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On a narrow cobbled
street in a northern mill
town young Harry
Bernstein and his family
face a daily struggle to
make ends meet. This is
the true story of those
harsh years,
overshadowed by the First
World War.
Amidst
the hardship and
suffering,
Harry
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Growing up in rural
Yorkshire in the 1940s
and 50s, Terry Wilson
spent his school days
hunting down Just
William books,
cutting up apples to help
with fractions and
staring out the window
dreaming up new schemes.
But it was on the
Dales themselves that
Terry came into his own.
Whether he was
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Sir David Attenborough is
Britain's best-known
natural history
film-maker. His career as
a naturalist and
broadcaster has spanned
nearly five decades and
there are very few places
on the globe that he has
not visited. In this
volume of memoirs David
tells stories of the
people and animals he has
met and the places that
he has visited. Sir
David's first job - after
Cambridge University and
two years in the Royal
Navy was at the London
publishing house Hodder &
Stoughton. Then in 1952
he joined the BBC as a
trainee producer and it
was while working on the
Zoo Quest series
(1954-64) that he had his
first opportunity to
undertake expeditions to
remote parts of the globe
to capture intimate
footage of rare wildlife
in its natural habitat.
He was Controller of BBC2
(1965-68), during which
time he introduced colour
television to Britain,
then Director of
Programmes for the BBC
(1969-1972). However in
1973 he abandoned
administration altogether
to return to
documentary-making and
writing. Over the last 25
years he has established
himself as the World's
leading Natural History
programme maker with
several landmark BBC
series, including Life
on Earth (1979), The
Living Planet (1984),
The Trials of Life
(1990), The Private Life
of Plants (1995) and Life
of Birds (1998). Sir
David is a Trustee of the
British Museum and the
Royal Botanic Gardens,
Kew; an Honorary Fellow
of Clare College,
Cambridge; a Fellow of
the Royal Society and was
knighted in 1985.
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Azar Nafisi, author of
the international
bestseller Reading
Lolita in Tehran,
now
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Azar Nafisi, author of
the international
bestseller Reading
Lolita in Tehran,
now
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The immigration man read
my deportation order,
looked at it and handed
it back to me. 'Are you
Irish?' he asked me.
'No' I said 'as a
matter of fact, I'm
Yemenite Arab.'
Two detectives
came forward who were
evidently there to meet
me. 'Apparently he is
Brendan Behan, ' they
said.
The
immigration officer shook
my hand and his hard face
softened. 'Cead mile
failte romhat abhaile.'
(A hundred thousand
welcomes home to you.) I
could not answer. There
are no words and it would
be impertinence to try. I
walked down the gangway.
I was free.
First
published after Brendan
Behan's tragic death,
Confessions of an Irish
Rebel picks up where
Borstal Boy left off. Not
only is it the last
instalment of a unique
and unorthodox
autobiography, but of a
unique and unorthodox
life that was as touched
with genius as it was
with
doom.
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From Barnardo boy to
original virgin soldier;
from apprentice
journalist in London's
Fleet Street to famous
novelist...
At
times funny, at times
sad, but always honest
and utterly compulsive,
Leslie Thomas's story is
straight out of fiction.
As an orphan, he picked
his way through the
rubble of post-war
Britain and was sent on
national service to the
Far East. Later he became
a Fleet Street reporter,
with hilarious
experiences to relate,
and then became the
bestselling author of
The Virgin
Soldiers - the novel
that, although
scandalous in its day,
is now recognised as a
classic of its kind. He
is also the creator of
Dangerous Davies: The
Last Detective,
which has been adapted
into a popular television
series. In 2005, Leslie
Thomas was awarded an OBE
for services to
literature.
With a
new introduction for this
edition, this is an
amazing story, and
Leslie Thomas's magic
touch brings it crackling
to life with warmth, wit
and
humour.
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In his acclaimed and
much-loved memoir And
When Did You Last See
Your Father? Blake
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On 18 August 1941,
Orwell joined the BBC's
Overseas Service. After a
crash training course
(the documents for which
are reproduced here), he
was appointed a Talks
Producer responsible for
features, talks and
commentaries on the war,
to be broadcast to India.
He wrote at least 220
news commentaries for,
and broadcast to, India
and occupied Malaya and
Indonesia, of which
Orwell read fifty-six.
This volume shows that
formal censorship was not
as great a problem as has
been supposed, though it
obviously occurred and
Orwell's brushes with
censors are shown in
detail. Along with
Columes 14 and 15,
Volume 13 shows the
enormous efforts he made
to disseminate culture
rather than crude
propaganda. It is in this
volume that the origins
of 'Room 101' are to be
found; it has examples of
his first 'courses' for
Indian university student
- the forerunner of the
Open University; the
first issue of his
broadcast poetry
magazine, 'Voice', and
a nubmer of his own
broadcasts, including
'The Re-discovery of
Europe'. He continued to
review, to write essays,
and to contribute to
Partisan Review and he
was still active in the
Home Guard.
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In this haunting and
frank account, Donna
Ford, bestselling author
of The Step Child,
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Thomas More is one of the
great figures in English
history. Pre-eminent as a
courtier and as a
humanist, a friend to
Henry VIII and the author
of Utopia, More's life
and career epitomise the
great transformation of
England in the space of
35 years. Ackroyd
investigates the paradox
of this 'man for all
seasons': the man of the
world who travelled
across Europe to
negotiate on behalf of
his king, and the
unworldly man who's
careful silence on the
matter of Henry's
marriage to Anne Boleyn
would lead to his
disgrace and execution. A
magnificent achievement,
THE LIFE OF THOMAS MORE
gives us a rich portrait
of the man and the social
and cultural world in
which he lived.
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With superb skill and
feeling, Graham greene
retraces the experiences
and encounters of a long
and extraordinary life.
His restlessness is
legendary; he has
travelled like an
explorer seeking our
people and political
situations. 'at the
dangerous edge of things'
- Haiti during the
nightmare rule of Papa
Doc, Vietnam in the last
days - of the French.,
Cuba, Prague, Paraguay,
Kenya during the Mau Mau
rebellion. With ironic
delight he recalls his
time in the British
Secret Service in Africa,
and his brief
involvement in Hollywood.
He writes, as only he
can about people and
places, about faith,
doubt, fear and, not
least, the trials and
craft of writing.
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This no-holes-barred
account of Kelly
Obsourne's upbringing is
as shocking as it is
disarmingly funny. From
stories about her
father's alcoholism to
pushing over portaloos on
tour, Kelly
unflinchingly deals with
the extraordinary
experiences that have
made up her life so
far:
'Kelly
Osbourne has written
Fierce, a
handbook for teenage
girls/memoir of
adolescence lived under
very bright lights. After
reading it, and her
anecdotes about her
mum
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Virginia Woolf turned to
her diary as to an
intimate friend, to whom
she could freely and
spontaneously confide her
thoughts on public events
or the joys and trials of
domestic life. Between
1st January 1915 and her
death in 1941 she
regularly recorded her
thoughts with unfailing
grace, courage, honesty
and wit. The result is
one of the greatest
diaries in the English
language.
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As far back as stories
go, pioneers have
reached for the skies. In
the last two hundred
years, they have
mastered the air and made
the modern world
possible. Today they are
bringing outer space
within our reach. They're
inventors and toymakers,
amateurs and adventurers,
visionaries, dreamers
and, yes, crackpots.
Some have called them
irresponsible, even
dangerous. But I have met
many of them. I have
worked with them, and
funded them, and flown
with them. I admire them,
and trust them, and I
think they and their kind
are our future.
In this book I
look at the history of
flight through the
stories and people who
have inspired me
throughout my life. In
these pages you will find
stories of miraculous
rescues; of records made
and broken; of surprising
feats of endurance and
survival, including some
of my own adventures, as
well as developments in
the future of air (and
space) travel. It is a
story of pioneers, and
of course it includes the
world famous Montgolfiers
and the Wright brothers,
but I also want to
describe some of the
lesser-known
trailblazers. People like
Tony Jannus, who in 1914
created the first
scheduled commercial
flight in the world,
flying his passengers
over the waters of Tampa
Bay at an altitude of
just fifty feet!
