So here’s the deal. I’m old enough to receive the senior discount every Tuesday at Lunardi’s Market, and I believe that qualifies me to write what I really think, no sugarcoating or banal reiterations. I host an extraordinary blog (according to my mother) with the coolest name, Living in the Gap. I have a book that came out this year, Grow Damn It, and when you calm down, you can order a dozen or so copies on Amazon! Other interesting facts. I’m tall, I blame the Neanderthals, but the important thing is I have an insatiable passion for writing. Come find me. I think we’re supposed to be best friends.
Unforgettable memoir by Anna Quindlen that celebrates and explores the process of aging.
Quindlen writes about how we change as we age. We’re kinder, more thoughtful, sometimes wiser, and willing to live at a pace that allows us to smell the roses. This book honestly tackles a range of subjects, from marriage, girlfriends, parenting, faith, grief, and so much more.
Quindlen shares her personal stories to illuminate her ideas helping us to discover a life that can be both satisfying and joyful. After reading this book, I decided to write my memoir.
INCLUDING AN EXCLUSIVE CONVERSATION BETWEEN MERYL STREEP AND ANNA QUINDLEN
“[Quindlen] serves up generous portions of her wise, commonsensical, irresistibly quotable take on life. . . . What Nora Ephron does for body image and Anne Lamott for spiritual neuroses, Quindlen achieves on the home front.”—NPR
In this irresistible memoir, Anna Quindlen writes about a woman’s life, from childhood memories to manic motherhood to middle age, using the events of her life to illuminate ours. Considering—and celebrating—everything from marriage, girlfriends, our mothers, parenting, faith, loss, to all the stuff in our closets, and more, Quindlen says for us here what…
As a queer, fat disabled Black woman in America, I am all too familiar with the experiences and history that these 5 aforementioned authors detail when it comes how deep fatphobia is embedded in this country. And how it harms us everyday—even if you’re not fat. I remain passionate about the eradication of fatphobia in our society because too much is at stake in terms of housing discrimination, employment discrimination, disability discrimination, healthcare discrimination and etc. for one notto care. - Clarkisha Kent, author and culture critic.
Yeboah is my favorite in this genre because she really nails the perils of dating as a fat Black woman during these modern times.
What we have to go through (fetishization, degradation, etc., etc.) is so ridiculous and she is able to speak to this in a way that is [sadly] honest, but still a bit humorous. Which is hard to do.
'I love Stephanie... She's one of my favourite truth tellers online, she pulls no punches and empowers so many women with her own commitment to equality... This book is going to mean a lot, to a lot of people.' - Jameela Jamil
Stephanie Yeboah has experienced racism and fat-phobia throughout her life. From being bullied at school to being objectified and humiliated in her dating life, Stephanie's response to discrimination has always been to change the narrative around body-image and what we see as beautiful.
In her debut book, Fattily Ever After, Stephanie speaks openly and courageously about her own…
Women’s fiction was my go-to genre after discovering Danielle Steele many years ago. I progressed from epic emotional family dramas to chick lit/romcoms, wanting to read books that made me laugh and gave that feel-good feeling. I love a happy ever after, and don’t mind knowing that the main characters will end up together because for me it’s all about the journey. I’ve been so lucky since being an author, to have received lots of emails and social media messages, telling me how much my books have either helped someone, inspired someone, made them laugh, given them hope, and generally left them with a warm feeling in their heart.
A brilliant thought-provoking and thoroughly entertaining book, Jemima is a young lady who is in need of a number of life changes.
She’s overweight, treated like a skivvy by her flatmates, and belittled by her colleagues.
She does embark on big changes in her life, and when she achieves the goals that she sets for herself, realises that it doesn’t matter how much you change the outside of your body, it’s what’s on the inside that counts.
A definite life lesson and we should also just be kind, because we never know what is happening in someone’s life.
Discover the addictive and uplifting story of reinvention, self-discovery and the meaning of true love from the bestselling author of Life Swap and The Friends We Keep
'Inspirational, uplifting, made me laugh and left me feeling very happy' 5***** Reader Review 'Compulsively readable' Sunday Times 'Perfect if you want to feel uplifted . . . So relatable' 5***** Reader Review _______
Jemima Jones is overweight. About seven stone overweight.
Treated like a slave by her thin and bitchy flatmates, lorded over at the Kilburn Herald by the beautiful Geraldine (less talented, but better paid), her only consolation is food.
