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Books > Fiction > True stories > General
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER Want to know the truth about what life
is like as a mum and step-mum with a chaotic patchwork family? This
book is everything I've been through that's made me who I am, plus
the lessons I've learned from many mistakes. I hope that it will
make you laugh as well as give you strength to keep going when
times get tough. After all, we are all in this together...
Rachaele, aka Part-Time Working Mummy Hundreds of thousands of fans
flock to the Part-Time Working Mummy page for its heartfelt posts,
honest accounts of complicated family life and its appeal to 'bring
parents together to support each other through all the sh*t that
life throws at us!'. This book channels the amazing spirit of the
page, with Rachaele sharing behind-the-scenes experiences that have
shaped her own views on parenting and life; packed with personal
stories and lessons learned, it's about the best, the worst and the
ok times in a 'normal' family. As well as tackling subjects like
single parenthood, patchwork families, unexpected pregnancy,
domestic violence and bullying, the book ultimately spreads a
message of kindness amidst the chaos and inspires you to change the
world for the better - and, of course, a good laugh to see you
through the tough times!
**THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER** **SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA
BIOGRAPHY AWARD** 'A modern masterpiece' Guardian Uncovering the
mystery of her mother's disappearance as a child: Laura Cumming,
prize-winning author and art critic, takes a closer look at her
family story. Autumn 1929 - a young girl is kidnapped from a beach.
Five agonising days go by before she is discovered safe and well in
a nearby village. The child remembers nothing of these events and
at home, nobody ever speaks of them again. Decades later, Laura
Cumming delves into the mystery surrounding her mother's
disappearance. Examining everything from old family photos to
letters, tickets and recipes, she uncovers a series of secrets and
lies perpetuated not just by her family but by the whole community
and in doing so unlocks a mystery almost a century old. 'A moving,
many-sided human story of great depth and tenderness, and a
revelation of how art enriches life' Sunday Times Shortlisted for
the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction Shortlisted for the
Rathbones Folio Prize Longlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize
Daniel A. Kelin II preserves the qualities of oral storytelling in
fifty stories recorded from eighteen storytellers on eight islands
and atolls. This lively collection includes something for everyone:
origin stories, tales of mejenkwaad and other demons, tricksters,
disobedient children, wronged husbands, foolish suitors, and
reunited families - all relaying the importance of traditional
Marshallese values and customs. Profiles of the storytellers, a
glossary, and a pronunciation guide enrich the collection.
Adventurers cross deserts and row oceans, appearing to live the
dream. Yet they also must pay the bills and carve out time to get
away. Are you trying to make a career doing what you love, daring
to go freelance in a creative industry, growing a tribe or curious
about an unconventional career? What is it like to build a life
from living adventurously? Whether you are adventurous, creative,
or just curious, Ask An Adventurer answers your questions from
behind the scenes, rather than the usual questions adventurers
hear: there are no kit lists, practical expedition planning advice
or daring deeds in these pages. Instead, Alastair tackles questions
asked by readers on social media such as: How do you make a living?
How do you make time for adventure? How do you stay motivated and
focused? How do you deal with post-adventure blues? How do you deal
with the dilemma of flying and travel? How has social media changed
the way you tell stories? How do you become an adventurer? How much
does an adventurer earn? How do you decide what you will or won't
do for money? How do you find sponsors? How do you get your work
done? How can we make the world of adventure better? How do you get
a book published? How do you get paid to give talks? How do you
become a better speaker? How do you deal with emails? How do you
start a podcast? How do you launch an email newsletter? And more...
In this landmark guide to the spiritual journey, respected Zen teacher and psychotherapist John Tarrant brings together ancient Eastern traditions and the Western passion for the soul. Using real-life stories, Zen tales, and Greek myths, The Light Inside the Dark shows how our darkest experiences can be the gates to wisdom and joy. Tarrant leads us through the inevitable descents of our journey--from the everyday world of work and family into the treasure cave of the interior life--from which we return with greater love of life's vivid, common gifts. Written with empathy and a poet's skill, The Light Inside the Dark is the freshest and most challenging work on the soul to he published in years.
