Here are 85 books that You Could Make This Place Beautiful fans have personally recommended if you like
You Could Make This Place Beautiful.
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For my first 18 years, I slept in the same room (opposite my parents) in the same house (116 Monticello Avenue) in the same city (Piedmont) in the same state (CA) in the same country (USA), but soon after leaving for college in Evanston, IL, I pined for elsewhere and ended up peripatetic. That peripateticness plagued me, as a woman/wife/mother. While growing our family, my French husband and I moved: Israel to France to California to New York to Israel to New York to Israel. Finally, in my early fifties, I understood home is more about who you are than where you live.
In 102 brief numbered chapters, Dani Shapiro goes on a journey to examine her belief system.
Raised as an only child in a religious Jewish house, she fled to find herself. Decades later—after losing her father, being left alone to deal with her mother, and facing her infant son’s life-threatening illness—she wrestled with existential questions.
Like a spiritual investigator, she searched for answers, jumping from one house of faith and experience to another, from her childhood synagogue to her meditation teacher. In my early 50s, I, too, woke up and wondered if my inherited religion served me.
For my half-century birthday, my husband and I checked into a French Benedictine Monastery in Abu Gosh near Jerusalem, where a nun asked our religious affiliation. Born Jewish, I said, but questioning.
“Devotion’s biggest triumph is its voice: funny and unpretentious, concrete and earthy—appealing to skeptics and believers alike. This is a gripping, beautiful story.” — Jennifer Egan, author of The Keep
“I was immensely moved by this elegant book.” — Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love
Dani Shapiro, the acclaimed author of the novel Black and White and the bestselling memoir Slow Motion, is back with Devotion: a searching and timeless new memoir that examines the fundamental questions that wake women in the middle of the night, and grapples with the ways faith, prayer, and devotion affect everyday life. Devotion…
I’m an author and elementary librarian living in Northern California. My mind is a busy neighborhood: there are all sorts of thoughts and feelings running around up there like hordes of naughty unsupervised children. I need books to ground me, to encourage me to slow down, to help me feel and release those emotions. As an elementary librarian, I’m a voracious reader, but I only choose to return to the most necessary, beautiful books. These authors comfort me through their words, pulling forth laughter, tears, and the knowledge that I’m not so crazy after all. Or, if I am, I’m not the only one.
This memoir was written in 1955 but its wisdom is evergreen because, nearly seventy years later, it’s still very difficult to be a woman.
We are many things to many people and it’s easy to lose ourselves in that swirl of activity and to-dos, which is precisely what happened to me. Depression and anxiety had reading off limits to me for a time, and this was the kind, gentle book that brought me back to the page, the one that said, Yes, yes.
That’s how it is, to love. It’s hard, not because you’re doing it wrong, but because you’re doing it right.
'Quietly powerful and a great help. Glorious' Emma Thompson
'Women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves.'
Holidaying by the sea, and taking inspiration from the shells she finds on the seashore, Anne Morrow Lindbergh meditates on youth and age, love and marriage, peace, solitude and contentment. First published in 1955 and an instant bestseller, Gift from the Sea's insights - into aspects of the modern world that threaten to overwhelm us, the complications of technology, the ever multiplying commitments that take us from our families - are as relevant today as they ever were,…
For my first 18 years, I slept in the same room (opposite my parents) in the same house (116 Monticello Avenue) in the same city (Piedmont) in the same state (CA) in the same country (USA), but soon after leaving for college in Evanston, IL, I pined for elsewhere and ended up peripatetic. That peripateticness plagued me, as a woman/wife/mother. While growing our family, my French husband and I moved: Israel to France to California to New York to Israel to New York to Israel. Finally, in my early fifties, I understood home is more about who you are than where you live.
The Part That Burns is not a linear narrative but a memoir in fragments. Each essay or chapter is different, interesting, engaging like scattered pieces of a puzzle that the writer—and reader—are trying to put together.
It's about a childhood wrought with abuse and rejection, about trauma and epigenetics, home and roots. It's about a girl who grows up to become a teenager who becomes a young woman who becomes a wife and a mother and every step of the way, she yearns for what we all yearn for: acceptance and love.
My memoir is as slim and sparse as Ouellette’s and some might consider my chronological story as fragmented because of its tiny chapters and missing connective tissue from one chapter to the next.
"I love this book and am grateful it is in the world." —Dorothy Allison, New York Times best-selling author of Bastard Out of Carolina and Cavedweller "Simply beautiful. Precisely imagined, poetically structured, compelling, and vivid." —Joyce Carol Oates "A textured remembrance of a traumatic childhood that also offers affecting moments of beauty." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
In her fiercely beautiful memoir, Jeannine Ouellette recollects fragments of her life and arranges them elliptically to witness each piece as torn and whole, as something more than itself. Caught between the dramatic landscapes of Lake Superior and Casper Mountain, between her stepfather’s groping…
For my first 18 years, I slept in the same room (opposite my parents) in the same house (116 Monticello Avenue) in the same city (Piedmont) in the same state (CA) in the same country (USA), but soon after leaving for college in Evanston, IL, I pined for elsewhere and ended up peripatetic. That peripateticness plagued me, as a woman/wife/mother. While growing our family, my French husband and I moved: Israel to France to California to New York to Israel to New York to Israel. Finally, in my early fifties, I understood home is more about who you are than where you live.
