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The Craic and Life in the Mountains
A nine-year-old boy hooks a twine-held bundle of hay over his shoulder and climbs the harsh steep mountain on a winter morning, with his brother Pat. They trundle upwards against the harsh terrain and elements to fodder the cattle on the hill top.Some 30 years later, Sligo, his adopted town, is in crisis as development tax incentives have expired and three government ministers are refusing to extend those incentives. That young boy emerges in his elder self, strident and resolute, and fights another uphill battle.Another 20 years on, now in Derry, the calling from the mountains of his birth surface within him, urging him to return to regain lost fragments of his soul. His return regenerates and reignites the lost spirit within as voices forgotten in a busy life emerge from the shadowy vibrations of the past to soothe, heal and repair his soul. The journey sees a re-emergence of the people, characters, events and places that formed his character in a rich tapestry of recall.
£9.99 -
The Servant of the People
This book describes the 18 years during which Den Dover had the privilege to serve the people of Chorley, in Lancashire, as their Member of Parliament. He entered Parliament in 1979 when Margaret Thatcher became the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and left in 1997 when Tony Blair won a massive victory for New Labour.
Where the author has omitted to mention certain happenings, it has been in an effort to focus the minds of readers on the important matters – not to obscure what really happened. Indeed, Den’s main aim has been to allow readers to make up their own minds on the very important principles, procedures and proceedings described.
Underpinning everything else is the overwhelming requirement for elected representatives of the people to act in the best interests of all their constituents. They should never seek to benefit, financially or otherwise, from being granted the greatest honour in life, namely to work on behalf of their constituents.
At all times, elected representatives must listen to the needs of the people they represent and deal with their problems to the best of their abilities.
£10.99 -
Reflections from the Top of the World
Mount Kilimanjaro is the highest free-standing mountain in the world. It can be climbed successfully with minimal technical skill, but the physical and mental challenges are huge. The secret to conquering Mount Kilimanjaro is to just keep going, a maxim that applies equally when facing the trials of life, such as bereavement, heartbreak, and loneliness.
Loneliness is perhaps one of the most insidious legacies of the COVID-19 pandemic. People increasingly live alone, work alone and play alone; disconnected from society through the modern cultures of home working, absolute dependence on smartphones and the ability to stream television and cinema into their living rooms on demand. These modern factors conspire to break the connections between fellow human beings, and this can render recovering from bereavement, heartbreak, and other life trials especially hard. The enforced isolation of lockdown served to strengthen and normalize human disconnection, which has arguably led to a disturbing deterioration in the nations’ mental health.
Reflections from the Top of the World presents a powerful alternative philosophy of connection, mutual endeavour, and achievement. A philosophy that does not necessarily require individuals to climb the world’s largest freestanding mountain, but one that encourages reflection on the root causes of sadness and joy. The ultimate conclusion is a convincing belief that whatever life throws you, there will always be new happiness to look forward to if you just keep going.
£8.99 -
A Piece of the Action
What is it like to spend a lifetime doing research in a wide variety of fields in the physical sciences? Studying distant planets, binary stars, neutron stars, stellar mass black holes and active galaxies using optical and near-infrared ground-based telescopes. Designing and constructing equipment as a member of international teams studying the high-energy X-ray emissions from many of these objects. Flying these detectors on short duration sounding rocket flights, utilising huge balloons to carry experiments to high altitude, or installing them on long duration satellite missions. Being a scientist engaged in fieldwork studying the physical properties of the world’s oceans, or the sea ice and glaciers around the coastline of Antarctica. This lifetime involved living in the UK and Australia for many years, with a four-year interlude in the USA, as well as working in or visiting many other countries. How lucky can you get?
This book describes numerous projects in an unusually diverse range of research areas – the fun and adventure of STEM activities – without getting into excessive technical or specialist detail.
£31.99 -
More Memoirs of a Midwife
Carol Duncombe worked as a midwife for a long time, mostly in the community but had hospital experience too. She delivered over 2000 babies throughout her time as a midwife. This is her second book. The stories here are true and show the variety of families that a midwife may meet during her career.
