This title was previously published as The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic". Meet Rebecca Bloomwood. Shes a journalist. She spends her working life telling others how to manage their money. She spends her leisure time.. .shopping. Retail therapy is the answer to all her problems. She knows she should stop but she cant. She tries Cutting Back she tries Making More Money. But neither seems to work. The stories she concocts become more & more fantastic as she tries to untangle her increasingly dire financial difficulties. Her only comfort is to buy herself something
- just a little something.. . Can Becky ever escape from this dream world find true love & regain the use of her Switch card? Confessions of a Shopaholic.. .the perfect pick me up for when its all hanging in the (bank) balance."
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M. E. Thomas is a high-functioning non-criminal sociopath. She is charismatic ambitious & successful. You would be charmed by her if you met her might even be seduced by her. You would not realise that she is studying you to find your flaws that she is ruthlessly manipulative has no empathy & does not feel guilt or remorse. But she does like people
- she likes to touch them mould them & ruin them. She could be your friend or your boss. She could be you.. . Now she writes with breathtaking honesty about her life. She also draws on the latest research to explain why at least one in twenty-five of us are sociopaths
- & shows why that's not a bad thing. By turns fascinating shocking & funny Confessions of a Sociopath is a gripping insight into the mind of a self-confessed predator. ' Gripping & important.. .revelatory.. .quite the memorable roller coaster ride' Jon Ronson author of The Psychopath Test for New York Times Book Review ' Fascinating.. . That the author is female somehow makes Confessions of a Sociopath all the more chilling' Boston Globe

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High school has always been this stressful but rarely this hilarious." --BOOKLIST (starred review) More famous than ever after hitting the silver screen the ever-dramatic Lola Cep is still in the spotlight -- vying with Born-to-Win Born-to-Run-Everything Carla Santini to snag the lead in the high school play. Can Lola survive Carlas attempts at retaliation? Once the curtain goes up which drama queen will take center stage?" ...

Part tell-all part cautionary tale this emotionally charged memoir from a former video vixen nicknamed Superhead goes beyond the glamour of celebrity to reveal the inner workings of the hip-hop dancer industry--from the physical & emotional abuse thats rampant in the industry & which marked her own life--to the excessive use of drugs sex & bling. Once the sought-after video girl this sexy siren has helped multi-platinum artists such as Jay-Z R. Kelly & LL Cool J sell millions of albums with her sensual dancing. In a word Karrine was H-O-T. So hot that she made as much as $2500 a day in videos & was selected by well-known film director F. Gary Gray to co-star in his film A Man Apart starring Vin Diesel. But the film & music video sets swanky Hollywood & New York restaurants & trysts with the celebrities featured in the pages of People & In Touch magazines only touches the surface of Karrine Steffans life. Her journey is filled with physical abuse rape drug & alcohol abuse homelessness & single motherhood--all by the age of 26. By sharing her story Steffans hopes to shed light on an otherwise romanticised industry & help young women avoid the same pitfalls she encountered. If theyre already in danger she hopes to inspire them to find a way to dig themselves out of what she knows first-hand to be a cycle of hopelessness & despair. ...

This is the true story as told to the doctor who looked after him just before he died of the life of one of the last traditional yakuza in Japan. It wasnt a good" life in either sense of the word but it was an adventurous one; & the tale he has to tell presents an honest & oddly attractive picture of an insider in that separate unofficial world. In his low hoarse voice he describes the random events that led the son of a prosperous country shopkeeper to become a member & ultimately the leader of a gang organizing illegal dice games in Tokyos liveliest entertainment area. He talks about his first police raid & the brutal interrogation & imprisonment that followed it. He remembers his first love affair & the girl he ran away with & the weeks they spent wandering about the countryside together. Briefly & matter-of-factly he describes how he cut off the little finger of his left hand as a ritual gesture of apology. He explains how the games were run & the profits spent; why the ties between members of "the brotherhood" were so important; & how he came to kill a man who worked for him. What emerges is a contradictory personality: tough but not unsentimental; stubborn yet willing to take life more or less as it comes; impulsive but careful to observe the rules of the business he had joined. & in the end when his tale is finished you feel you would probably have liked him if youd met him in person. Fortunately Dr. Sagas record of his long conversations with him provides a wonderful substitute for that meeting." ...

