Archive | Large Print Books

 Mary Morris

1939: eighteen-year-old trainee nurse Mry Mulry arrives in London from Ireland, hoping for adventure. Little did she know what the next seven years would bring.

In her extraordinary diary, Mary records in intimate detail her life as a nurse, both on the Home Front and on the frontline. From nursing children during bombing raids in London to treating Allied soldiers in Normandy, Mary’s experiences gave her vivid and unforgettable stories for the private diary she was dedicated to keeping.

Filled with romance, glamour and inevitably sadness too, these are the rich memories of an irrepressible personality, living through the turbulent years of the Second World War.

 Ruby Jackson

Rose Petrie is desperate to do something for the war effort. Despite the daily hardships and the nightly bombing raids, her sister, Daisy, and their friends all seem to be thriving in their war work. Rose is doing her best down at the munitions factory, but she is dealt a blow when her childhood sweetheart, Stan, tells her he doesn’t feel the same way about her.

Determined to get away and make a new start, Rosie decides to put her mechanical skills, learned from her father and brothers, to good use and signs up for the Women’s Auxiliary Service, or ATS. But Rose discovers that delivering fruit and veg in her father’s greengrocer’s van is very different to driving trucks for the army in a country under seize.

While learning the ropes, Rose will learn that things never go according to plan, either in love or war. But with grit, determination and a bit of luck, Rose is determined that she, and the rest of the country, will keep shining through…

 Alexander McCall Smith

Modern ideas get tangled up with traditional ones in the latest intriguing installment in the beloved, best-selling No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series.

Precious Ramotswe has taken on two puzzling cases. First she is approached by the lawyer Mma Sheba, who is the executor of a deceased farmer’s estate. Mma Sheba has a feeling that the young man who has stepped forward may be falsely impersonating the farmer’s nephew in order to claim his inheritance. Mma Ramotswe agrees to visit the farm and find out what she can about the self-professed nephew. Then the proprietor of the Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon comes to Mma Ramotswe for advice. The opening of her new salon has been shadowed by misfortune. Not only has she received a bad omen in the mail, but rumors are swirling that the salon is using dangerous products that burn people’s skin. Could someone be trying to put the salon out of business?

Meanwhile, at the office, Mma Ramotswe has noticed something different about Grace Makutsi lately. Though Mma Makutsi has mentioned nothing, it has become clear that she is pregnant . . . But in Botswana—a land where family has always been held above all else—this may be cause for controversy as well as celebration.

With genuine warmth, sympathy, and wit, Alexander McCall Smith explores some tough questions about married life, parenthood, grief, and the importance of the traditions that shape and guide our lives.

 Margaret Forster

‘I was born on May 25, 1938, in the front bedroom of house in Orton Road, on the outer edges of Raffles, a council estate. I was a lucky girl.’

So begins Margaret Forster’s journey through the houses she’s lived in, from that sparkling new council house, built as part of a utopian vision by Carlisle City Council, to her beloved London house of today. This is not a book about bricks and mortar, or about how a house becomes a home with the right scatter of cushions.

This is a book about what houses are to us, the effect they have on the way we live our lives. It is also a wonderful backwards glace at the changing nature of our accommodation: from blacking grates and outside privies; to cities dominated by bedsits and lodgings; to houses today being converted back into single dwellings, all open-plan spaces and bringing the outside in.

Finally, it is a gently insistent, personal inquiry into the meaning of home.

 Alan Cumming

Dark, painful memories can be put away to be forgotten. Until one day they all flood back in horrible detail. When television producers approached Alan Cumming to appear on a popular celebrity genealogy show, he hoped to solve the mystery of his maternal grandfather’s disappearance that had long cast a shadow over his family. But this was not the only mystery laid before Alan.

Alan grew up in the grip of a man who held his family hostage, someone who meted out violence with a frightening ease, who waged a silent war with himself that sometimes spilled over onto everyone around him. That man was Alex Cumming, Alan’s father, whom Alan had not seen or spoken to for more than a decade when he reconnected just before filming for Who Do You Think You Are? began. He had a secret he had to share, one that would shock his son to his very core and set into motion a journey that would change Alan’s life forever.

With ribald humor, wit, and incredible insight, Alan seamlessly moves back and forth in time, integrating stories from his childhood in Scotland and his experiences today as the celebrated actor of film, television, and stage. At times suspenseful, at times deeply moving, but always incredibly brave and honest, Not My Father’s Son is a powerful story of embracing the best aspects of the past and triumphantly pushing the darkness aside.

