Strong Stuff is the story of Ruby, a young carer who finds her world turned upside down when her mother dies. She is forced to live with her estranged father on the wrong side of the tracks, where her life as a teenager really begins. Ruby finds love and friendship in the most unlikely of places – but when forces conspire to take it all away, she must fight to keep what matters to her, at all costs. Author proceeds from this book will go towards supporting the work of Roundabout: www.roundabouthomeless.org Roundabout is South Yorkshire’s local youth housing charity providing shelter, support and life skills to young people like Ruby, aged 16-25 who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. In addition to helping young people source appropriate accommodation, they offer wraparound care including practical and emotional support from dedicated key workers. Their key services deliver comprehensive programmes of training, involvement and empowerment which help young people break the cycle of homelessness and develop long term independent living skills. Thanks to Amy for choosing to support this critical work. To find your local youth housing charity visit: www.eyh.org.uk/en/

Herakles was one of the greatest of all Greek heroes, and his exploits have been celebrated in paintings, songs, poetry, and sculpture. This one-of-a-kind account of the great mythological hero includes a helpful map and a pronunciation guide for those sometimes hard-to-pronounce classical names. Full color.

Fourteen-year-old Simon, known as Stuff, struggles with his new stepfamily, tries to avoid a giant attack rabbit, hopes to break up with his girlfriend and connect with a new one, and creates cartoons of "Punykid's battle with drooling dorkoids."

In Stand Strong Nick Vujicic gives you strategies for developing a “bully defense system” so you can handle bullies of all kinds, by building your strength from the inside out. With no arms, no legs, and no defense, Nick Vujicic has experienced bullying of all kinds for being “different.” He knows what it feels like to be picked on and pushed around. But Nick learned that he doesn’t have to play the bully’s game–and neither do you. No bully can define who you are, and in Stand Strong, Nick shows how you too can overcome and rise above bullying. Find out how to: - Turn being bullied into a great opportunity (yes, really!) - Create a safety zone within yourself - Establish strong values that no bully can shake - Deal with cyber bullies - Develop a spiritual foundation to stay strong against bullying - Monitor your emotions and control your response to them - Help others who are being bullied Are you facing the unwanted attention of a bully? You can stand up to the challenge, because you have greater power over your feelings and your life than you may think! Just ask Nick--the man with no arms or legs…and “a ridiculously good life.”

"Kick bad mental habits and toughen yourself up."—Inc. Master your mental strength—revolutionary new strategies that work for everyone from homemakers to soldiers and teachers to CEOs. Everyone knows that regular exercise and weight training lead to physical strength. But how do we strengthen ourselves mentally for the truly tough times? And what should we do when we face these challenges? Or as psychotherapist Amy Morin asks, what should we avoid when we encounter adversity? Through her years counseling others and her own experiences navigating personal loss, Morin realized it is often the habits we cannot break that are holding us back from true success and happiness. Indulging in self-pity, agonizing over things beyond our control, obsessing over past events, resenting the achievements of others, or expecting immediate positive results holds us back. This list of things mentally strong people don't do resonated so much with readers that when it was picked up by Forbes.com it received ten million views. Now, for the first time, Morin expands upon the thirteen things from her viral post and shares her tried-and-true practices for increasing mental strength. Morin writes with searing honesty, incorporating anecdotes from her work as a college psychology instructor and psychotherapist as well as personal stories about how she bolstered her own mental strength when tragedy threatened to consume her. Increasing your mental strength can change your entire attitude. It takes practice and hard work, but with Morin's specific tips, exercises, and troubleshooting advice, it is possible to not only fortify your mental muscle but also drastically improve the quality of your life.

There are so many things that control the character and behaviour of man. In my view, no-one ever just does things without a controlling force behind. Nothing just happens. There is a force behind everything done or said by man under the sun. That includes creatures too. When someone bursts out or loses it, explodes, or suddenly just goes quiet, moody, or commits suicide, what will have happened? With various practical examples, I apply Biblical passages to analyse the impact of such things as pregnancy, alcohol and drugs, bitterness and anger, jealousy and hatred, love/charity, evil spirits, and the Holy Spirit. I know there are a lot more substances and things that fill and control mankind. I just picked a few to highlight the whole point of the book. One by one, consider the items in the above list again. Read the book, and you will know what you are full of. If you dont like what you are full of, try being born again. Hey, these things do not care whether someone is rich or poor, educated or uneducated, king/prince(ss) or pauper, male or female, young or old, black or white, or whatever classification you may make. They have no respect for such human forms of classification. I call them levellers. Once you allow them to take up space inside of you, they immediately take over. They are in charge. They take control of the way you think, the way you speak, the way you act, and the way you behave. I admit there is fallacy in generalizations, but in this book allow me to generalise. Whether its man or creature, plant, animal or bird, _ I propose a ONE-LINE answer to all these scenarios _ what fills you, controls you!

While more than 80 percent of the world's commercial music is controlled by four multinational firms, most music is made and enjoyed in diverse situations divorced from such corporate behemoths. These fourteen original essays examine the fascinating world of "music scenes," those largely inconspicuous sites where clusters of musicians, producers, and fans explore their common musical tastes and distinctive lifestyle choices. Although most music scenes come and go with hardly a trace, they nevertheless give immense satisfaction to their participants, and a few - New York bop jazz, Merseybeat, Memphis rockabilly, London punk, Bronx hiphop - achieve fame and spur musical innovations. To date, serious study of the scenes phenomenon has focused mainly on specific music scenes while paying less attention to recurrent dynamics of scene life, such as how individuals construct and negotiate scenes to the various activities. This volume remedies that neglect. The editors distinguish between three types of scenes - local, translocal, and virtual - which provide the organizing framework for the essays. Aspects of local scenes, which are confined to specific areas, are explored through essays on Chicago blues, rave, karaoke, teen pop, and salsa. The section on translocal scenes, which involve the coming together of scattered local scenes around a particular type of music and lifestyle, includes articles on Riot Grrrls, goths, art music, and anarcho-punk. Aspects of virtual scenes, in which fans communicate via the internet, are illustrated using alternative country, the Canterbury sound, postrock, and Kate Bush fans. Also included is an essay that shows how the social conditions in places where jazz was made influenced that music's development.