Dancing With The Red Devil: A Memoir of Love, Hope, Family and Cancer


Book Description

'A beautifully written gem of a book, both inspiring and poignant.' Elton John 'Incisive and heart-rending.' Richard E Grant Sarah Standing is a wife, a mother, a journalist, a toy shop owner, a grandmother, a great friend, a daughter, and a lover of life. She does not have the time, or inclination, to deal with cancer. But shit happens. After a week or two of struggling to catch her breath, Sarah pops along to see her GP for a few tests. By the end of the day, she has a bag of what looks like bone broth draining from her body and is dealing with a diagnosis of non-Hodgkins lymphoma. It's cancer, says her doctor, but it's the good kind. Radiating personality from the very first page, this memoir is filled with joy, hope and love, and screams 'FUCK YOU, CANCER' at the top of its lungs. Covering the six months that Sarah undergoes chemo - separated from her family by the laws of lockdown - this book will make you laugh, sob and grab life firmly by the balls so you can live the hell out of it.




Take Three Cooks


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Dancing on Broken Glass


Book Description

A powerfully written novel offering an intimate look at a beautiful marriage and how bipolar disorder and cancer affect it, Dancing on Broken Glass by Ka Hancock perfectly illustrates the enduring power of love. Lucy Houston and Mickey Chandler probably shouldn’t have fallen in love, let alone gotten married. They’re both plagued with faulty genes—he has bipolar disorder, and she has a ravaging family history of breast cancer. But when their paths cross on the night of Lucy’s twenty-first birthday, sparks fly, and there’s no denying their chemistry. Cautious every step of the way, they are determined to make their relationship work—and they put it all in writing. Mickey promises to take his medication. Lucy promises not to blame him for what is beyond his control. He promises honesty. She promises patience. Like any marriage, they have good days and bad days—and some very bad days. In dealing with their unique challenges, they make the heartbreaking decision not to have children. But when Lucy shows up for a routine physical just shy of their eleventh anniversary, she gets an impossible surprise that changes everything. Everything. Suddenly, all their rules are thrown out the window, and the two of them must redefine what love really is. An unvarnished portrait of a marriage that is both ordinary and extraordinary, Dancing on Broken Glass takes readers on an unforgettable journey of the heart.




Because of You


Book Description

This could be any woman’s story. And it is every mother’s worst nightmare. Ex-Casualty actress, Rebekah was just 34 years old and 7 months pregnant when she found a lump in her breast. After twice being examined by doctors and having been told that it was nothing to worry about, Rebekah pushed it from her mind and concentrated on the birth of her beautiful daughter, Gigi. But one night, whilst nursing her baby, Rebekah realised she could still feel the lump. And it was bigger. Finally, her worst fears were confirmed: just 10 weeks after giving birth, Rebekah was told that she had a fast-growing grade-three cancer and it had spread to her lymph glands. It was the beginning of a journey to hell and back and Rebekah embarked on the fight of her life. This isn’t just a book about the horror of cancer. It is about facing illness with humour and courage It’s a celebration of the special, unbreakable bond between mothers and daughters. It’s about survival.




Camouflage


Book Description

Autism in women and girls is still not widely understood, and is often misrepresented or even overlooked. This engaging and accessible graphic novel offers invaluable insight into the lives and minds of autistic women, using real-life case studies. The charming illustrations lead readers on a visual journey of how women on the spectrum experience everyday life, from metaphors and masking in social situations, to friendships and relationships and the role of special interests. Fun, sensitive and informative, this is a fantastic resource for anyone who wishes to understand how gender interacts with autism, and how to create safer, supportive, and more accessible environments for women on the spectrum.




A Life on the Toilet


Book Description

A true account of Kats battle with both physical and mental ill health and then a shock diagnosis of Bowel Cancer. Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, at other times utterly pathetic, Kat pulls no punches as she describes everything from symptoms through foul tests and treatments up to the potentially life-saving operation itself and beyond, where complications seemed never-ending. Language is not always polite either, so not for the easily offended! The book is not recommended for those going through similar. It is likely to scare them shitless for a start! Readers must remember, Kat Ward is renowned for Bad Luck, Bad Choices and Bad Coping Mechanisms. At the very least, the book may send someone to the GP to get an early test.




