Meet Philadelphia Flyer Wayne Simmonds and Paralympian gold medalist Greg Westlake, who wouldn’t be at the top of their sport without the never-ending support of their families and communities. See how they’re giving back to show young hockey hopefuls that anything is possible. Read about players like Ben Fanelli, who overcame catastrophic injury to keep playing the game he loved and is using his story as a platform to help others, or the renowned Canadian neurosurgeon Dr. Charles Tator, who is leading the charge to protect athletes from the dangers of brain trauma and concussion. From hockey commentators Andi Petrillo and Harnarayan Singh, who broke down barriers to be on air, to Karina Potvin, the youth hockey coach welcoming Syrian boys and girls to Canada by introducing them to our national pastime, these are the stories of everyday hockey heroes—those who defy the odds, advocate for inclusion, and champion the next generation of hockey. From small-town rinks to big city arenas across the country, this collection celebrates everyone who loves our great game. Heartwarming and entertaining, Everyday Hockey Heroes is a must-read for every hockey fan.

    Self-taught, introspective, and from a stiflingly boring farm town, he couldn’t relate to his neighbors. While other boys played outside, he stayed indoors reading Greek mythology. And being gay and overweight, he got used to diminishing himself. But little by little, he started learning from all the sad, strange, lonely outcasts in history who had come before him, and he started to feel hope. In this collection of personal essays, Guy talks about finding a sense of belonging at Berkeley—and stirring up controversy in a newspaper column that led to a run‑in with the Secret Service. He recounts the pitfalls of being typecast as the “Sassy Gay Friend,” and how, after taking a wrong turn in life (i.e. law school), he found stand‑up comedy and artistic freedom. He analyzes society’s calculated deprivation of personhood from fat people, and how, though it’s taken him a while to accept who he is, he has learned that with a little patience and a lot of humor, self-acceptance is possible. Written with Guy’s characteristic blend of wit, guile, and rumination, My Life as a Goddess is an unforgettable and deeply moving book by one of today’s most endearing and galvanizing voices in comedy.

    It soon evolved into a daily must-read for thousands of women worldwide. Now, in a graceful, exquisitely illustrated work with full-color photographs by award-winning photographer Elizabeth Messina, Jacobs offers an informative, therapeutic guide for people who have been diagnosed with the disease.Part personal memoir, part professional guide, The Silver Lining is the book that Jacobs wished she’d had when she began her fight with cancer. She covers what every patient can expect as they go through their specific treatment and teaches other big issues, such as nutrition and how to talk to children about illness. While the book is brimming with action steps to help negotiate each phase of treatment and recovery, every chapter concludes with “Silver Linings”—the sources of inspiration and perspective that buoyed Jacobs through her own journey and that, taken together, comprise the heartbeat of the book.“Like a good friend, this book will be by your side as you travel through the world of breast cancer diagnosis, treatment, and recovery,” says Dr. Susan Love, surgeon, breast cancer research advocate, and author of Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book. An invaluable guide, a gorgeously rendered object of beauty, The Silver Lining will be the manual for breast cancer patients and their loved ones.

    But so few people actually have the bravery to run -- run away from everything and selflessly seek out personal fulfillment on the other side of the world where they don't understand anything and won't be expected to. The world is full of cowards. Tim Anderson was pushing thirty and working a string of dead-end jobs when he made the spontaneous decision to pack his bags and move to Japan, “where my status as a U.S. passport holder and card-carrying ‘American English’ speaker was an asset rather than a liability.” It was a gutsy move, especially for a tall, white, gay Southerner who didn’t speak a lick of Japanese. But his life desperately needed a shot of adrenaline, and what better way to get one than to leave behind everything he had ever known to move to “a tiny, overcrowded island heaving with clever, sensibly proportioned people that make him look fat?” In Tokyo, Tim became a “gaijin,” an outsider whose stumbling progression through Japanese culture is minutely chronicled in these sixteen howlingly funny stories. Yet despite the steep learning curve and the seemingly constant humiliation, the gaijin from North Carolina gradually begins to find his way. Whether playing drums on the fly in an otherwise all-Japanese noise band or attempting to keep his English classroom clean when it’s invaded by an older female student with a dirty mind, Tim comes to realize that living a meaningful life is about expecting the unexpected…right when he least expects it.

    What would happen to her five unintentionally abandoned children? The heartbreak of the devastating loss of my mother was just the beginning of a series of tragic events that shaped my childhood. Lost in the chaos of abuse, I was the unseen collateral damage of domestic violence. I was forced to take on the role of the invisible child for self-preservation. I figured you can’t hurt what you can’t see. Despite all the sadness in this book, my story has a happy ending. Overcoming obstacles that were meant to destroy me taught me many powerful lessons about strength, resilience, and faith. I want to show you that no matter how dark your world seems, there is a light shining right outside the door. You just need to have faith and keep moving forward step by step until you find your peace. Trust me, no matter where your story lies, you can find happiness.

    Then they told it was not just one baby, but six!On 18 November 1983, Janet Walton gave birth to the world’s first all-female sextuplets: Hannah, Lucy, Ruth, Sarah, Kate and Jennie.Janet takes us through the reality of parenting six children of the same age – the extreme sleep deprivation, the bottle-feeding, and later the chaotic routine of getting six girls to school on time. As they grew up, Janet learned to keep a sense of humour through the teenage tantrums and boy trouble, and she watched her little girls blossom into individual, confident young women. She has loved every minute.

    A Lonely Hearts ad in Time Out may not have promised much, but a detailed letter from an Australian called Drew marked the beginning of a relationship. April 1994 Drew was diagnosed with skin cancer. Three months later he died. This is their story.

