My Father's Island: A Memoir


Adam Dudding - 2016
    At his peak he published the country’s finest literary journal on the smell of an oily rag from a falling-down house overflowing with books, long-haired children and chickens – an island of nonconformity in the heart of 1970s Auckland suburbia. Yet when Robin’s uncompromising integrity tipped into something much more self-destructive, a dark shadow fell over his career and personal life.In My Father’s Island, Adam Dudding writes frankly about the rise and fall of an unconventional cultural figure. But this is also a moving, funny and deeply personal story of a family, of a marriage, of feuds and secret loves – and of a son’s dawning understanding of his father.

Sundays Will Never Be the Same: Racing, Tragedy, and Redemption--My Life in America's Fastest Sport


Darrell Waltrip - 2012
    died.THREE-TIME NASCAR CHAMPION DARRELL WALTRIP knew that big changes were in the wind on the morning of February 18, 2001. For the first time in his long and storied career, Darrell would be watching the race from the broadcast booth high above the track, explaining its complexities to a television audience of millions. His younger brother Michael Waltrip would be among the starting drivers. Michael, who had competed in 462 NASCAR races without a win, would be piloting one of two cars owned by legendary driver Dale Earnhardt. Earnhardt would be racing too, as would Dale Earnhardt Jr., the 2000 runner-up for Rookie of the Year.     Sundays Will Never Be the Same opens with a heart-stopping account of that dramatic race. By the time the sun set on that day, Michael Waltrip would have captured his first checkered flag in NASCAR’s biggest race, Dale Earnhardt Jr. would have placed second, and Dale Earnhardt, the sport’s brightest star, would have passed into eternity.     The sudden death of Dale Earnhardt on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500 was a traumatic loss for the entire NASCAR family, and few were affected more deeply than Darrell Waltrip. During the course of their tumultuous thirty-year association, Dale and Darrell had been friends, then “frenemies,” and finally friends again. Darrell regales the reader with his earliest memories of the fiercely competitive kid from Kannapolis, and he describes the highs and lows of their relationship through the twin arcs of their overlapping careers.     Along the way, Waltrip provides a fascinating history of racing in Daytona and offers glimpses of some of the sport’s most colorful characters, including Bill France, Junior Johnson, Cale Yarborough, Bobby Allison, and Richard Petty. He weaves the story of his own unlikely journey from the small-town ovals and rural roads of Kentucky (where his talents were largely devoted to running from the cops) to the grandest tracks and richest purses in motor racing. With his customary candor, Darrell gives us an insider’s view of some of NASCAR’s greatest battles and most memorable moments. This is an epic that only a storyteller with Waltrip’s access and experience could write.     Sundays Will Never Be the Same reaches its crescendo with a heart-wrenching insider account of that pivotal weekend in Daytona, including a poignant pre-race interview in which Dale rhapsodized about his family and his plans for the future. After the wreck, Waltrip takes us along on his frantic ride to the trauma center and into the waiting room, where Dale’s family and friends struggle to accept the unthinkable. Darrell recounts the weeks that followed: the shock and disbelief, the outpouring of grief from around the world, and the top-to-bottom safety changes NASCAR eventually made in what would become the most enduring tribute to Dale Earnhardt and his legacy.***     With touching nostalgia and his trademark wit, NASCAR Hall-of-Famer Darrell Waltrip recalls scenes from his remarkable life, vividly recounting memorable moments with some of the giants of the sport—such as this first encounter with the young man who would become his “frenemy,” NASCAR’s legendary superstar, Dale Earnhardt:     One evening a bleary-eyed mustachioed young man wearing a dirty T-shirt and Hush Puppies wandered into the shop carrying a half-empty fifth of Jack Daniel’s. He regarded me silently for several minutes, taking an occasional pull from the bottle. Finally Robert introduced us.    “This here’s Dale,” Robert said, in his Virginia twang. “He’s married to my daughter Brenda. You may have heard of his dad, Ralph. Dale’s a driver and a mechanic.”     I walked over to Dale and stuck out my hand. “Darrell Waltrip,” I said. “Nice to meet you.” Dale drained the bottle and tossed it into a nearby barrel, where it landed with a clatter, then he wiped his mouth with the back of his arm.     “This your car?” he said.

