Sidelined: Overcoming Odds through Unity, Passion, and Perseverance


Chuck Pagano - 2014
    Only three games into his rookie season in 2012, Pagano was diagnosed with leukemia, sidelined by the side effects chemotherapy and months of recovery.Undeterred, Pagano didn’t let the confines of his hospital bed keep him from coaching: texts, calls, and emails kept him in constant contact with players, staff, and assistants. Motivated to be just as strong and determined as their ailing coach the team started winning game after game, compiling an impressive 11-5 record.The players weren’t the only ones touched by Pagano’s hope and strength of character. Inspired by the tenacity and toughness of their beloved coach, a newcomer to town, thousands of fans united to form Chuckstrong, a movement that soon raised millions to help beat cancer. Pagano, fueled by his faith, his family, and his love of football, returned to lead the Colts to another winning season and the divisional playoffs in 2013.With Pagano’s practical lessons on living, loving, and leading, Sidelined, which includes an 8-page color photo section, inspires us all to stay in the game and never accept defeat.

The Chronicles of Hernia


Barry Cryer - 2009
    In a career spanning forty years, Barry has worked alongside the greatest producers and performers in show business: Tommy Cooper, Humphrey Lyttelton, Morecambe and Wise, Willie Rushton, Peter Cook, Kenny Everett, Rory Bremner to name but a few - this book is a veritable Who's Who of comedy.From humble beginnings at the Windmill Theatre and Expresso Bongo, to The Frost Report, Call My Bluff and I'm Sorry I haven't a Clue, Barry recalls the good, the bad, and the downright ugly in his own inimitable style.'Barry Cryer ...an anecdote jukebox whose whole life is basically one big chatshow.'Guardian

Between Two Rivers: A Story of Life, Love and Marriage from an English Woman in Baghdad


Dorothy al Khafaji - 2013
    When Dorothy set off on a night out with her sister, she never dreamed it would lead to a car journey to Baghdad; but that night she met a dark, mysterious stranger—an Iraqi student named Zane—and almost before she knew it they were married and driving to Baghdad in a borrowed car with their baby daughter. They moved into a house in the suburbs with Zane’s family, throwing Dorothy into the maelstrom of Iraqi culture: letters could take weeks to arrive, there were no mobile phones or computers, and there was no direct dial facility to the UK—she might as well have been living on the moon.

Propellerhead


Antony Woodward - 2001
    .Woodward’s warm, wry account of learning to fly will lift hearts everywhere. BBC2 documentary based on the book - 30 January 2012. Antony Woodward wasn’t interested in flying, he was interested in his image. So in his world of socialising and serial womanising, a microlight plane sounded like the ideal sex aid. So why – once he discovers that he has no ability as a pilot, it costs a fortune and its maddening unreliability loses him the one girl he really wants – does he get more and more hooked?As he monitors the changes to the others in the syndicate; as he learns that there is a literal down-side to cheating in flying exams, shunning responsibility and pretending to know stuff you don’t, the question keeps on surfacing. Why? As the misadventures mount – accidents, tussles with Tornadoes, arrest by the RAF – he keeps thinking he’s worked it out. But it isn’t until The Crash, in which he nearly kills himself and Dan (taking a short-cut in the Round Britain race) that the penny finally drops….Flying is the antidote to modern life he didn’t even know he needed. It’s the supreme way to feel real.

From Last to First: How I Became a Marathon Champion


Charlie Spedding - 2011
    These were the athletes in the Olympic marathon. So how did he end up with a bronze medal? How did he win the London marathon? And why does he still hold the English record for the distance?In this remarkable autobiography, he explains how -- how someone who was almost the bottom of the class when he first went to school, and even worse at sport, eventually turned himself into a world-class athlete, competing in top marathons all over the world, and genuinely going from last to first.As well as the enthralling life story of one of our finest distance runners, this book is a wonderfully clear and inspiring piece of life coaching for anyone who wants to make the most of their talents. But more than this, as Spedding says at the start, 'I believe that on occasions you can create the circumstances in which you can perform at a higher level than your talent says you can.' Spedding's own story, and his chronicle of the big races he excelled in, proves it's trueFor anyone aspiring to run a marathon, or indeed anyone who wants to set themselves a goal they think beyond their reach -- and achieve it -- this is an essential book.

