New Title: The Big Miss – My Years Coaching Tiger Woods

Title: The Big Miss: My Years Coaching Tiger Woods

Author:Hank Haney

• Hardcover:272 pages
• Publisher:Crown Archetype (27 Mar 2012)
• LanguageEnglish
• ISBN-10:0307985989
• ISBN-13:978-0307985989
• Product Dimensions: 16.2 x 2.8 x 24.2 cm

Product Description

The Big Miss is Hank Haney’s candid and surprisingly insightful account of his tumultuous six-year journey with Tiger Woods, during which the supremely gifted golfer collected six major championships and rewrote golf history. Hank was one of the very few people allowed behind the curtain. He was with Tiger 110 days a year, spoke to him over 200 days a year, and stayed at his home up to 30 days a year, observing him in nearly every circumstance: at tournaments, on the practice range, over meals, with his wife, Elin, and relaxing with friends.
 
The relationship between the two men began in March 2004 when Hank received a call from Tiger in which the golf champion asked him to be his coach. It was a call that would change both men’s lives.
 
Tiger—only 28 at the time—was by then already an icon, judged by the sporting press as not only one of the best golfers ever, but possibly the best athlete ever. Already he was among the world’s highest paid celebrities. There was an air of mystery surrounding him, an aura of invincibility. Unique among athletes, Tiger seemed to be able to shrug off any level of pressure and find a way to win.
 
But Tiger was always looking to improve, and he wanted Hank’s help.
 
What Hank soon came to appreciate was that Tiger was one of the most complicated individuals he’d ever met, let alone coached. Although Hank had worked with hundreds of elite golfers and was not easily impressed, there were days watching Tiger on the range when Hank couldn’t believe what he was witnessing. On those days, it was impossible to imagine another human playing golf so perfectly.
 
And yet Tiger is human—and Hank’s expert eye was adept at spotting where Tiger’s perfection ended and an opportunity for improvement existed. Always haunting Tiger was his fear of “the big miss”—the wildly inaccurate golf shot that can ruin an otherwise solid round—and it was because that type of blunder was sometimes part of Tiger’s game that Hank carefully redesigned his swing mechanics.
 
Hank’s most formidable coaching challenge, though, would be solving the riddle of Tiger’s personality. Wary of the emotional distractions that might diminish his game and put him further from his goals, Tiger had developed a variety of tactics to keep people from getting too close, and not even Hank—or Tiger’s family and friends, for that matter—was spared “the treatment.”
 
Toward the end of Tiger and Hank’s time together, the champion’s laser-like focus began to blur and he became less willing to put in punishing hours practicing—a disappointment to Hank, who saw in Tiger’s behavior signs that his pupil had developed a conflicted relationship with the game. Hints that Tiger hungered to reinvent himself were present in his bizarre infatuation with elite military training, and—in a development Hank didn’t see coming—in the scandal that would make headlines in late 2009. It all added up to a big miss that Hank, try as he might, couldn’t save Tiger from.
 
There’s never been a book about Tiger Woods that is as intimate and revealing—or one so wise about what it takes to coach a superstar athlete.

 

Book Recommendation: One Moment, One Morning

Title: One Moment, One Morning

Author: Sarah Rayner

Paperback: 416 pages
Publisher: Picador (2 July 2010)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0330508849
ISBN-13: 978-0330508841
Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.6 x 3 cm

Book Description
The Brighton to London line. The 07:44 train. Carriages packed with commuters. A woman applies her make-up. Another occupies her time observing the people around her. A husband and wife share an affectionate gesture. Further along, a woman flicks through a glossy magazine. Then, abruptly, everything changes: a man has a heart attack, and can’t be resuscitated; the train is stopped, an ambulance called. For at least three passengers on the 07:44 on that particular morning, life will never be the same again. Lou witnesses the man’s final moments. Anna and Lou share a cab when they realise the train is going nowhere fast. Anna is Karen’s best friend. And Karen? Karen’s husband is the man who dies. Telling the story of the week following that fateful train journey, One Moment, One Morning is a stunning novel about love and loss, about family and – above all – friendship. A stark reminder that, sometimes, one moment is all it takes, it also reminds us that somehow, and despite everything, life can and does go on.
About the Author
Sarah Rayner works as a freelance copywriter. She lives in Brighton.

New Title: Land’s Edge – A Coastal Memoir

Title: Land’s Edge: A Coastal Memoir

Author: Tim Winton

• Hardcover:128 pages
• Publisher:Picador (29 Mar 2012)
• LanguageEnglish
• ISBN-10:1447203119
• ISBN-13:978-1447203117
• Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 13.5 x 2.3 cm

Product Description

Tim Winton’s homage to the ocean and his childhood is a magnificent celebration of life at its limits

 

Book Description

On childhood holidays to the western coast, Tim Winton’s days followed a joyous rhythm. In the mornings, the sun and surf kept him outside, in the water. In the afternoons, as the horizon wobbled with mirages and the wind came in from the ocean, he was driven inside, to books. In the ‘simple, peculiar shack’ that his family borrowed each year there was a small library: a room with four walls of books, a world unto itself. In this beautifully delicate memoir, Winton writes about his obsession with what happens where the water meets the shore – about diving, dunes, beachcombing – and the sense of being on the precarious, wondrous edge of things that haunts his novels. It is a book about the ebb and flow that became a way of life, and that shaped one of our finest writers. ‘Both a serial romantic and a truly gifted novelist’ Mariella Frostrup, Mail on Sunday

 

About the Author

Tim Winton was born in Perth in 1960. He has written novels, collections of stories, non-fiction and books for children. He is three times winner of Australia’s Miles Franklin Award, and has been twice-shortlisted for the Booker Prize, for The Riders (1995) and Dirt Music (2002).

