I want a baby but not in that crazy, desperate way where I cringe whenever I see someone else with one, or I think nasty, evil thoughts about people who are pregnant, but a child of my own would complete my life and make my husband extremely happy.Jay-Jay Feeney has been married to Dom Harvey since 2004. She always imagined they'd get married, have children, grow old. But so far, things haven't worked out quite as she expected. A high-profile job, an unpredictable family life, and medical procedures and emergencies have kept her on her toes. Here is Jay-Jay's story, told with a mix of brutal honesty and humor, in which she charts the highs and lows of life lived both in the public gaze and in the shadow of infertility.

    His boxing career blighted by broken hands, the New York Irishman had won five of his previous 21 bouts and had been forced to quit. The Great Depression was at its height. When work dried up on the Hudson River docks, Braddock was forced to claim welfare relief to feed his young family.Then came a visit from his old manager, asking if he wanted one more fight. Desperate for money, Braddock had no choice but to say yes. Four wins later, he was the heavyweight champion of the world in the greatest upset in the sport’s history.Braddock’s rags-to-riches success led Damon Runyon to call him the Cinderella Man. His story captivated the nation in much the way the racehorse Seabiscuit’s would a few years later. Braddock came to represent the struggle for survival facing many families in mid-1930s America.James J. Braddock was born in New York City in 1906, one of seven children. He developed an early taste for fighting and quit school to work a series of menial jobs before resolving to pursue his boxing dream. Over the next decade he became a contender, before injury ruined his prospects. Redemption came on the night of June 13, 1935, with his famous victory over the outrageous champion Max Baer. Braddock would later lose his title to the great Joe Louis, but his place as the people’s champion was cemented forever.Author Michael DeLisa is historical consultant on a major motion picture entitled The Cinderella Man, starring Russell Crowe and Renée Zellweger, to be released in the summer of 2005.

    Before then, he'd witnessed seances at home and the kids at school sometimes teased him about his mom being a witch--so he sensed that his life wasn't typical. But it wasn't until he was backstage at Massey Hall in Toronto, watching from behind a curtain as Geraldine commanded an audience of 2,000 with her extrasensory readings, that he understood she was special. As Geraldine's only child, in subsequent years he would assume the role of the quiet observer while she guided a live CBC broadcast of a seance; made startling and consistently accurate predictions; and eventually offered her services to the parents of murder victims in LA. Over time, the high profile and emotionally depleting work affected Geraldine's health and relationships--addiction took over her life, and her son pulled away.Fast forward to the present day: Christian is a molecular biologist at a hospital in Toronto, and Geraldine is retired and in poor health. They are closer than they've ever been, and now he gives us the story of her undeniable perceptual abilities and pioneering work as a psychic--and endeavours to make scientific sense of it. Weaving together the strands of a complicated mother-son relationship with research into the paranormal, The Scientist and the Psychic is a fascinating, one-of-a-kind true story of belief, skepticism and familial love.

    His experience was not the little league, boys-of-summer stuff of modern America. For him, it was life and death. Now middleaged and living in California, Alan finds himself coaching a team of eight-year-olds in his beloved sport—and nothing is going right. For a start, the kids are no good at soccer. Secondly, they’re pampered. Born and bred on the sport, Black’s hardscrabble Scottish upbringing consisted of playing tough and victory at all costs. Needless to say, his coaching methods are a far cry from the “winning isn’t everything” mentality his little leaguers have been reared with; and players and parents alike are shocked as Black attempts to transform the losing team through drills and bombast. Alone at night, watching evangelicals on TV, Black finds himself searching for some truth in the culture he finds so bizarre. And it’s with the Tigers that he feels most out of sync—faced with a mix of soft suburban children, a raft of overprotective parents, and an Iranian co-coach called Ali. Told with Black’s uproarious Scottish sensibility, Kick the Balls follows the abrasive, irreverent, and hilarious coach as he contends with a team that winds up with a zero-win record. Both a celebration of his own tough childhood and an account of one man’s navigation of an alien culture, Kick the Balls will delight fans of well-told, laugh-out-loud memoirs.