The
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Christopher Parnell was
on holiday with his
family in Bali when the
unthinkable happened. His
holiday complex was
raided and police claimed
to have uncovered 12.5kg
of hashish. Parnell and a
travelling companion were
immediately arrested. His
companion, who knew of
the hidden drugs in
Parnell's apartment, was
later released and left
Bali as soon as the
charges against him were
dropped.While Parnell
awaited trial, his
friend signed a statutory
declaration to say that
the drugs had belonged to
him. He admitted he had
been afraid to face
Indonesian justice but
believed the mix up would
be rectified and Parnell
released. Instead,
Parnell was sentenced to
the death penalty. That
sentence was later
reduced to 20 years and a
fine of US$30, 000. Over
the next 11 years,
Parnell was subjected to
unthinkable sessions of
torture. Left to starve
and fight every day for
his survival, Parnell
became a man forced to
eat everything from
cockroaches to human
flesh. Prepare yourself
for a journey into a
world where murder,
torture and fights to the
death are day-to-day
occurrences: where the
guards turn a blind eye
to the lethal weapons
prisoners carry and use
almost daily. HELL'S
PRISONER is a powerful
story of one man's battle
to survive in some of the
world's most cruel and
inhumane prisons,
surrounded by murders and
sadistic violent
criminals. It is an
incredible tale of
fatalism and bureaucracy,
of corruption and the
horrors of prison, but
most of all it is a
no-holds-barred account
of what the human spirit
can endure.
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As far back as stories
go, pioneers have
reached for the skies. In
the last two hundred
years, they have
mastered the air and made
the modern world
possible. Today they are
bringing outer space
within our reach. They're
inventors and toymakers,
amateurs and adventurers,
visionaries, dreamers
and, yes, crackpots.
Some have called them
irresponsible, even
dangerous. But I have met
many of them. I have
worked with them, and
funded them, and flown
with them. I admire them,
and trust them, and I
think they and their kind
are our future.
In this book I
look at the history of
flight through the
stories and people who
have inspired me. These
are tales of miraculous
rescues; of records made
and broken; of surprising
feats of endurance and
survival, including some
of my own adventures, as
well as developments in
the future of air (and
space) travel. This is a
story of pioneers, and
of course it includes the
world famous Montgolfiers
and the Wright brothers.
But I also want to
describe some of the
lesser-known trailblazers
-- people like Tony
Jannus, who in 1914
created the world's first
scheduled commercial
flight, flying his
passengers over the
waters of Tampa Bay at an
altitude of just fifty
feet; the
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'IT'S TIME YOU KNEW THE
TRUTH, ' 'ABOUT YOUR
FATHER. ' 'WHAT ABOUT
HIM?' 'HIS FIRST WIFE, '
SHE SAID. 'SHE DIDN'T DIE
OF CANCER. ' 'HOW DID SHE
DIE?' 'HE MURDERED HER. '
At the age of fourteen
Lorenzo Carcaterra made a
shocking discovery.
Behind closed doors he
and his mother survived
the erratic, violent
outbursts of his father.
A powerful man, he
tempered his rage with
affection. To a young boy
he was a man to both love
and fear. Until Lorenzo
learned a shattering fact
that forever changed his
life. His father was a
murderer.
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In the early 80s, after
a decade of drug abuse
and borderline mental
illness, a man runs away
to the suburbs, to live
what he hopes will be a
normal life. With the aid
of his last remaining
friends he finds a
regular job, goes to AA
meetings and resolves to
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-
From Barnardo boy to
original virgin soldier;
from apprentice
journalist in London's
Fleet Street to famous
novelist...
At
times funny, at times
sad, but always honest
and utterly compulsive,
Leslie Thomas's story is
straight out of fiction.
As an orphan, he picked
his way through the
rubble of post-war
Britain and was sent on
national service to the
Far East. Later he became
a Fleet Street reporter,
with hilarious
experiences to relate,
and then became the
bestselling author of
The Virgin
Soldiers - the novel
that, although
scandalous in its day,
is now recognised as a
classic of its kind. He
is also the creator of
Dangerous Davies: The
Last Detective,
which has been adapted
into a popular television
series. In 2005, Leslie
Thomas was awarded an OBE
for services to
literature.
With a
new introduction for this
edition, this is an
amazing story, and
Leslie Thomas's magic
touch brings it crackling
to life with warmth, wit
and
humour.
Availability: In Stock
£7.34
Available
-
Andrew Collins was born
37 years ago in
Northampton. His parents
never split up, in fact
they rarely exchanged a
cross word. No-one abused
him. Nobody died. He got
on well with his brother
and sister and none of
his friends drowned in a
canal. He has never
stayed overnight in a
hospital and has no
emotional scars from his
upbringing, except a
slight lingering
resentment that Anita
Barker once mocked the
stabilisers on his bike.
Where Did It All Go
Right? is a jealous
memoir written by someone
who occasionally wishes
life had dealt him a few
more juicy marketable
blows. The author delves
back into his first 18
years in search of
something - anything -
that might have left him
deeply and irreparably
damaged. With tales of
bikes, telly, sweets,
good health, domestic
harmony and happy
holidays, Andrew aims to
bring a little hope to
all those out there
living with the emotional
after-effects of a really
nice childhood. Andrew
Collins kept a diary from
the age of five, so he
really can remember what
he had for tea everyday
and what he did at
school, excerpts from
his diary run throughout
the book and it is this
detail which makes his
story so compelling.
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-
The immigration man read
my deportation order,
looked at it and handed
it back to me. 'Are you
Irish?' he asked me.
'No' I said 'as a
matter of fact, I'm
Yemenite Arab.'
Two detectives
came forward who were
evidently there to meet
me. 'Apparently he is
Brendan Behan, ' they
said.
The
immigration officer shook
my hand and his hard face
softened. 'Cead mile
failte romhat abhaile.'
(A hundred thousand
welcomes home to you.) I
could not answer. There
are no words and it would
be impertinence to try. I
walked down the gangway.
I was free.
First
published after Brendan
Behan's tragic death,
Confessions of an Irish
Rebel picks up where
Borstal Boy left off. Not
only is it the last
instalment of a unique
and unorthodox
autobiography, but of a
unique and unorthodox
life that was as touched
with genius as it was
with
doom.
Availability: In Stock
£8.09
Available
-
As far back as stories
go, pioneers have
reached for the skies. In
the last two hundred
years, they have
mastered the air and made
the modern world
possible. Today they are
bringing outer space
within our reach. They're
inventors and toymakers,
amateurs and adventurers,
visionaries, dreamers
and, yes, crackpots.
Some have called them
irresponsible, even
dangerous. But I have met
many of them. I have
worked with them, and
funded them, and flown
with them. I admire them,
and trust them, and I
think they and their kind
are our future.
In this book I
look at the history of
flight through the
stories and people who
have inspired me
throughout my life. In
these pages you will find
tales of miraculous
rescues; of records made
and broken; of surprising
feats of endurance and
survival, including some
of my own adventures, as
well as developments in
the future of air (and
space) travel. It is a
story of pioneers, and
of course it includes the
world famous Montgolfiers
and the Wright brothers,
but I also want to
describe some of the
lesser-known
trailblazers. People like
Tony Jannus, who in 1914
created the first
scheduled commercial
flight in the world,
flying his passengers
over the waters of Tampa
Bay at an altitude of
just fifty feet!