Until recently, no figure loomed larger on Wall Street than Richard
Grasso, the former head of the New York Stock Exchange. Though
short in stature, his power and influence was immense. During his
35 years at the exchange, the last seven as its Chairman, Grasso
was known on the floor of the Exchange as The Little Guy in the
Dark Suit who commanded the attention of politicians, brokered
deals with the nation's most influential businessmen, became a
national hero for his work helping Wall Street recover from the
9/11 terrorist attacks, and then emerged as a symbol of corporate
excess over the details of his enormous compensation
package.Chronicling the amazing rise, fall, and possible rise again
of Richard Grasso, and also tells the modern history of the
all-powerful institution that he came to symbolize: The New York
Stock Exchange. Known as The Club, the NYSE is the world's biggest
stock market, where trillions of dollars of stocks of the nation's
largest companies are priced and traded each day between its 9:30
am opening bell and its 4 pm close. Richard Grasso began his career
as a clerk on the floor of the Exchange, where screaming traders
match buyers and sellers of stocks each day.Even as he rose through
the ranks of the Club, Grasso never seemed to leave the floor too
far behind. During his three decade career at the Exchange, Grasso
fought tooth and nail to keep traders and the NYSE in business,
underscored by his outlandish publicity stunts - and even more
important, by his perennial public and private battles with various
top players in the Club, including its most powerful member,
Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson.
Wonder Boy is a riveting investigation into the turbulent life of
Zappos visionary Tony Hsieh, whose radical business strategies
revolutionized both the tech world and corporate culture, based on
rigorous research and reporting by two seasoned journalists. Tony
Hsieh's first successful venture was in middle school, selling
personalized buttons. At Harvard, he made a profit compiling and
selling study guides. In 1998, Hsieh sold his first company to
Microsoft for $265 million. About a decade later, he sold online
shoe empire Zappos to Amazon for $1.2 billion. The secret to his
success? Making his employees happy. At its peak, Zappos's
employee-friendly culture was so famous across the tech industry
that it became one of the hardest companies to get hired at, and
CEOs from other companies regularly toured the headquarters. But
Hsieh's vision for change didn't stop with corporate culture: Hsieh
went on to move Zappos headquarters to Las Vegas and personally
funded a nine-figure campaign to revitalize the city's historic
downtown area. There, he could be found living in an Airstream and
chatting up the locals. But Hsieh's forays into community-revival
projects spun out of control as his issues with mental health and
addiction ramped up, creating the opportunity for more enablers
than friends to stand in his mercurial good graces. Drawing on
hundreds of interviews with a wide range of people whose lives
Hsieh touched, journalists Angel Au-Yeung and David Jeans craft a
rich portrait of a man who was plagued by the pressure to succeed
but who never lost his generous spirit.
In 1967, seven young men, members of a twelve-man expedition led by
twenty-four-year-old Joe Wilcox, were stranded at 20,000 feet on
Alaska's Mount McKinley in a vicious Arctic storm. Ten days passed
while the storm raged, yet no rescue was mounted. All seven
perished in what remains the most tragic expedition in American
climbing history. Revisiting the event in the tradition of Norman
Maclean's Young Men and Fire, James M. Tabor uncovers elements of
controversy, finger-pointing, and cover-up that make this disaster
unlike any other.
Zara H. Phillips seemed to live a charmed life - backing singer to
the stars with an incredible career here and across the Atlantic -
but her smile masked a difficult childhood and the reality that she
was adopted as a baby in the 60s. Her life soon spiralled and as a
teenager she suffered from drug and alcohol addiction, as she
struggled to find her birth parents and her true identity.
Somebody's Daughter is a fascinating and revealing account of how a
beautiful woman's life has been dominated by her adoption and how
it has affected her and those around her. Hard-hitting and
emotional, Zara's memoir explores the needs of adopted children,
with her characteristic warmth and wit, and the true journey it
takes to find where you belong.
