Clare Pooley

Every day Iona, a larger-than-life magazine advice columnist, travels the ten stops from Hampton Court to Waterloo Station by train, accompanied by her dog, Lulu. Every day she sees the same people, whom she knows only by nickname: Impossibly-Pretty-Bookworm and Terribly-Lonely-Teenager. Of course, they never speak. Seasoned commuters never do. Then one morning, the man she calls Smart-But-Sexist-Manspreader chokes on a grape right in front of her. He’d have died were it not for the timely intervention of Sanjay, a nurse, who gives him the Heimlich maneuver. This single event starts a chain reaction, and an eclectic group of people with almost nothing in common except their commute discover that a chance encounter can blossom into much more. It turns out that talking to strangers can teach you about the world around you--and even more about yourself.

BY THE AUTHOR OF NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER THE AUTHENTICITY PROJECT, THE BRAVE AND FUNNY MEMOIR THAT IS CHANGING LIVES.How one mother gave up drinking and started living. This is Bridget Jones Dries Out.Clare Pooley is a Cambridge graduate and was a Managing Partner at one of the world's biggest advertising agencies, and yet by eighteen months ago she'd become an overweight, depressed, middle-aged mother of three who was drinking more than a bottle of wine a day, and spending her evenings Googling 'Am I an alcoholic?'In a desperate bid to turn her life around, she quit drinking and started a blog. She called it Mummy Was a Secret Drinker.This book is the story of a year in Clare's life. A year that started with her quitting booze having been drinking more than a bottle of wine every day. It sees her starting a hugely successful blog, then getting and beating breast cancer. By the end of the year she is booze free and cancer free, two stone lighter and with a life that is so much richer, healthier and more rewarding than ever before. Sober Diaries is an upbeat, funny and positive look at how to live life to the full. Interwoven within Clare's own very personal and frank story is research and advice, and answers to questions How do I know if I'm drinking too much? How will I cope at parties? What do I say to friends and family? How do I cope with cravings? Will I lose weight? What if my partner still drinks? And many more.

ΟΤΑΝ Η ΗΛΙΚΙΑ ΣΕ ΚΑΝΕΙ ΑΟΡΑΤΟ, ΕΙΝΑΙ ΠΙΟ ΕΥΚΟΛΟ ΝΑ ΚΡΑΤΗΣΕΙΣ ΤΑ ΜΥΣΤΙΚΑ ΣΟΥ ΚΡΥΦΑ H Ντάφνι ξέρει ότι η ηλικία είναι απλώς ένας αριθμός. Ξέρει επίσης ότι η κοινωνία δεν της δίνει πια καμία απολύτως σημασία – πράγμα που εκμεταλλεύεται ευχαρίστως για να αποκρύψει ορισμένα σκοτεινά στοιχεία της ζωής της. Όταν κλείνει τα εβδομήντα, αποφασίζει ότι χρειάζεται μερικούς φίλους γύρω της. Η προοπτική να γραφτεί σε μια κοινωνική λέσχη ηλικιωμένων την τρομοκρατεί – δεν είναι του γούστου της να παίζει χαρτιά και να ανταλλάσσει αβρότητες. Όμως τα μέλη της λέσχης δεν είναι όπως περίμενε. Εκεί συναντάει τον Αρτ, έναν αποτυχημένο ηθοποιό και ορκισμένο κλεπτομανή, τη Ρούμπι, τη θηλυκή εκδοχή του Banksy που πλέκει παθιασμένα. Και τη Λίντια, που ανέλαβε την οργάνωση της λέσχης, αλλά τελικά τα βρίσκει σκούρα. Μετά την απρόσμενη κατάρρευση του μισού κτιρίου, το δημοτικό συμβούλιο απειλεί να βάλει λουκέτο στη λέσχη – δεν έχουν καταλάβει όμως με ποιους τα έβαλαν. Οι ηλικιωμένοι με τη βοήθεια των νηπίων του παιδικού σταθμού, ενός έφηβου πατέρα και μιας υπέργηρης σκυλίτσας, κάνουν ό,τι περνάει από το χέρι τους για να σώσουν την πολύτιμη λέσχη…

