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.

When you are racing 435 miles through the jungles and mountains of South America, the last thing you need is a stray dog tagging along. But that's exactly what happened to Mikael Lindnord, captain of a Swedish adventure racing team, when he threw a scruffy but dignified mongrel a meatball one afternoon.

When they left the next day, the dog followed. Try as they might, they couldn't lose him - and soon Mikael realised that he didn't want to. Crossing rivers, battling illness and injury, and struggling through some of the toughest terrain on the planet, the team and the dog walked together towards the finish line, where Mikael decided he would save Arthur and bring him back to his family in Sweden, whatever it took.

Conspiracy theories are legion. Conspiracies are rare. And of the few that do exist, fewer are ever discovered, let alone explained. This story is the exception.

In 2016, media giant Gawker was forced to declare bankruptcy after a $140 million dollar judgment in court over an illegally recorded sex tape of Hulk Hogan. The case was no accident: it was the result of a nearly decade-long plot masterminded by Facebook and Paypal billionaire Peter Thiel.

With exclusive access to all the key players, Ryan Holiday takes us behind the scenes of this extraordinary and at times surreal story, and transforms the events into both a dissection of that controversial methodology - conspiracy - and an eye-opening cautionary tale on the use, abuse and consequences of power and secrecy in the modern age.

'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.

Tonika Rinar believes that everybody is capable of time travel. We can access history as it really happened, without later exaggeration or bias. We can also heal ourselves by coming to terms with our experiences in past lives. Tonika escorts the reader into other worlds and dimensions, explaining her own remarkable experiences with an easy-to-read approach. At one level the book can simply be taken as a series of fascinating experiences with the paranormal, embracing past life regression, ghosts, angels and spirit guides. But it also encourages the reader along their own journey of self-discovery and understanding. A journey in which you can discover your own connection with the Universe and the many different dimensions contained within Creation. Journey Home offers a multitude of insights, and along the way looks at some of the fundamental questions asked by all cultures around the world. Where do we come from? Why are we here? What is the point of our life? What happens when we die?

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.

Many women expect to become mothers but are childless through social rather than biological reasons - perhaps they haven't met the right person or they prioritised career or education earlier in life. Featuring international interviews by grief counsellor and researcher Lois Tonkin, this collection of first-person stories provides insight into the under-discussed situation of being childless by circumstance. Each story highlights the different aspects of being childless by circumstance, as women move through their 30s, 40s, and 50s, and beyond their ages of fertility. The book explores feelings of grief and loss, and also how women adapt positively to their changed life expectations, finding excitement in the alternative, rich and complex shapes their lives have taken.

The fire was visible from seventy miles away and the heat generated was so intense that a helicopter could only circle the rig at a perimeter of one mile. On the surface of the sea, a converted fishing trawler inched as close as possible, but the paint on the vessel’s hull blistered and burnt. In the water surrounding the inferno, men’s heads could be seen bobbing like apples as their yellow hard hats melted with the heat.

On 6 July 1988 a series of explosions ripped through the Piper Alpha oil platform, 110 miles north-east of Aberdeen in the North Sea. Ablaze with 226 men on board, the searing temperatures caused the platform to collapse in just two hours. Only sixty-one would survive by leaping over 100 feet into the water below.

Newly updated for the thirtieth year since the tragedy, Fire in the Night by journalist Stephen McGinty tells in gripping detail the devastating story of that summer evening. Combining interviews with survivors, witness statements and transcripts from the official inquiry into the disaster, this is the moving and vivid tale of what remains the worst offshore oil-rig disaster to date.

