From 1950 to 1962, John Richardson lived near Picasso in France & was a friend of the artist. With a view to writing a biography, the acclaimed art historian kept a diary of their meetings. After Picasso's death, his widow Jacqueline collaborated in the preparation of this work, giving Richardson access to Picasso's studio & papers.

Volume one of this extraordinary biography establishes the complexity of Picasso's Spanish roots; his aversion to his native Malaga & his passion for Barcelona & Catalan 'modernisme'. Richardson introduces new material on the artist's early training in religious art; re-examines old legends to provide fresh insights into the artistic failures of Picasso's father as an impetus to his sons's triumphs; &

Includes:: portraits of Apollinaire, Max Jacob & Gertrude Stein, who made up ' The Picasso Gang' in Paris during the ' Blue' & ' Rose' periods.



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John Richardson draws on the same combination of lively writing, critical astuteness, exhaustive research, & personal experience which made a bestseller out of the first volume & vividly recreates the artist's life & work during the crucial decade of 1907-17
- a period during which Pablo Picasso & Georges Braque invented Cubism & to that extent engendered modernism. Richardson has had unique access to untapped sources & unpublished material. By harnessing biography to art history, he has managed to crack the code of cubism more successfully than any of his predecessors. & by bringing a fresh light to bear on the artist's often too sensationalised private life, he has succeeded in coming up with a totally new view of this paradoxical man of his paradoxical work. Never before has Picasso's prodigious technique, his incisive vision & not least his sardonic humour been analysed with such clarity.
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'I have read all W. Scott's novels at least fifty times, ' wrote Byron. '-grand work. Scotch Fielding, as well as great English poet
- wonderful man! I long to get drunk with him.' A. N. Wilson's subtle, entertaining & frequently provocative critical biography looks back through the indifference which has surrounded Walter Scott in recent times, & the distortions of his Victorian idolaters, to recapture the freshness of Scott as he appeared to his contemporaries. Despite his staggering output as a novelist, poet, biographer, historian & anthologist
- not to mention his copious letters, & the celebrated Journal
- Scott only embarked on his literary career in early middle age. In the face of constant ill-health, & financial & domestic troubles, he successfully combined the life of a bestselling, much-loved & enormously influential author with that of a lawyer, landowner, Border farmer, part-time soldier & paterfamilias. A. N. Wilson makes clear that Scott's genius, his humaneness, & his splendid qualities of stoicism & sympathy were as apparent in his life as in his work. Few writers can have been so likeable & so unpretentious, & it is hardly surprising that Scott has always been a popular subject with biographers. Yet most modern critics have tried to divorce the life from the work, or to minimise his reputation by suggesting that his talents were recognised in only a few of his works. By weaving together the life & the works, & discussing all Scott's best-known books as well as many which are less familiar, A. N. Wilson has produced a lively & contagiously enthusiastic reassessment of the writer who was, he believes, 'the greatest single imaginative genius of the nineteenth century'. Walter Scott's influence was felt not only in the field of literature, but also in the worlds of art, architecture, opera & domestic manners, & by figures as diverse as Byron & Queen Victoria, Dickens & Donizetti, Pugin & Victor Hugo.


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It is hardly news that a growing number of people want to step back from the brink of western consumerism & find a way to live an all-round cleaner existence
- one that is not only easier on the physical body but one that is lighter on the conscience too. So how do we go about it? Most people fight shy of giving up their cars, or their toxic household products, their cheap washing machines, or dodgy, unethical bank accounts in order to make the world a better place but Leo Hickman, resident consumer expert of the Guardian, reckoned he should give it a try & report back on whether it is possible to live a life that is western but aware.
Leo's fumbling but hugely well-intentioned & increasingly successful efforts to do the right thing can't fail to involve, educate, inspire
- & amuse
- his readers.



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With his last-gasp victory as part of the Great British coxless four team at the Athens Olympics, Matthew Pinsent clinched an historic fourth Olympic Gold to add to the three already won with his legendary rowing partner Steve Redgrave. In an uniquely exciting & evocative autobiography, Pinsent interweaves the build-up to Athens 2004 with the extraordinary story of his career & unforgettable partnership with Redgrave. Plucked from obscurity at the age of 20, told to partner his hero, & trained to within an inch of his life, Pinsent's story is uniquely revealing about what it takes to be a champion & the mixed blessings of success. Culminating with a nail-biting final chapter detailing the team's extraordinary victory in Athens in blow-by-blow detail, A Lifetime in a Race is a sports book in a different mould. ...

How legitimate is it to impersonate Adolf Hitler at an office Christmas party? It is a question that German student Andreas Honig is forced to confront when he falls into a job as a lookalike in order to pay his way through university in the UK. Before he knows it, Andreas has been swept into a crazy world where ordinary people make their living by pretending to be famous. &, despite his reservations, he is kept there by his adoration for Rose, booking agent supreme & possibly the tallest woman in Engl&. As Rose struggles to make light of her ...

Beware Imitations! Mark Watson walks the tightrope of good taste in this deviously brilliant spoof of the seamier side of the 'entertainment industry'.

Rose & Andreas make an exceedingly odd couple in 1980s Cambridge: she is the fifth tallest woman in Britain & he is a penniless post-grad from Germany. But together they set up a lookalike agency with bizarre, & ultimately fatal, results.

Twenty years on, & Andreas is in prison. His days aren



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