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- Pluck : a memoir of a Newfoundland childhood and the raucous, terrible, amazing journey to becoming a novelist / by Morrissey, Donna,1956-author.;
"A deeply personal account of love's restorative ability as it leads renowned novelist Donna Morrissey through mental illness, family death, and despair to becoming a writer--told with charm and inimitable humour. When Donna Morrissey left the only home she had ever known, an isolated Newfoundland settlement, at age 16, she was ready for adventure. She had grown up without television or telephones but had absorbed the tragic stories and comic yarns of her close-knit family and community. The death of her infant brother marked the family, and years later, Morrissey suffers devastating guilt about the accidental death of her teenage brother, whom she'd enticed to join her in the oilfields. Her misery was compounded by her own misdiagnosis of a terminal illness, all of which contributed to crippling anxiety and an actual diagnosis of PTSD. Many of those events and themes would eventually be transformed and recast as fictional gold in Morrissey's novels. In another writer's hands, Morrissey's account of her personal story could easily be a tragedy. Instead, she combines darkness and light, levity and sadness into her tale, as her indomitable spirit and humour sustain her. Morrissey's path takes her from the drudgery of being a grocery clerk (who occasionally enlivens her shift with recreational drugs) to western oilfields, to marriage and divorce and working in a fish-processing plant to support herself and her two young children. Throughout her struggles, she nourishes a love of learning and language. Morrissey layers her account of her life with stories of those who came before her, a breed rarely seen in the modern world. It centers around iron-willed women: mothers and daughters, wives, sisters, teachers and mentors who find the support, the wind for their wings, outside the bounds given to them by nature. And it is a mysterious older woman she meets in Halifax who eventually unleashes the writer that Morrissey is destined to become. An inspiring and insightful memoir, Pluck illustrates that even when you find yourself unravelling, you can find a way to spin the yarns that will save you--and delight readers everywhere."--- Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Morrissey, Donna, 1956-; Anxiety disorders; Brothers; Novelists, Canadian (English);
- Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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- Don't tell anybody the secrets I told you : a memoir / by Williams, Lucinda,author.;
"The iconic singer-songwriter and three-time Grammy winner opens up about her traumatic childhood in the Deep South, her years of being overlooked in the music industry, and the stories that inspired her enduring songs. Lucinda Williams's rise to fame was anything but easy. Raised in a working-class family in the Deep South, she moved from town to town each time her father--a poet, a textbook salesman, a professor, a lover of parties--got a new job, totaling twelve different places by the time she was eighteen. Her mother suffered from severe mental illness and was in and out of hospitals. And when Williams was about a year old, she had to have an emergency tracheotomy--an inauspicious start for a singing career. But she was also born a fighter, and she would develop a voice that has captivated millions. In Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You, Williams takes readers through the events that shaped her music--from performing for family friends in her living room to singing at local high schools and colleges in Mexico City, to recording her first album with Folkway Records and headlining a sold-out show at Radio City Music Hall. She reveals the inspirations for her unforgettable lyrics, including the doomed love affairs with "poets on motorcycles" and the gothic southern landscapes of the many different towns of her youth, including Macon, Lake Charles, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans. Williams spent years working at health food stores and record stores during the day so she could play her music at night, and faced record companies who told her that her music was not "finished," that it was "too country for rock and too rock for country." But her fighting spirit persevered, leading to a hard-won success that spans seventeen Grammy nominations and a legacy as one of the greatest and most influential songwriters of our time. Raw, intimate, and honest, Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You is an evocative reflection on an extraordinary woman's life journey"--- Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Williams, Lucinda.; Singers;
- Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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- The spoon stealer / by Crewe, Lesley,1955-author.;
"Born into a basket of clean sheets -- ruining a perfectly good load of laundry -- Emmeline never quite fit in on her family's rural Nova Scotian farm. After suffering multiple losses in the First World War, her family became so heavy with grief, toxicity, and mental illness that Emmeline felt their weight smothering her. And so, she fled across the Atlantic and built her life in England. Now she is retired and living in a small coastal town with her best friend, Vera, an excellent conversationalist. Vera is also a small white dog, and so Emmeline is making an effort to talk to more humans. When she joins a memoir-writing course at the library, her classmates don't know what to make of her. Funny, loud, and with a riveting memoir, she charms the lot. As her past unfolds for her audience, friendships form, a bonus in a rather lonely life. She even shares with them her third-biggest secret: she has liberated hundreds of spoons over her lifetime -- from the local library, Cary Grant, Winston Churchill. She is a compulsive spoon stealer. When Emmeline unexpectedly inherits the farm she grew up on, she knows she needs to leave, to see what remains of her family one last time. She arrives like a tornado in their lives, an off-kilter Mary Poppins bossing everyone around and getting quite a lot wrong. But with her generosity and hard-earned wisdom, she gets an awful lot right, too. A pinball ricocheting between people, offending and inspiring in equal measure, Emmeline, in her final years, believes that a spoonful -- perhaps several spoonfuls -- of kindness can set to rights the family so broken by loss and secrecy. The Spoon Stealer is a classic Crewe book: full of humour, family secrets, women's friendship, lovable animals, and immense heart."--Provided by publisher.- Subjects: Historical fiction.; Domestic fiction.; Families; Family secrets; Homecoming; Human-animal relationships; Inheritance and succession;
- Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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- Bertie Stewart Is Perfectly Imperfect [electronic resource] : by Mosher, Melanie.aut; cloudLibrary;
Bertha Mae Stewart—otherwise known as Bertie—is ready for anything grade 6 can throw at her. She spends every day with her best friend Kevin, enjoys delicious cookies at her grandmother’s, and has an adorable baby half-brother to dote on. But then her teacher announces a public speaking assignment, she’s paired up with her worst enemy for the project, and her inside voice won’t stop telling her that everything is going to go wrong. And of course, there’s that nagging little secret Bertie can’t tell anyone about. Most days, a trip to her favourite tree or a hug from Grammy are enough to make Bertie’s anxiety go away for a short while. But as life grows more complicated, and Bertie pushes the noisy feelings further down, the pressure inside of her starts to build. And someday soon, she won’t be able to hold it all in. From the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award–shortlisted author of A Beginner’s Guide to Goodbye, Bertie Stewart is Perfectly Imperfect is a heartfelt tale about learning to cope with anxiety amid life changes both big and small.Bertha Mae Stewart—otherwise known as Bertie—is ready for anything grade 6 can throw at her. She spends every day with her best friend Kevin, enjoys delicious cookies at her grandmother’s, and has an adorable baby half-brother to dote on. But then her teacher announces a public speaking assignment, she’s paired up with her worst enemy for the project, and her inside voice won’t stop telling her that everything is going to go wrong. And of course, there’s that nagging little secret Bertie can’t tell anyone about. Most days, a trip to her favourite tree or a hug from Grammy are enough to make Bertie’s anxiety go away for a short while. But as life grows more complicated, and Bertie pushes the noisy feelings further down, the pressure inside of her starts to build. And someday soon, she won’t be able to hold it all in. From the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award–shortlisted author of A Beginner’s Guide to Goodbye, Bertie Stewart is Perfectly Imperfect is a heartfelt tale about learning to cope with anxiety amid life changes both big and small.- Subjects: Electronic books.; Multigenerational; Depression & Mental Illness; Emotions & Feelings;
- © 2024., Nimbus,
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- Personality isn't permanent : break free from self-limiting beliefs and rewrite your story / by Hardy, Benjamin,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."If you have ever taken a test to identify your "personality type", like the Myers-Briggs or Enneagram, you might be surprised to learn that such tests are not only unscientific, but are holding you back. The truth is, there's no such thing as a personality "type", or a "real you" that can only be unearthed through some process of self-discovery. Instead, your personality is something you can intentionally choose and create. Rather than being defined by the past and trapped in unresolved traumas, you can build your identity and internal narrative to serve the future you desire. In Personality Isn't Permanent, Dr. Hardy draws on psychological research to demolish the popular misconception that personality-a person's consistent attitudes and behaviors-is innate and unchanging. He offers practical, motivational advice to help you cultivate the traits and achieve the goals you always dreamed of. In Personality Isn't Permanent, you'll learn: · Why you should never be the "former anything". Defining yourself by your past successes can be just as damaging to your potential to grow as being haunted by past failures. · How to flip the script on negative memories and view them as something that happened for you, not to you. · How to design a desired vision of your "future self," and make decisions based on what "they" would want. · How to tap into what psychologists' call "pull motivation" by narrowing your focus on a single, definable, and compelling outcome. · Why you should consistently put yourself in new situations that can initially be emotionally uncomfortable. · Why you should measure your progress by how much you've grown, rather than what you lack. Along the way, you'll hear fascinating true stories of radical self-transformation, like Vanessa O'Brien, who quit her corporate job and went on to obtain Guinness World Records for climbing the tallest mountains in the world; Andre Norman, who became a Harvard fellow after serving a fourteen-year prison sentence; Ken Arlen, who instantly quit smoking by changing his backstory; and Hardy himself, who transcended his childhood in a broken home, surrounded by issues of addiction and mental illness, to get his PhD and build a happy family. Filled with scientific strategies for reframing your past and designing your future, Personality Isn't Permanent is your practical guide to transcending your limitations and becoming the person you always wanted to be"--- Subjects: Self-help publications.; Personality.; Motivation (Psychology); Self-actualization (Psychology);
- Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Results 71 to 75 of 75 | « previous