Biography: general Books
Holt McDougal I Came As a Shadow
Book SynopsisA NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOKThe long-awaited autobiography from Georgetown University's legendary coach, whose life on and off the basketball court throws America's unresolved struggle with racial justice into sharp reliefJohn Thompson was never just a basketball coach and I Came As a Shadow is categorically not just a basketball autobiography.After three decades at the center of race and sports in America, the first Black head coach to win an NCAA championship is ready to make the private public. Chockful of stories and moving beyond mere stats (and what stats! three Final Fours, four times national coach of the year, seven Big East championships, 97 percent graduation rate), Thompson's book drives us through his childhood under Jim Crow segregation to our current moment of racial reckoning. We experience riding shotgun with Celtics icon Red Auerbach, and coaching NBA Hall of Famers like Patrick Ewing and Allen Iverson. Ho
£16.99
Celadon Books Unmasked
Book Synopsis**THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER**It's a mark of the highest honor when I say it's even more riveting than an episode of ''Dateline''.The New York TimesFrom Paul Holes, the detective who found the Golden State Killer, Unmasked is a memoir that grabs its reader in a stranglehold and proves more fascinating than fiction and darker than any noir narrative. (LA Magazine)I order another bourbon, neat. This is the drink that will flip the switch. I don't even know how I got here, to this place, to this point. Something is happening to me lately. I'm drinking too much. My sheets are soaking wet when I wake up from nightmares of decaying corpses. I order another drink and swig it, trying to forget about the latest case I can't shake.Crime solving for me is more complex than the challenge of the hunt, or the process of piecing together a scientific puzzle. The thought of good people suffering d
£23.19
St Martin's Press Unmasked
Book Synopsis**THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER**It's a mark of the highest honor when I say it's even more riveting than an episode of ''Dateline''.The New York TimesFrom Paul Holes, the detective who found the Golden State Killer, Unmasked is a memoir that grabs its reader in a stranglehold and proves more fascinating than fiction and darker than any noir narrative. (LA Magazine)I order another bourbon, neat. This is the drink that will flip the switch. I don't even know how I got here, to this place, to this point. Something is happening to me lately. I'm drinking too much. My sheets are soaking wet when I wake up from nightmares of decaying corpses. I order another drink and swig it, trying to forget about the latest case I can't shake.Crime solving for me is more complex than the challenge of the hunt, or the process of piecing together a scientific puzzle. The thought of good people suffering d
£15.30
Picador USA 97196 Words
Book SynopsisA selection of the best short work by France''s greatest living nonfiction writer A New York Times Notable Books of 2020 No one writes nonfiction like Emmanuel Carrère. Although he takes cues from such literary heroes as Truman Capote and Janet Malcolm, Carrère has, over the course of his career, reinvented the form in a search for truth in all its guises. Dispensing with the rules of genre, he takes what he needs from every available form or disciplinebe it theology, historiography, fiction, reportage, or memoirand fuses it under the pressure of an inimitable combination of passion, curiosity, intellect, and wit. With an oeuvre unique in world literature for its blend of empathy and playfulness, Carrère stands as one of our most distinctive and important literary voices.97,196 Words introduces Carrère's shorter works to an English-language audience. Featuring more than thirty extraordinary essays written over an illustrious twent
£15.30
MacMillan Audio Killing Crazy Horse
Book SynopsisThis program includes a prologue read by Bill O''ReillyThe latest installment of the multimillion-selling Killing series is a gripping journey through the American West and the historic clashes between Native Americans and settlers.The bloody Battle of Tippecanoe was only the beginning. It's 1811 and President James Madison has ordered the destruction of Shawnee warrior chief Tecumseh's alliance of tribes in the Great Lakes region. But while General William Henry Harrison would win this fight, the armed conflict between Native Americans and the newly formed United States would rage on for decades.In Killing Crazy Horse bestselling authors Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard venture through the fraught history of our country's founding on already occupied lands, from General Andrew Jackson's brutal battles with the Creek Nation to President James Monroe's epic sea to shining sea policy, to President Martin Van Buren's cruel enforcement
