High Walls and Iron Bars by Les Mason

Price: £11.98

ISBN: 9781914933417

Les Mason approached the huge gates of the prison with apprehension; he rapped on a highly polished brass knocker and a fierce man in uniform appeared and beckoned him in. Nothing could have prepared him for what he would see, what he would witness, what he would become a part of or the dramatic effect it would have on his young life.

Prisons hold a profound fascination for people and the author grips the reader’s attention with a humorous but sometimes harrowing story inviting us into the unseen world of two of the most infamous prisons in Britain.

‘High Walls and Iron Bars’ is a true account of a Prison Officer’s long and dedicated career from the day of his recruitment until his eventual retirement. You will enjoy this book.

Les Mason approached the huge gates of the prison with apprehension; he rapped on a highly polished brass knocker and a fierce man in uniform appeared and beckoned him in. Nothing could have prepared him for what he would see, what he would witness, what he would become a part of or the dramatic effect it would have on his young life.

Prisons hold a profound fascination for people and the author grips the reader’s attention with a humorous but sometimes harrowing story inviting us into the unseen world of two of the most infamous prisons in Britain.

‘High Walls and Iron Bars’ is a true account of a Prison Officer’s long and dedicated career from the day of his recruitment until his eventual retirement. You will enjoy this book.

Wildest Dreams by Sarah Duff

Price: £9.95

ISBN: 978-1-914933-39-4

Our world is a turbulent and uncertain place and many of us are seeking answers but reading all the self-help books and going on the many retreats, in an attempt to find inner peace, doesn’t always give us what we are seeking. If this sounds like something you have been struggling with, then know you are not alone.

My journey has had its ups, downs and a whole lot in between and sometimes all we truly need is someone to explain their experiences to help us navigate our own path.

I won’t pretend I am morally perfect; I am a sinner in a broken world. Where I have been exposed to darkness, I have used my own inner light to battle it and I now find myself in a place where I want to help you make sense of this world gone mad, giving you inspiration on how to flourish, during this thing called life.

I am a butterfly woman. I have changed and grown and become something so beautiful, that I’m not sure the old me would recognise anymore. I will continue to lead my simple and peaceful life, knowing that I am enough, dropping into my intuitive intelligent heart and spreading my wings to fly. Delve in and accompany me on this ride, cosmic womb man.

CROSSROADS by Elaine Elias and Milan Hlousek

Price: Paperback £12.99

ISBN: 978-1-914933-06-6

The reader will find a veritable feast of delightful short stories and poetry in Crossroads as the authors write of topics ranging from suspense, city and crime to discovering a parody of poetry and stories about life with hope. Although developed during a difficult world-wide pandemic, they have written with humour and expectation, stating their viewpoints with feeling on a variety of subjects and thoughts about our world and its future.

Black History Is All Our History by Sally J Penni MBE

Price: Paperback £8.95

ISBN: 978-1-914933-10-3

Celebrating some of the history we were not taught in schools. From black Tudors to black Romans to black soldiers…Black History is All our History.

Keeping up with Time by Anisur Rahman

Price: Paperback £12.95

ISBN: 978-1-8384686-1-3

Do black holes form links to other universes or are they the mothers of new Big Bangs? Is rising global population with improved standards of living the implicit cause of environmental catastrophe? Can religion and science ever be compatible?

These questions and many more are explored in Keeping up with Time. Dr Anisur Rahman, a retired nuclear safety specialist, has compiled 43 of his previously published articles on science and technology, global issues and religion. Intending to challenge readers’ perceptions of truth and reality, the author presents scientific theories, technical data and historical facts in a highly readable style. The individual articles are short and thought-provoking, with complex topics explained clearly and concisely, using verified facts and unbiased analysis. The book is complemented by over 60 photographs and illustrations.

Scientific topics range from Newton to Einstein and include black holes, quantum mechanics and gravitational waves.

Global issues include the writings of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Nelson Mandela’s life story, climate change, and a discussion of Orwellian dystopia.

Religious topics include science and Islam, religion and morality, and the brutality of religious fanaticism.

Issues relating to the partition of India and Bengal and the creation of Pakistan and later Bangladesh are also discussed.

Covering a wide range of subject matter and current affairs, Keeping up with Time will doubtless inspire lively debate and further study among its readers.

Village Life 2020 by Anne Vickers

Price: Paperback £8.95

ISBN: 978-1-8383868-0-1

This true account of one of the most tumultuous years in human history may have been written by Anne Vickers but it is the story of every one of us who lived through the year 2020. Anne gives a personal account of life in the Yorkshire village and surrounding areas where she lives during the Coronavirus Pandemic of 2020. She details the highs and lows she experienced.  She tells the inspirational tale of a young boy’s magnificent fund-raising achievement, of her anguish at not being able to visit her elderly sick mother living in a care home, and how her friends and the community helped to support each other during this difficult time.

Non-Fiction

Price: £9.95

ISBN: 978-1-8382223-2-1

Scanning across recent decades, Fractured Society: Causes, Effects and Resolutions looks at how human relations have been coming apart psychologically, a situation summarised by a failure to understand each other.

Young people seem more stressed than previous generations, while politics are now more polarised than for a long time past. Wherever you look, at gender relations, the working environment, responses to traumatic events and how people relate – positively and negatively – to their sense of place, there are profound strains on how we interact with each other. But maybe all is not lost! Hugh Roberts examines how every situation can look better in context, applying lessons learned from many years working internationally with different cultures and value systems. He proposes a fresh approach to relationship building, based on empathy and understanding of individual agendas.

CV19 has brought communities a renewed sense of collective purpose with digital communication proving vital in sustaining relationships. However, the Internet needs to take its rightful place in, rather than take over, the slow re-building of mutual trust.

Fractured Society: Causes, Effects and Resolutions delivers an upbeat message advocating a better-connected world created through encouraging us to adopt a positive, empathetic approach to one another, replacing an approach shrouded in fear and mistrust of forming new acquaintances.

After graduating from the Universities of Oxford and Wales, author Hugh Roberts spent over forty-five years in planning, design and development consultancy for new towns and urban, industrial and regional infrastructure. He worked for some of the largest built environment consultancies in UK, the US and Australia and lived and worked in a wide range of countries throughout all six continents.

Following a series of professional journal publications, for example, in the Middle East Economic Digest, he wrote An Urban Profile of the Middle East published in 1979 (Croom Helm). They were taken over by Routledge/ Taylor & Francis who published it again in 2016. In 2017, he wrote Journeys with Open Eyes: Seeking Empathy with Strangers (i2i Publishing), a travelogue and biography of the projects and people with whom he interacted with across multiple working and domestic cultures worldwide. The book is partly serious commentary on trends in urban development, but also anecdotal about bizarre situations – some mundane, others hilarious and a few even life-threatening – encountered through a long and varied career. Fractured Society: Causes, Effects and Resolutions is Hugh Roberts’ third.

Non-Fiction

Price: Paperback £8.95

ISBN: 978-1-9162285-2-8

Where Do You Draw the Line by Louis Harding

Author Louis Harding had been on the reality TV circuit for years. He’d kissed girls on cue, playing along with sun, sea and sound engineers. But he’d never been involved with anything that sent him five-thousand miles across the globe to look into the world of cocaine.

The white stuff was just a party drug to the Manchester likely lad until Louis and three other presenters took on the mission of tracking down Colombian drug barons, hitmen and fixers to find out how ‘coke’ makes it from the jungle to the streets.

Suddenly the party is over, with battle lines and white lines both being drawn. Under the lights and on camera, Louis Harding is about to get more action than he ever expected…