The Barefoot Road

The Barefoot Road is a novel by Vivienne Vermes.

It is set in the mountainous lands of Transylvania.

A young lady is discovered in a dreadful condition, in the mountains that surround a village. She has obviously gone without nutrition for a period of time, as she is a starved and emaciated in appearance. She is also unconscious. 

The villagers realise that she was a member of an ethnic group which had been dispersed from the area many years before. This causes much heart searching by the inhabitants of the village, as they recall their own parts in the ethnic cleansing.

The situation remains in an uneasy status quo until a young man of the village happens to fall in love with the girl. Unfortunately he is already married, which causes tensions in the village to grow and grow.

It is clear that something will happen, and when a child in the village disappears in mysterious circumstances, the situation escalates from tension to outright hysteria and brings the story to a heartstopping and dreadful outcome.

The book is poetic and timeless and shows exactly why Vivienne Verme is an award winning novelist and poet.

It will become a classic of European literature.

It is published by Matador at £8.99.

Mark's Out of Eleven

Author Will Stebbings takes his readers on another welcome dip into the paddling pool of nostalgia that is 1960s Britain.

In his latest novel Mark's Out of Eleven, he takes us back to September 1960. What is relevant about that particular month? Because in the United Kingdom, September is the month when all children who attend state controlled schools will commence the school year, which run from September to July.

In this particular year, Mark Barker is starting his first year at senior school. Because he has passed the eleven-plus exam, he will be taking his place at the local Grammar School, called Parkside.

He has followed his brother to the school and, because they are a working class family living on the limited means that are provided by their father's employment, times are not easy for the Barker family, and sending two children to a Grammar School is not cheap.

The one result is that Mark suffers the humiliation of having to wear hand-me-down school blazers, previously worn by his older brother.

Having had to leave his old primary school friends behind (most of whom would have gone on to the local secondary modern school, for children who failed or who didn't take the eleven-plus) Mark has to try to forge new friendships. Thankfully he is fairly successful in this endeavour.

The headmaster of Parkside is something of a martinent who rules his school with iron discipline and a wooden cane. Which he frequently uses to enforce his reign.

There's another teacher who the pupils both loathe and fear, the sports master who employs violence to make his points.

The book will resonate, perhaps pleasantly in some parts, not so pleasantly in others as we read about the teaching staff at Parkside, about their casual brutality and their often lacklustre teaching methods, about bullying, the first hormonal stirrings when girls are sighted.

We also glimpse the homelife of Mark and his family and see how mothers of that time juggled the financial pittance brought in to the house by their hardworking, but poorly paid husbands.

Will Stebbings also takes a look at prejudices of the 1960s at a time when male homosexuaslity was still illegal.

It's a thoughtful book which is a trip down memory lane and all for only £7.99! The book is published by Matador.

How to Become a Football Agent

Football, soccer, call, it what you will, the World Cup has raised a great deal of interest in the world of football.

Children all over the world are playing on the streets, in their back gardens or backyards, joining football clubs and there is also a growing interest in professional football.

The total annual wages bill for European football players alone is over £9.5 billion every year. That's  $12.630 billion.

The standard football agent percentage fee is 10% of that wage bill, so it's easy to see why becoming a football agent is widely seen as a lucrative field to get into.

But you don't just open an office and launch a website announcing that you are now a professional football agent. There's obviously a lot more than that involved!

How to Become a Football Agent: The Guide will offer you a unique and highly informative insight into the first steps to becoming a football agent.

Written by Dr Erkut Sogut LL,M., Jack Pentol-Levy and Charlie Pentol-Levy, the guide offers unique insights into how football works from a business perspective and shows you how to start on the first rung of the ladder to becoming a football agent.

It also draws on advice from experienced agents such as Pere Guardiola, Lihan Gundogan and Harun Arslan.

It also offers tips on how football agents interact with sports lawyers and journalism. For example, the Chief Soccer Correspondent on the New York Times, Rory Smith, offers his opinions on football agency.

The book (it's written by the team behind Football Agent Education) will help provide you with the varied skills you will require to work as a football agent.

It gives information about he different rules and regulations of professional football bodies in Europe and the USA.

It details how you can get into the business, even if you do not have family connections or friends in the football industry, the type of work you will do as an agent, how you should interact with footballers, including your clients, employment contracts, etc.

It's a short but highly informative book and at £11.99 from Matador, it could be your way into a very lucrative career or business.

You can learn more by visiting www.footballagenteducation.com, Instagram @footballagenteducation or on Twitter @education_agent.

Stand and Deliver! The definitive public speaking guide

The first time I had to address a large public gathering, I was very nervous and although I did OK, I somehow felt that I could have done better. And I am sure that if I had owned a copy of Stand and Deliver! by expert speaking coach Ian Nichol, I know that I could have done much better than I did.

Ian's book is a definitive and wholy authoritative guide to public speaking.

It is written in a highly readable and engaging style (seasoned with a good deal of very enjoyable humour!) this book will dramatically improve your public speaking performances.

If you are already an accomplished public speaker and doubt that this book will be of assistance to you, think again, because it is the type of book that can make poor good, good great and great even greater.

There really is something for everyone in this book, from the nervous neophyte to the seasoned professional after dinner speaker.

He looks at some myths about public speaking and effortlessly knocks them down, how ner4ves can be your friend when it comes to public speaking, (really? Yes, and Ian will show you exactly how you can achieve this.

Ian acknowledges his debt to one of the best public speakers ever, a now sadly almost forgotten journalist and politician called Spence Leigh Hughes, who was reputedly the best public speaker of his generation whose book published in 1913 The Art of Public Speaking Ian describes as: "an absolute classic."

In Stand and Deliver you will learn and master the 40 simple steps to successful public speaking.

