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Books > Fiction > True stories
Many of the most famous escapes in history took place during the Second World War. These daring flights from Nazi-occupied Europe would never have been possible but for the assistance of a hitherto secret British service: MI9. This small, dedicated and endlessly inventive team gave hope to the men who had fallen into enemy hands, and aid to resistance fighters in occupied territory. It sent money, maps, clothes, compasses, even hacksaws - and in return coded letters from the prisoner-of-war camps and provided invaluable news of what was happening in the enemy's homeland. Understaffed and under-resourced, MI9 nonetheless made a terrific contribution to the Allied war effort. First published in 1979, this book tells the full, inside story of an extraordinary organisation.
'Read this book. Then talk to your sons. It is essential reading' Jamie Theakston 'An extraordinary and important book. Read it immediately' Claudia Winkleman 'Superbly written, this deeply moving book underlines how truly precious mother-daughter relationships are, and never more so than in those teenage years' Gloria Hunniford A gripping memoir of two battling narratives and a mother-daughter relationship stretched to its absolute limits. Roxy was 13 years old when she was coerced then blackmailed into sending explicit photos, which were spread around her school. The shame led to self-loathing. The blame led to a psychotic breakdown. Roxy started hearing voices. Then she started seeing things... What happens when your teenager starts to lose it, and then you lose each other? What happens when you can't tell your mother you desperately need help? And how can a family move past a devastating mental health crisis? When You Lose It is a brutally honest true story, written from two perspectives, of consent, coercion and shattering consequences.
Collecting these excerpts from Wallace Chambers' Vancouver diary and World War I letters has been a labour of love for author John Gillis. The result is an extraordinary record of one ordinary young man's life just after the turn of the century. Wallace Chambers kept a diary from 1907 to 1913 while he lived in Vancouver. He filled each day with as much as he could, especially outdoors activities. Wallace was also passionate about cultural and social activities and enjoyed many of the events and venues Vancouver offered. His diary gives a rare glimpse into the world of middle-class young people in Vancouver of the early 1900s. Over the years a tender love story unfolded in Wallace's diary as he gradually fell in love with Cecie, the woman he hadn't seen since 1905. When Wallace went off to war in 1914, he and Cecie were briefly reunited in England before he left for the front. His letters home were graphic and poignant. Wallace was killed in 1915 at the age of 29.
Authorities in the new Irish Free State harassed and murdered Honor Bright before maligning her as a prostitute and acquitting her assassin. The newly founded Garda Siochana spread deceitful rumours and coerced witnesses to conceal Honor's true identity and the real reason for her death. False evidence, perjury and the silencing of potential witnesses led to huge public demonstrations, but newspapers were coerced into printing only authorised stories or else face the consequences from the Garda or Ministry of Justice. Find out why political support moved away from the Free State towards an independent Republic from 1926, and why so many were killed or fled Ireland in the process. Find out what part William Butler Yeats and his wife George played.
This is a compelling story about the brave recovery of a man whose early life was full of hopelessness, who nevertheless overcame many barriers so that he could become a normal member of society. The author grew up in Surrey in a large working class family in which problems were an everyday occurrence. From an early age life became increasingly difficult due to a traumatic accident when he was three years old, and later when at the age of twelve he was sexually abused. Before the age of twenty-one he contracted a major neurological illness called Dystonia. For many years thereafter, he became addicted to prescribed medication which isolated him from mainstream society. His problems were further exacerbated by a term in prison. His recovery was arduous and painful and it took many years before he found his way back to normal life through University education, social work training and friendships. The book is an inspiring read that will give hope and courage to many others who have experienced similar setbacks in life.
'Each time my mother laid a finger on me... it was another step into the jaws of hell. Her abuse, more so than any other, destroyed me. It was the ultimate betrayal.' Abused from the age of eight by her older brother and then her step-father, Maureen Wood quickly became numb to the constant suffering. But Maureen's world crumbled when her own mother started to abuse her too... A Family Secret is the harrowing true story of how one little girl survived sickening abuse by the people who should have loved her most, and how an innocent baby finally saved her.
