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Bobby on the Beat
by Pamela RhodesPamela Rhodes, one of the first British policewomen, tells her fascinating story in Bobby on the Beat.Back in 1950 Pam became one of the first policewomen in the country. But the force's new female recruits faced a sceptical public in rural Yorkshire and even before they stepped out on the beat there were the prejudices of older male officers to overcome.Yet from the first Pam was thrust into the front line. From runaway bulls to investigating ladies of the night and cases of vice, her innocent eyes were quickly opened. And soon, spending her days on the streets, she came to know the neighbourhood and the extraordinary characters who lived on the right, as well as wrong, side of the law.In the charming Bobby on the Beat, Pamela Rhodes's tales of life as a copper provide a fascinating glimpse of country life now long gone - when seeing a bobby on the beat meant all was well.Pamela Rhodes lives in Scarborough, where she was one of the first WPCs in Britain in the 1960s. Her unique story was picked up when she entered the life-story competition run by Penguin and Saga Magazine, in which she placed as a runner-up. This is her first memoir.
The Complete and Essential Jack the Ripper
by Paul Begg John BennettDiscover the truth behind the myth in The Complete Jack the Ripper by Paul Begg and John Bennett.Whitechapel, 1888: a spate of brutal murders becomes the most notorious criminal episode in London's history. The killer, chillingly nicknamed 'The Whitechapel Murderer', 'Leather Apron' and, most famously, 'Jack the Ripper', is never brought to justice for the slaughter and mutilation of at least five women in the slums of East London. But the mystery is deepened by a letter sent "From Hell" to Scotland Yard, accompanied by half of a preserved human kidney...In this comprehensive account of London's most infamous killer, the foremost authorities on the case explore the facts behind the most grisly episode of the Victorian era. Setting the scene in the impoverished East End, the authors' meticulous research offers detailed accounts of the lives of the victims and an examination of the police investigation. The Complete Jack the Ripper is the definitive book by Paul Begg and John Bennett, exploring both the myth and reality behind the allusive killer.Paul Begg and John Bennett are researchers and authors, widely recognized as authorities on Jack the Ripper. Paul Begg's books include Jack the Ripper: The Facts, Jack the Ripper: The Definitive History, and he is a co-author of The Jack the Ripper A to Z.John Bennett has written numerous articles and lectured frequently on Jack the Ripper and the East End of London. He has acted as adviser to and participated in documentaries made by television channels worldwide and was the co-writer for the successful Channel 5 programme Jack the Ripper: The Definitive Story. He is author of E1: A Journey Through Whitechapel and Spitalfields and co-author of Jack the Ripper: CSI Whitechapel.
Christmas at the Ragdoll Orphanage
by Suzanne LambertDiscover Suzanne Lambert's magical true story about the power of love and motherhood . . . Two-week-old Suzanne was left at the door of Nazareth House orphanage - abandoned by the very people who should have given her love, protection and care she desperately needed.So when Nancy - the orphanage nanny - held Suzanne in her arms and looked into her eyes, feeling a magical bond, it seemed that a guardian angel had brought them both together.Yet their future looked uncertain. Would Nancy ever be allowed to adopt tiny Suzanne? And could their love endure all that the years ahead were to send them?Tear-jerking and unforgettable, Nancy and Suzanne's true story is about the struggles and joys of parenthood and childhood. It's also about how, for an orphan, having somewhere to call home and a loving mother waiting there makes every day feel like Christmas. Suzanne Lambert is the winner of Penguin and Take a Break magazine's life story competition.
Don't Eat This Book: Fast Food And The Super Sizing Of America
by Morgan SpurlockMorgan Spurlock's terrifying yet hilarious expose on the fast food industry, Don't Eat This Book.Praise for Morgan Spurlock: 'Valid, entertaining and funny as hell' - Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food NationA tongue-in-cheek - and burger in hand - look at the legal, financial and physical costs of our hunger for fast food, by the funniest and most incisive new voice since Michael Moore. Can a man live on fast food alone? Morgan Spurlock tried. For thirty days he ate nothing but three 'square' meals a day from McDonald's as part of an investigation into the effects of fast food on our health. Don't Eat This Book gives the full background story to the experiment that so captivated audiences around the world in the documentary Super Size Me, and explores in further depth the connections between the rise of fast food and obesity. In the ground-breaking and hilarious Don't East This Book, Morgan Spurlock lays bare the devastating facts for all to see.Morgan Spurlock is a writer, director and producer. He was awarded the Best Director prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004 for Super Size Me. He lives in New York.
