108 results for "Love"

Crying in H Mart

Michelle Zauner
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the indie rock sensation known as Japanese Breakfast, an unforgettable memoir about family, food, grief, love, and growing up Korean American—“in losing her mother and cooking to bring her back to life, Zauner became herself” (NPR). • CELEBRATING OVER ONE YEAR ON THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LIST In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother's particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother's tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food. As she grew up, moving to the East Coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, and performing gigs with her fledgling band--and meeting the man who would become her husband--her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live. It was her mother's diagnosis of terminal cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her. Vivacious and plainspoken, lyrical and honest, Zauner's voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, and complete with family photos, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.
Diversified Publishing 2021-05-11 416 pages

Boys & Sex Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity

Peggy Orenstein
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Now in paperback--Peggy Orenstein, author of the groundbreaking New York Times bestseller Girls & Sex, turns her focus to the sexual lives of young men. "Eye-opening.... Every few pages, the boy world cracks open a little bit.... Even in the most anxiety-provoking moments of Boys & Sex, it's clear that Orenstein believes in the goodness of boys and the men they can become, and she believes in us, as parents, to raise them" (New York Times Book Review). Peggy Orenstein's Girls & Sex broke ground, shattered taboos, and launched conversations about young women's right to pleasure and agency in sexual encounters. It also had an unexpected effect on its author: Orenstein realized that talking about girls is only half the conversation. Boys are subject to the same cultural forces as girls--steeped in the same distorted media images and binary stereotypes of female sexiness and toxic masculinity--which equally affect how they navigate sexual and emotional relationships. In Boys & Sex, Peggy Orenstein dives back into the lives of young people to once again give voice to the unspoken, revealing how young men understand and negotiate the new rules of physical and emotional intimacy. Drawing on comprehensive interviews with young men, psychologists, academics, and experts in the field, Boys & Sex dissects so-called locker room talk; how the word "hilarious" robs boys of empathy; pornography as the new sex education; boys' understanding of hookup culture and consent; and their experience as both victims and perpetrators of sexual violence. By surfacing young men's experience in all its complexity, Orenstein is able to unravel the hidden truths, hard lessons, and important realities of young male sexuality in today's world. The result is a provocative and paradigm-shifting work that offers a much-needed vision of how boys can truly move forward as better men.
HarperCollins Publishers 2021-02-09 304 pages

Fuck, Now There Are Two of You (Go the Fuck to Sleep #3)

Mansbach, Adam
The third installment in Adam Mansbach's international best-selling Go the Fuck to Sleep series addresses, with radical honesty, the family implosion that occurs when a second child arrives “If you’re a fan of both Larry David and profane children’s book parodies, don’t even try to curb your f*cking enthusiasm.” ―Kirkus Reviews Adam Mansbach famously gave voice to two of parenting’s primal struggles in Go the Fuck to Sleep and You Have to Fucking Eat―the often-imitated, never-duplicated pair of New York Times best sellers that ushered in a new era of radical honesty in humor books for parents. But what could possibly be left? Parents―new, old, expectant, and grand―of multiple children already knew the answer. Adam discovered it for himself by having two more kids, less than two years apart. Fuck, Now There Are Two of You is a loving monologue about the new addition to the family, addressed to a big sibling and shot through with Adam’s trademark profane truth-telling. Gorgeously illustrated and chock-full of unspoken sentiments channeled directly from the brains of parents worldwide, Fuck, Now There Are Two of You articulates all the fears and frustrations attendant to the simple, math-defying fact that two is a million more kids than one. As you probably know by now, you shouldn’t read it to a child. Full color illustrations throughout
Akashic Books 2019-10-01 32 pages

