A champion cross-country skier in training for the Winter Olympics, her life was irrevocably altered during a bike ride to the Blue Mountains when she was hit by a truck. Her neck and back were broken in four places, as were her right arm, collarbone, and five ribs. Her right leg had been ripped open, she had sustained massive internal injuries and severe lacerations to her abdominal area, and she had lost five liters of blood. The bleeding alone was enough to kill her. Doctors warned her parents that she was not expected to survive her ordeal. Even if by some small chance she recovered, she would never walk again. Coming to terms with her shattered Olympic dreams, refusing to believe what expert medical staff were telling her about her chances of any kind of recovery, Janine focused every sinew of her being on healing her broken body and crushed morale. Her fighting spirit was rekindled watching small planes flying overhead. She said to herself, "If I can’t walk, I’ll fly." And fly she did. Within a year she had her private pilot’s license; 12 months later, her commercial license; soon after, her instructor’s permit and aerobatic endorsement. And all the while she pushed her body to mend itself, forced her legs to walk again, step by painful step. Here is her story, a testament to the power of the human spirit, and one that will move and inspire all who read it.

    Born into a notorious London crime family, his uncle Micky was one of the key players in the legendary Brink's-Mat gold bullion caper. John bought his first gun at 16 and carved out a lucrative career in armed robbery. At one point he was one of Britain's most-wanted men. It took two spells in prison and the death of a friend on a botched heist to change his path. During his second stint in jail he discovered a miraculous natural talent while serving life in the Belmarsh high security unit - where fellow inmates included Abu Hamza, the hook-handed extremist cleric, and the 7/7 bombers. John broke three world rowing records while still an inmate and since his release has become one of the UK's leading Ironman competitors. He aims to turn pro in 2016 after competing in the European championships in Frankfurt. Redemption is the ultimate story of sporting salvation.

    

    The book opens with Leaf Fielding's arrest in a pre-dawn police raid and ends five years later with his release from jail.The narrative moves back and forth between the harsh world of prison and his previous life - from a childhood at a brutal boarding school onto undergraduate days and his LSD epiphany in the summer of love, 1967.Acid transformed him in an instant from nerdy scholar to footloose freak. His ten years of adventures in the hippie underground gave the title to this book - a quote from a Bob Dylan song - they also took him across Europe, to the Andes, to Indochina and on to the edge of the known universe. They also led inexorably to his downfall.

    Exploring his past with humor and astounding insight, Connor reminded his fans of why they first fell in love with him on YouTube—and revealed to newcomers how he relates to his millions of dedicated followers.Now, two years later, Connor is ready to bring to light a side of himself he’s rarely shown on or off camera. In this diary-like look at his life since A Work In Progress, Connor talks about his battles with clinical depression, social anxiety, self-love, and acceptance; his desire to maintain an authentic self in a world that values shares and likes over true connections; his struggles with love and loss; and his renewed efforts to be in the moment—with others and himself.Told through short essays, letters to his past and future selves, poetry, and original photography, Note to Self is a raw, in-the-moment look at the fascinating interior life of a young creator turning inward in order to move forward.

    The inside story of Bradley Wiggins's record-breaking rideFor 60 minutes this summer, the British public stopped what they were doing, switched on their radios, their TVs, refreshed their Twitter feeds and followed Bradley Wiggins’s attempt to break one of sport’s most gruelling records: The Hour.The premise is simple enough: how far can you cycle in one hour. But it is thought to be one of the toughest events an athlete can endure, both physically and psychologically. Eddy Merckx, cycling’s über-champ, called it the hardest thing he ever did. Wiggins, like many before him, discovered the unique pain of pushing yourself as hard as you can for 60 minutes.In this revealing book, Bradley Wiggins takes you behind the scenes of his record attempt. From planning to preparation, to training to execution, Bradley shares his thoughts on his sacrifices, his heroes, and the people who have supported him along the way as well as what’s to come as he heads towards the twilight of his stellar career.Supported by stunning photography, My Hour is a fitting celebration of one of Britain’s best-loved sportsmen in his finest hour.

