NEW FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF I DON’T TALK TO DEAD BODIESWhat if your biggest challenge became your greatest adventure?
One day, Dr Rhona Morrison was a respected forensic psychiatrist planning for retirement. The next, on her birthday, she became a widow, stepping into an uncertain and unplanned future alone. But as Rhona soon discovered, an ending can also be a beginning – if you grasp the opportunities life presents.
In this warm, witty, and inspiring memoir, Rhona shares how she navigated the twists and turns of her loss and subsequent reinvention, transforming her grief into opportunity. From launching an art business and writing her first book, I Don’t Talk to Dead Bodies, to becoming a cruise ship lecturer and embarking on global adventures, she tackled each step with an open heart. Along the way, she discovered unexpected joys, new passions, and a renewed sense of purpose.
From Crime Scenes to Cruise Ships is an uplifting story of resilience, reinvention and embracing the unknown. Whether you’re facing loss, retirement, or a major life shift, Rhona’s journey is a reminder that even when life feels uncertain, you still have the power to shape your future. It may not look like you once imagined, but it can still be rich with meaning, adventure and possibility.
Your story isn’t over; the next chapter is waiting. So, let’s turn the page and step into what comes next – together.
Format: 342 pages, Paperback Published: March 21, 2019 by Two Roads ISBN: 9781473661233 (ISBN10: 1473661234)
From the first time he was stopped and searched as a child, to the day he realised his mum was white, to his first encounters with racist teachers – race and class have shaped Akala’s life and outlook. In this unique book he takes his own experiences and widens them out to look at the social, historical and political factors that have left us where we are today.
Covering everything from the police, education and identity to politics, sexual objectification and the far right, Nativesspeaks directly to British denial and squeamishness when it comes to confronting issues of race and class that are at the heart of the legacy of Britain’s racialised empire.
Natives is the searing modern polemic and Sunday Times bestseller from the BAFTA and MOBO award-winning musician and political commentator, Akala.
Format: Audiobook Published: August 17, 2021 by Macmillan Audio ISBN: 9781250830777 (ISBN10: 125083077X) Language: English
Description
Things are scary right now. We’re all being swept along by a tidal wave of history, and it’s easy to feel helpless. But we’re not helpless: we have minds, and imaginations, and the ability to visualize other worlds and valiant struggles. And writing can be an act of resistance that reminds us that other futures and other ways of living are possible.
Full of memoir, personal anecdote, and insight about how to flourish during the present emergency, Never Say You Can’t Survive is the perfect manual for creativity in unprecedented times.
My Review
I listened to this book last week and I’ve been digesting it ever since. I am also reading another writing advice book at the moment, so I needed time to separate the two.
In this collection of essays written for tor.com during the pandemic, Anders covers memoir, dealing with catastrophic life events, the utility of positive writing, and writing advice. I enjoy Charlie Jane Anders’ podcast Our Opinions Are Correct, so I’m familiar with her audio work. I don’t generally read YA or comics so I haven’t read any of her books, and this was an opportunity to learn more about her writing style and techniques, as well as receive a bit of a pep talk.
Before I continue, I would like to point out that I cried, a lot, listening to this book. Walking down the street. At the wellbeing centre. On the bus. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever had a writing craft book make me cry before! Both the essays that cover her own story and the essays that explore purpose of positive writing in bad times hit me right in the emotions. I probably needed the cry, to be honest.
I have been struggling with my writing recently, for a variety of reasons – work stress, financial anxiety, another ear infection, not being able to get to the pool, just the usual stuff. I’m torn between working on the sci-fantasy star dragons, autistic human and a mysterious disappearance in space story I’ve been sharing monthly with paid subscribers, and working on the fantasy novel I want to write for my PhD (it will contain dragons, autistic people, and shapeshifting. Also murder. But not a murder mystery. The murderer is known, revenge is plotted.) but getting started on the PhD is taking longer than planned, what with me not yet submitting my application and struggling with writing the proposal and writing samples.
Last Friday, after listening to this book for several hours, I sat down and write outlines and a couple of scenes from the end of the novel. I just have to work out how to get back from there to the beginning… There will definitely be murder, pirates, and dragons, that you can be certain of. I was writing for so long I had to reheat my tea! And I’ve had ideas for the space dragon mystery story too, so I’m going to work on that next week. I also made progress on my PhD proposal, so thanks Charlie Jane, I appreciate the kick up the bum.
The author narrates this audiobook, and does rather a good job of it. You can tell she’s been presenting a podcast for a while now. Very smooth, clear diction.
I would say this is one of the best writing guides I’ve read/listened to. There are a lot of writing books out there, but I’ve recommended this one to people already, so I think that’s a positive sign.
Publication Date: 28th January 2024 £12.99 ISBN: 9781805142256 Thema subject category: DNC – Memoirs paperback 216 x 138 mm 320 pp Portrait Author location: Hastings
Have you ever struggled with your mental health, your terrible relatives or a dysfunctional relationship? Or simply wondered what the hell is wrong with you? This story is for you.
Finley recounts their chaotic life with deadpan humour and honesty, wryly embracing their colourful lovers and a series of futile attempts to fix them. When a catastrophic encounter in France sends them into meltdown, they wind up receiving daily psychoanalysis on the NHS with a cast of unsettling characters – mainly the therapists.
On leaving hospital, Finley stitches their life back together, living for a short time with a Bristol theologian before finding domestic bliss with a transgender civil servant. A cutting-edge approach to mental illness eventually leads them to a key revelation about their past, and they finally understands themself through the lens of their history. Aware at last of what they had survived, they face an agonising decision about their future.
I’m diagnosed with autism 20 years after telling a doctor I had it.
My terrible Catholic childhood: I hate my parents etc.
