Book picks similar to
Life On A Rock by K.A. Albury


reading-the-world
non-fiction
bahamas
travel

We'll Always Have Paris: A Mother/Daughter Memoir


Jennifer Coburn - 2014
    It's the reason she drops everything during the summers on a quest to travel through Europe with her daughter, Katie, before it's too late. Even though her husband can't join them, even though she's nervous about the journey, and even though she's perfectly healthy, she spends three to four weeks per trip jamming Katie's mental photo album with memories. In this heartwarming generational love story, Jennifer reveals how their adventures helped relinquish her fear of dying...for the sake of living.

Binge


Tyler Oakley - 2015
    Pop culture phenomenon, social rights advocate, and the most prominent LGBTQ+ voice on YouTube, Tyler Oakley brings you his first collection of witty, personal, and hilarious essays written in the voice that’s earned him more than 10 million followers across social media.

Stay With Me, Rhys: The heartbreaking story of Rhys Jones, by his mother. As seen on ITV’s new documentary Police Tapes


Mel Jones - 2018
    ‘Please stay with me. I love you.’ There was still no expression in his eyes. I was talking and talking to him, desperate to let him know I was there, but there was no flicker in his face. In hindsight, it was like he’d already gone. It's a Wednesday evening in Liverpool in the summer holidays, and Melanie is expecting her Everton-mad eleven-year-old son back from football practice very soon. She turns on Coronation Street and sets about stripping the wallpaper off the walls in the lounge, which is long-overdue a makeover. Suddenly she receives a frantic knock at the door. Rhys has been shot on his way home.From that fateful day when Melanie cradled her child as he lay dying, repeating to him ‘Stay with Me, Rhys’, to the day in court when his killers were finally sent down, this is a story of a family in trauma, of a community united behind them and of how a notorious local gang who terrorised the neighbourhood was brought to justice.In 2017, more than 7 million people watched the drama unfold in the highly-acclaimed ITV series Little Boy Blue. And now Melanie Jones tells the family's unbelievable story for the first time.Melanie, her husband Steve and Rhys’s brother Owen have been through unimaginable pain. The grief doesn’t go away, but the strength they’ve found within it is an inspiration.

Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery


Scott Kelly - 2017
    "A stunning memoir from the astronaut who spent a record-breaking year aboard the International Space Station – a candid account of his remarkable voyage, the journeys that preceded it, and his colorful formative years." Inside book cover comments.

Unbreakable


Sharon Osbourne - 2013
    And despite her best efforts, the last few years have been the most dramatic and turbulent of all. In her gripping new autobiography Sharon reveals the truth behind the headlines. There have been times of huge joy and pleasure - becoming a grandmother for the first time and seeing both Jack and Kelly come through testing times to find happiness and contentment at last. But there has also been a lot of heartache. Sharon describes the shocking and unexpected battle to save her thirty-year marriage to Ozzy - and the devastating betrayal that lay behind their separation. She also lived through every mother's worst nightmare when Jack was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis - and writes movingly of her hopes and fears for her beloved son. A tough but fair judge on the X Factor, Sharon is just as hard on herself. She is honest about the mistakes she has made - from misguided plastic surgery to her battles with her weight and body image. Filled with laughter, tears and hard-won wisdom, Unbreakable is as funny, frank and fearless as Sharon herself.

Until We Are Free: My Fight for Human Rights in Iran


Shirin Ebadi - 2016
    Now Ebadi tells her story of courage and defiance in the face of a government out to destroy her, her family, and her mission: to bring justice to the people and the country she loves. For years the Islamic Republic tried to intimidate Ebadi, but after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rose to power in 2005, the censorship and persecution intensified. The government wiretapped Ebadi’s phones, bugged her law firm, sent spies to follow her, harassed her colleagues, detained her daughter, and arrested her sister on trumped-up charges. It shut down her lectures, fired up mobs to attack her home, seized her offices, and nailed a death threat to her front door. Despite finding herself living under circumstances reminiscent of a spy novel, nothing could keep Ebadi from speaking out and standing up for human dignity. But it was not until she received a phone call from her distraught husband—and he made a shocking confession that would all but destroy her family—that she realized what the intelligence apparatus was capable of to silence its critics. The Iranian government would end up taking everything from Shirin Ebadi—her marriage, friends, and colleagues, her home, her legal career, even her Nobel Prize—but the one thing it could never steal was her spirit to fight for justice and a better future. This is the story of a woman who would never give up, no matter the risks.