Debra Adelaide

Ellis, an ordinary suburban young woman of the 1960s, is troubled by secrets and gaps in her past that become more puzzling as her creator, Dove, writes her story fifty years later. Having read Wuthering Heights to her dying mother, Dove finds she cannot shake off the influence of that singular novel: it has infected her like a disease. Instead of returning to her normal life she follows the story it has inspired to discover more about Ellis, who has emerged from the pages of fiction herself – or has she? – to become a modern successful career woman.

The Women’s Pages is about the choices and compromises women must make, their griefs and losses, and their need to fill in the absent spaces where other women – especially those who become mothers – should have been. And it is about the mysterious process of creativity, about the way stories are shaped and fiction is formed. Right up to its astonishing conclusion, The Women’s Pages asserts the power of the reader’s imagination, which can make the deepest desires and strangest dreams come true.

Nora Roberts

BOOK ONE OF THE GUARDIANS TRILOGY

To celebrate the rise of their new queen, three goddesses of the moon created three stars, one of fire, one of ice, one of water. But then they fell from the sky, putting the fate of all worlds in danger. And now three women and three men join forces to pick up the pieces…

Sasha Riggs is a reclusive artist, haunted by dreams and nightmares that she turns into extraordinary paintings. Her visions lead her to the Greek island of Corfu, where five others have been lured to seek the fire star. Sasha recognizes them, because she has drawn them: a magician, an archaeologist, a wanderer, a fighter, a loner. All on a quest. All with secrets.

Sasha is the one who holds them together—the seer. And in the magician, Bran Killian, she sees a man of immense power and compassion. As Sasha struggles with her rare ability, Bran is there to support her, challenge her, and believe in her.

But Sasha and Bran are just two of the six. And they all must all work together as a team to find the fire star in a cradle of land beneath the sea. Over their every attempt at trust, unity, and love, a dark threat looms. And it seeks to corrupt everything that stands in its way of possessing the stars…

Bill Marsh

Yarns and memories that capture the experience of policing in the bush, gathered by the inimitable Bill ‘Swampy’ Marsh, bestselling author of GREAT AUSTRALIAN FLYING DOCTOR STORIES and GREAT AUSTRALIAN CWA STORIES.
‘I tell you, you meet some strange characters in this game …’
Boasting the biggest beats in the world – some as large as France – Australia’s outback police have seen it all: natural disasters, incredible acts of selflessness, unspeakable crimes and daring rescues, just to name a few.
And they’ve met some unforgettable characters along the way: from the murderer who stuffed his victims’ bodies down wombat holes; to the policeman who arrested his own wife; to the prisoner who risked his life to rescue his own captor from certain death.
Master storyteller Bill ‘Swampy’ Marsh has travelled the length and breadth of the country to gather their tales of adventure and misadventure, drama and mayhem, and larrikinism and laughter, to create this memorable collection of real-life stories about those on the front-line in the heart of Australia.

Jim Haynes

Jim Haynes, Australia’s favourite tale teller, loves the sport of kings as much as he loves Aussie yarns and bush verse. From country picnic tracks to the thoroughbred racecourses of Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, from Archer to Black Caviar, from the mysterious punter Louis the Possum to the great trainer Bart Cummings, he brings these two great loves together in the biggest book of Australian racing stories ever.

In these stories, full of the humour and romance of the track, Jim reminds us of the great champions, the tragedies, and the unique characters (equine and human) of racing. Here are stories of famous races and jockeys, touts and urgers, nose-to-nose battles and a rort or two, as well as country race meeting where anything can happen.

This rich collection captures the heart and soul of the turf and reminds us exactly why a day at the races and having a punt are such an important part of the Australian spirit.Jim Haynes lives ten minutes’ walk from Randwick Racecourse and his favourite television channel is Thoroughbred Central.

Peter FitzSimmons

In his very popular Saturday column, the “Fitzy Files,” Peter FitzSimon’s usually writes about famous sports men and women. But from time to time he throws in stories taken from grassroots sport and daily life. These are heartwarming and generous tales that make Australians puff out their chests with pride from being from a country that still celebrates the kind of sportsmanship remaining the ideal of all good people. These are the stories that make Australians say, Gotta Love This Country!