The true story of Canadian bush pilot Don &quotSmokey" Patry is a succession of brave take offs daring landings and high intensity turbulence every minute in between

Whether performing an emergency landing in darkness in Canada s northern wilderness rebuilding his plane s engine with a rusty file or zigzagging a bomber plane across the Atlantic Ocean during World War II there was never a dull moment in Patry s career

"Smoke in the Cockpit" is Canadian aviation history at its best Patry raised in Western Canada began flying professionally in 1937 over the uncharted mountainous territory of Alberta BC and the North West Territories Destiny uncannily placed him in the thick of the action and he went from one adventure to the next without fanfare pause or concern Introduced to Patry by his flying partner Jack Sullivan author H J Smith offers this riveting collection of Patry s high flying heroics for readers of all ages

The hotel business is a licence to print money - not only for the managers, owners and shareholders, but for the people who work there. From chambermaids' tips, to doormen making pound]2,000 a week, to the concierge taking backhanders - everyone in the hotel trade is on the make. The hotel business is a licence for the guests to steal - anything from fridges, furniture, plasma TVs, carpets, loo seats, bathrobes, ashtrays, teaspoons - even re-filling the vodka bottle in the mini-bar with water. The hotel business is a licence for guests to behave badly - from rent boys and girls by the hour, to pound]800 on telephone porn bills, pound]24,000 room parties, drugs, dead sheep, splashing out on pound]5,000 bottles of wine, guests falling through windows, naked guests, drunken guests and guests who have to be sectioned. The hotel business is also a licence for celebrity to reign supreme - from Michael Jackson's Evian bath to Madonna's odd curtain fetish, Kate Moss and Johnny Depp's parties, Princess Diana's taste for oysters, Pamela Anderson's sexual gymnastics, the Queen Mother's chips and Prince Phillip's Silver Bullet cocktail. tragedies, the miseries, the decadence and the debauchery of the ultimate service industry - where money not only talks, but gets you the best room, the best service, and also entities you to behave in any way you please...

Ever since Charles Whitman gunned down over a dozen innocent people in 1966 from his perch atop the University of Texas clock tower, "SWAT team" has become a household word. In this compelling book, police veteran Robert L. Snow takes us into the midst of the nation's heroic SWAT teams, allowing us to eavesdrop on harrowing negotiations between killers and cops. He gives us a balanced look at what SWAT teams do right and what they do wrong and recommends ways to improve their tactics in future hostage situations. While he gives no-holds-barred analyses of such dire failures as Waco, he also celebrates SWAT's greatest triumphs--thousands of incidents in which no one was hurt. No policeman or citizen can afford to miss this harrowing yet hopeful look at society's main weapon against sudden terror.

'Brilliantly written. Very funny and heartbreaking.' Davina McCall

From one of Britain's most popular and prolific comedians comes a hilarious and deeply moving memoir of life lived under the rule of a Silverback dad.

The Silverback is considered the undisputed king, a creature whose authority is never challenged and who does not yield to compromise. He walks proudly, feeds greedily, grafts tirelessly, mates voraciously, swears constantly and is threatened all too easily. The Silverback is known to nestle in the misty peaks of central Africa but can also be found in Barking, Essex. Meet Dave Kane, the disappointed, steroid-ingesting, metal-wielding, bouncer father of slight, effete Gamma Male, Russell Kane.

SON OF A SILVERBACK is a story about fathers and sons, class and education and how one scrawny, sensitive, fake-tan-applying 'ponce' stepped out of his father's shadow and became a man - whatever that means.

A spellbinding new talent explores the dark side of creativity through the stories of thirteen tragic architects 'Bold Ventures resembles a pop version of Iain Sinclair's psychogeography or Out of Sheer Rage, Geoff Dyer's anti-biography of DH Lawrence' Olivia Laing, Guardian In thirteen chapters, Belgian poet Charlotte Van den Broeck goes in search of buildings that were fatal for their architects - architects who either killed themselves or are rumoured to have done so. They range across time and space from a church with a twisted spire built in seventeenth-century France to a theatre that collapsed mid-performance in 1920s Washington, DC., and an eerily sinking swimming pool in her hometown of Turnhout. Drawing on a vast range of material, from Hegel and Charles Darwin to art history, stories from her own life and popular culture, patterns gradually come into focus, as Van den Broeck asks: what is that strange life-or-death connection between a creation and its creator? Threaded through each story, and in prose of great essayistic subtlety, Van den Broeck meditates on the question of suicide - what Albert Camus called the 'one truly serious philosophical problem' - in relation to creativity and public disgrace. The result is a profoundly idiosyncratic book, breaking new ground in literary non-fiction, as well as providing solace and consolation - and a note of caution - to anyone who has ever risked their hand at a creative act. 'What a sensible, intelligent and beautiful book' Stefan Hertmans, author of War and Turpentine

In the wake of Texas enacting a bill to deny abortions after 6 weeks, Loved and Wanted shines a light on motherhood and the right to choose. For readers of Educated and Hillbilly Elegy. In 2017, after becoming unexpectedly pregnant, Christa Parravani requested a termination. With two children already to care for and a history of ectopic pregnancies, she was worried she would not be able to find adequate medical care. However, when she asked for help, her doctor refused. The only doctor who would perform an abortion made it clear that this would be illicit, not condoned by her colleagues or their community. In exploring her own choice, or rather in discovering her lack of it, Christa reveals the desperate state of female healthcare in contemporary America, and examines her own reckoning with life, death and choice.

In this true Western classic Jack Schaefer tells the story of a mysterious stranger who finds himself in the Wyoming Territory joining local homesteaders in their fight to keep their land and avoid the intimidating tactics of cattle driver Luke Fletcher. While trying to leave his gunslinging days behind him, the mysterious stranger, Shane, is tested by Fletcher and his men. In Shane, Schaefer executes a perfect Western narrative while exploring the overarching themes of virtue, the human condition, and a man's search for self.

In Australia 38,000 people are reported missing each year, in the UK the number is around 365,000 and in the US over 600,000. Many of these cases are never resolved. Blending long-form journalism with true crime and philosophy, Erin Stewart's The Missing Among Us takes us from the Australian bush, to the battlefields of Northern France and the perilous space of a refugee camp to explore stories behind the missing. Stewart speaks to parents of missing children, former cult members, advocates working on the crisis of missing refugees, children of the Stolen Generations and many more. From famous cases like that of Madeleine McCann, to those who are lesser known, yet equally loved and mourned, this unique book forces us to see the complex story behind each missing person and those they leave behind.

In this jaw-dropping classic of prison escape literature (originally poublished in 1987 and now a major movie starring Daniel Radcliffe), Tim Jenkin tells of how he, Stephen Lee and Alexander Moumbaris, using a series of hand-made wooden keys, got through nine locked doors inside Pretoria Central, taking them to Mozambique and finally to London.

This fast-paced thriller begins with Jenkin’s Cape Town childhood and the growth of his political awareness, his university days and his friendship with Stephen Lee. Both men left South Africa after university for London to join the African National Congress. Jenkin and Lee, after training in London, became expert pamphlet bombers in Cape Town and Johannesburg, and it was after several successful years of raising awareness about apartheid and the ANC that they were caught and eventually sentenced to 12 years in jail. It is after Lee’s father visits his son in prison, bringing him a copy of another escape classic, Papillon, that Jenkin begins to seriously form an escape plan. Months and months of planning, testing, failing, testing again and lucky breaks meant that, finally, the escape was on.

The recently late Denis Goldberg was a friend and supporter of the men, and kept a warder busy as they began their escape. Apart from locking the doors behind them, they never looked back…