Bonnie Henry has been called one of the most effective public health figures in the world by The New York Times. She has been called a calming voice in a sea of coronavirus madness, and our hero in national newspapers. But in the waning days of 2019, when the first rumours of a strange respiratory ailment in Wuhan, China began to trickle into her office in British Colombia, these accolades lay in a barely imaginable future.Only weeks later, the whole world would look back on the previous year with the kind of nostalgia usually reserved for the distant past. With a staggering suddenness, our livelihoods, our closest relationships, our habits and our homes had all been transformed.In a moment when half-truths threatened to drown out the truth, when recklessness all too often exposed those around us to very real danger, and when it was difficult to tell paranoia from healthy respect for an invisible threat, Dr. Henry's transparency, humility, and humanity became a beacon for millions of Canadians.And her trademark enjoinder to be kind, be calm, and be safe became words for us all to live by.Coincidentally, Dr. Henry's sister, Lynn, arrived in BC for a long-planned visit on March 12, just as the virus revealed itself as a pandemic. For the four ensuing weeks, Lynn had rare insight into the whirlwind of Bonnie's daily life, with its moments of agony and gravity as well as its occasional episodes of levity and grace. Both a global story and a family story, Be Kind, Be Calm, Be Safe combines Lynn's observations and knowledge of Bonnie's personal and professional background with Bonnie's recollections of how and why decisions were made, to tell in a vivid way the dramatic tale of the four weeks that changed all our lives.Be Kind, Be Calm, Be Safe is about communication, leadership, and public trust; about the balance between politics and policy; and, at heart, about what and who we value, as individuals and a society.The authors' advance from the publisher will be donated to charities with a focus on alleviating communities hit particularly hard by the pandemic: True North Aid with its Covid-19 response in Northern Indigenous communities, and First Book Canada, with its focus on reading and literacy for underserved, marginalized youth.

    Being a hospice nurse she spends her days caring for and visiting the terminally ill. But in the pre-dawn hours, as her patients near death, they occasionally pay her a visit instead.Whether it's perfume drifting through a room or a touch on the shoulder, the strength of spirit displayed at the end of life is as unique as the individual. Alchemy of the Afterlife is a memoir of life AFTER death based on Linda's childhood as an orphan combined with her adult experiences as a hospice nurse. These encounters reveal both a glimmer of heaven and a flash of hell.This is a child's story about surviving abuse and neglect, only to be comforted by a visit from her mother, a visit that took place four years after her mother's death. It's a nurse's story about patients of all beliefs, and their evolution from life to afterlife minus the harps and halos. Most of all, it's an uplifting and universal story of the golden transformation we will all experience at death, a transformation with the heart of pure love.

    There are always parents to help through an incredible journey . . . I am, I know, a very lucky man.’Leading paediatrician Dr Simon Rowley has committed almost all of his working life to the care and wellbeing of children. In Mind That Child, Rowley provides a rare glimpse into what it means to be entrusted with the most precious of responsibilities – a young human life. Charting his decades of medical experience, Rowley touches on an array of issues, from the high-stakes management of tiny pre-term babies to the serious impacts of drugs, alcohol and technology on developing minds. Real-life cases and practical advice are interwoven throughout a candid, compassionate narrative.What’s revealed is a tender and profound portrait of a medical professional at the very centre of what matters – a doctor who always adopts a humane, holistic view and who writes openly about the personal impact of a career in medicine. A must-read for any parent and a wonderful insight into the high-pressure medical world.

    The book also includes some of her best fiction pieces.

    This is not as easy as one would imagine: She was born in the church, educated at BYU, married in the temple, and is raising more Mormons. She faced a serious conundrum: keep quiet (and avoid losing everything dear to her), or tell the world what being raised LDS does to a person's psyche, especially when they realize that everything they were taught and everything they hoped to believe is a lie. To expose the difficulty faced by Mormons who leave the Church and to seek support for their plight, Regina offers a first-person confessional memoir recounting her many atrocious experiences, managing to weave in enough humor to keep you turning pages, and enough brutal honesty to bring you to an understanding of what it is to be a Mormon, and to try to leave it behind...

