In the summer of 2003, a perilous helicopter descent delivered Ross Donaldson, an American medical student in his twenties, into Sierra Leone. With abundant schooling but little practical experience, Ross wanted to save the world. Little did he know that by the end of his journey, it would be he who would need rescue. With rebels fighting just across the border in Liberia, humanitarian need quickly swept Ross southward towards makeshift refugee camps & the heart of danger. There, he had his first terrifying encounter with the highly contagious Lassa Virus. Working on the Lassa Fever Ward, he was wholly unprepared for what he would find, & for twist of fate that saw him running the facility alone, with only a handful of untrained nurses to help him. Based on his personal journal, this gripping memoir details the time Ross spent on the Lassa Ward, & his own battle with a potentially fatal illness. It is a real-life thriller that not only tells the adventure-packed tale of a modern-day hero, but also bears witness to a people in need, & the struggle of those who risk their daily comforts, & even their lives, to help them. ...

In the summer of 1990, Cathy`s brother Matty was knocked down by a car on the way home from a night out. It was two weeks before his GCSE results, which turned out to be the best in his school. Sitting by his unconscious body in hospital, holding his hand & watching his heartbeat on the monitors, Cathy & her parents willed him to survive. They did not know then that there are many & various fates worse than death. This is the story of what happened to Cathy & her brother, & the unimaginable decision that she & her parents had to make eight years after the night that changed everything. It`s a story for anyone who has ever watched someone suffer or lost someone they loved or lived through a painful time that left them forever changed. Told with boundless warmth & affection, The Last Act of Love by Cathy Rentzenbrink is a heartbreaking yet uplifting testament to a family`s survival & the price we pay for love. ...

In the summer of 1990, Cathy`s brother Matty was knocked down by a car on the way home from a night out. It was two weeks before his GCSE results, which turned out to be the best in his school. Sitting by his unconscious body in hospital, holding his hand & watching his heartbeat on the monitors, Cathy & her parents willed him to survive. They did not know then that there are many & various fates worse than death. This is the story of what happened to Cathy & her brother, & the unimaginable decision that she & her parents had to make eight years after the night that changed everything. It`s a story for anyone who has ever watched someone suffer or lost someone they loved or lived through a painful time that left them forever changed. Told with boundless warmth & affection, The Last Act of Love by Cathy Rentzenbrink is a heartbreaking yet uplifting testament to a family`s survival & the price we pay for love. ...

At the age of seventeen, Eustace Conway ditched the comforts of his suburban existence to escape to the wild. Away from the crushing disapproval of his father, he lived alone in a teepee in the mountains. Everything he needed he built, grew or killed. He made his clothes from deer he killed & skinned before using their sinew as sewing thread. But he didn`t stop there. In the years that followed, he stopped at nothing in pursuit of bigger, bolder challenges. He travelled the Mississippi in a handmade wooden canoe; he walked the two-thous&-mile Appalachian Trail; he hiked across the German Alps in trainers; he scaled cliffs in New Zeal&. One Christmas, he finished dinner with his family & promptly upped & left
- to ride his horse across America. From South Carolina to the Pacific, with his little brother in tow, they dodged cars on the highways, ate road kill & slept on the hard ground. Now, more than twenty years on, Eustace is still in the mountains, residing in a thous&-acre forest where he teaches survival skills & attempts to instil in people a deeper appreciation of nature. But over time he has had to reconcile his ambitious dreams with the sobering realities of modernity. Told with Elizabeth Gilbert`s trademark wit & spirit, this is a fascinating, intimate portrait of an endlessly complicated man: a visionary, a narcissist, a brilliant but flawed modern hero. The Last American Man is an unforgettable adventure story of an irrepressible life lived to the extreme. The Last American Man is a New York Times Notable Book & National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist.
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At the age of seventeen, Eustace Conway ditched the comforts of his suburban existence to escape to the wild. Away from the crushing disapproval of his father, he lived alone in a teepee in the mountains. Everything he needed he built, grew or killed. He made his clothes from deer he killed & skinned before using their sinew as sewing thread. But he didn`t stop there. In the years that followed, he stopped at nothing in pursuit of bigger, bolder challenges. He travelled the Mississippi in a handmade wooden canoe; he walked the two-thous&-mile Appalachian Trail; he hiked across the German Alps in trainers; he scaled cliffs in New Zeal&. One Christmas, he finished dinner with his family & promptly upped & left
- to ride his horse across America. From South Carolina to the Pacific, with his little brother in tow, they dodged cars on the highways, ate road kill & slept on the hard ground. Now, more than twenty years on, Eustace is still in the mountains, residing in a thous&-acre forest where he teaches survival skills & attempts to instil in people a deeper appreciation of nature. But over time he has had to reconcile his ambitious dreams with the sobering realities of modernity. Told with Elizabeth Gilbert`s trademark wit & spirit, this is a fascinating, intimate portrait of an endlessly complicated man: a visionary, a narcissist, a brilliant but flawed modern hero. The Last American Man is an unforgettable adventure story of an irrepressible life lived to the extreme. The Last American Man is a New York Times Notable Book & National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist.
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A maid who is unexpectedly bequeathed her wealthy employers` worldly possessions when they flee the country after the Nazi occupation; a loyal bank clerk, who steals a Renaissance portrait of a Spanish noblewoman, & falls into troublesome love with her; a middle-aged travel agent, who is perhaps the least well-travelled man in the city & advises his clients from what he has read in books, anxiously awaiting his looming honeymoon; a widowed villager, whose `magnetic` twelve-year-old daughter witnesses a disturbing event; & a tiny village thrown into civil war by the disappearance of a freshly baked cheesecake. These stories about the tremendous upheaval which results when the ordinary encounters the unexpected are vividly told, with both humour & humanity. This is the first ever English publication of these both literally & metaphorically Bohemian tales, by one of the great overlooked writers of the twentieth century. ...

