{"title":"5 MEMOIRS TO READ FOR THE WRITING","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"theres-always-this-year-on-basketball-and-ascension","title":"There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension","description":"\u003cb\u003eLONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD - \u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES\u003c\/i\u003e BESTSELLER - #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER - A \u003cb\u003e\"powerful\" (\u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003c\/b\u003e reflection on basketball, life, and home--from the author of the National Book Award finalist \u003ci\u003eA Little Devil in America\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"Mesmerizing . . . not only the most original sports book I've ever read but one of the most moving books I've ever read, period.\"--Steve James, director of \u003ci\u003eHoop Dreams\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR - ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: \u003ci\u003eVulture, \u003c\/i\u003eChicago Public Library, \u003ci\u003eBookPage\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review, Time, The Washington Post, \u003c\/i\u003eNPR, \u003ci\u003eThe Boston Globe, \u003c\/i\u003eThe New York Public Library, Chicago Public Library, \u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Book Riot, Electric Lit\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eGrowing up in Columbus, Ohio, in the 1990s, Hanif Abdurraqib witnessed a golden era of basketball, one in which legends like LeBron James were forged and countless others weren't. His lifelong love of the game leads Abdurraqib into a lyrical, historical, and emotionally rich exploration of what it means to make it, who we think deserves success, the tension between excellence and expectation, and the very notion of role models, all of which he expertly weaves together with intimate, personal storytelling. \"Here is where I would like to tell you about the form on my father's jump shot,\" Abdurraqib writes. \"The truth, though, is that I saw my father shoot a basketball only one time.\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eThere's Always This Year \u003c\/i\u003eis a triumph, brimming with joy, pain, solidarity, comfort, outrage, and hope. No matter the subject of his keen focus--whether it's basketball, or music, or performance--Hanif Abdurraqib's exquisite writing is always poetry, always profound, and always a clarion call to radically reimagine how we think about our culture, our country, and ourselves. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eLONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN NONFICTION\u003c\/b\u003e","brand":"Random House Trade","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53537197687150,"sku":"9780593448809","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0984\/1007\/0382\/files\/imageloader_b2f724f4-40ea-448b-b4cb-a1888cefdc3b.jpg?v=1774452551"},{"product_id":"stay-true-a-memoir-pulitzer-prize-winner","title":"Stay True: A Memoir (Pulitzer Prize Winner)","description":"\u003cb\u003eOne of the \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWinner of the Pulitzer Prize \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eWinner of the National Book Critics Circle Award\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e Bestseller\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Quietly wrenching...To say that this book is about grief or coming-of-age doesn't quite do it justice...This is a memoir that gathers power through accretion--all those moments and gestures that constitute experience, the bits and pieces that coalesce into a life.\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e-- \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"[A] luminous and tender-hearted story. . . \u003ci\u003eStay True\u003c\/i\u003e is a nuanced and beautiful evocation of young adulthood in all its sloppy, exuberant glory.\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e-- \u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"An evolutionary step for Asian American literature.\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e-- \u003ci\u003eNew York Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn the eyes of eighteen-year-old Hua Hsu, the problem with Ken--with his passion for Dave Matthews, Abercrombie \u0026amp; Fitch, and his fraternity--is that he is \u003ci\u003eexactly \u003c\/i\u003elike everyone else. Ken, whose Japanese American family has been in the United States for generations, is mainstream; for Hua, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, who makes 'zines and haunts Bay Area record shops, Ken represents all that he defines himself in opposition to. The only thing Hua and Ken have in common is that, however they engage with it, American culture doesn't seem to have a place for either of them. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBut despite his first impressions, Hua and Ken become friends, a friendship built on late-night conversations over cigarettes, long drives along the California coast, and the successes and humiliations of everyday college life. And then violently, senselessly, Ken is gone, killed in a carjacking, not even three years after the day they first meet. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eDetermined to hold on to all that was left of one of his closest friends--his memories--Hua turned to writing. \u003ci\u003eStay True\u003c\/i\u003e is the book he's been working on ever since. A coming-of-age story that details both the ordinary and extraordinary, \u003ci\u003eStay True\u003c\/i\u003e is a bracing memoir about growing up, and about moving through the world in search of meaning and belonging.","brand":"Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53537197883758,"sku":"9780593315200","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0984\/1007\/0382\/files\/imageloader_0f7203f1-ff89-40ec-98a7-b0dca3bc47b9.jpg?v=1774452554"},{"product_id":"good-morning-destroyer-of-mens-souls-a-memoir-of-women-addiction-and-love","title":"Good Morning, Destroyer of Men's Souls: A Memoir of Women, Addiction, and Love","description":"\u003cb\u003eA scorching memoir of a love affair with an addict, weaving personal reckoning with psychology and history to understand the nature of addiction, codependency, and our appetite for obsessive love\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"Ferocious . . . glints with hard-won truths . . . Aron lights a path through the darkness of her past toward a better future.\"--\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY \u003ci\u003ePARADE\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"The disease he has is addiction,\" Nina Renata Aron writes of her boyfriend, K. \"The disease I have is loving him.