It is currently estimated that one in five couples have difficulty conceiving. Hepburn’s book which describes her long and, at times, heartbreaking journey to have a child has been called a cross between Bridget Jones Diary and Eat Pray Love for the infertile generation. 'After reading dozens of fertility books over the years, I’ve realised how hard it is to get a memoir about treatment right and to tell your own story in a way that other people will actually want to read, but Jessica Hepburn has managed it brilliantly in her book The Pursuit of Motherhood... Whether you’re at the start of your journey or in the middle of treatment, I think you’ll find something for you in Jessica’s book.' Kate Brian, Author of The Complete Guide to IVF and The Complete Guide to Female Fertility ‪www.fertilitymatters.org.uk 'I started the book a few hours ago and have just finished it… I couldn’t stop reading. I love it. The honesty wrapped in engaging writing with a liberal dose of humour is awesome. I want everyone to read it so people can really understand what the journey is like.' Russell Davis, Fertility Coach, Author and Speaker www.thefertilemind.net 'A much needed, honest, moving and compassionate book. At times laugh-out-loud funny, at times incredibly touching, I know it will be of such help to many people.' Anya Sizer, Author of Fertile Thinking www.thefertilitycoach.co.uk 'I have just read The Pursuit of Motherhood in under 24 hours, I could not put it down. It felt like having a long intimate conversation with the author or having stumbled across her diary and once you join her on the rollercoaster ride of trying, and failing, to start a family, you are desperate to see if there is a happy ending. This book is heartbreaking, informative, inspiring and funny! An excellent read for anyone experiencing infertility or for anyone who wants to understand a little of what it is like.' Mindful Muma-To-Be mindfulmumatobe.blogspot.co.uk

    Leanna Adams moved to China in 2006, was nearly robbed, held her co-worker’s hand as she died in a filthy, smoke-filled hospital, bonded with many of her three hundred students and left part of her heart in Wuhu, China. Adams’s contrasting experiences highlight the differences that make the two cultures unique and the similarities that make all people human.

    He needs surgery for a chronic shoulder injury sustained when he was hit by a car in Kabul. Like the others in detention with him, he faces an uncertain fate, and years in limbo. Most of the people in the centre have already had their spirits broken.'When psychiatrist and mother of three Emma Adams travels to Darwin as an observer of conditions for mothers and babies in the immigration detention centres there, she expects the trip to be confronting. What she doesn't expect is to return to Canberra consumed by the idea that she must help a sixteen-year-old unaccompanied Hazara boy from Afghanistan - Abdul.The premise was simple: Wouldn't any teenage boy be better off staying with a family rather than locked behind a wire fence? In this brutal and bureaucratic system, freedom was a hopeless dream. Emma and Abdul's connection, and her fight to get him out and provide him with an Australian home, a family and a future, forms an important testimony in Australia's appalling treatment of asylum seekers. Their story is a beacon of hope and humanity.

    The story takes us from Glenn's unexpected diagnosis of 'three months at best' just days before the birth of his only child, to his miraculous remission and the ironic death of his father. It is a journey that is by turns heartbreaking, painfully funny, misanthropic, loving and ultimately heroic. Rodeo In Joliet tramples the Hallmark cliches and platitudes of traditional cancer survival stories and presents in their place an experience that leaves the reader in awe and grateful for his or her every breath.

    How did she get here?Truthfully, it could be for any one of the below reasons, if not all combined:• Stepmum dying/Stepdad leaving – family falling apart, subsequent psychotic break; both parents now on third marriage• Breaking up with J after 12 years – breaking up a whole life, a whole fucking universe – for reasons that may have been… misguided?• New boyfriend moving in immediately, me insisting ‘it’s not a rebound!’ even after everyone has stopped listening, being cited in his messy divorce, him being sectioned, then breaking up with me• Going into therapy after dating a potentially violent, certainly threatening, narcissist (the most pertinent point of which should be noted: I did not break up with him – he ghosted me)How to address this situation? Take a trip to India with your octogenarian nan and two great aunts of course. The perfect, if somewhat unusual, distraction from Eleanor’s ongoing crisis.But the trip offers so much more than Eleanor could ever have hoped for.Through the vivid and worldly older women in her life, she learns what it means to be staunch in the face of true adversity.

