Thrown into a profession of gallows humor and vivid characters (both living and very dead), Caitlin learned to navigate the secretive culture of those who care for the deceased.Smoke Gets in Your Eyes tells an unusual coming-of-age story full of bizarre encounters and unforgettable scenes. Caring for dead bodies of every color, shape, and affliction, Caitlin soon becomes an intrepid explorer in the world of the dead. She describes how she swept ashes from the machines (and sometimes onto her clothes) and reveals the strange history of cremation and undertaking, marveling at bizarre and wonderful funeral practices from different cultures.Her eye-opening, candid, and often hilarious story is like going on a journey with your bravest friend to the cemetery at midnight. She demystifies death, leading us behind the black curtain of her unique profession. And she answers questions you didn’t know you had: Can you catch a disease from a corpse? How many dead bodies can you fit in a Dodge van? What exactly does a flaming skull look like?Honest and heartfelt, self-deprecating and ironic, Caitlin's engaging style makes this otherwise taboo topic both approachable and engrossing. Now a licensed mortician with an alternative funeral practice, Caitlin argues that our fear of dying warps our culture and society, and she calls for better ways of dealing with death (and our dead).

    Born in 1951, he had a happy childhood — raised by his loving adoptive parents, Bert and Gwen Tickner, in the small seaside town of Forster, New South Wales. He grew up to be a cheerful and confident young man with a fierce sense of social justice, and the desire and stamina to make political change. Serving in the Hawke and Keating governments, he held the portfolio of minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs. Among other achievements while in government, he was responsible for initiating the reconciliation process with Indigenous Australians, and he was instrumental in instigating the national inquiry into the stolen generations.During his time on the front bench, Robert’s son was born, and it was his deep sense of connection to this child that moved him at last to turn his attention to the question of his own birth. Although he had some sense of the potentially life-changing course that lay ahead of him, he could not have anticipated learning of the exceptional nature of the woman who had brought him into the world, the deep scars that his forced adoption had left on her, and the astonishing series of coincidences that had already linked their lives. And this was only the first half of a story that was to lead to a reunion with his birth father and siblings.This deeply moving memoir is a testament to the significance of all forms of family in shaping us — and to the potential for love to heal great harm.

    He has been viewed as one of the most powerful vice presidents—secretive, even mysterious, and at the same time opinionated and unflinchingly outspoken. He has been both praised and attacked by his peers, the press, and the public. Through it all, courting only the ideals that define him, he has remained true to himself, his principles, his family, and his country. Now in an enlightening and provocative memoir, a stately page-turner with flashes of surprising humor and remarkable candor, Dick Cheney takes readers through his experiences as family man, policymaker, businessman, and politician during years that shaped our collective history. Born into a family of New Deal Democrats in Lincoln, Nebraska, Cheney was the son of a father at war and a high-spirited and resilient mother. He came of age in Casper, Wyoming, playing baseball and football and, as senior class president, courting homecoming queen Lynne Vincent, whom he later married. This all-American story took an abrupt turn when he flunked out of Yale University, signed on to build power line in the West, and started living as hard as he worked. Cheney tells the story of how he got himself back on track and began an extraordinary ascent to the heights of American public life, where he would remain for nearly four decades: * He was the youngest White House Chief of Staff, working for President Gerald Ford—the first of four chief executives he would come to know well. * He became Congressman from Wyoming and was soon a member of the congressional leadership working closely with President Ronald Reagan. * He became secretary of defense in the George H. W. Bush administration, overseeing America’s military during Operation Desert Storm and in the historic transition at the end of the Cold War. * He was CEO of Halliburton, a Fortune 500 company with projects and personnel around the globe. * He became the first vice president of the United States to serve out his term of office in the twenty-first century. Working with George W. Bush from the beginning of the global war on terror, he was—and remains—an outspoken defender of taking every step necessary to defend the nation. Eyewitness to history at the highest levels, Cheney brings to life scenes from past and present. He describes driving through the White House gates on August 9, 1974, just hours after Richard Nixon resigned, to begin work on the Ford transition; and he portrays a time of national crisis a quarter century later when, on September 11, 2001, he was in the White House bunker and conveyed orders to shoot down a hijacked airliner if it would not divert. With its unique perspective on a remarkable span of American history, In My Time will enlighten. As an intimate and personal chronicle, it will surprise, move, and inspire. Dick Cheney’s is an enduring political vision to be reckoned with and admired for its honesty, its wisdom, and its resonance. In My Time is truly the last word about an incredible political era, by a man who lived it and helped define it—with courage and without compromise.

