Boots in the Ashes is the memoir of Cynthia Beebe's groundbreaking career as one of the first women special agents for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, (ATF). A smart and independent girl growing up in suburban Chicago, she unexpectedly became one of the first women to hunt down violent criminals for the federal government.As a special agent for 27 years, Beebe gives the reader first-hand knowledge of the human capacity for evil. She tells the story of how, as a young woman, she overcame many obstacles on her journey through the treacherous world of illegal guns, gangs, and bombs. She battled conflicts both on the streets and within ATF. But Beebe learned how to thrive in the ultra-masculine world of violent crime and those whose job it is to stop it.Beebe tells her story through the lens of six major cases that read like crime fiction: four bombings, one arson fire and a massive roundup of the Hell's Angels on the West Coast. She also shares riveting never before revealed trial testimonies, including killers, bombers, arsonists, victims, witnesses and judges.

    Margaret Combs shows how her Southern Baptist family coped with the lived reality of autism in an era of ignorance and shame, the 1950s through the 1970s, and shares her own tragedy and anguish of being torn between helping her brother and yearning for her own life. Like many siblings of disabled children, young Margaret drives herself to excel in order to make up for her family’s sorrow and ultimately flees her family for what she hopes is a “normal” life.Hazard is also a story of indelible bonds between siblings: the one between Combs and her sister, and the deep and rueful one she has with her disabled brother; how he and she were buddies; and how fervently she wanted to make him whole. Initially fueled by a wish that her brother had never been born, the author eventually arrives in a deeper place of gratitude for this same brother, whom she loves and who loves her in return.

    Amy lived a rock-star lifestyle to the max, replacing an addiction to drugs with a battle against alcohol. When she died, aged 27, she joined a long list of musicians whose lives had been tragically cut short at the same age - the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain and Jim Morrison. She burst onto the scene with her debut album, "Frank," in 2003. But it was her follow-up, "Back To Black," in 2006 that won her millions of fans right around the world as she won five Grammy Awards for the album. Her chart success, though, would always be measured against a personal life full of trauma. She wrote "Back To Black" about Blake Fielder-Civil, who she married in 2007. But they spent little time together as a married couple as Blake was sent to prison. Theirs was a stormy romance, and despite divorcing they would remain in love with each other until she died. There were always plenty of other men in Amy's life, though. In the end she died alone in her bed. A bodyguard kept her protected from the outside world, but nobody could protect her from herself...

    A year out of college, he had been biding his time as a tutor at a local high school in Sitka, Alaska, without any particular life plan. That evening, Coffin joined a ragtag boxing club. For the first time, he felt like he fit in.Coffin washed up in Alaska after a forty-day solo kayaking journey. Born to an American father and a Thai mother who had met during the Vietnam War, Coffin never felt particularly comfortable growing up in his rural Vermont town. Following his parents’ prickly divorce and a childhood spent drifting between his father’s new white family and his mother’s Thai roots, Coffin didn’t know who he was, much less what path his life should follow. His father’s notions about what it meant to be a man—formed by King Arthur legends and calcified in the military—did nothing to help. After college, he took to the road, working odd jobs and sleeping in his car before heading north.Despite feeling initially terrified, Coffin learns to fight. His coach, Victor “the Savage,” invites him to participate in the monthly Roughhouse Friday competition, where men contend for the title of best boxer in southeast Alaska. With every successive match, Coffin realizes that he isn’t just fighting for the championship belt; he is also learning to confront the anger he feels about a past he never knew how to make sense of.Deeply honest and vulnerable, Roughhouse Friday is a meditation on violence and abandonment, masculinity, and our inescapable longing for love. It suggests that sometimes the truth of what’s inside you comes only if you push yourself to the extreme.

    Then went again.He died on the operating table and lived in a parallel universe whilst fighting for his life in a coma.Became a fugitive, captured at gun point and imprisoned in a squalid Cairo jail for a crime he did not commit.As a child he battled with relentless bullies and overcame chronic dyslexia.As a man, he cheated death survived a foreign prison and built a multi-million-dollar business,Yet lost it overnight and found the strength, despite personal tragedy, to rebuild it. Again. He lives today knowing and believing that YOU can survive anything.If you want to know how to get through this thing called life – this is your manual.

    Fleeing the boredom that comes with comfort, he set off on a secondhand bicycle. The aim was simple: to pedal to the furthest point in each of Europe, Asia and Africa. He didn’t train or plan. He just started. The journey was an escape from an unremarkable existence, a pursuit of hardship, and a chance to shed the complacency of middle England. From the brutality of winter on the Tibetan plateau, to the claustrophobia of the Southeast Asian jungle, the quest provided Charlie with ample opportunity to test his mettle. Ultimately, though, the toughest challenge was entirely unforeseen.