The
Availability: In Stock
£7.19
Available
-
In the early 80s, after
a decade of drug abuse
and borderline mental
illness, a man runs away
to the suburbs, to live
what he hopes will be a
normal life. With the aid
of his last remaining
friends he finds a
regular job, goes to AA
meetings and resolves to
Availability: In Stock
£8.09
Available
-
Andrew Collins was born
37 years ago in
Northampton. His parents
never split up, in fact
they rarely exchanged a
cross word. No-one abused
him. Nobody died. He got
on well with his brother
and sister and none of
his friends drowned in a
canal. He has never
stayed overnight in a
hospital and has no
emotional scars from his
upbringing, except a
slight lingering
resentment that Anita
Barker once mocked the
stabilisers on his bike.
Where Did It All Go
Right? is a jealous
memoir written by someone
who occasionally wishes
life had dealt him a few
more juicy marketable
blows. The author delves
back into his first 18
years in search of
something - anything -
that might have left him
deeply and irreparably
damaged. With tales of
bikes, telly, sweets,
good health, domestic
harmony and happy
holidays, Andrew aims to
bring a little hope to
all those out there
living with the emotional
after-effects of a really
nice childhood. Andrew
Collins kept a diary from
the age of five, so he
really can remember what
he had for tea everyday
and what he did at
school, excerpts from
his diary run throughout
the book and it is this
detail which makes his
story so compelling.
Availability: In Stock
£7.19
Available
-
'IT'S TIME YOU KNEW THE
TRUTH, ' 'ABOUT YOUR
FATHER. ' 'WHAT ABOUT
HIM?' 'HIS FIRST WIFE, '
SHE SAID. 'SHE DIDN'T DIE
OF CANCER. ' 'HOW DID SHE
DIE?' 'HE MURDERED HER. '
At the age of fourteen
Lorenzo Carcaterra made a
shocking discovery.
Behind closed doors he
and his mother survived
the erratic, violent
outbursts of his father.
A powerful man, he
tempered his rage with
affection. To a young boy
he was a man to both love
and fear. Until Lorenzo
learned a shattering fact
that forever changed his
life. His father was a
murderer.
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-
In 1982 the Griffins left
the security of suburbia
to grow garlic in West
Wales. From the struggle
with rurality that ensued
grew (organically) the
very amusing, and
informative,
warts-and-all account
Scenes From a
Smallholding.
Now in this
sometimes touching, but
always funny sequel,
Chas reveals what
happened four years after
their arrival - when the
dream had been well and
truly dreamt and they
were experiencing some
rather rude awakenings.
Did they ever achieve the
blissful good life? Are
they surrounded by
organic veg? How have the
family coped with their
new rural life?
Written with Chas
Griffin's trademark charm
and humour, enjoy
another compelling romp
through the
countryside.
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In the early 80s, after
a decade of drug abuse
and borderline mental
illness, a man runs away
to the suburbs, to live
what he hopes will be a
normal life. With the aid
of his last remaining
friends he finds a
regular job, goes to AA
meetings and resolves to
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-
John Peel is best known
for his four decades of
radio broadcasting. His
Radio 1 shows shaped the
taste of successive
generations of music
lovers. His Radio 4 show,
Home Truths,
became required listening
for millions. But all the
while, Peel was also
tapping away on his
beloved Olivetti
typewriter, creating
copy for an array of
patient editors. He wrote
articles, columns and
reviews for newspapers
and magazines as diverse
as The
Listener, Oz,
Gandalf's Garden,
Sounds, the
Observer, the
Independent and
Radio
Times.
Now for the
first time, the best of
these writings have been
brought together -
selected by his wife,
Sheila, and his four
children. Music, of
course, is a central and
recurring theme, and he
writes on music in all
its forms, from
Tubular Bells to
Berlin punk to Madonna.
Here you can read John
Peel on everything from
the perils of shaving to
the embarrassments of
virginity, and from the
strange joy of Eurovision
to the horror of being
sick in trains. At every
stage, the writing is
laced with John's
brilliantly acute
observations on the
minutiae of everyday
life.
This endlessly
entertaining book is
essential reading for
Peel fans and a reminder
of just why he remains a
truly great
Briton.
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'I never saw a more
striking coincidence, '
said Darwin unhappily in
1858. Unknown to him,
Alfred Russel Wallace had
arrived independently at
the same theory of
evolution by natural
selection. This
concluding volume of
Janet Browne's biography
covers the transformation
in Darwin's life after
the first unexpected
announcement of his and
Wallace's theory,
followed by publication
of Darwin's influential
The Origin of Species a
year afterwards in 1859.
Always a private man by
nature, Darwin suddenly
found himself a
controversial figure,
reviewed and discussed in
circles that stretched
far beyond the boundaries
of Victorian science,
one of the leading
thinkers of the
nineteenth century. The
second half of Darwin's
life was inextricably
interwoven with the story
of The Origin of Species,
and this biography looks
closely at the wider
publishing world of
Victorian England and the
different audiences which
responded to his ideas.
Darwin relied heavily on
his friends and family,
his publishing contacts,
his correspondence
network, and the
expanding geographical
and economic horizons of
Victorian Britain to
distribute his views to
the furthest corners of
Empire. This biography
considers the Darwinian
revolution from Darwin's
point of view - and what
it was like to become a
scientific celebrity.
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Introduction by Frances
Spalding. Virginia Woolf
was a close friend of
Roger Fry for many years
- after his death she
wrote this loving account
of his passion for art,
his own painting, and
his challenging critical
theories. Born in 1866,
he was primarily
responsible for bringing
the post-Impressionist
movement to Britain,
organising the first
exhibitions and
establishing the Omega
workshops: he was also
curator of the
Metropolitan Museum of
Modern Art in New York.
Virginia Woolf describes
his career and also
brings to life Fry's
private self, his pain,
his resilience, his
generosity of spirit,
which made him such a
powerful influence on his
own and future
generations.
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When Stephanie Klein hit
her twenty-fourth
birthday she thought she
had everything she could
possibly have wanted from
life: a good job, a
successful husband, a
Manhattan apartment and a
baby on the
way.
By the time
she hit thirty it was all
gone; her husband and her
baby lost. She was left
to start again with a
whole new life and an
entirely depleted cast of
characters. Her only
company was her 'Furkid'
(the small brown dog she
now shared a bed with).
Her friend told her to
get out dating again and
to employ the sandwich
principle - keep one man
on either side, and
enjoy the interesting one
in-between. So she set
off, with much
trepidation and wardrobe
anxiety, to discover
single sex all over
again...
The
weblog she kept of her
new found freedom and
sexual adventures became
a sensation in the
States. Her brilliantly
funny, acerbic
descriptions of love,
life and dating bought
her press and acclaim.
Straight up and
Dirty is Stephanie's
funnier than comedy,
truer than romance,
sexier than fiction
account of her
journey.
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In The Underworld
Captain, Alexander
Shannon reveals how he
escaped his shady
gangland
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Born in Nabraska of Irish
Quaker parents, educated
at Dulwich College, and
in the `mean streets' of
Los Angeles about which
he wrote, Raymond
Chandler-writer, oil
executive, poet,
recluse, charmer,
gentlman, drunk-was full
of contradictions as his
origins. His seven Philip
Marlowe stories had sold
5 million copies by the
time of his death in1059.
Since the first
authorised biography 20
years ago, much new
material can be revealed
about the man and his
life. For this major new
biography, Tom Hiney has
had some access to unseen
personal papers, as well
as previously unrecorded
reminiscences by those
who knew him well and he
vividly evokes the
strange early years,
brings alive the danerous
glamour of the Hollywood
era, and puts Chandler`s
writing in the context of
the crime and corruption
in Prohibition LA. He
gived illuminating
details of friendships
with Ian Fleming,
Somerset Maugham, the
Spenders, Alfred
Hitchcock and fully
records for the first
time his relationship
with Cissy, his wife of
30 years, 17 years his
senior, and his
paradoxical relations
with other women.
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On 18 August 1941 Orwell
joined the BBC's Overseas
Service. After a crash
training course (the
documents for which are
reproduced here), he was
appointed a Talks
Producer responsible for
features, talks, and
commentaries on the war,
to be broadcast to India.
