His words will resonate with anyone coming of age in the digital era, but at the core is a timeless message for people of all ages: don't be afraid to be yourself and to go after what you truly want.This full-color collection includes photography and childhood clippings provided by Connor and is a must-have for anyone inspired by his journey.

    Now, for the first time, perhaps the most brilliant cosmologist of our age turns his gaze inward for a revealing look at his own life and intellectual evolution. My Brief History recounts Stephen Hawking’s improbable journey, from his postwar London boyhood to his years of international acclaim and celebrity. Lavishly illustrated with rarely seen photographs, this concise, witty, and candid account introduces readers to a Hawking rarely glimpsed in previous books: the inquisitive schoolboy whose classmates nicknamed him Einstein; the jokester who once placed a bet with a colleague over the existence of a particular black hole; and the young husband and father struggling to gain a foothold in the world of physics and cosmology. Writing with characteristic humility and humor, Hawking opens up about the challenges that confronted him following his diagnosis of ALS at age twenty-one. Tracing his development as a thinker, he explains how the prospect of an early death urged him onward through numerous intellectual breakthroughs, and talks about the genesis of his masterpiece A Brief History of Time—one of the iconic books of the twentieth century. Clear-eyed, intimate, and wise, My Brief History opens a window for the rest of us into Hawking’s personal cosmos.

    A crowd forms, hoping to catch a glimpse of the magical creature. One crate after another is unpacked: a zebra, a leopard, and a baboon. There's no mermaid, but in the final two crates is something almost as magical—a pair of young elephants, in poor health but alive.Seeing a unique opportunity, a wealthy sugar merchant purchases the elephants for his country estate and turns their care over to a young stable boy, Tom Page. Tom's family has long cared for horses, but an elephant is something different altogether. It takes time for Tom and the elephants to understand one another, but to the surprise of everyone on the estate, a remarkable bond is formed.The Elephant Keeper, the story of Tom and the elephants, in Tom's own words, moves from the green fields and woods of the English countryside to the dark streets and alleys of late-eighteenth-century London, reflecting both the beauty and the violence of the age. Nicholson's lush writing and deft storytelling complement a captivating tale of love and loyalty between one man and the two elephants that change the lives of all who meet them.

    Except it wasn’t that simple. Self-confessed latch-key kids, theirs was far from an easy ride.Inspired by both the energy of British punk bands like the Sex Pistols and Buzzcocks and cult American bands such as Dead Kennedys and Husker Du, Green Day formed in 1989. The band gigged relentlessly across the US, quickly selling out every underground club that booked them, and their 1994 major label debut Dookie was a 10-million-selling worldwide hit album that seized the zeitgeist while rock music was still reeling from the death of Nirvana's Kurt Cobain. They toured the world, headlined all the big festivals, won countless awards and released multi-million selling albums.In 2004 Green Day reached a career pinnacle with the concept album American Idiot, a sophisticated commentary on modern life—not least dissatisfaction with their president and America’s continued cultural and economic imperialism. The No. 1 success of the Grammy-winning album extended Green Day's fan base even further—from pre-teen kids to previously skeptical critics.This book is the world’s first full biography on Green Day. An authority on punk and hardcore, author Ben Myers charts the band members’ difficult childhoods, the context of the band within the US and world punk scene and their glittering rise to success. Myers has also interviewed the band for various magazines at different stages of their career.

    It will also leave you awed and inspired by the triumph of the human spirit. By fearlessly revealing the horrors of her upbringing – alcoholism, madness, sexual abuse, and that’s just for starters – this supremely gifted actress and filmmaker delivers a story of emotional survival that is raw, wild and shocking, yet also dazzlingly funny. The lady went through hell and found the Light, and we are the better for it. Michael Logan, TV Guide Magazine

    But just a year ago, the former Australian Army officer had endured the brutal death of his girlfriend at the hands of ivory hunters in Mozambique.Now the South African Police are on the murderers' trail and need Mike's help. But he has a truckload of tourists who have no idea what has been asked of him . . . although one passenger has her suspicions.Following a chase through some of Africa's most spectacular locations, Mike gets his shot at revenge . . . but at what cost?"

    But it's hard on your own. And sometimes you take risks you shouldn't. Because you have to . . . One chaotic family Jess's gifted, quirky daughter Tanzie is brilliant with numbers, but without a helping hand she'll never get the chance to shine. And Nicky, Jess's teenage stepson, can't fight the bullies alone. Sometimes Jess feels like they're sinking . . . One handsome stranger Into their lives comes Ed Nicholls, a man whose life is in chaos, and who is running from a deeply uncertain future. But he has time on his hands. He knows what it's like to be lonely. And he wants to help . . . One unexpected love story The One Plus One is a captivating and unconventional romance from Jojo Moyes about two lost souls meeting in the most unlikely circumstances. Praise for Jojo Moyes: 'Majestic, utterly compelling, tremendous. A heart-stopping read' Independent on Sunday'Truly beautiful. Made us laugh, smile and sob like a baby - you simply have to read it' Closer'A triumph. Packs such an emotional punch, you'll need a box of tissues' ElleJojo Moyes is a novelist and a journalist. She worked at the Independent for ten years before leaving to write full time. Her previous novels have all been critically acclaimed and include The Ship of Brides, Foreign Fruit, The Last Letter From Your Lover, winner of Spring 2012's most popular Richard and Judy Book Club title Me Before You and most recently The Girl you Left Behind. She lives in Essex with her husband and their three children.

    A celebration of an incredible bond, the power of Farrah’s indomitable spirit, and poignant memories from their thirty years together, My Journey with Farrah is a tribute to an amazing woman and an amazing friendship.

