Memoirs Books
Mirror Books The Abuse of Power: A true story of sex and
Book Synopsis'Explosive' Belfast TelegraphChilling. Candid. Controversial.This is the voice of one man from within a dark scandal that nestled in the heart of London's Soho in the 1970s.Travelling to the big city to escape The Troubles in his native Northern Ireland, Anthony Daly accepted a job in Foyles Bookshop and began a new life in England. However, his naivety saw him quickly fall foul of predators, looking for young men to blackmail and sexually exploit.After years of hiding the secret of his abuse at the hands of some of the most influential men in the country, Anthony's trauma became harder to contain, as he witnessed revelations of historic abuse coming to light on TV and in newspapers.Then, finally, his lost voice ripped through the safe family life he had built over 40 years.With parallels to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, this is stylishly written and politically explosive. It is the haunting true story of a young man's decent into a hell designed to satisfy the powerful. A world that destroyed the lives of everyone involved.***Previously published as Playland (2018)***'Tony Daly's story goes to the very heart of a corrupt and perverted establishment.' Derry Journal'An extremely powerful and honest read that I just couldn't put down.' Waterstones staff review'A shattering memoir' Robin Jarossi, author of The Hunt for the 60s RipperTrade Review'Tony Daly's horrific story demands to be heard - his journey into the very heart of a corrupt and perverted Establishment is simply off the scale...' Paul Frift, Producer of the ITV drama Victoria
£7.59
Mirror Books Breaking Dad: How my mild-mannered father became
Book SynopsisAs seen on the BBC Victoria Derbyshire ShowAs heard on The Jeremy Vine ShowThink you've got a dysfunctional family?Meet mine.For 18 years, my family lived a normal life in a respectable suburb…Until one day, my dad gave up his successful career, and unexpectedly became Britain's most wanted crystal meth dealer.This is our story. At times shocking, often unbelievable, and all 100% true.
£8.54
Mirror Books Saving Buddy: The heartwarming story of a very
Book Synopsis'In my darkest hour, I reached for a hand and found your paw'When Nicola found Buddy, abandoned and broken, she vowed to do all she could to help save him. What she didn't know at the time was that this little dog would in turn save her.This is the story of Buddy and me: a remarkable true story of survival, hope, and never giving up, no matter how hard life gets.
£8.54
Mirror Books Stella's Story
Book Synopsis'Stella is just like a tiny bird. This is my first impression of her. A quiet little sparrow of a girl.'In her brand-new series 'Thrown Away Children', Louise Allen shares the harrowing stories she is exposed to as a foster mother.The first in the series, Stella's Story, tells the astonishing true story of a young girl scarred by an abusive past.Named after the lager that christened her at birth, Stella's life is characterised instability and neglect. Her teenage mother abandons her in the first few weeks of her life, and left in the 'care' of her father, she ends up lying deserted in a house with no food, no water, no clothes, and no warmth.She eventually lands in the care of foster carer Louise, who is determined to change her life for the better. Things seem to be going well - but when Stella has a startling response to having her photo taken, it becomes clear the scars of her abuse run deeper than anyone could have ever guessed.
£7.59
Thornwick My Godforsaken Life: Memoir of a Maverick: 2018
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£11.39
September Publishing Barefoot at the Lake
Book SynopsisYear after year the family returns to the lake. The children, barefoot and free, explore its sun-drenched wilderness... The summer Bruce turns ten seems, at first, like any other: swimming out to the raft, watching the gulls, frogs and herons, catching crayfish. But just when he thinks that life is perfect, everything begins to change, and over the course of two months both the harshness of the adult world and the patterns of the natural reveal themselves.Barefoot at the Lake is not only a beautifully written boy’s-eye view of the animals, humans and landscape of his youth, it is also delightfully funny, with a moving wisdom at its heart.Trade Review`A long, hot summer's day of a book -full of wonderful stories, poignant memories and acute observations of the natural world.' Kate Humble | `Enchantingly written. Gently and lovingly, Bruce Fogle's writing highlights something we are in danger of losing for ever: that we can understand ourselves most profoundly only in relation to the wilderness.' Ruth Padel | `In this glorious memoir of boyhood holidays, he proves himself to be a craftsman of a writer ... It's a book full of quiet wisdom, and also an inspiring account of how an adult vocation can grow from the formative experiences of childhood.' Caroline Sanderson, The Bookseller
£9.49
September Publishing Two Lights: Walking Through Landscapes of Loss
Book SynopsisAn extraordinary account of searching for the wildness left in our world - spanning continents and geological eras, skies and oceans, animals and birds, and even the planets and stars. With dizzying acuity and insight Roberts paints a portrait of a life and its landscapes, creating precious connections with wild creatures and places, from swans in the Cambrian Mountains to wolves in the Pacific Northwest. By walking at dawn and dusk, in the two lights of awakening and deepening, through the stripped, windswept hills of Wales, and the jungles and savannahs of Africa, he tries to navigate from a soul-stripping sense of loss towards hope in the future. In the presence of wild creatures he finds a way back to life.Trade Review'Evocatively illustrated and elegantly written.' Country Life - 'A beautiful, vivid work ... [His] writing is lyrical, empathetic and keenly observed - there is joy as well as sorrow in his words and a reminder to savour the beauty that remains in this world.' Western Daily Mail - 'A book about what it means to be fully alive in a time of endings: personal, planetary. Deeply moving and rich in surprising perspectives on wild places and our relationship to them.' Tanya Shadrick, author of The Cure for Sleep - 'Two Lights operates at an epic scale, switching back and forth between the realms of the microscope and the telescope. An opening sequence which describes the stupendous enormity of a new day dawning across Eurasia verges on science fiction, and yet these massive themes are anchored by continual references to the tiny; the golden plover at the heart of a turning galaxy. So instead of spinning recklessly off into the distant cosmos, Two Lights is rooted in tangibles - simultaneously radical and earthy; superlative and sensible.' Patrick Laurie, author of Native: Life in a Vanishing Landscape - 'A beautifully written, ultimately hopeful, journey through all that we stand to lose on this ever-more-challenged Earth.' Sharon Blackie, author of If Women Rose Rooted - 'Deeply personal yet always outward looking, James Roberts delights in the world he discovers about him. Yet he also trembles, because he understands like winter light, that world is diminished ... and diminishing ... Two Lights reveals why all of us should be writers.' - Robert Minhinnick, poet and author of Diary of the Last Man
£999.99
Scribe Publications The Long Song of Tchaikovsky Street: a Russian
Book SynopsisA Daily Express Book of the Year ‘Engrossing … grips you and doesn’t let go.’ The Spectator ‘Waterdrinker’s gift for savage comedy and his war correspondent’s eye have few contemporary equivalents.’ The Times A thrilling escapade through the Soviet Union of the ’90s and early 2000s by a tour guide turned smuggler turned novelist, that tells the unputdownable story of modern Russia. One day, in 1988, a priest knocks on Pieter Waterdrinker’s door with an unusual request: will he smuggle seven thousand bibles into the Soviet Union? Pieter agrees, and soon finds himself living in the midst of one of the biggest social and cultural revolutions of our time, working as a tour operator ... with a sideline in contraband. During the next thirty years, he witnesses, and is sometimes part of, the seismic changes that transform Russia into the modern state we know it as today. This riveting blend of memoir and history provides startling insight into the emergence of one of the world’s most powerful and dangerous countries, as well as telling a nail-biting, laugh-out-loud adventure story that will leave you on the edge of your seat.Trade Review‘Waterdrinker’s gift for savage comedy and his war correspondent’s eye have few contemporary equivalents.’ -- Simon Ings * The Times *‘A gripping memoir by one of Holland’s most admired novelists … a valuable historical document of the era.’ -- Rupert Christiansen * The Telegraph *‘Engrossing … grips you and doesn’t let go.’ -- Matthew Janney * The Spectator *‘A disarming, erudite, shocking, laugh-out-loud Dutch bestseller.’ -- Rory Maclean * TLS *‘A wonderful, page-turning narrative … fascinating and endlessly readable … Waterdrinker is a gifted storyteller.’ -- Donal O’Keeffe * Irish Examiner *‘The recreations of revolutionary Russia are vivid (including his hatred of the Tsar, Lenin, and Stalin) as is the daily reality of living in glasnost Russia. There are some positively Dostoevskian characters, and his portrait of Russia caught at twin moments of upheaval (1917, 1988) is an epic tale told with deceptive simplicity.’ -- Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen * The Sydney Morning Herald *‘A remarkable, sly blend of memoir and history, past and present, amusement and bemusement. How the memoir of a Dutch writer selling bibles in Russia also becomes the story of our past century is beyond me. But in Waterdrinker’s masterful hands, it does. The Long Song of Tchaikovsky Street is a spectacular tale, and a towering achievement.’ -- Shalom Auslander, author of Mother for Dinner‘Russia’s recent history has been inspirational and unpredictable, tragic and bizarre, and it takes a quirky literary autobiography like this to capture that. From showing the Russian president’s wife through Amsterdam’s red-light district to wheeling and dealing in the dying days of the USSR, Waterdrinker offers up an eminently readable and critically affectionate vision of a Russia constantly in the throes of reinvention.’ -- Professor Mark Galeotti, author of A Short History of Russia‘An evocative personal history of smuggling and surviving.’ * Foyles *‘I really enjoyed it … it spoke to my own experiences.’ -- Mark Galeotti * The Spectator TV *‘Peter Waterdrinker’s experiences of Russia over the past quarter century are undoubtedly worth telling … his descriptions are evocative.’ -- Owen Matthews * Catholic Herald *‘In this compelling memoir … Waterdrinker recounts the awful and at the same time great decades that gave Russians a radically redefined role on the world stage … An intensely personal perspective on geopolitical transformation.’ -- Bryce Christensen * Booklist, starred review *‘[Waterdrinker] interweaves memoir and history in this impressionistic account of Russia from the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution to the present day … [he] incisively captures the beauty and terror of his adopted country … Russophiles will savour this iconoclastic portrait of modern Russia.’ * Publishers Weekly *‘An octogenarian aristocrat cooped up in a decrepit Soviet madhouse, doctors requiring bribes before even considering treating patients, the wife of a Russian president touring Amsterdam’s red-light district, lust-driven physicists embezzling foreign aid programs, the mad monk Rasputin. These are just a handful of the memorable characters Pieter Waterdrinker draws in his idiosyncratic, darkly humorous, captivating blend of memoir, history, and reportage that spans Russia’s last century. It’s a terrific read that will engage and inform in equal measure.’ -- Gordon Peake * The Canberra Times *‘Compelling.’ * The Herald *‘Words by Waterdrinker are as amazing as a superior circus.’ * Elsevier *‘How evocatively Waterdrinker can write! A hundred years after the Russian Revolution, he makes this violent period of history shine once again.’ * Zin *
£10.44
Scribe Publications Godspeed: a memoir
Book Synopsis‘I swim for every chance to get wasted — after every meet, every weekend, every travel trip. This is what I look forward to and what I tell no one: the burn of it down my throat, to my soul curled up in my lungs, the sharpest pain all over it — it seizes and stretches, becoming alive again, and is the only thing that makes sense.’ At fifteen, Casey Legler is already one of the fastest swimmers in the world. She is also an alcoholic, isolated from her family, and incapable of forming lasting connections with those around her. Driven to compete at the highest levels, sent far away from home to train with the best coaches and teams, she finds herself increasingly alone and alienated, living a life of cheap hotels and chlorine-worn skin, anonymous sexual encounters and escalating drug use. Even at what should be a moment of triumph — competing at age nineteen in the 1996 Olympics — she is an outsider looking in, procuring drugs for Olympians she hardly knows, and losing her race after setting a new world record in the qualifying heats. After submitting to years of numbing training in France and the United States, Casey can see no way out of the sinister loneliness that has swelled and festered inside her. Yet wondrously, when it is almost too late, she discovers a small light within herself, and senses a point of calm within the whirlwind of her life. In searing, evocative, visceral prose, Casey gives language to loneliness in this startling story of survival, defiance, and of the embers that still burn when everything else in us goes dark.Trade Review‘Raw and poetic … The book is lean and ferocious — not unlike Ms. Legler’s attributes as a competitive swimmer — and offers an unflinching account of the “dogged devotion to routine and repetition” required of Olympians.’ -- Alex Hawgood * The New York Times *‘Reading Godspeed is an experience as invigorating, beautiful and punishing as standing under a waterfall. Legler is an unflinching chronicler of light and darkness, loneliness and embodiment, and the deep enchantments of sensation.’ -- Helen Macdonald, author of H Is For Hawk‘So graphically well does it capture the pain and trauma of growing up deeply unhappy and isolated … an extraordinary memoir.’ -- Stephen Sackur * BBC ‘HARDtalk’ *‘Godspeed is a memoir for our times — an urgent, hypnotising account of growing up and growing into one’s skin under extreme circumstances. As brutal and original a telling as I can remember — of loneliness, of coping until the centre cannot hold. There is darkness here but in Casey Legler’s deft hands it serves the light. A cut-to-the-bone blues song in chapter form, these pages are touched, as she is, with lightning.’ -- Michael Stipe‘Legler’s literary gift is self-evident from her startlingly frank memoir … The language is defiantly her own: fluid, sensual, visceral.’ -- Oliver Brown * The Telegraph *‘[A memoir] with so much power and transparency.’ -- Julia Vitale * Vanity Fair *‘Exceptionally talented, reckless, separated from a true sense of herself, Legler could so easily have not survived her early life. The tension here is in how close she comes — by choice, or by default, in settings both elegant and ruined — and is still able to restore herself, her soul, and renew language itself to tell of it. Many of us would be well served by reading the last sentence of this memoir every day.’ -- Amy Hempel‘[Legler] intricately describes every nuance of the competitive experience alongside her personal self-discovery … A coming-of-age drama captured through poetic prose and convincing honesty.’ * Kirkus *‘This is a heart-wrenching, coming-of-age memoir by a talented athlete who is street-smart, lonely, and painfully broken … A poetically written account by a resilient rebel who skillfully captures what it is like to feel the world through her skin.’ -- Brenda Barrera * Booklist *‘It had a profound effect on me, I loved it very much, it’s really unique.’ -- Stewart Who? * ‘Out In South London’ Resonance FM *‘[T]he book does offer a bold and innovative glimpse into a fascinating mind and the surreal life of a prodigy athlete … Legler is a writer of obvious talent. There are images and turns of phrase that are truly lovely, and that remind us of her keen observational powers … Legler’s story and poetics can be powerful.’ -- Emma Rault * Lambda Literary *‘A tale of an unusual and distressing girlhood marred by drug addiction, self-loathing, sexual abuse, rebellion, and intense loneliness amid sporting success. It is short and unorthodoxly prose-like, and it punches hard and dark.’ -- Rachel Olding * Sydney Morning Herald *‘[A]n intense memoir ... Legler succinctly captures her descent into alcohol and drug addiction ... The raw effect of the prose lingers ... This is a raw story of teenage addiction, and it’s beautifully told.’ * Publishers Weekly *‘An extraordinary story.' -- Seán Moncrieff * ‘The Moncrieff Show’ Newstalk *‘Tone and voice are engaging, thickly smeared in a … 'warts and all' approach that strikes a freshness in its sporadic depravity.’ -- Shane Butler * Irish Examiner *
£13.49
Malcolm Down Publishing Ltd Abused Addicted Free: The Inspiring True Story of
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£9.99
Mount Orleans Press A Wiltshire Childhood: Essays from a Wiltshire
Book SynopsisPeter Upton's evocative account of growing up in Wiltshire, told in words and drawings and beautifully capturing a lost world through the eyes of youthful imagination and curiosity.
£24.22
Lume Books Maybe You Will Survive: A Holocaust Memoir
Book SynopsisThe remarkable autobiography of a Holocaust escapee. "Go on, my son. Maybe you will survive..." Aron Goldfarb was fifteen years old when he was ripped from his bed in Poland and forced to enter a Jewish work camp. Watching helplessly as Nazis murdered his friends and family, he and his brother, Abe, made their courageous escape after hearing rumours of fellow prisoners being executed in gas chambers. With astonishing bravery and an unshakeable will to survive, the brothers hid together in underground holes on an estate controlled by the Gestapo. In this moving testament to the strength of human endurance and the power of relationships, co-written with acclaimed author Graham Diamond, Goldfarb tells his unbelievable true tale at long last. Vivid, compelling and frequently harrowing, Maybe You Will Survive is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the human condition. Marking seventy-five years since the end of the Holocaust and Aron's liberation, this edition includes a foreword his from sons, Morris and Ira.