He wrote at least 220
news commentaries for,
and broadcast to, India
and occupied Malaya and
Indonesia, of which
Orwell read fifty-six.
This volume shows that
formal censorship was not
as great a problem as has
been supposed, though it
obviously occurred and
Orwell's brushes with
censors are shown in
detail. Along with
Volumes XIV and XV,
Volume XIII shows the
enormous efforts he made
to disseminate culture
rather than crude
propaganda. It is in this
volume that the origins
of 'Room 101' are to be
found; it has examples of
his first 'courses' for
Indian university
students - the forerunner
of the Open University;
the first issue of his
broadcast poetry
magazine, 'Voice'; and a
number of his own
broadcasts, including
'The Re-discovery of
Europe'. He continued to
review, to write essays,
and to contribute to
Partisan Review and he
was still active in the
Home Guard.
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When the body of David
Oluwale, a rough sleeper
with a criminal record
and a history of mental
illness, was pulled out
of the River Aire near
Leeds in May 1969,
nobody asked too many
questions about the
circumstances of his
death. A police charge
sheet from three months
before had
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Orwell wrote to his
anarchist friend, George
Woodcock in December 1942
arguing that 'by working
inside an institution
like the BBC one can
perhaps deodorise it to
some extent'. and he
concluded, 'I consider I
have kept our little
corner of it fairly
clean'. In addition to
the magazine programme,
'Voice', Orwell
continued to develop what
would now be called an
'open university':
broadcasts by
distinguished speakers on
texts set for Bombay and
Calcutta university
degrees. He enlisted such
speakers as E. M.
Forster, T. S Eliot and
Joseph Needham and the
broadcasts were backed up
by [publications printed
in India for university
students. Classical and
Indian music programmes
were broadcast; there was
regular film critism and
an innovative practical
theatre series, 'Let's
Act it Ourselves'. Some
of Orwell's scripts,
such as that for his
'Imaginary Interview with
Jonathan Swift', pose
difficult textual
problems and these are
fully examined and
annotated. The script of
Eileen Blair's broadcast
for the series, 'In Your
Kitchen' has been
included. Orwell still
found time to write a
number of reviews,
contribute to Partisan
Review, and write essays
on Hardy, Henry Miller,
and Yeats.
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Like all poets, inspired
by death, Lynch is,
unlike others, also
hired to bury the dead or
cremate them and to tend
to their families in a
small Michigan town where
he serves as the funeral
director. In the conduct
of these duties he has
kept his eyes open, his
ears tuned to the
indispensable vernaculars
of love and grief. In
these twelve essays is
the voice of both witness
and functionary. Lynch
stands between 'the
living and the living who
have dies' with the same
outrage and amazement,
straining for the same
glimpse we all get of
what mortality means to a
vital species. So here is
homage to parents who
have died and to children
who shouldn't have. Here
are golfers tripping over
grave-markers, gourmands
and hypochondriacs,
lovers and suicides.
These are essays of rare
elegance and grace, full
of fierce compassion and
rich in humour and
humanity - lessons taught
to the living by the
dead.
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As far back as stories
go, pioneers have
reached for the skies. In
the last two hundred
years, they have
mastered the air and made
the modern world
possible. Today they are
bringing outer space
within our reach. They're
inventors and toymakers,
amateurs and adventurers,
visionaries, dreamers
and, yes, crackpots.
Some have called them
irresponsible, even
dangerous. But I have met
many of them. I have
worked with them, and
funded them, and flown
with them. I admire them,
and trust them, and I
think they and their kind
are our future.
In this book I
look at the history of
flight through the
stories and people who
have inspired me. These
are tales of miraculous
rescues; of records made
and broken; of surprising
feats of endurance and
survival, including some
of my own adventures, as
well as developments in
the future of air (and
space) travel. This is a
story of pioneers, and
of course it includes the
world famous Montgolfiers
and the Wright brothers.
But I also want to
describe some of the
lesser-known trailblazers
-- people like Tony
Jannus, who in 1914
created the world's first
scheduled commercial
flight, flying his
passengers over the
waters of Tampa Bay at an
altitude of just fifty
feet; the
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After Joe Gould's Secret
- 'a miniature
masterpiece of a shaggy
dog story' (Observer) -
here is another
collection of stories by
Joseph Mitchell, each
connected in one way or
another with the
waterfront of New York
City. As William Fiennes
wrote in the London
Review of Books,
'Mitchell was the
laureate of the waters
around New York', and in
The Bottom of the Harbor
he records the lives and
practices of the
rivermen, with love and
understanding and a sharp
eye for the eccentric and
strange. This is some of
the best journalist ever
written.
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Wise, often funny,
sometimes heartbreaking,
Persepolis: The Story
of a Childhood tells
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Why is catalogue
shopping responsible for
Jonathan Ross's
inimitable sense of
style?
Why
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Why is catalogue
shopping responsible for
Jonathan Ross's
inimitable sense of
style?
Why
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Peter Kay's unerring gift
for observing the
absurdities and
eccentricities of family
life has earned himself a
widespread, everyman
appeal. These vivid
observations coupled with
a kind of nostalgia that
never fails to grab his
audience's shared
understanding, have
earned him comparisons
with Alan Bennett and
Ronnie Barker.
In
his award winning TV
series' he creates worlds
populated by degenerate,
bitter, useless,
endearing and always
recognisable characters
which have attracted a
huge and loyal
following.
In many
ways he's an old
fashioned kind of
comedian and the scope
and enormity of his
fanbase reflects this. He
doesn't tell jokes about
politics or sex, but
rather rejoices in the
far funnier areas of
life: elderly relatives
and answering machines,
dads dancing badly at
weddings, garlic bread
and cheesecake, your
mum's HRT...
His
autobiography is full of
this kind of humour and
nostalgia, beginning
with Kay's first ever
driving lesson, taking
him back through his
Bolton childhood, the
numerous jobs he held
after school and leading
up until the time he
passed his driving test
and found
fame.
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Primo Levi's account of
life as a concentration
camp prisoner falls into
two parts. IF THIS IS A
MAN describes his
deportation to Poland and
the twenty months he
spend working in
Auschwitz. THE TRUCE
covers his long journey
to Italy at the end of
the war through Russia
and Central Europe. Levi
never raises his voice,
complains or attributes
blame. By telling his
story quietly,
objectively and in plain
language he renders both
the horror and the hope
of the situation with
absolute clarity. Probing
the themes which
preoccupy all his writing
- work love, power, the
nature of things, what
it is to be human - he
leaves the reader
drained, elated,
apprehensive.
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In this collection of
profiles, essays and
travel stories, Chatwin
takes us to Benin, where
he is arrested as a
mercenary during a coup;
to Boston to meet an LSD
guru who believes he is
Christ; to India with
Indira Ghandi when she
attempted a political
comeback in 1978; and to
Nepal where he reminds us
that 'Man's real home is
not a house, but the
Road, and that life
itself is a journey to be
walked on foot'
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As a small boy David
Nobbs survived the Second
World War unscathed,
until his bedroom ceiling
fell on him when the last
bomb to be dropped on
Britain by the Germans
landed near his home. It
was the nearest he came
to the war, but National
Service would later make
him one of Britain's most
reluctant soldiers. It
was an unforgettable and
often unpleasant
experience.
As a
struggling writer, David
was catapulted into the
thrilling world of satire
at the BBC when he rang
THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT
WAS with a joke and got
through to David Frost,
who sent a taxi for the
joke. He never looked
back. His greatness as a
modern comic writer was
confirmed by the
publication of THE FALL
AND RISE OF REGINALD
PERRIN, which he adapted
into the immensely
successful television
series that has entered
the fabric of British
cultural life, through
phrases, images and
brilliant humour.
A mesmerising,
beautifully told tale of
life in writing and
comedy, I DIDN'T GET
WHERE I AM TODAY is the
hilarious, poignant and
very personal story of
David Nobbs' life, which
also describes some of
the most famous comedians
of the last century and
captures a golden age of
British
television.
