Friends, Voters, Countrymen


Boris Johnson - 2001
    A lively, idiosyncratic, witty look at what is at the heart of our political process by a man who has crossed over from observer to activist, to become one of our newest members of parliament.

Anxiety Across the Americas: One Man's 20,000 Mile Motorcycle Journey


Bill Dwyer - 2013
    In his 20,000 mile solo journey he encounters corruption in Mexico, finds himself stranded in the highlands of Bolivia and gets arrested in Nicaragua. The road presents Bill with fears to face, immense kindness of strangers, and huge challenges to overcome, all while he copes with his anxiety disorder. Join Bill as he shares a candid account of his experiences bumbling across the Americas.

Trail Blazer: My Life as an Ultra-distance Runner


Ryan Sandes - 2016
    Since bursting onto the international trail-running scene by winning the first multistage race he ever entered – the brutal Gobi March – Ryan has gone on to win various other multistage and single-day races around the globe. Written with bestselling author and journalist Steve Smith, Trail Blazer – My Life as an Ultra-distance Trail Runner recounts the life story of this intrepid sportsman, from his experiences as a rudderless party animal to becoming a world-class athlete, and includes details on his training regimes, race strategies and aspirations for future sporting endeavours.Sports enthusiasts will enjoy the adrenaline-inducing trials and tribulations of one of South Africa’s most awe-inspiring athletes, while endurance-sport participants – from beginners to aspirant pros – will benefit from his insights and advice. As Professor Tim Noakes says in the Foreword to this book: ‘However much we might think we know and understand, there are some phenomena which now, and perhaps forever, we will never fully comprehend. We call such happenings “enigmas”. Or even miracles. Ryan Sandes is one such.’

Lucy Green Eyes


Paulette Benjamin - 2012
    How I wished I could've let go and allowed the tears to spill. But I knew that if I had cried, Mama would've asked me what the matter was. And if I had told her the truth, she would've said that I was lying. And if she thought that I was lying . . . well, you know the rest.Still, I wonder . . . did she know?Did anyone know? Didn't everyone know?"Lucy Green Eyes is based on the true-life story of Merlene McDaniel as told from her eyes growing up in the segregated South. Although Merlene spends much of her early years dodging the stinging switches of an overly-strict grandmother, yearning for the embrace of a part-time mother, hoping for a smile from an oncoming stranger, or running from dirty old men, her inner strength allows her to ride on the wings of endless hope, and we can't help but ride along.

Hound Dog


Jerry Leiber - 2009
    They set records--in four hours they wrote four songs that became #1 hits. Their story is also the story of rock 'n' roll--and a trend-setting era they helped to create. - Their own story: Both were born in 1933--Leiber in Baltimore, Stoller on Long Island. They met in Los Angeles in 1950 and went on to write more hits than any other song writing team with the exception of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. With the help of veteran music writer David Ritz, they tell their incredible story in their own words.- Great stories about a great era: Jerry Leiber's parents ran a grocery store in a black neighborhood in Baltimore; he learned about R&B from their customers. Mike Stoller's parents sent him to integrated summer camps, where he received an education in boogie-woogie. When the duo met Elvis (they wrote "Jailhouse rock" for him), they were surprised to discover a kindred spirit in the King, who had an encyclopedic knowledge of the blues. They wrote songs for the Coasters, the Drifters, and Ben e. King. Working in the famous Brill Building in New York City, they mentored Carole King and Burt Bacharach and also helped out a pushy kid named Phil Spector.- The birth of rock 'n' roll: Leiber and Stoller were a vital component of rock 'n' roll's early sound. As songwriters, they teamed catchy hooks with the rhythms of R&B and swing, crafting hundreds of classic hits; as producers, they revolutionized the recording industry. Their memoir will be a must-read for music fans.