    Mark Owen describes his intentions for his second book best: I want No Hero to offer something most books on war don’t: the intimate side of it, the personal struggles and hardships and what I learned from them. The stories in No Hero will be a testament to my teammates and to all the other active and former SEALs who have dedicated their lives to freedom. In our community, we are constantly taught to mentor the younger generation and to pass the lessons and values we’ve learned on to others so that they can do the same to the guys coming up after them. This is what I plan to do for the reader of No Hero.” Every bit as action-packed as No Easy Day, and featuring stories from the training ground to the battlefield, No Hero offers readers an unparalleled close-up view of the experiences and values that make Mark Owen and the men he served with capable of executing the missions we read about in the headlines.

    Includes special bonus material!Sharing never-before-heard stories ranging from their struggles with depression, eating disorders, and addiction, Karen and Georgia irreverently recount their biggest mistakes and deepest fears, reflecting on the formative life events that shaped them into two of the most followed voices in the nation.In Stay Sexy & Don’t Get Murdered, Karen and Georgia focus on the importance of self-advocating and valuing personal safety over being ‘nice’ or ‘helpful.’ They delve into their own pasts, true crime stories, and beyond to discuss meaningful cultural and societal issues with fierce empathy and unapologetic frankness.

    You'll fall in love with her like everybody else."-Humphrey Bogart

    What he found led him into the mad world of misfits who helped propel the second coming of Pauline Hanson and foreshadowed the era of Trump.No one turns up where they’re not wanted quite like John Safran. In this hilarious and disorienting adventure he gets among our diverse community of white nationalists, ISIS supporters, anarchists and more, digging away at the contradictions that many would prefer be left unexamined. Who is this black puppet-master among the white nationalists? And this Muslim fundamentalist who geeks out on Monty Python? Is there a secret radicalisation network operating in John’s own Jewish suburb? And ultimately – is hanging with all these radicals washing off on John himself?Populated by an extraordinary cast of ‘ordinary’ Australians, Depends What You Mean by Extremist is a startling, confronting portrait of contemporary Australia. We all think we know what’s going on in our own country, but this larger-than-life, timely, and alarmingly insightful true story will make you think again . . .Drinking shots with nationalists and gobbling falafel with radicals, John Safran was there the year the extreme became the mainstream.

    With over a million subscribers to her cult-hit video series “You Deserve a Drink,” Hart has been entertaining viewers with a combination of tasty libations and raunchy puns since 2011. Hart also co-wrote/co-starred in Dirty Thirty and Camp Takota with Grace Helbig and Hannah Hart.Finally, Hart has compiled her best drinking stories—and worst hangovers—into one hilarious volume. From the spring break where she and her girlfriends avoided tan lines by staying at an all-male gay nudist resort, to the bachelorette party where she accidentally hired a sixty-year-old meth head to teach the group pole dancing (not to mention the time she lit herself on fire during a Flaming Lips concert), Hart accompanies each story with an original cocktail recipe, ensuring that You Deserve a Drink is as educational as it is entertaining.

    In November of 2004, an Iraqi RPG blew through the cockpit of Tammy Duckworth's U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter. The explosion, which destroyed her legs and mangled her right arm, was a turning point in her life. But as Duckworth shows in Every Day Is a Gift, that moment was just one in a lifetime of extraordinary turns.The biracial daughter of an American father and a Thai-Chinese mother, Duckworth faced discrimination, poverty, and the horrors of war—all before the age of 16. As a child, she dodged bullets as her family fled war-torn Phnom Penh. As a teenager, she sold roses by the side of the road to save her family from hunger and homelessness in Hawaii. Through these experiences, she developed a fierce resilience that would prove invaluable in the years to come.Duckworth joined the Army, becoming one of a handful of female helicopter pilots at the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. She served eight months in Iraq before an insurgent's RPG shot down her helicopter, an attack that took her legs—and nearly took her life. She then spent thirteen months recovering at Walter Reed, learning to walk again on prosthetic legs and planning her return to the cockpit. But Duckworth found a new mission after meeting her state's senators, Barack Obama and Dick Durbin. After winning two terms as a U.S. Representative, she won election to the U.S. Senate in 2016. And she and her husband Bryan fulfilled another dream when she gave birth to two daughters, becoming the first sitting senator to give birth.From childhood to motherhood and beyond, Every Day Is a Gift is the remarkable story of one of America's most dedicated public servants.

    Although she is sixteen, she weighs as much as an eight-year-old. We have tried everything the medical system has to offer – psychologists, psychiatrists, family therapists, dieticians, drugs … but nothing has worked. And now here we are, she and I, flying to the other side of the world in a last ditch effort to save her. Anorexia is a difficult thing to get people to understand. Usually they will look at me incredulously. Sometimes they will come right out and say what I know they are thinking: Why can’t you just get her to eat?Anne Tonner is a high achieving human rights lawyer and used to facing battles and winning. But when her 13-year-old daughter Chloe stops eating and is diagnosed with anorexia, she is confronted with the mother of all enemies, one that is completely unfathomable and seemingly incurable. Anne and her family throw everything they have at facing the ‘demon' they name 'Cold Vein'. But some three years later Chloe is still desperately ill and the family is in tatters. In a last ditch effort they travel across the world to attend a ground breaking- clinic in Stockholm, knowing that this might be the only chance Chloe has to survive.Beautifully and engagingly written, Anne’s depiction of the devastating effects of anorexia is honest, tough and compelling. Ultimately uplifting, this story will shed light on one of the most insidious and dangerous mental conditions afflicting modern society today.

