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Imagine for a moment that you have never heard the voices of those you love, the music on the radio,…
the sound of birdsong at dawn nor the persistent passing traffic on the road you walk down. Now imagine that the lips that you have watched moving, the faces that you have smiled at, the words that you read in front of you all slowly start to disappear too. It's hard to comprehend isn't it?Jo Milne had already lived a lifetime surrounded by silence, profoundly deaf from birth, when she began to lose her sight. Just before turning thirty, Jo was diagnosed with Usher Syndrome, a rare genetic and progressive condition that will one day rob her of her sight altogether.Although at this lowest ebb, Jo suffered from deep depression, she has always been determined to live her life to the full. Jo has never let her disabilities affect the way she embraces life however there was always so much that she was missing. In 2014 she made a life-changing decision to undergo major surgery. She had cochlear implants fitted allowing her to hear for the first time. Every moment of Jo's days since the operation has become a journey of discovery.She has been able to hear the voice of her own mother who has stood by her and helped her through some of her darkest moments. She has heard birds sing, people chatting and the sound of children laughing. She is embarking on an incredible journey through four missed generations of music - from the hymns she missed in school assembly to sweeping orchestral performances, from the Beatles and Rolling Stones to the music of this very moment and everything in between. Breaking the Silence is a remarkable and beautifully written memoir that will serve as an inspiration to everyone who reads it. By turns, heart-breaking and heart-warming, it is the incredibly uplifting life-story of a woman who refused to give up hope and always lives life with a smile upon her face.Wrapped in the Flag: A Personal History of America's Radical Right
By Claire Conner. 2013
A narrative history of the John Birch Society by a daughter of one of the infamous ultraconservative organization's founding fathers…
Long before the rise of the Tea Party movement and the prominence of today's religious Right, the John Birch Society, first established in 1958, championed many of the same radical causes touted by ultraconservatives today, including campaigns against abortion rights, gay rights, gun control, labor unions, environmental protections, immigrant rights, social and welfare programs, the United Nations, and even water fluoridation. Worshipping its anti-Communist hero Joe McCarthy, the Birch Society is perhaps most notorious for its red-baiting and for accusing top politicians, including President Dwight Eisenhower, of being Communist sympathizers. It also labeled John F. Kennedy a traitor and actively worked to unseat him. The Birch Society boasted a number of notable members, including Fred Koch, father of Charles and David Koch, who are using their father's billions to bankroll fundamentalist and right-wing movements today. The daughter of one of the society's first members and a national spokesman about the society, Claire Conner grew up surrounded by dedicated Birchers and was expected to abide by and espouse Birch ideals. When her parents forced her to join the society at age thirteen, she became its youngest member of the society. From an even younger age though, Conner was pressed into service for the cause her father and mother gave their lives to: the nurturing and growth of the JBS. She was expected to bring home her textbooks for close examination (her mother found traces of Communist influence even in the Catholic school curriculum), to write letters against "socialized medicine" after school, to attend her father's fiery speeches against the United Nations, or babysit her siblings while her parents held meetings in the living room to recruit members to fight the war on Christmas or (potentially poisonous) water fluoridation. Conner was "on deck" to lend a hand when JBS notables visited, including founder Robert Welch, notorious Holocaust denier Revilo Oliver, and white supremacist Thomas Stockheimer. Even when she was old enough to quit in disgust over the actions of those men, Conner found herself sucked into campaigns against abortion rights and for ultraconservative presidential candidates like John Schmitz. It took momentous changes in her own life for Conner to finally free herself of the legacy of the John Birch Society in which she was raised. In Wrapped in the Flag, Claire Conner offers an intimate account of the society --based on JBS records and documents, on her parents' files and personal writing, on historical archives and contemporary accounts, and on firsthand knowledge--giving us an inside look at one of the most radical right-wing movements in US history and its lasting effects on our political discourse today.Father, Soldier, Son: Memoir of a Platoon Leader In Vietnam
By Nathaniel Tripp. 1998
"Father, Soldier, Son will stand as one of the finest soldier memoirs of the Vietnam War . . . If…
