One Tear at a Time

When Natalie’s mum was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at the age of just 54, she didn’t realise the devastation it was going to cause and the changes she was going to face. She faced numerous challenges; from memory loss, incontinence, confusion and accusations to paranoia, relationship breakdowns, a loss of physical capabilities and being sectioned. Her journey with her mum was anything but easy and she reveals her struggles and challenges when faced with caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s.

This book is a real eye opener but also very informative for those facing an Alzheimer’s diagnosis. One Tear at a Time will most certainly make you understand the heartache caused by Alzheimer’s and the devastating consequences it has on family and friends. It aims to raise awareness, help people understand and inform those who need answers about their journey after their loved one is given a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s. Follow Natalie’s journey from early symptoms, diagnosis and the heartache she endured while caring for her mum. Join the emotional rollercoaster and brace yourself for this tear-jerking page turner.

Only a Yorkshire Lass

Only a Yorkshire Lass is an account of a woman born in South Yorkshire in the 1950s. It follows her life from birth to her late fifties, events which occur in her hometown and in many other countries of the world. It details the high and low points of her life, the people she has met and the people who shaped her destiny for better or worse. It is a story full of emotion, joy, happiness, sadness, anger, hope and despair. It keeps the reader wondering and waiting for the next chapter and what will the outcome be. It also forces the reader to look at their own life and both sympathise and empathise with the writer’s different situations.

In parts, it is humorous and will bring a smile to the reader’s face and in others, one can’t help but shed a tear for the writer.

It is a book that will appeal as there is always light at the end of the tunnel.

Red, Autobiography of Ou Chaoquan

Pride and prejudice, war and peace, crime and punishment all feature in this autobiography of an ordinary person in China. The account spans eight turbulent decades, with love struggling through a torrent of change.

The author’s boyhood name was Red. He grew up in a Dong-minority village in remote southwestern mountains, where most people were rice farmers.

Red supported the 1949 transition to communist rule, accompanied research expeditions into minority areas, and in 1959 completed his Beijing-based research studies. In 1965, he was sentenced to re-education through labour.

On being rehabilitated in 1979, Red spent 16 more years as a university lecturer, becoming professor of anthropology. After retirement in 1995, he kept writing, and over the following 16 years, he published several academic books.

Red has lived by the slogan ‘study to death, die to study, die studying’. This book documents Chinese society in the period 1930–2011 from his personal perspective.

Rose's Children

When a young woman promises her dying mammie that she will keep her seven siblings together in the family home, she has no idea of the huge responsibility this would become. 1940s' Ireland was a cruel and unforgiving country to abandoned and orphaned children. Notoriously run by Religious Orders of Nuns and Brothers, orphanages and church homes were a final bitter resort. Devoutly religious, Rose McGorry's one obsession as she approached her death was praying to her Heavenly Father that her beloved children never suffer the pain of being separated or the shame of succumbing to the poverty that surrounded them. How these eight young people managed to stay close and survive is a tribute to the mother who loved them and the strength with which she imbued all her children.

Tank to Tower

Tank to Tower is the story of a young woman’s transition from childhood to womanhood, through the many facets of life. It takes the reader on that journey with the writer from the heat of the Arabian desert, the dust and flies of Western Australian farmland to lush New Zealand bush and beyond. For instance how does a young bride, fresh from the city, cope with the starkly different challenges of rural life, or from having very limited culinary skills to catering for a number of healthy appetites with several hearty meals every day?

This is the record of an interesting and everchanging life full of fascinating places and of interesting but unremarkable people living full but very normal lives.

It is a story of challenge and resilience, lack and abundance, sadness and joy, and all the other ingredients that go into building a tale of ordinary people with ordinary lives that will resonate with many, perhaps encourage a few and hopefully entertain them all.

Teaching In Chongqing

Today, China is so important. We need to understand why this empire (it is not a country) acts as it does. What are its intentions? This book is not a political analysis, but simply a record of one westerner’s experiences teaching English in Chongqing. Nevertheless, being part of the daily life of ordinary people has given rise to valuable insights. Chongqing is a major city with some 17 million people: it is not a backwater and was China’s wartime capital. But it is important for another reason. The popular mayor when the author began his time there was Bo Xilai, a rival to Xi Jinping; his subsequent removal and imprisonment says a lot.

The author’s daily experiences were fascinating, a real privilege to visit such interesting places and to meet so many wonderful people. These should be shared, which is what this book does.

Teenagers and How to Succeed

It doesn’t matter whether your own teenage years are a distant memory or only yesterday, you will love this book. If you have your very own living, barely functioning teenager at home, you’ll laugh until you cry. Or just cry. If you have younger children on the cusp of their teenage years, you’ll definitely be crying, as you’ll know that all the things you are reading will be happening very shortly and there is nothing you can do about it (within the bounds of the law, anyway). And if you are a teenager yourself, it’s likely you’ll laugh yourself silly because you probably think it’s about someone else.

