SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'I just howled. Bloomin' love you' Giovanna Fletcher 'You're hilarious. Thank you for making me laugh every day' Mrs Hinch When does Mary Effing Poppins arrive? Laura Belbin survived hitting her thirties (oh, to be wrinkle-free again), anxiety (just), motherhood (two adorable little shits) and the new body that went with it (a left tit that sags slightly more than the right, anyone?). In Knee Deep in Life she gives a fearless and filthy account of her transformation from no-responsibilities woman to being in demand 24/7, the heartaches and humiliations, and most importantly, her (definitely-pushed-to-the-limits-but-totally-indestructible) marriage to Steve, the man who helped her to hold it together when post-natal depression kicked in. Full of heart and wit - not to mention swearing that would make a sailor blush - this is the beast of a book Laura intends on riding into the hands of those people who doubt themselves every single day: the ones who have struggled to accept the way they look; the mums-to-be about to find themselves taking their first step towards parenthood; and the women bossing it like badasses every single day but never getting the credit they deserve. You are more than enough.

The Gates were there on Phobos when mankind first arrived. Inert, unyielding, impossibly alien constructs, for twenty years they sat lifeless, mute testaments to their long-vanished creators, their secrets hidden. Then one day, they sprang to life... Meet Corporal Flynn Taggart, United States Marine Corps; serial number 888-23-9912. He's the best warrior the twenty-first century has to offer, which is a damn good thing. Because Flynn Taggart is all that's standing between the hell that just dropped in on Mars and an unsuspectingg planet Earth...

A tiny Indian woman leading an inconspicuous life in Calcutta profoundly influenced the evolution and teaching of Buddhist meditation practice in America. Knee Deep in Grace presents the life story of Dipa Ma Barua, along with the essential spiritual teachings that make her a towering figure in contemporary Buddhism. While she experienced fame in her lifetime and had a following of many Burmese, Indian, and American students, she was like the women saints of the Vedas, remarkable women...from the dawn of history...who achieved realization while cleaning their homes and raising their children (Daughters of the Goddess: Women Saints of India).Dipa Ma was a primary teacher of Sharon Salzberg Jack Kornfield, and Joseph Goldstein, who have been among the most influential importers of Buddhism to America. Through the centers they founded and the teachers trained in them (the author among them), the example and teaching of Dipa Ma reach multitudes. Jack Kornfield described the power of Ma's influence: Without anything said or done, just the impact of meeting a person so developed can be enough to change one's whole way of life.Knee Deep in Grace is filled with intimate stories collected over a period of ten years, not only from prominent meditation teachers in the West but from Dipa Ma's daughter and grandson and her Calcutta students. Dipa Ma addressed her teaching to ordinary people in her apartment complex and her extended family, and her iconoclastic style of daily life immersion practice brought many of her students to awakening.

An unusual stone provokes a journey into an underground world of fantasy where Maris is guided by a dog-sized beetle.

From 1905 to 1069, the Blanchard Boat Company of Seattle was renowned and respected for its well-built vessels, large and small, sail and power. Hundreds of graceful Blanchard boats still ply the sounds and inlets of Washington, Alaska and British Columbia today. Norman C Blanchard is the son of Norman J Blanchard, founder of the firm, and his stories of beautiful boats and dedicated boaters go back to the turn of the century. The Blanchards worked with all the outstanding naval architects and designers of their day, including Ed Monk, Ben Seaborn, Ted Geary and Bill Garden, and built boats for unassuming fishermen and high profile yacht racers alike. Stephen Wilen has done all classic-boat enthusiasts a favor by collecting Norm Blanchard's fond reminiscences of a life devoted to splendid wooden boats.

