Memoirs Books

Book SynopsisCould happiness lie in helping others and being open to accepting help yourself?Mentors – Russell Brand's follow up to Sunday Times number one bestseller, Recovery – describes the benefits of seeking and offering help.‘I have mentors in every area of my life, as a comic, a dad, a recovering drug addict, a spiritual being and as a man who believes that we, as individuals and the great globe itself, are works in progress and that through a chain of mentorship we can improve individually and globally, together . . . One of the unexpected advantages my drug addiction granted is that the process of recovery that I practise includes a mentorship tradition.I will encourage you to find mentors of your own and explain how you may better use the ones you already have. Furthermore, I will tell you about my experiences mentoring others and how invaluable that has been on my ongoing journey to self-acceptance and how it has helped me to transform from a bewildered and volatile vagabond to a (mostly) present and (usually) focussed husband and father.’ – Russell BrandMentors: How to Help and Be Helped describes the impact that a series of significant people have had on the author – from the wayward youths he tried to emulate growing up in Essex, through the first ex-junkie stage, to the people he turns to today to help him be a better father. It explores how we all – consciously and unconsciously – choose guides, mentors and heroes throughout our lives and examines the new perspectives they can bring.Table of ContentsIntroduction - i: Introduction Chapter - 1: Among Lost Boys: The Time Before Mentors Chapter - 2: The First Mentor: Initiation with a Devoted Atheist Chapter - 3: Mentor Two: Zen Nurture from the Wise Woman Chapter - 4: Mentor Three: The Goodison Guru Chapter - 5: Mentor Four: The Warrior on the Mat Chapter - 6: Mentor Five: The Park Bench Merlin Chapter - 7: Mentor Six: The Aphrodite of the Damned Chapter - 8: Mentor Seven: The Divine Mother Chapter - 9: Missed Chances: Before the Student is Ready Chapter - 10: Mentor Eight: The Brother Swami Chapter - 11: Fatherhood: How to Practise Chapter - 12: Becoming a Mentor Chapter - 13: Answering the Call Section - ii: Conclusion Section - iii: The Twelve Steps Acknowledgements - iv: Acknowledgements

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Book SynopsisThis immersive, accessible and thought-provoking book takes the reader on a journey to explore the pros and cons, the myths and realities of life for LGBTQ+ people today.Shortlisted for the Polari First Book Prize 2020 ‘Eloquent, empathetic and passionate, this book will not just resonate with a new generation of queer people, but with all those who seek to be their allies. A brilliant book.’ - Owen Jones, author of The EstablishmentToday, the options and freedoms on offer to LGBTQ+ people living in the West are greater than ever before. But is same-sex marriage, improved media visibility and corporate endorsement all it’s cracked up to be? At what cost does this acceptance come? And who is getting left behind, particularly in parts of the world where LGBTQ+ rights aren’t so advanced?Combining intrepid journalism with her own personal experience, in Queer Intentions, Amelia Abraham searches for the answers to these urgent challenges, as well as the broader question of what it means to be queer right now. With curiosity, good humour and disarming openness, Amelia takes the reader on a thought-provoking and entertaining journey.Join her as she cries at the first same-sex marriage in Britain, loses herself in the world’s biggest drag convention in L.A., marches at Pride parades across Europe, visits both a transgender model agency and the Anti-Violence Project in New York to understand the extremes of trans life today, parties in the clubs of Turkey’s underground LGBTQ+ scene, and meets a genderless family in progressive Stockholm.'A landmark exploration into what it means to be queer today' – DAZEDTrade ReviewA beautifully written, personal, intimate voyage into what it is to be queer. Incredibly eloquent, empathetic and passionate, this book will not just resonate with a new generation of queer people, but with all those who seek to be their allies. A brilliant book -- Owen Jones, author of Chavs and The Establishment I loved Queer Intentions! Absolutely fascinating and endlessly entertaining, but so much more than that. It’s also an important read that will resonate with anyone who’s spent more than a minute thinking about gender and sexuality and what it means to identify as queer in 2019, or who’s ever wondered where we go from here -- SJ Watson, author of Before I Go To SleepAn intersectional and insightful journey through the vast nuances of the queer experience -- Munroe BergdorfThis incredibly funny, thought-provoking and immersive exploration of the pros and cons, myths and realities of life for LGBTQ+ people today . . . includes plenty of clubbing, pride parties, joy, shame and lesbian drama * Vogue *It’s really interesting . . . a journey through LGBTQ+ culture . . . questioning lots of things but in a very interesting, self-effacing, relatable way and I think it’s rather cool; I think she’s rather cool actually, I like her . . . it’s a good book’ -- Will Young on the Homo Sapiens podcastA landmark exploration into what it means to be queer today * DAZED *Immersive, funny and relatable. In the style of Louis Theroux, 27-year-old journalist Abraham uses skills she’s picked up working at VICE, Refinery29 and Dazed to find answers to the big questions in her own life. It’s quite the journey . . . A fascinating read for anyone with a passing interest in LGBTQI culture, Queer Intentions not only touches on issues in Abraham’s life, but issues many LGBTQI people in the West are facing ourselves. I highly recommend picking up a copy of this when it comes out * DIVA Magazine *I raced through Queer Intentions; it's a great read, provocative and yet really gets to grips with how complex queer life and identity is. It's also bloody funny . . . it cracked me up loads -- Luke Turner, author of Out of the WoodsSoooo good. The culture needs it -- Niven Govinden, author of This Brutal HouseA brilliantly vibrant and hopeful book - entertaining and relatable, but also incredibly thoughtful and wide-ranging. It explores with curiosity and compassion what it means to live a queer and life, the limits that still exist but also the radical possibilities of dismantling binaries and structures -- Sophie Mackintosh, author of The Water CureAmelia Abraham's exploration of LGBTQ+ culture in the West is fascinating. * Stylist *

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Book SynopsisCome round to Louis Theroux’s house where the much-loved TV documentary-maker, podcaster and bestselling author of Gotta Get Theroux This finds himself in unexpected danger . . . Like millions of others, Louis’ plans were mothballed by the onset of Covid. Unable to escape to the porn sets, prisons and maximum-security psychiatric units that are his usual journalistic beat, he began reporting on a location even more full of pitfalls and hostile objects of inquiry: his own home during a pandemic.Theroux the Keyhole is an honest, hilarious and ultimately heartwarming diary of the weirdness of family life in Covid World. A wife intolerant of his obsession with Joe Wicks’ daily workouts. Two teenage sons, inseparable from their videogames, for whom he is increasingly 'cringe'. A five-year-old happily spamming out videos on his own new TikTok account while on holiday with his oblivious family. Louis also describes how he launches his podcast, Grounded, finally gets to the US to film a new Joe Exotic documentary and aims his sights on the latest incarnation of the far right in a world becoming radicalized by social media. Theroux the Keyhole is Louis at his insightful best, as he faces unforeseen new challenges and wonders why it took a pandemic for him to learn that what really matters in life is right in front of him.Trade ReviewHe just has a sincere desire to understand people. * The Independent *Even against the horrific backdrop of Covid, [this] book is all the more charming, and blackly amusing, for it. * Belfast Telegraph (Review) *

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Book SynopsisCome round to Louis Theroux’s house, where the much-loved documentary-maker finds himself in unexpected danger . . .Louis’s latest TV series about weirdness – the one involving the American far right, home-grown jihadis, and SoundCloud rappers – has been unexpectedly derailed by the onset of a global pandemic. Now he finds himself locked down in a location even more full of pitfalls, surprises and hostile objects of inquiry: his own home.Theroux the Keyhole is the candidly honest and hilarious diary of a man attempting to navigate the perils of work and family life, locked down in Covid World with his wife, two teenagers and a Youtube-addict fiver year-old. Why is his wife so intolerant of his obsession with Joe Wicks’s daily workouts? Can he reinvent himself as a podcast host? Why has the internet gone nuts for his old journalistic compadre Joe Exotic? And will his teenage sons ever see him as anything other than ‘cringe’?This is Louis at his insightful best, as month-by-month he documents his year of unforeseen new challenges - and wonders why it took a pandemic for him to learn that what really matters in life is right in front of him.Trade ReviewHe just has a sincere desire to understand people * The Independent *Even against the horrific backdrop of Covid, [this] book is all the more charming, and blackly amusing, for it. * Belfast Telegraph (Review) *

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Book SynopsisFilled with stories of family, food, and culture, and interwoven with personal recipes and photographs taken by the author, My Father's Smokehouse folds the reader into a beautiful island landscape."Prescott emphasizes the importance of learning the traditional values of where one lives, gratitude for what the land and sea provide, and the responsibility to share with community."—Anchorage Daily News"[Prescott’s] book is filled with traditions, memories and stories surrounding Southeast Alaska life, including a family’s perseverance, the wisdom of Sámi and Tlingit cultures, and respect for elders and their knowledge of the culture. The smokehouse at the fish camp is named after her father."—Wrangell SentinelThe smokehouse at Mickey's Fishcamp holds more than fish. It is filled with traditions, memories, and stories of a thriving Southeast Alaskan life—of a family's perseverance, of the wisdom of Sámi and Tlingit cultures, and of respect for Elders and their knowledge of the natural world.Mickey's Fishcamp is named after three generations of Prescott fishermen who commercially fished the waters of the Inside Passage, and is located near one of the oldest Tlingit settlements in Wrangell, Alaska. Here, next to the rainforest and sea, author Vivian Faith Prescott has found her place in the world. She is a student and teacher of the natural environment—harvesting spruce tips, berries, sea lettuce, and goose tongue and processing salmon, halibut, and hooligan—who combines traditional practices with modern knowledge.Heartwarming and introspective, My Father's Smokehouse tells one woman's stories of Traditional Knowledge that is learned and passed on, from one generation to the next.Table of ContentsIntroduction: Sense of Time, Sense of Seasons: Sea and Forest Seasoning; Spruce Tip Juice & Salt FIRST FISHCAMP CYCLE Skunk Cabbage: A Harbinger of Spring: Roasted Salmon in Skunk Cabbage Leaves Harvesting the Soon Bloom: Oven-Dried Popweed Ceremony: Cute-Little-Raven's Herring Egg Salad Eat Your Trees: Spruce Tip Iced Tea My Father's Smokehouse: Fishcamp Salmon Spread; Dad's Salmon Spread Lessons from the Devil's Club Lady: Black Bean Salad with Devil's Club Tips The Underside of Leaves: Salmonberry Scones A Family of Crabbers: Island Crab Cakes; Spruce Tip Mayonnaise; Wild Alaskan Berry Sauce Art-Thinking at Mickey's Fishcamp: Salmonberry–Spruce Tip Artisan Butter Being Mummo: Foraging for Goose Tongue: Wrangell Ranch Dressing 13 Ways of Looking at Dog Salmon: Fishcamp Ikura (Salmon Caviar) Afloat: Spruce Tip–Labrador Tea–Salmonberry-Infused Water Halibut Sustains Us: Halibut Crepes Backyard Glaciers: Tote Ice Tea for Community: Labrador Tea Encounters with the Giant Pacific Octopus: Smoked Octopus Salad Red Huckleberry: Food for Songbirds: Mickey's Huckleberry Dream Pie Wrangell Winter Games: Shrimp Sandwiches Winter Stories: Salmon Patties; Spruce Tip Tartar Sauce; Fireweed Dipping Sauce SECOND FISHCAMP CYCLE Field Guide to Finding Hope: Put an Egg on it and Dip it in Coffee Gathering Red Seaweed: Dried Red Seaweed A Bunch of Hooligans: Smoked Hooligan Fresh Spring Rolls Carrying on Traditions: Spruce Tip Oatmeal; Spruce Tip Toast The Art of Salmon: Fishcamp Salmon Tacos The Treat Beneath Your Feet: Dried Sea Lettuce Muskeg Love: Muskeg Muffins Gifts from the Porcupine: Spruce Tip Chocolate Brownies It's the Little Fish in Life: Rainbow Smelt: Fried Rainbow Smelt (How Dad Does It) The Bunchberry Yoik: Mixed Alaskan Berry Hand Pies Lungs of the Island: Usnea Tea Highbush Cranberries and Traditional Values: Highbush Cranberry Jelly Listening to the Forest: "Stop the Shouting and Listen to the Sunset" Stink Currants and Landslides: Stink Currant Jelly Winter Blues: Blueberry Water; Winter Blueberry Smoothie Salmon Head Soup: Salmon Head Soup The Practice of Gifting: Spruce Tip Sugar Cookies Winter Kings: White King Salmon Chowder What I've Learned from Living at Fishcamp: Mickey's Fishcamp Tips

