Book picks similar to
Soul of the Hurricane: The Perfect Storm and an Accidental Sailor by Nelson Simón
non-fiction
memoir
americana
autobiography
Two's Company: A Fifty-Year Romance with Lessons Learned in Love, Life & Business
Suzanne Somers - 2017
For the first time, Suzanne will expose the inner workings of her marriage: a winning combination of love, business, and family. Starting from the very beginning, when a big-city guy from Toronto met a small-town girl from San Bruno, California, readers will get a behind-the-scenes perspective on Suzanne's groundbreaking success as a TV star and Las Vegas diva, multiple-bestselling author, and successful entrepreneur and businesswoman, along with her more personal life as a mother, partner, and ultimately self-fulfilled woman. Through fame, fortune, sickness and blended families, Suzanne and Alan have kept the vitality of their marriage alive-- together 24/7 (and haven't spent a night apart in 37 years), and combining business savvy in their constantly evolving relationship. Now, Suzanne reveals hard-won advice on how to rely on another person without sacrificing individual strengths.In this mixture of love story, memoir, and practical guide, readers, too, will discover how to forge and maintain a true partnership that's built to last.
Hostage: A Year at Gunpoint with Somali Gangsters
Paul Chandler
At the heart of their survival was their unshakeable belief in each other and their determination to survive, making Hostage an unlikely love story; for Paul and Rachel, death, at times, seemed preferable to being separated.
Red Sky in Mourning: A True Story of Love, Loss, and Survival at Sea
Tami Oldham Ashcraft - 1998
Life is perfect; you're young and in love. Then picture everything going horribly wrong. You inadvertently sail into a hurricane, you're injured, and you wake up to find that your loved one is gone. Your boat's motor is shot and your masts have disappeared. Utterly alone, you're weeks from dry land.Red Sky in Mourning is the story of Tami Oldham Ashcraft's 41-day journey to safety, which she survived through fortitude and sheer strength of character. Interspersed with flashbacks to her romance with her doomed fiance Richard, this survival story offers an inspiring reminder that even in our darkest moments we are never truly alone.
The Forgotten Child: A little boy abandoned at birth. His fight for survival. A powerful true story.
R. Gallear - 2019
A baby boy, a few hours old, is left by his mother, wrapped in nothing but two sheets of newspaper and hidden amongst the undergrowth by a canal bank. An hour later, a late-shift postman is walking wearily home when he hears a faint cry. He finds the newspaper parcel and discovers the newborn, white-cold and whimpering, inside.After being rushed to hospital and against all odds, the baby survives. He’s baptised by the hospital chaplain as Richard.Everything feels as though it’s looking up; Richard is put into local authority care and regains his health. However, after nearly five blissful years in a rural care home filled with loving friends, it soon unfolds that his turbulent start in life is only the beginning…Based on a devastating true story, this inspirational memoir follows Richard’s traumatic birth, abusive childhood, and search for the truth.
Killing Love
Rebecca Poulson - 2015
On the day of Rebecca Poulson’s 33rd birthday, her father, niece and nephew were murdered. The murderer had been part of her family; her brother-in-law, Neung, the father of the children. Killing Love is Rebecca’s journey through homicide; grief, the police investigations, the media interest, the court cases, the moments of great despair – and the healing. It is a story of individual tragedy and a family’s strength, but it is also a story of a community’s attitude to family violence. As a reluctant warrior for those who cannot speak for themselves, Rebecca talked to the NSW State Premier and politicians, on multiple TV shows and to print journalists in the hope that the mistakes made by the police force, DOCS, the legal system and solicitors will never be made again. Rebecca’s contact with policy makers has been nothing short of history-making, and her story has directly influenced domestic violence laws in the state. Neung left a note for Rebecca’s family; he hoped that he would destroy them. This is the story of how he didn’t.
You Can Drum But You Can't Hide
Simon Wolstencroft - 2014
You'd expect a drummer to have better timing. Yes, he parted ways before The Patrol became the Stone Roses. Yes, he turned down The Smiths because he didn't like Morrissey's voice. Right place, right time, wrong choices. Timing is everything.But the beat goes on and while Simon Wolstencroft can see what might have been, cultivating bitterness bears no fruit. And 'Funky Si' has tasted the nectar. Spending an unlikely 11 years in The Fall and hooking up with his old mate Ian Brown during his solo days, 'You Can Drum But You Can't Hide' reflects on a life driven by a passion for playing. Taking you from the warehouses of Manchester and the beaches of Rio de Janeiro to the high rises of Tokyo, this book hands you a backstage pass to an evocative age that restored pride to the city of Manchester. With humour and detail, Si recounts a fascinating tale of drumming and drugs, friendships and fall outs, but, above all, a love of music.