\" Their love affair is dramatic, urgent, overwhelming--an intoxicating antidote to the long, lonely days of early motherhood. Soon after they get together, K starts using again, and years of relapses and broken promises follow. Even as his addiction deepens, she stays, convinced she is the one who can get him sober. After an adolescence marred by family trauma and addiction, Nina can't help but feel responsible for those suffering around her. How can she break this pattern? If she leaves K, has she failed him? \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Writing in prose at once unflinching and acrobatic, Aron delivers a piercing memoir of romance and addiction, drawing on intimate anecdotes as well as academic research to crack open the long-feminized and overlooked phenomenon of codependency. She shifts between visceral, ferocious accounts of her affair with K and introspective analyses of the part she plays in his addictions, as well as defining moments in the history of codependency, from the temperance movement to the formation of Al-Anon to more recent research in the psychology of addiction. \u003ci\u003eGood Morning, Destroyer of Men's Souls\u003c\/i\u003e is a blazing, bighearted book that illuminates and adds nuance to the messy tethers between femininity, enabling, and love. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eGood Morning, Destroyer of Men's Souls\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Unflinching . . . Aron writes in gripping prose about the thrills and dangers of her own substance use and relationship with K--their weak-kneed passion and wolfish needs, as well as her guilt-ridden enabling and savior-complex optimism.\"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e--San Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"In Nina Renata Aron's scorching, unvarnished memoir, an addiction story gets spun from the perspective of the helpless partner, the lover too stuck in a dangerous dynamic to find her way out.\"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e--Entertainment Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"A raw and eloquently unflinching memoir.\"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e--Kirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e","brand":"Crown Publishing Group (NY)","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53537199325550,"sku":"9780525576686","price":21.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0984\/1007\/0382\/files\/imageloader_ea13de05-3f5e-4fc8-bff1-19675f8bf290.jpg?v=1774452580"},{"product_id":"reading-the-waves-a-memoir","title":"Reading the Waves: A Memoir","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe frank and revealing memoir of a writer who draws from her own creativity to heal.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"I believe our bodies are carriers of experience,\" Lidia Yuknavitch writes in her provocative memoir \u003ci\u003eReading the Waves\u003c\/i\u003e. \"I mean to ask if there is a way to read my own past differently, using what I have learned from literature: how stories repeat and reverberate and release us from the tyranny of our mistakes, our traumas, and our confusions.\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eDrawing on her background -- her father's abuse, her complicated dynamic with her disabled mother, the death of her child, her sexual relationships with men and women -- and her creative life as an author and teacher, Yuknavitch has come to understand that by using the power of literature and storytelling to reframe her memories, she can loosen the bonds that have enslaved her emotional growth. Armed with this insight, she allows herself to look with the eye of an artist at the wounds she suffered and come to understand the transformational power this has to restore her soul. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBy turns candid and lyrical, stoic and forgiving, blunt and evocative, \u003ci\u003eReading the Waves \u003c\/i\u003ereframes memory to show how crucial this process can be to gaining a deeper understanding of ourselves.","brand":"Riverhead Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53537202143598,"sku":"9780593713051","price":29.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0984\/1007\/0382\/files\/imageloader_5b2cc7de-44ab-4d59-8479-e98b10cec8b1.jpg?v=1774452620"},{"product_id":"in-the-days-of-my-youth-i-was-told-what-it-means-to-be-a-man-a-memoir","title":"In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man: A Memoir","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eTHE NEW YORK TIMES\u003c\/i\u003e BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE - From two-time National Magazine Award winner Tom Junod, a searching, brilliantly stylized memoir about a charismatic, philandering father who tried to mold his son in his image, the many secrets he hid, the son's obsessive quest to uncover them, and ultimately, the true meaning of manhood \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Affecting. . . . Moves like a song, drawing you in with its melody before delivering an emotional wallop.\" --\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBig Lou Junod dominated every room he entered. He worshipped the sun and the sea, his own bronzed body, Frank Sinatra, and beautiful women. He was a successful traveling handbag salesman who carried himself like a celebrity. He'd return from the road with stories of going to nightclubs where the stars--Ava Gardner, maybe Liz Taylor--\"couldn't keep their eyes off . . . \u003ci\u003eyour father\u003c\/i\u003e.\" He had countless affairs and didn't do much to hide them. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eLou could be cruel to Fran, his wife of fifty-nine years, but he loved his youngest son. Tom was a skin-and-bones, nervous boy, devoted to his mother, but Lou sought to turn him into a version of himself. He showered him with advice about how to dress (\"A turtleneck is the most flattering thing a man can wear\"), how to be an alpha male, and especially, how to attract and bed women. His parting speech when Tom went to college was: \"Do yourself a favor and date a Jewish girl. They're all nymphos.\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eTom wrestled with Lou's imposing presence all his life. When one of Lou's mistresses stood up at his funeral and announced, \"Can we all . . . just agree . . . that \u003ci\u003ethis . . . \u003c\/i\u003ewas \u003ci\u003ea man\u003c\/i\u003e,\" Tom set off to learn the facts of his father's life, and why he was the way he was. The stunning secrets he uncovered--about his father, his father's lovers, and deceptions going back generations--staggered Tom, but in the process allowed him, at last, to become his own man, by his own lights. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eIn the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man\u003c\/i\u003e is an intensely emotional detective story powered by a series of cascading revelations. The book is a triumph of bravura writing; it is a tale of a son reckoning with the consequences of his father's life, and in the end, the story of the son's redemption.","brand":"Doubleday Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53616278143342,"sku":"9780375400391","price":32.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0984\/1007\/0382\/files\/imageloader_f79fc0d4-99a3-4689-9f9c-a7c02da92c9a.jpg?v=1775949115"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0984\/1007\/0382\/collections\/imageloader_b2f724f4-40ea-448b-b4cb-a1888cefdc3b.jpg?v=1781970005","url":"https:\/\/tenderbuttonsbooks.com\/collections\/5-memoirs-to-read-for-the-writing.oembed","provider":"Tender Buttons Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}