all that has been written about the war in Vietnam, in fiction and nonfiction, has made it a familiar story to some, Tripp overcomes cliché by individualizing every well-known fact." -- The Boston GlobeNATHANIEL TRIPP GREW UP fatherless in a house full of women and he arrived in Vietnam as a just-promoted second lieutenant in the summer of 1968 with no memory of a man's example to guide and sustain him. The father missing from Tripp's life had gone off to war as well, in the Navy in World War II, but the terrors were too much for him, he disgraced himself, and after the war ended he could not bring himself to return to his wife and young son. In "some of the best prose this side of Tim O'Brien or Tobias Wolff" (Military History Quarterly), Tripp tells of how he learned as a platoon leader to become something of a father to the men in his care, how he came to understand the strange trajectory of his own mentally unbalanced father's life, and how the lessons he learned under fire helped him in the raising of his own sons."Not since Michael Herr's Dispatches has there been anything quite as vivid, gripping and soul-searing," raved the Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune said "the description of combat in the jungles of Vietnam are authentic and terrifying, as good as any I have read in fact or fiction."It’s Not Raining, Daddy, It's Happy
By Benjamin Brooks-Dutton. 2014
The Sunday Times bestsellerThe moving and inspiring account of heartbreak and courage, and the life-affirming relationship between a father and…
son. Ben Brooks-Dutton's wife - the great love of his life - was knocked down and killed by a car as he walked beside her, pushing their two-year-old son in his buggy. Life changed forever. Suddenly Ben was a widower deep in shock, left to raise their bewildered child alone. In the aftermath Ben searched for guidance from men in similar situations, but it appeared that young widowed fathers don't talk. Well meaning loved ones admired his strength. The unwritten rule seemed to be to 'shut up, man up and hide your pain'. Lost, broken and afraid of the future, two months after his wife Desreen's death, Ben started a blog with the aim of rejecting outdated conventions of grief and instead opening up about his experiences. Within months Life as a Widower, had received a million hits and had started an all-too-often hushed conversation about the reality of loss and grief. This is the story of a man and a child who lost the woman they so dearly love and what happened in the year that followed. Ben describes the conflicting emotions that come from facing grief head on. He rages against the clichés used around loss and shows the strange and cruel ways in which grief can take hold. He also charts what it means to become a sole parent to a child who has lost their mother and cannot yet understand the meaning of death. Through the shock and sadness shine moments of hope and insight. So much of what Ben learns comes from watching his son struggle, survive and live, as children do, from moment to moment where hurt can turn to happiness and anger can turn to joy. This is a story of loss, heartbreak and courage. At its heart is the funny, infuriating and life affirming relationship between a father and son and their ongoing love for an extraordinary woman.Staring at Lakes: A Memoir of Love, Melancholy and Magical Thinking
By Michael Harding. 2013
Throughout his life, Michael Harding has lived with a sense of emptiness - through faith, marriage, fatherhood and his career…
as a writer, a pervading sense of darkness and unease remained.When he was fifty-eight, he became physically ill and found himself in the grip of a deep melancholy. Here, in this beautifully written memoir, he talks with openness and honesty about his journey: leaving the priesthood when he was in his thirties, settling in Leitrim with his artist wife, the depression that eventually overwhelmed him, and how, ultimately, he found a way out of the dark, by accepting the fragility of love and the importance of now.Staring at Lakes was a number one bestseller in Michael's native Ireland and won three BGE Irish book awards in 2013, including Non-Fiction Book of the Year. 'It's rare for a memoir to demand such intense emotional involvement and rarer still for it to be so fully rewarded' - SUNDAY TIMES.'Staring at Lakes is a raw and honest account of a life in depression. Harding's writing, which is rich and lyrical, is especially astute when describing the pain of living with an illness that has the ability to suck the joy out of any occasion.' - DAILY EXPRESSCricket: Every reason to celebrate
By Scyld Berry. 2015
Winner of the Cricket Writers' Club Book of the Year 2016Shortlisted for the MCC Book of the YearShortlisted for Cricket…
Book of the Year at the Sports Book AwardsScyld Berry draws on his experiences as a cricket writer of forty years to produce new insights and unfamiliar historical angles on the game, along with moving reflections on episodes from his own life. The author covers a range of themes including cricket in different areas of the world, and abstract concepts such as language, numbers, ethics and psychology; Scyld Berry relishes the joys cricket provides and is convinced of the positive effect it can have in people's lives. Cricket: The Game of Life is an inspiring book that reminds readers why they love the game and prompts them to look at it in a new way.Letters To Poseidon
By Cees Nooteboom. 2012
'I had been looking for someone to write to for a long time, but how does a man write letters…
to a god?' From his Mediterranean garden on the island of Menorca, Cees Nooteboom writes to the trident-wielding deity, Poseidon, 'initiating a dialogue not only with the past,' as Alberto Manguel observes in his Preface, 'but with an entire world that seemed lost for ever.' Offering a seductive interweaving of keen observation and the fruits of a vast knowledge, Nooteboom explores questions of human existence through the minutiae of the living world around him, and marvels at the secrets of the deep. He recalls figures in history, places he has travelled to, objets trouvés, works of art and literature, and takes a fresh look at the ancient myths. At once playful and poignant, beautiful and bizarre, Nooteboom's Letters to Poseidon are couched in the glittering prose of one of Europe's outstanding stylists.Dandy in the Underworld: A Memoir (P. S. Ser.)
