Fearlessness has got nothing to do with being unafraid. It's about doing things anyway, getting on with it, living, whether you're afraid or not. Fuzzy-haired, free-spirited, cello-playing Catrina is devastated when her lover, Jack, leaves her to go surfing on the other side of the world. Trapped in a dead-end job and torn by his departure, she dreams of running away. But how do you run away when you're flat broke? Luckily, her friend Andrew comes up with a plan: they'll get an old van, turn it into a camper and busk their way from Norway to Portugal, via Nordkapp, the land of the Midnight Sun. When a tragic accident occurs, the journey suddenly takes on new meaning. As she navigates personal loss and the daily challenges of life on the road, Catrina begins to learn the true meaning of love and courage and, above all else, the importance of following her dreams. This is an unforgettable story of a journey like no other - a deeply emotional and inspirational debut by a unique writer.

It began in fine weather, then suddenly became a terrifying ordeal. A Force 10, sixty-knot storm swept across the North Atlantic with a speed that confounded forecasters, slamming into the fleet with epic fury. For twenty hours, 2,500 men and women were smashed by forty-foot breaking waves, while rescue helicopters and lifeboats struggled to save them. By the time the race was over, fifteen people had died, twenty-four crews had abandoned ship, five yachts had sunk, 136 sailors had been rescued, and only 85 boats had finished the race. John Rousmaniere was there, and he tells the tragic story of the greatest disaster in the history of yachting as only one who has sailed through the teeth of a killer storm can. With a new introduction by the author.

The bestselling author of The Endurance reveals the startling truth behind the legend of the Mutiny on the Bounty -- the most famous sea story of all time. More than two centuries have passed since Fletcher Christian mutinied against Lt. Bligh on a small armed transport vessel called Bounty. Why the details of this obscure adventure at the end of the world remain vivid and enthralling is as intriguing as the truth behind the legend. Caroline Alexander focusses on the court martial of the ten mutineers captured in Tahiti and brought to justice in Portsmouth. Each figure emerges as a richly drawn character caught up in a drama that may well end on the gallows. With enormous scholarship and exquisitely drawn characters, The Bounty is a tour de force.

The true story of Melody, aged 8, the last of five siblings to be taken from her drug dependent single mother and brought into care. When Cathy is told about Melody's terrible childhood, she is sure she's heard it all before. But it isn't long before she feels there is more going on than she or the social services are aware of. Although Melody is angry at having to leave her mother, as many children coming into care are, she also worries about her obsessively - far more than is usual. Amanda, Melody's mother, is also angry and takes it out on Cathy at contact, which again is something Cathy has experienced before. Yet there is a lost and vulnerable look about Amanda, and Cathy starts to see why Melody worries about her and feels she needs looking after. When Amanda misses contact, it is assumed she has forgotten, but nothing could have been further from the truth...

'A powerful, inspiring book' Observer Georges Salines lost his daughter Lola in the attack on the Bataclan Theatre in Paris on 13th November 2015. Azdyne Amimour lost his son. Both were aged 28. Lola was one of the 90 victims, Amimour's son one of the attackers. From his meeting with Azdyne Amimour, an unprecedented dialogue emerged. Georges Salines carries the memory of his daughter and many other victims, while Azdyne Amimour seeks to understand how his son was able to commit acts which he condemns without appeal. Driven by mutual curiosity, the two tell their stories and unfold the story of 'their' 13th November. In the course of this conversation, a deep respect was born between these two fathers whom everything should nevertheless have opposed. Their testimony feeds a peaceful reflection on radicalization, education and mourning. Because if there are words left, there is also hope.

The true story of Melody, aged 8, the last of five siblings to be taken from her drug dependent single mother and brought into care. When Cathy is told about Melody's terrible childhood, she is sure she's heard it all before. But it isn't long before she feels there is more going on than she or the social services are aware of. Although Melody is angry at having to leave her mother, as many children coming into care are, she also worries about her obsessively - far more than is usual. Amanda, Melody's mother, is also angry and takes it out on Cathy at contact, which again is something Cathy has experienced before. Yet there is a lost and vulnerable look about Amanda, and Cathy starts to see why Melody worries about her and feels she needs looking after. When Amanda misses contact, it is assumed she has forgotten, but nothing could have been further from the truth...

