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  Mama Bear - One Black Mother’s...

  Anonymous

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  “Brave. Compelling. Provocative. ” —Gabrielle Union Wade, actress and New York Times bestselling author 
  In this moving memoir, Shirley Smith, wife of NBA Champion and All-Star J. R. Smith, tells the story of giving birth to one of the youngest premature babies to survive—using her experience to heighten awareness of the crisis of Black maternal and infant health and pay tribute to Black women’s resilience. 
  Shirley Smith and her husband, NBA champion J. R. Smith, looked forward to the birth of their second child, Dakota, as they celebrated New Year’s Eve with family at home. After dinner, Shirley felt a sharp pain that worsened through the night. Only 21-weeks pregnant, she was in labor. Mama Bear is the story of her 141-day ordeal, from entering a hospital emergency room on New Year’s morning and giving birth to her premature newborn, to taking her daughter home for the first time the following May. 
  In telling her story, written with Zelda Lockhart, Shirley shines a spotlight on the dangers Black women face during pregnancy. Black mothers are twice as likely as their white counterparts to go into labor prematurely and lose their babies—and almost four times as likely to die giving birth. Neither socioeconomic status nor access to quality healthcare seem to matter. Tennis champion Serena Williams experienced life-threatening complications during childbirth, and Beyoncé suffered toxemia with her premature twins.  
  Shirley chronicles the emotional and physical battle she and J. R. endured to save their daughter, and her continual struggles to support her family while nurturing herself. Like many Black women, Shirley was raised to believe that pain is a sign of weakness. The one who kept it together for everybody, she had always put herself second. She parallels this difficult journey to her childhood growing up with an addict mother, and having to raise herself and her brother from a very young age.  
  A chronicle of pain, loss, and infidelity, Mama Bear is ultimately a story of love—a celebration of community, family, faith, healing, the maternal bond, and one woman’s indomitable spirit.  
  Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

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  You Could Make This Place...

  Margot Langley

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  This content is an independent and unofficial summary created for informational and educational purposes only. It is not affiliated with, authorized, approved, licensed, or endorsed by the original author or publisher. All rights to the original work belong to its respective copyright holders. This summary is not intended to substitute the original book, but to offer a concise overview and interpretation of its main ideas.
   
  
  
   
  You Could Make This Place Beautiful is not just a memoir—it’s a map out of heartbreak and into reclamation. After the rupture of a marriage, the narrator embarks on a powerful journey of rediscovery: of voice, identity, and purpose. With poetic precision and unapologetic vulnerability, this audiobook explores the hidden costs of silence, the weight of emotional labor, and the courage it takes to choose yourself—again and again.
   
  In short, vivid chapters that pulse with emotional honesty, the story walks through betrayal, motherhood, art, forgiveness, and radical self-worth. It's not about revenge or bitterness. It’s about turning pain into power, loneliness into clarity, and routine into ritual. It’s about making beauty—right in the middle of the mess.

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  Shatterproof - How I Overcame...

  Lauren Sisler

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  She lost her parents to secret opioid addictions. She lost her voice when the shame shattered her heart. But when she fell in love with her story, she became shatterproof. 
  College football fans have welcomed Emmy Award-winning ESPN sideline reporter Lauren Sisler into their homes weekly since 2016. But the popular journalist known for asking insightful questions and for the viral videos dancing her signature “sideline shimmy” shielded a tragic secret behind her smile for nearly two decades: her mother and father died within hours of each other, victims of their hidden battle with prescription drug addiction.  
  In Shatterproof, Sisler enters the dark and mysterious pasts her parents hid from everyone but each other. She applies her skills as a reporter to uncover details of the double lives they led even as they loved and supported her athletic career as a gymnast. She also lays bare her shock and grief after their deaths, confessing the lengths to which she went to avoid facing the unimaginable truth. 
  Only by summoning the courage to honestly confront the tragic story has Sisler been able to redeem it. She’s been freed to grieve her parents while appreciating the loving legacy they left her. And she’s embraced her calling as an inspirational speaker and addiction awareness advocate, helping audiences to fall in love with their own stories—and to recognize that they, too, are shatterproof.

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  RMS Titanic Lifeboat No 6 - The...

  William Cavendish

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  Tyrell and Julia booked to travel on the Titanic with their two sons to introduce them to their American grandfather, but the children were too ill to travel. Julia persisted in going without them. The fatal and tragic decision not only led to the unnecessary loss of her husband, it was to haunt her for the next fifty years. Why was she so determined to go? In a letter written to her sons, as her death approached, she claimed the purpose of the visit was 'to gain her wealthy father's support for his son-in-law's ambition to stand as a Member of Parliament.' Yet Tyrell had shown no enthusiasm for making the journey, as Julia had already made the trip alone, the previous year quite safely. From the Carpathia Julia cabled her father, Henry Siegel, to have clothes from his department stores ready for the Titanic's survivors. In 1992 and 2002 her son and grandson learnt from chance encounters with New Yorkers of Julia's father's shocking fall from grace, the grandfather who owned a famous department store with a 'soda fountain meeting place'. Now can be revealed the true reason for her mission.

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  Self-Portrait

  Celia Paul

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  A rich, penetrating memoir about the author's relationship with a flawed but influential figure—the painter Lucian Freud—and the satisfactions and struggles of a life lived through art. 
   
   
   
  One of Britain's most important contemporary painters, Celia Paul has written a reflective, intimate memoir of her life as an artist. Self-Portrait tells the artist's story in her own words, drawn from early journal entries as well as memory, of her childhood in India and her days as a art student at London's Slade School of Fine Art; of her intense decades-long relationship with the older esteemed painter Lucian Freud and the birth of their son; of the challenges of motherhood, the unresolvable conflict between caring for a child and remaining committed to art; of the "invisible skeins between people," the profound familial connections Paul communicates through her paintings of her mother and sisters; and finally, of the mystical presence in her own solitary vision of the world around her. 
   
   
   
  Self-Portrait is a powerful, liberating evocation of a life and of a life-long dedication to art. 
   
   
   
  Contains mature themes.

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  Birding for Boomers - And...

  Sneed B. Collard III

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  Birding for Boomers is a friendly, accessible, and humorous guide to discovering the joys of bird watching. Beginning birders of all ages will get answers to every question they may have, like which birds like feeders, the difference between a finch and a flicker, or which birding app to use. The guide also helps birders plan everything from local explorations to exciting "bird-cations." 
   
   
   
  Late-bloomer birders will appreciate Collard's personal insights and tips for overcoming aging-related challenges such as physical handicaps, poor hearing, or failing eyesight. Additional sections cover sharing birding with others and contributing to community science, habitat stewardship, and bird conservation. 
   
   
   
  Appealing and lighthearted, Birding for Boomers will help a wide range of listeners overcome any doubts and get started with watching, understanding, and conserving our feathered friends.

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