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Book SynopsisWe cherish things, Japan has always known, precisely because they cannot last; it's their frailty that adds sweetness to their beauty. Returning to his home in Japan after his father-in-law's sudden death, Pico Iyer soon picks up the steadying patterns of his everyday rites: going to the post office in the day and engaging in spirited games of ping-pong in the evenings. But in a country whose calendar is marked with occasions honouring the dead, he soon finds himself grappling with the question we all have to live with: how to hold on to the things we love even though we know that they – and we – are dying. As the maple leaves begin to turn and the heat starts to soften, Iyer shows us a Japan we have seldom seen before through the season that reminds us to take nothing for granted.Trade ReviewWhat holds everything together, besides Iyer’s elegantly smooth prose style and gift for detailed observation, is a circling around the theme of autumn in Japan and this autumnal period in his life ... There's much wisdom in what he says * New York Times Book Review *A tender meditation on both Japanese culture and the impermanence of life * National Geographic Traveller *A memoir about transience, decline and Iyer's simple life among ping-pong playing pensioners * Financial Times, Books of the Year *Exquisite ... [Iyer] is a consummate tour guide * New Yorker *[An] exquisite personal blend of philosophy and engagement, inner quiet and worldly life ... A vivid meditation ... It’s Iyer’s keen ear for detail and human nature that helps him populate his trademark cantabile prose ... [A] genuine and loving tale * Los Angeles Times *Luminous ... An engrossing narrative, a moving meditation on loss and an evocative, lyrical portrait of Japanese society * Publishers Weekly *As a guide to far-flung places, Pico Iyer can hardly be surpassed -- praise for 'Sun After Dark' * New Yorker *Humbling and moving ... One of a handful of magical books that I have read straight through -- praise for 'The Man Within My Head' * Daily Telegraph *In his guise of travel writer, Iyer has really been our most elegant poet of dislocation -- praise for 'The Man Within My Head' * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisA NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the National Book Award-winning author of Just Kids Selected as Book of the Year by the Daily Telegraph, i paper, Metro and Harper's Bazaar ‘Magical’ GUARDIAN 'A gripping tale of the search for meaning in times of turbulence - expressed with Smith’s signature poetic flair' VOGUE 'Extraordinary ... A tense, teasing mix of reality and dream' Sunday Times 'A melancholy mood and poetic language distinguish Smith’s third memoir' BBC ‘Her willingness to look closely at life’s closing chapters makes for a magical book' WASHINGTON POST, 'The 10 books to read in September' Following a run of New Year’s concerts at San Francisco’s legendary Fillmore, Patti Smith finds herself tramping the coast of Santa Cruz, about to embark on a year of solitary wandering. Unfettered by logic or time, she draws us into her private wonderland, with no design yet heeding signs, including a talking sign that looms above her, prodding and sparring like the Cheshire Cat. In February, a surreal lunar year begins, bringing with it unexpected turns, heightened mischief, and inescapable sorrow. In a stranger’s words, “Anything is possible: after all, it’s the year of the monkey.” For Patti Smith - inveterately curious, always exploring, tracking thoughts, writing the year evolves as one of reckoning with the changes in life’s gyre: with loss, aging, and a dramatic shift in the political landscape of America. Smith melds the Western landscape with her own dreamscape. Taking us from Southern California to the Arizona desert; to a Kentucky farm as the amanuensis of a friend in crisis; to the hospital room of a valued mentor; and by turns to remembered and imagined places - this haunting memoir blends fact and fiction with poetic mastery. The unexpected happens; grief and disillusionment. But as Patti Smith heads toward a new decade in her own life, she offers this balm to the reader: her wisdom, wit, gimlet eye, and above all, a rugged hope of a better world. Riveting, elegant, often humorous, illustrated by Smith’s signature Polaroids, Year of the Monkey is a moving and original work, a touchstone for our turbulent times.Trade ReviewBoth mundane and magical … Moves constantly between reverie and memory … Portents and symbols lurk in unexpected places, and everyday objects become freighted with meaning … A reflection both on mortality and of the times in which Smith finds herself, but rich in detail * Guardian *A gripping tale of the search for meaning in times of turbulence - expressed with Smith’s signature poetic flair * Vogue *An engaging musing on mortality and defiance of age * i *A moving account of the emotional stumbles, physical and intellectual wanderings and deep losses Smith experienced in her 70th year * Independent *Some rock stars shut themselves away from life, but Smith’s engagement with the world only deepens, as this dreamy memoir shows * Daily Telegraph *Extraordinary … A tense, teasing mix of reality and dream … It’s a drifter’s book, in time, space and the imagination * Sunday Times *A picaresque voyage through her dreams and life as she faced 70, dealing with flashes of “sorrow’s vertigo” as she remembers all the loves and rock contemporaries who are gone, with a kaleidoscope of references from “Mr. Robot” to Marcus Aurelius to Martin Beck mysteries to Maria Callas’s Medea -- Maureen Dowd * International New York Times *A profoundly beautiful book, poetic in its prose and metaphysical in its meaning, it’s quite a stunning read * Financial Times *The narrating voice is the voice of Smith's music, twisting between the incantations of a priestess and laconic poetry … There is plenty of wonderful in this small, sly, mystic book * Spectator *A beatnik Alice in Wonderland, measured out in black coffee and Polaroids, it’s full of quiet puzzles, small epiphanies, more little clues how to live * Q Magazine *Arresting … Diverting and often unexpected, fresh and diverting * Literary Review *In the twilight of her career, punk’s original princess is reinventing herself as a memoirist of some distinction … It sings strong with her singular, itinerant, coffee-guzzling beat spirit. Essential reading for diehard fans -- Claire Allfree * Metro *A profoundly lyrical, digressive mapping of her fame-and-family decades … This third memoir finds Smith unhomed, at times almost unhinged, as she does her utmost to ward off those Beaten Generation blues * Mojo *Elegiac … A strikingly intimate portrait of a woman growing older and missing those who are no longer with us but remaining wide awake to the world and hopeful for its future * Sunday Express *A melancholy mood and poetic language distinguish Smith’s third memoir * BBC *Poet and performer Smith’s latest memoir zooms in tight ... Her willingness to look closely at life’s closing chapters makes for a magical book * Washington Post, 'The 10 books to read in September' *Lovely ... a slim volume [with a] minor-key melancholy * Entertainment Weekly *Patti Smith’s brilliant new memoir about love, loss and growing older … I’m already captivated by her poetic prose * Daily Mirror *Smith’s grace and erudite philosophy is a welcome balm in these times * Town & Country *Smith’s reflections on a wrenching yet grace-filled year are elegiac, vital, and magical. … Smith’s large, loyal following will seek out this spellbinding memoir, just as they embraced Just Kids (2010) and M Train (2015) * Booklist *Luminous ... Smith casts a mesmerizing spell with exquisite prose * Publishers Weekly *This is the modern-day Patti Smith: older, wiser, seeing the world, and reporting it all back to us in only the way she can. You can’t read this and not feel inspired after you put it down * Inside Hook *An incantatory, ambulatory travelogue * New Statesman *Captivating ... Redemptive * Kirkus *She weaves the threads of her thoughts and past relationships together, creating a dreamy memoir on the passage of time and our changing world * Wanderlust *One of the great diarists of her, or any other time, with an exquisite voice which manages to somehow transform even the most ordinary event into something otherworldly … An enchanting hitchhike through 2016 … Every occurrence sears into the reader’s psyche in vivid detail … Time spent in the company of Patti is always a pleasure * Classic Pop *A rock-star prophetess … Meditative, messy, poignant, deeply personal, allusive, occasionally bombastic and, crucially, still defiant, Year of the Monkey is a mercurial fusion of the mundane and visionary that only an unconquerable spirit like Patti Smith could write * Herald *She can find artistic endeavour in the mundane; or bone-deep comfort in a cup of black coffee and a cinnamon doughnut … Incredibly moving … As much a glimpse of a troubled year in Patti’s life, as a portal into our own * Record Collector *

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Book SynopsisFighter pilots! Images of Baron Manfred von Richthofen and Eddie Rickenbacker in the Great War, Johnnie Johnson, Robert Stanford Tuck and Richard Bong in the Second World War, or Robin Olds in Vietnam, all spring to mind. Volumes have been written about them, past and present. Understandably, most of these revolve around the skill, cunning and bravery that characterizes this distinctive band of brothers, but there are other dimensions to those who take to the skies to do battle that have not been given the emphasis they deserve - until now. You do not have to be an aviation aficionado to enjoy Colonel Steve Ladd's fascinating personal tale, woven around his 28-year career as a fighter pilot. This extremely engaging account follows a young man from basic pilot training to senior command through the narratives that define a unique ethos. From the United States to Southeast Asia; Europe to the Middle East; linking the amusing and tongue-in-cheek to the deadly serious and poignant, this is the lifelong journey of a fighter pilot. The anecdotes provided are absorbing, providing an insight into life as an Air Force pilot, but, in this book, as Colonel Ladd stresses, the focus is not on fireworks or stirring tales of derring-do. Instead, this is an articulate and absorbing account of what life is really like among a rare breed of arrogant, cocky, boisterous and fun-loving young men who readily transform into steely professionals at the controls of a fighter aircraft. _Phantom to Warthog_ is a terrific read: the legacy of a fighter pilot.Trade Review"[The author] has, much better than I've been able to do, drafted a compelling conversation that trumpets the fact that this book is far more than a collection of aircraft adventures and personal triumphs--just the kind of image I'd like to convey to an audience much wider than aviation buffs and fellow flyers."--Andy Fraser

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Book SynopsisIn this entertaining and poignant autobiography, EastEnders star Sid Owen chronicles a life filled with incredible highs and devastating lows, with his trademark humour and charm. Sid Owen is best known for playing the hapless but loveable EastEnders character Ricky Butcher, one of Britain’s most enduring soap icons. What people don’t know is that Sid’s early life saw more drama than anything his character endured. His father was an armed robber who was sent to prison when Sid was very young. Sid went out 'on the rob' from an early age, breaking into shops and seeing it as a big adventure.Sid lived happily with his mum and siblings on a sprawling north London council estate until he was seven, when his mum died and the brothers were split up. Feeling confused, unloved and unhappy, Sid was heading towards a life of crime. Acting offered an escape from his troubled home life and his teen years played out between extremes – at thirteen he was working with Al Pacino and Donald Sutherland on the movie Revolution; at sixteen he was living in an Islington squat with his brothers when his work brought him to the attention of the EastEnders producers.From Rags to Ricky is Sid’s moving, unforgettable account of his north London childhood during the late 1970s and 80s. His natural storytelling skills, authentic voice, ear for dialogue and sharp eye for detail transform this story of loss and deprivation into a timeless tale of one individual’s struggle to defy the hand fate dealt him and come out winning.

