The Lock-Keeper's Heart


Book Description

Can two broken men learn to love again? In the aftermath of a failed love, Isaac Evans drops out of college and flees Philadelphia for a lock-keeper’s job on the Delaware Canal in rural Pennsylvania, where he pursues a life of Thoreau-driven solitude. Prussian immigrant Lenert Tessmer trudges along the canal towpath in good and bad weather, hobbled by his dialect which prevents him from connecting with others. Then Lenert breaks his leg, and Isaac’s Quaker beliefs force him to offer a place where Lenert can recover. Slowly, these two broken men find solace and healing in each other. But with railroads replacing the canal and narrow-minded outsiders who threaten their country idyll, Isaac and Lenert will have to face their deepest fears to develop a love that will endure.




Open Heart


Book Description

In gripping prose, one of the world's leading cardiac surgeons lays bare both the wonder and the horror of a life spent a heartbeat away from death When Stephen Westaby witnessed a patient die on the table during open-heart surgery for the first time, he was struck by the quiet, determined way the surgeons walked away. As he soon understood, this detachment is a crucial survival strategy in a profession where death is only a heartbeat away. In Open Heart, Westaby reflects on over 11,000 surgeries, showing us why the procedures have never become routine and will never be. With astonishing compassion, he recounts harrowing and sometimes hopeful stories from his operating room: we meet a pulseless man who lives with an electric heart pump, an expecting mother who refuses surgery unless the doctors let her pregnancy reach full term, and a baby who gets a heart transplant-only to die once it's in place. For readers of Atul Gawande's Being Mortal and of Henry Marsh's Do No Harm, Open Heart offers a soul-baring account of a life spent in constant confrontation with death.




Only When I Laugh, Doctor


Book Description

An omnibus edition of Oh Dear, Doctor!, Look Out Doctor! and Surely Not, Doctor!, this volume follows the further exploits of Dr Bob Clifford in his country practice on the Somerset coast. Small though the town of Tadchester may be, nobody could accuse it of being sleepy. Not when stream of patients flocking to the surgery include Mrs. Short with her secret addiction, the absent-minded, incontinent vicar of St Peter's, the little greengrocer for whom an operation could restore marital duties with his huge bowler- hatted wife . . . not forgetting the entire rugby team from Drake's College who develop a mysterious and embarrassing ailment after an away match at a London night club . . . And even off-duty, life of Dr Bob is far from dull. Especially when it involves ailments at a writers' summer school, a camping holiday in France with his elderly, eccentric father-in-law and, ironically, a spell in hospital . . .




Surely Not, Doctor!


Book Description

Doctor Bob's country practice is in Tadchester on the Somerset coast, but no one can accuse the town of being a sleepy little backwater. All human life is there with its quirks, colour, comedy and richness . . . There's the absent-minded, incontinent vicar of St Peter's; the well-known London publisher whose dog has more taste than most; the lady magistrate who travels for miles for a doctor with warm hands and the packet of suppositories which prompts a bomb scare! Then there's the hairdresser with a penchant for male strippers and the whispering journalist who learnt how to shout. Even off duty, Doctor Bob's life is full of incident and he himself ends up with a long spell in hospital. It all goes to show that truth can be so much stranger than fiction . . .




Peggy and Me


Book Description

FROM NATIONAL TREASURE and star and creator of the award-winning BBC sitcom Miranda, comes Miranda Hart's heart-warming and hilarious account of life with her beloved dog Peggy, a gorgeous white bichon frise. 'Hilariously funny and often moving memoir ... we loved every word *****' Heat 'Open, honest ... her misadventures are hilariously described ... charming and funny' Daily Express * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Hello dear book browser and welcome to Peggy & Me, the story of my life since getting a beautiful Shih-Tzu Bichon Frise cross puppy (I call the breed a Shitty Frise - fun) in the form of Peggy. Some of you may be thinking: "a book about a dog, how totally brilliant, I need hear no more, I'm sold." In which case we should be best friends and go out to tea together, every day. Others of you may be thinking: "a book about a dog, how totally mad, she must have officially lost it." In which case I completely understand. For I once viewed dog owners with much suspicion. The way they obsessively talk about their dogs often using voices for them to reply; the way they have a light covering of dog hair all over their clothes and sofas; and worse, an alarming comfort and ease around excrement. But I now get why people become so mad about their hounds. It wasn't instant love I have to admit. Getting a puppy when I was at a low ebb in my life wasn't easy - there was a lot of challenging, what I call, dog administration (dog-min), and the humiliating first trip to the vet still haunts me. It's been a bumpy old road, but Peggy has been lovingly by my side through some life-changing moments and I wouldn't have coped without her. Most surprisingly she has taught me a huge amount - not how to get an old pie packet out of a bin and lick it (I could already do that), but real lessons about life and love and trust and friendship. Put aside any doggy reservations and come walkies with Peggy and me ...







Ivor Gurney


Book Description

Drawing on biographical information, letters, reminiscences and anecdotes, John Lucas pieces together the troubled life of Ivor Gurney, a key 20th century poet.




Cruising World


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The Living Age


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Littell's Living Age


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