|
Books > Fiction > True stories > Endurance & survival
A tiny puppy, neglected and abused, and the foster carer determined
to heal her. When tiny puppy Princess is dumped at the doors of the
Barby Keel Animal Sanctuary by her owners, the brown and white
boxer is suffering from horrendous injuries resulting from a car
accident. Having been operated on by an incompetent vet, her front
leg has been amputated in a botched surgery, leaving her weak and
barely able to stand. With gentle love and care, Barby and her team
at the Sanctuary work hard to give this brave little dog a second
lease of life. Playful and loving, despite her difficult start in
life, Princess is desperate for a forever family to call her own.
But Barby is heartbroken as she watches Princess get rejected over
and over again by potential owners who are put off by her terrible
injury. Will Princess ever find someone to love her?
 |
Miracle on the Hudson
(Paperback)
The Survivors of Flight 1549, William Prochnau, Laura Parker
|
R470
R411
Discovery Miles 4 110
Save R59 (13%)
|
Ships in 18 - 22 working days
|
|
In this heart-stopping tale, the passengers of the Hudson River
crash landing evoke in compelling detail the terrifying explosion
as both engines were destroyed, the violent landing on the river,
and the thrill of their rescue from the wings and from rafts. Jay
McDonald, a thirty-nine-year-old software developer, had survived
brain-tumor surgery just two years earlier and now faced the
unimaginable. Tracey Wolsko, a nervous flier, suddenly became other
people's rock: "Just pray. It's going to be all right." As the
plane started sinking, Lucille Palmer, eighty-five, told her
daughter to save herself: "Just leave me!" Featuring moments of
chaos and stoicism, fortuitous mistakes and quick instincts,
"Miracle on the Hudson "is the chronicle of one of the most
phenomenal stories of recent years, one that could have been a
nightmare and instead became a stirring narrative of heroism and
hope.
"Impossible to put down, makes you laugh and cry, Sophie's story is
inspirational. It gives us so much hope and encouragement. I don't
think we would be where we are on our own journey without her
advice." OLLIE LOCKE "A read so twisty your heart pounds as you
turn the pages." THE SUNDAY TIMES Brave, funny and honest,
columnist Sophie Beresiner takes us on her complex journey to
parenthood and shows us that there's more than one way to become a
mother. Sophie's journey to motherhood began aged 30 with a cancer
diagnosis that stole her fertility. Today, Sophie is older, wiser
(and agonisingly excellent at hindsight), and somewhat battered.
Through interminable cycles of hope and failure, her infertility
story spanned three countries, five surrogates and a debt she'd
rather not dwell on. Part memoir, part manifesto, The Mother
Project is the epic story of Sophie's quest for happiness.
Exploring the complexities, expectations and injustices faced by
millions of women across the world, it is a book that is both
personal and universal.
From Diana Darke, the acclaimed author of My House in Damascus and
The Merchant of Syria, comes the extraordinary true story of a
heroic ambulance driver who created a cat sanctuary in the midst of
war-torn Aleppo. "I'll stay with them no matter what happens.
Someone who has mercy in his heart for humans has mercy for every
living thing." When war came to Alaa Aljaleel's hometown, he made a
remarkable decision to stay behind, caring for the people and
animals caught in the crossfire. While thousands were forced to
flee, Alaa spent his days carrying out perilous rescue missions in
his makeshift ambulance and building a sanctuary for the city's
abandoned cats. In turn, he created something unique: a place of
tranquility for children living through the bombardment and a
glimmer of hope for those watching in horror around the world. As
word of Alaa's courage and dedication spread, the kindness of
strangers enabled him to feed thousands of local families and save
hundreds of animals. But with the city under siege, time was
running out for the last sanctuary in Aleppo and Alaa was about to
face his biggest challenge yet... This is the first memoir about
the war in Syria from a civilian who remains there to this day,
providing both a shocking insider account as well as an inspiring
tale about how one person's actions can make a difference against
all odds.
The powerfully moving new novel from Sunday Times bestselling
author, Maggie Hartley. Fourteen-year-old Shazia has been taken
into care after a conversation at school leads her teacher to
suspect that the teenager's family are planning to send her to
Pakistan for an arranged marriage. To her family's fury, Shazia is
sent to live with foster carer Maggie Hartley whilst social
services investigate. But with Shazia denying everything and social
services unable to find any evidence to support the teacher's
fears, Shazia is allowed to return home. But a few weeks later,
Maggie is woken up in the middle of the night by a phone call from
a terrified Shazia, who has managed to escape the family home
through a window. Sobbing, she confesses to Maggie that her parents
are planning to send her to Pakistan to be married in a few days,
and have threatened to kill her if she speaks out again. Returned
to Maggie's care, Shazia is petrified that her parents will track
her down and kill her, and Maggie must be on constant alert. But
the worst is yet to come when it emerges that Shazia is the victim
of FGM. Can Maggie help this damaged and traumatised young girl
understand what has happened to her and to find a way to heal? In
this new book, Maggie Hartley taps into the highly topical issues
of FGM and arranged marriage, and presents a sensitive and unique
insight into the effect these practices have on their young
victims.
