The Magic in the Tin


Book Description

'Unmissable: please read this extraordinary book.' - Daily Mail 'A triumph ... A worthy follow-up to The Boy on the Shed.' - Jeff Stelling 'All men should read this book - important and brilliantly written.' - Alan Shearer 'Genius... A difficult, deeply personal story beautifully told.' – George Caulkin, The Athletic ---- From the author of the critically acclaimed memoir, The Boy on the Shed, comes a powerful tale of grit and resilience, told with great humour, openness and profound bravery. Former Newcastle United winger Paul Ferris was 51. He had successfully forged a post-football career as a physio, barrister and then a CEO, and his award-winning memoir, The Boy on the Shed, was just about to be published. But then he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. This honest, sometimes brutal and frequently funny book tells the story of what happened next. Prostate cancer. It's a phrase that strikes fear into the heart of every man. It's the most common male cancer, but treatable if it's caught early enough. Paul doesn't shy away from describing that treatment. And neither does he hold back on its life-changing consequences – from harrowing surgery, humiliating procedures and excruciating consultations – as he strives to become the man he once was again. The mental challenges and psychological impact of living with this acute condition are explored in Paul's revealing and riveting narrative that represents rare male honesty, but this is never a 'poor me' book or not in any way self-pitying. Courageous, inspirational and beautifully written, The Magic in the Tin is a rare thing: deeply moving yet rich in humour, written by a true sportsman in every sense of the word. A brutal and poignant account of one man's journey through prostate cancer.




Magic in the Mix


Book Description

Miri and Molly were not always sisters, but thanks to the time-travelling magic of their family's home, they are now twins, and about to start settling down to a normal life when the house unleashes another challenge that sends them back into the past. And this time around they've got twice as much to lose ... Brimming with lovable characters and spine-tingling magic, this book will bring new readers to Annie Barrows' highly acclaimed, wonderfully popular world of twin-inspired magic.




White Magic


Book Description

Finalist for the PEN Open Book Award Longlisted for the PEN/Jean Stein Award A TIME, NPR, New York Public Library, Lit Hub, Book Riot, and Entropy Best Book of the Year "Beguiling and haunting. . . . Washuta's voice sears itself onto the skin." —The New York Times Book Review Bracingly honest and powerfully affecting, White Magic establishes Elissa Washuta as one of our best living essayists. Throughout her life, Elissa Washuta has been surrounded by cheap facsimiles of Native spiritual tools and occult trends, “starter witch kits” of sage, rose quartz, and tarot cards packaged together in paper and plastic. Following a decade of abuse, addiction, PTSD, and heavy-duty drug treatment for a misdiagnosis of bipolar disorder, she felt drawn to the real spirits and powers her dispossessed and discarded ancestors knew, while she undertook necessary work to find love and meaning. In this collection of intertwined essays, she writes about land, heartbreak, and colonization, about life without the escape hatch of intoxication, and about how she became a powerful witch. She interlaces stories from her forebears with cultural artifacts from her own life—Twin Peaks, the Oregon Trail II video game, a Claymation Satan, a YouTube video of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham—to explore questions of cultural inheritance and the particular danger, as a Native woman, of relaxing into romantic love under colonial rule.




The Boy on the Shed:A remarkable sporting memoir with a foreword by Alan Shearer


Book Description

*Sports Book Awards Autobiography of the Year* *Shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award* *The Sunday Times Sports Book of the Year* *The Times Sports Book of the Year* *Telegraph Football Book of the Year* Readers love The Boy on the Shed 'A journey full of emotion . . . Spectacular' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Honest, insightful and shows how football really has to sort itself out' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Paul Ferris writes from the heart, a wonderful book' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Exceptional' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Ferris's wonderful memoir represents a twin triumph. He has endured every kind of setback in life but has invariably reinvented himself; and his writing is a pure pleasure.' The Sunday Times 'Enough depth and humanity to make your average football autobiography look like a Ladybird book.' Telegraph 'A masterpiece' Brian McNally 'Football memoirs rarely produce great literature but Ferris's The Boy on the Shed is a glistening exception.' Guardian 'Fascinating and stylishly told.' David Walsh, bestselling author of Seven Deadly Sins __________ The Boy on the Shed is a story of love and fate. At 16, Paul Ferris becomes Newcastle United's youngest-ever first-teamer. Like many a tricky winger from Northern Ireland, he is hailed as 'the new George Best'. As a player and later a physio and member of the Magpies' managerial team, Paul's career acquaints him not only with Kevin Keegan, Kenny Dalglish and Bobby Robson, Ruud Gullit, Paul Gascoigne and Alan Shearer but also with injury, insecurity and disappointment. Talented and carefree on the pitch, shy and anxious off it, he earns a tilt at stardom. His first spell at Newcastle turns sour, as does his return as a physio, although obtaining a Masters degree shows him what he could achieve away from football. Written with brutal candour, dark humour and consummate style, The Boy on the Shed is a riveting and moving account of a life less ordinary. __________




Tin (Faeries of Oz, #1)


Book Description

Tin is the most famous fae in Oz for all the wrong reasons. Cursed with a stone heart, he is the perfect assassin: ruthless, efficient, and merciless with thousands of kills to his name. When his old friend, Lion, offers him a small fortune to deliver Dorothy to the South for his lover to wear the girl's head as her own, Tin doesn't hesitate to accept the unsavory deal. Dorothy Gale lost everything-her family to illness, her dog to age, and now her farm to foreclosure. The entire town thought she was crazy for believing in a faerie world called Oz, but even after ten years have passed, she can't help knowing she was right. So when an emerald green portal opens in her wheat field, she jumps at the opportunity to return to the only place she ever felt like she belonged. Tin wasn't expecting a grown woman to step through the portal, just as Dorothy wasn't expecting Tin to have his stone heart back, but Oz holds more unexpected things than either could have imagined. Magic has hidden dangerous lies behind glamour, trapped innocents in curses, and left the land of Oz in turmoil-none more so than the South. As Tin and Dorothy travel together for the second time in a decade, their lives begin to make sense again. Soon, they must decide who to give their loyalties to before Lion takes Dorothy's head and Tin's cursed heart is forever doomed.




The Boy in the Biscuit Tin


Book Description

When Ibby is sent to stay with her aunt, she discovers her two troublesome boy cousins, Francis and Alex, playing with an old box of magic tricks they found in the attic. Ibby is sure that magic isn't real \- until she sees Francis sitting at the bottom of the biscuit tin, magically miniaturised by Alex. After that, nothing is what it seems \.




The Wizard of Oz as American Myth


Book Description

Since the publication of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900, authors, filmmakers, and theatrical producers have been retelling and reinventing this uniquely American fairy tale. This volume examines six especially significant incarnations of the story: Baum's original novel, the MGM classic The Wizard of Oz (1939), Sidney Lumet's African American film musical The Wiz (1978), Gregory Maguire's novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (1995), Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman's Broadway hit Wicked: A New Musical (2003), and the SyFy Channel miniseries Tin Man (2007). A close consideration of these works demonstrates how versions of Baum's tale are influenced by and help shape notions of American myth, including issues of gender, race, home, and magic, and makes clear that the Wizard of Oz narrative remains compelling and relevant today.