Book picks similar to
In My Father's House by Gabrielle Carey


biography
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Daniel Radcliffe: No Ordinary Wizard


Grace Norwich - 2005
    Since the age of eleven, Daniel has been the face of Harry Potter, bringing the beloved character and his hair- raising adventures to life on the big screen. Though sometimes it might seem like Daniel and Harry are one and the same, when Daniel takes off those famous round glasses he has a style that is entirely his own. From his favourite bands to his favourite cartoon, find out everything you ever wanted to know about this young star: how Dan got cast as Harry, what life is like on the set, and how he spends his time when he's not battling the dark arts.

Fit, Fifty and Fired Up


Nigel Marsh - 2012
    Are you slogging your guts out at a job you don't particularly like to buy things you don't particularly need? Would you like to spend more time with your family and less time at work? Do you ever wonder what it'd be like to really love what you do?Ten years on from Fat, Forty and Fired, Nigel Marsh steps off the hamster wheel (again) to grapple with these and other less weighty questions, like: Where the hell has my wife left the cordless phone? and How do I dress my daughter as a bridge for school in ten minutes?Written with Nigel's customary humour and honesty, Fit, Fifty and Fired Up is a must-read for anyone who's ever dreamt of taking a risk to live a life they feel passionate about...

Columbus: the Accidental Hero (Kindle Single)


Kevin Jackson - 2014
    When Columbus set sail from Spain in 1492, he had no intention of seeking out new lands. He was trying to reach China and India by a western sea route. And even after he landed on islands off the coast of America, he continued to believe that he was close to the realms of the Great Khan. COLUMBUS: THE ACCIDENTAL HERO tells the thrilling and little-known story of the reality behind the myth, and replaces the story-book Columbus by the much more fascinating and complex man who found the New World and changed our planet forever.

The Devil in Connecticut: From the Terrifying Case File that Inspired the Film: The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It


Gerald Brittle - 2021
    When Arne Cheyenne Johnson stabbed an acquaintance to death with a five-inch folding knife, Johnson presented one of the most shocking legal defenses in history: not guilty by virtue of demonic possession. As the press put it, “the Devil made me do it.”Johnson’s shocking story began months earlier, when his girlfriend’s eleven-year-old brother, David, encountered a spectral figure looming at the foot of the bed and then started showing telltale signs of demonic possession. David suddenly spoke in Latin, levitated, and suffered beatings at the hands of an invisible demon. After a team of Catholic priests failed to drive the demon out, the case was taken up by Ed and Lorraine Warren. The Warrens had fought demons across the globe, but the Connecticut Devil would be one of their greatest challenges, and perhaps their most deadly.Now includes an 8-page photo insert documenting the possession featuring images from the Glatzel family and the Ed and Lorraine Warren collection.

A Hell for Heroes: A SAS Hero's Journey to the Heart of Darkness


Theodore Knell - 2012
    "A Hell for Heroes" is a searingly honest autobiography about what life in the military service is really like. This is my life story and the story of my time in the SAS. I hope that any soldier who reads it will find some sort of connection with their own. I have tried to share my experiences honestly, and as such all of the incidents portrayed within this book are true, some so dark and painful that I often questioned whether I wanted to remain part of the human race.I hope it will provide you an insight into the life and mind of a soldier - what makes us the way we are, what drives us on when other men would fold, what binds us together like no other brotherhood on earth, what makes us laugh and what scares us shitless.Watching men die violently for the first time is not something I would wish on any young man. Yes, many who have not served will say 'It will make a man out of you son'. but what do they know? In reality it will destroy far more men than it makes, leaving many dead or crippled for life, some with wounds you can see, but far more with wounds which you cannot.

Tipu Sultan - The Tyrant of Mysore


Sandeep Balakrishna - 2013
    History writing, especially about the medieval Muslim rule has been fraught with political correctness, controversy, and in several cases, downright falsification. This has occurred mostly with official state patronage. As a result, any attempts to correct this course has been virulently opposed with the result that most urban-educated Indians have now internalized a politically correct version of Indian history. The history of Tipu Sultan too, stands as a glaring instance of this distorted historical narrative. Indeed, we have seen, read, and heard about a lot of people claiming to be freedom fighters and receiving pensions from the Government. Several of these worthies would not have been born before Independence yet they succeed in such blatant manipulations. There are instances of portraying certain rulers and chieftains as true heroes who fought against the British Empire. One such ruler happens to be Tipu Sultan. Tipu Sultan is widely known as the Tiger of Mysore. Indeed, the image of Tipu battling a tiger barehanded crosses the mind whenever his name is mentioned. But is this the truth? Was Tipu Sultan truly the warrior as he has been portrayed? What exactly is his record of fighting the British? Was he really a freedom fighter as is widely claimed? Sandeep Balakrishna in this well-researched book, explores both the myths and the truth surrounding Tipu Sultan. A must-read for those who wish to learn the true story of Tipu Sultan.

Es Cuba: Life and Love on an Illegal Island


Lea Aschkenas - 2005
    Aschkenas never strays from her acute awareness that there is no way to separate her foreignness (intensified by U.S.-Cuba relations) from the complex mix of emotions, devotion and rejection, enrapture and apprehension that she develops toward the country.Her tale is filled with beautifully woven descriptions of Cuba and the customs and habits of its people. Aschkenas is a discerning observer, taking in the innocence, isolation, contradictions, and resolute optimism of a people who have persevered against the collective disappointment bestowed upon them by a government that has been unable to deliver the utopia promised by socialism.Aschkenas, already a seasoned traveler by the time she arrives in Cuba for the first time in 1999, is overcome by her own passion for Cuba and her unraveling affection for Alfredo as she comes to appreciate his naïveté, sincerity, and ability to live for the moment, something she comes to realize is the effect of growing up in a culture where nothing is ever certain.