What makes love last? how to build trust and avoid betrayal

Gottman, John Mordechai
"One of the foremost relationship experts at work today applies the insights of science toward understanding the real meaning of trust between a couple. He decodes the "why" behind betrayal and shows how partners can avoid or recover from unfaithfulness and maintain a loving relationship.Dr. John Gottman, the country's pre-eminent researcher on marriage, is famous for his Love Lab at the University of Washington in Seattle where he deciphers the mysteries of human relationships through scientific research. His thirty-five years of exploration have earned him numerous major awards, including from the National Institute of Mental Health, the American Psychological Association, and the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. Now, Dr. Gottman offers surprising findings and advice on the characteristic that is at the heart of all relationships: Trust. Dr. Gottman has developed a formula that precisely calculates any couple's loyalty level. The results determine a relationship's likely future, including the potential for one or both partners to stray. A Love You Can Trust shows couples how to bolster their trust level and avoid what Dr. Gottman calls the "Roach Motel for Lovers." He describes how the outcome of--"sliding door moments," small pivotal points between a couple, can lead either to more emotional connection or to discontent. He suggests a new approach to handling adultery and reveals the varied and unexpected non-sexual ways that couples often betray each other. A Love You Can Trust guides couples through an empirically tested, trust-building program that will let them repair and maintain a long-term, intimate, and romantic relationship"--
Simon & Schuster 2012 304 pages

Your Voice in My Head

Emma Forrest
A dazzling and devastating memoir -- Girl Interrupted for the Juno generation. Talented, prolific and charming, Emma Forrest was settled in Manhattan at twenty-two and on contract to the Guardian when she realized that her quirks had gone beyond eccentricity, past the warm waters of weird and into those cold, deep patches of the sea where people lose their lives. Lonely, in a dangerous cycle of cutting and bulimia, and drawn inexplicably to damaging and cruel relationships, she found herself in the chair of a slim, balding and effortlessly optimistic psychiatrist -- a man whose wisdom and humanity would wrench her from the vibrant and dangerous tide of herself, and who would help her to recover when she tried to end her life. Emma's loving and supportive family and friends circled around her in panic. Like Ophelia, Emma was on the brink of drowning. But she was also still working, still exploring, still writing. And then she fell in love. One day, when Emma called to make an appointment with her psychiatrist, she found no one there. He had died, shockingly, at the age of fifty-three, leaving behind a young family for whom he had fought to survive. Processing the premature doorstep, a failed suicide, she was adrift. And when her significant and all-consuming relationship also fell apart, she was forced to cling to the page for survival. Your Voice in My Head is spiked with wit, humour and unique perception. It not only explores the crashing weight of depression, mania and suffering, but also the beauty of love and the heartbreak of loss. It is also, fundamentally, about our relationship with ourselves.
Random House of Canada 2011-02 214 pages

Brothers Emanuel A Memoir of an American Family

Ezekiel J. Emanuel
NATIONAL BESTSELLER For years, people have been asking Ezekiel “Zeke” Emanuel, the brash, outspoken, and fiercely loyal eldest brother in the Emanuel clan, the same question: What did your mom put in the cereal? Middle brother Rahm is the mayor of Chicago, erstwhile White House chief of staff, and one of the most colorful figures in American politics. Youngest brother Ari is a Hollywood superagent, the real-life model for the character of Ari Gold on the hit series Entourage . And Zeke himself, whom the other brothers consider to be the smartest of them all, is one of the world’s leading bioethicists and oncologists, and a former special advisor for health policy in the Obama administration. How did one family of modest means produce three such high-achieving kids? Here, for the first time, Zeke provides the answer. Set amid the tumult of Chicago in the 1960s and 1970s, Brothers Emanuel recounts the intertwined histories of these three rambunctious, hypercompetitive Jewish American boys, each with his own unique and compelling life story. But ultimately, this is the story of the entire Emanuel family: the tough, colorful Old World grandparents; a mischievous, loving father who immigrated to the United States with twenty-five dollars and who enthralled his boys with tales of his adventures in Israel’s war for independence; and a proud, politically engaged mother who took the boys with her to rallies and protests—including a civil rights march through the streets of Chicago led by Martin Luther King himself. Even as the Emanuels distinguished themselves as individuals, the bond of brotherhood that tied them together was never broken. Brothers Emanuel is a wry, rollicking, and often poignant narrative of how one American family succeeded in raising three extraordinary children. Praise for Brothers Emanuel “An endearing, honest and gripping account of an American success story.” — San Francisco Chronicle “A beautiful portrait of growing up Jewish in an urban environment during an era of profound social change.” — Publishers Weekly “This delightful memoir is a deeply personal tale of one family, but it’s also about much larger things: America and tribal identity, love and rivalry, and the moral lessons to be learned as you grow up.” —Walter Isaacson “Fascinating . . . a classic tale of an immigrant family.” — Chicago Tribune “Mighty entertaining.” —The Hollywood Reporter “A clear-eyed, candid memoir that is unique and yet quintessentially American.” —BookPage “A fun read.” —The Forward
Random House Publishing Group 2013-11-12 288 pages

