The practical advice in this book is gold dust not only for lonely people, but for those who long to help them.' - Joanna Lumley Loneliness is an epidemic on the rise. It has long been documented that older people suffer from social isolation, but teenagers do too, likewise new parents, those with disability or illness, and anybody going through a significant life change. As more people work full-time, and we interact via social media rather than face-to-face, we need to stop and ask ourselves: what can we do to ensure all our futures are more connected and socially satisfying? This book will help to share stories of loneliness to increase our empathy and understanding of it, and to look for possible solutions. Using the research the Jo Cox Commission undertook following the MP's senseless death in 2016, it offers a wealth of practical advice: how to spot the symptoms in yourself and in others; how to ease them; how to seek help and, ultimately, how to understand this most fundamental of human emotions. Its aim is simple: to provide us all with the tools we need to lead kinder, more connected lives.
**INDEPENDENT BOOK OF THE MONTH** **GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE DAY** **FINANCIAL TIMES 'BEST SUMMER BOOKS 2022' PICK** 'Incredibly moving.' - Guardian 'Entertaining.' - Telegraph 'Most books about pop stars focus on the way we turn average human beings into demi-gods. In writing a book about how they have to turn back into humans Nick Duerden has done both us and them a service.' - David Hepworth 'Funny, poignant and often inspirational.' - Mat Osman The desire for adulation is a light that never goes out. We live in a culture obsessed by the notion of fame - the heedless pursuit of it; the almost obligatory subsequent fallout. But what's it like to actually achieve it, and what happens when fame abruptly passes, and shifts, as it does, onto someone else? This is the point at which pop stars are at their most heroic, because they don't give up. They keep on striving, keep making music, and refuse simply to ebb away. Some sustain themselves on the nostalgia circuit, others continue to beaver away in the studio, no longer Abbey Road, perhaps, so much as the garden shed. But all of them, in their own individual ways, still dare to dream. Exit Stage Left features tales of drug addiction, bankruptcy, depression and divorce, but also of optimism, a genuine love of the craft, humility and hope. This is a candid, laugh-out-loud and occasionally shocking look at what happens when the brightest stars fall back down to earth. 'Exit Stage Left is the book I've long wanted to read about the PTSD-like after-effects of pop stardom - and Nick Duerden is the perfect writer for the job. The pop star's bittersweet lot is represented with flair and empathy.' - Pete Paphides, author of Broken Greek 'Exit Stage Left is a funny and poignant book, drawing on Duerden's considerable experience as a journalist and interviewer . . . he understands what motivates this strange bunch of people.' - Andy Miller, Spectator 'Fame is the brightest candle, but in this brilliant collection of interviews, Nick Duerden answers the question: what does a candle do after it's burned out?' - David Quantick 'Duerden finds fascinating layers of humanity, pathos, humour and wisdom in equal measure. A brilliant book, for artists and fans alike.' - Frank Turner Featuring brand new interviews with the likes of: Bob Geldof, Shaun Ryder, Robbie Williams, Roisin Murphy, Stewart Copeland, Billy Bragg, Wendy James, Alex Kapranos, Joan Armatrading, Leo Sayer, Gary Lightbody, Lisa Maffia, Tim Booth, Bill Drummond, Rufus Wainwright, David Gray, and Justin Hawkins.
Anyone who has ever walked a dog and found themselves falling into conversation with others doing the same will love this funny, charming and touching book' RORY CELLAN-JONES Ostensibly, Nick Duerden is a cat person, and so the acquisition of a family dog in his late-40s takes him by surprise. The border terrier, Missy, is in part a therapeutic aid - the idea being that she'll get Nick out of the house after a long period of ill health, and back into the wider, sociable world. Unexpectedly, it works. There can't be many opportunities in midlife to suddenly find yourself connecting with both hopeful young actor types and widowed octogenarians, a verbose existentialist Russian dissident and a stoned martial arts enthusiast, a bulldog with a basketball and a self-proclaimed animal mystic, but this is precisely what Missy, and the daily walk round the park, provides. (Incidentally, she saves marriages, too.) People Who Like Dogs Like People Who Like Dogs is a book about connection and friendship, love and loss, the vagaries of midlife and the deep solace that comes from an enduring relationship. It's about finding yourself when for too long you've been lost, and how even when, for whatever reason, horizons draw in, there's still plenty of adventure left. You just have to look harder for it. And it's about how the introduction of a small dog into your life can make the world big again.
It was supposed to be the vacation of their lives: thirteen teenagers, no chaperones, in a mansion up on a hill. But their weekend of fun and enjoyment turns to one of horror and despair when bizarre occurences plague them and the house takes on a malevolent life of its own. Soon the gang realizes that their hilltop stay is indeed the vacation of their lives, as they wind up fighting to survive…
The practical advice in this book is gold dust not only for lonely people, but for those who long to help them.' - Joanna Lumley Loneliness is an epidemic on the rise. It has long been documented that older people suffer from social isolation, but teenagers do too, likewise new parents, those with disability or illness, and anybody going through a significant life change. As more people work full-time, and we interact via social media rather than face-to-face, we need to stop and ask ourselves: what can we do to ensure all our futures are more connected and socially satisfying? This book will help to share stories of loneliness to increase our empathy and understanding of it, and to look for possible solutions. Using the research the Jo Cox Commission undertook following the MP's senseless death in 2016, it offers a wealth of practical advice: how to spot the symptoms in yourself and in others; how to ease them; how to seek help and, ultimately, how to understand this most fundamental of human emotions. Its aim is simple: to provide us all with the tools we need to lead kinder, more connected lives.
