What on earth would make someone decide to put their whole life up for sale... on eBay? When Ian Usher decided that it was time to leave the past behind and move on to the next chapter of his life, that is exactly what he did. The results were surprising, entertaining and challenging. However, the auction was only the beginning of the adventure. What does someone do when they have sold their life? Well, just about anything they like really Armed with a list of 100 lifetime goals, and a self-imposed timeframe of 100 weeks, Ian embarked on what could truly be described as the journey of a lifetime - a global adventure spanning six continents, two years, and almost every emotion. From the amazing highs of achievement, happiness and love, to the terrible lows of disappointment, loneliness and despair, come along and enjoy the rollercoaster ride of life, as experienced by one traveller who is simply looking for a new start.

There are books about penoplasty (penile enlargement) but none from men who have actually undergone the procedure. I have appeared on television and been interviewed in magazines about my operation.

On 27 August 1979, Paul Burns's life changed for ever. Travelling through Warren Point in Northern Ireland when the IRA detonated two massive bombs, he was involved in a devastating explosion - eighteen soldiers were killed that day; Paul was one of only two who survived. Newly recruited to the Parachute Regiment, Paul was performing a tour of duty in Northern Ireland when a four-tonne truck in which he was travelling was destroyed by a massive IRA bomb. Eighteen of his friends and colleagues were killed in the Warrenpoint blast - the biggest single loss of life for the British Army during the Troubles. Paul barely survived. His body was broken. His left leg was amputated below the knee. His skin was burned down to the bone. Those who saw him wondered if it might not be kinder to let him die. At just eighteen, Paul thought his life was over. But he refused to be beaten. He had made a promise to himself that he would make up for the loss of his friends' lives by living his own life to the full. And just over five years later he was a member of the elite parachute display team, The Red Devils. In 1996 he entered the record books as a member of 'Time and Tide': the first ever disabled crew to sail around the world. Today he works as a disabled extra in tv and film - amongst his accolades he can count a role in Hollywood blockbuster Gladiator. His story is a remarkable tale of one man's determination to make the most of his life against the odds.

For Anyone Who's Ever Been a Teenager Who's teenage years weren't terrible? Remember the scary older kids? The sadistic gym teacher? The smelly kid who sat next to you in science class? Your first fumbling kiss? That time you threw up in the cafeteria? Your first attempt at putting on a condom? The period that arrived unexpectedly? That awful fight with your parents? The first time you got drunk? That note you wrote that you shouldn't have written? The day you forgot to zip your fly? That monster zit? When, you wondered, would it all end? In When I Was a Loser, John McNally, author of the novel America's Report Card, assembles twenty-five original essays--often hilarious, sometimes tenderhearted, always evocative--about defining moments of high school loserdom. Brad Land, Julianna Baggott, Owen King, Johanna Edwards, and many more fresh, talented writers explore their own angst, humiliation, heartache, and other staples of teen life. These essays perfectly capture what it was like to be in high school: to experience so many things for the first time, to assert independence while desperately trying to fit in, to feel misunderstood and unable to articulate the wild swings between heartbreak, anger, and euphoria. One writer recalls how his grandmother helped him with his home perm in preparation for the Senior Class picture; another recounts her discovery, sometime after hitting puberty, of the power she held over boys and men, while at the same time she felt herself at their mercy; a third remembers the casual cruelties visited on him by the cooler kids, and the cruelties he, in turn, inflicted on kids below him on the social ladder. Utterly candid and compulsively readable, these essays conjure up and untangle those raw and formative years. The writers cringe and laugh at the teenagers they were, but at the same time, they honor their adolescence and the way it shaped their lives. Because, in truth, beneath the layers of adult respectability, we all still carry a little bit of our teenage selves around with us.

