Dagbøker og memoarer

After being entranced by the exotic allure of life in the Middle East during a five-year stint in Saudi Arabia, an irresistible opportunity for an extreme adventure in the Moroccan Sahara presents itself. Coupled with the unexpected eruption of a volcano in Iceland, the stage is set for a non-stop, exhilarating journey from beginning to end. What was meant to be a leisurely plane ride back to the tranquil Lake District in England transforms into an unforgettable cross-country odyssey through the captivating landscapes of Morocco and Spain. From planes to trains and overnight ferries, this tale of adventure is so extraordinary, you'd be forgiven for thinking it was fiction.

The South Africa of the early nineties and especially the mining industry was known for its deep-seated racism. But for people working in the depths of those mines, there was a strong bond of respect and care. The truth of this is evident in the interactions described in this book. Told by a man who toiled alongside both heroes and victims in the shadows below, these pages reveal what newspapers never could. Here are the unforgiving realities of rockfalls and explosions, but also the gentle heroism of those who helped each other survive. Any man might save or comfort another if disaster struck. Away from the apartheid sun, skin colour matters less than a colleague's hands hauling you to safety. South Africa is a land of unforgiving landscapes and merciless predators but is full of forgiving and gentle people who will prove to be its salvation. Nowhere shows this stark contrast more than the gold mines - at once negligent and nurturing, lethal and life-giving. These true stories deserve remembering, for they reveal hope and redemption glow in the darkest of places.

Like so many people who grew up not knowing their parents, it becomes something of a life's journey to discover who they were, what kind of personality they had or anything that could explain one's own personality traits. This book covers the human conditions of a broken bond between mother and child, the First World War, PTSD, and my discovery of my belonging to an important Scottish Clan. The fact that my mother never bonded with her own mother was perhaps the reason she fell for a smooth talking, well-educated man 20 years older than herself, who flattered her, made her feel special, but carefully concealed his own damaged personality. So, I start my journey with the birth of my mother. If there is such a thing, then my young mother certainly chose an unfortunate time to be born.

The inspiring and deeply moving true story of how one girl survived the Nazi occupation of Holland by hiding in plain sight - a testament to courage and hope in the darkest times.

Gregory Berns is a leading neuroscientist who has extensively studied dogs and how they think. But when he and his wife bought a small farm in rural Georgia and populated it with a handful of cows they couldn''t imagine how their lives would be transformed. As he gets to know his herd, Berns'' affection for them grows, along with his curiosity. He applies his scientific eye to the cognitive and emotional lives of his cows. His cows turn out to have impressive memories, to be capable of forming lasting bonds with people, and to be highly attuned to our feelings. Gregory Berns is a natural storyteller. He falls in love with his cows, and they fall in love with him. In particular, he forms a special bond with BB, his cowpuppy. This hugely readable memoir blends fascinating scientific explanations of animal behaviour with a candid, moving, and sometimes hilarious account of the lives of cows.

"Wickedly indiscreet and elegant"Mail on Sunday"He will join Chips Channon, Duff Cooper and Alan Clark in the pantheon of truly great diarists"Matthew d'Ancona, Evening Standard

How many times have you stood outside your door, or looked out the window and realised that all you see is just a little piece of sky? There is so much more than what you see above where you are. Under every little piece is a different culture, a different way of life, new experiences, places to see and a world of opportunity. Travelling is perhaps one of the greatest opportunities to live a fulfilled life. Experiencing different cultures or moving to a different country where nobody knows who you are allows you to live and enjoy an amazing life. Breaking out of comfort zones allows you to achieve so much. Perhaps you are seeking a change of career, new challenges, more exciting adventures, or a fresh start. In his book, Squat Toilets and Chopsticks: Experiencing Life Through Travel, Philip Bryan takes you on a journey from a life-changing trip to Jordan and other countries including Cambodia, Australia, Israel and finally to China where he works as a high school English teacher. This book shares his experiences, struggles, views, and life-changing moments. In life, we are faced with many problems and uncertainties both in our personal and professional lives. Travelling can provide you with an opportunity to solve those and realise there is more to life. There is a world out there. Get out and live it.

Richard Rohr's much-anticipated memoir offers teaching of profound importance for our fractured world

Reality TV star Pete Wicks faces his past in this candid, raw and honest account of his mental health journey.

Discover the transformative power of resilience, diversity, and unconditional love. Join the central character on a quest for authenticity and belonging, as she navigates the complexities of identity and forges her own path to greatness.

To Beach or not to Beach? combines the musings of an enquiring mind with a profound love of flora and fauna and a deep compassion for the world's inequalities. Rarely travelling alone, itineraries have enabled Mary to trek through jungles, cross lakes in dugout canoes and travel by skidoo across the 'Land of Nothing' behind the migrating reindeer of the Sami. Highlights and challenges are also part of expedition life: from witnessing the 5th King's Coronation in Bhutan to being dumped at a remote airport hours from the intended destination. We are invited to share the music, customs and environments of multiple regions. Mary also details the orphanages and hospitals that she has encountered, including Mother Teresa's. By the end, the reader will be much wiser about the less-frequented corners of the world. The adventures recorded are fascinating events in the life of the author, who, when she is not travelling, lives in leafy Warwickshire.

