Showing titles in Memoirs, Diaries & Correspondence

I deserve all this because I did the worst thing a woman can do. The very worst. Jessica's wedding was like a fairytale. Her dress strewn with crystals. Her dad made a tearful speech. Her husband Matthew declared himself the luckiest man alive. But when their beautiful baby girl is born, Jessica is gripped by panic. She can't tell anyone how she feels. Even when her life starts to spiral out of control...

Says Charles Pooter, "I fail to see - because I do not happen to be a 'somebody' - why my diary should not be interesting." Surprisingly, Mr. Pooter's life is fascinating! The fascination is two-fold: firstly, his astounding arrogance that we should care about his domestic trivia and narcissistic scribblings. Secondly, we can all sympathize with (and wince at!) this ridiculous slave to convention.

‘Her voice is absolutely, beguilingly conversational … Intelligent, allusive, iconoclastic, captivatingly intense … This is the news from the domestic frontline: personal, unique, unexpurgated, without propaganda, as it unfolded and was experienced … Splendid’ William Boyd, Guardian...

A Sunday Times Book of the Year All royalties from sales of this book go to The Big Issue If you could write a letter to your younger self, what would it say? Over 10 years ago, The Big Issue began to ask some of the best-known, most interesting and most successful figures in entertainment...

This letter is the closest that Kafka came to setting down his autobiography. He was driven to write it by his father's opposition to his engagement with Julie Wohryzek. The marriage did not take place; the letter was not delivered.

‘When I am disturbed, even angry, gardening has been a therapy. When I don't want to talk I turn to Plot 29, or to a wilder piece of land by a northern sea. There, among seeds and trees, my breathing slows; my heart rate too. My anxieties slip away.’ As a young boy in 1960s Plymouth, Allan...

Memorie di un libraio è un ironico, colto, originale viaggio nel mondo dei libri in compagnia di uno dei più grandi autori del Novecento. George Orwell descrive le lunghe giornate trascorse come commesso in una libreria dell’usato, tra volumi polverosi e clienti stravaganti; ci fa apprezzare...

Leonard Bernstein was a charismatic and versatile musician -- a brilliant conductor who attained international super-star status, and a gifted composer of Broadway musicals (West Side Story), symphonies (Age of Anxiety), choral works (Chichester Psalms), film scores (On the Waterfront), and much...

Every day, President Obama received 10,000 letters from ordinary American citizens. Every night, he read 10 of them before going to bed. This is the story of how they shaped his presidency. Together they reveal the diary of a nation. They wrote to Obama out of gratitude and desperation, in their darkest times of need, with anger, fear and respect. To Obama is an intimate look at one man's relationship with the American people, and at a time when empathy intersected with politics in the White House.

In this collection of 40ish short spiritual devotionals, Good Enough reveals the small things we can do to inch toward a deeper, richer, truer kind of faith. Through blessings, prayers and human truths, learn to live with imperfection in a culture of self-help that promotes endless progress and discover a companion for when you want to stop feeling guilty that you're not living your best life now.

In the summer of 1956, Jack Kerouac hitchhiked from Mill Valley, California, to the North Cascades to spend two months serving as a fire lookout for the US Forest Service. Taking only the Diamond Sutra for reading material, he intended to spend his time in deep contemplation and to achieve enlightenment.

The deepest currents of passion seldom break the surface of literature. Romantic classics abound; but however skilled a writer may be in verbalising an emotional experience, he cannot publicly evoke the heat of blood, the yearning of soul, bared in perfect intimacy between two beings. But letters can do this, and songs never meant to be sung by any but the lover, or the beloved.

In 1969, John Julius Norwich, the legendary popular historian, gathered together the favourite things he'd come across in the last 365 days into one short charming pamphlet. Initially just a treat for his friends, it rapidly turned into a huge word-of-mouth success. And soon the arrival of John Julius Norwich's latest 'Christmas Cracker' became as essential a part of the English Christmas experience as holly and mistletoe. Norwich had a brilliant eye for a story and telling detail, and his Crackers are full of jokes, warmth and wit. 

James Bailey was unemployed, heartbroken, and questioning his purpose on the planet. In desperate search of an answer, he decided to write to luminaries from all fields and ask one simple question: What is the meaning of life? Then he waited. Slowly but surely their responses arrived through his letterbox. From entrepreneurs and environmentalists, to artists, authors and adventurers, this book gathers a kaleidoscope of perspectives on what it means to be human. With over one hundred enlightening responses, it's more than just a collection of letters; it's a roadmap to finding your own path.

El eterno clásico sobre """"las últimas novedades del Infierno y las irrebatibles respuestas del Cielo"""" Esta clásica obra maestra de sátira ha entretenido e iluminado a lectores alrededor del mundo con su irónica y astuta representación de la vida y las debilidades humanas desde el...

Fatherless, friendly 31yoF looking for intrepid M50s-70s who wants to try being a father figure (not sugar daddy). Georgie Codd never had a dad. And she didn’t think that would ever change – until a stranger’s practical joke made her wonder if she could find one. So began her quest for a...

Now in the pantheon of great thinkers, Simone Weil (1909–1943) lived largely in the shadows, searching for her spiritual home while bearing witness to the violence that devastated Europe twice in her brief lifetime. The letters she wrote to her parents and brother from childhood onward chart her intellectual range as well as her itinerancy and ever-shifting preoccupations, revealing the singular personality at the heart of her brilliant essays. The first complete collection of Weil's missives to her family, A Life in Letters offers new insight into her personal relationships and experiences.

When Paul Auster was asked to join NPR's Weekend All Things Considered program to tell stories, he turned the proposition on its head: he would let the stories come to him. He invited listeners to submit brief, true-life anecdotes about events that touched their lives. And so the National Story...

Love Letters from Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn offers a rare and intimate glimpse into one of the most consequential romances in English history. Written in the early 16th century, these private letters reveal a side of King Henry VIII rarely seen in official records: ardent, vulnerable, impatient, and deeply infatuated.

German poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s (1875-1926) Letters to a Young Poet has been treasured for nearly a century. Rilke’s personal reflections on the vocation of writing and the experience of living urge an aspiring poet to look inward, while also offering sage wisdom on further issues including gender, solitude, and romantic love. Barrows and Macy’s translation extends this compilation of timeless advice and wisdom to a fresh generation of readers and listeners.