I’m obsessed with the connections between Buddhist philosophy, meditation, Intuitive Eating, eating disorder and addiction recovery, body liberation, and intersectional social justice work. These connections are everywhere! It may not seem like it, but how we relate to food and our bodies reflects how we feel about all bodies. How we speak to ourselves reflects how we feel about difference, difficulty, and interdependence. Challenging our entrenched beliefs about health, eating, food, and body helps us to ultimately recognize the inherent worthiness of all bodies. This is how we both come to know ourselves authentically and how we change the world for the better.
Written by a powerful eating disorder-dietitian and -therapist duo.
This book encourages us to get our hands deep into the soil of our messy imperfectness by intentionally and compassionately working with our grief, our pleasure, and the emotional and practical aspects of our relationship with food and body.
I love their radical and holistic approach to working with our whole selves.
A holistic and powerful framework for accepting and liberating our bodies, and ourselves.
Have you ever felt uncomfortable or not “at home” in your body? In this book, the founders of Body Trust, licensed therapist Hilary Kinavey and registered dietician Dana Sturtevant, invite readers to break free from the status quo and reject a diet culture that has taken advantage and profited from trauma, stigma, and disembodiment, and fully reclaim and embrace their bodies.
Informed by the personal body stories of the hundreds of people they have worked with, Reclaiming Body Trust delineates an intersectional, social justice−orientated path to healing…
I’ve been reporting on and writing about food, eating, health, and body image for the last 25 years. So much of what we’re taught about those issues, it turns out, is wrong, inaccurate, and often damaging. I’ve made a point of uncovering the truth in those areas and to write about it in ways that help other people through this difficult terrain. My writing philosophy can be summed up in six words: I write so I’m not alone. And, I would add, so you’re not alone, either.
I first read this when it came out in 1992, at a time when few people were publicly connecting body image and feminism. This book literally changed the way I saw the world! It liberated me to stop spending so much time and energy trying to make my body fit an impossible mold and to start using my talents for more important things.
The bestselling classic that redefined our view of the relationship between beauty and female identity .
Every day, women around the world are confronted with a dilemma - how to look. In a society embroiled in a cult of female beauty and youthfulness, pressure on women to conform physically is constant and all-pervading. In this iconic, gripping and frank expose, Naomi Wolf exposes the tyranny of the beauty myth through the ages and its oppressive function today, in the home and at work, in literature and the media, in relationships between men and women, between women and women. With pertinent…
In That’s What Friends Do, the #MeToo experience that Sammie’s mom shares with Sammie is my story. I was thirteen. I never told anyone. Even as I started writing my novel, it didn’t occur to me to share with my husband, or my teenage children, my experience. But one evening, as the #MeToo movement was exploding in the media, I was sitting around a dinner table with several other couples. All of the women had had a #MeToo experience. Most of us were young teens when it happened. Shame and guilt had kept us silent for far too long. My novel – and the others on my list – are working to break through that silence.
Lydia knows her mom’s boyfriend, Jeremy, makes her mom happy. But sometimes Jeremy makes Lydia really uncomfortable, especially when his hugs go on too long. She already dresses in baggy clothing so the boys in her school will stop saying things about her body. What more can Lyddie do? When her mom buys a run-down house, and Lyddie finds a book of magic spells inside, she thinks she has a solution: the right combination of magic spells will keep her safe. But when Lyddie’s spells don’t work against the boys, or Jeremy, she has to use her voice and her courage instead. I loved the way this wonderful coming-of-age novel confronts and challenges the culture of toxic masculinity that too often is used as a cover for bullying.
From the critically acclaimed author of the ALA Notable and Charlotte Huck Honor Book Forever, or a Long, Long Time comes a poignant coming-of-age novel about the complicated parts of growing up, finding your voice, and claiming your space. Perfect for fans of Rebecca Stead, Laurel Snyder, or Ali Benjamin!
Lydia hasn’t felt comfortable in her own skin since the boys at her school started commenting on the way she looks in her uniform. Her cousin and friends think she should be flattered, but the boys—and sometimes her mom’s boyfriend, Jeremy—make Lydia uncomfortable and confused. Even more confusing is when…
I remember my first published feature article about a street performer and asking a friend for his thoughts on my story. He replied. "Well, it's not Hemingway." Being a little miffed, I replied, "Well, I don't really like Hemingway." Okay, back to Inside Out. Demii Moore's book is not excellent prose. At times it's not even really good prose. But, it's honest in its emotions and forthight about her insecurities, heartbreaks, and just real in ways I didn't anticipate. I trudged through some of it, and I don't think she illuminated all aspects of her life. But, toward the end, Demi engages the reader in a self-reflection and honest assessment of her life that left me teary-eyed. Raw feelings are not easy to capture in words. In a memoir, I don't look for the best writting, although, sure it helps!. I respond to honest emotions, self-reflection and humililty. I found…
A Daily Mail Book of the Year. A Mail on Sunday Book of the Year.