Beginning on Valentine's Day, 1981, when twelve-year-old Todd Domboski plunged through the earth in his grandmother's backyard in Centralia, Pennsylvania, The Day the Earth Caved In is an unprecedented and riveting account of the nation's worst mine fire. In astonishing detail, award-winning journalist Joan Quigley, the granddaughter of Centralia miners, ushers readers into the dramatic world of the underground blaze. Drawing on interviews with key participants and exclusive new research, Quigley paints unforgettable portraits of Centralia and its residents, from Tom Larkin, the short-order cook and ex-hippie who rallied the activists, to Helen Womer, the bank teller who galvanized the opposition, denying the fire's existence even as toxic fumes invaded her home. Like Jonathan Harr's A Civil Action, The Day the Earth Caved In is a seminal investigation" "of individual rights, corporate privilege, and governmental indifference to the powerless.

Join us by the fireside of a legendary guesthouse in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, where fly fishermen gather each evening to tell stories of their exploits. Tales from The Angler's Retreat reveals a world of amiable obsession, as people from many backgrounds - united by fishing, companionship and the unusual beauty of the island of South Uist - take turns to tell their stories. Some tales may be tall. Many involve mishaps. Some are hilarious, others wistful. Together they offer unexpected insight into fishing, Scottish islands and how men behave when practising their passion.

We all dream of winning millions on the lottery and occasionally wonder just what we'd do if it actually happened. Joe Johnson was no different. The son of a rag and-bone man, he played the lotto for years 'just in case', and always had a hunch that he might get lucky. But when he first found out that his numbers had come up, he thought someone was pulling his leg - it turned out to be the moment that would change his destiny forever.Overnight, Joe went from practically penniless despair to living life in the fast lane with GBP 10 million to his name. From then on it was nothing but the best - the champagne, the cars, the country mansion and the girls - it looked like Joe had it all. But despite the jetset lifestyle there was one thing missing in his life - true love.Since his win, a string of intense yet failed relationships had hurt Joe (not to mention his wallet) very badly. A wiser (yet poorer!) man, Joe met and fell in head-over heels in love with Lisa, a beautiful blonde who took his breath away. This time around, he was determined not to be made a fool of, so to ensure Lisa would love him for who he was, not his bank balance, Joe hatched an incredible plan to test her love for him - he'd pretend to be broke and steel himself for her reaction on discovering that she had been deceived. What followed reads like a fairytale.The lengths to which Joe went to keep his secret are amazing - he even made Lisa pay the bills and took her on a holiday from hell to a cockroach-infested apartment! But the outcome of the tale was more sensational than Joe could ever have imagined..."A Whole Lotto Love" is a heart-warming and hilarious tale, and the story of Joe is one of the most astonishing you will ever read. It is perfect for lottery winners and non-lottery winners alike!

Many women become Horse Crazy as girls and never lose their admiration for the beauty and dignity and the wisdom and whimsicality of these remarkable creatures. Here, fifty women offer their stories of the path of equine wisdom and the benefits of a good relationship with a loving horse, from improved confidence (and yes, even firmer thighs) to reconnecting with the world after a period of grief. Includes such stories as: A wheelchair-bound woman overcomes her physical limitations, not only learning to ride but to compete - and win! - in dressage Pregnant for the first time, a mother to be watches a brood mare deliver a colt and gains the confidence to face the arrival of her own child A stresses out executive learns that a bored cow pony can teach her a thing or two One lovelorn woman finds she can learn a lot about men from watching horses

In This Common Secret Dr. Susan Wicklund chronicles her emotional and dramatic twenty-year career on the front lines of the abortion war. Growing up in working class, rural Wisconsin, Wicklund had her own painful abortion at a young age. It was not until she became a doctor that she realized how many women shared her ordeal of an unwanted pregnancy,and how hidden this common experience remains. This is the story of Susan's love for a profession that means listening to women and helping them through one of the most pivotal and controversial events in their lives. Hers is also a calling that means sleeping on planes and commuting between clinics in different states,and that requires her to wear a bulletproof vest and to carry a .38 caliber revolver. This is also the story of the women whom Susan serves, women whose options are increasingly limited. Through these intimate, complicated, and inspiring accounts, Wicklund reveals the truth about the women's clinics that anti-abortion activists portray as little more than slaughterhouses for the unborn. As we enter the most fevered political fight over abortion America has ever seen, this raw and powerful memoir shows us what is at stake.

