Other books that might interest you

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  August in Kabul - America's last...

  Andrew Quilty

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  Told through the eyes of witnesses to the fall of Kabul, Walkley award-winning journalist Andrew Quilty's debut publication offers a remarkable record of this historic moment. 
  As night fell on 15 August 2021, the Taliban entered Kabul, capital of Afghanistan. After a 20-year conflict with the United States, its Western allies and a proxy Afghan government, the Islamic militant group once aligned with al Qaeda was about to bury yet another foreign foe in the graveyard of empires. And for the US, the superpower, this was yet another foreign disaster. As cities and towns fell to the Taliban in rapid succession, Western troops and embassy staff scrambled to flee a country of which its government had lost control. August in Kabul is the story of how America's longest mission came to an abrupt and humiliating end, told through the eyes of Afghans whose lives have been turned upside down: a young woman who harbours dreams of a university education; a presidential staffer who works desperately to hold things together as the government collapses around him; a prisoner in the notorious Bagram Prison who suddenly finds himself free when prison guards abandon their post. Andrew Quilty was one of a handful of Western journalists who stayed in Kabul as the city fell. This is his first-hand account of those dramatic final days. 
   
  ‘A compelling, thought provoking must-read about the days leading up to the fall of Kabul and its aftermath from a photo-journalist who spent almost a decade living in Afghanistan, capturing both its sorrows and its joys.’ YALDA HAKIM

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  Going Under - Kidnapping Murder...

  John Madinger

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  "I just want to make sure I've got this right. You hanged all three of them?" 
   
   
   
  That's how it began, a case where the cops are crooks and the crooks are cops, a kidnapping where the victim is the bad guy, and the good guys must cross some lines to get him back. Welcome to the upside down and backward world of the undercover agent, where nothing is as it seems, and people may not be what they appear. Going Under by former undercover agent John Madinger takes you into that world, and closer to the truth of the undercover experience than any other law enforcement memoir has ever gone. 
   
   
   
  You're a sheepdog in wolf's clothing, running with the pack, and Madinger ran with the wolves for almost two decades. Now he shares his story to give you a unique look at American crime and the "War on Drugs" from the perspective of both cops and criminals. You'll go with the undercover cops to meetings with street-corner hustlers and rip-off artists and into the lives of the America's biggest rock stars, the world's richest man, an Academy Award-winning actor, the marijuana traffickers conspiring to assassinate a federal judge, and the President of the United States. 
   
   
   
  Contains mature themes.

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  Gentle and Fierce - Essays

  Vanessa Berry

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  To be gentle is to resist the privileging of command above compassion. It is a quiet voice, a persistent whisper, calm and consoling. Ferocity is an armour, a forceful expression of resolve and protection. To be fierce is to know the intensity of the edges of feeling. It is the voice that calls out, intending to be heard.  
  Gentle and Fierce focuses on the world that humans share with animals. Having spent her life in city environments, Vanessa Berry’s experiences with animals have largely been through encounters in urban settings, representations in art and the media, and as decorative ornaments or kitsch. The essays in Gentle and Fierce suggest that these encounters provide meaningful connections, at a time when our shared world is threatened by environmental destruction. Berry responds with attentiveness and empathy to her subjects, which include a stuffed Kodiak bear, a Japanese island overrun by rabbits, a porcelain otter and Georges Perec’s cat. The essays are accompanied by Berry’s illustrations, which reflect her eye for detail and her background as an artist and zine maker. 
  Who better than Vanessa Berry, with her pointillist attention and sly humour to document the surprising ways that animals enrich, inform and shadow our human natures. Whether recollecting Frank a taxidermied Kodiak bear, noting the snails that turn letters to Sylvia Plath into lace, or zipping together a personal history with flies, Berry elevates and commemorates those lives that are entangled – too often invisibly – with our own. Ethically astute, formally clever and deftly political, Gentle and Fierce evokes the work of John Berger and Jenny Odell. An urgent and poignant reminder of what we have lost and might yet gain from the more-than-human world. – Mireille Juchau

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  The Mystical Symphony - A Memoir...

  Judith E. Bowen

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  “I notice a Bible and some books on a small table in the front of the church. I think I'll just read and settle into a pew. Suddenly, I'm not sitting on a hard pew. I'm in some other space, a place where I have never been before. It glows, shimmers. I'm suddenly wrapped and pulled into a Presence. It feels as though the whole church is now filled with this Presence. I'm held by a golden, shimmering light. I am With Him…” 
  Judith Bowen’s first vision appeared when she was fifteen. It carried her out of the pew and into a space she had never experienced, forming the foundation of a mystical quest that continues to call her to know more, to explore our relationship with nature and our Creator, and to discover a deeper understanding of the connection between all living things. Profoundly influenced by the work and music of the mystic Hildegard von Bingen, Bowen went on to find inspiration in the music of nature, ultimately knowing that her gift was to be a healer. 
  In these pages, Judith shares her insights on how we all can find the mystical in our daily lives. We are all creators in our relationships and the sense of reverence we bring to every moment is a way to honor our dance with our Creator.

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  Reading Jane - A Daughter's Memoir

  Susannah Kennedy

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  A gripping memoir that shows what freedom looks like when we choose to examine the uncomfortable past 
   
   
   
  Jane is to the world a charismatic personality—opinionated, an inner-city teacher and public activist, a lover of Italy, proud and successful—who thrives on a carefully crafted life narrative. Susannah, her beautiful only daughter and her intended protégé, senses the stricter, darker truth, and fights to resist the control imposed on her by her mother's narcissistic tale, especially as Susannah becomes a mother herself. 
   
   
   
  But then Jane at seventy-five, healthy and fit, chooses suicide, leaving her daughter with grief and the unwelcome gift of forty-five years of hidden diaries. Daring to "read" Jane after her death is like unlatching Pandora's Box. For a year, Susannah twists and turns to the truths she uncovers, comparing what she remembers with what her mother put down in words. As Susannah Kennedy relives her life through her mother's eyes, she grapples with the ties between mothers and daughters and the choices parents make.

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  Gladys Aylward - The Adventure...

  Janet Benge, Geoff Benge

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  This is the powerful story of Gladys Aylward. Without formal education or a missionary organization to back her, Gladys raised her own finances for the overland trip that would bring her to the country and people that God had etched so deeply on her heart.... China! What follows is an amazing adventure of faith and determination. Gladys Aylward, a housemaid from England, dared to trust God in the face of dire and seemingly hopeless circumstances. Her amazing adventure of faith and determination is one of the truly great missionary stories of our era (1902-1970).

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