LAST TRAIN TO MEMPHIS is arguably the first serious biography that refuses to dwell on the myth of Elvis. Aiming instead to portray in vivid dramatic terms the life & career of this outstanding artistic & cultural phenomenon it draws together a plethora of documentary & interview material to create a superbly coherent & plausible narrative. The first of two volumes covering Presley's rise to prominence up to his departure for Germany in 1958 LAST TRAIN to MEMPHIS will undoubtedly become the benchmark by which other biographies of him are judged. ...

Following the success of the acclaimed Ghost Train to the Eastern Star" & " The Great Railway Bazaar" " The Last Train to Zona Verde" is an ode to the last African journey of the world's most celebrated travel writer Paul Theroux. ' Happy again back in the kingdom of light ' writes Paul Theroux as he sets out on a new journey though the continent he knows & loves best. Having travelled down the right-hand side of Africa in Dark Star Safari he sets out this time from Cape Town heading northwards in a new direction up the left-hand side through South Africa & Namibia to Botswana then on into Angola heading for the Congo in search of the end of the line. Journeying alone through the greenest continent in what he feels will be his last African journey Theroux encounters a world increasingly removed from both the intineraries of tourists & the hopes of post-colonial independence movements. Leaving the Cape Town townships traversing the Namibian bush passing the browsing cattle of the great sunbaked heartland of the savannah Theroux crosses "the Red Line" into a different Africa: "the improvised slapped-together Africa of tumbled fences & cooking fires of mud & thatch" of heat & poverty & of roadblocks mobs & anarchy. A final African adventure from the writer whose gimlet eye & effortless prose have brought the world to generations of readers " The Last Train to Zona Verde" is Paul Theroux's ultimate safari. Praise for Paul Theroux: " Always a terrific teller of tales & conjurer of exotic locales he writes lean prose that lopes along at a compelling pace". (" Sunday Times"). " One needs energy to keep up with the extraordinary productive restlessness of Paul Theroux...[ He is] the most gifted most prodigal writer of his generation". (Jonathan Raban). " His ability to sum up a city or a people in a few lines is undiminished". (" Daily Telegraph"). Paul Theroux's books include " Dark Star Safari" " Ghost Train to the Eastern Star" " Riding the Iron Rooster" " The Great Railway Bazaar" " The Elephanta Suite" "A Dead Hand" " The Tao of Travel" & " The Lower River". " The Mosquito Coast" & " Dr Slaughter" have both been made into successful films. Paul Theroux divides his time between Cape Cod & the Hawaiian islands." ...

LAST TRAIN TO MEMPHIS & CARELESS LOVE represent two volumes of arguably the first serious biography that refuses to dwell on the myth of Elvis Presley. Aiming instead to portray in vivid dramatic terms the life & career of this outstanding artistic & cultural phenomenon they draw together a plethora of documentary & interview material to create a superbly coherent & plausible narrative. The first volume LAST TRAIN TO MEMPHIS covers Presleys stunning rise & ended with his departure for Germany & his mothers unexpected death in 1958 while CARELESS LOVE covers the great years of the 60s & the difficult decadent later part of Elviss life up to its untimely end in 1977. ...

During the course of the 1950s England lost confidence in its rulers & convinced itself to modernise. The bankrupt steam-powered railway run by a retired general symbolised everything that was wrong with the country; the future lay in motorways & high speed electric
- or even atomic
- express trains. But plans for a gleaming new railway system ended in failure & on the roads traffic ground to a halt. Along came Dr Beeching forensically analysing the railways' problems & expertly delivering an expert's diagnosis
- a third of the nation's railways must go. This was the point at which the reality of modernisation dawned & rural England fell victim to the road & car
- at least that is how Dr Beeching is remembered today. Last Trains examines why & how the railway system contracted exposing the political failures that bankrupted the railways & examining officials' attempts to understand a transport revolution beyond their control. It is a story of the increasing alienation of bureaucrats from the public they thought they were serving but also of a nation that thinks it lives in the countryside trying to come to terms with modernity.



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Molly Bennett & Nellie Mc Donough are as close as can be. They sort out all the neighbours' problems care for seven children between them & still have time for a giggle & a gossip. So imagine the excitement when Nellie's son Steve proposes to Molly's daughter Jill. But it's not long before unsettling events turn their attention again to friends in need. The Bradley family who have moved in up the street are a bad lot & Molly & Nellie find their hands full with sorting out the troubles that ensue. Meanwhile Molly's teenage daughter Doreen has fallen head over heels in love with a young lad named Philip. She hasn't been with anyone quite like him before & she's in for a terrible shock when she finds out whose family he comes from... ...