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Book Synopsis‘Dazzlingly and daringly written’ Rachel Cooke, ObserverW-3 is a small psychiatric ward in a large university hospital, a world of pills and passes dispensed by an all-powerful staff, a world of veteran patients with grab-bags of tricks, a world of dishevelled, moment-to-moment existence on the edge of permanence.Bette Howland was one of those patients. In 1968, Howland was thirty-one, a single mother of two young sons, struggling to support her family on the part-time salary of a librarian; and labouring day and night at her typewriter to be a writer. One afternoon, while staying at her friend Saul Bellow’s apartment, she swallowed a bottle of pills.W-3 is a vivid – and often surprisingly funny – portrait of the extraordinary community of Ward 3 and a record of a defining moment in a writer’s life. The book itself would be her salvation: she wrote herself out of the grave.Originally published in 1974 and rediscovered forty years later, this is the first edition of W-3 to be published in the UK. With an original introduction by Yiyun Li, author of Where Reasons End.‘W-3 is one hell of a debut’ Lucy Scholes, Paris Review‘Howland is finally getting the recognition that she deserves’ Sarah Hughes, iNewsTrade ReviewThe voice is cool and the gaze is clear . . . a startlingly frank account of mental illness, and the contradictions and humiliations of life as a patient . . . akin to a fly-on-the-wall documentary. -- Martha Gill * The Times *A writer of terrifying power, who sees and hears everything . . . Not only is this a sane memoir of madness but it may well be the sanest, most mordant take on the subject I have ever read. -- Frances Wilson * Daily Telegraph *Her memoir, clear-eyed, with an anthropological, sociological distance, is a brilliant attempt to document life on the ward with clinical detachment . . . a wonder. Her prose is direct, unadorned, under-stated. -- Arnold Thomas Fanning * Irish Times *At moments dazzlingly and daringly written . . . Its author captures quite brilliantly the comical competitiveness of her fellow patients – who’s the maddest here? they ask, each one hoping to claim victory . . . and she is excellent, too, at delineating what we might call the secret life of the institution. The patients exist for the hospital’s sake, rather than the other way around. -- Rachel Cooke * Observer *A devastating memoir . . . Reading it now, what stands out is how bracingly modern it feels – Howland’s sharp portraits of her fellow patients, the unsparing eye she turns on herself, her refusal to look away from daily humiliations . . . Howland is finally getting the recognition that she deserves. -- Sarah Hughes * iNews *There’s no more interesting tale of neglect and rediscovery than that of Bette Howland . . . W-3 is one hell of a debut . . . It offers us a portal to a particular time and place, yet the compassion and truthfulness that underlies the writing renders it timeless, as urgent a read now as when it was first written nearly half a century ago. -- Lucy Scholes * Paris Review *A cool, brief memoir of her stay on a psychiatric ward after a suicide attempt in the early 1970s. -- Daily Telegraph Best Biographies of the YearFull of calibrated grace, and startlingly unmediated . . . [W-3] is remarkably perceptive and wise -- Katy Waldman * New Yorker *A story about her neighbor’s heart, not her own—an anthology of the lives she encounters in the ward known as W-3. [Howland tells] the story of a collective with blunt clarity, and sidestepping the genre’s potential for sentimentality or sensationalism. She brings the particularities of the world to life -- Parul Sehgal * New York Times *I was much moved by W-3. It is admirably straight and thoughtful, tough-minded but full of powerful feeling. The patients of W-3, black and white, men and women, dizzy, endearing, suicidal, doomed, come to us from these pages not as case studies but as our own brothers and sisters. No poses are struck and no vain gestures made in this brave and honorable book. Bette Howland is a real writer. -- Saul Bellow, Nobel Prize winning author of Seize the DayIn an earlier book, W-3, the moving and heroically funny account of Miss Howland's stay in the psychiatric ward of a university hospital after she had swallowed a fistful of sleeping pills, her tough and resilient personality brought a remarkably clearheaded way of seeing and knowing to that chaotic refuge of the dispossessed. * The New York Times *Bette Howland is at her best when her keenly observing eye is turned outward. Watching, always watching, she misses nothing, grasps everything, and puts it all together with an originality and cogency that are rare and memorable . . . she writes as if she were a participant-observer, a novelist-anthropologist in a strange, often perplexing new place. -- Johanna Kaplan * Commentary *W-3 is a portrayal of mental illness like none other. More claustrophobic than Girl, Interrupted and more frightening than The Bell Jar, Howland’s memoir maps the world of a 1970s psychiatric ward with an unflinching eye. -- Esmé Weijun Wang, author of The Collected SchizophreniasHowland tracks our madnesses and oddnesses . . . Her work lies in a borderland between sociology and poetry -- Abigail Deutsch * Harper’s Magazine *[Her] sentences continue to beat with a stylish percussion and a glowing heart -- Donna Rifkind * Wall Street Journal *Howland’s powers of observation are like military-grade weapons. * University of Chicago Magazine *In W-3, Bette Howland continues to help us re-imagine the depth and breadth of humanity that a single book can contain, not only in her willingness to portray the vicissitudes of her own experience, but to observe, to empathize, to listen to and take such care with the individuals she encounters along the way. -- Lynn Steger Strong, author of WantAmong the many chronicles of depression and psych wards, Howland’s is uniquely arresting in its omniscient attention, radiant artistry, zealously pursued insights, and abiding respect for those who share her struggle. -- Donna SeamanBette Howland wrote a book I thought was impossible to write. -- Yiyun LiA master of silences, of the unsaid, of what cannot be addressed -- Jenessa Abrams * Guernica *With its incisive humor and unsparing descriptions, W-3 refuses a tidy resolution, instead showing how all the 'clumsy, good intentions' in the world can't always provide a cure for the horror and tedium of losing one's mind. * Minneapolis Star Tribune *A gallery of marvelously, devastatingly precise miniatures of Howland’s fellow inmates. Howland’s eye for detail is unfailingly sharp. She has the cartoonist’s knack of seizing and drawing out a person’s specific mannerisms and fixations, but what results is never caricature; rather, her depiction of the patients of W-3 is sensitive and sympathetic but powerfully unsentimental. -- Sarah Chihaya * Bookforum *Whether you call it fiction or memoir, essay or reportage, Howland’s work manages to feel both rooted in its twentieth century milieu and absolutely at home among today’s genre-agnostic writing. -- Laurie Muchnick * Kirkus *No pride or showing-off here; the craft lies in restraint, in what T. S. Eliot calls “a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality” . . . Howland’s writerly carpentry—measure twice, cut once—is exquisite. -- Anthony Domestico * Commonweal *Howland's thwarted career is our loss: at her best she is very good. -- Tessa Hadley * LRB *Throughout the book, we rub shoulders with the chatty and the speechless, the erratic and the withdrawn; those sedated by the system and those at the doors begging to be let out . . . Bette Howland’s work will, and should be, read and rediscovered time and time again. * Reaction *

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Book SynopsisCalling all petrolheads, Lights Out, Full Throttle is the riotously funny tour through the best, worst and downright outrageous of F1.Shortlisted for the Telegraph Sports Entertainment Book of the Year AwardJohnny and Damon have become the one constant for passionate British F1 fans in a rapidly changing landscape. They have earned cult status as commentators and pundits, with viewers loving their unerring dedication to the sport’s greatness.From Monaco to Silverstone – discussing Johnny’s crowdsurfing and Bernie’s burger bar, the genius of Adrian Neweyand Colin Chapman, what it’s like to have an out-of-body experience while driving a car in the pouring rain at 200 mph, and the future of the sport in the wake of a tumultuous year – Johnny and Damon assess the good, the bad and the ugly of the F1 enthusiast’s paradise.Whether you’re a fan of Nigel, Niki, Kimi or Britney, pine for the glory days of Brabham, Williams, Jim Clark and Fangio,or believe that Lewis Hamilton will retire as the GOAT, Lights Out, Full Throttle gets you to the front of the grid without the inconvenience of having to leave your seat.Trade ReviewA hugely enjoyable read * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisA poignant and powerful memoir from BAFTA award-winning filmmaker, Syrian refugee, hospital cleaner and activist, Hassan Akkad.I’ve experienced the best and worst of humanity. I’ve been detained and beaten, and welcomed and respected. And yet, this story – my story – is one of hope, not fear.'Hassan Akkad is a remarkable soul with a remarkable story. He not only leads us through his own physical and emotional odyssey, but teaches us about our own society.' – Lindsey Hilsum, International Editor, Channel 4 NewsFrom the jasmine-scented streets of Damascus to uprisings, protest and being forced to flee his home, Hassan Akkad has experienced unbearable losses. Yet, he still holds on to hope and chooses to see the kindness in humanity every day.Since seeking asylum in the UK, Hassan’s unshakeable instinct to raise awareness, help and connect, has seen him share not only his experience as a refugee, but to the coronavirus pandemic. Hassan documented his work as a cleaner on a London hospital Covid-19 ward. His photographs and advocacy shone a spotlight on the often overlooked NHS cleaners and porters and instigated a U-turn on a government bill that had excluded their families from the bereavement compensation scheme.Hassan has captured hearts the world over. He bridges national and political divides, his humanity, sense of service and ideals bring people together. Hope Not Fear is a campaigning message of triumphing over adversity, standing together and uniting in kindness and love. In this book, Hassan shows us why this is the single most important message of our time.'An extraordinary story that deals with the urgent issues of our era . . . But it is also a story about resilience, renewal and humanism' – Elif Shafak, author of The Island of Missing TreesTrade ReviewA journey of hope and connection, of finding humanity in unlikely places and building something for the future. If you’re feeling bleak about the way things are going – this will do much to restore your faith. -- StylistRemarkable. -- The ObserverHassan Akkad is a remarkable soul with a remarkable story. He not only leads us through his own physical and emotional odyssey, but teaches us about our own society. -- Lindsey Hilsum, International Editor, Channel 4 NewsHope Not Fear is an extraordinary story that deals with the urgent issues of our era....But it is also a story about resilience, renewal and humanism. -- Elief Shafak, bestselling author of The Forty Rules of LoveSyria has lost another extraordinary young person in Hassan Akkad. His terrifying and candid account is yet another reminder of how much we gain as a society when we welcome those to whom we owe nothing. -- Emma ThompsonA natural storyteller -- Happiful MagazineThis book is a vital and timely reminder of the power each of us has to create change in this world when we remember we are part of a global community. Hassan reminds us that hope is not passive: it comes from all of us. Hassan's words and story will stay with me forever. I cried and laughed. My heart was both broken and made whole again through his words. Everyone needs to read this book! -- Mikaela LoachRemarkable -- The ObserverWhat a book! What a story! So full of compassion, courage, and empathy. I learnt so much and feel much better informed. -- Cathy Rentzenbrink, bestselling author of The Last Act of LoveGalvanising and uplifting. -- Caroline Sanderson * The Bookseller *