£999.99
Clairview Books Confessions Of A Non-Violent Revolutionary: Bean
Book SynopsisBritain in the 1980s – strikes, the dole, IRA bombings, CND demos, poll tax riots, vegetarian food, radical feminism and an international build-up of weapons guaranteeing ‘mutually-assured destruction’. Rejecting the privileges that life offers him, Chris Savory seeks to redress wider injustices in society by rejecting future wealth, power and status to follow his ideals. He throws himself into political struggle – living in poverty, sleeping in tents and on floors, braving the mud and cold, surviving on bean stews and wholemeal bread – to the general disapproval of respectable society. His aim? To bring about a non-violent revolution, disarmament and an eco-feminist-socialist utopia! Oxford University in 1980 opens up a world of opportunity, but the threat of imminent nuclear war pushes Chris to make life-changing decisions. Alienated by the casual superiority of his peers, he abandons essay-writing and sherry with the Dean to embark on a constant round of organising and protesting – peace-camps, marches, illegal direct actions, communes and anarchist street theatre. The triumph of Thatcherism and the defeat of progressive politics leaves him feeling despair, anger and isolation. But having given everything to fight the system, how can he re-enter mainstream society? At the heart of this memoir is a deeply honest and heartfelt human story, spiced with humour and colourful details of the 1980s’ counterculture. In an age of climate crisis and Extinction Rebellion, Confessions Of A Non-Violent Revolutionary is a thought-provoking and engaging record of a previous wave of mass civil disobedience and an opportunity to learn lessons from the recent history of grassroots political struggle.Trade Review‘… Insights into how individual action can play a role in avoiding Armageddon.’ – Billy BraggTable of ContentsForeword – Preface – Bike Ride to Freedom – Brave New World? – On the Eve of Destruction – Gathering Greens – Class Struggle – Greenham Common – To the Heart of the Beast? – The World Peace March – Blockade the Bombmakers – I Ain’t Gonna Study War No More – You Can’t Kill the Spirit – Loneliness and Love – A Second Helping of Greens – Stand Up People, Make Your Choice – Stand Down Margaret – Festivals, Friendship and Failure – The Great Escape – Come With Us! – Work, Dole and Gender Roles – The Enemy Within – Bender in a Bender and Tarzan’s Fence – These Boots Were Made for Walking – Caught Red-Handed – From Street Theatre to Terrorism – Is There an Alternative? – A New Jerusalem? – Epilogue
£12.34
Luath Press Ltd Singing in the Streets: A Glasgow Memoir
Book SynopsisRemembering our roots is the answer to revival. In Singing in the Streets Maria Fyfe tells her story from her upbringing in the Gorbals on the south bank of the River Clyde to her election as a Member of Parliament for Glasgow Maryhill. Fyfe takes the reader through the realities of living and growing up in the aftermath of ww2 to the pivotal days of her early life in the Labour Party. She offers a beautifully written personal, nostalgic and sometimes comic view of late-20th century Scotland. She considers class, sexism and politics and the progress that has been made – or has yet to be achieved. From council house to the House of Commons, Fyfe shows the reader that change is possible. We cannot wallow in misery. We have to fight.Trade ReviewOne woman’s chronicle of her battles on behalf of her class, and in particular, women of her class – an insight to what to expect if you follow the same path. Victories, defeats, compromises... It’s also proof, in the beautifully lyrical early chapters about her childhood, that within the warrior beats the heart of a poet. Highly recommended! Dave Anderson, Actor and Playwright
£13.49
Octopus Publishing Group Love and Care: 'A superbly honest memoir about
Book Synopsis***'An honest and thoughtful memoir. Moving but, ultimately, full of hope. Beautiful.' KATE MOSSE'Superb. Love & Care is a book about the unbreakable bonds of family, the cruelty of passing time and a love that never dies.' TONY PARSONS'A beautiful, intimate story of love and understanding - candid and funny. This is a lyrical memoir of hope and forgiveness.' RAYNOR WINN, author of The Salt Path*Shaun is finally free of responsibilities to anyone but himself; single, with two grown up daughters, he is just embarking on a new life in a new country when he gets a call to say his father is dying.His mother has Parkinson's Dementia and is in a care home. Shaun faces a stark choice: should he give up his new-found freedom, or turn his back on the woman he'd fought so hard to protect, not least from his own father?Shaun's mother had loved and cared for her son all her life. Could he now do the same for her?'A heart-warming, heart-wrenching, and beautifully humane account of loving and caring.' NICCI GERRARD, novelist and author of What Dementia Teaches Us About Love'An insightful tale of care . . . this book needed to be written.' JO GOOD, BBC Radio London'A vital subject, a really strong voice and, hurrah, humour makes this absorbing reading.' CAROLINE RAPHAEL, Radio 4's Book at Bedtime'An eye-opening - and at times jaw dropping - account that will make you weep with its tenderness and compassion . . . A highly readable tale of redemption and a celebration of love's many hues.' PAUL BLEZARD, Love Reading'Moving' DAILY MAIL
£9.49
Octopus Publishing Group Life and Death Decisions: Saving lives in extreme
Book Synopsis'HONEST, POWERFUL AND RIVETING'Levison Wood, author of The Art of Exploration'JUST BRILLIANT...THE BOOK OF THE DECADE'Tim Flannery, former Australian of the Year'WOW. A HUGELY IMPORTANT AND ENJOYABLE BOOK THAT WILL RESTORE YOUR FAITH IN HUMANITY AND WHAT IS POSSIBLE'Sir Jeremy Farrar, Chief Scientist, World Health Organization'ALL AT ONCE BRAVE, FUNNY, SHOCKING AND DOWN TO EARTH' Aaron Smith, author of The RockFrom the sinking islands of the Pacific to epidemics and war zones in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, doctors like Lachlan McIver work in some of the most extreme environments on earth. In this thrilling memoir, Lachlan takes us right into the heart of the action as he treats patients ravaged by tropical diseases, manages drug-resistant infections in war wounds, delivers babies by the light of a head torch, and narrowly avoids being kidnapped by militia in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.Inevitably, the pressure takes its toll as Lachlan is forced to reckon with the global crises devastating more and more lives every single day... Life and Death Decisions is an exhilarating account of one doctor facing profound, extraordinary challenges - and saving lives against all odds.
