Guide-dog Laura needed a new home. And, after listening to her owner, Jaina, talk on the radio about what would happen to her much loved guide and companion when she retired, Martin Clunes picked up the phone. He’d always been a soft touch when it came to animals. One more couldn’t hurt.

Adopting Laura opened his eyes to the extraordinary care provided by assistance dogs, but also piqued his curiosity. Throughout history, our meetings with remarkable animals have eased, enriched, and sometimes saved our lives in countless and surprising ways.

Our canine friends have guided us, rescued us, led us, protected us and even given early warning of illness, but dogs are only part of the story. From the horses that went to war with the Light Brigade, to the mine-clearing Gambian Pouched Rat called Courage that helped make the peace, and from the pigeons carrying life-saving messages to the wild dolphin called Jock who befriended a traumatised young woman in Australia, in peace and war animals have always been there for us.

Together with his own life-changing encounters with animals around the world, Martin has celebrated the intelligence, loyalty, and companionship of some truly extraordinary creatures whose lives have been entwined with our own. By turns heart-warming, inspiring and always fascinating, Meetings With Remarkable Animals gives us a chance to meet them too.

Explore the haunted history of the RMS "Queen Mary."

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Design impacts every part of our lives. The design of products and services influences the way we go about our daily activities and it is hard to imagine any activity in our daily lives that is not dependent on design in some capacity. Clothing, mobile phones, computers, cars, tools and kitchenware all enable and hold in place everyday practices. Despite design's omnipresence, the understanding of how design may facilitate desirable behaviours is still fragmented, with limited frameworks and examples of how design can effect change in professional and public contexts. This text presents an overview of current approaches dedicated to understanding how design may be used intentionally to make changes to improve a range of problematic social and environmental issues. It offers a cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral overview of different academic theories adopted and applied to design for behaviour change. The aim of the volume is twofold: firstly, to provide an overview of existing design models that integrate theories of change from differing scientific backgrounds; secondly, to offer an overview of application of key design for behaviour change approaches as used across case studies in different sectors, such as design for health and wellbeing, sustainability, safety, design against crime and social design. Design for Behaviour Change will appeal to designers, design students and practitioners of behavioural change.

As an issue, the environment is complicated. First, it is layered. Secondly, it is multifaceted. As a result, political scientist John A. Duerk has assembled an interdisciplinary anthology composed of accessible studies to generate conversations that will yield greater understanding of the many environmental challenges that we face. The layers explored herein are philosophy, politics, and policy. Philosophy concerns the ideas that inform our values. Politics involves the conflicts that emerge amid the conditions we must navigate. Lastly, policy encompasses how public and private actors respond to everything from regulation of greenhouse gas emissions to changes in consumer attitudes. Regarding the different facets, this work is intended to be an entry point for anyone who would like to learn more about issues such as the land ethic, the environmental impact of clothing production, climate change, the placement of bike lanes in cities, water usage, and artist depictions of the wilderness. Let the conversations begin...

As an issue, the environment is complicated. First, it is layered. Secondly, it is multifaceted. As a result, political scientist John A. Duerk has assembled an interdisciplinary anthology composed of accessible studies to generate conversations that will yield greater understanding of the many environmental challenges that we face. The layers explored herein are philosophy, politics, and policy. Philosophy concerns the ideas that inform our values. Politics involves the conflicts that emerge amid the conditions we must navigate. Lastly, policy encompasses how public and private actors respond to everything from regulation of greenhouse gas emissions to changes in consumer attitudes. Regarding the different facets, this work is intended to be an entry point for anyone who would like to learn more about issues such as the land ethic, the environmental impact of clothing production, climate change, the placement of bike lanes in cities, water usage, and artist depictions of the wilderness. Let the conversations begin...

'Obligatory reading for all parents of teenagers!' NIGELLA LAWSON 'Bloody marvellous. Horribly familiar, funny, touching, sad, brutally honest...clutch this book to your stained T-shirt and never let it go.' JO BRAND 'Terrific. A remarkable blend of hilarity and heartbreak with a really satisfying plot. Being childless never felt so good.' GRAHAM NORTON 'Warm and witty... The competitive mothering, the hell that is other people's children, the fights and accusations of Homeland inquisition all rang deliciously true... a most entertaining read.' KATHY LETTE 'Very poignant... A moving read as well as a funny one.' JANE GARVEY 'Honest, hilarious and painful' WOMAN & HOME Warning!! This novel may lead you to make rash and life-changing decisions!* *Probably don't read if you fear you may be ripe for liberation. Or if you sometimes wee when you laugh... First there was Having It All, then there was Bridget Jones' s Diary and I Don't Know How She Does It. Now there is Teenage Punchbag. I'm Just A Teenage Punchbag is a laugh-out-loud, sob-on-the bus journey through the so-called life of a middle-aged woman. Ciara is mother to three ungrateful, entitled teenagers, is married to steady Martin, a man with hairy udders, and is grieving for her mum who now lives in the wardrobe in a cardboard box from the crematorium. She finds solace in her anonymous blog, and in the daily chats she has with her mum's ashes (often the best conversations she has all day.) Despite the menopause, the invisibility of middle age and the daily self-esteem bashings, courtesy of her kids, Ciara manages to navigate the stormy waters of grief and family life - until her mask slips and she is cast out from the family bosom. She embarks on a mission to fulfil her mum's dying wishes to have her remains sprinkled from the top of the Empire State Building, finding company, distraction and - ultimately - herself in the process. If motherhood is a job - who says you can't resign?