In the first part of this famous work published in 1821 but then revised & expanded in 1856 De Quincey vividly describes a number of experiences during his boyhood which he implies laid the foundations for his later life of helpless drug addiction. The second part consists of his remarkable account of the pleasures & pains of opium ostensibly offered as a muted apology for the course his life had taken but often reading like a celebration of it. The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater is thus both a classic of English autobiographical writing
- the prose equivalent in its own time of Wordsworths The Prelude or Growth of a Poets Mind
- & at the same time a crucial text in the long history of the Western Worlds ambivalent relationship with hard drugs. Full of psychological insight & colourful descriptive writing it surprised & fascinated De Quinceys contemporaries & has continued to exert its powerful & eccentric appeal ever since.

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WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HOWARD MARKS. Once upon a time opium (the main ingredient of heroin) was easily available over the chemist's counter. The secret of happiness about which philosophers have disputed for so many ages could be bought for a penny & carried in the waistcoat pocket: portable ecstasies could be corked up in a pint bottle. Paradise? So thought Thomas de Quincey but he soon discovered that 'nobody will laugh long who deals much with opium'. ...

This book contains flash blokes glamorous girls expensive cars & false boobs. The tans may be fake but everything you read really happened. Becci Fox is an Essex girl through & through. She just wants to be comfortable & spoilt taken out to nice places & showered with presents. & she is. She lives in the grounds of her parents manor house drives a Mercedes SLK & had a boob job when she was eighteen. Shes ambitious working very hard during the day as a bridal buyer. & at night she plays hard clubbing at Sugar Hut & Faces mixing with celebrities & soap stars. She knows how to handle the footballers who buy you Cristal champagne & make you feel like the most special person in the room (only theyve got five other girls on speed dial). But when she falls for a sexy racing driver is she finally out of her league? Becci shares six dramatic months in her life as she & her friends have fun fall in love handle heartache & betrayal & even plan a big fat Essex wedding. ...

Her name is on everyones lips but can she help it if she was born rich & famous? Heres a birds eye view of the fast fun world of Paris Hilton packed with enough photos advice & inside scoop to help anyone become an heiress & live a privileged life. Socialite fashion icon television & movie star recording artist & just plain celebrity: Twenty-two year old Paris Hilton is the great granddaughter of hotel magnate Conrad Hilton & is estimated to be worth $30 million. The world first became aware of Paris Hilton through a Vanity Fair profile in 2000. Since then she has graced the pages of countless magazines newspapers & tabloids; modeled on the runways of top designers; appeared on television shows as herself (Saturday Night Live MTV Music Awards) & as fictional characters (the new Sky One show Las Vegas); had small parts in movies like The Cat in the Hat Win a Date with Tad Hamilton & the upcoming The Hillz; has begun work on an album; & starred in a hit reality series The Simple Life (shown here on Channel 4). She has been romantically linked with current boyfriend Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys Rick Solomon (of the notorious sex tape) & Deryck Whibley of Sum 41. ...

We have all heard the story of Cinderella the beautiful child cast out to slave amongst the ashes. But what of her stepsisters the homely pair exiled into ignominy by the fame of their lovely sibling? What fate befell those untouched by beauty.. .and what curses accompanied Cinderella's looks? Set against the backdrop of seventeenth-century Holland CONFESSIONS OF AN UGLY STEPSISTER tells the story of Iris an unlikely heroine who is swept from the lowly streets of Haarlem to a strange world of wealth artifice & ambition. Iris's path becomes intertwined with that of Clara the mysterious & unnaturally beautiful girl destined to become her sister. While Clara retreats to the cinders of the family hearth Iris seeks out the shadowy secrets of her new household
- & the treacherous truth of her former life.
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