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Showing 1 - 20 of 618 items
By Denise Chong. 2024
From the bestselling author of The Concubine&’s Children and The Girl in the Picture, a gripping story of a domestic assault…
that shocked the world, of the exercise of power and political influence, and of the Bangladeshi woman whose irrepressible spirit found light in sudden darkness.From the outside, Rumana seemed an unlikely victim of domestic abuse: married to a man of her own choosing and progressing in her career as a professor of international relations at Dhaka University. But in 2011, on return from graduate studies at the University of British Columbia, her husband attacked and blinded her in front of their young daughter. As Rumana's horrifying story garnered international headlines, and connections brought her to Vancouver in an attempt—ultimately futile—to restore her sight, her plight underscored the fact that there are no typical victims of intimate-partner violence. Denise Chong goes behind the headlines to reveal the devolution of a love story into a tale of tyranny behind closed doors, and the pursuit of justice that proved all the more elusive during the rise of social media. Out of Darkness tells a globe-spanning narrative of loyalty, perseverance and a woman&’s determination to face the future and rebuild a life with meaning.By Ernesto Che Guevara. 2011
En abril de 1965, el Che Guevara se marcha de La Habana al Congo para dirigir a 200 veteranos cubanos…
que asisten al movimiento de liberación africana contra los colonialistas belgas, cuatro años después del asesinato del presidente socialista democráticamente electo, Patrice Lumumba.Porque el diario trata el admitido "fracaso" del Che, examina cada detalle doloroso de lo sucedido para poder extraer enseñanzas constructivas para futuros movimientos guerrilleros.Único entre sus libros, Pasajes de la Guerra Revolucionaria: Congo es un retrato del Che brutalmente honesto que ilustra su capacidad como cuentista; en sus relatos de los fascinantes episodios de conflicto armado de la guerrilla no hay hesitación, endulzamiento o jerga. Algunos lo consideran el mejor libro del Che, también es uno de los pocos que editó para la publicación luego de escribirlo.By Susan Page. 2024
The definitive biography of the most successful female broadcaster of all time—Barbara Walters—a woman whose personal demons fueled an ambition…
that broke all the rules and finally gave women a permanent place on the air, written by bestselling author Susan Page.Barbara Walters was a force from the time TV was exploding on the American scene in the 1960s to its waning dominance in a new world of competition from streaming services and social media half a century later. She was not just a groundbreaker for women (Oprah announced when she was seventeen that she wanted to be Barbara Walters), but also expanded the big TV interview and then dominated the genre. By the end of her career, she had interviewed more of the famous and infamous, from presidents to movie stars to criminals to despots, than any other journalist in history. Then at sixty-seven, past the age many female broadcasters found themselves involuntarily retired, she pioneered a new form of talk TV called The View. She is on the short list of those who have left the biggest imprints on television news and on our culture, male or female. So, who was the woman behind the legacy? In The Rulebreaker, Susan Page conducts 150 interviews and extensive archival research to discover that Walters was driven to keep herself and her family afloat after her mercurial and famous impresario father attempted suicide. But she never lost the fear of an impending catastrophe, which is what led her to ask for things no woman had ever asked for before, to ignore the rules of misogynistic culture, to outcompete her most ferocious competitors, and to protect her complicated marriages and love life from scrutiny. Page breaks news on every front—from the daring things Walters did to become the woman who reinvented the TV interview to the secrets she kept until her death. This is the eye-opening account of the woman who knew she had to break all the rules so she could break all the rules about what viewers deserved to know.By Bakari Sellers. 2024
The New York Times bestselling author of My Vanishing Country examines the modern political landscape and policies that are impacting…
