Heart - warming and compulsive reading, this is an entertaining, lively and moving novel from one of New Zealand's favourite authors.

     After almost two years it became apparent that I had exasperated all efforts to control my behaviour and was no longer welcome at the school. This was a pattern which continued for the next few years of my life. I was moved from a children’s home in Bradford to a secure unit in York from which I managed to escape on two occasions. I was then sent to an Approved School in County Durham. As incredulous as it may seem, at the age of 14 I was expelled from the Approved School and returned to another children’s home back in my home town of Bradford. True to form I was kicked out of this home too. The above is pretty much the sum of my family and friends knowledge of my childhood, and to be fair, it’s hardly surprising that I was judged, frowned upon and quite often avoided like a crusty pair of Y fronts. I am now 53 years old and have managed, thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, to obtain official records held about me from those early days. I have also managed to acquire the cojones to let all and sundry know the truth. As I have used my real name, I felt it was only right that I use the real names of other guilty parties, the ones who should have known better. If you are interested in reading a true, openly honest, occasionally sad yet often humorous memoir, please do buy my book, “I Think I’m OK.” I assure you it’s far from a ‘misery memoir.’ Oh, I guess I should point out that there are a few of them there naughty sweary words included . . . sorry about that.

    Despite its remote location, the quirky German Renaissance–style castle, with its intricate façade, peculiar interior design, and gargoyle guardians peering down on Central Park, was an immediate hit, particularly among the city’s well-heeled intellectuals and artists.   Over the next century it would become home to an eclectic cast of celebrity residents—including Boris Karloff, Lauren Bacall, Leonard Bernstein, singer Roberta Flack (the Dakota’s first African-American resident), and John Lennon and Yoko Ono—who were charmed by its labyrinthine interior and secret passageways, its mysterious past, and its ghosts. Stephen Birmingham, author of the New York society classic “Our Crowd”, has written an engrossing history of the first hundred years of one of the most storied residential addresses in Manhattan and the legendary lives lived within its walls.

    The Architecture of Happiness starts from the idea that where we are heavily influences who we can be, and it argues that it is architecture's task to stand as an eloquent reminder of our full potential.Whereas many architects are wary of openly discussing the word beauty, this book has at its center the large and naïve question: What is a beautiful building? It is a tour through the philosophy and psychology of architecture that aims to change the way we think about our homes, our streets and ourselves.

    Book by Stewart Nordensson, Lydia Kelley

    You will be filled with awe at the unbreakable spirit of Martine Wright.’ CLARE BALDINGBy turns heart-breaking and heart-warming, Unbroken is the remarkable true story of a woman who turned trauma and tragedy into hope. The autobiography of 7/7 bombings survivor and GB Paralympian, Martine Wright. On the morning of 7th July 2005, Martine Wright’s life changed forever. As she boarded an eastbound circle line train at Moorgate station, amid the busy rush-hour, she didn’t pay attention to her fellow passengers. At 8.49am, one of those passengers detonated a suicide bomb that would kill seven people in the carriage, part of a wider attack on London claiming 52 lives that became known as the 7/7 bombings. Martine was, in fact, the last person to be brought out alive from the atrocities. She lost 80 per cent of her blood, was in a coma for ten days and underwent ten months of surgery. Not only did Martine survive her horrific injuries but, having never played sport seriously before, she took up sitting volleyball as part of her rehabilitation and went on to represent Great Britain at the Paralympics in London 2012 – a deeply poignant moment that marked her journey from tragedy to triumph. Since then Martine has become a national figure: a formidable, powerful, brilliantly funny, hugely engaging heroine who has come back – almost literally – from the dead. In 2012 she was awarded the Helen Rollason award at the Sports Personality of the Year and in 2015 the Independent voted her one of ’50 most powerful women in British Sport’. Beyond her phenomenal sporting achievements, Martine continues to change the lives of those around her as a charity fundraiser and inspirational speaker.

