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Smile for the Camera: The Double Life of Cyril Smith
Simon Danczuk - 2014
Instantly recognisable for his colossal build, Smith was a larger-than-life character in a world of dull grey men. Yet 'Big Cyril' was anything but the roly-poly gentle giant of popular imagination.In November 2012, Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk outed Smith in Parliament as a serial child abuser. Now, in this devastating exposé, he describes how Smith used his profile to groom and sexually abuse young boys, frequently in institutions he had helped to establish. His victims, often troubled boys from broken homes, had no voice against their attacker and, though rumours abounded, Smith's appalling crimes went unnoticed by the public and unpunished by the authorities.Smile for the Camera is not just about a terrible abuse of power. It's about those who knew that abuse was taking place but looked the other way, making the corridors of Westminster a safe haven for paedophiles like Cyril Smith. This updated edition of the book that sparked a criminal investigation brings shocking new material to light, asking urgent questions of those who allowed Smith to prey on young children for decades without question.
Before and After: The Incredible Real-Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennessee Children's Home Society
Judy Christie - 2019
She offered up more than 5,000 orphans tailored to the wish lists of eager parents--hiding the fact that many weren't orphans at all, but stolen sons and daughters of poor families, desperate single mothers, and women told in maternity wards that their babies had died.The publication of Lisa Wingate's novel Before We Were Yours brought new awareness of Tann's lucrative career in child trafficking. Adoptees who knew little about their pasts gained insight into the startling facts behind their family histories. Encouraged by their contact with Wingate and award-winning journalist Judy Christie, who documented the stories of fifteen adoptees in this book, many determined Tann survivors set out to trace their roots and find their birth families.Before and After includes moving and sometimes shocking accounts of the ways in which adoptees were separated from their first families. Often raised as only children, many have joyfully reunited with siblings in the final decades of their lives. In Before and After, Wingate and Christie tell of first meetings that are all the sweeter and more intense for time missed and of families from very different social backgrounds reaching out to embrace better-late-than-never brothers, sisters, and cousins. In a poignant culmination of art meeting life, long-silent victims of the tragically corrupt system return to Memphis with Wingate and Christie to reclaim their stories at a Tennessee Children's Home Society reunion . . . with extraordinary results.
Ten Days in a Mad-House
Nellie Bly - 1887
In 1887, 23-year-old reporter Nellie Bly had herself committed to a New York City asylum for 10 days to expose the horrific conditions for 19th-century century mental patients.
Dream Golf: The Making of Bandon Dunes
Stephen Goodwin - 2006
Golf enthusiast Mike Keiser had the dream of building this British-style "links" course on a stretch of Oregon's rugged coast, and Dream Golf is the first all-inclusive account of how he turned his passion into a reality. Now, in this updated and expanded edition, golf writer Stephen Goodwin revisits Bandon Dunes and introduces readers to Keiser's latest effort there, a new course named Old Macdonald that will present golfers with a more rugged, untamed version of the game. This "new" approach to the sport is, in fact, a return to the game's origins, with a very deep bow to Charles Blair Macdonald (1856 –1939), the father of American golf course architecture and one of the founders of the U.S. Golf Association. This highly anticipated fourth course, designed by renowned golf course architect Tom Doak along with Jim Urbina — as detailed in Dream Golf — will further enhance Bandon Dunes' reputation as a place where golf really does seem to capture the ancient magic of the game.
Please Stay: A Brain Bleed, A Life In The Balance, A Love Story
Greg Payan - 2018
Diagnosed with a ruptured brain aneurysm and Grade IV hemorrhage, the 39-year old college professor soon finds herself fighting for her life as her heart and lungs fail en route to emergency treatment.As family and friends rush to be by her side, former students and close friends from around the country write memories to be read at her bedside, detailing a life and legacy that has influenced so many.Experience what loved ones did in real-time as texts and e-mails sent during the medical crisis form the narrative for this compelling journey through the eyes of Holly and her boyfriend who kept vigil through it all. A book that will challenge and compel you to reflect not just on love and death, but also the hundred micro-reflections nestled in between as you ponder what constitutes a life well lived, and how one impacts others along the way.EDITORIAL REVIEWS: “Unforgettable. Readers not only receive insights into their (own) lives and connections to it; but on the medical challenges of aneurysms and the recovery process and prognosis. A(n) invigorating celebration of life unexpected in a memoir that depicts a close encounter with death: one which pulls heartstrings, educates about aneurysm and disability, and is replete with emails, text messages, and a peppering of black and white photos throughout. Readers who seek uplifting stories of recovery and life challenges will relish the tone, presentation, and surprisingly multifaceted story of Holly and Greg's journey from the brink in a saga that proves hard to put down.” (D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review)"The book is touching and engrossing, and much more than a memoir of an illness, telling a timeless story of a devotion among family and friends. The story becomes less about one couple than a universal story of endurance and love, which is at once harrowing and inspiring. Please Stay is a powerful message of love in the face of tragedy and how in times of hardship, people can rally around each other to reveal a deeper humanity." (Self-Publishing Review)“As anyone who has suffered the shocking loss or illness of a loved one will tell you, time is precious. This is a lovely meditation on that theme, a way to try and get to the bottom of that most complex idea - the "accident", the bolt out of the blue, the unforeseen event. Like grief, like asking why, like losing people - sometimes we can't understand things, we just have to learn to live with them. Life just is.” (James Hartley Books 5*) “Please Stay is a smoothly written memoir about what it’s like to live through a health crisis— a worthy, sometimes tear-inducing, and highly inspiring read.” (BlueInk Review)“Heartbreaking and heart-lifting.” (Reader Views)