Aan urgent and engrossing work of investigative journalism that unfolds across four continents, from the remote forests of northern Nigeria to the White House; from Khartoum safe houses to gilded hotel lobbies in the Swiss Alps.
In the spring of 2014, an American hip hop producer unwittingly triggered an online hurricane with a quickly thumbed tweet featuring a four-word demand: #BringBackOurGirls. The hashtag called for the release of 276 Nigerian schoolgirls who'd been kidnapped by a little-known Islamic terrorist sect called Boko Haram. Within hours, the campaign had been joined by millions, including some of the world's most recognizable people: Oprah Winfrey, Pope Francis, David Cameron, Kim Kardashian and Michelle Obama.
Their tweets launched an army of would-be liberators - American soldiers and drones, Swiss diplomats, spies and glory hunters - into an obscure conflict in a remote part of Nigeria that had barely begun to use the internet. But when hostage talks and military intervention failed, the schoolgirls were forced to take survival into their own hands. As the days in captivity dragged into years, they became witnesses, and often victims, of unspeakable brutality that they chronicled in secret diaries. Many of the girls were Christians who refused to take the one easier path offered to them - converting their captors' extremist creed.
Bring Back Our Girls is an urgent and engrossing work of investigative journalism that unfolds across four continents, from the remote forests of northern Nigeria to the White House; from Khartoum safe houses to gilded hotel lobbies in the Swiss Alps. It plumbs the promise and peril of an era whose politics are fuelled by the power of hashtag advocacy - and at its centre stand some exceptionally courageous and resourceful young women.
Discover the brave, shocking and remarkable true story of two RAF
lieutenants' capture during the Gulf War 'HEROISM UNDER A BLOOD RED
SKY' Independent 'THE MOST COMPELLING STORY OF THE GULF WAR' Daily
Mail _________ RAF Flight Lieutenants John Peters and John Nichol
were shot down over enemy territory on their first mission of the
Gulf War. Their capture in the desert, half a mile from their
blazing Tornado bomber, led to seven harrowing weeks of torture,
confinement and interrogation. An ordeal which brought both men
close to death. In Tornado Down, John Peters and John Nichol tell
the incredible story of their part in the war against Saddam
Hussein's regime. It is a brave and shocking and totally honest
story: a story about war and its effects on the hearts and minds of
men.
"I Am Nobody is an honest, tragic account of child sexual abuse and
a powerful resource for individuals struggling with recovery.
Gilhooly clearly highlights the shortcomings of the Canadian
justice system's approach; hopefully, one day, the punishment will
fit the crime." —Sheldon Kennedy, former NHL player and
author of Why I Didn't Say Anything In this raw, unflinching look
at how his dream of playing hockey was stolen from him by
charismatic hockey coach and sexual predator Graham James, Greg
Gilhooly describes in anguishing detail the mental torment he
suffered both during and long after the abuse and the terrible
reality behind the sanitized term "sexual assault." Although James
has been convicted of sexually assaulting some of his victims,
including Sheldon Kennedy and Theo Fleury, he neither confessed in
court nor was convicted of sexually assaulting many of his other
victims, including Gilhooly, depriving him of the judicial closure
he craved. Gilhooly also provides a valuable legal perspective-as
both a victim and a lawyer-missing from other such memoirs, and he
delivers a powerful indictment of a legal system that, he argues,
does not adequately deal with serial sexual child abuse or allocate
enough resources to the rehabilitation of the victim. Most
important, Gilhooly offers hope, affirmation, and inspiration for
those who have suffered abuse and for their loved ones.
'Fascinating ... a poignant book ... an unusual and absolutely
authentic view of those convulsive years' OBSERVER 'Each story in
Wave Me Goodbye is a relic of the Second World War' SUNDAY TIMES
'This is as stark and acidic a collection of war stories as you
will read ... Stripped bare of the sentimentalism attached to love
in wartime' SCOTSMAN This collection of wartime stories includes
some of the finest writers of a generation. War had traditionally
been seen as a masculine occupation, but these stories show how
women were equal if different participants. Here, war is less about
progress on the frontline of battle than about the daily struggle
to keep homes, families and relationships alive; to snatch pleasure
from danger, and strength from shared experience. The stories are
about saying goodbye to husbands, lovers, brothers and sons - and
sometimes years later trying to remake their lives anew. By turn
comical, stoical, compassionate, angry and subversive, these
intensely individual voices bring a human dimension to the
momentous events that reverberated around them and each opens a
window on to a hidden landscape of war. Writers include: Jean Rhys,
Beryl Bainbridge, Elizabeth Bowen, Elizabeth Taylor, Stevie Smith,
Rosamond Lehmann, Barbara Pym, Angela Thirkell, Sylvia Townsend
Warner, Dorothy Parker, Doris Lessing, Olivia Manning, Rose
Macaulay and Stevie Smith
'Poetically written, absorbing, harrowing' The Times 'The raw and
emotional account of an optician whose family fishing trip suddenly
placed him amid the human tragedy of hundreds of drowning migrants
is a story that needed to be told' Fiona Wilson, The Times 'An
important book ... I cried all the way through' Tracy Chevalier
From an award-winning BBC journalist, this moving book turns the
testimony of an accidental hero into a timeless story about human
fellowship and the awakening of courage and conscience. 'I can
hardly begin to describe to you what I saw as our boat approached
the source of that terrible noise. I hardly want to. You won't
understand because you weren't there. You can't understand. You
see, I thought I'd heard seagulls screeching. Seagulls fighting
over a lucky catch. Birds. Just birds.' Emma-Jane Kirby has
reported extensively on the reality of mass migration today. In The
Optician of Lampedusa she brings to life the moving testimony of an
ordinary man whose late summer boat trip off a Sicilian island
unexpectedly turns into a tragic rescue mission.
