"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.

Praise for Luke and Ryan Hart's memoir: 'A powerful, searing account from incredible brothers and an important contribution to our understanding of domestic abuse' Victoria Derbyshire '... a courageous account of domestic abuse and the devasting impact it has on families' Jeremy Corbyn MP 'Relevant and inspiring' Chris Green, White Ribbon UK On 19 July 2016, Claire and Charlotte Hart were murdered, in broad daylight, by the family's father. He shot his wife and daughter with a sawn-off shotgun before committing suicide. REMEMBERED FOREVER is the shocking story of what led to this terrible crime. Luke and Ryan Hart, the family's two surviving sons, lived under the terror of coercive control. Their father believed that his family members were simply possessions, never referring to them by their names ... just as Woman, Boy, Girl. Written by the boys, but laced with the voices of Claire and Charlotte, this gripping and moving account brings deeper understanding to the shocking crime of domestic abuse and homicide. Luke and Ryan Hart have become spokespeople for the victims who are so often silenced but must never be forgotten.

Travelling the world is an exhilarating, eye-opening, life-affirming experience. But it can also be scary to even think about. There are language barriers, borders to cross, planes to fly in, and of course, the mystery of an unknown land. It can be difficult to take the chance, even when you're yearning for adventure. This inspirational collection of true travel stories proves that the best journeys are to be had when you feel the fear but go anyway. From a nervous flier anxiously taking to the skies for the first time to a female traveller braving the Middle East, from a death-defying hike on an Indonesian volcano to the anxious freedom of finding yourself alone on the other side of the world, these stories are certain to send you looking for your passport. Created by the popular travel writing website, Intrepid Times, as part of an international writing competition that saw entries pouring in from across the globe, Fearless Footsteps is travel writing at both its most exhilarating and its most introspective. Covering every continent from Africa to Antarctica, these carefully selected stories get to the heart of what it means to be a traveller and see the world with courage, open-mindedness, and relentless curiosity.

'In my world, the word inspirational gets bandied around a lot, but Jonny Benjamin is truly deserving of that adjective.' – HRH The Duke of Cambridge

'Jonny Benjamin is the most inspirational man I know. His book shows us how remarkable the human spirit is.' Bryony Gordon, bestselling author of Mad Girl

In 2008, twenty-year-old Jonny Benjamin stood on Waterloo Bridge, about to jump. A stranger saw his distress and stopped to talk with him – a decision that saved Jonny's life.

Fast forward to 2014 and Jonny, together with Rethink Mental Illness launch a campaign with a short video clip so that Jonny could finally thank that stranger who put him on the path to recovery. More than 319 million people around the world followed the search. ITV's breakfast shows picked up the story until the stranger, whose name is Neil Laybourn, was found and – in an emotional and touching moment – the pair re-united and have remained firm friends ever since.

The Stranger on the Bridge is a memoir of the journey Jonny made both personally, and publicly to not only find the person who saved his life, but also to explore how he got to the bridge in the first place and how he continues to manage his diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder. Using extracts from diaries Jonny has been writing from the age of thirteen, this book is a deeply personal memoir with a unique insight on mental health.

Jonny was recognized for his work as an influential activist changing the culture around mental health awareness, when he was awarded an MBE in 2017. He and Neil now work full-time together visiting schools, hospitals, prisons and workplaces to help end the stigma by talking about mental health and suicide prevention. The pair ran the London Marathon together in 2017 in aid of HeadsTogether. Following the global campaign to find the stranger, in 2015 Channel 4 made a documentary of Jonny's search which has now been shown around the world.

Barry Woodward grew up in Greater Manchester, England. At the age of 16 he left school without any qualifications and was drawn into the drug scene, experimenting with cannabis, amphetamines and LSD. This led to a heroin addiction and life as a drugs supplier. For twelve years he was totally dependent on drugs, during which time he spent a number of terms in prison. Miraculously, his life turned around completely following an amazing sequence of supernatural encounters.