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Book Synopsis'An extraordinary story that deals with the urgent issues of our era . . . a story about resilience, renewal' - Elif ShafakA stunning testament to human strength, courage and compassion, Hope Not Fear shows that nobody is powerless to change the world. This memoir from refugee, filmmaker, and activist Hassan Akkad traces his campaigns for justice, from protesting the Assad regime in Syria to winning greater rights for cleaners in the NHS.Since seeking asylum in the UK, Hassan’s unshakeable instinct to raise awareness, help and connect, has seen him share not only his experience as a refugee, but to the coronavirus pandemic as a covid ward cleaner and documentary filmmaker. As a witness and advocate, he bridges national and political divides; his humanity, sense of service and ideals bring people together.If you find yourself wondering where to find hope in difficult times, this book is the place to start.'Remarkable' - The Observer'A journey of hope and connection . . . this will do much to restore your faith.' - StylistTrade ReviewA journey of hope and connection, of finding humanity in unlikely places and building something for the future. If you’re feeling bleak about the way things are going – this will do much to restore your faith. -- StylistHope Not Fear is an extraordinary story that deals with the urgent issues of our era....But it is also a story about resilience, renewal and humanism. -- Elif Shafak, internationally bestselling author of The Forty Rules of Love and 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange WorldRemarkable -- The ObserverSyria has lost another extraordinary young person in Hassan Akkad. His terrifying and candid account is yet another reminder of how much we gain as a society when we welcome those to whom we owe nothing. -- Emma ThompsonThis book is a vital and timely reminder of the power each of us has to create change in this world when we remember we are part of a global community. Hassan reminds us that hope is not passive: it comes from all of us. Hassan's words and story will stay with me forever. I cried and laughed. My heart was both broken and made whole again through his words. Everyone needs to read this book! -- Mikaela LoachWhat a book! What a story! So full of compassion, courage, and empathy. I learnt so much and feel much better informed. -- Cathy Rentzenbrink, bestselling author of The Last Act of LoveHassan Akkad is a remarkable soul with a remarkable story. He not only leads us through his own physical and emotional odyssey, but teaches us about our own society. -- Lindsey Hilsum, International Editor, Channel 4 NewsGalvanising and uplifting. -- Caroline Sanderson * The Bookseller *

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Book Synopsis'Raw. Vulnerable. Open. Truthful . . . This is a book that will open up the floor for even more honest conversations about the side of yoga we don't often see.' - Angie Tiwari @tiwariyogaHow did an ancient spiritual practice become the preserve of the privileged?Nadia Gilani has been practising yoga for twenty-five years. She has also worked as a yoga teacher. Yoga has saved her life and seen her through many highs and lows; it has been a faith, a discipline, and a friend, and she believes wholeheartedly in its radical potential. However, over her years in the wellness industry, Nadia has noticed not only yoga's rising popularity, but also how its modern incarnation no longer serves people of colour, working class people, or many other groups who originally pioneered its creation.Combining her own memories of how the practice has helped her with an account of its history and transformation in the modern west, Nadia creates a love letter to yoga and a passionate critique of the billion-dollar industry whose cost and inaccessibility has shut out many of those it should be helping. By turns poignant, funny, and shocking, The Yoga Manifesto excavates where the industry has gone wrong, and what can be done to save the practice from its own success.Trade ReviewThe first yoga book I've read that has a punk rock attitude and does what it says on the tin. Nadia is a formidable storyteller taking us through the highs and lows of her personal journey. However, the most critical aspect is her fierce analysis of the appropriation of yoga. -- Sima Kumar, co-founder and CEO of The Other Box and founder of Sima SaysRaw. Vulnerable. Open. Truthful. Exposing the darker side of the industry provides us all with the pathway to reach the lightness that yoga brings. This is a book that will open up the floor for even more honest conversations about the side of yoga we don't often see. -- Angie Tiwari @tiwariyogaThe Yoga Manifesto is about equality and creativity and revolutionary hope – and you definitely don’t need to practise yoga to know these things matter. -- Stella Duffy, author of Lullaby Beach

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Book SynopsisIn this acclaimed travel memoir Jamaica Kincaid chronicles a spectacular and exotic three-week trek through the Himalayan land of Nepal, where she and her companions are gathering seeds for planting at home. The natural world and, in particular, plants and gardening are central to Kincaid’s work. Among Flowers intertwines meditations on nature and stunning descriptions of the Himalayan landscape with observations on the ironies, difficulties and dangers of this magnificent journey.For Kincaid and three botanist friends, Nepal is a paradise, a place where a single day’s hike can traverse climate zones, from subtropical to alpine, encompassing flora suitable for growing at their homes, from Wales to Vermont. Yet as she makes clear, there is far more to this foreign world than rhododendrons that grow thirty feet high. Danger, too, is a constant companion – and the leeches are the least of their worries. Unpredictable Maoist guerrillas live in these perilous mountains, and when they do appear – as they do more than once – their enigmatic presence lingers long after they have melted back into the landscape. And Kincaid, who writes of the looming, lasting effects of colonialism in her works, necessarily explores the irony of her status as memsahib with Sherpas and bearers.A wonderful blend of introspective insight and beautifully rendered description, Among Flowers is a vivid, engrossing, and characteristically frank memoir from one of the most striking voices in contemporary literature.Part of the Picador Collection, a new series showcasing the best in modern literature.Trade ReviewKincaid takes her authenticity with her wherever she goes…engaging and stealthily funny * San Francisco Chronicle *What a writer – elegant, uncompromising, simultaneously direct and layered and complex. -- Ali SmithI’ve read everything by Jamaica Kincaid, and I’ve still never read anyone like her. If you are new to Kincaid, I envy you. -- Jackie Kay

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Book Synopsis'Sublime' - Donal Ryan, author of Strange Flowers'Here is a writer who matters' - Irish TimesI have become the common myth. Mother. The sleepy hum of early memories. The smell of shampoo, of Olay, of lavender. The feeling of safety. The absence of fear.When poet Alice Kinsella becomes a mother, she finds herself utterly lost. As she searches for answers to the question of her new identity, she considers the mothers and writers who came before her. In her inimitable poetic style, Kinsella takes pregnancy and the first nine months of motherhood and forms from them a broken prism through which to view both a woman’s place in the world, and her child’s in the future we’re creating.'A book about the raw, riotous, brutally beautiful act of being alive.' - Kerri ní Dochartaigh, author of Thin Places'Milk is a raw, unvarnished journey down the mothering rab

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Book Synopsis'Pam Ayres is absolutely essential to British humour' Mail on Sunday 'A national treasure' Daily Express Delighting her fans for more than four decades with her mischievous wit and wry observations, this is a classic collection of poems and monologues from Pam Ayres, which takes us back to where it all began. From the nostalgia of her 1950's childhood, conjuring up images of hand-knitted swimming costumes and suet puddings, through Pam's four years in the WRAF where she discovered the joy of performing, to poignant reflections on motherhood and watching her children grow up. With These Hands provides a profound and hilarious insight into the joys and tribulations of daily life, as recorded by the nation's favourite poet.

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Book SynopsisSUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERWhether he likes it or not, John is getting older. His hair is greying, it’s getting that much harder to stay fit, and the potential to become something of an embarrassment is ever increasing.But hope is not lost. How to Grow Old is John’s offering to the world. With sage advice on how to avoid the common pitfalls of age, intimate confessions and spit-your-dentures-out hilarious commentary on his own advancing years, this is his observational comic writing at its very best. If you were concerned about how not to be boring or how to get rid of your should-be-old-enough-to-manage kids, this the book has the answers.

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Book SynopsisThis book will definitely make you laugh and might just make you cry, but it could also help save a life.Praise for Big Boys:'Sharp, clever, bold, tender, wise and looking at men from angles I've never seen before. And funny. Thank God for funny!' Russell T. Davies'It is warm and funny ... can pierce your heart when you least expect it' GuardianPraise for Cheer the F**K Up:'Cheer the F**K Up is, without a doubt, the most meaningful and funniest book I have ever read on mental health and loss. Jack is a genius (fact) and he weaves together themes of love, grief, sexuality, trauma, growing up, mental health and friendship in a memoir that will stand the test of time. If you are a human living on this planet YOU NEED THIS BOOK! It has never been more important and never been more needed.' - Scarlett Curtis'Once you've had the pleasure of reading a work by Jack Rooke, you'll have spent time with one of the funniest, warmest, most caring people I've ever known, and he'll feel like your new favourite friend. This book deals with difficult topics in such a beautiful, thoughtful and hilarious way. It's the book we all need in our lives.' - Nicola CoughlanCheer the F**K Up is a bold, brilliant and very personal account of a young comedian's experiences with mental health. An ode to the importance of friendship, Jack Rooke takes us on a mission to better understand the reasons why so many people are struggling, and how we can all feel better equipped in knowing how to support that one friend we might be that bit more worried about.Part comedic memoir, part advice guide, this book is a fresh and timely take on a huge issue very close to Jack's heart - in 2015, while working as an ambassador for a male mental health charity, he lost one of his best friends to suicide.Taking you on a journey through his life and experiences with grief, sexuality, depression and more, Jack offers his own frank and powerful advice on how best to have meaningful conversations about a loved one's state of mind. Hilarious and heart-breaking in equal measure, Cheer the F**K Up will definitely make you laugh and might just make you cry, but it could also help save a life.

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Book SynopsisCome on my journey. Look at where man's come from. I was working in retail in 2017.You might know Mo as the critically acclaimed stand-up comedian, BAFTA-winning presenter, Masked Singer judge and social media mega star. But do you know the moments that really made him? Opening up on the turning points, the good times, the challenges and the lessons learned, this is Mo as you've never seen him before.Journeying through childhood memories in South London, Mo reminisces about school days and old-school raving, and takes us behind the scenes of his first comedy gigs, the creation of the original Geezer, selling out national tours and becoming one of TV's most in-demand stars. Share the moment that Mo decided he wanted to be a comedian, the moment he went viral, the moment he realised he was famous (and how to deal with it), the moment his Netflix special dropped, the moment he won his BAFTA and the moments he still has to come.In among the laugh-out-loud observations, life lessons and candid storytelling, there lies the bigger influences in Mo's life - the unsung heroes of the Black British comedy scene, the power of community and the feel-good legacy he wants to create.'The Funniest Man in Britain' The Times