Sweet Poison: Why Sugar Makes Us Fat
by David GillespieUnderstand and break your addiction to sugar with David Gillespie's Sweet Poison. David Gillespie was 6 stone overweight, lethargic and desperate to lose weight fast - but he'd failed every diet out there. When David cut sugar from his diet he immediately started to lose weight and - more amazingly - kept it off. Now slim and with new reserves of energy, David set out to investigate the connection between sugar, our soaring obesity rates and some of the more worrying diseases of the twenty-first century. He discovered: IT'S NOT OUR FAULT WE'RE FAT·Sugar was once such a rare resource that we haven't developed an off-switch - we can keep eating sugar without feeling full.·In the space of 150 years, we have gone from eating no added sugar to more than 2 pounds a week.·Eating that much sugar, you would need to run 4.5 miles every day of your life to not put on weight.·Food manufacturers exploit our sugar addiction by lacing it through 'non-sweet' products like bread, sauces and cereals.In Sweet Poison David Gillespie exposes one of the great health scourges of our time and offers a wealth of practical information on how to quit sugar.David Gillespie is a recovering corporate lawyer, co-founder of a successful software company and consultant to the IT industry. He is also the father of six young children (including one set of twins). With such a lot of extra time on his hands, and 40 extra kilos on his waistline, he set out to investigate why he, like so many in his generation, was fat. He deciphered the latest medical findings on diet and weight gain and what he found was chilling. Being fat was the least of his problems. He needed to stop poisoning himself.
Missing
by Shelley MacKenneyMissing is Shelley MacKenney's remarkable story of life as a 'missing person'. An inspirational tale of her journey through extreme personal crisis."You can run, but you can't hide from yourself."Abandoned by her mother as a young child and with a father constantly on the run, Shelley's life was never normal. Her family's involvement with South London's criminal underworld left her isolated, vulnerable and lonely. Falling deeper and deeper into depression and despair - she snapped.Shelley got on the first coach out of London with only the clothes she stood up in and £30 in her pocket. She didn't care where she was going, as long as she could disappear completely from her oppressive life. For years, she lived anonymously in refuges, hostels and on the streets. It would take something remarkable to bring her back to the real world.
Letters to my Fanny
by Cherry HealeyHow much more fun in life could I have had if I'd just stopped worrying so much and stopped beating myself up?In this book, Cherry reveals the things she wishes her mother had told her, through a series of hilarious anecdotes and excruciating confessions.Each chapter opens with a letter to a different body part: 'Letters to my Fanny' covers sex, orgasms and periods; 'Letters to my Brain' covers education, memory and media; 'Letters to my Tummy' covers crop-tops, pregnancy and sit-ups.This wonderfully warm, funny and candid book is a collection of hopeful dispatches from the frontline of girlhood - an impassioned plea to stop piling pressure on girls and young women and allow them to get on with their lives without having to mind the thigh gap . . .
A Christmas Angel at the Ragdoll Orphanage
by Suzanne LambertAn unforgettable true story . . . A heartwarming tale about the true meaning of Christmas, set in a remarkable orphanage in the middle of the last century. When Suzanne was left, two weeks old, at the door of an orphanage, it was Nancy the nanny who fought for the right to adopt Suzanne. Now, 60 years later, Suzanne is sharing the untold story of all the many orphans that her mother Nancy saved throughout the 1940s and 50s. As a teenager, Nancy accompanied the orphans to the other side of the country when they were evacuated during the war years. When they finally returned, 6 long years later, she vowed to dedicate her life to the children. A Christmas Angel at the Ragdoll Orphanage tells the story of a remarkable woman, who worked tirelessly to give society's most vulnerable children a chance of home and happiness. Full of touching, tear-jerking and unforgettable stories, this is a wondrously festive book all about the real meaning of motherhood.
Jordan: Pushed To The Limit
by Katie PriceThe next instalment in a fascinating life story by Britain's favourite celebrity.Katie Price has led a rollercoaster life and the excitement, glamour and emotional twists and turns show no signs of slowing down. The past few years have been troublesome for Katie. She has overcome a string of fiercely emotional challenges: she has battled post-natal depression, endured a traumatic miscarriage and continually fought fears for the safety and health of her children. It has all undoubtedly taken its toll on her and placed great strains on her relationship. Katie has always been a strong, passionate, sensitive and independent woman but even she has been pushed to her limits. Yet Katie's spirit has always shone through and her enthusiasm and determination have seen her triumph: her career continues to go from strength to strength and her desire and appetite to succeed know no bounds. Jordan: Pushed to the Limit is a truly intimate portrait of a sensational life. Every page is filled with searing honesty and Katie's unmistakable frank way with words in this moving, up-front and intensely personal account of a life lived to the full.
