Prostitute. Gangster’s Wife. Survivor. Tara grew up in squalor on the island of Alderney. When she was only four, she was sexually abused by one of her mother’s many lovers, a horror that continued for five long years. As a teenager, desperate to escape the toxic environment at home, she fled to London – but was swiftly drawn into working as a prostitute. She became involved with some of London’s most notorious gangsters – even marrying one – but when she realised the danger she was inflicting on her children, she knew she had to find a way to get out. This is the inspiring story of one woman’s will to survive, and to fight for a better life.

    Miraculously, his daughter was unharmed, but his wife faced a series of life-threatening injuries, including the same one that famously left Christopher Reeve paralyzed. Following the accident, Segal began sending regular email updates to their circle of friends and family—a list that continued to grow as others heard of the event and were moved by the many emotional and spiritual issues it raised. Segal's compelling memoir is an intimate and honest chronicle built around these email updates, and is a profound example of how people show up for one another in times of crisis.Alternatingly harrowing, humorous, heartbreaking, and hopeful, this is an uplifting tribute to love, determination, and how the compassion of community holds the power to heal, serving as an inspiring testament to the resilience of the human spirit when faced with pain and adversity.

    Over the next 2 years, I was attacked by a few wild animals, experienced unexplained phenomenon, had a massive learning curve and truly experienced the Australian outback. If you are after a story that was written to appeal to the masses and that mainstream publishers love, then this probably isn't for you. If you are after a lighthearted read that provides the raw truth about life out bush and my experience of it, then click away. I hope you enjoy. Note - mature themes.

    Upon graduation from high school, I enlisted in the United States Air Force, not knowing where my travels would take me. I volunteered for flying duty and was sent to McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey in 1963. From there, I traveled all over the world transporting troops.In 1973, I volunteered and was accepted into the 89th military airlift wing, special air missions organization at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, which required a top secret clearance, and was the home of Air Force One.After experiencing my first Air Force One backup trip with President Nixon to Europe and the Middle East, I set another goal to become a permanent member of the Air Force One flight crew; but it did not happen right away.Meanwhile, I was privileged to fly missions that included a 33 day presidential goodwill trip with the Apollo 17 astronauts, (the last men to walk on the moon), around the world, the prime minister of India, premier of China, Chancellor of Germany, President of Turkey, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, President Carter's mother, Ms Lillian, cabinet level officers, members of congress, high ranking military officers, Vice President's Ford and Mondale.On September 1, 1979, I was selected as a permanent member of the Air Force One flight crew, during the last 16 months of the Carter administration, 8 years with President Reagan (19 months of which were served as his Chief Steward), 3 1/2 years as chief steward for President Bush SR. To quote President Bush Sr., "It was great to travel with the First Team".The Presidents I was privileged to serve were ordinary folks like you and I, who did extraordinary things to be elected. Personally, I had the time of my life, fulfilling my dreams of world travels, and it truly was a privilege and pleasure to serve the Presidents aboard Air Force One.

    It is a yarn still told in a hundred bars in tucked away ports where seafarers drink and wait out stormy weather. The story takes the reader on a smuggling voyage from the Atlantic down the Red Sea to Kenya, to Thailand and back across the Indian Ocean to Spain then the Netherlands. No notoriety, no articles in magazines, no calling for help when things get bad. Medical emergencies at sea, sharks, pirates, monsoon storms, and the Guardia Civil, notwithstanding… backing off was not an option. After 12 years of sailing and smuggling in the N. Atlantic and the Caribbean, Ranen, an old school pre electronic navigation sailor who smuggles to pay the bills for a lifestyle of dangerous freedom, heads for the Indian Ocean aboard his sleek deep ocean sailing boat, Sara. He left with a solid plan to sail new oceans, and do business in a new arena with different cultures. What happens when he gets there sends him on a path that was nothing he imagined, but such is the world of sailing and smuggling. Although Ranen has written this story in first person, It is also told from the perspective of the courageous young “Kenya Cowgirl” who became his crew and lover, all told through her journal entries from that voyage. In the days when “5/11” Beverly Johnson and Lynn Hill were winning the respect of the “rock star” climbers in Yosemite, Ranen was throwing a young Arianna Bell into the maelstrom of long distance non-stop sailing/smuggling. This is her story as well. Surprising twists of fate, cat and mouse with the law and other bad guys, as well as up close accounts of at life at sea in challenging conditions. Like living in a Dylan song.