The Dartford Crossing: a vital transport hub connecting Kent and Essex, the busiest river crossing in Europe, and the site of some of the most vicious organised crime today... For the last decade, there has been a intense turf war in the south-east of England between two sets of criminal gangs: On one side, there's the 'Establishment' - the old-school firms that have operated for decades and weaved their way into all areas of their communities. On the other, 'The New Kids on the Bloc' - mainly Eastern European gangs who have muscled in, boasting they'll crush anyone in their way and dominate the British underworld. The Dartford Crossing, due to its location between London and the ports of the south-east, has become the epicentre of these battles. Since Brexit began, the war has become even bloodier as both gangs try to claim new territory before the borders close. In an already terrifying and volatile world of drug smuggling, people trafficking, prostitution and money laundering, all rules are out and the body count is rising... With research and interviews from both sides conducted by one of true crime's most established names, The Crossing is a ground-breaking and fascinating look inside the UK's newest crime phenomenon.
1961. The height of the Cold War. Just hours before work begins on the Berlin Wall, a KGB assassin and his young wife flee for the West before the Iron Curtain comes down and traps them in the East forever. This gripping story of real-life espionage and intrigue began when the Soviets invented a special weapon that killed without leaving a trace and put it in the hands of Bogdan Stashinsky. It is a tale of exploding parcels, fake identities, forbidden love and a man who knew the truth about the USSR's most classified programme. By the time Stashinsky had his day in court, the whole world was watching.
Domestic terrorism. Financial uncertainty. Troops abroad, fighting an unsuccessful and bloody war against guerrilla insurgents. A violent generation gap emerging between a discontented youth and their disapproving, angry elders. This was the early seventies in America, and it was against this backdrop that the kidnapping of nineteen-year-old Patty Hearst by the Symbionese Liberation Front - a rag-tag, cult-like group of political extremists and criminals - stole headlines across the world. Using new research and drawing on the formidable abilities that made The Run of His Life a global bestseller, Jeffrey Toobin uncovers the story of the kidnapping and its aftermath in vivid prose and forensic detail.
From storytelling phenomenon The Moth: a collection about risk, courage, and facing the unknown, drawn from the best stories ever told on their stages. All These Wonders features voices both familiar and new. Storytellers include writer Jung Chang and comedian Louis C.K, as well as a hip hop 'one hit wonder', an astronomer gazing at the surface of Pluto for the first time, and a young female spy risking everything as part of Churchill's secret army during World War II. They share their ventures into uncharted territory - and how their lives were changed forever by what they found there. These true stories have been carefully selected and adapted to the page by the creative minds at The Moth, and encompass the very best of the 17,000+ stories performed in live Moth shows around the world. It is filled with a variety of humourous, moving, and gripping tales from all walks of life that will leave you speechless.
A stunning story of heroism and survival during World War II. The book that inspired the international film of the same name. "A must-read .... Intrigue, suspense, and adventure."-The Norwegian American "I remember reading We Die Alone in 1970 and I could never forget it. Then when we went to Norway to do a docudrama, people told us again and again that certain parts were pure fiction. Since I was a Norwegian that was not good enough; I had to find the truth. I sincerely believe we did," writes author Astrid Karlsen Scott. The 12th Man is the true story of Jan Baalsrud, whose struggle to escape the Gestapo and survive in Nazi-occupied Norway has inspired the international film of the same name. In late March 1943, in the midst of WWII, four Norwegian saboteurs arrived in northern Norway on a fishing cutter and set anchor in Toftefjord to establish a base for their operations. However, they were betrayed, and a German boat attacked the cutter, creating a battlefield and spiraling Jan Baalsrud into the adventure of his life. The only survivor and wounded, Baalsrud begins a perilous journey to freedom, swimming icy fjords, climbing snow-covered peaks, enduring snowstorms, and getting caught in a monstrous avalanche. Suffering from snow blindness and frostbite, more than sixty people of the Troms District risk their lives to help Baalsrud to freedom. Meticulously researched for more than five years, Karlsen Scott and Haug bring forth the truth behind this captivating, edge-of-your-seat, real-life survival story.
When the possibility of wiretapping first became known to Americans they were outraged. Now, in our post 9/11 world, it's accepted that corporations are vested with human rights, and government agencies and corporations use computers to monitor our private lives. David H. Price pulls back the curtain to reveal how the FBI and other government agencies have always functioned as the secret police of American capitalism up to today, where they luxuriate in a near-limitless NSA surveillance of all. Price looks through a roster of campaigns by law enforcement, intelligence agencies and corporations to understand how we got here. Starting with J. Edgar Hoover and the early FBI's alignment with business, his access to 15,000 pages of never-before-seen FBI files shines a light on the surveillance of Edward Said, Andre Gunder Frank and Alexander Cockburn, Native American communists and progressive factory owners. Price uncovers patterns of FBI monitoring and harassing of activists and public figures, providing the vital means for us to understanding how these new frightening surveillance operations are weaponised by powerful governmental agencies that remain largely shrouded in secrecy.
