The Sunday Times bestseller The moving and inspiring account of heartbreak and courage, and the life-affirming relationship between a father and son. Ben Brooks-Dutton's wife - the great love of his life - was knocked down and killed by a car as he walked beside her, pushing their two-year-old son in his buggy. Life changed forever. Suddenly Ben was a widower deep in shock, left to raise their bewildered child alone. In the aftermath Ben searched for guidance from men in similar situations, but it appeared that young widowed fathers don't talk. Well meaning loved ones admired his strength. The unwritten rule seemed to be to 'shut up, man up and hide your pain'. Lost, broken and afraid of the future, two months after his wife Desreen's death, Ben started a blog with the aim of rejecting outdated conventions of grief and instead opening up about his experiences. Within months Life as a Widower, had received a million hits and had started an all-too-often hushed conversation about the reality of loss and grief. This is the story of a man and a child who lost the woman they so dearly love and what happened in the year that followed. Ben describes the conflicting emotions that come from facing grief head on. He rages against the clichés used around loss and shows the strange and cruel ways in which grief can take hold. He also charts what it means to become a sole parent to a child who has lost their mother and cannot yet understand the meaning of death. Through the shock and sadness shine moments of hope and insight. So much of what Ben learns comes from watching his son struggle, survive and live, as children do, from moment to moment where hurt can turn to happiness and anger can turn to joy. This is a story of loss, heartbreak and courage. At its heart is the funny, infuriating and life affirming relationship between a father and son and their ongoing love for an extraordinary woman.

We are becoming less intelligent. This is the shocking yet fascinating message of At Our Wits' End. The authors take us on a journey through the growing body of evidence that we are significantly less intelligent now than we were a hundred years ago. The research proving this is, at once, profoundly thought-provoking, highly controversial, and it's currently only read by academics. But the authors are passionate that it cannot remain ensconced in the ivory tower any longer. With At Our Wits' End, they present the first ever popular scientific book on this crucially important issue. They prove that intelligence — which is strongly genetic — was increasing up until the breakthrough of the Industrial Revolution, because we were subject to the rigors of Darwinian Selection, meaning that lots of surviving children was the preserve of the cleverest. But since then, they show, intelligence has gone into rapid decline, because large families are increasingly the preserve of the least intelligent. The book explores how this change has occurred and, crucially, what its consequences will be for the future. Can we find a way of reversing the decline of our IQ? Or will we witness the collapse of civilization and the rise of a new Dark Age?

Consumer vulnerability is of growing importance as a research topic for those exploring wellbeing. This book provides space to critically engage with the conditions, contexts and characteristics of consumer vulnerability, which affect how people experience and respond to the marketplace and vice versa. Focussing on substantive, ethical, social and methodological issues, this book brings together key researchers in the field and practitioners who work with vulnerability on a daily basis. Organised into 4 sections, it considers consumer vulnerability and key life stages, health and wellbeing, poverty, and exclusion. Methodologically the chapters draw on qualitative research, employing a variety of methods from interview, to the use of poetry, film and other cultural artefacts. This book will be of interest to marketing and consumer research scholars and students and also to researchers in other disciplines including sociology, public policy and anthropology, and practitioners, policy makers and charitable organisations working with vulnerable groups.

Vital Memory and Affect takes as its subject the autobiographical memories of ‘vulnerable’ groups, including survivors of child sexual abuse, adopted children and their families, forensic mental health service users, and elderly persons in care home settings. In particular the focus is on a particular class of memory within this group: recollected episodes that are difficult and painful, sometimes contested, but always with enormous significance for a current and past sense of self. These ‘vital memories’, integral and irreversible, can come to appear as a defining feature of a person’s life. In Vital Memory and Affect, authors Steve Brown and Paula Reavey explore the highly productive way in which individuals make sense of a difficult past, situated as they are within a highly specific cultural and social landscape. Via an exploration of their vital memories, the book combines insights from social and cognitive psychology to open up the possibility of a new approach to memory, one that pays full attention to the contextual conditions of all acts of remembering. This path-breaking study brings together a unique set of empirical material and maps out an agenda for research into memory and affect that will be important reading for students and scholars of social psychology, memory studies, cultural studies, philosophy, and other related fields.

