In the earliest published diaries of Ned Rorem, the acclaimed American composer recalls a bygone era and its luminaries, celebrates the creative process, and examines the gay culture of Europe and the US during the 1950s One of America's most significant contemporary composers, Ned Rorem is also widely acclaimed as a diarist of unique insight and refreshing candor. Together, his Paris Diary, first published in 1966, and The New York Diary, which followed...

Ruby Gettinger, the endearing and beloved star of The Style Network's hit reality show Ruby, reveals the most private aspects of her life-altering journey to conquer morbid obesity and to attain health and happiness in this inspirational book based on her personal diary.

From the winner of the Michael L. Printz Award and the Carnegie Medal, a work of astonishing intimacy and depth Using a pillow book as her form, nineteen-year-old Cordelia Kenn sets out to write out her life for her unborn daughter. What emerges is a portrait of an extraordinary girl, who writes frankly of love, sex, poetry, nature, faith, and of herself in the world. Her thoughts range widely: on Shakespeare and breasts, periods and piano playing,...

May Sarton discovers the liberation of old age in this life-affirming journal On the second day of her 80th year, May Sarton began a new journal. She wrote it because she wanted "to go on a little while longer;" to discover "what is really happening to me."   This triumphant sequel to Endgame-Sarton's journal of her 79th year-is filled with the comforting minutiae of daily life, from gardening to planning dinners and floral arrangements to answering...

May Sarton confronts the pleasures and compromises of old age in this deeply moving memoir completed a few months before she died In this poignant and fearless account, Sarton chronicles the struggles of life at eighty-two. She juxtaposes the quotidian details of life-battling a leaky roof, sharing an afternoon nap with her cat, the joy of buying a new mattress-with lyrical musings about work, celebrity, devoted friends, and the limitations wrought...

A dark and edgy first-person cautionary tale about how one girl's seemingly minor choices quickly spiraled into a life as a sex worker in the tradition of Go Ask Alice and Lucy in the Sky . She had a normal life, until one small decision changed everything. Suddenly, there were new possibilities and new experiences.

Nurk, a sort-of brave shrew, packs up a few pairs of clean socks and sails off on an accidental adventure, guided by wisdom found in the journal of his famously brave and fierce grandmother, Lady Surka the warrior shrew.

The private diary of James G. McDonald (1886—1964) offers a unique and hitherto unknown source on the early history of the Nazi regime and the Roosevelt administration's reactions to Nazi persecution of German Jews. Considered for the post of US ambassador to Germany at the start of FDR's presidency, McDonald traveled to Germany in 1932 and met with Hitler soon after the Nazis came to power. Fearing Nazi intentions to remove or destroy Jews in Germany,...

A deeply personal, behind-the-scenes exploration of Alex Miller's six-decade writing life. A Kind of Confession is a secret look into Alex Miller's writing life, spanning sixty years of creativity and inspiration. As a young man in 1961 Miller left his work as a ringer in Queensland and set out to achieve his dream of becoming a serious novelist. It was not until 1988 that his first novel, Watching the Climbers on the Mountain, was published. Twelve...

The Journal Keeper is the open-hearted and unflinchingly honest memoir of six years in writer Phyllis Theroux's life. As she ages into her sixties, Theroux uses regular journal entries to reflect on the void left by the passing of her remarkable mother and the thrill of allowing a new source of joy into her life. A natural storyteller, Theroux slips her arm companionably into yours, like an old friend going for a stroll. But Theroux's stride is long...