Archives de catégorie : Memoir

UNDAUNTED de John Brennan

A powerful and revelatory memoir from former CIA director John Brennan, spanning his more than thirty years in government.

UNDAUNTED:
My Fight Against America’s Enemies, At Home and Abroad
by John Brennan
Celadon/Macmillan, October 2020

Friday, January 6, 2017: On that day, as always, John Brennan’s alarm clock was set to go off at 4:15 a.m. But nothing else about that day would be routine. That day marked his first and only security briefing with President-elect Donald Trump. And it was also the day John Brennan said his final farewell to Owen Brennan, his father, the man who had taught him the lessons of goodness, integrity, and honor that had shaped the course of an unparalleled career serving his country from within the intelligence community.
In this brutally honest memoir, Brennan describes the life that took him from being a young CIA recruit enamored with the mystique of spy work and invigorated by his travels in the Middle East to being the most powerful individual in American intelligence. He details his experiences with very different presidents and what it’s been like to bear responsibility for some of the nation’s most crucial and polarizing national security decisions. He pulls back the curtain on the inner workings of the Agency, describing the selfless, patriotic, and invisible work of the women and men involved in national security. He also examines the insularity, arrogance, and myopia that have, at times, undermined its reputation in the eyes of the American people and of members of other branches of government. Through topics ranging from George W. Bush’s intervention in Iraq to his thoughts on the CIA’s controversial use of enhanced interrogation techniques to his eye-opening account of the planning of the raid that resulted in Bin Ladin’s death to his realization that Russia had interfered with the 2016 election, Brennan brings the reader behind the scenes of some of the most crucial moments in recent U.S. history. He also candidly discusses the times he has failed to live up to his own high standards and the very public fallouts that have resulted.
UNDAUNTED offers a rare and insightful look at the often-obscured world of national security, the intelligence profession, and Washington’s chaotic political environment. But more than that, it is a portrait of a man striving for integrity; for himself, for the CIA, and for his country.

John O. Brennan was one of President Obama’s most trusted national security advisors during all eight years of the Obama Administration, first as assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism and then as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Mr. Brennan had previously worked in the CIA from 1980 to 2005, where he specialized in Middle Eastern affairs and counterterrorism and served as President Clinton’s daily intelligence briefer. Mr. Brennan received a bachelor’s degree in political science from Fordham University in 1977 and a master’s degree in government from the University of Texas at Austin in 1980.

Un documentaire Netflix inspiré de l’autobiographie de Michelle Obama

Le documentaire Devenir (Becoming) réalisé par Nadia Hallgren, adapté de l’autobiographie de l’ancienne Première Dame des États-Unis, vient de sortir le 6 mai dernier sur Netflix. Il retrace « mon histoire, de mon enfance dans les quartiers sud de Chicago à ma vie aujourd’hui, et il célèbre aussi les histoires puissantes des gens que j’ai rencontrés en chemin » explique t-elle sur Twitter. « Les liens que j’ai tissés avec des gens de toute l’Amérique et du monde entier me rappellent que l’empathie peut vraiment être une bouée de sauvetage.  Et son pouvoir est pleinement mis en évidence dans le film de Nadia » a-t-elle ajouté en évoquant la tournée promotionnelle internationale de son autobiographie.

Devenir est paru chez Fayard en 2018, ainsi que Devenir, le journal, invitation à méditer et à découvrir ou redécouvrir notre histoire grâce à une série de questions accompagnées de citations tirées de ses Mémoires.

THE CURE FOR SLEEP de Tanya Shadrick

A memoir about a new mother who begins dying, fast and without warning—and returns from coma determined to stop sleepwalking through life and learn instead what it takes, and costs, to be fully awake: to her body, love and motherhood; to effort, art and nature; to risk and possibility.

THE CURE FOR SLEEP
by Tanya Shadrick
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Spring 2022

“Those breaths after coma were posthumous: the me of my first thirty-three years – that girl, that woman, who had worked so steadily to keep herself hidden, safe and small – was dead. My new self was stripped bare and spreadeagled. Flayed too of con soling ideas about how life might be kept neat and tidy.”