£9.49
Porter Press International NORMAN CONQUEST: A remarkable, high-flying life
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£40.50
Jacaranda Books Art Music Ltd Through the Leopard's Gaze
Book SynopsisIn her captivating memoir Through the Leopard's Gaze, Njambi McGrath details the harrowing circumstances of her life as a young girl in Kenya, who one fateful night was beaten to a pulp and left for dead. Thirteen-year-old Njambi, fearing her assailant would return to finish her, courageously escaped, walking through the night in the Kenyan countryside, risking wild animals, robbers and murderers, before being picked up by two shabbily dressed but safe men. She buries the memories of that fateful day and night, and years later ends up in London with a British husband and children. Then one day a simple unassuming wedding invitation arrives in her mailbox causing her to have to confront the remnants of a past she had thought was behind her.This is a book about survival, and courage when all else fails. It's a searingly honest examination of human cruelty and strength in equal measure.Trade ReviewImportant voice * The Times *Deliciously tart lines * Evening Standard *Compelling rarely heard perspective * FESTMAG *Cutting edge confident comedian * FRINGEREVIEW *A must see * The Scotsman *Trail blazing * Guardian *
£9.49
Fitzcarraldo Editions Dandelions
Book SynopsisWhere, or what, is home? What has it meant, historically and personally, to be ‘Italian’ or ‘English’, or both in a culture that prefers us to choose? What does it mean to have roots? Or to have left a piece of oneself somewhere long since abandoned? In Dandelions, Thea Lenarduzzi pieces together her family history through four generations’ worth of migration between Italy and England, and the stories scattered like seeds along the way. At the heart of this book is her grandmother Dirce, a former seamstress and a repository of tales that are by turns unpredictable, unreliable, significant. Through the journeys of Dirce and her relatives, from the Friuli to Sheffield and Manchester and back again, a different kind of history emerges. A family memoir rich in folk legends, food, art, politics and literature, Dandelions heralds the arrival of an exceptional writer: bold, joyful and wise.Trade Review‘Dandelions is a book of hauntings, intensely experienced, pierced by occasional terrors, yet irradiated throughout by passionate attachment. Generations of family ghosts wander between Italy and England, their lives summoned from a beloved grandmother’s long memories and the author’s own wide-roaming, often poetic reflections on botany, history and language. Thea Lenarduzzi has spread out before us a feast of sensuous and sensitive, nuanced and deeply appealing testimony to migration, survival, and complicated identities at a time when such thoughtfulness is rare and desperately needed.’ — Marina Warner, author of Inventory of a Life Mislaid‘Beautifully observed and written with heart and an infectious curiosity, Thea Lenarduzzi's Dandelions parses the complex ways in which we live out our histories and carry the past within us, through ritual, food, language and legend. Like rifling through an overflowing drawer or opening an ancient photo album, Lenarduzzi unearths glinting gems of family fiction, introducing us to a shifting cast of memorable characters whose journeys, stories and passions it's our joy to share.’ — Francesca Wade, author of Square Haunting ‘In this subtle and elegant family memoir, Thea Lenarduzzi gathers the ghost seeds between her present life in England and her family’s past in Italy. A meditation on roots, inheritance and homesickness, Dandelions is also a reminder that what will survive of us is love.’ — Frances Wilson, author of Burning Man‘Dandelions is spellbinding. Like the polished beads of a secular rosary, each bearing a remembrance, Lenarduzzi's ancestral memoir conjures intimate histories of migration, love, and loss across decades of passages between Italy and England. Her redoubtable grandmother Dirce will lure you in, as she unfolds fragmentary myths with a sly wit, whispering ascolta, “listen” – and you won't resist.’ — Anna Della Subin, author of Accidental Gods‘Dandelions is a beautiful, precise and exceptionally intelligent family memoir. In it, Lenarduzzi carefully detangles a complex web of interlocking stories, which she finds to be threaded through with warmth, aspiration and hope. In the figure of Dirce we find a kind-hearted grandmother and compendium of stories both – offering wisdom and familial mythology like a Friulian oracle. Dandelions marks the arrival of a stunning new voice.’ — Cal Flyn, author of Islands of Abandonment‘This charmingly candid account of the tensions between an English present and an Italian past is also a fascinating family saga, teeming with idiosyncratic life and bringing with it a chunk of history that still conditions both countries today.’ — Tim Parks, author of The Hero’s Way‘Local dialects, language and superstition, Mussolini, Red Brigades and the trials of immigration are woven through this captivating family memoir as it chases a home across three generations of movement between Italy and England and back again. Lenarduzzi transmutes conversations with a formidable grandmother into a prose of many textures and inflections, giving us a story that is as as rich as it is gripping.’ — Lisa Appignanesi, author of Everyday Madness ‘Thea Lenarduzzi has written a profoundly evocative, lyrical meditation on family and kinship in their largest sense. A Natalia Ginzburg-inspired wandering through the life of her grandmother in pre-war Italy and post-war Manchester stimulates an exploration of home, homesickness, home truths, and homecomings. Lenarduzzi has an impressively patient capacity for acts of sustained attention: the dandelion will never be the same again!’ — Lara Feigel, author of The Group‘Dandelions is…an overwhelming success. Just as it describes many Italys, it also encompasses many books, and this unusual combination of family memoir, literary enquiry and political history is a triumph.’ — Francesca Peacock, The Spectator‘As if scattering dandelion seeds, Lenarduzzi writes discursively in precise, metaphorical prose, layering family mythology with fascinating political, economic and social context…At a pivotal moment when “but Mussolini also did good things” is murmured across Italy, Lenarduzzi’s reckoning with her heritage highlights the way history reverberates in the present. Her timely investigation of Italian identity and fascist legacy illuminates the roots of nationalism the world over.’ — Madeleine Feeny, Financial Times‘Thea Lenarduzzi’s first book, is a more than worthy work of nonfiction. Mixing the wild and mythical stories told by Thea’s grandmother Dirce — about night-dwelling demons, bloody curses and “Mussolini's modern Icarus” — with the true tales of four generations of her own relatives, she fuses family memoir and social history in an examination of relationships, botany, architecture, and community ritual.’ — Jenna Mahale, I-D ‘Lenarduzzi’s touching debut, winner of the 2020 Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize, serves up lyrical meditations on food, family, and belonging...Lenarduzzi’s admiration for her grandmother’s resourcefulness and resilience provides an affecting emotional backbone, and the elegant prose delights... The result is a ruminative take on what it means to put down roots.’ — Publishers Weekly‘Lenarduzzi…finds potent symbols amid the phantasmagoria and subtly evokes their haunting power, which endows her work with a fabular quality redolent of Marina Warner… Lenarduzzi accommodates her family’s experiences without becoming obscure. Ultimately, the book’s greatest strength lies in her willingness to disturb histories previously thought to be settled.’ — Amy Walters, The Saturday Paper
£11.69
Merlin Unwin Books Testament of a Trout Fisher
Book SynopsisLaurence Catlow is considered one of the finest classical flyfishing writers of our times and here he explores the themes close to an angler's heart: early and late season fishing; mayflies; lost fish; fishing in Wales; in Scotland; on home waters; what fishing really means to an angler.
£17.00
Heddon Publishing Memories of Post-War Liverpool: Living, Learning,
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£12.99
Octopus Publishing Group The Greatest Beer Run Ever: A Crazy Adventure in
Book Synopsis**NOW A MAJOR MOVIE STARRING ZAC EFRON, RUSSELL CROWE AND BILL MURRAY THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 'An extraordinary story.' - Daily Mail'An unforgettable, wild ride from start to finish.' - John Bruning'The astounding true story - from the streets of Manhattan to the jungles of Vietnam.' - Thomas KellyIT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME.As a result of a rowdy night in his local New York bar, ex-Marine and merchant seaman "Chick" Donohue volunteers for a legendary mission. He will sneak into Vietnam to track down his buddies in combat to bring them a cold beer and supportive messages from home. It'll be the greatest beer run ever!Now, decades on from 1968, this is the remarkable true story of how he actually did it.Armed with Irish luck and a backpack full of alcohol, Chick works his passage to Vietnam, lands in Qui Nhon and begins to carry out his quest, tracking down the disbelieving soldiers one by one.But things quickly go awry, and as he talks his way through checkpoints and unwittingly into dangerous situations, Chick sees a lot more of the war than he ever planned - spending a terrifying time in the Demilitarized Zone, and getting caught up in Saigon during the Tet Offensive.With indomitable spirit, Chick survives on his wits, but what he finds in Vietnam comes as a shock. By the end of his epic adventure, battered and exhausted, Chick finds himself questioning why his friends were ever led into the war in the first place.
