Memoirs
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Alive Today: How Speaking Out Saved My Life and Helped Me Navigate My Mental Health Journey
In Alive Today: How Speaking Out Saved My Life and Helped Me Navigate My Mental Health Journey, author Naushad Qayyum takes readers on a deeply intimate journey through the profound challenges of grief, loss, and mental health struggles while emphasising the transformative power of open dialogue.
The book unfolds with the surreal and tragic events of the author’s wedding day, marked by the sudden collapse and death of his father. As the story evolves, readers witness the author’s emotional rollercoaster, navigating the aftermath of loss, divorce, and a contemplation of suicide, which ultimately leads to a diagnosis of complex PTSD. Through candid reflections, the book sheds light on the societal expectations placed on men, challenging stereotypes and advocating for the importance of mental health conversations.
At its heart, Alive Today is a poignant exploration of resilience, recovery, and the author’s determination to break the silence surrounding men’s mental health. Each chapter delves into different facets of the author’s journey, from the transformative impact of a father’s guidance to the depths of despair and eventual path to healing. The book is not only a personal account, but also a call to action, as the author takes proactive steps to address the lack of mental health support for men, particularly within the Arab and South Asian communities. A follow-up book that examines even more deeply this important topic is currently being planned and will appear in 2024.
With a focus on nature, routine, and holistic well-being, Alive Today offers insights into the ongoing process of recovery and the author’s commitment to raising awareness and breaking the stigma surrounding men’s mental health. Alive Today is much more than a memoir; it is a heartfelt invitation for readers to confront their own struggles, seek help, and foster a community of understanding and empathy.
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£3.80 -
Don’t Be a Donkey: Lessons Learned from Chef Gordon Ramsey
Don’t be a Donkey is a true story about the life and career of Chef Chadd McArthur. It is about the lessons, about both kitchen and life, that he learned while working for Gordon Ramsay.Eighteen hours a day, five days a week…when you work with a great chef and leader that much, his wisdom will rub off on you, and at times traumatize you. The lessons learned will stick with Chef McArthur for the rest of his life, and now, with funny stories and clever insights into working with one of the world’s most well-known chefs, he’s sharing them in this very book.
From having Chef Gordon Ramsay himself fling a ravioli at him, to the integrity with which Ramsay dealt with the death of a colleague, Chef McArthur has a lot to tell about his three years spent working in Ramsay’s flagship restaurant in London, sometimes directly under the man himself.
Each chapter also includes a recipe, some created wholly by the author, and some influenced by Chef Ramsay’s own signature dishes. Enjoy this fresh new take on Gordon Ramsay, and the challenges of a chef who survived Ramsay’s kitchen for years.
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£6.30 -
DUTY
Growing up in the 1970s on a tough council estate in North East England, career options were limited. As a young lad, I needed focus. Three days after my 17th birthday, the Royal Marines offered me that.
After serving in the Falklands and Northern Ireland, my career took another path, which eventually led me to almost three decades serving as a firefighter.My driving force for many roles in my life has been that of duty. Throughout life’s challenges, commiserations and celebrations, I began to appreciate just how fragile life can be – and learnt the importance of physical health, a positive mindset, and unbreakable resilience.
My story, my life, my duty.
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£4.70DUTY
£4.70 -
Seeking Safety: A journey of moving forward
Sometimes you need to look back to move forward.
Join Ieva on her journey back through her tumultuous childhood into early adulthood, beginning in Latvia and traversing Scotland, Dubai, Lanzarote, the UK, and Italy. While her story is one of poverty, neglect, abuse, and unexpected tragedy, Ieva refuses to be defeated.
Arson, explosions, death threats, boarding school, foster care, drugs, narcissists— she endures them all, while searching for solace and the safety she never found in her parents. Instead, she finds resilience, crawling her way from one hardship to the next until eventually she learns to dance.
This inspiring true story will show you the power of the human spirit, as we all strive toward lives filled with love and self-discovery.
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£8.50 -
Taken: A True Story of the Pain and Scandal of Forced Adoption (Stolen Lives)
In 1972, Michelle Pearson gave up her son for adoption.
As ‘one of those girls’, she was expected to hide her shame with secrecy. No one should ever find out she’d had a child.
But she never forgot the son who was taken from her.
In the years that followed she struggled with PTSD, traumatic memory loss, agoraphobia and anxiety – impacting every area of her life.
This is Michelle’s story of love, loss and hope; of how over 50 years she has managed the consequences of living with her secret, survived the emotional pain, and finally, after being reunited with her son, the journey to rebuild their lives together.
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‘Interesting. Fascinating. I wanted to hold Michelle’s hand and say “We can do this”‘ Louise Allen
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£4.70 -
The Lost Coin: A Memoir of Adoption and Destiny
In The Lost Coin, Stephen Rowley shares his lifelong journey—searching for his birth parents, seeking his true identity, and discovering his soul’s calling. We join him when, as a boy growing up in Iowa, he visits Chicago for the first time and is shocked by blatant racial segregation and sprawling urban poverty. We see Stephen as a young athlete sustaining a life-changing injury, then becoming radicalized at the University of Wisconsin, entering the field of education at Stanford, and becoming a visionary school administrator before being fired by a vindictive Silicon Valley school board.He plays golf with a Tibetan lama, and experiences transcendence in a vivid dream, ultimately becoming a psychotherapist in his sixties. We witness the heart-rending scene when he and his wife adopt their own son, and we join him for a poignant reunion with his birth mother, who, it turns out, had desperately hoped he might appear in her life after she’d given him up for adoption.
As we accompany Stephen Rowley on this adventurous and reflective journey, we come to understand more deeply the trauma engendered when separating mother from child, and the unspoken restlessness and yearning for connection many adoptees feel.
“It is my hope,” he writes, that we all “may discover the unique capacity within us to heal and even thrive, not in spite of the wounds we carry, but because of them.”
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£7.80