A soul-wrenching tale of one family falsely accused of criminal tax evasion. Nathan and Elly arrived in Canada in 1973, after travelling five years on horseback through the three Americas. They became Canadian citizens, raised a family and carved a ranch out of the wilderness in northern British Columbia with Belgian draft horses. In 2006, inexplicably, the family was swept up in the Canada-wide wave of terror originating with the Harper government, intended to spread fear among small business owners, and, through fear, taxpayer compliance. And to divert attention from the off -shore tax havens of the rich. Trail hardened and resilient, Nathan and Elly would not allow themselves to become victims of a bully. They launched a civil lawsuit against the tax agency that attacked them without merit, mercy, or fact. They acted as their own lawyers. The battle lasted ten years. This small book has a big message: when you have the guts to stand up for what you believe, no one has power over you!

Blues in D minor, big bellies over factory belts, and Elvis Presley license plates—Gigs is a collection of poems that shows us the gentle beauty of ordinary life. Davis’s language breathes, without labor. His metaphors fit tight. And the rhythm of each word keeps pace with our innermost beats. Absolutely every poem in this book hammers a rightly strung chord.

This book is a collection of my most recent and most read poems and prose it has a wide range of themes throughout including love, memories, observational and also thrilling this latest publicaion is unlike most of its genre as I like to think it caters for almost every type of reader regardless of age and offers a welcoming and refreshing introduction to poetry. With plot lines including school, pets, relationships, life, a cyclops and a whole lot more this book offers something for everyone.

The Adventures of Henry and Eulalie explores magic and science as complementary elements that take young readers on adventures between diverse worlds. Quantum physics explains the underlying mechanisms that make young Henry’s wondrous journeys plausible. We begin with 11-year-old Henry Harris seemingly passing out at baseball practice, only to learn that his consciousness has been “bilocated” back to his birth planet by three scientists, one of whom is his uncle. Henry gets a brief explanation before being sent back to his Earth body. The boy learns of his unique origins as he travels through worlds of reason and science (Sun-Rhea), the land of his birth father (Donegal), and the many magical realms of the Wildlands, home of his birth mother (Mirabel) and his soon-to-be best friend, the fairy Eulalie. Henry and Eulalie travel through the Land of Echoes, populated by ghosts and shades, to the Sky in the Lake, where they free Mirabel from her underwater prison. The pair meet colorful characters such as the Tea Cup Lady, and Miles, an old country rabbit who lives in the no-man’s land between worlds. Henry and his friends face challenges on Earth, on Sun-Rhea, the Wildlands, and the various sub-worlds therein to ultimately face the evil Mocarsto in the Crystal Cave.

Friar-sleuth Brother Athelstan is caught in a politically charged race against time! He must uncover the truth behind numerous gruesome murders in this tense historical mystery set in medieval London. Normandy, 1358: The Free Company of the 'Via Crucis - the Way of the Cross' sweeps into the peaceful village of Avranches, like the riders from the Apocalypse, leaving nothing but death and hellish destruction in their wake. London, 1382: Brother Athelstan is summoned to unpick the ugly truth behind a number of killings afflicting the great city. Some carried out like clean, efficient assassinations, all bearing the message 'Justitia Fiat - let there be justice', others inflicting torture and humiliation upon the bodies. But the victims all have one thing in common - they were all once members of Via Crucis. With every new gruesome discovery, Brother Athelstan, with the help of Coroner Cranston, uncovers more clues which make up a most complicated riddle - but can he put together the last piece before the fate of the whole country is decided? A skilfully plotted and researched medieval mystery which will appeal to fans of C.J. SANSOM

In this rich memoir, the first of two volumes, Paul Farmer traces the story of A39, the Cornish political theatre group he co-founded and ran from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. Farmer offers a unique insight into A39’s creation, operation, and artistic practice during a period of convulsive political and social change. The reader is plunged into the national miners’ strike and the collapse of Cornish tin mining, the impact of Thatcherism and ‘Reaganomics’, and the experience of touring Germany on the brink of reunification, alongside the influence on A39 of writers Bertolt Brecht, John McGrath and Keith Johnstone. Farmer, a former bus driver turned artistic director, details the theatre group’s inception and development as it fought to break down social barriers, attract audiences, and survive with little more than a beaten-up Renault 12, a photocopier and two second-hand stage lights at its disposal: the book traces the progress from these raw materials to the development of an integrated community theatre practice for Cornwall. Farmer’s candour and humour enliven this unique insight into 1980s theatre and politics. It will appeal to anyone with an interest in theatre history, life in Cornwall, and the relationship between performance and society during a turbulent era.

The sequel nobody wants. After a decade of the Tories, could it get any worse? Spoiler – it does. Towards the end of 2021, Britain had been frogmarched into an escalating series of surreal calamities. Brexit was a disaster, the NHS was in crisis, the government was bathed head-to-toe in impropriety, senior Tories were still acting as though the public purse was their personal feed-trough, and the air crackled with anger about PartyGate. All of which led to an inglorious start to 2022: the year the UK saw two monarchs, three prime ministers and four chancellors. From Boris Johnson, who trashed our international reputation and handed billions to his mates so they could ineptly fight a pandemic while he stayed at home, shagging and acting as a super-spreader; to Liz Truss, a drive-by prime minister who managed to kill off the queen and crash the economy in a single week. And now we’re led by Rishi Sunak, who doesn’t know how to use a credit card, drives a pretend car, and grinningly promises even more poverty. Four Chancellors and a Funeral delivers more of Russell Jones’s signature scathing wit, combining a detailed historical record of 2021 and 2022, with acerbic commentary, all of it leavened by jokes at the seemingly endless maelstrom of failures, nincompoops and hypocrisies.

This colorfully drawn and acutely observed book explores Russia by engaging all our senses. Today's Russia smells different from the Soviet Union. The country looks and sounds different, its touch is different and its food tastes different. Thus, Christoph Neidhart argues, Russia is truly a changed country from the Soviet Union it was, little more than a decade ago. Russian society is rapidly urbanizing and modernizing, as can be perceived by all senses, including the awareness of space and the conception of time. After almost a century, space can be privately owned and freely traded; time too has become commodified. New role models and new ways to express social status are emerging. Russia has become a 'monetized' economy as the old Soviet practice of provision by networking has grown obsolete. Russia thus readies itself gradually to grow into a Western-style, middle-class society with a free market and democratic polity. The author assesses these rapid changes using the evocative metaphor of the carnival to understand the chaotic inversion of the Communist structure of society. He explores the transition's traps and shortcomings--such as the privatization of politics and the looting of the state's assets--and compares this process to the modernization Western society underwent a century earlier.