NEW YORK — The sole survivor of a plane crash last year in Kansas is working on a memoir. Publisher Atria/Howard Books has told The Associated ...
Since the recent release of my wife Susan Spencer-Wendel's memoir, Until I Say Good-Bye, people often say to me, "Your wife is such an inspiration." Or: "This woman changed my outlook on life."
LONDON — Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager shot in the head by the Taliban as she returned home from school, is writing a book about the ...
"When I tried to describe the things I had seen in Israel and Palestine, people in the U.S. tended to assume I was exaggerating, because it didn't match at all with what they were used to hearing on the news. I decided to write something that started from zero and told an engaging story, so that people would 'hear me out.'"
We usually think of role models as those we admire and wish to emulate in our youth. I found mine as I approached 70 years of age. Marty taught we how best to live the rest of my life.
Ping Fu and I believe that irrational, angry, and personal attacks are not constructive. We stand on positive ground, with the support of people who know us and of reporters, reviewers, and bloggers who have actually read the book.
Bend, Not Break is not a book about "poor Ping Fu." It is not my attempt at garnering sympathy. Nor is it an attempt to bash China. I intend the book to give people hope.
When I shared that my mother banned me from her birthday after reading my memoir, friends piped up with variations of this sentiment: "That's why I'm waiting until my mother dies to write my memoir."As a result, I came up with seven reasons not to wait.
Truly collaborative writing? Until this year, it had eluded me so thoroughly that I nearly rejected the suggestion that I read the journals of Lt. Col. Mark Weber, who needed help to write a memoir for his three young sons, who would soon be without a father.
A day on which a life changes forever always begins as ordinary -- so ordinary that thereafter, daily life is a deliberate celebration. Carolyn Roy-Bornstein writes about an ordinary day gone awry in her new memoir Crash: A Mother, a Son, and the Journey From Grief to Gratitude.
Detroiter Charles Novacek was many things: a civil engineer, painter, husband, father and speaker of seven languages. But those who knew him best unde...
All I could think about was Daddy. Not the man who had held the gun, but the man who used to come into my room and tuck me in at night, the man who would talk to me until I fell asleep, the man who would help me in my times of worry and distress.
Daddy was going deeper and deeper into his own imaginary world -- a world where alcohol made him a man, gave him a sense of wealth, and provided him with something no human would ever be able to give him.
I kept thinking about what had happened. Daddy had tried to kill Matthew and Mark, and we had kicked him out of the camper and left him in Canada. I'd been left behind once and had had to walk home. What if Daddy had to walk all the way to South Carolina?
We were rocking out as we pulled up to the United States border. And then I was suddenly afraid. Daddy wasn't with us, it was after midnight, and our leaving at this hour was, to my mind, a little suspicious.
A couple of recent books illustrate our fascination with the arcane world of art forgery. Perhaps, in this Internet age, when so little seems to be truly original, the subject of how to produce a master forgery that will fool all the experts seems particularly relevant.
Daddy's expression was twisted with fury and madness. Suddenly the fiend in him focused in on the drawer beside the sink. With his one free hand, he reached over, opened the drawer, and pulled out one of the pistols.
There we were, torn down the middle, loving our father but hating his drinking. We'd all seen the movie Days of Wine and Roses. Jack Lemmon had been able to quit drinking in the movie. Why not Daddy?
"Daddy's been arrested for public drunkenness," Gee said finally. "The security man told me Daddy was sleeping it off, and that he'll be returned to us at the campsite in the morning."
My feet refused to move; they were glued to the ground. I looked down at them and said out loud, "Move, damn it! Why won't you move?" But they wouldn't budge. It was at this moment that I realized I was terror-stricken -- gripped in the claws of fear.
Daddy walked over to me and put his hand on my shoulder. "Wait till you're older to try and smoke," he said. "There's no need to rush it. And please, whatever you do, don't smoke oval cigarettes in pink paper with a silver filter."
Gee and I found ourselves in the camper with Matthew, who had assumed a prissy attitude. He restated that we had come to the World's Fair as a family and that we should go to the exhibits as a family. We agreed, but what could we do? None of us wanted to spend the day in a bar.
I loved I Dream of Jeannie and always thought it would be great to have a genie in a bottle who would grant me three wishes. I'd probably end up forfeiting one of my wishes to get Daddy to stop drinking, because all that came out of his bottle was the devil.
Daddy wanted to go back to the Brewers' Pavilion because they'd seemed to like people who drank, so he knew he wouldn't be cut off the booze chain.
Daddy ordered a beer as soon as we were seated, and a second one before we had ordered. He was on his fifth by the time we had finished eating. As he tapped on his empty glass, Gee said, "Daddy, I think you've had enough."
