Search results for ""atlantic books""

In Band of Angels, Kate Cooper tells the surprising story of early Christianity from the woman's point of view. Though they are often forgotten, women from all walks of life played an invaluable role in Christianity's growth to become a world religion.Peasants, empresses, and independent businesswomen contributed what they could to an emotional revolution unlike anything the ancient world had ever seen. By mobilizing friends and family to spread the word from household to household, they created a wave of change not unlike modern 'viral' marketing. For the most part, women in the ancient world lived out their lives almost invisibly in a man's world. Piecing together their history from the few contemporary accounts that have survived requires painstaking detective work. Yet a careful re-reading of ancient sources yields a vivid picture, and shows how daily life and the larger currents of history shaped one another. This remarkable book tells the story of how a new way of understanding relationships took root in the ancient world. By sharing the ideas that had inspired them, ancient women changed their own lives. But they did something more: they changed the world around them, and in doing so, they created an enduring legacy. Their story is a testament to what invisible people can achieve, and to how the power of ideas can change history.

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And Man Created God is a sweeping exploration of the religions of the world at the time of Jesus: this is popular history at its best.At the time of Jesus's birth, the world was in ferment. Across Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Asia - societies rife with gods and messiahs, priests and warriors - the old certainties of family, village and tribe were being overturned. Religion was becoming the source of order and stability.And Man Created God takes the reader on a dazzling journey across the empires of the ancient world to reveal how emperors and kings manipulated religion to consolidate their power. In Rome, Augustus was deified by his brilliant spin doctors; in what is now Sudan, the warrior queen Amanirenas exploited her godlike status to inspire her armies to face, and defeat, Rome; while in China, the usurper Wang Mang won and lost the throne over his obsession with Confucianism.In this riveting account of the interplay of faith and power, Selina O'Grady answers the most urgent question of all: how did the tiny Jesus cult triumph over more popular religions - the goddess Isis, the miracle worker Apollonius, even the cult of Augustus - to become the world's dominant faith?

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How old is the sloth? How do sloths have sex?How did a sloth save Dublin?The answers to these questions, and more, are found in this wonderfully entertaining celebration of the sloth. Walking readers through the sloth's evolutionary history - from the prehistoric ground sloth to modern pygmy - William Hartston reveals the sloth's fascinating journey from maligned mammal to cause célèbre. Playfully peppered with science and filled with factoids, Sloths is a love-letter to the most anachronistic, and just a little bit ridiculous, of animals.'Riveting... Sloths is as comprehensive a look at the instincts, lifestyle and capacities of this curious creature as you are ever likely to need.' Daily Express

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Longlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger Award in 2020, the second book from the author of The Angel's Mark, a CWA Dagger shortlisted novel and a Walter Scott Prize Academy Recommended Read 2019'S.W. Perry's ingeniously plotted novels have become my favourite historical crime series.' S. G. MacLean, author of The Seeker series____________________Treason sleeps for no man...London, 1591. Nicholas Shelby, physician and reluctant spy, returns to his old haunts on London's lawless Bankside. But, when spymaster Robert Cecil asks him to investigate the dubious practices of a mysterious doctor from Switzerland, Nicholas is soon embroiled in a conspiracy that threatens not just the life of an innocent young patient, but the overthrow of Queen Elizabeth herself.With fellow healer and mistress of the Jackdaw tavern, Bianca Merton, again at his side, Nicholas is drawn into a sinister world of zealots, charlatans and dangerous fanatics...

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The priest adjusted a cross hanging on the wall. It was a black cross without the image of Christ. Just a black cross on a grey surface. The prosecutor did not want to think about the cross burned into the forehead of the corpse...Félix Chacaltana Saldívar is a hapless, by-the-book prosecutor living in a small town, six-hundred kilometers from Lima. Until now he has led a life in which nothing exceptionally good or bad has ever happened to him. But when a charred and mutilated body, discovered during Carnival, signals the return of a serial murderer, Saldívar is inexplicably put in charge of the enquiry. As he investigates he must confront what happens to a man, and to a society, when death becomes the only certainty.