The Coach


Patrick Mouratoglou - 2017
    The Coach is Patrick Mouratoglou's hugely motivational and inspirational story. As a child, he was full of suffering, enduring anxiety attacks at night. In his own words "puny and very timid, paralysed by the shame of not being able to do better". Now, as one of the world's leading tennis coaches he is responsible for transforming the career of Serena Williams and helping her become the greatest of all times. His story is a great example of trial over adversity.

Over and Out: My Innings of a Lifetime with Test Match Special: Memories of Test Match Special from a broadcasting icon


Henry Blofeld - 2017
    His characteristically patrician tones, overlaid with those of the bon viveur, have delighted listeners to the BBC's Test Match Special where the personality of the broadcaster comes second only to a deep knowledge of the game and its players. With his engaging conversational tone it is easy to see why listeners feel as if they are actually at the Test match watching in Henry's friendly company. Now that 'Blowers' has decided to declare his TMS innings closed, his book reveals the secrets of life in the commentary box and of the rich cast of characters with whom he shared it, from the early days of John Arlott and Brian Johnson to Aggers and new boys Boycott, Swann, Vaughan and Tuffers. Henry is equally revealing of his own performances and self-deprecatingly recalls his several verbal misfortunes while live broadcasting. Like the greatest commentators and writers on the game Blofeld has always understood that there is a world beyond the cricket field. Not forgetting pigeons passing, red buses and much loved cricket grounds, Henry Blofeld writes of his favourite countries, and experiences while travelling, and meeting and interviewing many cricket-loving celebrities. His passionate and entertaining book will become one of the classics of cricket's literature.

Tour de Force: My history-making Tour de France


Mark Cavendish - 2021
    "That was perhaps the last race of my career..."'Deep down, Mark Cavendish thought he was finished. After illness, setbacks and clinical depression, the once fastest man in the world had been written off by most. And at the age of 36, even he believed his explosive cycling career would fade out with a whimper. The Manxman hadn't won a single Grand Tour stage in Italy, Spain or France since 2016.But then came his incredible resurrection at the 2021 Tour de France. Included on the Deceuninck Quick-Step team at the very last minute, only after Sam Bennett suffered an injury, Mark set about rewriting history. He claimed back the green jersey he first wore in 2011, and his four stage victories finally saw him matching Belgian legend Eddy Merckx's all-time record of 34 Tour de France stage wins. Cycling greats are never content, and Cav's dogged determination and inner strength had earned him the record that few believed he could ever achieve. This is his own intimate account of that race, right from the saddle of the miracle tour.

Milligan's War: The Selected War Memoirs of Spike Milligan


Spike Milligan - 1988
    Adolf Hitler, Monty, Mussolini, Rommel (who?) - all played their modest parts in the Second World War and the shaping of human destiny, but we all know where the real action was... Milligan's war documents in words and pictures. The most scurrilous, bizarre and certainly the most hilarious military career embarked upon by any bombardier of the 56th heavy regiment, royal artillery, ever.'The most irreverent, hilarious book about the war that I have ever read' Sunday Express 'Desperately funny, vivid, vulgar' Sunday Times 'Milligan is the Great God to all of us' John Cleese 'The Godfather of Alternative Comedy' Eddie Izzard 'That absolutely glorious way of looking at things differently. A great man' Stephen Fry Spike Milligan was one of the greatest and most influential comedians of the twentieth century. Born in India in 1918, he served in the Royal Artillery during WWII in North Africa and Italy. At the end of the war, he forged a career as a jazz musician, sketch-show writer and performer, before joining forces with Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe to form the legendary Goon Show. Until his death in 2002, he had success as on stage and screen and as the author of over eighty books of fiction, memoir, poetry, plays, cartoons and children's stories.

Rags to Richie: The Story So Far


Shane Richie - 2003
    As Eastenders' loveable rogue Alfie Moon he is now the darling of every soap fan in Britain. In this candid autobiography Shane reveals the highs and lows of his life.