Member of the Family: My Story of Charles Manson, Life Inside His Cult, and the Darkness That Ended the Sixties
Dianne Lake - 2017
Over the course of two years, the impressionable teenager endured manipulation, psychological control, and physical abuse as the harsh realities and looming darkness of Charles Manson’s true nature revealed itself. From Spahn ranch and the group acid trips, to the Beatles’ White Album and Manson’s dangerous messiah-complex, Dianne tells the riveting story of the group’s descent into madness as she lived it.Though she never participated in any of the group’s gruesome crimes and was purposely insulated from them, Dianne was arrested with the rest of the Manson Family, and eventually learned enough to join the prosecution’s case against them. With the help of good Samaritans, including the cop who first arrested her and later adopted her, the courageous young woman eventually found redemption and grew up to lead an ordinary life.While much has been written about Charles Manson, this riveting account from an actual Family member is a chilling portrait that recreates in vivid detail one of the most horrifying and fascinating chapters in modern American history.Member of the Family includes 16 pages of photographs.
Presumed Guilty: What the Jury Never Knew about Laci Peterson's Murder and Why Scott Peterson Should Not Be on Death Row
Matt Dalton - 2005
For six straight months after Peterson's arrest, Dalton was the defense's only full-time investigative attorney on the case. During that time, he lived in Modesto and investigated every element of the case, interviewing scores of witnesses, reviewing more than 35,000 pages of police documents, and meeting almost daily with Scott Peterson in jail.What he has uncovered will astound even the most informed observers of the Laci Peterson murder case and challenge the most deeply held beliefs about what really happened to Laci Peterson on Christmas Eve, 2002.This is the first book to go inside the Peterson defense team, and the only book to detail all the evidence that the jury did not hear -- evidence that might have led to Scott Peterson's acquittal, and that will surely play a crucial part in his pending appeals.Among the revelations in Presumed Guilty: Reports from numerous witnesses who saw Laci Peterson alive and well the morning of December 24, after the police claim Scott Peterson had already killed her; none of them testified at trial The story of another woman, eight months pregnant, who was harassed by two men the morning of December 24 only five blocks from the Peterson home The burglary that reportedly occurred directly across the street from the Peterson home on the morning of December 24, and the confessed burglars' questionable claims that the burglary happened days later Previously unreported details of the autopsy reports on Laci Peterson and her son, which cast strong doubts on key elements of the prosecution's case Thedisappearances of six pregnant women, in addition to Laci, reported missing and presumed dead within eighty miles of Modesto between 1999 and 2002Compelling, provocative, disturbing, Presumed Guilty is the fascinating story of one lawyer's relentless efforts to find the truth behind one of the most complex and notorious murder cases in American history.
Call Me Tuesday
Leigh Byrne - 2012
For no apparent reason, she's singled out from her siblings, blamed for her family's problems and targeted for unspeakable abuse. The loving environment she's come to know becomes an endless nightmare of twisted punishments as she's forced to confront the dark cruelty lurking inside the mother she idolizes. Based on a true story, Call Me Tuesday recounts, with raw emotion, a young girl's physical and mental torment at the mercy of the monster in her mother's clothes--a monster she doesn't know how to stop loving. Tuesday's painful journey through the hidden horrors of child abuse will open your eyes, and her unshakable love for her parents will tug at your heartstrings.
The Murder of Mr Moonlight: How sexual obsession, greed and arrogance led to the killing of an innocent man – the definitive story behind the trial that gripped the nation
Catherine Fegan - 2019
I was lost ... Pat Quirke tried to come in and control everything'
Bobby Ryan's disappearance in rural Tipperary in June 2011 mystified all who knew him. The truck-driver and part-time DJ (known as Mr Moonlight) was an easy-going fellow with no enemies. Or so everyone thought.When Ryan's body was found 22 months later on the farm of Mary Lowry, the wealthy young widow he had been seeing, it was clear that he had met a violent end.And the most likely person to have brought about that end? Pat Quirke, the man who had 'discovered' the body - Mary Lowry's brother-in-law, financial advisor, tenant and one-time lover.Following the longest running murder trial in Irish criminal history Quirke was convicted of murder in May 2019. Getting to that day had taken years of exhaustive work by gardaí. The Murder of Mr Moonlight is the definitive account of their investigation as well as the compelling story of how an innocent man paid the price for another man's obsessions.Catherine Fegan, Irish Journalist of the Year (2017), and Chief Correspondent at the Irish Daily Mail, covered every day of Quirke's trial. Over many months she also conducted interviews in Tipperary and further afield. She has written an extraordinary insightful and meticulous account of the case that gripped the nation.