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Tim Rushby-Smith is six
foot two and highly
active, with a love of
high places and the great
outdoors. Three years
ago, with a booming
garden design and
landscaping business and
his wife five months
pregnant with their first
child, Tim fell six
metres out of a tree and
broke his back,
confining him to a
wheelchair.
As he
came to terms with his
injury, treatment and
rehabilitation, Tim
faced an entirely new
life, in which suddenly
many of life
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Tim Rushby-Smith is six
foot two and highly
active, with a love of
high places and the great
outdoors. Three years
ago, with a booming
garden design and
landscaping business and
his wife five months
pregnant with their first
child, Tim fell six
metres out of a tree and
broke his back,
confining him to a
wheelchair.
As he
came to terms with his
injury, treatment and
rehabilitation, Tim
faced an entirely new
life, in which suddenly
many of life
Availability: In Stock
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-
As a small boy David
Nobbs survived the Second
World War unscathed,
until his bedroom ceiling
fell on him when the last
bomb to be dropped on
Britain by the Germans
landed near his home. It
was the nearest he came
to the war, but National
Service would later make
him one of Britain's most
reluctant soldiers. It
was an unforgettable and
often unpleasant
experience.
As a
struggling writer, David
was catapulted into the
thrilling world of satire
at the BBC when he rang
THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT
WAS with a joke and got
through to David Frost,
who sent a taxi for the
joke. He never looked
back. His greatness as a
modern comic writer was
confirmed by the
publication of THE FALL
AND RISE OF REGINALD
PERRIN, which he adapted
into the immensely
successful television
series that has entered
the fabric of British
cultural life, through
phrases, images and
brilliant humour.
A mesmerising,
beautifully told tale of
life in writing and
comedy, I DIDN'T GET
WHERE I AM TODAY is the
hilarious, poignant and
very personal story of
David Nobbs' life, which
also describes some of
the most famous comedians
of the last century and
captures a golden age of
British
television.
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WINNER OF THE BOARDMAN
TASKER PRIZE
2008
Metro
magazine recently
wrote
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Tom had always drunk.
Initially it was to
escape the drudge of
school and the distress
of his rapidly
disintegrating family,
but as his career in
journalism took off, so
his alcohol consumption
turned into a full-blown
obsession. Having first
run amok in London, it
was landing the seemingly
plum job of nightlife
columnist at the New
York Post that saw
his life spiral
completely out of
control. Tom treated
Manhattan as his Martini,
until one day
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Valentino Rossi is the
greatest living
motorcyclist. His legions
of fans adore him (over
4, 000 turned up to see
him in Leicester Square
last March). He has
fought through the 125
and 250 class groups to
win the World
Championships five times
and has been ranked in
the top three places at
the World Championships
for the last nine years.
He is currently the
MotoGP World Champion,
and has won on a Honda
bike
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Dave Courtney - the
original behind Vinnie
Jones's character in
Lock, Stock and Two
Smoking Barrels - tells
all in his
no-holds-barred
bestselling
autobiography.
From
the streets of southeast
London to bare-knuckle
fights; from the funeral
of Ronnie Kay to
drug-deals turned sour in
Holland - Dave Courtney's
story is like no one
else's.
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Lisa Appignanesi was born
Elsbieta Borenztejn in
Poland. Unlike other
holocaust memoirs, hers
is the story of how the
nucleus of a family
survived outside the
camps, beyond the ghetto
and eventually made it to
the new world, where
Lisa's mother found that
her years of masquerading
as an Aryan stood her in
great stead in
anti-semitic post-war
Catholic Quebec. As her
mother's memory fails,
Lisa finds her self
trying to unravel the
truth about her family,
searching not only for
signs of her mother's
lost brother - a Jewish
Schindler character,
making money and saving
Jews in Warsaw - but also
for the truth about how
her parents managed to
survive, and for her own
birth certificate. It's
above all the compelling
story of one woman's
determination not to go
under, and the story of
her father, who learned
to make himself invisible
and hide behind silent
rage. This is a
remarkable tale of
terror, courage,
deprivation,
persecution, survival,
and Jewish family life.
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-
Moonwalk is the
only book about his life
that Michael Jackson ever
wrote. It chronicles
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-
If It Die is a record of
Gide's childhood and
early manhood, up until
his engagement to his
cousin. Written twenty
years afterwards, it is
a deliberately
uninhibited and revealing
exercise as well as a
masterpiece of French
prose, thus fulfilling
the two criteria Gide set
himself - to satisfy the
demands of truth without
neglecting the claims of
art. It was said that in
Gide 'les extr-mes
touchent', a
predisposition that was
to characterize all his
work, and these
antitheses are clearly
acknowledged and used in
his narrative in order to
add extra layers of
resonance and meaning. At
the same time If It Die
is a delightful and
memorable account by
itself of childhood, of
friendships and travels,
and of sexual awakening.
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Po Bronson's new book
tackles the biggest,
most threatening, most
obvious question that
anyone has to face,
'what should I do with my
life?' It is a problem,
he explains, that is
increasingly encountered
not just by the young but
by people who have half
their lives or more
behind them. With the
intoxicating days of the
80s and 90s behind us and
the world entering
recession, many people
are being forced to
confront their real aims
and desires. And the
modern route to self,
discovery, Bronson
suggests, is to trade
what you have for a
completely different way
of life. Bronson's book
is a fascinating account
of finding and following
people who have uprooted
their lives and fought
with these questions in
radical ways. From the
investment banker who
gave it all up to become
a catfish farmer in
Mississippi, to the
chemical enginner from
Walthamstow who decided
to become a lawyer in his
sixties, and the
institutional investor
who gave up his job and
moved, disastrously, to
Germany on a whim; these
stories of individual
dilemma and dramatic -
and sometimes
unsuccessful - gambles
are bound up with
Bronson's account of his
own search for a calling.
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Zombies in North London,
death cults in the West
Country, the engineering
deck of the Enterprise:
Simon Pegg has been
ploughing some bizarre
furrows in recent times.
Having blasted onto the
small screens with his
now legendary sitcom
Spaced, his rise
to nation
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Zombies in North London,
death cults in the West
Country, the engineering
deck of the Enterprise:
Simon Pegg has been
ploughing some bizarre
furrows in recent times.
Having blasted onto the
small screens with his
now legendary sitcom
Spaced, his rise
to nation
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Winner of the Nobel Prize
for Physics in 1965,
Richard Feynman was one
of the world's greatest
theoretical physicists,
but he was also a man who
fell, often jumped,
into adventure. An
artist, safecracker,
practical joker and
storyteller, Feynman's
life was a series of
combustoble combinations
made possible by his
unique mixture of high
intelligence,
unquenchable curiosity
and eternal scepticism.
Over a period of years,
Feynman's conversations
with his friend Ralph
Leighton were first taped
and then set down as they
appear here, little
changed from their spoken
form, giving a wise,
funny, passionate and
totally honest
self-portrait of one of
the greatest men of our
age.
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Candia McWilliam had just
joined the judging panel
of the Man Booker Prize
for Fiction in 2006 when
she started to lose her
sight. The gradual onset
of blindness seemed like
an assault especially
tailored for someone
whose life consisted of
reading and writing. The
necessity to look inwards
that followed took her on
an even more painful
personal journey through
a waste of snows
punctuated by shards of
ice as she attempted to
write her life back into
human shape.
At
first she could only
dictate, and the
unfamiliar process
unblocked a flow of
memory and association
concerning her childhood
in Edinburgh, her
mother's suicide, her
teenage escape into
another identity,
finding and losing
bearings in Cambridge and
London, her marriages,
her children and,
stalking all these, her
increasing alcoholism. In
What To Look For In
Winter, we see her
rifling through her many
selves for that elusive
thing, a sense of self,
as all the time she
searches the wilder
shores of medicine for a
cure for her
blindness.