Book Recommendation: Only The Innocent

Title: Only the Innocent

Author: Rachel Abbott

• Format:Kindle Edition
• File Size:575 KB
• Print Length:345 pages
• Publisher:Rachel Abbott; 1 edition (14 Nov 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
• LanguageEnglish
• ASIN:B00684EBC0
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled

Product Description

A #1 Kindle Best Seller in Thrillers, Crime, Mystery and Suspense

When Laura Fletcher approaches her home in Oxfordshire to
find hordes of photographers crowding the gates, she knows there is something
terribly wrong. She is faced with the shocking news that her husband is dead -
brutally murdered – and according to Chief Inspector Tom Douglas, there is
little doubt that the murderer is a woman.

In a marriage that has taken her from the glamorous five
star luxury of London, Venice and Positano to a bleak and draughty manor house
in rural Oxfordshire, Laura has learned to guard her secrets well. She is not
alone. It would appear that all the women in her husband’s life have
something to hide.

But there is one secret that she has never shared, and
when the investigation reaches its dramatic and horrific climax, she realises
that she has no choice. She has to give Tom Douglas the final piece of the
puzzle. And this changes everything, leaving Douglas with a terrible dilemma:
whether to punish the guilty, or protect the innocent.

ONLY THE INNOCENT is a spellbinding psychological thriller
that will leave you breathless!

 

About The Author

 Rachel Abbott was born just outside Manchester, England. She spent most of her working life as the Managing Director of an interactive media company, developing software and websites for the education market. The sale of that business enabled her to fulfil one of her lifelong ambitions – to buy and restore a property in Italy.

Rachel lives full time in the completed property with her husband and two dogs, and is now able to devote time to her other passion – writing fiction.

was born just outside Manchester, England. She spent most of her working life as the Managing Director of an interactive media company, developing software and websites for the education market. The sale of that business enabled her to fulfil one of her lifelong ambitions – to buy and restore a property in Italy.

Rachel lives full time in the completed property with her husband and two dogs, and is now able to devote time to her other passion – writing fiction.

New Title: The Sugar Girls – Joan’s Story

Title: The Sugar Girls – Joan’s Story: Tales of Hardship, Love and Happiness in Tate & Lyle’s East End

Authors: Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi

• Format:Kindle Edition
• File Size:472 KB
• Print Length:56 pages
• Publisher:Collins (29 Mar 2012)
• Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
• LanguageEnglish
• ASIN:B007B5EDYG
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled

Product Description

During the Blitz and the years of rationing, the Sugar Girls kept Britain sweet. The work was back-breakingly hard, but the Tate & Lyle factory was more than just a workplace – it was a community, a calling, a place of love and support and an uproarious, tribal part of East London. This is Joan’s story, one of four stories from The Sugar Girls.

‘Joan had joined Tate & Lyle expressly for the social life, and she was determined to make the most of it. She could see that her old friend Peggy already had an established group of her own among the sugar girls, so she set about building a new set of friends. It wasn’t difficult for Joan, whose cheerful self-confidence, natural chattiness and naughty sense of humour acted as a magnet to those around her.’

In the years leading up to and after the Second World War thousands of women left school at fourteen to work in the bustling factories of London’s East End. Despite long hours, hard and often hazardous work, factory life afforded exciting opportunities for independence, friendship and romance. Of all the factories that lined the docks, it was at Tate and Lyle’s where you could earn the most generous wages and enjoy the best social life, and it was here where The Sugar Girls worked.

This is an evocative, moving story of hunger, hardship and happiness, providing a moving insight into a lost way of life, as well as a timeless testament to the experience of being young and female.

Book Recommendation: Taken

 

Title: TAKEN

Author: JACQUI ROSE

• Paperback:400 pages
• Publisher:Avon (15 Mar 2012)
• LanguageEnglish
• ISBN-10:1847563228
• ISBN-13:978-1847563224
• Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 2.4 cm

Product Description

Casey Edwards has demons to put to rest. Since she had to give away her baby at 15, she’s been lost in booze and bad company. But now she wants to find her child and put things right…

‘All she wanted to do was get out of there. Get on a train and head for London, the place she’d been avoiding for so many years. But it was finally time.’

Casey Edwards has demons to put to rest. Since she had to give away her baby at 15, she’s been lost in booze and bad company. But now she wants to find her child and put things right. Heading to Soho, Casey meets former gangster Vince Sadler, an old-school hard man who can still handle himself – and anyone else. There’s a spark between Vince and Casey but she can’t let herself get hurt, not again.

