A Simple Life: Living off grid in a wooden cabin in France


Mary-Jane Houlton - 2021
    They were already used to a simple life, having spent the last three years living on their boat in France for the summer seasons, and returning to the UK and their caravan for the winters. This tiny cabin would now be their new home for the winter months, taking them a step further along the road to self-sufficiency. They had no electricity, no kitchen, no bathroom or bedroom and the loo was a bucket in a shed, but the property came with five acres of field and woodland.From now on their lives would be simple, pared back to the basics, but they found that an off-grid lifestyle was by no means an uncomfortable experience. Responsibilities didn’t disappear but they changed, becoming less onerous. There was more time to think, and to appreciate the natural world around them. Living in such rural isolation, each day brought something new to marvel at: deer browsing in the field at dusk, salamanders on the doorstep, owls calling by night.If their own world felt increasingly magical, the outside world was far from it. They had moved to a foreign country at an historic time, living through a pandemic and adapting to the day-to-day implications of Brexit.A Simple Life doesn’t just follow Mary-Jane and Michael as they settle into their new lives, it also raises questions about what really matters to people. What makes us happy? How does it feel to have few possessions? Will life become unbearable without a flushing toilet?Thought-provoking and amusing, this book opens a window onto a different way of living. Mary-Jane shares a wealth of information and, if you have ever found yourself longing for a simpler life, this might tempt you to take those first tentative steps on the journey.

Why Do People Get Ill


David Corfield - 2007
    With case studies and advice for a fitter life, this is an intriguing and thought-provoking book, one which should be read by anyone who cares about their wellbeing.

Private Bill: In Love and War


Barrie Cassidy - 2014
    He first saw conflict on Crete in May 1941, during the only large-scale parachute invasion in wartime history. Just four days later, Bill was wounded and eventually captured.Twice he tried to escape his internment — with horrific consequences. He suffered greatly but found courageous support from his fellow prisoners.His new wife Myra and his large family thought he was dead until news of his capture finally reached them.Back home, Myra too was a prisoner of sorts, with her own secrets. Then, fifty years after the war, unhealed wounds unexpectedly opened for Bill and Myra, testing them once again.Private Bill is a classic heart-warming story — as told by their son — of how a loving couple prevailed over the adversities of war to live an extraordinarily ordinary, happy life.

The Tyrants


Clive Foss - 2006
    It presents a chronology of the moments in history when the principles of government and law were corrupted by the vanity of the ambitious and unscrupulous.

Growing Up Jung: Coming of Age as the Son of Two Shrinks


Micah Toub - 2010
    Dreamwork, archetypes, conflict resolution, the mind-body connection—Toub’s childhood was a virtual laboratory of psychology. A mysterious growth on his father’s nose embodies the conflict that would lead to his parents’ divorce. Family meetings involved dream analysis and intense emotional unburdening. As a young adult, Micah chases his “anima” in the form of a fickle poetess who eventually breaks his heart, but then a series of coincidences later identified as “synchronicity” lead him to his fiancé. Enriched with excerpts from Jung’s own memoir, and informed by readings and conversations with Jungian gurus and unbelievers alike, Growing Up Jung intelligently examines the pros and cons of Jungian philosophy as we witness Toub embrace his “shadow” and meditate with his “ally” in that elusive quest for “individuation.” While tackling themes like the Anima, the Oedipus Complex, and Transference, it addresses the question: is it possible for the spawn of two shrinks to reach adulthood mentally unscathed?

