WD 24 Non fiction

'A mind-blowing and emotionally honest tale of survival against all odds.' Bernardine Evaristo 'A breathtaking memoir...I was so moved by this book.' Oprah 'It is startlingly honest and, at times, a jaw-dropping read, charting her rise from poverty and abuse to becoming the first African-American to win the triple crown of an Oscar, Emmy and Tony for acting.' BBC News THE DEEPLY PERSONAL, BRUTALLY HONEST ACCOUNT OF VIOLA'S INSPIRING LIFE In my book, you will meet a little girl named Viola who ran from her past until she made a life changing decision to stop running forever. This is my story, from a crumbling apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to the stage in New York City, and beyond. This is the path I took to finding my purpose and my strength, but also to finding my voice in a world that didn't always see me. As I wrote Finding Me, my eyes were open to the truth of how our stories are often not given close examination. They are bogarted, reinvented to fit into a crazy, competitive, judgmental world. So I wrote this for anyone who is searching for a way to understand and overcome a complicated past, let go of shame, and find acceptance. For anyone who needs reminding that a life worth living can only be born from radical honesty and the courage to shed facades and be...you. Finding Me is a deep reflection on my past and a promise for my future. My hope is that my story will inspire you to light up your own life with creative expression and rediscover who you were before the world put a label on you.

Read more less

Oprah Winfrey and renowned brain development and trauma expert, Dr Bruce Perry, discuss the impact of trauma and adverse experiences and how healing must begin with a shift to asking 'What happened to you?' rather than 'What’s wrong with you?'. Through wide-ranging and often deeply personal conversation, Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Perry explore how what happens to us in early childhood – both good and bad - influences the people we become. They challenge us to shift from focusing on 'What’s wrong with you?' or 'Why are you behaving that way?' to asking 'What happened to you?'. This simple change in perspective can open up a new and hopeful understanding for millions about why we do the things we do, why we are the way we are, providing a road map for repairing relationships, overcoming what seems insurmountable, and ultimately living better and more fulfilling lives. Many of us experience adversity and trauma during childhood that has lasting impact on our physical and emotional health. And as we’re beginning to understand, we are more sensitive to developmental trauma as children than we are as adults. ‘What happened to us’ in childhood is a powerful predictor of our risk for physical and mental health problems down the road, and offers scientific insights into the patterns of behaviours so many struggle to understand. A survivor of multiple childhood challenges herself, Oprah Winfrey shares portions of her own harrowing experiences because she understands the vulnerability that comes from facing trauma at a young age. Throughout her career, Oprah has teamed up with Dr. Bruce Perry, one of the world’s leading experts on childhood trauma. He has treated thousands of children, youth, and adults and has been called on for decades to support individuals and communities following high-profile traumatic events. Now, Oprah joins forces with Dr. Perry to marry the power of storytelling with the science and clinical experience to better understand and overcome the effects of trauma. Grounded in the latest brain science and brought to life through compelling narratives, this book shines a light on a much-needed path to recovery – showing us our incredible capacity to transform after adversity.

Read more less

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER & MAJOR BBC ONE TV SERIES 'The book we will thrust into our friends' hands. Alderton feels like a best friend and your older sister all rolled into one and her pages wrap around you like a warm hug' Evening Standard 'Alderton is Nora Ephron for the millennial generation' Elizabeth Day Award-winning journalist Dolly Alderton survived her twenties (just about) and in Everything I Know About Love, she gives an unflinching account of the bad dates and squalid flat-shares, the heartaches and humiliations, and most importantly, the unbreakable female friendships that helped her to hold it all together. Glittering with wit, heart and humour, this is a book to press into the hands of every woman who has ever been there or is about to find themselves taking that first step towards the rest of their lives. 'Steeped in furiously funny accounts of one-night stands, ill-advised late-night taxi journeys up the M1, grubby flat-shares and the beauty of female friendships, as Alderton joyfully booze-cruises her way through her twenties' Metro 'Deeply funny, sometimes shocking, and admirably open-hearted and optimistic' Daily Telegraph 'A sensitive, astute and funny account of growing up millennial' Observer 'Alderton proves a razor-sharp observer of the shifting dynamics of long term female friendship' Mail on Sunday 'It's so full of life and laughs - I gobbled up this book. Alderton has built something beautiful and true out of many fragments of daftness' Amy Liptrot *Winner of Autobiography of the Year at the National Book Awards 2018**A Waterstones Paperback of the Year 2019**A Sunday Times paperback of the year 2019**Selected for Stylist's The Decade's 15 Best Books by Remarkable Women*