This book combines compressed prose with nonfiction truth-telling but it isn’t linear or a complete story as much as a snapshot of Fennelly’s childhood, home life, and keen observations.
This book showed me that the quality of writing trumps the quantity of words. Short and sparse, when well written, can find a place on a bookshelf and shine.
The 52 micro-memoirs in genre-defying Heating & Cooling offer bright glimpses into a richly lived life, combining the compression of poetry with the truth-telling of non-fiction into one heartfelt, celebratory book. Ranging from childhood recollections to quirky cultural observations, these micro-memoirs build on one another to arrive at a portrait of Beth Ann Fennelly as a wife, mother, writer and deeply original observer of life's challenges and joys.
Some pieces are wistful, some wry and many reveal the humour buried in our everyday interactions. Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs shapes a life from unexpectedly illuminating moments and awakens us to…
I’m an author and elementary librarian living in Northern California. My mind is a busy neighborhood: there are all sorts of thoughts and feelings running around up there like hordes of naughty unsupervised children. I need books to ground me, to encourage me to slow down, to help me feel and release those emotions. As an elementary librarian, I’m a voracious reader, but I only choose to return to the most necessary, beautiful books. These authors comfort me through their words, pulling forth laughter, tears, and the knowledge that I’m not so crazy after all. Or, if I am, I’m not the only one.
This book makes me snort-laugh every time I read it.
The ridiculous, rudimentary illustrations perfectly capture the absurdity and weirdness of life, and the writing—about everything from dogs to depression—is smart, witty, and accurate. This book is a little crazy and since I often think I’m a little crazy, it’s perfect for me.
The book’s small slices of life (and cake, with which the author is obsessed) are the perfect antidote for any day that I feel the world has gone mad. So pretty much every day.
“Funny and smart as hell” (Bill Gates), Allie Brosh’s Hyperbole and a Half showcases her unique voice, leaping wit, and her ability to capture complex emotions with deceptively simple illustrations.
FROM THE PUBLISHER: Every time Allie Brosh posts something new on her hugely popular blog Hyperbole and a Half the internet rejoices.
This full-color, beautifully illustrated edition features more than fifty percent new content, with ten never-before-seen essays and one wholly revised and expanded piece as well as classics from the website like, “The God of Cake,” “Dogs Don’t Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving,” and…
For my first 18 years, I slept in the same room (opposite my parents) in the same house (116 Monticello Avenue) in the same city (Piedmont) in the same state (CA) in the same country (USA), but soon after leaving for college in Evanston, IL, I pined for elsewhere and ended up peripatetic. That peripateticness plagued me, as a woman/wife/mother. While growing our family, my French husband and I moved: Israel to France to California to New York to Israel to New York to Israel. Finally, in my early fifties, I understood home is more about who you are than where you live.
A difficult-to-categorize story (illustrated memoir, graphic memoir, is it even memoir?), Belonging is about a young girl growing up in Karlsruhe, Germany, where she notices something strange in their backyard. But when she asks her mother, she doesn't get a clear answer.
Decades later, after leaving home in search of something unnamable, she returns to confront her family, their past, her country of birth, its past, and to own it. Throughout the colorful, inventive pages, Krug incorporated her illustrations, photos, archival research, German products, family tree, and more as she tells the story of Heimat—what it means to belong.
After hearing her speak and reading her book, I knew words did not suffice to tell my own story.
* Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award * Silver Medal Society of Illustrators *
* Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, Comics Beat, The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Kirkus Reviews, andLibrary Journal
This“ingenious reckoning with the past” (The New York Times), by award-winning artist Nora Krug investigates the hidden truths of her family’s wartime history in Nazi Germany.
Nora Krug was born decades after the fall of the Nazi regime, but the Second World War cast a long shadow over her childhood and youth in the city…
I’m an author and elementary librarian living in Northern California. My mind is a busy neighborhood: there are all sorts of thoughts and feelings running around up there like hordes of naughty unsupervised children. I need books to ground me, to encourage me to slow down, to help me feel and release those emotions. As an elementary librarian, I’m a voracious reader, but I only choose to return to the most necessary, beautiful books. These authors comfort me through their words, pulling forth laughter, tears, and the knowledge that I’m not so crazy after all. Or, if I am, I’m not the only one.
When my depression was intense, I was continually worried that something would happen to me or my family. It was a visceral fear, one that ranked up there with a child’s belief that something was hiding under the bed.