"At a pace matching the flashing lights on a 911 console, Caroline
Burau puts us in the hot seat and shows us the madness, the
sadness, and the gallows humor of a profession that serves and
protects in ways we never dream. And by telling us what goes on
when the microphone is silent, she has taken the voice on the radio
and given it heart." Michael Perry, author of "Population 485" and
"Truck: A Love Story" "A witty, gritty look at life on the
receiving end of our cries for help." "Reader's Digest" (Editor's
Choice)
You answer a call from a fourteen-year-old boy asking for someone
to arrest his mother, who is smoking crack in their bathroom. You
talk with him until the cops arrive, making sure there are no
weapons around and learning that his favorite subject in school is
lunch. Five minutes later, you have to deal with someone
complaining about his neighbor's clarinet practice. What is it like
to be on the receiving end of desperate calls for help . . . every
day? Caroline Burau, a former newspaper reporter and nursing
student who couldn't stand the sight of blood, takes a job as an
emergency dispatcher because she likes helping people. But
on-the-job training at the comm center proves to be more than she
bargained for. As she adjusts to a daily life of catastrophe and
comedy, domestics and drunks, cops and robbers, junk food and
sarcasm, lost cats and suicides, she discovers that crisis can
become routine, that coworkers can be mean--that she must continue
to care and, at times, learn how to let go. "The day may come when
I have to dial 911. I hope to God that the person who answers is
Caroline Burau or someone like her. Funny, honest, and elegantly
simple, this book left me witha sense of grace and hope."--Alison
McGhee, author of "Shadow Baby, Rainlight, Was It Beautiful? "and
"Falling Boy" Caroline Burau is a 911 dispatch operator for the
police and fire departments in White Bear Lake, Minnesota.
Big Beat was once one of the biggest, but ironically, perhaps most
misunderstood musical movements of the Mid-Late 1990's, lead by
some of the biggest artists the Electronic Dance Music scene has
ever seen, such as Fatboy Slim (AKA Norman Cook), The Chemical
Brothers and The Prodigy. It's loud, eclectic sound with it's
syncopated beats was a smash around the world, leading to nights of
boozy (but good natured) hedonism, and it was the soundtrack to the
advertising world of the late 1990's and early 2000's. But,
somewhere along the way, the genre got a massive backlash from
critics, leading to a very quick and painful death, and became the
very victim of it's own success. Where did it go wrong and is there
a chance for the scene to experience a revival? With new and
exclusive interviews with Rory Hoy from 120 of those who were in
the thick of it (including Fatboy Slim and Liam Howlett and Keith
Flint from The Prodigy) - this is a celebratory (and sometimes
humorous) look at a music scene that was short lived . . but had a
very big impact.
In Black's Law, one of America's toughest and shrewdest criminal defense lawyers shows us the life-and-death struggles that occur every day in our criminal courts. This book takes us behind the scenes of four difficult and dangerous cases to reveal the legal strategies, no-holds-barred tactics, and courtroom psychology Roy Black used to make sure his clients received every protection promised by the law. Black demonstrates in riveting detail how a defense attorney must investigate criminal cases by sifting through evidence and preparing for trial. (It's like preparing for war.) He shows us how the principles of law, cross-examination, and evidence -- as well as careful jury selection and skillful use of expert witnesses -- can level the playing field to counter the enormous resources that state and federal prosecutors have at their disposal. Black's Law makes resoundingly clear the crucial role that criminal defense lawyers play in safeguarding the basic right to a fair trial for all.
For Art Spiegelman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Maus, the
terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 were both highly personal
and intensely political. In the Shadow of No Towers, his first new
book of comics since the groundbreaking Maus, is a masterful and
moving account of the events and aftermath of that tragic day.