My Fat, Mad Teenage Diary


Rae Earl - 2007
    This is the hilarious and touching real-life diary she kept during that fateful year - with characters like her evil friend Bethany, Bethany's besotted boyfriend, and the boys from the grammar school up the road (who have code names like Haddock and Battered Sausage).My Fat, Mad Teenage Diary evokes a vanished time when Charles and Di are still together, the Berlin wall is up, Kylie is expected to disappear from the charts at any moment and it's £1 for a Snakebite and Black in the Vaults pub. My Fat, Mad Teenage Diary will appeal to anyone who's lived through the 1980s. But it will also strike a chord with anyone who's ever been a confused, lonely teenager who clashes with their mother, takes themselves VERY seriously and has no idea how hilarious they are.

A Year in the Merde


Stephen Clarke - 2004
    Based on Stephen Clarke's own experiences and with names changed to "avoid embarrassment, possible legal action, and to prevent the author's legs being broken by someone in a Yves Saint Laurent suit," A Year in the Merde provides perfect entertainment for Francophiles and Francophobes alike.

The Pirate's Daughter


Margaret Cezair-Thompson - 2007
    In 1946, a storm-wrecked boat carrying Hollywood’s most famous swashbuckler shored up on the coast of Jamaica, and the glamorous world of 1940’s Hollywood converged with that of a small West Indian society. After a long and storied career on the silver screen, Errol Flynn spent much of the last years of his life on a small island off of Jamaica, throwing parties and sleeping with increasingly younger teenaged girls. Based on those years, The Pirate’s Daughter is the story of Ida, a local girl who has an affair with Flynn that produces a daughter, May, who meets her father but once. Spanning two generations of women whose destinies become inextricably linked with the matinee idol’s, this lively novel tells the provocative history of a vanished era, of uncommon kinships, compelling attachments, betrayal and atonement in a paradisal, tropical setting. As adept with Jamaican vernacular as she is at revealing the internal machinations of a fading and bloated matinee idol, Margaret Cezair-Thompson weaves a saga of a mother and daughter finding their way in a nation struggling to rise to the challenge of independence.

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail


Cheryl Strayed - 2012
    In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State — and she would do it alone.Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.

An Embarrassment of Mangoes: A Caribbean Interlude


Ann Vanderhoof - 2003
    So they quit their jobs, rented out their house, moved onto a 42-foot sailboat called Receta (“recipe,” in Spanish), and set sail for the Caribbean on a two-year voyage of culinary and cultural discovery.In lavish detail that will have you packing your swimsuit and dashing for the airport, Vanderhoof describes the sun-drenched landscapes, enchanting characters and mouthwatering tastes that season their new lifestyle. Come along for the ride and be seduced by Caribbean rhythms as she and Steve sip rum with their island neighbors, hike lush rain forests, pull their supper out of the sea, and adapt to life on “island time.”Exchanging business clothes for bare feet, they drop anchor in 16 countries -- 47 individual islands -- where they explore secluded beaches and shop lively local markets. Along the way, Ann records the delectable dishes they encounter -- from cracked conch in the Bahamas to curried lobster in Grenada, from Dominican papaya salsa to classic West Indian rum punch -- and incorporates these enticing recipes into the text so that readers can participate in the adventure.Almost as good as making the journey itself, An Embarrassment of Mangoes is an intimate account that conjures all the irresistible beauty and bounty from the Bahamas to Trinidad -- and just may compel you to make a rash decision that will land you in paradise.Source is Amazon