Lonely Avenue: The Unlikely Life and Times of Doc Pomus


Alex Halberstadt - 2007
    A role model for generations of writers and performers, Doc was renowned for his mastery of virtually every popular style, from the gutbucket rhythm and blues of “Lonely Avenue” to the symphonic soul of “Save the Last Dance for Me” to the pure pop of “Viva Las Vegas.” His songs-“This Magic Moment,” “A Teenager in Love,” “Hushabye,” “Little Sister,” “Turn Me Loose,” and many others-have been recorded by everyone from Ray Charles, Elvis Presley, and B. B. King to Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, and Bruce Springsteen, with sales exceeding $100 million. Doc was ready-made for literature. His collaborator Mort Shuman once described him as an “entire rollicking soul neighborhood rolled into one man.” Garrulous, profane, hilarious, and Rabelaisian, Doc was never inhibited about offering his opinions and his friendship. His confidants, collaborators, and discoveries included Duke Ellington, John Lennon, Dr. John, Jimmy Scott, Bette Midler, and Lou Reed. In the words of renowned producer Jerry Wexler, “If the music industry had a heart, it would be Doc Pomus.” Despite, or more likely because of, his successes, few acquaintances knew that this writer of jukebox hits led one of the most dramatic and unlikely lives of his time. Spanning extravagant wealth and desperate poverty, suburban domesticity and the depths of New York’s underworld, worldwide fame and near-total obscurity, enduring love and persistent loneliness, Doc’s story remains one of the great untold American lives. Its chapters comprise a back-room history of rock ’n’ roll, touching on more than a half-century of American popular music-from the blues Doc performed with Lester Young to his collaborations with the luminaries of New York’s punk scene, shot through with vivid portraits of virtually every major player. Lonely Avenue is the first biography of this American original, so elegantly rendered that it reads like a novel, and fortified by full, exclusive access to Doc Pomus’s family, friends, voluminous journals, and archives.

Memoirs of My Nervous Illness


Daniel Paul Schreber - 1903
    In his madness, the world was revealed to him as an enormous architecture of nerves, dominated by a predatory God. It became clear to Schreber that his personal crisis was implicated in what he called a "crisis in God's realm," one that had transformed the rest of humanity into a race of fantasms. There was only one remedy; as his doctor noted: Schreber "considered himself chosen to redeem the world, and to restore to it the lost state of Blessedness. This, however, he could only do by first being transformed from a man into a woman...."

Pioneer life; or, Thirty Years a Hunter, Being Scenes and Adventures in the Life of Philip Tome (1854)


Philip Tome - 2006
    Tome was born in 1782 near present-day Harrisburg and lived on the upper Susquehanna for much of his life. He tells colorful (and mostly true) tales about his hunting exploits in the Pennsylvania wilderness, as he tracked elk, wolves, bears, panthers, foxes, and other large animals through the state’s north-central mountains, earning wide renown among his contemporaries. His stories contain suspenseful chase scenes, accidents, and narrow escapes, inviting the reader to view a still-wild Pennsylvania through the eyes of one who “was never conquered by man or animal.” Pioneer Life, originally published in 1854, has since been reprinted several times. This classic hunting memoir includes the following chapters: I. Birth and Early Life II. Hunting the Elk III. Capturing a Live Elk IV. Face of the Country V. Face of the Country — Continued VI. Danger From Rattlesnakes VII. Wolf and Bear Hunting VIII. Another Elk Hunt IX. Elk-Hunting on the Susquehannah X. Elk-Hunting — Continued XI. Nature, Habits, and Manner of Hunting the Elk XII. Elk and Bear Hunting in Winter XIII. Hunting on the Clarion River XIV. Hunting and Trapping XV. The Bear, Its Nature and Habits XVI. Hunting Deer at Different Seasons XVII. Nature and Habits of the Panther, Wolf and Fox XVIII. Rattlesnakes and Their Habits XIX. Distinguished Lumbermen, Etc. XX.. Reminiscences of Cornplanter XXI. Indian Eloquence This book originally published in 1854 has been reformatted for the Kindle and may contain an occasional defect from the original publication or from the reformatting

Queen Victoria's Grandsons (1859-1918)


Christina Croft - 2014
    Some died in childhood, some were killed in action, and others lived to see grandchildren of their own. There were heroes and villains, valiant soldiers and dissipated youths, but their lives were interconnected through the tiny Queen for whom their welfare and happiness was a constant preoccupation. As part of a wide, extended family, they lived through the halcyon days of the late nineteenth century European monarchies, witnessing the most spectacular and the most tragic events of the age.

FERRY PILOT: Nine Lives Over the North Atlantic


Kerry McCauley - 2020
    

The Dreadful River Cave: Chief Black Elk's Story


James Willard Schultz - 1920
    Schultz was a noted author, explorer, Glacier National Park guide, fur trader and historian of the Blackfoot Indians. While operating a fur trading post at Carroll, Montana and living amongst the Pikuni tribe during the period 1880-82, he was given the name "Apikuni" by the Pikuni chief, Running Crane. Schultz is most noted for his prolific stories about Blackfoot life and his contributions to the naming of prominent features in Glacier National Park. Mr. Schultz is one of the last of the old-time frontiersmen, who was with a tribe of Blackfeet for years; and his books, into which he puts his rich store of memories of bygone days, have been called “the best of their kind ever written. The dreadful river cave tells the story of a young, brave, black Elk, and his exciting adventures centering about a mysterious cave behind a water-fall. This book originally published by Houghton Mifflin in 1920 has been reformatted for the Kindle and may contain an occasional defect from the original publication or from the reformatting.