    Charting his career pathway from auxiliary nurse and unskilled operating theatre orderly, he takes us through his progress to senior consultant surgeon and head of department. In 2015, and after blowing the whistle on a series of near misses, he reluctantly reported an avoidable death, cover-up and ongoing surgical risk-taking to the Care Quality Commission. Within months he was out of work and unemployed. Via avoidable deaths and errors, cover-ups, misuse of public funds, bullying, abuse and victimisation the author charts out in searing detail his demotion, punishments and exile from both family and NHS and the subsequent brutal legal process that followed his illegal dismissal. "Peter's love for his family and for what he does as a surgeon runs through the pages of this gripping book as he takes you on a journey to some of the darker areas of our NHS and legal system. As a society we need to face up to the appalling reality of what the NHS does to staff that speak up and how much public money it wastes fighting people that act in the public interest. Even a committed, award winning surgeon who transformed cancer services was not immune from attempts by the NHS to destroy him when he decided to stand up for patients and services. This is everyone's problem." Dr Chris Day, junior doctor and whistle-blower "As a fellow whistleblower in the same NHS Trust I recommend that everybody should read Peter's account. This is an incredibly important and unmissable portrayal of how toxic NHS management culture is harming patients and destroying the careers and lives of dedicated healthcare professionals. His bravery, dedication to his patients and commitment to exposing the truth is commendable. Read his book to learn the truth as to what is happening every day in NHS Trusts across the UK." Sue Allison, Morecambe Bay whistle-blower "Peter’s book has opened our eyes to a series of injustices that has not only destroyed his family life but revealed appalling wrong doings within the NHS. Our father was sadly a victim in a dysfunctional urological surgery department, where Peter was trying to make a difference against the odds. Our sincerest gratitude goes to a person who has tirelessly fought with passion, dignity and sheer determination against an organisation that wish to silence the honesty of a whistle-blower." Karen and Nicola Read, daughters of ‘Patient A’

    After five years chasing echidnas and platypuses in Australia, Neil Humphreys returns to Singapore to see if the rumours are true. Like an old girlfriend getting a lusty makeover, the island transformed while Humphreys was away. Singapore is not just a sexier island, it’s a different world.So Humphreys embarked upon a nationwide tour to test that theory. He went in search of new Singapore, visiting only locations that either did not exist five years ago or had been extensively rebuilt, renovated or revamped in his absence. From the cloud-topped heights of Marina Bay Sands and Pinnacle@Duxton to making ill-advised bomb jokes at the subterranean tunnels of Labrador Park, Humphreys walks, cycles, kayaks and swims across a rapidly evolving country, meeting Guinness-swigging aunties in Resorts World Sentosa, eccentric toy museum owners in Bugis, political activists in Aljunied and a security guard at Marina Barrage ready to ‘tekan’ anyone who crosses his path. In new Singapore, Humphreys discovers a country still grappling between the economic rewards of progress at Biopolis and Fusionopolis and the historical cost at Bukit Brown Cemetery.With Humphreys’ characteristic honesty and wit, Return to a Sexy Island provides an insightful account of new Singapore; its best bits, it ugly bits and, most importantly of all, what it’s really like to pee in the world’s best toilet. Every Singapore resident and visitor should read this book.

    It is Orwell's 1984 made reality.The regime controls the flow of information to its citizens, pouring relentless propaganda through omnipresent loud speakers. Free speech is an illusion: one word out of line and the gulag awaits. State spies are everywhere, ready to punish disloyalty and the slightest sign of discontent.You must bow to Kim Il Sung, the Eternal Leader and to his son, Generalissimo Kim Jong Il. Worship the dead and then hail the living, the Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un.North Koreans are told their home is the greatest nation on earth. Big Brother is always watching.Posing as a university professor, award-winning BBC journalist John Sweeney travelled undercover to gain unprecedented access to the world's most secret state. Drawing on his own experiences and his extensive interviews with defectors and other key witnesses, North Korea Undercover pulls back the curtain, providing a rare insight into life there today, examining the country's troubled history and addressing important questions about its uncertain future.Sweeney's highly engaging, authoritative account illuminates the dark side of the Hermit Kingdom and challenges the West's perception of this paranoid nationalist state.