Black families and communities and offers solutions for a better tomorrow. In late May in 2020, while discussing the murder of George Floyd on CNN, Bakari Sellers spoke from the heart sharing devastating insight that touched millions around the world: “It’s just so much pain. You get so tired. We have black children. I have a 15-year-old daughter. I mean, what do I tell her? I’m raising a son. I have no idea what to tell him. It’s just—it’s hard being black in this country when your life is not valued and people are worried about the protesters and the looters. And it’s just people who are frustrated for far too long and not have their voices heard.”In this powerful and persuasive book, Sellers expands on the issues he addressed in his New York Times bestseller My Vanishing Country, examining national politics and policies that deeply impact not only Black people in his home state of South Carolina but the lives of millions of African Americans in communities across the nation. Four years later, Sellers has an answer to the question he raised on CNN, offering much-needed prescriptions to help all Black American lives.Sellers explores inequities in healthcare, education, early childhood education, and policing, drawing on interviews with numerous thought leaders such as pioneering voting rights and poverty activist the Rev. William Barber, and Ben Crump, the civil rights legend who successfully uses the law to achieve justice for people of color in racially charged cases. He also shares his thoughts on conservative media and the forces and dark money behind firebrands such as Tucker Carlson. This thoughtful and practical work is a timely meditation on the state of our world today and how we can all play a part in making it better for tomorrow.By Nell Irvin Painter. 2024
From the New York Times bestselling author of The History of White People and Old in Art School, a finalist…
for the NBCC Award, comes a comprehensive new collection of essays spanning art, politics, and the legacy of racism that shapes American history as we know it.Throughout her prolific writing career, Nell Painter has published works on such luminaries as Sojourner Truth, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Malcolm X. Her unique vantage on American history pushes the boundaries of personal narrative and academic authorship. Led by an unbridled curiosity for her subjects, Painter asks readers to reconsider ideas of race, politics, and identity. I Just Keep Talking assembles her writing for the first time into a single volume, displaying the breadth and depth of Painter&’s decades-long historical inquiry and the evolution of Black political thought—and includes a dazzling introduction and coda being published for the first time in this collection. From her mining of figures like Carrie Buck and Martin Delaney for their resonance today, to a deep dive into the history of exclusion through the work of Toni Morrison, to a discussion of the American political landscape after the 2016 election, Painter nimbly portrays the trials of a country frequently at war with itself.Along with Painter&’s writing, this collection offers her original artwork, threaded throughout the book as counterpoint and emphasis. Her visual art shows a deft mind turning toward the tragedy and humor of her subjects; pulling from newspapers, personal records, and original sketches, Painter&’s artwork testifies to the dialectic of tremendous change and stasis that continues to shape American history.These essays resist easy answers in favor of complexity, the inescapable sense of our country&’s potential thwarted by its failures. This collection will surely solidify Painter&’s place among the finest critics and writers of the last half century.By Patrick Brode. 2024
At the end of World War II, a young Japanese Canadian would stand trial and face execution for having committed…
war crimes and betraying his country.One of the most bizarre stories to emerge at the end of the Second World War was that of Kanao Inouye. Born in Kamloops, B.C., in 1916, he had relocated to his ancestral homeland of Japan, and by 1942 was a translator for the Japanese army. He was assigned to the prisoner of war camp in Hong Kong where he became infamous as one of the “most sadistic guards” over the Canadian survivors of the Battle of Hong Kong. Scores of prisoners would attest to his brutality administered in revenge for the treatment he had received growing up in Canada.His reputation was such that he was quickly apprehended after the war and faced charges of war crimes. But his subsequent trials became mired in questions as to who he really was. Was he a Canadian forced to serve in the Japanese military machine? Or was he a devoted soldier of his emperor obeying his superiors?By Faith S. Holsaert. 2024
Through her childhood spent in 1940s New York being raised by two mothers, her work with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating…
