The first collection of memoirs from the author who inspired the BBC and Channel 5 series All Creatures Great and Small. This edition contains If Only They Could Talk and It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet. Fresh out of Glasgow Veterinary College, to the young James Herriot 1930s Yorkshire seems to offer an idyllic pocket of rural life in a rapidly changing world. But from his erratic new colleagues, brothers Siegfried and Tristan Farnon, to incomprehensible farmers, herds of semi-feral cattle, a pig called Nugent and an overweight Pekingese called Tricki Woo, James finds he is on a learning curve as steep as the hills around him. And when he meets Helen, the beautiful daughter of a local farmer, all the training and experience in the world can't help him . . . Since they were first published, James Herriot's memoirs have sold millions of copies and entranced generations of animal lovers. Charming, funny and touching, All Creatures Great and Small is a heart-warming story of determination, love and companionship from one of Britain's best-loved authors. 'I grew up reading James Herriot's books and I'm delighted that thirty years on, they are still every bit as charming, heartwarming and laugh-out-loud funny as they were then' - Kate Humble 'Herriot's enchanting tales of life in the Dales are deservedly classics. Full of extraordinary characters, animal and human, the books never fail to delight' - Amanda Owen, bestselling author of The Yorkshire Shepherdess

Siya Khumalo het grootgeword in ’n Durbanse township waar net een opruiende preek ’n skare kon laat toesak op enigeen wat as “anders” beskou is. In Siya se geval was “anders” om gay te wees. Hy het daarom begin om indringend na seks, politiek en godsdiens te kyk. Hy ontbloot tegnieke wat vandag deur magsfigure gebruik word en wys hoe veral gay mense die prooi word van politici en pastore wat wil ryk word deur die armes en populêre vooroordele uit te buit.

Georg Bucher, a German infantryman from 1914 had lost almost all of his closest friends by 1918. The last friend he lost, Riedel, was crushed by a tank in one of the last battles of the war. This is his tale in their memory. A sergeant by 1918, Bucher describes nearly every part of the Western Front - the Marne, Verdun,Somme, Ypres, the Vosges and the 1918 Spring Offensive in vivid detail. He illustrates how his psychological state changed over the course of the war, how a soldier can in a split second turn from a human being into a killing machine without pity, killing as second nature, without thought.The raw endurance required to survive the trenches is narrated in undiluted fashion, no horrors are spared; the quagmire of 3rd Ypres, unrelenting lice and rats, the stench of death and descriptions ofa bhorrent actions such as (so Bucher alleges) French soldiers, under the influence of absinthe, mutilating some of his company for revenge on the Senegalese.Fans of 'All Quiet on the Western Front' or 'Storm of Steel' will be delighted to discover Bucher's work.

The Sheriff's Chauffeur is a unique and fascinating story concerning the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs of the City of London during the 1958 - 1959 term of office. The book is written by Bob Luckhurst who was the Sheriff's Chauffeur, therefore the subject is banquets, dinners, Livery Halls, visit to Buckingham Palace and royal precessions etc, as seen from a chauffeur's point of view. Bob was only twenty-four years of age at the time and he'd never driven a Rolls Royce in London, yet found himself having to lead the Lord Mayor's three car convoy to each and every engagement. The story also covers the working relationship between sheriff and chauffeur with several serious confrontations, but it's the humorous encounters that make Bob's story an interesting read.

Sully was a hospital, not a sanatorium, and was the last of several institutions and clinics to be established for the provision, treatment and abolition of TB by the King Edward VII National Memorial Association and it was desbanded after the National Health Service came into effect in 1948. Memory is like buried treasures. Sometimes you discover long forgotten worlds. Here I chronicled life inside Sully, an Art Deco building on the coast near Cardiff, a state-of-the art hospital designed to offer a more humane way of treating those with TB, in contrast to the traditional harsh regimes of sanatoriums based on isolation, and fresh air. "A fascinating insight into life and death at a TB hospital in South Wales - from a patient's perspective. At times hilarious, poignant and shocking but compelling throughout." Chris Holme, historian and journalist. The author had published several non-ficton books including "The Children of Craig-y-nos" (co-authored with Dr Carole Reeves), and "Paolozzi Revealed".

In 1993 Rosemary Solomon left the grey January skies of England behind as she set off on a two week journey across India with the charity WaterAid. This diary tells the story of that 1500 mile journey. But this wasn't just a journey to visit WaterAid projects - for Rosemary it became a journey of self-discovery after which life would never be the same again. All proceeds from the sale of this book will go to WaterAid to help with their on going commitment to provide clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene in India and beyond. For more infomation on their work please go to www.wateraid.org.uk My trip to India took place 25 years ago, since that time many of the place names have change, I have not changed the place names rather I have kept them as they were first written in this diary. This is not meant to cause offence, but a true reflection of what I saw and experienced at that time.

Now a major Channel 4 series Rose Cartwright has OCD, but not as you know it. Pure is the true story of her ten-year struggle with 'Pure O', a little-known form of the condition, which causes her to experience intrusive sexual thoughts of shocking intensity. It is a brave and frequently hilarious account of a woman who refused to give up, despite being undermined at every turn by her obsessions and enduring years of misdiagnosis and failed therapies. Eventually, the love of family and friends, and Rose's own courage and sense of humour prevailed, inspiring this deeply felt and beautifully written memoir. At its core is a lesson for all of us: when it comes to being happy with who we are, there are no neat conclusions.