    Aged 16, White was the youngest player to win the English Amateur Championship. At 18, he won the World Amateur title. By 1984, he's a professional success, married but not at all settled. He's the kind of man who goes out for a packet of cigarettes and comes home two weeks later. Gambling, women, marathon binges with showbiz friends like Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones, have threatened the stability of his marriage. But somehow White has survived, to tell in candid detail, a most unusual, often outrageous story of a very sporting life.

    His profound and poetic speeches are famous around the world, evidence of the greatness of American’s most beloved leader. But did you know that the sixteenth president of the United States was also a backwoods hillbilly from America’s western frontier, with a Kentucky accent so thick you could cut it? Or that he liked wrestling matches, dirty jokes, and had a reputation for telling hilarious, R-rated stories that weren’t suitable for mixed company? From his childhood working as a virtual slave for an abusive father, to sailing a river raft to New Orleans, to the Illinois General Assembly, Congress, and the White House, the story of Abraham Lincoln’s life is the story of America. He mourned the deaths of almost everyone he loved, endured marriage to a wife whose mental health issues made her a domestic abuser, and lost more elections than he won. But Abraham Lincoln believed in one thing above all: that everyone deserved a fair shot at the American dream. Why did John Wilkes Booth really shoot Abraham Lincoln? The truth is as shocking now as it was in 1865.

    Simpson trial brought the L.A.P.D. national notoriety as a corrupt force out of synch with the city it polices. But is this force of 8,000 men and women really made up of mavericks, racists, and rogues? In Boot, rookie police William Dinn takes readers inside that other L.A.P.D., where hardworking cops struggle to understand citizens' concerns and dodge criminals' bullets. National & L.A.

    Stephen Moss sets out to master its mysteries, and unlock the secret of its enduring appeal. What, he asks, is the essence of chess? And what will it reveal about his own character along the way?In a witty, accessible style that will delight newcomers and irritate purists, Moss imagines the world as a board and marches across it, offering a mordant report on the world of chess in 64 chapters--64 of course being the number of squares on the chessboard. He alternates between "black" chapters--where he plays, largely uncomprehendingly, in tournaments--and "white" chapters, where he seeks advice from the current crop of grandmasters and delves into the lives of great players of the past.It is both a history of the game and a kind of "Zen and the Art of Chess"; a practical guide and a self-help book: Moss's quest to understand chess and become a better player is really an attempt to escape a lifetime of dilettantism. He wants to become an expert at one thing. What will be the consequences when he realizes he is doomed to fail?Moss travels to Russia and the US--hotbeds of chess throughout the 20th century; meets people who knew Bobby Fischer when he was growing up and tries to unravel the enigma of that tortured genius who died in 2008 at the inevitable age of 64; meets Garry Kasparov and Magnus Carlsen, world champions past and present; and keeps bumping into Armenian superstar Levon Aronian in the gents at tournaments.He becomes champion of Surrey, wins tournaments in Chester and Bury St Edmunds, and holds his own at the famous event in the Dutch seaside resort of Wijk aan Zee (until a last-round meltdown), but too often he is beaten by precocious 10-year-olds and finds it hard to resist the urge to punch them. He looks for spiritual fulfilment in the game, but mostly finds mental torture.

    But, at forty-eight years old, having spent decades in San Francisco, he craved change. Grieving over the death of his partner, he quickly discovered the profound consolations of the city's incessant rhythms, the sight of the Empire State Building against the night sky, and New Yorkers themselves, kindred souls that Hayes, a lifelong insomniac, encountered on late-night strolls with his camera.And he unexpectedly fell in love again, with his friend and neighbor, the writer and neurologist Oliver Sacks, whose exuberance--"I don't so much fear death as I do wasting life," he tells Hayes early on--is captured in vignettes throughout. What emerges is a portrait of Sacks at his most personal and endearing, from falling in love for the first time at age seventy-five to facing illness and death (Sacks died of cancer in August 2015).