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Book SynopsisA pilot's love letter to the world's greatest cities from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Skyfaring'A journey around both the author's mind and the planet's great cities that leaves us energised, open to new experiences and ready to return more hopefully to our lives' ALAIN DE BOTTONGrowing up in his small hometown, Mark Vanhoenacker spun the illuminated globe in his bedroom and dreamt of elsewhere - of distant, real cities, and a perfect metropolis that existed only in his imagination.Now, as a commercial airline pilot, Mark has spent more than two decades crossing the skies of our planet and touching down in the cities he'd always longed to see. Imagine a City celebrates the metropolises he has come to know and love through the lens of the hometown his heart has never left. From the sweeping roads of Los Angeles and the old gates of Jeddah to the intricate, dream-inspired plan of Brasília, he shows us with warmth and fresh eyes the extraordinary places that billions of us call home.'Vanhoenacker... has a near-bottomless appetite for fresh sights and guidebook curiosities... Intimate and thoughtful' PICO IYER, AIR MAIL'A love letter to the cities he's returned to again and again... Vanhoenacker captivates when describing the silent beauty of a world glimpsed from above' Washington Post'Eloquent... A love song to cities the world over' Wall Street JournalTrade ReviewImagine a City... will enchant and even move anyone who feared in recent years for the future of both travel and urbanism -- Janan Ganesh * Financial Times, *Summer Reads of 2022* *Vanhoenacker is exceptionally well travelled, and an exceptionally curious and widely read observer... He doesn't waste an hour, and with every return his engagement with each city deepens... Superb -- Jonathan Buckley * Times Literary Supplement *Dreamy and erudite... [Vanhoenacker is] a most likeable, warm-hearted narrator with an original world view -- Melanie Reid * The Times *Imagine a City is really about home... a variation on the Great Expectations narrative, with our young hero feeling uncomfortable where he grows up, flying the nest for a series of transformative experiences but discovering he can never quite leave home nor fully return * Spectator *What makes Mark Vanhoenacker's Imagine a City such a joy, is that this is a travel book entirely rooted in modernity and globalization... but which nonetheless retains the wide-eyed wonder, not so much of a 19th-century explorer as of a medieval pilgrim -- Tim Hannigan * Asian Review of Books *In this new work, Vanhoenacker... plunges deeper into his own past growing up in Pittsfield as a gay man... His autobiographical vignettes are searching and touching, delivered with an affectionate lyricism -- Pico Iyer * Air Mail *More personal [than Skyfaring], but with the same reassuringly precise and perceptive voice -- Tom Robbins * Financial Times, *Summer Reads of 2022* *Mark Vanhoenacker is a beautiful, lyrical writer who uses his experience as a pilot to bring us constantly in touch with the transcendent and the other-worldly -- Alain de BottonA enriching memoir of how a sensitive, introverted boy's yearning for escape and acceptance found its fulfilment in the life of an airline pilot... A touching survey of human dreams and endeavours and a hymn to the quiet pleasures of returning, in the flesh or in memory, to the intimate geography of one's hometown -- Patrick GaleRefreshingly personal and moving... This absorbing modern twist on the age-old story of flying the nest, yet yearning for home, will transport you around the globe and back again without leaving your seat -- Mark Ovenden, author of AIRLINE MAPS and LONDON UNDERGROUND BY DESIGNI absolutely love the way Mark Vanhoenacker writes about the world; he gives you a whole new way of seeing -- Jenny Colgan, author of SUNRISE BY THE SEAAn utterly remarkable and original travel book. Like Jan Morris and Pico Iyer, Vanhoenacker weaves memoir and travelogue, using his unusual perch as a pilot to take us on an incredible journey to dozens of cities around the world. Like Italo Calvino, he somehow weaves it all into one, a painfully beautiful cubist city of memory and dreams that rises out of his warm and lyrical prose -- Andrew Blum, author of TUBES and THE WEATHER MACHINEA tour de force of descriptive power and honesty; I can think of no other book like this one -- Tom Zoellner, winner of the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award for NonfictionQuietly thoughtful without being either self-conscious or -indulgent. Vanhoenacker retains a refreshing sense of good fortune and even amazement that one can step into a cylindrical metal tube and emerge hours later into different air, different sunlight and a different world picture -- Peter Neville-Hadley * South China Morning Post *Mark Vanhoenacker...weaves an account of this hugely gifted writer's small-town gay boyhood through evocations of the cities around the world he has come to love as an airline pilot * Daily Mail, *Books of the Year* *Beautiful, meditative and insightful * Shafik Meghji, author of Crossed off the Map: Travels in Bolivia *Few books nowadays truly break new ground but Mark Vanhoenacker succeeds in doing so with Imagine a City. Sensitive, smart and utterly fascinating, I have recommended it to almost everyone I know * Caroline Eden, journalist and author of Red Sands: Reportage and Recipes Through Central Asia, from Hinterland to Heartland *Mark Vanhoenacker is more than a British Airways pilot with the soul of a poet - he is without doubt the greatest travel writer since Bruce Chatwin * Tony Parsons, award-winning journalist and bestselling author of Your Neighbour’s Wife *You couldn't ask for a more literary pilot to have up at the sharp end of your next flight than Mark Vanhoenacker...[but] flying isn't so front and centre of his book Imagine a City, this time it's about where his flying takes him. * Tony Wheeler, author and co-founder of Lonely Planet *

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Book SynopsisWINNER of the Polari First Book Prize 2021WINNER of the LAMBDA 2021 Literary Award for Best Gay Memoir/BiographyA Dutiful Boy is Mohsin's personal journey from denial to acceptance: a revelatory memoir about the power of love, belonging, and living every part of your identity.Growing up in a devout Muslim household, it felt impossible for Mohsin to be gay. Unable to be open with his family, and with difficult conditions at school, he felt his opportunities closing around him. Despite the odds, Mohsin's perseverance led him to become the first person from his school to attend Oxford University, where new experiences and encounters helped him to discover who he truly wanted to be. Mohsin was confronted with the biggest decision he would ever make: to live the life that was expected of him or to live as his authentic self.A Guardian, GQ, and New Statesman Book of the Year'Genuinely inspiring... Beautifully written, dignified and ultimately redemptive, this challenging story abounds with light and love' Attitude 'An Incredibly important read' Jyoti PatelTrade ReviewThe moving personal story of a gay Muslim's tribulations and triumphs at the interface of family, faith and freedom, told with great candour and eloquence. -- Peter TatchellAn incredibly hopeful, urgent and well told coming of age story about religion, class, and LGBTQ+ acceptance - no doubt reading it will save someone’s life. -- Amelia AbrahamA beautifully written, heartrending story of a young gay man’s journey, liberation and love. A real page turner that sparks with humanity and hope. -- Lord Michael CashmanHis engaging memoir of his long road to happiness and acceptance by his family is moving and inspiring. * Bookseller *I can't recommend A Dutiful Boy enough, I couldn’t put it down. A journey of self discovery, longing, triumph and hope. I fell in love with Mohsin, I imagine you will too. * Suzi Ruffell *A powerful read. In fact, searing in places... vivid and told me a lot about my country... ultimately uplifting. * Lionel Barber *A wonderful book. I really do think that everyone should read it. * Mark Haddon *A deeply-moving account...a must-read. * Tatler *A remarkable memoir...an incredibly moving read. I had to put the book down several times to cry...it's a book that will save lives. * Sathnam Sanghera *The best memoirs take the reader on two journeys: one journey is to a greater understanding of the author; the other is to a greater understanding of yourself and the society around you. A Dutiful Boy is one such book. It is the story of a young boy growing up in a devout Muslim family in east London who knew he was gay but who also knew such an admission was inconceivable in a religious culture where homosexuality was still taboo. This is the story of a family's love, a battle with shame and a long journey to acceptance. It is deeply moving and profoundly important and it made me cry. Mohsin is such an impressive person: the first from his comprehensive school to go to Oxbridge, he is now a highly regarded barrister but DAMMIT the man can write too. If you liked The Boy with the Topknot by Sathnam Sanghera or Educated by Tara Westover, you will also love this book. Thank you Mohsin, for having the courage to tell this story. -- Elizabeth DayAn incredibly moving memoir -- Elizabeth Day * Mail on Sunday *

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Book Synopsis'Deeply moving, darkly funny and hugely powerful' Robert Macfarlane'A brave, lit-up account of going mad and getting better' Jeanette WintersonAfter a lifetime of ups and downs, Horatio Clare was committed to hospital under Section 2 of the Mental Health Act. From hypomania in the Alps, to a complete breakdown and a locked ward in Wakefield, this is a gripping account of how the mind loses touch with reality, how we fall apart and how we may heal. 'One of the most brilliant travel writers of our day takes us now to that most challenging country, severe mental illness; and does so with such wit, warmth and humanity' Reverend Richard ColesTrade ReviewA beautiful, unflinchingly honest book about madness, mania, parenting, surviving and, above all, love and its power to heal us * Rachel Clarke, author of Dear Life and Breathtaking *A brave, lit-up account of going mad and getting better, that forensically tracks the footprints of both journeys towards a settlement with the self -- Jeanette WintersonReaders of Clare's game-changing memoir . . . will be struck by the fact that a mind so recently dominated by straight-to-DVD fantasies is now capable of reflecting on them with so much gentle wisdom and acute self-awareness. And in such beautiful, witty prose * Daily Telegraph *Hard-hitting but tender-hearted . . . Clare thoughtfully and determinedly seeks to challenge the status-quo on treatment for mental health conditions * Independent *What a gift...having such an articulate agent, reporting back from the far edges of the mind * Sunday Times *

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Book Synopsis'Exquisitely written... haunting... Few books, I think, capture so well the sense of a life broken for ever by trauma and guilt' Sunday Times 'An unsparing, honest and insightful memoir, that shows how private failure becomes national disaster' Hilary MantelTwenty years after the end of the war, Horst Krüger attempted to make sense of his childhood. He had grown up in a quiet Berlin suburb. Here, people lived ordinary lives, believed in God, obeyed the law, and were gradually seduced by the promises of Nazism. He had been 'the typical child of innocuous Germans who were never Nazis, and without whom the Nazis would never have been able to do their work'. With tragic inevitability, this world of respectability, order and duty began to crumble.Written in accomplished prose of lingering beauty, The Broken House is a moving coming-of-age story that provides a searing portrait of life under the Nazis.Trade ReviewExquisitely written... haunting... Few books, I think, capture so well the sense of a life broken for ever by trauma and guilt -- Dominic Sandbrook * Sunday Times *A masterpiece. An astonishing piece of literature. Complex, heartfelt, vibrant, intense, urgent. A must read. I read it straight through to the last page and then wanted to read it all over again -- Thomas Harding, bestselling author of Hanns and RudolfThe major rediscovery of a forgotten treasure. No book has ever so honestly evoked the wretched terror of life in Nazi Germany -- James Hawes, author of The Shortest History of GermanyI often think that the key to a successful memoir is to find the right place to stand, the effective distance. Writing in the sixties, Kruger had enough clarity to see where his story fitted into the big picture, but he can still make the reader feel the passion, danger and grief. It is an unsparing, honest and insightful memoir, that shows how private failure becomes national disaster. There is no mercy from the author and no false hope, but he fills a gap in the historical imagination -- Hilary MantelA book of hard-won simplicity and quite beautiful precision * The Times *

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Book Synopsis"What a brilliant Christmas gift" Chris Moyles "Like sitting down by the fire with [Sir David] and hearing your stories ... Full of surprises" Lorraine KellyThink of this memoir as a Christmas special in book form, from someone who has been involved in a few of those and understands a bit about the concept. But a Christmas special very much like Only Fools and Horses, in the sense that the stories will be always heading outwards, ranging far and wide and well beyond the traditional festive gags involving giblets left in turkeys.As I sift through various festive-related episodes in my career, loosening the ribbons, parting the wrapping paper, I'll be doing my best to reach any relevant conclusions about life, work and the meaning of it all that I can usefully pass on to you - baubles of wisdom if you like. Or certainly baubles. You'll learn why I have the perfect face to play Scrooge. And if you're lucky I'll also share what it's like to fly in a helicopter with my old mucker Tom Cruise. Merry Christmas, you plonkers.Trade ReviewYou'll be chuckling your Christmas socks off by the end...A merry memoir linked to the festive episodes and the life lessons to go hand in hand with them * Woman & Home *Full of the actor's characteristic down-to-earth warmth, wit and wisdom, this is the perfect book for Del Boy fans * Culturefly *Spills all the behind-the-scenes gossip and heartwarming tales from the show's festive specials * Mirror *

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Book Synopsis'Ronnie has overcome a heart-breaking start in life to achieve great success and no one deserves it more. What a dude, what a life!' - Fiona Bruce'Brilliant...a mercurial memoir of a meritorious life.' - Lemn Sissay For decades, Ronnie Archer-Morgan has brought to life the fascinating, often surprising backstories behind our most cherished heirlooms and household objects on the Antiques Roadshow. Now, he tells his own unlikely story. Born in the fifties to a Sierra Leonean mother battling mental health problems, Ronnie spent his childhood in and out of care. After difficult beginnings, marked by abuse, racism and brushes with both criminals and the police, he got into music, managing to get DJ gigs and, later, worked as a celebrity hairdresser for Vidal Sassoon and Smile in the height of seventies London. A flair for spotting antiques led him to start his own Knightsbridge gallery, ultimately becoming one of the most respected figures in the industry, culminating in a regular spot as an expert on the nation's Sunday favourite, Antiques Roadshow. Told with rich warmth, this is an extraordinary journey from deprivation and abuse to adventure and success against the odds - with stories of the incredible objects which shaped the way.'A surprising story, like many of the objects he appraises on the Antiques Roadshow' - Kate Adie, broadcaster and bestselling author'A fascinating, rollercoaster read, very well told.' - TimesTrade ReviewLife as a pinball [. . .] all the time absorbing history and art and adventurous travel. A black man pursuing culture and pursued by prejudice, pinging against the glamour and the pitfalls of the antiques trade. A surprising story, like many of the objects he appraises on the Antiques Roadshow. -- Kate Adie, broadcaster and bestselling authorRonnie has told me stories from his past over our years together on the Antiques Roadshow. But, reading his autobiography, all I can say is, yes, I am surprised. Is there anything he hasn't done? Ronnie has overcome a heart-breaking start in life to achieve great success and no one deserves it more. What a dude, what a life! -- Fiona BruceA gripping memoir about overcoming an abusive childhood...A fascinating rollercoaster read, very well told..full of devastating cruelty and remarkable strokes of luck * Times *There is so much more to Ronnie than meets the eye. Reading everything he has overcome and all that he has achieved gives you a deeper, richer understanding of the man and why he finally feels able to count his blessings. * Daily Express *A brilliant memoir by Ronnie Archer-Morgan. His is a mercurial memoir of a meritorious life. -- Lemn Sissay