    But soon it becomes clear that his motives are not all they seem.At the age of 11, Emily is groomed into being a ‘county lines’ drug trafficker. It is the beginning of a vicious cycle that sees her become prey to one abuser after another, involving a huge child-sex-trafficking gang.The scale of the abuse – at the hands of hundreds of men – is sickening, and at times it feels like there will never be an escape. But then, in the darkest of moments, a ray of light shines …This is the moving true story of how one girl overcame her traumatic past and learned to love for the very first time.

    He was sergeant-at-arms for Toronto’s notorious Downtown chapter of the Hells Angels, and he saw it all: the drug trafficking, the violence and the structure of the organization. First his involvement with the gang cost him his career in personal security, and then it threatened to cost him everything.Atwell opted to work with the police, becoming the highest-ranking Hells Angel in history to co-operate with law enforcement. Wearing the gang’s colours as a soldier among the men who called him a brother, Atwell reported the Hells Angels’ activities to law enforcement. He risked his life providing valuable information aimed at taking down the club.In the harrowing and revelatory The Hard Way Out, Atwell retraces his days living a dual life as both biker and informant, surrounded by major drug trafficking and the violent, paranoid and increasingly suspicious bikers who stood to lose their livelihoods and potentially their freedom unless they found the rat they knew was hidden in their midst. Written by bestselling crime author Jerry Langton, this is a high-octane true story that will have you on the edge of your seat.

    A bonus chapter explains how to build your own backyard rink.

    En route, John Cleese describes his nerve-racking first public appearance, at St Peter’s Preparatory School at the age of eight and five-sixths; his endlessly peripatetic home life with parents who seemed incapable of staying in any house for longer than six months; his first experiences in the world of work as a teacher who knew nothing about the subjects he was expected to teach; his hamster-owning days at Cambridge; and his first encounter with the man who would be his writing partner for over two decades, Graham Chapman. And so on to his dizzying ascent via scriptwriting for Peter Sellers, David Frost, Marty Feldman and others to the heights of Monty Python.Punctuated from time to time with John Cleese’s thoughts on topics as diverse as the nature of comedy, the relative merits of cricket and waterskiing, and the importance of knowing the dates of all the kings and queens of England, this is a masterly performance by a former schoolmaster.

    Under the codename ‘Echo 7’, he was ‘licenced to kill’ bringing down scores of targets, sometimes with deadly force. In 1985 he opened fire on a suspect to save a four-year-old girl whose mother had been stabbed to death by her assailant. Two years later he was involved in another high profile shooting while confronting three armed criminals. On both occasions Tony was commended by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. But in the spring of 2005, coming face to face with suspected drug dealer and armed robber Azelle Rodney, a volley of point blank shots would bring his career crashing to an end, tarnish his reputation and leave him fighting a murder charge and possible life sentence. From life or death cases and botched operations to political fallouts, this book charts the controversial career from rookie seventies beat cop to Long's command of SO19 – the Met’s most elite specialist firearms unit. Long’s personal testimony and professional insight raises serious issues about the duties, pressures and responsibilities that fall on the shoulders of those we task to risk their lives, and take the lives of others, in our name.

    It only needed a discarded chip on a South London street to lay him literally flat. So, bedbound and bored, Philip naturally starts to write the story of his life. But the mundane catalogue of seaside holidays and bodged DIY, broken relationships and unspoken truths, reveals more surprises, both comic and touching, than Philip or his family ever bargained for. Even, perhaps, a happy ending ...

    Bennet Omalu, the pathologist who made one of the most significant medical discoveries of the twenty-first century, a discovery that challenges the existence of America’s favorite sport and puts Omalu in the crosshairs of football’s most powerful corporation: the NFL. Jeanne Marie Laskas first met the young forensic pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu in 2009, while reporting a story for GQ that would go on to inspire the movie Concussion. Omalu told her about a day in September 2002, when, in a dingy morgue in downtown Pittsburgh, he picked up a scalpel and made a discovery that would rattle America in ways he’d never intended. Omalu was new to America, chasing the dream, a deeply spiritual man escaping the wounds of civil war in Nigeria. The body on the slab in front of him belonged to a fifty-year-old named Mike Webster, aka “Iron Mike,” a Hall of Fame center for the Pittsburgh Steelers, one of the greatest ever to play the game. After retiring in 1990, Webster had suffered a dizzyingly steep decline. Toward the end of his life, he was living out of his van, tasering himself to relieve his chronic pain, and fixing his rotting teeth with Super Glue. How did this happen?, Omalu asked himself. How did a young man like Mike Webster end up like this? The search for answers would change Omalu’s life forever and put him in the crosshairs of one of the most powerful corporations in America: the National Football League. What Omalu discovered in Webster’s brain—proof that Iron Mike’s mental deterioration was no accident but a disease caused by blows to the head that could affect everyone playing the game—was the one truth the NFL wanted to ignore.   Taut, gripping, and gorgeously told, Concussion is the stirring story of one unlikely man’s decision to stand up to a multibillion-dollar colossus, and to tell the world the truth.  Advance praise for Concussion “A gripping medical mystery and a dazzling portrait of the young scientist no one wanted to listen to . . . a fabulous, essential read.”—Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks“The story of Dr. Bennet Omalu’s battle against the NFL is classic David and Goliath stuff, and Jeanne Marie Laskas—one of my favorite writers on earth—makes it as exciting as any great courtroom or gridiron drama. A riveting, powerful human tale—and a master class on how to tell a story.”—Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit   “Bennet Omalu forced football to reckon with head trauma. The NFL doesn’t want you to hear his story, but Jeanne Marie Laskas makes it unforgettable. This book is gripping, eye-opening, and full of heart.”—Emily Bazelon, author of Sticks and Stones