When Maggie's latest placement arrives on her doorstep, it is clear that Sean, Dougie and their big sister Mary have been through unspeakable traumas in their short?lives. Violent and malnourished,?the siblings have been left to fend for themselves by their drug-addicted parents. Maggie must use all of her skills and experience as a foster carer to help these damaged siblings to learn to be children again. With much love, care and patience, their behaviour gradually starts to improve and social services start looking for a forever family for them. But alarm bells start to ring when Maggie meets the couple who have been matched to adopt the siblings. It is clear that they're looking for the perfect, ready-made family, and they're not going to get it with these vulnerable brothers and sister. Despite raising her concerns with social services, Maggie is powerless to prevent the adoption from going ahead and she must put aside her own fears to help the siblings settle in with their new parents. But she can't shake the feeling of dread as she waves them goodbye. A few months later, Maggie's worst nightmares come true when she learns that the children have been handed back to the care of social services following the breakdown of the adoption. Maggie must fight to get the children returned to her, but is it too late to undo the damage that has been done?

The moving testimonies of five African-American women comprise this unflinching account of slavery in the pre-Civil War American South. Covering a wide range of narrative styles, the voices provide authentic recollections of hardship, frustration, and hope -- from Mary Prince's groundbreaking account of a lone woman's tribulations and courage, the spiritual awakening of "Old Elizabeth," and Mattie Jackson's record of personal achievements, to the memoirs of Kate Drumgoold and Annie L. Burton.
A compelling, authentic portrayal of women held as slaves in the antebellum South, these remarkable stories of courage and perseverance will be required reading for students of literature, history, and African-American studies.

Jacky was twenty-three when she arrived in Egypt for a holiday with her boyfriend, Dave. Little did she know that an innocent holiday would result in a horror beyond her imagination. Separated from Dave in a bustling street, Jacky fell and twisted her ankle, only to be swept up by a handsome, chivalrous Egyptian called Omar. It was love at first sight. Jacky spent those ten days living with the family - sharing a bed with Omar's sister - irresistibly attracted to Omar. Swept away by her infatuation she married him and converted to Islam before returning to England to her parents. Returning to Cairo against her parents' advice but full of hopes and plans, Jacky's dream turned into a nightmare. As a blue-eyed blonde she was never going to fit in with life in a poor suburb where the women walked at all times with their heads bowed. During the next eight years she suffered non-stop physical and emotional abuse. She had to escape with her two little girls but how? This tense story never quite ends. Even now, Jacky is living in the shadow of a death threat. A fatwa is issued legitimately under Islamic law to a Muslim woman who leaves her husband. Jacky to protect herself and her daughters minute by minute, day by day, never quite sure what may be around the corner...

Stories of Sailors in the Clutch of the SeaEdited by Tom Lochhaas Treacherous Waters is a collection of riveting, real life stories of adventure, loss, and survival at sea.

Garnered from among the best writing about sailing and the sea from the past 40 years, it transports readers to remote polar waters, lee shores, forbidding capes, and into the hearts of tempests. Here is triumph, disaster, love, courage, guilt, rescue, and death as captured by Webb Chiles (The Open Boat), Rob Mundle (Fatal Storm), Jim Carrier (The Ship and the Storm), Gordon Chaplin (Dark Wind), Tami Oldham Ashcroft (Red Sky in Mourning), and 15 others.