    The author writes about the consquences of war and gives advice to young new medics.

    This is Not for You is a memoir which vividly describes the memories of growing up in a dysfunctional environment and how these circumstances developed a spirit within the narrator. This is a story of resiliency and drive to overcome the extreme adversities that addiction and poverty can create in the life of a young child.

    When her Estate discovered this never-before-published memoir in the attic of her home, it was an astonishing find. Before I Go is the definitive story of her life, in the author’s own candid words.While Cookson had authored previous autobiographies, none have truly touched upon the tragedy and personal anguish she experienced until now. For the first time, she reveals the worst years of her life—her constant battles with illness and a series of devastating miscarriages, the damaging jealousy of her friend and her struggle to be taken seriously as a writer. But what shines through most is her strength in the face of adversity, her deep love for her husband, Tom, the solace she found in her art and her unmistakable character. Before I Go is an inspiring story of resilience and a must for any Cookson fan.

    Page by page, year by year, tender father-son memories of airplane watching transform into nightmarish, turbulent family drama.Upon the discovery that his father had been the victim of severe elder abuse as his health was rapidly deteriorating, the author finds himself reevaluating the decisions his father made throughout his life. With an unshakable ending, the author's probing dissection of a man he thought he knew reckons with disloyalty, depression, religion and death, leaving no stone unturned.Through sharp, sometimes hilariously brash analysis, decorated in plane metaphors and imagery, the author expresses his commitment to truth with sincerity and transparency. He reaches for forgiveness, understanding and compromise in the face of absurdity and uncompromising rigidity.Ultimately, he contemplates a different "flight path" drawn from past lessons. He encourages readers to do the same.A must-read for sons, fathers and families. Book-club discussion guide included.

    A war that ranges from the dry bushveld of Southern Africa to the capitals of Europe and the Middle East, to the sweltering cities of Southeast Asia. Worth more than gold, heroin or cocaine, the rhino's horn, meant for protection, is the catalyst behind their relentless struggle to save this species from eventual extinction.

    Sometimes we tell these stories to make people laugh. Sometimes we tell them to make people think. Sometimes we tell them so we can increase the chances we'll see the other person naked.Paul Shirley's stories are about an adulthood spent all over the world: living in Spain, playing in the NBA, and having his heart (and spleen) broken. But they're also stories about growing up in small-town Kansas: triumphant spelling bees, catastrophic middle school dances, and a Sex Ed. class taught by his mother.They're funny stories. They're vulnerable stories. Most of all, they're universal stories, just as the stories we tell on dates should be.

    And that is the overarching theme of this chronicle of a sailing life. Often amusing, sometimes poignant, occasionally terrifying but always inspiring, his deeply personal account is a welcome reminder of the good life waiting at sea. With hundreds of thousands of nautical miles under his keel, John's adventures have taken him several times around the world, with challenging crossings of the Atlantic and the Pacific, a narrow escape from a coup in Yemen, an unlikely deliverance from a coral reef off Belize as well as more serene, introspective passages where trade winds are blowing and stories are flowing. His crew has included CEOs, actors, writers, teachers, kids – in essence, everyone. John's narrative is interwoven with practical tips and advice in seamanship, but also, and just as importantly, his hard-won insights about making the most of our lives. He truly believes we find out who we really are, and what we are capable of, far from the shackles of land, when we find a place where time changes shape – days may merge into one another, but minutes are memorable. To live adventurously is to live more fully, and that is the life John Kretschmer continues to live. In this book he shares his simple profundities that will inspire those who live to sail, and those seeking something more rewarding from life.

    Summerlandish is all the hard-won, scar-leaving, tattoo-regretting, butthole-tearing lessons Summer has learned over the years – “summer-ised” here in all their glamorously gory detail, so you don’t have to bother with learning them yourselves. And, surprisingly, she seems to know quite a bit about love, life and awkward moments involving too much caffeine and/or lack of restraint.

    He moves us through his daily struggle with poverty and neglect in 1960s Manchester like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Tommy lives at the heart of a large Irish family in derelict Hulme, ruled by an abusive and alcoholic father and a drunk, negligent mother. Alongside his siblings he begs – or steals – a few pennies to bring home to his parents to avoid a beating, while looking for something to eat and a little adventure along the way. With an unlikely sense of fun and a huge dose of good humour, Tommy introduces us to his foul-mouthed and chaotic family members. Deeply flawed they may be, but amongst the violence, grinding poverty and distinct lack of hygiene and morality lies a strong sense of loyalty and, above all, survival.  During this single year – before his family implodes and his world changes forever – young Tommy almost falls foul of the school welfare officers, the nuns, the police – and Myra Hindley and Ian Brady.