£29.99
St. Martin's Griffin Jane Austen at Home
Book SynopsisWorsley offers us much that Austen''s admirers wish to know...with humor and poignancy and common sense, just as Austen would have wished. Amy Bloom, New York Times Book Review Take a trip back to Jane Austen''s world and the many places she lived as historian Lucy Worsley visits Austen''s childhood home, her schools, her holiday accommodations, the houses--both grand and small--of the relations upon whom she was dependent, and the home she shared with her mother and sister towards the end of her life. In places like Steventon Parsonage, Godmersham Park, Chawton House and a small rented house in Winchester, Worsley discovers a Jane Austen very different from the one who famously lived a life without incident.Worsley examines the rooms, spaces and possessions which mattered to her, and the varying ways in which homes are used in her novels as both places of pleasure and as prisons. She shows readers a passionate Jane Austen who fought for her freedom, a
£18.00
Picador USA Black Spartacus
Book SynopsisWinner of the 2021 Wolfson History PrizeBlack Spartacus is a tour de force: by far the most complete, authoritative and persuasive biography of Toussaint that we are likely to have for a long time . . . An extraordinarily gripping read. David A. Bell, The GuardianA new interpretation of the life of the Haitian revolutionary Toussaint Louverture Among the defining figures of the Age of Revolution, Toussaint Louverture is the most enigmatic. Though the Haitian revolutionary's image has multiplied across the globeappearing on banknotes and in bronze, on T-shirts and in filmthe only definitive portrait executed in his lifetime has been lost. Well versed in the work of everyone from Machiavelli to Rousseau, he was nonetheless dismissed by Thomas Jefferson as a cannibal. A Caribbean acolyte of the European Enlightenment, Toussaint nurtured a class of black Catholic clergymen who became one of the pillars of his rule, while his sup
£18.00
St Martin's Press The Talk
Book SynopsisWinner of the NAACP Image Award in Outstanding Graphic NovelsWinner of an Alex Award from the American Library AssociationWinner of the Libby Award for Best Comic/Graphic Novel of the YearFinalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize in NonfictionNominated for an Eisner Award for Best Graphic MemoirNominated for an Ignatz Award for Outstanding Graphic NovelNamed The Year''s Best Graphic Novel by Publishers WeeklyNamed one of Publishers Weekly''s Top Ten Best Books of 2023Named one of NPR''s Books We LoveNamed one of Kirkus'' Best 2023 BooksNamed one of the Washington Post''s 10 best graphic novels of 2023One of TIME Magazine''s Must-Read Books of the YearShortlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction 2024Booklist Editors'' Choice: Graphic Novels, 2023New York Publi
£26.99
Celadon Books Bad City
Book SynopsisPringle's fast-paced book is a master class in investigative journalism... when institutions collude to protect one another, reporting may be our last best hope for accountability.The New York TimesFor fans of Spotlight and Catch and Kill comes a nonfiction thriller about corruption and betrayal radiating across Los Angeles from one of the region''s most powerful institutions, a riveting tale from a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist who investigated the shocking events and helped bring justice in the face of formidable odds. On a cool, overcast afternoon in April 2016, a salacious tip arrived at the L.A. Times that reporter Paul Pringle thought should have taken, at most, a few weeks to check out: a drug overdose at a fancy hotel involving one of the University of Southern California's shiniest starsDr. Carmen Puliafito, the head of the prestigious medical school. Pringle, who'd long done battle with USC and its al
£23.99
St Martin's Press Bad City