Finding Chika A Little Girl, an Earthquake, and the Making of a Family

Mitch Albom
"Mitch Albom has done it again with this moving memoir of love and loss. You can't help but fall for Chika. A page-turner that will no doubt become a classic." --Mary Karr, author of The Liars' Club and The Art of Memoir From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Tuesdays With Morrie comes Mitch Albom's most personal story to date: an intimate and heartwarming memoir about what it means to be a family and the young Haitian orphan whose short life would forever change his heart. Chika Jeune was born three days before the devastating earthquake that decimated Haiti in 2010. She spent her infancy in a landscape of extreme poverty, and when her mother died giving birth to a baby brother, Chika was brought to The Have Faith Haiti Orphanage that Albom operates in Port Au Prince. With no children of their own, the forty-plus children who live, play, and go to school at the orphanage have become family to Mitch and his wife, Janine. Chika's arrival makes a quick impression. Brave and self-assured, even as a three-year-old, she delights the other kids and teachers. But at age five, Chika is suddenly diagnosed with something a doctor there says, "No one in Haiti can help you with." Mitch and Janine bring Chika to Detroit, hopeful that American medical care can soon return her to her homeland. Instead, Chika becomes a permanent part of their household, and their lives, as they embark on a two-year, around-the-world journey to find a cure. As Chika's boundless optimism and humor teach Mitch the joys of caring for a child, he learns that a relationship built on love, no matter what blows it takes, can never be lost. Told in hindsight, and through illuminating conversations with Chika herself, this is Albom at his most poignant and vulnerable. Finding Chika is a celebration of a girl, her adoptive guardians, and the incredible bond they formed--a devastatingly beautiful portrait of what it means to be a family, regardless of how it is made.
HarperCollins Publishers 2021-05-18 256 pages

Lifeform

Slate, Jenny
From actor, comedian, co-creator of Marcel the Shell, and New York Times bestselling author of Little Weirds, Jenny Slate, a wild, soulful, hilarious collection of genre-bending essays depicting the journey into motherhood as you’ve never seen it before. What happened was this: Jenny Slate was a human mammal who sniffed the air every morning hoping to find another person to love who would love her, and in that period there was a deep dark loneliness that she had to face and befriend, and then we are pleased to report that she did fall in love, and in that period she was like chimes, or a flock of clean breaths, and her spine lying flat was the many-colored planks on the xylophone, but also she was rabid with fear of losing this love, because of past injury. And then what happened was that she became a wild-pregnant-mammal-thing and then she exploded herself by having a whole baby blast through her vagina during a global plague and then she was expected to carry on like everything was normal—but was this normal, and had she or anything ever been normal? Herein lies an account of this journey, told in five phases—Single, True Love, Pregnancy, Baby, and Ongoing—through luminous, laugh-out-loud funny, unclassifiable essays that take the form of letters to a doctor, dreams of a stork, fantasy therapy sessions, gossip between racoons, excerpts from an imaginary olden timey play, obituaries, theories about post-partum hair loss, graduation speeches, and more. No one writes like Jenny Slate.
Little, Brown Paperbacks 2025-10-14 240 pages

The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands

Dr. Laura Schlessinger
In her most provocative book yet, Dr. Laura urgently reminds women that to take proper care of their husbands is to ensure themselves the happiness and satisfaction they yearn for in marriage. Women want to be in love, get married, and live happily ever after. Yet disrespect for men and disregard for the value, feelings, and needs of husbands has fast become the standard for male-female relations in America. Those two attitudes clash in unfortunate ways to create struggle and strife in what could be a beautiful relationship. Countless women call Dr. Laura, unhappy in their marriages and seemingly at a loss to understand the incredible power they have over their men to create the kind of home life they yearn for. Now, in The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands, Dr. Laura shows you—with real-life examples and real-life solutions—how to wield that power to attain all the sexual pleasure, intimacy, love, joy, and peace you want in your life. Dr. Laura's simple principles have changed the lives of millions. Now they can change yours.
HarperCollins 2006-09-26 208 pages