By Sebastian Horsley. 2007
'Like Salvador Dali's confessions, only far funnier and more self-deprecating, Dandy in the Underworld entertains as much as it revolts,…
is as tender as it is shocking, and as genuine as it is false.' IndependentSure to shock and surprise, Sebastian Horsley recounts his life story with excruciating self-knowledge and a savage wit.'One of the funniest, strangest and most revolting memoirs ever written.' Sunday TimesGrowing up at High Hall, in Hull, with his alcoholic mother, who regularly attempted suicide, his stepfather, a cult member dressed in orange, and his father, a crippled millionaire, Sebastian Horsley couldn't wait to leave home. Searching for happiness, meaning and a good outfit he embarked on a doomed career as a punk guitarist, had a stormy relationship with a notorious Scottish gangster, enjoyed a wildly successful period as a stock-market entrepeneur and experienced a near fatal stint as a shark-hunter. Sebastian charts his years as a dandy, an artist, a male escort and a brothel connoisseur. There are the love affairs, with Rachel 1 and Rachel 2, and a harrowing descent into heroin and crack addiction. Dandy in the Underworld evokes his desperate attempts to get clean, culminating in his crucifixion in the Philippines.Home is Burning
By Dan Marshall. 2015
'An incredibly personal story ... sad, but unbelievably funny' - Claudia Winkleman, BBC Radio 2 Arts Show'This memoir is gasp-out-loud,…
offensively funny, touching and a sure thing for anyone who likes David Sedaris - but with more Mormons' - RedAt twenty-five, Dan left his 'spoiled white asshole' life in Los Angeles to look after his dying parents in Salt Lake City, Utah. His mother, who had already been battling cancer on and off for close to 15 years, had taken a turn for the worse. His father, a devoted marathon runner and adored parent, had been diagnosed with motor neurone disease which was quickly eroding his body. Dan's four siblings were already home, caring for their parents and resenting Dan for not doing the same. Home is Burning tells the story of Dan's year at home in Salt Lake City, as he reunites with his eclectic family -the only non-Mormon family of seven in the entire town - all of them trying their best to be there for the father who had always been there for them.The Duff Cooper Diaries: 1915-1951
By Lord John Julius Norwich. 2006
The long awaited and highly revealing diaries of the politician, diplomat, and socialite (married to Lady Diana Cooper)Duff Cooper was…
a first-rate witness of just about every significant event from 1914 to 1950. His diary includes some magnificent set pieces - as a young soldier at the end of WWI, as a politician during the General Strike of 1926, as King Edward VIII's friend at the time of the Abdication, and from Paris after the liberation in 1944, when he became British ambassador. If Duff Cooper's name has dimmed in the 50 years since his death, publication of these diaries will bring him to the fore once again. His family have long resisted publication - indeed Duff Cooper's nephew, the publisher Rupert Hart-Davis, was so shocked by the sexual revelations that he suggested to John Julius Norwich that it might be best for all concerned if they were burnt. Now, superbly edited by John Julius Norwich, who familial link ensures all kinds of additional information as footnotes, these diaries join the ranks.American Desperado: My Life--From Mafia Soldier to Cocaine Cowboy to Secret Government Asset
By Evan Wright, Jon Roberts. 2011
In 2008 veteran journalist Evan Wright, acclaimed for his New York Times bestselling book Generation Kill and co-writer of the…
Emmy-winning HBO series it spawned, began a series of conversations with super-criminal Jon Roberts, star of the fabulously successful documentary Cocaine Cowboys. Those conversations would last three years, during which time Wright came to realize that Roberts was much more than the de-facto “transportation chief” of the Medellin Cartel during the 1980s, much more than a facilitator of a national drug epidemic. As Wright’s tape recorder whirred and Roberts unburdened himself of hundreds of jaw-dropping tales, it became clear that perhaps no one in history had broken so many laws with such willful abandon. Roberts, in fact, seemed to be a prodigy of criminality – but one with a remarkable self-awareness and a fierce desire to protect his son from following the same path. American Desperado is Roberts’ no-holds-barred account of being born into Mafia royalty, witnessing his first murder at the age of seven, becoming a