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The Number One International BestsellerThe dramatic story of freelance photographer Daniel Rye, who was held hostage for 13 months by ISIS, as told by an award-winning writer.In May 2013, freelance photographer Daniel Rye was captured in Syria and held prisoner by Islamic State for thirteen months, along with eighteen other hostages. The ISIS Hostage tells the dramatic and heart-breaking story of Daniel's ordeal and details the misery inflicted upon him by the British guards, which included Jihadi John.This tense and riveting account also follows Daniel's family and the nerve-wracking negotiations with his kidnappers. It traces their horrifying journey through impossible dilemmas and offers a rare glimpse into the secret world of the investigation launched to locate and free not only Daniel, but also the American journalist and fellow hostage James Foley.Written with Daniel's full cooperation and based on interviews with former fellow prisoners, jihadists and key figures who worked behind the scenes to secure his release, The ISIS Hostage reveals for the first time the torment suffered by the captives and tells a moving and terrifying story of friendship, torture and survival.

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'Reel History is a hoot! Alex von Tunzelmann writes with a blend of playful wit and delicious snark' Greg JennerFrom ancient Egypt to the Tudors to the Nazis, the film industry has often defined how we think of the past. But how much of what you see on the screen is true? And does it really matter if filmmakers just make it all up? Picking her way through Hollywood's version of events, acclaimed historian Alex von Tunzelmann sorts the fact from the fiction. Along the way, we meet all our favourite historical characters, on screen and in real life: from Cleopatra to Elizabeth I, from Spartacus to Abraham Lincoln, and from Attila the Hun to Nelson Mandela.Based on the long-running column in the Guardian, Reel History takes a comic look at the history of the world as told through the movies - the good, the bad, and the very, very ugly.

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A celebration of writers and their encounters with politics and public life from one of our greatest critics.Unacknowledged Legislation is a celebration of Percy Shelley's assertion that 'poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world'. In over thirty magnificent essays on writers from Oscar Wilde to Salman Rushdie, and with his trademark wit, rigour and flair, master critic Christopher Hitchens dispels the myth of politics as a stone tied to the neck of literature. Instead, Hitchens argues that when all parties in the state were agreed on a matter, it was the individual pens that created the space for a true moral argument.I have been asked whether I wish to nominate a successor, and inheritor, a dauphin or delfino. I have decided to name Christopher Hitchens. - Gore Vidal

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'Satisfyingly twisty plot, this intricate thriller ' - Daily Mail'Crazily gripping, terrifying' - Chris Whitaker, author of All the Wicked Girls______________________________When Solomon's sister is found drugged and in a coma after an online date, Solomon can't believe this was just a terrible accident. Determined to find out what happened to his sister, and with the police unwilling to help, Solomon begins to investigate on his own. He soon uncovers a rash of similar cases of women who have been found brutally murdered or assaulted after an online date. There is a predator out there working the streets of London, preying on young women. Solomon sets out to bring him to justice, putting him on a collision course with a deadly killer who is fiendishly clever and more twisted than anyone could possibly imagine...

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'I suppose that, if this collection has a point, it is the desire of one individual to see the idea of confrontation kept alive' -- Christopher Hitchens, IntroductionChristopher Hitchens is widely recognized as having been one of the liveliest and most influential of contemporary political analysts. Prepared for the Worst is a collection of the best of his essays of the 1980s published on both sides of the Atlantic. These essays confirmed his reputation as a bold commentator combining intellectual tenacity with mordant wit, whether he was writing about the intrigues of Reagan's Washington, a popular novel, the work of Tom Paine, the man George Orwell, or reporting (with sympathy as well as toughness) from Beirut or Bombay, Warsaw or Managua.Hitchens writes clearly, from a well-stocked mind, and is free of the cant that affects many political journalists. - Publishers Weekly

