Emotional Memoirs

If you struggle with a highly sensitive personality, this memoir and collection of stories will help you heal and flourish. Benita A. Esposito is a licensed professional counselor and best-selling author with four decades of professional experience. Even smart high-achievers have themes on their hero’s journey to the authentic self, and these were hers. What unconsciously drew her to an emotionally distant relationship or an emotionally abusive relationship? Why did she feel so hurt when others judged her? Why was she so tired? What compelled her toward self actualization?

Discover a lifeline for surviving and thriving after narcissistic abuse with I Can’t Wait for My Father to Die by Emily Santos. This raw, darkly funny memoir and self-help guide follows Emily’s journey from enduring her father Richard’s psychological torment to embracing no-contact freedom at 43. Through gripping, first-hand stories of abuse—like a chilling inheritance hoax—and practical tools like the Freedom Victory Journal, Emily offers a roadmap to reclaim your worth, build a chosen family, and live free from a toxic parent’s shadow. If you loved Educated by Tara Westover ...

Dr. Joel Salinas is a Harvard-trained researcher and neurologist with extraordinary gifts that provide him unique access to his patients and enable him to experience life in an extraordinary way. He has mirror-touch synesthesia, a neurological trait that allows him to feel others' emotions and physical sensations. Susceptible to the pain and discomfort of his patients, Salinas uses his heightened empathic ability - what he calls "compulsory mindfulness" - to help understand and better treat their conditions.

Best friends since childhood, Luke and Toby have dreamed of one thing: getting out of their dead-end town. Soon they finally will, riding the tails of Luke's wrestling scholarship, never looking back. If they don't drift apart first. If Toby's abusive dad, or Luke's unreliable mom, or anything else their complicated lives throw at them doesn't get in the way. In a format that alternates between Luke's letters to Toby from death row and the events of their senior year, Bryan Bliss expertly unfolds the circumstances that led to Luke's incarceration.

This novel tells the story of a young soldier who accompanies his great-grandfather, Doug Mackinack, on an Honor Flight – a sponsored trip to the World War II Memorial in Washington D.C. During the flight, the old man shares stories from his platoon's tour in Europe, many ending in dramatic (or occasionally, humorous) twists. The stories share not only suspenseful situations, but also the emotional impact of the platoon's journey through a broad range of humanity: Fear. Courage. Compassion. Anger. Love. Death. Loyalty. Mercy. Retribution. In a final defining moment near the end of his ...

At the age of 31, Yong Kang Chan was left with no job, no income, and most importantly of all, no identity. He thought having a job in an animation studio would lead him to the right career path. But an unexpected turn of events led him to depression. Those two months of darkness was scary. He even contemplated dying. However, he soon realized depression was a spiritual gift and embraced it. He believed he had depression for a reason: to share the lessons he learned about it.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Michael O'Leary by Matt Cooper, read by Stephen Hogan. September 2017. Ryanair cancels over 700,000 bookings, and its powerful PR juggernaut comes shuddering to a halt. For once, the airline's aggressive and flamboyant CEO, Michael O'Leary, is contrite and apologetic. A month later Ryanair announces increased passenger traffic for October, year-on-year growth and increased profits. Its share price soars. For the moment, it appears, a fundamental shake-up of Europe's biggest airline is off the table.

In honest, confessional prose, Born on the Bayou - a roller-coaster rags-to-riches story - transports us to a pocket of the South where Lourd learns how to be a man from the two people he looks up to the most: his larger-than-life father, "Puffer", a prominent figure in the oil business; and his successful older brother, Bryan.

In Parkinson’s and Other Denials, Ron Palmer invites readers into a deeply personal journey through the tremors of life—both literal and figurative. This poignant collection of poetry explores the fragility of the human body and the resilience of the human spirit, weaving themes of love, loss, humor, and introspection. With every verse, Palmer balances vulnerability with hope, crafting a tribute to perseverance in the face of life’s uncertainties.

An epic adventure full of incredible characters, death-defying athletic achievement, and bleeding edge science, The Fear Project began with one question: how can we overcome our fears to reach our full potential? Who among us has not been paralyzed by fear? In The Fear Project, award-winning journalist and surfer Jaimal Yogis sets out to better understand fear - why does it so often dominate our lives, what makes it tick, and is there even a way to use it to our advantage?