Some of the points are how you should employ topicality, ignore people who think thay you couldn't speak in public, why you should follow the advice of Cicero. Don't worry, the particular advice is quoted in the book. But, that Cicero! Dead these 2040+ years, yet still relevant today! What a man!)

There's a great deal of other highly useful material about how breathing properly can help, how to use logical thought processes and how to prepare yourself for a public address. Here's one clue, research. Which with the advent of the Internet means it can be a lot easier than it used to be.

Ian also leavens his book with interesting little asides such as how Warren Buffet became a great public speaker after a dreadful start, what PIETISM  is and how you should apply it, he names two people who he credits with using their oratorical skills to change the world, and various other people who spoke well before great and/or terrible events.

The book is published by Matador4 at £12.99  and if you or any colleagues ever make public addresses, please for your own good, buy this book.

To Everyman a Brain

To Everyman a Brain is a new book from a free thinking and innovative marketing consultant called Kenny Salami.

Salami has amassed nearly a quarter century of experiences in creating and building brands, plus he has been involved in the creating and setting up of a wide range of different innovative startup concerns.

At present he is the CEO behind Ideas House, a highly reputable marketing leadership and consulting firm. His keen abilities are also recognised by industry colleagues by his position as the Presidency of the Experiential Marketers of Nigeria (EXMAN).

With a global population that is nearing seven billion souls, Kenny Salami points out that the vast majority of young people are both honest and honest and hardworking.

But, he tells his readers,  they are more ‘doers’ than ‘thinkers’.

But this, he points out  is where the real problem lies.

This is the irony, for although vital to executing ideas, ‘doing’ alone will always remain inferior to ‘thinking’. But why is thinking always the primordial senior brother to doing?

In To Everyman a Brain Kenny Salami takes his readers on a journey of discovery uncovering the myths that surround creative thinking and introducing vital methodologies that will help each individual become a creative and innovative genius.

Can you even imagine a world without ideas? Without them, all one can imagine is a picture of ‘doers’ moving robotically from one odd task to the other, ultimately destined for a dismal cul-de-sac.

But Kenny Salami will take you on a journey of self-discovery that will make sure you, your family or your enterprise, your community or even your country will be able to enjoy a much better path.

The book is published by Matador at £15.50.

The Two Lives of Grand Duke Michael

The Two Lives of Grand Duke Michael is a novel written by Michael Roman.

It is set in the Russia of 1918 and is one of the types of novel that your reviewer loves to devour. An historical 'what if?' novel.

Based on many hours of research in historical archives and with the application of logic and his fertile imagination Michael Roman comes up with a credible and highly readable novel that explores the intriguing concept that what if Grand Duke Michael had survived the assassination attempt ordered on him by none other that Vladimir Lenin himself?

The facts in the first part of the novel are an account of what actually took place and are a latter of historical record.

In February 1918 during the Great War, Michael underook a hazardous two-week journey to the UK from Bolshevik Russia to meet with the Western Allies.

His mission was to discuss plans for an invasion of Russia to sweep the Bolsheviks from power and to install Grand Duke Michael as the new Tsar.

Upon his return to Russia the plans for such an invasion came to  a juddering stop when he was murdered whilst held under house arrest in Siberia.

At this juncture Michael Roman imagines a different, alternative history for Grand Duke Michael.

He describes how Grand Duke Michael survives the assassination attempt and how he is assisted by Sidney Reilly the legendary but very genuine MI6 agent to escape from Siberia and how he is taken to live a new life in the UK.

Under a new identity he lives under the protection of the British Secret Service and works as a code breaker at Bletchley Park during the Second World War.

Incidentally the story hangs on an interesting historical fact. Although it is generally believed that Grand Duke Michael and his British secretary, Nicholas Johnson, were assassinated, no remains have ever been discovered.

In the book there are acts of treachery and treason, of bravery and self-sacrifice and of nobility under great pressure. 

It is an amazing and intriguing book which is published by Matador at £12.99. I have a feeling that many readers will take this book with them on their summer holidays. Though it's doubtful that they will be taking such a perilous journey as that undertaken by Grand Duke Michael.

Seeking Atticus

Seeking Atticus is a new novel from the pen of Norm D'Plume.

We meet Liv and we are invited to look at how Liv manages (or doesn't) to cope with a wide range of adverse situations that beset her.

Things don't seem to be going well for Liv as she manages to battle her way out of a marriage that was beset with disastrous circumstances, which just join the long chain of catastrophes that makes up the life that she blunders through.

Still, she has her two young sons to help her face life as she tries to make sense of what it (life) tosses her way.

Set against the backdrop of the 1980s (great for some, not quite so great for others) it is a book that is charmingly funny.

Liv (or Olivia, to give her her full name) is awaiting the financial settlement of her shipwreck of a marriage, following her divorce.

The novel opens with her working at the boarding kennel that is owned by a friend.

There's Michael, with whom Liv's friendship is growing nicely and there is always Atticus, too. Atticus who? Atticus Finch, that's who!

She is seeking the Atticus Finch within not only herself, but within everyone else, too.

There are people who are out to get Liv, her crazed ex Carl, for one, Carl is planning, plotting and scheming the financial ruination of Liv with his high powered team of high flying legal experts.

He is confident that his team will manage to utterly destroy Liv and her "Legal Aid" crew.

But is he right to be so supremely confident? The only way to find out is to purchase this highly enjoyable book published by The Book Guild, at a highly reasonable £8.99. It's going to be a great holiday read.

Incidentally on reading the book I got the distinct impression that it is, at least in part, autobiography cunningly disguised as fiction! Readers can see if my judgement is sound on that point. Though in my defence I can only say, as well as reading the book, please pay special attention to the author's dedication!