A Partial History of Lost Causes


Jennifer duBois - 2012
    With uncommon perception and wit, duBois explores the power of memory, the depths of human courage, and the endurance of love.In St. Petersburg, Russia, world chess champion Aleksandr Bezetov begins a quixotic quest: He launches a dissident presidential campaign against Vladimir Putin. He knows he will not win—and that he is risking his life in the process—but a deeper conviction propels him forward.   In Cambridge, Massachusetts, thirty-year-old English lecturer Irina Ellison struggles for a sense of purpose. Irina is certain she has inherited Huntington’s disease—the same cruel illness that ended her father’s life. When Irina finds an old, photocopied letter her father wrote to the young Aleksandr Bezetov, she makes a fateful decision. Her father asked the chess prodigy a profound question—How does one proceed in a lost cause?—but never received an adequate reply. Leaving everything behind, Irina travels to Russia to find Bezetov and get an answer for her father, and for herself.

Speak Your Truth: Connecting With Your Inner Truth and Learning to Find Your Voice


Fearne Cotton - 2021
    Her voice is her career, her livelihood and the way she communicates with her audience and her loved ones. So, when Fearne's doctor told her she was at risk of needing a throat operation followed by two weeks of being unable to speak, she found herself facing a period of unexpected contemplation.As she considered what silence would mean, Fearne began to think about other times her voice had gone unheard - as a young woman, as 'just the talent', as the foil to louder, more dominant figures. She found herself wondering, at what point do we internalise this message, and start silencing ourselves? When do we swallow down our authentic words to become pleasers and compromisers at the cost of our own happiness or wellbeing? Speak Your Truth dives into all the ways we learn to stay quiet for the wrong reasons, and explores how to find your voice, assert yourself and speak out with confidence.Brave, vulnerable and deeply personal, Speak Your Truth shares Fearne's compelling story and helps you to shape your own.

Fixing Freddie: A True Story about a Boy, a Mom, and a Very, Very Bad Beagle


Paula Munier - 2010
    The puppy that destroys her kitchen cabinets, bites her dates, pees on her neighbours, and bays at the moon is her worst nightmare - and her son's best friend. She tries everything to fix him - from obedience training and an animal behaviorist to puppy prozac and, well, fixing him. But nothing really works. Freddie remains strongly, exclusively, and steadfastly bad. As Mikey grows up and prepares to leave home, Paula's worst fear is that after more than thirty years of raising kids, she'll be left all alone - with Freddie. But the time Mikey graduates from high school, Freddie has howled his way into her heart - and earned a lifelong place in her empty nest.

The Body Shape Bible: Forget Your Size Discover Your Shape Transform Yourself


Trinny Woodall - 2007
    Discover your shape. Transform yourself. The key to looking fabulous lies in your shape, not your size. Join style gurus Trinny & Susannah as they reveal their revolutionary new concept in dressing for your body shape. Discover the 12 definitive female forms and the principles of dressing for each one. So whether you're a pear, cello, vase or lollipop, Trinny & Susannah will help you understand your proportions and show you the key garments and best looks to fit and flatter your figure, leaving you feeling confident and looking amazing. Discover the most common dressing mistakes and your three best looks. Trinny & Susannah select key garments to make up a capsule wardrobe, and show how these basics can be built upon to vary the look. And they show how to make the most of what you already have: what you can do with an ill-fitting or expensive mistake to bring it back to life. Includes a fabulous 22 city directory of shops, outlets and services and other must-have addresses across the UK.

It's About Your Husband


Lauren Lipton - 2006
    She's left her husband in LA and moved to New York for her dream job as a marketing researcher at one of the world's most prestigious firms. But after only five weeks, she's laid off. Now Iris is in a new town with no job, has a divorce on the horizon, and only one friend to speak of: a wild-child named Val.When Val's twin sister, Vickie, asks Iris to spy on her possibly-cheating husband, Iris is desperate (and poor) enough to agree. Soon, she has a whole new business on her hands: spying on men for the doubting women in their lives.Things get complicated when Vickie's husband, Steve, catches on to the fact that their coincidental meetings aren't coincidental at all—not to mention how Steve makes Iris's heart race.

