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Where There is Life, There REALLY is Hope
Have you just discovered that someone you know is a drug addict? Are you heartbroken? Do you feel overwhelmed? If so, you are not alone. That is what happened to me. I thought I would have to bury my daughter by Christmas 2014.Snippets of my and my daughter’s story aired on 60 Minutes and Seven Sharp in 2015—current affairs programmes in New Zealand. Now, you can read the full account of my perspective of the traumas that led to my daughter’s addiction, the impact of them on me and what I learned along the way.My daughter shares her story in a companion book. Together, we have a miraculous story that has a happy ending. The great triumph after tragedy is that it is always possible to rebuild something with more beautiful results. My daughter and I are now closer than ever and she is doing better than I could have ever imagined.Expect to feel encouraged, empowered and hopeful as you travel through the pages of this book.Where There Is Life, There REALLY Is Hope, the inside story of a mother of a P addict who survived the rigours and now wants to share the insights she learned along the way.
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When We Were Very Rich
A family saga rich in characters and backdrop, this book will hook you from the first few lines. Isabel, eldest daughter of Sarah and Albert, lives a life of many riches; family togetherness, love, nature and freedom. Her life is poor in monetary value and lacking in belongings, but she experiences a childhood the sort that money is unable to buy. Surrounded by many siblings - her mother had 14 live births, all without any attention from a doctor or medical intervention, a valiant and strong mother she was. Sarah's grandparents were shipped off as convicts to Australia from England and made a life there when they were given their freedom. Albert and Sarah married in 1918 and forged a life through the Depression in the late 1920s. What was considered poor then, would be rich pickings today; unpolluted air, wild flowers, organic home-grown food and an abundance of wildlife. The story is like a tapestry, the last word or stitch humbling and too soon.
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We Were Tourists
Jim Toomey was already a successful drummer when he became a part of a new group, The Tourists, in the late seventies. He formed the group with Annie Lennox, Dave Stewart, Peet Coombes and Eddie Chin.From their early beginnings in London, finding their sound and their voice, through their success, their recordings, TV appearances, and their tours across the world, this is the story of The Tourists, told by the man sitting behind the drums.In a series of anecdotes and tales of the band's journey, we gain insight into the inner workings of a successful band; the fun and success, but also the work, the creativity, the pressures of seemingly endless tours, the good and the bad sides of the business, and the all too familiar trajectory of a band which sowed the seeds of music which endure 40 years later.
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Voices from the Past: The Baby
Wars, depressions and political turmoils have often tested and even destroyed many families throughout history. In the difficult years which ensued between both World Wars, London’s inhabitants were no exception. This is a story of one such family. A family named Cole, who actually lived in the 1930s. They faced several hardships, yet when Percy Cole, a Stevedore at St Katharine Docks, met with a life-changing accident, Jackie, his wife, had to use all her cunning to save the family from the poor house.With five children to feed, Mary, their youngest child, had to enter Reedham orphanage, being closely followed by her brother Roy, where they too fought their own separate battles with an alien establishment.On the death of Percy, Walter Cole, the wealthy yet estranged father-in-law, tried to blackmail Jackie. When poverty gripped even harder, he finally offered her a lifeline, a lifeline with strings attached. Dare she trust him, or should she walk away...
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Use By Date
Sheridan has no time for anger or regret. She often says that life is moving forward, not looking back, that is why our eyes are in the front of our head, not buried in hair on the back of our skull. She often felt, when dealing with her mother’s anxieties and her father’s absences, that she was the grownup in the relationship.After you have read the way her father and mother treated each other, you might rethink your own relationships.Sheridan has captured the essence of being a child with humour and pathos.Enjoy the ride. It’s a rollercoaster!