hunter-assassin in Vietnam, returning to New York to become -- at age 22 -- one of the city’s leading nightclub impresarios, then journeying to Miami where in a few short years he would rise to become the Medellin Cartel’s most effective smuggler. But that’s just half the tale. The roster of Roberts’ friends and acquaintances reads like a Who’s Who of the latter half of the 20th century and includes everyone from Jimi Hendrix, Richard Pryor, and O.J. Simpson to Carlo Gambino, Meyer Lansky, and Manuel Noriega. Nothing if not colorful, Roberts surrounded himself with beautiful women, drove his souped-up street car at a top speed of 180 miles per hour, shared his bed with a 200-pound cougar, and employed a 6”6” professional wrestler called “The Thing” as his bodyguard. Ultimately, Roberts became so powerful that he attracted the attention of the Republican Party’s leadership, was wooed by them, and even was co-opted by the CIA for which he carried out its secret agenda. Scrupulously documented and relentlessly propulsive, this collaboration between a bloodhound journalist and one of the most audacious criminals ever is like no other crime book you’ve ever read. Jon Roberts may be the only criminal who changed the course of American history. From the Hardcover edition.The award-winning New York Times bestseller that inspired BTS's K-pop song 'Magic Shop'. The day that 12-year-old James Doty walked…
in to his local magic shop is the day that changed his life. Once the neglected son of an alcoholic father and a mother with chronic depression, he has gone on to become a leading neurosurgeon, based at Stanford University. He credits Ruth for this incredible turnaround: the remarkable woman he met at the Cactus Rabbit Magic Shop, who devoted the summer to transforming his mind and opening his heart.In this uplifting memoir, Jim explains the visualisation techniques Ruth taught him that gave him the self-esteem to imagine a new future for himself. He examines the science behind mindfulness and why the skills he learned - of focus and attention - now help him to think fast and keep calm in the operating theatre. And he shows us what is possible when you start to change your brain and your heart. Into the Magic Shopimparts some powerful life lessons about how to live better, and inspires us to believe that we all have inside us the capacity to change our own destiny.'I'm sure many readers will be moved by this inspiring story to open their hearts and see what they too can do for others' - His Holiness the Dalai LamaA Daughter's Tale: The Memoir of Winston Churchill's Youngest Child
By Mary Soames. 2011
In this charming and intimate memoir, Winston Churchill's youngest daughter shares stories from her remarkable life--and tells of the unbreakable…
bond she forged with her father through some of the most tumultuous years in British history. Now approaching her ninetieth birthday, Mary Soames is the only surviving child of Winston and Clementine Churchill. Through a combination of personal reminiscences and never-before-published diary entries, she describes what it was like growing up as the scion of one of the lions of twentieth-century statecraft. Warm memories of a childhood spent roaming the grounds of the family's country estate, tending to a small menagerie of pets, evoke the idyllic mood of England between the wars. As she matures into one of her father's most trusted companions, we are given rare glimpses inside the glittering social milieu through which the Churchills moved--as well as the rough-and-tumble world of British politics. With fly-on-the-wall immediacy, Mary describes the momentous debate in Parliament where Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was driven from office, paving the way for Winston Churchill's ascension and the grueling crucible of World War II. During the war Mary served as a gunner in the women's auxiliary, helping to shoot down the German V-1 rockets then bedeviling London. Styling herself as Private M. Churchill to avoid publicity, she led a unique double life that comes vividly alive again in the retelling. Splitting her time between luncheons at Chequers--where she spent time with the likes of Lord Mountbatten--and the turret of an anti-aircraft battery, she was never far from the center of the action. Hitler even reportedly hatched a plan, never consummated, to hire spies to seduce her in order to gain access to secret British war plans. She attended the Potsdam Conference as her father's aide-de-camp, arranging a memorable dinner with Harry Truman and Josef Stalin (whom she acidly remembers as "small, dapper, and rather twinkly"). And when British voters overwhelmingly turned on Churchill in the 1945 election, it is left to Mary to recount the pain and devastation her father could never publicly express. The mutual love and affection between Mary Soames and her parents pours forth from every page of this elegantly written memoir. A Daughter's Taleis both a moving personal history and a source of untold insight into one of the enduring icons of British national life.Out of Harm's Way: The Wartime Evacuation Of Children From Britain