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Book Synopsis'This is the most startlingly honest book about grief I have ever read. Its immediacy hits you on the first page and takes you on an unforgettable journey. No one has set out so clearly the stages we go through as we try to come to terms with facing the enormity of death.' - Dame Penelope Wilton, DBE'Sasha writes exquisitely and honestly, the sheer rawness of what she has gone through and is still going through, sitting in balance with the calm and clear-sighted objectivity of the therapist, who is also her.' - Hugh BonnevilleOne person, two perspectives on grief. Plunged unexpectedly into widowhood at just 49 years old, psychotherapist Sasha Bates describes in searing honesty the agonisingly raw feelings unleashed by the loss of her husband and best friend, Bill. At the same time, she attempts to keep her therapist hat in place and create some perspective from psycho-analytic theory. From the depths of her confusion she gropes for ways to manage and bear the pain - by looking back at all that she has learnt from psychotherapeutic research, and from accepted grief theories, to help her make sense of her altered reality. Languages of Loss starts a necessary and overdue conversation about death and loss. It breaks down taboos and tries to find humour and light amidst the depressing, bewildering reality. It is an essential companion to help support readers through the agony of those early months, giving permission for all the feelings, and offering various methods of living with them.This book's overriding message is that everyone's experience of grief is different, but knowing more about the theory, and learning a new vocabulary, while not necessarily easing the grief, can help you feel less alone, and at some point enable you to reflect back and see how far you have come.'This is a useful as well as a moving book. The writing is energetic, down-to-earth and bracingly honest, and many readers will feel consoled and enlightened by Bates's take on her experience.' - The Times'Bates's skill as a psychotherapist is married to her deft ability to use language and metaphor to create this vital treatise on loss. As much as Languages of Loss is an essential text on grief, it is also a story of love.' - Sunday Business Post Review'This book will give anyone grieving the death of their partner an insight into their experience, and help those around them understand the difficult and painful process of grief.' - Julia Samuel, author of This Too Shall Pass and Grief Works'A really powerful book. I hadn't read a book before that melds the professional, as a psychotherapist, and the personal, as someone that lost their partner. Sasha's book covers the course of one year since she lost her husband Bill, where she describes how she feels and tries to apply what she has learnt as a therapist. She explores the times when that really exposes the shortcomings of grief counselling, and how incapable anything is really at helping you navigate this absence. I've never read anything like that, a mixture of the practical and the emotional.' - Pandora SykesTrade ReviewSasha writes exquisitely and honestly, the sheer rawness of what she has gone through and is still going through, sitting in balance with the calm and clear-sighted objectivity of the therapist, who is also her. That I so vividly recognise the Bill I knew is testimony to her skill at characterisation - but whether one knew the man or not, one recognises love when one reads it and one recognises the chaotic agony of a love lost. Exploring the threads of her bereavement with such candour and wit and lightness of touch is a remarkable achievement. Bursting through the bitter darkness of her personal experience shine truths that will serve as bright points of light for those who have shared, or are perhaps just embarking upon, the confusing journey of grief. -- Hugh BonnevilleThis is the most startlingly honest book about grief I have ever read. Its immediacy hits you on the first page and takes you on an unforgettable journey. No one has set out so clearly the stages we go through as we try to come to terms with facing the enormity of death. -- Dame Penelope Wilton, DBEThis is a useful as well as a moving book. The writing is energetic, down-to-earth and bracingly honest, and many readers will feel consoled and enlightened by Bates's take on her experience. The therapist's reflections are fascinating, but what shines through is how much Bates loved Bill and how much she misses him. * The Times *In this touching book by psychotherapist Sasha Bates, loss and grief are discussed with unwavering honesty... Bates infuses the book with hope and will leave you glad to have shared her journey. * Evening Standard *A powerful blend of the personal and the professional. -- Mishal HusainReading this book, I'm in the hands of someone I would want to be by my side for the traumas of life - however small they seem, or big they loom. -- Kirsty WarkThis is a deep and generous book. Sasha Bates offers the reader a compassionate walk alongside her as she weaves her own personal story of loss with her professional understanding. It will be a great support to all who have suffered loss. -- Elizabeth Wilde McCormick, psychotherapist and authorThis is a book fluent not just in the languages of loss but of compassion, humour, empathy, understanding, revelation and humanity. Even in the depths of her own grief Sasha Bates makes sense of the chaos that envelops all of us and offers not a reductive path to some kind of quasi-redemption but the profound glimpse of a way through. -- Tim MarlowSasha's generosity in writing this vivid, searing account of the loss of her beloved Bill left me deeply moved, moved by the glory of loving and being loved. Her description of moving through the chaos of grief, fully exposing the unknowable inner world of the griever alongside philosophical, spiritual and therapeutic musings were highly illuminating and provocative. But what I was really left with was an awe, an awe of humanity's fundamental and beautiful capacity for loving connection, with one another and with one's self. I will keep this book close to me, always. -- Ed Simons, Psychotherapist and Chemical BrotherThis book is about so much more than loss. Sasha's way with words allows the reader to access and connect with the depth of love shared by her and Bill. In doing this, she offers inspiration and hope for us all, highlighting along the way that grief is not 'the price we pay for love' but is indeed love itself. I loved this book with every bit of my own broken, open heart. -- Donna Lancaster, Co-founder of The Bridge RetreatWhat a challenge. And what an achievement. Your book is simply amazing and so authentic. Thanks for sharing your heartfelt story and developing acceptance. -- Jane Harris, co-founder of the Good Grief ProjectI got it and I read it and I get it. A superb conversation between 'me the therapist' and 'me the griever', an astounding achievement both as a 'memoir' and as a valuable insight into the aftermath of trauma and loss, otherwise known as grief. I am not a great reader of books on grief (for the first couple of years after our son Josh died I couldn't even attune myself to others stories of grief - my own grief was too painful and too special to allow for any empathy for another), neither do I gen up on theories of psychotherapy (Yalom and Oliver Sacks being exceptions but that's just my nosey parker prying into the weirdness of other peoples minds), but Sasha's construction of a conversation between her two persona's has been a great help for me to understand the processes of my own grief as well to empathise with another. You could compare it to Joan Didier's Magical Year, but don't bother... read both. If you need to choose read this. -- Jimmy EdmondsIt is an uplifting and honest book that is not at all depressing. It left me with a powerful sense of gratitude for the existence of people I love and for the precious minutiae of everyday life. Thank you to Sasha Bates for making this good thing, which will help so many others, grow out of the darkness. -- Pauline BeaumontA really powerful book. I hadn't read a book before that melds the professional, as a psychotherapist, and the personal, as someone that lost their partner. Sasha's book covers the course of one year since she lost her husband Bill, where she describes how she feels and tries to apply what she has learnt as a therapist. She explores the times when that really exposes the shortcomings of grief counselling, and how incapable anything is really at helping you navigate this absence. I've never read anything like that, a mixture of the practical and the emotional. -- Pandora Sykes

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Book Synopsis'a quietly impressive book, which does something most celebrity autobiographies shy away from: it seeks the truth and, more often than not, finds it.' - THE MAILA look at the life and times of the man Sir Michael most looked up to.It started in the shadow of the pithead in a South Yorkshire mining village and ended up in tears before an audience of millions. Michael Parkinson's relationship with his late father John William was, and remains, a family love story overflowing with tenderness and tall tales of sporting valour, usually involving Yorkshire cricket or Barnsley FC.However, it was the overwhelming grief which poured out of Michael when Piers Morgan pressed him about John William in a television interview - four decades after the death of the father he encapsulated as 'Yorkshireman, miner, humorist and fast bowler' - that convinced one of the outstanding broadcasters and journalists of our time to delve deeper into the dynamics of their lives together.Co-written with his son Mike, this affectionate and revealing memoir explores the influences which shaped John William, Michael and succeeding generations of Parkinsons. The journey leads them from the depths of a Yorkshire coal mine, via the chapel, pub and picture-house, to a spot behind the bowler's arm at Lord's and the sands at Scarborough.While Like Father, Like Son conveys a powerful sense of time and place, it is wit, insight and, above all, enduring love which shine through its pages., ,

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Book SynopsisYvonne Orji has never shied away from being unapologetically herself, and that includes being outspoken about her faith.Known for interpreting Biblical stories and metaphors to fit current times, her humorous and accessible approach to faith leaves even non-believers inspired and wanting more.The way Yvonne sees it, God is a Sovereign Prankster, punking folks long before Ashton Kutcher made it cool. When she meditates on her own life--complete with unforeseen blessings and unanticipated roadblocks--she realises it's one big testimony to how God tricked her into living out her wildest dreams. And she wants us to join in on getting bamboozled. This is not a Self-Help book--it's a Get Yours book!In Bamboozled by Jesus, a frank and fresh advice book, Orji takes readers on a journey through twenty-five life lessons, gleaned from her own experiences and her favourite source of inspiration: the Bible. But this ain't your mama's Bible study. Yvonne infuses wit and heart in sharing pointers like why the way up is sometimes down, and how fear is synonymous to food poisoning. Her joyful, confident approach to God will inspire everyone to catapult themselves out of the mundane and into the magnificent.With bold authenticity and practical relatability, Orji is exactly the kind of cultural leader we need in these chaotic times. And her journey through being Bamboozled by Jesus paints a powerful picture of what it means to say "yes" to a life you never could've imagined--if it wasn't your own.

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Book Synopsis*THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES & NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER*'A real gem of a book for comedy fans... honest, irreverent and fascinating' Matt Lucas'This book is a love letter to all his comedy heroes, full of warmth, heart and wit' Georgia PritchettIn this hilarious, heartfelt memoir, the star of Mr. Show and Breaking Bad spin off Better Call Saul opens up about the highs and lows of showbiz, his cult status as a comedy writer, and what it's like to reinvent himself at age fifty as an action-film ass-kicker. Featuring humorous tangents, never-before-seen photos, wild characters, and Bob's trademark unflinching drive and humour, Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama is a classic showbiz tale told by a determined idiot.'I can't think of another entertainer who has improbably morphed so many times and all through real genius and determination' Conan O'Brien

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Book Synopsis''This is a rich, beautiful and deeply moving book'' GEORGE MONBIOT ''I loved this book'' CLOVER STROUDOnce Upon a Raven''s Nest is the story of a working class man, one Thomas Hedley of Exmoor, and of the planet during the period of its great acceleration towards the current climate emergency.Born in 1955 to a poor family in Devon Thomas refused to conform. His fierce independence, recklessness and contrariness led not only to scrapes and self-inflicted dangers but to a life enriched by the love of women. Catrina Davies came to know him in his last years and has given his life and times in his own words, creating a rich, pungent language in a knowing, poetic and poignant voice.We learn of his accumulation of engines, tools and guns, the complexity of his connection to nature, the animals he loved and his desire to hunt them. He recounts the terrible consequences of his fatal attraction to risk and machinery which led to hi

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Book Synopsis''A tender but substantive family memoir'' Sunday Independent''An acute eye and a lightness of touch ensures that this is never anything other than truly engrossing'' The FieldA few years ago Lally Snow moved to a Dorset village with her husband and three small children, having spent over a decade as a war photographer, foreign correspondent and film maker living in Kabul. She covered the conflict there as well as other wars from Gaza to Eastern Ukraine, and Iraq.In the late winter of 2021-22, Lally decided to rent an allotment, despite having only a rudimentary knowledge of gardening. She was starting from scratch and setting herself the dual challenge of growing an allotment at the same time as growing a family.This is a heart-warming, wry and at times tearful account of Lally''s travails as a mother and novice allotment holder, counterpointing horticultural progress with the perils of parenting. Along the way she reflects on the drudgery of English rural domesticity after a professional life chasing war and adventure, the history of the allotment since Saxon times, and the wonderful moment when gardening becomes fun rather than just feeding a family.