    I hated working for him and I hated being around him. I hated it when he walked through the front door at home. And we feared him from the moment he pulled up in front of the house in his car.” So writes conservative firebrand and popular radio host Larry Elder. For ten years Elder and his father did not talk to each other. When they finally did, the conversation went on for eight hours—eight hours that took Elder on his father’s journey from the Jim Crow South, to service in the Marine Corps, to starting a business in Southern California. Elder emerged not just reconciled with his dad, but admiring him, and realizing that he had never fully known him or understood him.  Heartfelt, beautifully written, compulsively readable, A Lot Like Me—originally published as Dear Father, Dear Son—is both a powerfully affecting memoir and a personal, provocative slice of American history.

    Some residents were brutally murdered, others taken prisoner.Among those captured was eleven year old Cynthia Parker, who would remain with the Comanche for 24 years and give birth to famed Chief Quanah.Another captive was 17-year-old Rachel Plummer, mother of one, pregnant with her second child. She would soon have her first-born ripped from her arms, never to be seen again, and later watched as her second-born was killed before her eyes.After twenty-one months of captivity that destroyed her health, she was purchased and returned to her family. In this extraordinary account, her father tells of that horrible day when the fort was attacked, and his desperate efforts to find and retrieve the captives. Rachel details her terrible enslavement and how she eventually fought back.For the first time, this long out-of-print volume is available as an affordable, well-formatted book for e-readers, tablets, and smartphones. Be sure to LOOK INSIDE by clicking the cover above or download a sample.

    You talk with him until the cops arrive, making sure there are no weapons around and learning that his favorite subject in school is lunch. Five minutes later, you have to deal with someone complaining about his neighbor’s clarinet practice. What is it like to be on the receiving end of desperate calls for help . . . every day? Caroline Burau, a former newspaper reporter and nursing student who couldn’t stand the sight of blood, takes a job as an emergency dispatcher because she likes helping people. But on-the-job training at the comm center proves to be more than she bargained for. As she adjusts to a daily life of catastrophe and comedy, domestics and drunks, cops and robbers, junk food and sarcasm, lost cats and suicides, she discovers that crisis can become routine, that coworkers can be mean—that she must continue to care and, at times, learn how to let go.

    

    At first I tried to deny my condition (trying to treat a tumor with hot baths and ice packs). Eventually, I decided I would learn as much about my illness as possible while trying to keep my emotions on hold.What followed was an experience that finally forced me to deal with issues about my body that I had tried to ignore for decades. Along the way I dealt with a physician who gave me ridiculous advice and acquaintances who asked unbelievable questions. But I was also fortunate to be surrounded by people who supported me and doctors who helped me through the process.

    That first year was the epitome of Raiders football-- the silver-and-black team of renegades steamrolled opponents and defeated the Washington Redskins in the Super Bowl. For nearly ten years, Huizenga lived in the real NFL trenches, a battlefield atmosphere where getting hurt and partying hard was the name of the game. Jam-packed with close-up anecdotes about football's warriors, this book reveals:* The mind games and methods of mysterious Raiders owner Al Davis* The truth about drug and steroid use in the NFL* The pressure on players to perform even when threatened by serious injury* Harrowing and hilarious true stories about the side of football fans never see* The wild life and tragic death of Lyle Alzado

