Emily wasn't born perfect - so one might think. She was born with Down Syndrome and many would jump to the conclusion that she would have very little hope for a life with any significance. Two years later came the diagnosis of leukemia. What little hope remaining turned to no hope whatsoever - or so one might think. The life of this little girl, with all its perceived imperfections, had great meaning. Her loving nature and courage touched the hearts of everyone she met. She also taught them how to value their own lives - even with their many "imperfections."

    I had been looking for sweets. I put my hand in the bag and felt a sticky liquid on my fingers, then I looked at it. A red smear. Then I looked in the bag: bloody knives and clothes. It didn't feel good. What did it mean? I don't know. There are no answers; I daren't ask the questions'Growing up in poverty in London's East End, Kathy was eight years old when her father forced her mother into prostitution. When their mother fled, leaving Kathy and her sisters behind, the girls stuck fiercely together while being passed from children's homes to boarding schools. Then, on a rare trip home, Kathy looked out the window to see a man firing four shots into a Rolls-Royce. It took several seconds for her to realise the victim was her mother's lover, and the gunman was her father.Kathy began her haunting memoir when, as an adult, she travelled back to London, to find out who her gangster father really was. A compelling memoir of an extraordinary childhood, Dance for your Daddy is a true story of the effects on one family of poverty and affluence, violence and love.

    During the past three years he has gone from lover to carer, and he has found his new job exceptionally tough. In this moving and bitterly honest account, the newsreader reveals his loneliness and his despair. For John, it was love at first sight. For many years he had admired Bonnie from afar, hoping and dreaming one day she would feel the same way. Nearly a decade after they first met, their passionate and romantic love affair began. They married in 1985—head over heels in love—and have enjoyed more than 20 years of love and laughter. Both had been married before (she had two children and he had three) but both felt, the day they married, they finally joined their other half. In March 2004, John began to notice strange quirks in Bonnie's behavior. She underwent her first set of neurological tests in March 2005, which brought back no definite results. Then, in February 2006, following a second set of tests, she was diagnosed with Dementia. For three years John personally cared for his beloved wife, keeping her condition secret from all but family and close friends. But in the middle of September this year, more than 26 years after his life with Bonnie began, John made the agonizing decision to move his wife to a full-time care home. Written in passionate and vivid prose that captures both the warmth of the good times and the utter despair of the bad times, John weaves together a series of moving and heartfelt stories. In this combination of present day descriptions of life with Bonnie as her carer and memories of the romantic years they shared together, John gives a unique—and at times stark—insight into the pain of witnessing a loved one lose their memory. This is a story of pain and despair, of anger and guilt. But above all, it is a story of love; a story of devotion, dedication, and the pleasure that those little moments of recognition, those glimmers of joy, can give—even in the hardest times.

    "And which of us do you prefer, Michael? You can tell me, it won't get back to Brother Price."'Michael Clemenger was handed over as a baby to the unloving care of a religious-run children's home. Aged eight, he was transferred to St Joseph's Industrial School.Chosen as their 'favourite' by two Christian Brothers, Michael endured years of sexual abuse at the hands of both men. Brother Price struck at night, while Brother Roberts took pleasure in a weekly bathtime ritual. Although everybody at the institution knew, even the two Brothers' 'protection' did not save Michael from merciless beatings by other sadistic men charged with his care.Despite the unbelievable trauma of his early life, Michael emerged unbroken and determined to make something of himself. Everybody Knew is a story of remarkable spirit and courage.

    And, for the right price, he would deliver it direct to your door in an old carriage pram.With energy and insight, Billy Brown paints a vivid and lively picture of Britain emerging from the ruins of the war, the hunger for opportunity, the growing pace of modernisation and the pride and optimism that held communities together. Londoners were intent on getting themselves back on their feet, and it provided the perfect opportunity for a boy with ambition and a lively imagination.Born in Brixton, south London, in 1942, Billy Brown was a lovable scamp with a nose for mischief. Left to his own devices while both his parents went out to work, if there was trouble to be had Billy would be in the thick of it. Ignoring the shaking of fists from his neighbours, his mother's scoldings and the regular thwack of the cane on his bottom at school, Billy wheeled and dealed, charmed Woolies' Girls, planned coronation celebrations, ran circles around circus performers and persuaded villains to work on his terms.

    No allowances were made for emotion, sentiment or boyhood worries, and anyone who disturbed the routine was severely punished. Artane demanded absolute obedience, absolute submission; Patrick's was an education in cruelty and fear. Patrick Touher spent eight long years in Artane Industrial School. Run by the Christian Brothers, the school has become synonymous with the widespread abuse of children in Ireland in the 1940s and 1950s which is currently the subject of an official inquiry. This is the inside story of a childhood lived in the most horrific of circumstances. A moving and powerful true account, Fear of the Collar bears testament to the courage and determination of the children that society forgot.