    He spent the first year of his sobriety close to home, tending his garden, where he cast his mind back over his life, searching for the memories he'd tried to drown in vodka. Lane has gardened for as long as he can remember, and his garden's life has become inseparable from his own. A new bloom on a plant, a skirmish among the birds, the way a tree bends in the wind, and the slow, measured change of seasons invariably bring to his mind an episode from his eventful past. What the Stones Remember is the emerging chronicle of Lane's attempt to face those memories, as well as his new self--to rediscover his life. In this powerful and beautifully written book, Lane offers readers an unflinching and unsentimental account of coming to one's senses in the presence of nature.

    In a raw, first-person account, Waite recounts each heartbreaking discovery, every life-destroying lie, and reveals what happens once the dust finally settles on her demolished marriage.After a disturbing email sparks Waite's suspicion that her husband is having an affair, she tries to uncover the truth and rebuild trust in her marriage. Instead, she finds more lies, infidelity, and betrayal than she could have imagined. Waite obsessively analyzes her relationship, trying to find a single moment from the last five years that isn't part of the long-con of lies and manipulation. With a dual-timeline narrative structure, we see Waite's romance bud, bloom, and wither simultaneously, making the heartbreak and disbelief even more affecting.

    Darkness closed around me before he got to 7. That's when I found out what it's like to die--and to come back from the dead."It was a beautiful winter's day, showing no signs of what was to come. Steve Sjogren, pastor of one of America's fastest growing churches, went into the hospital for routine gall bladder surgery and died--twice. What began as a tragic medical accident led to Steve's encounter with death, an experience of unimaginable peace and some surprises, with comforting words from God, a meeting with an angel, and seeing those who had died before him.If you, or someone you know, are fearful of dying, curious about heaven, or simply desiring to live life to its fullest, this encouraging book could change how you view life and death.

    To start over. To transform the fiercely ambitious but sexually confused teenager he saw in the mirror into the Broadway leading man of his dreams. In Too Much Is Not Enough, Rannells takes us on the journey of a twentysomething hungry to experience everything: new friends, wild nights, great art, standing ovations. And at the heart of his hunger lies a powerful drive to reconcile the boy he was and the man he might have been with the man he wants to be. As Rannells reveals how he merged these Andrews into the one who made his Broadway debut at 26, he also shares stories from his path to the Great White Way, from horrible auditions and behind-the-curtain romances to the exhilaration of landing his first gig in Hairspray and the heartbreaking death of his father at the height of his ascent. Along the way, Rannells learns that you never really leave your past--or your family--behind; that the most painful, and perversely motivating, jobs are the ones you almost get; and that sometimes the most unforgettable nights are marked not by the hot clubs you danced at, but by the recap over diner food after. Filled with candor and humor, Too Much Is Not Enough is an entertaining look at love, loss, and the powerful forces that determine who we become.

    But there is more to Chloe than viewers see on the TV, and the drama doesn’t stop when the camera stops rolling. Just two years ago, Chloe was a single mother struggling to make ends meet doing a string of jobs she hated and wondering if she would ever find happiness. Since joining the cast of The Only Way Is Essex, her life is now a whirlwind of glitzy parties and jet-set holidays, but life hasn’t always dealt Chloe a good hand. Her story is one of triumph over adversity, with plenty of laughs along the way. From her turbulent childhood where she was raised by a neighbor after her mother abandoned her, to battling with bullies and struggling with an eating disorder, to the magical moment when she met the man of her dreams.

    Entertaining more than a million people a year in the 1980s, the New Jersey-based amusement playland placed no limits on danger or fun, a monument to the anything-goes spirit of the era that left guests in control of their own adventures--sometimes with tragic results. Though it closed its doors in 1996 after nearly twenty years, it has remained a subject of constant fascination ever since, an establishment completely anathema to our modern culture of rules and safety. Action Park is the first-ever unvarnished look at the history of this DIY Disneyland, as seen through the eyes of Andy Mulvihill, the son of the park's idiosyncratic founder, Gene Mulvihill. From his early days testing precarious rides to working his way up to chief lifeguard of the infamous Wave Pool to later helping run the whole park, Andy's story is equal parts hilarious and moving, chronicling the life and death of a uniquely American attraction, a wet and wild 1980s adolescence, and a son's struggle to understand his father's quixotic quest to become the Walt Disney of New Jersey. Packing in all of the excitement of a day at Action Park, this is destined to be one of the most unforgettable memoirs of the year.

