In If These Walls Could Talk: Chicago Blackhawks, Mark Lazerus chronicles the team's rise from the dark ages of the 2000s to the golden age of the 2010s through never-before-told stories from inside the dressing room, aboard the team plane, at the players' homes, and — especially in the case of the rowdy 2009-2010 team that started it all — in countless Chicago bars. If These Walls Could Talk: Chicago Blackhawks will bring readers closer to their favorite players than ever before. It's a book Hawks fans won't want to be without.

    'But one day . . .'Eleven-year-old Joe is dreading his first Christmas without Dad.But then Mum suggests they volunteer for Helper Dogs and train puppies to help people in need.Joe has always wanted a dog and when he meets golden Labrador Patch he knows he's found him. With Joe's love and training, can Patch go from playful pupy to heroic helper - and mend Joe's broken heart along the way?A classic-in-the-making, Megan Rix takes little-known true stories of animal heroes and turns them into must-have heartwarming stories for 8+ readers, perfect for fans of Michael Morpurgo and Sarah Lean. 'If you love Michael Morpurgo, you will enjoy this' Sunday Express'A moving tale told with warmth, kindliness and lashings of good sense that lovers of Dick King-Smith will especially appreciate' The Times 'Every now and then a writer comes along with a unique way of storytelling . . . Meet Megan Rix . . . her novels are deeply moving and will strike a chord with animal lovers.' LoveReading'A perfect story for animal lovers and lovers of adventure stories' Travelling Book CompanyAbout the author:Megan Rix is the recent winner of the Stockton and Shrewsbury Children's Book Awards, and has been shortlisted for numerous other children's book awards. She lives with her husband by a river in England. When she's not writing she can be found walking her two golden retrievers, Traffy and Bella, who are often in the river.Also available by Megan Rix:The Great Escape, The Victory Dogs, The Bomber Dog and A Soldier's Friend

    Each has a reason to despair and a wound that won’t heal. Until something unexpected happens—something that will change their lives forever.The Rescue tells the powerful, true stories of men and women whose lives should have ended badly but didn’t. What happens to each of them will take you by surprise and give you hope. It will restore your sense that no matter what you are facing, Someone good is in control of the universe. Fortunately, that Someone cares about you. If you or people you care about are facing challenges beyond their strength, it may be time to experience The Rescue.

    Use a heart monitor to maximize athletic performance.

    We run for health, to ease tension, for strength, to challenge ourselves, to be social with friends, as professional athletes or the dream of being one, to turn our minds on, and to turn them off. Whether running a marathon, taking a quick jog around the neighborhood, or trying to reach the top of Pikes Peak, women of all ages and abilities have discovered running. In Women Who Run a wide range of women, including Olympians, marathoners, ultra runners, young track phenoms, and recreational runners, talk about why they run, what drives them, and what continues to spark their interest in the sport.Women Who Run features Bobbi Gibb, the first woman to run the Boston Marathon; Louise Cooper, breast cancer survivor and finisher of the grueling 135-mile Badwater Marathon; Kristin Armstrong, who found solace and camaraderie in running with other women post-divorce; Olympic runner and two-time LA Marathon winner and Kenyan Lornah Kiplagat, Wall Street Journal reporter and Muslim women's activist, Asra Nomani; Pam Reed who ran 300-miles in one run—and many more.This book will inspire and motivate you to get off the couch and find your inner runner.

    Ever been mortified by predictive text on your smart phone? You are not alone. This brings together more of the laugh-out-loud funny and painfully embarrassing posts from damnyouautocorrect.com, which highlight the hilarity that often ensues when text messaging goes wrong. This second volume of epic auto-correct fails is packed with never-before-seen content, as well as the most cringe-worthy posts from the site.

    You’ll learn simple techniques to help protect the planet every day, like starting a compost pile to reduce food waste, utilizing travel mugs and reusable containers, and choosing eco-friendly products. By working to implement these simple strategies into your everyday life, you can take an active stand to protect the environment now— and make a real difference for the future.

    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.

    Aimed for readers age five to ten, Bookata’s books allow the users (parents and children alike) to change in a few minutes the whole content, from illustrations to text.

