In Recollections of My Life as a Woman, Diane di Prima explores the first three decades of her extraordinary life. Born into a conservative Italian American family, di Prima grew up in Brooklyn but broke away from her roots to follow through on a lifelong commitment to become a poet, first made when she was in high school. Immersing herself in Manhattan's early 1950s Bohemia, di Prima quickly emerged as a renowned poet, an influential editor, and a single mother at a time when this was unheard of. Vividly chronicling the intense, creative cauldron of those years, she recounts her revolutionary relationships and sexuality, and how her experimentation led her to define herself as a woman. What emerges is a fascinating narrative about the courage and triumph of the imagination, and how one woman discovered her role in the world.

An electric portrait of the artist as a young woman that asks how a writer finds her voice in a society that prefers women to be silent In Recollections of My Nonexistence, Rebecca Solnit describes her formation as a writer and as a feminist in 1980s San Francisco, in an atmosphere of gender violence on the street and throughout society and the exclusion of women from cultural arenas. She tells of being poor, hopeful, and adrift in the city that became her great teacher; of the small apartment that, when she was nineteen, became the home in which she transformed herself; of how punk rock gave form and voice to her own fury and explosive energy. Solnit recounts how she came to recognize the epidemic of violence against women around her, the street harassment that unsettled her, the trauma that changed her, and the authority figures who routinely disdained and disbelieved girls and women, including her. Looking back, she sees all these as consequences of the voicelessness that was and still is the ordinary condition of women, and how she contended with that while becoming a writer and a public voice for women's rights. She explores the forces that liberated her as a person and as a writer--books themselves, the gay men around her who offered other visions of what gender, family, and joy could be, and her eventual arrival in the spacious landscapes and overlooked conflicts of the American West. These influences taught her how to write in the way she has ever since, and gave her a voice that has resonated with and empowered many others.

Dawn of Memories is a journey into the realm of early recollections of childhood and a search for the meaning of the remembrances. Since 1894, first memories have been a subject of hundreds of investigations around the world. The age of a person’s initial recollections, the content of the memories and various other topics are of enduring interest to people of all ages. Early recollections yield deep insights into an individual’s personality and ways of perceiving life, and can help both individuals and clinicians to employ these first memories for personality appraisal and growth. Building on earlier studies, Dawn of Memories presents a clear and understandable framework for interpreting early recollections in order to enhance self-understanding and personal development. Numerous captivating and informative examples detail the meaning of first remembrances in historical figures and people from diverse backgrounds. Clarke also focuses on capitalizing on strengths and an awareness of potentialities that emerge from reflecting upon early recollections. Readers will come away from this enlightening work with a better understanding of their own memories, their lives as result of these memories, and how to use them to resolve current issues in their lives.

Jeff Strand, whose work Publishers Weekly has called "wickedly funny" and Kirkus has called "ridiculously stupid," has had one of the least meteoric rises to success in the publishing industry. But he eventually got there, even if he should probably put "success" in quotes. He's been at it a long time, and has learned a lot of lessons along the way. And he shares them with brutal honesty in this very book, along with plenty of hilarious (and sometimes painful) anecdotes about his career. This is not a book that will tell you how to format a manuscript or write a compelling query letter. It's a book about how to cope with rejection and bad reviews. Book signings where nobody shows up. Helplessly watching your peers go on to greater success than you. He's been through all of that and so much more, and in these pages you'll have a bunch of laughs as you commiserate and figure out how to get through it all.

In this collection of informal reminiscences, first published in 1975, Max Born has written an extraordinarily vivid account of his life and work, originally intended for his family. Ranging from his time at the University of Göttingen, where Born had his first real motivation for a professional career in science, to the period in Berlin as professor extraordinary, when he and his wife became close friends of Einstein, these anecdotes and memories chart the "heroic age of physics" from the perspective of one of its leading characters. In 1954 Born was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for his fundamental contributions to the great discovery of that cadre of superlative scientific minds – quantum theory. But his scientific research provides only one strand of this story. Born’s varied interests outside science led to many interesting experiences – some of historical importance insofar as they offer a glimpse into German society before and between the wars.