Tangled Thoughts of Reason

Aged 21, Owen has lost all his self-worth and self-control. Addicted to crack and trying to get clean, he falls back into the same cycle again and again. Losing his mind and falling deeper into depression, he needs to make a change before he loses himself completely.

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.

Teaching in Fuzhou, China

English is the world’s international language. Consequently, many speakers of other languages have taken great pains to make English their second language, mainly for practical reasons rather than for love of the language itself. Practical reasons include travel, business, academic intercourse and inter-governmental communication. China recognises this need and, in consequence, the author spent more than ten years in China, finding the experience interesting, enlightening and exciting, albeit at times frustrating. It was a wonderful time. In the author’s view, it is essential that the world comes to know and understand this huge empire. This book is full of observations from within the country, which should help in presenting China, its people, customs, educational systems and way of life, its contradictions and its attractions as well as its darker side. Most importantly, it gives some insight into how the people think – and this is important. Hopefully readers learn something while enjoying the experience.

Teaching in Tongren, China

Since the accession of Xi Jinping as the supreme Chinese leader, the empire has been becoming increasingly aggressive, to the point of bullying. Its so-called “Belt and Road Initiative” seems designed to lure poorer nations into a debt trap, forcing them into subservience to Chinese demands. Its huge fishing fleet is encroaching upon the legitimate fishing grounds of many other nations. It is seeking to expand its territory to include almost the entire South China Sea, Taiwan, parts of India, Japanese islands, etc. Indeed most of “China” is conquered territory. Chinese efforts to control Australia have been extraordinary.

Yet is this the whole story? This book describes just how wonderful the Chinese people can be. The students I taught at Tongren University were amongst the best I have taught anywhere. It was not hard to love them.

The town of Tongren is itself quite beautiful, surrounded by conical hills and built around the green, winding Li Jiang River.

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.

Thank You for My Dinner, May I Get Down Please?

The author always enjoyed a sense of freedom, whether roaming around the Somerset countryside as a child or later on, living offshore with her husband and three daughters on a boat. She considers nothing strictly ‘out of bounds’, and for seventy years no-one has stopped her in her tracks. Thank You for My Dinner really sums up the dichotomy of her life – an upbringing steeped in Victorian-based principles and the free license to go her own way, which was generous even by twenty-first century standards.

This is the story of Celia’s early life coupled with a trip down the river, never completely grown up, always looking for adventure, not anticipating danger, but keeping a sense of fun and a smile through various struggles – and surviving enough to say ‘thank you’ at the end.

That Boogie Beat Damn Killed My Soul

I have been involved in the music business in various roles since 1961. I was bought my first guitar when I was 12 years old, on which I slogged away for a year. In 1962, I joined my first band, the Phantoms. Then the Sparticans came for me in 1963, then in 1965, I was invited to join the Nomads, who were local pop stars!

This began a life in which I would meet many of the good and great in the music industry, including a Beatle, with whom we made a record. In 1979, with my friend, old bandmate and future business partner, keyboard player John DaCosta, I decided to open a music shop – the first of many we would open in the coming years. After an epic roller coaster ride of ambition and excess, it all came crashing down for me in 1994 and I was forced to rethink my life. Today I live a complicated but thoroughly enjoyable life in Thailand, still playing the guitar and writing songs, but no longer trying to run music shops…

The 50-Year Secret

This is a true story of physical, mental and sexual abuse of a child by someone who you trust the most – a father. Taking place in the ’60s where this sort of crime was unheard of, let alone reported as nobody believed that it happened, this book is full of funny stories and anecdotes but also sadness as the story unfolds eventually ending up in Crown Court.

The Best of Health

60 years ago, being a medical student entailed some hair-raising encounters in the course of training like giving a general anaesthetic without help or instruction, simply because you were the only help available; or assisting in emergency surgery when there was nobody else available.

Distinguished doctors thronged the corridors of Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Long after the war there was still a vivid memory of Burma and Libya.

Find out why an elderly theatre orderly hinted darkly at “a doctor who got to Dunkirk four days ahead of the field hospital team”. Get a new slant on the Penicillin story and read why the old NHS system in Edinburgh avoided “bed blockers”.

Here is an account of the almost explosive expansion of hospital medicine into ICUs – cardiac arrest teams, coronary care units, positive pressure ventilation, renal dialysis, etc. It was a time of medical progress and high morale.

The Boy Who Refused to Die

On 17 December 2007, 13-year-old Alby Dobinson left his home to make his daily journey to school. Later that day, during his return journey, something happened that would change his life forever.

This story charts the remarkable journey undertaken by Alby and those closest to him. Life is always a mixture of good times and bad, laughter and sadness, and Alby’s story reflects this rainbow of human emotion, from suffering to euphoria.

As a biography, written in the style of a novel, this book details years of rehabilitation as family members recount their own experiences with humour, regret and acceptance, plumbing the depths of despair and soaring to the heights of joy.

The Daily Mail headline “The boy who wouldn’t die” was detested by Alby’s family. However, a small change to it illustrated Alby’s determination. He did not travel his road alone but was accompanied by his mother and stepfather, Lisa and Mark; his younger brother, Jimmy; and his grandparents. What happened to Alby had a profound effect on them all and each has their own special story, including the amusing tale of how Lisa and Mark met and the response to Mark’s declaration that he would run the London Marathon: “You’ve never done more than run for a bus!”

This is a story that will amaze and inspire. It is tinged with sadness but the overwhelming message is one of courage and the triumph of one very determined young man and his family.

The Deconstruction of Humanity’s Voice, But We Are Still Standing

Playing his clarinet inside one of London’s most exclusive members’ clubs reminded him of the privilege the elites can enjoy, but also the illusive duality of his identity, as the echo of his clanging Ashanti beads around his wrist, the scent of shea butter and sandalwood oil immersed upon his mahogany brown skin, reminded him of his true African identity.

Jesse Yaw takes us through his journey as a young black man, exploring the racial constructs of relationships and modern society. With its destructive perceptions of class, race, truth, and equality, coloured by the trajectory of historical discrimination, and prejudiced western norms that have been embraced by the global community, Jesse seeks to explore the psychological impact that assimilation to westernised ideologies of beauty, governance, education, economy, law, class, and politics has on humanity. And what that consequently means for his self-determination.

He acknowledges that, for too long, negative perceptions have cast a dark shadow upon black lives and subdued black potential. For these destructive perceptions to be removed from the eyes, lips, minds, and hearts of the global village, the re-education of the human mind is central. Jesse deconstructs the subconscious voice of the human mind, and establishes the unaltered truth of who we really are.