A teenage boy lies on the pavement, bleeding from a stab wound; a distraught mum watches, in mute shock, as her daughter suffers a terrifying fatal asthma attack; a young girl is gang-raped and her stricken boyfriend takes an overdose; a disturbed young man flings himself in front of a speeding train at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve. Few people can imagine living in a world where such situations are part of everyday life. Yet for veteran paramedic Lysa Walder, these and thousands of other emergency call outs are part of a day's work: scenes of tragedy, heroism loss and horror - but also stories of triumph and humour. Lysa has been a paramedic for over twenty years, working for the London Ambulance service - the world's biggest and busiest free service - for much of that time. Here, she reveals what it's really like to work in a job that brings paramedic teams face-to-face with death - and destiny - every day.

Corinne Hofmann describes her return to Switzerland and the difficulties that faced her there, detailing how she built a new life for herself and her daughter and overcame all obstacles, with the same courage and optimism with which she faced the demands of her life in the Kenyan outback.

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.

Tomochic is a controversial and celebrated example of Mexican fiction. Tomochic is the fictional narration of the 1892 military campaign that resulted in the massacre of the small village of Tomochic, located in the Tarahumara mountains and ordered by the dictatorial regime of Porfirio Diaz. The work is narrated by an eyewitness, the then second lieutenant, Heriberto Frias, and written by him in collaboration with Joaquin Clausell, editor of the newspaper which published it in serial form between March and April of 1893. For a period after the series' publication, the author chose to maintain anonymity. It was expressly this stance which excited more public interest than any other Mexican writer of the 19th century and which eventually led to a drawn out trial to uncover the identity of the author and to implicate him. For, although it is a work of fiction, the general plot of the work, involving a confrontation between a professional army and a handful of citizens, was too similar to the actual massacre as to not be seen by Porfirio Diaz as a reprovement of himself and his regime. As a piece of literature, the novel is also admired for its incorporation of two important trends of the nineteenth century-history as literature and the war novel.

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.

The march of science has never proceeded smoothly. It has been marked through the years by episodes of drama and comedy, of failure as well as triumph, by outrageous strokes of luck, deserved and undeserved, and sometimes by human tragedy. It has seen deep intellectual friendships, as well as ferocious animosities, and once in a while acts of theft and malice, deceit, and even a hoax or two. Scientists come in all shapes: the obsessive and the dilettantish, the genial, the envious, the preternaturally brilliant and the slow-witted who sometimes see further in the end, the open-minded and the intolerant, recluses and arrivistes. From the death of Archimedes at the hands of an irritated Roman soldier to the concoction of a superconducting witches' brew at the very close of the twentieth century, the stories in Eurekas and Euphorias pour out, told with wit and relish by Walter Gratzer. Open this book at random and you may chance on the clumsy chemist who breaks a thermometer in a reaction vat and finds mercury to be the catalyst that starts the modern dyestuff industry; or a famous physicist dissolving his gold Nobel Prize medal in acid to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Nazis, recovering it when the war ends; mathematicians and physicists diverting themselves in prison cells, and even in a madhouse, by creating startling advances in their subject. We witness the careers, sometimes tragic, sometimes carefree, of the great women mathematicians, from Hypatia of Alexandria to Sophie Germain in France and Sonia Kovalevskaya in Russia and Sweden, and then Marie Curie's relentless battle with the French Academy. Here, then, a glorious parade unfolds to delight the reader, with stories to astonish, to instruct, and most especially, to entertain.

With endearing humor and unabashed compassion, Willie Morris--a self-declared dog man and author of the classic paean to canine kind, My Dog Skip--reveals the irresistible story of his unlikely friendship with a cat. Forced to confront a lifetime of kitty-phobia when he marries a cat woman, Willie discovers that Spit McGee, a feisty kitten with one blue and one gold eye, is nothing like the foul felines that lurk in his nightmares.

For when Spit is just three weeks old he nearly dies, but is saved by Willie with a little help from Clinic Cat, which provides a blood transfusion. Spit is tied to Willie thereafter, and Willie grows devoted to a companion who won't fetch a stick, but whose wily charm and occasional crankiness conceal a fount of affection, loyalty, and a "rare and incredible intelligence." My Cat Spit McGee is one of the finest books ever written about a cat, and a moving and entertaining tribute to an enduring friendship.