If burying a child has a special poignancy, the tragedy at a Catholic elementary school in Chicago almost forty years ago was an extraordinary moment of grief. One of the deadliest fires in American history, it took the lives of ninety-two children and three nuns at Our Lady of the Angels School, left many families physically and psychologically scarred for life, and destroyed a close-knit working-class neighborhood. This is the moving story of that fire and its consequences written by two journalists who have been obsessed with the events of that terrible day in December 1958. It is a story of ordinary people caught up in a disaster that shocked the nation. In gripping detail, those who were there-children, teachers, firefighters-describe the fear, desperation, and panic that prevailed in and around the stricken school building on that cold Monday afternoon. But beyond the flames, the story of the fire at Our Lady of the Angels became an enigma whose mystery has deepened with time: its cause was never officially explained despite evidence that it had been intentionally set by a troubled student at the school. The fire led to a complete overhaul of fire safety standards for American schools, but it left a community torn apart by grief and anger, and accusations that the Catholic church and city fathers had shielded the truth. Messrs. Cowan and Kuenster have recreated this tragedy in a powerful narrative with all the elements of a first-rate detective story.

From the bestselling author of 'Elizabeth and Mary', the remarkable love story of Dorothy Osborne and Sir William Temple, set against the turbulence and romance of 17th-century England. Sir William Temple (1628-99), handsome and intelligent, son of a staunch Parliamentarian, become a celebrated essayist and diplomat in Charles II's time. Captivating him from their first meeting, when he was just 20, Dorothy Osborne (1627-1696) was an intellectual romantic from a family of committed Royalists. After a long and at times desperate courtship, in which Dorothy rejected numerous other suitors (including Henry Cromwell, son of the Lord Protector), they married in 1654. Their union had been fiercely opposed by both their families, but they went on to build a passionate marriage that brought personal tragedies and public triumphs and betrayals during the huge political upheavals of the age. Their relationship was intellectually collaborative; both were gifted writers, and possessed of strikingly modern sensibilities. Seventy-seven letters written by Dorothy to William during their long clandestine courtship survive, masterpieces of wit and style, with a conversational intimacy that transports the reader to her side. Both were at the social and political centre of life: confidants of William of Orange and Mary, who were instrumental in promoting their marriage, contemporaries of Pepys, and employers of Jonathan Swift. Drawing upon extensive research and the Temples' own extraordinary writings, Jane Dunn brings to life their remarkable story, offering a rare perspective on one of the most turbulent periods of British history. In illuminating the personal lives, politics and passions of two endearing and independent-minded people, she brilliantly captures not only the story of a marriage, but the spirit of a dawning modern age.

A fascinating mix of participatory journalism and history, "Getting Into Guinness" is the never-before-told story of the bestselling copyrighted book of all time. Veteran reporter Larry Olmsted began a personal quest to break an existing world record, then to set another one, and soon he was fully immersed in the crazy and highly competitive world of record breaking. This is his behind-the-scenes report of the characters who created the famous record book and continue to make it wackier and wackier with every passing year.

The enthralling 50-year history of the Guinness World Records is a story of phenomenal success, equally compelling failures, and extreme oddities. People all over the world strive to get into the book, often in the most unbelievable ways. Olmsted chronicles some of the funniest and most interesting Guinness record holders from a uniquely insider perspective: he himself is one of them.

It all began with a gentleman's wager over which was the fastest game bird in Europe, the golden plover or the grouse. The attempt to answer this question has sold more than 100 million books in dozens of languages and every corner of the globe. Today, there is heated competition for the record to hold the most records (currently held by Ashrita Furman, 114 records and counting), as well as classic curiosities that have lasted for decades (the tallest man in history is still Robert Wadlow, at 8' 11""). Interwoven into all of this is Olmsted's account of his own two successful record-setting attempts, the first involving traveling halfway around the world with his golf shoes--""Greatest Distance Between Two Rounds of Golf on the Same Day""--and the second causing him to nearlylose his mind while playing the world's longest poker session.

Why do people devote so much energy to get into the record book, often at great risk? Why do the most extreme fans devote their entire lives to this pursuit? Why is society so obsessed with records and record breaking? Why do Americans alone buy a million and a half copies of the famous book every year, propelling it to the top of the bestseller lists decade after decade? Why do readers of all generations remember the same record-holding icons, the fattest twins, the longest fingernails, and the tallest man? After his own journey inside the world of record breaking, these are the questions Olmsted attempts to answer.