One Navy admiral called it"one of the greatest unsolved sea mysteries of our era." The U.S. Navy officially describes it an inexplicable accident. For decades, the real story of the disaster eluded journalists, historians, and the family members of the lost crew. But a small handful of Navy and government officials knew the truth: The sinking of the U.S.S. Scorpion on May 22, 1968, was an act of war. In Scorpion Down , military reporter Ed Offley reveals that the true cause of the Scorpion's sinking was buried by the U.S. government in an attempt to keep the Cold War from turning hot. For five months, the families of the Scorpion crew waited while the Navy searched feverishly for the missing submarine. For the first time, Offley reveals that entire search was cover-up, devised to conceal that fact that the Scorpion had been torpedoed by the Soviets. In this gripping and controversial book, Offley takes the reader inside the shadowy world of the Cold War military, where rival superpowers fought secret battles far below the surface of the sea.

I behave badly to set myself apart. To test myself. To push myself. To prove something. To shock someone. ... I behave badly because I can. That s how Ellen Sussman describes her mischievous endeavors. In this anthology of personal essays, she s invited twenty-five other bad girl writers to share their stories. Ann Hood lies; Mary Roach confesses. Erica Jong, the original bad girl, challenges her own claim to that fame. Caroline Leavitt marries and cheats. These pages bristle with danger. The writers dig deep bad behavior lies in their souls. And what they bring to the surface reveals telling truths about our psyches and our society.

When Jim Gordon set out to build a wind farm off the coast of Cape Cod, he knew some people might object. But there was a lot of merit in creating a privately funded, clean energy source for energy-starved New England, and he felt sure most people would recognize it eventually. Instead, all Hell broke loose. Gordon had unwittingly challenged the privileges of some of America's richest and most politically connected people, and they would fight him tooth and nail, no matter what it cost, and even when it made no sense. Cape Wind is a rollicking tale of democracy in action and plutocracy in the raw as played out among colourful and glamorous characters on one of our country's most historic and renowned pieces of coastline. As steeped in American history and local colour as The Prince of Providence as biting, revealing and fun as Philistines at the Hedgerow , it is also a cautionary tale about how money can hijack democracy while America lags behind the rest of the developed world in adopting clean energy.

A behind-the-scenes look at death in New York City. For almost a century, New York City's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has presided over the dead. Over the years, the OCME has endured everything- political upheavals, ghastly murders, bloody gang wars, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and non-stop battles for power and influence-and remains the final authority in cases of sudden, unexplained, or violent death. Founded in 1918, the OCME has evolved over decades of technological triumphs and all-too human failure to its modern-day incarnation as the foremost forensics lab in the world, investigating an average caseload of over 15,000 suspicious deaths a year. This is the behind-the-scenes chronicle of public service and private vendettas, of blood in the streets and back-room bloodbaths, and of the criminal cases that made history and headlines.

What do 'Abu Sindi', 'Timothy Sean McCormack', 'Saro', and 'Commander Avo' all have in common? They were all aliases for Monte Melkonian. But who was Monte Melkonian? In his native California he was once a kid in cut-off jeans, playing baseball and eating snow cones. Europe denounced him as an international terrorist. His adopted homeland of Armenia decorated him as a national hero who led a force of 4000 men to victory in the Armenian enclave of Mountainous Karabagh in Azerbaijan. Why Armenia? Why adopt the cause of a remote corner of the Caucasus whose peoples had scattered throughout the world after the early twentieth century Ottoman genocides? Markar Melkonian spent seven years unravelling the mystery of his brother's road: a journey which began in his ancestors' town in Turkey and leading to a blood-splattered square in Tehran, the Kurdish mountains, the bomb-pocked streets of Beirut, and finally, to the windswept heights of Mountainous Karabagh. Monte's life embodied the agony and the follies bedevelling the end of the Cold War and the unravelling of the Soviet Union. Yet, who really was this man? A terrorist or a hero? "My Brother's Road" is not just the story of a long journey and a short life, it is an attempt to understand what happens when one man decides that terrible actions speak louder than words.

