
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"Margareta Magnusson shared with the world her practical Swedish tradition of döstädning, or "death cleaning"--clearing out unnecessary belongings before others must do it for you--in her international bestseller The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning. Now, unburdened by baggage (emotional and actual) she is able to focus on what makes each day worth living, and reveals her discoveries about growing older--some difficult to accept, many rather...
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Roughing it in the Bush is the compelling true story of pioneer Susanna Moodie's experience immigrating to Canada with her sister, Catharine Parr Traill, in the 1830s. Moodie's narrative is a frank, sometimes humorous, portrayal of life in the Canadian wild, capturing the physical demands of homesteading and the complex personal relationships between settlers.
Initially conceived as a "guide" for British subjects considering immigrating to
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"When James Bowen found an injured, ginger street cat curled up in the hallway of his sheltered accommodation, he had no idea just how much his life was about to change. James was living hand to mouth on the streets of London and the last thing he needed was a pet. Yet [he] couldn't resist helping the strikingly intelligent tom cat, whom, he quickly christened Bob. He slowly nursed Bob back to health and then sent thye cat on his way, imagining he...
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"In an effort to treat a debilitating mood disorder, Ayelet Waldman undertook a very private experiment, ingesting 10 micrograms of LSD every three days for a month. This is the story--by turns revealing, courageous, fascinating and funny--of her quietly psychedelic spring, her quest to understand one of our most feared drugs, and her search for a really good day"--
Author
Description
Schaub challenged her family to join her on a quest to eat no added sugar for an entire year. Along the way, she uncovered the real costs of our sugar-heavy American diet-- including diabetes, obesity, and other health problems. Here is what "kicking the sugar addiction" looks like for a real American family.
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As a teenager, Kate Harris realized that the career she craved—to be an explorer, equal parts swashbuckler and metaphysician—had gone extinct. From what she could tell of the world from small-town Ontario, the likes of Marco Polo and Magellan had mapped the whole earth; there was nothing left to be discovered. Looking beyond this planet, she decided to become a scientist and go to Mars.
In between studying at Oxford and MIT, Harris set off by...
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A stirring narrative of memory and parental love, Richard Ford tells of his mother, Edna, a feisty Catholic girl with a difficult past, and his father, Parker, a sweet-natured soft-spoken traveling salesman, both born at the turn of the twentieth century in rural Arkansas. For Ford, the questions of what his parents dreamed of and how they loved each other and him became a striking portrait of American life in the mid-century. With his celebrated...
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Description
Through the sweeping cultural and historical transformations of China, entrepreneur Lan Yan traces her family's history through early 20th Century to present day.
The history of the Yan family is inseparable from the history of China over the last century. One of the most influential business leaders of China today, Lan Yan grew up in the company of the country's powerful elite, including Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping. Her grandfather,...
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Pub. Date
2019.
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Description
"In the mid-1400s, an unnamed Catholic monk composed a popular self-help book called Ars moriendi, or The art of dying. Written in Latin, this medieval death manual taught people how to navigate the trials of the deathbed, using simple rituals of repentance, reassurance, and letting go. ...Award-winning journalist Katy Butler argues that we have lost touch with the "art of dying" as practiced by our ancestors, yet we still hunger for rites of passage,...
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In 2008 Stef Smulders, his partner Nico and their dog Saar emigrated to Italy to start a new life and set up their B&B Villa I Due Padroni. They sold their home, left their friends and family behind and took a leap into the unknown. Now Stef shares his experiences in a collection of witty short stories. The book treats the trials and tribulations of an emigration: what it was like to buy and renovate a house, to import a car, to gain residency, and...
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"The Close sisters are descended from very prominent and wealthy ancestors. When the Close sisters were very young, their parents joined a cult called the MRA, or Moral Rearmament. The family was suddenly uprooted to a cult school in Switzerland and, ultimately, to the Belgian Congo where their father became a surgeon in the war ravaged republic, and ultimately the personal physician to President Mobutu. Shortly after the girls returned to the US...
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Founder Ellie Laks started The Gentle Barn after adopting a sick goat from a run-down petting zoo in 1999. Some two hundred animals later (including chickens, horses, pigs, cows, rabbits, emus, and more), The Gentle Barn has become an extraordinary nonprofit that brings together a volunteer staff of community members and at-risk teens to rehabilitate abandoned and/or abused animals. As Ellie teaches the volunteers to care for the animals, they learn...
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Actress and playwright Tina Alexis Allen's audacious memoir unravels her privileged suburban Catholic upbringing that was shaped by her formidable father--a man whose strict religious devotion and dedication to his large family hid his true nature and a life defined by deep secrets and dangerous lies.
Author
Pub. Date
[2016]
Edition
First U.S. edition.
Description
"In 2012, after the overthrow of Qaddafi, the acclaimed novelist Hisham Matar journeys to his native Libya after an absence of thirty years. When he was twelve, Matar and his family went into political exile. Eight years later Matar's father, a former diplomat and military man turned brave political dissident, was kidnapped from the streets of Cairo by the Libyan government and is believed to have been held in the regime's most notorious prison. Now,...
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