    The Skin We're In will spark a national conversation, influence policy, and inspire activists.In his 2015 cover story for Toronto Life magazine, Desmond Cole exposed the racist actions of the Toronto police force, detailing the dozens of times he had been stopped and interrogated under the controversial practice of carding. The story quickly came to national prominence, shaking the country to its core and catapulting its author into the public sphere. Cole used his newfound profile to draw insistent, unyielding attention to the injustices faced by Black Canadians on a daily basis.Both Cole’s activism and journalism find vibrant expression in his first book, The Skin We’re In. Puncturing the bubble of Canadian smugness and naive assumptions of a post-racial nation, Cole chronicles just one year—2017—in the struggle against racism in this country. It was a year that saw calls for tighter borders when Black refugees braved frigid temperatures to cross into Manitoba from the States, Indigenous land and water protectors resisting the celebration of Canada’s 150th birthday, police across the country rallying around an officer accused of murder, and more.The year also witnessed the profound personal and professional ramifications of Desmond Cole’s unwavering determination to combat injustice. In April, Cole disrupted a Toronto police board meeting by calling for the destruction of all data collected through carding. Following the protest, Cole, a columnist with the Toronto Star, was summoned to a meeting with the paper’s opinions editor and informed that his activism violated company policy. Rather than limit his efforts defending Black lives, Cole chose to sever his relationship with the publication. Then in July, at another police board meeting, Cole challenged the board to respond to accusations of a police cover-up in the brutal beating of Dafonte Miller by an off-duty police officer and his brother. When Cole refused to leave the meeting until the question was publicly addressed, he was arrested. The image of Cole walking out of the meeting, handcuffed and flanked by officers, fortified the distrust between the city’s Black community and its police force.Month-by-month, Cole creates a comprehensive picture of entrenched, systemic inequality. Urgent, controversial, and unsparingly honest, The Skin We’re In is destined to become a vital text for anti-racist and social justice movements in Canada, as well as a potent antidote to the all-too-present complacency of many white Canadians.

    As Moody has put it, "this is a story in which a lot of bad luck is the daily fare of the protagonists, but in which they are also in love.” To Moody’s astonishment, matrimony turns out to be the site of strength in hard times, a vessel infinitely tougher and more durable than any boat these two participants would have traveled by alone. Love buoys the couple, lifting them above their hardships, and the reader is buoyed along with them.

     Who’d be a copper? follows Jonathan Nicholas in his transition from a long-haired world traveller to becoming one of ‘Thatcher’s army’ on the picket lines of the 1984 miner’s dispute and beyond. His first years in the police were often chaotic and difficult, and he was very nearly sacked for not prosecuting enough people. Working at the sharp end of inner-city policing for the entire thirty years, Jonathan saw how politics interfered with the job; from the massaging of crime figures to personal petty squabbles with senior officers. His last ten years were the oddest, from being the best cop in the force to repeatedly being told that he faced dismissal. This astonishing true story comes from deep in the heart of British inner-city policing and is a revealing insight into what life is really like for a police officer, amid increasing budget cuts, bizarre Home Office ideas and stifling political correctness. “I can write what I like, even if it brings the police service into disrepute, because I don’t work for them anymore!” says Jonathan Nicholas. Who’d be a copper? is a unique insight into modern policing that will appeal to fans of autobiographies, plus those interested in seeing what really happens behind the scenes of the UK police."I HAVE BOUGHT YOUR BOOK."  TW,  Sir Thomas Winsor, WS HMCIC"A WEALTH OF ANECDOTES. FASCINATING." John Donoghue, author of 'Police, Crime & 999'"AN ILLUMINATING ACCOUNT OF LIFE AS A FRONT LINE OFFICER IN BRITAIN'S POLICE, A SERVICE OFTEN STRETCHED FOR RESOURCES BUT MIRED IN RED TAPE AND POLITICAL CORRECTNESS."  Pat Condell, author of 'Freedom is My Religion'

    But this is not just another harrowing story about an excruciating childhood and the ravages on a life it produces. The difference is that Mez not only escaped from his 'trial by parent' but he discovered a hope that has transformed his life. He in turn has helped others find hope in their lives. Mez's story is told with a frankness and wit that hides much of the pain and despair that was his everyday experience. Nevertheless, although his story at times may sicken you, his first brushes with the faith that restored him will make you laugh out loud! Mez's life involved abuse, violence, drugs, thieving and prison - but you don't have to fall as far as him in order to climb out of the traps in your life. Do you like happy endings? Mez still suffers from his experiences but you'll be amazed at how far you can be restored from such a beginning.