To find the truth, Casey must enter the dark world of London’s gangland: hard drugs, vice, even people trafficking. Soon she discovers that mob boss Alfie Jennings and sadistic psycho Oscar Hardings are plotting something dangerous, something brutal. Something that puts Casey – and her child – in serious trouble . . .

Full of strong women, devious gangsters and compelling twists, Taken is compulsive read perfect for fans of Jessie Keane and Roberta Kray.

 

About the Author

Jacqui Rose is a debut novelist who now lives in London, although she hails from South Yorkshire. She has always written for pleasure but the idea of Taken came from her own experiences.

New Title: The Sugar Girls – Gladys’s Story

Title: The Sugar Girls – Gladys’s Story: Tales of Hardship, Love and Happiness in Tate & Lyle’s East End

Authors: Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi

• Format:Kindle Edition
• File Size:541 KB
• Print Length:93 pages
• Publisher:Collins (29 Mar 2012)
• Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
• LanguageEnglish
• ASIN:B007B5IL9O
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled

Product Description

During the Blitz and the years of rationing, the Sugar Girls kept Britain sweet. The work was back-breakingly hard, but the Tate & Lyle factory was more than just a workplace – it was a community, a calling, a place of love and support and an uproarious, tribal part of East London. This is Gladys’s story, one of four stories from The Sugar Girls.

‘Gladys changed into her new uniform. The dungarees hung loosely on her boyish frame, the crotch resting somewhere down by her knees and the backside looking like a crumpled sack waiting to be filled with potatoes. The short-sleeved blouse seemed to have been designed with a buxom matron in mind, and one with arms as thick as her legs, not a skinny, flat-chested 14-year-old. What kind of monstrous creatures worked in this Blue Room?’

In the years leading up to and after the Second World War thousands of women left school at fourteen to work in the bustling factories of London’s East End. Despite long hours, hard and often hazardous work, factory life afforded exciting opportunities for independence, friendship and romance. Of all the factories that lined the docks, it was at Tate and Lyle’s where you could earn the most generous wages and enjoy the best social life, and it was here where The Sugar Girls worked.

This is an evocative, moving story of hunger, hardship and happiness, providing a moving insight into a lost way of life, as well as a timeless testament to the experience of being young and female.

Book Recommendation: The Istanbul Puzzle

Title: The Istanbul Puzzle

Author: Laurence O’Bryan 

• Publisher:Avon (19 Jan 2012)
• LanguageEnglish
• ISBN-10:1847562884
• ISBN-13:978-1847562883
• Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 3.2 cm

Product Description

Buried deep under Istanbul, a secret is about to resurface with explosive consequences…

Alex Zegliwski has been savagely beheaded. His body is found hidden near the sacred archaeological site of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.

When Sean arrives in the ancient city to identify his colleague’s body, he is handed an envelope of photographs belonging to Alek and soon finds himself in grave danger. Someone wants him dead but why?

Aided by British diplomat Isabel Sharp, Sean begins to unravel the mystery of the mosaics in the photographs and inch closer to snaring Alek’s assassin. Evil is at work and when a lethal virus is unleashed on the city, panic spreads fast. Time is running out for Sean and Isabel. They must catch the killer before it’s too late.

An electrifying conspiracy thriller which will entice fans of Scott Mariani, Sam Bourne and Dan Brown.

 

About the Author

Laurence was born in Dublin. He studied business, then IT at Oxford University. After going to England he paid for his own courses and began rising at 4AM so he could study and work at the same time. One early job was as a kitchen porter near the Bank of England cleaning the plates of the well connected. He stayed in squats in London and struggled for years. Laurence was first published by a school newspaper when he was ten, for a short story about aliens getting lost. Thirty-five years later, he attended a authonomy workshop and not long after was offered a publishing contract for three books. The first of which, The Istanbul Puzzle, won the Outstanding Novel award at the Southern California writer’s conference in 2007.

The Mahon Tribunal

The Mahon Tribunal: Its Conclusions by Annette J Dunlea

Published In The Carrigdhoun Newspaper 31st March 2012 p.9

         The Tribunal of Inquiry Into Certain Planning Matters and Payments, commonly known as the Mahon Tribunal, was a public inquiry in Ireland established by Dáil Éireann in 1997 to investigate allegations of corrupt payments to politicians regarding political decisions.It has mostly investigated planning permissions and land rezoning issues in the 1990s in the Dublin County Council area. Judge Alan P. Mahon chaired the tribunal and its other members were Judge Mary Faherty and Judge Gerald Keys.Fianna Fail desperately tried to contain the damage to the party’s reputation by moving to kick Mr Ahern out of the party.However, the tribunal turned the screw by accusing senior FF ministers when in government of trying to undermine its work with a “sustained and virulent attack”.Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin served in cabinet during the 2007-2008 period when the tribunal claims the then government tried to “collapse its inquiry” into Mr Ahern.