NO FUTURE? 'It will never work.' 'They are just too different.' 'Sleep with a white man? No thanks.' 'Look at the state of him, those clothes ' Just some of the comments directed at Margaret and Bobby Smith during their ten-year marriage. Why? Because Bobby is a white, cider-bellied punk rocker and Margaret a black, Methodist, Nigerian. One Love is a book that shows the reality of inter-racial love. Through the eyes of Mr and Mrs Smith we see how two people can conquer prejudice, intolerance and hate. A hate that comes from both sides. Written from their dual perspective, they honestly debate the issues that affect those who marry out of their culture. The result is a book that challenges previously held views about multiculturalism. Taking their relationship as a starting point, our co-authors also explore wider issues such as: segregation, self-hate, sex and identity. Crucially, the book addresses the unique problems experienced by black women/white men partnerships. A mixture of social comment and personal experience, One Love shows the true level of prejudice that exists in modern day England. It delves into the underbelly of inter-racial relationships and discusses the pain, pleasures and pitfalls of such liaisons. It is a book to make you think differently about the world we live in. It is also a sign of hope.

This book is a valuable resource for all of those seeking to understand the reality faced by millions of Americans whose plight rarely finds an informed and articulate voice such as that possessed by Ms. Mitchell. Though this penetrating journal is written over thirty years ago, her intimate experience with and intricate insights into the reality faced by an expanding American underclass are as relevant today as they were then. She sheds an informing and penetrating light on race relations, poverty, mothering, gender relations and many other pertinent issues. Foreword Magazine Book of The Year Bronze Winner: Family and Relationships, 2008. Indies Next Generation Book of The Year Award: Family / Parenting, 2008.

From our side is a collaborative effort of younger scholars in southern Africa and the Netherlands who are interested in the relationship between development and ethics, from a Christian point of view. The 17 chapters that make up the book have been produced through a unique set of partnerships, in which the authors have intentionally worked with practitioners who are working in the development arena.

How hard-living journalist Frank Robson fell under the spell of a small dog called Lucky. At eighteen months of age, Lucky, a cream-coloured terrier, was dropped off at a vet's clinic in Queensland, abandoned by his owners and suffering from ticks and other terrors. A week from being put down he was adopted by Frank Robson and his partner, Leisa. From the start, the fluffy new member of the household proved an enigma, displaying a twelve-snort vocabulary, an ability to climb trees (the better to chase parrots) and a disdain for suburbia. In this full-blooded account of a friendship between man and dog, Robson puzzles on the sentient being who trotted into his life and taught him about survival, mateship and the joys of an independent spirit.

There are some things that you can't really understand until they happen to you - and divorce is one of them. In this crazy time marked by emotional and financial upheaval, even the strongest, most optimistic women need the support of those who've been there. In this book, readers get the real deal on divorce - from the real women who lived to tell about it. Readers will laugh and cry along with: Ariana, whose abusive husband never allowed her to have a job, parlays her first job in retail into designing clothes for department stores nationwide; Carla, whose lazy ex tries to take the money her hard-working parents left to her - and gets his karmic due; and Michelle, who discovers her "compulsive" spending is easy to control once she rids herself of a philandering husband. In this book, thirty-five divorced women reveal the naked truth about what went wrong, why they got divorced and how they survived the transition. Most important, they learn that they, too, can survive this tumultuous time in their lives - only to emerge stronger, wiser and happier.

A Walk Against the Stream is a true story of love set against a background of war in Rhodesia.