Ποτέ δεν μιλάμε σε αγνώστους στο τρένο. Αυτός είναι ο κανόνας. Τι θα γινόταν όμως αν τον παραβαίναμε; Κάθε πρωί στις 8:05, η Iona Iverson παίρνει το τρένο για να πάει στη δουλειά. Κάθε μέρα, βλέπει τους ίδιους ανθρώπους και κάνει εικασίες γι’ αυτούς – τους δίνει ακόμα και παρατσούκλια. Ποτέ όμως δεν μιλάνε. Προφανώς. Έπειτα, ένα πρωί, ο Έξυπνος-μα-σεξιστής Surbiton στραβοκαταπίνει μια ρώγα σταφυλιού μπροστά στα μάτια της Iona και πνίγεται. Όταν ένας άλλος επιβάτης επεμβαίνει και του σώζει τη ζωή, προκαλείται μια αλυσιδωτή αντίδραση. Μια ετερόκλητη ομάδα ανθρώπων με μόνο κοινό το ότι παίρνουν το ίδιο τρένο μαθαίνουν ότι οι εικασίες που κάνουμε για τους άλλους δεν συνάδουν με την πραγματικότητα. Όταν όμως η ζωή της Iona αρχίσει να παίρνει την κάτω βόλτα, θα τη συντρέξουν αυτοί οι καινούργιοι φίλοι;

Every day Iona Iverson, a larger-than-life magazine advice columnist, travels the ten stops from Hampton Court to Waterloo Station by train, accompanied by her dog, Lulu. Every day she sees the same people, whom she knows only by nickname: Impossibly-Pretty-Bookworm and Terribly-Lonely-Teenager. Of course, they never speak. Seasoned commuters never do. Then one morning, the man she calls Smart-But-Sexist-Manspreader chokes on a grape right in front of her. He’d have died were it not for the timely intervention of Sanjay, a nurse, who gives him the Heimlich maneuver. This single event starts a chain reaction, and an eclectic group of people with almost nothing in common except their commute discover that a chance encounter can blossom into much more. It turns out that talking to strangers can teach you about the world around you--and even more about yourself.

A senior citizens’ center and a daycare collide with hilarious results in the new ensemble comedy from New York Times-bestselling author Clare Pooley When Lydia takes a job running the Senior Citizens’ Social Club three afternoons a week, she assumes she’ll be spending her time drinking tea and playing gentle games of cards. The members of the Social Club, however, are not at all what Lydia was expecting. From Art, a failed actor turned kleptomaniac to Daphne, who has been hiding from her dark past for decades to Ruby, a Banksy-style knitter who gets revenge in yarn, these seniors look deceptively benign—but when age makes you invisible, secrets are so much easier to hide. When the city council threatens to sell the doomed community center building, the members of the Social Club join forces with their tiny friends in the daycare next door—as well as the teenaged father of one of the toddlers and a geriatric dog—to save the building. Together, this group’s unorthodox methods may actually work, as long as the police don’t catch up with them first.

The story of a solitary green notebook that brings together six strangers and leads to unexpected friendship, and even loveJulian Jessop, an eccentric, lonely artist and septuagenarian believes that most people aren't really honest with each other. But what if they were? And so he writes--in a plain, green journal--the truth about his own life and leaves it in his local café. It's run by the incredibly tidy and efficient Monica, who furtively adds her own entry and leaves the book in the wine bar across the street. Before long, the others who find the green notebook add the truths about their own deepest selves--and soon find each other In Real Life at Monica's Café. The Authenticity Project's cast of characters--including Hazard, the charming addict who makes a vow to get sober; Alice, the fabulous mommy Instagrammer whose real life is a lot less perfect than it looks online; and their other new friends--is by turns quirky and funny, heartbreakingly sad and painfully true-to-life. It's a story about being brave and putting your real self forward--and finding out that it's not as scary as it seems. In fact, it looks a lot like happiness. The Authenticity Project is just the tonic for our times that readers are clamoring for--and one they will take to their hearts and read with unabashed pleasure.