Other books that might interest you

• 

  Today's Authors Series: A...

  L. A. Meyer

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Enjoy this fascinating twenty-four minute-long discussion between two artists at the top of their craft—LA Meyer, author and creator of the Bloody Jack series of novels, and narrator extraordinaire Katherine Kellgren, who voices the entire audiobook series. At last count, the Bloody Jack audiobooks have won three Odyssey Honor awards, four Audie Awards, and have made numerous 'Best of' lists.

  Show book

• 

  Last of the Summer Wine - The...

  Andrew Vine

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  An insider’s look at story behind the longest running situation comedy in British television history. 
   
  Quite simply, Last of the Summer Wine is the longest-running comedy programme in the world. It premiered thirty-seven years ago, in 1973, and, after thirty-one series it finally came to an end—even though all its original protagonists—Compo, Foggy, even Nora Batty—are now dead. 
   
  Remarkably, for a series of such longevity and international appeal, it is all about elderly people, has little action or plot, and is set and filmed in and around the small Yorkshire town of Holmfirth. 
   
  Now, Andrew Vine, the deputy editor of Yorkshire’s daily newspaper, has written the definitive history of this television phenomenon. It covers the show’s inauspicious beginnings, with low ratings, its endless reinvention as participants like Bill Owen, Michael Bates, Brian Wilde and Kathy Staff retired or died, the appearance of a string of guest stars from John Cleese and Norman Wisdom to Thora Hird and Russ Abbott (both of whom soon found themselves fixtures in the cast), and the ingenious plot contrivances as the protagonists became too old and frail to attempt any of the slapstick stunts with runaway prams—indeed any outdoor action. 
   
  The town of Holmfirth is now a year-round tourist attraction, and the endless availability of the show via streaming, ensures that Last of the Summer Wine, and the book it inspired, will live on for generations of fans.

  Show book

• 

  Churchill's Colonel - The War...

  Anthony Barne

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  A British officer’s day-to-day observations throw “interesting light on life and soldiering during the Second World War.” —The NYMAS Review   Anthony Barne started his diary in August 1939 as a young, recently married captain in the Royal Dragoons stationed in Palestine. He wrote an entry for every day of the war, often with great difficulty, sometimes when dog-tired or under fire, sometimes when things looked dark and desperate, but more often in sunshine and optimism—“surrounded by good fellows who kept one cheerful and helped one through the sad and difficult times.” His diary ends in July 1945, by which time he was commanding officer of the 4th Hussars, having recently visited Downing Street for lunch alone with the Churchills.   The diaries have an enormous scope, covering time in Palestine and Egypt before he joins the Eighth Army, describing the retreat back to El Alamein, the battle and its aftermath. He ends the campaign commanding his regiment. He often graphically details the physical realities of war: the appalling conditions in the desert, the bombardments of the regiment from the air, the deaths and serious injuries of fellow soldiers. In 1943, he flies down to Rhodesia to see his wife and infant son before returning to Cairo to join Churchill’s regiment, the 4th Hussars. Arriving in Italy in 1944, he recounts the campaign as the Allies push north.   With a tone that varies wildly—often witty, sometimes outrageous, but also poignant and philosophical—this is not just a memoir of war but a portrait of another time that showcases the author’s warmth and keen eye for the absurd.

  Show book

• 

  Ashkii-Bijei-Tso - Navajo Dreamer

  Vera Lesley

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  "Oh, the dreamer that I am!" 
  Based on a true story about a remarkable Navajo man who grows up amid two cultures - the Navajo way and Western society. 
  He is raised by his grandmother on the reservation, where she teaches him how to walk in beauty... but his life dramatically changes when an excruciating pain starts to cripple his body, and Ashkii becomes confined to a wheelchair. 
  In his early twenties, he moves to Las Vegas to work construction after his health seems to have improved. However, Ashkii's chronic illness returns with a vengeance, and at the age of 33, he is admitted to a nursing home. Doctors and even medicine men try to heal him but to no avail. 
  Despite Askii's jovial and positive personality, his dreams of a better life slowly begin to fade away into the dimness of the night. 
  Why does he have to suffer so much? 
  Is there no relief for him? 
  Is there no balm in Gilead? 
  If God is so great, why doesn't HE help him? 
  Will God hear Ashkii's desperate cry for help? 
  Then, a new activity director starts working at the care facility...