    In this far-reaching narrative, Weisman explains how our massive infrastructure would collapse and finally vanish without human presence; which everyday items may become immortalized as fossils; how copper pipes and wiring would be crushed into mere seams of reddish rock; why some of our earliest buildings might be the last architecture left; and how plastic, bronze sculpture, radio waves, and some man-made molecules may be our most lasting gifts to the universe.The World Without Us reveals how, just days after humans disappear, floods in New York's subways would start eroding the city's foundations, and how, as the world's cities crumble, asphalt jungles would give way to real ones. It describes the distinct ways that organic and chemically treated farms would revert to wild, how billions more birds would flourish, and how cockroaches in unheated cities would perish without us. Drawing on the expertise of engineers, atmospheric scientists, art conservators, zoologists, oil refiners, marine biologists, astrophysicists, religious leaders from rabbis to the Dalai Lama, and paleontologists—who describe a prehuman world inhabited by megafauna like giant sloths that stood taller than mammoths—Weisman illustrates what the planet might be like today, if not for us.From places already devoid of humans (a last fragment of primeval European forest; the Korean DMZ; Chernobyl), Weisman reveals Earth's tremendous capacity for self-healing. As he shows which human devastations are indelible, and which examples of our highest art and culture would endure longest, Weisman's narrative ultimately drives toward a radical but persuasive solution that needn't depend on our demise. It is narrative nonfiction at its finest, and in posing an irresistible concept with both gravity and a highly readable touch, it looks deeply at our effects on the planet in a way that no other book has.

    A potpourri of musings assembled with a hint of practical spirituality, to be savoured passably as an oracle of hearts to the many answers, whose questions our minds are yet to comprehend. Ivory Gleam is split into three chapters of learning, longing and loving. Each chapter is a journey traversing a different road to the ultimate destination of self-reflection.

    Daysearlier, while traversing the Straits of Sicily the crew had discovered a crack in one ofthe nuclear reactor pipes, requiring the immediate shutting down of the reactor toprevent a potential reactor accident, an operation never before conducted on a Britishsubmarine at sea.Th e previous six days had been a difficult time for the crew of the submarine. Initialindications of a nuclear reactor defect had quickly escalated into a full scale potential nuclearreactor accident at sea, requiring decisive action by the crew to make the reactor safe, toidentify the defect and attempt to repair the reactor, and then to surface the submarine andto sail her safely back to the nearest safe harbor using emergency propulsion machinerydesigned for very limited use. The resulting lack of electrical power resulted in the crewhaving to sacrifice lighting, air-conditioning, bathing facilities and even hot food until theirreturn to harbor, and to suffer in the excessively hot interior of the boat. Throughout,there remained the fear of exposure to deadly radiation and the uncertainty that the reactormight still be one step away from a major accident.For one man onboard, this episode formed the culmination of a 25 year navalengineering career almost fated for this moment. Charge Chief Stephen Bridgman,the senior nuclear propulsion technician, had needed all of his engineering knowledgeand experience in the identification and eventual repair of the submarine reactor,subsequently being awarded an MBE together with a colleague for his services to navalengineering for his actions.This book provides an insight into a remarkable naval career starting as a 16 year oldStoker on the final proper British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal in 1977, throughthe Falklands War, being selected for naval technician training and submarine service,submarine training, submarine patrols in the supposed post cold-war period, theKosovo conflict, progression through the ranks, submarine refi t and refueling throughto the nuclear reactor accident onboard HMS Tireless.While there are countless accounts of naval life during wartime, this book tells theunique story of life as a British naval rating in the modern era, starting from the lowestlevel at a time of decline for the Royal Navy in the late 1970s, and paralleling the majorpolitical and military events of the 1980s and 1990s.

    

    Life was a despairing time in the 1950s, as Veronica sought desperately to keep away from his cruelty. Astonishingly, to her and her mother, she won a scholarship to Ackworth Boarding School where she began to shine above her class-mates. A champion in all sports, Veronica at last found some happiness until her brother-in-law came into her life. It was as if she had stepped from the frying pan into the re: he took over control of her life removing her from the school she adored, two terms before she was due to take her GCEs, so he could put her to work as a cheap option on his market stall. Abused for many years by these two men, Veronica eventually ran away and applied to the Prison Service, knowing it was the only safe place she could trust. This is the astonishing, and true story of Veronica Bird who rose to become a Governor of Armley prison. Given a ‘basket case’ in another prison, contrary to all expectations, she turned it around within a year, to become an example for others to match. During her life inside, her ‘bird’, she met many Home Secretaries, was honoured by the Queen and was asked to help improve conditions in Russian Prisons. A deeply poignant story of eventual triumph against a staggeringly high series of setbacks, her story is filled with humour and compassion for those inside.

    Originally published in 1960, this compact book tells the true story of a German soldier: from his early childhood during the First World War, through to his harrowing experiences on the frontline during the Word War II, culminating in his capture by the Red Army on 20 December 1942…An astonishing first-hand account.