Read more less

‘This book kept me alive.’ Love and Fury is the compelling and intimate account of the life, loves and furies of Margie Orford. In this brave memoir, the renowned South African crime writer divulges some of the harrowing experiences that have shaped her life and influenced her writing. Through sexual assault, divorce, depression and personal loss, Orford illuminates the trauma she has navigated. Tender and courageous chapters vividly recall memories of what she has been through as a woman, mother, wife, feminist and ambitious writer. Love and Fury shows why trauma in our past can have such an enduring and debilitating effect on women’s lives. It also unpacks the healing power of love, creativity, courage and self-reflection, ultimately offering a profound message of hope and joy for any woman who has ever questioned themselves, their trauma and who they are in the world. This book is every woman’s love and fury.

Read more less

The ability to determine your truth without judgment is the beginning of harnessing authentic power in Christ. When we do the work of embracing where we are, we create space for God's love to meet us in our most raw form and then polish us to shine like never before. Power does not lie in success, achievement, or performance. Power rests in humility, honesty, and the commitment to continuous growth. Power Moves will help you to qualify whether you're living life authentically or if you've found a way to maintain status quo. It will reveal the principles required to tap into the most powerful version of who you are, then lead you in how to introduce your authentic self to the world around you. Sarah will help you give language to your changing needs, acknowledge and applaud your growth, refuse to bear the weight all at once or all alone, and release your power.  Open your eyes to the way that God sees you and awaken your boldness to effect change in the world by living out the truth of who God says you are with confidence.

Read more less

Introducing the Collins Modern Classics, a series featuring some of the most significant books of recent times, books that shed light on the human experience – classics which will endure for generations to come. A single person is missing for you, and the whole world is empty John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their daughter fall ill. At first they thought it was flu, then she was placed on life support. Days later, the Dunnes were sitting down to dinner when John suffered a massive and fatal coronary. This powerful book is Didion’s ‘attempt to make sense of the weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness’. The result is a personal yet universal portrait of marriage and life, in good times and bad, from one of the defining voices of American literature. ‘Beautiful and devastating … Didion has always been a precise, humane and meticulously truthful writer, but on the subject of death she becomes essential’ Zadie Smith

Read more less

In hardback for the first time, this tenth-anniversary edition of the game-changing #1 New York Times bestseller features a new foreword and brand-new tools to make the work your own. For over a decade, Brené Brown has found a special place in our hearts as a gifted mapmaker and a fellow traveller. She is both a social scientist and a kitchen-table friend whom you can always count on to tell the truth, make you laugh and, on occasion, cry with you. And what's now become a movement all started with The Gifts of Imperfection, which has sold more than two million copies in thirty-five different languages across the globe. What transforms this book from words on a page to effective daily practices are the ten guideposts to wholehearted living. The guideposts not only help us understand the practices that will allow us to change our lives and families, they also walk us through the unattainable and sabotaging expectations that get in the way. Brené writes, "This book is an invitation to join a wholehearted revolution. A small, quiet, grassroots movement that starts with each of us saying, 'My story matters because I matter.' Revolution might sound a little dramatic, but in this world, choosing authenticity and worthiness is an absolute act of resistance."

