As a small boy in Epping Forest Jack Straw could never have imagined that one day he would become Britains Lord Chancellor. As one of five children of divorced parents he was bright enough to get a scholarship to a direct-grant school but spent his holidays as a plumbers mate for his uncles to bring in some much-needed extra income. Yet he spent 13 years & 11 days in government including long & influential spells as Home Secretary & Foreign Secretary. This is the story of how he got there. His memoirs offer a unique insight into the complex sometimes self-serving but always fascinating world of British politics & reveals the toll that high office takes but more importantly the enormous satisfaction & extraordinary privilege of serving both your constituents & your country. Straws has been a very public life but he reveals the private face too & offers readers a vivid & authoritative insight into the Blair/ Brown era & indeed the last forty years of British politics. ...

It hardly seems credible today that a nineteenyear- old boy just commissioned into the Seaforth Highlanders could lead a platoon of men into the carnage of the Battle of the Somme. Or that as the machine gun bullets whistled past & shells exploded he could maintain his own morale to lead a platoon keeping its discipline & cohesion in spite of desperate losses. Norman Collins the author of this superb memoir was this remarkable man. Using Normans own words Last Man Standing follows him from his childhood in Hartlepool to his subsequent service in France. The book also covers such shattering events as the German naval assault on Hartlepool in December 1914 when as a seventeen-year-old Norman was subjected to as big a bombardment as any occurring on the Western Front at that time. Normans love for & devotion to the men under his command shine out in this book & his stories are gripping & deeply moving. They are illustrated by a rare collection of private photographs taken at or near the front by Norman himself although the use of a camera was strictly proscribed by the Army. Most of the images have never been published before. ...

As a small boy in Epping Forest Jack Straw could never have imagined that one day he would become Britain's Lord Chancellor. As one of five children of divorced parents he was bright enough to get a scholarship to a direct-grant school but spent his holidays as a plumbers' mate for his uncles to bring in some much-needed extra income. Yet he spent 13 years & 11 days in government including long & influential spells as Home Secretary & Foreign Secretary. This is the story of how he got there. His memoirs offer a unique insight into the complex sometimes self-serving but always fascinating world of British politics & reveals the toll that high office takes but more importantly the enormous satisfaction & extraordinary privilege of serving both your constituents & your country. Straw's has been a very public life but he reveals the private face too & offers readers a vivid & authoritative insight into the Blair/ Brown era & indeed the last forty years of British politics. ...

The Rough Diamonds are a close knit team. Kev Mc Govern their captain makes sure they work hard & play hard. Right now John OHara feels hes on the verge of losing everything. His family is about to break up. Hes dumbstruck when he finds out that his Mum is seeing his teacher & Dad...well the less said the better. John feels lonely & insecure; none of this is helping his street cred with the lads & worse still his form on the pitch is really suffering. ...

No one has given the extraordinary Thomas Young the all-round examination he so richly deserves
- until now. Celebrated biographer
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On a dark evening in November 1862 a cheap coffin is buried in eerie silence. There are no lamentations or panegyrics for the British Commissioner in charge has insisted ' No vesting will remain to distinguish where the last of the Great Mughals rests.' This Mughal is Bahadur Shah Zafar II one of the most tolerant & likeable of his remarkable dynasty who found himself leader of a violent & doomed uprising. The Siege of Delhi was the Raj's Stalingrad the end of both Mughal power & a remarkable culture. ...

To celebrate 100 years of DJing Bill Brewster & Frank Broughton have expanded & updated their classic account of the history of the disc jockey. The DJ was born on Christmas Eve 1906 when Reginald Fessenden became the first person to play a record over the radio. A century later & the DJ is the central figure in popular music. From these humble 'talking jukebox' origins to today's DJ superstars earning rock star salaries with a fanbase to match the history of the DJ is fascinating & unpredictable. The story of these unlikely cultural icons takes the reader through the swinging sixties through the sequinned revolution that was disco via hip hop & house to mass-market global domination. ...

A novel from the million copy bestselling author of The Devil Wears Prada. Heartbreak headlines & Hermes -- welcome to Brookes new world! Brooke & Julian live a happy life in New York -- shes the breadwinner working two jobs & hes the struggling musician husb&. Then Julian is discovered by a Sony exec & becomes an overnight success -- & their life changes for ever. Soon they are moving in exclusive circles dining at the glitziest restaurants attending the most outrageous parties in town & jetting off to the trendiest hotspots in LA. But Julians new-found fame means that Brooke must face the savage attentions of the ruthless paparazzi. & when a scandalous picture hits the front pages Brookes world is turned upside down. Can her marriage survive the events of that fateful night at Chateau Marmont? Its time for Brooke to decide if shes going to sink or swim! ...

In 1954 in the cookhouse of a logging & sawmill settlement in northern New Hampshire a twelve-year-old boy mistakes the local constable's girlfriend for a bear. Both the twelve-year-old & his father become fugitives pursued by the constable. Their lone protector is a fiercely libertarian logger once a river driver who befriends them. In a story spanning five decades Last Night in Twisted River"
- John Irving's twelfth novel
- depicts the recent half-century in the United States as a world 'where lethal hatreds were generally permitted to run their course'. From the novel's taut opening sentence to its elegiac final chapter what distinguishes " Last Night in Twisted River" is the author's unmistakable voice the inimitable voice of an accomplished storyteller."

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The hilarious adventures of Harry the Polis as recalled by ex-polis Harry Morris the self-appointed Chief Constable of funny stories continue with the publication of his tenth book The Last Night on the Beat. Full of brilliant anecdotes oddball characters quick comebacks & unlikely excuses Harry demonstrates true Glaswegian humour at its finest. Harry Morris is out to show a side of our industrious police force that we dont often see
- the lighter side. His time with the Glasgow & Strathclyde constabulary or polis for short hasnt robbed Harry of his sense of humour & every wily witness cocky con & sarcastic sergeant he ever rubbed up against is here in page after page of humorous stories. Here is the definitive collection of Harry the Polis tales that will tempt your laughter lines into making an appearance & have you flashing your gnashers.
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