Showing results by publisher "Audible Studios for Bloomsbury" in Biographies & Memoirs

The year is 1939. As war breaks out across Europe, nine-year-old Susie and her older sister Gyll are dispatched to Africa by their mother. Alone on the dusty continent, the sisters find little sympathy in their new guardians, and little to like about their new way of life: patched-up clothes, a 6 o'clock bedtime (a particular indignity), and regular obsessive cleanliness rituals. Their continued presence a nuisance, and overwhelmed by fear of doing the wrong thing, Susie and Gyll seek an ally in Mavis.

When Countrywise presenter Paul Heiney's son, Nicholas, committed suicide aged 23, Paul and his wife, Times columnist Libby Purves, were rocked to the core. Nicholas had been a highly gifted, promising young man, although he had struggled to keep his head above water at times as severe depression slowly dragged him down over many years.

One winter's night in 1976, over 20 million people in Britain watched John Curry skate to Olympic glory on an ice rink in Austria. Many millions more watched around the world. Overnight he became one of the most famous men on the planet. He was awarded the OBE. He was chosen as BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Curry had changed ice skating from marginal sport to high art. And yet the man was - and would always remain - an absolute mystery to a world that had been dazzled by his gift.

Kennedy steered the nation away from the brink of nuclear war, initiated the first nuclear test ban treaty, created the Peace Corps, and launched American on its mission to the moon and beyond. JFK inspired a nation, particularly the massive generation of baby boomers, injecting hope and revitalizing faith in the American project. 2013 will mark the fiftieth anniversary of Kennedy's untimely death, a milestone to be marked by an avalanche of new books on his life and importance.

Some might wonder how Martha could have clung to hope at all. In 1948, on the day of the funeral of her adored older brother, Gaston, a quick victim of the great polio epidemic, Martha was struck with the same dreaded disease. After a year in polio hospitals, she was sent back to her home in the village of Lattimore in the cotton-growing hills of western North Carolina. She was completely paralyzed, with only her head protruding from an 800-pound yellow metal cylinder that breathed for her.

Lynn Schooler had recently lost a dear friend and was feeling his marriage slipping away from him when he set out on a daring journey - first by boat, then on foot - into the Alaskan wilderness to clear his head. His solo expedition, recounted in Walking Home, is filled with the awe and danger of being on one's own in the wild, being battered by the elements and even, for two harrowing days, becoming the terrified quarry of a grizzly bear. But the formidable, lonely landscape is also rich with human stories....

The way we communicate has changed. Today many of our interactions are digital, but until recently writing letters was the norm. Drawing from over 100 miles of records held at the UK's official government archive, The National Archives at Kew, this collection of letters, postcards and telegrams will shine a spotlight on a range of significant historical moments and occurrences, recapturing a lost world in which correspondence was king.

As a journalist for the Independent, Emma Bamford is swept along with the London rat race, lost amongst the egos of Fleet Street. Surrounded by budget cuts and bullies, the thrill of a breaking news story is no longer enough. And at 31, still struggling to get to a fourth date and surrounded by friends settling down to married life and babies, Emma decides to grasp her life by the roots and reclaim her freedom...by running away to sea and joining a complete stranger (and his cat) on a yacht in Borneo.

In Paris' Pre-Lachaise cemetery, Jim Morrison's graffiti-scrawled tombstone is a place of pilgrimage for local devotees, adolescent hedonists, and wayward backpackers alike. Found dead in his bathtub aged only 27, having achieved worldwide stardom as lead singer of The Doors, Morrison was quickly immortalized amongt the rock and roll deities such as Hendrix and Joplin. In death, however, this debauched "rock poet" remained more stubbornly enigmatic than ever.

The inspiring story of Ben Smith – who ran 401 marathons in 401 days with minimal support, to raise money for Stonewall and Kidscape. On 1 September 2015, Ben Smith set out from Bristol. Over the next 401 days, he would burn an estimated 2.4 million calories; run with almost 10,000 people; inspire almost 600 first-time marathon runners and visit 101 schools. He would also raise in excess of £325,000 for charity.

If you were diagnosed with a condition for which there was no known cure, what would you do? Nick Duerden is a writer and journalist. This is his memoir about a long period of ill health and how he was forced to plunge, like it or not, into the often bewildering - but increasingly blossoming - world of alternative therapy in pursuit of a cure....

Imagine what it would be like to one day wake up and find that you were suddenly completely blind. This is what happened to Vanessa Potter. Her condition is unique. It has no name. Over the course of the next six months, Vanessa slowly recovered her vision. This mesmerising account tells the story of Patient H69 in her own words, based on these detailed diaries she kept during her time of blindness and through the scientific research that was to follow.

For film aficionados, Walter Murch is legendary - a three-time Academy Award winner, arguably the most admired sound and film editor in the world for his work on Apocalypse Now, The Godfather trilogy, The English Patient, and many others. Outside of the studio, his mind is wide-ranging; his passion, pursued for several decades, has been astrophysics, in particular the rehabilitation of Titius-Bode, a long-discredited 18th century theory regarding the patterns by which planets and moons array themselves in gravitational systems across the universe.

Donna Seaman brings to dazzling life seven forgotten artists, among the best of their day: Gertrude Abercrombie, with her dark, surreal paintings and friendships with Dizzy Gillespie and Sonny Rollins; Bay Area self-portraitist Joan Brown; Ree Morton, with her witty, oddly beautiful constructions; Loïs Mailou Jones of the Harlem Renaissance; Lenore Tawney, who combined weaving and sculpture; Christina Ramberg, who drew on pop culture and advertising; and Louise Nevelson, an art-world superstar.

The enthralling biography of the shepherd boy who changed the world with his revolutionary engineering and whose genius we still benefit from today. Thomas Telford's name is familiar, his story less so. Thomas was born in 1757 in the Scottish Borders; his father died in Thomas' infancy, plunging the family into poverty. Telford's life soared to span almost eight decades of gloriously obsessive, prodigiously productive energy. Few people have done more to shape our nation.

Jane Austen is one of the most beloved writers in the English literary canon. Her novels changed the landscape of fiction forever, and her writing remains as fresh, entertaining and witty as the day her books were first published. Now, with this illuminating and entertaining new book, you can learn Jane Austen's methods, tips and tricks - and how to live well as a writer. The Jane Austen Writers' Club explores the techniques of plotting and characterisation through to dialogue and suspense.

Elisabeth Luard, one of the food world's most entertaining and evocative writers, has travelled extensively throughout her life, meeting fascinating people, observing different cultures and uncovering extraordinary ingredients in unusual places. In this enchanting food memoir, she shares tales and dishes gathered from her global ramblings.

Shirley Pitts, the eldest of six children, was born upside down on November 24, 1934. Her "career" began by thieving bread off doorsteps and coal from coal carts. Her father's bungled attempts at black marketeering and her dipsomaniac mother's inadequacies made Shirley resolve to be not only a first-class thief but also the best mother her six children could wish for.

This audiobook explains the scientific tools and techniques that revealed the century's biggest food fraud scams. It looks in detail at the biggest scams in recent times; drawing on the lead author's extensive experience at the forefront of the fight against these fraudsters, it goes on to explore the arms race between scientists and adulterers as better techniques for detection spur more creative and sophisticated means of adulteration.

Rita Gabis comes from a family of Eastern European Jews and Lithuanian Catholics. She was close to her Catholic grandfather as a child and knew one version of his past: Prior to immigration, he had fought the Russians, whose brutal occupation of Lithuania destroyed thousands of lives before Hitler's army swept in.