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In 1968, at the age of 22, Karl Marlantes abandoned his Oxford University scholarship to sign up for active service with the US Marine Corps in Vietnam. Pitched into a war that had no defined military objective other than kill ratios and body counts, what he experienced over the next thirteen months in the jungles of South East Asia shook him to the core. But what happened when he came home covered with medals was almost worse. It took Karl four decades to come to terms with what had really happened, during the course of which he painstakingly constructed a fictionalized version of his war, MATTERHORN, which has subsequently been hailed as the definitive Vietnam novel.WHAT IT IS LIKE TO GO TO WAR takes us back to Vietnam, but this time there is no fictional veil. Here are the hard-won truths that underpin MATTERHORN: the author's real-life experiences behind the book's indelible scenes. But it is much more than this. It is part exorcism of Karl's own experiences of combat, part confession, part philosophical primer for the young man about to enter combat. It It is also a devastatingly frank answer to the questions 'What is it like to be a soldier?' What is it like to face death?' and 'What is it like to kill someone?'

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Stephen Trombley's A History of Western Thought, outlines the 2,500-year history of European ideas from the philosophers of Classical Antiquity to the thinkers of today.No major representative of any significant strand of Western thought escapes Trombley's attention: the Christian Scholastic theologians of the Middle Ages, the great philosophers of the Enlightenment, the German idealists from Kant to Hegel; the utilitarians Bentham and Mill; the transcendentalists Emerson and Thoreau; Kierkegaard and the existentialists; the analytic philosophers Russell, Moore, Whitehead and Wittgenstein; and - last but not least - the four shapers-in-chief of our modern world: Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein.A History of Western Thought is a masterly distillation of two-and-a-half millennia of intellectual history, and a readable and entertaining crash course in Western philosophy.

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The acclaimed international bestseller now a MAJOR MOTION PICTURE starring Constance Wu, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh and Gemma Chan!When Rachel Chu agrees to spend the summer in Singapore with her boyfriend, Nicholas Young, she envisions a humble family home and time with the man she might one day marry. What she doesn't know is that Nick's family home happens to look like a palace, that she'll ride in more private planes than cars and that she is about to encounter the strangest, craziest group of people in existence. Uproarious, addictive, and filled with jaw-dropping opulence, Crazy Rich Asians is an insider's look at the Asian jet set; a perfect depiction of the clash between old money and new money - and a fabulous novel about what it means to be young, in love, and gloriously, crazily rich.

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A stocking-fodder sensation of classic Christmas carols told through the brilliantly British medium of pun, by the internationally renowned Guardian cartoonist, Martin Rowson.Carol Carnage takes the first verse and chorus line of five world-famous carols and renders them into stunning pen-and-ink puns, brimming with English eccentricity, invention and Christmas-crackerly bawdiness. Whether it is the frosty beauty of In the Bleak Midwinter maliciously misheard as the vomit-spackled Ian the Greek,Mid-wine Tour or the trumpeting joy of God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen spitefully styled as a husband and wife drunkenly heckling one another in Got Dressed Yet Mary? Gin Till Morn!, the internationally renowned cartoonist Martin Rowson unrepentantly takes aim at po-faced carol enthusiasts and dangerously earnest Christmassers the world over.

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Some games are dangerous.And some are deadly...Ava doesn't believe it when the email arrives to say that her twin sister is dead. It just feels too perfect to be anything other than Zelda's usual manipulative scheming. And Ava knows her twin.Now, Ava must return home to retrace her sister's last steps. But her search turns into a twisted scavenger-hunt of her twin's making.Letter by letter, Ava unearths clues to her sister's disappearance, which reveal a series of harrowing truths from their past - truths both of them had tried to forget. A is for Ava, Z is for Zelda, but deciphering the letters in-between is not so simple...

