Uncomfortably Numb

A weary, middle-aged professional, risks it all resulting in an unexpected journey. Author Richard Hammond does not like to live in the past. Instead, he is a here-and-now kind of guy who tries to stay optimistic, even during the darkest times. Always one to embrace change and take risks, Richard takes stock of his life and shares what he has learned with others. This is the story of his adventurous journey through life, his takeaway lessons, and how he taught himself to look beyond the confines of his own reality in order to reach for the stars. As Hammond shares the poignant, sometimes humorous story of his life to date, he provides a glimpse into the after-effects of the 2008 financial crisis that caused him to make an unforeseen move from working a lucrative job in corporate America to cleaning dog kennels. With a tongue-in-cheek style, Hammond details how his life slowly disintegrated from days filled with mental stimulation to days filled with trips to Walmart and caring for his ailing mother. As he contemplates his uncertain future, Hammond reminisces about his childhood innocence, his coming-of-age journey into adulthood, and how he ended up on a road heading in the wrong direction. Uncomfortably Numb is the story of one man's walk through an unpredictable existence where he soon discovers that no one can recreate the second chapter in his life but him.

A city suburb, 1980. The front of propriety, the freakish stillness and the bush parties. This is the home of Germaine Stevens, a social misfit who thinks she's struck ultimate cool when she's accepted into her preppie high school's only counter-culture group, the Rockers. Yet has she really just traded one kind of conformity for another? And is she still a loser? Her friends are desperate characters: Regina's on the road to ruin, Bono's more boy than girl, and Jackie's postering her bedroom into a rockn'roll tomb. Yet beneath the party-hardy attitude, no one is as disaffected as they seem, or want to be. In a voice that ranges from tough to achingly vulnerable, Sharon English powerfully conveys the anger, lust and absurdity that spiral into one girl's growing fight against the tuned-out numbness of her world.

These are a selection of creative writings about her thoughts, and poems about her journey from the darkness of burnout and depression and into the light again. Included here are some spiritual messages that have helped with unresolved grief and forgiveness. She has drawn inspiration from the many who are still guiding her through recovery. This includes her acoustic drum kit. She would like to thank them for their patience and for believing in her.

When Bridget Hilton-Barber got on a train to Grahamstown in 1982 to study journalism at Rhodes University, she had no idea of the brutal drama that would unfold. A rebellious young woman, she became politically involved in anti-apartheid organisations and was caught up in the massive resistance and repression sweeping the Eastern Cape at the time. She ended up spending three months in detention without trial, and after her release discovered she had been betrayed by one of her best friends, Olivia Forsyth, who was a spy for the South African security police. Thirty years later, a horrific flashback triggers Bridget’s journey back to the Eastern Cape to see if she can forgive her betrayer and finally let go of the extraordinary violence she encountered in the final days of apartheid. This is her powerful story.

This volume explores the growing range of practices such as piercing, tattooing, branding, cutting and inserting implants which have sprung up recently in the West.

Fear and Self-Loathing in the City is a practical guide to both managing the pressures of the workplace and coping with the struggles we may have in our personal lives. It incorporates simple techniques and quick solutions to many stressful work-related issues that exist in most working cultures. This book is crucial for today's workplace. The current state of the economy, financial disasters and general instability is having a massive affect on employees. Workers have to deal with redundancies and the pressures of finding new jobs; the number of sick days is on the rise; drug use and alcoholism is increasing; and depression and anxiety are becoming more and more common. Although more people are seeking help, there is still a stigma in the workplace about depression, anxiety, and other very real mental illnesses. As a result, many employees suffer in silence for fear their contemporaries will find out they are not coping, see it as a sign of weakness and think badly of them.

The book chronicles the author’s journey (the training, the races and the people he met along the way) to complete his personal quest of running four major ultramarathons: The JFK 50-Mile Run, Badwater Ultramarathon, Western States Endurance Run, and the Comrades Marathon.