Even a word of encouragement, a compliment, a helping hand can be equally, if not more, profound. Make such acts a habit and Nature will reciprocate in kind.' In his latest book, bestselling author Om Swami suggests a definitive means to achieving true happiness: through kindness. In his signature candid style, he clarifies that the only way one can be successful in the quest to achieve happiness for oneself is to first spread happiness and show kindness to others. With real, inspiring, life-changing anecdotes, Om Swami goes on to illustrate how compassion and gentleness are intrinsically connected with humanity. The Book of Kindness will help you understand, practice and master kindness, the key to inner bliss and fulfilment, and the only means to attain the happiness that you seek.

     A new Tudor monarch has just been crowned: a handsome, energetic king. His court, so different from his father’s, is a glamorous, seductive magnet to ambitious young noblemen from across the country. One such man is Julian Allard who has fled a monastic life in Northumberland to seek love, fame and fortune at the court of Henry VIII. But when his beloved marries another and the King proves to be a temperamental master, Julian’s idyllic life at court begins to fall apart. Dismissing the advice of friends and the wise heads around him, he finds himself on a path to self-destruction, believing only in the dark prophesy of a fortune teller. Cloisterman is powerful Tudor chronicle from a master storyteller. Juliet Dymoke’s portrayal of life at the court of Henry VIII at an exciting time of intellectual and artistic promise, is compelling, moving and utterly convincing.

    The British government called the famine an act of God. The Irish called it genocide. By any name the famine caused the death of over one million men, women, and children by starvation and disease. Another two million were forced to flee the country. With the famine as a backdrop, this is a story about two families as different as coarse wool and fine silk. Michael Ranahan, the son of a tenant farmer, dreams of breaking his bondage to the land and going to America. The passage money has been saved. He’s made up his mind to go. And then—the blight strikes and Michael must put his dream on hold. The landlord, Lord Somerville, is a compassionate man who struggles to preserve a way of life without compromising his ideals. To add to his troubles, he has to deal with a recalcitrant daughter who chafes at being forced to live in a country of “bog runners.”In The Time Of Famine is a story of survival. It’s a story of duplicity. But most of all, it’s a story of love and sacrifice.

    He thought he had left love behind. Fate is about to prove them wrong… There’s only one thing in Charlotte Martin’s mind regarding love: it destroys people in its passing and it will never be an option for her ever again...With the war-torn remnants of her hometown far behind her, Charlotte has found a new life for herself working as a cook at a boarding house and keeping to herself.Thomas Parchant, a retired Union soldier, wants nothing more than to get away from the memories of the past. Building a new life in his uncle’s ranch in Montana seems like the only way out for him and his mother. Until he sets his eyes on Charlotte...Caught in a game of hide and seek against all odds, sparkles of love start appearing between them even though none of them is ready to admit it.But the past cannot stay hidden for long and when Charlotte’s catches up with her own,there will be no one to save her but Thomas. Yet before he does, he will have to come face to face with his greatest of fears…and manage to survive it.

    Britain has always been a land of gallows, and every town had its hanging post and local 'turn off man.' First these men were criminals doing the work to save their own necks, and then later they were specialists in the trade of judicial killing. From the late Victorian period, the public hangman became a professional, and in the twentieth century the mechanics of hanging were streamlined as the executioners became adept at their craft. Britain's Most Notorious Hangmen tells the stories of the men who worked with their deadly skills at Tyburn tree or at the scaffolds in the prison yards across the country. Most were steeled to do the work by drink, and many suffered deeply from their despised profession. Here the reader will find the tale of the real Jack Ketch, the cases of neck-stretchers from the drunks like Curry and Askern, to the local workers of the ropes, Throttler Smith and the celebrated Billington and Pierrepoint dynasty. Along with some of the stories of famous killers such as William Palmer and James Bloomfield Rush, here are the bunglings, failures and desperate lives of the notorious hangmen, some who could entertain the vast crowds enjoying the show, and others who always faced the task as a terrible ordeal.

    You'll uncover the "lost"years after Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, meet the Magdalenes who witnessed and walked with the resurrected Jesus in France, Britain and India, and discover long-hidden secrets concerning Jesus' intimate life, relationships and children. You'll become aware of the vital importance of lifting the suppressed Divine Feminine voice in our time and be shown the importance of the "SEEDING OF LIGHT"; how the dispersion of Anna's, Mother Mary's, and Jesus' "bloodline" of enlightened descendants may be carried within YOU acting as a living catalyst for awakening your own Christ-Magdalene potential today and path of service today.

    Account of the Philippine Revolution against Spain, and the Philippine-American War from the Filipino general and independence leader.

    Guns are drawn, and in the ensuing hail of bullets, only the husband walks away. However, police soon find out, that what seems to be a robbery gone wrong is anything but. The Case of the Ragged Stranger, as the tabloids dubbed it, is a tale of deceit, betrayal, and depravity, a stranger-than-fiction mystery story whose shocking solution riveted the nation and made it one of the most sensational crimes of the Jazz Age.