£11.69
Octopus Publishing Group Trouble: A darkly funny true story of
Book Synopsis'Spit-your-tea-out funny.' -Fern Brady'Raw, brutal and life-affirming' -Sara Pascoe'Addictive, exhilarating and raw' -Daisy Buchanan, author of Insatiable'Graphic, explicit, visceral' -Irish Times'Blistering' -Sunday Business Post'Transcendent' -Irish IndependentMarise was nine when she first realised there was trouble, 14 when her Dad tried to end it all, and 23 when he finally succeeded.In a turmoil of conflicting emotions she runs, leaving behind Dublin and her Catholic girlhood and fleeing to New York, where she gets into a messy relationship with an older comedian who she idolises and who tells her she's special - until she's not. With a trail of sex, self-destruction and a near miss with Scientology in her back pocket, eventually she finds herself in a California psych ward, a young woman imploding. As she retells her unravelling from child to adult, Marise strips back her identity and her relationship with her father, layer by layer, until she finally starts to understand how to live with him, years after he has gone.Written beautifully, with a caustic sense of humour and brutal honesty, Trouble is one of the most powerful coming-of-age memoirs in recent years.Trade ReviewRaw, brutal and life-affirming - Marise has written a hugely important book that is as entertaining as it is illuminating. * Sara Pascoe *I couldn't put this down. A brave, honest, witty, new Irish voice that has a very bright future ahead of her. * Jade Jordan *Holy cow. I finished it and cried my eyes out. An incredible, beautifully written memoir about humanity, heartbreak and hope. * Lou Sanders *Gripping, funny and heart-wrenchingly relatable. Every time I turned the page I hoped it wouldn't be the last. * Lily O'Farrell, Vulgadrawings *Where so much writing about mental illness is riddled with po-faced earnestness and cliche, Marise Gaughan's take no prisoners approach to craziness, sex and Catholic girlhood is spit-your-tea-out funny.' * Fern Brady *Disarming in its candour, hilarious and harrowing in its depictions of a life shaped by trauma and addiction, Trouble is so much more than a memoir of survival. It is a picaresque journey through the stages of grief; an intimate epic of self-sabotage and self-forgiveness; a no-holds-barred report from the lip of the abyss. How glad I am that Gaughan stepped away in time. Her voice, at once wry, profane and heartfelt, is a gift. She observes with a mordant wit the ways we deceive ourselves in the name of our desires, and reminds us that we are not defined by our pasts, but by the small steps we take every day towards our ideal selves. * Stephen Kelman, Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Pigeon English *An unflinching account of a young woman's alternating attempts to survive her father's suicide - or die from it. Marise Gaughan writes with heart-rending precision of the dynamics between fathers and daughters, as well as the still more troubling sexual one between older men and damaged young women. This is a knife-sharp and defiant story of recovery. * Tanya Shadrick, author of The Cure for Sleep *Marise is a Brillo pad of a writer, spikey and essential. * Alison Spittle *Gaughan's humour is dark, biting, and painfully honest, but it is in the moments when she is being gentler to herself that her words are at their most transcendent. * Irish Independent *Trouble is an outstanding memoir, a text on addiction that gets to the heart of its implicit trauma and complications. Gaughan has a remarkable voice, self-assured yet vulnerable, frank to a staggering degree - and likeable even in her darkest moments. * The Business Post *Blistering...an outstanding memoir * Sunday Business Post *An outstanding text on addiction and girlhood, equal parts vulnerable and witty * The Business Post *Addictive, exhilarating and raw * Daisy Buchanan, author of 'Insatiable' *
£9.99
Sandstone Press Ltd Higher Ground: A Mountain Guide's Life
Book SynopsisMartin Moran was a man of the mountains, inspiring both as pioneer and leader. His is a story of life-changing adventures and dramatic, often near-death experiences, told with humour and verve.
£10.79
Sandstone Press Ltd Pages from My Passport
Book SynopsisBeing paid to explore sounded like a dream job. From Norway to Madagascar, by campervan, taxi, boat and small plane, Amelia Dalton hunted down remote archipelagos, deserted beaches and tiny local museums to create expedition holidays with a difference. On the way she was abandoned on an unpopulated island and escaped a hotel fire – and worse. Pages from my Passport is a memoir of adventures, disasters and occasional triumphs, all infused with Amelia’s unquenchable enthusiasm.Trade Review‘Colourful, honest, and often amusing. Great fun.’ * Alexander McCall Smith *‘Magical... Amelia Dalton is the Indiana Jones of small, glamorous cruise ships.’ * Lee Durrell *
£13.49
Sandstone Press Ltd The Year the World Went Mad: A Scientific Memoir
Book SynopsisIn January 2020, leading epidemiologist Professor Mark Woolhouse learned of a new virus taking hold in China. He immediately foresaw a hard road ahead for the entire world, and emailed the Chief Medical Officer of Scotland warning that the UK should urgently begin preparations. A few days later he received a polite reply stating only that everything was under control. In this astonishing account, Mark Woolhouse shares his story as an insider, having served on advisory groups to both the Scottish and UK governments. He reveals the disregarded advice, frustration of dealing with politicians, and the missteps that led to the deaths of vulnerable people, damage to livelihoods and the disruption of education. He explains the follies of lockdown and sets out the alternatives. Finally, he warns that when the next pandemic comes, we must not dither and we must not panic; never again should we make a global crisis even worse. The Year the World Went Mad puts our recent, devastating, history in a completely new light.Trade Review ‘So many issues clarified and insights eloquently expressed. This will be an essential book.’‘A unique record of the pandemic year by an insider.’‘Vital reading for understanding where we’re currently at.’ * Stylist *Fascinating * The Times *Devastating * The Sunday Telegraph *A glorious example of great science communication. * Science Media Centre *A compelling read, comprehensively laying out the case against lockdowns alongside clear explanations of basic epidemiological concepts, and fresh insights from the front line of scientific advice during the pandemic. * The Scotsman *A confronting and fascinating look at the UK’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic * Monocle *
£15.29
Scribe Publications Down and Out in England and Italy
Book SynopsisA wry, intelligent, and unputdownable look at class and national identity today. Alberto Prunetti arrives in the UK, the twenty-something-year-old son of a Tuscan factory worker who has never left home before. With only broken English, his wits, and an obsession with the work of George Orwell to guide him, he sets about looking for a job and navigating his new home. In between long, hot shifts in pizzerias and cleaning toilets up and down the country, he finds his place among the British precariat. His comrades form a polyglot underclass, among them an ex-addict cook, a cleaner in love with opera, an elderly Shakespearean actor, Turks impersonating Neapolitans to serve pizzas, and a cast of petty criminals ‘resting’ between bigger jobs. Stuck between a past haunted by Thatcher and a future dominated by Brexit, Down and Out in England and Italy is a hilarious and poignant snapshot of life on the margins in modern-day Britain.Trade Review‘A hallucinatory and savage account of modern working life. Both surreal and instantly recognisable.’ -- Jeff Sparrow, author of No Way But This and Trigger Warnings‘Raw, mischievous, funny, and vulgar … engaging.’ -- John Mulqueen * Irish Examiner *‘Humour and sarcasm abound in Prunetti’s slim, fast-paced account, but these do not lessen the anger and poignancy of his analysis of a society in which the workers are sacrificed at the altar of profit.’ -- Giglioa Sulis * TLS *‘Alberto Prunetti's scatalogical, sociological, phantasmagorical, novel Down and Out in England in Italy might have George Orwell spinning in his grave and chuckling in recognition at the kitchen workers, toilet cleaners, and children of miners and steel workers ... A deep poignancy here too.’ -- Anthony Cartwright, author of How I Killed Margaret Thatcher‘So funny and full of swagger ... a joy.’ -- Cash Carraway, author of Skint Estate‘Down and Out in England and Italy is funny, honest, and literary. Prunetti’s memoir reveals what life is really like for those in low-paid jobs around England while celebrating the bonds that exist between the have-nots. All of this and the history of bolognese too!’ -- Paul McVeigh, author of The Good Son‘A very sweary, grizzled old Italian Lefty … The cast of characters around him is often superbly drawn.’ -- Will Heaven * Mail on Sunday *‘In the span of a year and a half (the period of time the author himself spent in the UK) Prunetti condenses three decades of neoliberalism, deindustrialisation, attacks on workers’ rights and their wages.’ -- Wu Ming 1/Luther Blissett, author of Q‘Alberto Prunetti is a brother to every dispossessed wage slave in the UK. This is what’s happening and it’s only getting worse. Prunetti writes like a cross between John Fante and Jason Williamson. Surreal, defiant, and very very funny.’ -- Howard Cunnell, author of The Painter’s Friend‘Move over Orwell. Down and Out in England and Italy is (first word to last) the most exciting book on working-class experience, casual labour, and serious love (and cost) of book-learning I've ever read. Funny, fierce. I want to read it aloud in public.’ -- Tanya Shadrick, author of The Cure for Sleep‘Increasingly imaginative, experimental, and polyphonic’ -- Federico Picerni * Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics *‘Bitterly funny, lyrical, and often scatological … a foulmouthed, hallucinatory, and often surreal account of the contemporary landscape of class.’ -- John Merrick * Jacobin magazine *‘An urgent examination of class in a 21st-century context.’ * Happy Magazine *‘The book has a nightmarish Lovecraftian undertone — a creative ploy to underline the unspeakable horrors that workers today face under capitalism.’ -- Ivan Franceschini * Made in China Journal *‘A working-class story full of humour, misery, and solidarity.’ -- Angelo Boccato * Tribune *‘An emphasis on language, on dark humour, and critical observations makes [Down and Out in England and Italy] an enjoyable read.’ -- AM Robeson * Reading School Headmaster’s Bulletin *‘If you ever thought Down and Out in Paris and London would be a much better book if it was set in Bristol, Livorno, and Dorset and rewritten by a working class Italian communist with a taste for football, scatology, and codeine linctus — and who hasn’t — then is this the one for you.’ -- Owen Hatherley, author of Landscapes of Communism‘Poignant ... in the writing of his experiences, Prunetti finally finds his salvation, offering his readers some deeply uncomfortable glimpses into a world that it’s far cheerier not to contemplate too closely while tucking into that delicious pizza.’ -- Caroline Wyatt * Italian Riveter *‘The impetuousness and cheerfulness of the story go hand in hand with social indignation. This makes Prunetti’s novel not only unique but also extremely fun to read.’ -- Magnus Nilsson, editor of Working Class Literature(s)