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Book SynopsisThe New York Times bestselling author of Inheritance delivers her most intimate and powerful work: a piercing, life-affirming memoir about marriage and memory, sorrow and love. Hourglass is an inquiry into how marriage is transformed by time - abraded, strengthened, shaped in miraculous and sometimes terrifying ways by accident and experience. With courage and relentless honesty, Dani Shapiro opens the door to her house, her marriage, and her heart, and invites us to witness her own marital reckoning - a reckoning in which she confronts both the life she dreamed of and the life she made, and struggles to reconcile the girl she was with the woman she has become. What are the forces that shape our most elemental bonds? How do we make lifelong commitments in the face of identities that are continuously shifting, and commit ourselves for all time when the self is so often in flux? What happens to love in the face of the unexpected, in the face of disappointment and compromise - how do we wrest beauty from imperfection, find grace in the ordinary, desire what we have rather than what we lack?Drawing on literature, poetry, philosophy, and theology, Shapiro writes gloriously of the joys and challenges of matrimonial life, in a luminous narrative that unfurls with urgent immediacy and sharp intelligence. Artful, intensely emotional work from one of our finest writers. A beautiful book by a writer of rare talent' Cheryl Strayed

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Book SynopsisKerry Hudson was born in Aberdeen. Her first novel, Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-cream Float Before He Stole My Ma, won the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust First Book Award and was shortlisted for an array of prizes including the Guardian First Book Award and the Sky Arts Award. Thirst, her second novel, won the prestigious Prix Femina étranger. Lowborn, her highly acclaimed first work of non-fiction, was a Radio 4 Book of the Week, a Guardian and Spectator Book of the Year and Stylist Book of the Decade. It is followed by Newborn. She was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2020.

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Book SynopsisJohn Burnside was among the most acclaimed writers of his generation. His novels, short stories, poetry and memoirs won numerous awards, including the Geoffrey Faber Memorial, Saltire Scottish Book of the Year and, in 2023, he received the David Cohen Prize for a lifetime's achievement in literature. In 2011 Black Cat Bone won both the Forward and the T.S. Eliot Prizes for poetry. He died in 2024.

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Book SynopsisA fiercely personal and startlingly universal essay collection about the mysteries of gender and desire, of identity and class, of the stories we tell and the places we call home. Flyover country, the middle of nowhere, the space between the coasts. The American Midwest is a place beyond definition, whose very boundaries are a question. It’s a place of rolling prairies and towering pines, where guns in bars and trucks on blocks are as much a part of the landscape as rivers and lakes and farms. Where girls are girls and boys are boys, where women are mothers and wives, where one is taught to work hard and live between the lines. But what happens when those lines become increasingly unclear? When a girl, like the land that raised her, finds herself neither here nor there? In this intrepid collection of essays, Melissa Faliveno traverses the liminal spaces of her childhood in working-class Wisconsin and the paths she’s traveled since, compelled by questions of girlhood and womanhood, queerness and class, and how the lands of our upbringing both define and complicate us even long after we’ve left. Part personal narrative, part cultural reportage, Tomboyland navigates midwestern traditions, mythologies, landscapes, and lives to explore the intersections of identity and place. From F5 tornadoes and fast-pitch softball to gun culture, strange glacial terrains, kink party potlucks, and the question of motherhood, Faliveno asks curious, honest, and often darkly funny questions about belonging and the body, isolation and community, and what we mean when we use words like woman, family, and home.Trade Review“[A] winning debut collection…Readers who prefer to answer their questions about gender and sexuality with more questions will appreciate this perceptive meditation.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Delves deeply into gender identity and the many confusions and complications involved…Throughout the collection, Faliveno remains inquisitive and resistant to labels, always maintaining her empowering agency…the essays are well-rendered investigations of self-identity. An expressive voice evolving deliberately, resisting having to be one thing or the other.” —Kirkus Reviews “Encountering Faliveno is a pleasure…a sensitive commentator on the topsy-turvy world of the gender systems she grew up in and an exquisite self-analyst of her own androgyny…writing with a quality of cinematic vividness…Recommended.” —Library Journal “Faliveno’s dynamic essay collection…inhabits the spaces in-between—male and female, Wisconsin and New York, personal and political, fear and desire—and probes the profound paradoxes of personhood.” —OprahMag.com “A wonder to read. Bravo.” —Alma “Together, the essays offer a full-dress portrait of a writer whom most readers will be intrigued to know.” —Booklist “Melissa Faliveno transports readers to the Midwest, a region of the country that, not unlike the idea of a ‘tomboy,’ resists neat categorization. The book blends personal essays with culture reporting to explore the liminal spaces Faliveno—and so many other queer folks—inhabit and navigate each and every day.” —NewNowNext “In this essay collection about identity, class, sex, and gender, you’ll find deeply personal revelations that anyone can connect with. Each essay offers a unique perspective on topics we’ve all thought about, whether we’re a tomboy from the suburbs, a straight mountain man, or anything in between. Because there is no binary.” —Electric Literature “Gender, class, geographic placing, and so much more are explored honestly and fully in this collection of essays.” —Vogue.com “In her debut collection of essays, [Faliveno] examines the complicated—and often contradictory—parts of her life: the first time she shot a gun; her experiences in BDSM as a feminist; and navigating androgyny and bisexuality, womanhood and rage, religion and myth, loneliness and love.” —PureWow “These essays are a love letter to, reckoning with, and examination of [Faliveno’s] midwestern upbringing…Faliveno doesn't always definitively answer the questions she asks—and after all, how could she, when existential issues of identity, belonging, language, and the body are rarely if ever static—but she does manage to get satisfyingly close…to have roots, Tomboyland seems to be saying, is to have the ability to grow upward, out, and sometimes away, but to always have a context to return to.” —NPR.org “The book is a love letter to the Midwest, celebrating its strength and complexities.” —Wisconsin Public Radio “Faliveno is an excellent essayist, expertly braiding seemingly disparate threads into engrossing and funny explorations of self and society…The theme of violence intertwined with fear, love and reverence for place and created family propels Tomboyland into captivating territory. On the surface, its beautiful prose belies the darker complexities it scrapes at, making it all the more gratifying to read.” —The Washington Post “[A] wide-ranging, triumphant debut essay collection. With tenderness and honesty, Faliveno explores boundaries, intersections, and the overall blurriness of life.” —The Millions “Tomboyland is everything I want an essay collection to be: beautiful, smart, difficult, honest, hopeful, and haunting, just like the experiences it depicts. It is a book that charts the history of a body against the land that defines it. It is a song for anyone who felt at once estranged and inextricably bound to a place. Melissa Faliveno has written a gorgeously complex ode to the Midwest that is destined to be passed urgently from hand to hand, an anthem sung by all the misfits in those vast places who have not yet seen themselves written.” —Melissa Febos, author of Whip Smart and Abandon Me “Tomboyland, Melissa Faliveno’s excellent collection of essays on growing up in Wisconsin and then beyond it, will give many people permission to be who they are and to write into and about where they’re from. It will also show you how and when to leave that place, and how you can’t ever leave it completely. Each essay carries Faliveno’s Wisconsin inside it and made me want to lift weights in a dingy gym, welcome a moth infestation, kick ass at softball, rewatch Twister, and even visit Mount Horeb, the ‘Troll Capital of the World.’ If it can work on me this fast, I can only imagine what this book will do to you.” —Ander Monson, author of I Will Take the Answer and Neck Deep and Other Predicaments “These essays showcase, via hard-won displays, a twenty-first-century mind working to understand itself. Among the many treats of Tomboyland is how Melissa Faliveno’s self-investigation doesn’t just look inward to memory, experience, or feelings. Over the course of this book, she also looks externally in her quest for personal knowledge—turning to archives, interviews, and journalistic immersion. Such an extensive and dogged scope shows both how unique and how interconnected a single life can be. In Faliveno’s deft hands, we experience all that builds a consciousness—food and sex and softball, dark bars and sprawling landscapes, roller derbies and deep conversations, and the F5 tornado that is human love.” —Elena Passarello, author of Animals Strike Curious Poses “In these smartly constructed, urgently delivered essays on class, gender, violence, rage, love, and sexuality—issues as entwined in these pages as they are in life—Melissa Faliveno brilliantly scrutinizes our most contemporary, most vital questions of self and culture. I didn’t just read Tomboyland, I scribbled in its pages, photographed its passages, pressed it on friends, and felt an urgent need to talk about it. It will spark conversations that will become conflagrations. Tomboyland is a blaze of a book, as fiery and expansive as the Midwestern sky.” —Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, author of The Fact of a Body “I felt Melissa Faliveno’s Midwest on a gut level—its F5 tornadoes, its rolling prairies, its bighearted people working their asses off. I grew up here, but it’s okay if you didn’t; Tomboyland will show you, tangling your body in place and the overwhelming need to both go back home and get the hell out. Faliveno’s deeply felt and deeply researched essays—part personal narrative, part cultural criticism—feature softballs and guns, dresses and babies and bondage. They interrogate gender and expectations, what it means to be a family, to build a home in this beautiful mess of a world. My brain is still buzzing. So is my heart.” —Megan Stielstra, author of The Wrong Way to Save Your Life “In Tomboyland, Melissa Faliveno examines the spaces, selves, histories, and futures that live in the distance between binaries: between the bodies we have and the ones we claim, between the homes that have made us and those we have made for ourselves. This is a remarkable debut. I am grateful for the arrival of this bold new voice.” —Lacy M. Johnson, author of The Reckonings “Tomboyland works through unlikely juxtaposition—tornadoes alongside God, vegetarianism alongside kink, guns alongside love. It is a coming-of-age story where everything is examined, everything is questioned, where the word driftless is both a region and a state of mind. At one point Faliveno’s mother, while cooking meat, states, ‘If I think about it, then I have to look at my whole life.’ Faliveno takes this as a challenge, as she builds a life for us before our eyes. It is, in the end, about the nature of relationships, of love, of being alive.” —Nick Flynn, author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City and The Ticking Is the Bomb