This is
a writer's book,
fascinated by the process
and wellsprings of
writing. While love and
loss are at its centre,
it also celebrates
friendship, reading,
love of children and the
consolations of
landscape, particularly
that of Colonsay, the
Hebridean island where,
after three years in the
dark, and thanks to an
unexpected message from a
wise and sympathetic
reader, she begins to
face up to how,
falteringly, she might
come to see
once
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Irreverent, tangental,
witty and outrageous,
Jonathan Ross is our
best-known television
personality for good
reason and his take on
growing up, and the
world around him, is
laugh-out-loud funny.
With stories that range
from discovering B-movies
to fashion, from diets
to childhood sweetshops,
favourite presents and
from sex to pets (and
back to sex) he explores
everyday life with all
his customary energy,
lasciviousness,
self-deprecatory humour
and random meandering,
revealing that in short
trousers he was as
irrepressibly exuberent
as he is now in those
suits...
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Born without social
instincts many people
take for granted,
brought up in a troubled
environment and possessed
with an extraordinary
musical talent, Mike
Oldfield was thrust into
the spotlight at the
tender age of nineteen.
His first album
Tubular Bells went
on to sell fifteen
million copies worldwide
and catapulted him into a
stardom he was
ill-equipped to cope
with.
From growing
up with an alcoholic
mother, to his feelings
of alienation and
struggles with
depression, this book
takes Mike from his early
years, through his
staggering fame, his
broken marriages, years
as a recluse, his
rebirth experience at a
controversial Exegesis
seminar and beyond. Mike
Oldfield has been on a
journey few of us could
ever imagine, and offers
a message of hope to
anybody who feels they
live on the edge of
society.
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Muhammad Ali is the most
famous figure in the
history of sport and
probably the most
recognisable person on
earth - truly 'the
greatest'. Now in his
fifties and fighting
Parkinson's Disease, he
remains a figure of
enormous power. He and
the author (a
sportswriter in his early
40s and a big fan of Ali
since his early teens)
have become good friends.
This is their story, the
story of Ali now (at the
centre of his family;
working and travelling
tirelessly for Islam;
part prankster, part
prophet) and Davis
Miller's own story (his
father dies during the
course of the book; he
marries; his has
children; his son Isaac,
is 10 at the end of the
book when he visits Ali.
) A unique and compelling
story, rich with
anecdotes and insights,
it explores the nature of
hero-worship, friendship
and the relationship
between fathers and sons.
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'I've made mistakes.
I've struggled. But I'm
still here. I know it's
not over and that
there
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Albert Camus is among the
most significant French
writers of the twentieth
century. His novels, THE
PLAGUE and THE OUTSIDER,
have a timeless power and
appeal and are studied
all over the world, and
his philosophical work
has had an enduring
influence. Oliver Todd
has been authorised by
Camus' family to write
the definitive life.
Opening with his
impoverished childhood in
Algiers, Todd brings the
historical context to
life, shedding light on
Camus' later agonising
conflict between sympathy
for the working class
Algerians and for the
French colonials with a
stake in their adopted
land. His life pre-sented
impossible choices and
perpetual struggle: his
intimacy with the
Gallimard family,
despite their
collaborationist
activities; his
involvement in the
conflict between Satre
and de Beauvoir; his own
battles with debilitating
bouts of tuberculosis and
with the passion-ate,
restless nature that
would never let him
settle. Because Todd
understands his subject
and his times so well,
he brings to this rich,
generous biography a rare
immediacy and perception,
evoking a great writer
and his would with
memorable force and
engaging subtlety
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When Michael Holroyd's
life of Strachey first
appeared in 1967, it was
hailed as a landmark in
contemporary biography.
Drawing now on new
material, published and
unpublished, Holroyd has
completely revised and
rewritten his masterwork
to tell the full story of
this complex man and his
world as it could not be
told while many of
Strachey's friends and
lovers were still alive.
And at the heart of the
story is the poignant
liasion between Strachey
and the painter Dora
Carrington. A panorama of
the social, literary,
political and sexual life
of a generation, LYTTON
STRACHEY reverberates in
the mind like a great
novel.
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-
The first volume of John
Campbell's biography of
Margaret Thatcher was
described by Frank
Johnson in the Daily
Telegraph as 'much
the best book yet written
about Lady Thatcher'.
That volume, The
Grocer's Daughter,
described Mrs Thatcher's
childhood and early
career up until the 1979
General Election which
carried her into Downing
Street.
This
second volume covers the
whole eleven and a half
years of her momentous
premiership. Thirteen
years after her removal
from power, this is the
first comprehensive and
fully researched study of
the Thatcher Government
from its hesitant
beginning to its dramatic
end. Campbell draws on
the mass of memoirs and
diaries of Mrs Thatcher's
colleagues, aides,
advisers and rivals, as
well as on original
material from the Ronald
Reagan archive, shedding
fascinating new light on
the Reagan-Thatcher
'special relationship',
and on dozens of
interviews.
The Iron
Lady will confirm
John Campbell's
Margaret Thatcher
as one of the greatest
political biographies of
recent
times.
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In this remarkable book,
Jane Miller writes about
the experience of being a
daughter and a sister,
about the intensities of
family life and the
illuminations that come
from the last days and
death of parents.
Relations offers a
portrait of a
record-keeping,
middle-class kinship,
beginning with her
parents' long marriage,
its mysteries and
incompatibilities. Here
are the tensions of
belonging and yet not
belonging to an English
middle-class at once
hospitable to difference
and internally divided.
More than two hundred
years of English history
are present in these
portraits, which show
the gradual emancipation
of women, the effects of
empire on family life and
the importance to it of
religion, education and
money. It is the story of
an evolution, of a move
out of trade towards
public service and the
professions, and towards
the dramas and family
romance of recent times.
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'This morning I found
this bag. I had been
looking for sweets. I put
my hand in the bag and
felt a sticky liquid on
my fingers, then I
looked at it. A red
smear. Then I looked in
the bag: bloody knives
and clothes. It didn't
feel good. What did it
mean? I don't know. There
are no answers; I daren't
ask the
questions'
Growing
up in poverty in
London
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Dale Winton is one of the
most popular stars on
television today. For
over 25 years his warm
and winning ways have
made him one of Britain's
most popular and powerful
personalities on
television, radio, and
with live audiences
everywhere. But his
cheerful television
persona hides the fact
that his personal life
has been marred by
tragedy. Refreshingly
open and honest, My
Story not only covers his
difficult rise to fame
and the poverty he
experienced before
becoming a household
name, but also his
determination not to let
a tragic childhood blight
his adult life. It is a
disarmingly honest
account of his
relationship with his
parents, his bullying
father who died on the
day of his bar mitzvah,
but particularly the very
close relationship he had
with his beautiful but
troubled mother, whose
lengthy struggle with
depression and carefully
planned suicide has
haunted him since the
afternoon he found her,
just days after his 21st
birthday. Dale: My Story
also covers his plastic
surgery, his lifelong
battle with the scales,
and reveals for the first
time the complicated
truth about his
sexuality.
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-
From humble beginnings in
County Donegal in Ireland
to worldwide recording
success, Daniel
O'Donnell recounts the
incredible story of his
life, charting the ups
and downs with remarkable
honesty.
Through
wonderful anecdotes,
Daniel recalls his early
years and the moment he
set his heart on becoming
a singer, and gives a
personal acount of his
speading popularity and
subsequent perfomances
all over the world. With
distinctive charm and
modesty, he takes us
behind the scenes of his
phenomenal professional
success, providing
unique access to the man
behind the hits and
headlines.
A
bestseller when it was
first published, Daniel
O'Donnell: My Story has
been fully revised and
updated with a wealth of
brand new material. for
the first time Danel
gives an intimate account
of his romance and
high-profile wedding to
Majella McLennan as well
as his deeply personal
observations on worldwide
success and his recent
breathrough to stardom in
the USA.