Book SynopsisPringle's fast-paced book is a master class in investigative journalism... when institutions collude to protect one another, reporting may be our last best hope for accountability.The New York TimesFor fans of Spotlight and Catch and Kill comes a nonfiction thriller about corruption and betrayal radiating across Los Angeles from one of the region''s most powerful institutions, a riveting tale from a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist who investigated the shocking events and helped bring justice in the face of formidable odds. On a cool, overcast afternoon in April 2016, a salacious tip arrived at the L.A. Times that reporter Paul Pringle thought should have taken, at most, a few weeks to check out: a drug overdose at a fancy hotel involving one of the University of Southern California's shiniest starsDr. Carmen Puliafito, the head of the prestigious medical school. Pringle, who'd long done battle with USC and its al
£15.30
St Martin's Press Last Call
Book Synopsis
£13.29
St. Martin's Griffin True Raiders
Book SynopsisTrue Raiders is The Lost City of Z meets The Da Vinci Code, from critically acclaimed author Brad Ricca.This book tells the untold true story of Monty Parker, a British rogue nobleman who, after being dared to do so by Ava Astor, the so-called most beautiful woman in the world, headed a secret 1909 expedition to find the fabled Ark of the Covenant. Like a real-life version of Raiders of the Lost Ark, this incredible story of adventure and mystery has almost been completely forgotten today.In 1908, Monty is approached by a strange Finnish scholar named Valter Juvelius who claims to have discovered a secret code in the Bible that reveals the location of the Ark. Monty assembles a ragtag group of blueblood adventurers, a renowned psychic, and a Franciscan father, to engage in a secret excavation just outside the city walls of Jerusalem.Using recently uncovered records from the original expedition and several newly translated so
£16.14
Metropolitan Books My Body
Book SynopsisINSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERMy Body offers a lucid examination of the mirrors in which its author has seen herself, and her indoctrination into the cult of beauty as defined by powerful men. In its more transcendent passages . . . the author steps beyond the reach of any ''Pygmalion'' and becomes a more dangerous kind of beautiful. She becomes a kind of god in her own right: an artist.Melissa Febos, The New York Times Book ReviewA deeply honest investigation of what it means to be a woman and a commodity from Emily Ratajkowski, the archetypal, multi-hyphenate celebrity of our timeEmily Ratajkowski is an acclaimed model and actress, an engaged political progressive, a formidable entrepreneur, a global social media phenomenon, and now, a writer. Rocketing to world fame at age twenty-one, Ratajkowski sparked both praise and furor with the provocative display of her body as an unapologeti
£15.29
St. Martin's Griffin The Churchill Sisters
Book SynopsisAs complex in their own way as their Mitford cousins, Winston and Clementine Churchill's daughters each had a unique relationship with their famous father. Rachel Trethewey''s biography, The Churchill Sisters, tells their story.Bright, attractive and well-connected, in any other family the Churchill girls Diana, Sarah, Marigold and Mary would have shone. But they were not in another family, they were Churchills, and neither they nor anyone else could ever forget it. From their father the greatest Englishman' to their brother, golden boy Randolph, to their eccentric and exciting cousins, the Mitford Girls, they were surrounded by a clan of larger-than-life characters which often saw them overlooked. While Marigold died too young to achieve her potential, the other daughters lived lives full of passion, drama and tragedy.Diana, intense and diffident; Sarah, glamorous and stubborn; Mary, dependable yet determined each so different but each imbued with
£18.04
St Martin's Press README.txt
Book SynopsisAn intimate, revealing memoir from one of the most important activists of our time. While working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq for the United States Army in 2010, Chelsea Manning disclosed more than seven hundred thousand classified military and diplomatic records that she had smuggled out of the country on the memory card of her digital camera. In 2011, she was charged with twenty-two counts related to the unauthorized possession and distribution of classified military records, and in 2013, she was sentenced to thirty-five years in military prison.The day after her conviction, Manning declared her gender identity as a woman and began to transition, seeking hormones through the federal court system. In 2017, President Barack Obama commuted her sentence and she was released from prison.In README.txt, Manning recounts how her pleas for increased institutional transparency and government accountability took place alongside a fight to defend h
