Book picks similar to
Help Self: Learn from my mistakes so you can make different ones! by Tanya Hennessy
non-fiction
biography
self-help
library-ebook
Original Spin: Misadventures in Cricket
Vic Marks - 2019
Apart from Richards, 'all of us were eighteen years old, though Botham seemed to have lived a bit longer - or at least more vigorously - than the rest.'In this irresistible memoir of a life lived in cricket, Vic Marks returns to the heady days when Richards and Botham were young men yet to unleash their talents on the world stage while he and Roebuck looked on in awe. After the high-octane dramas of Somerset, playing for England was almost an anti-climax for Marks, who became an unlikely all-rounder in the mercurial side of the 1980s. Moving from the dressing room to the press box, with trenchant observations about the modern game along the way, Original Spin is a charmingly wry, shrewdly observed account of a golden age in cricket.
The Hungover Games: A True Story
Sophie Heawood - 2020
It's about what happens when Mr. Right isn't around so you have a baby with Mr. Wrong, a touring musician who tells you halfway through your pregnancy that he's met someone else, just after you've given up your LA life and moved back to England to attempt some kind of modern family life with him. So now you're six months along, sleeping on a friend's sofa in London, and waking up in the morning to a room full of taxidermied animals who seem to be staring at you. The Hungover Games about what it's like raising a baby on your own when you're more at home on the dance floor than in the kitchen. It's about how to invent the concept of the two-person family when you grew up in a traditional nuclear unit of four, and your kid's friends all have happily married parents too, and you are definitely not, in any way, ticking off the days until all those lovely couples get divorced. Unflinchingly honest, emotionally raw, and surprisingly sweet, The Hungover Games is the true story of what happens if you've been looking for love your whole life and finally find it where you least expect it.A Sunday Times Bestseller (UK)
Daniel Radcliffe: No Ordinary Wizard
Grace Norwich - 2005
Since the age of eleven, Daniel has been the face of Harry Potter, bringing the beloved character and his hair- raising adventures to life on the big screen. Though sometimes it might seem like Daniel and Harry are one and the same, when Daniel takes off those famous round glasses he has a style that is entirely his own. From his favourite bands to his favourite cartoon, find out everything you ever wanted to know about this young star: how Dan got cast as Harry, what life is like on the set, and how he spends his time when he's not battling the dark arts.
Women and Leadership: Real Lives, Real Lessons
Julia Gillard - 2020
Women and Leadership takes a consistent and comprehensive approach to teasing out what is different for women leaders. Almost every year new findings are published about the way people see women leaders compared with their male counterparts. The authors have taken that academic work and tested it in the real world. The same set of interview questions were put to each leader in frank face-to-face interviews. Their responses were then used to examine each woman's journey in leadership and whether their lived experiences were in line with or different from what the research would predict.Women and Leadership presents a lively and readable analysis of the influence of gender on women's access to positions of leadership, the perceptions of them as leaders, the trajectory of their leadership and the circumstances in which it comes to an end. By presenting the lessons that can be learned from women leaders, Julia and Ngozi provide a road map of essential knowledge to inspire us all, and an action agenda for change that allows women to take control and combat gender bias.Featuring Jacinda Ardern, Hillary Clinton, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Theresa May, Michelle Bachelet, Joyce Banda, Erna Solberg, Christine Lagarde and more.
The Short and Excruciatingly Embarrassing Reign of Captain Abbott
Andrew P. Street
People have the right to be bigots. I'm a fixer. Team Australia. Shirtfonting. Choppergate. Stop the boats. Coal is good for humanity. No cuts to health. Sir Prince Philip. The flags. It's all the fault of the febrile media. And that whole onion thing.In August 2013, Australia welcomed Tony Abbott as its new prime minister. This promised to be a marriage between responsible government and a nation tired of the endless drama of the Gillard-Rudd years. But then well Andrew P Street details the litany of gaffes, goofs and questionable captain's calls that characterised the subsequent reign of the Abbott government, following the trail from bold promises to questionable realities, unlikely recoveries to inexplicable own goals, Malcolm Turnbull's assurances of support to the day he pushed the Captain off his bike once and for all. And all this comes with a colourful cast of supporting characters and dangerous loons that only a nation unfamiliar with the concept of below- the-line voting could elect. Here is a unique take on a modern politics Australian style.If Game of Thrones was a deeply irreverent book about politics, then the TV series would probably not rate nearly as well. It would, however, look something like this.
Erma Bombeck: A Life in Humor
Susan Edwards - 1997
Here is Erma Bombeck, laughing her way through childhood, marriage, motherhood, and celebrity status, even keeping her sense of humor as she battled terminal illness.
Hunting with Hemingway
Hilary Hemingway - 2000
It was an audio-cassette filled with the voice of her father telling outrageous stories about his hunting expeditions with his famous older brother, Ernest Hemingway. In this mesmerizing book, Hilary transcribes these stories, revealing the bond between two larger-than-life brothers -- and tells of her own quest to make peace with the painful parts of the Hemingway legacy.
Cold Fear
Suzanne Brandyn - 2013
When she regains consciousness, her daughter is missing.As the police widen their futile search, Macy struggles to pick up the pieces of an unimaginable life. Urged to take a break she heads to an isolated cabin with a girlfriend to recuperate so she can continue searching, only to face her worse nightmare - times ten.Trapped by a man she believed dead, he demands she play a game. She runs, he hunts. There is no place to hide...
