Other books that might interest you

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  Seeing Things at Night - A...

  Heywood Broun

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  Short pieces from the New York Tribune - on insomnia, on the theater, on being a man of no importance in a large city. Broun was the best-loved American columnist of his generation and founded the Newspaper Guild.

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  A Modest Proposal (Hero Classics)

  Jonathan Swift

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  A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends; and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter.

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  Open Door An - A True Story of...

  Maud Kells, Jean Gibson

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  'I was aware of a slight unease. In all my years at the hospital, I had never had a hoax call. Suddenly out of the darkness ran two masked figures in camouflage clothing pointing something shaped like a gun, covered in leaves. "You won't scare me. You won't get the better of me." flashed through my mind as I reached out to grab the weapon . . .' 
   
   
   
  When twenty-five-year-old Maud Kells gave up her home in Ireland to replace martyred missionaries in Congo, she was acutely aware of the risk she was taking. Despite the state of the war-torn country, her own reserved nature and the objections of her family, she chose to follow the God who promised, 'I am with you. That is all you need.' This is the remarkable story of an ordinary woman who decided to walk through the door God opened for her, whatever the cost.

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  Making a Living - From their...

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman

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  Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born on 3rd July 1860 in Hartford, Connecticut, to an unaffectionate mother and a father who abandoned her and her older brother to a life of poverty. 
  Inevitably her schooling was limited and by 15 she had attended seven different schools but received only four years education.  However Charlotte was resourceful and did spend time with her father’s aunts – the suffragist Isabella Beecher Hooker and the ‘Uncle Tom Cabin’s’ author, Harriet Beecher Stowe as well as many hours at the public library studying ancient civilisations. 
  In 1878, she enrolled in classes at the Rhode Island School of Design where she met Martha Luther and they developed a close relationship until Luther married in 1881. Charlotte was devastated and detested romance and love until she met and married the artist Charles Walter Stetson.  
  Their only child, Katharine Beecher Stetson, was born in 1885 but left Charlotte with post-natal depression, then often dismissed as a case of hysteria or nerves.  Unsuited to domestic life she ruptured her life and moved to California with Katherine.  She divorced in 1894 and then sent Katharine east to live with her father and his second wife confirming that his paternal rights be acknowledged and that Katherine establish a relationship with her father. 
  After her mother died in 1893, Charlotte moved back east and became involved with her first cousin, Wall Street attorney, Houghton Gilman who she married in 1900. After his death she moved back to California, where Katherine now lived.   
  Her most popular story is ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ which touched on her own post-partum depression and underlined the need for women to be responsible for their mental and physical well-being, as the narrator is ordered by her husband/doctor to take compete rest in her room where she is isolated and becomes obsessed with the revolting yellow wallpaper.   
  She wrote other notable short stories the best of which we also include.   
  Charlotte lectured widely for social reform, wrote important non-fiction works that questioned our patriarchal system and left a legacy as a leading and positive spokesperson for feminism.  
  She was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer in 1932 and, as she wrote in her suicide note and autobiography, she ‘chose chloroform over cancer’    
  Charlotte Perkins Gilman took her own life on 17th August 1935, aged 75, in Pasadena, California.

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  Snake Men - Rebels Reptiles and...

  Zach St. George

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  A wry and thought-provoking tale about the defiant, eccentric figures obsessed with Australia's deadliest reptiles. 
  Raymond Hoser is known as the Snakeman, a moniker he has zealously defended. As a day job, Hoser runs a business in Melbourne that offers several services. One service is snake removal, a common trade in Australia. Another is snake shows, most often performed at children's birthday parties. But by the 2010s, Hoser had become famous around the world for an entirely different activity: his work as a taxonomist, a namer of new species. In a decade-long spree, Hoser had named thousands of new creatures, including more snakes than any other scientist. To some, Hoser's accomplishments were a scientific triumph. But others have accused Hoser of what they call "taxonomic vandalism," the results of which, they argue, could alter the very course of life on Earth. 
  Snake Men recounts this outrageous and humorous story, tracing the surprising intersection between taxonomists, the sober and serious class of scientists who have for centuries cooperated in a global effort to understand the order of life, and Raymond Hoser and other snake men. The results―chaotic, mischievous, the stuff of legends―hint at the rebellious impulse that lies coiled somewhere deep inside us all.

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  Maggie Alphonsi - Winning the Fight

  Maggie Alphonsi, Gavin Mairs

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  Maggie has changed the way the game is played forever' - The Sunday Times
  
  Maggie Alphonsi is not only a national sporting icon, the face of international women’s rugby and star player of the England side that won the World Cup in 2014. She is also an inspirational and totemic figure who transcends sport.
  
  The compelling story of her life makes her achievements even more extraordinary. Hers is an against-all-the-odds tale, becoming the best player in the world despite having to battle against racism, sexism, and prejudice.
  
  It is a book forged from the raw emotion, passion, and testimony of an iconic player, who rose to the elite of world sport when the world was seemingly stacked against her. It is a moving and revealing story of a woman who was not prepared to be defined by anyone but herself and gives the reader a unique insight into how she met her goals.

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