Nonfiction Memoir

It’s the late 1960s, and two lovers converge on an arid patch of earth in South India. John Walker is the handsome scion of a powerful East-Coast American family. Diane Maes is a beautiful hippie from Belgium. They have come to build a new world - Auroville, an international utopian community for thousands of people. Their faith is strong, the future bright.

Both reckless and lucky, this serial survivor seeks meaning in a life full of brushes with death and passing glimpses of fame. The life-threatening accidents and mishaps come in many shades: from full-fledged out-of-body experiences, to near misses and close calls, to highway mishaps, dodging bullets, edgy adventures, stupid risks, fights and wars; sometimes just witnessing disaster, or knowing others not so fortunate to escape it. The narrator emerges with a guarded view of the shadowland of death, and brief tastes of the wonderland of stardom. Always coming back home again, chastised and ...

PRELUDE TO THE FIFTH VITAL Mike Majlak was a seventeen-year-old from a loving, middle-class family in Milford, Connecticut, when he got caught up in the opioid epidemic that swept the nation. For close to a decade thereafter, his life was a wasteland of darkness and despair. While his peers were graduating from college, buying homes, getting married, having kids, and leading normal lives, Mike was snorting OxyContin, climbing out of cars at gunpoint, and burying his childhood friends. Unable to escape the noose of addiction, he eventually lost the trust and support of everyone who had ever ...

From a talented emerging writer comes a brave, honest, unforgettable memoir about mental illness, which breaks the silence and shatters the taboos to give hope to all those struggling to find their way through. One day Sophie Hardcastle realised the joy she’d always known had disappeared. She was constantly tired, with no energy, no motivation and no sense of enjoyment for surfing, friends, conversations, movies, parties, family - for anything. Her hours became empty.

Life is linear, memories aren’t. Cinder Block Houses is a collection of five short stories of growing up among the manzanita, pine, trailer parks and cinder block houses of Tuolumne County. Contains the stories: Beyond the Sky, Cat Box, Zodiac Sign: Ford Taurus, Baby Jesus Eyes and Uncle Jimmy’s Shotgun

Two Brothers tells the story of a great sporting family, uncovering new details, exposing myths and placing Jack and Bobby Charlton in their historical context. It's a book about two English footballers but also about English football and England itself.

This book is the best of my work over the last three years and covers jobs around the home such as painting, plumbing, and carpentry. Also there is how to play the saxophone. The last part covers quantum entanglement and the spirit world.

Fresh with discovery of African rhythms, a beginning djembe player tries to fit in with the local jam group, bucking the convention of cover tunes led by frontmen with guitars. On the one hand, he’s emboldened by freedom’s mantra, “It’s all good.” But harmony is not a given, when anxiety and impatience meet ego and status. Leaning on the upbeat and offbeat, a compromise might be struck in the reggae mode, a Third World feel. One way or another, the drop-ins and old hands at the Friday Night Jam have to find a way to get along, and more: to find gold in the moment. Part prose riff ...

Eric Liddell was as close to a saint as any man in modern history has been. Renowned for his athletic prowess, it was also his deeply entrenched values that set him apart from the crowd. These qualities were never better illustrated than in the 1924 Paris Olympics when, having declined his place in the 100 metres owing to the fact that the race was run on a Sunday, he produced an astonishing performance to win gold in the 400 metres and captured the hearts of the world.

James Marsh tells of his evolution from a troubled childhood to a long career in publishing that culminated in the creation of The Canadian Encyclopedia—what one reviewer called “the intellectual equivalent of the building of the CPR.” Through friendships, curiosity, the insights of a charismatic psychiatrist, his passion for books, and the intimate encounters with the authors he met, he championed a diverse and inclusive view of Canada, which was used to draw the great minds of an impossible nation together in a common national enterprise.

From the day James rescued a street cat abandoned in the hallway of his sheltered accommodation, they began a friendship which has transformed both their lives and, through the bestselling books A Street Cat Named Bob and The World According to Bob, touched millions around the world.

From the Corner of Bad and Ass is a collection of Carrie Schiffler’s memories about growing up in welfare housing to absentee and alcoholic parents. Throughout these heart-wrenching and often-hilarious stories, we cheer her on as she fights to survive domestic violence, sexual abuse, and cycles of poverty and addiction ... all before her 18th birthday. Prepare to laugh at her attempts to earn the attention she craves and prepare to cry over the inappropriate attention she receives.

Beckoning Candle is a sweeping family saga that spans four centuries. It is the story of two great nations and Randy Willis' ancestors' struggle under tyranny - religious and political.

The stories I have chosen to share include some of the special people who have touched my heart and helped to mold me. Each of the stories uncovers the direct impact that a simple day or moment has when a person shares their interests, experiences, and life's passions with another person. I have been lucky enough to have encountered some very special people in my life who have shown me how important one person can be in the life of another person.

The inspiring stories of six people who changed history. Contents: Antoine Lavoisier, who wrote the first modern chemistry textbook; Humphry Davy, who discovered 'laughing gas'; Charles Darwin, who changed people's ideas with his theory of evolution; Gregor Mendel, who first discovered the science of genetics; Louis Pasteur, who saved millions of lives by killing germs; Francis Crick, who helped to discover the structure of DNA.

The inspiring stories of six people who changed history, including Confucius, the great Chinese philosopher; Socrates, the great Greek philosopher; Aristotle, the first person to organise scientific knowledge; William Wilberforce, who ended the British slave trade; Karl Marx, who wrote The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital; and Mahatma Gandhi, who helped free India from British rule.

The inspiring stories of six people who changed history, including Alessandro Volta, inventor of the battery; Michael Faraday, inventor of the electric motor; Marie Curie, famous for her work on radioactivity; Albert Einstein, creator of the theory of relativity; Alexander Fleming, discoverer of the first antibiotic; and Linus Pauling, chemist and peace activist.

The inspiring stories of six people who changed history. Contents: Gaius Julius Caesar, the powerful Roman leader; Queen Elizabeth I, who ruled England for 45 years; George Washington, the first president of the USA; King Louis XVI, the last king of France; Winston Churchill, who led Britain in the Second World War; Che Guevara, the Argentinian doctor who fought for revolution.

The inspiring stories of six people who changed history, including Pablo Casals, the Catalan cello player; Louis Armstrong, the American trumpet player and singer; Frank Sinatra, the Italian American singer and actor; Édith Piaf, France's famous singing star; Maria Callas, the Greek opera singer; and Elvis Presley, the man who changed pop music.

The inspiring stories of six people who changed history. Contents: Alfred Nobel, creator of the Nobel Prize; Andrew Carnegie, the businessman who built libraries for poor people; John D. Rockefeller who made money from oil and gave it all away; Thomas Barnardo who created homes for poor children; Henry Wellcome who used his money for medical research; Madam C. J. Walker who gave her money to the African-American community.