By Jessica Mann. 2006
In June 1940 Britain expected enemy invasion. Despite Churchill's determination to fight on the beaches, many parents made desperate efforts…
to send their children abroad to safety. Thousands left for America, Canada, Australia and other distant countries.In this revealing new book, Jessica Mann, herself a wartime evacuee, looks at the experiences of those who were sent away to a foreign land including their dangerous journeys across U-boat-ridden oceans, and asks how they coped with being away, and also how they found life back in the UK on their return. Drawing on extensive original research and memories of many former evacuees, including Elizabeth Taylor and Shirley Williams, Jessica Mann builds up a moving portrait of a lost generation.Intensive Care: A Doctor's Journey
By Danielle Ofri. 2013
New York Times WellBlog regular contributor, Danielle Ofri has been praised for turning the triumphs and trials of medicine into…
riveting and compassionate stories. This e-book exclusive edition offers 98 pages of her best work. This eBook original exhibits Danielle Ofri's range and skill as a storyteller as well as her empathy and astuteness as a doctor. Her vivid prose brings the reader into bustling hospitals, tense exam rooms, and Ofri's own life, giving an up-close look at the fast-paced, life-and-death drama of becoming a doctor. She tells of a young man uncertain of his future who comes into the clinic with a stomach complaint but for whom Dr. Ofri sees that the most useful "treatment" she can offer him is SAT tutoring. She writes of a desperate struggle to communicate with a critically ill patient who only speaks Mandarin, of a doctor whose experience in the NICU leaves her paralyzed with PTSD, and of her own struggles with the fear of making fatal errors, the dangers of overconfidence, and the impossible attempts to balance the empathy necessary for good care with the distance necessary for self-preservation. Through these stories of her patients, colleagues, and her own experiences, Intensive Care offers poignant insight into the medical world, and into the hearts and minds of doctors and their patients. These stories are drawn from the author's previous books and one is from her forthcoming book, What Doctors Feel: How Emotions Affect the Practice of Medicine.Black Rainbow: How words healed me: my journey through depression
By Rachel Kelly. 2014
Black Rainbow is the powerful first-person story of one woman's struggle with depression and how she managed to recover from…
it through the power of poetry.In 1997, Oxford graduate, working mother and Times journalist Rachel Kelly went from feeling mildly anxious to being completely unable to function within the space of just three days. Prescribed antidepressants by her doctor, and supported by her husband and her family, Rachel slowly began to get better, but her anxiety levels remained high, and six years later, as a stay-at-home mother, she suffered a second collapse even worse than the first.Throughout both of Rachel's periods of severe depression, the healing power of poetry became an integral part of her recovery. As someone who had always loved poetry, it became something for Rachel to cling on to in times of need - from repeating short mantras to learning and reciting entire poems - these words and verses became a powerful force for change in her life. In Black Rainbow Rachel analyses why poetry can be one answer to depression, and the book contains a selected 40 of the poems that provided Rachel with solace and comfort during her breakdown and recovery. At a time when mental health problems and depression are becoming more common, and the stigma around such issues is finally being lifted, this book offers a lifeline for anyone seeking to understand depression and seek new ways to treat it. Poetry is free, has no side-effects and, as Rachel can attest, 'prescribing words instead of pills' can be an incredibly powerful remedy.What Matters: Reflections on Important Things in Life
By Mary Kennedy. 2015