Disaster Preparedness: A Memoir


Heather Havrilesky - 2010
     When Heather Havrilesky was a kid during the '70s, harrowing disaster films dominated every movie screen with earthquakes that destroyed huge cities, airplanes that plummeted towards the ground and giant sharks that ripped teenagers to shreds. Between her parents' dramatic clashes and her older siblings' hazing, Heather's home life sometimes mirrored the chaos onscreen. A thoughtful, funny memoir about surviving the real and imagined perils of childhood and early adulthood, "Disaster Preparedness" charts how the most humiliating and painful moments in Havrilesky's past forced her to develop a wide range of defense mechanisms, some adaptive, some piteously ill-suited to modern life. From premature boxing lessons to the competitive grooming of cheerleading camp, from her parents' divorce to her father's sudden death, Havrilesky explores a path from innocence and optimism to self-protection and caution, bravely reexamining the injuries that shaped her, the lessons that sunk in along the way, and the insights that carried her through. By laying bare her bumps and bruises, Havrilesky offers hope that we can find a frazzled and unruly, desperate and wistful, restless and funny and frayed-at-the-edges way of staring disaster in the face, and even rising to meet it head on. By turns offbeat, sophisticated, uproarious and wise, "Disaster Preparedness" is a road map to the personal disasters we all face from an irresistible voice that gets straight to the unexpected grace at the heart of every calamity.

Free Marketing


Jim Cockrum - 2011
    Thanks to the Internet, a new world of free and inexpensive tactics can help get the word out to the prospects of any business with a limited marketing budget. Free Marketing delivers more than 100 ideas to help any small business owner or marketer generate new revenue--with little or no marketing budget.With both Internet-based and creative offline ideas, you'll discover ways to turn your top customers into your unpaid sales force, get your competitors to help you promote your new products, and other innovative ways to get the word out.Create a "squeeze page," the most powerful one page website you'll ever build Use simple YouTube videos to grow sales Hold an eBay auction for publicity purposes (author Jim Cockrum made $30,000 and earned tons of free publicity from just one auction) and more! Grow a successful business without letting your marketing budget tell you "No." Jim Cockrum has proven that the most powerful marketing strategies are the cheapest.

1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die


Tom Moon - 2008
    The most exciting book on music in years. A book of treasure, a book of discovery, a book to open your ears to new worlds of pleasure. Doing for music what Patricia Schultz—author of the phenomenal 1,000 Places to See Before You Die—does for travel, Tom Moon recommends 1,000 recordings guaranteed to give listeners the joy, the mystery, the revelation, the sheer fun of great music. This is a book both broad and deep, drawing from the diverse worlds of classical, jazz, rock, pop, blues, country, folk, musicals, hip-hop, world, opera, soundtracks, and more. It's arranged alphabetically by artist to create the kind of unexpected juxtapositions that break down genre bias and broaden listeners’ horizons— it makes every listener a seeker, actively pursuing new artists and new sounds, and reconfirming the greatness of the classics. Flanking J. S. Bach and his six entries, for example, are the little-known R&B singer Baby Huey and the '80s Rastafarian hard-core punk band Bad Brains. Farther down the list: The Band, Samuel Barber, Cecelia Bartoli, Count Basie, and Afropop star Waldemer Bastos. Each entry is passionately written, with expert listening notes, fascinating anecdotes, and the occasional perfect quote—"Your collection could be filled with nothing but music from Ray Charles," said Tom Waits, "and you'd have a completely balanced diet." Every entry identifies key tracks, additional works by the artist, and where to go next. And in the back, indexes and playlists for different moods and occasions.

Men and Apparitions


Lynne Tillman - 2018
    I name us Picture People because most special and obvious about the species is, our kind lives on and for pictures, lives as and for images, our species takes pictures, makes pix, thinks in pix. What is behind the human drive to create, remake, and keep images from and of everything? What does it mean that we now live in a -glut of images?- Men and Apparitions takes on a central question of our era through the wild musings and eventful life of Ezekiel Hooper Stark, cultural anthropologist, ethnographer, specialist in family photographs. As Ezekiel progresses from a child obsessed with his family's photo albums to young and passionate researcher to a man devastated by betrayal in love, his academic fascinations determine and reflect his course, touching on such various subjects as discarded images, pet pictures, spirit mediums, the tragic life of his long-dead cousin the semi-famous socialite Clover Adams, and the nature of contemporary masculinity. Kaleidoscopic and encyclopedic, madcap and wry, this book showcases Lynne Tillman not only as a brilliantly original novelist but as one of our most prominent thinkers on culture and visual culture today.