    This is what it's really like to be an undercover police officer.'Banks has told his story in a raw and honest autobiography. It is the best true crime book published in Australia in a decade.' - John Silvester, Crime Reporter for The Age Undercover was like guerrilla warfare; to understand your enemy, you had to walk amongst them, to become them. The trick was to keep an eye on that important line between who you were and who you were pretending to be.This is the true story of Keith Banks, one of Queensland's most decorated police officers, and his journey into the world of drugs as an undercover operative in the 1980s. In an era of corruption, often alone and with no backup, he and other undercover cops quickly learned to blend into the drug scene, smoking dope and drinking with targets, buying drugs and then having dealers arrested. Very quickly, the lines between his identity as a police officer and the life he pretended to be part of became blurred. This is a raw and confronting story of undercover cops who all became casualties of that era, some more than others, when not everyone with a badge could be trusted.

    There is always so much more and it swims, shimmering beneath the surface, glittering with all the inherent contradictions of who we are, the changes that time brings and the very elusiveness of a life slipping through our fingers.BIRTHS DEATHS MARRIAGES is about life and how we really live it. These true tales move from visits to nudist communes, to losing your virginity; to going to couples' counseling and coping with death in the family. From a bohemian childhood in the seventies to becoming a mother and a writer, Georgia Blain explores a new land - true life in all its extraordinary richness - taking us deep into the heart of how we love, learn, fail, and try to learn again.

    The diagnosis: Autism Spectrum Disorder. In their attempts to see Josiah recover and regain speech, the Cullens underwent overwhelming physical, emotional, and financial struggles. While other kids around him improved, Josiah only got worse. Five years later, Josiah, who had not been formally taught to read or write, suddenly began to type on his iPad profound paragraphs about God, science, history, business, music, strangers, and heaven. Josiah’s eye-opening visions, heavenly encounters, and supernatural experiences forced his family out of their comfort zone and predictable theology, catapulting them into a mind-blowing love-encounter with Jesus.Find hope in hardship.Catch a fresh glimpse of heaven.Learn to hear and trust God’s voice.Identify the roles of Father, Son, and Spirit.Be aware of the workings of angels, and much more! Follow a trail of truth into Josiah’s mysterious world, and see why his family and friends can no longer stay silent.

    But as they grew older, their preferences began to show, and by the age of three it was clear Georgie was drawn to anything that was pretty or had a skirt that could swirl.Before long Georgie was insisting that she was a girl and became distressed that she had to hide who she really was when she began school. Soon the bullying started and she would come home in floods of tears, begging her mother to help her.Rebekah and her husband, conflicted about how to proceed and overwhelmed by fear, united in their determination to help her live freely and fearlessly. To ensure Georgie had access to medical support they sought permission for her to begin puberty-blocking medication. Their case was the start of the long road to justice for transgender children in Australia and became the basis of the 2013 landmark decision to remove the Family Court's jurisdiction.Georgie has gone on to become one of the brightest stars of the Australian youth leadership landscape through her advocacy work. And Rebekah founded Transcend, a support network for transgender kids and their families in Australia.Part memoir and part inspirational message of hope for those navigating a similar path, About a Girl is a thought-provoking and profoundly moving true story. Above all, it is a celebration of family and the values that unite us all.'A remarkable document of an Australian civil rights landmark and a moving testament to the ferocity of parental love.' - Benjamin Law

    Neale McShane The Birdsville police posting is one of the most remote in Australia. It can be extremely lonely and incredibly busy at the same time. Nothing might happen for weeks or months, then problems come crawling out of the woodwork.There aren't many who can handle the job for long - unless you're Senior Constable Neale McShane, who has single-handedly taken care of this beat the size of the UK for the past ten years. Recently retired from this 'hardship posting', Neale now has a stock of stories and adventures from his life and colourful times living with his family in Birdsville.In recounting these tales to his good friend and bestselling author Evan McHugh, Neale delights us with yarns that could only come from the furthest corner of our country. Here are stories of desert dangers, dead bodies, droughts and floods, drinkers and dreamers - and, of course the infamous Birdsville Races, when the town's population swells from 50 to 500.So if Birdsville has remained just a little too far off the beaten track for you, sit back and let Birdsville come to you.