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When I had a Little Sister by Catherine Simpson is a searingly honest and heartbreaking account of growing up in a farming family, and of Catherine’s search for understanding into what led her younger sister to kill herself at 46. It’s a story of sisters and sacrifice, grief and reclamation, and of the need to speak the unspeakable.
Shortlisted in Scotland’s National Book Awards By the time she reached her fifties, Catherine had experienced period pain, childbirth, and early menopause, alongside love and laughter, a career in journalism, and raising two daughters. Like many of her peers, along the way she'd dieted, jogged, sweated, tanned, permed, and plucked—always attempting to conform to prevailing standards of "acceptable womanhood." But when a medical crisis comes along, she can no longer pummel her body into submission and is forced to take stock. From growing up on a farm where veterinarians were more common than doctors, and where illness was “a nuisance,” she now faces the nuisance of a lifetime. One Body is the demystifying, relatable, often hilarious, and sometimes hair-raising story of how Catherine navigates her treatment and the emotions and reflections it provokes. And how she comes to drop the unattainable standards imposed on her body, and simply appreciate the skin she is in.
Northern Wildflower is the beautifully written and powerful memoir of Catherine Lafferty. With startling honesty and a distinct voice, Lafferty tells her story of being a Dene woman growing up in Canada’s North and her struggles with intergenerational trauma, discrimination, poverty, addiction, love, and loss. Focusing on the importance of family ties, education, spiritualism, cultural identity, health, happiness, and the courage to speak the truth, Lafferty’s words bring cultural awareness and relativity to Indigenous and non-Indigenous readers alike, giving insight into the real issues many Indigenous women face and dispelling misconceptions about what life in the North is like.
In this searing, frank and funny memoir, Catherine Simpson describes what it’s been like to live in her woman’s body, and to reach the realisation that all that time she’d spent trying to change her body to conform - often to unattainable standards - could be seen from a completely different perspective. By the time she reached her fifties, Catherine Simpson and her body had gone through a lot together—from period pain and early menopause to shaming and harassment. But there had been success, joy, love, and laughter too: far more freedoms than her mother had, a fulfilling family life and career, and even the promise of further gains for her daughters. So when a cancer diagnosis upend...
Children's more fantastic stories are usually explained away by well-meaning adults. Cathy Simpson has taken this common childhood frustration, and woven it into a lively tale -- set in rural Newfoundland -- of a little girl, a large bear, and a whole community that is very surprised when she is proven to be right
"When a Newfoundland pony is suspected of breaking into gardens and ruining valuable crops, the community tries to discover the culprit - with humorous consequences" Cf. Our choice, 2000.
‘Gripping and moving. A literary triumph’ Nicola Sturgeon ‘A humane and searching story’ Ian Rankin ‘Kirstin Innes is aiming high, writing for readers in the early days of a better nation’ A.L. Kennedy A NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR • A SCOTSMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR
The second book in the Lonesome Dove quartet, Comanche Moon, which follows on from Dead Man's Walk, follows ranchers Gus and Call in their bitter struggle to protect the advancing West frontier against the defiant Comanches, courageously determined to defend their territory and their way of life. It showcases Larry McMurtry's strong affinity for the landscape and its inhabitants with a deeply felt lyrical intensity. On the wild Texas frontier where barbarism and civilization come in many forms, Rangers Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call are pitched into the long, bitter, bloody fighting under the command of Captain Inish Scull. When Scull's favourite horse is stolen by the Comanches, he decides to ...
'Moving and inspiring, courageous and true: real art. Just reading her is pleasure' Amy Liptrot, author of The Outrun Just days into motherhood, a woman begins dying. Fast and without warning. On return from near-death, Tanya Shadrick vows to stop sleepwalking through life. To take more risks, like the characters in the fairy tales she loved as a small girl, before loss and fear had her retreat into routine and daydreams. Around the care of young children, she starts to play with the shape and scale of her days: to stray from the path, get lost in the woods, make bargains with strangers. As she moves beyond her respectable roles as worker, wife and mother in a small town, Tanya learns what it takes - and costs - to break the spell of longing for love, approval, safety, rescue.
A haunting memoir that delves into obsessive compulsive disorder and explores what it is like living with violent intrusive thoughts. "In the Art of Memoir, Mary Karr wrote: 'In some ways, writing a memoir is knocking yourself out with your own fist, if it's done right.' By this measure, Jillian Halket's debut memoir, Blade in the Shadow, has surely been done right." - Ann Rawson, author of A Savage Art and The Witch House. From a young age, Jillian is obsessed with rituals to keep herself and others safe from the intense, dark thoughts. After moving to Glasgow, she hopes for a new beginning but the thoughts keep getting louder, so she escapes by pushing her body to unknown limits. Blade in the Shadow is a coming-of-age memoir filled with hope, sadness, strength and beautiful prose, in which Jillian shares her story of how darkly absurd life can be. Jillian Halket's debut memoir is a book that dispels myths surrounding OCD, substance abuse and sexual assault. She is a young, working-class, disabled woman from rural Scotland with a powerful and sensitive voice.