A Book About Love

Jonah Lehrer
Number one bestselling science writer Jonah Lehrer explores the “only happiness that lasts”—love—in a book that “is interesting on nearly every page” (David Brooks, The New York Times Book Review ). Weaving together scientific studies from clinical psychologists, longitudinal studies of health and happiness, historical accounts and literary depictions, child-rearing manuals, and the language of online dating sites, Jonah Lehrer’s A Book About Love plumbs the most mysterious, most formative, most important impulse governing our lives. Love confuses and compels us—and it can destroy and define us. It has inspired our greatest poetry, defined our societies and our beliefs, and governs our biology. From the way infants attach to their parents, to the way we fall in love with another person, to the way some find a love for God or their pets, to the way we remember and mourn love after it expires, this book focuses on research that attempts, even in glancing ways, to deal with the long-term and the everyday. The most dangerous myth of love is that it’s easy, that we fall into the feeling and then the feeling takes care of itself. While we can easily measure the dopamine that causes the initial feelings of “falling” in love, the partnerships and devotions that last decades or longer remain a mystery. “Lehrer uses scores of detailed vignettes to traverse a complicated intellectual landscape, eventually arriving at modern theories of love…He is a talent” ( USA TODAY ), and A Book About Love decodes the set of skills necessary to cultivate a lifetime of love. Love, Lehrer argues, is not built solely on overwhelming passion, but, fascinatingly, on a set of skills to be cultivated over a lifetime.
Simon and Schuster 2017-07-25 304 pages

I'm supposed to protect you from all this: a memoir

Spiegelman, Nadja
"A memoir of mothers and daughters -- and mothers as daughters -- traced through four generations, from Paris to New York and back again. For a long time, Nadja Spiegelman believed her mother was a fairy. More than her famous father, Mauscreator Art Spiegelman, and even more than most mothers, hers -- French-born New Yorker art director Françoise Mouly -- exerted a force over reality that was both dazzling and daunting. As Nadja's body changed and "began to whisper to the adults around me in a language I did not understand," their relationship grew tense. Unwittingly, they were replaying a drama from her mother's past, a drama Nadja sensed but had never been told. Then, after college, her mother suddenly opened up to her. Françoise recounted her turbulent adolescence caught between a volatile mother and a playboy father, one of the first plastic surgeons in France. The weight of the difficult stories she told her daughter shifted the balance between them. It had taken an ocean to allow Françoise the distance to become her own person. At about the same age, Nadja made the journey in reverse, moving to Paris determined to get to know the woman her mother had fled. Her grandmother's memories contradicted her mother's at nearly every turn, but beneath them lay a difficult history of her own. Nadja emerged with a deeper understanding of how each generation reshapes the past in order to forge ahead, their narratives both weapon and defense, eternally in conflict. Every reader will recognize herself and her family in this gorgeous and heartbreaking memoir, which helps us to see why sometimes those who love us best hurt us most"--
Riverhead Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC 2017-08 372 pages

Boy alone: a sibling journey through autism

Greenfeld, Karl Taro
Karl Taro Greenfeld knew from an early age that his little brother, Noah, was not like other children. He couldn't crawl, and he had trouble making eye contact or interacting with his family. As Noah grew older, his differences became even more pronounced—he was unable to communicate verbally, use the toilet, or tie his shoes, and despite his angelic demeanor, he often had violent outbursts. No doctor, social worker, or specialist could pinpoint what was wrong with Noah beyond a general diagnosis: autism. The boys' parents, Josh and Foumi, dedicated their lives to caring for their younger son with myriad approaches—a challenging, often painful experience that the devoted father detailed in a bestselling trilogy of books. Now, for the first time, acclaimed journalist Karl Taro Greenfeld speaks out about growing up in the shadow of his autistic brother, revealing the complex mix of rage, confusion, and love that defined his childhood. Boy Alone is his brutally honest memoir of the hopes, dreams, and realities of life with a mentally disabled sibling. Seamlessly weaving together the social history of autism and autism research—as the Greenfelds lived through it in seeking treatment for Noah—with the deeply affecting story of two very different boys growing up side by side, this book raises crucial philosophical questions: Can relationships exist without language? How should aging parents care for a nonverbal, violent child, and then a grown man who is not self-sufficient? Is there anything that can be done to help an extremely autistic child or adult become a member of mainstream society? Haunting, tragic, and unforgettable, this chronicle of autism is a beautiful, wholly original exploration of what it means to be a family, a brother, and a person.
HarperCollins 2009-05-12 355 pages