£11.69
Scribe Publications Friendly Fire: how Israel became its own worst
Book SynopsisA powerful personal testimony and an urgent call for Israel to change direction, from an unexpected source: the former director of the internal security service, Shin Bet. Raised on a kibbutz by parents who had fled the Holocaust, Ami Ayalon’s life exemplified the Zionist dream. His commitment to his country propelled a meteoric career, culminating in being named commander of the navy and receiving the Medal of Valour, Israel’s highest military decoration. All the time, he remained a staunch supporter of his country’s policies. Then he was appointed director of the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, and the unexpected happened. Forced to try and understand the lives and motivations of Palestinians for the first time, he gained empathy for ‘the enemy’ and learned that when Israel carries out anti-terrorist operations in a political context of hopelessness, the Palestinian public will support violence, because they have nothing to lose. He came to understand that his patriotic life had blinded him to the self-defeating nature of policies that have undermined Israel’s civil society while heaping humiliation upon its neighbours. In this deeply personal journey of discovery, Ami Ayalon seeks input and perspectives from Palestinians and Israelis whose experiences differ from his own, and draws radical conclusions about what Israel must do to achieve relative peace and security.Trade Review‘How can a staunch Zionist who was raised on one of Israel’s earliest settlements and trained as a kill-or-be-killed elite commando spearhead a campaign for peace with his enemies? The answer, in Ami Ayalon’s captivating narrative, is an eye-opener for Palestinians and Israelis alike.’ -- Sari Nusseibeh, author of Once Upon a Country: a Palestinian life, former president of the Al-Quds University and former Palestinian National Authority representative in Jerusalem‘Remarkable.’ -- Andrew Mueller * Monocle *‘Fascinating and well-written.’ -- Ahron Bregman * Jewish Chronicle *‘[Friendly Fire] is a personal, intellectual and philosophical journey.’ -- Yossi Melman * Haaretz *‘[Ayalon’s] aims and accomplishments are … undeniably impressive … Hope finds a prominent presence in what so many think is a hopeless, endless conflict.’ * Kirkus Reviews *‘Ami Ayalon discusses how he came to see a two-state solution with the Palestinians as the best way to ensure Israel's security, not just through analysing numbers and statistics, but through a humanistic approach. He discusses … how his humanist paradigm not only allowed him to see how the Palestinians’ grievances and aspirations are intertwined with Israel’s security, but also how he still acknowledges and sympathises with the narratives of those in Israel whom he may disagree with.’ -- Jonah Naghi * The Times of Israel *‘Friendly Fire is not simply a critique, but a strong mandate for a complete overhaul of Israel's policy toward countering Palestinian terrorism — with clear lessons for counterterrorism policy far beyond the region … [A] powerful critique of the Israeli politicians on both the left and right … [A] story of immense bravery: bravery to speak truth to power; bravery to speak out against injustice — even when it is committed on one’s behalf and in one's name; bravery to acknowledge one’s own participation in and responsibility for such injustice; and, finally, bravery to demand accountability from oneself and from others.’ -- Molly Ellenberg, Modern War Institute‘Friendly Fire is full of fascinating anecdotes from a life lived on the sidelines of some of the most momentous events in the recent history of the Middle East.’ -- TJ Collins * Dubbo Mailbox Shopper *‘[A] compact, compelling memoir … [S]moothly written … [A]fter Ayalon retired as head of Shin Bet he decided almost everything he had done as a soldier and a supervisor of secret agents had actually reduced the prospects for peace and security.’ -- Charles Kaiser * The Guardian *‘[A]n idealistic, yet sober and realistic, vision of what is needed to advance the prospects of peace.’ -- Sheldon Kirshner * The Times of Israel *‘Reading Ayalon’s revealing book, one can see that he has come a long way. Perhaps his most commendable conclusion is that Israel will never achieve peace until “we change the narrative about the past and admit to ourselves that the Palestinians have a right to their own country alongside Israel, and on land we claim as ours”.’ -- Raja Shehadeh * The Nation *
£15.29
Haus Publishing Leadership: Lessons from a Life in Diplomacy
Book SynopsisWhen Abraham Lincoln said, ‘You can be anything you want to be,’ Americans, and eventually everybody everywhere, lifted their sights. Nowadays anybody can aspire to be a leader, and nearly everybody has to lead sometimes. In Leadership, Simon McDonald assumes that thinking about leadership before you lead helps you to lead better. No matter the circumstances in which we might be called to lead – be it at work, on the sports field, or in the community – the example of top leaders in politics and public service (both their successes and shortcomings) can help you figure out your own approach. As the head of HM Diplomatic Service, McDonald was responbile for over 14,000 staff in 270 posts worldwide, worked for six foreign secretaries, and saw five prime ministers operate at close quarters. Observing these people undertaking the most important and often the most difficult work in the country, he saw the behaviours that helped them to achieve their objectives, and those which hindered them.Trade Review‘Leadership displays the virtues you might expect of a top diplomat: it is elegantly written, discreet and observant.’ Gideon Rachman, Financial Times; ‘An enjoyable read packed with insights from someone who was ‘‘on the spot’’ when the United Kingdom responded to significant international challenges.’ House Magazine; ‘An original, very well-written, and serious book which adds to the quality of public discussion.’ Anthony Seldon; ‘This is a book full of riches – a despatch from deep inside the British state about how it really operates and how it could be run better. In places, Simon McDonald wields his fluent pen like a blowtorch. His candour burns the page. Some of the most eminent in the land will rush to the index. Some will be right to tremble if they find their name.’ Peter Hennessy; ‘The author’s observations are widely applicable and strengthened by a strong understanding of history.’ The Edge, Malaysia;
£11.69
Haus Publishing My Palestine
Book SynopsisMy Palestine is a poignant personal memoir and an incisive political and economic commentary on the tumultuous events that have shaped the history of Palestine, Israel and the modern Middle East.
£18.70
Goldsmiths, Unversity of London Reading My Mother Back: A Memoir in Childhood
Book SynopsisAn innovative memoir connecting ideas of grief, memory, and animals to illustrate the importance of storytelling.When his mother died, Timothy C. Baker discovered that there was almost no record of her existence, and no stories that were his to tell: the only way to bring her back was through reading. Reading My Mother Back is a genre-bending memoir that explores a life marked by trauma, illness, religion, and abuse through a focus on the books Baker and his mother shared. The book combines accounts of rereading childhood classics with true and apocryphal stories of a quiet life, marked by great sorrow and great joy. The book is about grief and memory and how our childhood reading shapes the way we see the world; it’s about loneliness and the search for belonging; it’s about how ordinary lives are transfigured by storytelling. Moving from accounts of American evangelical communities to kidney failure, from literary criticism to psychoanalysis, and from guilt to love, Baker shows how literature provides a framework for understanding our experiences, and offers a way of connecting with everything we have lost. The book illustrates how children’s animal stories bring us into a love of the world, and how acts of rereading become a way not of assuaging grief, but of bringing the past and present together. Reading My Mother Back offers a bold and personal view of why the stories we read and share matter so much. And there are bunnies.
£999.99
Mirror Books Abby's Story
Book SynopsisShe doesn't want this baby.She can't look after this baby.She will never be able to love this baby.Little Abby's life begins badly, then just gets worse.Now foster mum Louise and her family must help her deal with the truth of her past to give her the chance of a future.Abby's Story is the latest book in the series THROWN AWAY CHILDREN by author and foster mum Louise Allen.
