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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorInstant Mom
Nia Vardalos · 282 pages
Writer and star of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Nia Vardalos firmly believed she was supposed to be a mom, but Mother Nature and modern medicine stood in her way. So she made a choice that shocked friends, family, and even herself: with only fourteen hours' notice, she adopted a preschooler. This is Vardalos's hilarious and poignant true chronicle of trying to become a mother while fielding nosy "fre
No Biking in the House Without a Helmet
Melissa Fay Greene · 361 pages
With four children of their own, Atlanta journalist Greene and her husband, a criminal defense attorney, gradually adopted five more--one from Bulgaria and four from Ethiopia--to create a roiling, largehearted family unit.
Listen to the Squawking Chicken: When Mother Knows Best, What's a Daughter To Do? A Memoir
Elaine Lui · 275 pages
Shares nine parenting principles distilling the unconventional advice, warnings, and messages of love imparted by the author's eccentric Chinese mother.
Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting
Michael Perry · 368 pages
In over his head with two pigs, a dozen chickens, and a baby due any minute, the acclaimed author of Truck: A Love Story gives us a humorous, heartfelt memoir of a new life in the country.Last seen sleeping off his wedding night in the back of a 1951 International Harvester pickup, Michael Perry is now living in a rickety Wisconsin farmhouse. Faced with thirty-seven acres of fallen fences and over
Please Don't Eat the Daisies
Jean Kerr · 167 pages
Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog
John Grogan · 368 pages
The heartwarming and unforgettablestory of a family in the making and thewondrously neurotic dog who taughtthem what really matters in lifeJohn and Jenny were just beginning their life together. They were young and in love, with a perfect little house and not a care in the world. Then they brought home Marley, a wiggly yellow furball of a puppy. Life would never be the same.Marley quickly grew int
If It's Not One Thing, It's Your Mother
Julia Sweeney · 246 pages
While Julia Sweeney is known as a talented comedienne and writer/performer of her one-woman shows, she is also a talented essayist--and the past few years have provided her with some rich material. Julia adopted a Chinese girl named Mulan and then, a few years later, married and moved from Los Angeles to Chicago. She writes about deciding to adopt her child, strollers, nannies, knitting, being ado
Bossypants
Tina Fey · 277 pages
Tina Fey’s new book *Bossypants* is short, messy, and impossibly funny (an apt description of the comedian herself). From her humble roots growing up in Pennsylvania to her days doing amateur improv in Chicago to her early sketches on Saturday Night Live, Fey gives us a fascinating glimpse behind the curtain of modern comedy with equal doses of wit, candor, and self-deprecation. Some of the funnie
Be Different: Adventures of a Free-Range Aspergian
John Elder Robison · 304 pages
In his bestselling memoir, *Look Me in the Eye*, John Elder Robison wrote with honesty and dry wit about growing up with Asperger’s syndrome at a time when the diagnosis didn’t exist. By the time he was diagnosed at age forty, John had already developed a myriad of coping strategies that helped him achieve a seemingly normal, even highly successful, life. Now, in *Be Different*, he shares persona
My Family and Other Animals
Gerald Durrell · 285 pages
My Family and Other Animals is an autobiographical work by naturalist Gerald Durrell, telling of the part of his childhood he spent on the Greek island of Corfu between 1935 and 1939.
The Yorkshire Shepherdess
Amanda Owen · 288 pages
Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir
Jenny Lawson · 318 pages
When Jenny Lawson was little, all she ever wanted was to fit in. That dream was cut short by her fantastically unbalanced father and a morbidly eccentric childhood. It did, however, open up an opportunity for Lawson to find the humor in the strange shame-spiral that is her life, and we are all the better for it. In the irreverent Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Lawson’s long-suffering husban
Uncharted TerriTORI
Tori Spelling · 214 pages
In her latest update, Tori Spelling describes her never-complacent life balancing parenthood with the pressures of living in Tinseltown.
Happy, Happy, Happy
Phil Robertson · 240 pages
"This no-holds-barred autobiography chronicles the remarkable life of Phil Robertson, the original Duck Commander and Duck Dynasty star, from early childhood through the founding of a family business"--
Angela's Ashes
Frank McCourt · 384 pages
"When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood." So begins the luminous memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish im
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Dave Eggers · 426 pages
From Wikipedia: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (ISBN 0-330-48455-9) is a memoir by Dave Eggers released in 2000. It chronicles his stewardship of younger brother Christopher "Toph" Eggers following the cancer-related deaths of his parents. The book was an enormous commercial and critical success, reaching number one on The New York Times bestseller list and being nominated as a final
The Spark: A Mother's Story of Nurturing Genius
Kristine Barnett · 250 pages
The mother of an autistic child who was eventually recognized as a genius recounts her rejection of conventional advice from developmental experts and shares the strategies she utilized for tapping her son's potential.
The Family Nobody Wanted
Helen Grigsby Doss · 267 pages
Dad Is Fat
Jim Gaffigan · 274 pages
"In Dad is Fat, stand-up comedian Jim Gaffigan, who's best known for his legendary riffs on Hot Pockets, bacon, manatees, and McDonald's, expresses all the joys and horrors of life with five young children--everything from cousins ("celebrities for little kids") to toddlers' communication skills ("they always sound like they have traveled by horseback for hours to deliver important news"), to the
Down Came the Rain: My Journey Through Postpartum Depression
Brooke Shields · 226 pages
When Brooke Shields welcomed her newborn daughter, Rowan Francis, into the world, a crippling depression followed. In DOWN CAME THE RAIN, Brooke writes about the tribulations, depression, and, ultimately, the triumphs that happened before and after the birth. With a knowledgeable voice and a self-deprecating sense of humor, Brooke discusses her battle with postpartum depression, a disorder that ha
The Last Lecture
Randy Pausch · 224 pages
The author, a computer science professor diagnosed with terminal cancer, explores his life, the lessons that he has learned, how he has worked to achieve his childhood dreams, and the effect of his diagnosis on him and his family.
Black Milk: On Writing, Motherhood, and the Harem Within
Elif Shafak · 267 pages
The author recounts her effort to balance her writing career and her parenting responsibilities, describing her battle with postpartum depression, her views on prominent women authors, and the many roles she embraced throughout her journey.