Hurry Up Nurse!: Memoirs of nurse training in the 1970'


Dawn Brookes - 2016
    It follows the experiences of the author as she and her friends come to terms with the non-stop hustle and bustle of hospital life. This book treats the reader to a peep behind the scenes as we enter the hospital wards. As well as an insight into nurse training, hurry up nurse provides a glimpse into the social history of life in the 1970's and early 1980's.

Ricochet: Riding a Wave of Hope with the Dog Who Inspires Millions


Judy Fridono - 2014
    The gorgeous golden retriever Ricochet seemed destined to be a service dog from the moment she was born. She approached her training with boundless energy and surpassed every other dog in her Puppy Prodigy training class. Unfortunately, her love for chasing birds could prove dangerous, for those she would assist. Fifteen months into her training, Ricochet was released, leaving a frustrated owner and a dog without a direction. Yet through a twist of fate, Judy realized that flunking out of school wasn't the end of the world--and in fact, could be the beginning of a new one. Once Judy learned to let go and let Ricochet be who she really was, they found her true calling as a SURFice dog.Ricochet's story is one of synchronicity, our interconnectedness, and opening ourselves to life's 'paws'ibilities. Embracing her true calling, Ricochet began to help others, including those with traumatic brain injuries, post-traumatic stress, and physical disabilities, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for charitable causes and inspiring people to believe in themselves. Ricochet does more than steady the board: she offers hope, comfort, healing, and a reason to keep fighting. What gives this story such extraordinary potential to become a publishing sensation? Ricochet is the only SURFice dog in the world, there is no other story quite like it!

Picasso & Lump: A Dachshund's Odyssey


David Douglas Duncan - 2006
    The little-known story of Pablo Picasso and his lovable dog Lump, who is immortalized in many of Picasso's acclaimed works of art.

Unaccompanied Women: Late-Life Adventures in Love, Sex, and Real Estate


Jane Juska - 2006
    She relayed her fun and frank exploits in the bestseller A Round-Heeled Woman. Now Juska continues her astonishing story in this much anticipated new adventure.Five years after that fateful ad, Juska has become a friend and confessor for women of all ages who confide in her their poignant, tragic, or blissful stories– unaccompanied women who are alone for now, but ever searching for intimacy. And in spite of Juska’s own success, “unaccompanied” is a description that applies to her as well. She’s still looking for a man to keep her company–not a husband, not even a partner, but simply the perfect lover, once described by Katharine Hepburn as one who “lives nearby and visits often.”Unaccompanied Women embraces not only Juska’s continuing explorations of Eros (note to fans: her younger lover, Graham, is still on the scene) but also a blossoming literary career that catapults her from San Francisco to New York, London, and Paris. At book signings, earnest men place themselves purposely at the end of the line in order to engage her in private conversations, while women linger to confess their own erotic longings and their experiences with the good, the bad, and even the ugly. All the while, Juska is coping with the unnerving possibility of losing her home, a tiny cottage in Berkeley, California–and so her search broadens and intensifies, not just for love, friendship, and sex but also for enough money to keep a roof over her head. Jane Juska shares all this richness of living in a poignant and humorous exploration of emotional terrain rarely discussed in our society. This wise and warmhearted book provides vivid evidence that the pursuit of pleasure and lasting relationships is not just for the young, but also for the young at heart.From the Hardcover edition.

Pearl: Lost Girl of White Oak Mountain


Bill Yates - 2020
    The search for little Pearl consumed the next several weeks, and the story became front page news all over the United States. Hundreds of residents from the nearby towns of Waldron and Booneville Arkansas helped in the search, and a mysterious mountain hermit seemed to hold the secret to Pearl's disappearance. The incredible events that followed contributed to a mountain legend that still exists today.

