From the New York Times bestselling author of Let's Take the Long Way Home comes a moving memoir about how the women's movement revolutionized and saved her life, from the 1960s to the #MeToo era.In a voice as candid as it is evocative, Gail Caldwell traces a path from her west Texas girlhood through her emergence as a young daredevil, then as a feminist—a journey that personified seismic shifts in the culture itself. Her travels took her to California and Mexico and dark country roads, and the dangers she encountered were rivaled only by the personal demons she faced. Bright Precious Thing is the captivating story of a young woman's odyssey, her search for adventure giving way to something more profound: the evolution of a writer and a woman.Told against a contrasting backdrop of the present day, including the author's friendship with a young neighborhood girl, Bright Precious Thing unfolds with the same heart and narrative grace...

The Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times bestselling author of Let's Take the Long Way Home now gives us a stunning, exquisitely written memoir about a dramatic turning point in her life, which unexpectedly opened up a world of understanding, possibility, and connection. New Life, No Instructions is about the surprising way life can begin again, at any age. "What do you do when the story changes in midlife? When a tale you have told yourself turns out to be a little untrue, just enough to throw the world off-kilter? It's like leaving the train at the wrong stop: You are still you, but in a new place, there by accident or grace, and you will need your wits about you to proceed. "Any change that matters, or takes, begins as immeasurably small. Then it accumulates, moss on stone, and after a few thousand years of not interfering, you have a glen, or a waterfall, or a field of hope where sorrow used to be....