The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Womanby Nancy Marie Brown

The remarkable story of Gudrid, the female explorer who sailed from Iceland to the New World a millennium ago.

Five hundred years before Columbus, a Viking woman named Gudrid sailed off the edge of the known world. She landed in the New World and lived there for three years, giving birth to a baby before sailing home. Or so the Icelandic sagas say. Even after archaeologists found a Viking longhouse in Newfoundland, no one believed that the details of Gudrid’s story were true.

Then, in 2001, a team of scientists discovered what may have been this pioneering woman’s last house, buried under a hay field in Iceland, just where the epic tales suggest it could be.

Joining scientists experimenting with cutting-edge technology and the latest archaeological techniques, and tracing Gudrid’s steps on land and in the sagas, The Far Traveler reconstructs a life that spanned–and expanded–the bounds of the then-known world. It also sheds new light on the society that gave rise to a woman even more extraordinary than legend has painted her, and illuminates the reasons for its collapse.

The Pickpocket Girlby Rosie Darling

Molly had been a pickpocket for as long as she could remember.

In Victorian London on the filth covered streets of the Old Nichol, everyone was a thief, it was a way of life, the only way to survive. Molly had spent her childhood perfecting her craft. A craft that had snatched her father from her, like she snatched pocket watches.

After being left as an orphan and in the clutches of an evil drunken step-father she fell in with a pickpocket gang. Her saviour was Billy, her only friend, who kept her safe from the cruelty of the world. But every day she worked the markets and the streets, she feared what else would God take from her as penance for her sinful life? His vengeance was soon clear.

But when Molly’s world is unexpectedly turned upside down she is forced to confront her own demons from the past.

Would the solitude of the docks bring back the love she so desperately needed? Would her past threaten everything she had planned for the future?

Another compelling read set in Victorian London and a people so broken by poverty they will do anything to survive.

Fallen Starby Richard Turner

A sudden and brutal attack on a coalition training camp in Iraq wipes out all but two survivors: Captain david Grant and Australian SAS Sergeant James Maclean. Drawn into a clandestine world that deals with unusual encounters the two soldiers volunteer to help with the investigation into an alleged UFO crash in Alaska. The mission, however, is far from simple as it soon becomes apparent that something dangerous is going on and not everyone is as they appear to be.

Being Authentic: A Memoirby Morhaf Al Achkar

Our existence is fragile. I learned that in many intricate ways, so I do not take today for granted. I do not know what tomorrow will bring. I do not even know if tomorrow will come.

On the eve of Thanksgiving 2016, I received the diagnosis of stage 4 lung cancer. Next to dying, I fear the spread of cancer to my brain and losing my ability to think, speak, or write. This loss would be devastating to me.

The fragility of our life made me want to be authentic. Therefore, I am writing this memoir to be authentic–we become our true selves when we author who we are.

I am afraid of being forgotten. Death does frighten me. But more than dying, I am scared of having no one remember me or, even worse, of being recognized differently from who I was. At the same time, I have never thought that I was entitled to ask others not to forget me. But, not to be forgotten is precisely what I yearn for.

While I am writing for the other, I am simultaneously writing for myself. I am one of the readers and will test the subject as it gets written. My criteria are stricter. I want to say, “This is my narrative.”

I need to be able to say, “This is my narrative.”

ROADS TO MEANING AND RESILIENCE WITH CANCER: Forty Stories of Coping, Finding Meaning, and Building Resilience While Living with Incurable Lung Cancerby Morhaf Al Achkar

The book tells the stories of 39 patients with incurable lung cancer. It aims to help patients, families, and healthcare providers understand the experience of living with cancer. It also invites reflections on the essential questions of meaning, resilience, and coping with adversity in life. The author is a family doctor, teacher, and researcher who is also a stage 4 lung cancer patient himself. He is patient #40.
Patients with cancer often have an urgency to find meaning in life. They struggle with the illness, its emotional impact, and the consequences of treatments. However, with time, reflection, and support from others, they develop resilience. Cancer patients often are not passive. Instead, they choose different strategies to maintain and restore their health. They also leverage a variety of approaches to cope better with their struggle.
The book is for cancer patients who are tarrying at the limits of time. It is also for those who live around patients with cancer: caregivers, families and friends, and health care providers. People who struggle with other illnesses will also find aspects of their story reflected here. Also, the ones who have experienced a crisis of identity will discover elements of their story here as well. By sharing the experiences of the forty authentic individuals, the book opens the space for them to teach others. This book is about the essence of the human experience at its limits. It is for every reader.