Parenting Memoir

“How do I become more confident?” is the question Lydia Fenet hears almost every time she speaks to women across the country. Navigating a two-decade career at the world’s leading auction house while raising three children, Lydia had her own journey of learning self-assurance. Through stories of overcoming challenges in both her work and personal lives, she demonstrates that confidence isn’t something that only some people are born with; rather, it’s inside every one of us, waiting to be claimed.

"If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person." ( The World According to Mister Rogers)

Critics, readers, and listeners loved Lisa Scottoline's first collection of true-life stories, which only encouraged her—now she's back with these all-new, exciting adventures. She's farther down the road now, and the scenery has changed—ex-husbands Thing One and Thing Two are in her rear-view mirror, daughter Francesca has moved into an apartment, and Lisa's finding the silver lining in her empty nest, which has lots more room for her shoes. And some things have stayed the same.

"Who am I, really?" is a question many adoptees ask when they realize they have another family of genetic relation. Damon L. Davis shares his journey through life as an adoptee to becoming an adoptive parent himself. He explores his desire to find his birth family as sparked by the flood of emotions that accompanied the birth of his son, Seth - the first blood relative he had ever known.

For more than a decade, Kathy Harrison has sheltered a shifting cast of troubled youngsters - the offspring of prostitutes and addicts; the sons and daughters of abusers; and teenage parents who aren't equipped for parenthood. All this, in addition to raising her three biological sons and two adopted daughters. What would motivate someone to give herself over to constant, largely uncompensated chaos? For Harrison, the answer is easy.

Patti Davis, the daughter of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, writes about losing her father to Alzheimer's disease, saying goodbye in stages, and watching the progression of a disease that steals what is most precious: a person's memory. Past and present come together in this illuminating portrait of grief, of a man, a disease, and a girl and her father.

On August 11, 2008, 18-year-old Marie reported that a masked man broke into her apartment near Seattle and raped her. Within days, the police swiftly pivoted and began investigating Marie. Confronted with inconsistencies in her story and the doubts of others, Marie broke down and said her story was a lie - a bid for attention. More than two years later, Colorado detectives pursued a serial rapist who photographed his victims, threatening to release the images online, and whose calculated steps to erase all physical evidence suggested he might be a soldier or a cop.

Rich Benoit went from buying a left-for-dead Tesla to becoming a successful YouTube entrepreneur and launching The Electrified Garage, the nation’s first successful EV-only business devoted to repairing Teslas and other electric vehicles. Today he is a strong advocate for right to repair and the world’s most popular DIY expert and car aficionado, and now he shares his story and expertise.

"A brilliant and brilliantly different" (Kiese Laymon), wrenching and redemptive coming-of-age memoir about the difficulty of growing up in a hazardous home and the glory of finding salvation in geek culture.

A desperate mother must grapple with impossible choices as her young son becomes too dangerous to live at home, but is only growing bigger, stronger, and more violent while in treatment. When Keri and her husband adopt Devon, he has concerning behaviors, but she's confident all he needs is the love of a forever family.

June Briand shot four bullets into her husband's head and was sentenced to 15 years to life. This is the shocking, true story of survival - and the intense bond June shared with her pathologically violent husband, a monster who physically and sexually tortured, degraded, and dominated her so relentlessly she refused to believe he was dead even after she killed him.

In the much-anticipated follow-up to Sunday Times best seller Trapped, foster carer Rosie Lewis tells the heartbreaking true story of Zadie. When the young teenage girl, thrown out of her home by her strict Muslim family, is discovered hiding on the city streets by the police, it is clear that all is not as it should be. Taught to believe that Westerners should not be trusted, when Zadie is initially delivered into the experienced hands of foster carer Rosie, she is understandably suspicious of the family around her.

Claire Dederer is a happily married mother of two, ages nine and 12, when she suddenly finds herself totally despondent and, simultaneously, suffering through a kind of erotic reawakening. This exuberant memoir shifts between her present experience as a middle-aged mom in the grip of mysterious new hungers and herself as a teenager - when she last experienced life with such heightened sensitivity and longing.

After more than a decade of dead-end dates and dysfunctional relationships, Christie Tate has reclaimed her voice and settled down. Her days of agonizing in group therapy over guys who won’t commit are over, the grueling emotional work required to attach to another person tucked neatly into the past.

That’s the real life story of country music star Jimmy Wayne. It’s a miracle that Jimmy survived being hungry and homeless, bouncing in and out of the foster care system, and sleeping in the streets. But he didn’t just overcome great adversity in his life; he now uses his country music platform to help children everywhere, especially teenagers in foster care who are about to age out of the system. Walk to Beautiful is the powerfully emotive account of Jimmy’s horrendous childhood and the love shown him by Russell and Bea Costner, the elderly couple who gave him a stable home and provided the chance to complete his education. Jimmy says of Bea, “She changed every cell in my body.”

Peg Holland became pregnant as a teenager in a conservative village in 1950s Ireland. She knew her life would never be the same again. She was sent away in shame only to find courage and wisdom deep within her soul. After her baby, Mary, is born, Peg and Mary are heckled and ridiculed by townspeople for nine months until Peg decides she must give Mary up for adoption so she can have a better life. This decision haunts Peg the rest of her life. Having nothing left to keep her in Ireland, Peg leaves home to work in America. Mick O'Hagan is swept away by Peg and wants to marry her. She refuses...

Mark and Giulia's life together began as a storybook romance. They fell in love at 18, married at 24, and were living their dream life in San Francisco. When Giulia was 27, she suffered a terrifying and unexpected psychotic break that landed her in the psych ward for nearly a month. One day she was vibrant and well adjusted; the next she was delusional and suicidal, convinced that her loved ones were not safe.

In this hilarious and intimate essay collection, Alyssa navigates life as a wild-hearted woman and her thrilling career as a sex, relationship, and celebrity writer in New York City. From double-booking an interview with Sarah Jessica Parker and an abortion appointment and unsuccessfully quitting sex and men entirely to have a baby via an anonymous sperm donor, Alyssa's essays paint a deeply genuine, romantic, and uproarious portrait of a woman who craves both love and lust, and refuses to settle or sacrifice her fierce inner-spirit, sometimes to her own regret and detriment.

A shocking true story that reveals how one woman was tormented to the very depths of despair by her husband through coercive control and continual physical and sexual abuse. Broken in mind, body and spirit and completely isolated from the rest of the world, Hannah thinks she’ll never find the strength to escape, until one day an opportunity arrives....

From the creator of the blog Renegade Mothering, Janelle Hanchett's forthright, darkly funny, and ultimately empowering memoir chronicling her tumultuous journey from young motherhood to abysmal addiction and a recovery she never imagined possible. Pregnant at 21 by a man she'd known three months, Janelle Hanchett embraced motherhood with the determined optimism of the recklessly self-confident. After giving birth, she found herself bored, directionless, and seeking relief in wine, which she justified as sophisticated and going well with chicken.