The Choice


Book Description

A New York Times Bestseller “I’ll be forever changed by Dr. Eger’s story…The Choice is a reminder of what courage looks like in the worst of times and that we all have the ability to pay attention to what we’ve lost, or to pay attention to what we still have.”—Oprah “Dr. Eger’s life reveals our capacity to transcend even the greatest of horrors and to use that suffering for the benefit of others. She has found true freedom and forgiveness and shows us how we can as well.” —Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate “Dr. Edith Eva Eger is my kind of hero. She survived unspeakable horrors and brutality; but rather than let her painful past destroy her, she chose to transform it into a powerful gift—one she uses to help others heal.” —Jeannette Walls, New York Times bestselling author of The Glass Castle Winner of the National Jewish Book Award and Christopher Award At the age of sixteen, Edith Eger was sent to Auschwitz. Hours after her parents were killed, Nazi officer Dr. Josef Mengele, forced Edie to dance for his amusement and her survival. Edie was pulled from a pile of corpses when the American troops liberated the camps in 1945. Edie spent decades struggling with flashbacks and survivor’s guilt, determined to stay silent and hide from the past. Thirty-five years after the war ended, she returned to Auschwitz and was finally able to fully heal and forgive the one person she’d been unable to forgive—herself. Edie weaves her remarkable personal journey with the moving stories of those she has helped heal. She explores how we can be imprisoned in our own minds and shows us how to find the key to freedom. The Choice is a life-changing book that will provide hope and comfort to generations of readers.




The Encore


Book Description

In this “heartrending, passionate, and surprisingly humorous account of the conjunction between art and death” (Andrew Solomon, New York Times bestselling author), acclaimed opera singer Charity Tillemann-Dick recounts her remarkable journey from struggling to draw a single breath to singing at the most prestigious venues in the world after receiving not one but two double lung transplants. Charity Tillemann-Dick was a vivacious young American soprano studying at the celebrated Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest when she received devastating news: her lungs were failing, her heart was three and a half sizes too big, and she would die within five years. Medical experts advised Charity to abandon her musical dreams, but if her time was running out, she wanted to spend it doing what she loved. In just three years, she endured two double lung transplants and had to slowly learn to breathe, walk, talk, eat, and sing again. With new lungs and fierce determination, she eventually fell in love, rebuilt her career, and reclaimed her life. More than a decade after her diagnosis, she has a chart-topping album, performs around the globe, and is a leading voice for organ donation. Weaving Charity’s extraordinary tale of triumph with those of opera’s greatest heroines, The Encore illuminates the indomitable human spirit and is “an uplifting story of overcoming significant odds to fulfill a dream” (Kirkus Reviews).




The Master & Margarita


Book Description

Satan, Judas, a Soviet writer, and a talking black cat named Behemoth populate this satire, “a classic of twentieth-century fiction” (The New York Times). In 1930s Moscow, Satan decides to pay the good people of the Soviet Union a visit. In old Jerusalem, the fateful meeting of Pilate and Yeshua and the murder of Judas in the garden of Gethsemane unfold. At the intersection of fantasy and realism, satire and unflinching emotional truths, Mikhail Bulgakov’s classic The Master and Margarita eloquently lampoons every aspect of Soviet life under Stalin’s regime, from politics to art to religion, while interrogating the complexities between good and evil, innocence and guilt, and freedom and oppression. Spanning from Moscow to Biblical Jerusalem, a vibrant cast of characters—a “magician” who is actually the devil in disguise, a giant cat, a witch, a fanged assassin—sow mayhem and madness wherever they go, mocking artists, intellectuals, and politicians alike. In and out of the fray weaves a man known only as the Master, a writer demoralized by government censorship, and his mysterious lover, Margarita. Burned in 1928 by the author and restarted in 1930, The Master and Margarita was Bulgakov’s last completed creative work before his death. It remained unpublished until 1966—and went on to become one of the most well-regarded works of Russian literature of the twentieth century, adapted or referenced in film, television, radio, comic strips, theater productions, music, and opera.




Dancing with the Tiger


Book Description

NAMED AS AN EDGAR AWARDS FINALIST 2017: BEST FIRST NOVEL The death mask of Montezuma. A priceless artefact. Lost. Looted. Sold. Stolen. Traded. Hunted. Wanted. Needed. Anna has just discovered her father’s credibility as a renowned art collector is in ruins and her own reputation as a fact checker is in tatters. But she has a chance to redeem herself, to restore both her and her father. She needs to go to Mexico, find the mask, and bring it to America where it will form the focal point of a new exhibition. But other people want that mask – and they will stop at nothing to get it. Lili Wright's exuberant, energetic, exciting debut takes us into a world of heat, colour and danger, where to survive Anna must negotiate with criminals, flatter the powerful and take her life in her hands.