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-
Brought up amid
near-Dickensian squalour
in the tough East End of
Glasgow and sexually
abused by her uncle,
Janey married into a
Glasgow criminal family
as a teenager, then
found herself having to
cope with the murder of
her mother, violence,
religious sectarianism,
abject poverty and a
frightening family of
in-laws.
First-hand, Janey saw
the gangland violence and
met extraordinary
characters within an
enclosed and
seldom-revealed Glasgow
underworld - from the
grim and
far-from-Swinging 60s,
to the discos of the 70s,
to the tidal wave of
heroin addiction which
swept through and
engulfed Glasgow's East
End during the 1980s.
This evocative,
intimate and moving
portrayal of a woman
forced to fight every day
for her family's future
will strike a chord with
anyone who has ever
struggled against
adversity.
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Sir David Attenborough is
Britain's best-known
natural history
film-maker. His career as
a naturalist and
broadcaster has spanned
nearly six decades, and
in this volume of memoirs
Sir David tells stories
of the people and animals
he has met and the places
he has visited.
His first job -
after Cambridge
University and two years
in the Royal Navy - was
at a London publishing
house. Then in 1952 he
joined the BBC as a
trainee producer, and it
was while working on the
Zoo Quest series
(1954-64) that he had his
first opportunity to
undertake expeditions to
remote parts of the
globe, to capture
intimate footage of rare
wildlife in its natural
habitat.
He was
Controller of BBC2
(1965-68), during which
time he introduced colour
television to Britain,
then Director of
Programmes for the BBC
(1969-1972). However, in
1973 he abandoned
administration altogether
to return to
documentary-making and
writing, and has
established himself as
the world's leading
Natural History programme
maker with several
landmark BBC series,
including Life on
Earth (1979), The
Living Planet (1984),
The Trials of
Life (1990), The
Private Life of
Plants (1995),
Life of Birds
(1998), The Blue
Planet (2001),
Life of Mammals
(2002), Planet
Earth (2006) and
Life in Cold Blood
(2008).
Sir David
is an Honorary Fellow of
Clare College,
Cambridge, a Fellow of
the Royal Society and was
knighted in 1985. He is
also Britain's most
respected, trusted and
lauded natural history
broadcaster and writer,
championing conservation
and standing at the
forefront of issues
concerning the planet's
declining species.
A lot has changed
since his first
television documentary,
and in this updated
edition of Life on
Air Sir David tells
us of his experiences of
filming in the 21st
century.
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A master filmmaker,
inimitable, and
unrelenting in his
assault on bourgeois
values. Bunuel's method
is free from all
artifice, and his
honesty and humour are to
extreme to accept any
compromise in exposing
our deceit and our
decadence. Like Pasolini,
his work offers a
remarkably sophisticated
political analysis, but
remains based in the
essentially peasant
values of storytelling,
and the purposefully
unsystematic supervisions
of laughter.
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Am I unlucky because
of the terrible things
that happened to me as a
child, or am I lucky
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-
Am I unlucky because
of the terrible things
that happened to me as a
child, or am I lucky
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-
Jon Steele is a war
junkie. Soon after
starting work as an ITN
cameraman, he began to
feel strangely at home in
the kind of places
ordinary people get
evacuated from. Before
long, he was living for
the rush which comes as
bullets fly past your
head and bombs explode at
your feet. Normal life
just couldn
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-
Peter Kay's unerring gift
for observing the
absurdities and
eccentricities of family
life has earned himself a
widespread, everyman
appeal. These vivid
observations coupled with
a kind of nostalgia that
never fails to grab his
audience's shared
understanding, have
earned him comparisons
with Alan Bennett and
Ronnie Barker.
In
his award winning TV
series' he creates worlds
populated by degenerate,
bitter, useless,
endearing and always
recognisable characters
which have attracted a
huge and loyal
following.
In many
ways he's an old
fashioned kind of
comedian and the scope
and enormity of his
fanbase reflects this. He
doesn't tell jokes about
politics or sex, but
rather rejoices in the
far funnier areas of
life: elderly relatives
and answering machines,
dads dancing badly at
weddings, garlic bread
and cheesecake, your
mum's HRT...
His
autobiography is full of
this kind of humour and
nostalgia, beginning
with Kay's first ever
driving lesson, taking
him back through his
Bolton childhood, the
numerous jobs he held
after school and leading
up until the time he
passed his driving test
and found
fame.
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In this remarkable book,
Shirin Ebadi, Iranian
human rights lawyer and
activist, and Nobel
Peace Prize laureate,
tells her extraordinary
story.
Dr Ebadi is
a tireless voice for
reform in her native
Iran, where she argues
for a new interpretation
of Islamic law in harmony
with vital human rights
such as democracy,
equality before the law,
religious freedom and
freedom of speech. She is
known for defending
dissident figures, and
for the establishment of
a number of non-profit
grassroots organisations
dedicated to human
rights. In 2003 she
became the first Muslim
woman, and the first
Iranian, to be awarded
the Nobel Peace
Prize.
She
chronicles her childhood
and upbringing before the
Revolution, her
education and student
years at the University
of Tehran, her marriage
and its challenges, her
religious faith, and her
life as a mother and as
an advocate for the
oppressed. As a human
rights campaigner, in
particular for women,
children and political
prisoners in Iran, her
book is a must-read for
anyone fascinated by the
life story and beliefs of
a courageous and unusual
woman, as well as those
interested in current
events (especially those
of the Middle East), and
those who want to know
the truth about the
position of women in a
Muslim
society.
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-
When David Lines first
heard This is the
Modern World by The
Jam, it sparked off a
Availability: In Stock
£7.19
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-
Welsh footballer Alan
Curtis is synonymous with
Swansea City, having
played for the club
during three different
spells, but he also
played for Leeds United,
Southampton and Cardiff
City, and won
thirty-five caps for his
country during an
action-packed playing
career that spanned two
decades.
Alan
experienced the highs of
the game at the top level
with Swansea during their
meteoric rise through all
four divisions to reach
the top flight, but this
success came after
he
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-
Mimlu Sen is living a
bohemian life in Paris
when she witnesses an
electrifying performance
by three wandering
minstrels from rural
India. They wear flowing,
multicoloured robes and
play frenetic rhythms on
strange instruments made
of wood and clay,
capturing the many moods
of nature and passion.
After her turbulent past,
including a year in a
Calcutta jail, Mimlu
instantly knows it is
time to set off on the
journey of her
life.
One of the
minstrels, Paban Das
Baul, is a gifted young
musician with a growing
international reputation.
Mimlu defies prejudice to
travel with him deep into
the heart of Bengal, the
rural hinterland behind
Calcutta where few
tourists ever go. In this
fascinating and unusual
book, she describes how
they make their way
across country, from
shanty town to village,
from monastery to
festival, perched on the
roofs of buses and
squeezed inside trains,
encountering tantrics and
sages, exorcisms and
witch sightings, catfish
that climb trees and
esoteric
secrets
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Now for the first time,
INXS band members tell
their own story about the
meeting (and sometimes
clashing) of minds that
produced their
music.
In this
gritty, in-depth
narrative, one of the
most influential bands of
the last two decades
reveals the truth about
the way they lived: the
drugs, the sex, the
supermodels and the
in-fighting. They also
divulge everything they
know about Michael
Hutchence: his
relationship with Paula
Yates, his drug
addiction and what they
really think about his
death.
Like The
Dirt, this is a book
about rock 'n' roll out
of control. It gives a
fascinating insight into
the life and death of a
superstar, by the people
who knew him
best.
Availability: In Stock
£16.19
Available
-
Peter Kay's unerring gift
for observing the
absurdities and
eccentricities of family
life has earned himself a
widespread, everyman
appeal. These vivid
observations coupled with
a kind of nostalgia that
never fails to grab his
audience's shared
understanding, have
earned him comparisons
with Alan Bennett and
Ronnie Barker.
In
his award winning TV
series' he creates worlds
populated by degenerate,
bitter, useless,
endearing and always
recognisable characters
which have attracted a
huge and loyal
following.
