Front Up, Rise Up is the story of Connacht’s remarkable journey to becoming the 2016 Pro12 champions. The story goes inside the dressing-room, takes in their unscheduled, week-long, bonding trek to Siberia and back for a European Challenge Cup game, and all the key twists and turns along the way. It brings us the characters in this Band of Brothers, from the locals such as captain John Muldoon from Portumna to their iconic fans’ favourite Bundee Aki – who like their talismanic coach Pat Lam is a Kiwi from Auckland of Samoan descent – and their Nigerian-born and Dublin-raised match-winner Niyi Adeolokun. The story takes in the province’s troubled professional history, which had them on the brink of extinction as a professional entity in 2003 and led to Connacht and their supporters marching to the IRFU offices in a successful bid to keep them afloat. It covers their dethroning of the champions Glasgow in the Sportsground in Galway and their stunning performance in the final against Leinster in Edinburgh. In more than two decades of professional rugby, there has been no story quite like it.

*A 2018 BOOK OF THE YEAR* ‘An inspirational must-read.’ Evening Standard ‘A very important book.’ Will Gompertz, BBC ‘A motivational, inspirational oral history.’ Nikesh Shukla, iNews ‘Don’t sleep on it... the future is looking #Merky.’ Metro ______________________ ‘It’s been a long time coming, I swear...’ In four years Stormzy has risen from one of the most promising musicians of his generation to a spokesperson for a generation. Rise Up is the story of how he got there. It’s a story about faith and the ideas worth fighting for. It’s about knowing where you’re from, and where you’re going. It’s about following your dreams without compromising who you are. Featuring never-before-seen photographs, lyrics and contributions from Team #Merky, Rise Up is the #Merky story, and the record of a journey unlike any other. ______________________ Edited and Co-written by Jude Yawson Contributions by Team #Merky Images by Kaylum Dennis

Penned by one of America's best-known daily theatre critics and organized chronologically, this lively and readable book tells the story of Broadway's renaissance from the darkest days of the AIDS crisis, via the disaster that was Spiderman: Turn off the Dark through the unparalleled financial, artistic and political success of Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton. It is the story of the embrace of risk and substance. In so doing, Chris Jones makes the point that the theatre thrived by finally figuring out how to embrace the bold statement and insert itself into the national conversation - only to find out in 2016 that a hefty sector of the American public had not been listening to what it had to say. Chris Jones was in the theatres when and where it mattered. He takes readers from the moment when Tony Kushner's angel crashed (quite literally) through the ceiling of prejudice and religious intolerance to the triumph of Hamilton, with the coda of the Broadway cast addressing a new Republican vice-president from the stage. That complex performance - at once indicative of the theatre's new clout and its inability to fully change American society for the better - is the final scene of the book.

In Sit Down to Rise Up, mindfulness teacher and activist Shelly Tygielski shares her transformative journey of radical self-care and mutual aid, illuminating how these practices can ignite powerful social change and personal empowerment. Through stories and practical guidance, she demonstrates the profound impact of showing up for yourself and your community. This book is a blueprint for anyone seeking to cultivate resilience, compassion, and a sense of purpose in a fractured world. Discover how small acts of kindness can create ripple effects that lead to broader movements for justice and equity and how, despite the challenges we face, we should never lose hope or lose faith in humanity. Join Shelly in exploring how every human life matters and how together, we can rise up to build a better future.

Forty years after her death, Janis Joplin remains among the most compelling and influential figures in rock-and-roll history. Her story—told here with depth and sensitivity by author Ann Angel—is one of a girl who struggled against rules and limitations, yet worked diligently to improve as a singer. It’s the story of an outrageous rebel who wanted to be loved, and of a wild woman who wrote long, loving letters to her mom. And finally, it’s the story of one of the most iconic female musicians in American history, who died at twenty-seven. Janis Joplin includes more than sixty photographs, and an assortment of anecdotes from Janis’s friends and band mates. This thoroughly researched and well-illustrated biography is a must-have for all young artists, music lovers, and pop-culture enthusiasts.

From surviving a plane crash in the jungle to striking against climate change, you won’t believe the incredible stories of the challenges these brave kids from around the world have overcome! Rise Up: Ordinary Kids in Extraordinary Stories features 29 tales of amazing young girls and boys who have achieved the unimaginable. The stories range from triumphing over illness and injury to overcoming bullying. Entries include Sweden's Greta Thunberg, whose youth climate activism sparked a global movement, and Pakistan's Ayesha Farooq, who became Pakistan's first female fighter pilot at age 25. Each incredible story is narrated in an exciting and engaging style, and is combined with visually stunning illustrations by Amy Blackwell. Children can lose themselves in the remarkable true-life tales of ingenuity, courage, and commitment. Practical tips and skills accompany each story, from how to tie useful knots to send coded messages, and how to be more environmentally green to how to survive a shark attack. This useful information provides a springboard for children to apply this knowledge in their own lives. These empowering stories show that no matter who you are, how old you are, and what you do, you can rise to the challenge.

A deafblind writer and professor explores how the misrepresentation of disability in books, movies, and TV harms both the disabled community and everyone else. As a deafblind woman with partial vision in one eye and bilateral hearing aids, Elsa Sjunneson lives at the crossroads of blindness and sight, hearing and deafness—much to the confusion of the world around her. While she cannot see well enough to operate without a guide dog or cane, she can see enough to know when someone is reacting to the visible signs of her blindness and can hear when they’re whispering behind her back. And she certainly knows how wrong our one-size-fits-all definitions of disability can be. As a media studies professor, she’s also seen the full range of blind and deaf portrayals on film, and here she deconstructs their impact, following common tropes through horror, romance, and everything in between. Part memoir, part cultural criticism, part history of the deafblind experience, Being Seen explores how our cultural concept of disability is more myth than fact, and the damage it does to us all.

Rise Up Planner. To dream. plan. hustle. win.