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'Hugely entertaining' Guardian'Fascinating' Mail on SundayIn 1882, Jean-Martin Charcot was the premiere physician in Paris, having just established a neurology clinic at the infamous Salpêtrière Hospital, a place that was called a 'grand asylum of human misery'. Assessing the dismal conditions, he quickly upgraded the facilities, and in doing so, revolutionized the treatment of mental illness. Many of Charcot's patients had neurosyphilis (the advanced form of syphilis), a disease of mad poets, novelists, painters, and musicians, and a driving force behind the overflow of patients in Europe's asylums. A sexually transmitted disease, it is known as 'the great imitator' since its symptoms resemble those of almost any biological disease or mental illness. It is also the perfect lens through which to peel back the layers to better understand the brain and the mind. Yet, Charcot's work took a bizarre turn when he brought mesmerism - hypnotism - into his clinic, abandoning his pursuit of the biological basis of illness in favour of the far sexier and theatrical treatment of female 'hysterics', whose symptoms mimic those seen in brain disease, but were elusive in origin. This and a general fear of contagion set the stage for Sigmund Freud, whose seductive theory, Freudian analysis, brought sex and hysteria onto the psychiatrist couch, leaving the brain behind. How The Brain Lost Its Mind tells this rich and compelling story, and raises a host of philosophical and practical questions. Are we any closer to understanding the difference between a sick mind and a sick brain? The real issue remains: where should neurology and psychiatry converge to explore not just the brain, but the nature of the human psyche?

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'Superbly realised. You'll go a long way before you find a better-written thriller this year' THE TIMESBreathtaking . . . filled with twists and turns' JEFFERY DEAVER *Featured on The Times' Best Summer Reading of 2022**Featured on Crimereads' Most Anticipated Crime Books of 2022!* ______________A small town. A deadly secret.A race against an invisible killer . . .Southern California, 1987. Rancho Santa Elena might look like paradise, but a series of violent hate crimes are disturbing the peace. When Detective Benjamin Wade starts investigating, it becomes clear that the locals are hiding a secret - one they'll die to protect.With forensic expert Natasha Betencourt at his side, Ben uncovers a mysterious gang of youths involved in the town's growing white power movement. What he doesn't know is that they are part of something much bigger - a silent organisation of terror who are luring young men in using new technology.Ben zeroes in on the gang's freshest young recruit, hoping he will lead him to the mastermind of the operation. But as he digs deeper, he is forced to confront uncomfortable truths about himself and his community. And as Ben comes closer to discovering the truth, the killer is drawing closer to Ben. . .* * *Praise for Alan Drew 'Everything a great thriller should be' LEE CHILD'A vivid portrait of a seedy world' GRAHAM MOORE'Revises the old detective story and turns it in several fascinating directions' COLUM MCCANN'A clarity and wisdom reminiscent of Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch' DAILY MAIL 'Smart, chilling, and impossible to put down' WILLIAM LANDAY'The sort of magically absorbing novel that keeps you turning the pages and checking the locks on the door' LAUREN GRODSTEIN

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In this revealing and entertaining guide to how the Romans confronted their own mortality, Peter Jones shows us that all the problems associated with old age and death that so transfix us today were already dealt with by our ancient ancestors two thousand years ago.Romans inhabited a world where man, knowing nothing about hygiene let alone disease, had no defences against nature. Death was everywhere. Half of all Roman children were dead by the age of five. Only eight per cent of the population made it over sixty. One bizarre result was that half the population consisted of teenagers. From the elites' philosophical take on the brevity of life to the epitaphs left by butchers, bakers and buffoons, Memento Mori ('Remember you die') shows how the Romans faced up to this world and attempted to take the sting out of death.

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'Smart, perceptive, elegant, sad, surprising and addictive. And it's also FUNNY.' Nick Hornby'What We Run the Tides probes so poignantly is the volatility of female adolescence... Knowing and powerfully enigmatic.' ObserverTeenage Eulabee and her magnetic best friend, Maria Fabiola, own the streets of Sea Cliff, their foggy oceanside San Francisco neighbourhood. They know Sea Cliff's homes and beaches, its hidden corners and eccentric characters - as well as the upscale all-girls' school they attend. One day, walking to school with friends, they witness a horrible act - or do they? Eulabee and Maria Fabiola vehemently disagree on what happened, and their rupture is followed by Maria Fabiola's sudden disappearance - a potential kidnapping that shakes the quiet community and threatens to expose unspoken truths.Suspenseful and poignant, We Run the Tides is Vendela Vida's masterful portrait of an inimitable place on the brink of radical transformation. Pre-tech boom San Francisco finds its mirror in the changing lives of the teenage girls at the centre of this story of innocence lost, the pain of too much freedom, and the struggle to find one's authentic self. Told with a gimlet eye and great warmth, We Run the Tides is both a gripping mystery and a tribute to the wonders of youth, in all its beauty and confusion.'We Run the Tides is hypnotic, knowing, and propulsive as it examines girlhood, friendship, and the strong pull of the past.' Meg Wolitzer