'[An] excellent book that shows all the colours of the story that intrigued the nation' Irish Daily Mail
'Well-researched and highly readable ... Fegan proves her journalistic mettle, delivering forensic detail in accessible language ... Anyone who followed the trial will not be disappointed by Fegan's book'
Sunday Business Post
'Absolutely compulsive reading (as I know because my wife wouldn't let me anywhere near it - but I did get it in the end!) ... a page-turner' Eamon Dunphy, The Stand
Untold: The Daniel Morgan Murder Exposed
Alastair Morgan - 2017
At the bottom of that iceberg of 'dark arts' - hacking, bugging and bribing bent cops - is the body of Daniel Morgan. The truth behind his killing is obscured by a web of corruption and cover-ups.Written by Daniel's brother Alastair, with investigative journalist Peter Jukes, Untold marks the 30th anniversary of the murder once described by an Assistant Commissioner of the Met as 'one of the most disgraceful episodes in the entire history of the Metropolitan Police Service.'Going beyond the number one hit podcast of the same name, this is the inside story in full. Including fresh revelations, new evidence, all the latest findings and, at its heart, the tragic story of a family whose lives have been torn apart in the search for answers.If you haven't heard of this story, ask yourself, why?
The Road Show
Gary Jennings - 1999
In The Road Show we meet Zachary Edge, a Confederate soldier, on his way home at the war's close. He stumbles upon a traveling troupe, a chance encounter that is the start of an unforgettable odyssey. Edge hits the road with bawdy showgirls, roguish tricksters, and a host of colorful characters. He soon finds himself in the arms of Autumn Auburn, the lithesome artiste known for her breathtaking sensuality.
Taken: The Agonising True Story of My Missing Sister
Sharon Hamilton - 2009
Taken is Sharon’s story of the long years between her sister Vicky’s disappearance and the discovery, seventeen years later, of her body in the garden of a house once occupied by Peter Tobin, who will stand trial for her murder.
Hockey Card Stories: True Tales from Your Favorite Players
Ken Reid - 2014
Some of the cards are definitely worth a few bucks, some a few cents — but every story told here is priceless. Sportsnet’s Ken Reid presents the cards you loved and the airbrushed monstrosities that made you howl, the cards that have been packed away in boxes forever, and others you can’t believe ever existed. Whether it’s a case of mistaken identity or simply a great old photo, a fantastic 1970s haircut and ’stache, a wicked awesome goalie mask or a future Hall of Famer’s off-season fashion sense, a wide variety of players — from superstars like Bobby Orr, Denis Potvin, and Phil Esposito to the likes of Bill Armstrong who played only one game in the NHL — chime in on one of their most famous cards.
Rocky Road: The incredible true story of the fractured family behind the Darrell Lea chocolate empire
Robert Wainwright - 2018
Monty fell hard for her and, despite strong family opposition on both sides, they would marry.Valerie was keen to have a large brood and, though her pregnancies were difficult, she gave birth to four children. But they were not enough and in 1947 she adopted the first of three more children who were designated to be playmates for her own. It was a social experiment that would end in tears, as would the fortunes of the iconic company, destroyed by the glue that once bound it together - family.Rocky Road is the story of this chocaholic clan and the creative and eccentric woman who dominated it. Behind the irresistible sweetness of Darrell Lea lay a family who made bitter sacrifices to succeed in the candy business.
PERVERTING THE COURSE OF JUSTICE: The Hilarious and Shocking Inside Story of British Policing
Inspector Gadget - 2008
Arresting 10-year-olds for for stealing sweets… Nicking adults for denying the existence of Santa Claus… Investigating Kelly's ex's new girlfriend's sister's boyfriend's ex for sending her a nasty message on Facebook.These are the things the cops spend their time on (as well as fighting drunk thugs, finding toddlers dead in car crashes and cutting down men who have hanged themselves in public parks).Controversial, gripping, authoritative and, occasionally, very funny - this book takes readers where the powers-that-be don't want them to go. Forget everything you know about law and order: this is the truth.Inspector Gadget is a serving senior police officer. He has written for the New Statesman, The Daily Mail and The Daily Telegraph, and has been praised for his bravery and honesty by everyone from The Sun to The Guardian. His 'Police Inspector' online blog has received more than six million hits and was recently named one of Britain's Top 40 blogs by The Times who said that his writing is 'provocative stuff, and as an insight into life on the policing front line, it’s invaluable.'