The international bestseller. From the Sunday Times bestselling author Beezy Marsh, comes a moving true story of two women fighting to survive scandal, poverty and war. When Annie marries Harry after years of heartache in a London slum she believes she's found her happy ever after. But the horrors of the Blitz soon threaten everything they hold dear. The terrible sights Harry witnesses as an air raid warden bring back traumatic memories of his time during the First World War. Suddenly Annie finds herself struggling to cope not only with life in wartime and two little children, but also with a husband who seems like a stranger. Kitty has always been protective of her little brother Harry. Hiding the scandal about their father from the world was the only way to survive as they were growing up in Newcastle. But when she discovers Harry too has a shocking secret, she is torn. Meanwhile Annie wonders why Harry refuses to discuss his life before their marriage and why she has never met his sister. Will the truth ever come to light? From the bombed-out terraces of London to the docks of Newcastle, Her Father's Daughter is Beezy Marsh's moving and poignant true story about the unbreakable bonds of family, and the power of love to heal the worst wounds.
From award-winning war reporter and co-author of I Am Malala, this is the first major account to address the scale of and sexual violence in modern conflict. Christina Lamb has worked in war and combat zones for over thirty years. In Our Bodies, Their Battlefield she gives voice to the women of conflicts, exposing how in today’s warfare, is used by armies, s and militias as a weapon to humiliate, oppress and carry out ethnic cleansing. Speaking to survivors first-hand, Lamb encounters the suffering and bravery of women in war and meets those fighting for justice. From Southeast Asia where ‘comfort women’ were enslaved by the Japanese during World War Two to the Rwandan , when an estimated quarter of a million women were , to the Yazidi women and children of today who witnessed the of their families before being enslaved by ISIS. Along the way Lamb uncovers incredible stories of heroism and resistance, including the Bosnian women who have hunted down more than a hundred war criminals, the Aleppo beekeeper rescuing Yazidis and the Congolese doctor who has risked his life to treat more victims than anyone else on earth. may be as old as war but it is a preventable crime. Bearing witness does not guarantee it won’t happen again, but it can take away any excuse that the world simply didn’t know.
The Breeding Of Contempt, details two horrific events in the Nation's history. The 1973 mass murder of seven people in Washington, D.C., and the 1977 siege on Washington that left a reporter dead, and nearly took the life of a popular city councilman. The book also introduces readers to a literary first, a Black family hiding in the Federal Witness Protection Program. The Breeding of Contempt reintroduces the reading public to some of the Black leaders of the 1960's and 1970?s, and also introduces others who would become powerful a decade later. Finally, the book gives its readers a glimpse into a virtually unknown group, the Black mafia, who operated in Philadelphia in the 1970?s, terrorizing the citizenry of Philadelphia.
From the bestselling author of the Thrown Away Children series comes another heartbreaking story of life in foster care. Louise has trouble on her hands from the first moment that 5-year-old Billy Blackthorn comes to stay. He is one of more than 20 children taken into care from a single family, and erupts into the Allen household with a volatility that is frightening and disturbing in equal measure. It is only as Louise begins to uncover the secrets of Billy's dark past that she begins to understand what made his family 'untouchable'. 'Britain's top foster carer' The Sun 'A shining light' Emily Finch, BBC
Looking back at the lives and sailing careers of some of our lifetime's finest yachtsmen, this collection of eleven original, moving accounts is just as much a celebration of the good - tales of hope, achievement and courageous spirit - as it is an account of their tragic final voyages. Included are world-renowned racers, like Eric Tabarly and Rob James, highly experienced cruisers and adventurers, like Peter Tangvald and Bill Tilman, and the notoriously ill-prepared Donald Crowhurst, as well as other famous and some less well-known sailors. Starting with the sad loss of Frank Davison and Reliance in 1949, the book concludes with the amazing last voyage of Philip Walwyn in 2015 - crossing the Atlantic single-handed in his 12 Metre yacht Kate. All of the men and women described were friends with or known to the author, Nicholas Gray, who himself competed in several short-handed long distance races, where he met and raced against many of these fascinating characters. Peppered with photographs showcasing the sailors and their yachts, this is a refreshing look at those who have helped to shape this sport's history, honouring their lives and accomplishments before detailing their tragic last voyages. |
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