When Edmund Hillary first conquered Mt. Everest, Sherpa Tenzing Norgay was at his side. Indeed, for as long as Westerners have been climbing the Himalaya, Sherpas have been the unsung heroes in the background. In August 2008, when eleven climbers lost their lives on K2, the world s most dangerous peak, two Sherpas survived. They had emerged from poverty and political turmoil to become two of the most skillful mountaineers on earth. Based on unprecedented access and interviews, Buried in the Sky reveals their astonishing story for the first time. Peter Zuckerman and Amanda Padoan explore the intersecting lives of Chhiring Dorje Sherpa and Pasang Lama, following them from their villages high in the Himalaya to the slums of Kathmandu, across the glaciers of Pakistan to K2 Base Camp. When disaster strikes in the Death Zone, Chhiring finds Pasang stranded on an ice wall, without an axe, waiting to die. The rescue that follows has become the stuff of mountaineering legend. At once a gripping, white-knuckled adventure and a rich exploration of Sherpa customs and culture, Buried in the Sky re-creates one of the most dramatic catastrophes in alpine history from a fascinating new perspective."

The gritty and engaging story of two brothers, Chuck and Tom Hagel, who went to war in Vietnam, fought in the same unit, and saved each other's life. One supported the war, the other detested it, but they fought it together. 1968. It was the worst year of America's most divisive war. Flag-draped caskets came home by the thousands. Riots ravaged our cities. Assassins shot our political leaders. Black fought white, young fought old, fathers fought sons. And it was the year that two brothers from Nebraska went to war. In Vietnam, Chuck and Tom Hagel served side by side in the same rifle platoon. Together they fought in the Tet Offensive, battled snipers in Saigon, chased the enemy through the jungle, and each saved the other's life under fire. Yet, like so many American families, one brother supported the war while the other detested it. Tom and former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel never set out to be heroes, but they epitomized the best, and lived through the worst, of the most tumultuous, amazing, and consequential year in the last half century. Following the brothers' paths from the prairie heartland through a war on the far side of the world and back to a divided America, Our Year of War tells the story of two brothers at war, serving their divided country. It is a story that resonates to this day, an American story.

From award-winning ABC News Chief National Correspondent Matt Gutman, and written using exclusive interviews and information comes the definitive account of the dramatic story that gripped the world: the miracle rescue of twelve boys and their soccer coach trapped in a flooded cave miles underground for nearly three weeks-a pulse-pounding page-turner by a reporter who was there every step of their journey out. After a practice in June 2018, a Thai soccer coach took a dozen of his young players to explore a famous but flood-prone cave. It was one of the boys' birthday, but neither he nor the dozen resurfaced. Worried parents and rescuers flocked to the mouth of a cave that seemed to have swallowed the boys without a trace. Ranging in age from eleven to sixteen, the boys were all members of the Wild Boars soccer team. When water unexpectedly inundated the cave, blocking their escape, they retreated deeper inside, taking shelter in a side cavern. While the world feared them dead, the thirteen young souls survived by licking the condensation off the cave's walls, meditating, and huddling together for warmth. In this thrilling account, ABC News Chief National Correspondent Matt Gutman recounts this amazing story in depth and from every angle, exploring their time in the cave, the failed plans and human mistakes that nearly doomed them, and the daring mission that ultimately saved them. Gutman introduces the elite team of volunteer divers who risked death to execute a plan so risky that its American planners admitted, "for us, success would have meant getting just one boy out alive." He takes you inside the meetings where life and death decisions were grimly made and describes how these heroes pulled off an improbable rescue under immense pressure, with the boys' desperate parents and the entire world watching. One of the largest rescues in history was in doubt until the very last moment. Matt Gutman covered the story intensively, went deep inside the caves himself, and interviewed dozens of rescuers, experts and eye-witnessed around the world. The result is this pulse-pounding page-turner that vividly recreates this extraordinary event in all its intensity-and documents the ingenuity and sacrifice it took to succeed.

