This book tells the compelling story of a Christian noblewoman named Tamta in the thirteenth century. Born to an Armenian family at the court of queen Tamar of Georgia, she was ransomed in marriage to nephews of Saladin after her father was captured during a siege. She was later raped and then married by the Khwarazmshah and held hostage by the Mongols, before being made an independent ruler under them in eastern Anatolia. Her tale stretches from the Mediterranean to Mongolia and reveals the extraordinary connections across continents and cultures that one woman could experience. Without a voice of her own, surviving monuments - monasteries and mosques, caravanserais and palaces - build up a picture of Tamta's world and the roles women played in it. The book explores how women's identities changed between different courts, with shifting languages, religions and cultures, and between their roles as daughters, wives, mothers and widows.

This riveting book offers 20 harrowing, real-life tales of sea kayaking accidents that will not only keep readers on the edge of their seats, but also instruct them with potentially life-saving lessons.

"A Year Without "Made in China"" provides you with a thought-provoking and thoroughly entertaining account of how the most populous nation on Earth influences almost every aspect of our daily lives. Drawing on her years as an award-winning journalist, author Sara Bongiorni fills this book with engaging stories and anecdotes of her family's attempt to outrun China's reach-by boycotting Chinese made products-and does a remarkable job of taking a decidedly big-picture issue and breaking it down to a personal level.

In this breathtaking cultural history filled with exclusive, never-before-revealed details, celebrated rock journalist Joel Selvin tells the definitive story of the Rolling Stones' infamous Altamont concert, the disastrous historic event that marked the end of the idealistic 1960s. In the annals of rock history, the Altamont Speedway Free Festival on December 6, 1969, has long been seen as the distorted twin of Woodstock-the day that shattered the Sixties' promise of peace and love when a concertgoer was killed by a member of the Hells Angels, the notorious biker club acting as security. While most people know of the events from the film Gimme Shelter, the whole story has remained buried in varied accounts, rumor, and myth-until now. Altamont explores rock's darkest day, a fiasco that began well before the climactic death of Meredith Hunter and continued beyond that infamous December night. Joel Selvin probes every aspect of the show-from the Stones' hastily planned tour preceding the concert to the bad acid that swept through the audience to other deaths that also occurred that evening-to capture the full scope of the tragedy and its aftermath. He also provides an in-depth look at the Grateful Dead's role in the events leading to Altamont, examining the band's behind-the-scenes presence in both arranging the show and hiring the Hells Angels as security. The product of twenty years of exhaustive research and dozens of interviews with many key players, including medical staff, Hells Angels members, the stage crew, and the musicians who were there, and featuring sixteen pages of color photos, Altamont is the ultimate account of the final event in rock's formative and most turbulent decade.

Harry de Leyer first saw the horse he would name Snowman on a truck bound for the slaughterhouse. The recent Dutch immigrant recognized the spark in the eye of the beaten-up nag and bought him for eighty dollars. On Harry's modest farm on Long Island, he ultimately taught Snowman how to fly. Here is the dramatic and inspiring rise to stardom of an unlikely duo. One show at a time, against extraordinary odds and some of the most expensive thoroughbreds alive, the pair climbed to the very top of the sport of show jumping. Their story captured the heart of Cold War-era America-a story of unstoppable hope, inconceivable dreams, and the chance to have it all. They were the longest of all longshots-and their win was the stuff of legend.

A beautiful, hopeful account of the grief of heartbreak, based on three true stories, from internationally bestselling author Jessie Stephens. For fans of Three Women and Conversations on Love. Heartbreak does not seem to be a brand of grief we respect. And so we are left in the middle of the ocean, floating in a dinghy with no anchor, while the world waits for us to be okay again. Claire is excited to bring her partner Maggie back home, but even as they build a new life together, she fears a distance is growing between them. Patrick is a lonely university student, until he meets Caitlin - but does she feel as connected as he does? Ana is happily married with three children. Then, one night, she falls in love with someone else. Telling three real-life experiences of love and loss, Heartsick is a compelling narrative non-fiction account of the many lows and occasional surprising highs of heartbreak. Bruising, beautiful, achingly specific but wholeheartedly universal, it reminds us that emotional pain can make us as it breaks us, and that storytelling has the ultimate healing power. 'True stories with a narrative as compelling as any novel' - Jane Harper, author of Exiles

In Remarkable People, Dan Walker, the host of BBC1's Breakfast, recounts inspiring stories of the courage and selflessness of people he has met throughout his career. An uplifting tonic for the darkness and negativity of recent times. We live in an age of anxiety, besieged by bad news and uncertainty. But Dan Walker, the host of BBC1's Breakfast and Football Focus, is determined to shine a light onto stories of selflessness and compassion that seldom make the headlines. In the course of his professional life, Dan has encountered many inspiring stories of bravery and kindness. In Remarkable People, he recounts tales of incredible humanity, empathy, compassion, and a steely determination to transform lives, restore trust, renew hope. Remarkable People is the perfect book for these challenging times; an escape from the negativity of our everyday news cycle, and a tribute to courage and positivity.