Loudmouth: Tales (and Fantasies) of Sports, Sex, and Salvation from Behind the Microphone


Craig Carton - 2013
    The station manager who hired him was the first to recognize his considerable on-air talent, and helped start what has become a legendary radio career. Often compared to Howard Stern, Carton has hosted a series of highly rated shows, and in 2007 he joined WFAN, where he and Boomer Esiason host an eponymous show every morning for four hours out of a studio in New York City.In this debut book, Carton invites the reader to join him as he recounts tales from his suburban youth, defends his long-held love affair with the New York Jets, reminisces about the shenanigans of some of the highest paid and most celebrated athletes playing today, and reflects on his work as one of radio’s craftiest, most hilarious personalities ever to get behind the microphone.

999 CSI: Blood, Threats and Fears


Larry Henderson - 2020
     Larry, whose career with London’s Metropolitan Police started in 1971, a time when police officers were more than a little sceptical of science, soon proved his worth and attended every kind of crime scene, from terrorism to rape and from blackmail to murder - before he became the head of the Flying Squad’s forensic team during the busiest and most dangerous period of the legendary outfit’s existence. Soon, Larry was caught up in shoot-outs, pavement ambushes, record-breaking drug deals and tiger kidnappings, confronting some of the UK’s most terrifying villains along the way. Larry’s groundbreaking work features some of the UK’s most notorious crimes - a key piece of forensic evidence from one of Larry’s murder cases is displayed at Scotland Yard’s infamous Crime Museum. At turns breathtaking, fascinating, hilarious and tragic, 999 CSI opens up a truly astonishing world that most people never get to see, a world filled with cruelty, matched only by the courage of those who work tirelessly for justice.

Heaven, an Unexpected Journey: One Man's Experience with Heaven, Angels, and the Afterlife


James D. Woodford - 2017
    When he came back, he was changed forever.A successful airline pilot and businessman, Jim had it all—a loving family, substantial wealth, and all of the good things that come with it. But none of this was enough to satisfy the emptiness he felt in his heart. He always hungered for something more. And then one day, he died.Jim was never a religious man. When it came to matters of God and faith, he was ambivalent. But as he lay in the hospital bed, clinically dead for more than 11 hours, his consciousness was transported to the wonders of Heaven and the horrors of hell. When he returned to this world, he brought back the missing piece his soul had been longing for. Join Jim Woodford on this unforgettable journey into the afterlife! Awaken to the vivid sights, sounds and sensations that you can enjoy in Heaven forever. Be inspired by detailed descriptions of the “contrails of prayer” in Heaven’s skies, the “sticky love” of God, what it feels like to hug an angel, and more! Encounter the chilling realities of hell, and the sharp claws of destruction that threatened to pull Jim into eternal darkness. Take comfort in the “six simple words” that led Jim into the Presence of Christ Whether you need hope for tomorrow or strength for today, this story is your invitation to a radical transformation!

Breaking the Spell


Jane Stork - 2009
    Equally moving and disturbing, it chronicles the rise and fall of the religion Rajneeshism and the Rolls Royce guru, and Jane's part in the events that led to its collapse.Growing up in post-war Western Australia, Jane Stork had a conventional Catholic upbringing, and married her university sweetheart at age 21. Embarking on the familiar path of marriage and raising children, Jane's semblance of a normal life began to unravel as she entered her thirties. She sought answers at a meditation centre, and quickly became devoted to the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, changing her name, adopting the orange robes of a sannyasin, and uprooting her family to live first in an ashram in India and then in the Bhagwan-created city of Rajneeshpuram in Oregon, USA. For Jane, what started out as a journey seeking spiritual enlightenment began to descend into darkness as she sacrificed her marriage and children, and eventually – through a monstrous act of attempted murder – her freedom.After serving time in the US, Jane started a new life in Germany, but soon realised she could never truly be free until she had faced up to the past. With an international arrest warrant hanging over her head, and a son who is gravely ill, Jane finally does so with devastating clarity.