    When both of you are diagnosed within weeks of each other the uncertainty is relentless. Jay Otterbacher's memoir details one unbelievable year he could never have imagined. Anyone with a friend, colleague or loved one facing cancer can better understand what they are going through from this amazing story of thirty-two weeks in 2006. "It's Cancer" provides an unfiltered view behind the public facade into the home, relationships and treatment of one ordinary couple facing an inconceivable battle against two cancers at the same time. The implausible circumstances created the story. This narrative captures it in an open and friendly manner that allows you to be there with Karen and Jay as they use humor and strength to navigate through the fear, stress and uncertainty that all cancer patients know too well. Whether it was family, friends, dolphins or doctors something always appeared just the way it had to at just the time they needed it during this incredible year. In amazing detail, Jay shares the impact that each of these encounters had on their fight with the disease and their perspectives on life. If you have been told "It's Cancer," this book can be a source of hope and inspiration while you learn from the choices (both good and bad) that Karen and Jay made in their treatment and in communicating with the people who cared about them. If cancer has touched someone in your life the details captured in this book will give you insight into the week to week grind of the fight to regain control of their lives. Excerpt: When he finished walking us through the plan I asked about mastectomy. He said it was not even something he was considering in Karen's case. He explained that mastectomy was invasive surgery with a long recovery time and there was no evidence that it would improve her survival chances. I thought about debating with him since I had about twelve hours of exhaustive internet self-study on breast cancer but since we loved his answer I let him ride on this one. By the time we had walked back across the causeway through the hospital and to our car, Karen had her jaw set. She was going to beat this and she was going to do it in a big way. She declared that she wanted an elliptical machine so she could work out at home and stay in shape during her recovery. I responded that we would get one. Karen let me know that that was not good enough; she wanted one now. We drove from the hospital to an exercise equipment store. They had six or eight different models in the store, three of which were on sale. Karen pointed to one of the top models and said "that one." At that point the salesman in the store started his pitch on a lesser model that was on sale. He apparently did not understand that the answer to everything that day was to be yes. I gave him a shut up look, a credit card and asked how much to have it delivered that day. By the end of the day it was installed in our exercise room. It would be nine months before either of us would use it.

    Behind Bradley Wiggins, there was Sean Yates. One of only five Britons to wear the yellow jersey in the Tour de France, Sean Yates burst onto the cycling scene as the rawest pure talent this country has ever seen. After turning professional at the age of 22, he soon became known as a die-hard domestique, putting his body on the line for his teammates. Devastatingly fast, powerful, and a fearless competitor, Yates won a stage of the Tour, as well as the Vuelta a España, in 1988, and went on to don the coveted maillot jaune six years later. Having put British cycling on the map as a rider, Yates was soon in demand as a directeur sportif, using his tactical knowledge to inspire a new generation of cyclists to success. And after Team Sky came calling, Yates was the man to design the brilliant plan that saw Sky demolish the opposition in 2012, and for Bradley Wiggins to become the first cyclist from these shores to win the Tour. Straight-talking, entertaining, and revelatory, It's All About the Bike is the story of a remarkable career told from the unique perspective of a man who is immersed in the history of the sport he loves.

    She taught her family how to read Scott’s medical chart and to ask pointed questions, no longer leaving his care to the medical professionals who had overdosed him with drugs to the very brink of death in less than three days.“Jo, you have to tell people what they’ve done to me. You have to tell them!”pleaded her little brother, as he lay writhing in agony.In “For the Love of Scott!”, the author recollects her family’s poignant story of love, bewilderment, and lingering frustration when faced with catastrophic medical mistakes. Read the experiences of Scott Hamilton’s family members as they struggle through a storm of horrific medical errors that could have been prevented and recognize what you need to do when someone you love is faced with life-threatening circumstances created by health experts.It took Jo 27 years to put this heartbreaking event down on paper. Writing opened old wounds and required hours of research and documentation. It forced her family to relive a chapter in their own lives that they desperately wanted closed. Yet, they rallied together to help Jo with her mission to keep that promise.To help further her goals, Jo Hamilton will be donating a portion of the proceeds from the sale of her book, to the 1984 Olympic Gold Medal Winner, Scott Hamilton's foundation, The Scott Hamilton CARES Initiative. The Scott Hamilton CARES Initiative was created to help with cancer research, support cancer patients and their families, and find a cure cancer.

    So begins the journey through France of an optimistic, infinitely curious, 62-year-old woman, who seeks to ransom her self-confidence and learn how to age. Deftly weaving scenic description with sketches of feisty Frenchwomen and flashbacks of older women she has admired, Gail draws wisdom from people and places that have gracefully endured the passing years. By the time she reaches the Mediterranean village that once existed only on her calendar, she feels revitalized. Her refreshed self-concept takes a hit, however, when her beloved proves fickle and a train strike maroons her on the edge of the sea. By the end of her journey, Gail recognizes the joie de vivre beneath the wrinkles of bygone beauty in French women. Now she awakens to her own joy of living and finds that it has no expiration date.