Famed American actress Demi Moore at last tells her own story in a surprisingly intimate and emotionally charged memoir.
For decades, Demi Moore has been synonymous with celebrity. From iconic film roles to high-profile relationships, Moore has never been far from the spotlight - or the headlines.
Even as Demi was becoming the highest paid actress in Hollywood, however, she was always outrunning her past, just one step ahead of the doubts and insecurities that defined her childhood. Throughout her…
I think I sometimes get in trouble for saying this, but the truth is, I don’t give a shit about the likability of characters, whether I’m reading or writing. I’m here for a good time, not a long time. Because of that, fiction is the most riveting for me when interesting characters start making bad decisions. Any good narrative train wreck must create tension that keeps ratcheting up in its pages, and these are some of the books that do that most expertly, in my opinion. So, grab something to hold onto while you go on some of my favorite wild rides.
This is my most recent “can’t look away” read. The titular Piglet hits rock bottom and keeps digging after her idea of a perfect life with her fiancé Kit goes up in flames. Lottie Hazell really knows how to do a set piece with constant escalating tension. Every food-related meltdown in Piglet proved more anxiety-inducing than the last, particularly a scene of Piglet frantically trying to bake a croquembouche on the day of her disastrous wedding.
I always appreciate a book that refuses to give the reader breathing room and puts you in the scene with its characters. Piglet’s pages and pages of bad decisions–and the empathy Hazell’s narrative still manages to weave in for her characters–make this a gripping, satisfying read.
Discover a deliciously dark and piercing story of food and secrets, a Stylist Best Debut Novel of 2024.
'A sharp, dark, must-read story about appetite, ambition, secrecy and shame' Daily Mail
'If I owned a bookstore, I'd hand-sell Piglet to everyone' New York Times Book Review
'A dark, weird, satisfying tale about greed and desire' i News
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Her life is so full, so why is she hungry?
For Piglet - an unshakable childhood nickname - getting married is her opportunity to reinvent. Together, Kit and Piglet are the picture of domestic bliss - effortless hosts, planning a covetable wedding...…
I'm an author, movement coach, and yoga teacher. I've been practicing yoga on and off for about 48 years. I was introduced to yoga by my mom through a really old book called Be Young with Yoga at 3 years old. Yoga has been a part of my entire existence in one way or another. I have had the honour and privilege to study with yoga teachers and educators for the past 30+ years and it has been life-changing. I have been a yoga teacher and movement coach for 30+ years, I have watched yoga make sad people feel better, injured people get strong, and shy people become leaders in their communities around equity and diversity.
I love this book because it addresses the issues we have with body image and how to heal ourselves from our negative words, thoughts, and beliefs. We get to dig deeper into our relationships with our bodies through the yoga practice. This book shows us mindful steps on how to listen, learn, love, and live with specific practical practices that can change our lives. If you live in the world today you have been faced with lots of body blaming and shaming. This read will help you find body peace and contentment.
Transform negative words, thoughts, perspectives, and beliefs into personal empowerment with Body Mindful Yoga s unique approach to combining yoga and the power of language. The words you think, speak, and absorb inform how you feel about your body. With this book s inspiring guidance, you can begin to move through the world with an attitude that radiates self-confidence, contentment, and peace of mind. Open your eyes to how words affect your body image using four Body Mindful steps: Listen, Learn, Love, and Live. These steps lead to amazing insights through practical techniques and hands-on exercises. The latter two encourage…
I've penned 11 novels and numerous essays, and if there's one thread that ties them all together, it's rawness. I gravitate towards reading books and watching films where writers peel back the layers of their lives, exposing past wounds and delving into what they've learned from them. As an entrepreneur with a master's degree in marketing, I’ve found that this kind of vulnerability is not only compelling but essential in any form of storytelling. Whether I’m crafting a narrative for a new startup or reflecting on my own experiences for a novel, it’s this unfiltered honesty that resonates deeply with audiences.
If you’ve ever had a complicated relationship with your body, welcome to the club. Gay’s memoir is refreshingly unvarnished—no filters, no gloss, just the stark reality of living in a body that the world often sees as a problem to be solved.
Her vulnerability is disarming, offering insights that are as profound as they are uncomfortable. It’s like she’s sharing secrets you didn’t even know you had, making you laugh at the absurdity of societal expectations while also leaving you with a deeper understanding of the complexities of identity and trauma.
From Roxane Gay, the New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminist, a memoir in weight about eating healthier, finding a tolerable form of exercise, and exploring what it means to learn, in the middle of your life, how to take care of yourself and how to feed your hunger.
New York Times bestselling author Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and bodies, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption,…