Flight Path: A Search for Roots beneath the World's Busiest Airport


Hannah Palmer - 2017
    Having uprooted herself from a promising career in publishing in her adopted Brooklyn, Palmer embarks on a quest to determine the fate of her lost homes—and of a community that has been erased by unchecked Southern progress. Palmer's journey takes her from the ruins of kudzu-covered, airport-owned ghost towns to carefully preserved cemeteries wedged between the runways; into awkward confrontations with airport planners, developers, and even her own parents. Along the way, Palmer becomes an amateur detective, an urban historian, and a mother. Lyrically chronicling the overlooked devastation and beauty along the airport’s fringe communities in the tradition of John Jeremiah Sullivan and Leslie Jamison, Palmer unearths the startling narratives about race, power, and place that continue to shape American cities. Part memoir, part urban history, Flight Path: A Search for My Roots beneath the World's Busiest Airport is a riveting account of one young mother's attempt at making a home where there’s little home left.

The Bad Cook


Esther Walker - 2013
    And definitely the sweariest.For over three years now, Esther Walker has been entertaining foodies with her hilarious Recipe Rifle blog. Charting her progress from bad cook to, well, not-so-bad cook, she is blistering honest about what works, and what doesn’t, in the kitchen. If a recipe works for her, it will probably work for you. If it doesn’t, she will swear quite a lot.Crammed full of recipes, tips for entertaining, stories of pregnancy and tales of her husband (restaurant critic Giles Coren) coming home drunk, The Bad Cook will make you laugh out loud. It will also make you want to start cooking.

Employee of The Month And Other Big Deals


Mary Jo Pehl - 2011
    With biting wit, bracing satire, and boundless good cheer, Mary Jo-distinguished member of the First Family of Circle Pines, Minnesota; she'll explain-takes you on a poignant, hilarious journey through the world of keepin' on. Dispatched from her Midwestern home state, then New York, Texas, and exotic points beyond, these very personal stories and essays, with illustrations by Len Peralta, reveal a warm, smart, funny writer who can spot the absurdities in what she deals with every day, and make her readers LOL at them. There's nobody else like Mary Jo Pehl. But then, there's nobody else like you, either. Hey, you two should get together! Read this book, and you will, my friend: you will.

To Mormons, With Love


Chrisy Ross - 2011
    Sure, she knew Mormons didn't drink caffeine (cough), and they never swore (double cough), but life with family-centered folks would be cozy and wonderful. She could smell the fresh-baked bread just thinking about it. Join her as she honestly, humorously, and lovingly describes her quest to find someone with a real panty line problem, requests her LDS friends baptize her-after she dies-and considers her dad's suggestion to become a Jack Mormon. Although not a convert, Chrisy develops an understanding and respect for a widely misunderstood religion and has found a comfortable spot in her town, the community and the culture.

A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Hope, Deception, and Survival at Jonestown