The Andrews Sisters: The Lives and Legacy of the Famous Singing Trio during the Swing Era


Charles River Editors - 2020
    

Our Vietnam Wars: Vol 2: as told by more veterans who served


William F. Brown - 2018
    Some enlisted. Some were true war heroes, but most were just trying to survive. As everyone "in-country" knew, Vietnam was all about luck, good or bad. If you were there, you understand. If you weren't, grab a copy and start reading, anywhere in the book. The stories are like Doritos. Try a few and you won't be able to stop.The Vietnam War was the seminal event of my generation and affected so many lives. Over 58,200 of us paid the ultimate price, but the war didn't end when the last US helicopter lifted off from the roof of the US Embassy in Saigon. It continues to take its ugly toll on many who did come home. Instead of bands and parades, we got PTSD and Agent Orange, diabetes, ischemic heart disease, neuropathy, leukemia, Hodgkin's Disease, and prostate cancer, and many more. As they say, "Vietnam is the gift that keeps on giving."Unfortunately, what little our kids and grandkids know of the war comes from books that only focus on one soldier, one unit, and one year, or movies like Oliver Stone's Platoon and Hamburger Hill, leaving people to think that all we did was crawl through the jungle on the Cambodian border smoking dope. But that wasn't how most of us spent our year. In February, I published Volume 1. Due to the amazing response it received from vets and their families, I'm publishing Volume 2, with even more interesting, exciting, and informative stories. Hopefully, they will help correct that narrative.William F Brown is the author of nine action adventure and suspense novels on Kindle, including the highly successful Bob Burke series, and Our Vietnam Wars, Volumes 1 and 2, personal stories of the veterans who served there. His ministry and suspense novels include 'The Undertaker,' 'Amongst My Enemies,' 'Thursday at Noon,' 'Aim True, My Brothers,' 'Winner Lose All,' and 'The Cold War Trilogy,' as well as Burke's War, Burke's Gamble, and Burke's Revenge. You can them out on my web site and Enjoy!

Jung and the Story of Our Time


Laurens van der Post - 1975
    Indeed, part of the compulsion for putting the experience of his extraordinarily fruitful friendship with Jung into book form was precisely that the limitations of a single film sequence left him with the insistent feeling of a challenge only partially met.To present Jung as he knew him, not Jung the psychologist but rather Jung the man, the discoverer and explorer of a new dimension in the human spirit, was the task which Laurens van der Post set himself and which has taken his special gifts to accomplish.

Be Pure! Be Vigilant! Behave!: 2000AD & Judge Dredd: The Secret History


Pat Mills - 2017
    It once appeared on the Berlin Wall, and symbolizes the subversive nature of 2000AD that changed so many readers’ lives and influenced generations of film directors, actors, rock bands, novelists and even school headmasters.Everything you’ve always wanted to know about Judge Dredd, Slaine, Nemesis, ABC Warriors, Flesh, Bill Savage and more, is in this book. Plus the writers and artists who created them and the real-life people and events they drew on for inspiration. The scandals, the back-stabbing and the shocking story that was regarded as “too sensitive” to ever see the light of day is finally told.Pat relates the dark story of the maths teacher who inspired his version of Judge Dredd, the creators’ angry battles with the censors and each other, why certain writers, stories and even readers have been banished from the comic, a step-by-step account of how Judge Dredd was created, and how to write or draw for 2000AD too.There are new insights on the 2000AD creators' invasion of American comics, their failed French invasion, the Judge Dredd films, the forthcoming Judge Dredd TV series, other possible films featuring 2000AD heroes, the unusual secret of the comic’s current success, the tough challenges it faces today, and its exciting future.From the hilarious origins when Judge Dredd writer-creator John Wagner and Pat began their careers writing together in a garden shed by paraffin lamp, to the tragic stories of legendary comic artists who have passed, and the challenges as 2000AD fought for survival against The Suits determined to destroy it, this is a unique, personal, and passionate account by the man who made 2000AD happen.Funny, sad, angry, defiant, and outrageous: it’s the Comic Book memoir of the year!