The Throwaway Boy

In 1997, Alix Chapel's world was to change forever when her husband Billy suffered a mental breakdown. After ten years of marriage, Billy's breakdown forced him - and Alex - to face up to the truth of his tormented childhood.Unbeknown to Alix, Billy had been living with a terrible burden: he was ruthlessly and shockingly abused as a child, and he had carried the mental scars into adulthood. When it all became too much for him, Alix, his devoted and loving wife, stood by him and helped him to work through the pain and begin the healing.

"Henry Darger was utterly unknown during his lifetime, keeping a quiet, secluded existence as a janitor on Chicago's North Side. When he died his landlord discovered a treasure trove of more than three hundred canvases and more than 30,000 manuscript pages depicting a rich, shocking fantasy world-many showing hermaphroditic children being eviscerated, crucified and strangled. While some art historians tend to dismiss Darger as an unhinged psychopath, in Henry Darger, Throw-Away Boy, Jim Elledge cuts through the cloud of controversy and rediscovers Darger as a damaged, fearful, gay man, raised in a world unaware of the consequences of child abuse or gay shame. This thoughtful, sympathetic biography tells the true story of a tragically misunderstood artist. Drawn from fascinating histories of the vice-ridden districts of 1900s Chicago, tens of thousands of pages of primary source material, and Elledge's own work in queer history, the book also features a full-color reproduction of a never-before-seen canvas from a private gallery in New York, as well as a previously undiscovered photograph of Darger with his life-partner Whillie. Engaging and arresting, Henry Darger, Throw-Away Boy brings alive a complex, brave, and compelling man whose outsider art is both challenging and a triumph over trauma"--

To look at him now, you might never guess the hell that Abdul Lloyd-Bey was forced to endure as a young man. As a boy he thought death row was his likely future because of where he lived and the color of his skin. Arrested for armed robbery at the age of seventeen, he served nearly thirteen years for his first offense while his white codefendant, a repeat violent offender, got off with just five. While serving his time within New York's most dangerous prisons, Lloyd-Bey survived three near-fatal attacks-one involving an ice pick that left him temporarily paralyzed. But though violence and discrimination have greatly impacted Lloyd-Bey's story, they aren't the final authority on his life. A victim of abused power, he chose to change the criminal justice system by learning how to ensure justice for all. And now, as a criminal defense attorney, he shares his personal insights and experiences from both sides of the bench in the hope of further transforming how we, as a nation, prosecute crime. No Throwaway Boy is a triumphant story you will never forget.

In 1997, Alix Chapel's world was to change forever when her husband Billy suffered a mental breakdown. Afternbsp;10 years of marriage, Billy's breakdown forced him—and Alix—to face up to the truth of his tormented childhood. Unbeknown to Alix, Billy had been living with a terrible burden: he was ruthlessly and shockingly abused as a child, and he had carried the mental scars into adulthood. When it all became too much for him, Alix, his devoted and loving wife, stood by him and helped him to work through the pain and begin the healing.

Gritty, heartrending and unputdownable – the story of two sisters sent first to an English, then an Australian orphanage in the aftermath of World War II. Rita and Rosie Stevens are only nine and five years old when their widowed mother marries a violent bully called Jimmy Randall and has a baby boy by him. Under pressure from her new husband, she is persuaded to send the girls to an orphanage – not knowing that the papers she has signed will entitle them to do what they like with the children. And it is not long before the powers that be decide to send a consignment of orphans to their sister institution in Australia. Among them – without their family's consent or knowledge – are Rita and Rosie, the throwaway children. What readers are saying about THE THROWAWAY CHILDREN: 'I haven't felt so immersed in a book in a very long time and have recommended to just about everyone' 'Heart wrenching' 'A truly powerful book'

A special edition of The Christmas Throwaway with beautiful illustrations from Sarah Chreene. Please note - this book is also published without illustrations under the same title and was released in December 2010. Christmas is a time for giving - what do you do when no one gives a damn? For Zachary Weston Christmas means sleeping on a churchyard bench in the freezing snow with nothing better in his future. Thrown out of his home for being gay, he is left without money or, it seems, anywhere to go. Until a stranger shows him that some people do give a lot more than a damn. Ben Hamilton is a rookie cop in his small home town. He finds a young throwaway, fresh from the city, sleeping on a bench in the churchyard on a snowy Christmas Eve. Can he be the one to give Zachary his own Christmas miracle?

My name is Amber Reynolds. There are three things you should know about me: 1. I’m in a coma. 2. My husband doesn’t love me anymore. 3. Sometimes I lie. Amber wakes up in a hospital. She can’t move. She can’t speak. She can’t open her eyes. She can hear everyone around her, but they have no idea. Amber doesn’t remember what happened, but she has a suspicion her husband had something to do with it. Alternating between her paralyzed present, the week before her accident, and a series of childhood diaries from twenty years ago, this brilliant psychological thriller asks: Is something really a lie if you believe it's the truth?

At the beginning of World War II, twelve-year-old Nora Lynch is one of thousands of London children sent away to the safety of the English countryside. Her surrogate family, Reverend and Mrs. Rivers and their daughter Grace, are like no-one she has ever met, offering shelter, affection, and the sister she never had. But Nora is too young and too naïve to understand the cracks beneath the surface of her idyllic new life at the rectory, or the disappointments of the Riverses' marriage. And as her friendship with Grace grows more intense, she aches to become even closer. What happens next is a secret that she keeps for more than fifty years, a secret that she can begin to reveal only when, elderly and alone, Nora knows that she is close to the end. A beautiful meditation on love, friendship, and family, Days of Grace is a stunning debut that brings a tumultuous era to life. Nora tells her story in alternating chapters from the past and present, projecting her childhood nostalgia with a cinematic glow.