One Pan, Two Plates: More Than 70 Complete Weeknight Meals for Two


Carla Snyder - 2013
    With recipes for home-cooked pasta, grains, sandwiches, beef, pork, chicken, and seafood, plus wine or beer pairings for each dish, One Pan, Two Plates will nourish couples, from newlyweds to empty nesters, every night of the week.

The Kings Are Already Here


Garret Weyr - 2003
    But now, one year away from joining the Company, her mind begins to wander. To clear her head, she decides to visit her father, who lives in Switzerland. There, she meets Nikolai Kotalev, a teenage chess champion, who is looking for the legendary Stas Vlajnik, the teacher who will show him how to be a grand master capable of both grace and speed. Phebe organizes a search across Europe to help Nikolai find the elusive Stas. And all the while, Phebe and Nikolai study each others' obsessions to find the lives they want. What are they each willing to pay for perfection and beauty?

Go: A Complete Introduction to the Game


Cho Chikun - 1997
    Today, go is becoming increasingly popular in the western world as more and more people discover its beauty, elegance, and strategic depth.This book is the best and most authorative introduction to this ancient and fascinating game. Written specifically for the western reader by one of the strongest players in the world, it presents the rules, tactics, and strategy of this unique game in a step-by-step, easy to understand way.Besides showing you how to play, it contains essays about the world of go which will broaden your knowledge and understanding as well as pique your interest. From history to modern tournament play, from traditional playing sets to computer go, you'll find it in these pages.

The Eight


Katherine Neville - 1988
    Before she goes, a mysterious fortune teller warns her of danger, and an antique dealer asks her to search for pieces to a valuable chess set that has been missing for years...In the South of France in 1790 two convent girls hide valuable pieces of a chess set all over the world, because the game that can be played with them is too powerful....

Nadiya’s Family Favourites: Easy, beautiful and show-stopping recipes for every day


Nadiya Hussain - 2018
    . . __________________This is the OFFICIAL companion cookbook, featuring the beautiful, simple and must-try recipes from her upcoming BBC TV series NADIYA'S FAMILY FAVOURITES.Nadiya shares the food she loves to cook and eat with her family and friends, offering fast, easy and delicious new recipes for every kind of day.This cookbook shows you how to create the perfect dishes to complement the moments we all love, from days out with friends to big get-togethers and lazy weekends at home, as well as simple and satisfying solutions for busy weeknights and speedy showstoppers for impromptu guests.Here's a taster of Nadiya's new classics . . .· Mocha Swirls · Smoky Spinach Shakshuka · Bombay Potato Tacos · Lamb Ribs · Grapefruit Chicken Stew · Peanut Honeycomb Banana Cake · Raspberry Ice Cream CakeWith over 100 easy and rewarding recipes, Nadiya's family favourites will soon become yours too. This is the cookbook you'll reach for time and time again for those memorable moments. You'll find quick meal solutions, food to lift the spirits, fuel for hungry bellies and feasts for feeding friends.Let Nadiya's recipes fill your home with memories, just as they do hers. 'She baked her way into our hearts and hasn't stopped since' Prima

12 Years A Slave: True story of an African-American who was kidnapped in New York and sold into slavery - with bonus material: Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe


Solomon Northup - 2014
    Against all odds, Northup eventually manages to get word to his family – and the ensuing rescue from the drunken and sadistic Mr Epps and subsequent legal cases are no less shocking than the rest of the tale.Northup’s meticulous first-hand recordings of slave life, written in conjunction with a white lawyer called David Wilson, provide a true-life testament to tremendous courage and resolve in the face of unspeakable injustice.Now a major Hollywood film, nominated for Best Picture at the 2014 Academy Awards, and directed by Steve McQueen – starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender and Benedict Cumberbatch.