Spiegelman and his family bore witness to the attacks in their
lower Manhattan neighborhood: his teenage daughter had started
school directly below the towers days earlier, and they had lived
in the area for years. But the horrors they survived that morning
were only the beginning for Spiegelman, as his anguish was quickly
displaced by fury at the U.S. government, which shamelessly
co-opted the events for its own preconceived agenda. He responded
in the way he knows best. In an oversized, two-page-spread format
that echoes the scale of the earliest newspaper comics (which
Spiegelman says brought him solace after the attacks), he relates
his experience of the national tragedy in drawings and text that
convey-with his singular artistry and his characteristic
provocation, outrage, and wit-the unfathomable enormity of the
event itself, the obvious and insidious effects it had on his life,
and the extraordinary, often hidden changes that have been enacted
in the name of post-9/11 national security and that have begun to
undermine the very foundation of American democracy.
I opened my mouth and it came. It wasn't a cry, or even a sob. It
came from deep in my soul... It was the sound of a mother helpless
to save her child from danger. I asked the same unanswered
questions over and again. Where was he? Where was my Damien? On 2
November 1996, sixteen-year-old Damien Nettles went out for the
evening in his home town of Cowes on the Isle of Wight. CCTV
recorded him in a chip shop at 23:40 and on the High Street just
after midnight. He has never been seen since. His mother, Valerie,
has spent over two decades desperately trying to find out what
happened to her son. Arrests have been made, and suspects released
without charge. Despite years of research by journalists and a
private investigator, Damien's vanishing remains a mystery. In this
hugely moving and compelling account, Valerie Nettles tells the
full, perplexing story of her son's disappearance. Someone must
know what happened to Damien. Will the truth ever emerge from the
shadows?
From Americas #1 true crime writer and "New York Times" bestselling
author comes her most engrossing book ever: a 14-year saga of
treachery, jealousy, and murder, about two women who learned the
truth too late about Dr. Bart Corbin of Atlanta.
Exploring Toronto's history through tantalizing true tales of
romance, marriage, and lust. Toronto's past is filled with passion
and heartache. The Toronto Book of Love brings the history of the
city to life with fascinating true tales of romance, marriage, and
lust: from the scandalous love affairs of the city's early settlers
to the prime minister's wife partying with rock stars on her
anniversary; from ancient First Nations wedding ceremonies to a
pastor wearing a bulletproof vest to perform one of Canada's first
same-sex marriage ceremonies. Home to adulterous movie stars,
faithful rebels, and heartbroken spies, Toronto has been shaped by
crushes, jealousies, and flirtations. The Toronto Book of Love
explores the evolution of the city from a remote colonial outpost
to a booming modern metropolis through the stories of those who
have fallen in love among its ravines, church spires, and
skyscrapers.
You think you know her story. You ve read the Brothers Grimm, you
ve watched the Disney cartoons, and you cheered as these virtuous
women lived happily ever after. But real princesses didn t always
get happy endings. Sure, plenty were graceful and benevolent
leaders, but just as many were ruthless in their quest for power
and all of them had skeletons rattling in their royal closets.
Princess Stephanie von Hohenlohe was a Nazi spy. Empress Elisabeth
of the Austro-Hungarian empire slept wearing a mask of raw veal.
Princess Olga of Kiev slaughtered her way to sainthood while
Princess Lakshmibai waged war on the battlefield, charging into
combat with her toddler son strapped to her back. Princesses
Behaving Badly offers true tales of all these princesses and dozens
more in a fascinating read that s perfect for history buffs,
feminists, and anyone seeking a different kind of bedtime story.
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My Dream
(Paperback)
Meverly Benjamin
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R285
R259
Discovery Miles 2 590
Save R26 (9%)
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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My Dream is a gripping novel that follows the struggles of one
woman through adversity to be able to achieve her dream. This novel
confronts real, dark issues and experiences; following a childhood
of abandonment and hard work, this is a tale of perseverance and
drive that takes her from the wards of a London hospital to the
heart of the Middle East. Esther finds herself prepared to make the
ultimate sacrifice to be free of her pain. This is a story of love
and faith; of despair and betrayal. It is a powerful example of a
woman who nearly lost her dream, but who found it in the end.
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