Bad Samaritans: The Guilty Secrets of Rich Nations and the Threat to Global Prosperity (Playaway Adult Nonfiction Ser.)
by Ha-Joon ChangIt's rare that a book appears with a fresh perspective on world affairs, but renowned economist Ha-Joon Chang has some startlingly original things to say about the future of globalization. In theory, he argues, the world's wealthiest countries and supra-national institutions like the IMF, World Bank and WTO want to see all nations developing into modern industrial societies. In practice, though, those at the top are 'kicking away the ladder' to wealth that they themselves climbed. Why? Self-interest certainly plays a part. But, more often, rich and powerful governments and institutions are actually being 'Bad Samaritans': their intentions are worthy but their simplistic free-market ideology and poor understanding of history leads them to inflict policy errors on others. Chang demonstrates this by contrasting the route to success of economically vibrant countries with the very different route now being dictated to the world's poorer nations. In the course of this, he shows just how muddled the thinking is in such key areas as trade and foreign investment. He shows that the case for privatisation and against state involvement is far from proven. And he explores the ways in which attitudes to national cultures and political ideologies are obscuring clear thinking and creating bad policy. Finally, he argues the case for new strategies for a more prosperous world that may appall the 'Bad Samaritans'.
Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century
by Tony JudtIn Reappraisals award-winning historian Tony Judt argues that we have entered an 'age of forgetting', where we have set aside our immediate past before we could even begin to make sense of it. We have lost touch with generations of international policy debate, social thought and public-spirited social activism - and no longer even know how to discuss such concepts - and have forgotten the role once played by intellectuals in debating, transmitting and defending the ideas that shaped their time.Reappraisals is a road map back to the historical sense we urgently need. A masterful collection of essays, it examines the tragedy of twentieth-century Europe by way of thought-provoking pieces on Hannah Arendt, Edward Said, Albert Camus and Henry Kissinger amongst others.
The Dream: A Memoir
by Harry BernsteinOn a narrow cobbled street in a northern mill town young Harry Bernstein and his family face a daily struggle to make ends meet. This is the true story of those harsh years, overshadowed by the First World War.Amidst the hardship and suffering, Harry's devoted mother clings to a dream - that one day they might escape this grinding poverty for the paradise of America. But the regular pleas to relatives in Chicago yield nothing, until one day, when Harry is twelve years old, the family looks on astonished as he opens a letter which contains the longed-for steamship tickets.But the better life of which they'd dreamed proves elusive. Deprivation follows them to Chicago - and for Harry, life becomes more difficult still as he finds himself torn between his responsibilities to his mother, and his first love...
Monday's Child is Fair of Face: and Other Traditional Beliefs about Babies and Motherhood
by Steve RoudPregnancy and childbirth remains a mystical and magical time, characterised by feelings of hope, uncertainty and worry. No matter how many scientific innovations come along, there's still room for home-grown beliefs and traditions handed down through the family. Couples buying a pram may still ask for it to be delivered after the birth, and some grandparents will shrink from tickling the baby's feet in case it grows up to have a stammer. Monday's Child is Fair of Face gathers together these beliefs and customs, explaining how and why they arose, in which parts of the country they have been particularly popular, and to what extent they survive today. Arranged thematically, it's the perfect book to dip into, and its mixture of familiar, unfamiliar and frankly bizarre beliefs makes for compelling reading.
London in the Twentieth Century: A City and Its People
by Jerry WhiteJerry White's London in the Twentieth Century, Winner of the Wolfson Prize, is a masterful account of the city’s most tumultuous century by its leading expert.In 1901 no other city matched London in size, wealth and grandeur. Yet it was also a city where poverty and disease were rife. For its inhabitants, such contradictions and diversity were the defining experience of the next century of dazzling change.In the worlds of work and popular culture, politics and crime, through war, immigration and sexual revolution, Jerry White’s richly detailed and captivating history shows how the city shaped their lives and how it in turn was shaped by them.
