Africa, My Passion

Africa, My Passion

Corinne Hofmann

Memoir

In an exquisite personal pilgrimage, Corinne Hofmann, author of the global bestseller The White Masai, delves into the slums of Nairobi to uncover the heart-warming and heart-breaking stories of unforgettable people and places, then treks 500 miles across the Namibian desert to discover the lives of the nomadic Himba people. Joined by her half-Kenyan daughter, Napirai, they travel to Nairobi together for the first time to discover Napirai's roots and finally meet her father and half-siblings. Africa, My Passion is a poignant, touching and exciting story about one woman's love affair with an exotic man, which led to a lifelong obsession with what was once the dark continent. Moving, vividly recounted, eye-opening and, above all, filled with passionate hope and unparalleled detail, this is an extraordinary sequel to a bestselling series of memoirs.
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Unwifeable

Unwifeable

Mandy Stadtmiller

Autobiography / Memoir / Nonfiction

From the popular, "fresh, funny, and highly readable" (Bustle) dating columnist for New York magazine and the New York Post comes a whirlwind memoir recounting countless failed romances and blackout nights, told with Mandy Stadtmiller's unflinching candor and brilliant wit.My story is not standalone. Single girl comes to New York; New York eats her alive. But what does stand out is my discovery that you can essentially live a life that appears to be a textbook manual for everything one can do wrong to find love—and still find Mr. Right. Mandy Stadtmiller came to Manhattan in 2005, newly divorced, thirty years old, with a job at the New York Post, ready to conquer the city and the industry in one fell swoop. Like a "real-life Carrie Bradshaw" (so called by Jenny McCarthy!), she proceeded to chronicle her fearless attempts for nearly a decade in the Post, New York magazine, and xoJane. But there was...
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Big Magic

Big Magic

Elizabeth Gilbert

Memoir / Biography / Literature & Fiction

Named a Hot Fall Read by USA Today, Vanity Fair, Newsday, O Magazine, the Seattle Times, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Mashable, Pop Sugar, and the San Antonio Express-News"A must read for anyone hoping to live a creative life... I dare you not to be inspired to be brave, to be free, and to be curious." —PopSugarFrom the worldwide bestselling author of Eat Pray Love: the path to the vibrant, fulfilling life you've dreamed of. Readers of all ages and walks of life have drawn inspiration and empowerment from Elizabeth Gilbert's books for years. Now this beloved author digs deep into her own generative process to share her wisdom and unique perspective about creativity. With profound empathy and radiant generosity, she offers potent insights into the mysterious nature of inspiration. She asks us to embrace our curiosity and let go of needless suffering. She shows us how to tackle what we most love, and how to face down what...
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I've Been Thinking About You, Sister

I've Been Thinking About You, Sister

Witi Ihimaera

Fiction / Memoir

A wry, touching short story from one of New Zealand's best-loved writers.When Uncle Rangiora visits his sister and dances with her in the garden, she knows she has to visit the place where he died, and where he and other of his comrades from the Maori Battalion were buried during the Second World War. His sister is an old woman now, her husband is even older, but that's not going to stop them from setting off across the world alone, to the great consternation of their children who wonder if they will ever get there and back. This moving and entertaining story is a fictionalised version of the trip to Tunisia taken by the author's elderly parents. Musing upon postcolonial politics and perspectives, it also considers the lyrical form the author used at the beginning of his literary career and the wit, style and drama that readers can discover in his newer works.
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The Secret Heart of the Clock

The Secret Heart of the Clock

Elias Canetti

Fiction / Memoir / Nonfiction

From one of the preeminent intellectual figures of the twentieth century, a highly personal testimonial of what Canetti himself chooses to term "notations," bits and pieces: notes, aphorisms, fragments. Taken together, they present an awesomely tender, guiltily gloomy meditation on death and aging." A mosaical portrait of an old body's mind determined to do its exercises and not lose a step—and fascinating for that." - Kirkus Reviews
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Sister Outsider

Sister Outsider

Audre Lorde

Poetry / Gay & Lesbian / Memoir

The woman's place of power within each of us is neither white nor surface; it is dark, it is ancient, and it is deepThe revolutionary writings of Audre Lorde gave voice to those 'outside the circle of this society's definition of acceptable women'. Uncompromising, angry and yet full of hope, this collection of her essential prose - essays, speeches, letters, interviews - explores race, sexuality, poetry, friendship, the erotic and the need for female solidarity, and includes her landmark piece 'The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House'.'The truth of her writing is as necessary today as it's ever been' Guardian
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Aesthetica

Aesthetica

Allie Rowbottom

Nonfiction / Autobiography / Memoir

In a debut novel as radiant as it is caustic, a former influencer confronts her past—and takes inventory of the damages that underpin the surface-glamour of social media.At 19, she was an Instagram celebrity. Now, at 35, she works behind the cosmetic counter at the “black and white store,” peddling anti-aging products to women seeking physical and spiritual transformation. She too is seeking rebirth. She’s about to undergo the high-risk, elective surgery Aesthetica™, a procedure that will reverse all her past plastic surgery procedures, returning her, she hopes, to a truer self. Provided she survives the knife. But on the eve of the surgery, her traumatic past resurfaces when she is asked to participate in the public takedown of her former manager/boyfriend, who has rebranded himself as a paragon of “woke” masculinity in the post-#MeToo world. With the hours ticking down to her surgery, she must confront...
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Dragon's Egg

Dragon's Egg

Sarah L. Thomson

Nonfiction / Autobiography / Memoir

It is a rare talent, and only she can care for the Inn's herd. She feeds them, gathers their eggs, and tends to their injuries. But Mella dreams about the dragons of legend, even though hardly anyone believes they still exist. Dragons are small farm animals, not huge fire-breathing monsters. Everyone knows that.Until one day changes everything.A Knight of the Order of Defenders arrives at the Inn. Signs of the mythical dragons have led him there, he says. Then a simple errand takes Mella through the forest, where she stumbles across a dragon's egg—and faces the true, terrifying dragon guarding it. On the spot, Mella vows to get the egg safely to the fabled Hatching Grounds. She must leave her home for the first time, and she finds an unlikely companion in the Defender's squire, Roger.For Mella and Roger, this one day is the beginning of an adventure. Where will it take them?
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Turn Left at Venus

Turn Left at Venus

Inez Baranay

Fiction / Memoir / Nonfiction

They were two little girls on a very big boat.In the 1930s, Ada and Leyla meet as children on a boat bringing migrants from Old Europe to the New World. They talk of seeing kangaroos yet end up living miles apart from each other in suburban Sydney. Their separations are often lengthy but their friendship endures across continents and decades and is a thread in this haunting story of writing, relationships and ageing.Ada (A.L. Ligeti) becomes an author, searching for a Utopian world, exploring aspects of patriarchy and gender in her groundbreaking feminist science fiction novel called Turn Left at Venus. That novel and its sequels are celebrated and much discussed by generations of fans. Memory and imagination fold seamlessly into one another as Ada keeps moving on, from relationships and places, living in hotels and rental spaces in Kings Cross, San Francisco, Ubud and elsewhere.Baranay's emotionally resonant portrait of the solitary and artistic life, lived adventurously...
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