” The small man standing on the narrow ledge stared fixedly forward with eyes made wide & blank by terror.” At 2pm on a Monday in 1966, Ned Balfour wakes in Corsica beside a beautiful woman. In the same instant, back in London, fellow art dealer & Dachau survivor Sam Weiss falls ten stories to his death. Ned refuses to believe that Sam`s death was intentional, & his investigation thrusts him into the deceit & fraudulence of the art world, where he unmasks more than one respectable face. First published in 1967, this thrilling tale of vertigo, suspicion & infidelity is a long-forgotten classic with an intriguing plot twist. ...

Explosive, dark & tender, The Last Boat Home is a devastating novel about sacrifice, survival & a mother`s love. If you loved The Light Between Oceans or The Snow Child, this is for you. On the wind-swept southern coast of Norway, sixteen-year-old Else is out on the icy sea, dragging her oars through the waves while, above her, storm clouds are gathering. Surrounded by mountains, snow & white-capped water, she looks across the fjord & dreams of another life, of escape & faraway lands. Back on shore, her father sits alone in his boathouse with a jar of homebrew. In the Best Room, her mother covers her bruises & seeks solace in prayer. Each tries to hide the truth from this isolated, God-fearing community they call home. Until one night changes everything. More than thirty years later, the return of an old friend forces Else to relive the events that marked the end of her childhood. Explosive, dark & tender, The Last Boat Home is a devastating novel about sacrifice, survival & a mother`s love. ...

” An ingenious thriller”. (Sunday Times). From the author of The Dante Club. A reclusive writer...A stolen manuscript... An adventure at the ends of the earth. On the island of Samoa, a dying Robert Louis Stevenson labours over a new novel. It is rumoured that this may be the author of Treasure Island`s greatest masterpiece. On the other side of the world this news fires the imaginations of the bookaneers, literary pirates who steal the latest manuscripts by famous writers. Two adversaries set out for the South Pacific: Pen Davenport, a tortured criminal genius haunted by his past & Belial, his nemesis. Both dream of fortune & immortality with what may be their last & most incredible heist. The Last Bookaneer thrillingly depicts the lost world of these doomed outlaws, a tropical island with a violent destiny, a brewing colonial war & a reclusive genius directing events from high in his mountain compound. ...

Raj is oblivious to the Second World War being fought beyond his tiny exotic isl&. His mother is his sole company while his father works as a prison guard, so the boy thinks only of making friends. One day, from the far-away world, a ship brings to the island Jewish exiles who have been refused entry to Israel. David, a recently orphaned boy of his own age from Prague, becomes the friend that he has longed for, & Raj takes it upon himself to help David to escape from the prison. As they flee through sub-tropical forests & devastating storms, the boys battle hunger & malaria
- & forge a friendship only death could destroy.
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