They were already used to a simple life, having spent the last three years living on their boat in France for the summer seasons, and returning to the UK and their caravan for the winters. This tiny cabin would now be their new home for the winter months, taking them a step further along the road to self-sufficiency. They had no electricity, no kitchen, no bathroom or bedroom and the loo was a bucket in a shed, but the property came with five acres of field and woodland.From now on their lives would be simple, pared back to the basics, but they found that an off-grid lifestyle was by no means an uncomfortable experience. Responsibilities didn’t disappear but they changed, becoming less onerous. There was more time to think, and to appreciate the natural world around them. Living in such rural isolation, each day brought something new to marvel at: deer browsing in the field at dusk, salamanders on the doorstep, owls calling by night.If their own world felt increasingly magical, the outside world was far from it. They had moved to a foreign country at an historic time, living through a pandemic and adapting to the day-to-day implications of Brexit.A Simple Life doesn’t just follow Mary-Jane and Michael as they settle into their new lives, it also raises questions about what really matters to people. What makes us happy? How does it feel to have few possessions? Will life become unbearable without a flushing toilet?Thought-provoking and amusing, this book opens a window onto a different way of living. Mary-Jane shares a wealth of information and, if you have ever found yourself longing for a simpler life, this might tempt you to take those first tentative steps on the journey.

    She left him there the day he was born, with his twin brother. She also abandoned their two year old sister. This is a story of what happened next and how a child without a family can be exploited, abused and sold. Michael was continually anally raped for half a crown, sold out by Bob and Ivy Woods who he had to call Mum and Dad. Michael is now 70 years old and dying from COPD. Keen for his story to be told before he leaves this world - so that he and others can one day get peace and justice, but more importantly that this kind of horrific sexual abuse, happens to no other child. "I don’t want money, I want my story to be told. I need my story to be told before I die. " Michael Tarraga. All the proceeds of the book will be spent on helping other survivors like Michael, finally have a chance to tell their story and get it heard.

    The truth is: politics and innuendo clouded that story from the very beginning, with the result that few people really understand who The Duke and Duchess of Windsor were and what forces propelled them to their infamous fate. The Royal W.E. examines the individual and intertwined lives of Wallis and Edward – or “W.E.” as they referred to themselves – and provides readers with unique glimpses of the real people, as opposed to the sensationalized characters, that were The Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Through careful study of more than 75 years of rhetoric and scholarship, Victoria Martínez takes on the most controversial charges lodged against the couple (Was Wallis a hermaphrodite? Were the Duke and Duchess Nazi sympathizers?) with candor and evenhandedness. In analyzing the early lives of Wallis and the ex-king and their later relationships with other members of the Royal Family, her approach is to deal with all parties as human beings, whose true faults – though significant – were far less sinister than history has led us to believe. Ms. Martínez also addresses the ever-popular subject of the Duchess’s jewels, including new research on the famous 1946 Ednam Lodge jewel heist to dispel the long-held rumors that the Duke and Duchess committed jewel theft and insurance fraud. The subjects in this book are not always mainstream, well-known, or even consistent with “popular” opinion, and the objective is not to make anyone “like” the couple. Instead, readers will find refreshingly honest and accurate portrayals of W.E. that will help them understand the real people behind the myth and hype. “Prejudice and preconception are difficult things to set aside, particularly after so many years of negative stories and sordid rumor, but I think readers here will discover an alternative and convincing look at the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. I am sure they would approve and perhaps, just perhaps, the future may be a little bit kinder to Edward and Wallis because of the efforts of people like Ms. Martínez.” -Greg King, author of The Duchess of Windsor: The Uncommon Life of Wallis Simpson

    With her trademark unflinching honesty and humour, she discusses everything from her new role as a step parent, to eating disorders, online bullying and the struggles that the fame of Like a Queen and her blog has brought.Still a Queen will make you laugh and it will make you cry. But Constance's underlying message, about the importance of supporting each other without passing judgement, is something that we all should take to hear

    672p hardback, a fresh copy, clean, firm binding, dustjacket in excellent condition, like new, signed by the author

