Other books that might interest you

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  Reporting the Great War

  Stuart Hylton

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  The Great War of 1914–1918 was the world's first total conflict. It drew the whole population into the war effort as never before. The armed forces recruited on a scale that was previously unimaginable, and the munitions industries drew more and more citizens into the labour market. The entire national economy was thrown onto a war footing. The local newspapers of those years provide a unique picture of these momentous changes, and Reporting the Great War uses their words to recapture the experience of the time. It illustrates in telling detail the human tragedies and triumphs of a nation at war and the day-to-day preoccupations of communities trying to find normality during an unprecedented emergency. Sections of the population were gripped by 'hun-phobia'  the fear that everything Germanic was an agent of the enemy. Terror of aerial attack and the shortages caused by the German submarine blockade brought the reality of war close to home. Unfamiliar terms entered the national vocabulary  conscription, conscientious objection, rationing  and pre-war assumptions, from the role of women to the use of alcohol, were challenged and changed.Stuart Hylton's fascinating account of the British home front during the Great War, as it was seen through the newspaper columns of the day, shows a nation seemingly sleepwalking into a war in 1914 and emerging, four years later, with the hope that a better world would come with the peace.

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  Leaving Before the Rains Come

  Alexandra Fuller

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  As her marriage collapses, the author of the international bestseller Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight relearns the fearless ways of her father to find her own true north. Standing in the wreckage of her marriage, in her adopted country America, Alexandra Fuller revisits the continent she loves and finds in her father’s harsh, simple and uncompromising ways the key to her salvation. Casting a fresh eye on her parent’s boisterous strengths and debilitating weaknesses, painting a vivid picture of America at the end of decades of false certainty and security, and revealing her Africa, vital and resilient, Leave Before the Rains Come is an astonishment – a memoir of such grace and intelligence, wit and courage that only Alexandra Fuller could have written it.

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  All or Nothing at All - The Life...

  Steve Chilton

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  Billy Bland set fellrunning records in the 80s and 90s while working at quarrying, building and stonewalling in his native Borrowdale. His 1982 Bob Graham Round record stood until 2018 when it was, at last, surpassed by the phenomenal Kilian Jornet. First and forever though, he is a champion of his beloved Lake District and the people who live there.Filled with stories of competition and rich in northern humor, All or Nothing At All is testimony to the life spent in the fells by one of their greatest champions, Billy Bland.

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  The Good Times

  Russell Baker

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  A “superb [and] often hilarious” memoir of a life in journalism, from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Growing Up (The New York Times Book Review).   “Baker here recalls his years at the Baltimore Sun, where, on ‘starvation wages,’ he worked on the police beat, as a rewrite man, feature writer and White House correspondent. Sent to London in 1953 to report on the coronation, he spent the happiest year of his life there as an innocent abroad. Moving to the New York Times and becoming a ‘two-fisted drinker,’ he covered the Senate and the national political campaigns of 1956 and 1960, and, just as he was becoming bored with routine reporting and the obligation to keep judgments out of his stories, was offered the opportunity to write his own op-ed page column, ‘The Observer.’ With its lively stories about journalists, Washington politicians and topical scandals, the book will delight Baker’s devotees—and significantly expand their already vast number.” —Publishers Weekly   “Aspiring writers will chuckle over Baker’s first, horrible day on police beat, his panicked interview with Evelyn Waugh, and his arrival at Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in top hat, tails, and brown-bag lunch.” —Library Journal   “A wonderful book.” —Kirkus Reviews

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  Against Medical Advice

  James Patterson, Hal Friedman

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  Cory Friedman woke up one morning when he was five years old with the uncontrollable urge to shake his head and his life was never the same again.  From that day forward his life became a hell of uncontrollable tics, urges, and involuntary utterances. Eventually he is diagnosed with Tourette's Syndrome and Obsessive Compulsive disorder, and Cory embarks on an excruciating journey from specialist to specialist, enduring countless combinations of medications in wildly varying doses.  Soon it becomes unclear what tics are symptoms of his disease and what are side effects of the drugs. The only certainty is that it kept getting worse. Despite his lack of control, Cory is aware of every embarrassing movement, and sensitive to every person's reaction to his often aggravating presence.  Simply put: Cory Friedman's life is a living hell. AGAINST MEDICAL ADVICE is the true story of Cory and his family's decades-long battle for survival in the face of extraordinary difficulties and a maddening medical establishment. It is a heart-rending story of struggle and triumph with a climax as dramatic as any James Patterson thriller.

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  Out of Line - A Life of Playing...

  Barbara Lynch

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  “If you have an appetite for culinary adventure, you’ll devour the feisty and fun memoir” (Elle magazine) by James Beard award-winning chef, restaurateur, and Top Chef judge Barbara Lynch as she recounts her rise from her rough “Southie” childhood to culinary stardom.Celebrated chef Barbara Lynch—named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in 2017—credits the defiant spirit of her upbringing in tough, poor “Southie,” a neighborhood ruled by the notorious Whitey Bulger gang, with helping her bluff her way into her first professional cooking jobs; develop a distinct culinary style through instinct and sheer moxie; then dare to found an empire of restaurants ranging from a casual but elegant “clam shack” to Boston’s epitome of modern haute cuisine. As award-winning chef Ana Sortun raves, “Her heroic story inspires us to remain true to who we are and honor our dreams with conviction.” One of seven children born to an overworked single mother, Lynch was raised in a housing project. She earned a daredevil reputation for boosting vehicles (even a city bus), petty theft, drinking and doing drugs, and narrowly escaping arrest—haunted all the while by a painful buried trauma.Out of Line describes Lynch’s remarkable process of self-invention, including her encounters with colorful characters of the food world, and vividly evokes the magic of creation in the kitchen. It is also a love letter to South Boston and its vanishing culture, governed by Irish Catholic mothers and its own code of honor. “Foodies will enjoy the vivid language used to describe Lynch’s food exploits, and old neighbors will be treated to a trip around south Boston through the eyes of a local” (Library Journal). Through her story, Lynch explores how the past—both what we strive to escape from and what we remain true to—can strengthen and expand who we are.

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