Thinking in Pictures: And Other Reports from My Life with Autism

Hugo Hamilton

The Speckled People: A Memoir of a Half-Irish Childhood

"A terrific achievement, thoughtful and compelling, smart and original, beautifully written." --Nick Hornby"Astonishing. . . a landmark in Irish nonfiction. . . a masterpiece." -- Washington PostA deeply moving and critically acclaimed memoir about a young boy growing up in 1950's Dublin with a German mother and fiercely republican Irish father.Born to an Irish father and German mother, Hugo Hamilton and his brother and sister grew up being just about the only children in 1950's Dublin wearing Aran sweaters and Lederhosen. Their father, a Gaelic speaking Irish nationalist, forbid them from talking to their friends in English. And their mother, a soft-spoken immigrant who escaped late 1930s Nazi Germany, baked German cakes and told wistful stories of a country that no longer existed.For Hugo, childhood seemed like an ongoing struggle to understand what it meant to be "one of the speckled people"--his father's phrase to describe "the New Irish, partly from Ireland and partly from somewhere else." A rare and shockingly honest account of a child's attempt to make sense of his family, language and identity, The Speckled People stands among the most fiercely original memoirs to emerge ...

Toni Maguire

Don't Tell Mummy: A True Story of the Ultimate Betrayal

This heart-wrenching memoir from Toni Maguire tells the deeply moving story of an idyllic childhood that masked a terrible truth. Underneath her mother's gentility and her father's roguish charm lay horrifying secrets, which eventually led to their only child's near destruction.The first time her father made an improper advance on Toni, she was six years old. Her father warned her not to tell her mother, or anyone else, because they would blame her and wouldn't love her any more. It had to remain 'our secret.'When she finally built up the courage to tell her mother what had happened, she was told never to speak of the matter again. With no one to turn to, isolated and alone in rural Ireland, the abuse continued unhindered.At fourteen Toni fell pregnant by her father, and when her state was discovered she was made to have a late abortion which almost killed her. The truth of her childhood could no longer be kept hidden but, just as her father predicted, Toni found herself judged and rejected by her family, teachers and friends. The blame and anger she was treated with only worsened when her father was sent to prison as a result of his actions. This is the compelling story of her ...

Richard Holmes

Wellington: The Iron Duke

Richard Holmes, highly acclaimed military historian and broadcaster, tells the exhilarating story of Britain's greatest-ever soldier, the man who posed the most serious threat to Napoleon. The Duke of Wellington's remarkable life and extraordinary campaigns are recreated with Holmes' superb skill in this compelling book.Richard Holmes charts Wellington's stellar military career from India to Europe, and in the process, rediscovers the reasons Queen Victoria called him the greatest man the nineteenth century had produced. Combining his astute historical analysis with a semi-biographical examination of Wellington, Holmes artfully illustrates the rapid evolution in military and political thinking of the time.Wellington is a brilliant figure, idealistic in politics, cynical in love, a wit, a beau, a man of enormous courage often sickened by war. As Richard Holmes charts his progress from a shy, indolent boy to commander-in-chief of the allied forces, he also exposes the Iron Duke as a philanderer, and a man who sometimes despised the men that he led, and was not always in control of his soldiers. Particularly infamous is the bestial rampage of his men after the capture of Cuidad ...