Indie publisher of lively literature and intriguing images
All our titles are available wherever you normally buy your books.
And also directly from us, signed by the author, and with free postage if you are in the UK.
Thought-provoking and entertaining.
2nd Edition includes 26 bonus tissues
ISBN: 978-1-8381124-8-6
Restroom Reflections
How Communication Changes Everything
By Alison Jean Lester
These thought-provoking and entertaining essays on how to improve our communication – with ourselves, with our loved ones, with our colleagues and clients, and with strangers – offer tips on developing confidence, awareness, sensitivity, humor, effectiveness, and creativity. Communication coach and author Alison Jean Lester draws from her varied experiences as corporate coach, writer, stand-up and improvisational comedian, world traveler, mother, wife, daughter, sister and friend to bring you this series of pithy reflections on common communication hurdles, and tools for making them feel a lot smaller.
Reviews and Praise
Restroom Refelections is a must-read for anyone who endeavors to be a better communicator. It's compulsive reading - full of insights and practical tips, all lovingly nestled in Alison's witty and candid stories about life. The lessons in this book apply equally well in the boardroom, dining room, or waiting room.
Andrea Howe, co-author, The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook
I first came across this collection of essays when I was running a large communications agency in Asia. I used the story of Alison's father-in-law, who was a leading salesman because of the way he communicated, as a mantra within the company. It's great to reconnect with Restroom Reflections now, several years later, and find the old reflections as fresh as ever and the new ones intriguing and inspiring. I'm delighted that we can enjoy them all in one expanded volume of thought-provocation.
Ian Thubron, Founder, Asia Strategies, Western Australia
In this book, Alison's humorous and heartwarming tales demonstrate the importance of overcoming obstacles, facing your fears, and discovering your inner strength. From encouraging workplace morale to challenging presenters to reclaim authenticity, they are a captivating exploration of the impact of life experiences on communication, resilience, and personal growth.
Scott MacMeekin, Entrepreneur
A creative springboard.
28 page booklet with 22 colour photographs
ISBN: 978-1-7385341-0-4
Available now!
Abandoned Shoe Haiku
By Andrew Gurnett
A book designed as a collection of curious photographs and a series of writing prompts to encourage creativity.
“While walking our dog Jasper every day, I kept noticing abandoned shoes. Often one but sometimes a pair. I could not help but wonder what had happened. Why had the shoes been left there? Forgetfulness? Haste? Clumsiness? Or something more sinister? Of course the dramatic ideas were the ones that stuck with me.”
The images in this short book are a perfect starting point for creative writing, whether that is a short story, a character study, a poem or as the book offers, a haiku. Included with the Abandoned Shoe images is a short guide to writing a haiku, three example haiku verses and a series of questions designed as writing prompts. A great book for teens to adults who want to kickstart their writing.
“I enjoyed the photo prompt - it’s a really atmospheric shot, with the focussed details of the shoe and ivy but enough space in the green around it to let the imagination take over and create what might be in the shadows as well as how it got there.”
- Sarah James, poet and author
Hardback
ISBN: 978-1-8381124-7-9
A timeless treasure.
Return to the Scene of the Climb
By James T. Lester
If you are in the USA, please order directly from Belmont Books as they are keeping stock for us.
A story of the first American Ascent of Everest and the subsequent search for the Sherpas who made it possible.
Edited by Alison Jean Lester and with forewords by Dr. Pasang Yangjee Sherpa and Tom Hornbein.
A dog-eared, typewritten manuscript about participation in the American Mount Everest Expedition (AMEE) of 1963. Notes detailing a two-month trip across the United States with the first Sherpa group ever to travel there. A seven-chapter manuscript about a return to the Himalayan region in 1998 to look up the Sherpa climbers from 1963 and document, in their own words, how their lives had changed.
These, along with 78 colour photographs, are the elements of Return to the Scene of the Climb, the collected observations, of psychologist James T. Lester (1927-2010), whose experience on Everest took him not only all the way to Advance Base Camp but also along more roads, away from Nepal and back again, than anyone could have predicted.