Unstill Life: A Daughter's Memoir of Art and Love in the Age of Abstraction


Gabrielle Selz - 2014
    What followed was a whirlwind childhood spent among art and artists in the heyday of Abstract Expressionism. Gabrielle grew up in a home full of the most celebrated artists of the day: Rothko, de Kooning, Tinguely, Giacometti, and Christo, among others.Poignant and candid, Unstill Life is a daughter’s memoir of the art world and a larger-than-life father known to the world as Mr. Modern Art. Selz offers a unique window into the glamour and destruction of the times: the gallery openings, wild parties and affairs that defined one of the most celebrated periods in American art history. Like the art he loved, Selz’s father was vibrant and freewheeling, but his enthusiasm for both women and art took its toll on family life. When her father left MoMA and his family to direct his own museum in California, marrying four more times, Selz’s mother, the writer Thalia Selz, moved with her children into the utopian artist community Westbeth. Her parents continued a tumultuous affair that would last forty years.Weaving her family narrative into the larger story of twentieth-century art and culture, Selz paints an unforgettable portrait of a charismatic man, the generation of modern artists he championed and the daughter whose life he shaped.

Crying With Laughter: My Life Story


Bob Monkhouse - 1993
    One of Britain's most enduring and famous comedians tells us in his own inimitable style the fascinating and often hilarious story of his life. From disclosures of very painful personal tragedies to extraordinary and outrageously funny anecdotes about the stars he knew, his confessions are blisteringly honest, touching - and often shocking. Crying With Laughter combines heartache with hilarity, sexy showbiz revelations with genuinely moving tales of the hard times, and typically funny jokes with sobering personal reflections, to create a passionate, witty and sparkling account of an extraordinary man's extraordinary life.

Still Got It, Never Lost It


Louie Spence - 2011
    'Still Got It, Never Lost It!' is the autobiography from Louie Spence, star of Pineapple Dance Studios and Louie Spence's Showbusiness.

Jim Brown Out of Bounds


Jim Brown - 1989
    

Chronicles of a Cruise Ship Crew Member: Answers to All the Questions Every Passenger Wants to Ask


Joshua Kinser - 2012
    Chronicles of a Cruise Ship Crew Member goes below the waterline to explore the cramped, dirty, and dimly lit crew areas on a revealing tour of the ship's underworld. Go where no passenger has gone before and learn what the crew eats, where they sleep, how they party, and finally understand why all of the officers on a cruise ship are Italian.Climb aboard an adventure on the high seas and witness the wonderful side of ship life where crew members have whirlwind escapades while traveling the world aboard a massive sailing city.Drawing from his experiences working as a musician aboard cruise ships for more than five years, Joshua tells the laugh-out-loud funny and also beautifully poignant story of what cruise ship crew members experience from the minute they first step onto a ship to the day they walk down that gangway for the last time.

Voices In My Ear: The Autobiography Of A Medium


Doris Stokes - 1980
    From families wishing to contact departed loved ones to police forces trying to solve murder cases, the uncanny accuracy of her psychic powers were universally acclaimed, while her readings and performances in Australia, America, and at home in Britain were received with adulation. This unique collection includes the two best–selling books in which Doris Stokes shared her remarkable experiences with readers throughout the world. In Voices in My Ear, she reflects on discovering her extraordinary gift. Officially informed that her husband had been killed during the Second World War, she was visited at the height of her grief by her long–dead father. He told Doris that her husband was, in fact, alive and would return, but joy turned to grief when her father re–appeared to warn of the impending death of her baby son. Both predictions came true.