Born to shell-shocked parents in shell-shocked London shortly after the end of World War II, Paul 'Sailor' Vernon came into his own during the 1960s when spotty teenage herberts with bad haircuts began discovering The Blues. For the Sailor it became a lifelong obsession that led him first to record collecting and stalking unsuspecting visiting bluesmen, and then into a whirlwind of activity as a rare record hunter, record dealer, magazine proprietor/editor, video bootlegger and record company director before a variety of personal and business setbacks eventually ushered him into seeking a more stable form of existence. The many twists and turns in the author's roller-coaster adventure of a life are all vividly charted in this hilarious illustrated autobiography. GASP as you read how he road-tripped his way through the Deep South armed only with a Rand McNally map, a Swiss army knife and an emergency jar of Marmite! MARVEL as you absorb in-depth descriptions of legendary performances by long-departed giants of the Blues! CHOKE on your coffee as one rotten gag after another blindsides you! REND YOUR GARMENTS as you realise just how many original Blues 78's went through his sweaty hands! SHOUT "BLIMEY!" within earshot of surprised elderly relatives as you follow the rags-to-riches tale of his extraordinary life! It's all here in this one-of-a-kind life history that will leave you reaching for an enamel bucket and a fresh bottle of disinfectant!

When Paul Nichols took a job as a hotel night manager in a top London hotel, he was hoping to advance his career and meet a few A-list celebrities along the way. He wasn't disappointed, thanks to encounters with Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Rihanna, Puff Daddy, Kanye West, Kimberly Stewart, Noel Gallagher and Peter Kay, among others. He had no idea that he would also have to play detective, deal with cases of theft, cover up several potential sex and drugs scandals, rescue a starlet from the paparazzi and do his frantic best to save the life of a severely-injured guest. He also didn't expect to be finding concealed cameras in celebrities' bedrooms. A shocking, entertaining and sometimes hilarious account of life behind the scenes at a millionaires' hotel - and these are just the stories that can be printed...

This account gives a vivid picture of the romance and realism of coastal trade, initially in a schooner, then in Thames spiritsail sailing barges before and during the war. The author tells of the havoc wrought by barges caught out in severe gales and the hazards of plying trade in wartime.

Unchained is a soul-awakening account of life after childhood trauma, of one woman choosing to let go of who she thought she was so she could become who she was meant to be. Tonya Whittle's story reflects what happens to so many women when they pretend trauma didn't happen: who they become, what they do, and how they create a vision of themselves for protection. But what happens when the life someone is running from collides with the life they've created? Unchained shares Tonya's own journey through the collapse of a life falsely created, exposing her wounds and forcing the truth. Tonya encourages other women to take off their own masks, face their truths, and do the inner work necessary to live life fully, ultimately leading to healing and rebuilding. Unchained takes women on a journey to the soul, from head to heart, from fear to faith, from girls gone wild to wild soul women. For anyone who feels disconnected from life, who is just getting by, simply existing, Tonya reaches out to encourage them to let go of the things that have happened to them and thrive despite those traumas. In the face of #metoo and #timesup, her story serves as an instruction manual for how ancient wisdom, and the process of facing the past, lead to an amazing future-no matter what happened.

When Zoe was taken into care at the age of 13, she thought she was finally going to escape from the cruel abuse she had suffered throughout her childhood. Then social services placed her in a residential unit known to be 'a target for prostitution', and suddenly Zoe's life was worse than it had ever been before. Abused and ostracized by her mother, humiliated by her father's sexual innuendos, physically assaulted and bullied by her eldest brother, even as a young child Zoe thought she deserved the desperately unhappy life she was living. 'I've sharpened a knife for you,' her mother told her the first time she noticed angry red wounds on her daughter's arms. And when Zoe didn't kill herself, her mother gave her whisky, which she drank in the hope that it would dull the miserable, aching loneliness of her life. One day at school Zoe showed her teacher the livid bruises that were the result of her mother's latest physical assault and within days she was taken into care. Zoe had been at Denver House for just three weeks when an older girl asked if she'd like to go to a party, then took her to a house where there were just three men. Zoe was a virgin until that night, when two of the men raped her. Having returned to the residential unit in the early hours of the morning, when she told a member of staff what had happened to her, her social worker made a joke about it, then took her to get the morning-after pill. For Zoe, the indifference of the staff at the residential unit seemed like further confirmation of what her mother had always told her - she was worthless. Before long, she realised that the only way to survive in the unit was to go to the 'parties' the older girls were paid to take her to, drink the drinks, smoke the cannabis and try to blank out what was done to her when she was abused, controlled and trafficked around the country. No action was taken by the unit's staff or social workers when Zoe asked for their help, and without anyone to support or protect her, the horrific abuse continued for the next few years, even after she left the unit. But in her heart Zoe was always a fighter. This is the harrowing, yet uplifting story, of how she finally broke free of the abuse and neglect that destroyed her childhood and obtained justice for her years of suffering.

