In these candidly witty and poignant essays, comedienne and writer Julia Sweeney muses on the complex blessings of motherhood: deciding to adopt her daughter, a Chinese girl named Mulan ("After the movie?"); nannies (including the Chinese Pat); being adopted by a dog; and meeting Mr. Right through an email from a complete stranger who wrote, "Desperately Seeking Sweeney-in-Law." She recounts how she explained the facts of life to nine-year-old Mulan, a story that became a wildly popular TED talk and YouTube video. But no matter what the topic, Julia always writes with elegant precision, pinning her jokes with razor-sharp observations while articulating feelings that we all share.

A memoir of motherhood and marriage that will make you laugh and cry - and then laugh again 'This is the sort of book that made me want to be the person who wrote it. Pithy, painful and very, very funny' Emma Thompson '[A] mix of comedy and emotion that makes up this warm and intimate memoir ... This is a funny, affectionate memoir about being an unconventional parent' Daily Mail Julia Sweeney was nearing forty, and quite famous, when she got on a flight to China to turn her life upside down. She had a flourishing career as a comedienne and performer, ample friends and admirers, but what she didn't have was a child and, after a string of non-committal boyfriends, she decided to adopt alone. Mulan was one-and-a-half years old when she met her new mother, and every bit as feisty as the Disney character (whom she was emphatically not named for). If It's Not One Thing, It's Your Mother is the story of this unexpected mother-daughter pair who eventually became - to Julia's astonishment and in a hilariously unconventional way - a mother-daughter-father trio. From being mistaken for her daughter's grandmother to her tragically short-lived belief that knitting a man a sweater will make him commit to you, Julia's memoir is at once hilarious, poignant, provocative and wise. It is a story of adoption, Hollywood, dogs, death, marriage, Santa Claus, race and religion, the birds, the bees (and the frogs...) and everything else along the way.

How Does an Atheist Respond to the Question, What Is the Purpose of Life? For a Christian, it is faith that gives their life purpose. In his best-selling book The Purpose Driven(TM) Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?, Rick Warren says, "You must begin with God. You were born by his purpose and for his purpose." But as a non-believer, your purpose resides in yourself; it is yours alone to discover and develop. It's about choosing to live your own life for your own reasons. No one can dictate your purpose. You decide. This book will help you understand and appreciate why freely choosing to help and cooperate with others is the true path to finding purpose. Life does not need purpose: Purpose needs life. To punctuate this point, The Good Atheist includes inspiring biographies of humanity's true heroes--men and women who did not waste their lives as slaves to a God, but rather found purpose in enhancing life on this Earth for all of us.

1995 was, for Julia Sweeney, a truly horrible year. She got a divorce (amicable), bought a small bungalow in Hollywood, and looked forward to a life that said, "Here dwells a happily single young woman!" But then the ax fell. Her younger brother Mike was diagnosed with terminal cancer and moved in with her. Her parents came to be with Mike--and moved in with her. Suddenly her tiny bungalow for one was filled to the rafters with Sweeneys. Here she was sleeping on her pull-out sofa bed while her father walked around, his Walkman on all day and her mother marveled at Julia's lack of such staples as stroganoff mixes. Every day was spent bringing Mike to and from chemotherapy, every evening watching "Chicago Hope" or "E.R." Julia was now on seriously intimate terms with the people she had spent half a lifetime growing up away from.Just weeks before Mike died, Julia was diagnosed with a rare form of cervical cancer--what Mike called her "sympathy cancer"--and within days of burying her brother, she underwent a radical hysterectomy, beginning her own journey through "the International House of Cancer." From these Job-like travails, Julia has written a remarkably funny and touching memoir about a family in extremis that manages to persevere with humor, grace, and love.