To read this story of the author’s experiences with her son’s epilepsy diagnosis was surprisingly comforting for me. She too was terrified, and yet she made her way through, as moms so often manage to do.
I loved this book’s tender, funny, well-crafted words about how little we really can control in our lives. It reminded me that worry won’t make the future brighter, but it will make the present darker.
A New York Times Editors' Choice One of NPR's Best Books of the Year
"A beautifully wrought ode to life...a precious gift to the world." -The Washington Post
From the bestselling author of I Miss You When I Blink comes a poignant and powerful new memoir that tackles the big questions of life, death, and existential fear with humor and hope.
As a daughter, mother, and friend, Mary Laura Philpott considered herself an "anxious optimist"-a natural worrier with a stubborn sense of good cheer. And while she didn't really think she had any sort of magical protective powers, she believed…
I’m an author and elementary librarian living in Northern California. My mind is a busy neighborhood: there are all sorts of thoughts and feelings running around up there like hordes of naughty unsupervised children. I need books to ground me, to encourage me to slow down, to help me feel and release those emotions. As an elementary librarian, I’m a voracious reader, but I only choose to return to the most necessary, beautiful books. These authors comfort me through their words, pulling forth laughter, tears, and the knowledge that I’m not so crazy after all. Or, if I am, I’m not the only one.
Tara was the best friend I needed when I picked up this book.
I felt like I was sitting on the couch across from her while she gave me all sort of kind, direct, no-nonsense advice. She reminded me to be good to myself, and taught me that I’m worthy of my own care and attention. Just seeing the spine of this book on my shelf makes me feel less alone. I can hear her encouraging voice. (See? I am a little crazy!)
The author of the runaway hit Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies shares honest and practical lessons for healing your past and owning your future so you can radiate strength, bravery, and joy when life gets dark.
“A revealing and powerful book that lit me up from the inside out.”—GLENNON DOYLE, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Untamed
Tara Schuster thought she was on stable ground. For years, she’d worked like hell to repair the emotional wounds inflicted during what she refers to as her “mess-wreck disaster” of a childhood. She’d brought radical healing rituals and self-love into her life.…
As a Certified Divorce Coach and Certified Divorce Financial Analyst®, I work with clients during one of the most difficult stages of their lives. Clients often feel regretful about the past and fearful for the future, and the right book recommendation can really help them move forward. I often give clients reading assignments between coaching sessions that help them process their grief, figure out their goals, educate themselves about finances, feel less alone in the divorce process, and become more confident in making major decisions. I’m never not reading on this subject.
Psychotherapist Daphne Rose Kingma offers ten coping strategies to heal your heart when struggling with life’s devastations, including divorce. This is a soothing read if one is still raw with grief as it offers both hope and practical suggestions for moving through loss. Divorce can be a chance to heal old wounds and grow and this book offers a terrific start to that process.
Add layoffs, foreclosures, and skyrocketing health-care costs to the inevitable crises of every life, and you have today’s landscape. Amid these challenges, even those who thought they had solid coping skills feel that their center cannot hold as things fall apart. In her first book in many years, bestselling author Daphne Rose Kingma takes us on a path of emotional and spiritual healing, with particular attention to the complex and frequently overwhelming circumstances of our lives right now. The perfect combination of empathic friend, sage counselor, savvy problem solver, and even gallows humorist, Kingma looks straight into the predicaments so…
I have a passion for helping people move past the pain of divorce because I’ve been there myself. As a counselor I knew what I needed to do to cope and heal but I also quickly realized the importance of making prayerful decisions and trusting God. It’s my joy to walk you through steps you can take to cope now and move to a brighter future. My education, career, faith, and experiences have resulted in my book Peace after Divorce being recognized as an exemplary Christian self-help book by the Illumination Book Awards.
If you have children, this book is a great follow-up to the parenting section of my book Peace after Divorce. Based on his professional experience as a therapist and researcher Dr. Emery shares important steps you can take to see that your children become well-adjusted and thrive. I’m impressed with the depth of his insights and feel that parents who read this book will be better able to navigate the tricky pitfalls of parenting through and after divorce. Stories of families illustrate his points and make this book an interesting read as well as a rich resource for those who want to minimize the negative impact of divorce on their children. This is the only book on my list not from a Christian perspective but it is good for parents.
Nationally recognized expert Robert Emery applies his twenty-five years of experience as a researcher, therapist, and mediator to offer parents a new road map to divorce. Dr. Emery shows how our powerful emotions and the way we handle them shape how we divorce—and whether our children suffer or thrive in the long run. His message is hopeful, yet realistic—divorce is invariably painful, but parents can help promote their children’s resilience. With compassion and authority, Dr. Emery explains:
• Why it is so hard to really make divorce work • How anger and fighting can keep people from really separating •…
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