The Roads to Modernity: The British, French and American Enlightenments
by Gertrude Himmelfarb Gordon BrownGertrude Himmelfarb's elegant and wonderfully readable work, The Roads to Modernity, reclaims the Enlightenment from historians who have downgraded its importance and from scholars who have given preeminence to the Enlightenment in France over concurrent movements in England and in America.Himmerlfarb demonstrates the primacy and wisdom of the British, exemplified in such thinkers as Adam Smith, David Hume, and Edmund Burke, as well as the unique and enduring contributions of the American Founders. It is their Enlightenments, she argues, that created a social ethic - humane, compassionate and realistic - that still resonates strongly today.
Foreigners: Three English Lives
by Caryl PhillipsFrancis Barber, 'given' to the great eighteenth-century writer Samuel Johnson, afforded an unusual depth of freedom, which, after Johnson's death, would help hasten his wretched demise....Randolph Turpin, Britain's first black world champion boxer, who made history in 1951 by defeating Sugar Ray Robinson, and who ended his life in debt and despair...David Oluwale, a Nigerian stowaway who arrived in Leeds in 1949, the events of whose life and death would question the reality of English justice, and serve as a wake-up call for the entire nation.Each of these men's stories is told in a different, perfectly realized voice. Each illuminates the complexity and drama that lie behind the tragedy of their lives. And each explores the themes at the heart of Caryl Phillips' work - belonging, identity, and race.
I Die, But The Memory Lives On: The World Aids Crisis And The Memory Book Project
by Henning MankellThe problem of Aids has been kept largely under control in Europe, but in the Third World it is a different story. There is a devestating lack of resources for medicine and for education. When parents die at a young age, children are left behind with no-one to teach them how to avoid the same fate, and so the cycle continues.Memory Books could prove to be the most important documents in our time in answer to this crisis. When the official reports have been filed away, these slim volumes, memories recorded by those who died too soon, will remain. Through a combination of words and drawings, they can have a legacy, a hope that future generations may not suffer the same heartbreaking fate.Henning Mankell is not a public figure in the way politicians are, but he has achieved cult success with his Kurt Wallander novels and is noted for the social and moral questions raised by his fiction. He devotes much of his time to work with Aids charities. I Die But the Memory Lives on is a fable illustrating the importance of books as a means of education, of preserving memories and of sharing life. In the midst of death and suffering, a young girl plants a tree. She nurtures it as a fragment of life that will grow and survive and, like the Memory Books, outlive this global crisis. Mankell, by highlighting and humanising this catastrophe, proposes a way to help.
The War Against Cliche: Essays and Reviews 1971-2000
by Martin AmisLike John Updike, Martin Amis is the pre-eminent novelist-critic of his generation. The War Against Cliché is a selection of his reviews and essays over the past quarter-century. It contains pieces on Cervantes, Milton, Donne, Coleridge, Jane Austen, Dickens, Kafka, Philip Larkin, Joyce, Waugh, Lowry, Nabokov, F. R. Leavis, V. S. Pritchett, William Burroughs, Anthony Burgess, Angus Wilson, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Shiva and V. S. Naipaul, Kurt Vonnegut, Iris Murdoch, Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal, Don DeLillo, Elmore Leonard, Michael Crichton, Thomas Harris - and John Updike. Other subjects include chess, nuclear weapons, masculinity, screen censorship, juvenile violence, Andy Warhol, Hillary Clinton, and Margaret Thatcher.
Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea (Modern Library Chronicles Ser.)
by Mark KurlanskyThe conventional history of nations, even continents, is a history of warfare. According to this view, all the important ideas and significant changes of humankind occured as part of an effort to win one violent, bloody conflict or another. But there have always been a few who refused to fight. Following the grand sweep of history from Confucius to Tolstoy, Erasmus to Gandhi, bestselling author Mark Kurlansky traces pacifism and its proponents to show how many modern ideas, a united Europe, the United Nations, and the abolition of slavery - originated in non-violence movements.
1968: The Year that Rocked the World
by Mark KurlanskyIt was the year of sex and drugs and rock and roll; it was also the year of the Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy assassinations, the Prague Spring, the Chicago convention, the Tet offensive in Vietnam and the anti-war movement, the student rebellion that paralysed France, civil rights, the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union, and the birth of the women's movement. With 1968: The Year that Rocked the World, award-winning journalist Mark Kurlansky has written his Magnum opus - a cultural and political history of that world-changing year of social upheaval, when television's impact on global events first became apparent, and when simultaneously - in Paris, Prague, London, Berkeley, and all over the globe - uprisings spontaneously occurred. 1968 encompasses the worlds of youth and music, politics, war, economics, assassinations, riots, demonstrations and the media, and shows us how we got to where we are today.