    Amid rampant anti-Semitism, she took advantage of her reign to call for an end to bigotry and hate. Then, after more than two decades as a glamorous television personality, Myerson took on corporate America, applying her celebrity as a consumer advocate to become an influential New York City political figure credited with helping elect Mayor Edward I. Koch. But behind the glittering public image, Myerson struggled with unhappy marriages. Then, in her early sixties, she found love with a much younger married man. The romance put her at the center of a political corruption scandal that led to federal charges brought by US Attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani, ending the reign of Queen Bess, New York’s favorite daughter, after more than forty years.   Award-winning investigative journalist Jennifer Preston reveals Myerson’s fascinating life story in this engaging biography. Featuring interviews with Myerson herself and a new introduction from the author, Queen Bess remains the most comprehensive account of this ambitious and talented woman who inspired, entertained, and shocked millions.

    This is Cherry Denman's witty take on her life trailing husband Charlie round some of the most godforsaken outposts of the world. Illustrated by brilliantly funny cartoons of diplomatic life, this is a collection of clever and very funny tales of global misunderstanding.

    As an adult, he was still living there under horrid conditions. When her grandmother began to ail, Helie became determined to reunite her with her eldest son, despite tremendous odds. Helie’s mission became even more urgent when she realized that her first book, the bestselling novel Still Life with Rice, about the family’s escape, might have angered the North Korean government and put her uncle in danger. Pushing through rivers and forests, fighting the cold, bribing and manipulating border guards, gangsters, and secret service agents, Helie and her father finally achieve their goal. But there are many hurdles. Her uncle is forced to make a harrowing choice: leave his North Korean family behind or continue to live in oppression and starvation away from his beloved mother. And Helie has to face her deep, sometimes ambivalent, emotions about her identity in the family and as a Korean American woman. Unmarried and outspoken, she struggles in Korea, where women marry early and keep silent, and writes eloquently about the landscape there, both literal and cultural. She comes through a heartbreaking love affair only to face an intense and confusing relationship with the Guide—the man who, despite being crude and macho, ultimately helps to save her uncle and eventually his extended family through several daring acts of heroism. In the Absence of Sun is a riveting adventure story and a powerful tale of family bonds and reunion.“An eerie fear crawled through my flesh as I stood on the Chinese side of the Yalu River, gazing across the murky water into one of the most closed-off and isolated countries in the world. I couldn’t believe it. Even as my boots sank into the doughy mud, I had trouble coming to terms with the fact that I was actually standing there. . . . I was not prepared for the kind of despair and insane fear I felt that day. My wizened old uncle looked nothing like the sweet-faced teenager in the faded photograph that Halmoni kept pressed between the pages of her Bible. That day, at the Yalu River, staring helplessly into his terrorized face, I hadn’t fully realized what a dangerous thing I had done the year before. I had placed him and his family in danger. By including details of my uncle’s life in a book, I had alerted North Korea’s enigmatic leadership to the identity of my relatives in a nation where it was better to remain invisible.” —From In the Absence of SunFrom the Hardcover edition.

    Arranged chronologically, the photos trace the story of the band, from their emergence on the scene in England, through their rise to international superstardom, to their very public breakup in 1970. Every aspect of their evolution from mop-tops to legends is depicted, including their personal lives, performances, press conferences, recording sessions, public appearances, photo sessions, filmmaking, and more. The captions by Simon Wells are rich in detail and provide both band history and cultural context for the photographs, as well as quotes from members of the band and those associated with them that have never been published. The insatiable hunger for new books about the Beatles has never waned, and this arresting volume-with its wealth of never- and seldom-seen pictures that have long been embargoed at the Getty Images archive-will have a special appeal for all Beatles fans.