My friendship with an elderly man who runs the corner shop and is definitely not trying to groom me.
Homelessness.
Stripping.
More stripping but with more nervous breakdowns.
I hate everyone at Edinburgh uni etc.
REDACTED as too spicy.
After everyone tells me I don’t look autistic, I try to cure my autism and get addicted to Xanax.
REDACTED as too embarrassing.
If you’ve ever been on a night out where you got blackout drunk and have laughed the next day as your friends tell you all the stupid stuff you said, that’s what being autistic feels like for me: one long blackout night of drinking, except there’s no socially sanctioned excuse for your gaffes and no one is laughing.
In this book, Fern uses her voice as an autistic, working class woman from Scotland to bring her experiences with sex work, abusive relationships and her time spent in a teenage mental health unit to the page. Written with unflinching honesty, Strong Female Character is a game-changing memoir on sexism and autism.
(I changed some of the blurb copy because Fern Brady has made it clear she doesn’t like being referred to as neurodivergent and wants people to use ‘autistic’ instead.)
Publication date Thursday, September 01, 2022 Price £20.00 EAN\ISBN-13 9781913068790 Binding Hardback 304 pages
Blurb An action-packed tale of medicine in the most remote, poverty-torn areas of the globe from a Médecins Sans Frontières doctor. Set to appeal to fans of War Doctor.
Lachlan was sixteen when he found his father dead on the side of a dirt road in North Queensland, Australia. He had suffered a sudden heart attack and died alone. It was this tragedy that motivated Lachlan to train as a doctor specialising in providing medical care for people living in remote, resource-deprived locations. Lachlan’s work with the World Health Organization and Medecins Sans Frontieres has taken him to some of the world’s most extreme environments from the sinking islands of the Pacific to epidemics and war zones in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa.
In this no-holds-barred memoir, Lachlan recounts his experiences treating patients ravaged by tropical diseases, managing war wounds with drug-resistant infections, delivering babies by the light of a head torch, dealing with the devastating effects of climate change and narrowly avoiding being kidnapped by militia in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Tackling such impossible problems day in and day out inevitably takes a personal toll. Lachlan is ultimately forced to face his own battles with depression, alcohol abuse and bankruptcy.
Life and Death Decisions is a deeply human look at the personal cost of our broken global health system and a vital call to action.
Paperback, 240 pages Published September 22nd 2020 by Douglas McIntyre ISBN:1771622466 (ISBN13: 9781771622462)
Sarah Kurchak is autistic. She hasn’t let that get in the way of pursuing her dream to become a writer, or to find love, but she has let it get in the way of being in the same room with someone chewing food loudly, and of cleaning her bathroom sink. In I Overcame My Autism and All I Got Was This Lousy Anxiety Disorder, Kurchak examines the Byzantine steps she took to become “an autistic success story,” how the process almost ruined her life and how she is now trying to recover.
Growing up undiagnosed in small-town Ontario in the eighties and nineties, Kurchak realized early that she was somehow different from her peers. She discovered an effective strategy to fend off bullying: she consciously altered nearly everything about herself—from her personality to her body language. She forced herself to wear the denim jeans that felt like being enclosed in a sandpaper iron maiden. Every day, she dragged herself through the door with an elevated pulse and a churning stomach, nearly crumbling under the effort of the performance. By the time she was finally diagnosed with autism at twenty-seven, she struggled with depression and anxiety largely caused by the same strategy she had mastered precisely. She came to wonder, were all those years of intensely pretending to be someone else really worth it?
Tackling everything from autism parenting culture to love, sex, alcohol, obsessions and professional pillow fighting, Kurchak’s enlightening memoir challenges stereotypes and preconceptions about autism and considers what might really make the lives of autistic people healthier, happier and more fulfilling.
In the summer of 1944, Eva Mozes Kor and her family arrived at Auschwitz. Within thirty minutes, they were separated. Her parents and two older sisters were taken to the gas chambers, while Eva and her twin, Miriam, were herded into the care of the man who became known as the Angel of Death: Dr. Josef Mengele. They were 10 years old.
THE NAZIS SPARED THEIR LIVES BECAUSE THEY WERE TWINS. While twins at Auschwitz were granted the ‘privileges’ of keeping their own clothes and hair, they were also subjected to Mengele’s sadistic medical experiments. They were forced to fight daily for their own survival, and many died as a result of the experiments, or from the disease and hunger rife in the concentration camp.
Publishing for the first time in the UK in the year that marks the 75th anniversary of Auschwitz liberation, The Twins of Auschwitz shares the inspirational story of a child’s endurance and survival in the face of truly extraordinary evil.
Also included is an epilogue on Eva’s incredible recovery and her remarkable decision to publicly forgive the Nazis. Through her museum and her lectures, she dedicated her life to giving testimony on the Holocaust, providing a message of hope for people who have suffered, and worked toward goals of forgiveness, peace, and the elimination of hatred and prejudice in the world.
PUBLISHED BY MONORAY 06/08/2020 | Paperback | £7.99
Fresh Eggs and Dog Beds 2 – Still living the dream in rural Ireland
Nick and Lesley’s desire for a better life in the countryside was a long-held dream. Unforeseen events and a leap of faith forced that dream into reality, but moving to rural Ireland was only the beginning of their story. Foreigners in a foreign land, they set about making new friends, learning the culture and expanding their collection of chickens and unruly dogs. But their dream home was in desperate need of renovation, a mammoth task they attacked with the aid of a DIY manual, dwindling funds and incompetent enthusiasm. With defunct diggers, collapsing ladders, and shocking electrics, what could possibly go wrong? Will their new life live up to expectations, or will the Irish weather, dangerous roads, and a cruel twist of fate turn this dream into a nightmare?
Everything Is Better With Dragons 