This title is winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2002. After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship one solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild blue Pacific. The crew of the surviving vessel consists of a hyena a zebra (with a broken leg) a female orang-utan a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger & Pi
- a 16-year-old Indian boy. The scene is set for a most extraordinary piece of literary fiction. This recording is unabridged. Typically abridged audiobooks are not more than 60 per cent of the authors work & as low as 30 per cent with characters & plotlines removed.
...

A poetic work of fiction on the one hand an autobiography on the other The Life of Rebecca Jones is a powerful meditative work on one familys passage through the twentieth century. In the early years of the last century Rebecca is born into a rural community in the Maesglasau valley in Wales; her family have been working the land for a thousand years but the changes brought about by modernity threaten the survival of her language & her familys way of life. Three of her siblings are afflicted with a genetic blindness & it is they who have the opportunity to be educated elsewhere & to find work while Rebecca & her remaining brother maintain the family farm amidst a gradual influx of new technologies from the waterpipe to the tractor & telephone & ultimately to television. Rebeccas reflections on the century are delivered with haunting dignity & a simple intimacy while her evocation of the changing seasons & a life that is so in tune with its surroundings is rich & poignant. The Life of Rebecca Jones has all the makings of a classic fixing on a vanishing period of rural history & the novels final unexpected revelation remains unforgettable & utterly moving. ...

A group portrait of a brilliant circle at the centre of which Boswell captures the powerful troubled & witty figure of Samuel Johnson. The book is also an intimate picture of domestic life which mingles the greatest talkers of a talkative age with the heros humbler friends. ...

Ayrton Senna was in many peoples' opinions the greatest Formula One driver to have ever raced. Over 2 million people watched his shocking crash on television during the San Marino Grand Prix on Sunday 1st May 1994. The knowing knew he was dead when his car finally came to rest on that fateful day. Although a host of biographies have been published none have fully researched his life & character & exposed his extraordinary driving brain. In this first full & stunningly illustrated account of his life the authors & their collaborators examine every detail of the driving maestro's life. From his earliest days to his first race & on to his world championships to his pole positions & finally to his death & its aftermath. ' He was the one driver so perfect that nobody thought anything could happen to him' Bernie Ecclestone ' Ayrton was the most committed of all. He had an air of invincibility around him. He put his entire body & mind into winning' Sir Frank Williams ' He established his own limits. When he reached those limits he wanted to beat them & establish new ones. I never knew how far he could go. I had an understanding but I didn't know' The only thing that existed was himself
- & he had to be first' Gerhard Berger.
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On Sunday 2st May 1994 Ayrton Senna was leading the San Marino Grand Prix when suddenly his car veered inexplicably off the track at Tamburello bend. His Williams-Renault crossed over both the grass & concrete fun-off strips before finally impacting the concrete wall. It is thought that the front of his head hit the concrete wall forcing his helmet back on to the headrest & crushing the back of his head. Either impact would have been enough to kill him. The greatest racing driver the world had ever seen would be declared dead just over four hours later. This book is about his life his victories & his loves. It is the first proper story of a man the world revered & whose like will never been seen again. ...

Gregg Wallace star presenter of BBCs MASTERCHEF restaurateur & expert on all things pudding shares his story for the first time. After leaving school at 14 he started his career as a greengrocer at the New Covent Garden market & went on to create his multi-million pound fruit & veg business a decade later. A star slot on BBC VEG TALK an award-winning television programme followed & in 2005 the chance to front MASTERCHEF a show that has drawn in over 4.5 million viewers & produced some of the nations best up-&-coming chefs. He has since opened two restaurants Wallace & Co & Greggs Table penned numerous cookery books & has written for the national & trade press. In this his first memoir Gregg tells how his early passion for food growing up in Peckham South London led to a world of Michelin star restaurants celebrity chefs & a mission to save Britains produce
- & in an extraordinary turn with more than a few life-changing hurdles
- brought him back to his roots.

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Sir David Attenborough is Britain's best-known natural history film-maker. His career as a naturalist & broadcaster has spanned nearly six decades & in this volume of memoirs Sir David tells stories of the people & animals he has met & the places he has visited. His first job
- after Cambridge University & two years in the Royal Navy
- was at a London publishing house. Then in 1952 he joined the BBC as a trainee producer & 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 & writing & 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) & " Life in Cold Blood" (2008). Sir David is an Honorary Fellow of Clare College Cambridge a Fellow of the Royal Society & was knighted in 1985. He is also Britain's most respected trusted & lauded natural history broadcaster & writer championing conservation & standing at the forefront of issues concerning the planet's declining species. A lot has changed since his first television documentary & 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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David Attenborough reads his revised & updated edition of the Sunday Times" bestseller. David Attenborough is one of the most influential admired & best-liked figures in television. When aged 26 he applied for a job in the BBC
- which then meant radio
- he was promptly turned down. But someone saw his rejected application letter & asked would he like to try television? He would & almost 60 years later he is still at it. Elegantly told & often very funny his story

Includes:: how he introduced colour television to Britain & the background to his epic series such as " Life on Earth" & " Life in Cold Blood". This is a complete & unabridged reading by David Attenborough. Attenboroughs familiar voice comes through in every line his curiosity as sharp today as it was when he started in broadcasting...
- " Daily Telegraph". What shines through most of all is his enthusiasm...
- " Sunday Telegraph"."





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Kevin Twaddle was a footballer who was always prepared to take a risk on the park but it was off it where he really gambled. The former Hearts Motherwell & St Johnstone winger speaks openly for the first time about his secret betting addiction that saw him blow more than GBP 1 million & wrecked his football career. Kevin tells his harrowing story of what his punting did to his family how it killed relationships destroyed his bond with his daughter & almost caused his parents to split up. He talks about his addiction & how it led to him stealing going to loan sharks left him facing jail & considering the ultimate gamble
- suicide
- before he finally got his life back on the straight & narrow. Kevin who has since gone on to play pool for Scotland has not had a bet for more than six years holds a prominent position in Gamblers Anonymous & now also uses his experiences to help the Professional Footballers Association (Scotland) to educate today's footballers of the pitfalls of gambling. This is the harrowing & moving story of how one man's life fell apart spectacularly because of his addiction to gambling & how he finally managed to conquer his demons.

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This fascinating volume illuminates the world of Britain's railways during the Age of Steam seen through the eyes of legendary railwayman Richard Hardy. One of the last of the 'old breed' Richard is the author of innumerable transport articles & biographies of Dr Beeching & Bert Hooker as well as Conway's ' The Railwayman's Pocket-Book'. During much of his early career from 1944 through to the early 1960s Richard took hundreds of pictures of life on the railways & the men he knew & worked with on a daily basis using his trusty Brownie 620 box camera. These unique & largely unpublished images form a fascinating & hugely evocative portrayal of the height of the steam era during the age of the ' Big Four' & after 1947 on the sprawling nationalised network known as British Railways. Many of the pictures capture the railways in wartime providing a valuable social record of the nation at war. In addition there is a sequence of rare photographs of French engines railways & railwaymen which offer a superb contrast to the British rail network (it quickly becomes evident that whereas the British rail system ran on tea the French system ran on wine). Great characters are the unifying theme of the pictures & they include famous figures associated with the railways such as the poet John Betjeman. This lavishly illustrated book sets Richard's personal photographs & text alongside a carefully collated selection of ephemera artworks & photographs drawn from the National Railway Museum York. Collectively these images & artefacts tell the stories of the great brotherhood of railwaymen. ...