Julia Scheeres - 2011
    He was a charismatic preacher with idealistic beliefs, and he quickly filled his pews with an audience eager to hear his sermons on social justice. After Jones moved his church to Northern California in 1965, he became a major player in Northern California politics; he provided vital support in electing friendly political candidates to office, and they in turn offered him a protective shield that kept stories of abuse and fraud out of the papers. Even as Jones’s behavior became erratic and his message more ominous, his followers found it increasingly difficult to pull away from the church. By the time Jones relocated the Peoples Temple a final time to a remote jungle in Guyana and the U.S. Government decided to investigate allegations of abuse and false imprisonment in Jonestown, it was too late.      A Thousand Lives follows the experiences of five People's Temple members who went to Jonestown: a middle-class English teacher from Colorado, an elderly African American woman raised in Jim Crow Alabama, a troubled young black man from Oakland, and a working-class father and his teenage son. These people joined the church for vastly different reasons. Some, such as eighteen-year-old Stanley Clayton, appreciated Jones’s message of racial equality and empowering the dispossessed. Others, like Hyacinth Thrash and her sister Zipporah, were dazzled by his claims of being a faith healer — Hyacinth believed Jones had healed a cancerous tumor in her breast. Edith Roller, a well-educated white progressive, joined Peoples Temple because she wanted to help the less fortunate. Tommy Bogue, a teen, hated Jones’s church, but was forced to attend services—and move to Jonestown — because his parents were members.       A Thousand Lives is the story of Jonestown as it has never been told before. New York Times bestselling author Julia Scheeres drew from thousands of recently declassified FBI documents and audiotapes, as well as rare videos and interviews, to piece together an unprecedented and compelling history of the doomed camp, focusing on the people who lived there. Her own experiences at an oppressive reform school in the Dominican Republic, detailed in her unforgettable debut memoir Jesus Land, gave her unusual insight into this story.       The people who built Jonestown wanted to forge a better life for themselves and their children. They sought to create a truly egalitarian society. In South America, however, they found themselves trapped in Jonestown and cut off from the outside world as their leader goaded them toward committing “revolutionary suicide” and deprived them of food, sleep, and hope. Yet even as Jones resorted to lies and psychological warfare, Jonestown residents fought for their community, struggling to maintain their gardens, their school, their families, and their grip on reality.      Vividly written and impossible to forget, A Thousand Lives is a story of blind loyalty and daring escapes, of corrupted ideals and senseless, haunting loss.

The Boy Between: A Mother and Son’s Journey From a World Gone Grey


Josiah Hartley - 2020
    But then her son came to her with a real one…Josiah was nineteen with the world at his feet when things changed. Without warning, the new university student’s mental health deteriorated to the point that he planned his own death. His mother, bestselling author Amanda Prowse, found herself grappling for ways to help him, with no clear sense of where that could be found. This is the book they wish had been there for them during those dark times.Josiah’s situation is not unusual: the statistics on student mental health are terrifying. And he was not the only one suffering; his family was also hijacked by his illness, watching him struggle and fearing the day he might succeed in taking his life.In this book, Josiah and Amanda hope to give a voice to those who suffer, and to show them that help can be found. It is Josiah’s raw, at times bleak, sometimes humorous, but always honest account of what it is like to live with depression. It is Amanda’s heart-rending account of her pain at watching him suffer, speaking from the heart about a mother’s love for her child.For anyone with depression and anyone who loves someone with depression, Amanda and Josiah have a clear message—you are not alone, and there is hope.

The Sum of My Parts


James Sanford - 2011
    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.

Staunch


Eleanor Wood - 2020
    How did she get here?Truthfully, it could be for any one of the below reasons, if not all combined:• Stepmum dying/Stepdad leaving – family falling apart, subsequent psychotic break; both parents now on third marriage• Breaking up with J after 12 years – breaking up a whole life, a whole fucking universe – for reasons that may have been… misguided?• New boyfriend moving in immediately, me insisting ‘it’s not a rebound!’ even after everyone has stopped listening, being cited in his messy divorce, him being sectioned, then breaking up with me• Going into therapy after dating a potentially violent, certainly threatening, narcissist (the most pertinent point of which should be noted: I did not break up with him – he ghosted me)How to address this situation? Take a trip to India with your octogenarian nan and two great aunts of course. The perfect, if somewhat unusual, distraction from Eleanor’s ongoing crisis.But the trip offers so much more than Eleanor could ever have hoped for.Through the vivid and worldly older women in her life, she learns what it means to be staunch in the face of true adversity.

Keith Richards on Keith Richards


Sean Egan - 2013
    The result was usually an interview free of phoney claims or self promotion, even if it might occasionally be tricky to follow - depending on what condition Keith was in when he gave it.Now, Sean Egan has done a sterling job of organising a huge number of Richards’ published utterances drawn from GQ, Melody Maker and Rolling Stone, plus many more never before seen in print.Taken together they form a riveting commentary on Keith Richards’ half-century progression from gauche young pretender to craggy elder statesman of rock music.They also reveal an unexpectedly warm, unpretentious, articulate and honest man who occupies a unique and rarefied role in the history of rock ’n’ roll.