As a senior aeronautical engineer with Britain's flagship airlines in the 60s, 70s and 80s, it was engineer and playboy Nazie El Masry's job to keep these man-made birds in perfect flying condition. Turbulent Times and Clear Skies is the story of his colourful exploits in the most glamorous industry of all, as he defeated the odds to build an international aviation business of his own - with offices in Singapore, Miami, Holland and the UK. From the crew and pilots' parties to which he supplied contraband liquor and introductions to the wildest international hotspots in Libya, Tunis, Casablanca and Europe; to his early adventures wheeling and dealing in 1970s Britain, along the way Nazie has rubbed shoulders with slum landlords, show girls, heads of state and movie stars. This is also the story of an Egyptian childhood and a young man who lost his father but found happiness.

An entertaining, revealing and beautifully illustrated walking guide to London's horrific history, Bloody London features walks that take in everything from Jack the Ripper's haunts, to the site of John Christie's house of horrors, to the plague outbreak hotspots and burial pits, to the key places involved in the Great Fire of London, plus many many more iconic and delightfully gruesome moments in London's history. Each walk is beautifully illustrated with a map and gorgeous illustrations, and the book is perfectly pocket-sized so you can easily take it around with you as you go. David Fathers is the king of London walking guides, and Bloody London will delight both those who live in London and those visiting who are looking for a walking guide that's a little bit different.

FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR Thrown Away Child is a memoir covering Louise Allen's abusive childhood in a foster home, how she survived - using her love of art as a sanctuary - and how she hopes to right old wrongs now by fostering children herself and campaigning for the improvement of foster care services. It is a compelling and inspirational story. This book gives a voice to the many children who grew up unhappily in care.

This is a true story about two non-identical twin brothers who were adopted soon as they were born due to unfortunate circumstances. They were taken up by two different families who happened to be in the vicinity of about ten miles from each other - none of the two families knew each other. Everything was running smoothly until circumstances led one of the boys to search for his biological parents and his other brother. How successful was he? Was it like looking for a pin in a haystack in the wide world? It was many years, according to the foster parents, since he had been adopted - there had been a lot of tear jerking moments.

Susanne Defoe suffered parental violence and bullying at school on a daily basis throughout her childhood, finding comfort only with her pet rabbits: "One of my first memories was of climbing into the rabbit hutch and snuggling down into the straw to sleep... I just stayed there until they found me. I was only two and a half and I was missing for almost two hours." Desperate to escape from her controlling father and ignorant mother, she found herself pregnant at fifteen by a boy who turned out to be a waster who spent all his wages in the pub. This is the story of how Susanne struggled to escape from a life of abuse, cruelty and ignorance to try to gain some self-respect and a decent life for herself and her four daughters.

Darryl Telles's sexuality is as important to him as his lifelong passion for his beloved Tottenham Hotspur, yet like other gay football supporters, he has had to endure decades of abuse and threats from homophobic fellow fans in a sport where homosexuality is still so reviled that there is not a single `out' gay player in the top four tiers of the Football League. This is the story of his campaign against homophobia in the football world, his work with the Gay Football Supporters Network (GFSN) and his attempts to advance the cause through media publicity and TV interviews. "Most of the crowd are white, so you stick out because of your brown face. They're singing the sort of chants that make you feel unwelcome, and not only because of your colour - they just can't stand anyone who's a poof, an arsebandit, a queer or a raving homosexual. And that's exactly what you are..."

Tales of Hardship, Love and Happiness in Tate & Lyle's East End Factories. The Sugar Girls went straight to No.10 in the Sunday Times Bestseller List, spending five weeks in the top ten. 'On an autumn day in 1944, Ethel Alleyne walked the short distance from her house to Tate & Lyle's refinery on the shining curve of the Thames. Looking up at the giant gates, Ethel felt like she had been preparing for this moment all her life. She smoothed down her frizzy hair, scraped a bit of dirt off the corner of her shoe and strode through. She was quite unprepared for the sight that met her eyes ...' In the years leading up to and after the Second World War thousands of women left school at fourteen to work in the bustling factories of London's East End. Despite long hours, hard and often hazardous work, factory life afforded exciting opportunities for independence, friendship and romance. Of all the factories that lined the docks, it was at Tate & Lyle's where you could earn the most generous wages and enjoy the best social life, and it was here where The Sugar Girls worked. Through the Blitz and on through the years of rationing The Sugar Girls kept Britain sweet. The work was back-breakingly hard, but Tate & Lyle was more than just a factory, it was a community, a calling, a place of love and support and an uproarious, tribal part of the East End. From young Ethel to love-worn Lillian, irrepressible Gladys to Miss Smith who tries to keep a workforce of flirtatious young men and women on the straight and narrow, this is an evocative, moving story of hunger, hardship and happiness. Tales of adversity, resilience and youthful high spirits are woven together to provide a moving insight into a lost way of life, as well as a timeless testament to the experience of being young and female. www.thesugargirls.com