    Author GM Matheny was a US Navy saturation diver on the nuclear submarine USS Halibut. Involved in Operation Ivy Bells. America's most important (and most dangerous of the Cold War) clandestine operations. If you like good old fashioned American bravado, espionage and American history, you will enjoy this book. GOD & SPIES is a firsthand account of America's greatest intelligence coup! Operation Ivy Bells was not a onetime intercept of foreign intelligence but an ongoing operation of multiple Soviet military channels! Another reason for the high interest in our operation was the audacious nature in which it was done—with not one person risking his neck but the crews of two US Navy nuclear submarines which rendezvoused in Soviet territorial waters. “How did I end up as a navy diver, four hundred feet down in a frigid Russian sea? After making my dad totally disgusted with me, I set out to make him happy. ‘Honor thy father’ - I struggled with a decision to serve God. ‘Lord, I will give my life to you and serve you if you let me make this dive.’ But I had the impression He only wanted to know one thing: ‘What if I do not let you? Will you serve me anyway?’”

     A rare anti-hunting Tory, who campaigned for prison education and once donned a miner's overalls to go down a coal mine, Ann Widdecombe has never shied away from controversy. Her memoirs reveal a singular personality who lives life to the full. From feisty appearances on HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU to her unforgettable and star-turning performances on STRICTLY COME DANCING, Ann has earned her place in the public's affections and has been heralded as a 'national living treasure' by the GUARDIAN.

    And yet, when she finally does have something like that life, as a wife and mother in 1980s London, she is the one blaring music from her room, necking vodka and valium and making an almighty mess of her home and family.Cleaning other people’s houses, eventually, is the only option left. At 50 years old, post rehab, living alone in a Hackney bedsit, Michele finds herself finishing her working life as she had begun, “in a dumb job that you do when you can’t really do anything else...”This is a remarkable, powerful, and often unbearably funny memoir in which cleaning and getting clean intertwine as a strange and magical form of redemption. Michele Kirsch is a Nora Ephron for the modern age.

    Your very belief is tested in combat, you must kill your enemy, or your enemy will kill you – that is the simple, hard cold fact. Because in my humble opinion, War is hell on Earth. Evil roams freely in War, and it will kill you, one way or another, with its evil intent. Nightmares are common and, in their fantasy, never reflect the real horror and the reality that War can bring to your mind. No matter what your personal spiritual beliefs are, you will be tested. The conduct of your intent will be your judge for life. It is your second guessing that can be dangerous to you. A wise Philosopher once said in Greece, “If you want real peace, you must always prepare for War.” This book is about war. It tells my experiences of the paths I took as a United States Marine in Vietnam. The mouths of many soldiers will say the same – the same soldiers who had shared my paths with the experiences of my many paths in life. I have not shared these words or reflections with anyone, except in bits and pieces, and that too, with other veterans in the form of bunker talk.

     After basic training these lads were sent directly into what was then called the battle for Stalingrad. What none of them knew then was that the average life expectancy of a new soldier in Stalingrad was 24-hours. Based on his words this story describes how this sailor-turned-soldier became one of Russia’s most revered sniper heroes. He became so infamous that Germany sent their own crack super-sniper to kill him. From Zaitsev’s sniper notebook we learn how he managed to stay alive and make some of his 242 confirmed kills. Zeitsev himself tells you exactly what his tricks and tactics of this deadly trade were that enabled him to be better than anyone else. Here’s this author’s description of what he said Stalingrad looked like when he first saw it as a greenhorn soldier: “The men were startled to see the city engulfed in flames. Zaitsev said it was like looking into the mouth of a spewing volcano while above this hellish cauldron layer after layer of German bombers including screaming Stuka dive bombers were feeding that fiery inferno. He could not even imagine that somewhere within that hell men were fighting a war… Vassili said that the city “looked like a smoldering and sulfurous hell, with burned-out buildings glowing like red coals, and fires consuming men and machines. Profiled against the glow of the fires were soldiers on the run. Were they theirs or ours? None of us could tell.” Better wear your asbestos gloves and flak jacket for this one because Vassili takes you right into the molten core of this blast furnace and tells you how he came out of it as the Soviet’s top ranking sniper hero of World War II

    Ralph Greenson, the star of Hollywood psychoanalysts, treated Marilyn Monroe for fifteen months until her August 1962 suicide. He saw her seven days a week and brought her into his home. He never got over losing her. Written by a practicing psychoanalyst, The Misfit recounts this tragic alliance and Marilyn Monroe’s borderline personality.