         The Tribunal is comprised of the Chairman and Members of the Tribunal of Inquiry into Certain Planning Matters and Payments. Throughout its history, the tribunal has unearthed and investigated many controversies.The key findings were: Bertie Ahern failed to truthfully explain source of money.Pádraig Flynn corruptly sought donation from Gilmartin.Liam Lawlor accepted corrupt payments .Corruption affected ‘every level of Irish political life’.Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern failed to “truthfully” explain source of money. The Tribunal rejects Ahern’s evidence of “dig-outs”. Former EU Commissioner Pádraig Flynn “wrongly and corruptly” sought donation from Tom Gilmartin.Liam Lawlor accepted ‘inappropriate and corrupt payments’ from Arlington PLC.Liam Lawlor’s involvement with developers rendered him “hopelessly compromised”.Owen O’Callaghan paid £1.8 million to Frank Dunlop over 10 years.Former Fianna Fáil TD GV Wright received a IR£5,000 “corrupt” payment from Christopher Jones. Findings of corruption were made against 11 councillors: Fianna Fáil’s Finbarr Hanrahan, Cyril Gallagher and GV Wright, Fine Gael’s Tom Hand, Labour’s John O’Halloran and Independent Pat Dunne. Five cannot be named because they are before the courts.Corruption affected “every level of Irish political life and was allowed to continue unabated”.The current government are to refer the report to Garda Commissioner, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), the Revenue Commissioners and to the Standards in Public Office Commission.

            Taoiseach Enda Kenny said the Government had acted swiftly by referring the report to the relevant authorities.The practice of FF ministers seeking donations from businessmen looking for government support for projects was “an abuse of political power and government authority”.Minister Phil Hogan said:” “Long after the Haughey era, corruption was still rampant within Fianna Fail-led governments.”              Fianna Fáil leader Micheal Martin is to propose a motion to expel former taoiseach Bertie Ahern from the party following the publication of the final report of the Mahon tribunal.The tribunal cost around €250 million, that would have created alot of jobs and eased a lot of poverty in Irland today.

         On the positive side, the truth is out. We must learn from this and not allow this kind of behaviour again and there should be no more tribunals but the gardai should investigate it.Gardaí have indicated that the CAB has collected around €19 milion as a result of the inquiry’s work. Revenue Commissioners have said they gathered €32 million.The financial cost of the Mahon Tribunal is the responsibility of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government.
In March 1999 George Redmond, an employee of local authorities in Dublin, is arrested at Dublin airport by Criminal Assets Bureau – he is found to be carrying £300,000 in cash and drafts. His home had been raided by CAB in February and he was hit for a tax bill of over half a million pounds for undeclared offshore bank accounts. In November 2003 George Redmond is convicted on two counts of corruption for accepting a bribe in relation to a right-of-way at Lucan, but the conviction is later found unsafe in July 2004. By then, Redmond had served much of his one-year sentence and so a retrial was not ordered.In January 2005 Ray Burke serves just over four months in prison for not paying tax on undeclared income. The Flood Tribunal had found that he had been paid this money from backers of Century Radio, which had been awarded a number of radio station and one national station licences.In March 2005 Liam Lawlor admits that he got £350,000 from beef baron Larry Goodman for the purchase of land at Coolamber but denies that he was in any deal for the rezoning of Carrickmines. Lawlor dies in a car crash in Moscow in October of this year.In June 2006 Bailey brothers and Bovale Developments come to a settlement of tax owed to the Revenue Commissioners. It’s thought to have come to €25 million.

        In May 2008 Bertie Ahern officially resigns as Taoiseach. He had made the announcement the previous month that he would step down as leader of the country and of the Fianna Fáil party:”It is a matter of real concern to me that the important work of government and party is now being over shadowed by issues relating to me at the Tribunal of Inquiry into Certain Planning Matters and Payments”,said Bertie Ahern. In March 2012 the Public Accounts Committee said that the cost of the Tribunal was €250 million.The Mahon Tribunal has found that former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern failed to truthfully account for over £165,000 lodged in bank accounts connected to him.The Mahon Tribunal has published its final report after 15 years of public hearings involving over 600 witnesses.Corruption affected ‘every level of Irish political life’

       Motions to expel Mr Ahern and former minister Padraig Flynn will be put before a special meeting of the party’s national executive on Friday, March 31st.Mr Ahern said :”I note the publication today of the Mahon Tribunal Final Report which are not the findings of a court of law.At the outset, I want to make clear that I have had the great honour and privilege to serve as an elected politician for over 30 years. I have dedicated my life to politics and serving the interest of the Irish people in politics. I have never accepted a bribe or a corrupt payment”.He said he would “never accept” findings by the Mahon tribunal that he failed to give a “truthful account” of his finances and he said he will continue to examine ways to vindicate his name.The Mahon tribunal was the State’s longest running corruption inquiry.

                                  The End

New Title: Graveminder

Title: Graveminder

Author: Melissa Marr

• Paperback:400 pages
• Publisher:HarperCollins (7 July 2011)
• LanguageEnglish
• ISBN-10:0007349270
• ISBN-13:978-0007349272
• Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 15.2 x 2.8 cm

Product Description

When Rebekkah returns to her small-town home for her beloved Grandmother’s funeral, little does she suspect that she is about to inherit a darkly dangerous family duty on behalf of Claysville’s most demanding residents – the dead.