Unfinished at the time of his death F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Last Tycoon" is a story of doomed love set against the extravagance of America's booming film industry. This " Penguin Modern Classics" edition is edited with an introduction by Edmund Wilson. The studio lot looks like 'thirty acres of fairyland' the night that a mysterious woman stands & smiles at Monroe Stahr the last of the great Hollywood princes. Enchanted by one another they begin a passionate but hopeless love affair starting with a fast-moving seduction as slick as a scene from one of Stahr's pictures. The romance unfolds frame by frame watched by Cecilia a thoroughly modern girl who has taken her lessons in sentiment & cynicism from all the movies she has seen. Her buoyant humour & satirical eye perfectly complement Fitzgerald's panorama of Hollywood at its most lavish & bewitching. F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) has acquired a mythical status in American literary history & his masterwork " The Great Gatsby" is considered by many to be the 'great American novel'. In 1920 he married Zelda Sayre dubbed 'the first American Flapper' & their traumatic marriage & Zelda's gradual descent into insanity became the leading influence on his writing. As well as many short stories Fitzgerald wrote five novels " This Side of Paradise" " The Great Gatsby" " The Beautiful & the Damned" " Tender is the Night" & incomplete at the time of his death " The Last Tycoon". After his death " The New York Times" said of him that 'in fact & in the literary sense he created a "generation"'. If you enjoyed " The Last Tycoon" you might enjoy Fitzgerald's " The Beautiful & the Damned" also available in " Penguin Classics". " Wonderful...a novel about Hollywood written from the inside". (Helen Dunmore " Sunday Times")." ...

William D. Cohans The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Freres & Co." is the astonishing story of the worlds most elite & legendary investment bank
- & the men who reigned over it all. For over 150 years Lazard Freres had stood apart from other Wall Street firms by offering ultra-wealthy clients the wisdom of its Great Men: from Felix Rohatyn the escapee from Nazi-occupied France turned financial genius to Michel David-Weill the inscrutable French billionaire Sun King; from Steve Rattner the boy wonder from Long Island who clashed violently with the old guard to larger-than-life CEO Bruce Wasserstein Bid-Em-Up-Bruce who broke with the banks traditions & made himself billions in the process. They amassed unimaginable fortunes & would stop at nothing to make a deal until their titanic egos started to jeopardize everything. In " The Last Tycoons" William Cohan himself a former high-level Wall Street banker takes us into their mysterious & secretive world telling a story of ruthless ambition whispered advice explosive feuds glamorous mistresses decadent excesses & unimaginable wealth. " Spellbinding". (" Financial Times"). "A definitive account.. .it lives up to the billing". (" The Times"). " Has sent a jolt through Lazard & the rest of Wall Street". (" Wall Street Journal"). William D. Cohan was an award-winning investigative journalist before embarking on a seventeen-year career as an investment banker on Wall Street. His first book " The Last Tycoons" about Lazard won the 2007 Financial Times/ Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award & was a " New York Times" bestseller. His second book " House of Cards" also a bestseller is an account of the last days of Bear Stearns & Co. He is also the author of " Money & Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World"."
...

Human rights offer a vision of international justice that todays idealistic millions hold dear. Yet the very concept on which the movement is based became familiar only a few decades ago when it profoundly reshaped our hopes for an enhanced humanity. In this pioneering book Samuel Moyn elevates that extraordinary transformation to center stage & asks what it reveals about the ideals troubled present & uncertain future. For some human rights stretch back to the dawn of Western civilization the age of the American & French Revolutions or the post-World War II moment when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was framed. Revisiting these episodes in a dramatic tour of humanitys moral history The Last Utopia" shows that it was in the decade after 1968 that human rights began to make sense to broad communities of people as the proper cause of justice. Across eastern & western Europe as well as throughout the United States & Latin America human rights crystallized in a few short years as social activism & political rhetoric moved it from the hallways of the United Nations to the global forefront. It was on the ruins of earlier political utopias Moyn argues that human rights achieved contemporary prominence. The morality of individual rights substituted for the soiled political dreams of revolutionary communism & nationalism as international law became an alternative to popular struggle & bloody violence. But as the ideal of human rights enters into rival political agendas it requires more vigilance & scrutiny than when it became the watchword of our hopes." ...

Surviving through countless centuries Alisa is beautiful strong &.. .deadly. Alisa has long been hiding a dark & deadly secret but it seems that someone is finally onto her. When a private investigator is hired to delve into Alisa's personal affairs her shocking true age & untraceable fortune are uncovered. Alisa does what she must & kills the investigator but not before discovering who hired him. It is clear that an ancient evil
- the first vampire
- has returned. Alisa knows that his whole existence was her fault & she must therefore be the one to end his reign of slaughter.. .

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One hundred years have passed since Robert Falcon Scotts beleagured expeditionary team arrived at the South Pole only to find that they had been beaten by the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. The most feted explorer of his generation Amundsen counted the discovery of the Northwest Passage in 1905 as well as the North Pole amongst his greatest achievements. In the golden age of polar exploration Amundsen whose revolutionary approach to technology transcends polar & nautical significance was a titan among men. However until now his story has rarely featured as more than a footnote to Scotts tragic failure. Reviled for defeating Scott but worshipped by his men Amundsen was pursued by women & creditors throughout his life before disappearing on a rescue mission for the Italian Fascist who had set off in an airship to claim the North Pole for Mussolini. The Last Viking is the life of a visionary & a showman who brought the era of Shackleton to an end put the newly independent Norway on the map & was the twentieth centurys brightest trailblazing explorer. Against the backdrop of the race to conquer the most inhospitable corners of the earth The Last Viking stands alongside The Worst Journey in the World for its grim immediacy of heroism & hardship. Bestriding the generation defined by adventure & the unquenchable desire for discovery it is the mesmerising story of courage misery friendship & the ultimate price paid for immortality. ...