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"good reads" for pleasure

Find guidance to the best resources in advice, books, eBooks and audio for overcoming problems, finding relaxation, leisure and learning.

Reading for relaxation

One of the great ways to relax is to curl up with a good book and let your mind travel to places and situations that are different to the ones we live with.

The following books are recommended to do just that:

Biography

Peace, War and Love by John Smale

An illustrated book that tells the true story of two people who grew up in pre-War England. Jack and Sophie had different childhoods in the years between the Wars. Jack grew up on a Dorset farm as the youngest of seven children. Sophie, as the eldest of seven sisters found herself increasingly having to look after her growing number of siblings. The couple met and then moved apart. There were lots of `near misses' during the War, but they both, luckily, survived. Fate appeared to be ganging up on them but it was actually conspiring to keep them together. Now in their late eighties, they have remained a happily married couple. Full of colourful description of the old rural England and their War experiences, this book tells how their love grew and survived against all odds.

Business

Tactica by Paul McNeil

The book is aimed at sales professionals. The purpose is to use the ideas used in battles as tactics and strategies for selling. Tactica provides a philosophy of Sales excellence, a method to follow in order to achieve it, and a set of rules to act as a guide to implementing the Method, distilled from the accumulated knowledge of men who had more at stake than making a sales target. Seeing the Philosophical similarity between the strategies and Tactics used in Warfare, and those of the Commercial Marketplace has allowed the author to formulate Tactica as a distillation of practical experience, and intellectual knowledge, in an easily digestible package for Sales Teams. Paul has performed Sales Training at companies such as SUN Microsystems, BMC Software, Compuware Corporation, and Proxima Technology.
Fiction, Historical

Lady Forget-me-not by Valerie Moyses

A mediaeval child was orphaned by plague and was forced into a nunnery by grasping relatives. This novel is based on real events and tells of her escape and subsequent marriage to her long-time love. Margaret de Prestwych really existed. She is mentioned in the religious archives of 14th century England. There we find the records of the bishops' agreement that her vows as a nun were to be annulled and that she was to be allowed to leave her religious House. Lady Forget-Me-Not is the story of what might have happened to her.
Fiction, Philosophical

God's Day Off by John Smale

The world is potentially a great place, yet the world is a foul place thanks to corruption in Goverments, Business and Religion. God's Day Off is a powerful novel that exposes the abuse of power in the Western World. The church, supposedly the mainstay of 'civilisation', has blackmailed its congregation into submission by threat. It has gone against God, the essence of life. The Creator made the world in a metaphorical six days and rested on the seventh. Maybe, man was left in charge and is absconding with the wealth of beauty we have, in the search for money and power. Beware, The eighth day is fast approaching.
Humour

Which Way Next by John Brown

The collection of articles found within this book are the ramblings of a slightly unhinged writer or the work of a profound incisive genius – dependent upon your respective view or state of mind.

Drawn from personal experiences, like the wedding of my daughter Georgina or the complete frustration of living in the modern world with all its technological advances but feeling slightly detached – I have attempted to express what I hope and pray, are not things solely singled out to make me feel inadequate or lacking - but the everyday frustration and madness felt by each of us as we face an ever increasing wall of stupidity from people who should know better.

If you recognize some of the situations I’ve touched upon, then welcome to the ‘Club’. If you don’t, then you are one of the lucky ones, and the rest of us would like to know where you live ?

Poetry

Londinium Poeta by Stuart Newton

London has been a popular venue for a long time; very much entailing all aspects of life today, for residents/visitors/students – from the big modern engine that is a city. And the city eventually brings out an inner landscape within people; which is the first-person persona, through greater circumstance – this is the essential ‘lyric form’. The poems are not free of rhythm or form, only free of rime and meter, because these do not work well with the subject at hand. London requires stronger, tougher structures.

Science Fiction

Colony by Colin Wagstaff

A race of benign space travellers has been founding colonies for millennia. They’ve discovered the connection between light and gravity which has allowed the invention of faster than light travel for their gigantic spaceships. Ancient records reveal the whereabouts of a long forgotten colony. A ship on a mission to deliver advanced communications equipment to the distant spiral arms of the galaxy is diverted to visit the planet. It is discovered to be a place of disaster.
Science Fiction

The Last Days of Thunder Child by C A Powell

Alien invaders lay waste to Victorian Britain! One ship defies the pitiless assault. H.M.S. Thunder Child steams towards her glorious destiny in this ‘War of the Worlds’ pastiche!

Only available in America.
Travel

Return to Oz by John Brown

Return to Oz, details the experiences of a young pom and the way he adapts to his new life style `Down-Under'; his untimely return to the UK, and how as a mature adult, he makes his long awaited voyage of re-discovery !
"Having settled into my new life with great relish, and fast approaching the end of our third year in Oz, my mother finally insisted the family return to the U.K. (much to my father's consternation). What I, nor anybody else could have foreseen, was the length of time that was to pass before my wish to return became a reality. All of life's events had in a strange way led me full circle to this eventuality, and on a bright summer's morning, I stood alone looking out across the glorious blue waters of Sydney Harbour."