As a gay man born into an evangelical Christian family, my coming out story was wrought with pain, trauma, and separation from family and loved ones. In the same year I lost my best friend in an accident. My world tumbled and I had to crawl back to a place of reckoning. Walking became my path to healing. So when my brother Reuben, who has Down's syndrome sent me a message from the isolation of a care home in the pandemic, I knew he was in trouble. Those five words - ´brother. do. you. love. me.´changed our lives. I thought I might know a way to save him.
Brother. do. you. love. me. tells the story of Reuben and Manni; brothers separated by 10 years and little else. Reuben was born with Down’s syndrome and he changed our family.
The structure is a simple to and fro between present and past, zigzagging between weeks of shielded isolation and chapters from Reuben’s early years through to adulthood. It charters our personal plight of perseverance in the bleak winter of lockdown. We want this book to shine with hope as well as being informative about Down’s Syndrome.
Suicide is a grisly subject; even taboo in many cultures.
Rather than skirting around the issue, Niven tackles it in a head on collision of brotherly love. His account of drug abuse and his ‘wee’ brother’s life that slipped through everyone’s fingers is as mesmerizing as it is difficult to read. Niven’s raw honesty disarms the reader as Niven´s prose brings the deepest of human torment into stark focus.
I recommend reading this book that unearths deep truths about family, commitment, suffering, and love.
AN INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER LONGLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURNS PRIZE A WATERSTONES BEST BOOK OF 2023 AN iNEWS BEST BOOK TO GIFT
John Niven's little brother Gary was fearless, popular, stubborn, handsome, hilarious and sometimes terrifying. In 2010, after years of chaotic struggle against the world, he took his own life at the age of 42.
Hoping for the best while often witnessing the worst, John, his younger sister Linda and their mother, Jeanette, saw the darkest fears they had for Gary played out in drug deals, prison and bankruptcy. While his life spiralled downward and the love the…
As a guy with no children, motherhood has always intrigued me.
What does motherhood actually feel like? How does it change you? How to describe the bond between mother and child? I had questions that would be difficult to ask any mother. In this soaring memoir, Clover has answered them all for me. She has a skill to convert the most mundane into life-changing and the routine into extraordinary.
Clover’s style is engaging and intimate. She leaves no stone unturned in this ‘heart on her sleeve’ book about what it really means to be a mother.
'Raw, elemental and beautiful.' Telegraph 'This is quite simply the best book about motherhood I have ever read.' - Eleanor Mills in the Sunday Times
Mother to five children, Clover Stroud has navigated family life across two decades, both losing and finding herself. In her touching, provocative and profoundly insightful book, she captures a sense of what motherhood really feels like - how intense, sensuous, joyful, boring, profound and dark it can be.
My Wild and Sleepless Nights examines what it means to be a mother, and reveals with unflinching honesty the many conflicting emotions that this entails: the joy…
Raynor and her husband, Moth, are destitute. Moth has been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. They have lost everything; house, work, and income. They have nowhere to go.
So they decide to go for a walk; a very long walk; around the coastline of the West Country following the South Coastal Path. Raynor shares with us, in poetic detail, the minutiae of their struggle, both physical and emotional. As they battle with the force of nature’s elements, something starts to happen.
They begin to identify a way forward and Moth begins to feel stronger. This true story will inspire you. It is a pure testament to the healing power of nature. Raynor’s humility shines through in what is, essentially, a love letter to Moth; the truest love of her life.
"Polished, poignant... an inspiring story of true love."-Entertainment Weekly
A BEST BOOK OF 2019, NPR's Book Concierge SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BOOK AWARD OVER 400,000 COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE
The true story of a couple who lost everything and embarked on a transformative journey walking the South West Coast Path in England
Just days after Raynor Winn learns that Moth, her husband of thirty-two years, is terminally ill, their house and farm are taken away, along with their livelihood. With nothing left and little time, they make the brave and impulsive decision to walk the 630 miles of the sea-swept South…
William and his wife lost their baby in its last term and had to endure the torment of an induced stillbirth.