In the tradition of the bestselling "Word Freak"--a melange of travelogue, memoir, investigative journalism, and history--"Getting Into Guinness" is a must-read for anyone who has ever read "Guinness World Records" and wondered why someone would grow their fingernails for an entire lifetime.

Asked shortly after the revolution about how she viewed the new government, Tatiana Varsher replied, "With the wide-open eyes of a historian." Her countrywoman, Zinaida Zhemchuzhnaia, expressed a similar need to take note: "I want to write about the way those events were perceived and reflected in the humble and distant corner of Russia that was the Cossack town of Korenovskaia." What these women witnessed and experienced, and what they were moved to describe, is part of the extraordinary portrait of life in revolutionary Russia presented in this book. A collection of life stories of Russian women in the first half of the twentieth century, In the Shadow of Revolution brings together the testimony of Soviet citizens and emigres, intellectuals of aristocratic birth and Soviet milkmaids, housewives and engineers, Bolshevik activists and dedicated opponents of the Soviet regime. In literary memoirs, oral interviews, personal dossiers, public speeches, and letters to the editor, these women document their diverse experience of the upheavals that reshaped Russia in the first half of this century.

As is characteristic of twentieth-century Russian women's autobiographies, these life stories take their structure not so much from private events like childbirth or marriage as from great public events. Accordingly the collection is structured around the events these women see as touchstones: the Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War of 1918-20; the switch to the New Economic Policy in the 1920s and collectivization; and the Stalinist society of the 1930s, including the Great Terror. Edited by two preeminent historians of Russia and the Soviet Union, the volume includes introductions that investigate the social historical context of these women's lives as well as the structure of their autobiographical narratives."

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

In 1993, JosE MedellIn, an eighteen-year-old Mexican national who lived most of his life in the United States, was arrested for his participation in the gang rape and murder of two girls in Houston, Texas. Despite telling police that he was born in Mexico, he was never informed of his rights to contact the Mexican Consulate, a right guaranteed to him by Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. The Mexican government filed suit against the United States in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which ruled that the United States had violated the rights of both Mexico and MedellIn, along with fifty-one other Mexican nationals in other cases. The ICJ instructed the United States to provide "review and reconsideration" of the convictions and sentences of the fifty-two Mexican nationals.Armed with this new decision, MedellIn sought a writ of habeas corpus, which was denied by the lower courts. He petitioned for a writ of certiorari, which the Supreme Court granted, twice. While President George W. Bush sided with the ICJ, the State of Texas, under Solicitor General Ted Cruz, argued against the president. Despite a nearly universal belief among court watchers and legal scholars that Texas would lose, the Court in a 6-3 decision ruled in favor of Texas and against MedellIn in June 2008. MedellIn was executed just two months later. In this volume Alan Mygatt-Tauber tells the story of MedellIn v. Texas, showing how the Court's 2008 ruling grappled with the complex question of how a united republic that respects the dual sovereignty of its constituent parts struggles to comply with its international obligations. But this is also a story of international human rights and the anomalous position of the United States regarding the death penalty compared to other nations. In the closing chapters, the author explores the aftermath of the execution, including the continued effort of Mexico to seek justice for its nationals. Mygatt-Tauber offers a detailed examination of the case at every stage of proceedings-trial, appeal, at the International Court of Justice, and in both trips to the Supreme Court. He provides never-before-revealed information about the thinking of the Bush White House in the decision to comply with the ICJ's judgment and to withdraw from the Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention which granted the ICJ jurisdiction.

