Paris, 1947: Colette Rossant returns to Paris after waiting out World War II in Cairo among her father's Egyptian-Jewish relatives. Initially, the City of Light seems gray and forbidding to the teenage Colette, especially after her thrill-seeking mother leaves her in the care of her bitter, malaisé grandmother. Yet Paris will prove the place where Colette awakens to her senses. Taken under the wing of Mademoiselle Georgette, the family chef, she develops a taste and talent for French cooking. The streets of Paris soon become Colette's own as she navigates the outdoor markets and café menus and emerges into her new, gastronomical self. Return to Paris is an extraordinary coming-of-age story that charts the course of Colette's culinary adventures -- replete with expertly crafted recipes and family photographs. An exploration of passion in all its flavor and texture, Colette's memoir will live in the hearts and palates of readers for years to come.

Missy tells all … and there is a lot to tell. First came Missy. Then came Sable, Sunny, Chyna, and the rest. Missy Hyatt was professional wrestling’s first character — the original sexy “socialite” sidekick whose trademark Gucci purse and tough-girl attitude made her the most loved — and most hated — woman in wrestling. Now, fifteen years after she first shimmied up to the ring, Missy Hyatt takes fans inside the world of wrestling. From her high school days as a hard-core fan, cheering from her living room, to the cover of Wrestler magazine, Missy has done it all. In this no-holds-barred memoir, Missy discloses the behind-the-scenes secrets of table-throwing, chair-smashing, hair-pulling, and the technique of “juicing” — how wrestlers make themselves bleed on cue. Find out about her intimate relationships with Jake the Snake, Wonder Years’ Jason Hervey, Hot Stuff Eddie Gilbert, and many many more. Missy has worked with wrestling’s biggest stars, from Hulk to Jesse, from Vince to the Rock, and she tells everything.

"A heartrending and beautiful memoir of sudden loss and a journey to peace"--

Eleanor Antin's coming-of-age memoir is a smart, no-holds-barred black comedy in the picaresque coming-of-age tradition of Holden Caulfield, Huck Finn, and the irrepressible Dorothy on the road to Oz. Her stand-up, punch, and inventive style allows her audiences to enjoy any or all of her "meetings" with Joseph Stalin in Central Park.

In this book, Barney explores her family tree, chronicles her friendships and associations through reprinted correspondence and recreated conversations, and evokes the golden age of her salon in gallery of literary portraits.

This book was first published in 1909 and was written by a truly remarkable woman. It was a time in history where it was more of a "man's" world and she dared to be different. Cars were starting to come into common use (by men); women were driven around by chauffeurs or their husbands. One car manufacturing company sent her to France to learn how to drive. This was different from today because driving a car also meant working on the car! She learned how to drive alright but also taught other women to drive, including royalty!Being the woman she was, she also entered some auto races and won! This just wouldn't do, beating the male drivers, so they passed new rules banning women from entering some of the races! She kept racing in the ones that allowed her, and started racing boats!In this book you'll see where she suggests holding up a mirror to see what's behind you - it's the first mention anywhere of use of the rear view mirror. She was ahead of her time, I believe one of the first true feminists. She believed very strongly that women who wanted to should be able to drive. She wrote this book to help them learn - since she couldn't be everywhere.In her own words about this book:"A chatty little handbook for all women who motor or who want to motor"“I am writing this little book not so much for those women who have already taken up motoring, but for those who would like to, but either dare not because of nervousness, or who imagine it is too difficult to understand the many necessary details.”“Motoring is a pastime for women: young, middle-aged, and—if there are any—old. There may be pleasure in being whirled around the country by your friends and relatives, or in a car driven by your chauffeur; but the real, the intense pleasure, the actual realisation of the pastime comes only when you drive your own car.”“I will endeavour to explain everything in the simplest possible manner, without lapsing into confusing technicalities.”

In August 1948, 545 passengers boarded an overcrowded, clapped-out vessel in Marseilles to face an uncertain future in Australia and New Zealand. they came from displaced persons camps in Germany, death camps in Poland, labour camps in Hungary, gulags in Siberia and stony Aegean islands. there were those who had been hunted by the Nazis and those who had welcomed them; those who had followed the Communists and those who had fled from them. the epic voyage lasted almost three months and was marked by conflict and controversy until it seemed as though this hellship had absorbed the traumas of its passengers. As the conditions on board deteriorated, tension and violence simmered above and below decks. But romances and seductions also flourished, and lifelong bonds were formed. Diane Armstrong set sail on the Derna with her parents when she was nine years old. Like a detective searching for clues, she has located over a hundred of the passengers. through their recollections and memorabilia, as well as archival documents, she has recreated the voyage and traced what became of their hopes and dreams. the result is the unique portrayal of a migrant ship and its passengers.

