This book is my diary's perspective of leaving an abusive family and entering the madness of foster care. It chronicles the ups and downs of the eating disorder, depression, and abuse that tried to mold me. Dear Diary starts in 1995 when I was only 13 years old, and takes you through three of my most formative years.

Ellen Reids is not your normal thirteen-year-old girl; or at least thats how she feels. She has always felt that she was different from everyone else in a very unsatisfactory way, a fact that has not been helped by her best friend Brenda Fields. Brenda is an emotionally, and sometimes physically, abusive friend. Ellen realizes she must get away from Brenda if she wants to live a more normal and happy life as a teenage girl. Unfortunately, letting go of Brenda becomes the least of Ellens problems.

Lesley Arfin kept a diary during the apocalypse that was her adolescence, chronicling her depression from being bullied in the 10th grade and her discovery of heroin. Lesley told her diary everything. Now in her 20s, Lesley has returned to her journal and added new comments that only an adult looking back on their own life can perceive. Most of these are in the vein of What the hell was I talking about?' Lesley's hilarious updates remind readers how heavy it all seemed back then and how irrelevant it all really is in the face of adulthood.'

“[Manguso] has written the memoir we didn’t realize we needed.” —The New Yorker In Ongoingness, Sarah Manguso continues to define the contours of the contemporary essay. In it, she confronts a meticulous diary that she has kept for twenty-five years. “I wanted to end each day with a record of everything that had ever happened,” she explains. But this simple statement belies a terror that she might forget something, that she might miss something important. Maintaining that diary, now eight hundred thousand words, had become, until recently, a kind of spiritual practice. Then Manguso became pregnant and had a child, and these two Copernican events generated an amnesia that put her into a different relationship with the need to document herself amid ongoing time. Ongoingness is a spare, meditative work that stands in stark contrast to the volubility of the diary—it is a haunting account of mortality and impermanence, of how we struggle to find clarity in the chaos of time that rushes around and over and through us. “Bold, elegant, and honest . . . Ongoingness reads variously as an addict’s testimony, a confession, a celebration, an elegy.” —The Paris Review “Manguso captures the central challenge of memory, of attentiveness to life . . . A spectacularly and unsummarizably rewarding read.” —Maria Popova, Brain Pickings

Beatrice Desmond, 55, lives on a remote farm nestled in a deep hollow in southern West Virginia. Her troubled past–an alcoholic father, growing up borderline poor, a suicidal husband–along with her loyalty to a deceased friend, drove her to this lonely existence. She soldiers on, accompanied by her wry sense of humor, a faithful setter named Ralph, and an inherited herd of six llamas, one of whom hurls a wad of chewed-up hay in her face on New Year's Day, a most unwelcome omen. A native of Boston and a graduate of an Ivy League college, Beatrice is a fish out of water in fictional Seneca County. She has constant difficulty dealing with the locals, many of whom she finds interesting but unfathomable. And although she maintains contact with certain friends and family–lively and irreverent Evie, sturdy brother Bart–they remain distant geographically and sometimes emotionally. As a result, and too often, Beatrice retreats into her work as a translator and editor, or into the bottle of Jack Daniel's she maintains nearby. Fate finally intervenes, requiring Beatrice to befriend and shelter Clara, an abused teenager, and accept the job of ghostwriting the memoir of her dashing but enigmatic neighbor, Tanner Fordyce. Gradually, Beatrice finds the harsh Appalachian winter of her life easing and signs of a hopeful spring appearing. Her resolute independence and crusty reserve soften, her carefully constructed barriers fall, and her guarded and self-protective nature moderates, as she explores the renewed pleasures of emotional involvement. At times sad, at times hilarious, and always quirky, Hillwilla is a life-affirming read. It celebrates the glories of nature, the resilience of the human spirit, the healing power derived from genuine connections with others, and the potential for reinventing ourselves–at any age. Come, explore the unforgettable world of Hillwilla.

Mary’s Suitcase of Memories is a delightful read. It’s a snappy, funny and heartfelt memoir. The book is made up of five diaries written by Mary Buard from 1916 -1921. The diaries were originally handwritten in pencil or ink and were copied to a more legible and printable format. The diaries reveal the joys and sorrows of a young teenage girl. It chronicles her relationship with her close friend Mag, romances, school years and family relationships. It is also a historical read in that it covers concerns regarding the participation of her brothers and great uncle in the Spanish-American War and World War I.

June 1 I doubt that I would be starting this diary if it werenOCOt for laptops. I had a maiden aunt who gave me a pretty, red, imitation-leather notebook with OC My DiaryOCO embossed in gold on the cover. She said every girl should start one at age eleven. If I remember right, I wrote the date on the first page and immediately lost the book. IOCOm not too likely to lose this laptop, since itOCOs my bread and butter. And, because I regularly send my programming back to the office, IOCOll be uploading these words to my own personal files back there OCo encrypted, of course. Ah, the joys of modern technology.The only tradition IOCOm going to adhere to is in treating you like a person, Dear Diary. So let me tell you who I am before I start telling you all my secrets. IOCOm Elizabeth Axelrood, better known as Liz to all my friends. IOCOm now all of twenty-five, a business success and, while not a personal winner, at least I wouldnOCOt classify myself as a loser in that respect, either. I majored in psychology in college, and my mom and dad assumed IOCOd go on in that field, but computers fascinated me. Much against the wishes of my folks, I quit before graduation and went into programming. ThatOCOs how I met my ex-husband. We started our own company, Ax-cell Learning Inc., got into educational software on the ground floor, and have been running to stay ahead of demand ever since. Now, I suppose you want to know about Gordon Axelrood, and what happened between us.... Thirty-five short stories about love, romance and relationships by John Broussard. Boson Books also offers several mysteries by John Broussard. Visit our fiction page. For an author bio, photo, and a sample read visit www.bosonbooks.com."