Either way, you’ll be immersed. It’s a frank and honest account of the incidents and accidents the author’s own children got up to, with some of his own memories of teenage years. His youngest son features very heavily in the stories, as he was a constant feature whilst the book was being written, especially as he left a perfectly good job to join the circus.

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll wish you never grew up and certainly wonder why you ever had children.

The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man

For most of my life, I have been infected by wanderlust. When I see an airplane flying overhead or a ship on the horizon, I can’t help but ask myself, “I wonder where they are going?” 

Life, as it has evolved, has led me on a journey that is beyond my imagination. I participated in one of the most polarizing events in U.S. history, the Vietnam war. I also was a participant in, quite possibly, the most important event in U.S. labor history, the 1981 air traffic controllers’ strike.

The second of those events led me to an amazing adventure. I lived outside of the United States for nine years. I have crossed the Pacific Ocean 11 times. I have crossed the Indian Ocean seven times. I have crossed the Atlantic Ocean more times than I can count. I have been on six of the seven continents and visited more than 90 countries. Along the way, a brilliant and beautiful young woman decided to become my partner and accompany me on that journey. 

This is the story of that adventure.

The Kid From Port Douglas

You are transported into this huge-hearted girl’s world and gasp at the earthy honesty of a child condemned to a life of hard-working business-owning parents as she goes on to unfold the similarities in her own eventual career and life path. Some of the stories will break the hardest of hearts or produce the heartiest belly laughter. The author has an easy literary style whilst also embracing some controversially high-brow topics, in contrast, emerging as infamous winners of reality TV. Military parade life, travel petty officers and parade grounds, Switzerland, Kensington High Street, Port Douglas, Hotels, Mareeba and Wales. Also some incredible stories of family war heroes; of Changi Prison and the Red Baron. And of Taffy Lloyd, the last man on the beach in Dunkirk. Every page has its own charm, you will consider it a well-chosen book, so curious reader, enjoy. 

There was Once a Street in Bethnal Green

Derek Houghton was born and bred in London’s East End, Bethnal Green, when horses and carts were just as predominant on its streets as motorised vehicles. It was at a time when National Health was not even a dream, or any kind of benefit existed, the only benefit available was by taking the “Means Test” (Dole Money) that most East Enders were too proud to take. Poverty was never any stranger to their doors, unemployment was rife, and the pawnshops did a roaring trade. People then could walk the streets in safety, the streets were the children’s playgrounds, where they played unhindered. As hard as times were, neighbours showed great compassion in helping each other. Each street was like a village, where everybody knew everyone else. World War II was to bring about an even stronger bond with each other. Above all, it was the love of a street – “Our Street.”

Thirteen Months of Sunshine

Ethiopians have not completely put that historical famine – of ‘Live Aid’ times – behind them and they struggle to understand or to keep up with the Western world, including their ever-advancing technology. Education there is seen as a key to success but balancing developments alongside embedded tribal and superstitious beliefs is not easy. At least now schools have moved from drawing in the dust under a shady tree, into purpose-built structures – with or without resources.  

It was into this environment Valerie was placed when, following the dramatic changes in her circumstances, she made her momentous decision to put her comfortable English life on hold and to replace it with a year in that developing country. At 58, not only did she use her life skills and teaching experience in the northern town of Mekelle, but she lived through a potentially dangerous political time. Valerie used in-country transport to visit some amazing places which included her medal-winning run in Addis Ababa! Partly to record every little detail but also to maintain some sort of sanity, she kept a detailed diary throughout that roller coaster year. This book gives the reader a combination of an entertaining personal read of diaried key events, alongside her own Ethiopian life with its water conservation, frugal diet, wind, dust and much more. Valerie records an honest and sometimes harrowing insight into the little-known everyday existence of Ethiopians.

White Is Black

A patient’s journey in intensive care always starts like a tennis ball landing on top of the net, at the tipping point. Not only for the one in the bed.

Doctor Apfelstein, a specialist in the field, recounts his rise and fall; from flamboyance to custody; from the sleaziest north-east suburb of Paris where he may have killed some of his guests, to the jungle of Harley Street, and finally the flatlands of Norfolk.

He portrays the darkest recesses of his trade, the fleeting nature of life and love, and the blessings of all sorts of music: the soothing drug he needs.

When his own tennis ball lands on top of the net that separates oblivion from memories, at the tipping point, he has chosen his side. Memories. His way.

Translated from French by Brigid Purcell, PhD in European Literature, assisted by Philippe Grunstein, Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (London), Associate Professor of Medicine, for specific vocabulary of Respiratory Medicine and Intensive care.