For the past three years, since he finished writing his children's book 'The Nine Lives Of Bella Simkins', Jack Swaab has carried round a battered leather notebook. In it, he has recorded the thoughts, memories, reflections and insights that the world around him bring to this remarkable author. It is a broad canvas that attracts his urbane and witty mind's eye-covering everything from footballers to birdsong, churchyards to ancient cricketers, boy scouts to Brexit. Some of what he writes is funny, other parts are tinged with melancholy. At times, banality, brutality or injustice stir him to the edge of anger. Everything he writes, though, comes with the warmth, wisdom and generosity of spirit that the past 98 years have bestowed on him. It is a very different world in which he now lives, and seeing that world through the vivid lens of so many years and so rich a life brings it to life for us too in unexpected and rewarding ways.

With an introduction by author Anne Enright. Shortlisted for the Guardian First Book award, a story of civil war and a family's unbreakable bond. How you see a country depends on whether you are driving through it, or live in it. How you see a country depends on whether or not you can leave it, if you have to. As the daughter of white settlers in war-torn 1970s Rhodesia, Alexandra Fuller remembers a time when a schoolgirl was as likely to carry a shotgun as a satchel. This is her story - of a civil war, of a quixotic battle with nature and loss, and of a family's unbreakable bond with the continent that came to define, scar and heal them. Shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, Alexandra Fuller's classic memoir of an African childhood is suffused with laughter and warmth even amid disaster. Unsentimental and unflinching, but always enchanting, Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight is the story of an extraordinary family in an extraordinary time.

Sure, sex is great, but have you ever cracked open a new notebook and written something on the first page with a really nice pen? The story behind Notebook starts with a minor crime: the theft of Tom Cox's rucksack from a Bristol pub in 2018. In that rucksack was a journal containing ten months' worth of notes, one of the many Tom has used to record his thoughts and observations over the past twelve years. It wasn't the best he had ever kept - his handwriting was messier than in his previous notebook, his entries more sporadic - but he still grieved for every one of the hundred or so lost pages. This incident made Tom appreciate how much notebook-keeping means to him: the act of putting pen to paper has always led him to write with an unvarnished, spur-of-the-moment honesty that he wouldn't achieve on-screen. Here, Tom has assembled his favourite stories, fragments, moments and ideas from those notebooks, ranging from memories of his childhood to the revelation that 'There are two types of people in the world. People who fucking love maps, and people who don't.' The result is a book redolent of the real stuff of life, shot through with Cox's trademark warmth and wit.

A collection of short stories based for the most part on the writer's experience of growing up and working on a Shropshire estate where his father was head gamekeeper and grandfather managed its home farm. They are of particular interest because they portray everyday life in that part of the British countryside through years which witnessed the beginnings of the momentous social and agrarian upheaval triggered by the Second World War. The writer describes the surge in agricultural mechanisation which has continued to the present day; also farming as practiced before its current reliance on chemical fertilizers and spray chemicals: acreages which used to employ ten men now employ but one. It should be stressed these stories and anecdotes are not an exercise in nostalgia. Instead they are a fractual record of the countryside which the writer knew so intimately, and as such, contain a wealth of interest for many. So great have been the changes over the last seventy five years, it is but small wonder the younger generation struggle even to begin to imagine life as it was at that time.

Carrie Johnson is not only the consort of the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson; she is also considered by some to be the second most powerful unelected woman in Britain after the Queen. Since she moved into Downing Street in July 2019, questions have been raised about her perceived influence, her apparent desire to control events, and the number of her associates who have been appointed to positions of standing in the government machine. So, are these concerns justified? In this carefully researched unauthorised biography, Michael Ashcroft charts the extraordinary ascent of Mrs Johnson, speaking to multiple sources who have been close to her and to Boris Johnson in recent years to produce a fascinating portrait of a woman who is still under the age of thirty-five. The book scrutinises Mrs Johnson's colourful family, her attempt to become a professional actress, and her early decision to work in politics. Long before she moved into No. 10, Mrs Johnson made a name for herself as a Conservative Party press aide before becoming a special adviser to two Cabinet ministers and eventually director of communications at Conservative campaign headquarters. Aside from politics, she is also the mother of two young children and campaigns in the fields of the environment and animal welfare. Carrie Johnson is without doubt a very modern prime ministerial spouse. This examination of her career and life offers the electorate the chance to assess exactly what role she plays in Boris Johnson's unpredictable administration and why that matters.

Anne Roiphe was not quite seventy years old when her husband of nearly forty years unexpectedly passed away. But it was not until her daughters placed a personal ad in a literary journal that Roiphe began to consider the previously unimagined possibility of a new man. Eloquent and astute, moving between heartbreaking memories of her marriage and the pressing needs of a new day-to-day routine, "Epilogue" takes us on her journey into the unknown world of life after love.

When a head injury obliterated twenty-two-year-old Molly Birnbaum's sense of smell, it destroyed her dream of becoming a chef. Determined to reawaken her nose, she bravely sets off on a quest to rediscover the scented world. On the way, she seeks out everyone from former poet laureate Robert Pinsky to neuroscientist Oliver Sacks. A moving personal story packed with surprising facts about the senses, Season to Taste brims with the scents of Molly's world--cinnamon, cedarwood, fresh bagels, and lavender--lost and finally found. In Season to Taste, Molly describes an ineffable, but indispensable, layer of life.

Shéri Brynard has reached many remarkable milestones, although she was born with Down Syndrome. She talks about how love and acceptance from her family and friends formed her. She tells of her adventures, her pain and the harsh realities she has to face as an adult with Down Syndrome. Her mother tells the tale of living in Shéri’s shadow, speaking without holding back about her crisis of faith when she heard that her daughter had Down Syndrome. A touching tale.