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The Unlikely Lavender Queen: A Memoir of Unexpected Blossoming
Jeannie Ralston · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorDirty Chick: Adventures of an Unlikely Farmer
Antonia Murphy · 335 pages
"An uproarious memoir chronicling the misadventures of a San Franciscan woman who leaves city life to become an artisan farmer in New Zealand"-- "Antonia Murphy, you might say, is an unlikely farmer. Born and bred in San Francisco, she spent much of her life as a liberal urban cliche, and her interactions with the animal kingdom rarely extended past dinner. But then she became a mother. And when
All Creatures Great and Small
James Herriot · 442 pages
Delve into the magical, unforgettable world of James Herriot, the world's most beloved veterinarian, and his menagerie of heartwarming, funny, and tragic animal patients. For over forty years, generations of readers have thrilled to Herriot's marvelous tales, deep love of life, and extraordinary storytelling abilities. For decades, Herriot roamed the remote, beautiful Yorkshire Dales, treating
Under the Tuscan Sun
Frances Mayes · 287 pages
Now in paperback, the #1 San Francisco Chronicle bestseller that is an enchanting and lyrical look at the life, the traditions, and the cuisine of Tuscany, in the spirit of Peter Mayle's *A Year in Provence*. Frances Mayes entered a wondrous new world when she began restoring an abandoned villa in the spectacular Tuscan countryside. There were unexpected treasures at every turn: faded frescos b
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
J.D. Vance · 272 pages
From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate, this book is a probing look at the struggles of America's white working class through the author's own story of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town. Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis - that of poor, white Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for over fo
Exodus
Deborah Feldman · 289 pages
Feldman, who at the age of twenty-three packed up her young son and their few possessions and walked away from her insular Hasidic roots in Brooklyn, explores the United States and Europe and, as a result of her travels, redefines her sense of identity as a non-Orthodox Jew committed to self-acceptance and healing.
We Bought a Zoo
Benjamin Mee · 261 pages
A former British newspaper columnist describes how he uprooted his family to the English countryside and purchased a dilapidated zoo, home to more than two hundred exotic animals, which he planned to refurbish and reopen as a family business, a scheme complicated by a lack of money, skeptical staff, family tension, and his wife's devastating illness.
Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home
Rhoda Janzen · 256 pages
In this memoir, Janzen chronicles the experience of re-connecting with her Mennonite roots after her personal life has fallen apart.
God Grew Tired of Us: A Memoir
John Bul Dau, Michael S. Sweeney · 295 pages
"Lost Boy" John Bul Dau's harrowing experience surviving the brutal horrors of Sudanese civil war and his adjustment to life in modern America is chronicled in this inspiring memoir and featured in an award-winning documentary film of the same name. Movingly written, the book traces Dau's journey through hunger, exhaustion, terror, and violence as he fled his homeland, dodging ambushes, massacres
Rurally Screwed: My Life Off the Grid with the Cowboy I Love
Jessie Knadler · 324 pages
A former New York City magazine editor describes the radical change in her life after she met a young bull rider while on assignment covering a rodeo and impulsively gave up her city life for a more authentic rural life.
My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes That Saved My Life
Ruth Reichl · 339 pages
In the fall of 2009, the food world was rocked when Gourmet magazine was abruptly shuttered by its parent company. No one was more stunned by this unexpected turn of events than its editor in chief, Ruth Reichl, who suddenly faced an uncertain professional future. As she struggled to process what had seemed unthinkable, Reichl turned to the one place that had always provided sanctuary. "I did what
The Feast Nearby: How I lost my job, buried a marriage, and found my way by keeping chickens, foraging, preserving, bartering, and eating locally (all on $40 a week)
Robin Mather · 266 pages
"A charming ode (with recipes) to eating well and locally, on $40 dollars per week, from a recently unemployed food-journalism veteran. In 2009, Robin Mather found herself unemployed. She consequently moved to rural Michigan, where she committed to eating three home-cooked, seasonal, and local meals a day. In essays that chronicle a year of her ambitious project, Mather explores the confusion su
Blood, Bones, and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef
Gabrielle Hamilton · 291 pages
The Pursuit of Happyness
Chris Gardner · 367 pages
The astounding yet true rags-to-riches saga of a homeless father who raised and cared for his son on the mean streets of San Francisco and went on to become a crown prince of Wall StreetAt the age of twenty, Milwaukee native Chris Gardner, just out of the Navy, arrived in San Francisco to pursue a promising career in medicine. Considered a prodigy in scientific research, he surprised everyone and
Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape
Jenna Miscavige Hill, Lisa Pulitzer · 416 pages
Jenna Miscavige Hill was raised to obey. As the niece of the Church of Scientology's leader David Miscavige, she grew up at the center of this highly controversial and powerful organization. But at twenty-one, Jenna made a daring break, risking everything she had ever known and loved to leave Scientology once and for all. Now she speaks out about her life, the Church, and her dramatic escape, goin
The Lost Girls: Three Friends. Four Continents. One Unconventional Detour Around the World.
Jennifer Baggett, Holly Corbett, Amanda Pressner · 551 pages
Three friends at a crossroads in their twenties quit their high pressure New York media jobs, leave their friends and everything familiar behind, and embark on a year-long backpacking adventure around the world.
Life on a Family Fruit Farm: the Early Years
Philip S. Salisbury · 133 pages
This book was born out of an effort to recall significant characteristic, incidents, and occasions that were memorable in my young life. What has emerged is a compilation of vignettes on the diversity of the lives of one boy and his family as they work their way through the vicissitudes of life. It is seen through the new eyes of a growing boy. What emerges is a life with ups, downs, and even time
Driving Over Lemons: An Optimist in Andalucía
Chris Stewart · 304 pages
The Rural Diaries: Love, Livestock, and Big Life Lessons Down on Mischief Farm
Hilarie Burton Morgan · 272 pages
Jujitsu Rabbi and the Godless Blonde: A True Story
Rebecca Dana · 274 pages
A weekly columnist for "The Daily Beast" recounts the story of the launch of her career, a period marked by her graduation from Yale, unanticipated setbacks that culminated in brief homelessness in New York, and a Russian rabbi roommate.
We of the Never-Never
Jeannie Gunn · 256 pages
We - are just some of the bush-folk of the Never-Never. In 1902, newly-married Jeannie Gunn (Mrs Aeneas Gunn) left the security and comfort of her Melbourne home to travel to the depths of the Northern Territory, where her husband had been appointed manager of ‘The Elsey', a large cattle station. One of the very few white women in the area, she was at first resented by people on and around the st
Bitter Is the New Black: Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass, Or, Why You Should Never Carry A Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office
Jen Lancaster · 400 pages
A memoir chronicles the adventures and misadventures of a woman whose perfect life and perfect job vanishes when she goes from a six-figure career to unemployment, and, forced to do some soul searching, becomes an author.
Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota
Chuck Klosterman · 277 pages