    This book is a window into the world of Danny Dyer - and he's seen more of the world than most so he's got one or two things to say about it.Tackling such vital questions as 'Where have all the old school boozers gone?' 'Are there such things as ghosts?' and 'Am I middle class?' Danny shares his unique take on life with characteristic honesty and humour and reveals why it is that:· What goes around comes around - he learnt the hard way· You can take the boy out of the East End but you can't take the East End out of the boy· Harold Pinter is a diamond geezer · He told the media training expert to do one· Science can prove that West Ham are the best football club in the world· Him and Joanne are like a team - he's Paul Gascoigne, she's David Batty· The human race isn't evolved enough for TwitterSo, hold on to your titfer, it's gonna be a bumpy ride!

    Personally, I think the eye-catching cover shot of me in my pajamas is reason enough. (By the way, those are my real kids on the cover, and yes, those are my actual ankles. No, I'm not retaining water.)What you're holding in your hands is a very funny and sometimes remarkably poignant look at fathers, not from the mother's point of view or the child's, but from the dad's side. Which is why it's called Tales from the Dad Side.It's filled with stories of what it's like to be a dad and a son, from a child's first day of kindergarten to the awkward sex talk and right up to the day the always-practical dad tries to pay for college with bonus miles. I was there for every landmark in my children's lives, except the day I was on the riding lawn mower and missed my son's first words, which my wife insists were “trust fund.”As children get older, the lessons of the father get harder, like teaching my son how to shave just as my father taught me, with a rusty double-edged safety razor. At the end of my dad's lesson, I emerged from the bathroom nicked and gouged, looking like an extra from a Quentin Tarantino film. My more civilized son is a Norelco man. With my high-school-age daughters, I promised them a day on which I'd take them anywhere and do anything with them they wanted, expecting them to ask for dinner and a movie; I was horrified when they told me they wanted all of us to get manicures and pedicures together. That was not the answer I was expecting; it was like discovering Lou Dobbs was an illegal alien.Over the course of raising three children, I have learned with my wife that fathers are different from mothers. That could be the greatest understatement since Noah turned on the Weather Channel and found out that the next forty days called for a 20 percent chance of light rain.The truth is, fatherhood is like Wikipedia: some parts based in fact, others just made up along the way. And while bookstores are filled with tales of mothers, their children and families, there are few from the dad's side. Now, as a public service, I'm doing my part to right this wrong.I sincerely hope this answers your questions. If perhaps it's not exactly your cup of tea, I bet you've got a father or mother in your life who'd like the stone-cold truth about dads. Besides, for the same money, you can either put three gallons of gas in your car or take home this book, which has a highway rating of 29 smiles an hour.Steve Doocy

    As the only English football captain ever to raise the World Cup, he was not just a football icon but a national one.Yet Bobby was an intensely reserved, almost mysterious personality. Only one person was his true friend and confidante – his boyhood sweetheart, Tina, whom he met at 17 and married soon after.Tina Moore’s story of her life with Bobby, the triumphs and crises of his football career, the break-up of their marriage and what happened afterwards, is a moving tribute to a national icon by the person who knew him better than anyone.

    He survives this perilous wheel of fortune, and thrives in the face of danger! I would like to add to why my book is important, is that we are true authentic Alaskans that live life off of the grid and that we have been entrepreneurs, making our living off of the land and sea. We are wilderness and off the grid consultants if that is important. On our website we have a variety of things we consult on from sport fishing, hunting, adventures, lodges/outfitters, developing or improving remote properties, and much more.