£16.15
Bedford Books Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an
Book Synopsis
£30.00
WW Norton & Co Mercury Rising John Glenn John Kennedy and the
Book SynopsisA riveting history of the epic orbital flight that put America back into the space race.Trade Review"[Mercury Rising] brings Glenn’s story alive again with both nostalgia and a riveting, fast-paced narrative ... Shesol does an excellent job of embedding Glenn's story into the wider Cold War context." -- Douglas Brinkley - Washington Post"The perfect book for anyone who wants to read about real life adventures and learn what makes heroes tick ... It will help you understand how some families stay together in the face of existential challenges, how American politics and industrial technology converge, and how the United States won the Cold War competition with the USSR." -- Walter Clemens - New York Journal of Books"What a fresh and refreshing look at a familiar subject, now seen through an important geo-political lens rather than a scientific, technological, and nationalistic one. The new context is exciting, the usual characters made more vivid and dimensional. Bravo." -- Ken Burns"I loved this book. From the opening lines, I was riveted—I couldn’t put it down. Even though we know the ending, Jeff Shesol somehow creates a cliffhanger—immersive history that lifts us out of the moment we’re in and transports us to a time of genuine heroes. As this book reveals, John Glenn—stoic and selfless, but also restless and ambitious—embodies what we hold most dear about being American." -- Matt Damon"If there’s such a thing as a white-knuckle read, this is it. But Mercury Rising is a twofer. Jeff Shesol interweaves heart-racing renderings of the dread and adrenaline of the earliest space flights with keen analysis of the geopolitical rivalry that drove the arc and pace of the space race. John Glenn emerges as both homespun hero and Cold War cat’s-paw, as well as a flesh-and-blood human being—and one hell of a pilot." -- David M. Kennedy, professor of history emeritus, Stanford University, winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for History"This is a story for the ages—the best account, ever, of the flight of Friendship 7. Shesol presents the Mercury Seven and their storied competition in a fresh and even provoking new light. Brilliantly researched and written, Mercury Rising is the book to read on the Cold War collaboration between John Kennedy and John Glenn." -- Kris Stoever, author, with her father, Scott Carpenter, of For Spacious Skies: The Uncommon Journey of an Astronaut"I had the privilege of knowing John Glenn well—I helped select him and train him as an astronaut—and Jeff Shesol has rendered the most compelling portrait I’ve seen of Glenn since the real thing. This gripping book captures the fast pace and high stakes of the space program and shows how Glenn helped win the struggle to surpass the Russians." -- Robert Voas, astronaut training officer, Project Mercury"This book amazed me. It brought back such memories that I felt like I was reliving the events." -- Jerry Roberts, guidance and control systems engineer, Projects Mercury and Gemini"Entertaining and deeply researched…readers will savor the hair-raising ride." -- Publishers Weekly"A welcome retelling of a significant piece of the Cold War saga and the opening of the space frontier [and] a good choice for readers interested in the Cold War, the space race, and the 1960s American political landscape." -- Kirkus Reviews"This well-researched and exciting read is recommended for those interested in the history of the space race or the Cold War." -- Dave Pugl - Library Journal"Shesol chronicles the early days of the space program with a historian’s attention to detail and a novelist’s flair for interesting storytelling." -- Gary Day - Booklist
£21.84
WW Norton & Co The Doctors Blackwell How Two Pioneering Sisters