If you were diagnosed with a condition for which there was no known cure, what would you do? Nick Duerden is a writer and journalist. This is his memoir about a long period of ill health, and how he was forced to plunge, like it or not, into the often bewildering – but increasingly blossoming – world of alternative therapy in pursuit of a cure. He followed strictly regimented, vitamin-rich diets, and swallowed all manner of supplements. He smeared himself in coarse mineral salts, and grew tepid in Epsom salt baths. He visited energy practitioners and spiritual gurus. He learned yoga, how to meditate, to breathe properly, to face his fears and manage the new anxieties those very fears had done so well to engender. Over the course of three years, Nick's lifelong cynicism is gradually replaced by an open eagerness to try anything, if not quite everything and in doing so, he starts on the road back to health. Get Well Soon is a memoir that focuses on the journey all of us will at some point have to face: the abrupt obligation to start living better, wiser, healthier, to be kinder to our minds and bodies by realising that minds and bodies do require care. It's about what happens to life when you become ill, because everyday life is never going to stop going about its chaotic business. This is not a self-help book. But it is, in its own candid, unflinching and stumbling way, a mapless guide to belatedly learning to live well, to negotiating a very particular, and all too common, midlife crisis. It is honest, and funny, and ultimately optimistic. And it might just offer proof that self-discovery, even when it is enforced self-discovery, is no bad thing.
**INDEPENDENT BOOK OF THE MONTH** **GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE DAY** **FINANCIAL TIMES 'BEST SUMMER BOOKS 2022' PICK** 'Incredibly moving.' - Guardian 'Entertaining.' - Telegraph 'Most books about pop stars focus on the way we turn average human beings into demi-gods. In writing a book about how they have to turn back into humans Nick Duerden has done both us and them a service.' - David Hepworth 'Funny, poignant and often inspirational.' - Mat Osman The desire for adulation is a light that never goes out. We live in a culture obsessed by the notion of fame - the heedless pursuit of it; the almost obligatory subsequent fallout. But what's it like to actually achieve it, and what happens when fame abruptly passes, and shifts, as it does, onto someone else? This is the point at which pop stars are at their most heroic, because they don't give up. They keep on striving, keep making music, and refuse simply to ebb away. Some sustain themselves on the nostalgia circuit, others continue to beaver away in the studio, no longer Abbey Road, perhaps, so much as the garden shed. But all of them, in their own individual ways, still dare to dream. Exit Stage Left features tales of drug addiction, bankruptcy, depression and divorce, but also of optimism, a genuine love of the craft, humility and hope. This is a candid, laugh-out-loud and occasionally shocking look at what happens when the brightest stars fall back down to earth. 'Exit Stage Left is the book I've long wanted to read about the PTSD-like after-effects of pop stardom - and Nick Duerden is the perfect writer for the job. The pop star's bittersweet lot is represented with flair and empathy.' - Pete Paphides, author of Broken Greek 'Exit Stage Left is a funny and poignant book, drawing on Duerden's considerable experience as a journalist and interviewer . . . he understands what motivates this strange bunch of people.' - Andy Miller, Spectator 'Fame is the brightest candle, but in this brilliant collection of interviews, Nick Duerden answers the question: what does a candle do after it's burned out?' - David Quantick 'Duerden finds fascinating layers of humanity, pathos, humour and wisdom in equal measure. A brilliant book, for artists and fans alike.' - Frank Turner Featuring brand new interviews with the likes of: Bob Geldof, Shaun Ryder, Robbie Williams, Roisin Murphy, Stewart Copeland, Billy Bragg, Wendy James, Alex Kapranos, Joan Armatrading, Leo Sayer, Gary Lightbody, Lisa Maffia, Tim Booth, Bill Drummond, Rufus Wainwright, David Gray, and Justin Hawkins.
Part caper, part romantic comedy, this is the story of twenty-five-year-old Jake, one of life's serial McJobbers. But when his grandfather dies leaving him an unexpected wad of dirty money, Jake finds himself plunged into calamity. At first he revels in his new-found wealth, but a confession in the wrong place, a money-hungry girlfriend, and an elderly gangster soon conspire against him. SIDEWALKING is a hilarious delve into a life gone unexpectedly awry by an enormous new talent.
Most of London's house cleaners are immigrants searching for a better life. Many Britons simply couldn't do without them. Once an upper class luxury, domestic help is now a middle class necessity. Yet, what do we really know of the incomers who toil behind closed doors? What's their story? And how do they see us? Dishing the Dirt tells the story of London's house cleaners for the first time. Drawing on dozens of interviews, we hear from the eastern Europeans who mop up family homes and from south Asians who wipe down mansions. We talk to joyful cleaners and to slave labourers. We talk to women who dust nude for men, gay cleaners who fear wandering hands, and butlers who cater for millionaires in Mayfair.
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