This stimulating collection of essays in an autobiographical framework spans the period from 1963 to the present. It encompasses Gerda Lerner's theoretical writing and her organizational work in transforming the history profession and in establishing Women's History as a mainstream field. Six of the twelve essays are new, written especially for this volume; the others have previously appeared in small journals or were originally presented as talks, and have been revised for this book. Several essays discuss feminist teaching and the problems of interpretation of autobiography and memoir for the reader and the historian. Lerner's reflections on feminism as a worldview, on the meaning of history writing, and on problems of aging lend this book unusual range and depth. Together, the essays illuminate how thought and action connected in Lerner's life, how the life she led before she became an academic affected the questions she addressed as a historian, and how the social and political struggles in which she engaged informed her thinking. Written in lucid, accessible prose, the essays will appeal to the general reader as well as to students at all levels. Living with History / Making Social Change offers rare insight into the life work of one of the leading historians of the United States.

This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1896 edition by the University Press, Cambridge.

"In her trusted loaded-up minivan 'Minnie,' E.A. Hanks follows the same route as a long-ago road trip with her mother in an attempt to better understand the complicated woman who gave her life. Along the way, as she follows her mother's diaries and her own recollections of the route, she begins to uncover secrets--some unexpectedly wonderful, and others darker and more violent than she ever imagined--that bring more questions than answers. From the quiet expanses of White Sands National Park to the bustling streets of New Orleans, and the Texas-Mexico border to the swamps of the Florida panhandle, she interacts with the amazing breadth and diversity of the people that call these places home. Reckoning with the past, the present, her memories, and herself, Hanks brings us along a ... voyage towards understanding how the stories we tell about the places we're from ultimately become the stories we tell about the people we are"--

"Orenstein is such a breezy, funny writer, it's easy to forget she's an important thinker too."--People In this lively, funny memoir, Peggy Orenstein sets out to make a sweater from scratch--shearing, spinning, dyeing wool--and in the process discovers how we find our deepest selves through craft. Orenstein spins a yarn that will appeal to everyone. The COVID pandemic propelled many people to change their lives in ways large and small. Some adopted puppies. Others stress-baked. Peggy Orenstein, a lifelong knitter, went just a little further. To keep herself engaged and cope with a series of seismic shifts in family life, she set out to make a garment from the ground up: learning to shear sheep, spin and dye yarn, then knitting herself a sweater. Orenstein hoped the project would help her process not just wool but her grief over the recent death of her mother and the decline of her dad, the impending departure of her college-bound daughter, and other thorny issues of aging as a woman in a culture that by turns ignores and disdains them. What she didn't expect was a journey into some of the major issues of our time: climate anxiety, racial justice, women's rights, the impact of technology, sustainability, and, ultimately, the meaning of home. With her wry voice, sharp intelligence, and exuberant honesty, Orenstein shares her year-long journey as daughter, wife, mother, writer, and maker--and teaches us all something about creativity and connection.

Lee Emery is an empty nester, contentedly married to a man she has known forever and hunkering down in the house where she grew up. She believes she is happy occupying such a familiar emotional and physical space. But questions of the path not taken start to haunt her after she publishes a memoir of her deliciously eccentric grandmother with whom she traipsed through Europe at eighteen. It was then that Lee fell in love for the first time. Twenty-five years later, "what if" obsessions shake up her settled life. Should she have made a different choice—Simon—instead of the man now next to her? Struck once more by the lingering power of first love, she sets off a chain of events that catapults her back to Europe and to a second chance that she may or may not want to risk.

Just Say Yes, perhaps the first marijuana memoir ever published, is a positive account of long-term cannabis use. With ruthless honesty and deadpan humor, the author observes the effect of weed upon every aspect of her life: marriage, motherhood, friendship, work, sport, sex. As John Updike wrote about Hiller's short story collection, Skin, this is "good, brave and joyful writing." Ten years after its first publication, the updated edition of Just Say Yes addresses the changing status of cannabis in America and includes a foreword by Steve DeAngelo. "This funny, wry and very candid memoir purports to be a Confession of an American Pot-Smoker but is really a cultural/personal history of the past fifty years. The narrative progresses backward, and not only the past but innocence itself is recaptured." -Phillip Lopate, Nonfiction Director, MFA Writing Program, Columbia University "Likely to loosen up fellow smokers, while adding a personal take to the public discussion of cannabis." -Kirkus Reviews "Brilliant, important, and beautifully written." -Betsy Prioleau, author of Seductress and Swoon

Good/Good; Large Print former library book with normal library markings.

