Born a spastic quadraplegic, Rick Hoyt was written off by numerous doctors. They advised his parents, Dick and Judy, to put their firstborn son in an institution. But Rick’s parents refused. Determined to give their son every opportunity that “normal” kids had, they made sure to include Rick in everything they did, especially with their other two sons, Rob and Russ. But home was one thing, the world at large, another. Repeatedly rebuffed by school administrators who resisted their attempts to enroll Rick in school, Rick’s mother worked tirelessly to help pass a landmark bill, Chapter 766, the first special-education reform law in the country. As a result, Rick and other physically disabled kids were able to attend public school in Massachusetts. But how would Rick communicate when he couldn’t talk? To overcome this daunting obstacle, Dick and Judy worked with Dr. William Crochetiere, then chairman of the engineering department at Tufts University, and several enterprising graduate students, including Rick Foulds, to create the Tufts Interactive Communication device (TCI). In the Hoyt household, it became known as the “Hope machine,” as it enabled Rick to create sentences by pressing his head against a metal bar. For the first time ever, Rick was able to communicate. Then one day Rick asked his dad to enter a charity race, but there was a twist. Rick wanted to run too. Dick had never run a race before, but more challenging still, he would have to push his son’s wheelchair at the same time. But once again, the Hoyts were determined to overcome whatever obstacle was put in their way. Now, over one thousand races later, including numerous marathons and triathlons, Dick Hoyt continues to push Rick’s wheelchair. Affectionately known worldwide as Team Hoyt, they are as devoted as ever, continuing to inspire millions and embodying their trademark motto of “Yes, you can.”

    She volunteered to take the message to China, where the preaching she did was illegal and could result in her expulsion or worse. Here, she had some distance from her community for the first time. Immersion in a foreign language and culture--and a whole new way of thinking--turned her world upside down, and eventually led her to lose all that she had been sure was true.As a proselytizer in Shanghai, using fake names and secret codes to evade the authorities' notice, Scorah discreetly looked for targets in public parks and stores. To support herself, she found work at a Chinese language learning podcast, hiding her real purpose from her coworkers. Now with a creative outlet, getting to know worldly people for the first time, she began to understand that there were other ways of seeing the world and living a fulfilling life. When one of these relationships became an "escape hatch," Scorah's loss of faith culminated in her own personal apocalypse, the only kind of ending possible for a Jehovah's Witness.Shunned by family and friends as an apostate, Scorah was alone in Shanghai and thrown into a world she had only known from the periphery--with no education or support system. A coming of age story of a woman already in her thirties, this unforgettable memoir examines what it's like to start one's life over again with an entirely new identity. It follows Scorah to New York City, where a personal tragedy forces her to look for new ways to find meaning in the absence of religion. With compelling, spare prose, Leaving the Witness traces the bittersweet process of starting over, when everything one's life was built around is gone.

    An infant died in her care at the same time the unknown science of Shaken Baby Syndrome hit the media. Swept up in a media frenzy, Edmunds was accused of killing the child through SBS. She was stripped from her children and husband and sent to prison where she would fight for freedom 13 years before she was finally exonerated after updated science showed her innocence. Audrey was and is an all-American mother from the Heartland who shares her story of hope and redemption in the face of unrelenting odds. Built as the ideal reader's club book, It Happened to Audrey includes questions that challenge all readers to think of the possibilities in today's ever-changing world. Edmunds is ultimately released from prison in the middle of a blizzard and reunited with her now grown children.

    Yet shortly after reaching those heights, he started to crumble, and famously left the 2012-13 Ashes tour of Australia suffering from a stress related illness. His story is the story of Team England - it encompasses the life-cycle of a team that started out united by ambition, went on to achieve some of the greatest days in the team's history but then, bodies and minds broken, fell apart amid acrimony.Having seen all of this from the inside, Jonathan's autobiography takes readers to the heart of the England dressing room, and to the heart of what it is to be a professional sportsman. Not only does it provide a unique perspective on a remarkably successful period in English cricket and its subsequent reversal, it also offers a fascinating insight into the rewards and risks faced as a sportsman carrying the hope and expectation of a team and a nation. And it's a salutary tale of the dangers pressure can bring in any walk of life, and the perils of piling unrealistic expecations on yourself.

    . . The Crime Factory. Where they perform life-saving medical care in the street, comfort people as they die, deal with gruesome suicides and murders as first-on-scene, attend cot-death post-mortems, examine rotting dead junkies for signs of murder, watch guilty rapists and paedophiles walk free, fight drunk soldiers, gypsies and various psychotic individuals, go undercover to catch scumbags who force-feed them crack, find missing children, arrest thieves, muggers, dealers, rapists and murderers . . . The Crime Factory. It's enough to drive anyone insane. The first book of its kind, this is the unforgettable and explosive true story of what life is really like as a police detective in the twenty-first century.