Like most Americans at the time, Plennie Wingo was hit hard by the effects of the Great Depression. When the bank foreclosed on his small restaurant in Abilene, he found himself suddenly penniless with nowhere left to turn. After months of struggling to feed his family on wages he earned digging ditches in the Texas sun, Plennie decided it was time to do something extraordinary -- something to resurrect the spirit of adventure and optimism he felt he'd lost. He decided to walk around the world -- backwards. In The Man Who Walked Backward, Pulitzer Prize finalist Ben Montgomery charts Plennie's backwards trek across the America that gave rise to Woody Guthrie, John Steinbeck, and the New Deal. With the Dust Bowl and Great Depression as a backdrop, Montgomery follows Plennie across the Atlantic through Germany, Bucharest, Turkey, and beyond, and details the daring physical feats, grueling hardships, comical misadventures, and hostile foreign police he encountered along the way. A remarkable and quirky slice of Americana, The Man Who Walked Backward paints a rich and vibrant portrait of a jaw-dropping period of history.

Rain is lashing down when Barby Keel is called out to an emergency unfolding at the gates of her animal sanctuary, deep in the Sussex countryside. A greyhound had been dumped under the cover of darkness, and is at death's door. In the 37 years she has dedicated her life to the welfare of animals, Barby has witnessed the horrors that humans are capable of, but never has she seen anything as barbaric as this poor dog's condition. Cigarette burns scar his flank, and he is so malnourished that he struggles to stand, every rib showing through his patchy fur. It's touch-and-go whether he will survive the night. The dog, who Barby names Bailey, proves he has a fighting spirit and, slowly but surely, begins the long road to recovery. But Barby is facing her own battle with ill health - one that threatens the future of the entire sanctuary... Will You Love Me? is an emotional, joyful true story of the deepest bond that exists between humans and animals, and shows how in rescuing others, we can rescue ourselves.

Henry Friedman was robbed of his adolescence by the monstrous evil that annihilated millions of European Jews and changed forever the lives of those who survived. When the Nazis overran their home town near the Polish-Ukrainian border, the Friedman family was saved by Ukrainian Christians who had worked at their farm. Henry, his mother, his younger brother, and a young schoolteacher-who had been hired by his father when Jews were forbidden to attend school-were hidden in a loft over the animal stalls at a neighbor's farm; his father hid in another hayloft half a mile away. When the family was liberated by the Russians after eighteen months in hiding, Henry, at age fifteen, was emaciated and too weak to walk. The Friedmans eventually made their way to a displaced persons camp in Austria where Henry learned quickly to wheel and deal, seducing women of various ages and nationalities and mastering the intricacies of dealing in the black market. In I'm No Hero, he confronts with unblinking honesty the pain, the shame, and the bizarre comedy of his passage to adulthood. The family came to Seattle in 1949, where Henry Friedman has made his home ever since. In 1988 he returned with his wife to Brody and Suchowola, where he succeeded in finding Julia Symchuk, who, as a young girl, had warned his father that the Gestapo was looking for him, and whose family had hidden the Friedmans in their loft. The following year he was able to bring Julia to Seattle for a triumphal visit, where she was honored in many ways, although, as Friedman writes, "in her own country she had never been honored with anything except hard work." Like many other survivors, Henry Friedman has found it difficult to confront his past. Like others, too, he has felt the obligation to bear witness. Now retired, he devotes much of his time to telling his story, which he believes is a message of hope, to thousands of schoolchildren throughout the Pacific Northwest. He has received national recognition for his role in establishing the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, and as a founder of the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center.

Forced to work in a Hungarian slave labour battalion under the command of Hitler's Third Reich, Steve Floris managed to survive thanks to his skills as a cook and the decency of his commanding officer. After escaping and returning to Budapest, he married his sweetheart, who had also survived the Holocaust. Together they escaped Soviet occupied Hungary and went to Austria. They worked in UN refugee camps, then made their way to Salzburg and were accepted for immigration to Canada.

