What I Told My Daughter

Edited by Nina Tassler, the chairman of CBS Entertainment, a collection of original essays from notable, highly accomplished women in politics, academia, athletics, the arts, and business offering advice for raising a new generation of empowered girls. Young women are bombarded these days with advice from every direction telling them to lean in, marry smart, thrive, or not even to try to have it all. So where to begin? And whom should they listen to? Nina Tassler is, by any standard, a trailblazer. She holds one of the highest positions at CBS Corp., one of the world's most prominent media companies; she serves on the boards of prominent institutions; and she's a devoted wife and mother. It's hard to imagine a better role model for a young woman. But while attending a volleyball tournament with her daughter, Nina was forced to face her own limitations. Olympic gold medalist Misty May-Treanor was scheduled to speak and the girls were all so excited to hear what she would have to say—not just as an icon of the sport that they all loved, but as a woman. Nina realized that the absence of sports from her own girlhood meant that she didn't always know how to talk to her daughter about what it means to be a female athlete, or about how women could succeed in the often male-dominated field of sports. Nina realized that her perspective on what feminism means—on what being a woman means—is singular, and informed by her own journey…and that perhaps other women—other mothers—had their own unique ways of talking about these issues with their own girls. And so What I Told My Daughter was born: a kaleidoscope of talented, successful women from all walks of life—from celebrities to business executives, academics to law enforcement to philanthropic and humanitarian leaders including Geena Davis, Brooke Shields, Norah O'Donnell, First Lady Laura Bush, Pat Benatar, Gloria Estefan, Christine Baranski, Sheila Bair, Peggy Orenstein, and Gloria Allred—share anecdotes about the stories they've told their own daughters to instill in them the belief that they are capable of doing whatever they set their mind to, and that even as they struggle to find their own way, they are far from alone.

The award-winning author of What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day reminisces on the art of balancing family, politics and a writing career during her pre-fame years in the 1970s and 1980s, tracing her rise from a small-time columnist and her friendships with such notables as Richard Pryor, Avery Brooks and Jesse Jackson.

'You are here for the rest of your life. Do you understand? You are not leaving Iran. You are here until you die.' Betty Mahmoody and her husband, Dr Sayyed Bozorg Mahmoody ('Moody'), came to Iran from the USA to meet Moody's family. With them was their four-year-old daughter, Mahtob. Appalled by the squalor of their living conditions, horrified by what she saw of a country where women are merely chattels and Westerners are despised, Betty soon became desperate to return to the States. But Moody, and his often vicious family, had other plans. Mother and daughter became prisoners of an alien culture, hostages of an increasingly tyrannical and violent man. Betty began to try to arrange an escape. Evading Moody's sinister spy network, she secretly met sympathisers opposed to Khomeini's savage regime. But every scheme that was suggested to her meant leaving Mahtob behind for ever... Eventually, Betty was given the name of a man who would plan their perilous route out of Iran, a journey that few women or children had ever made. Their nightmare attempt to return home began in a bewildering snowstorm...

A "diverse group of women--from Madeleine Albright To Ruth Bader Ginsburg, from Dr. Susan Love to Whoopi Goldberg and more...reflect on the best advice and counsel they have given their daughters either by example, throughout their lives, or in character-building, teachable moments between parent and child."--Book jacket.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Maya Angelou shares her path to living well and with meaning in this absorbing book of personal essays. Dedicated to the daughter she never had but sees all around her, Letter to My Daughter transcends genres and categories: guidebook, memoir, poetry, and pure delight. Here in short spellbinding essays are glimpses of the tumultuous life that led Angelou to an exalted place in American letters and taught her lessons in compassion and fortitude: how she was brought up by her indomitable grandmother in segregated Arkansas, taken in at thirteen by her more worldly and less religious mother, and grew to be an awkward, six-foot-tall teenager whose first experience of loveless sex paradoxically left her with her greatest gift, a son. Whether she is recalling such lost friends as Coretta Scott King and Ossie Davis, extolling honesty, decrying vulgarity, explaining why becoming a Christian is a “lifelong endeavor,” or simply singing the praises of a meal of red rice–Maya Angelou writes from the heart to millions of women she considers her extended family. Like the rest of her remarkable work, Letter to My Daughter entertains and teaches; it is a book to cherish, savor, re-read, and share. “I gave birth to one child, a son, but I have thousands of daughters. You are Black and White, Jewish and Muslim, Asian, Spanish speaking, Native Americans and Aleut. You are fat and thin and pretty and plain, gay and straight, educated and unlettered, and I am speaking to you all. Here is my offering to you.”—from Letter to My Daughter

In this inspiring memoir—that Jane Fonda raves “will make you braver…want to live your life better and make a difference”—the award-winning playwright and bestselling author of What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day reminisces on the art of juggling marriage, motherhood, and politics while working to hone her craft as a writer. Before she become one of America’s most popular playwrights and a bestselling author with a novel endorsed by Oprah’s Book Club, Pearl Cleage was a struggling writer going through personal and professional turmoil. In Things I Should Have Told My Daughter, Cleage takes us back to the 1970s and 80s, when she was a young wife and mother trying to find her voice as a writer. Living in Atlanta, she worked alongside Maynard Jackson, the city’s first black mayor and it was here among fraught politics that she began to feel the pull of her own dreams—a pull that led her away from her husband as she grappled with ideas of feminism and self-fulfillment. In the tradition of literary giants such as Joan Didion, Nora Ephron, and Maya Angelou, Cleage crafts an illuminating and moving self-portrait in which her “extraordinary experiences, deep social concerns, passionate self-analysis, and personal and artistic liberation, all so openly confided, make for a highly charged, redefining read” (Booklist).

He drinks poison He begs He competes with his wife He becomes a guru to his wife He becomes a student of his son He reduces the god of love to ashes He reduces three entire cities to ashes He saves a devotee from death He runs from a devotee He is a half man-half woman He is the endless column of fire This book is a collection of short stories about Lord Shiva. Each story is followed by a short discussion, an analysis-of-sorts, where the author reflects on life lessons that can be learnt from Lord Shiva’s stories. Read and get valuable takeaways from each story.

Working Daughter provides a roadmap for women trying to navigate caring for aging parents and their careers. Using the author’s own experiences as a prime example, it’s ideal for readers who want straight talk and real advice about the challenges and rewards of eldercare while managing a career and family.