    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.

    Surely an extension would give him a renewed sense of purpose in life as he approached old age.But as the walls of his home crumbled, so too did his mental health, and he fell, once again, into depression -- that great darkness where life feels like nothing more than a waste of time.And yet, it is in that great darkness that we discover what really makes us human. 'Michael Harding is no ordinary man or memoirist ... a book that champions the kindness (or at least company) of strangers as essential for that elusive state known as happiness' RTÉ Guide

    The Communists were in power, but the Harvard of China was a hotbed of intellectual and cultural activity, with political debates and "English Corners" where students eagerly practiced the language among themselves. Nineteen-year-old Wei had known the oppressive days of the Cultural Revolution, having grown up with her parents in a work camp in a remote region of China. Now, as a student, she was allowed to immerse herself in study and spend her free hours writing poetry -- that bastion of bourgeois intellectualism -- beside the Lake with No Name at the center of campus. It was there that Wei met Dong Yi. Although Wei's love was first subsumed by the deep friendship that developed between them, it smoldered into a passionate longing. Ties to other lovers from their pasts stood always between them as the years passed and Wei moved through her studies, from undergraduate to graduate. Yet her relationship with Dong Yi continued to deepen as each season gave way to the next. Amid the would-be lovers' private drama, the winds in China were changing, and the specter of government repression loomed once again. By the spring of 1989, everything had changed: student demands for freedom and transparency met with ominous official warnings of the repercussions they would face. The tide of student action for democracy -- led by young men and women around the university, including Dong Yi -- inexorably pushed the rigid wall of opposition, culminating in the international trauma at Tiananmen Square. On June 4, 1989, tanks rolled into the square and blood flowed on the ancient city streets. It was a day that would see the end of lives, dreams -- and a tortuous romance between two idealistic spirits. Lake with No Name is Diane Wei Liang's remembrance of this time, of her own role in the democratic movement and of the friends and lovers who stood beside her and made history on that terrible day.

    As they take on the management of their new employers’ majestic house, will the opportunities to create luscious food for the guests and explore rural France enable them to create a dream life? Or will French officialdom, family illness and a sudden career curveball send them hurrying home to New Zealand?Perfect for fans of Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence, Janine Marsh’s My Good Life in France and Beth Haslam’s Fat Dogs and French Estates.

    Theirs was a groundbreaking union between one DJ and five rapping MCs. One of the first hip hop posses, they were responsible for such masterpieces as “The Message” and “Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel.” In the 1970s Grandmaster Flash pioneered the art of break-beat DJing—the process of remixing and thereby creating a new piece of music by playing vinyl records and turntables as musical instruments. Disco-era DJs spun records so that people could dance. The original turntablist, Flash took it a step further by cutting, rubbing, backspinning, and mixing records, focusing on “breaks”—what Flash described as “the short, climactic parts of the records that really grabbed me”—as a way of heightening musical excitement and creating something new. Now the man who paved the way for such artists as Jay-Z, Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, and 50 Cent tells all—from his early days on the mean streets of the South Bronx, to the heights of hip hop stardom, losing millions at the hands of his record label, his downward spiral into cocaine addiction, and his ultimate redemption with the help and love of his family and friends. In this powerful memoir, Flash recounts how music from the streets, much like rock ’n’ roll a generation before, became the sound of an era and swept a nation with its funk, flavor, and beat.

