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Fought a Million Battles
This book covers over fifteen years of service as a volunteer with the Royal Green Jackets and Great Britain’s elite Special Air Service. The author was a trained parachutist with the UK, US and French Army. A qualified marksman and a silver standard cross-country skier, he was trained in explosives and was a specialist in long-distance communication.
His service took him from exchange visits with the 11th Special Forces in America in the West to service in the deserts of the Middle East, and from the jungles of the Far East to a once-in-a-lifetime meet up with the New Zealand SAS squadron.
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For You...with Love
Love is beautiful, and being in love is indescribable. Memories of a love that touches the core of your hearts are priceless flashbacks that remind you that you are present. Many are worth your weight in gold. A loss of love is inexplicably painful. Everyone has a story to tell about love…this is mine.
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Flying Used to Be Fun
Civil aviation has changed out of all recognition over the period during which the author was involved. In many ways it is now far safer than it used to be. In the early sixties, majority of flights were conducted in piston engine aircrafts and many were tail draggers i.e. you would have entered at the back of the aircraft and then struggled uphill towards your own seat. Turbine power soon took over and planes not only became faster but could climb higher, which usually produced a smoother flight.
By the mid-sixties, jets were being introduced. They were even faster and flew still higher, once more increasing passenger comfort as more of the rougher weather was left below. Along with this, airfields were being expanded to cope with ever-increasing passenger numbers. For many years the government had no money to pay for updating navigational aids including safe landing systems. Appropriate radar coverage for air traffic controllers was hindered by lack of funds. Aircraft manufacturers improved the reliability of the aircraft they produced and engines were also being developed with far greater power to increase safety standards for both airfield performance and speed during the cruise.
This is the story of a life lived across many different eras of aviation.
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Flutter Until You Fly
When he was six years old, he declared to the hearing of some friends: “I want to be a pilot when I grow up,” and it generated mocking laughter from them. The laughter became louder when at the end of sixth grade, his father lost his job and life went further downhill. From his family couch surfing in the neighbourhood for about seven years to having to cook and hawk kenkey, gari, and bake bread as a secondary school student, he kept going. He took the A Levels twice and performed poorly, disqualifying him from joining the air force even though he passed the army’s assessments twice. In Flutter Until You Fly, Captain Solomon Quainoo shares how he overcame these stumbling blocks and more, worked 17-hour days as a labourer, cleaner, pizza delivery guy, and traffic warden, to still become a captain of the world’s biggest passenger aircraft.
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First Thoughts: Final Outcome
The story follows the life of a hardworking and humble man named Steve, who is now close to retirement. He and his wife are looking forward to finally having some leisure time for themselves after a lifetime of hustle. Unfortunately, things don't go as planned due to Steve's health complications. The story revolves around how the main character and his family navigate through this time and the lessons they learn along the way.
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Firefighting: Better than Working for a Living
Tom is a firefighter. He loves going to work. For him, encountering the intense, prickly heat of a building fire is to experience the euphoria of fear. He loves the adrenaline rush when the bells drop and the anticipation of what may lie ahead. But there is more, so much more! The best part of his job is the mischief he finds himself involved in, the antics and the camaraderie.
It’s the early 80s and life was very different; Tom and his ‘brothers’ split their time between the pub and the fire station, although it is not always clear whether they are on duty or at a party. The fire engine, which they call ‘The Machine’, doesn’t always want to play and sometimes they forget to climb aboard. This is a tale of frolics, of trauma, of nurses, and even villainy. It is an exposure. Are Tom and his compadres heroes? Well, that’s for you to decide.
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Finding My Feet
This is my story.
As a young child in Germany from 1943-1945, in and out of bomb shelters, who doesn’t know any better since he has never experienced anything else.
As an unhappy adolescent in the 1950s, who doesn’t like his home and wants to join the French Foreign Legion.
And as a young man in April 1960, who is disillusioned about his present life and seeks a new future in another land.
It was to Australia that I came, with 1400 others, in an old ‘bucket’ built in 1930, called SS Castel Felice. Very happy, actually, as for the first time in my life I feel as free as a bird; can do my own thing in my own time.
You will read about my life above and about my trials and tribulations as a vagabond in Oz. The people I have met and worked with, everlasting friendships, and travels between the old and the new country until I meet the love of my life and settle in the far west of Sydney.