'His Name Is George Floyd is essential for our times.' Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist 'An intimate, unvarnished and scrupulous account of his life...brilliantly revealing.' NEW YORK TIMES You know how he died. This is how he lived. Who was George Floyd? What did he hope for? What was life like for him? And why has his death been the catalyst for such a powerful global response? The murder of George Floyd sparked a summer of activism and unrest all over the world in 2020, from Shetland to Sao Paolo, as people marched under the Black Lives Matter banner, demanding an end to racial injustice. But behind a face that would be graffitied onto countless murals, and a name that has become synonymous with civil rights, there is the reality of one man's stolen life. In His Name is George Floyd we meet the kind young boy who talked his friends out of beating up a skinny kid from another neighbourhood and then befriended him on the walk home. Big Floyd the high school American football player who ignored his coach's pleas to be more aggressive and felt queasy at the sight of blood. The man who fell victim to an opioid epidemic we are only just beginning to understand. The sensitive son and loving father, constantly in search of a better life in a society determined to write him off based on things he had no control over: where he grew up, the size of his body and the colour of his skin. Drawing upon hundreds of interviews with friends and family members, His Name Is George Floyd reveals the myriad ways that structural racism shaped Floyd's life and death - from his forebears' roots in slavery to an underfunded education, the overpolicing of his community and the devastating snare of the prison system. By offering us an intimate portrait of this one, emblematic life, Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa deliver a powerful and moving exploration of how a man who simply wanted to breathe ended up touching the world.

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.

A beautiful and heart-warming collection of stories, this landmark publication tells, for the first time ever, the rich history of the NHS through the ordinary people who have experienced it. Founded on the concept of providing healthcare to rich and poor alike, the National Health Service (NHS) has been at the heart of our everyday experiences of life and death since 1948. From Joan Meredith, who stood on street corners in the freezing winter to campaign for a new health system, to one of the first patients diagnosed with HIV/Aids, Jonathan Blake, and Klarissa Velasco, who comforted and held the hands of people suffering from Covid-19, Our NHS follows our health service from its conception to today, and tells the many incredible stories that have happened throughout its lifetime. Filled with tales of every part of life, this beautiful book tells, for the first time ever, the moving history of our world-leading health service through the voices of the patients, nurses, doctors, porters and ordinary people who have turned it into the beating heart of our country. It is a heart-warming account of an amazing institution.

There have been many amazing heroes down through the ages. The achievements of American heroes like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln certainly resonate, but how many heroes of Jewish heritage come to mind? Each of the eleven Jewish heroes presented in this volume, some famous and others less so, overcame tremendous challenges to achieve greatness, persevering through their faith in God and belief in freedom and human dignity. Queen Esther maintained her traditions in the house of Ahasuerus for nine years while also hiding her true origins, and then orchestrated the salvation of the Jewish Persians at great personal risk. When urgent funding was needed for the Continental Army in 1781, General George Washington turned to none other than a financial genius named Haym Salomon. Felix Zandman survived World War II as a teenager by living with three others in a pit for seventeen months, and then went on to graduate from the Sorbonne and found a company that was innovational in the world of electronics and communication. Our heroes many feats and great accomplishments, and their dedication to freedom and its ideals, are truly amazing, and their stories stand the test of time.

WINNER OF THE AMERICAN BOOK AWARD AND THE LA TIMES BOOK AWARD 'Masterly. Brilliantly crafted, powerfully written and deftly reported' Guardian The urgent and unforgettable true story of post-Katrina New Orleans . . . In August 2005, as Hurricane Katrina blew in, the city of New Orleans has been abandoned by most citizens. But resident Abdulrahman Zeitoun, though his wife and family had gone, refused to leave. For days he traversed an apocalyptic landscape of flooded streets by canoe. But eventually he came to the attention of those 'guarding' this drowned city. Only then did Zeitoun's nightmare really begin. Zeitoun is the powerful, ultimately uplifting true story of one man's courage when confronted with an awesome force of nature followed by more troubling human oppression. 'Eggers uses Zeitoun's eyes to report on America's reasonless post-Katrina world, Reminiscent of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's documentaries, this is a true story told with the skills of a master of fiction. Immensely readable' Independent 'The stuff of great narrative non-fiction. Fifty years from now, when people want to know what happened to this once-great city, they will be talking about a family named Zeitoun' The New York Times Book Review