Hollywood is no stranger to murder, and some of the murderers are the most vicious killers known to man. Through extensive research by Brian Clune, the historian for Planet Paranormal Investigations, take a deeper look at 12 stories dealing with the murders and paranormal aftermath of some of Hollywood's most mysterious and gruesome murders from the 1930s to modern times, including Thelma Todd, The Black Dahlia, "Bugsy" Siegel, George Reeves, Marilyn Monroe, Ramon Novarro, Natalie Wood, John Belushi, Tupac Shakur, Biggie Smalls, and more. In addition to bloody confrontations and excessive negative patterns, find out the haunting ghost stories of these individuals-their spirits are still here. Jaw-dropping details will have you trying to close the veil to the otherside before you learn too much... But you're too late. History buffs and paranormal enthusiasts will enjoy this book, however, it is not for the squeamish.

For centuries, a central goal of art has been to make us see the world with new eyes. Thinkers from Edmund Burke to Elaine Scarry have understood this effort as the attempt to create new forms. But as anyone who has ever worn out a song by repeated listening knows, artistic form is hardly immune to sensation-killing habit. Some of our most ambitious writersOCoKeats, Proust, Nabokov, AshberyOCohave been obsessed by this problem. Attempting to create an image that never gets old, they experiment with virtual, ideal forms. Poems and novels become workshops, as fragments of the real world are scrutinized for insights and the shape of an ideal artwork is pieced together. These writers, voracious in their appetite for any knowledge that will further their goal, find help in unlikely places. The logic of totalitarian regimes, the phenomenology of music, the pathology of addiction, and global commodity exchange furnish them with tools and models for arresting neurobiological time. Reading central works of the past two centuries in light of their shared ambition, Clune produces a revisionary understanding of some of our most important literature."

When author Danny Clune was seven years old, he experienced a traumatic accident that changed the course of his life-It left a hole in his life that he would spend a lifetime repairing. In Leaving Wayne, Clune tells his coming-of-age story that takes place in rural New York State and northeastern Pennsylvania in the 1950s and '60s.

This colorful memoir narrates the struggles of surviving shame, poverty, abuse, and succeeding in an era that went from party phone lines to cell phones, from 45s to MP3s, and from sock hops to mosh pits. Leaving Wayne tells of Clune's childhood in a family with seven children; his struggles with addiction; his recovery; his stints as an English teacher, chef, and restaurateur in Upstate New York; his work abroad with mental health services; and the ways that 9/11 affected his life and his profession.

Throughout this story, Clune shows how the grit of rural life conflicted with the influences of prosperity and modernity that gradually overtook him and molded him into the person he became.

Visit 25 of California's most haunted and historic sites. Wander the halls of Camarillo State Hospital to hear ghostly children laughing and objects moving without assistance from the living. Consider whether restless soldiers are still in the tunnels where they were killed could this be a legend? Is there a cryptozoological creature known as the "Billiwhack Monster" at Rancho Camulos? Could there be truth to the phantom stagecoach that can be heard and seen late at night at Vallecito, then continuing on before vanishing from sight? Each site is explored by the authors and Planet Paranormal Investigations to give the visitor or potential investigator all the tools necessary for a rewarding experience. All sites are open to the public and this comprehensive historic guide supplies visitor information, tools of the trade, and a full glossary."

Nicholas has plenty of reasons to feel unstable: he’s fifteen, the child of divorced parents, living with his absent dad in the bleak Chicago suburbs, and an outsider at school. Then, one day in geometry class, he forgets how to breathe. The doctor says it’s just panic, but Nicholas suspects that his real problem might not be a psychiatric one: maybe the Greek god Pan is trapped inside his body.

As his paradigm for his own consciousness crumbles, Nicholas and his friends hunt for answers why – in art, music and literature – as they reach for a life beyond the confines of where they’ve grown up and what’s expected of them. Pan takes us inside the human psyche, where we risk discovering that the forces controlling our inner lives could be more alien than we want to let ourselves believe.