Showing 73–84 of 199 resultsSorted by latest
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£9.99
How does it feel to confront a pandemic from the inside, one patient at a time? To bridge the gulf between a perilously unwell patient in quarantine and their distraught family outside? To be uncertain whether the protective equipment you wear fits the science or the size of the government stockpile? To strive your utmost to maintain your humanity even while barricaded behind visors and masks? Rachel is a palliative care doctor who cared for the most gravely unwell patients on the Covid-19 wards of her hospital. Amid the tensions, fatigue, and rising death toll, she witnessed the courage of patients and NHS staff alike in conditions of unprecedented adversity. Her book, ‘Breathtaking’, is an unflinching insider’s account of medicine in the time of coronavirus.
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£18.99
Raised in the era of the ‘White Australia’ policy and widespread racism, Dianne grows up believing her adoptive mother, Val, is her birth mother. Val promises Dianne that when she turns fifteen, she will ‘tell her a story’. But just months before Dianne’s fifteenth birthday, Val dies. Abandoned by her stepfather, Dianne is raped, sentenced to a girls’ home and later forced to marry her rapist. She gives birth to a baby girl – the first of seven children – and goes on to endure years of horrific domestic violence at the hands of different partners, drug and alcohol addiction, and cruel betrayal by those closest to her. But miraculously her fighting spirit is not extinguished. At the age of twenty-nine, Dianne learns she is Aboriginal and that her grandfather was William Cooper, a famous Aboriginal activist and community leader. She chooses to forgive the past and becomes a leader in her own right.
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£16.99
The humble pair of glasses might just be one the world’s greatest inventions, allowing millions to see a world that might otherwise appear a blur. And yet how much do many of us even really think about these things perched on the ends of our noses? In this eye-opening history Travis Elborough traces the fascinating true story of spectacles: from their inception as primitive visual aids to monkish scribes right through to today’s designer eyewear and the augmented reality of Google Glass. And taking in along the way such delights as lorgnettes, monocles, pince-nez, tortoise-shell ‘Windsors’ and Ray Ban aviator shades. Peering into early theories about how the eye worked, he considers the theological and philosophical arguments about the limits of perception by Greek thinkers, Roman statesmen and Arab scholars.
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£9.99
The most talented musical family in the world
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£12.99
Working in an office amidst the East End’s bombsites. Serving as a lady’s maid to an Empire-loving aristocrat. Being repeatedly denied jobs due to the colour bar. Marrying an English man and raising two mixed-race children in suburbia. Becoming one of the first black headteachers in Britain. Beryl Gilroy’s new life wasn’t what she had expected. In 1952, she moved from Guyana to London to pursue her dream of teaching, only to experience Britain’s racist post-war society. After finally securing a teaching post, she faced fear and curiosity from her pupils, bigoted abuse from parents, and semi-segregation among staff. But over the course of her trailblazing career, Gilroy only grew braver, learning the value of education in combating prejudice and rising to become a pioneering headmistress. This title tells Gilroy’s story in her own words.
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£8.99
A laugh-out-loud funny and brutally honest look at female sexuality, as told through the razor-sharp lens of domesticated bad girl BB Easton. No one and nothing is off limits as BB revisits the ex-boyfriends – a sadistic tattoo artist, a punk rock parolee, and a heavy metal bass player – that led her to finally find true love with a straight-laced, drop-dead-gorgeous.
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£9.99
In 1975, a gangly black 16-year-old from Dudley, decked out in floppy bow tie and Frank Spencer beret, appeared on our TV screens for the first time. So began the transformation from apprentice factory worker to future national treasure of Sir Lenny Henry. In his long-awaited autobiography, Lenny tells the extraordinary story of his early years and sudden rise to fame. Born soon after his Jamaican parents had arrived in the Midlands, Lenny was raised as one of seven siblings in a boisterous, hilarious, complicated working household, and sent out into the world with his mum’s mantra of ‘H’integration! H’integration! H’integration!’ echoing in his ears. A natural ability to make people laugh came in handy. At school it helped subdue the daily racist bullying. In the park, it led to lifelong friendships and occasional snogs.
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£9.99
Natasha Trethewey was born in Mississippi in the 60s to a black mother and a white father. When she was six, Natasha’s parents divorced, and she and her mother moved to Atlanta. There, her mother met the man who would become her second husband, and Natasha’s stepfather. While she was still a child, Natasha decided that she would not tell her mother about what her stepfather did when she was not there: the quiet bullying and control, the games of cat and mouse. Her mother kept her own secrets, secrets that grew harder to hide as Natasha came of age. When Natasha was nineteen and away at college, her stepfather shot her mother dead on the driveway outside their home. With penetrating insight and a searing voice that moves from the wrenching to the elegiac, ‘Memorial Drive’ is a compelling and searching look at a shared human experience of sudden loss and absence.
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£9.99
Introducing the Collins Modern Classics, a series featuring some of the most significant books of recent times, books that shed light on the human experience – classics which will endure for generations to come.
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£9.99
From the hosts of hit podcast Call ‘Your Girlfriend’ comes the bible on how to keep each other close. You meet – and there’s a spark. You want to know everything about each other. You spill your secrets, you spend all weekend together, you go on holiday. You fight, and it’s gut-wrenching. You see each other through the worst times and the best. You know each other better than parents, siblings, lovers. You stay in touch when miles apart. You will always be there. This is the most important relationship of your life. This is your Big Friendship. A close, fulfilling friendship is the key to happiness – everyone from Greek philosophers to Instagram influencers will agree. Telling the story of their own ten-year, complex, loving friendship, Aminatou and Ann share their hard-won wisdom with honesty, hilarity and compassion.
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£14.99
Kate MacDougall always knew her heart wasn’t really in her job at Sotheby’s. All around her, her friends were finding their dream jobs and whooshing up career ladders, fulfilled and glowing with success, flush with easy credit. After yet another breakage, this time of two precious porcelain pigeons, she had enough, and walked out of her comfortable, snoozy, back-office existence into the unknown world of the then-nascent gig economy. This is the story of her next 5 years and the dogs (and people) she meets along the way.
