Small Wars Permitting: Dispatches from Foreign Lands


Christina Lamb - 2008
    Since leaving England aged 21 with an invitation to a Karachi wedding and a yearning for adventure, Christina Lamb has spent 20 years living out of suitcases, reporting from around the world and becoming one of Britain’s most highly regarded journalists. She has won numerous awards, including being named Foreign Correspondent of the Year a remarkable four times.‘Small Wars Permitting’ is a collection of her best reportage, following the principal events of the last two decades everywhere from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. But Lamb’s main interest has always been in the untold stories, the people and places others don’t visit. Undaunted by danger, disease or despots, she has travelled by canoe through the Amazon rainforest in search of un-contacted Indians, joined a Rio samba school to infiltrate crime rackets behind Carnival and survived a terrifying ambush by Taliban.No less remarkable are the characters that Lamb meets along the way, from Marsh Arabs who covet Play Stations instead of buffaloes to an Armenian compère for performing dolphins with whom she travelled during the war in Iraq.Lamb’s writing is passionate, powerful and poetic, transforming reportage into literature. Through the stories she tells – and her own development from a self-confessed ‘war junkie’ to a devoted mother – Lamb attempts to comprehend the human consequences of conflict in the countries she has come to know.

At the Coalface: The memoir of a pit nurse


Joan Hart - 2015
    This is the memoir of Joan, who started nursing in the 1940s and whose experiences took her into the Yorkshire mining pits and through the tumult of the 1984-85 miners’ strike.Joan Hart always knew what she wanted to do with her life. Born in South Yorkshire in 1932, she started her nursing training when she was 16, the youngest age girls could do so at the time. She continued working after she married and her work took her to London and Doncaster, caring for children and miners.When she took a job as a pit nurse in Doncaster in 1974, she found that in order to be accepted by the men under her care, she would have to become one of them. Most of the time rejecting a traditional nurse’s uniform and donning a baggy miner’s suit, pit boots, a hardhat and a headlamp, Joan resolved always to go down to injured miners and bring them out of the pit herself.Over 15 years Joan grew to know the miners not only as a nurse, but as a confidante and friend. She tended to injured miners underground, rescued men trapped in the pits, and provided support for them and their families during the bitter miners’ strike which stretched from March 1984 to 1985.Moving and uplifting, this is a story of one woman’s life, marriage and work; it is guaranteed to make readers laugh, cry, and smile.

Whisper Mountain


Vivian Higginbotham Nichols - 2017
    Because it was extremely difficult to verbalize the events to her own children years later, her adult family knew very little of the details until 30 years after her passing in 1967. That is when her granddaughter discovered her writings and promised to tell the story of what she endured.

North to the Pole


Will Steger - 1987
    Peary in 1909. Previously a National Geographic cover story and TV film. Two 8-page photo inserts.

Travels with Charley: In Search of America


John Steinbeck - 1962
    Along the way he reflects on the American character, racial hostility, the particular form of American loneliness he finds almost everywhere, and the unexpected kindness of strangers.

Steve & Me


Terri Irwin - 2007
    Leaving behind her wildlife rescue work in Oregon, Terri traveled to Australia, and there, at a small wildlife park, she met and fell in love with a tall, blond force of nature named Steve Irwin. They were married in less than a year, and Terri eagerly joined in Steve's conservation work. The footage filmed on their crocodile-trapping honeymoon became the first episode of T"he Crocodile Hunter, " and together, Steve and Terri began to change the world. In "Steve & Me, " Terri recounts the unforgettable adventures they shared -- wrangling venomous snakes, saving deadly crocodiles from poachers, swimming among humpback whales. A uniquely gifted naturalist, Steve was first and foremost a wildlife warrior dedicated to rescuing endangered animals -- especially his beloved crocs -- and educating everyone he could reach about the importance of conservation. In the hit TV shows that continue to be broadcast worldwide, Steve's enthusiasm lives on, bringing little-known and often-feared species to light as he reveals and revels in the wonders of our planet.With grace, wit, and candor, Terri Irwin portrays her husband as he really was -- a devoted family man, a fervently dedicated environmentalist, a modest bloke who spoke to millions on behalf of those who could not speak for themselves. "Steve & Me" is a nonstop adventure, a real-life love story, and a fitting tribute to a man adored by all those whose lives he touched, written by the woman who knew and loved him best of all.