£10.99 -
My Brother John
The book is a collection of memories of childhood and adolescence, of growing up as one of a family of seven in a small South Staffordshire mining village in the 1940s and 1950s. The family home had no electricity and relied on an open fire for all cooking and heating. The book looks at different aspects of life, such as earliest memories, starting school, wartime experiences, chores and scavenging for fuel, Christmas and leisure activities, immersing the reader in a time, which, though still within living memory is a world away from the 21st century. It is very much a personal account of how a less fortunate family coped in these difficult times and is very different from the usual memoirs of these times. Its final two chapters deal with the death of the parents, when the writer and his brother become the legal guardians of their five younger siblings and can now be considered as finally out of childhood and adolescence.
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My Life As a Nomad
Mary Smith was born and raised in a country behind the Iron Curtain. She lived in a tiny apartment and shared a bedroom with her parents during the frigid winter months. She wore school uniforms and red pioneer ties. She ate variations of potato dishes, stood in line for a loaf of bread, carried heavy blocks of ice during the hot summer days, played hide-and-seek with the children in the building, and thought that life was wonderful. Her nonconformist parents, however, talked of a world beyond the Iron Curtain and planned to escape to a place where they thought they would find freedom.
My Life As a Nomad recounts Mary’s peregrinations through five countries on three continents that began in 1964. What started as an adventure full of promises, evolved as a perennial search for a “home” amid the customs and traditions of an unfamiliar world.
“Adam was but human – this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple’s sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent.”
Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain
“The quality of mercy... is twice bless'd;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes; ’Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes the throned monarch better than his crown.”
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
£11.99 -
My Young Life and Experience after 1945
“Mum, where is Dad, has he gone to bed?”
I didn't know where my dad had gone because he just disappeared. I should really have got used to my dad getting drunk because he seemed to spend a lot of time drinking. But when I think about it, his drunkenness didn’t bother me too much: it was the punching of my mum and myself that hurt me the most.
However, I did find time to have fun with a couple of friends that I had. The secret agent games that I invented from time to time coincided with the true-life games and excitement that I found along the way.£11.99 -
Perfection Is NOT the Word for It
Orchestral life in Britain is thriving and anarchic, in turns chaotic, hilarious and brutal. Perfection Is Not the Word for It is a personal, and mostly affectionate, account of life amongst the extraordinary characters who lead their over-stressed lives in this unusual world, surrounded by music but driven by everyday anxieties, and always defying the best efforts of administrators, bureaucrats and conductors to tame the unruly beast which is a professional orchestra.
£9.99 -
Royal Engineer
As compelling as it is a delight to read, Royal Engineer is a military memoir that is truly a breath of fresh air and a ‘must’ read for anyone who has an interest in either the military or modern history, and for those who quite simply enjoy a good read.
Fascinating, honest, gripping, hard-hitting and never shying away from the truth, the author’s passion for chronicling his and others’ past events and experiences becomes abundantly clear from the very beginning. The unique style of writing and the way in which detailed narratives are brilliantly incorporated make Royal Engineer a powerful and moving memoir. Emotions, opinions, positives, and negatives are freely shared with the reader to ensure that there is no sugar-coating on subjects and matters that are of a sensitive and topical nature in today’s world.
Be prepared for a reading experience like no other because Royal Engineer is filled with comprehensive and engaging narratives that will have the reader mesmerised from the very first page, and it is also a remarkable piece of writing because of the honest approach and evocative language the author adopts throughout.
£17.99 -
Songs Through the Night
We are all at some time or other faced with loss and trial. How do we deal with them? If these kinds of experiences are foreign to us now, they inevitably will come to us. What is it like for those who struggle with long-term illness and a doctor’s diagnosis?
This book handles these issues head-on from someone who has lived with Parkinson’s disease for over 20 years and who has been involved with facing many different kinds of loss. Where is God in all this? In this book the author reflects honestly on these issues – and more – and uses his battles with Parkinson’s as a place to start.£6.99 -
Teeth In Sink, Knickers on Landing
I hope you laugh a lot and maybe cry a little and even try to understand the workings of my bipolar mind in this, my one and only book. The pages of which I recall with love, laughter and tears, the wondrous people who have helped weave the tapestry of my strange, troubled life.
If you are perplexed by the wacky title, you will find the answer with Ebony, a majestic black lady of the night, who was the dearest of friends. Turn the pages and there you will find a butt-naked butcher manacled to the grooming table in a poodle parlour! Turn yet again to meet Suki AKA Gladys, an old-time (much used) working girl screaming as she climbs off a corpse who was doing his thing just moments ago.
And just why did Jean Jeanie have a frothy bottom? Intrigued? Well, just turn my pages and all will be revealed.£13.99