When Heaven and Earth Changed Places: A Vietnamese Woman's Journey from War to Peace


Le Ly Hayslip - 1989
    When Heaven and Earth Changed Places is the haunting memoir of a girl on the verge of womanhood in a world turned upside down.The youngest of six children in a close-knit Buddhist family, Le Ly Hayslip was twelve years old when U.S. helicopters landed in Ky La, her tiny village in central Vietnam. As the government and Viet Cong troops fought in and around Ky La, both sides recruited children as spies and saboteurs. Le Ly was one of those children. Before the age of sixteen, Le Ly had suffered near-starvation, imprisonment, torture, rape, and the deaths of beloved family members—but miraculously held fast to her faith in humanity. And almost twenty years after her escape to America, she was drawn inexorably back to the devastated country and family she left behind. Scenes of this joyous reunion are interwoven with the brutal war years, offering a poignant picture of Vietnam, then and now, and of a courageous woman who experienced the true horror of the Vietnam War—and survived to tell her unforgettable story.

Fodor's Caribbean Cruise Ports of Call (Full-color Travel Guide)


Fodor's Travel Publications Inc. - 1995
    John's, Antigua; Oranjestad, Aruba; Bridgetown, Barbados; Belize City, Belize; Bermuda; Kralendijk, Bonaire; Calica (Playa del Carmen), Mexico; Cartagena, Colombia; Colon, Panama; Costa Maya, Mexico; Willemstad, Curacao; Roseau, Dominica; Falmouth, Jamaica; Freeport-Lucaya, Bahamas; Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands; Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos Islands; St. George's, Grenada; Pointe-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe; Key West, Florida; La Romana, Dominican Republic; Fort-de-France, Martinique; Montego Bay, Jamaica; Nassau, Bahamas; Charlestown, Nevis; Ocho Rios, Jamaica; Progreso, Mexico; Puerto Limon, Costa Rica; Roatan, Honduras; Samana (Cayo Levantado), Dominican Republic; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Santo Domingo, Domican Republic; Santo Tomas de Castilla, Guatemala; Gustavia, St. Barthelemy; Fredericksted, St. Croix; Cruz Bay, St. John; Basseterre, St. Kitts; Castries, St. Lucia; Philipsburg, St. Maarten; Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas; Kingstown, St. Vincent; Road Town, Tortola; and The Valley, Virgin Gorda· Covered ports of embarkation: Baltimore, Maryland; Charleston, South Carolina; Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Galveston, Texas; Houston, Texas; Jacksonville, Florida; Miami, Florida; New Orleans, Louisiana; New York, New York; Port Canaveral, Florida; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Tampa, Florida

Aegean Dream


Dario Ciriello - 2011
    They've studied Greek, done their research, and have a simple goal: to set up a small natural cosmetics business and live happily ever after. But the Greek Gods have other ideas, and before long the couple find themselves snarled in a web of lies and incompetence, their dream slipping hopelessly out of reach. In Greece, connections are everything. But will the efforts of their friends-the proud and complicated Dr. Yiannis; Takis, the island's chess-playing, motorcycle-riding Adonis; and Iliana, the mayor's gentle daughter-be enough to help them overcome their difficulties before their slim finances run out and they're forced to abandon their dream? Comic and tragic by turns, Aegean Dream is a compelling tale of love, resilience, and the power of friendship. A charming window on the daily life of a Greek island and the spirit of its people, this book also provides hard insights into the broken institutions that would soon shake the entire global economy.- What’s it really like to live on a tiny Greek island?- Why is the Greek economy so messed up?- What IS "The Secret"?...and what do mysterious skulls, Russian prostitutes, President Bush the elder, and Pierce Brosnan have to do with it all?Dario Ciriello's 'Aegean Dream'. All story. All true.

Stringer: A Reporter's Journey in the Congo


Anjan Sundaram - 2013
    Naipaul, a haunting memoir of a dangerous and disorienting year of self-discovery in one of the world's unhappiest countries.