In this book of consideration and appreciation, best-selling author and broadcaster Mary Kennedy takes stock of her life and those…
things most important in it. She considers what makes us strong, and how we can develop resilience in the world through knowing ourselves from within, and knowing our roots. She considers the nature of family and friendship too, and how a mother's role changes over time.Food, fashion, beauty - 'the eyes of the heart' - and the creative arts are all explored, along with honest reflections on the challenges and uncertainties of life, and how we maintain hope and faith in the face of loss. Ultimately, she asks how, as we get older, we can change our world for the better, for those who follow in our footsteps.What Matters is the perfect bedside book to read for solace and inspiration - and the ideal gift for someone important in your life.All of Me
By Michael Posner, Anne Murray. 2009
In this revealing autobiography, Canada's first lady of song, for the first time, tells the whole story of her astonishing…
40-year career in show biz. It is a candid retrospective of the extraordinary success achieved, and the prices that had to be paid."After 'Snowbird' hit, I was swept up like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, and catapulted into a strange new universe ... If I thought for a moment that I was really in control of events, I was deluded." Anne Murray. An unflinching self-portrait of Canada's first great female recording artist, All of Me documents the life of Anne Murray, from her humble origins in the tragedy-plagued coal-mining town of Springhill, Nova Scotia, to her arrival on the world stage. Anne recounts her story: the battles with her record companies over singles and albums; the struggle with drug- and alcohol-ridden band members; the terrible guilt and loneliness of being away from her two young children; her divorce from the man who helped launch her career, Bill Langstroth; and the deaths of two of her closest confidantes. The result is a must-read autobiography by Canada's beloved songbird.When My World Was Very Small: A Memoir of Family, Food, Cancer and My Couch
By Ruth Rakoff. 2010
In the whirlwind of life with three young sons, an active member in her tight-knit community, Ruth Rakoff felt in…
supreme control of her wide world. But when a routine mammogram revealed a tumor, that world rapidly shrunk down to the size of one breast. And so begins the journey of biopsy, surgery, chemotherapy, all accompanied by tidal waves of anxiety and grief: how to tell the children? Should she consider having a healthy breast removed, in case the cancer returns? Will food ever taste good again? Amid all the worry and change, there is also overwhelming gratitude for a stalwart network of family and friends who strive to help and support, to comfort and delight -- even as everyone longs for the old normal of daily life. Through stories, confessions and anecdotes, Ruth Rakoff shows just what is at stake when cancer shows up at the party uninvited. There is no sugarcoating of either the physical or emotional pain of dealing with the disease or the effects of the poisons used to combat it. But for Rakoff, a life without laughter is not worth living. Brazen and irreverent, Ruth tells us that socks, no matter how luxurious, are not a cancer present. That no number of crystal-waving shamans can beat the healing power of good food, good friends and a raucous night on the town. And that just because you have cancer, you don't have to be a better person.Far more than just a recounting of disease and recovery, When My World Was Very Small is an intimate, colorful, one-of-a-kind memoir that celebrates life, love and family.From the Hardcover edition.Toast & Marmalade: and Other Stories
By Emma Bridgewater. 2014
Emma Bridgewater's cheerfully distinctive kitchen pottery - manufactured and traditionally hand-decorated in the Staffordshire Potteries, just as it would have…
been 200 years ago - has found its way onto the dresser shelves and kitchen tables of homes all over Britain and beyond. Her designs are jaunty, friendly, sometimes quietly funny. They call to mind childhood picnics, summer gardens and busy kitchens, with their motifs of Sweet Peas and Figs or bold calligraphic patterns such as Toast & Marmalade. Above all the name Emma Bridgewater suggests home and welcome. This book combines beautiful photographs of Emma's life and designs with a collection of warm stories of her family, along with the inspirations for and characters involved in the success of this particularly English brand.