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Fighting for Hanne
Hanne Schafer, 63, had just retired as a psychologist from her position in a mental health clinic. Youthful and energetic, she looked forward to engaging in more travel, socializing, hiking and ballroom dancing with her partner, Daniel Laurin. When Hanne received a devastating diagnosis, she asked Daniel and Mary, her long-time friends, for help in dealing with a grim reality. She asked them for the ‘unthinkable’.
How would you respond? What would help you deal with one obstacle after another?
This memoir, written from Mary’s perspective, is based primarily on Hanne’s emails to Mary over a three-year period. It details how Hanne, Daniel and Mary persisted in pursuing Hanne’s goal of remaining in charge of her life.
Canada passed assisted dying legislation in June 2016, but some obstacles still remain and impede a person’s choice to die with dignity. Further legislation is anticipated. Hanne’s receipt of a court-ordered exemption in February 2016 is one facet of Canada’s history of assisted dying. Telling Hanne’s story reflects our mutual desire to eliminate obstacles that others may encounter.
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Fastovski's Tales of Hampstead
Imagine that Isaac Babel’s Cossacks wassail together with Runyonesque Liverpool Jews outside the plate-glass window of a Hampstead café where a Klezmer band is playing to a packed and tea-drinking congregation of jazzmen, Hasidic scholars, surrealists, old soldiers, and retired strippers; and you have the tone and temperature of this unique and unclassifiable memoir – no, not memoir, more a stream-of-consciousness novella – no, not a novella but a piece of autobiographical fiction – no, not autobiography but a picaresque drama conquered from the unreliable and fertile brain of the eponymous Fastovski.
And who is Fastovski? Is he real or invented? Is he perhaps the alter-ego of real-life jazz pianist, Klezmer swinger, big band leader and flaneur, Wallace Fields, who stares at us from the book’s frontispiece in shades, Diaghilev coat and moustache, over a cup of strong black coffee? Fastovski’s not telling and anyway, who cares.
This is a book to be devoured, disseminated, denounced, and delighted in. It belongs to all who think art and life are one and that the Arch-Savant of Canterbury, Issy Bonn, Rashid the Manic Berber Chef of NW3, and Mrs Karl Popper, have an equal claim on history. I haven’t had such a good time since I shared Sir Ralph Richardson’s motorbike with a parrot and a striking grandmother clock.
Piers Plowright
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F*cking Up Adulthood
I didn’t ask for this. There’s no consent form for adulthood, you just get thrown in the deep end. One minute I’m jerking off my way through high school, the next I’m spending £5 on cheddar cheese. If you’re fed up with adulthood and its merry band of shite like me, let’s fight back against the conventions we so dearly hate. Join me on my runaway mission as I moan my way through the themes of young adulthood. Longing to be back on his feet, escaping the country to recover from what broke him. All the while dissecting the political and social landscape the world enters.
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Exploitation
In Exploitation, readers are taken on a heart-wrenching journey through the mind and experiences of a frontline soldier. Through intense and extreme pressure, the soldier must navigate their way through the challenges of combat and emerge on the other side. With raw and emotional storytelling, this book offers a unique insight into the thoughts and actions of those on the front lines, leaving readers with a deeper understanding of the challenges and sacrifices of military service.
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Every Step of the Way
Taking up any challenge, even an extreme one, for many people is not unusual, especially when the aim is to raise money to support a specific charity or other deserving cause. Often there is a direct link between the person taking on the challenge and the charity nominated to benefit from funds raised. Not all succeed, of course, even ending in heart break and sadly, tragic circumstances, at times.
So, what happens when one, 57-year-old, unfit, overweight, ex-smoking individual decides to pit himself against one of the world’s Seven Summits? Maybe it is a recipe for disaster on the face of it, some might even say foolhardy and risky but the events of the previous years that led to this attempt were compelling and after much consideration, made the urge too strong to ignore. The actual challenge was one thing but undertaking the preparation and importantly the fund raising, were extremely hard work, yet, at the same time fulfilling, fun and exhausting.
Every Step of the Way not only charts the 12 months leading up to that week on Mount Kilimanjaro and details the actual climb but, additionally, looks into the reasons for attempting it, which began with one man being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease, his appalling treatment in care, and the inevitable outcome.
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