"Whenever women are honest about their struggles, they give other women a gift. Mia delivers." Elizabeth GilbertThis book is for every woman who's been told success is as simple as Lean In, Say Yes, Live Your Best Life, Beat Your Fear, Follow Your Dream... and then feel #soblessed.It's for guilty friends, bad mums, crap wives, imperfect feminists, rebellious daughters and any girl with a big mouth and at least one foot in it. It's for any woman who's ever asked: 'Am I the only one who isn't quite coping?'Here is Mia Freedman's low road to the top - a fearless, hilarious, inspiring and surprising collection of modern misadventures to read, relate to and rejoice in, then share with all the women in your life.MORE PRAISE FOR MIA FREEDMAN"Funny, raw, fierce and - at heart - profoundly generous." Annabel Crabb"There are few writers in Australia who care as much about what makes women tick as Mia Freedman and who reveal so much of themselves." Leigh Sales"Mia Freedman is one of the most inspirational, informative and accessible voices among contemporary Australian writers ... She is dedicated to improving the lives of other women. Hers is an important unique voice in our national conversation." Cate McGregor

Attractive and successful, Joie Davidow presents a confident face to the world. But her carefully applied makeup conceals a secret she has kept for decades. Marked for Life chronicles Joie's struggle to overcome feeling that she was grotesquely flawed, while hiding behind a cosmetic mask that granted her entry into a profession that puts a premium on appearance, culminating in the life-changing realization that in deceiving others, she was also betraying herself. Written with humor and refreshingly devoid of self-pity, it will touch anyone who has ever felt "different" from the rest of the world.

By the time my fortieth birthday loomed, I'd married, had two kids, left the country of my birth for another and picked up plenty of baggage along the path. I was long overdue for a spiritual spring-clean. But I couldn't very well take a year off to meditate in an ashram. Who was going to make the lunchboxes? So instead, I opted for doing something about the fatty deposits on my rear-end before they fossilized. And that's where this story begins. Or so I thought. *** A photo of herself in a bikini on her son's fifth birthday led Joanne Fedler to take stock of her life. How had she reached a point where she could barely look at her own body without cringing? Armed only with the certainty that she did not want to be 'fat and forty' Joanne decided it was time to get rid of the excess weight she'd been carrying for far too long. While on a strict new eating plan in which she radically changed her relationship with food, Joanne began to see it wasn't only pounds she needed to lose, but the weight of fear, guilt and anxiety she was lugging around in her heart. In making friends with hunger and dropping a few dress sizes, Joanne found greater peace not only with her body, but with herself, her life and her adopted country. What began as a mission to get back into a bikini became a journey towards acceptance, proving that a spiritual journey can start by saying 'no' to the chocolate mousse. When Hungry, Eat is a celebration of unexpected spiritual insight, small portions and the gifts of hunger.

Every extra pound tells a story . . . At five four and 230 pounds, film critic Jami Bernard took the plunge into what she half-jokingly calls "the heart of darkness"- her innermost self, where, by confronting a past both funny and painful, she was able to let go of those pounds, one by one, week after week. At the end of this intensely personal, bitterly humorous journey, she had lost seventy-five of them. Jami chronicled her weight loss in the New York Daily News , where she was a film critic for thirteen years. This book goes behind the scenes to tell the unvarnished truth of what it's like to live large in a body-obsessed culture that takes no prisoners. Here is the reality of weight loss: a stock-market chart of crazy gains and losses, a crumb trail of doomed relationships, the terrors of pleasure, and the best pizza this side of Naples. With a sharp wit and the confident, easy style that makes her a nationally known critic and champion of women's issues, Jami candidly explores the secret world of fat people-their fears, bodies, clothing; their forbidden love affair with food; and what it's like to leave that all behind and emerge thin again on the other side. Moving, sometimes shocking, and always mordantly funny, The Incredible Shrinking Critic takes it all off-seventy-five pounds and counting.

Elana Sztokman arrived in Israel in 1993 as a young religious mother wearing a long skirt and a hat covering her hair. Today, nearly 30 years later, after spending years fighting for women's rights in Orthodoxy, writing books about gender in religion, and eventually leaving that world behind, she confronts the personal struggles behind the public persona, revealing the traumas from her past that affected her entire relationship with her body. From two-time winner of the National Jewish Book Council Award comes a refreshing and very personal exploration of cultures of the female body in Jewish life. This collection of essays - marking the 25-year anniversary of her feminist awakening and spanning a diverse career of research, writing, and advocacy around Jewish women's experiences - offers political and personal insights and retrospectives on some of the most burning issues today. Topics include: sexuality, relationships, body-image, body-cover, ritual immersion, fat-shaming, slut-shaming, domestic violence, and sexual abuse. Elana brings her characteristic honesty, courage, wit, and profound insight into her writing, and shares some of her own traumas that set her on a sometimes tortuous life path.