Book SynopsisNew York Times Bestseller Finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Biography "Janice P. Nimura has resurrected Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell in all their feisty, thrilling, trailblazing splendor." —Stacy SchiffTrade Review"Enthralling…Nimura, by digging into [the Blackwells’] deeds and their lives, finds those discrepancies and idiosyncrasies that yield a memorable portrait. The Doctors Blackwell also opens up a sense of possibility — you don’t always have to mean well on all fronts in order to do a lot of good." -- Jennifer Szalai - New York Times"[A] richly detailed and propulsive biography….Nimura doesn’t strain to fit the sisters into the narrow shape allowed to feminist pioneers, as either virtuous role models or “badass” rebels against society. Instead, they emerge as spiky, complicated human beings, who strove and stumbled toward an extraordinary achievement, and then had to learn what to do with it." -- Joanna Scutts - New York Times Book Review"Ms. Nimura’s portrait of the Blackwells’ America blazes with hallucinatory energy. It’s a rough-hewn, gaudy, carnival-barking America, with only the thinnest veneer of gentility overlaying cruelty and a simmering violence. It’s an America yearning for relief from disease, besotted with séances and spiritualism, quack cures and phrenology; a deeply divided America, with bloody fissures between rich and poor, North and South, city and countryside." -- Donna Rifkind - Wall Street Journal"The Doctors Blackwell is best on the fascinating and harrowing history of modern medicine….[Nimura] is a close and delightful observer of [the Blackwells’] world." -- Casey Cep - The New Yorker"Even if you know who Elizabeth Blackwell is — the first woman to receive an MD in the United States — you may not know her sister Emily’s name. Nimura (Daughters of the Samurai) examines Emily Blackwell’s brilliance, and how the sisters’ achievements and (at times contentious) partnership changed the landscape of American medicine for good." -- Bethanne Patrick - Washington Post"Nimura seamlessly weaves these strands of medical and American history by focusing on the lives of these two self-made women. With an eye to the telling detail, she animates their ambitions, medical training in Europe, family life and friendships with Florence Nightingale, Lucy Stone, Horace Greeley, Henry Ward Beecher, Lady Byron and many other contemporaries." -- Wingate Packard - The Seattle Times"The meticulously researched narrative — informed by newspaper reports, journal entries, and a staggering volume of letters — offers an intimate look at the close-knit, high-minded Blackwell family, including Elizabeth’s younger sister Emily, who followed in Elizabeth’s medical footsteps….Nimura tells the kind of nuanced tale that people like to hear." -- Jennifer Latson - Boston Globe"The Doctors Blackwell not only testifies to Elizabeth and Emily’s iron determination but also chronicles evolving medical practices. Nimura places the sisters within the broad intellectual context of their time, creating an important and engaging history lesson." -- Martha Anne Toll - NPR"A fascinating dual biography that restores the two sisters to their rightful place in U.S. history and illuminates a period riven like our own with bitter disagreements over race, public health and medicine, and the role of women in society….Nimura shoehorns a lot of history into this carefully researched, briskly paced narrative of the sisters’ lives." -- Ann Levin - USA Today"Nimura’s vivid, assiduously researched account reads like a novel." -- Oprah Magazine"This nonfiction story of the first hospital staffed entirely by women could not be more timely." -- Seija Rankin - Entertainment Weekly"Nimura writes fluidly, and her book is an engaging and meticulously documented guide not only to the sisters’ lives but also to the medical practices of their time. We hear about obsolete medical treatments (intravaginal leeches), student ingenuity (stuffing medical textbooks under clothes to avoid paying taxes) and New York trivia (the Blackwell’s infirmary on Bleecker Street was a former Roosevelt residence). But the greater part of Nimura’s achievement lies in how she brings new life to the story of two extraordinary and idiosyncratic physicians who forever changed the medical profession." -- Danielle Ofri - American Scholar"A detailed story of hard work, determination and evolving goals." -- Katherine A. Powers - Minneapolis Star Tribune
£12.99
WW Norton & Co The Nine Lives of Pakistan Dispatches from a
Book SynopsisWinner of the 2021 Overseas Press Club of America Cornelius Ryan Award The former New York Times Pakistan bureau chief paints an arresting, up-close portrait of a fractured country.