Committee during the Civil Rights Movement, and raising her own children in the coalfields of West Virginia, Faith S. Holsaert has been defined by the intertwined forces of race, activism, and family. As a young woman on the front line of the Civil Rights Movement, she learned the power of contested narratives and came to understand her whiteness, her queer identity, and her stakes in overturning racism. Later in life, she confronted sexual abuse and mental illness across three generations of women in her family to find that these painful histories have played a significant role in the development of her identity as a woman, activist, and mother. Through a lifetime laid bare in prose and poetry, Holsaert beautifully quilts memoir, social history, and historic events into a gripping and inspirational narrative. This powerful and structurally innovative work lends new categories of meaning to those who would strive to find their place, hope, and sense of belonging in efforts to fight against systemic racism and lead lives characterized by openness and love.By Monica Kulling. 2010
In the second of Tundra's Great Idea series, biographies for children who are just starting to read, Monica Kulling presents…
the life of an extraordinary man.There were few opportunities for the son of slaves, but Elijah McCoy's dreams led him to study mechanical engineering in Scotland. He learned everything there was to know about engines - how to design them and how to build them. But when he returned to the United States to look for work at the Michigan Central Railroad, the only job Elijah could get was shoveling coal into a train's firebox.Undaunted, he went on to invent a means of oiling the engine while the train was running, changing the face of travel around the world.With playful text and lively illustrations, All Aboard! Elijah McCoy's Steam Engine may be the first biography a child discovers, and it will whet the appetite for many more.By S. J. Peddie. 2022
&“Couldn&’t put it down.&” —Nicholas Pileggi, author of Wiseguy (Goodfellas) and CasinoThe extraordinary life and times of a legendary crime boss who refused…
to squeal—but who finally agreed to talk to an award-winning New York Newsday reporter shortly before his death at age 103 . . . John &“Sonny&” Franzese reportedly committed his first murder at the age of fourteen. As a &“made man&” for the Colombo crime family, he operated out of his Long Island home specializing in racketeering, fraud, loansharking, and other illicit deeds he would deny to his dying day. His career in organized crime spanned over eight decades—and he was sentenced to fifty years in prison for robbery charges. But even behind bars, Sonny Franzese never stopped doing business . . . This is the true story of an old-school mafioso as it&’s never been told before. Newsday reporter S. J. Peddie interviewed Franzese in prison—and uncovered a lifetime of shocking secrets from the legend himself: * Why FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had a very personal interest in Sonny. * How Sonny managed to juggle numerous affairs with women, including a famous model. * How Sonny spent a third of his life in prison—and still managed to earn untold millions for the mob. * How Sonny accidentally revealed some of his worst crimes—to a &“friend&” wearing a wire. Through it all, Franzese refused to break the Mafia&’s code of silence. Authorities believe he may have murdered, or ordered the murders of, forty to fifty people. Yet he earned a grudging respect from law enforcement and an absolute reverence from his fellow gangsters. Eventually he managed to outlive them all—until his death in 2020 of natural causes, a rare event in the Mafia. Thanks to a series of exclusive firsthand interviews, the astonishing life story of John &“Sonny&” Franzese can be told in all its bold, brutal, and blood-spattered glory. This is a must-read for anyone fascinated with Mafia history—and a rare look inside a criminal mind that has become the stuff of legend.By Danny Dyer. 2010
Growing up in the eighties in East London was no picnic. Proper hard bastards, wannabe villains and cockney wide boys…
everywhere you went, all looking to make their mark. With trouble at home and more at school, Danny Dyer didn't have many options. He was a rascal, running with a tough crowd, getting himself into scrapes with the Old Bill, on the verge of becoming just another nobody. Until he started to act.It came naturally to him. He landed role after role, working with big stars, making a name for himself. And then came Human Traffic, and his career went into overdrive. Fame opened doors into the best clubs, the best booze and even better drugs. But with the highs came the lows, and as the drinks flowed, the work dried up. Shut out of an industry that didn't understand him, that heard his reputation before bothering with his talent, he had no choice but to turn it around and sort himself out. This is the real story - straight up.Funny, honest, full of swagger, and jammed full of antics and anecdotes, this memoir tears it up proper and delivers on every page.By Simon Roberts, Stephen Jones. 2009
Since making his national debut in 1998, Stephen Jones has emerged from the shadows of the true greats of Welsh…
