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It's Always Summer Somewhere: A Matter of Life and Cricket
Felix White - 2021
His passion for the game is at the fore on the BBC 's number one cricket podcast and 5Live show, Tailenders, which he co-presents with Greg James and Jimmy Anderson. It's Always Summer Somewhere is his funny, heartbreaking and endlessly engaging love letter to the game.Felix takes us through his life growing up in South West London and describes how his story is forever punctuated and given meaning by cricket. Through his own exploits as a slow left arm spinner of 'lovely loopy stuff', to the tragic illness of his mother, life with The Maccabees and his cricket redemption, Felix touches on both the comedic and the tragic in equal measure. Throughout, there's the ever-present roller coaster of following the England cricket team. The exploits of Tufnell (another bowler of 'lovely loopy stuff'), Atherton, Hussain et al, are given extra import through the eyes of a cricket-obsessed youth. Felix meets them at each signposted moment to find out what was really behind those moments that gave cricket fans everywhere sporting memories that would last forever, sending the book into an exploration of grief, transgenerational displacement and how the people we've known and things we've loved culminate and take expression in our lives. It's Always Summer Somewhere is an incredibly honest detail of a life lived with cricket. It offers a sense of genuine empathy and understanding not just with cricket fans, but sports and music fans across the world, in articulating our reasons for pouring so much meaning into something that we simply cannot control.Culminating in the heart-stopping World Cup Final in 2019, the book finally answers that question fans have so often asked...what is it about this game?
Hot and Bothered: A Novel
Annie Downey - 2006
He’s a rat, anyway, and currently attends Sex Addicts Anonymous. He still comes by the house, though, as do her hippie, macrobiotic mother; her feisty, alcoholic best friend; her God-fearing grandmother; and that Perfect Guy, the one with the beatific son who plays with her daughter, the one who happens to have a winning smile, wild black hair, a professorship at Harvard—and (drats!) a gorgeous doctor girlfriend. Told in short takes that perfectly mimic the frantic nature of our busy lives, Hot and Bothered follows its heroine through the streets of Cambridge, where she spends far too much time staring into space and sipping mocha lattes with extra whipped cream; to church, where she prays for a little salvation; to Alaska, where she believes a rugged outdoorsman might just be that salvation; and to Cape Cod, where, in a little house by the sea, she might finally see the light. Annie Downey has written an updated Cinderella story for all single moms.
Rolling with the Punchlines: A Memoir
Urzila Carlson - 2020
Urzila talks candidly about her childhood with a great family, apart from her abusive dad, and about growing up in South Africa. She shares crazy but true tales about her OE, her move to New Zealand, coming out, getting married and having children, and her life in comedy. This is a great listen from one of our most loved and most popular comedians.
I'm Not Gonna Lie: and Other Lies You Tell When You Turn 50
George Lopez - 2013
Newly single and ready to embrace life, George was excited to turn fifty. It would be a welcome new phase in his life, a chance to say goodbye to a decade that included a kidney transplant and a divorce. But when he looked around a room full of his childhood friends, all gathered to celebrate his birthday, many now bald or overweight, it suddenly hit him that he was old. What happened? And more importantly, what was he going to do about it? George learns the hard way that when you turn 50, everything changes. You pull a muscle in your sleep. You avoid mirrors at all costs, and always, always wear a robe. You have to schedule an appointment to have sex. You have to dye your hair and buy a bathtub with a door. As George learns to embrace life after fifty, he invites readers into his world, sharing the ups and downs of getting older—from his relationship with a much younger woman to a bizarre session with a pet psychic, to a trip behind-the-scenes at his tumultuous two years at Lopez Tonight, to an intimate look at his sacred ground, the golf course—and, for the first time, he reveals in moving detail, the story of the battle for his life against kidney disease. I’m Not Gonna Lie will make you laugh at yourself, cry about yourself, and look at turning fifty in a way you never would’ve imagined—through the eyes of George Lopez.
