But behind the cult image and fearsome pace bowling is an unforgettable story of perseverance and persistence.The story of how a shy 17-year-old champion tennis player was plucked from obscurity and anointed by Dennis Lillee is the stuff of sporting fairytales. Fast tracked into the Australian Under 19 side he made his Test debut in 2007. Within 12 months he had become the world's most feared bowler. But by 2011 the promise of greatness was unravelling. With form fading and confidence waning, he was jeered out of the game by the Barmy Army and a hostile press pack, his body and spirit giving way in South Africa in 2011.Left questioning his ability and his future, Mitchell was ready to quit cricket, but resolved to give it one more shot. With the support of family and help from his old mentor and a war hero, he took his fitness to a whole new level and channelled his strength and renewed confidence back into his bowling.Over two blistering seasons, at the age of 32, finally the world was able to see what Lillee had seen all those years ago. Mitchell Johnson's comeback has become one of cricket's most inspiring stories of the power of resilience.

    Drawing on new interviews with key figures in the Grohl story, this definitive biography includes the stories of the 2007 multi-platinum opus Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, 2011’s Wasting Light, which saw Grohl reunited with Nirvana producer Butch Vig, and Sonic Highways, their homage to classic rock.

    He takes us into the tragic world imposed on him that robbed him of his childhood. The depth of the tragedy, strength of courage and power of survival will move you and inspire you.Contrary to assertions that the Holocaust years were a mere ‘detail of history’, Arek Hersh gives us a glimpse into the greatest catastrophe that man has ever inflicted on his fellow man.

    Rhythm guitarist with The Rolling Stones for over 30 years, he is also famous in his own right as a solo artist.

    He shares poignant stories of his childhood, including one about rolling pennies by candlelight because the electricity had once again been cut off, and his little sister needed medication. At one point, his alcoholic parents abandoned him and his two siblings for five days, with no food, heat, or electricity in the middle of winter.But as Doug grew, his determination to survive grew with him. Despite being accepted to the Air Force Academy directly after high school, he stayed closer to home so he could look after his younger sister. And as various opportunities opened up to him, he discovered that his heart belonged in the political arena; for it was there, he believed, that he could work for real change and bring help to those who suffered as he did as a child.Rolling Pennies in the Dark reminds readers that it is possible to grow up in the most deplorable of conditions and still find success. More significantly, MacKinnon offers real solutions to our nation’s growing poverty problem. This is an important, essential book.

    One of the most popular wrestlers of the late 1990s, Kanyon kept his personal life private from his fans until finally revealing his biggest secret in 2004: he was gay. Going through the various roles that Kanyon played, both in the ring and out of it, as well as his battle with manic depression, this book explores the factors that led to his suicide in 2010. In his voice and the way he wanted it told, these are Kanyon’s last words about his experience rising through the ranks to the top of the professional wrestling world while keeping his sexuality hidden.

    The contrast could not have been greater - as Lance Armstrong, a fraudster backed by many corporate sponsors and feted by presidents, was about to deliver a stage-managed confession to Oprah, so a young woman from a small village in Wales took aim.      She too had been a cyclist, the only rider ever to have become World and Olympic champion in the same year, and the first British cyclist to have been ranked World No.1, but as a woman in a man's sport, her exploits gained little recognition and brought no riches. She too had ridden through this dark period for the sport when drug-taking was everywhere. Nicole Cooke spoke up for those who had taken a very different path to Lance and his team-mates.      In her frank and outspoken autobiography, Cooke reveals the real story behind British cycling's rise to global dominance. With a child's dreams of success, she left home at 18 to pursue her goals in Italy. Broken contracts, unpaid wages, a horrendous injury and drugs cheats were just some of the challenges she faced, even before she lined up to take on her opponents. The Breakaway is a book that will not only inspire all those who read it, but which also asks some serious questions about the way society regards women's sport.

    Dubbed the 'man in black', guitarist Ritchie Blackmore found fame with Seventies rock giants Deep Purple, then walked away from them to create Rainbow, only to abandon them and form another band in 1997 - Blackmore's Night.

    Twenty-one Nazi leaders were charged with crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity - and with having a common plan or conspiracy to commit those crimes. It was the first time judges and members of the judiciary had been charged with enforcing immoral laws. Doctors too stood in the dock for the many hideous medical experiments conducted in concentration camps, while members of the death squads were tried for the indiscriminate murder of civilians. The Nuremberg Trails brought closure to the Second World War.

    He is certainly, by his own admission, a man who leaves nothing to chance. A disciple in the 1970s of Rinus Michels' Total Football philosophy, he is a fascinating contradiction - an ultra-individualist utterly devoted to the collective effort. He believes in the team over the individual, in always having a plan and a team prepared to follow that plan. Van Gaal led the young Ajax team he moulded to Champions League glory in 1995, went on to win titles across Europe with Barcelona, AZ Alkmaar and Bayern Munich and is currently in his second stint as national coach of Holland. It is a career that has never been short on colour and drama - from fallouts with players to rants at the media wherever he has managed. Dutch football commentator Maarten Meijer's has written the definitive biography of Van Gaal - both the man and his methods. It offers the best psychological insight so far - from his earliest roots to his greatest triumphs - into the man given the task of returning the glory days to Manchester United.

