Books with author Hachette Audio UK

After decades of hiding, the evil Enchantress who cursed Sleeping Beauty is back with a vengeance. Alex and Conner Bailey have not been back to the magical Land of Stories since their adventures in The Wishing Spell ended. But one night, they learn the famed Enchantress has kidnapped their mother! Against the will of their grandmother, the twins must find their own way into the Land of Stories to rescue their mother and save the fairy-tale world from the greatest threat it's ever faced.

Maybe it was a grandparent or a teacher or a colleague. Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching and gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it. For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly 20 years ago. Maybe, like Mitch, you lost track of this mentor as you made your way, and the insights faded. Wouldn't you like to see that person again, ask the bigger questions that still haunt you? Mitch Albom had that second chance. He rediscovered Morrie in the last months of the older man's life. Knowing he was dying of ALS, or motor neurone disease, Morrie visited Mitch in his study every Tuesday, just as they used to back in college. Their rekindled relationship turned into one final "class": lessons in how to live. This is a chronicle of their time together, through which Mitch shares Morrie's lasting gift with the world.

Maya Angelou's six volumes of autobiography are a testament to the talents and resilience of this extraordinary writer. Loving the world, she also knows its cruelty. As a Black woman she has known discrimination and extreme poverty, but also hope, joy, achievement and celebration. In this first volume of her six books of autobiography, Maya Angelou beautifully evokes her childhood with her grandmother in the American south of the 1930s. She learns the power of the white folks at the other end of town and suffers the terrible trauma of rape by her mother's lover. 'I write about being a Black American woman, however, I am always talking about what it's like to be a human being. This is how we are, what makes us laugh, and this is how we fall and how we somehow, amazingly, stand up again' Maya Angelou

The Five People You Meet in Heaven is a wonderfully moving fable that addresses the meaning of life, and life after death, in the poignant way that made Tuesdays with Morrie such an astonishing book. The novel's protagonist is an elderly amusement park maintenance worker named Eddie who, while operating a ride called the "Free Fall", dies while trying to save a young girl who gets in the way of a falling cart that hurtles to earth. Eddie goes to heaven, where he meets five people who were unexpectedly instrumental in some way in his life. While each guide takes him through heaven, Eddie learns a little bit more about what his time on earth meant, what he was supposed to have learned, and what his true purpose on earth was. Throughout there are dramatic flashbacks where we see scenes from his troubled childhood, his years in the army in the Philippines jungle, and with his first and only love, his wife Marguerite. The Five People You Meet in Heaven is the perfect book to follow Tuesdays with Morrie. Its compellingly affecting themes and lyrical writing will fascinate Mitch Albom's huge readership.

The definitive no-holds-barred biography of John Entwhistle, The Who's legendary bass guitarist. It is an unequivocal fact that in terms of rock bands, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Who represent Year Zero; the beginning of all things, ground-breakers all. To that end, John Entwistle - the Who's beloved bassist - is also without question one of the most important and influential figures in the annals of rock. He is also among an even more rarefied few, by virtue of his being such a fascinating, transfixing and gloriously oversized character. However, Entwistle has not been the subject of a major biography. Likely, this was due to no-one being able to gain close access to the subject himself: the still in many other respects enigmatic Entwistle's enduring legacy has been carefully guarded by his surviving family. With the full co-operation of the Entwistle family, The Ox will correct this oversight and in doing so, shine a long overdue light on one of the single greatest, and most impactful figures in rock history. Drawing on his own notes for an unfinished autobiography that he started before his death in 2002 (and which will be quoted from extensively), as well as his personal archives and interviews with his family and friends, The Ox will give listeners a never-before-seen glimpse into the two very distinct poles of John Entwistle. On the one hand, he was the rock star incarnate, being larger than life, self-obsessed to a fault, and proudly and almost defiantly so. Extravagant with money, he famously shipped two vintage American cars across the Atlantic without having so much as a driver's license, built exponentially bigger and grandiose bars into every home he owned, and amassed an extraordinary collection of possessions, from arachnids, armour, and weaponry, to his patented Cuban-heeled booths. But beneath this fame and flutter, he was also a man of simple tastes and traditional opinions. He was a devoted father and family man who loved nothing more than to wake up to a full English breakfast, or to have a supper of fish, chips, and a pint at his local pub. After his untimely death, many of these stories were shuttered away into the memories of his family, friends, and loved ones, but now, for the first time, The Ox will introduce us to the man behind the myth - the iconic and inimitable John Entwistle.

Chika Jeune was born three days before the devastating earthquake that decimated Haiti in 2010. She spent her infancy in extreme poverty, and when her mother died giving birth to a baby brother, Chika was brought to the Have Faith Haiti Orphanage that Mitch and his wife, Janine operate. Chika's arrival made a quick impression. Brave and self-assured, even as a three-year-old, she delighted the other kids and teachers. But at age five, Chika was suddenly diagnosed with a terminal disease that no doctor in Haiti could help with. Mitch and Janine took Chika to America, hoping that treatment there would enable her to go back home. Instead, Chika became a permanent part of their lives, as they embarked on a two-year, around-the-world journey to find a cure. As Chika's boundless optimism and humour taught Mitch the joys of caring for a child, he learnt that a relationship built on love, no matter what blows it takes, can never be lost. This is Mitch Albom at his most poignant, powerful and personal. Chika is a celebration of a girl, her adoptive guardians, and the incredible bond they formed - a devastatingly beautiful portrait of what it means to be a family, regardless of how it is made.