Village Vets


Anthony Bennett - 2015
    Best mates since they met on their first day at uni, Anthony Bennett and James Carroll both dreamed of working with animals from the time they were knee high. Little did these down-to-earth country vets know their dreams would find them unlikely TV stars, their larrikinism and genuine affection for the people they meet and the animals they treat winning the hearts of Australians everywhere. Village Vets takes us back to their early years, from their hilarious escapades at university, to their intrepid adventures in the UK and the Australian bush, to setting up their own practice in an idyllic coastal town in New South Wales. But if you thought country towns were sleepy, think again. Anthony and James have done it all - operated on guinea pigs and euthanased fish; treated a horse that had lost its foot and fixed a prolapsed cow with a piece of polypipe. And then there was the day that involved four calvings, one severed artery, one fox-bait poisoning, one skewered kelpie, one snakebite and 480 kilometres of driving ...An Australian version of James Herriot's All Creatures Great and Small, Village Vets will by turns charm you, make you laugh out loud and bring a tear to your eye. Join Anthony and James as they take you on an unforgettable journey into the heartache and joy of life as country vets, who are so often up to their armpits in ... something!

Through a Mother's Tears: The tragic true story of a mother who lost one daughter to a brutal murderer and another to a broken heart


Cathy Broomfield - 2020
    Cathy's worst fears had been realised...Through a Mother’s Tears is the poignant and heartbreaking story of how Cathy lost not only Kirsty, her youngest daughter, but Kirsty’s big sister Hayley, who died of heartbreak when the agony of her baby sister’s loss became too much to bear.

Drunk on Sports


Tim Cowlishaw - 2013
    By the time he reached his 50th birthday his career was everything he'd ever hoped it would be. With a sports column in a major paper, winning APSE's Best Sports Columnist in Texas four times, and a daily spot on ESPN's highly successful show, "Around the Horn," Cowlishaw had pursued and conquered nearly everything he ever desired professionally. However, the pursuit of that success nearly cost him his life.DRUNK ON SPORTS is more than simply a memoir by one of America's most well-known sportswriters. Behind his happy-go-lucky public persona was a man with a considerable (but well-disguised) drinking problem. For years, Cowlishaw believed that his ability to drink with the best of them helped in his development of sources and pursuit of stories and, unfortunately, he was right. Among others, the relationship he built while sitting on a barstool next to Cowboys Coach Jimmy Johnson allowed him to get where other reporters couldn't. As all hell broke loose between Johnson and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones in 1994, Cowlishaw was right next to Coach Johnson every step (and beer) along the way. In DRUNK ON SPORTS, Cowlishaw recounts first-hand stories never told and quotes never shared from the bizarre breakup of one of the NFL's most successful dynasties.As he points out in the introduction, this is not an anti-drinking book. Cowlishaw loved alcohol for 35 years. If anything, this is a how-not-to book more than a how-to book. Along the way, Cowlishaw takes readers inside some of the biggest stories in sports. He joined ESPN in 2002 as a regular on Around the Horn and discusses life behind the scenes at the Worldwide Leader candidly and at length. Cowlishaw writes and talks and, at times, drinks his way into the sports world's fast lane - what else would you call getting hammered on vodka with Denny Hamlin at the Daytona 500 - before realizing the only way to continue was to call a halt to the partying.The story of his rise and fall is more insightful and humorous than it is preachy as Cowlishaw examines some of the flawed decisions he made throughout his lifetime in sports. DRUNK ON SPORTS is a cautionary yet entertaining tale of never before told stories featuring some of the most recognizable personalities in sports, and if it causes some readers to reexamine their own lives, then it will have gone above and beyond its intended purpose.

Planet of the Umps: A Baseball Life from Behind the Plate


Ken Kaiser - 2003
    From the first day he hit a minor league catcher with a pool table to the fateful day baseball called him out on a strike, Kaiser was one of the game's most popular and colorful characters. And in this autobiography-written with the co-author of Ron Luciano's classic bestseller The Umpire Strikes Back - Kaiser brings to life his wild adventures from the pro wrestling arena to the baseball diamond.This is the hysterically true story of four decades of baseball as lived and loved on the playing field, from Ted Williams and Billy Martin to Derek Jeter and Mark McGwire, from one-eyed umpires to space-age technology. And as he did throughout his long and sometimes controversial career, the larger-than-his-chest-protector Kaiser called 'em as he saw 'em.