Mrs. Basu's Uncensored Familism
Chirasree Bose - 2020
Arpita Basu, the only daughter-in-law of Basu family, is here to tell you a story that will leave your stomach hurting with chuckles and laughter. A Chudail to her prim mother-in-law, inexistent to the devil father-in-law, a damped down bomb to her once best friend Naveena and well, nothing whatsoever to her own husband Akash, the 23-year-old finds herself questioning the very concept of familism as her six months of tumultuous married life is hit with unanswerable questions sprouting every now and then in her head.Speaking of head, what do you think is its importance in Mrs. Basu's life? Oh boy, you're in for a surprise! Because the quirks of their tongue-in-cheek relationship is bound to make you split your sides.However, in a split second Mrs. Basu's life goes kaput as her dark past comes knocking at the door. While she struggles to keep it at bay, her husband leaves her side with no promise of coming back ever.Is it mere coincidence that her past holds a connection to the disappearance of her husband? Or, is it what Mrs. Basu deserves for all she did in the past?This chapter of her life will unravel the mysteries of the present, all the knots of the past and the road to the future. Of course, in the most hilarious way possible.
A Slow Train To Budapest
Ann Abelson - 2013
Along the way, however, Miriam boards the wrong train . . . Ann Abelson's novella begins a family saga based on actual events.
Walk Twenty, Run Twenty
Garry Disher - 2013
He looks at his punctured tyres in dismay. Ten kilometres. If he walks, he’ll be too late to save them. If he runs, he’ll expire in the heat.Somewhere across the flats, in between the red-dirt back roads, there’s real trouble happening. Rick has never felt so alone; the land around him feels as alien as the moon – nothing like the city.But now is no time to hesitate…Ian and Nita are depending on him.Then the voice of his dead father comes back to him: ‘Don’t use up all your energy at once. Walk twenty, run twenty.’
Damaged: My Story
Paul Stewart - 2017
It was a dream that would lead him into a nightmare of sexual and physical abuse from which he has still not recovered. Stewart was abused every day for four years by his junior football coach. He suffered in silence and embarked on a successful career that saw him play for Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool and Sunderland, scoring in an FA Cup final and winning caps for England. Behind it all, he was a broken man – many times he wished he could end his life. He turned to drink and drugs as a way of coping with his devastating secret. In 2016, Stewart was sitting at his office desk one morning when he read a Daily Mirror story about a footballer who had been abused. His world was about to change… Paul Stewart: Damaged is one of the most powerful and emotionally charged football life stories you will read.
One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories
B.J. Novak - 2014
Novak's One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories is an endlessly entertaining, surprisingly sensitive, and startlingly original debut collection that signals the arrival of a welcome new voice in American fiction.Across a dazzling range of subjects, themes, tones, and narrative voices, Novak's assured prose and expansive imagination introduce readers to people, places, and premises that are hilarious, insightful, provocative, and moving-often at the same time.In One More Thing, a boy wins a $100,000 prize in a box of Frosted Flakes - only to discover that claiming the winnings may unravel his family. A woman sets out to seduce motivational speaker Tony Robbins - turning for help to the famed motivator himself. A school principal unveils a bold plan to permanently abolish arithmetic. An acclaimed ambulance driver seeks the courage to follow his heart and throw it all away to be a singer-songwriter. Author John Grisham contemplates a monumental typo. A new arrival in heaven, overwhelmed by infinite options, procrastinates over his long-ago promise to visit his grandmother. We meet a vengeance-minded hare, obsessed with scoring a rematch against the tortoise who ruined his life; and post-college friends who debate how to stage an intervention in the era of Facebook. We learn why wearing a red t-shirt every day is the key to finding love; how February got its name; and why the stock market is sometimes just... down.Finding inspiration in questions from the nature of perfection to the icing on carrot cake, from the deeply familiar to the intoxicatingly imaginative, One More Thing finds its heart in the most human of phenomena: love, fear, family, ambition, and the inner stirring for the one elusive element that might make a person complete. The stories in this collection are like nothing else, but they have one thing in common: they share the playful humor, deep heart, inquisitive mind, and altogether electrifying spirit of a writer with a fierce devotion to the entertainment of the reader.