Sachin Tendulkar: A Definitive Biography


Vaibhav Purandare - 2002
    The book talks about Sachin Tendulkar, the renowned Indian cricketer, and throws light on his professional and personal life. It also attempts to present the attributes of the past that shaped Sachin to become one of the most prolific batsmen in the world. Sachin Tendulkar: A Definitive Biography throws light on the preparation that Sachin undertook to achieve all the milestones that he aimed for. The book highlights the highs and lows of his career, and the personal and professional tragedies that he suffered, and also the news that were contentious about him. This biography outlines the personal life of Sachin, which has not been reflected in the public domain so far.Vaibhav Purandare spent his early cricketing days at Shivaji Park, Mumbai, almost around the same time Sachin Tendulkar also had spent his time at the park. He has authored books like The Sena Story and Sachin Tendulkar: A Life In Perspective. Purandare is a journalist by profession, and currently holds the position of Senior Associate Editor with the Mumbai Edition of Hindustan Times.

Eleven Bats: A Story of Cricket and the SAS


Anthony 'Harry' Moffitt - 2020
    An improvised game of cricket was often the circuit-breaker Harry and his team needed after the tension of operations. He began a tradition of organising matches wherever he was sent, whether it was in the mountains of East Timor with a fugitive rebel leader, or on the dusty streets of Baghdad, or in exposed Forward Operating Bases in the hills of Afghanistan. Soldiers, locals and even visiting politicians played in these spontaneous yet often bridge-building games.As part of the tradition, Harry also started to take a cricket bat with him on operational tours, eleven of them in total. They'd often go outside the wire with him and end up signed by those he met or fought alongside. These eleven bats form the basis for Harry's extraordinary memoir. It's a book about combat, and what it takes to serve in one of the world's most elite formations. It's a book about the toll that war takes on soldiers and their loved ones. And it's a book about the healing power of cricket, and how a game can break down borders in even the most desperate of circumstances.

Warrior Hunted (Fated Mates of Halia Book 2)


Alaska Jones - 2021
    And while she thinks he's crazy to call her his mate so soon, and she only needs him for survival, her treacherous heart might have a different idea. It doesn't help that the gorgeous alien warrior will go to great lengths to make Tiana his, body and soul.If the wilderness doesn't kill her, his untamed passion might just finish the job.Warrior Hunted is a slow-burn fated mates romance featuring a hot alien warrior and a feisty heroine. No cheating, no cliffhanger, and a happily ever after guaranteed! 18+Each book in the series can be read as a standalone, but for maximum enjoyment, it’s recommended that the series be read in order.

Breakfast, School Run, Chemo: The Sometimes Funny, Definitely Not Depressing, True Story of a Mum With Cancer


Julia Watson - 2015
    But with humour and courage, Julia faces the greatest challenge of her life – and in the process becomes the person she'd always wanted to be.A survivor of child abuse, brought up by a mother with mental illness, Julia was no stranger to adversity. After her daughter Georgie was born with Down syndrome, she thought she'd faced it all. But when doctors offer her the chance of risky but potentially life-saving surgery, Julia faces her toughest situation yet.Follow Julia and her family, as she writes her way through the crisis, chases her dreams, gets her dancing shoes on and discovers the lighter side of life with a colostomy bag.This is a candid, entertaining look at life with cancer and living each day with humour and hope.

This Much is True


Miriam Margolyes - 2021
    Find out how being conceived in an air-raid gave her curly hair; what pranks led to her being known as the naughtiest girl Oxford High School ever had; how she ended up posing nude for Augustus John as a teenager; why Bob Monkhouse was the best (male) kiss she's ever had; and what happened next after Warren Beatty asked 'Do you fuck?'From declaring her love to Vanessa Redgrave to being told to be quiet by the Queen, this book is packed with hilarious stories. With a cast list stretching from Scorsese to Streisand, a cross-dressing Leonardo di Caprio to Isaiah Berlin, This Much Is True is as full of life and surprises, as its inimitable author.