Reviews and Praise
James T. Lester is one of the few persons who saw an expedition to Mount Everest for what it really is, and his craft of telling human stories with honesty and affection makes his book a timeless treasure. It is rare for a westerner to see Sherpas beyond just a number of people assisting his team on the mountain. We could connect with Lester on so many levels, being moved by the human sides of stories that often get overlooked in ‘bigger’ histories.
Ankit Babu Adhikari & Pradeep Bashyal authors of SHERPA: Stories of Life and Death from the Forgotten Guardians of Everest
Just as John Morris, a non-climber, was there in 1953 to chronicle Hillary and Tenzing and the British triumph on Everest, James Lester accompanied his countrymen in 1963, as Jim Whittaker became the first American to reach the summit of the world. Unlike Morris, a journalist on the trail of a scoop, Lester was there to study the men, seeking psychological insights in their mental and physical struggles. The diaries, notes, and commentary that make up this wonderful book offer both a unique portrait of the heroic climbers of 1963, and an astonishing opening to a time of innocence when reaching the top of Everest somehow seemed perfectly aligned with dreams to reach the surface of the moon.
Wade Davis, author of Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest
This is a wonderful look at one of the most under-appreciated elements of the adventure life: the way that these experiences can change the lives of everyone involved—especially those local peoples who too often stand in the shadows of adventure stories. It stands out as a unique, insightful, and remarkably compassionate contribution to mountain literature.
Geoff Powter, mountaineer, author of Strange and Dangerous Dreams
In this mini-masterpiece, Jim Lester illuminates the fortitude of a driven team of Americans, then returns to the scene of the climb to explore the trajectories of the Sherpas who made their Everest success possible. The two cultures converge – and find they share a common humanity.
Broughton Coburn, conservationist, author of The Vast Unknown
ISBN: 978-1-8381124-0-0
It is tender, light-footed, funny, painful and gallant, and in writing with courage and wit about dying well, Lester has written about living well.
Absolutely Delicious: A Chronicle of Extraordinary Dying
By Alison Jean Lester with illustrations by Mary Ann Frye
After a life marbled with exploration, academia, and domesticity, the writer Valerie Lester retired to a residential hospice and set about enjoying the final act of her life.
Yes. Enjoying.
She knew just where she wanted to be, with whom, doing what, and she communicated this to her family and friends with clarity and consistency. She died nine weeks later, having engaged in dying with equanimity, curiosity, and even amusement.
In Absolutely Delicious, Valerie’s daughter describes the roads leading to her mother’s cooperation with her terminal disease and her decision to forego treatments that might have prolonged her life, but also might have ruined her death. It is a story that illuminates the benefits of acceptance and the many gifts offered by daring to own one’s end.
Alison’s book forces us to confront and reassess all that we believe about the end of our lives. That terminal illness and the process of dying could be a time of peace, acceptance and gentle indulgence, instead of sadness and pain. Pick it up for a fresh perspective.
Emily Wright, Staff Writer, Marie Curie
The book encapsulates, in the very best way, how we ultimately consist of our relationships and effects on other people, and how dying can be a very beautiful event.
Kate Edgar, Executive Director, The Oliver Sacks Foundation
Compelling, moving, brave, and unflinching.
Neal Baer, MD, Producer and writer of ER, Law & Order Special Victims Unit and Designated Survivor
In chronicling her mother's terminal illness, Lester shows us something rare and wonderful: that facing the end of life can be done with directness, equanimity, and humor. As a palliative care physician I've read countless stories about dying patients but none as engaging and original as this, opening my eyes to what's possible for future patients and families I care for.
Jane deLima Thomas, MD, Palliative Care Physician, Harvard Medical School
We would not want to have missed the opportunity to read this deeply engaging, very readable account of three remarkable experiences of dying. It has been so very valuable both to reflect on deaths gone by – the similarities; what could have been done better and differently – and to make notes of top tips and insights for how we may better accompany people going forward. Three very different deaths are described by Alison – her father, mother and aunt. We would offer this book to people who have had a terminal diagnosis as it describes so beautifully how people can live to the very end and then die on their own terms.
Aly Dickinson, Secretary, End of Life Doula UK