It was a beautiful fall day in Connecticut when Colleen Alexander, a lifelong competitive athlete, rode her bike home from work, having just learned her job with the nonprofit PeaceJam was secure. She had survived a diagnosis of lupus and brain surgery that almost took her life, and was married at last to the love of her life, Sean. Life was good as she met the eyes of a truck driver rolling up to the stop sign beside her.
He didn't stop.
The truck hit Colleen, running over her lower body with front and back tires and dragging her across the pavement. As she bled out in the street, nearby stranger surrounded her and the driver attempted to get away. An EMT herself, Colleen knew she had to stay awake. "I've just been reconnected with my soulmate," she told the medic. "We want to have a baby. I can't die now. Please don't let me die." Colleen spent five weeks in a coma and had 29 surgeries. But she survived, and despite losing her job and suffering from PTSD, she began to focus on all the heroes who saved her life. Determined to find a way to make something positive from her pain, she decided she'd run again. She would dedicate her race medals to the everyday heroes around us, including the medical staff and the 156 blood donors who saved her life.
Since the accident Colleen has run 50 races and completed 40 triathalons, including 4 half-Ironman events (1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike ride, 13.1-mile run). She is now a spokesperson for the Red Cross, and shares her incredible inspirational story to encourage others to take that first step forward.
The hilarious, heartwarming and - unbelievably - true story of
Maurice Flitcroft, the World's Worst Golfer 'The story of its
greatest anti-hero is just what the game needs' Spectator When
46-year-old crane driver Maurice Flitcroft chanced his way into the
Open - having never before played a round of golf in his life - he
ran up a record-worst score of 121. The sport's ruling classes
banned him for life. Maurice didn't take it lying down. In a
hilarious game of cat-and-mouse with The Man, he entered
tournaments again - and again, and again - using increasingly
ludicrous pseudonyms such as Gene Pacecki, Arnold Palmtree and
Count Manfred von Hoffmanstel (more often than not disguised by a
fake moustache). In doing so, he sent the authorities into
apoplexy, and won the hearts of fans from Muirfield to Michigan,
becoming arguably the most popular - and certainly the bravest -
sporting underdog the world has ever known 'Hilarious' Esquire
From the Sunday Times bestselling author Dr Amanda Brown. Insights
into the world of a Prison Doctor, this time taking us deeper into
the walls of Bronzefield, the UK's biggest women's prison. From the
drug addicts who call Amanda 'the mother I never had' to the women
who've pushed back at domestic abuse, to women close to release in
their 70s, who just want to stay in the place that they've always
known, these are stories that are heartbreaking, harrowing and
heart-warming. Amanda listens, prescribes, and does what she can.
After all, she's their doctor.
After years of physical and mental abuse, Jade thought her kindly
foster mother would be the answer to her prayers. She was wrong ...
this is her staggering true story. 'This must be what prison is
like,' I thought as another hour crawled by. In fact, prison would
be better ... at least you knew your sentence. You could tick off
the days until you got out. In the Bad Room we had no idea how long
we'd serve. After years of constant abuse, Jade thought her foster
mother Linda Black would be the answer to her prayers. Loving and
nurturing, she offered ten-year-old Jade a life free of fear. But
once the regular social-worker checks stopped, Linda turned and
over the next six years Jade and three other girls were kept
prisoner in a bedroom they called the 'bad room'. Shut away for 16
hours at a time, they were starved, violently beaten, forbidden
from speaking or using the toilet and routinely humiliated. Jade
was left feeling broken and suicidal. This is the powerful true
story of how one woman banished the ghosts of her past by taking
dramatic action to protect the life of every vulnerable child in
care.
Vintage Feminism: classic feminist texts in short form WITH AN
INTRODUCTION BY JESS PHILLIPS Soldier, criminal, militant,
hooligan, revolutionary: these labels Emmeline Pankhurst took up
and wore proudly in her long struggle for women's suffrage. This
shortened edition of her autobiography tells the inside story of
this struggle: the tireless campaigning, the betrayals by men in
power, the relentless round of arrests and hunger strikes, the
horror of force-feeding. It is a reminder of the controversial
means, the indomitable spirit and the sacrifices of life and
liberty by which women won their political freedom. ALSO IN THE
VINTAGE FEMINIST SHORTS SERIES: The Second Sex by Simone de
Beauvoir A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary
Wollstonecraft The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf A Room of One's Own by
Virginia Woolf
|
|