His Bright Light The Story of Nick Traina

Danielle Steel
At once a loving legacy and an unsparing depiction of a devastating illness, Danielle Steel’s tribute to her lost son is a gift of life, hope, healing, and understanding to us all. “This is the story of an extraordinary boy with a brilliant mind, a heart of gold, and a tortured soul. It is the story of an illness, a fight to live, and a race against death. I want to share the story, and the pain, the courage, the love, and what I learned in living through it. I want Nick's life to be not only a tender memory for us, but a gift to others. . . . I would like to offer people hope and the realities we lived with. I want to make a difference. My hope is that someone will be able to use what we learned, and save a life with it.” —Danielle Steel From the day he was born, Nick Traina was his mother's joy. By nineteen, he was dead. This is Danielle Steel's powerful, personal story of the son she lost and the lessons she learned during his courageous battle against darkness. Sharing tender, painful memories and Nick's remarkable journals, Steel brings us a haunting duet between a singular young man and the mother who loved him—and a harrowing portrait of a masked killer called manic depression, which afflicts between two and three million Americans.
Random House Publishing Group 2000-02-08 336 pages

Man Repeller Seeking Love. Finding Overalls

Leandra Medine
Silk parachute pants. A gold lame jumpsuit. Ankle boots with fringe. Were these fashion-forward items sending men running in the opposite direction? Maybe, but Leandra Medine never cared. Slipping into drop-crotch shorts and a boxed sequin blazer in the dressing room of Topshop in downtown Manhattan, a brokenhearted Leandra had an epiphany. Looking in the mirror, she suddenly realized she didn't have a boyfriend because of the way she dressed. And the more she thought about it, the more she realized that such outfits said a lot about her life-romantic and otherwise. Now, the acclaimed blogger and fashion darling recounts her most significant memories through the lens of her sartorial choices. With her signature sass, blunt honesty, and some personal photos, Leandra shares details of the night she lost her virginity right down to the pair of white tube socks she forgot to take off, as well as when and why she realized her grandma's vintage Hermes ostrich skin clutch could hold much more than just keys and a cell phone. Through it all, she proves you don't need to compromise even your most repellent qualities to find your way into that big white dress (and an organza moto jacket). See? You can have your yeti and wear it, too. Showcasing the singular voice that has won Leandra millions of fans, this book is a collection of awkwardly funny experiences, a sweet love story, and above all, a reminder to celebrate and embrace a world made for women, by women.
Hachette Australia 2013 242 pages

What Every Woman Should Know about Men

Joyce Brothers
Psychologist, writer, speaker, advisor Dr. Joyce Brothers knows WHAT EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW ABOUT MEN, and she tells it all in this explicit and informative guide to understanding and coping with the opposite sex. FEATURING: * New explanations of male development and behavior * Guidelines for creating a better home life and family * Strategies on dealing with men at work -- and with sexual harrassment * Answers to the age-old question: why don't men call when they promise they will? * Numerous hints for making sex more exciting and fulfilling and much, more more. Here is the book that will help women and men increase communication, improve relationships, and achieve lasting love and happiness.
Random House Publishing Group 1983 288 pages

Life after suicide: finding courage, comfort & community after unthinkable loss

Ashton, Jennifer
From the chief medical correspondent of ABC News, an eloquent, heartbreaking, yet hopeful memoir of surviving the suicide of a loved one, examining this dangerous epidemic and offering first-hand knowledge and advice to help family and friends find peace. Jennifer Ashton, M.D., has witnessed firsthand the impact of a loved one's suicide. When her ex-husband killed himself soon after their divorce, her world--and that of her children--was shattered. Though she held a very public position with one of the world's largest media companies, she was hesitant to speak about the personal trauma that she and her family experienced following his death. A woman who addresses the public regularly on intimate health topics, she was uncertain of revealing her devastating loss--the most painful thing she'd ever experienced. But with the high-profile suicides of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, Dr. Ashton recognized the importance of talking about her experience and the power of giving voice to her grief. She shared her story with her Good Morning America family on air--an honest, heartbreaking revelation that provided comfort and solace to others, like her and her family, who have been left behind. In Life After Suicide, she opens up completely for the first time, hoping that her experience and words can inspire those faced with the unthinkable to persevere. Part memoir and part comforting guide that incorporates the latest insights from researchers and health professionals, Life After Suicide is both a call to arms against this dangerous, devastating epidemic, and an affecting story of personal grief and loss. In addition, Dr. Ashton includes stories from others who have survived the death of a loved one by their own hand, showing how they survived the unthinkable and demonstrating the vital roles that conversation and community play in recovering from the suicide of a loved one. The end result is a raw and revealing exploration of a subject that's been taboo for far too long, providing support, information, and comfort for those attempting to make sense of their loss and find a way to heal.
William Morrow Paperbacks 2020-09-15 288 pages

