Publisher: The Big Nest
My Bondage and My Freedom is an autobiographical slave narrative written by Frederick Douglass, an expansion of his earlier Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, discussing in greater detail his transition from bondage to liberty. Following this liberation, Douglass, a former slave, went on to become a prominent abolitionist, speaker, author, and publisher.
Incisive essays on Patty Hearst and Reagan, the Central Park jogger and the Santa Ana winds, from the New York Times–bestselling author of South and West. In these eleven essays covering the national scene from Washington, DC; California; and New York, the acclaimed author of Slouching Towards Bethlehem and The White Album “capture[s] the mood of America” and confirms her reputation as one of our sharpest and most trustworthy cultural observers (The New York Times). Whether dissecting the 1988 presidential campaign, exploring the commercialization of a Hollywood murder, or reporting on the “sideshows” of foreign wars, Joan Didion proves that she is one of the premier essayists of the twentieth century, “an articulate witness to the most stubborn and intractable truths of our time” (Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Times Book Review). Highlights include “In the Realm of the Fisher King,” a portrait of the White House under the stewardship of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, two “actors on location;” and “Girl of the Golden West,” a meditation on the Patty Hearst case that draws an unexpected and insightful parallel between the kidnapped heiress and the emigrants who settled California. “Sentimental Journeys” is a deeply felt study of New York media coverage of the brutal rape of a white investment banker in Central Park, a notorious crime that exposed the city’s racial and class fault lines. Dedicated to Henry Robbins, Didion’s friend and editor from 1966 until his death in 1979, After Henry is an indispensable collection of “superior reporting and criticism” from a writer on whom we have relied for more than fifty years “to get the story straight” (Los Angeles Times).Show book
At age forty, with two growing children and a new consulting company she’d recently founded, Gretchen Cherington, daughter of Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Richard Eberhart, faced a dilemma: Should she protect her parents’ well-crafted family myths while continuing to silence her own voice? Or was it time to challenge those myths and speak her truth—even the unbearable truth that her generous and kind father had sexually violated her? In this powerful memoir, aided by her father’s extensive archives at Dartmouth College and interviews with some of her father’s best friends, Cherington candidly and courageously retraces her past to make sense of her father and herself. From the women’s movement of the ’60s and the back-to-the-land movement of the ’70s to Cherington’s consulting work through three decades with powerful executives to her eventual decision to speak publicly in the formative months of #MeToo, Poetic License is one woman’s story of speaking truth in a world where, too often, men still call the shots.Show book
Shortlisted for the PEN Ackerley Prize 2018. This is a memoir of intense physical and personal experience, exploring how swimming with seals, gulls and orcas in the cold waters off Orkney provided Victoria Whitworth with an escape from a series of life crises and helped her to deal with intolerable loss. It is also a treasure chest of history and myth, local folklore and archaeological clues, giving us tantalising glimpses of Pictish and Viking men and women, those people lost to history, whose long-hidden secrets are sometimes yielded up by the land and sea.Show book
Imagine how it would feel to one day wake up and find your vision descending swiftly into darkness. Your fingertips are turning numb, and, as the world closes in around you, you realise there is nothing you can do to stop it. This is what happened to Vanessa Potter. In the space of 72 hours, Vanessa went from juggling a high-flying career as a producer and caring for her two small children to being completely blind, unable to walk, and with her sense of touch completely gone. Over the course of the next six months, Vanessa slowly began to recover. Opening her eyes onto a black-and-white world with mutating shapes and colours that crackled and fizzled, she encountered a visual landscape that was completely unrecognisable. As colour reappeared, Vanessa experienced a range of bizarre phenomena as her confused brain tried to make sense of the world around her, and she found herself touching and talking to inanimate objects in order to stimulate her vision – all part of her brain's mechanism for coping with the trauma of sensory loss. Going blind led Vanessa to turn science sleuth, reinventing herself as Patient H69 to uncover the reality behind her unique condition. With the help of a team of psychologists and neuroscientists, we follow her story as she learns the science of herself, making discoveries that will positively change the course of her life. Vanessa's account is raw and candid, but ultimately upbeat. It shows how this remarkable woman opened doors by transforming her terrifying experience into an inspirational and scientifically fascinating endeavour.Show book
How does a child know… • What is acceptable or unacceptable? • Normal or abnormal? • That children aren’t slaves? • Good or bad? • That women aren’t beaten? How do they get out of something they don’t know they’re in? Crawling Out is a true account of Casey Morley, a child raised in a dysfunctional family filled with abuse, domestic violence, and alcoholism that continued well into her adult life. This story will awaken you to the truth about children robbed of their innocence, childhood, and their birthrights. The toll abuse takes on their lives often sets them up to repeat history. Casey’s story chronicles years of coping with, and crawling out from, abuse—working hard to break the cycle to end generations of dysfunction. Watch her as she deletes what she was taught, and fights to shed fifty-plus years of shame and guilt that weren’t hers to carry. Through each struggle, you’ll witness Casey’s pain, admire her strength and courage, and feel the depth of a mother’s love as she fights to make a better life for her son. Casey has defied the odds and overcome a deep sense of worthlessness, unmasked the secrecy many victims carry, and learned to forgive. With awareness, as a society, we have the ability to end domestic violence. Crawling Out is that first step.Show book
In “After the Darkness" Dr. Candace Nadine Breen, PhD, shares how she overcame childhood trauma, sexual abuse and rape to her present role as a leader and teacher. "After the Darkness" is an amazing story of a West African American woman from Providence, Rhode Island who was born of slave descendants from Alabama and Georgia. The author tells maternal abandonment, paternal incest, abuse and her escape to freedom. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger! This story of hope and healing for anyone who has experienced abuse will give the reader awareness "We are not alone." The author describes her experience of being almost killed, of fighting for her life and her eventual triumph and ability to live a beautiful married life and become a devoted mother of two children. "After the Darkness" is an inspirational story that will move you, and change you!Show book