A young scholar's World War I journey from eager enlistment to profound disillusionment, reflected in poignant war poetry before his tragic death.Born in September 1891, Arthur Graeme West was a quiet and self-effacing youth with a passion for literature, who went on to become a keen Oxford scholar. When war broke out in 1914, for some time it left him untouched. However, in January 1915, in a rush of enthusiasm, he enlisted as a private in the Public Schools Battalion. From that time, until his death in April 1917, his life was a succession of training in England and fighting in France, with short intervals of leave. West joined due to a feeling of duty and patriotism, but the war was to have a profound effect on him. He developed an intense abhorrence of army life and began to question the very core of his beliefs -- in religion, patriotism and the reason for war. This growing disillusionment found expression in two particularly powerful war poems, God! How I Hate You, You Young Cheerful Men and Night Patrol, which stand deservedly alongside those of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. In August 1916, he became a second lieutenant in the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. Shortly after, he wrote to his CO renouncing the war and any further part in it -- but he could not bring himself to post the letter. Less than a year later, on April 3rd, 1917, he was shot dead by a sniper's bullet near Bapaume.Written with complete frankness and sincerity, Diary of a Dead Officer gives voice to West's struggle to come to terms with the realities of war and is a poignant tribute to a lost generation of soldiers.

Katy Lironi's story is first and foremost, a musical, family memoir. Both parents come with their own lives immersed in the Scottish music scene of the 1980s - Katy enmeshed in everything that was Edinburgh-based C86 indie pop, while her bandmate and future husband, Douglas MacIntyre, embraced the Scottish post-punk era.

Ron Chapman's life changed on 7 September 1940, leading him to join the RAF and serve in various significant squadrons.It was the night of 7 September 1940 which changed Ron Chapman's life. It was the start of Hitler's Blitz on London. The death and destruction the German bombers wreaked across Islington and the East End so shocked and appalled Ron, that three days later he presented himself to the RAF recruiting office near Euston station. After basic training, and a few days before his twentieth birthday, he received a posting to 485 (New Zealand) Squadron - Ron was at last with an operational Spitfire squadron.After just three weeks with 485 (NZ) Squadron, he was posted to 341 (Free French) Squadron. Operating as part of the RAF's 145 Wing in 84 Group, the squadron was led by the renowned Commandant René Mouchotte DFC, while 145 Wing itself was commanded by the Battle of Britain fighter ace Group Captain 'Sailor' Malan. There was also 340 Squadron, known as 'Churchill's Own', and Nos. 329 and 345 squadrons.As a member of 341 Squadron's groundcrew, Ron Chapman's memoirs provide a unique insight into the functioning of a fighter unit from the perspective of fitters, riggers, and armourers. But, in addition, his service with the Free French fighter squadrons adds greatly to our knowledge of this important part of the RAF's history.As an element of the 2nd Tactical Air Force, 84 Group was continually moved from airfield to airfield across the South Coast. The idea was to get the squadrons accustomed to nomadic conditions. After the D-Day invasion plans were finally unveiled, the squadron's groundcrew and support staff were eventually trucked to Gosport where they boarded the landing craft that would transport them across the Channel as part of Operation Overlord. They landed at Arromanches-les-Bains in August.Ron's story then follows the actions of 145 Wing, as it battled the Luftwaffe across Europe. As the Allied forces moved eastwards, so Ron and the groundcrew moved with them through France, Belgium and finally into Germany. Ron remained with 341 Squadron until the end of the war.This book is far more than a personal memoir, it is the largely neglected story of the French fighter wing throughout the years when the 2nd Tactical Air Force moved on to the offensive against the Luftwaffe. It will undoubtedly become recognised as an important addition to the history of the RAF.

Down to the Sea in Submarines is a unique memoir that charts the career of the author in the Royal Navy Submarine Service during the period 1967 to 1997, and in doing so details many of the Silent Service's remarkable achievements since the end of the Second World War. It provides a dramatic first-hand account of the underwater confrontation during the Cold War between submarines of the West and the huge submarine force of the Soviet Union. Dan Conley narrates the successive stages from his basic submarine training to taking command of two nuclear attack submarines, but he does not demur from describing the personal and professional difficulties he encountered in this journey. He sets out in detail what life was like serving onboard both diesel and nuclear submarines, and in particular, the book describes the British submariner's remarkable transformation from the somewhat buccaneering, free spirit serving on a clapped-out WW2 boat during the sunset of the British Empire, to the highly professional individual who spends prolonged periods under the sea in a platform which matches the complexity of a space craft. The book describes the long and difficult challenges encountered in developing effective weapon systems for the British submarine force, and discusses the difficulties and shortcomings in the UK's defense procurement system, a situation which still exists today. Ultimately, however, Western technological superiority and crew proficiency enabled the submarines of the Royal and United States Navies to match those of the Soviet Union, and he describes vividly the suspense and tension of underwater confrontations which might so easily have escalated to another dimension of warfare. The book also sets out hitherto undisclosed details of submarine activities during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the world confronted the real possibility of a massive nuclear exchange. But it is not all serious content, and Conley offers a glimpse for the reader of many humorous situations and events, of animals that found themselves under the sea in a submarine, in one case during a war patrol, and other moments of levity that broke the tension of serving in a highly complex and sophisticated fighting machine. The Cold War era is now long past. However, it is evident that as the West now confronts an aggressive, recidivist Russia and a more aggressive China, Britain's submarine force once again will be key to the security of all its citizens. This fine memoir captures vividly the key events and history of the Cold War, and in doing so will open the reader's eyes to the significance and importance today of the Royal Navy Submarine Service.