£7.59
Mirror Books Hold On Edna!: The heartwarming true story of the
Book SynopsisTHIS HEARTBREAKING, HEARTWARMING, TRUE STORY FOLLOWING THE HISTORY OF A FAMILY IN WALES IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOKS EVER WRITTEN.'I am a proud supporter of our National Health Service which has shown yet again what an important and valued institution it is in the UK. As the first NHS baby through to her work today, Aneira's story shows her dedication and passion for protecting this phenomenal service for future generations.' KEIR STARMER'This book speaks from the heart about a passion to preserve our NHS - as powerful a symbol of goodness as we have. Nye's own experience and that of her family represents our deep need to fight for a society where all are equal in worth and value. And how the NHS stands fast as a symbol of equality, of fairness, and of compassion for all.' MICHAEL SHEEN'Aneira has written a memoir which is a deeply personal, richly researched and incredibly timely tribute to Britain's commitment to provide free and equal healthcare to all.' - DAILY MAIL Book of the Week, 22 May 2020'Moving tribute to the NHS.' - WI Life_____________________________________________________________'Edna,' says the doctor, coming to stand beside her bed. 'You need to wait. It's not long now. Don't push. Just hold on, Edna!'The birth of the National Health Service coincided with the birth of one little girl in South Wales: Aneira 'Nye' Thomas, the first baby delivered by the NHS.This is the touching story of Nye's family - their loves and losses - and the launch of a treasured public service that has touched the lives of every family in the nation.Trade Review'Aneira has written a memoir which is a deeply personal, richly researched and incredibly timely tribute to Britain's commitment to provide free and equal healthcare to all.' - Daily Mail Book of the Week, 22 May 2020'This book speaks from the heart about a passion to preserve our NHS - as powerful a symbol of goodness as we have. Nye's own experience and that of her family represents our deep need to fight for a society where all are equal in worth and value. And how the NHS stands fast as a symbol of equality, of fairness, and of compassion for all.' Michael Sheen'I am a proud supporter of our National Health Service which has shown yet again what an important and valued institution it is in the UK. As the first NHS baby through to her work today, Aneira's story shows her dedication and passion for protecting this phenomenal service for future generations.' Keir Starmer
£8.54
Mirror Books The Miraculous Life of Maggie the Wunderdog: The
Book Synopsis'If ever a dog's story is guaranteed to touch hearts, then Maggie's is.' Your Dog Magazine'This story will leave you smiling.' Best MagazineBeaten, tortured and shot 17 times, Maggie the little street dog should have given up on the world.But the world didn't give up on her.With the help of her human friends, Maggie begins her long road to recovery and starts to spread joy everywhere she goes.This is the inspirational true story of a little dog who learned to be loved just as she is.Trade ReviewWhat readers are saying:'I fell in love with this story. It's a must-read for any animal lovers' Anna, 5 stars'This is an inspiring story, both heartbreaking and heartwarming. It shows how the most severe mental and physical traumas in dogs may be mitigated by the proper care and lots of love and positive attention. Highly recommended.' Carolyn, 5 stars'A lovely story of this wonderful dog. An emotional ride' Angela, 5 stars
£8.54
Mirror Books Eden's Story
Book SynopsisAshley is a young single mum raising her daughter, Eden, and working hard to do the very best job she can – until one night she can't find a babysitter and makes the decision to leave Eden home alone for a couple of hours, asleep inside a wardrobe. It is an action that begins a terrible downward spiral for both of them. When Eden arrives at experienced foster carer Louise Allen's home, she has entered the care system because her mother is in prison. Eden is five years old and will not speak to any human. She begins exhibiting some other disturbing behaviours alongside the mutism, too, including torturing the family pets she loves. This eventually leads Louise to discover the pain and tragic reality behind Eden's Story.
£7.59
Mirror Books Living Our Best Lives: Cannon Hall Farm
Book SynopsisIn the 60 years that Yorkshire farmer Roger Nicholson has lived at Cannon Hall Farm near Barnsley, he has turned what was once a humble small family farm into an inspiring success story. This book covers the history of the Nicholsons and their farming dynasty, which dates back to the 1600s. From tales of Roger's father, Charlie, and his prize-winning beer-drinking bull, to how Roger had to take over the farm at just 16 years old. Decades of financial struggle followed for Roger, his wife and their three children, but through love and sheer determination, the family turned their lives around. This is a story of dedication, optimism and heart
£8.54
Watkins Media Limited Infinitely Full of Hope: Fatherhood and the
Book SynopsisA philosophical memoir about becoming a father in an increasingly terrible world. Can I hope the child growing in my partner’s womb will have a good-enough life? For Kant, philosophy boiled down to three key questions: “What can I know?”, “What ought I do?”, and “What can I hope for?” In philosophy departments, that third question has largely been neglected at the expense of the first two – even though it is crucial for understanding why anyone might ask them in the first place. In Infinitely Full of Hope, as he prepares to become a father for the first time, the philosopher Tom Whyman attempts to answer Kant’s third question, trying to make sense of it in the context of a world that increasingly seems like it is on the verge of collapse. Part memoir, part theory, and part reflection on fatherhood, Infinitely Full of Hope asks how we can cling to hope in a world marked by crisis and disaster.Trade Review"This book is incredibly important for people who want to look to the future with excitement and imagination as opposed to fear and resignation. It is funny, poetic and humane as well as wildly smart.""The abundant intelligence of this book on hope and despair and everything in between only makes its many moments of warmth and intimacy more moving and surprising. A seriously beautiful and timely work.""An intelligent and moving philosophical memoir on fatherhood in an age of crisis and disaster."
£10.99
Watkins Media Limited Whore of New York: A Confession
Book SynopsisLiara Roux is accustomed to being mislabelled and misunderstood. As a child, Liara's inquisitive, instinctive, and rebellious nature was frequently problematised in a world designed around the requirements of their neurotypical, cis, heterosexual male colleagues. Coming of age in an oppressively restrictive home, they shuffled tarot and explored self portraiture to rationalise the injustice of chronic pain, toxic lovers, and the cruel silence of divinity. Critiquing capitalism's mechanisms of exploitation, the conservatism of Western medicine, and the politics surrounding sex work, Whore of New York: A Confession is a candid study of artistic awakening, and both spiritual and sexual growth after abuse, seen through the eyes of a proud outsider.Trade Review“While Liara tells her own story, she represents aspects of the stories of so many sex workers who've had overlapping experiences. A gripping and smooth read — each paragraph included for a reason.” "Whore of New York is a vibrant portrait of young life at the intersection of pleasure, politics, and personal growth. With a clear view of political, social and economic realities, Roux is doing important work in her portrayal of sex work not as apart from life in general, but as a part of life as a whole. Complex, raw, intimate."“Liara Roux writes with an intimate, anthropological eye about her experiences as a sex worker … an original reflection on joy, anguish, sex, love and labor.”“An incendiary new memoir … it’s an account of sex work that focuses on the actual experience of the person doing the working rather than employing the same old, one-dimensional tropes.”“Roux aims to portray sex work as work, in all of its chaos and charm.”
£11.69
Peninsula Press Ltd The Body in the Library
Book SynopsisCancer, tumour, cancer. The words fizzle and dissolve into nothing like aspirin in water. I exist in the third person. The room is blue. When Graham Caveney was a child the word ''cancer'' was unspeakable, only uttered in jokes told by people too frightened to say the word in any other context. Now the boy with perpetual nervousness is a fifty-something man, and the oncologist in front of him is saying words evacuated of all meaning: Inoperable. Incurable. In this startling and deeply moving memoir from one of the great chroniclers of British working-class life, Graham Caveney charts a year of disease from diagnosis to past ''original sell-by-date''. Shot through with Northerness, tenderness, and Caveney''s trademark humour, The Body in the Library reflects on an unfinished lifetime filled with books and with love. What''s it like to realise that the books on your shelf will remain unread? That the book you are writing will be your last - that you have become your own deadline?
£12.34
Whitefox Publishing Ltd Letters to a Young Doctor: Exploring and Surviving a Career in Medicine
Part manual and part manifesto, Letters to a Young Doctor is a timely and passionate book to help future medical students and young doctors navigate and survive medical education and practice, presenting an unvarnished depiction of medicine as it is today and the challenges the profession faces. Spiritually charged and deeply personal, this urgent book offers guidance and hope through Dr. Hilali Noordeen's hard-won experience and wisdom.