All There Is Love Stories from StoryCorps

Dave Isay,David Isay
StoryCorps founder Dave Isay shares stories of love and marriage from the revolutionary oral history project, revealing the many and remarkable paths that relationships can take. From the excitement of courtship to the deep connection of lifelong commitment, we discover that love is found in the most unexpected of places and witness the life-affirming joy of partnership, the comfort of shared sorrows, and profound gratitude in the face of loss.
Thorndike Press 2012 209 pages

How to Ruin Your Love Life

Ben Stein
Good love relationship isn't really that important. In fact, it uses up a lot of time you could spend thinking about yourself . . . and doing things all alone or with your drunken, loser friends. That's why Ben Stein has written How to Ruin Your Love Life. Following up on the wild success of his pioneering ''do-the-opposite-of-what-I-say''self-help book, How to Ruin Your Life, he now brings you, in 35 easy to follow steps, ways to definitively and absolutely . . . ruin your love life. Learn from this book and for heaven's sake, do the opposite right now.
ReadHowYouWant.com 2010-12 124 pages

Unforgettable

Scott Simon
'I'm getting a life's lesson about grace from my mother in the ICU. We never stop learning from our mothers, do we?'Unforgettable is a son's spirited, affecting, and inspiring tribute to his remarkable mother and the love between parent and child. When NPR's Scott Simon began tweeting from his mother's hospital room in July 2013, he didn't know that his missives would soon spread well beyond his 1.2 million Twitter followers. Squeezing the magnitude of his final days with her into 140-character updates, Simon's evocative and moving meditations spread virally. Over the course of a few days, Simon chronicled his mother's death and reminisced about her life, revealing her humour and strength, and celebrating familial love.Unforgettable expands on those famous tweets to create a memoir that is rich, deeply affecting, heart-wrenching, and exhilarating. His mother was a glamorous woman of the Mad Men-era; she worked in nightclubs, modelled, dated mobsters and movie stars, and was a brave single parent to young Scott Simon. Spending their last days together in a hospital ICU, mother and son reflect on their lifetime's worth of memories, recounting stories laced with humour and exemplifying resilience. Unforgettable is not only one man's rich and moving tribute to his mother's colourful life and graceful death, it is also a powerful portrayal of the universal bond between mother and child.
Macmillan Australia 2015-04-01 256 pages

The Book of Joan

Melissa Rivers
Joan Rivers was known all over the world-from the Palace Theater to Buckingham Palace, from the bright lights of Las Vegas to the footlights of Broadway, from the days of talkies to hosting talk shows. But there was only one person who knew Joan intimately, one person who the authorities would call when she got a little out of hand. Her daughter and best friend, Melissa. Joan and Melissa Rivers had one of the most celebrated mother-daughter relationships of all time. If you think Joan said some outrageous things to her audiences as a comedian, you won't believe what she said and did in private. Her love for her daughter knew no bounds-or boundaries, apparently. ('Melissa, I acknowledge that you have boundaries. I just choose to not respect them.') In The Book of Joan- Tales of Mirth, Mischief and Manipulation, Melissa shares stories (like when she was nine months old and her parents delivered her to Johnny Carson as a birthday gift), bon mots ('Missy, is there anything better than seeing a really good-looking couple pushing a baby that looks like a Sasquatch who got caught in a house fire?'), and life lessons from growing up in the Rosenberg-Rivers household ('I can do tips and discounts and figure out the number of gay men in an audience to make it a good show.That's all the math you'll ever need.'). These were just the tip of the iceberg when it came to life in the family that Melissa describes as more Addams than Cleaver.And at the center of it all was a tiny blond force of nature. The Book of Joan is full offunny, poignant and irreverent observations, thoughts, and tales about the woman who raised Melissa and is the reason she considers Valium one of the four basic food groups.
Penguin Books India PVT, Limited 2015-05-27 304 pages