£14.24
WW Norton & Co The Unquiet Englishman A Life of Graham Greene
Book SynopsisA Finalist for the 2022 Edgar Award A Washington Post Best Nonfiction Book of the Year A vivid, deeply researched account of the tumultuous life of one of the twentieth century’s greatest novelists, the author of The End of the Affair.Trade Review"Diligently researched... [A]n astute and sympathetic biography." -- D.J. Taylor - Wall Street Journal"Authoritative and thoroughly researched, while being superbly readable... [The Unquiet Englishman] should long serve as the standard biography [of Graham Greene]." -- Dan Cryer - Boston Globe"[Richard Greene] displays an authoritative grasp of his subject. In a brisk and transparent style, he covers every chapter of Graham Greens' tumultuous life." -- Mary Ann Gwinn - Minneapolis Star Tribune"As [Graham] Greene’s rate of book and film production increases, the narrative becomes a dizzying merry-go-round of travel, publication, sex, alcohol, religion, money, adultery, self-loathing, intrigue and betrayal…[The Unquiet Englishman] bounds along with fluency, clarity and wry humour." -- John Walsh - Sunday Times"Thank goodness for Richard Greene, whose splendid one-volume biography…conjures [Graham Greene] in all his perplexing variety…Cogently argued and happily free of jargon, [The Unquiet Englishman] offers a long-needed antidote to ‘dirty linen’ biographers who have sought to expose a darker shade of Greene and, in consequence, lost sight of the books. At last Graham Greene has the biographer he deserves." -- Ian Thomson - Evening Standard"Cause for celebration…[Richard Greene] gives us a nicely written and well-judged cradle-to-grave portrait that needed to be conventional and unshowy, and is all the better for it…[He] has mastered a tremendous amount of material." -- Nicholas Shakespeare - Spectator"[Richard Greene] writes briskly and engagingly, with a wry wit and an endearing fondness for trivia and puns…[Graham] Greene emerges from these pages in three dimensions, as a uniquely fascinating man…We badly needed a sympathetic but clearheaded life of Greene, and this book fills the gap admirably." -- Jake Kerridge - Sunday Telegraph"Insightful... Though the narrative never loses its focus on Greene as an artist, readers will learn much about the daunting ideological barriers that Greene pushed through to craft his art... A complete portrait of a many-faceted titan." -- Booklist (starred review)"Greene's life story is both interesting and fascinating, and this balanced account offers the best reading of how his personal life infused and enriched his work." -- Library Journal (starred review)"Vivid…it’s awe-inspiring that Greene fit so much into a single life, and it’s no small feat that his latest biographer has so skillfully captured that life in a single work." -- Publishers Weekly
£15.19
WW Norton & Co Max Jacob A Life in Art and Letters
Book SynopsisA comprehensive and moving biography of Max Jacob, a brilliant cubist poet who lived at the margins of fame.Trade Review"[Warren] painstakingly reconstructs the scene of an entire generation of artists and writers through Jacob’s eyes. The level of detail she marshals is impressive... Her greater achievement, however, is her portrait of the tension among art, faith and sexuality in [Jacob's] life... Warren wears many hats—translator, critic, chronicler—to resuscitate a richly contradictory figure and to give him a seat at the table." -- Ayten Tartici - New York Times Book Review"Being a distinguished poet herself, Warren pays particularly close attention to the richness of Jacob’s language... [Max Jacob] is definitive and chockablock with entertaining anecdotes." -- Michael Dirda - Washington Post"[A] lively literary biography... Jacob was a Zelig of Paris’s bohemian demimondes, but Warren also makes a case for the importance of his ecstatic prose poems and cabaret verse, which appear in her own deft translations." -- The New Yorker"Rosanna Warren’s impressive achievement allows us to accept, and maybe even to fall in love with, an almost forgotten French writer." -- Phil Gambone - Gay and Lesbian Review"Brilliant... Warren’s narrative everywhere glows with the ease and compassion of having lived with her research for many, many years... Max Jacob will likely stand as the definitive English-language life of this perennially enigmatic figure." -- Steve Donoghue - Open Letters Review"Rosanna Warren’s Max Jacob is both monumental and intimate, a long-awaited portrait of a highly influential artist who haunts any account of early modernism…Max Jacob led a raucous, poignant, and mysterious life movingly illuminated in this elegant and passionate biography." -- Honor Moore, author of Our Revolution"This radiant book will make you love Max Jacob, as his best friend and protégé Picasso undoubtedly did and as Rosanna Warren clearly does. Warren is completely at home in all three of Jacob’s fascinating worlds: first, and most importantly, on the page in brilliant verse and prose; second, in