Belief Is Its Own Kind of Truth, Maybe


Lori Jakiela - 2015
    She told Lori, “We all have two lives and we carry the maps of those lives with us. Our left hands mark the lives we’re born with. Our right hands mark the lives we make for ourselves.”Belief Is Its Own Kind of Truth, Maybe is a book about mapping those lives – the lives we are born with and the lives we are allowed – and lucky enough – to make for ourselves.Belief is part adoption narrative and part meditation on family, motherhood, nature vs. nurture, and what it means to make our own authentic human connections. It extends the possibilities of creative nonfiction at a time when many people are talking about what exactly truth-in-memoir means. The book’s patchwork form mirrors the fragmented experience of being an adoptee confronting — and trying to heal — her roots.Belief is the story of one woman’s search for her birth mother coupled with the parallel story of her own motherhood and her own re-making. It’s about what it means to be a mother, what it’s like to have two very different blood connections, and what it means to form a family.Belief is about searching for roots and what that means, exactly. It’s about finding a balance between the families we’re born into and the ones we make ourselves.

Unguarded: My Autobiography


Jonathan Trott - 2016
    Yet shortly after reaching those heights, he started to crumble, and famously left the 2012-13 Ashes tour of Australia suffering from a stress related illness. His story is the story of Team England - it encompasses the life-cycle of a team that started out united by ambition, went on to achieve some of the greatest days in the team's history but then, bodies and minds broken, fell apart amid acrimony.Having seen all of this from the inside, Jonathan's autobiography takes readers to the heart of the England dressing room, and to the heart of what it is to be a professional sportsman. Not only does it provide a unique perspective on a remarkably successful period in English cricket and its subsequent reversal, it also offers a fascinating insight into the rewards and risks faced as a sportsman carrying the hope and expectation of a team and a nation. And it's a salutary tale of the dangers pressure can bring in any walk of life, and the perils of piling unrealistic expecations on yourself.

Information Systems Control and Audit


Ron A. Weber - 1998
    This book provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date survey of the field of information systems control and audit written, to serve the needs of both students and professionals.

Boys’ Secrets and Men’s Loves:: A Memoir


David A.J. Richards - 2019
    He has been a prominent advocate of gay rights and feminism, which joins men and women in resistance. A gay man born into an Italian American family in New Jersey, he relates in this book his own experience on how the initiation of boys into patriarchy inflicts trauma, leading them to mindlessly accept patriarchal codes of masculinity, and how (through art, philosophy, and experience—including mutual love) he and others (straight and gay men) come to join women in resisting patriarchy through the discovery of how deeply it harms men as well as women.

Not Normal: The uncensored account of an extraordinary true life story


Paul Connolly - 2018
    An uncensored account of his extraordinary true life story and his lifelong struggle to overcome an abusive childhood and build a 'normal' life for himself and his family. Put out with the rubbish at 2 weeks old and into the care system of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, Paul Connolly was sent to the notorious St Leonard’s home in Essex, where he heard that he was 'Not Normal' almost daily amongst years of mental, physical and sexual abuse. Childhood friendships made and lost. Total Neglect. Starvation. Sending an illiterate, very angry young man out into the world. After years of extreme violence in London during the 1980's and 90's mixing with gangsters and a dark underworld, Paul confronted memories and demons from his past in the most shocking ways - eventually discovering that six from eight of the childhood friends he grew up with in St Leonard's were no longer alive. Great friends and a loving heart transformed Paul’s world and Paul has gone on to help thousands of people as a specialist conditioning coach, sports injury expert, celebrity personal trainer, presenter and best selling author. He works with various charities and is a core participant in the historical child abuse enquiry providing a voice for many of those no longer able to speak up. Above all else, Paul is now most proud of being a loving father to his two sons. Life has been anything but normal and the demons will never go away, but Paul has learned to smile at them as many of the people that predicted the worst for him are now where they told this vulnerable little boy he would end up. This is Paul Connolly’s story and it is Not Normal