Everyone in Claysville knows that the Barrows are no ordinary family, but no one can really explain why. When respected matriarch Maylene Barrow dies suddenly her granddaughter Rebekkah returns to the small town she grew up in, where she must face the demons of her past – the suicide of her half-sister Ella, the person she was closest to in the world, and the subsequent break-up of her parents’ marriage. And she also re-encounters Byron, Ella’s old boyfriend, someone to whom she has always felt a deep and mysterious connection.

But the demons of the past are nothing compared with what the future has in store for Rebekkah. Her grandmother has left her an inheritance both wonderful and terrible. An onerous responsibility now rests on her shoulders – one for which she is ill-prepared to say the least.

For behind Claysville’s community-spirited, small-town facade lies a dark secret. One that ties Rebekkah and Byron together in an inextricable bond, and that will require them both to sacrifice everything to keep their friends and neighbours from harm.

 

About the Author

Melissa Marr was voted in high school the ‘most likely to end up in jail’. Instead, she went to graduate school, worked in a bar, became a teacher and did a lot of writing. She is the author of the Wicked Lovely series.

Book Recommendation: The Leftovers

Title:The Leftovers

Author: Tom Perrotta 

• Paperback:300 pages
• Publisher:Fourth Estate (1 Mar 2012)
• LanguageEnglish
• ISBN-10:0007453094
• ISBN-13:978-0007453092
• Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.4 x 2.6 cm

Product Description

What if – whoosh, right now, with no explanation – a number of us simply vanished? Would some of us collapse? Would others of us go on, one foot in front of the other, as we did before the world turned upside-down?

That’s what the bewildered citizens of Mapleton, who lost many of their neighbors, friends and lovers in the event known as the Sudden Departure, have to figure out. Because nothing has been the same since it happened—not marriages, not friendships, not even the relationships between parents and children.

Kevin Garvey, Mapleton’s new mayor, wants to speed up the healing process, to bring a sense of renewed hope and purpose to his traumatized community. Kevin’s own family has fallen apart in the wake of the disaster: his wife, Laurie, has left to join the Guilty Remnant, a home-grown cult whose members take a vow of silence; his son, Tom, is gone too, dropping out of college to follow a sketchy prophet named Holy Wayne. Only Kevin’s teenaged daughter, Jill, remains, and she’s definitely not the sweet “A” student she used to be. Kevin wants to help her, but he’s distracted by his growing relationship with Nora Durst, a woman who lost her entire family on October 14th and is still reeling from the tragedy, even as she struggles to move beyond it and make a new start.

With heart, intelligence and a rare ability to illuminate the struggles inherent in ordinary lives, Tom Perrotta has written a startling, thought-provoking novel about love, connection and loss.

About the Author

Tom Perrotta is the author of several works of fiction, including ‘Little Children’, ‘Joe College’ and ‘Election’. He lives outside Boston, Massachusetts.