Edward the Elder and the Making of England


Harriet Harvey Wood - 2018
    It is an undoubted fact that, were it not for the work of Alfred, there might never have been the possibility of an English kingdom in the sense that we now understand it. It is also true that Athelstan was the first explicitly to rule over an English kingdom in roughly its present shape and extent. What, then, was the contribution of Edward to the evolution of what his son was to inherit? As a child, he saw his father at the lowest point of his fortunes; as a boy, he grew up under the constant threat of further Danish invasion. Edward came to adulthood in the knowledge that it was his responsibility to safeguard his country. By his death, he was undoubtedly the most powerful and respected ruler, not only in England but in western Europe, and he achieved this through both martial and legislative prowess. Edward built on his father’s work but he immeasurably expanded it, and the chroniclers who wrote in the centuries which immediately followed his death remembered him as ‘greatly excelling his father in extent of power’. Edward the Elder succeeded Alfred as king of the Anglo-Saxons; he died as king of the English. And yet virtually nothing has been written about him. Until now. While biographies of Alfred and studies of the achievements of Athelstan pour from the press, Edward is forgotten. Yet he was the first ruler to leave behind him the possibility of a united England, a country in which men thought of themselves as English, speaking a language which all would have described as English, which had never existed in quite this form before. Anyone looking to fully understand and appreciate the making of medieval England must look to understand and appreciate Edward the Elder and his reign.

Twenty-Seven Years in Alaska: True Stories of Adventure in the Alaskan Wilderness


Jennifer Hellings - 2015
    From canoe camping next to unnamed lakes, to kayaking in Alaska’s pristine waters, she describes her many encounters with the bears, moose and other animals that make this wilderness their home. With her partner David she helped to build a cabin on a remote piece of property, off the grid and accessible only by boat. Illustrated with the photos she took along the way, her story is sometimes comic, and sometimes tragic, but throughout its pages she speaks with the voice of one who loves nature and the wilderness.

True North: A Journey into Unexplored Wilderness


Elliott Merrick - 1989
    One exception was twenty-four-year-old Elliott Merrick, who in 1929 left his advertising job in New Jersey and moved to Labrador, one of Canada’s most remote regions. First published by Scribner’s in 1933, True North tells the captivating story of one of the high points of Merrick’s years there: a hunting trip he and his wife, Kay, made with trapper John Michelin in 1930. Covering 300 miles over a harsh winter, they experienced an unexplored realm of nature at its most intense and faced numerous challenges. Merrick accidentally shot himself in the thigh and almost cut off his toe. Freezing cold and hunger were constant. Nonetheless, the group found beauty and even magic in the stark landscape. The couple and the trappers bonded with each other and their environment through such surprisingly daunting tasks as fabricating sunglasses to avoid snow blindness and learning to wash underwear without it freezing. Merrick’s intimate style, rich with narrative detail, brings readers into a dramatic story of survival and shares the lesson the Merricks learned: that the greatest satisfaction in life can come from the simplest things.

The Secret Barrister: Stories of the Law and How It's Broken


The Secret Barrister - 2018
    These are the stories of life inside the courtroom. They are sometimes funny, often moving and ultimately life-changing. How can you defend a child-abuser you suspect to be guilty? What do you say to someone sentenced to ten years who you believe to be innocent? What is the law and why do we need it? And why do they wear wigs? From the criminals to the lawyers, the victims, witnesses and officers of the law, here is the best and worst of humanity, all struggling within a broken system which would never be off the front pages if the public knew what it was really like. This is a first-hand account of the human cost of the criminal justice system, and a guide to how we got into this mess, The Secret Barrister shows you what it’s really like and why it really matters.

The Skeleton Cupboard: Stories From a Clinical Psychologist


Tanya Byron - 2014
    Through the eyes of her naive and inexperienced younger self, Byron shares remarkable stories inspired by the people she had the privilege to treat. Gripping, poignant, and full of daring black humor, this book reveals the frightening and challenging induction all mental health staff face and highlights their incredible commitment to their patients. It shares the tales of ordinary people with an amazing resilience to life's challenges.