Memoir Project

Whether or not one has lived an exceptional or dramatic life, we inherently understand that writing memoir—whether it’s a book, blog, or just a letter to a child - is the single greatest portal to self-examination. Stop treading water in writing exercises or hiding behind “writer’s block” and learn how to write with intent. Marion Roach Smith’s disarmingly frank but wildly fun tactics offer you simple and effective guidelines that work. Your legacy beings now.

Gretchen Rubin had an epiphany one rainy afternoon in the unlikeliest of places: a city bus. "The days are long, but the years are short," she realized. "Time is passing, and I'm not focusing enough on the things that really matter." In that moment, she decided to dedicate a year to her happiness project.

Growing up in a trailer park, by her 21st birthday Ash was a jobless, homeless orphan with only $26 to her name. But even with the odds stacked against her, she changed her fortune forever by starting her million-dollar business from the backseat of her car. Ash gave the finger to convention, blazed her own path, and finally found work she loved. And she wants to show you how she did it.

Nedd Brockmann isn’t afraid to dream big. Fresh after running fifty marathons in fifty days, the twenty-three-year-old had an idea: a 4000-kilometre run across Australia, averaging 100 kilometres per day with the aim of completing it in the fastest known time of 43 days. He wasn’t chasing fame or public recognition. He just wanted to test his limits and raise a million dollars for homelessness in the process.

J. Robert Oppenheimer was one of the iconic figures of the 20th century, a brilliant physicist who led the effort to build the atomic bomb but later confronted the moral consequences of scientific progress. When he proposed international controls over atomic materials, opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb, and criticized plans for a nuclear war, his ideas were anathema to powerful advocates of a massive nuclear buildup during the anti-Communist hysteria of the early 1950s.

Hugh van Cuylenburg was a primary school teacher volunteering in northern India when he had a life-changing realisation: despite the underprivileged community the children were from, they were remarkably positive. By contrast, back in Australia Hugh knew that all too many children struggled with depression, social anxieties and mental illness. His own little sister had been ravaged by anorexia nervosa. How was it that young people he knew at home, who had food, shelter, friends and a loving family, struggled with their mental health, while these kids seemed so contented and resilient?

MythBusters’ Adam Savage - Discovery Channel star and one of the most beloved figures in science and tech - shares his golden rules of creativity, from finding inspiration to following through and successfully turning your idea into reality. Adam Savage is a maker. From Chewbacca’s bandolier to a thousand-shot Nerf gun, he has built thousands of spectacular projects as a special effects artist and the cohost of MythBusters.

The smartphones in our pockets and computers like brains. The vagaries of game theory and evolutionary biology. Self-replicating moon bases and nuclear weapons. All bear the fingerprints of one remarkable man: John von Neumann. Born in Budapest at the turn of the century, von Neumann is one of the most influential scientists to have ever lived. His colleagues believed he had the fastest brain on the planet - bar none.

The Pelee Project is Jane's full memoir of her hilarious faux pas, anecdotes, and epiphanies on the island, all told in that refreshingly honest voice that attracted so many to her columns. The Pelee Project is an inspiring tale of personal transformation and self-discovery.

In April 2014, Rubin "Hurricane" Carter died after a long battle with cancer. David McCallum was exonerated and freed two months later, after serving 29 years in prison. This is the story of how Carter and his friend and coauthor Ken Klonsky worked for 10 years to help free the wrongfully convicted McCallum, along with a group of committed friends and professionals.

"War Diary: The Diary of Mike Rogers" is a poignant historical record that chronicles the experiences of a young boy, Mike Rogers, during World War II. The diary begins in 1939, capturing the tense atmosphere as Britain enters the war. It provides detailed daily entries that cover the significant and mundane aspects of wartime life, from the fear of air raids and the impact of rationing to personal reflections and observations of everyday occurrences.

Louis Jolyon "Jolly" West (October 6, 1924 to January 2, 1999), Director Emeritus, Neuropsychiatric Institute, University of California at Los Angeles, was an American psychiatrist and longtime contractor for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and its Project MKUltra. Margaret Thaler Singer, Ph. D., was an Emeritus Adjunct Professor of Psychology, University of California at Berkeley. The following recording is from a 1998 conference.

When Jessa Crispin was 30, she burned her settled Chicago life to the ground and took off for Berlin with a pair of suitcases and no plan beyond leaving. Half a decade later, she's still on the road, in search not so much of a home as of understanding, a way of being in the world that demands neither constant struggle nor complete surrender.

When Paul Auster was asked to join NPR's Weekend All Things Considered program to tell stories, he turned the proposition on its head: he would let the stories come to him. He invited listeners to submit brief, true-life anecdotes about events that touched their lives.

What can you learn from the most successful companies in the world? The Spanx Story will help you understand and adopt the competitive strategies, workplace culture, and daily business practices that enabled entrepreneur Sara Blakely to dominate the shapewear industry and become a billionaire.

Richard Noble has had the ambition all his adult life to see Britain excel in engineering on the world stage. His achievements in the highly insecure world of record-breaking emphatically demonstrate his commitment to his cause. In his book Take Risk! he tells the extraordinary stories of his 11 projects in record-breaking and aviation that all saw people and companies go out of their way to join him in his exciting endeavours - and take risk.

CIVIL: Life After the Foreign Legion is the author's follow-up to Appel: A Canadian in the French Foreign Legion. During his recent return to France, he shares with you his past in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Algeria as a security contractor and more.

From a young age, Guy Branum always felt as if he were on the outside looking in. Self-taught, introspective, and from a boring farm town, he couldn’t relate to his neighbors. While other boys played outside, he stayed indoors reading Greek mythology. And being gay and overweight, he got used to diminishing himself. But little by little, he started learning from all the strange, lonely outcasts in history, and he started to feel hope. In this collection of personal essays, Guy talks about finding a sense of belonging at Berkeley, being typecast as the “Sassy Gay Friend”, and more....

Daan Heerma van Voss is not just anxious. According to tests on the cortisone levels in his hair, he is seventy-four times as anxious as the average person. And that makes him hard to live with. When another relationship is broken by his crippling fears, the only way to cope is to get to the roots of his condition. But he also wants to dig deeper and tackle the big questions. Why are 264 million people worldwide suffering from anxiety, and why is this number growing every day?

One woman's vicarious sexual and emotional adventure told in a no-holds-barred, unapologetic, and compelling way. The project was simple: Robin Rinaldi, a successful magazine journalist, would move into a San Francisco apartment, join a dating site, and get laid. Never mind that she already owned a beautiful flat a few blocks away, that she was forty-four, or that she was married to a man she'd been in love with for 18 years.