The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island
by Chloe HooperWhen Cameron Doomadgee, a 36-year-old member of the Aboriginal community of Palm Island, was arrested for swearing at a white police officer, he was dead within forty-five minutes of being locked up. The police claimed he'd tripped on a step, but the pathologist likened his injuries to those received in a plane crash. The main suspect was the handsome, charismatic Senior Sergeant Christopher Hurley, an experienced cop with decorations for his work. In following Hurley's trail to some of the wildest and most remote parts of Australia, Chloe Hooper explores Aboriginal myths and history and uncovers buried secrets of white mischief. Atmospheric, gritty and original, The Tall Man takes readers to the heart of a struggle for power, revenge and justice.
Taking the Medicine: A Short History of Medicine’s Beautiful Idea, and our Difficulty Swallowing It
by Druin BurchDoctors and patients alike trust the medical profession and its therapeutic powers; yet this trust has often been misplaced. Whether prescribing opium or thalidomide, aspirin or antidepressants, doctors have persistently failed to test their favourite ideas - often with catastrophic results. From revolutionary America to Nazi Germany and modern big-pharmaceuticals, this is the unexpected story of just how bad medicine has been, and of its remarkably recent effort to improve. It is the history of well-meaning doctors misled by intuition, of the startling human cost of their mistakes and of the exceptional individuals who have helped make things better. Alarming and optimistic, Taking the Medicine is essential reading for anyone interested in how and why to trust the pills they swallow.
Belching Out the Devil: Global Adventures with Coca-Cola
by Mark ThomasCoca-Cola and its logo are everywhere. In our homes, our workplaces, even our schools. It is a company that sponsors the Olympics, backs US presidents and even re-brands Santa Claus. A truly universal product, it has even been served in space.From Istanbul to Mexico City, Mark travels the globe investigating the stories and people Coca-Cola's iconic advertising campaigns don't mention. Child labourers in the sugar cane fields of El Salvador. Indian workers exposed to toxic chemicals. Colombian union leaders falsely accused of terrorism and jailed alongside the paramilitaries who want to kill them. And many more...Provocative, funny and stirring, Belching Out the Devil investigates the truth behind one of the planet's biggest brands.
A Life in Pieces: The harrowing story of a woman with 17 personalities
by Richard K. BaerIn 1989 a woman named Karen showed up at author and psychiatrist Richard Baer's practice, terribly frightened and at breaking point. She explained that her husband beat her, her mother stole from her; she was in tremendous physical pain and wanted to die. Within a few sessions she also revealed that her father and grandfather had raped and tortured her repeatedly over the course of her childhood, frequently in the company of other neighbourhood men. She was now married with two children, but often could not account for stretches of minutes, hours, sometimes even days.As Karen's story unfolded over the following months, Baer realised that he was dealing with a severe case of Multiple Personality Disorder. Although it would take time and deep, hard-won trust before any of Karen's alternated personalities presented themselves in her psychiatrist's office, over the next five years Baer would encounter seventeen distinct personalities, all of whom had been living inside Karen since she was a young child, shielding her from an otherwise unbearable life.In the tradition of Oliver Saks and Irvin Yalom, Baer chronicles his nine years of work with Karen and all her distinct personalities, his often futile efforts to use the tools of his trade, and his patient's ultimate invention of her own cure. An unforgettable story of unimaginable suffering and ultimate recovery, A Life In Pieces: How One Woman's Personality was Shattered by Years of Abuse is the first account of life with Multiple Personality Disorder written by the treating psychiatrist.
Aid and Other Dirty Business: How Good Intentions Have Failed the World's Poor
by Giles BoltonDo you know why Africa is so poor? What really happens to your charity money? Why do trade rules fail African countries and yet cost you too? We've heard it all before: the corrupt leaders, heartless global corporations, the wicked World Bank.But the answers are much closer to home... and so are the solutionsWhen Giles Bolton began working in the world of aid and development, he travelled to Africa convinced that he could solve problems, save villages and sing songs with the locals under a shimmering sunset. The reality proved rather less romantic, and far more shocking...Aid and Other Dirty Business is a radical, brilliantly readable and totally original approach to the seemingly unending problem of poverty in Africa. It may change your life, but, more importantly, it will help you change the lives of others.