rugby, such as Barry John, Phil Bennett, Jonathan Davies and Neil Jenkins, to make the fly-half position his own. In this revealing autobiography, he provides a rare insight into the demands and pressures of wearing the almost mythical number 10 jersey that has such a pre-eminent status in the Welsh psyche.As well as playing an integral role in Wales's two Grand Slam victories, Jones has appeared in three Rugby World Cups and was part of the 2005 British and Irish Lions squad. He has witnessed at first hand how the Welsh rugby establishment has struggled with the transition to professionalism, and in this candid memoir he recounts the many highs he has experienced, as well as the challenges he has faced, throughout his career so far.Jones gives an intriguing account of how he became one of the few Welsh players to play in France, recalling the brutality of the game there and how he became a cult figure amongst fans of Clermont Auvergne, where he was twice voted fly-half of the season.In Stephen Jones - A Thinking Man's Game: My Story, the Welsh rugby star reveals how his steely resolve, utter determination and sheer passion for rugby have allowed him to bounce back from numerous setbacks to become one of the most popular and respected figures in the game today.By Jan De Vries. 2002
Although Jan de Vries finds himself too young for an autobiography, many of his friends and patients have pushed for…
it. A Step At A Time recounts de Vries' amazing journey so far, beginning with his upbringing in Holland - during which he experienced the 'hunger winter' of 1944 - and charting the development of his amazing 40 year career, throughout which he earned a reputation as an enduring guru of alternative medicine.This gripping and highly entertaining book reveals much about the man and why so many turn to him in his role as a respected homeopathic doctor. Whether it is royalty, film stars, sportsmen or the general public, his clinics are all greatly overbooked, making it difficult at times to get an appointment with him. What is the secret of 'the man with the x-ray eyes', who he sees many things that others do not. Is this an extra sense, intuition, or just the experience of over 40 years of dealing with people medically? In almost 40 books written by him in his life so far, de Vries has shared a great deal of his knowledge with the world, which he has gathered by himself via independent research, and through consultation with his great teachers. However, in A Step At The Time, he reveals some of the secrets that people have always wanted to know, such as how he can consistently work over 90 hours per week and manage ten clinics throughout Britain. In this candid autobiography, he shares some of the gifts that were given to him and for which he is very thankful.By Steven McLaughlin. 2006
From the harsh realities of basic training to post-war chaos in Iraq and knife-edge tension in Northern Ireland, Squaddie takes…
us to a place not advertised in army recruitment brochures. It exposes the grim reality of everyday soldiering for the 'grunts on the ground'.After the tragic death of his brother, and in the dark days following 9/11, McLaughlin felt compelled to fulfil his lifelong ambition to serve in the army. He followed his late brother into the elite Royal Green Jackets and passed the arduous Combat Infantryman's Course at the age of 31. Thereafter, McLaughlin found himself submerged in a world of casual violence.Squaddie is a snapshot of infantry soldiering in the twenty-first century. It takes us into the heart of an ancient institution that is struggling to retain its tough traditions in a rapidly changing world. All of the fears and anxieties that the modern soldier carries as his burden are laid bare, as well as the occasional joys and triumphs that can make him feel like he is doing the best job in the world.This is an account of army life by someone who has been there and done it.By Nicci Mackay. 1998
SPOKEN IN WHISPERS is the autobiography of a remarkable woman. Nicci Mackay is a horse whisperer, one of only a…
few people in the world who can calm agitated horses or revive their broken spirits by translating what they say.Nicci, who has had the extraordinary gift of being able to communicate with animals since childhood, tells her story with honesty and humou r.She writes about a life dedicated to animals-from her years spent as groom and jockey in a racing yard, when she operated in secret, to more recent times, after the media discovered her amazing abilities. She now spends her time travelling extensively, translating and interperating on behalf of animals for their owners. Nicci gives the reader a rare and facinating insight into the minds, emotions and bewildering behaviour of our four-legged friends, from thoroughbred stallions to sheepdogs, opening the door to their world through often hilarious, sometime poignant, but always thought-provoking adventures and encounters with the animals she has met throughout her life. As well as horses, Nicci has worked with a variety of domestic pets, farm animals and birds. This will delight all those who share her love of animals.By Emma Grazette, Stevie Parle. 2012