Paris, from the heady rise of Modernism to France’s ignominious capitulation to Hitler; and third, in the mystical world, to which Jacob was deeply committed. Scrupulously researched and deftly written, Max Jacob is a joy to read." -- Christopher Benfey, author of If"Max Jacob, one of the great French avant-garde poets of the early twentieth century, remains surprisingly little known in the English-speaking world. Poet Rosanna Warren’s dazzling biography, based on decades of research and superb critical insight, has now made up for this neglect. Max Jacob reads like an absorbing novel but is also superb reportage and literary history. Anyone interested in the brilliant but contradictory period when Paris was the capital of world art will want to read Rosanna Warren’s biography." -- Marjorie Perloff, author of Unoriginal Genius"Only a poet, artist, translator, and classicist could have written this totally engaging account of the many-sided Max Jacob. We meet a host of artists we have known about elsewhere, and here they come vividly to life, and some to death; poets we might have thought we knew well, we know again. Max Jacob deserves these thirty years of impassioned thinking and superbly delicate, forceful writing. As poetry surely dwelt in him, poetry dwells no less in Rosanna Warren." -- Mary Ann Caws, author of Creative Gatherings"Max Jacob led a life of allegory, as Keats would have called it. All the glory and barbarism of the twentieth century are summed up in his fortune and fate. Rosanna Warren has brought a poet’s eloquence and a historian’s doggedness to bear in this heartbreaking tale. Her book’s humanity is commensurate with her hero’s. She has given us a masterpiece of life writing." -- Benjamin Taylor, author of Here We Are
£25.19
WW Norton & Co Mercury Rising
Book SynopsisA riveting history of the epic orbital flight that put America back into the space race.Trade Review"[Mercury Rising] brings Glenn’s story alive again with both nostalgia and a riveting, fast-paced narrative ... Shesol does an excellent job of embedding Glenn's story into the wider Cold War context." -- Douglas Brinkley - Washington Post"The perfect book for anyone who wants to read about real life adventures and learn what makes heroes tick ... It will help you understand how some families stay together in the face of existential challenges, how American politics and industrial technology converge, and how the United States won the Cold War competition with the USSR." -- Walter Clemens - New York Journal of Books"What a fresh and refreshing look at a familiar subject, now seen through an important geo-political lens rather than a scientific, technological, and nationalistic one. The new context is exciting, the usual characters made more vivid and dimensional. Bravo." -- Ken Burns"I loved this book. From the opening lines, I was riveted—I couldn’t put it down. Even though we know the ending, Jeff Shesol somehow creates a cliffhanger—immersive history that lifts us out of the moment we’re in and transports us to a time of genuine heroes. As this book reveals, John Glenn—stoic and selfless, but also restless and ambitious—embodies what we hold most dear about being American." -- Matt Damon"If there’s such a thing as a white-knuckle read, this is it. But Mercury Rising is a twofer. Jeff Shesol interweaves heart-racing renderings of the dread and adrenaline of the earliest space flights with keen analysis of the geopolitical rivalry that drove the arc and pace of the space race. John Glenn emerges as both homespun hero and Cold War cat’s-paw, as well as a flesh-and-blood human being—and one hell of a pilot." -- David M. Kennedy, professor of history emeritus, Stanford University, winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for History"This is a story for the ages—the best account, ever, of the flight of Friendship 7. Shesol presents the Mercury Seven and their storied competition in a fresh and even provoking new light. Brilliantly researched and written, Mercury Rising is the book to read on the Cold War collaboration between John Kennedy and John Glenn." -- Kris Stoever, author, with her father, Scott Carpenter, of For Spacious Skies: The Uncommon Journey of an Astronaut"I had the privilege of knowing John Glenn well—I helped select him and train him as an astronaut—and Jeff Shesol has rendered the most compelling portrait I’ve seen of Glenn since the real thing. This gripping book captures the fast pace and high stakes of the space program and shows how Glenn helped win the struggle to surpass the Russians." -- Robert Voas, astronaut training officer, Project Mercury"This book amazed me. It brought back such memories that I felt like I was reliving the events." -- Jerry Roberts, guidance and control systems engineer, Projects Mercury and Gemini"Entertaining and deeply researched…readers will savor the hair-raising ride." -- Publishers Weekly"A welcome retelling of a significant piece of the Cold War saga and the opening of the space frontier [and] a good choice for readers interested in the Cold War, the space race, and the 1960s American political landscape." -- Kirkus Reviews"This well-researched and exciting read is recommended for those interested in the history of the space race or the Cold War." -- Dave Pugl - Library Journal"Shesol chronicles the early days of the space program with a historian’s attention to detail and a novelist’s flair for interesting storytelling." -- Gary Day - Booklist