£999.99
Whitefox Publishing Ltd After: The Obligation of Beauty
Book SynopsisThis compelling and candid memoir by Mindy Weisel, an internationally acclaimed artist and author, traces her search to find beauty in her life, which began as a child born in the Bergen-Belsen Displaced Person's Camp to parents who had survived the Auschwitz concentration camp. This is not her parents' story, rather, it is a courageous and honest portrait of her struggle to understand the black hole she was born into. Her successful journey in becoming an artist with her own voice, and an unshakable will to live with beauty, is most inspiring. By weaving an eloquent tapestry of her art, narrative, poetry and journals, Ms. Weisel offers moving insights into her life and work, especially her deep-seated conviction that beauty and love can overcome tragedy. AFTER: The Obligation of Beauty immerses the reader in Mindy's astonishing body of paintings and glass works that explore the subtleties of color as a means in expressing emotion. The "second generation," as her generation of survivors' children are referred to, were faced not only with the tragedy their parents had endured but also with their own feelings of guilt and despair. The process of creating art not only became an antidote to the pain and suffering she witnessed and felt, but it also became an "obligation" for finding joy and love in the face of pain. Each chapter of AFTER is accompanied by paintings relating to different periods of Mindy Weisel's life - a life filled with accomplishment, meaning, love and fulfillment, personally and professionally.Trade Review"In the world, as we know it today, one must create beauty and this Mindy Weisel has done - again and again - in her art, her writing, her teaching and her being. Her work is a compelling response to the Shoah, a way to live AFTER. We are the visual and spiritual beneficiaries of Mindy's Obligation of Beauty. In this meaningful volume, we catch a glimpse of the beauty she has created as she shares with her readers why this is the path she has chosen. A path which believes in life." -Michael Berenbaum, Director, Sigi Ziering Holocaust Institute, American Jewish University.
£16.14
The Book Guild Ltd Take One, Action!
Book SynopsisTake One, Action! takes you behind the scenes of swordplay in film – written by professional swordsman and film director Andy Wilkinson who has appeared in over seventy-three films, including many Hollywood blockbusters. Part memoir, part film and swordplay manual, this is a must read for all aspiring actors, swordsmen, fight choreographers and film directors. It will also appeal to theatre, film and fencing students, entertainment historians and those who thirst for an insight into the world of swordsmen and the art of making movies. It also incorporates intriguing nuggets of information from both swordplay and film worlds, such as: Why do spiral staircases rise clockwise? Which Hollywood star was a British Army fencing champion? Where did the term slapstick originate? With advice, anecdotes, a valuable guide to fencing terminology and illustrated with photos, this is an unusual guide to a greatly misunderstood art.
£9.49
The Book Guild Ltd At The Stroke of One
Book SynopsisAt The Stroke of One is the memoir of Ian C Graham, who was born and raised in Berry Brow, Huddersfield and moved to Cornwall with his family in 1996 to take over the running of the Bossiney House Hotel. It is a tale of an ordinary man, a happy life, and the aftermath of dealing with a life changing stroke. Covering his childhood, working life, sporting life as a keen cricketer and footballer as well as his family life (including his marriage and children and divorce), At The Stroke of One evaluates life before, during and after the stroke Ian experienced aged forty-seven. Restricted on use in his right-hand side from his shoulder down to his right foot, Ian suddenly found life very different and simple activities became a challenge. Ten weeks of recuperation in a specialist unit opened his eyes to the reality that life is precious and needs to be lived to the full.
£12.56
The Conrad Press The Ice-Floe Girl
Book Synopsis‘The Ice-Floe Girl’ is a delightful, beautifully-written and wonderfully observed true story about a nineteen-year-old boy who meets an innocent, angelic Swedish au pair and then hitch-hikes across Europe to join her in Sweden, where she lives at the top of a forbidding villa. She proceeds to take him along with her as an unwitting spectator to her mysterious life in Copenhagen, Stockholm and Helsinki. If good writing is about capturing an inexpressible paradox in words - here it is. This account of an ephemeral beauty presents in precise photographic details a remarkable true tale of people and places, retrieves eternall meaningful passing moments that would otherwise have been lost forever and fixes them to the banner of eternal love. The Ice-Floe Girl is an unforgettable, enigmatic quest stretching from a north London suburb to a small wooden town on the shores of the Baltic.
£9.49
The Conrad Press A Lucky Life: the memoirs of a 1950s lad
Book SynopsisSeptember 1940. A four-year-old London boy gazes at a night sky lit by burning London. Eighty years later, in another emergency and a hugely changed world, the same lad is persuaded to write about his ordinary life that has occasionally been quite extra-ordinary. Vividly described with much laughter, wit and occasional trenchancy is a rewarding career in education, great pleasure in the arts and in sport and all in a world that has now passed into history. In addition, with often moving directness, the author reveals his home life which over eight decades has provided a joyful safe haven for his forays into the world.
£9.49
The Conrad Press The Kurds: my friends in the north
Book Synopsis‘The Kurd requires a beating one day and a sugar plum the next.’ British Government official 1921 ‘Saddam throws a little gas, everyone goes crazy, “oh, he’s using gas!’’’ former President Donald Trump 2019 Delving into history and mixing eye-witness accounts with compelling anecdotes from his journalistic career, John Cookson examines the Kurds' eternal quest for independence. He tells of his encounters with Kurdish guerillas in their mountain hideouts and of his travels with Kurdish smugglers. He documents survivors' stories from Saddam Hussein's genocidal campaign and reveals for the first time how Iraqi Kurdistan was saved from being overrun by murderous jihadis in the summer of 2014. He also digs through secret archives to discover why Sir Winston Churchill and Middle East titans like T. E. Lawrence and Gertude Bell made a fateful decision to leave the Kurds landlocked and doomed to an eternity of conflict.Table of ContentsForeword 9 1. Magic carpet ride 21 2. Wounded guerrilla on board 28 3. Welcome back Mr John. 32 4. Downtown 38 5. Who are the Kurds? 42 6. Hoshayar 46 7. Iskan Street 53 8. Christians in peril 60 9. ‘Please help me!’ 71 10. Brown envelope anyone? 78 11. Chalabi the Cheshire Cat 87 12. Jalal Talabani 94 13. A matter of ‘honour’? 97 14. Shayan 99 15. Those who die first 103 16. Dara 110 17. The long march 114 18. ‘The Kurd requires a beating.’ 122 19. The Cairo Conference 125 20. Gertrude Bell 128 21. The Kurdish question 132 22. The King of Kurdistan 135 23. The Cairo legacy 141 24. Driving with Mustafa 146 25. Remembering Anfal 153 26. Halabja 157 27. Chemical Ali 163 28. Hypocrisy 165 29. Iran accused 167 30. Inside the clan 170 31. The King’s tomb 177 32. Bring me the manager 182 33. Smugglers’ paradise 188 34. Komola and Iran’s rebellious Kurds 199 35. Khalkhali: the hanging judge 206 36. Four empty graves 208 37. Mahabad 214 38. By the rivers of Babylon 221 39. Betrayal 229 40. The PKK 233 41. The millennials 236 42. They reap what they sow 240 43. Saving the economy 243 44. Not in the news 245 45. Final thoughts 250
£9.49
The Conrad Press Sugar Upon My Lemons: A testament to love and
Book SynopsisThis book should be read by anyone who will enjoy and also be deeply moved by an enthralling true story of a love affair tragically cut short. 'Sugar Upon My Lemons' is a heart-warming account of courtship, love, marriage and loss. The book also explores the human capacity for growth despite grief. The reader is invited to reflect upon how change and pain can be survived and worked through. Ultimately, it's a book of hope that offers a way forward for the future. It is an honest, thought-provoking and engaging page-turner.
£9.49
Parthian Books Late Return, A: Table Tennis à la carte
Book SynopsisBill Rees has been living in the south of France for ten years working as an itinerant bookseller in Montpellier. The one thing he misses about England is table tennis. Then he sees an advert to join a club for “experienced players only” and veterans. He starts training immediately, he’s forty and not as fit as he used to be but Bill Rees is returning to the game à la carte. Covering one Sunday tournament in the depths of Languedoc when his team bids to make the National Finals, Bill Rees produces a deeply felt and deeply funny homage to the beautiful game of ping-pong. Rees shows the sport for what it is: painful, exhilarating, tactical, fast (especially when his club mate Alain is at the table), consuming. All of which is revealed from the perspective of a Brit playing in French amateur leagues. Conveyed is the pain of competition, the agony of losing and the joys of victory. The reader is also regaled with a Zen-like insight into the sport. For all those athletes who dream of glory being around the corner and never too late. Contains illustrations by the Monpellier based artist Beachy.
£7.59