Stevie Parle and Emma Grazette are on a mission to spice up Britain's kitchens and revolutionise the way we cook…
with the treasures hidden away in our cupboards. This book, accompanying the award-winning Channel 4 series, will show just how to bring the magic of spice into your home.Emma and Stevie have been on a journey to all corners of the world to discover the secrets of six essential everyday spices, learning from the world's experts - the people who grow and cook with them every day. In this book they share the best recipes, therapies and mementoes from their journey.Their recipes are inspired not just by the countries visited on this trip, but from all over the world. Some are hot, some sweet, some subtle, and they're all special, take less than twenty minutes to prepare and are really easy to cook. And as well as exploring the culinary uses of each spice, Emma also reveals their therapeutic value through the secrets she discovered from the remarkable people she met on her journey.With over 100 thoroughly tested recipes, therapies and photography from an incredible journey, let Spice Trip transform your cooking and your life from the ordinary to the extraordinary.By Izzy Hammond, Robert Potter. 2007
'It is my dearest hope that this book will allow me to reach out to others in pain and give…
them hope, for they too can choose to be a survivor.'Izzy Hammond's deaf and partially blind parents attracted sympathy from the outside world, but no one knew of the horrific abuse their daughter was subjected to inside the family home.In Someone To Watch Over Me, Izzy is now able to reveal how the vicious childhood abuse she suffered, first at the hands of her father and then by subsequent predators, cast a shadow over three generations of her family and led to a violent assault upon Izzy by her eldest daughter. Finally able to break the cycle, she has at last reclaimed a life free from the demons that have haunted her for so long.By Tim Bradford. 2010
Tim Bradford is growing up in a small town in Lincolnshire in the 1970s. Market Rasen is not the most…
exciting place, but to his teenage mind it was the centre of the universe. Tim is at that in-between phase between childhood and adolescence, where you are trying to be grown up and get your first snogs whilst at the same time still playing with airfix models and making dens.Tim takes us through his first crushes, falling in love with the local beauty queen and an elusive Gallic beauty on a French exchange. His first attempts at getting drunk and trying to impress girls, forming bands which churned out endless numbers of rubbish songs and trying to avoid deckings by the local hards. Tim and his equally hapless friends are gradually working towards breaking free of their childhoods and moving away from their roots. Life in this small town was a rollercoaster of mundane happenings. Small Town paints a portrait of the energy and melancholy at the heart of our generation, the inability to live for now and the feeling that something better is just around the corner. Too young (just) to be baby boomers and too English and uncool to call itself Generation X. It's a universal tale about dreams, ambitions, brass bands, cubs, rugby songs, football stickers, tractors, young love and valve amplifiers connected up to cheap distortion pedals, set at a time of political change and pudding basin hair.By Helen Batten. 2013
Heart-warming tales of nursing and midwifery from the Sisters who worked with Jennifer Worth.‘A second’s silence and then an almighty…
scream. It was the most moving thing I had ever seen … A baby, a real live baby, another human life had entered the world. It didn’t seem possible and yet I had witnessed it with my very own eyes.’Born into a happy working-class North London family in the mid-twentieth century, Katie is determined to ‘do something’ with her life. Working in the impoverished East End in the 1950s, she meets the Sisters of St John the Divine – a community of nuns dedicated to nursing and midwifery. The Sisters have been present at births, cared for the sick and laid out the dead of the East Enders for a hundred years, and Katie soon joins them to start her journey to becoming Sister Catherine Mary. As a nurse and midwife, Katie learns to deal with everything from strokes to breech births. Tragedy is never far away, but there are also moments of pure joy as lives are saved and the Poplar residents rally round. As a young novice Katie rallies against the vow of obedience, yet over the years learns much about the nature of dedication and love.Full of desperate hardship, humour and compassion, Katie’s story brings to life the unique world of these nursing Sisters in London’s East End. Sister Catherine Mary’s story was written by Helen Batten after in-depth interviews with today’s Sisters of the Community of St John the Divine.The Community of St John the Divine was founded in 1848 in a bid to make nursing a respectable profession. Early Sisters worked in the Crimea with Florence Nightingale and were instrumental in developing recognised training and qualifications for nurses and midwives. In the early 20th century they were working in areas such as Poplar and Deptford becoming a treasured part of the community. Today the Sisterhood is based in Birmingham and their website is www.csjd.org.uk.Helen Batten studied history at Cambridge and then journalism at Cardiff University. She went on to become a producer and director at the BBC and now works as a writer and a psychotherapist. She lives in West London with her three daughters.By Dr James Mackay. 1998