    Over the course of her life, she gathered those who needed her special brand of love. Nine years after her death, Celia's puppies are facing themselves and their lives. Exciting, heart-warming, and always fun, Celia's Puppies is the second installment of the Denver Cereal. An Internet sensation, Denver Cereal is a serial fiction grounded in Uptown Denver, Colorado. "I am completely addicted to this series." - P. Cooper "Claudia Hall Christian brings life to each of these characters, a life that you long to be a part of, that you just can't get enough of." - C. Sund "I love Denver Cereal." - L. Richards Crunchy, sweet and always addicting - you deserve a little Denver Cereal in your life. DenverCereal.com

    Introducing the science of "proxemics," Hall demonstrates how man's use of space can affect personal business relations, cross-cultural exchanges, architecture, city planning, and urban renewal.

    Over the next fourteen years, the children are split up and reunited multiple times, always hoping to find one another again. By luck or providence, the four sisters spend the majority of their lives together working on a tobacco farm and living in an attic, where the stovepipe offers warmth, comfort, and news from the outside world. Surviving some of the worst torments a child can know, Bonnie and her sisters form an unbreakable bond.In an unflinching voice, Virag's memoir engrosses readers with not only the darkness that she endured but, more important, the siblings' ability to create a sense of light.This unforgettable story is informed by Bonnie's recollections, remembrances from her sisters, and the official records of the Children's Aid Society.

    Worldwide in scope, it combines a clear historical outline with masterly analysis and interpretation. Technical, economic, social and intellectual developments are brought together in a comprehensive narrative which provides a setting for the detailed examination of buildings. Throughout the book the author's focus is on the individual architect, and on the qualities that give outstanding buildings their lasting value.For the third edition, the text has been radically revised and expanded, incorporating much new material and a fresh appreciation of regional identity and variety. Seven chapters are entirely new, including expanded coverage of recent world architecture.Described by James Ackerman of Harvard University as "immeasurably the finest work covering this field in existence", this book presents a penetrating analysis of the modern tradition and its origins, tracing the creative interaction between old and new that has generated such an astonishing richness of architectural forms across the world and throughout the century.

    Empty Mansions is a rich mystery of wealth and loss, connecting the Gilded Age opulence of the nineteenth century with a twenty-first-century battle over a $300 million inheritance. At its heart is a reclusive heiress named Huguette Clark, a woman so secretive that, at the time of her death at age 104, no new photograph of her had been seen in decades. Though she owned palatial homes in California, New York, and Connecticut, why had she lived for twenty years in a simple hospital room, despite being in excellent health? Why were her valuables being sold off? Was she in control of her fortune, or controlled by those managing her money?   Dedman has collaborated with Huguette Clark’s cousin, Paul Clark Newell, Jr., one of the few relatives to have frequent conversations with her. Dedman and Newell tell a fairy tale in reverse: the bright, talented daughter, born into a family of extreme wealth and privilege, who secrets herself away from the outside world.   Huguette was the daughter of self-made copper industrialist W. A. Clark, nearly as rich as Rockefeller in his day, a controversial senator, railroad builder, and founder of Las Vegas. She grew up in the largest house in New York City, a remarkable dwelling with 121 rooms for a family of four. She owned paintings by Degas and Renoir, a world-renowned Stradivarius violin, a vast collection of antique dolls. But wanting more than treasures, she devoted her wealth to buying gifts for friends and strangers alike, to quietly pursuing her own work as an artist, and to guarding the privacy she valued above all else.   The Clark family story spans nearly all of American history in three generations, from a log cabin in Pennsylvania to mining camps in the Montana gold rush, from backdoor politics in Washington to a distress call from an elegant Fifth Avenue apartment. The same Huguette who was touched by the terror attacks of 9/11 held a ticket nine decades earlier for a first-class stateroom on the second voyage of the Titanic. Empty Mansions reveals a complex portrait of the mysterious Huguette and her intimate circle. We meet her extravagant father, her publicity-shy mother, her star-crossed sister, her French boyfriend, her nurse who received more than $30 million in gifts, and the relatives fighting to inherit Huguette’s copper fortune. Richly illustrated with more than seventy photographs, Empty Mansions is an enthralling story of an eccentric of the highest order, a last jewel of the Gilded Age who lived life on her own terms.The No. 1 New York Times bestseller. Best nonfiction books of the year at Goodreads, Amazon.com, and Barnes & Noble. One of the New York Times critic Janet Maslin's 10 favorite books of 2013.