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'An enthralling page-turner' DILLY COURT'A heart-warming WW2 love story' ROSIE GOODWIN'The queen of East End sagas' ELAINE EVEREST Jean Fullerton, the RNA-shortlisted queen of the East End, returns with the final nostalgic and heart-warming story of the Brogan family. _____In the final days of war, only love will pull her through . . . Queenie Brogan wasn't always an East End matriarch. Many years ago, before she married Fergus, she was Philomena Dooley, a daughter of Irish Travellers, planning to wed her childhood sweetheart, Patrick Mahone. But when tragedy struck and Patrick's narrow-minded sister, Nora, intervened, the lovers were torn apart.Fate can be cruel, and when Queenie arrives in London she finds that Patrick Mahone is her parish priest, and that the love she had tried to suppress flares again in her heart.But now in the final months of WW2, Queenie discovers Father Mahone is dying and must face losing him forever. Can she finally tell him the secret she has kept for over fifty years or will Nora once again come between them?And if Queenie does decide to finally tell Patrick, could the truth destroy the Brogan family?___Praise for Jean Fullerton: 'Charming and full of detail... You will ride emotional highs and lows... Beautifully written' The Lady on A Ration Book Daughter'A delightful, well researched story' bestselling author Lesley Pearse*What are readers saying about Jean Fullerton?'I loved it. Easy to read and loveable characters. If you love novels set during WW2 then this is a must read.''A must-read story that I'd strongly recommend for readers who enjoy historical family stories.''This author never fails to keep you enthralled with each page. Hopefully this isn't the last we see of the Brogans.'THE RATION BOOK SERIESA Ration Book DreamA Ration Book Christmas A Ration Book Childhood A Ration Book WeddingA Ration Book DaughterA Ration Book Christmas KissA Ration Book Christmas Broadcast A Ration Book Victory

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Chosen as one of the best books of 2022 by the Financial Times and the Telegraph.Longlisted for the Moore Prize for Human Rights Writing'Compelling, powerful and necessary.' Shoshana Zuboff, author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism'Fascinating' GuardianWithout a moment's pause, we share our most intimate thoughts with trillion-dollar tech companies. Their algorithms categorize us and jump to troubling conclusions about who we are. They also shape our everyday thoughts, choices and actions - from who we date to whether we vote. But this is just the latest front in an age-old struggle.Part history and part manifesto, Freedom to Think explores how the powerful have always sought to influence how we think and what we buy. Connecting the dots from Galileo to Alexa, human rights lawyer Susie Alegre charts the history and fragility of our most important human right: freedom of thought. Filled with shocking case-studies across politics, criminal justice, and everyday life, this ground-breaking book shows how our mental freedom is under threat like never before. Bold and radical, Alegre argues that only by recasting our human rights for the digital age can we safeguard our future.

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Elizabeth's reign is reaching its winter and England's old adversaries are fading. But in a world on the brink of change, showing any weakness can be fatal...1598. Nicholas Shelby, unorthodox physician and reluctant spy for Robert Cecil, has brought his wife Bianca and their child home from exile in Padua. Welcome at court, his star is in the ascendancy. But he has returned to a dangerous world.Two old enemies are approaching their final reckoning. England and Spain are exhausted by war. In London, Elizabeth is entering the twilight of her reign. In Madrid, King Philip of Spain is dying. Perhaps now is the time for one last throw of the dice.Elizabeth has seen off more than one Spanish attempt at invasion. But still she is not safe. In Ireland, rebellion against her rule is raging. And if Spain can take Ireland, England will be more vulnerable than ever.When England's greatest living poet, Edmund Spenser, sends Robert Cecil an enigmatic and mysterious plea for help from his Irish fastness, Cecil dispatches Nicholas to investigate. Soon he and Bianca find themselves caught up not just in bloody rebellion, but in the lethal power-play between Cecil and the one man Elizabeth believes can restore Ireland to her, the unpredictable Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex.