'Comfort Food for Breakups' is a beautifully written food memoir with a queer bent in which the author comes to terms with her Ukranian heritage and her lesbian identity by way of their connections to food: as sustenance, as coping mechanisms, as reminders of family history, and as objects of desire.

* For 20 years the Loose Women panellists have been entertaining the nation with their forthright opinions on the vagaries of modern life. For the first time, they have come together to share intimate thoughts, fears, memories and anecdotes that are both thought-provoking and entertaining in equal measure. Loose Women: Let Loose! takes on the essential subjects of Love, Sex, Self-Esteem, Friendships, Family, Body Image and Wellness. Whether it is parenting advice from Nadia ('It's important to have a support network when you're a new parent'); Gloria's experience with bereavement ('Losing a child changes you, you can't be the same person'); Coleen's feelings about love ('I do believe there is "the one" - for now'); or Janet's take on mental health ('It doesn't need to be triggered by splitting up or a death, it could be happening in small ways'), there are stories that have never been shared before alongside the show's best bits, making Loose Women: Let Loose! a hilarious and honest guide to handling life's ups and downs as a 21st-century woman.

How do I give myself to God completely? What happens when I do? I Dared to Call Him Father is a book for everyone who has ever asked these questions. It is the fascinating true story of Bilquis Sheikh, a prominent Muslim woman in South Asia who faced these questions at the crossroads of her life-and found the astonishing answers. Her entire life turned upside down as a series of strange dreams launched her on a quest that would forever consume her heart, mind and soul. This 25th anniversary edition contains a new afterword by a Western friend of Bilquis and a new appendix on how the East enriches the West.

Winner of the prestigious Penderyn Music Book Prize 2022 In the fifties and sixties, in the period leading up to the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality and the founding of the Gay Liberation movement, a group of gay men behind the scenes of rock'n'roll was changing pop, politics and society for good. Through a mix of new interviews and contemporary reports, Darryl W. Bullock shines a light on the lives of the so-called 'Velvet Mafia', including impresario Larry Parnes, Beatles manager Brian Epstein, songwriter Lionel Bart, record producer Joe Meek, and Bee Gees and Cream manager Robert Stigwood. Compelling and enlightening, The Velvet Mafia explores how the LGBT professionals at the heart of the music industry were working together and supporting each other at a time when being homosexual could mean the end of your career - or much worse.

These are the stories that defy conventional logic. The proverbial vanished without a trace incidences, which happen a lot more (and a lot closer to your backyard) than almost anyone thinks. These are the missing whose situations are the hardest on loved ones left behind. The cases that are an embarrassment for park superintendents, rangers and law enforcement charged with Search & Rescue. The ones that baffle the volunteers who comb the mountains, woods and badlands. The stories that should give you pause every time you venture outdoors. Through Jacob Gray's disappearance in Olympic National Park, and his father Randy Gray who left his life to search for him, we will learn about what happens when someone goes missing. Braided around the core will be the stories of the characters who fill the vacuum created by a vanished human being. We'll meet eccentric bloodhound-handler Duff and R.C., his flagship purebred, who began trailing with the family dog after his brother vanished in the San Gabriel Mountains. And there's Michael Neiger North America's foremost backcountry Search & Rescue expert and self-described "bushman" obsessed with missing persons. And top researcher of persons missing on public wildlands Ex-San Jose, California detective David Paulides who is also one of the world's foremost Bigfoot researchers. It's a tricky thing to write about missing persons because the story is the absence of someone. A void. The person at the heart of the story is thinner than a smoke ring, invisible as someone else's memory. The bones you dig up are most often metaphorical. While much of the book will embrace memory and faulty memory--history--The Cold Vanish is at its core a story of now and tomorrow. Someone will vanish in the wild tomorrow. These are the people who will go looking.