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Unprepared for Life's Journey
Unprepared for Life's Journey is a heart-warming true story, detailing the missionary life of an inspirational Catholic woman. Maria Flavel started life in Germany as part of a happy farming family, but she reaches an age when she must think about her future. Deciding to follow in her older sister's footsteps, she enrols in a convent to devote her life to God. But it's not long before Maria questions often-cruel treatment from the nuns.Showing great endurance and strength, she finally admits that biblical life in this form may not be for her. And so she begins her own journey. Following her dream to work overseas, she finds her calling in Papua New Guinea as a teacher, helping underprivileged people to become more independent. Here she feels a true connection to God through the work that He wants her to do. A fascinating account of suffering and joy through war, death and meaningful relationships; a welcome reminder of the gift that life is, the importance of the people we share it with, and the opportunity it offers to do something that really matters.
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Understanding Illness
This book is part memoir and part case studies drawn from the author’s working life as a medical student, general practitioner, counsellor and psychoanalytical psychotherapist—a career made even more difficult than usual by ill health. Kidney disease started in her 20s, sight loss in her 30s, so that she was unable to carry on with clinical medicine and had to retrain as a psychotherapist, and heart disease in her 40s. In spite of all that, she battled on with great determination and humour, and became a loved and respected member of staff in a great teaching hospital. She worked extremely hard on ‘my book’, as she always called it, and finished it just two months before her final illness started.
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Two Lives: A Social and Financial Memoir
Dimitri Yassukovich is exiled by the Bolshevik Revolution, builds a new life and career as a Wall Street investment banker, and lays the foundations in Europe for one of the great investment banking houses of the City. His son Stanislas, after an inglorious youth in the Gatsby land of Long Island, joins his father's firm White, Weld & Co., finds himself at the epicentre of the City's revival from postwar doldrums, and becomes an architect of the Euromarkets. His highly personal and anecdotal chronicle of these two lives leads us through the history of high finance and its revival, and the heady days of the internationalisation of the City, through the ‘Big Bang' and its aftermath. Two Lives is a serious, and yet light-hearted account of a critical period in 20th century finance and of two unusual personalities.
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They Said I Was Misguided
The struggle to find your identity while growing up is a common experience for us all. Now, imagine that you belong to an orthodox religious community and you are gay – so your sexual identity is entirely at odds with your environment. What would you do to find acceptance? This memoir follows the very personal and lonely struggle of a young man forced to deal with this very scenario, with dramatic and moving consequences for his family, friends and most importantly, himself.
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The Sherman Farm
In The Sherman Farm, Leza Turini writes of her teenage years spent on the farm, in the town of Burrillville, which was possessed by the spirits of past occupiers. We learn of the cruel, omnipotent Sumner Sherman, who still walks the corridors of the old farmhouse, grieving for his lost love"”his daughter-in-law, Amanda. We share the haunting screams of this young, tormented woman who was finally killed on the stairs by a falling chandelier; was it an accident or was she murdered by the witch seeking revenge for her broken promise?Leza and her family witnessed terrifying paranormal activities during this time, which eventually led to the death of her beloved, hardworking father, Angelo.For those interested in the world of the supernatural or who enjoy a book that keeps you on the edge of your seat, The Sherman Farm is a compelling read and one that is not for the fainthearted.
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The Reality of War
Have you ever wondered what war is really like and how you would react in it? This book tells the story of what a young soldier, exposed to a full-blown war, experienced during the Gulf War, the largest conflict since World War 2. Based on a diary that the author wrote on a daily basis, the book hides nothing at all. People died, before, during and after the war. The reader is exposed to the military culture at the time, with a brief history about the author and the regiment he served in. Once deployed, you are then taken through a day-by-day account that vividly brings to life the drama of exactly what went on, including all the fighting and what life was like when a person was sent to fight in a war overseas – far from home. War is not just about fighting the enemy; that sometimes is the most straightforward and simplest part.
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The Odd-Job Man
In 1989, deep in the South American jungles of Suriname, a former commando and Falklands War veteran discharged from the SAS found himself with a group of contract soldiers training a rebel army against a violent dictator regime.Things were not so clear cut in this war-torn country and as cracks began to appear in finding out who had the moral high ground, cracks also began to appear in the team itself.It seemed the leader of the group had other agendas which he was keeping from the mixed bag of former British commandos and French Foreign Légion soldiers.Now, as all-out war has got ever closer, this becomes increasingly difficult for the author, as he too, has not been totally truthful with the others.
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