Read more less

Ek het ‘n Engel gesien is stories wat skrywer en raak prater Amore Bekker ontvang het as voormalige RSG-aanbieder nadat sy luisteraars gevra het om hul ontmoetings met en geletedeel. “Die terugvoering was oorweldigend,” sê sy. “En met elke storie was die versoek, ‘Sit dit vir ons in ‘n boek, asseblief’.” Dié boek is gevul met diep menslike ervarings van hoogs geestelike wesens vanuit elke uithoek van ons land...Van gevaarlike paaie en traumatiese ongelukstonele tot pediatriese sale en intensie sorgeenhede ... Van die verpletterde ma wat langs haar dogter se ongelukstoneel gehelp is deur drie onsigbare vroue in hoëhakskoene en die wanhopige pasiënt wie se oorlede ouma ‘n leerskare engele na haar bed toe gelei het tot die geheimsinnige vertroosting van 'n wit veer op ‘n tafel in 'n industriële gebied sonder bome of voëls. Rakende hier die sonderlinge versameling, haal Amore ‘n wyse man aan: “Dit wat ons kantel, tel glad nie; dit wat ons nie kantel nie, is al wat tel.” Die verhale in Ek het ‘n Engel gesien gaan inderdaad oor die onsigbare en ontelbare wat elke leser sal verstom en inspireer. Die illustreerder is die Durbanse kunstenaar, Deirdre Schoultz. Haar eteriese tekeninge voeg 'n dimensie van intrige en misterie by die roerende verhale.

Read more less

’n Baie lang brief aan my dogter is Marita van der Vyver, een van Afrikaans se mees geliefde skrywers, se ontroerende jeugmemoir. Hierin vertel ’n Afrikaanse ma vir haar Franse dogter van haar grootwordjare in die sestigs en sewentigs, in die bloeityd van apartheid. Maar is dit ook ’n storie oor taal en boeke en die wonderwerk van woorde. En hoe dit gekom het dat ’n skaam boekwurm uit ’n Afrikaanse middelklasfamilie, wat slegs ’n geslag vroeër nog werkersklas was, ’n skrywer geword het. Dis ’n boek wat die meeste mense nie sal kan neersit nie omdat dit ’n speurtog is deur ’n skrywer se beginjare en ’n liefdesbrief is aan ’n dogter en aan ’n taal en aan ’n land. En ’n ma se poging om sin te maak van hierdie onverskillige en wrede wêreld waarin sy haar nou begewe.

Read more less

Now on Netflix as The Call to Courage 'She's so good, Brené Brown, at finding the language to articulate collective feeling' Dolly Alderton. Every time we are faced with change, no matter how great or small, we also face risk. We feel uncertain and exposed. We feel vulnerable. Most of us try to fight those feelings - or feel guilt for feeling them in the first place. In a powerful new vision Dr Brené Brown challenges everything we think we know about vulnerability, and dispels the widely accepted myth that it's a weakness. She argues that, in truth, vulnerability is strength and when we shut ourselves off from vulnerability - from revealing our true selves - we distance ourselves from the experiences that bring purpose and meaning to our lives.Daring Greatly is the culmination of 12 years of groundbreaking social research, across every area of our lives including home, relationships, work, and parenting. It is an invitation to be courageous; to show up and let ourselves be seen, even when there are no guarantees.This is vulnerability. This is daring greatly.

Read more less

The Woman in Me is a brave and astonishingly moving story about freedom, fame, motherhood, survival, faith, and hope. In June 2021, the whole world was listening as Britney Spears spoke in open court. The impact of sharing her voice—her truth—was undeniable, and it changed the course of her life and the lives of countless others. The Woman in Me reveals for the first time her incredible journey—and the strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history.   Written with remarkable candor and humor, Spears’s groundbreaking book illuminates the enduring power of music and love—and the importance of a woman telling her own story, on her own terms, at last. 

Read more less