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'Historical fiction at its finest' - Belfast TelegraphDorset, 1642.When bloody civil war breaks out between the King and Parliament, families and communities across England are riven by different allegiances.A rare few choose neutrality.One such is Jayne Swift, a Dorset physician from a Royalist family, who offers her services to both sides in the conflict. Through her dedication to treating the sick and wounded, regardless of belief, Jayne becomes a witness to the brutality of war and the devastation it wreaks. Yet her recurring companion at every event is a man she should despise because he embraces civil war as the means to an end. She knows him as William Harrier, but is ignorant about every other aspect of his life. His past is a mystery and his future uncertain.The Swift and the Harrier is a sweeping tale of adventure and loss, sacrifice and love, with a unique and unforgettable heroine at its heart.

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***'Tense, lyrical, intelligent' - The Big Issue******A heart-wrenching human story - Saga***Exit West meets An American Marriage in this breathtaking and evocative novel about a young Syrian couple in the throes of new love, on the cusp of their bright future...when a travel ban rips them apart on the eve of their son's birth.Boston, 2017: When Hadi returns to his heavily pregnant partner Sama after a trip to Jordan to bury his father, he is stopped at border control - a hostile new immigration law has just been enacted - while she awaits him on the other side. Worlds apart, suspended between hope and disillusion as hours become days become weeks, Sama and Hadi yearn for a way back to each other, and to the life they'd dreamed up together. But does that life exist any more, or was it only an illusion? Achingly intimate yet poignantly universal, No Land to Light On is the story of a family caught up in forces beyond their control, fighting for the freedom and home they found in one another.

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The gripping story of what it's like to be the daughter of a woman who changed the world - perfect for fans of The Power and VoxA BBC RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB PICK AND KINDLE NO. 1 BESTSELLER 'Engrossing and original. The Silence Project will get people talking' Bernardine Evaristo Mother. Martyr. Murderer. On Emilia Morris's thirteenth birthday, her mother Rachel moves into a tent at the bottom of their garden. From that day on, she never says another word.Inspired by Rachel's example, other women join her and together they build the Community. Eight years later, Rachel and thousands of her followers shock the world as they silence themselves forever.In the aftermath of what comes to be known as the Event, the Community's global influence quickly grows. As a result, the whole world has an opinion about Rachel - whether they see her as a callous monster or a heroic martyr - but Emilia has never voiced hers publicly. Until now. Readers can't stop shouting about The Silence Project: 'A true masterpiece' ***** 'One hell of a book!' ***** 'Had me hooked' ***** 'Red-hot' ***** 'I don't think I've ever read a book as quickly' ***** 'Gave me the shivers' *****

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At twenty-six, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother's rapid death from cancer, her family disbanded and her marriage crumbled. With nothing to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to walk eleven-hundred miles of the west coast of America - from the Mojave Desert, through California and Oregon, and into Washington state - and to do it alone. She had no experience of long-distance hiking and the journey was nothing more than a line on a map. But it held a promise - a promise of piecing together a life that lay in ruins at her feet. Strayed's account captures the agonies - both mental and physical - of her incredible journey; how it maddened and terrified her, and how, ultimately, it healed her. Wild is a brutal memoir of survival, grief and redemption: a searing portrayal of life at its lowest ebb and at its highest tide.

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For the past six years, Whitney Dafoe has been confined to a bedroom in the back of his parents' home, unable to walk, eat or speak. His diagnosis? The mysterious disease myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) which affects 20 million people around the world who largely suffer in silence because the condition is little known and much misunderstood. Waiting for Superman follows Whitney's father, groundbreaking geneticist Ron Davis, as he uncovers new possibilities for treatments and potentially a cure. At its heart, this book is about more than just cutting-edge research or a race to find an answer - it's about the lengths to which a parent will go to save their child's life.

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