My Exaggerated Life

Author :
Publisher : Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN 13 : 1611179084
Total Pages : 328 pages
Book Rating : 4.88/5 ( download)

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Download or read book My Exaggerated Life written by and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2018-03-13 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An oral biography that reveals the Southern author's true voice Pat Conroy's memoirs and autobiographical novels contain a great deal about his life, but there is much he hasn't revealed to readers—until now. My Exaggerated Life is the product of a special collaboration between this great American author and oral biographer Katherine Clark, who recorded two hundred hours of conversations with Conroy before he passed away in 2016. In the spring and summer of 2014, the two spoke for an hour or more on the phone every day. No subject was off limits, including aspects of his tumultuous life he had never before revealed. This oral biography presents Conroy the man, as if speaking in person, in the colloquial voice familiar to family and friends. This voice is quite different from the authorial style found in his books, which are famous for their lyricism and poetic descriptions. Here Conroy is blunt, plainspoken, and uncommonly candid. While his novels are known for their tragic elements, this volume is suffused with Conroy's sense of humor, which he credits with saving his life on several occasions. The story Conroy offers here is about surviving and overcoming the childhood abuse and trauma that marked his life. He is frank about his emotional damage—the depression, the alcoholism, the divorces, and, above all, the crippling lack of self-esteem and self-confidence. He also sheds light on the forces that saved his life from ruin. The act of writing compelled Conroy to confront the painful truths about his past, while years of therapy with a clinical psychologist helped him achieve a greater sense of self-awareness and understanding. As Conroy recounts his time in Atlanta, Rome, and San Francisco, along with his many years in Beaufort, South Carolina, he portrays a journey full of struggles and suffering that culminated ultimately in redemption and triumph. Although he gained worldwide recognition for his writing, Conroy believed his greatest achievement was in successfully carving out a life filled with family and friends, as well as love and happiness. In the end he arrived at himself and found it was a good place to be.

Author : Paul Theroux
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN 13 : 9780395877524
Total Pages : 466 pages
Book Rating : 4.20/5 ( download)

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Download or read book My Other Life written by Paul Theroux and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 1997-09 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fictionalized autobiography of a travel writer. There are descriptions of his experiences as a teacher of English in an African village, his meeting with the writer, Anthony Burgess, and his encounter with Queen Elizabeth of England.

Author : Ellen A. Kelley
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN 13 : 9780152053062
Total Pages : 48 pages
Book Rating : 4.69/5 ( download)

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Download or read book My Life as a Chicken written by Ellen A. Kelley and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2007 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Pauline Poulet learns she'll be the next special of the day at Cock-a-Doodle-Doo Caf , she flies the coop faster than you can say "Chicken pie, delicious" Thus begins her journey of peril and catastrophe, courage and chance: She is chased. She is dunked. She is tossed tail over beak. But can Pauline escape the dinner plate? Kids everywhere will love clucking along with this chicken's battle cry: "Pauline, prevail "

Author : Pat Conroy
Publisher : Random House Large Print Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9780739377840
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.41/5 ( download)

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Download or read book My Reading Life written by Pat Conroy and published by Random House Large Print Publishing. This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author reviews a lifetime of reading, acknowledging the books that shaped his literary life and sharing anecdotes about how reading saw him through his most challenging periods and helped him to retain his grasp on sanity.

Author : Carolyn Maloney
Publisher : Rodale
ISBN 13 : 159486327X
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.71/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Rumors of Our Progress Have Been Greatly Exaggerated written by Carolyn Maloney and published by Rodale. This book was released on 2008-05-13 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Identifies areas where progress for women is being compromised by proponents of conservatism and makes recommendations on how women can take steps to supporting true family values in their homes, workplaces, and communities.

Author : Hanya Yanagihara
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 0804172706
Total Pages : 834 pages
Book Rating : 4.07/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Little Life written by Hanya Yanagihara and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 834 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. Look for Hanya Yanagihara’s latest bestselling novel, To Paradise.

Author : Katherine E. Standefer
Publisher : Little, Brown Spark
ISBN 13 : 0316450359
Total Pages : 281 pages
Book Rating : 4.55/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Lightning Flowers written by Katherine E. Standefer and published by Little, Brown Spark. This book was released on 2020-11-10 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This "utterly spectacular" book weighs the impact modern medical technology has had on the author's life against the social and environmental costs inevitably incurred by the mining that makes such innovation possible (Rachel Louise Snyder, author of No Visible Bruises). What if a lifesaving medical device causes loss of life along its supply chain? That's the question Katherine E. Standefer finds herself asking one night after being suddenly shocked by her implanted cardiac defibrillator. In this gripping, intimate memoir about health, illness, and the invisible reverberating effects of our medical system, Standefer recounts the astonishing true story of the rare diagnosis that upended her rugged life in the mountains of Wyoming and sent her tumbling into a fraught maze of cardiology units, dramatic surgeries, and slow, painful recoveries. As her life increasingly comes to revolve around the internal defibrillator freshly wired into her heart, she becomes consumed with questions about the supply chain that allows such an ostensibly miraculous device to exist. So she sets out to trace its materials back to their roots. From the sterile labs of a medical device manufacturer in southern California to the tantalum and tin mines seized by armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to a nickel and cobalt mine carved out of endemic Madagascar jungle, Lightning Flowers takes us on a global reckoning with the social and environmental costs of a technology that promises to be lifesaving but is, in fact, much more complicated. Deeply personal and sharply reported, Lightning Flowers takes a hard look at technological mythos, healthcare, and our cultural relationship to medical technology, raising important questions about our obligations to one another, and the cost of saving one life.