Not only has Glasgow produced some incredible personalities, it has also been witness to some of the greatest happenings of our times. These outstanding people and epoch-making events are featured in Glasgow: Tales of the City. As a result of painstaking research, some startling new facts have emerged about the life and times of some of the city's most interesting characters. The many individuals documented in this book include the world's greatest pilot, whose many flying feats are still held in great awe today and unlikely ever to be repeated. He was hailed as a hero in America, they gave a him a ticker-tape reception in New York and Hollywood begged him to be a star. More recently, Glasgow was popularised by a TV programme about the city's tough police officer Taggart. The role of the Glasgow detective made Mark McManus one of Scotland's first international TV stars, and Mark's own life story makes equally compelling reading. Before Billy Connolly, Glasgow's greatest-ever comedian was Lex McLean. He smashed all the box-office records in a Glasgow theatre and became a legend in his own lifetime. His story has never before been told in such detail. This is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating studies of Scotland's largest city ever published.

In 1913, just before the outbreak of the First World War, a 19-year-old Czech Jew named Jiri Langer left his assimilated family to live in the remote village of Belz, Galicia (now Ukraine). He had gone to live under the Chassidic (or Hasidic) Rokeach dynasty, a line of Rabbis that survives to this day. Nine Gates is the autobiographical tale of Langer's time amongst these isolated Chassidic mystics of Eastern Galicia. He tells of their enthusiasm, their simple faith, their ecstasies, their austerities, their feasts, their wonder-working Holy Rabbis and their esoteric wisdom. Alongside this narrative sits a collection of shrewd and earthy folk tales told by the holy men who ruled these little spiritual kingdoms for generation after generation. Over 80 years since its original publication in Czech, this translation by Stephen Jolly remains the definitive English version of this towering work of Jewish introspection. Nine Gates is a document from another time and place, and yet it captures the same spirit of religious longing and exploration that attracts a growing number of seekers today.

Ian Shipley has now been traditionally hand-digging graves for 40 years. He was taught to dig the old-fashioned way and four decades on, averaging 114 graves per year, Ian can still be found habitually toiling away in one of any number of locations across Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire. In Tales of a Gravedigger, the author's first book, he recalls true tales from his early years whilst working at Newark's London Road Cemetery in Nottinghamshire. It is a light-hearted and occasionally amusing look into the life of a gravedigger. From coffins getting stuck to stomach-churning exhumations. From unexpected cave-ins to practical jokes and various other ghostly goings-on. It's an interesting glimpse into a profession that most of us know very little about. Ian has always believed that a grave should be hand-dug. It's more personal that way. For years he has declined to use mechanical digging, preferring instead to keep alive the old ways. In Newark-on-Trent and throughout the surrounding villages of Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, Ian will possibly be the last of the traditional gravediggers.

This is the true story of the most remarkable horse in history. Foaled in the lavish Ottoman stables of the Topkapl Palace in the late 1870s, this dark bay stallion was hard schooled in the disciplines of war. Until now, his remarkable story has never been told.

In March 2020 Covid struck and the world changed - much of the world locked down - will it ever be the same again? The author woke up one morning at the end of June 2021 and decided that she wanted to put a book together of "lives during these times". She had been watching families and friends becoming increasingly divided by their opposing views on what was going on in the world. People were becoming angry and frustrated with each other for not sharing the same view on what was going on. Fear, blame, anxiety, were on the increase. People were suffering and if there was one thing we didn't need more of it was suffering. We all have our own unique circumstances, views, beliefs, thoughts, feelings, hopes and fears and her aim for this book is to create more understanding, respect and love. She has gathered individual heartfelt stories from friends, ordinary people, of where they were in their lives when Covid struck and how they have navigated the past 2 and a half years. The world is in crisis and we need unity, trust and love, not division, hopelessness and fear. This book tells the unique stories of people living in different circumstances, in different countries with some very different opinions. Each story is the truth of the person who wrote it even if it is not your truth. The author hopes you will enjoy reading the wonderful stories that have been shared with her.