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Book SynopsisIn this rapturous memoir, writer and activist Laura Coleman shares the story of her liberating journey in the Amazon jungle, where she fell in love with a magnificent cat who changed her life. Laura was in her early twenties and directionless when she quit her job to backpack in Bolivia. Fate landed her at a wildlife sanctuary on the edge of the Amazon jungle where she was assigned to a beautiful and complex puma named Wayra. Wide-eyed, inexperienced, and comically terrified, Laura made the scrappy, make-do camp her home. And in Wayra, she made a friend for life. They weren’t alone, not with over a hundred quirky animals to care for, each lost and hurt in their own way: a pair of suicidal, bra-stealing monkeys, a frustrated parrot desperate to fly, and a pig with a wicked sense of humor. The humans, too, were cause for laughter and tears. There were animal whisperers, committed staff, wildly devoted volunteers, handsome heartbreakers, and a machete-wielding prom queen who carried Laura through. Most of all, there was the jungle—lyrical and alive—and there was Wayra, who would ultimately teach Laura so much about love, healing, and the person she was capable of becoming. Set against a turbulent and poignant backdrop of deforestation, the illegal pet trade, and forest fires, The Puma Years explores what happens when two desperate creatures in need of rescue find one another.Trade ReviewAn Amazon Best Book of the Month: Biographies & Memoirs “The Puma Years is a fascinating glimpse into the lives of the animals rescued by a sanctuary, Comunidad Inti Wara Yassi, in Bolivia. And it is the heartwarming story of the relationship that grew up between Laura Coleman and a puma, a relationship that only deepened over the years. I visited the sanctuary years ago—what a wonderful place, dedicated staff and passionate volunteers. Engaging and inspiring—you will love this book.” —Jane Goodall, PhD, DBE, Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute & UN Messenger of Peace “Coleman’s adrenaline rush–inducing debut transports readers along on her 2007 adventure to the Amazon jungle of Bolivia…Coleman’s purpose-finding journey also offers a call to action for addressing the heartbreaking circumstances of wild animals in peril.” —Publishers Weekly “Readers will be hooked by Coleman’s compelling storytelling right from the opening pages…There are poignant breakthroughs, unsettling setbacks, terrifying dangers, narrow escapes, heartbreaking separations and reunions, and hookups and relationships, all channeled through Coleman’s honest, wry, self-effacing, and always entertaining narrative…This is an amazing tale, one that readers will remember.” —Booklist (starred review) “A funny and compelling true story of courage, endurance, and self-discovery. The Puma Years is a hymn to the sorrows and joys of finding kinship with the animal world.” —Gregory Norminton, author and environmentalist “Impassioned, honest, unexpected and often very funny. A book about being consumed by the wild, in all its difficulty and damage, with a vivid cast of humans and animals.” —Nick Hunt, author of Where The Wild Winds Are “The Puma Years is an utterly wonderful book. It is a memoir, a love letter to a puma, and through that love comes the utter heartbreak of the forests. It is not just astonishingly good as a book, but it brings to life the full earthy reality of the forests, its swamps and iridescence, its wild beauty and rottingness, while so poignantly articulating its destruction. It is quite brilliant.” —Jay Griffiths, author of Wild: An Elemental Journey and Why Rebel

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Book SynopsisThe inspiring true story of one man’s treacherous boyhood journey from a rural village in Ghana to the streets of Barcelona—and the path that led him home. Ousman Umar is a shaman’s son born in a small village in Ghana. Though his mother died giving birth, he spent a contented childhood working the fields, setting traps in the jungle, and living off the land. Still, as strange and wondrous flying machines crisscrossed the skies overhead, Ousman dreamed of a different life. And so, when he was only twelve years old, he left his village and began what would be a five-year journey to Europe. Every step of the way, as he traveled across the Sahara desert, through the daunting metropolises of Accra, Tripoli, Benghazi, and Casablanca, and over the sea aboard a packed migrant dinghy, Ousman was handed off like merchandise by a loose network of smugglers and in the constant, foreboding company of “sinkers”: other migrants who found themselves penniless and alone on their way north, unable to continue onward or return home. But on a path rife with violence, exploitation, and racism, Ousman also encountered friendship, generosity, and hope. North to Paradise is a visceral true story about the stark realities of life along the most dangerous migrant route across Africa; it is also a portrait of extraordinary resilience in the face of unimaginable challenges, the beauty of kindness in strangers, and the power of giving back.Trade Review“With unerring humanity, Umar brings instances of light to his sobering tale through moving recollections of the friendships that bolstered him and moments of ‘divine intervention’ that led him to finally find a new home in Spain. This is a stunning testament to the strength of the human spirit.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Both sobering and inspiring, this story about a young African man’s awakening to the realities of an often uncaring world offers a compelling portrait of humanity at its ignorant worst and enlightened best. A candid and provocative memoir from a determined man.” —Kirkus Reviews

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Book SynopsisINSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLERThis authentic and dynamic memoir from the CEO of Kendra Scott Jewelry delivers inspiration, leadership lessons, and spellbinding storytelling.For twenty years, Kendra Scott built her eponymous jewelry company from a hobby and an idea into a company worth more than a billion dollars, creating beautiful and affordable pieces with signature-cut natural gemstones packaged in a sunny yellow box. By any measure, she''s the woman who has it all: a self-made billionaire, a generous philanthropist, and a mother of three with a squad of strong female friendships.Sounds pretty perfect, right?But perfection is a myth that doesn''t serve any of us. A myth that encourages us to assume that we know what other people are going through, to judge each other on appearances and reputations, to present the best versions of ourselves and pretend like we''ve got it all together even when everything is falling apart. Perfection isn''

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Book SynopsisSenator Tim Scott knows adversity. As the son of a single mother from North Charleston, South Carolina, he struggled to get through school and had his dreams of a college football career shattered by a car wreck. But thanks to his mother and a few mentors along the way, he learned that "failure isn't failure unless you quit." He also learned that it's hard work and perseverance, not a government handout, that will get you ahead in life.Today, Senator Scott is the only black Republican in the Senate, and he believes that investment and commerce are the best ways to rebuild our most impoverished communities. This is the idea behind his signature piece of legislation, the "opportunity zones" program, which President Trump has strongly endorsed. The program provides tax incentives for businesses that invest in low-income urban areas, seeking to replace things like welfare and government assistance. In Opportunity Knocks, Senator Scott will tell his life story with a focus on adversity and opportunity. He will teach readers about the principles of hard work and hope while addressing the dangers of veering too far toward socialist policies. The book will also not shy away from discussions of racism and racial inequality in the United States, and will recount some of Senator Scott's own brushes with racism as well as the many discussions he's had with people who want to help, including President Trump.

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Book SynopsisIn the summer of 2014, Firas Jumaah was working diligently to complete his doctorate in chemistry at Lund University in Sweden when he suddenly received news that an ISIS advance in northern Iraq threatened the lives of his wife and children who had returned to their native land for a family wedding. The Islamic State had unexpectedly launched an assault on a nearby village inhabited by members of the Yazidi religious minority, to which Firas belongs, slaughtering or enslaving the entire population. Fearing for his family, Firas immediately returned to Iraq and soon found himself reunited with them behind enemy lines.As the situation worsened by the minute, Firas managed to send a message to his professor, Charlotta Turner, to let her know that he did not expect to return to Sweden to complete his dissertation. Unbeknownst to Firas, Charlotta sprang into action. ?What was happening was completely unacceptable,? she later explained. ?I got so angry that ISIS was pushing itself into our world, exposing my doctoral student and his family to danger, and disrupting his research.? Charlotta consulted university officials about what could be done to help. Unwilling to accept this tragic situation or to abandon her student and his family to the whims of fate, she quickly organized a commando mission that resulted in the dramatic rescue of Firas, his wife, and his two young children, ages four and six, from war-torn Iraq, bringing them safely back to Sweden.Thanks to the heroic efforts of Charlotta and those who supported her efforts, Firas Jumaah finished his Ph.D. in 2016. He now works as a chemist in the Swedish pharmaceutical industry. In Rescued from ISIS Terror, Firas and Charlotta tell their fascinating story. In this riveting tale of family, friendship, and loyalty in the face of extreme adversity, they brilliantly interweave the story of the dramatic rescue operation with that of the tragic situation faced by the Yazidi people in Iraq.

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Book SynopsisThe first book on the birds of California''s oaks, from our most lyrical and observant wanderer of the woods.With charm and delight, The Birds in the Oaks introduces us to the birds who burrow, forage, and soar among California''s keystone trees. The mighty oak hosts a multitude of avian denizens—from canopy hoppers to ground nesters to short-billed surface pluckers—who rely on the trees'' well-stocked pantry of acorns, insects, and flowers for sustenance and shelter. Spunky kinglets, crimson-eyed towhees, cuddle-craving bushtits, intrepid nuthatches, and impudent wrens are among the many memorable cast members in this pageant of oak-allied birds.Jack Gedney lyrically conveys the beautiful, comic, and endearing qualities of over fifteen bird species, each profile paired with an illustration by Angelina Gedney. His bird-filled tales of adaptation, ingenuity, and sheer persistence also bring to light the warp and weft of cross-species interdepen

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Book SynopsisThis is the real stuff. It''s about the people who make the decisions on how cases are handled, the different units and bureaus in the prosecutor''s office, and takes the reader into "the room where it happens," the place where decisions are made at the highest level and where policy is set.Written from a prosecutor''s standpoint, this book touches on the relevant and timely issues facing the country and law enforcement today. It deals with police and prosecutor relationships, drug legalization, the opioid crisis, and dealing with violent juvenile crime.

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Book SynopsisMarc Lewis's relationship with drugs began in a New England boarding school where, as a bullied and homesick fifteen-year-old, he made brief escapes from reality by way of cough medicine, alcohol, and marijuana. In Berkeley, California, in its hippie heyday, he found methamphetamine and LSD and heroin he sniffed nitrous oxide in Malaysia and frequented Calcutta's opium dens. Ultimately, though, his journey took him where it takes most addicts: into a life of desperation, deception, and crime.But unlike most addicts, Lewis recovered to become a developmental psychologist and researcher in neuroscience. In Memoirs of an Addicted Brain , he applies his professional expertise to a study of his former self, using the story of his own journey through addiction to tell the universal story of addictions of every kind.Trade ReviewKirkus "Developmental neuroscientist Lewis examines his odyssey from minor stoner to helpless, full-blown addict...as [he] unspools one pungent drug episode after another, he capably knits into the narrative an accessible explanation of the neural activity that guided his behavior. From opium pipe to orbitofrontal cortex, a smoothly entertaining interplay between lived experience and the particulars of brain activity." Publishers Weekly "Meticulous, evocative... Lewis's unusual blend of scientific expertise, street cred, vivid subjectivity and searching introspection yields a compelling perspective on the perils and allure of addiction." Wall Street Journal "Compelling...for readers grappling with addiction, Mr. Lewis's...approach might well be novel enough to inspire them to seek the happiness he now enjoys." Chronicle of Higher Education "He proceeds deftly from episodes of his drug years to neuroscientific explanations of his brain's response to drugs." Boston Globe "A surprising and charming addition to this crowded genre. Yes, it embraces the classic redemption narrative - teenage experimentation, late-'60s Berkeley, exotic forays into Malaysia and Calcutta, the inevitable slide into deception, crime, and desperation. But he ends up a professional neuropsychologist, able to enliven the tired streams of addled consciousness with metrical rapids of semi-hard science." Guardian "Marc Lewis's brilliant - if not wholly sympathetic - account of his many mind-bludgeoning drug experiences wears its biological determinism on its sleeve ... Lewis has certainly woven his experiences into an unusual and exciting book... (Memoirs of an Addicted Brain) is as strange, immediate and artfully written as any Oliver Sacks case-study, with the added scintillation of having been composed by its subject." The Fix "The most original and illuminating addiction memoir since Thomas De Quincey's seminal Confessions of an Opium Eater...[an] electrifying debut." Midwest Book Review "A powerful survey recounting the author's powerful addiction and how he broke an intense hold on drugs... This will appeal to a range of collections, from those strong in autobiographies to science and health holdings alike."

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