    It will also leave you awed and inspired by the triumph of the human spirit. By fearlessly revealing the horrors of her upbringing – alcoholism, madness, sexual abuse, and that’s just for starters – this supremely gifted actress and filmmaker delivers a story of emotional survival that is raw, wild and shocking, yet also dazzlingly funny. The lady went through hell and found the Light, and we are the better for it. Michael Logan, TV Guide Magazine

    If I was starving, then that meant that I did not have to face reality. I did not have to think. When you’re starving, you cannot think. Every day feels like an out-of-body experience, and everything sounds like you are swimming underwater. When you have Anorexia Nervosa, you aren’t living… you are merely existing. You become a walking corpse of the person you once were. Your life becomes about finding ways to satisfy your disorder and nothing else really matters. You know that there is a chance that you won’t wake up the next morning, but keeping the Anorexia alive is more important than keeping yourself alive. You convince yourself that as long as you are hungry that somehow everything is okay. This was my life for 10 ½ years. My name is Syanne Centeno and I found Anorexia as an eight-year-old little girl. You could say that I accidentally stumbled upon this illness, or maybe IT actually found ME. I didn’t know what Anorexia was, and had never heard of it. I actually didn’t hear the term “Anorexia Nervosa” until I was 14, but had unknowingly been engaging in eating disorder behavior for years prior. Anorexia is such a complex, perplexing disorder. Trying to explain why I developed this as a child is nearly impossible. The only thing I can do is write down my experience and take you on a journey in my shoes in hopes that this will help someone somewhere understand the realities of living with an eating disorder." This is the account of Syanne's journey with severe Anorexia Nervosa (which she named "Ana"), a deadly psychiatric illness that haunts thousands of young girls and women each year. Throughout her honest, gut-wrenching tale she relives the horror of battling "Ana" for over a decade starting at the age of just eight-years-old, and how it nearly took her life. Along with Anorexia Nervosa, Syanne speaks of the other mental illness's she struggled with such as Depression, Borderline Personality Disorder, and self- mutilation. Without holding back, Syanne highlights the realities of living with an eating disorder, and what it took for her to overcome it.

    

    He was twenty-three, from Czechoslovakia; she was twenty, from Romania. Both had lost nearly everything in the war – yet in their chance encounter at sea, they found a new beginning. Three days later, on a train rattling across the Turkish countryside en route to Palestine, with no common language between them, they were married…and spent the rest of their lives together. Isadora had emerged from the brutal, frozen ghettos of Transnistria – known as the ‘Forgotten Cemetery’ of the Holocaust. Joshua had escaped from the Hungarian Army’s slave labor corps as his unit was being marched toward a train to Auschwitz. That either survived is incredible; that, of all possible fates, the war would toss them onto the same deck of the same boat at the same time is simply unbelievable – except that it happened. Here, their grandson, prize-winning author Michael Benanav, traces the improbable twists and turns that pulled Joshua and Isadora through the horrors of the Holocaust. As their families were destroyed and their own lives nearly lost, each element of their experiences – including a photograph of a Hungarian general; a mismatched pair of galoshes; a Romanian Orthodox priest; an SS officer’s wife; and maybe, on one occasion, an angel – proved crucial to getting them out of the war and onto that boat. Benanav vividly recounts the devastating events and astonishing coincidences that brought his grandparents together – while reckoning with the unsettling knowledge that without the Holocaust, his family would not exist. This is an extraordinary true story, rooted in the terrible tragedies and sudden strokes of serendipity that together are The Luck of the Jews. Praise for The Luck of The Jews (First published by Lyons Press as Joshua & Isadora: A True Tale of Loss & Love in the Holocaust): “Movingly written, Michael Benanav’s search for his grandparents’ tragic memories and experiences brings the reader closer to an ineffable truth that must not be forgotten.” – Elie Wiesel, Nobel Prize Winner, author of Night “A harrowing wartime saga [and] an intriguing record of Holocaust survival written with passion and authority.”–Publishers Weekly “A tale of suffering, romance and redemption in Israel… What stands out about this story is its ability to bring Southeastern Europe and Bessarabia, a southern Yiddish-speaking region in today’s Moldova, into focus. The narrative is highly imagistic, often relying on crisp depictions of Jews moving through the landscape to power a story of loss.” –The Jewish Daily Forward “Important and gripping.” –Hindustan Times About the Author Michael Benanav is a freelance writer and photojournalist whose work appears in The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, Geographical Magazine, Lonely Planet guidebooks, and other publications. His first book, Men Of Salt: Crossing the Sahara on the Caravan of White Gold, was nominated by Barnes & Noble for their Discover Great New Writers award and was named a Best Book for Young Adults by the American Library Association

    This 12-hour free course examined the Holocaust, historical arguments surrounding it, whether it is unique and why it happened as and when it did.