Huntington's Disease (HD) is a hereditary illness passed on via a defective gene. There is a fifty per cent chance of inheriting it from a parent and there is yet no cure. Learning to Live with Huntington's Disease is one family's poignant story of coping with the symptoms, the diagnosis and the effects of HD. This book presents the struggles and strengths of the whole family when one member loses their future to a terminal illness. Told by the sufferer and other significant family members, the individuals describe the burden of watching yourself and others for symptoms of HD, including involuntary movements, depression, clumsiness, weight loss, slurred speech and sometimes violent tendencies. The family recounts the challenge to remain united and describes how they approached issues such as whether or not to be tested for HD, how much information to disclose to relatives, whether to have children or not and guilt if one sibling inherits the illness and one does not. Both honest and positive, the author stresses the importance of re-inventing yourself and your present, prioritizing relationships and retaining a sense of humor.

What is forgiveness? Are some acts unforgivable? Can forgiveness take the place of revenge? Powerful real-life stories from survivors and perpetrators of crime and violence reveal the true impact of forgiveness on ordinary people worldwide. Exploring forgiveness as an alternative to resentment or retaliation, the storytellers give an honest, moving account of their experiences and what part forgiveness has played in their lives. Despite extreme circumstances, their stories open the door to a society without revenge. All royalties from the sale of this book go to The Forgiveness Project charity.

This book commemorates the enduring legacy of the world's most famous ship - TITANIC. Her story is one of all those bound together on that fateful voyage. On board were: writers, artists, honeymooners, sportsmen, priests, reverends, fashion designers, aristocrats, millionaires, children, crew and emigrants looking for a better life. This book tells of their lives, and shines the spotlight on: Some of the great ship's surprising treasures Her feted voyage from Belfast's Harland & Wolff shipyard The fascinating museums devoted to her memory, including Titanic Belfast The iconic music and movies Her winged and four-legged passengers The sister ships of Olympic and Britannic Tales of heroism Theories surrounding Titanic's fatal collision The lifeboats and just how close the SS Californian was on that tragic night How Arctic explorer Ernest Shackleton and the inquiries viewed events These stories and much more lie inside.

'Raw, unflinching, incredibly brave' - BBC Woman's Hour 'Visceral and gripping' - Amy Liptrot, author of The Outrun My name is Liz, and I am the partner of an alcoholic. Coming Clean is a searingly honest memoir of loving an alcoholic - both through the heaviest drinking years and into recovery. When Liz Fraser's partner fell into a catastrophic vortex of depression and alcoholism, Liz found herself in a relentless hailstorm of lies, loneliness and fear, looking after their young child on her own, heartbroken, mentally shattered and with no idea what was happening or what to do. As she and her family moved between Cambridge, Venice and Oxford, she kept the often shocking truth entirely to herself for a long time, trying in vain to help her partner find a path to sobriety, until she herself finally broke from the trauma and started to speak out - only to find she was one of hundreds experiencing similar things, also living in silence and fear. Part diary, part travel journal and part love letter, Coming Clean is the true story of addiction of many kinds, mental collapse and heartbreak. Above all, it offers a voice of deep human compassion, strength and hope for recovery. I hope that in sharing this story it might change the way addiction is talked about and understood from both sides, encourage open, trusting and supportive dialogue between addicts and those their addiction affects, and provide some solace and help for those who need it - as I did.

A guide to all things aphrodisiac, Edible Pleasures is the perfect book to whet the appetite and satiate the senses. aimed at the more discerning gourmand, Edible Pleasures offers an irresistible guide to the unbreakable bond between food and love. From the poetic to the philosophical, the absurd to the abstruse, indulge in scientific, gastronomic and cultural histories, accompanied by an a-z of aphrodisiacs with a side order of seductive recipes. lovingly combining delicacies from The Taste of a Kiss by Martial to Madame Pompadour's Asparagus Tips, by way of South Park's Hot Salty Chocolate Balls, Edible Pleasures is bound to be the definitive textbook on food, passion, love and desire.

Emergency is a collection of true stories about events where disaster seems imminent. Yet each situation is concluded without loss of life thanks to the skill of the pilots and their crews, whose bravery and resourcefulness have earned them well deserved commendations.