The Cure for Sleep is about the times when lives change shape, turning towards or away from awareness: a terror-stricken child retreats into routine and daydream; a young wife hibernates in marriage; birth and death intertwine; doors open onto strangers who alter life’s course; promises are made and broken; and a woman in midlife finally wakes up to her body, her desires and her voice – enlivening others in turn. For readers of Joan Didion, Annie Ernaux and Elena Ferrante.

Tanya Shadrick is founder of The Selkie Press and editor of Wild Woman Swimming by Lynne Roper – a journal of west country waters longlisted for the 2019 Wainwright Prize. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, she is also a sought-after artist in residence who encourages creativity in others.

THE UNMAKING de Stephanie Foo

In this science-based, remarkably candid account of what it’s like to heal from Complex PTSD, journalist Stephanie Foo offers a fascinating exploration of a psychological phenomenon we’re only beginning to understand and a relevant and powerful narrative of reckoning and healing.

THE UNMAKING
by Stephanie Foo
Ballantine, pub. date TBD

Stephanie Foo was an accomplished journalist, a producer at This American Life, won an Emmy, and launched a podcasting app, but behind her office door she was having panic attacks. At the age of 30 she was diagnosed with Complex PTSD. Finding few resources to help her heal, Stephanie set out to write her own guide, THE UNMAKING. With the determination and curiosity of an award-winning journalist, Stephanie investigates the science behind Complex PTSD and how it has shaped her own life. She interviews experts and tries a variety of therapies. She also dives into her past of extreme child abuse and neglect and uncovers family secrets.
While someone can develop PTSD from a single traumatic event, Complex PTSD blooms when the trauma happens over and over and over, over the course of years. Risk factors include being hit or verbally abused by a caretaker, having mentally ill, alcoholic or addict parents, or even facing poverty. Those numbers alone add up to around 50 million people. And that’s not including the large populations of those who may have developed Complex PTSD through domestic abuse, continual health issues, or POC and queer people living in threatening and discriminatory environments. They need help. And yet…nobody is talking about it. THE UNMAKING describes how C-PTSD is, essentially, brain damage, and the tragic impact it has on bodies and minds. But unlike the academic books on C-PTSD, Stephanie Foo also shares how it feels to learn that science as a survivor. She writes about her doubts, anguish, terrible setbacks, and ultimately, successes.

Stephanie Foo is a writer and radio producer. She most recently was a producer at the radio show This American Life, which reaches 5 million listeners every week. Before that, she helped create the public radio show Snap Judgment, where she produced nearly 200 stories in 4 years. Foo is an acclaimed advocate for diversity in all forms. She wrote a viral article for Transom about the importance of diverse workplaces, particularly in newsrooms, and speaks frequently on the topic of diversity and inclusion. She’s an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University and has spoken at Columbia, Vassar, Yale, Berkeley and CUNY.

SEED TO DUST by Marc Hamer

‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance meets Vita Sackville-West’

SEED TO DUST
by Marc Hamer
Harvill Secker (UK), April 2019 | Greystone Books (US), October 2019

Working through a year in the garden of a large country estate, a gardener explores the path that led him there. His days are spent with the magnolias and roses, moths and beetles and the distant lady who has employed him for the past thirty years. A broken biographical telling of the journey, mythology and poetry of an outcast boy who just wanted to be somebody’s flower, to an old man who has and is everything that he wants. Intimate, moving and full of beauty, Marc’s meditative prose fills the heart with an appreciation for the life we live, making SEED TO DUST the perfect companion for his critically-acclaimed first book, HOW TO CATCH A MOLE.

Chosen by the American IndieBound.org for its Indie Next List (which promotes the best books in the country at independent bookshops).

Marc Hamer was born in the North of England and moved to Wales over thirty years ago. After spending a period homeless, then working on the railway, he returned to education and studied fine art in Manchester and Stoke-on-Trent. He has worked in art galleries, marketing, graphic design, as a magazine editor and taught creative writing in a prison before becoming a gardener.