Is this the America you want? If not, here's how to claim the power to change your country. We are in an age of epic political turbulence in America. Old hierarchies and institutions are collapsing. From the election of Donald Trump to the upending of the major political parties to the spread of grassroots movements like Black Lives Matter and $15 Now, people across the country and across the political spectrum are reclaiming power. Are you ready for this age of bottom-up citizen power? Do you understand what power truly is, how it flows, who has it, and how you can claim and exercise it? Eric Liu, who has spent a career practicing and teaching civic power, lays out the answers in this incisive, inspiring, and provocative book. Using examples from the left and the right, past and present, he reveals the core laws of power. He shows that all of us can generate power - and then, step by step, he shows us how. The strategies of reform and revolution he lays out will help every listener make sense of our world today. If you want to be more than a spectator in this new era, you need to listen to this book.

In the third book in the number-one New York Times best-selling series by Chris Colfer, the Brothers Grimm have a warning for the Land of Stories. Conner Bailey thinks his fairy-tale adventures are behind him - until he discovers a mysterious clue left by the famous Brothers Grimm. With help from his classmate Bree and the outlandish Mother Goose, Conner sets off on a mission across Europe to crack a 200-year-old code. Meanwhile, Alex Bailey is training to become the next Fairy Godmother...but her attempts at granting wishes never go as planned. Will she ever be truly ready to lead the Fairy Council? When all signs point to disaster for the Land of Stories, Conner and Alex must join forces with their friends and enemies to save the day. But nothing can prepare them for the coming battle...or for the secret that will change the twins' lives forever. The third book in the best-selling Land of Stories series puts the twins to the test as they must bring two worlds together!

Based on her inspiring, viral 2018 commencement speech to Barnard College's graduates in New York City, New York Times best-selling author, two-time Olympic gold medallist and FIFA World Cup champion Abby Wambach delivers her empowering rally cry for women to unleash their individual power, unite with their pack and emerge victorious together. Abby Wambach became a champion because of her incredible talent as a football player. She became an icon because of her remarkable wisdom as a leader. As the cocaptain of the 2015 Women's World Cup Champion Team, she created a culture not just of excellence but of honour, commitment, resilience and sisterhood. She helped transform a group of individual women into one of the most successful, powerful and united Wolfpacks of all time. In her retirement, Abby's ready to do the same for her new team: All Women Everywhere. She insists that women must let go of old rules of leadership that neither include nor serve them. She's created a new set of Wolfpack rules to help women unleash their individual power, unite with their Wolfpack, and change the landscape of their lives and world. Make failure your fuel: Transform failure to wisdom and power. Lead from the bench: lead from wherever you are. Champion each other: claim each woman's victory as your own. Demand the effing ball: don't ask permission - take what you've earned. In Abby's vision, we are not Little Red Riding Hoods staying on the path because we're told to. We are the wolves fighting for a better tomorrow for ourselves, our pack and all the future wolves who will come after us.

Alex and Conner Bailey's world is about to change, in this fast-paced adventure that uniquely combines our modern-day world with the enchanting realm of classic fairytales. The Land of Stories tells the tale of twins Alex and Conner. Through the mysterious powers of a cherished book of stories, they leave their world behind and find themselves in a foreign land full of wonder and magic where they come face-to-face with the fairy tale characters they grew up reading about. But after a series of encounters with witches, wolves, goblins, and trolls alike, getting back home is going to be harder than they thought.

In his highly anticipated new novel, Albom tenderly explores the themes of family, divorce, and regrets, and the wish that we could have just one more day with a lost loved one. Charley, a child of divorce, is forced to choose between his mother and his father. He grows into a man and starts a family of his own. But one fateful weekend, he leaves his mother to secretly be with his father, and she dies while he is gone. This haunts him for years and unravels his own young family. It leads him to depression and drunkenness, and one night, he decides to take his life. But somewhere between this world and the next, he encounters his mother again, in their hometown, and gets to spend one last day with her -- the day he missed and always wished he'd had. He asks the questions many of us yearn to ask, the questions we never ask while our parents are alive. By the end of this magical day, Charley discovers how little he really knew about his mother, the secret of how her love saved their family, and how deeply he wants a second chance to save his own.

A New York Times best seller Winner of the GoodReads Choice Awards 2017 for Humour In this collection of personal essays, the beloved star of Gilmore Girls and Parenthood reveals stories about life, love, and working as a woman in Hollywood along with behind-the-scenes dispatches from the set of the new Gilmore Girls, where she plays the fast-talking Lorelai Gilmore once again. In Talking as Fast as I Can, Lauren Graham hits 'pause' for a moment and looks back on her life, sharing laugh-out-loud stories about growing up, starting out as an actress, and, years later, sitting in her trailer on the Parenthood set and asking herself, 'Did you, um, make it?' She opens up about the challenges of being single in Hollywood ('Strangers were worried about me; that's how long I was single!'), the time she was asked to audition her butt for a role, and her experience being a judge on Project Runway ('It's like I had a fashion-induced blackout'). In 'What It Was Like, Part One', Graham sits down for an epic Gilmore Girls marathon and reflects on being cast as the fast-talking Lorelai Gilmore. The essay 'What It Was Like, Part Two' reveals how it felt to pick up the role again nine years later and what doing so has meant to her. Some more things you will learn about Lauren: she once tried to go vegan just to bond with Ellen DeGeneres; she's aware that meeting guys at awards shows has its pitfalls ('If you're meeting someone for the first time after three hours of hair, makeup, and styling, you've already set the bar too high'); and she's a card-carrying REI shopper ('My bungee cords now earn points!'). Including photos and excerpts from the diary Graham kept during the filming of the recent Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, this book is like a cosy night in, catching up with your best friend, laughing and swapping stories, and - of course - talking as fast as you can.