Author : Anonymous
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 0689832494
Total Pages : 178 pages
Book Rating : 4.99/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Go Ask Alice written by Anonymous and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1999-07-13 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A teen plunges into a downward spiral of addiction in this classic cautionary tale. January 24th After you’ve had it, there isn't even life without drugs… It started when she was served a soft drink laced with LSD in a dangerous party game. Within months, she was hooked, trapped in a downward spiral that took her from her comfortable home and loving family to the mean streets of an unforgiving city. It was a journey that would rob her of her innocence, her youth—and ultimately her life. Read her diary. Enter her world. You will never forget her. For thirty-five years, the acclaimed, bestselling first-person account of a teenage girl’s harrowing decent into the nightmarish world of drugs has left an indelible mark on generations of teen readers. As powerful—and as timely—today as ever, Go Ask Alice remains the definitive book on the horrors of addiction.

Author : Ryan O'Callaghan
Publisher : Akashic Books
ISBN 13 : 1617757705
Total Pages : 161 pages
Book Rating : 4.09/5 ( download)

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Download or read book My Life on the Line: How the NFL Damn Near Killed Me and Ended Up Saving My Life written by Ryan O'Callaghan and published by Akashic Books. This book was released on 2019-09-03 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A riveting account of life as a closeted professional athlete from gay NFL player O’Callaghan, against the backdrop of depression, opioid addiction, and the threat of suicide. “[O’Callaghan’s] story is one of beautiful vulnerability, and it further shows the importance of knowing you aren’t alone.” —Oprah Daily, recommended by Gayle King Ryan O’Callaghan’s plan was always to play football and then, when his career was over, kill himself. Growing up in a politically conservative corner of California, the not-so-subtle messages he heard as a young man from his family and from TV and film routinely equated being gay with disease and death. Letting people in on the darkest secret he kept buried inside was not an option: better death with a secret than life as a gay man. As a kid , Ryan never envisioned just how far his football career would take him. He was recruited by the University of California, Berkeley, where he spent five seasons, playing alongside his friend Aaron Rodgers. Then it was on to the NFL for stints with the almost-undefeated New England Patriots and the often-defeated Kansas City Chiefs. Bubbling under the surface of Ryan’s entire NFL career was a collision course between his secret sexuality and his hidden drug use. When the league caught him smoking pot, he turned to NFL-sanctioned prescription painkillers that quickly sent his life into a tailspin. As injuries mounted and his daily intake of opioids reached a near-lethal level, he wrote his suicide note to his parents and plotted his death. Yet someone had been watching. A member of the Chiefs organization stepped in, recognizing the signs of drug addiction. Ryan reluctantly sought psychological help, and it was there that he revealed his lifelong secret for the very first time. Nearing the twilight of his career, Ryan faced the ultimate decision: end it all, or find out if his family and football friends could ever accept a gay man in their lives.

Author : Cassandra King Conroy
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0062905635
Total Pages : 364 pages
Book Rating : 4.35/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Tell Me a Story written by Cassandra King Conroy and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-10-29 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Tell Me A Story is breathtakingly tender, heartbreakingly true...The best memoir I’ve read.” — Mary Alice Monroe, New York Times bestselling author of The Beach House Reunion Bestselling author Cassandra King Conroy considers her life and the man she shared it with, paying tribute to her husband, Pat Conroy, the legendary figure of modern Southern literature. Cassandra King was leading a quiet life as a professor, divorced “Sunday wife” of a preacher, and debut novelist when she met Pat Conroy. Their friendship bloomed into a tentative, long-distance relationship. Pat and Cassandra ultimately married, ending Pat's long commutes from coastal South Carolina to her native Alabama. It was a union that would last eighteen years, until the beloved literary icon’s death from pancreatic cancer in 2016. In this poignant, intimate memoir, the woman he called King Ray looks back at her love affair with a natural-born storyteller whose lust for life was fueled by a passion for literature, food, and the Carolina Lowcountry that was his home. As she reflects on their relationship and the eighteen years they spent together, cut short by Pat’s passing at seventy, Cassandra reveals how the marshlands of the South Carolina Lowcountry ultimately cast their spell on her, too, and how she came to understand the convivial, generous, funny, and wounded flesh-and-blood man beneath the legend—her husband, the original Prince of Tides.