Symphysiotomy

Symphysiotomy Operation on Women During Childbirth Without Their Consent by Annette J Dunlea
Symphysiotomy is a surgical procedure in which the cartilage of the pubic symphysis is divided to widen the pelvis allowing childbirth when there is a mechanical problem. They became less frequent in the late 19th century after the risk of maternal death post-caesarean section decreased due to improvement in techniques, hygiene, and clinical practice.The most common indications are a trapped head of a breech baby, shoulder dystocia which does not resolve with routine manoeuvres and obstructed labor at full cervical dilation when there is no option of a caesarean section. Currently the procedure is rarely performed in developed countries, but is still routine in developing countries where caesarean section is not always an option.The procedure is not without risk, including urethral and bladder injury, infection, pain and long-term walking difficulty. Symphysiotomy should, therefore, be carried out only when there is no safe alternative. It is advised that this procedure should not be repeated due to the risk of gait problems and continual pain.
It is estimated that 1,500 Irish women unknowingly and without consent underwent symphysiotomies during childbirth between 1944 to 1992.Survivors were left with severe lifelong side effects, including extreme pain, impaired mobility, incontinence, and depression.The Minister for Health and Children, Mary Harney, ruled out a review on 19 February 2010.However, gathering public outrage resulted in hearings on March 15, 2012. All these causes are crying out for justice. They have been failed by this state. The procedure ws described as “institutional abuse involving acts of butchery against women” and added that, “Given the increasing age of the victims and the chronic pain and constant medical intervention they require as a result of symphysiotomy, it is urgent that the present government deal with this now,”Gerry Adams
In the first test case a woman has been awarded €450,000 damages by a High Court judge who found she was the victim of “grave medical malpractice” when, unknown to her, a “wholly unnecessary” symphysiotomy procedure was carried out on her when having her first baby at the age of 18 at a Drogheda hospital.The procedure left Olivia Kearney with a lifetime of pain, caused serious damage to her psychological health and frustrated her desire to have more children, Mr Justice Sean Ryan said today.The Catholic ethos and mode of thinking which prevailed about the symphysiotomy procedure which Ms Kearney underwent in 1969 is “mercifully a matter of history”, the judge said.The procedure involved making the pelvis larger by cutting through cartilage binding the pubic bones together so as to accommodate a baby’s head. It was carried out on Ms Kearney, now aged 60, at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda in October 1969 by Dr Gerard Connolly, since deceased.The judge found the evidence did not establish that Dr Connolly had followed general and approved practice of the time. Dr Connolly’s medical notes at the time did not even contain the essential medical justification for symphysiotomy – disproportion of the pelvis in relation to the size of the baby’s head.In Ms Kearney’s case, there was no need for the symphysiotomy because subsequent measurements indicated Ms Kearney’s pelvis was normal and there was therefore no need to enlarge the pelvis, he found.Ms Kearney, of Castlebellingham, Co Louth, had sued the hospital owners, the Medical Missionaries of Mary, who denied her claims and contended the procedure was justified in the circumstances obtaining at the time.
Mr Justice Ryan said the hospital had argued the symphysiotomy procedure arose because there was a significant body of medical opinion at the time that was anti-caesarean operations.The reason for this, apparently, was a woman could only be expected to undergo a relatively limited number of such operations and it was anticipated they would therefore need a few of them in the expectation women would have a lot of children, the judge said.
In such circumstances, doctors would have to advise women not to have any more children which meant they might “be tempted to use artificial contraception” or even look for sterilisation, the judge said.This was sufficient to justify doctors’ hostility to caesareans and make them favourable to symphysiotomy which facilitated future pregnancies, the judge noted.The court heard, in the first three months after her son was born, Ms Kearney spent most of her time in bed. The pain in her pelvis spread all over her body and it was a year before she was fully mobile and able to return to work.Mr Justice Ryan said Dr Connolly had altered the course of her life irrevocably by carrying out “this unnecessary operation”. It had left her with a life of pain, discomfort and embarrassment and she was an unfortunate example of the illness associated with symphysiotomy.Ms Kearney’s reasonable expectation of enjoying a normal sexual and emotional relationship was destroyed and her desire to have more children was similarly frustrated, he said. Her self esteem had been shattered and she blamed herself for the inadequacies and disappointments that resulted, he noted.She did not even know she had had a symphysiotomy until nearly 33 years later when she had a radio programme discussion in which women described their experiences following such operations.“That revelation in 2002 that her life had been transformed by a deliberate act and not by natural causes brought its own extra quotient of misery”, the judge said.Her legal action was brought after 2002 but the hospital secured a High Court order striking out her claim on grounds of delay in bringing the proceedings. She successfully appealed that decision to the Supreme Court.What a brave lady, who took on the state and won.She gave all those victims a voice.It sends a clear message church and state sould be divorced and experimental operations against women are against their civil rights and thus unlawful.
The campaign group Patient Focus has welcomed today’s High Court judgment, on what was the first symphysiotomy case to come before the courts.It is understood there are another 120 cases pending. Sheila O’Connor of Patient Focus said today’s decision was a great step forward for all the women who were continuing to suffer as a result of what was done to them. However, she said no money could compensate for a lifetime of often severe physical pain as a result of operations the women did not need, never gave their permission for and were never told about afterwards.As these victims are getting older and sicker, it is time for compensation and give these women back heir rights and dignity that was stolen from them.
The End

New Title: Reamde

Title: Reamde

Author: Neal Stephenson

• Hardcover:912 pages
• Publisher:Atlantic Books (20 Sep 2011)
• LanguageEnglish
• ISBN-10:1848874480
• ISBN-13:978-1848874480
• Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.8 x 6.8 cm

Product Description

Across the globe, millions of computer screens flicker with the artfully coded world of T’Rain – an addictive internet role-playing game of fantasy and adventure. But backstreet hackers in China have just unleashed a contagious virus called Reamde, and as it rampages through the gaming world spreading from player to player – holding hard drives hostage in the process – the computer of one powerful and dangerous man is infected, causing the carefully mediated violence of the on-line world to spill over into reality. A fast-talking, internet-addicted mafia accountant is brutally silenced by his Russian employers, and Zula – a talented young T’Rain computer programmer – is abducted and bundled on to a private jet. As she is flown across the skies in the company of the terrified boyfriend she broke up with hours before, and a brilliant Hungarian hacker who may be her only hope, she finds herself sucked into a whirl of Chinese Secret Service agents and gun-toting American Survivalists; the Russian criminal underground and an al-Qaeda cell led by a charismatic Welshman; each a strand of a connected world that devastatingly converges in T’Rain. An inimitable and compelling thriller that careers from British Columbia to South-West China via Russia and the fantasy world of T’Rain, Reamde is an irresistible epic from the unique imagination of one of today’s most individual writers.

 

About the Author

Neal Stephenson is the author of eight novels, including the cult successes Snowcrash and Cryptonomicon. He has been shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award six times, winning with Quicksilver. Four of his last five novels have been number one New York Times bestsellers. He lives in Seattle.