The same thing happened to a dear friend years ago so when I heard William as embarking on this brave endeavour to write about it, I was intrigued. The publisher, Little Toller Books, decided to create a space for William’s male voice in a publishing genre that is dominated by women’s.
The result is a heart-wrenching tale of grief as William clamours to contextualise the world he has been thrown into. William’s skill as a writer lies in his depiction of the indescribable. I’m sure there were months of soul searching and pen holding before he finally hit upon a way of converting his pain into the stunning prose. I am so grateful he did. And you will be too.
In the summer of 2017, Will and his wife Amy lost their baby, Elowen, a few days before their due date. After a traumatic induced birth, they returned from hospital to their cottage in the New Forest, grief-stricken and struggling to make sense of what happened to them. Unmoored by sadness, what became clear in the weeks and months following Elowen's death is that there is no established vocabulary with which to understand this experience, either for Will or the people around him. Indeed, as he discovers, there is no word in the English language for a parent who has…
Growing up in a religious household and then coming out as a gay man, it took me several years to extricate myself from those threads of guilt that inhibited my full-blown happiness with my new identity.
Tara not only had to extricate herself from her family’s religious fervour but also from her brother’s violence, her father’s radicalism, her community’s denial. Brought up in a strict Mormon household in the mountains of Idaho, Tara didn’t have a birth certificate until she was 9. She didn’t begin her education until she was 17. She broke the chains of her family’s mindset and ended up educating herself at Harvard and Oxford.
The story alone grips you from page one. But what I really loved about Educated is Tara’s quiet struggle to arrive at a place of peace, not with her family but with herself. She is a shining example of perseverance and standing up for what is right, even then those convictions were based on intuition alone. Education didn’t rescue her. She rescued herself through education.
Selected as a book of the year by AMAZON, THE TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES, GUARDIAN, NEW YORK TIMES, ECONOMIST, NEW STATESMAN, VOGUE, IRISH TIMES, IRISH EXAMINER and RED MAGAZINE
'One of the best books I have ever read . . . unbelievably moving' Elizabeth Day 'An extraordinary story, beautifully told' Louise O'Neill 'A memoir to stand alongside the classics . . . compelling and joyous' Sunday Times
Tara Westover grew up preparing for the end of the world. She was never put in school, never taken to the doctor. She did not even have a birth certificate…
Four years old and homeless, William Walters boarded one of the last American Orphan Trains in 1930 and embarked on an astonishing quest through nine decades of U.S. and world history.
For 75 years, the Orphan Trains had transported 250,000 children from the streets and orphanages of the East Coast into homes in the emerging West, sometimes providing loving new families, other times delivering kids into nightmares. Taken by a cruel New Mexico couple, William faced a terrible trial, but his strength and resilience carried him forward into unforgettable adventures.
Whether escaping his abusers, jumping freights as a preteen during the Great Depression, or infiltrating Japanese-held islands as a teenage Marine during WWII, William’s unique path paralleled the tumult of the twentieth century—and personified the American dream.
WINNER, DA VINCI EYE AWARD FOR COVER DESIGN, ERIC HOFFER BOOK AWARDS
HONORABLE MENTION, ERIC HOFFER BOOK AWARDS, E-BOOK NONFICTION
FINALIST, NEXT GENERATION INDIE BOOK AWARDS, E-BOOK NONFICTION
FINALIST, NEXT GENERATION INDIE BOOK AWARDS, MEMOIRS (Overcoming Adversity)
HONORABLE MENTION, READERS' FAVORITE BOOK AWARDS, GENERAL NONFICTION
From 1854 to the early 1930s, the American Orphan Trains transported 250,000 children from the streets and orphanages of the East Coast into homes in the emerging West. Unfortunately, families waiting for the trains weren’t always dreams come true—many times they were nightmares.
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