An accomplished novelist, short story writer, and playwright, Richard Power (1928–1970) was most well–known for his 1969 novel The Hungry Grass. While many of his stories were published in the leading literary journals of the day, his premature death prevented his work from gaining the fame it deserved. Gathered together for the first time, Power’s subtle and poignant stories capture the daily lives of urban and rural dwellers in Ireland at the turn of the twentieth century. Coming of age, the tensions between tradition and modernity, and romantic love are some of the themes in these beautifully vivid tales. Power explores the interiority of an Irish mother and the thorny navigation of an adolescent girl's coming of age with pathos and humor. This memorable collection, thoughtfully arranged and introduced by James MacKillop, gives new life to an undeservedly neglected writer for fans and scholars of the Irish short story tradition.

To six-year-old Dori, everything seems possible. To her family and their Peers—secular, left-leaning North American Jews—the young state of Israel seems to offer the same promise, as the starry-eyed kibbutz movement prepares the ground for their ideals of justice and cooperation to take root and flourish. They settle on Eldar in northern Galilee, determined to create a new utopia, but life on this remote hill, three kilometres from the Lebanese border, is far more complex than any of its inhabitants could have imagined. The Last Rain tells the story of Eldar's emergence as a kibbutz through the eyes of Dori, as well as through documentary fragments that take the reader on a labyrinthine journey through the characters' collective past. With humour, sensitivity, and a deep love for the land, The Last Rain follows the coming of age not only of a young girl, but also of a country in the first fraught years of its existence.

Cassandra Adams was 35 years old when she ran away from home. She hadn't planned to run away. It was a spur of the moment thing, totally out of character. But it had been building up in her for months. The dull ache of unfulfillment. The residue of emptiness that settled on her heart after the daily grind. Pouring out all of herself just to please a company that did not appreciate her, which was run by a father who could not see her. Yet this was the life she had chosen. After a devastating break up, Cassie found comfort in the shelter of her 90-hour work week. Somewhere along the way she had lost herself in that world. Her heart was safe but it was also starving to death. Then it happened: A visitor from her past. An invitation to "come with me." That was all it took-and she was gone. But now that she's gone, could she ever really come back? With each day that she spends away from her old life, Cassie finds herself wondering: Does she even want to go back? A new world has been opened up to her. Freedom. Beauty. Love. The price of all this goodness, her heart. Would this man she barely knew runaway with her heart like the last one? Or could it be that taking a chance will pay off for her in ways she could never have imagined? Runaway Love is the first of the Not-so Virtuous Women in Love series. Everyday women searching for love and finding faith along the way.

Purely by chance, David finds out that he has been a dad for five years but he didn't know it. He wastes no time getting in touch with his ex girlfriend, Julie. But now what? David is stunned by the news, but he is ready to throw himself into the role of a brand new dad to a five-year-old daughter, Mandy. But is he ready to have Julie back in his life? She is as much of a temptation as ever, but this time there is no playing around. It's all or nothing when it comes to the mother of his child. Mandy always longed to meet her dad. Now she's a happy little girl. As for her mom, Julie finds herself at the mercy of old feelings. She never got over David, and now he's back in her life as handsome and irresistible as ever. After all these years, can Julie learn to trust the man who once broke her heart so that these three can become a real family?

Fate re-tells the story of two young adults, Rebecca White and Johnny Black as they are guided to a station in their hearts they knew no existed by means of a destiny sealed long before they were born. On an ordinary night, that is by far unordinary, the mystical wheels of their providence are set into motion. While a 22 year old Janis Keeper pleads for her life somewhere in the Nevada desert, a guileless Rebecca and an altruist Johnny are dispatched into a world fraught with the unknown. Two remarkable journeys. One heart. One mind. One soul. Nevada Rain is a provocative narrative of faith, courage, erroneous decisions, heartache, spiritual enlightenment, immense darkness, and finally, a love everlasting. Turn the page, open your mind and accept their journeys into your heart. Enjoy the true to life influences of Nevada Rain.

Wake up, Dad! We've got a big day ahead! Frankie and her little sister, Violet, are excited to be out and about with Dad! From pancakes to puppies to a super-duper surprise, the order of the day is F-U-N. The gifted actress, author, and mother Brooke Shields pairs with the delightful Cori Doerrfeld for this joyful book about dads and daughters and the love they share.