A Piece Of Blue Sky

Atack exposes Hubbard's bizarre imagination and behavior, tracing the creation of Scientology in the years following World War II to perhaps its final schism following Hubbard's death in 1986. A shocking book that reveals all: the abuses, falsehoods, paranoia, and greed of Hubbard and his pseudo-military Scientologist henchmen.

This is the new, unexpurgated, unabridged version of the classic history of L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology. Exposing Hubbard's false claims to be a war hero, a nuclear physicist, an explorer and a protege of Eastern gurus, and showing the true malevolence of Scientology. Invaluable for its history and insight into the character of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard. This is the standard reference among serious students of authoritarian belief systems.

The prize-winning, “exceptionally moving” memoir of a family boat trip, an IRA bombing, and a teenager’s loss of his twin brother (The Telegraph). Christopher Ewart-Biggs Literary Award Winner and PEN/JR Ackerley Prize Nominee On an August weekend in 1979, fourteen-year-old Timothy Knatchbull joined his family on a boat trip off the shore of Mullaghmore in County Sligo, Ireland. By noon, an Irish Republican Army bomb had destroyed the boat, leaving four dead. The author survived, but his grandparents, family friend, and twin brother did not. Lord Mountbatten, his grandfather, was the target, and became one of the IRA’s most high-profile assassinations. Knatchbull and his parents were too badly injured to attend the funerals of those killed, which only intensified their profound sense of loss. Telling this story decades later, Knatchbull not only revisits these terrible events but also writes an intensely personal account of human triumph over tragedy—a story of recovery not just from physical wounds but deep emotional trauma. From a Clear Blue Sky takes place in Ireland at the height of the Troubles and gives compelling insight into that period of Irish history. But more importantly, it brings home that while calamity can strike at any moment, the human spirit is able to forgive, to heal, and to move on. “A minute by minute story of what happened that day, and what happened afterwards.” —Daily Mail “This is an extremely moving book. Beyond providing a phenomenally detailed evocation of his own family’s trauma, Knatchbull has lots of wise things to say about how we survive horrors—of all kinds—in our lives.” — Zoë Heller, author of the Booker Prize finalist Notes on a Scandal “A very poignant, clearsighted, heartbreaking but ultimately positive account.” —Hugh Bonneville, The New York Times

Is there such a thing as a perfect marriage? David thought so. But when his wife Mary Rose dies suddenly he has to think again. Figuring out who Mary Rose really was and the secrets that she kept - some of these hidden in plain sight - makes David wonder if he really knew her. Did he even know himself? Nothing But Blue Sky is a precise and tender story of love in marriage - a gripping examination of what binds couples together and of what keeps them apart. 'Touching and enthralling' Sunday Times 'A beautifully written and powerful tale' Woman & Home 'Not only my favourite novel of the year, but possibly of the decade' Sunday Independent

Two young girls from very different backgrounds discover what they hold in common in this funny Australian classic.

In Blue Sky Dream: A Memoir of America’s Fall from Grace, award-winner David Beers offers a powerful, personal vision of the rise and fall of the American middle class. Here is a dazzling literary chronicle of a family, a people, and a nation: the “blue sky tribe” of ever-optimistic middle-class Americans who believed in something called the American Dream, then woke up one day to discover it was gone. Blue Sky Dream is a book incredibly rich in ideas, in ways of seeing the recent past with stunning clarity. David Beers explores issues that define our times—downsizing, middle-class anxiety, the profound anger with government, the sense that something has gone awry with the United States—with such skill, personal immediacy, and compassion that readers will see their own histories in his prose. Blue Sky Dream can rightly be called a communal memoir, because in telling his family’s tale—growing tensions and disillusionment in their suburban paradise, a son rejecting his parents’ values, one sudden and inexplicable moment of violence—Beers tells the story of his people, the blue sky tribe “who imagined ourselves to be living the inevitable future, and are very surprised today to discover we were but a strange and aberrant moment that is now receding into history.”

The New York Times bestselling author revisits the characters from her beloved novels Love Walked In and Belong to Me in this captivating, beautifully written drama involving family, friendship, secrets, sacrifice, courage, and true love for fans of Jojo Moyes, Elin Hilderbrand, and Nancy Thayer. On the weekend of her wedding, Clare Hobbes meets an elderly woman named Edith Herron. During the course of a single conversation, Edith gives Clare the courage to do what she should have done months earlier: break off her engagement to her charming—yet overly possessive—fiancé. Three weeks later, Clare learns that Edith has died—and has given her another gift. Nestled in crepe myrtle and hydrangea and perched at the marshy edge of a bay in a small seaside town in Delaware, Blue Sky House now belongs to Clare. Though the former guest house has been empty for years, Clare feels a deep connection to Edith inside its walls, which are decorated with old photographs taken by Edith and her beloved husband, Joseph. Exploring the house, Clare finds two mysterious ledgers hidden beneath the kitchen sink. Edith, it seems, was no ordinary woman—and Blue Sky House no ordinary place. With the help of her mother, Viviana, her surrogate mother, Cornelia Brown, and her former boyfriend and best friend, Dev Tremain, Clare begins to piece together the story of Blue Sky House—a decades-old mystery more complex and tangled than she could have imagined. As she peels back the layers of Edith’s life, Clare discovers a story of dark secrets, passionate love, heartbreaking sacrifice, and incredible courage. She also makes startling discoveries about herself: where she’s come from, where she’s going, and what—and who—she loves. Shifting between the 1950s and the present and told in the alternating voices of Edith and Clare, I’ll Be Your Blue Sky is vintage Marisa de los Santos—an emotionally evocative novel that probes the deepest recesses of the human heart and illuminates the tender connections that bind our lives.

Is the sky really blue, or is 'blueness' only a concept? What do bees perceive?