The Power in You: How to Accept Your Past, Live in the Present and Shape a Positive Future
Henry Fraser - 2020
Combining his wisdom and insight, Henry shows you that the key to keeping a positive attitude—in the face of difficult and unexpected challenges—is to accept that seemingly negative experiences, such as failures, disappointments, mistakes and misfortunes, are actually the ultimate markers of human success. Sharing the lessons he learned after a freak accident left him paralysed from the neck down, Henry shows us that setbacks are inevitable in life but defeat is optional. He will encourage you to always search for a new perspective if what you see, at first, seems only dark, limiting or frightening. He believes there is always a reason to be grateful. The Power of Acceptance inspires you to accept yourself and to release negative feelings towards things, situations or people that you have no control over and cannot change. Henry reveals the simple words you can say to yourself and the practical changes you can make to become someone who adapts to unpredictable events and obstacles, and who accepts whatever hand they are dealt in this crazy game called life.
Wildboy
Brando Yelavich - 2015
He needed a mission. He was going to walk around New Zealand.Brando reached Cape Reinga on 23 August 2014 after a gruelling journey of over 8000 kilometres, traversed almost completely on foot over 600 days – the first time it had ever been done.It was an outlandish odyssey of physical and mental fortitude. He slept under the stars and lived off the land. He almost drowned on several occasions and experienced near-hypothermia. He gained 20 kilograms. But the transformation ran much deeper.As much for fans of Bear Grylls or Cheryl Strayed's Wild as it is for those of the off-the-grid outdoors Kiwi experience, Wildboy is a ripping adventure story with an inspiring life change at its heart.
HARD ROLL: A Paramedic’s Perspective of Life and Death in New Orleans
Jon McCarthy - 2017
He chronicles some of the most formative calls of his career in this autobiography that reads like crime fiction. McCarthy demonstrates with detail and clarity that the difficult choice is often the right choice. While not for the faint of heart, each entry in this collection provides poignant insight into the bonds between medics and the people and city they serve.
Shadow of the Swastika--A Girl Comes of Age in Nazi Germany
Rebecca Malone - 2013
The place is Nazi Germany. Lilly is not Jewish. She is a typical eight-year-old German girl who is too busy playing in the cemetery her pappa runs to worry about what is going on around her. That is until Hitler and his Nazis interrupt her life. Shadow of the Swastika is based on her life until the end of World War II. Even at a young age, Lilly is a hardheaded girl. She wants her freedom, but the tyranny and oppression of the Third Reich thwarts her desire to do and say as she pleases. Though Lilly grows up in a world of war, hunger, fear and death, she is a survivor and faces each day’s challenges with obstinance, humor, spunk and courage.
Dorchen: A Childhood Lost in War-Torn Germany
Maria Stetler - 2014
She was an ordinary German schoolgirl from an average family thrust into the extraordinary circumstances of war. Her memoir vividly describes the price she, her family, and all the German people paid for Hitler's ambition. Relived through her memories, it is truly a story of childhood innocence lost, but also of survival through grit and courage. She endured air raids, bomb shelters, military training, capture, imprisonment, rape and harrowing escape. The author has created a razor-sharp, clear-eyed and tense narrative about her life during this frightening time, as well as the story of her early struggles as a German war bride settling into a new life in America. This is Dorchen, and she is a remarkable woman.
Three Years in the Klondike (1904)
Jeremiah Lynch - 1904
He had, therefore, full opportunities of seeing the country and its life from various points of view. He has utilized his observations in an entertaining book. It is not — and does not pretend lo be — a scientific work, or technical in any sense. It gives, however, an excellent idea of conditions and ways of living in the Klondike at all seasons, and of the hardships which the pioneers had to undergo. Nothing but gold — the prospect of wealth — could induce men to live in such a climate, and to combat the many difficulties which it entails. Mr. Lynch, a Californian of means and position, arrived at Dawson in the summer of 1898. As the first discoveries of gold in the Klondike valley were made in August of 1896, Mr. Lynch found a mining town not two years old, unpaved and insanitary, crowded with adventurers of every nation, in fact still a typical “ tough" mining-camp, except that lawlessness and crime were sternly repressed by the vigilant Mounted Police. He spent the following winter in the town, making expeditions to the gold-bearing creeks, examining mines and studying the methods of working them. Early in the spring of 1899 he bought a claim which he believed would repay him and set himself at once to develop it thoroughly. During his stay he had seen Dawson transformed into a paved, sewaged, well built, well lighted city, and the streets, no longer thronged with rough-mannered miners and adventurers, had become the promenade of well dressed business men and ladies (real ladies !) intent on shopping. As one of the earliest of the new species of Klondike miner, he is able to give an account of the transition that took place, largely owing to the enterprise of men of his own stamp, and the book is an interesting addition to Klondike literature. Mr. Lynch's narrative is plainly written, in a way which leads one to believe in its substantial truth. It reads well, and brings out many points which will interest the miner, as well as the casual reader. He had confidence in the future of the country, and believed that it would hold a large population for many years, in spite of the drawbacks of climate.
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.
1963: A Slice of Bread and Jam: One boy’s year of adventure, crippling poverty, abuse and an encounter with The Moors Murderers
Tommy Rhattigan - 2017
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.