    Then came the H1N1 flu pandemic of 2009. It took only vaccine—one seemingly innocuous vaccine to Mathilda, the baby of the family—to change their lives forever. Diagnosed at age three as the world's youngest child with narcolepsy, the joyful and energetic Mathilda rapidly dissolved into someone unrecognizable. In this compelling narrative, Claire Crisp chronicles the fight for Mathilda's treatment. Leaving their family and country in England, the Crisps begin a new journey—one of faith, of loss, and of love as immigrants to the western shores of the United States.

    

    Sally Morgan traveled to her grandmother’s birthplace, starting a search for information about her family. She uncovers that she is not white but aborigine—information that was kept a secret because of the stigma of society. This moving account is a classic of Australian literature that finally frees the tongues of the author’s mother and grandmother, allowing them to tell their own stories.

    When a stranger on a bus advises, "Say yes more," Wallace vows to say yes to every offer, invitation, challenge, and chance.In Yes Man, Wallace recounts his months-long commitment to complete openness with profound insight and humbling honesty. Saying yes takes Wallace into a new plane of existence: a place where money comes as easily as it goes, nodding a lot can lead to a long weekend overseas with new friends, and romance isn't as complicated as it seems. Yes eventually leads to the biggest question of all: "Do you, Danny Wallace, take this woman . . ."Yes Man is inspiring proof that a little willingness can take anyone to the most wonderful of places.

    

    Fate landed her at a wildlife sanctuary on the edge of the Amazon jungle where she was assigned to a beautiful and complex puma named Wayra. Wide-eyed, inexperienced, and comically terrified, Laura made the scrappy, make-do camp her home. And in Wayra, she made a friend for life.They weren’t alone, not with over a hundred quirky animals to care for, each lost and hurt in its own way: a pair of suicidal, bra-stealing monkeys, a frustrated parrot desperate to fly, and a pig with a wicked sense of humor. The humans, too, were cause for laughter and tears. There were animal whisperers, committed staff, wildly devoted volunteers, handsome heartbreakers, and a machete-wielding prom queen who carried Laura through. Most of all, there were the jungle—lyrical and alive—and Wayra, who would ultimately teach Laura so much about love, healing, and the person she was capable of becoming.Set against a turbulent and poignant backdrop of deforestation, the illegal pet trade, and forest fires, The Puma Years explores what happens when two desperate creatures in need of rescue find one another.

    She jumped overboard just in time to escape. Surviving four days on a cork float in the middle of the ocean, Terry Jo’s rescue pictures graced LIFE Magazine soon after she was found.This is the first time Terry Jo, now known as Tere Duperrault Fassbender, has been able to fully tell her story. In September 1988 Oprah Winfrey reunited her with the freighter captain who saved her but, even then, she was not healed enough to reveal what it took to survive for four days adrift and alone at sea.Co-authored by psychologist and survival expert Richard Logan, readers delve into the details of how a little girl survived the murder of her family; the gradual collapse of the small cork float she used to keep afloat while guarded by a small pod of whales; and the aftermath and the reclamation of life.ALONE is the ultimate inspirational tale of good.

    Divorced dads, IT nerds, international students - she's here for the idiosyncrasies of human behaviour, for soothing the lonely. But really for the cash.From an entrepreneurial kid to a young woman trying to find herself (and desperate to stay out of call centres), Bella started sex work for the glamour and the taboo. Instead, she found her place in this surprisingly mundane and often entertaining industry, where the hierarchy is strict, the names are fake, and spare towels always come in handy.Taking us on a funny, candid, can't-look-away journey through brothels, strip clubs, peep shows and dominatrix dungeons, Happy Endings is a hilarious and compelling memoir from a bright and bold new Australian voice.Praise for Bella Green'Authentic, hilarious, and uplifting.' WeekendNotes'No holds barred ... Smart as a whip ... Green's the real deal who wants everyone to get their happy ending.' The Advertiser (Adelaide)'A brilliant stand-up comedian.' Wil Anderson'The voice modern comedy needs.' DeAnne Smith

    In this lyrical, bittersweet debut memoir & already an award- winning bestseller when it was published in Australia & Alice grows up straddling two worlds, East and West, her insular family and the Australia outside. With wisdom beyond her years and a keen eye for comedy in everyday life, she writes of the trials of assimilation and cultural misunderstanding, and of the tender but fraught relationships between three generations of women trying to live the Australian dream without losing themselves. Unpolished Gem is a moving, vivid journey about identity and the ultimate search for acceptance and healing, delivered by a writer possessed of rare empathy, penetrating insight, and undeniable narrative gifts.

    A former girlfriend of Hugh Hefner describes how her years inside the Playboy Mansion went from a fairytale of A-list celebrity parties to an oppressive regime of strict rules, scheduled sex, and a total loss of identity, so much so that she even contemplated suicide.