Book Recommendation: The Intolerant Gourmet – Delicious Allergy-friendly Home Cooking for Everyone

Title:The Intolerant Gourmet: Delicious Allergy-friendly Home Cooking for Everyone

Author: Pippa Kendrick

• Hardcover:240 pages
• Publisher:Collins (16 Feb 2012)
• LanguageEnglish
• ISBN-10:0007448643
• ISBN-13:978-0007448647
• Product Dimensions: 25 x 19.2 x 2.8 cm

Product Description

Food writer and cook Pippa Kendrick revolutionises allergy-friendly food with an inspired collection of delicious recipes for everyone to make, share and enjoy – and just happen to be free from wheat, gluten, yeast, egg, dairy and soya.

The Intolerant Gourmet is a cookbook that will appeal to everyone; from those that want delicious food but suffer food allergy or intolerance to those who simply want great home cooking that can be served to all their friends and family no matter what they can or can’t eat.

Each year, more and more people are diagnosed with food intolerance or find that avoiding certain products makes them feel better, happier, and more energetic; but for too long they’ve been forced to have separate meals or go without. Pippa puts an end to this with a cookbook that celebrates great food to be savoured by one and all, and won’t leave anyone feeling unsatisfied.

In this beautifully illustrated book – packed with stunning photographs – you’ll find 120 doable recipes. All are entirely free from wheat, yeast, egg and dairy and almost all entirely free from gluten; but, most importantly, all are delicious.

Pippa offers simple soups, snacks and salads, satisfying main courses including inspired versions of what you might find on a restaurant menu, tasty vegetarian meals and plenty of indulgent desserts and cakes. She also includes tried-and-tested basic recipes for breads, pastry and biscuits.

Pippa’s fresh, inclusive approach to ‘free from’ cooking and her engaging personality shine through to make the recipe book that food intolerants have been crying out for: a beautiful modern-day cookery bible to cherish and share, and to turn to again and again.

Recipes include:
Smoked Chicken, Sweet Potato and Lentil Salad
Falafel with Parsley and Tomato Salad
Lamb Korma with Lemon and Cashew Rice
Tomato Pesto-filled Pork Tenderloin
Lamb Tagine with Dates and Peppers
Spaghetti with Roasted Aubergine, Thyme and Chilli Sauce
Masala Roast Chicken and Squash
Vegetable Lasagne
Bakewell Tart
Treacle Tart with Custard
Jam Tarts
White Soda Bread
Shortcrust Pastry

 

About the Author

Pippa Kendrick is a food writer and cook whose allergy-friendly recipes and advice on food intolerance has earned her a growing following through her successful website, http://www.theintolerantgourmet.com.
While at university, Pippa became seriously ill with complications that stemmed from undiagnosed food allergies. It became a life-threatening situation and was a turning point in her life. Unable to find the information she needed and driven by a love of good food, Pippa began The Intolerant Gourmet. She now consults for leading supermarkets, contributes on online and print magazines and associations, and regularly posts original recipes and product reviews on her website.

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  Cake Angels: Amazing gluten, wheat and dairy free… by Julia Thomas

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  Seasons by Donna Hay

   

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  Allergy-free Desserts: Gluten-free, Dairy-fre… by Elizabeth Gordon

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New Title: Kill Shot

Title:Kill Shot

Author: Vince Flynn

• Format:Kindle Edition
• File Size:607 KB
• Print Length:400 pages
• Publisher:Simon & Schuster UK (7 Feb 2012)
• Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
• LanguageEnglish
• ASIN: B0071EZH7Y

Product Description

For months, Mitch Rapp has been steadily working his way through a list of the men responsible for the slaughter of 270 civilians including his own girlfriend in the Pan Am Lockerbie bombing – bullet by bullet.
His next target – a Libyan diplomat – should be easy. Prone to drink and currently in Paris without a bodyguard, Rapp quickly tracks the man down and sends a bullet into his skull while he’s sleeping. But in the split second it takes the bullet to leave the silenced pistol, everything changes. The door to the hotel room is kicked open and gunfire erupts all around Rapp.
When the news breaks that Libya’s Oil Minister has been killed along with three innocent civilians and four unidentified men, the French authorities are certain that the gunman is wounded and still on the loose in Paris. As the finger-pointing begins, Rapp’s handlers have only one choice – deny any responsibility for the incident and race to do damage control. Rapp has become a liability, and he must not be taken alive by the French authorities. But alone in Paris, on the run from the authorities and from his own employers, Mitch Rapp must prepare to fight for his life.

 

About the Author

Vince Flynn is an international No. 1 bestseller, published in 20 countries. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife and three children. Visit his website at www.vinceflynn.com.

 

Book Recommendation: Nights Of The Circus

Title:Nights At The Circus

Author:Angela Carter

Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: Vintage Classics; New Ed edition (29 Sep 1994)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0099388618
ISBN-13: 978-0099388616
Product Dimensions: 13 x 2.2 x 19.8 cm

Product Description
Is Sophie Fevvers, toast of Europe’s capitals, part swan…or all fake?