In many
ways he's an old
fashioned kind of
comedian and the scope
and enormity of his
fanbase reflects this. He
doesn't tell jokes about
politics or sex, but
rather rejoices in the
far funnier areas of
life: elderly relatives
and answering machines,
dads dancing badly at
weddings, garlic bread
and cheesecake, your
mum's HRT...
His
autobiography is full of
this kind of humour and
nostalgia, beginning
with Kay's first ever
driving lesson, taking
him back through his
Bolton childhood, the
numerous jobs he held
after school and leading
up until the time he
passed his driving test
and found
fame.
Availability: In Stock
£7.19
Available
-
Britain is experiencing a
sudden reckless rush of
liberalisation, from 24
hour licensing to gay
marriages. But how did we
get from idolising Grace
Kelly and Prince Rainier
to Jordan and Peter
Andre? Funny and
bittersweet, Made In
Brighton interweaves
personal stories of life
in Brighton with larger
themes of sex, politics
and class to take a cold,
hard look at the
changing face of Britain,
and at the town which
has always been at the
vanguard of Britain
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In this haunting and
frank account, Donna
Ford, bestselling author
of The Step Child,
Availability: In Stock
£6.42
Available
-
This is the story of a
genius with flaws. Lots
of them. On the field,
Andy Goram was a defiant
figure between the sticks
who, in many ways,
defined the
history-making
nine-in-a-row team who
brought so much success
to Ibrox; off it, he
careered through three
divorces and a welter of
lurid tabloid headlines
sensationalising his
hell-raising
antics.
In this
no-holds-barred account,
Goram lifts the lid on
his tempestuous life in
football, from the
Gers
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'Brilliant' OK!
'Engagingly warm' Heat
'Sensational' The
Mirror'Ronan Keating
demolishes his 'Mr
Perfect of Pop image in a
new warts-and-all book of
his amazing ride to
stardom.' The MirrorRonan
Keating is a very real
idol. In a life-story
that received extensive
press and ecstatic
reviews as 'a classic -
honest, funny and
gripping', Ronan Keating
tells the full story of
his incredible journey.
He may be only 23 but he
has lived an
extraordinary life so
far, from playing
football on a housing
estate in North Dublin to
headlining Madison Square
Garden with Elton John.
But Ronan has never
forgotten it's his fans
that got him there. It's
an inspirational story of
a boy from modest
beginnings who confounded
the critics and made his
mark with talent, boyish
good looks and, above
all, an integrity that
has helped him move from
the teen market to a
broader, adult audience.
In a surprisingly honest,
remarkably frank style
he talks openly of his
background and his
beloved mother,
Boyzone's extraordinary
catapult to fame, his
friends and band-mates
and his new solo career
and his wife and son.
Brimming with anecdote
and revelation, this is
a brilliantly written
book by a true star -
Ronan.
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Don McCullin is one of
the greatest
photographers of conflict
in our time. This book
was conceived on a grand
scale that does justice
to his extraordinary life
and the events he has
witnessed. It forms one
of the great documents of
the latter part of the
last century.
The
book begins and ends in
the Somerset landscape
that surrounds McCullin's
home, but the whole
sequence of more than two
hundred photographs
encompasses a ravaged
northern England, war in
Cyprus, Biafra,
Vietnam, Cambodia,
Beirut and riots in
Derry. The climax of the
book is among the
cannibals and
tribespeople deep in the
jungles of Irian Jaya,
where McCullin focuses on
humanity in an almost
Stone Age condition.
The introduction
by Harold Evans, the
acclaimed newspaper
editor and authority on
photojournalism, is
drawn from his long
experience of working
with McCullin. The
distinguished novelist
and essayist, Susan
Sontag, has contributed
an essay on McCullin and
the role of witness to
conflict - a subject of
timely
pertinence.
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-
'I never saw a more
striking coincidence, '
said Darwin unhappily in
1858. Unknown to him,
Alfred Russel Wallace had
arrived independently at
the same theory of
evolution by natural
selection. This
concluding volume of
Janet Browne's biography
covers the transformation
in Darwin's life after
the first unexpected
announcement of his and
Wallace's theory,
followed by publication
of Darwin's influential
The Origin of Species a
year afterwards in 1859.
Always a private man by
nature, Darwin suddenly
found himself a
controversial figure,
reviewed and discussed in
circles that stretched
far beyond the boundaries
of Victorian science,
one of the leading
thinkers of the
nineteenth century. The
second half of Darwin's
life was inextricably
interwoven with the story
of The Origin of Species,
and this biography looks
closely at the wider
publishing world of
Victorian England and the
different audiences which
responded to his ideas.
Darwin relied heavily on
his friends and family,
his publishing contacts,
his correspondence
network, and the
expanding geographical
and economic horizons of
Victorian Britain to
distribute his views to
the furthest corners of
Empire. This biography
considers the Darwinian
revolution from Darwin's
point of view - and what
it was like to become a
scientific celebrity.
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Real-life all too rarely
offers stories that are
quite as satisfying as
fiction. Bringing Down
the House is one of the
exceptions. Cheating in
casinos is illegal;
card-counting - making a
record of what cards have
so far been dealt to
enable the player to make
some prediction of what
cards remain in the deck
- is not. But casinos
understandably dislike
the practice and make
every effort to keep
card-counters out of
their premises. Bringing
Down the House tells the
true story of the most
successful scam ever, in
which teams of brilliant
young mathematicians and
physicists won millions
of dollars from the
casinos of Las Vegas,
being drawn in the
process into the
high-life of drugs,
high-spending and sex.
Bringing Down the House
is as readable and as
fascinating as Liar's
Poker or Barbarians At
the Gate, an insight
into a closed, excessive
and utterly corrupt
world.
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-
At 44 Susan Duncan
appeared to have it all.
Editor of two top-selling
women's magazines, a
happy marriage, a
jetsetting lifestyle
covering stories from New
York to Greenland, the
world was her oyster. But
when her beloved husband
and brother die within
three days of each other,
her glittering life
shatters. In shock, she
zips on her work face,
climbs back into her high
heels and soldiers on -
until one morning
eighteen months later,
when she simply can't get
out of bed.
Heartbreaking, funny and
searingly honest,
Salvation Creek is
the story of a woman who
found the courage not
only to begin again but
to beat the odds in her
own battle for survival
and find a new life - and
love - in a tiny
waterside idyll cut off
from the outside
world.
Combining
all the sweeping,
rollercoaster style of a
bestselling novel with
the very best - and most
inspiring - human
interest story,
Salvation Creek is
a tour-de-force that will
stay with the reader long
after she has turned the
last page.
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-
Welsh footballer Alan
Curtis is synonymous with
Swansea City, having
played for the club
during three different
spells, but he also
played for Leeds United,
Southampton and Cardiff
City, and won
thirty-five caps for his
country during an
action-packed playing
career that spanned two
decades.
Alan
experienced the highs of
the game at the top level
with Swansea during their
meteoric rise through all
four divisions to reach
the top flight, but this
success came after
he
Availability: In Stock
£8.34
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-
When Siobhan
Kennedy-McGuinness first
ventured into Eamonn
Cooke's garage, to her
seven-year-old eyes it
was like an Aladdin's
cave. Filled with
broadcasting equipment it
became a playground for
her and her friends. And
for Cooke, it became a
place he could lure his
unsuspecting
victims.
In 1977
Eamonn Cooke, Radio
Dublin DJ, became a
public hero for
youngsters across
Ireland. But there was a
terrible side to this
radio legend that no one
could ever have imagined.
His abuse was
calculated and
terrifying, and Siobhan
was forced to hide the
truth for years. Then,
almost twenty years
later, she saw the old
man who had haunted her
life holding the hands of
two wide-eyed children.
In their faces she
recognised her own fear.
Finally, Siobhan knew
she had to reveal Cooke
for the monster he really
was...
Availability: In Stock
£11.26
Denmark