Born a humble village boy in Pakistan's Swat Valley, Sher Khan had the curiosity, the intelligence and the determination to succeed in a career in medicine, becoming a senior registrar in a UK hospital. Sensitive, wide-ranging and often very funny, Sher's story portrays the life of a wise and kind man - a village boy who became a world traveller, an expert in nuclear medicine and a philanthropist who has done his best to overcome the inequity and suffering he sees around him. Dismayed at the dishonesty, favouritism and profiteering that have pervaded Pakistan since independence, he talks freely of the power struggles and posturing which have riddled his homeland's affairs over the past half century. A colourful description of a vanished world and of the new world that is replacing it.

This richly colored memoir chronicles the exploits of a flamboyant Jewish family, from its bold arrival in cosmopolitan Alexandria to its defeated exodus three generations later. In elegant and witty prose, Andre Aciman introduces us to the marvelous eccentrics who shaped his life--Uncle Vili, the strutting daredevil, soldier, salesman, and spy; the two grandmothers, the Princess and the Saint, who gossip in six languages; Aunt Flora, the German refugee who warns that Jews lose everything "at least twice in their lives." And through it all, we come to know a boy who, even as he longs for a wider world, does not want to be led, forever, out of Egypt."

The album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill sold over 420,000 copies in its first week, received ten Grammy nominations (winning five). Celebrating Twenty Years of Black Girlhood: The Lauryn Hill Reader critically engages the work of Ms. Hill, highlighting the interdisciplinary nature of the album. Beyond the album's commercial success, Ms. Hill's radical self-consciousness and exuberance for life led listeners through her Black girl journey of love, motherhood, admonition, redemption, spirituality, sexuality, politics, and nostalgia that affirmed the power of creativity, resistance, and the tradition of African storytelling. Ms. Hill's album provides inspirational energies that serve as a foundational text for Black girlhood. In many ways it is the definitive work of Black girlhood for the Hip Hop generation and beyond because it opened our eyes to a holistic narrative of woman and mother. Twenty years after the release of the album, we pay tribute to this work by adding to the quilt of Black girls' stories with the threads of feminist consciousness, which are particularly imperative in this space where we declare: Black girls matter. Celebrating Twenty Years of Black Girlhood is the first book to academically engage the work of the incomparable Ms. Hill. It intellectually wrestles with the interdisciplinary nature of Ms. Hill's album, centering the connection between the music of Ms. Hill and the lives of Black girls. The essays in this collection utilize personal narratives and professional pedagogies and invite students, scholars, and readers to reflect on how Ms. Hill's album influenced their past, present, and future.

'I listen to those stories - told by women who have been drugged, beaten, imprisoned, raped and terrorised within the walls of the homes they grew up in. I listen and I am humbled by their resilience.' Jasvinder Sanghera knows what it means to flee from your family under threat of forced marriage - and to face the terrible consequences that follow. As a young girl that was just what she had to do. Jasvinder is now at the frontline of the battle to save women from the honour-based violence and threat of forced marriage that destroyed her own youth. Daughters of Shame reveals the stories of young women such as Shazia, kidnapped and taken to Pakistan to marry a man she had never met; and Banaz, murdered by her own family after escaping an abusive marriage. By turns frightening, enthralling and uplifting, Daughters of Shame reveals Jasvinder as a woman heedless of her own personal safety as she fights to help these women, in a world where the suffering and abuse of many is challenged by the courage of the few.

Amazing and inspirational stories from Jacky Newcomb show us that our beloved pets can communicate with us from the other side. Our pets are our family, our best friends and letting go of them is hugely difficult. In this collection of stories and real-life experiences, angel and afterlife expert Jacky Newcomb explains that we will be reunited with them again. Here are wonderful, uplifting stories of times when beloved pets communicated with their loved ones from the other side. In dreams and visitations, best friends come back from the other side to protect, support and help us.