Nashville 1971. As the year drew to a close Willie Nelson wasn't exactly feeling the spirit of the season. A stalled career music executives hounding him for a formulaic Nashville Sound hit & consequently an unsettled personal life all contributed to his holiday blues. One day he wrote What Can You Do to Me Now?" The next day his house burned down. Willie saw it as a sign that things had to change & from that moment on he vowed he would blaze his own path with his music & his life- no matter if any one else understood or approved. After that life-changing period Willie began making music his own way. Heading back to his native Texas he reinvented himself & resurrected his career got back on the road & penned songs that miraculously brought hippies bikers & rednecks together in one audience for the first time. That success would propel him to the top of the outlaw movement
- an authentic rebel sound & attitude that defied Nashville's traditional law-&-order authoritarianism
- & seal his status as a beloved American folk hero. As they say the rest is history
- or as Willie says If you fail at something long enough you become a legend. " Roll Me Up & Smoke Me When I Die" recounts that special holiday season & the inspiring results that followed that watershed moment. But unlike other seasonal tales it features wild colorful tales of Willie's hijinks told in his unique voice. A story of thanks faith & staying true to your deepest beliefs " Roll Me Up & Smoke Me When I Die" offers hope & inspiration for us all."


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Mildred D. Taylors much-loved classic for readers aged 12+ Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry" follows a feisty African-American girl
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Barnes was born in 1850 into a shipowning family in St Johns Newfoundland & first went to sea while still a schoolboy. His career seemed predestined & by the age of 14 he was apprenticed to a Liverpool company serving in their sailing ships working a triangular passage to St Johns the Brazils & back to Liverpool. He tried to swallow the anchor when he married but running a grocery store was too mundane & he soon went back to sea transferring his skills to the now dominant steamships. Even though he was 64 on the outbreak of the First World War he promptly volunteered for service. He does not seem to have regretted it even after being mined or torpedoed three times; the last time he was badly injured & spent three days adrift in an open boat. Despite these disasters like many a sailor he was probably safer at sea
- while in one port he fell for a rather exotic woman only to discover she was a German spy. When he eventually retired to New York he got to know a couple called Hilda & Denys Wortman. Denys was a newspaper cartoonist who was rather taken with the gruff old sea-dog & based a character he dubbed Mopy Dick on him for a series of popular cartoons. Meanwhile Hilda encouraged Barnes to record his adventures & she eventually became the editor of the first edition of this book imbuing the story with far more narrative flair than usually found in unliterary memoirs.
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The Rolling Stones origins date back to the boyhood friendship of Mick Jagger & Keith Richards forged in 1951. Their acquaintance was interrupted when both families moved in the mid-Fifties but got rekindled in October 1960 when the two ran into each other at a train station & Richards noticed the imported R&B albums Jagger was carrying under his arm. Jagger a student at the London School of Economics was a hardcore blues aficionado while Richards interest leaned more toward Chuck Berry-style rock & roll. Richards soon joined Jaggers group Little Boy Blue & the Blue Boys. Several years later Richards & Jagger met Brian Jones & the three clicked forming the Rolling Stones. Joined by drummer Charlie Watts & bassist Bill Wyman the band would come to epitomize the darker bluesier & more boldly sexual side of rock & roll in a kind of ongoing counterpoint with the Beatles sunnier more pop-oriented vistas. Five decades later no one has yet stripped the Rolling Stones of their title as the Worlds Greatest Rock & Roll B&. In a 2002 interview in USA Today Richards said: People thought it couldnt be done. We never thought of trying it. We are just here. Its a vague mission you cant give up until you keel over."" ...

This is our story of fifty fantastic years. We started out as a blues band playing the clubs & more recently we've filled the largest stadiums in the world with the kind of show that none of us could have imagined all those years ago. Curated by us it features the very best photographs & ephemera from & beyond our archives." (Mick Keith Charlie & Ronnie). On Thursday 12 July 1962 the Rolling Stones went on stage at the Marquee Club in London's Oxford Street. In the intervening fifty years the Stones have performed live in front of more people than any b&...ever. They've played the smallest blues clubs & some of the biggest stadium tours of all time. They've had No.1 singles & albums in every country that has a popular music chart & have helped define global popular culture. A phenomenal half-century later they now look back at their astounding career. Curated introduced & narrated by the band themselves " The Rolling Stones 50" is the only officially authorized book to celebrate this milestone. With privileged access to a wealth of unseen & rare material it is packed with superb reportage photography contact sheets negative strips out-takes & so much more from every period in the bands history. With more than 1 000 illustrations it also features some of the most rare & interesting Stones memorabilia in existence: international posters draft record cover art bubblegum cards jigsaws & other previously unpublished treasures specially photographed for this volume. Additional contributions by photography legends Gered Mankowitz Jean-Marie Perier Dezo Hoffmann Michael Cooper Terry ONeill Bent Rej Philip Townsend & many others make this the definitive book to celebrate fifty years of the Rolling Stones. From Mick Keith Charlie & Ronnie here is one spectacular thank you to their fans all over the world." ...