The Ghost Runner: The Tragedy of the Man They Couldn't Stop
Bill Jones - 2011
Furious stewards gave chase. The crowd roared.A legend was born. Soon the world would know him as 'the ghost runner'. John Tarrant. The extraordinary man whom nobody could stop. As a hapless teenage boxer in the 1950s, he'd been paid £17 expenses. When he wanted to run, he was banned for life. His amateur status had been compromised. Forever. Now he was fighting back, gatecrashing races all over Britain. No number on his shirt. No friends in high places. Soon he would be a record-breaker, one of the greatest long-distance runners the world has ever seen. This is his true story: The Ghost Runner.
Above All Else
Dan Brodsky-Chenfeld - 2011
Dan survived a plane crash from which sixteen of the twenty-two people on board were killed. He was left critically injured and woke up from a six-week-long coma with a broken neck, broken skull, severe head trauma, a collapsed lung, and other serious internal injuries. Against all odds, Dan recovered and went on to become one of the greatest competitive skydiver in the world. With the love and support of friends and family, Dan was able not only to resurrect his life but return to skydiving to achieve greater heights than he could have ever imagined. His techniques and methods for excelling are applicable to all people, no matter their goals. Dan uses his experiences to teach the lessons he's learned--as a competitor, coach, business owner, father, and husband--to help others achieve their dreams, overcome obstacles, and reach their peak performance.
GUTS
Janet Buttenwieser - 2018
But within a year she’d developed an intestinal illness so rare she wound up in a medical journal. Janet navigated misdiagnosis, multiple surgeries, and life with a permanent colostomy. Like many female patients her concerns were glossed over by doctors. She was young and insecure, major liabilities in her life as a patient. How would she advocate for low-income people when she couldn’t even advocate for herself? Janet’s model for assertiveness was her friend Beth. She was the kind of friend who’d accompany you to the doctor when you got dysentery in Ecuador, nonchalantly translating the graphic details of your symptoms into Spanish. Throughout Janet’s illness Beth took care of her; then she developed brain cancer and their roles reversed. Eventually Janet recovered, but Beth’s condition worsened. At the age of 38, Beth died. To cope, Janet competed in endurance events, becoming a triathlete with a colostomy pouch. With themes that echo Susannah Cahalan’s 'Brain on Fire' and Gail Caldwell’s 'Let’s Take the Long Way Home', GUTS is a story of resilience for the millions of Americans who manage to thrive while living with a chronic condition, as well as the many who’ve lost a loved one at a young age.
Relentless: Secrets of the Sporting Elite
Alistair Brownlee - 2021
Winning gold in consecutive Olympic Games has only strengthened this need and desire.Over the last 4 years Alistair has been on a journey to learn from the best, talking to elite figures across multiple sports as well as leading thinkers and scientists, to understand what enabled these remarkable individuals to rise to the very top, and to push the limits of human capability in their relentless pursuit of perfection.Alistair uses these fascinating interviews, along with extensive research, to explore a range of sports and environments – athletics, cycling, football, rugby, horseracing, hockey, cricket, golf, motor racing, snooker, swimming and ultra-running – to reveal how talent alone is never enough and how hard work, pain, pressure, stress, risk, focus, sacrifice, innovation, reinvention, passion, ruthlessness, luck, failure and even a lockdown can all play a crucial part in honing a winning mentality and achieving sustained success.
The Heming Way: How to Unleash the Booze-Inhaling, Animal-Slaughtering, War-Glorifying, Hairy-Chested Retro-Sexual Legend Within, Just Like Papa!
Marty Beckerman - 2011
They cannot skin a fish, dominate a battlefield, or transform majestic creatures of the Southern Hemisphere into piano keyboards.The Heming Way demonstrates how modern eunuchs—brainwashed by PETA and Alcoholics Anonymous—can learn from Papa's unparalleled example: drunken, unshaven, meat-devouring, wife-divorcing, and gloriously self-destructive.Advice includes:How to kill enough animals to render a species endangered—just like Papa!Getting your friends to think drinking a daiquiri is manly . . . just by drinking one nine yourselfAchieving sufficiently high testosterone levels to never have to worry about the chance of having a daughter instead of a sonAnd much more!Profane, insightful, hilarious and loaded with more than 150 photos, facts and insights about Papa, The Heming Way is a difficult path, and not for the weak, but truth is manlier than fiction.
Shooting Butterflies
T.M. Clark - 2014
‘TIRI TOSE – there is no escape.’ Ex-soldier Kirkman Potgieter – known as Buffel – lives by the motto of his Rhodesian PSYOPS military unit. It may be all that keeps his PTSD at bay. But it can’t stop the dreams. So when fellow unit member Shilo Jamison Khumalo betrays him by saving twelve-year-old Tara Wright from becoming his newest ‘butterfly’, Buffel becomes obsessed with hunting them both down. He must hide the truth behind the ‘sangoma' ritual killings that have been responsible for so many deaths. Tara’s family leave for a new life in South Africa after she witnesses the murder of her father and uncle. Three years later, Tara finds she isn’t prepared for the price she has to pay for loving Wayne Botha, and it is only when she finds unexpected support within her family that she can escape the narrow-minded rural community.But when Tara receives a potentially devastating diagnosis, she finally sends a letter to Wayne in the hope that he will acknowledge their son, Josha. But will Wayne and Jamison's combined special services skills be sufficient to protect her and Josha from Buffel?“You can smell the dust of Africa, feel her pain, and marvel at her incredible beauty in this sprawling tale.” Tony Park on My Brother-But-One.