Steve Pemberton

In this stirring follow-up to his memoir, Steve Pemberton gives practical encouragement for how you can be a "human lighthouse" for others and through these inspiring stories will renew your hope for humanity. Our polarized, divisive culture seems to be without heroes and role models. We are adrift in a dark sea of disillusionment and distrust and we need "human lighthouses" to give us hope and direct us back to the goodness in each other and in our own hearts. Steve Pemberton found a lighthouse in an ordinary man named John Sykes, his former high school counselor. John gave Steve a safe harbor after Steve escaped an abusive foster home and together they navigated a new path that led to personal and professional success. Through stories of people like John and several others, you will identify how the hardships you have overcome equip you to be a "human lighthouse," inspiring those around you. The humble gestures of kindness that change the course of our lives can shift the course for America too. With a unique vision for building up individuals and communities and restoring trust, The Lighthouse Effect opens your eyes to those who are quietly heroic. You will reflect on the lighthouses in your own life and be reminded that the greatest heroes are alongside us--and within us.

How Ordinary People Can Have an Extraordinary Impact in the World

The Lighthouse Effect

A heart-rending but uplifting story of the human spirit’s ability to prevail. From the day he is five-years-old and dropped off at his foster home of the next eleven years, Stephen is mentally and physically tortured. No one in the system can help him. No one can tell him if he has a family. No one can tell him why, with obvious African-American features, he has the last name of Klakowicz. Along the way, a single faint light comes only from a neighbor’s small acts of kindness and caring—and a box of books. From one of those books he learns that he has to fight in any way he can—for victory is in the battle. His victory is to excel in school. Against all odds, the author succeeded. He attended college, graduated, became a successful corporate executive, and married a wonderful woman with whom he established a loving family of his own. Through it, he dug voraciously through records and files and found his history, his birth family—and the ultimate disappointment as some family members embrace him, but others reject him. Readers won’t be the same after reading this powerful story. They will share in the hurts and despair but also in the triumph against daunting obstacles. They will share this story with their family, with their friends, with their neighbors.

An Orphan Boy, a Mysterious Past, and How He Found a Place Called Home

A CHANCE IN THE WORLD

No matter how broken our past or great our misfortunes, we can create a new beginning and build a life of love and kindness. Taken from his mother at age three, Steve Klakowicz lives in the clutches of a cruel foster family. He finds his only refuge in a box of books given to him by a kind stranger, books that take him to new worlds he can only imagine. He begins to hope that one day he might have a different life. As he grows, Steve is determined to unravel the mystery of his origins and find his birth family. A light-skinned boy with blue eyes, a curly Afro, and a Polish last name, he embarks on an extraordinary quest for his identity, armed with only one clue. Yet nothing is as it appears. In this inspiring and harrowing memoir, A Chance in the World teaches children: to begin each day with hope that there is goodness in the world, and it is possible to be a beacon of light for others that they can overcome challenging circumstances that everyone comes from different backgrounds and has value to apply Steve's inspirational message to their own lives, through age-appropriate discussion questions This new youth adaption, written for 8 to 12 year-olds, shares Steve's journey with sensitivity, honesty, and hope. Adapted from the USA Today bestselling memoir, A Chance in the World.

A Chance in the World (Young Readers Edition)

Reece Shearsmith

Take a further peek behind the door marked 'number 9' as the scripts from series 1-3 are collected here for the first time. An anthology of darkly comic twisted tales by Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, read how each 30-minute self-contained story with new characters and new settings, sprang to life from the page. Each series is prefaced by a foreword from the show creators, giving readers and fans behind-the-scenes insight to this creative phenomenon. It is a beautifully written series, some stories comic, some tragic, all highly original and inventive. As well as Steve and Reece, it has featured guest appearances from a plethora well-known actors including Jack Whitehall, Peter Kay, Sheridan Smith, Gemma Arterton, Keeley Hawes, Alison Steadman, Conleth Hill, and David Morrissey. Relive the show's every enjoyable moment down to the stage directions with Inside No. 9: The Scripts: Series 1-3.

Inside No. 9: The Scripts Series 1-3

Jeremy Dyson

The League of Gentlemen have been making audiences laugh for years, but what makes them tick and what is behind their dark, twisted humour? In this book, all four members have assembled a stunning collection of prose, poetry, sketches, lyrics and classic film scenes to create a very special Book of Precious Things. The League of Gentlemen was critically acclaimed when the first series was shown on BBC2 in 1999. Already known from their radio show On The Town?, the League were much discussed, with their unique mixture of very black comedy and harrowing social observation set in the fictional town of Royston Vasey.With a mind-blowing mixture of influences from Hammer Horror, Carry On and Martin Amis to Monty Python, Shakespeare and Victoria Wood, the League are utterly unique and more than a little disturbing!

Steve Pemberton

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