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Books > Fiction > True stories > Endurance & survival
An extraordinary story of courage and kindness and the ultimate
triumph of family over what, at times, seem like insurmountable
odds. 'Abdul is dignified, defiant even, but his poise is beginning
to wear thin in this place. He needs surgery for a chronic shoulder
injury sustained when he was hit by a car in Kabul. Like the others
in detention with him, he faces an uncertain fate, and years in
limbo. Most of the people in the centre have already had their
spirits broken.' When psychiatrist and mother of three Emma Adams
travels to Darwin as an observer of conditions for mothers and
babies in the immigration detention centres there, she expects the
trip to be confronting. What she doesn't expect is to return to
Canberra consumed by the idea that she must help a sixteen-year-old
unaccompanied Hazara boy from Afghanistan - Abdul. The premise was
simple: Wouldn't any teenage boy be better off staying with a
family rather than locked behind a wire fence? In this brutal and
bureaucratic system, freedom was a hopeless dream. Emma and Abdul's
connection, and her fight to get him out and provide him with an
Australian home, a family and a future, forms an important
testimony in Australia's appalling treatment of asylum seekers.
Their story is a beacon of hope and humanity.
THE ULTIMATE SURVIVAL GUIDE for anyone who thinks they'd survive
the world's most hostile environments - or at least imagine they
could do. ----------------------------- First issued to airmen in
the 1950s, the Air Ministry's Sea Survival guide includes original
and authentic emergency advice to crew operating over the ocean.
With original illustrations and text, these survival guides provide
an insight to military survival techniques from a by-gone era.
Packed with original line drawings and instruction in: - The best
faces to pull to prevent frostbite and when you can expect bits of
you to 'fall off', should you fail - How to build a structurally
sound igloo - How to fashion a mask to prevent snowblindness
Focussing on the harshest of situations one can find oneself in,
Arctic Survival is one of four reprints of The Air Ministry's
emergency survival pamphlets. Others include: Jungle Survival
Desert Survival Arctic Survival
'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.
'Inspiring and very moving. A hero on so many levels' Bear Grylls
'The astonishing journey ... and the service dog that helped him
recover ... A tale that will inspire and amaze' Waterstones.com
When special forces soldier Jason Morgan awoke from a months-long
coma, he was told he'd never walk again. Discovered face-down in a
Central American swamp after a jungle mission gone wrong, he had a
smashed spine,collapsed lungs and countless broken bones. It was a
miracle he'd even survived. Months of painful surgery followed,
with Jason's life balanced on a knife-edge. Released from hospital
in a wheelchair and plagued by memory loss, Jason's life fell
apart. Left alone to raise his three infant sons, all hope seemed
gone,until Jason met Napal, a handsome-as-hell black Labrador
provided by a very special charity. With this one incredible dog at
their side, Jason's life and that of his family would never be the
same again. With Napal's help Jason was able to conquer his
paralysis, eventually completing a marathon and winning numerous
medals in the Wounded Warrior Games. More than that, this amazing
service dog helped heal a family and taught Jason to be the father
his kids needed him to be. A Dog Called Hope is the moving and
heart-warming story of how Jason rediscovered his life's mission,
his strength as a father and, through his beloved dog, his hope.
It's the story of the closeness between one man and one dog like no
other, and how this mesmerizing duo changed countless lives.
Inspirational, tear-jerking and laugh-out-loud uplifting, this is a
story that will brighten any day and warm every heart.
Paul Nazaroff was the ringleader of a desperate plot to overthrow the Bolsheviks in Central Asia in 1918. Declared 'the most dangerous counter-revolutionary at large in the Tashkent region' thus began an extraordinary catalogue of adventures with hair-breadth 'scapes and survival against all odds. Forced to live the life of a hunted animal his escape led him right across Central Asia, over the Himalayas to the plains of Hindustan.
Aisling Creegan's childhood was dominated by an abusive, alcoholic
mother, who tortured her at every turn. From insults through
beatings and being threatened with a butcher's knife, Aisling
endured unthinkable suffering at the hands of the woman who should
have loved her unconditionally. Yet in the midst of this trauma,
Aisling was able to rely on the one person she knew she could trust
- herself. Possessed of an incredible imagination and remarkable
resilience, Aisling found escape in the little things in life:
lying in a field on a sunny day; drawing; Matchbox cars; and her
teddy bear, Panda. Aisling's power to imagine an alternative world
enabled her to hold on and make it to adolescence and the freedom
she had longed for since childhood. But the scars of the past take
time to heal, and when Aisling suffered a breakdown it took her on
a surprising path to freedom - and forgiveness. I Am Someone is an
extraordinary memoir about female cruelty, and ultimately female
strength and endurance. 'Searingly honest ... brings you straight
into the inner world of someone pushed to the limits' Lynn Ruane
The extraordinary true story of the unlikely friendship between
three women - Mussolini's daughter, a German spy, and an American
socialite - who conspired to assist the Allies. In 1943, Edda
Mussolini, daughter of the fascist dictator, gave her father and
Hitler an extraordinary ultimatum: release her husband, Italy's
former foreign minister, Galeazzo Ciano, from prison, or risk her
leaking her husband's incendiary diaries to the press. Instead,
Hitler and Mussolini vowed to do everything in their power to
destroy the diaries - even if it meant killing Edda. They ordered
Hilde Beetz, a German spy, to seduce Ciano in prison in order to
learn the diaries' location. But Beetz fell in love with Ciano, and
joined forces with Edda to try to save him from execution. When
this failed, Edda fled with Hilde's assistance. Upon learning of
Edda's escape, US intelligence sent in socialite Frances de Chollet
to find Edda and get her to hand over the diaries to the Americans.
Against all expectations, what developed was a rich and humanising
friendship. With all the twists and turns of a spy thriller, this
is the story of three women whose lives were drawn together in one
of the most unlikely rescues of the Second World War.
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