Turning the Tables: The Story of Extreme Championship Wrestling
John Lister - 2005
Turning The Tables is the first published history of the company which grew from a run-down bingo hall to become a national pay-per-view competitor... then crashed in a sea of debt. John Lister (author of Slamthology) gives an independent, objective and informative account that reveals hidden secrets and shatters common myths. From a little-known truth about ECW's most famous feud to a blow-by-blow account of what really happened in Revere, this book will give you the true story behind America's most controversial wrestling group.
A Million Little Lies
James Pinocchio - 2006
While there, Mr. Pinocchio meets all sorts of Fascinating Characters, one more Unbelievable and Amazing than the next, and they challenge him to confront his Deepest, Darkest Fears. The experience leads Mr. Pinocchio to the very edges of despair, but at a critical juncture he finds hope in the arms of a Bad Woman.The love affair ends tragically, alas, and, like many parts of Mr. Pinocchio's story, stretches credibility to the breaking point, but the harrowing adventure -- which involves a great deal of pain, a smattering of dirty sex, and endless amounts of girlish crying -- eventually leads to Redemption and Healing. But not for Mr. Pinocchio
Emergency Questions: 1001 conversation-savers for any situation
Richard Herring - 2018
Stuck at a boring family party, on an awkward date, in a below-par job interview, or any number of other situations in which conversation has become more of a trickle than a flow. Well, fear the excruciation no more, as Richard Herring's Emergency Questions is about to change your life. Containing 1,000 conversation starters from one of our most cherished comedians, along with plenty of answers from the many household names who've appeared on his hundreds of podcasts, this book is virtually guaranteed to remove any social anxiety from your life, and will raise your repartee-game to new heights.
On Tuesdays I'm a Buddhist: Expeditions in an in-between world where therapy ends and stories begin
Michael Harding - 2017
All of a sudden, he found himself falling back into the old religious devotions of an earlier time. The meaning he had found through years of engagement with therapy began to dissolve.
Here, in On Tuesdays I'm a Buddhist, Harding examines the search for meaning in life which keeps him fastened to the idea of god.
After many therapy sessions focused on an effort to uncover personal truth, and long solitary months on the road with a one man show, Harding is finally led to an artists' retreat in the shadow of Skellig Michael.Mixing stories from the road with dispatches from his Irish Times columns, On Tuesdays I'm a Buddhist is a spell-binding and powerful book about the human condition, the narratives we weave around the self, and the ultimate bliss of living in the present moment.
'What happens between one story and the next? That's the really interesting part. That's the space where we find bliss; where we float sometimes, suspended, and only for a brief moment. Perhaps only for a few scarce moments in an entire life.'
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.
Billy the Kid: An Autobiography
Daniel A. Edwards - 2014
Jesse walked out of prison a free man and disappeared, never to be heard from again. Never, that is, until 1949 when he came out of hiding after almost 60 years to claim his inheritance. In the course of proving his identity to a court Jesse told some amazing stories of his time when he was an outlaw but his biggest revelation of all was that his good friend Billy the Kid was still alive. Jesse led a young lawyer to an old man named not William H. Bonney but William H. Roberts who after some consideration finally agreed to come forward and reveal himself as Billy the Kid only if he would help him obtain a pardon from the Governor before his death so he could die a free man. You see, Billy the Kid was still wanted for murder and was condemned to hang. To come forward and reveal himself was to risk being arrested and put to death. This was a risk that William H. Roberts was willing to take. He sat down with the young lawyer and told his story. That story is the one true autobiography of Billy the Kid and told only one time, to one man. This is his story.