A dazzling novel about four generations of fear and longing in the deep South. "Who're your people, girl?" It's the song of the South, the big question, persistent and unforgiving. Helene Strickland, daughter of Lafayette County, Arkansas, and lately of the Northeast, doesn't have an answer. Instead, she has memories riddled with half-truths, stories heard in fits and starts, a family history from a family that doesn't know its own past. In the steamy August of 1976, Helene returns home for her aunt's funeral determined to learn the truth, but her probing yields more questions than answers: Why did her grandmother, Liberty, a cotton picker turned saloon owner, have no name until she was fourteen? Why does Queen Ester, Helene's mother, dress like a child, talk to no one, and refuse to see her own daughter? And who was Chess, a man with a terror of water, a man like a honey trap who drew the women and then destroyed them?

Colicky horses, trucks high-centered in pastures, late nights spent in barns birthing calves--the trials and tribulations of farm and ranch life are as central to its experience as amber waves of grain and Sunday dinners at the ranch house. Ankle High and Knee Deep collects together essays about lessons learned by ranch women, cowgirls, and farmers about what they’ve learned while standing in or stepping out of “mud, manure, and other offal” in their day to day lives on the land. This collection of entertaining and inspirational voices offers unique perspectives on relationships, loss, love, marriage, and parenting and other universal issues. These are contemporary accounts of women struggling to keep a lifestyle intact, recollections of childhoods spent in open spaces, and tales of overcoming obstacles--inspirational reading for city dwellers and country folk, alike.

At no time during the Great Depression was the contradiction between agriculture surplus and widespread hunger more wrenchingly graphic than in the government's attempt to raise pork prices through the mass slaughter of miliions of "unripe" little pigs. This contradiction was widely perceived as a "paradox." In fact, as Janet Poppendieck makes clear in this newly expanded and updated volume, it was a normal, predictable working of an economic system rendered extreme by the Depression. The notion of paradox, however, captured the imagination of the public and policy makers, and it was to this definition of the problem that surplus commodities distribution programs in the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations were addressed. This book explains in readable narrative how the New Deal food assistance effort, originally conceived as a relief measure for poor people, became a program designed to raise the incomes of commercial farmers. In a broader sense, the book explains how the New Deal years were formative for food assistance in subsequent administrations; it also examines the performance--or lack of performance--of subsequent in-kind relief programs. Beginning with a brief survey of the history of the American farmer before the depression and the impact of the Depression on farmers, the author describes the development of Hoover assistance programs and the events at the end of that administration that shaped the "historical moment" seized by the early New Deal. Poppendieck goes on to analyze the food assistance policies and programs of the Roosevelt years, the particular series of events that culminated in the decision to purchase surplus agriculture products and distribute them to the poor, the institutionalization of this approach, the resutls achieved, and the interest groups formed. The book also looks at the takeover of food assistance by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and its gradual adaptation for use as a tool in the maintenance of farm income. Utliizing a wide variety of official and unofficial sources, the author reveals with unusual clarity the evolution from a policy directly responsive to the poor to a policy serving mainly democratic needs.

From a fresh and gritty new urban voice comes the powerful tale of a boy yearning to escape from the projects, and the life-altering choices he makes.

Knee Deep and Rising is a tribute to the lovable, sometimes unpredictable, characters that Bob met all over the world. A black maid hugs him close. A hot garage almost cooks two lovers. The girl next door puts him in an un-lockable love hold that lasts a lifetime. Secret Abuse reveals the adolescent story of a shocking event. An early morning trip with a lobster fisherman has an unusual catch in it. In Pabst Blue Ribbon youll discover Bobs absorbing love of baseball. Little River Springs carries us on 90 mile canoe trips down the Suwannee River. Stormy Sail To Nassau takes us on a harrowing voyage that almost ended the lives of all 19 on board a 52 foot ketch when it narrowly misses crashing into a cruise ship in a raging storm. Stories of Africa and Asia remind us that adventure was second nature to Bob. This book of true stories includes the highs and lows of being the pastor in three churches in Florida and North Carolina. Bobs honesty is also revealed in The Waters Of My Mental Illness as he describes his gratitude for the love and support of those who cared most for him during his 12 year recovery from a life changing bipolar disorder. Bob credits NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, as a key player for his good health today.