Faraway


Lucy Irvine - 2000
    The invitation had come from an intrepid 80 year-old, Diana Hepworth, who in 1947 set sail from England to find a faraway paradise where she and her husband Tom could raise a family.

Scratching the Horizon: A Surfing Life


Izzy Paskowitz - 2012
    Together, the Paskowitz clan lived a vagabonding bohemian existence, eschewing material possessions in favor of intangible riches like health and good cheer . . . all the while careening along the world's coastlines in search of the perfect wave.In "Scratching the Horizon, " Izzy Paskowitz looks back at his unusual upbringing, and his lifelong passion for the sport that carries his family's stamp. As the fourth-oldest child in a family of inveterate surfers, rock stars, and beach bums, he is uniquely qualified to shine a light on a childhood that has come to symbolize the surfing credo, a reckless young adulthood that nearly cost him his sanity, and a maturing sense of self and purpose that allows him to lift others on the back of his experience.As the father of a son with autism and the founder of "Surfers Healing," a foundation devoted to expanding the horizons of children with autism through surfing, Paskowitz has found a way to connect the surreal aspects of his childhood to the harsh realities of adulthood, and he shares these discoveries in this wickedly entertaining and transforming memoir.

Tilly: The Ugliest Cat: How I Rescued Her and She Rescued Me


Celia Haddon - 2012
    She has sold somewhere between one to two million books and is an author recognised by bookshops and the general public. Her manual One Hundred Ways for a Cat to Train its Human has sold more than a quarter of a million copies so far and her One Hundred Secret Thoughts Cats have about their Humans has sold 147,000. A cat behaviour practitioner with the Centre of Applied Pet Ethology, she has a B Sc. in applied animal behaviour.

Ivory, Apes & Peacocks: Animals, Adventure and Discovery in the Wild Places of Africa


Alan Root - 2012
    He began his career making films for the TV series "Survival," which started wildlife film-making as we know it, and is responsible for numerous groundbreaking documentaries and natural history discoveries -- from being the first person to film hippos and crocodiles underwater and the wildebeest migrating to observing that hyenas hunt. His friends and colleagues have included George and Joy Adamson and David Attenborough; he showed Dian Fossey her first mountain gorilla. His wife and long-term collaborator was Joan Root, who was tragically murdered in 2006 in retaliation for her environmental campaigning in Kenya. In "Ivory, Apes & Peacocks," Alan tells the story of his life's work, from his arrival in Kenya as a young boy (furious at having to leave behind Britain's birds) to his game-changing films, which looked at whole ecosystems (baobab trees, termite mounds) rather than the Big Five animals. Along the way we encounter Sally the pet hippo and Emily the house-proud chimp as well leopard and snake bites, ballooning adventures and amphibious cars. In this extraordinary memoir we look at Africa's wonders through the eyes of a visionary, live through hair-raising adventure and personal tragedy and also bear witness to a natural world now largely lost from view.

Now I'm Catching On: My Life On and Off the Air


Bob Cole - 2016
    The infectious excitement in his voice, his boyish love of the game, and his uncanny ability to anticipate the play have earned him the affection of generations of fans, induction into the Hall of Fame, and the unofficial title of best hockey broadcaster ever.Now, for the first time, readers will see Cole at the centre of the story rather than watching it from the broadcast booth. We meet the young man growing up in Newfoundland in the years before it joins Canada. We see him talk his way into Foster Hewitt's office and into his first job. And of course we see some of the most cherished players in the game backstage: on the plane back from Russia in 1972, rubbing elbows with Bobby Orr; in the hallway on the old Montreal Forum, running into Jean Beliveau; meeting young players like Steve Stamkos, who grew up listening to him on Hockey Night in Canada.Written with the expert help of massively bestselling author and respected broadcaster Stephen Brunt, these stories come to life with the charm and detail of a conversation with Cole. They sound like Cole.No one has been closer to the game over the years than Cole, and no one is more closely associated with all we love about the game than the man whose eyes we've seen it though. Now we will see so much more through those same eyes and in that unforgettable voice.