Thomas Lipton burst onto the national scene in 1897, the year of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. The Princess of Wales…
had launched a £30,000 fund to provide a Jublilee dinner for the poor, but, with only weeks to go, no more than £5,000 had been subscribed. Lipton saved the day by writing a cheque for £25,000. The annonymous gift created massive press speculation and even greater publicity when the identity of the donor leaked out two days later. Lipton's generosity earned him a knighthood and propelled him into society at the highest level, a personal friend of the future King and Queen.Many of the myths that surrounded Lipton in the latter part of his life were created at this time and would be fixed for ever in his autobiography, published shortly after his death in 1931. Until now, what we know of Sir Thomas Lipton, grocery millionaire and yachtsman, is what he chose to tell the world about himself. Now literally detective James Mackay has uncovered the true story of one of the turn of the century's most extrordinary, larger-than-life characters, a story which is indefinitely more dramatic than the accepted version.Virtually everything Lipton tells us about himself is now shown to be untrue - even the origins of his family, his name, his date of birth and the place where he was born. The man who was hailed as the world's most eligible bachelor (his name was linked romantically with Rose Fitzgerald, the future mother of John F. Kennedy) had at least two skeletons in the closet - a youthful indescretion which led to a forced marriage, and a homosexual affair which lasted for thirty years.As a self-publicist he was a genius, and this was the key to his remarkable success. Beginning with a small shop in Glasgoe in 1871 he created a nationwide grocery chain second to none. In the process, he revolutionised the grocery retail trade, dealing direct with producers and eventually controlling production himself, with tea estates in Ceylon and meat-packing plants in Chicago. He combined a flair for organisation with superb showmanship, with stunts such as five-ton cheeses stuffed with gold sovereigns. In 1898 his company went public in one of the most successful share issues in stockmarket history.Lipton developed an interest in yachting which he pursued with the same single-mindedness as his business ventures. Between 1898 and 1930 he challenged for the America's Cup with a succession of yachts called Shamrock, but the rules of the race were heavily weighted in favour of the American defenders. The saga of his challenges, his near triumphs and the disappointments that would have destroyed a less heroic figure has become the most stirring in the annals of sport, and provides a fitting conclusion to the life of a maverick and outsider who was also one of the most colourful and flamboyant tycoons of all time.By Jacqueline Pascarl. 2007
In Once I Was a Princess, Jacqueline Pascarl related the gripping story of her abusive childhood and her subsequent teen…
marriage to a prince. What should have been a fairy tale with a happy ending deteriorated into a nightmare of deceit and betrayal - ending in the kidnapping of her two small children by her former husband, who spirited them back to Malaysia.In Since I Was a Princess, Pascarl peels back the layers of her life after the abduction. She tells how she channelled her grief, forging an existence as an aid worker and humanitarian ambassador in war-torn countries and working with refugees and the dispossessed. She describes how she persuaded some of the world's most influential figures to support her aid work and became a human rights activist on the international stage, championing the cause of other parents whose children had been kidnapped and reuniting scores of families.Pascarl also explains how she lived frenetically as she painfully rebuilt her life and re-evaluated her relationships, grappling with the emotional complexities of a new pregnancy and beginning a second family. And she reveals for the first time the dramatic details of how, at last, she was able to be reunited with her long-lost children and make her family whole.Candid and compelling, Since I Was a Princess is an unforgettable ride through tragedy, loss and, finally, triumph.