    Abagnale's story has captured the imagination of audiences around the world as a modern-day folk hero-but the truth could not be more different from the fictitious autobiography he sold to Hollywood. Self-proclaimed as "the world's greatest con man," the true dimensions of Abagnale's hoax are revealed for the first time in this dramatic true story.A shocking new reality emerges through the voices of victims, their families, and others who have seen the truth concealed by decades of deception. Their stories are now exquisitely woven into a tapestry of hard evidence and insights from his former manager, Mark Zinder. The result is a fast-paced drama filled with heroes, villains, mystery and intrigue, answered with unquestionable facts and official records-all definitively disproving Abagnale's longstanding claims of roaming the world as a "teenage millionaire imposter" and working for the District Attorney in Baton Rouge.

    I searched for many years only to find that what I had been searching for, had been right in front of me all along.

    Then came the H1N1 flu pandemic of 2009. It took only vaccine—one seemingly innocuous vaccine to Mathilda, the baby of the family—to change their lives forever. Diagnosed at age three as the world's youngest child with narcolepsy, the joyful and energetic Mathilda rapidly dissolved into someone unrecognizable. In this compelling narrative, Claire Crisp chronicles the fight for Mathilda's treatment. Leaving their family and country in England, the Crisps begin a new journey—one of faith, of loss, and of love as immigrants to the western shores of the United States.

    From the isolated farmhouse of her childhood, to the series of houses her family occupied in small towns across Nebraska as her father pursued his dream of becoming a minister, to the equally small houses she lived in as a single mother and graduate student, houses have shaped her understanding of her place in the world and served as touchstones for a life marked by both constancy and endless cycles of change. On September 12, 2001, Randolph and her husband bought a dilapidated farmhouse on twenty acres outside Lincoln, Nebraska, and set about gutting and rebuilding the house themselves. They had nine months to complete the work. The project, undertaken at a time of national unrest and uncertainty, led Randolph to reflect on the houses of her past and the stages of her life that played out in each, both painful and joyful. As the couple struggles to bring the dilapidated house back to life, Randolph simultaneously traces the contours of a life deeply shaped by the Nebraska plains, where her family has lived for generations, and how those roots helped her find the strength to overcome devastating losses as a young adult. Weaving together strands of departures and arrivals, new houses and deep roots, cycles of change and the cycles of the seasons, Leaving the Pink House is a richly layered and compelling memoir of the meaning of home and family, and how they can never really leave us, even if we leave them.

    But nearly choking to death on her own vomit after yet another secretive binge forced her to seek professional help and confront the origins of her consuming and shame filled behavior of compulsive eating and extreme dieting. This raw, illuminating and tragically comic book is the story of child Azure struggling to survive her upbringing by a brilliant, sociopathic father who starved and belittled her as well as adult Azure attempting to save her marriage and her psyche while contending with her preoccupation with food, her body, a fat-phobic society, and her insatiable hunger for love and acceptance.

    This book will appeal not only to admirers of Khushwant Singhs writing but also to anyone Interested in the history, politics and socio economic scenario of twentieth century India.People profiled in this book include Jawaharlal Nehru, Krishna Menon, Indira Gandhi, Sanjay Gandhi, Amrita Sher Gil, Begum Para, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, M. S. Golwalkar, Mother Teresa, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Dhirendra Brahmachari, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, General Tikka Khan, Phoolan Devi, Giani Zail Singh and Bhagat Puran Singh.About the AuthorKhushwant singh is one of Indias best known and most widely read authors and columnists. He was founder-editor of Yojana and editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India, National Heraldand the Hindustan Times. His first book, The Mark of Vishnu and Other Stories, was published in 1950 and he has published several acclaimed and bestselling books of fiction and non-fiction in the six decades since. He has also translated the work of major Punjabi and Urdu poets and writers, as well as the Japji and the Rehras: The Morning and Evening Prayers of the Sikhs.

    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.

    Ideal for fans of Shuggie Bain and It's A SinDamian Barr sifts through the wreckage of a horrific childhood and manages to extract humour, generosity of spirit and ultimately joy. To say I loved it doesn't begin to convey the mixture of emotions - tears, laughter, anger - I felt while reading it." — Jojo Moyes. "This amazing book tells the story of an appalling childhood with truth and clarity unsmudged by self-pity. It grips from beginning to end." — Diana Athill. Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes meets Billy Elliot, Maggie & Me is a unique, tender, and witty memoir of surviving the tough streets of small town Scotland during the Thatcher years.October 12, 1984. An IRA bomb blows apart the Grand Hotel in Brighton. Miraculously, Maggie Thatcher survives. In small-town Scotland, eight-year-old Damian Barr watches in horror as his mum rips her wedding ring off and packs their bags. He knows he, too, must survive.Damian, his sister, and his Catholic mum move in with her violent new boyfriend while his Protestant dad shacks up with the glamorous Mary the Canary. Divided by sectarian suspicion, the community is held together by the sprawling Ravenscraig Steelworks. But darkness threatens as Maggie takes hold: she snatches school milk, smashes the unions, and makes greed good. Following Maggie's advice, Damian works hard and plans his escape. He discovers that stories can save your life and — in spite of violence, strikes, AIDS, and Clause 28 — manages to fall in love dancing to Madonna in Glasgow's only gay club.Maggie & Me is a touching and darkly witty memoir about surviving Thatcher's Britain; a story of growing up gay in a straight world and coming out the other side in spite of, and maybe because of, the Iron Lady.