Bodacious: The Shepherd Cat


Suzanna Crampton - 2018
    I wasn't always called Bodacious. I must have been called something else in my kitten-hood in the nearby city of Kilkenny, but it's all a bit of a mystery to My Human. As far as she's concerned, I appeared one day and have never left. It's a secret I plan to keep.’Written from the perspective of Bodacious the cat, this is a beautifully written memoir of Bodacious’s life on the farm and everything that entails – early mornings, frosty starts, beautiful sunrises, adventurous rare-breed Zwartbles sheep, hard work, entertaining animals, mouth-watering food, kind people and idyllic country living with its highs and lows.The Shepherd often tells Bodacious her favourite story of how she went out to buy red ribbon to wrap a gift for her friend, but instead came home with a gift for herself: a daring, assertive, ambitious cat looking for a home. But soon The Shepherd realises she needs Bodacious as much as he needs her. As soon as he arrives, Bodacious saunters around the farm like he owns the place and immediately establishes himself as Top Cat. But Bodacious isn’t content to pad round the house and curl up by the Aga, and soon he befriends a farm cat called Oscar who trains him in the ways of the farm. As well as Oscar, Bodacious gets to know all the other animals on the farm — cats Miss Marley and Ovenmitt, the scruffy border collie/fox terrier-cross called Pepper, and The Big Fellow, to name a few.With wonderful characterisation, humour, sharp observation, and a plucky attitude, Bodacious shows us the ropes of Black Sheep Farm. As we soak in the atmosphere of the house, the orchards and the fields, we also learn how this Top Cat Shepherd got his name – by being 'Big, bold, beautiful, bolshie', as his Shepherd always says…

Eye of the Tiger: Memoir of a United States Marine, Third Force Recon Company, Vietnam


John Edmund Delezen - 2003
    John Edmund Delezen felt a kinship with the people he was instructed to kill in Vietnam; they were all at the mercy of the land. His memoir begins when he enlisted in the Marine Corps and was sent to Vietnam in March of 1967. He volunteered for the Third Force Recon Company, whose job it was to locate and infiltrate enemy lines undetected and map their locations and learn details of their status. The duty was often painful both physically and mentally. He was stricken with malaria in November of 1967, wounded by a grenade in February of 1968 and hit by a bullet later that summer. He remained in Vietnam until December, 1968. Delezen writes of Vietnam as a man humbled by a mysterious country and horrified by acts of brutality. The land was his enemy as much as the Vietnamese soldiers. He vividly describes the three-canopy jungle with birds and monkeys overhead that could be heard but not seen, venomous snakes hiding in trees and relentless bugs that fed on men. He recalls stumbling onto a pit of rotting Vietnamese bodies left behind by American forces, and days when fierce hunger made a bag of plasma seem like an enticing meal. He writes of his fallen comrades and the images of war that still pervade his dreams. This book contains many photographs of American Marines and Vietnam as well as three maps.

Dog Medicine


Julie Barton - 2015
    She was one year out of college and severely depressed. Summoned by Julie's incoherent phone call, her mother raced from Ohio to New York and took her home.Psychiatrists, therapists and family tried to intervene, but nothing reached her until the day she decided to do one hopeful thing: adopt a Golden Retriever puppy she named Bunker.Dog Medicine captures in beautiful, elegiac language the anguish of depression, the slow path to recovery, and the astonishing way animals can heal even the most broken hearts and minds.

Wrong Place Wrong Time


David P. Perlmutter - 2012
    Little do I know that I’m about to be thrust into the most terrifying time of my life. Wrong Place Wrong Time is a gripping true-life story of an unimaginable nightmare and how my ticket to a new life turns out to be a one way ticket to hell.