    But instead, separated from his siblings, young Tommy was thrown to the wolves.Tommy Rhattigan takes us, in his own inimitable way, back to his own childhood of pranks, cruelty and laughter grown from a need to survive his daily torment and to stick two fingers up to the system that was failing him so spectacularly.

    Her mother, a distant relative of William Faulkner, told neighbors and family that her daughter had died. The two never saw each other again. Nearly twenty-five years later, after building her own family and happy home life, a lawyer called to say her mother was dead. In this story about the fragility of memory and the complexity of family, Beam decides to look back at her own dark history, and for the secret to her mother’s madness.

    Following in the tradition of her first book, Monsoon Diary: a memoir with recipes, award-winning author, Shoba Narayan explores themes of family, culture and identity. In vivid and heartfelt prose, Shoba Narayan describes the trajectory of her immigrant life from the salty plains of South India to the high rises of New York and Boston. From the exhilarating thrill of being a new immigrant to becoming an angst-ridden mother grappling with hyphenated identities, Narayan describes the life of an immigrant with humour and insight. She talks about why she yearned for America and became a citizen of the land she would ultimately leave. Return to India is about love and loss; about family and identity; and about the quest for a place called home. Return to India is about the costs of chasing the American dream and the complications of returning to your homeland. Rich in detail and empathetic in tone, this book will resonate with immigrants and diaspora from all cultures.

    No-one knew the London businessman was born into a world beyond poverty, the son of a rapist father and disturbed mother. Abandoned as a baby, he spent most of his childhood in care and suffered appalling sexual abuse. But no-one knew. But a call from the abuser's wife, 30 years on, proved he was living in a house of cards.The youngest of five children, David was the son of a drunkard rapist father and a mentally unhinged mother. His father was jailed and his mother deserted the family, leaving five urchins to battle to survive in an inner city Glaswegian slum. Rescued, but separated, David grows up with vague memories of Ma, but no memory of his siblings.For the next years of his young life David was shipped from pillar to post, until the authorities decided the best place for him and his youngest sister was Quarriers Children's village, where he was delivered into the hands of a paedophile.Helpless, powerless and alone, it was beaten into David that no-one cared for him and no-one loved him.Finally David escapes and goes on to build a life of success, determined to bury his secret and never tell anyone what happened to him. Then he receives a phone call from his abuser's wife, and all that he has built comes tumbling down. She asks David to be a character witness on behalf of the man who stole his childhood. Instead David chooses to tell the truth, turning the tide for detectives involved in a massive investigation and changing his own life forever. This is his remarkable story.

    

    The branches are the different directions a man can take, live or exist. When you're dead, those that you leave behind will put you in a part of that tree. It represents what was, what is and what will be. It's eternal." -- John Holmes Most people might, understandably, predict that the world s first porn star was a woman, but they would be wrong. John Curtis Holmes was just a simple country boy from Ohio when he moved to California in 1964. It was the infancy of hardcore, so in Holmes' wildest dreams, he could not have predicted the turbulent ride on which he had embarked by publicizing his private parts. With the fame he achieved by playing his most famous character - a gun toting detective named Johnny Wadd - came money. Holmes was pleased to spend it on his wife and mistresses, but soon was in over his head after he became addicted to cocaine. Unfortunately for Holmes, in the years that followed, his addiction led him into several desperate choices - including setting up a robbery at the home of Ed Nash, a powerful L.A. nightclub owner. The robbery resulted in one of the most gruesome, unsolved, multiple-murders in Hollywood history. Amazingly, before his untimely death in 1988, Holmes regained his momentum, remarried and rebuilt his life and career. However, the grave consequences of his addiction, his association with the Wonderland murders, and his AIDS-related death made him an infamous figure in pop culture. Digging past the stigmas, John Holmes: A Life Measured in Inches - the first biography about John C. Holmes - unearths the human being behind the penis and proves that there was more to him than could be measured in inches. This biography includes material from the authors' new interviews with: Laurie Holmes, Bill Amerson, Bob Chinn, Julia St. Vincent, Detective Tom Lange, Detective Frank Tomlinson, Paul Thomas, Ron Jeremy, Seka, Marilyn Chambers, Candida Royalle, Rhonda Jo Petty, Dr. Sharon Mitchell, Bill Margold, and many others! John Holmes: A Life Measured in Inches also includes 114 reviews of John's most notable feature films, 86 loops synopses, 3 photos sections with rare nudes, and a 21 page comprehensive filmography.

    Using vignettes and illustrations from family, education, religion, the military, and politics, Black presents a determined and unyielding faith in his Creator. His confidence in God's control of his life led not only to amazing achievement but also to abiding peace when things didn't work out as planned. From the Hood to the Hill describes the obstacles and unlikely paths that led Barry Black to become: a two-star Navy admiral; the only African-American to ever serve as U.S. Navy Chief of Chaplains; and the first person of color in the nation's history to serve as Chaplain of the U.S. Senate. Inside each chapter, he offers the lessons he has learned.

    

    But most of all, The Wrong Dog shows us how the end of life can sometimes be the richest part of all.