From the bestselling author of Jupiters Travels & Dreaming of Jupiter comes an entertaining & inspiring new journey round Britain. Having crisscrossed the globe twice Ted returns to the British Isles to rediscover the country of his youth. The result is a revealing portrait of modern Britain. It is also a witty & affectionate journey back to the past when Ted would hitchhike across the country visiting friends (and girlfriends). He returns to the site of his old school with its astonishing war time history & visits familiar haunts where he did his National Service & got his first job in newspapers. He also visits less-familiar places. Some inspire him (Winchester Cathedral). Others defeat him (a tax office in Nottingham). As he rolls through the Isles he discovers that a great deal has changed: busier roads bureaucracy & worst of all the dreaded Sat Nav. But there is also much to celebrate & enjoy along the way. Packed with fascinating stories extraordinary encounters & glorious depictions of the British countryside Rolling through the Isles takes the reader on an unforgettable trip with a celebrated adventurer & writer. ...

The first Rolls-Royce armoured car was a privately owned vehicle fitted with a machine-gun & a limited amount of armour plate at a dockyard in France. It was used by a squadron of the Royal Naval Air Service in Flanders in 1914. Backed by First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill more & better versions followed until by 1915 there were about 100 of them which were then handed over to the Army. They searched the world for War" as Sir Albert Stern said of them & before long there were Rolls-Royce armoured cars operating as far apart as German South West Africa the Western Desert Gallipoli all over the Middle East & the north west frontier of India. All of them used the classic 40/50hp Silver Ghost chassis. They were fast silent & reliable but above all strong. "A Rolls in the desert is above rubies" said Lawrence of Arabia & the Duke of Westminster would have agreed with him following his famous raid to rescue the kidnapped crew of the steamship HMS Tara. At least one car accompanied the adventurous MP Oliver Locker-Lampson on his adventures in Russia. After the war unable to find a better model the War Office simply copied the original Admiralty design with minor improvements. If that was not enough the Royal Air Force also acquired some to support their operations in the Middle East. A new design with a larger body & dome shaped turret also appeared for service in India. They also served in Ireland & even briefly in Shanghai. The 11th Hussars still had Rolls-Royces in Egypt when the war against Italy began & the youngest of these was over fifteen years old when they went into action but after that their numbers dwindled as newer vehicles came along. But then history repeated itself. Britain was threatened with invasion & a new army of veterans was raised to assist with defence. Some battalions built home made armoured cars on private chassis & at least three of these were based on Rolls-Royces." ...

For generations people the world over have been intrigued by the magic of the h&-built motor cars created by the worlds most skilled craftsmen & women. Their workmanship & world-class engineering made Rolls-Royce the benchmark for quality & excellence. The supreme accolade for other products was to be described as the Rolls-Royce of... Ironically the company that became the symbol of privilege & luxury was founded by a self-taught engineer Frederick Henry Royce son of a Lincolnshire farmer who started working at age 10 to help his widowed mother make ends meet. Obsessed with perfection in every task he proclaimed that nothing is ever right or good enough yet he produced the finest motor cars the world had ever seen. Owners range from royalty & billionaires to Hollywood stars & the just plain rich. They shared one aim
- to own the very best.
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Roma" is the story of the ancient city of Rome from its mythic beginnings as a campsite along a trade route to its emergence as the centre of the most extensive powerful empire in the ancient world. Beginning with the prehistory days when Roma was a way station among seven hills for traders & merchants & the founding of the city itself by Romulus & Remus critically acclaimed historical novelist Steven Saylor tells the epic saga of a city & its people its rise to prominence among the city-states of the area & ultimately dominance over the entire ancient Western world. From the tragedy of Coriolanus to the Punic Wars & the invasion by Hannibal the triumph & murder of Julius Caesar & the rise & decline of the Roman Republic & the beginnings of Imperial Rome Saylor's breathtaking novel brings to vivid life the most famous city of the ancient world. " Roma" is Saylor's finest achievement an epic in the truest sense of the word." ...

This title contains three new editions in the popular Discovery" series. Visually exciting & highly informative each book presents its subject in a fun & accessible way. Internet links offer a fascinating selection of recommended web sites
- with sound animation & video clips & much more which provide additional information for projects & homework."
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