Confessions of Madame Psyche


Dorothy Bryant - 1986
    Although she wins fame and fortune, Mei-li seeks a truer spirituality, and embarks on a pilgrimage that takes her to the death-soaked Europe of the First World War, to a utopian commune in the Santa Cruz Mountains in the 1920s, to the Depression-era migrant work camps and cannery strikes, and finally to the Napa State Hospital, where she finds wisdom and peace among the outcasts of the asylum.Mei-li’s modern-day epic is grounded in the history of Northern California in the first half of the twentieth century and peopled by comrades of many classes and cultures and by lovers both male and female. Yet her central odyssey remains one of inner discovery.In Confessions of Madame Psyche, Dorothy Bryant has created a character who is so honest in her search for truth, growth, and spiritual understanding that this quest becomes inherent to her survival.

Jonestown: The Power And The Myth Of Alan Jones


Chris Masters - 2006
    

The Bloody Reign of Slayer


Joel McIver - 2008
    Joel McIver's expert biography traces the band's development, album by album, as well as exploring the headline-grabbing moments over Slayer's long and tumultuous career which have become an inseparable part of the cult which surrounds and defines them.

Just Like Us: The True Story of Four Mexican Girls Coming of Age in America


Helen Thorpe - 2009
    All four of the girls have grown up in the United States, all four want to make it into college and succeed, but only two have immigration papers. Meanwhile, after a Mexican immigrant shoots and kills a local police officer, Colorado becomes the place where national argu- ments over immigration rage most fiercely. As the girls’ lives play out against this backdrop of intense debate over whether they have any right to live here, readers will gain remarkable insight into both the power players and the most vulnerable members of society as they grapple with understanding one of the most complicated social issues of our times.Moving, timely, and passionately told, Just Like Us is a riv- eting story about girlhood, friendship, identity, and survival.

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.

Elizabeth I: Legendary Queen Of England


Michael W. Simmons - 2016
    Born the heir to the throne, she was declared a bastard when she was three years old, after her mother was executed for treason, witchcraft, and incest. During the reign of her sister, Mary I, she was a prisoner in the Tower of London, where she was expected to die. But when she became Queen, at the age of 25, she swiftly stunned the royal court by stepping into the seat of power with grace, intelligence, and an air of majesty that maddened and enchanted the men around her. For 44 years, Elizabeth I guided England through religious upheavals and plots to overthrow the government. Courted by all the most powerful princes in Europe, she baffled her advisors by refusing to marry any of them. And when England stood under threat of invasion by the most powerful nation in Europe, Elizabeth’s navy destroyed the Spanish Armada so decisively that it was seen as an act of God. In this book, you will discover why no English monarch has ever been more famous, more successful—or more deeply loved by her people.

Black and Blue: A Memoir of Racism and Resilience


Veronica Gorrie - 2021
    After watching her friends and family suffer under a deeply compromised law-enforcement system, Gorrie signed up for training to become one of a rare few Aboriginal police officers in Australia. In her ten years in the force, she witnessed appalling institutional racism and sexism, and fought past those things to provide courageous and compassionate service to civilians in need, many Aboriginal themselves.With a great gift for storytelling and a wicked sense of humour, Gorrie frankly and movingly explores the impact of racism on her family and her life, the impact of intergenerational trauma resulting from cultural dispossession, and the inevitable difficulties of making her way as an Aboriginal woman in the white-and-male-dominated workplace of the police force.Black and Blue is a memoir of remarkable fortitude and resilience, told with wit, wisdom, and great heart.

Joe's Fruit Shop & Milk Bar


Zoe Boccabella - 2015
    'Nonno Anni gives me a nudge. "You know, when I first came to Australia, I knew that my life would change forever."'Leaving the small village of Fossa in Italy in 1939 to meet a father he barely remembered in a place that was far from everything he knew, fifteen-year-old Annibale Boccabella arrived in Australia determined to make a go of it. It was a time when everything was changing and anything seemed possible. Life was tough but you could still chase your dreams. More than 70 years later, in 2011, Zoe Boccabella and her family hurriedly try to save the treasured belongings of Annibale and his wife Francesca-Zoe's grandparents-from the rising waters of the Brisbane River. When Zoe sees the sign from their old fruit shop and milk bar about to disappear beneath the floodwater, this triggers in her a realisation that while she has long looked to Italy to discover her migrant heritage, much of it happened here in Australia. In Joe's Fruit Shop and Milk Bar, Zoe artfully weaves her own experiences with those of her grandparents, taking us on a journey from Abruzzo and Calabria in Italy to Australian sugar cane fields, internment camps, Greek cafes, and the fruit shop and milk bar that was the focus of a family's hopes and dreams for the future. With memorable, beautifully portrayed characters, evocative writing and a sweeping tale that reflects the experience of so many Australians, this is a story that will touch your heart and remind you of the important things in life. Praise for Zoe Boccabella's Mezza Italiana'A charming and thoughtful writer' Frances Mayes'There is much to love about this book. The wonderful characters, her fabulous Italian grandfather who takes his love for all Italian traditions to Brisbane ... her boyfriend who becomes the poster boy for all things Italian, and the people of Fossa, a village tucked away in the mountains of Abruzzo... I can highly recommend Mezza Italiana on a cold day when you are dreaming of Italy... ' Carla Coulson'This is one of those books that come along every so often that resonates with so many. Whether you have a migrant background or just love reading about Italy, this is a book with heart and soul, humour and sincerity. A wonderful read.' Cate, ABC Shops website