  Show book

• 

  That Further Shore - A Memoir of...

  John D. Feerick

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  A memoir of a respected constitutional scholar, dedicated public servant, political reformer, and facilitator of peace in the land of his ancestors. 
   
  John D. Feerick’s life has all the elements of a modern Horatio Alger story: the poor boy who achieves success by dint of his hard work. But Feerick brought other elements to that classic American success story: his deep religious faith, his integrity, and his paramount concern for social justice. In That Further Shore, Feerick shares his inspiring story. Born to immigrant parents in the South Bronx, he went on to practice law, help frame the US Constitution’s Twenty-Fifth Amendment, serve as dean of Fordham Law, and serve as president of the New York City Bar Association and chair of state commissions on government integrity. 
   
  Beginning with Feerick’s ancestry and early life experiences, including a detailed genealogical description of Feerick’s Irish ancestors in County Mayo and his quest to identify them and their relationships with one another, the book then presents a survey of the now-vanished world of a working-class Irish Catholic neighborhood in the South Bronx. Feerick’s account of how he financed his education from elementary school through law school is a moving tribute to the immigrant work ethic that he inherited from his parents and shared with many young Americans of his generation. The book then traces Feerick’s career as a lawyer and how he gave up a lucrative partnership in a prestigious New York City law firm at an early age to accept the office of Dean of the Fordham School of Law at a fraction of his previous income because he felt it was time to give back something to the world. 
   
  John Feerick has consistently shown his commitment to the law as a vocation as well as a profession by his efforts to protect the rights of the poor, to enable minorities to achieve their rightful places in American society, and to combat political corruption. That Further Shore is an inspiring memoir of how one man helped to make America a more just and equitable society. 
   
  Praise for That Further Shore 
   
  “An exceptionally well written book and a compelling story of one Irish-American lawyer who loves his Irish heritage, his family, his Church and the law. It took Feerick 18 years to write the book and it was certainly worth the effort.” —Steve Fearon, Irish America 
   
  “That Further Shore proves that a great man can be a good man. While living a life of the highest achievement on the world stage?and even changing history a time or two?Dean John Feerick stays rooted in his family, faith, Irish heritage and his commitment to social justice. Inspiring!” —Mary Pat Kelly, PhD, author of Galway Bay, Of Irish Blood, and Irish Above All

  Show book

• 

  Memoir of Jane Austen

  James Edward Austen-Leigh

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  The Memoir of my Aunt, Jane Austen, has been received with more favour than I had ventured to expect.  The notices taken of it in the periodical press, as well as letters addressed to me by many with whom I am not personally acquainted, show that an unabated interest is still taken in every particular that can be told about her.  I am thus encouraged not only to offer a Second Edition of the Memoir, but also to enlarge it with some additional matter which I might have scrupled to intrude on the public if they had not thus seemed to call for it.  In the present Edition, the narrative is somewhat enlarged, and a few more letters are added; with a short specimen of her childish stories.  The cancelled chapter of ‘Persuasion’ is given, in compliance with wishes both publicly and privately expressed.  A fragment of a story entitled ‘The Watsons’ is printed; p. iii and extracts are given from a novel which she had begun a few months before her death; but the chief addition is a short tale never before published, called ‘Lady Susan.’ {0a}  I regret that the little which I have been able to add could not appear in my First Edition; as much of it was either unknown to me, or not at my command, when I first published; and I hope that I may claim some indulgent allowance for the difficulty of recovering little facts and feelings which had been merged half a century deep in oblivion. - James Edward Austen-Leigh in the Preface to Memoir of Jane Austen

  Show book