    By the age of twenty-three, he was on his first tour of America, facing an astonished audience in his tight silver hotpants, bare legs and a T-shirt with ROCK AND ROLL emblazoned across it in sequins. Elton John had arrived and the music world would never be the same again.His life has been full of drama, from the early rejection of his work with song-writing partner Bernie Taupin to spinning out of control as a chart-topping superstar; from half-heartedly trying to drown himself in his LA swimming pool to disco-dancing with the Queen; from friendships with John Lennon, Freddie Mercury and George Michael to setting up his AIDS Foundation. All the while, Elton was hiding a drug addiction that would grip him for over a decade.In Me Elton also writes about getting clean and changing his life, about finding love with David Furnish and becoming a father.

    "In the form of a diary, he takes us through the crazy journey that is making music. His excellent recollections of the excesses of morons and geniuses involved in creating melodies and rhythms for us to enjoy are sheer entertainment." - Musician Robert Palmer (from his foreword for the book). From the author's first glimpse of a magical recording studio in the mid-1960s up through a busy career that continues to the present day, this rollicking story can only be told by those that were there. As the young tape operator on sessions for The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, and Joe Cocker at the famed Olympic Sound Studios in London, Phill learned the ropes from experienced engineers and producers such as Glyn Johns and Eddie Kramer. Phill soon worked his way up engineering sessions for Mott the Hoople, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Bob Marley and many other lendary rockers. He eventually became a freelance engineer/producer and worked with Roxy Music, Go West, Talk Talk, and Robert Plant. But more than a recollection of participating in some of the most treasured music of the past 40 years, this is a man's journey through life as Phill struggles to balance his home and family with a job where drug abuse, chaos, rampant egos, greed, lies and the increasingly invasive record business take their toll. It's also a cautionary tale, where long workdays and what once seemed like harmless indulgences become health risks, yet eventually offer a time to reflect back on.

    When you're driving a car, you're not taking part, you're a spectator. You're in a can; if it's cold you turn up the heating, if you're hungry you have a wine gum. You might be looking at what's going on, but you're definitely not a part of it. A BIKER'S LIFE is the dramatic, humorous and candid memoir of one of the most recognisable names in motorcycling. Henry Cole's passion for motorbikes began when, at the age of eight, he was first introduced to a 'man cave'. His great-uncle Redbeard's corrugated iron shed was 'stuffed to the gills with old motorbikes' which Henry helped rebuild and ride. Since then, Henry's life can be charted through the bikes and journeys he has been on - from a stifling public-school education, via many years battling addiction, to the big-sky iconic routes Henry has ridden for over twenty series as presenter of numerous TV shows. This book reminds millions of motorcyclists why their bike gives them the freedom to be exactly who they want to be: to say 'I'm doing my thing.' When you ride a motorbike you become part of a worldwide community of kindred spirits - those of us who will not be pacified by driving a car, but instead live for adventure, escape and the sheer thrill of the throttle.

    Glen Campbell's boy-next-door persona belied his hedonistic, near-fatal lifestyle. It all started like a dream - the rise from ruthless poverty as one of twelve children in a small Arkansas town and the against-all struggle for stardom, first as a brilliant studio musician (behind artists such as Sinatra, Elvis, Ray Charles, and Nat King Cole), then as a solo performer who in the sixties and seventies sold some 45 million records (including the timeless classics "Wichita Lineman, " "Gentle on My Mind, " "By the Time I Get to Phoenix, " and, of course, "Rhinestone Cowboy") and hosted his own top-rated TV show. Too quickly, though, the dream became a nightmare of mad spending, multiple marriages, and abusive and all-too-public affairs, as well as wildly escalating alcohol and cocaine dependencies that threatened not only his career but his very existence. Now a Christian and in recovery, he has stepped back into the spotlight a whole man at last. With the help of bestselling author Tom Carter, Glen Campbell has given us a book that is both a star-studded show-biz memoir and a spiritual testimony that radiates great faith and emotion. Rhinestone Cowboy is his personal gift of thanks to the millions who have supported him through decades of good times and bad - and to the vast new audience who have grown to know him through his frequent appearances on cable television's 700Club and other Christian TV shows. "A lot of people are going to be surprised by my story, and I hope that a lot are going to be inspired, " Campbell declares. "All I know for sure is that it's time to tell it. And as honestly as I can, that's just what I've gone and done."