    See how it all started for one couple in this dynamic series and begin your journey into the world of 1929. Caleb Jenkins wasn’t looking for the love of his life. After selling his grandfather’s farm in Massachusetts, he was only searching for a place to start over and forget his past. In his travels through Georgia, he meets Arianna Bellamy, a woman with modern ideas, struggling beneath the confines of old-fashioned values and strict parents. She begins to buckle under the weight of the responsibility that’s been placed on her. Caleb sees a kindred spirit in her yearning to be free and has to fight to get beneath the iron exterior that Arianna has built for her own protection. As he starts to unravel her complicated nature, he shows her a life she knew existed but had always been denied. Caleb suggests that they run off together to New York. With the firm hold her family has on her, Arianna must make a choice between love and obligation.

    What we cannot lose.A sweeping masterwork of love and loss, secrets and survival, On the Sickle's Edge is told through the voices of three characters who lay bare their family's saga: the endearing, scrappy South-African born Lena, transported to Latvia and later trapped in the USSR; her granddaughter Darya, a true Communist whose growing disillusionment with Soviet ideology places her family at mortal risk; and Steven, a painter from Boston who inadvertently stumbles into the tangled web of his family's past. Against the roiling backdrop of twentieth-century Russia and Eastern Europe, the novel delivers equal parts historical drama, political thriller and poignant love story.On the Sickle's Edge takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride through some of the most tumultuous events of the 20th century. Instantly immersed in seven generations of the Shtein family, we witness their exhilarating celebrations and provocative controversies, and gain an intimate understanding of the pivotal events in South Africa, Latvia and the Soviet Union. Neville Frankel's ability to combine historical insight and human passion is spellbinding. I couldn't put it down. --Pamela Katz, The Partnership: Brecht, Weill, Three Women, and Germany on the BrinkIn the hands of a masterful storyteller, On the Sickle's Edge pits the weight of an oppressive regime against individual tenacity and profound personal courage. Inspired by Frankel's own family history, this multi-generational epic holds up a mirror to a universal truth: all immigrants face the powerful tension between assimilation and cultural identity. We have--all of us--lived life on the edge of the sickle. --Rabbi Andrew Baker, Director of International Jewish Affairs, American Jewish Committee

    Keep the family together, that's what her old mum always said. Put up and shut up. And that's what everyone else did around there. Essex, 1959. Flo earns her money as a scrubber, cleaning the cruise ships and dreaming of a day when she might sail away from her life in the Dwellings, the squalid tenements of Tilbury docks. Then the Blundell family are evicted from their home.Fred, Flo's husband, finds work at Monday's, a utopian factory town. Suddenly, it seems like everything is on the up for Flo Blundell and her children. Even Jeanie, Flo's sulking teenage daughter, seems to be thawing a little in her shiny new surroundings. But when Flo's abusive husband Fred starts drinking again, he jeopardises the family's chance to escape poverty for good.Flo is faced with a terrible decision. Must she fight to keep her family together? Or could she strive for the life of her dreams - the kind of life she could have when her ship comes in?

    

    He did not claim he was God’s agent. Did he believe in God? Did he look for a sign when he was desperate? Did he follow the Divine Will? Many believers are not followers; many followers are not believers. Is he a believer or a follower or both?

    There was such goodness here but there was a sadness I had never imagined before, and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet …’On a hot summer’s day in 1969, fresh-faced 17 year old Nurse Sarah Hill arrives at Hackney General Hospital in London’s East End.Battered suitcase in hand, she takes eager steps in her white calf-length Mary Quant boots towards the towering sandy-grey building of the Nurses’ Home. Looking up at the rows and rows of little windows, full of nervous excitement, she couldn’t have guessed just what she was getting herself into …It’s the end of the swinging sixties, Britain is changing and the everyday life of the nurses and patients plays out against a backdrop of a failing government, strikes, immigration and women’s lib. Nurse Sarah Hill, together with her companions; the serious minded, politicised Maddox, the quick witted Lynch, who falls in love with an upper crust young doctor, golden girl Nursery Nurse Appleton, and ex-musical hall star turned midwife Wade are thrown in straight at the deep end, working long hours with few days off under the watchful eye of the stern matron.More than just a hospital, Hackney General was part of the community just as much as the Adam & Eve pub the staff frequent. A place where the poorly children of Hackney were nursed to health, a place where young nurses would discover just want they wanted from life, fall in love with shy photographers and grow into women. But it’s not all smooth sailing in Hackney: for every baby that goes home to its loving family another is abandoned, unloved, or never gets to go home at all.Funny, warm and deeply moving, Sarah Beeson’s poignant memoir captures both the heartache and happiness of hospital life and 1970s London through the eyes of a gentle but determined young nurse.

    This is the story of a time when brother fought brother and Christian fought Christian. Power was all and Spain was riven by strife which was political, religious and familial! One man came from the harsh land of Castile to make one land and one state. Spain truly began with Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, El Campeador, El Cid. His story is told through the eyes of the warrior who spent his life at his side. William Redbeard came from humble origins but he was destined for greatness too as he walked in the seemingly endless shadow of El Cid. This first instalment in the Chronicles tells of Rodrigo’s rise to prominence when he became the champion of Prince Sancho of Castile. This is but the beginning of a tale which still stirs the blood a millennium after it began.