You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Tackle the challenges of memoir writing and share your story. 'Cathy is the person who first told me to write about my mental health when I was nervous to do so. She is a great writer herself and this is brilliant.' - Matt Haig, author of Reasons to Stay Alive Why do we want to write and what stops us? How do we fight the worry that no-one will care what we have to say? What can we do to overcome the obstacles in our way? Sunday Times bestselling author Cathy Rentzenbrink shows you how to tackle all this and more in Write It All Down, a guide to putting your life on the page. Complete with a compendium of advice from amazing writers such as Dolly Alderton, Adam Kay and Candice Carty-Williams...
From the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Last Act of Love, Cathy Rentzenbrink's Dear Reader is the ultimate love letter to reading and to finding the comfort and joy in stories. 'Exquisite' - Marian Keyes, author of Grown Ups 'A warm, unpretentious manifesto for why books matter’ - Sunday Express Growing up, Cathy Rentzenbrink was rarely seen without her nose in a book and read in secret long after lights out. When tragedy struck, it was books that kept her afloat. Eventually they lit the way to a new path, first as a bookseller and then as a writer. No matter what the future holds, reading will always help. A moving, funny and joyous exploration of how books can change the course of your life, packed with recommendations from one reader to another.
A Richard and Judy Book club selection. In the summer of 1990, Cathy's brother Matty was knocked down by a car on the way home from a night out. It was two weeks before his GCSE results, which turned out to be the best in his school. Sitting by his unconscious body in hospital, holding his hand and watching his heartbeat on the monitors, Cathy and her parents willed him to survive. They did not know then that there are many and various fates worse than death. This is the story of what happened to Cathy and her brother, and the unimaginable decision that she and her parents had to make eight years after the night that changed everything. It's a story for anyone who has ever watched someone suffer or lost someone they loved or lived through a painful time that left them forever changed. Told with boundless warmth and affection, The Last Act of Love by Cathy Rentzenbrink is a heartbreaking yet uplifting testament to a family's survival and the price we pay for love.
'I devoured A Manual for Heartache in one sitting . . . a kind, honest and wise book about how to make a friend of sadness.' - Rachel Joyce, author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. When Cathy Rentzenbrink was still a teenager, her happy family was torn apart by an unthinkable tragedy. In A Manual for Heartache she describes how she learnt to live with grief and loss and find joy in the world again. She explores how to cope with life at its most difficult and overwhelming and how we can emerge from suffering forever changed, but filled with hope. This is a moving, warm and uplifting book that offers solidarity and comfort to anyone going through a painful time, whatever it might be. It's a book that will help to soothe an aching heart and assure its readers that they're not alone.
WHAT HAPPENS AFTER HAPPILY EVER AFTER? 'I can't stop thinking about it' Elizabeth Day 'A total triumph' Nina Stibbe 'Beautiful, moving and so funny and well-observed' Philippa Perry When Juliet moves into her late mother's house, making friends with the neighbouring families is the last thing on her mind. Grief and guilt are weighing her down, and working motherhood is a juggle. But for her husband Liam, the morning coffees and after-school gatherings soon reveal the secret struggles, fears and rivalries playing out behind closed doors - all of which are perfect inspiration for his new novel . . . When the rupture of a marriage sends ripples through the group, painful home truths are brought to light. And then, one sun-drenched afternoon, life overturns in an instant and nothing on Magnolia Road will ever be the same again. The fiction debut from Sunday Times bestselling author Cathy Rentzenbrink, Everyone Is Still Alive is funny and moving, intimate and wise; a novel that explores the deeper realities of marriage and parenthood and the way life thwarts our expectations at every turn.
"Kennedy is not only a romantic but an anarchist." —Anita Brookner Summer, 1947. A bizarre catastrophe rocks a seaside village in Cornwall when a cliff tumbles down on the Pendizack Manor Hotel. The hotel is obliterated, and seven guests are killed in the disaster. Everyone else makes a narrow escape. As the survivors tell their stories, the events of the previous week are revealed, and a parade of sins exposed. Gluttony, Lecherousness, Sloth, Pride, Covetousness, Envy and Wrath: all are in residence at Pendizack Manor, and as the day of the disaster creeps closer, it becomes clear that who’s spared and who’s lost might not be as arbitrary as first assumed. A modern upstairs-downstairs comedy with an old-fashioned morality play tucked away inside, The Feast is sly, kaleidoscopic, and utterly ingenious, a novel that only Margaret Kennedy could have written.
“A work of literature: beautifully written, meticulously structured and heart-rending.” Observer What if you knew from the beginning how your relationship was going to end? When Jill Hopper first met Arif, they were living in a shared house on the island of Osney in the River Thames. Surrounded by willow trees, birds and reflections, it was an idyllic home. But no sooner had they begun to fall in love than Arif was given the news that he had only a few months to live. Everyone told Jill to walk away, but she was already in too deep. Years later, Jill rediscovers Arif’s parting gift – an African seedpod – and finally sets out to trace the elusive patterns that shaped their relationship. The Mahogany Pod is a tender and vital account of what it means to live, and love, fully.
Working-class stories are not always tales of the underprivileged and dispossessed. Common People is a collection of essays, poems and memoir written in celebration, not apology: these are narratives rich in barbed humour, reflecting the depth and texture of working-class life, the joy and sorrow, the solidarity and the differences, the everyday wisdom and poetry of the woman at the bus stop, the waiter, the hairdresser. Here, Kit de Waal brings together thirty-three established and emerging writers who invite you to experience the world through their eyes, their voices loud and clear as they reclaim and redefine what it means to be working class. Features original pieces from Damian Barr, Malorie Blackman, Lisa Blower, Jill Dawson, Louise Doughty, Stuart Maconie, Chris McCrudden, Lisa McInerney, Paul McVeigh, Daljit Nagra, Dave O’Brien, Cathy Rentzenbrink, Anita Sethi, Tony Walsh, Alex Wheatle and more.
Original tales by remarkable writers Hometown Tales is a series of books pairing exciting new voices with some of the most talented and important writers at work today. Some of the tales are fiction and some are narrative non-fiction - they are all powerful, fascinating and moving, and aim to celebrate regional diversity and explore the meaning of home In these pages on Yorkshire, you'll find two unique memoirs. 'The Yorkshire Years' is Cathy Rentzenbrink's deeply moving account of returning to Snaith, where her brother Matty was knocked down by a car over twenty years before. 'The Island upon the Moor' traces a powerful journey - from a carefree childhood in the village of Holme-upon-Spalding Moor - to surviving dark periods of depression, by Victoria Hennison.
Suppose your life sucks. Your husband has done a vanishing act, your stepson is being bullied and your daughter has a once in a lifetime opportunity - that you can't afford to pay for. So imagine you found and kept some money that didn't belong to you, knowing it would pay for your daughter's happiness. But how do you cope with the shame? Especially when the man you've lied to decides to help you out in your hour of need. Jess is in hell - Ed has saved her family - but is their happiness worth a lifetime's soul-searching? 2014.