[In this book, the author] explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage - and a life, in good times and bad - that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child. Several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill with what seemed at first flu, then pneumonia, then complete septic shock. She was put into an induced coma and placed...

In January 2003, Nicholas Sparks and his brother Micah set off on a three-week-trip around the world. It was to mark a milestone in their lives, for at 37 and 38 respectively, they were now the only surviving members of their family. As they travel the globe, the intimate story of their family unfolds in the details of the untimely deaths of their parents and only sister. Against the backdrop of the wonders of the world, the Sparks brothers band together...

Plagued by the suicides of both his siblings, and heir to alcohol and drug abuse, divorce, and economic ruin, James Brown lived a life clouded by addiction, broken promises, and despair.
In The Los Angeles Diaries, he reveals his struggle for survival, mining his past to present the inspiring story of his redemption. Beautifully written and limned with dark humor, these twelve deeply confessional, interconnected chapters address personal...

The provocative bestseller She's Not There is the winning, utterly surprising story of a person changing genders. By turns hilarious and deeply moving, Jennifer Finney Boylan explores the territory that lies between men and women, examines changing friendships, and rejoices in the redeeming power of family. Told in Boylan's fresh voice, She's Not There is about a person bearing and finally revealing a complex secret. As James evolves into Jennifer...

Filled with interviews that examine the relationships with fathers and mothers, a memoir about gender and parenting follows the author as she transitioned from a man to a woman and from a father to a mother.

National Book Award winner: This story of a family torn apart by the Vietnam era is 'a magnificent portrayal of two noble men who broke each other's hearts' (Booklist). James Carroll grew up in a Catholic family that seemed blessed. His father, who had once dreamed of becoming a priest, instead began a career in J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, rising through the ranks and eventually becoming one of the most powerful men in the Pentagon, the founder of the...

The daughter of author Joseph Heller shares the story of her childhood, marked by her father's fame, her parents' acrimonious divorce, and their unconventional parenting choices, in a lighthearted personal account that includes coverage of such topics as a summer at the Beverly Hills Hotel and her father's celebrity friendships.

In this powerful, touching memoir of a critically acclaimed Chinese-American writer, taste becomes the keeper of memory and food the keeper of culture when Nai-nai, her extraordinary grandmother, arrives from mainland China. Leslie Li's paternal grandfather, Li Zogren, was China's first democratically elected vice president, to whom Chiang Kai-shek left control of the country when he fled to Formosa in 1949. Nine years later, Li's wife, Nai-nai,...

Tracing the four days from the moment she gets the call that every immigrant fears to the burial of her mother, Elizabeth Nunez tells the haunting story of her lifelong struggle to cope with the consequences of the "sterner stuff" of her parents' ambitions for their children and her mother's seemingly unbreakable conviction that displays of affection are not for everyday use. But Nunez sympathizes with her parents, whose happiness is constrained by...

Pearl S. Buck's absorbing and candid chronicle of her experience making a movie in 1960s Japan, while surviving the loss of her beloved husband Pearl S. Buck's children's story, The Big Wave, about two young friends whose lives are transformed when a volcano erupts and a tidal wave engulfs their village, was eventually optioned as a movie. A Bridge for Passing narrates the resulting adventure, the story of the people involved in the movie-making...