Reveals the provocative and irreverent life of Dorman-Smith through his private letters and war diary, highlighting his military brilliance and conflicts with Churchill.A follow-up to the best-selling biography 'Chink', this selection from private letters and intimate war diary has the impact of a fresh 'no holds barred' autobiography. Dorman-Smith the man - flesh and blood - comes alive here on the page.Provocative, irreverent, caustic and witty, his disdain for Churchill - and for the Establishment in general - increases as his military career unravels. Egotistical? Yes. Arrogant? Certainly. His own worst enemy? Perhaps. But Dorman Smith's grasp of tactics and strategy was unsurpassed, as his exchanges with Basil Liddell-Hart demonstrate.Full of contradictions, he was externally reserved and inwardly super-sensitive. Growing up in style in Ireland and educated at public school in England, his religion was Catholic and he scorned any Anglo-Irish tag. His private life while rising up the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers proved colourful, while a brief dalliance with the IRA in the 1950s never endangered his vow of silence over the Enigma/Ultra secret.This book gives a marvellous picture of personal war experience in two world wars, from RMC Sandhurst and life in the trenches, via the Staff College to high command in Egypt and India between the wars, until service in North Africa under Wavell began, and working side by side with Auchinleck at the First Battle of Alamein. That would lead to confrontation with Churchill and Brooke, and subsequent breakout from Anzio under fire. Readers will know what it was like to survive the trenches, to serve in HQ as crises arose, and to have command involving losses - the reality of war is dramatic and moving.The First Battle of Alamein, fought under Auchinleck in the emergency that dangerous summer of 1942, was to be followed within three months by Montgomery's celebrated battle and its consequent fame. The important argument of Military Maverick, however, is that First Alamein was the real turning point in the Desert War, and that makes Dorman Smith's account even more valuable.The letters and diary entries are linked by commentary and explanation by the editor Lavinia Greacen, and by the military historian John Lee.

'A profoundly moving memoir which gripped me' Mark HaddonDiscover Catherine Coldstream's evocative account of life as a nun in the 1990s, and the dramatic events which led to her flight from the monastery.After the shock of her father's death, twenty-four-year-old Catherine was left grieving and alone. A search for meaning led her to Roman Catholicism and the nuns of Akenside Priory.Here she found a tight-knit community of dedicated women and peace in an ancient way of life. But as she surrenders to her final vows, all is not as it seems behind the Priory's closed doors. Power struggles erupt - with far-reaching consequences for those within.Catherine comes to realise that divine authority is mediated through flawed and all-too-human channels. She is faced with a dilemma: should she protect the serenity she has found, or speak out?A love song to a lost community and an honest account of her twelve years in the Order, Cloistered is also a cautionary tale about what can happen when good people cut themselves off from the wider world.'Immersive, beautifully observed' Katherine May'I admired [Cloistered] enormously' Sarah Perry'An intense and often theatrical read' Financial Times**A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK**

Originally published in 1939, The Diary of Dudley Ryder 1715-1716, comprises an early diary and a few related notes by Sir Dudley Ryder when he was a student at the Middle Temple. The diary is a fascinating record of the character and life of a moderately well-to-do student of Nonconformist leanings.

"Although never formally diagnosed, Frank Merritt was on the autistic spectrum. He was also dyslexic and it was rare for him to write anything down. When he was called up for National Service in the 1950s, during the Korean War, he could have deferred, as he was a farmer's son and farming a reserved occupation. Feeling it was his duty to serve, he joined the Royal Engineers. When Frank arrived on the frontline in Korea to join 55 Independent Field Squadron, 28th Field Engineer Regiment, they didn't know what to do with him. Frank was unconventional and rebellious, and upon discovery of his keen interest in photography he was appointed the unit's photographer. Frank took it upon himself to explore Korea, believing in the 'join the army and see the world' motto. He'd frequently wander off alone with his Leotax camera, in an active war zone, oblivious to the danger. The Koreans he encountered were often surprised to see a UN soldier strolling through their villages and farms unarmed and taking photos. Frank went into places that were off limits due to enemy activity, taking candid photographs of ordinary Koreans going about their daily lives despite the war."--

Don't Fall In Love, Sam is a series of short personal essays, which takes the reader on a journey of a young, gay man's exploration of self, body/image, identity, sex, sexuality, and existing as a real person in the digital age. It resonates with the millennial, initially, but extends to the human experience of life, and love gained and lost. Morris' words are a truly emotional read for any queer person finding their way in the world.