*This book was originally released as "His Mother's Son." For additional reader reviews, please visit the book page for "His Mother's Son." In place of his mother's love, her bitter grudge. Instead of a real life, an accidental one. Forced to live a lie, Paul feels trapped behind a wall of blame. Determined to escape the past, he mounts a quest to find the truth. It brings adventures around the world and deep within his soul. In time it even takes him past the point of no return. But when this search reveals the path to what he has pursued, will he have the strength to follow it?

Coming into marriage with high hopes, Shawna faced a cascade of devastating events: divorce, remarriage, infidelity, and emotional neglect in a neurodiverse marriage. With few options left for healing and recovery she remained determined for more. In this authentic account of a wife who is given God's grace far beyond her own strength, the listener can follow Shawna as she loves, weeps, pleads and grieves, and ceaselessly fights for something she believes is possible.

From Brick Buildings to Beaches follows the inspirational life of Sharika K. Forde. As a little black girl raised by a single dad, she struggled to find her identity when her family relocated from New Jersey to suburban life in Connecticut. From a confused child, to teenage temptations, a broken marriage, to the sacrifices of being a single mom and raising four sons; this intimate memoir walks you through each stage of her life. Her emotional journey to one day find serenity on the sandy beaches of Florida will make you laugh, cry and cheer along her path to self discovery.

A Real Emotional Girl tells the true story of young Tanya, growing up in the wonderland of her family’s summer camp. At 16, this idyllic life is interrupted when she must face her father’s sudden illness. Tanya, her mother, and two brothers find themselves cramped in a tiny cabin in a tiny town in northern Wisconsin in the dead of winter. There, they wait for her father to die of cancer. Separated from friends and civilization, Tanya has only her fears and uncertainty for company.

It all began in 1958 when I was ten. A young family has just moved into the neighborhood. One sunny summer day, while I was sitting on the steps of my house, a young boy came up to me and rolled his ball to my feet. With the sun in my face, I said hi and rolled it back. He ran off. A few days later, he did it again. I eventually became friends with him. I told my mom that a Chinese family had moved into the neighborhood and their son, Charlie, was my new friend. She said, bring him over for supper. I did, and after supper, he left, and my mom told me a story about people who have something ...

In Gift of Gratitude, author Claire E. Hallinan shares her gratitude for the gifts that she was given by her past: the ability to think of all experiences as positive, the strengths that she determined to be resilient, and the future that she believed to be hopeful through her unique learning experiences. It is these gifts that she is able to share in her very own classroom as a teacher today.

Who helped you become the person you are today? As Nancy Davis Kho approached a milestone birthday, she decided to answer that question by sending thank-you letters to the many people who had influenced her, helped her, and inspired her over the years: family, friends, mentors, teachers, co-workers, even a couple of former friends and exes. While her recipients always seemed genuinely pleased to read the letters, what Nancy never expected was the profound and positive effect the process would have on her.

At age 54, Chris Monnette is diagnosed with neovascular macular degeneration, an incurable retinal disease that slowly robs him of his eyesight. As each cell in his macula dies and his vision diminishes, he is forced, literally and figuratively, to see the world through different eyes. Raised in the shadow of an emotionally stifled father, Chris learns early on to mirror the belief that vulnerability equals weakness. A piercingly honest meditation on the emotional legacy of stoicism, Seeing Clearly is much-needed proof that being a man and being vulnerable are one and the same.

Long ago, Liz Perle made a quiet contract with cash: She would do what it took to get it - work hard, marry right - but she didn’t want to have to think about it too much. Since she was a young girl, the subject of money had been quietly sidestepped, a shadowy factor whose private influence was impolite to discuss. When a sudden divorce left Perle with no home, no job, a four-year-old, and a box of toys, she realized she could no longer afford to leave her murky and fraught relationship with money unexamined.

When Richard Nixon battled for the presidency in 1968, he did so with the knowledge that, should he win, he would face the looming question of how to extract the United States from its disastrous war in Vietnam. It was on a beach that summer that Nixon disclosed to his chief aide, HR Haldeman, one of his most notorious, risky gambits: the madman theory. In On Nixon's Madness, Zachary Jonathan Jacobson examines the enigmatic president through this theory of Nixon's own invention.