    Part memoir and part exploration of youth sports and the exploding popularity of American hockey, Pee Wees follows the ups and downs of the Ridgefield Bears, the twelve-year-old boys and girls on the team, and the parents watching, cheering, conniving, and cursing in the stands. It is a book about the love of the game, the love of parents for their children, and the triumphs and struggles of both.

    Not moving my head, I direct my eyes to a point halfway up the archway where Kim Jong-il's face will soon appear.As North Korea's State Poet Laureate, Jang Jin-sung led a charmed life. With food provisions (even as the country suffered through its great famine), a travel pass, access to strictly censored information, and audiences with Kim Jong-il himself, his life in Pyongyang seemed safe and secure. But this privileged existence was about to be shattered. When a strictly forbidden magazine he lent to a friend goes missing, Jang Jin-sung must flee for his life.Never before has a member of the elite described the inner workings of this totalitarian state and its propaganda machine. An astonishing expose told through the heart-stopping story of Jang Jin-sung's escape to South Korea, Dear Leader is a rare and unprecedented insight into the world's most secretive and repressive regime.

    Today Ron Ball and I are romantically involved, it read, but I fear I have placed myself at risk in a variety of ways. Based on his criminal past, writing this out just seems like the smart thing to do. If I am missing or dead this obviously has not protected me... That same spring Janine Latus was struggling to leave her marriage -- a marriage to a handsome and successful man. A marriage others emulated. A marriage in which she felt she could do nothing right and everything wrong. A marriage in which she felt afraid, controlled, inadequate, and trapped. Ten weeks later, Janine Latus had left her marriage. She was on a business trip to the East Coast, savoring her freedom, attending a work conference, when she received a call from her sister Jane asking if she'd heard from Amy. Immediately, Janine's blood ran cold. Amy was missing. Helicopters went up and search dogs went out. Coworkers and neighbors and family members plastered missing posters with Amy's picture across the county. It took more than two weeks to find Amy's body, wrapped in a tarpaulin and buried at a building site. It took nearly two years before her killer, her former boyfriend Ron Ball, was sentenced for her murder. Amy died in silent fear and pain. Haunted by this, Janine Latus turned her journalistic eye inward. How, she wondered, did two seemingly well-adjusted, successful women end up in strings of physically or emotionally abusive relationships with men? If I Am Missing or Dead is a heart-wrenching journey of discovery as Janine Latus traces the roots of her own -- and her sister's -- victimization with unflinching candor. This beautifully written memoir will move readers from the first to the last page. At once a confession, a call to break the cycle of abuse, and a deeply felt love letter to her baby sister, Amy Lynne Latus, If I Am Missing or Dead is an unforgettable read.

    During his time on The West Wing, he witnessed the surreal nexus of show business and politics both on the set and in the actual White House. And in between are deft and humorous stories of the wild excesses that marked the eighties, leading to his quest for family and sobriety.Never mean-spirited or salacious, Lowe delivers unexpected glimpses into his successes, disappointments, relationships, and one-of-a-kind encounters with people who shaped our world over the last twenty-five years. These stories are as entertaining as they are unforgettable.

    A mix of Tony Hawk and Brian Welch comes together in skateboarding legend Christian Hosoi, who reveals everything about his rise, fall, and redemption, in this amazing tell-all—from being named the greatest skater of all time to bottoming out on drugs to finally finding redemption through God.Fans of Slater Kelly’s Pipe Dreams and Brian Welch’s Save Me From Myself, and followers of Tony Alva, Jay Adams, and Steve Caballero, will be captivated by this extraordinary, star-studded story, a gripping read that ranges from the heart of the 1980s skateboarding scene to the inside of a prison, from Hollywood parties to intense prayer sessions.Hosoi: My Life as a Skateboarder Junkie Inmate Pastor takes readers to the heart of one little-known world after another—and he portrays them in all their gore and glory for all the world to see.