Courted by the Prince of Wales and painted by Toulouse-Lautrec, she is an aerialiste extraordinaire and star of Colonel Kearney’s circus. She is also part woman, part swan. Jack Walser, an American journalist, is on a quest to discover the truth behind her identity. Dazzled by his love for her, and desperate for the scoop of a lifetime, Walser has no choice but to join the circus on its magical tour through turn-of-the-nineteenth-century London, St Petersburg and Siberia.

About the Author
Angela Carter was born in 1940. She lived in Japan, the United States and Australia. Her first novel, Shadow Dance, was published in 1965. Her next book, The Magic Toyshop, won the John Llewllyn Rhys Prize and the next, Several Perceptions, the Somerset Maugham Award. She died in February 1992

Book Recommendation: Far To Go

Title: Far to Go

Author: Alison Pick

Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Headline Review (2 Feb 2012)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0755379438
ISBN-13: 978-0755379439
Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 2.4 cm

Product Description
Longlisted for the 2011 MAN BOOKER PRIZE for Fiction, FAR TO GO is a powerful and profoundly moving story about one family’s epic journey to flee the Nazi occupation of their homeland in 1939.

Pavel and Anneliese Bauer are affluent, secular Jews, whose lives are turned upside down by the arrival of the German forces in Czechoslovakia. Desperate to avoid deportation, the Bauers flee to Prague with their six-year-old son, Pepik, and his beloved nanny, Marta. When the family try to flee without her to Paris, Marta betrays them to her Nazi boyfriend. But it is through Marta’s determination that Pepik secures a place on a Kindertransport, though he never sees his parents or Marta again.

Inspired by Alison Pick’s own grandparents who fled their native Czechoslovakia for Canada during the Second World War, FAR TO GO is a deeply personal and emotionally harrowing novel.

About the Author
Alison Pick’s grandparents were secular Jews, living in Czechoslovakia during the Nazi invasion. In FAR TO GO, she explores the history of a country and its people with which she has a strong personal connection.
Alison was the 2002 Bronwen Walace Award winner for the most promising writer under thirty-five in Canada. She has published two acclaimed volumes of poetry and her first novel, The Sweet Edge , was widely acclaimed. She lives in Toronto with her husband and daughter.

New Title: We Had It So Good

Title: We Had It So Good

Author: Linda Grant

• Paperback:352 pages
• Publisher:Virago (12 Jan 2012)
• LanguageEnglish
• ISBN-10:1844086399
• ISBN-13:978-1844086399
• Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.6 x 2.6 cm

Product Description

Born to hardworking immigrant parents in sunny suburban Los Angeles, Stephen Newman never imagined that he would spend his adult life under the grey skies of north London, would marry Andrea for convenience and stay married, and would watch his children grow into people he cannot fathom. Over forty years he and his friends have built lives of comfort and success, until the events of late middle age and the new century force them to realise that they have always existed in a fool’s paradise.

 

About the Author

Linda Grant is a novelist and journalist. She won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2000 and the Lettre Ulysses Prize for Literary Reportage in 2006, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker in 2008 for The Clothes on Their Backs

Book Recommendation: Can My Mother Help Me?

 

Title:Can Any Mother Help Me?

Author: Jenna Bailey

• Paperback:368 pages
• Publisher:Faber and Faber; Reprint edition (31 Jan 2008)
• LanguageEnglish
• ISBN-10:0571233147
• ISBN-13:978-0571233144
• Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.6 x 2.6 cm

Product Description

In 1935, a young woman wrote a letter to Nursery World magazine, expressing her feelings of isolation and loneliness. Women from all over the country experiencing similar frustrations wrote back. To create an outlet for their abundant ideas and opinions they started a private magazine, The Cooperative Correspondence Club. The deep friendships formed through its pages ensured the magazine continued until 1990, fifty-five years after the first issue was put together.

About the Author

Jenna Bailey was born in Alberta, Canada, and now lives in Brighton. She studied History at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada, and took her Masters in Life History at the University of Sussex. This is her first book.

 

New Title: All About Love

Title:All About Love: Anatomy of an Unruly Emotion

Author: Lisa Appignanesi

• Hardcover:416 pages
• Publisher:Virago Press Ltd (7 April 2011)
• LanguageEnglish
• ISBN-10:1844085899
• ISBN-13:978-1844085897
• Product Dimensions: 16.4 x 4.3 x 24.2 cm

Product Description

Unruly, unpredictable, love is a maddening deity. He has us singing in the rain or tearing our hair out. Or duelling with his shadows, hate, jealousy and loss. This book tangles with the paradoxes of love through the span of our lives – from rapturous love to love in ‘marriage’, in the family and in friendship. It investigates love’s shifts and continuities from the Greeks to the present and examines our present hypersexualized predicament. Drawing on a wide range of sources, ALL ABOUT LOVE shows us how without the varying attachments love puts in place, we would have little of our individuality, less literature, and arguably no society. In her brilliant new book, prize-winning author of MAD, BAD AND SAD: WOMEN AND THE MIND DOCTORS, Lisa Appignanesi searches for the meaning of an emotion.

 

About the Author

Lisa Appignanesi was born in Poland and grew up in France and Canada. A novelist and writer, she is former deputy director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, chair of the Freud Museum and president of English PEN.