A chronicle of the author's hardscrabble childhood in rural western New York State describes the family members, first friendships, and early experiences with death that shaped her literary career.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Discover the life-changing memoir that has inspired millions of readers through the Academy Award®–winning actor’s unflinching honesty, unconventional wisdom, and lessons learned the hard way about living with greater satisfaction.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE GUARDIAN

“McConaughey’s book invites us to grapple...

"In this powerful and unforgettable memoir, award-winning writer Amy Butcher examines the shattering consequences of failing a friend when she felt he needed one most. Four weeks before their college graduation, twenty-one-year-old Kevin Schaeffer walked Amy Butcher to her home in their college town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Hours after parting ways with Amy, he fatally stabbed his ex-girlfriend, Emily Silverstein. While he was awaiting trial,...

"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...

"Organized into six accessible, easy-to-navigate sections, The Way of the Writer is both a literary reflection on the creative impulse and a utilitarian guide to the writing process. Johnson shares his lessons and exercises from the classroom, starting with word choice, sentence structure, and narrative voice, and delving into the mechanics of scene, dialogue, plot and storytelling before exploring the larger questions at stake for the serious writer....

"A story that lingers in the heart long after the last page is turned." —HOPE EDELMAN, bestselling author of Motherless Daughters and The Possibility of Everything

This provocative, poignant memoir of a daughter whose mother left her behind by choice begs the question: Are we destined to make the same mistakes as our parents?

One summer, Melissa Cistaro's mother drove off without explanation Devastated, Melissa and

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Anyone can think up an idea. The thing that counts is developing it into a practical product. The lessons of Henry Ford, one of America's greatest business innovators, are as fresh and vital today as they were in 1922, when this extraordinary book was first published. Ford explains: how his experiences as an employee influenced his philosophies as an employer. It's easy to see that much of Ford's wisdom has been, forgotten today and that individual...

James Patterson is the world's bestselling author. The creator of Alex Cross, he has produced more enduring fictional heroes than any other novelist alive. How did a kid whose dad lived in the poorhouse become the most successful storyteller in the world? James Patterson's best stories are the stories of his own life. On the morninhg he was born, he nearly died. His dad grew up in the Pogey--the Newburgh, New York, poorhouse. He worked at a mental...

What do we stand to lose in a world without ice? A decade ago, novelist and short story writer Jean McNeil spent a year as writer in residence with the British Antarctic Survey, and four months on the world's most enigmatic continent - Antarctica. Access to the Antarctic remains largely reserved for scientists, and it is the only piece of earth which is nobody's country. Ice Diaries is the story of McNeil's years spent in ice, not only in the Antarctic...

I was born in the year of our Lord 1958 in Duluth Minnesota, shortly after my birth the family moved hoping they could have a new start, from the life they were living there in Duluth I was so new to the world that they left when we got out of the hospital and headed to sunny California. Later, when I was 8 years old, I had my first drink of alcohol and then it would rule my life until my near-death experience when I was in my 30s, they said I wouldn't...