***LONGLISTED FOR THE 2019 JHALAK PRIZE*** A leading new exploration of the Windrush generation featuring David Lammy, Lenny Henry, Corinne Bailey Rae, Sharmaine Lovegrove, Hannah Lowe, Jamz Supernova, Natasha Gordon and Rikki Beadle-Blair. For the pioneers of the Windrush generation, Britain was 'the Mother Country'. They made the long journey across the sea, expecting to find a place where they would be be welcomed with open arms; a land in which you were free to build a new life, eight thousand miles away from home. This remarkable book explores the reality of their experiences, and those of their children and grandchildren, through 22 unique real-life stories spanning more than 70 years. "The story of Windrush, is, like any other, a story of humanity. Of life, love, struggle, hope, misery, success and failure. It's one that is too often neglected in our media ... but this volume acts as a remedy to that failure of story-telling, which I ask you to both savour and share." - David Lammy MP Contributors include: Catherine Ross, Corinne Bailey-Rae, David Lammy, Gail Lewis, Hannah Lowe, Howard Gardner, Jamz Supernova, Kay Montano, Kemi Alemoru, Kimberley McIntosh, Lazare Sylvestre, Lenny Henry, Maria del Pilar Kaladeen, Myrna Simpson, Naomi Oppenheim, Natasha Gordon, Nellie Brown, Paul Reid, Riaz Phillips, Rikki Beadle-Blair, Sharmaine Lovegrove, Sharon Frazer-Carroll.

It's not just a war over horses. It's a battle for the soul of Australia. This is a book about the intense culture war raging around Australia's wild horses, known as brumbies. It pits a vision of the legendary Man from Snowy River and the iconic ANZAC Light Horse against the spectre of ecosystems destroyed by feral pests. The debate involves powerful politicians and media commentators, and stars an animal mythologised in Australian poetry and prose. But in essence, this is about us. The Brumby Wars is about Australians at war with each other over their vision of an ideal Australia. To ecologists and people who ski, walk and fish in the High Country and other areas where the brumbies proliferate, they are a feral menace which must be removed to save delicate alpine landscapes. To the descendants of cattle families and many Australians in urban and regional areas, brumbies are untouchable, a symbol of wildness and freedom. Something has to give. But what? The land or the horses? This war is set to escalate dramatically before we have an answer. Featuring interviews with characters from all sides of the debate, The Brumby Wars is the riveting account of a major national issue and the very human passions it inspires. It is also a journey, a quest to understand what makes us tick in our increasingly polarised country. Praise for Anthony Sharwood's From Snow to Ash 'Makes for inspirational reading' West Australian 'A distinctive, charming narrative ... a thinking, caring man's trek' Canberra Times 'A joyous read with personality in spades ... A book for the adventurer in us all' Australian Geographic

'Frank Tallis brings a lifetime's clinical experience and wise reflection to a condition that, by its own strange routes, leads us into the very heart of love itself. This is a brilliant, compelling book' Ian McEwan Love is a great leveller. Everyone wants love, everyone falls in love, everyone loses love, and everyone knows something of love's madness. But the experience of obsessive love is no trivial matter. In the course of his career psychologist Dr Frank Tallis has treated many unusual patients, whose stories have lessons for all of us. A barristers' clerk becomes convinced that her dentist has fallen in love with her and they are destined to be together for eternity; a widow is visited by the ghost of her dead husband; an academic is besotted with his own reflection; a beautiful woman searches jealously for a rival who isn't there; and a night porter is possessed by a lascivious demon. These are just some of the people whom we meet in an extraordinary and original book that explores the conditions of longing and desire - true accounts of psychotherapy that take the reader on a journey through the darker realms of the amorous mind. Drawing on the latest scientific research into the biological and psychological mechanisms underlying romance and emotional attachment, THE INCURABLE ROMANTIC demonstrates that ultimately love dissolves the divide between what we judge to be normal and abnormal.

WINNER OF THE POLITICAL BOOK AWARDS POLITICAL HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2014.

Published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the Profumo scandal, An English Affair is a sharp-focused snapshot of a nation on the brink of social revolution.

Britain in 1963 Harold Macmillan was the Prime Minister of a Conservative government, dedicated to tradition, hierarchy and, above all, old-fashioned morality. But a breakdown of social boundaries saw nightclub hostesses mixing with aristocrats, and middle-class professionals dabbling in criminality. Meanwhile, Cold War paranoia gripped the public imagination.

The Profumo Affair was a perfect storm, and when it broke it rocked the Establishment. In An English Affair, the author of the critically-acclaimed Titainic Lives Richard Davenport-Hines brings Swinging London to life. The cast of players includes the familiar louche doctor Stephen Ward, good-time girls Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies, and Secretary for War John Profumo himself. But we also encounter the tabloid hacks, property developers and hangers-on whose roles have, until now, never been fully revealed.

Sex, drugs, class, race, chequebook journalism and the criminal underworld the Profumo Affair had it all. This is the story of how Sixties England cast off respectability and fell in love with scandal."