'The most eccentric golf book ever' Sports and Leisure Magazine Golf's Strangest Rounds is an absorbing collection of bizarre tales from the lengthy annals of the sport's history. There are stories of tragedy, eccentricity, tactical slipups and ones that defy categorization altogether - meet `Mysterious Montague', for example, of the world's best golfers but a man who refused ever to compete in a tournament. You'll find plenty of golfing greats here - Gene Sarazen, Chip Beck, Greg Norman, Nick Faldo - all of whom have played their parts in irrational finishes, record rounds and famous freak shots. The tales within these pages are bizarre, fascinating, hilarious and, most importantly, true. This brand new edition, redesigned in splendid hardback for 2018, is the perfect gift for any golf fanatic. Word count: 45,000

Following on from the hugely popular 'Angel Saved My Life' series comes a moving new collection of real-life stories from the Afterlife. Following the bestsellers An Angel by My Side and An Angel Held My Hand comes a brand new collection of heartwarming and inspiring real-life dramas about people who have had 'a little help' from the other side when they most needed it. Stories include: The shouting angel whose playful antics saved a young girl from falling down the stairs. The angel who prevented a woman's bad judgement becoming a tragedy. The whispering angel who helped a serial dieter lose weight for good. The angel voice that quietly guided a woman to her soul mate. The group of friends whose guardian angels revealed their purpose in life. The laughing angel who helped a lost boy find his way home. These are just some of the miraculous accounts in this inspiring new collection of true stories.

The authors, both experienced field workers in the region, spent their honeymoon collecting 14 narratives of ordinary people who survived multiple invasions and civil violence, only to endure a medieval theocracy that stepped into the resulting vacuum of governance. While edicts that denied basic human rights were imposed and enforced, these people

This epic saga of brotherhood and rivalry, of loyalty and treachery, of victory and death forms part of the indelible core of classical Chinese culture and continues to fascinate modern-day readers. In 220 EC, the 400-year-old rule of the mighty Han dynasty came to an end and three kingdoms contested for control of China. Liu Pei, the legitimate heir to the Han throne, elects to fight for his birthright and enlists the aid of his sworn brothers, the impulsive giant Chang Fei and the invincible knight Kuan Yu. The brave band faces a formidable array of enemies, foremost among them the treacherous and bloodthirsty Ts'ao Ts'ao. The bold struggle of the three heroes seems doomed until the reclusive wizard Chuko Liang offers his counsel, and the tide begins to turn. Romance of the Three Kingdoms is China's oldest novel and the first of a great tradition of historical fiction. Believed to have been compiled by the play-wright Lo Kuan-chung in the late fourteenth century, it is indebted to the great San-kuo chi (Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms) completed by the historian Ch'en Shou just before his death in 297 CE. The novel first appeared in print in 1522. This edition, translated in the mid-1920s by C. H. Brewitt-Taylor, is based on a shortened and simplified version which appeared in the 1670s. An Introduction to this reprint by Robert E. Hegel, Professor of Chinese and Comparative Literature at Washington University, provides an insightful commentary on the historical background to the novel, its literary origins and its main characters.

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."

Yvonne Weekes' memoir of eight years dominated by the awakening, eruption and still grumbling aftermath of Montserrat's Soufriere is a remarkable document at many levels. It is an acutely written account of the impact of the eruption on the life and viability of this small Caribbean island, with a quizzical eye for the undertones of the experience - the way, for instance, the awakened mountain becomes a favoured place for car-bourne lovers' trysts - as well as for the more public manifestations of the way her people responded to disaster. As Director of Culture who organised a theatrical review that was taken round the refugees in the temporary shelters, she was well-placed to observe and listen; one of the qualities of the book is the way it brings the voices of Montserratians so vividly to life. She captures a world split between the new scientific vocabulary of seismology and pyroclastic flows and the Old Testament talk of Sodom and Gomorrah and sins punished. But 'Volcano' is above all a personal and intimate account of the processes of stress, loss, grieving emptiness and the rebuilding of heart and sense of self; of confronting the 'nothingness that hollows me', when everything by which she has known herself - home, family, friends, landscape - is taken from her, when faith is tested to the core. But it is the quality of Yvonne Weekes' writing that makes 'Volcano' a work of art as well as a record. Her prose is always alive, conversational and clear, rising to memorable heights when she describes the terrible moments of blackness against which all life demands to be reviewed.