£14.24
WW Norton & Co Daughters of the Flower Fragrant Garden
Book SynopsisSisters separated by war forge new identities as they are forced to choose between family, nation and their own independenceTrade Review"With sensitivity and sincerity, Daughters of the Flower Fragrant Garden takes readers through the most complicated, difficult, sorrowful, and indecipherable years in China’s modern history. Zhuqing Li’s beautifully narrated family stories are tightly entangled with the wider historical context, unfolding on a magnificent scale, and evoke unique feelings of pain and helplessness that belong to that era." -- Ai Wei Wei, author of 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows"A heartrending story, beautifully told, about the struggles and triumphs of two sisters separated by the Taiwan Strait, but united in their determination to pursue meaningful lives amid political upheaval. I couldn’t stop reading it." -- Amy Stanley, author of Stranger in the Shogun's City"In gorgeous prose, Zhuqing Li tells a story that is at once distinctive and familiar, of Chinese families of a certain generation that lived through wars, revolutions, separations, and reunions. I couldn’t put it down. A lovely book." -- Mae Ngai, author of The Chinese Question"At last, a profoundly human story that illuminates the staggering personal consequences of China and Taiwan’s historic split—from both sides. Rare is the author who can portray war and its aftermath so evenhandedly. This powerful page-turner of a family torn apart—and surviving—is as unforgettable as it is important." -- Nicole Mones, author of The Last Chinese Chef"Exceptional...Daughters of the Flower Fragrant Garden is not a history of Taiwan-China relations, but in telling this gripping narrative of one family divided by the ‘bamboo curtain,’ Li sheds light on how Taiwan came to be — and why China might one day risk everything to take it." -- Deirdre Mask - The New York Times"[Li] recounts this real-life saga of rupture and reunion in propulsive, poignant detail. The book’s gripping narrative reveals the devastating human cost of the Chinese Revolution and will resonate, in particular, with anyone whose family has been severed by political events... The author’s perspective, from having lived both inside and outside the People’s Republic of China, yields exceptional insight into her aunts’ personal histories and the constantly shifting political vicissitudes they endured. She unspools the unexpected, accidental swerves each life took with spellbinding grace. Here, in the pages of her book, she has knit together the family story as it was lived in both Chinas." -- Diane Cole - The Wall Street Journal
£15.19
WW Norton & Co Gods Shadow Sultan Selim His Ottoman Empire and
Book SynopsisAn “arresting” (New York Times Book Review) revisionist history demonstrating how Islam and the Ottoman Empire made our modern world.
£15.19
WW Norton & Co Patricia Highsmiths Diaries and Notebooks The
Book SynopsisEssential for understanding Patricia Highsmith’s transgressive life and prophetic work, this volume is also “one of the most observant and ecstatic accounts . . . about being young and alive in New York City” (Dwight Garner,—New York Times).Trade Review"Highsmith’s diary entries… inspire a sharp sense of suspense. They’re a social calendar written in the style of a noir, with Highsmith never failing to come off as both femme fatale and starched-shirt detective. It’s all there: the guilt of cheating and even of just existing, deadly betrayals of the heart, the growing restlessness with routine, the stranger in the bed…. There’s often a productive distance between what she needs and what she can get, what she knows herself to be capable of and what more she might be capable of in the moment of creation: a thrilling psychic chase." -- Hannah Gold - New Yorker"Thoroughly annotated introductions for each year provide helpful historical background such as the Lavender Scare, and information about the many people in Highsmith’s life . . . A great read for aspiring writers, devotees of LGBTQ history, and those who enjoy reading about an artist’s evolution." -- Library Journal"The intimate revelations of a sensuous, ambitious writer . . . Out of nearly 5,000 pages from the notebooks and diaries of Patricia Highsmith (1921-1995), editor von Planta and her team have culled about 20% to represent the author’s formative years as a writer . . . As this volume demonstrates, Highsmith poured everything into her private notebooks: desires, dreams, inspirations, frustrations, and more." -- Kirkus Reviews
£16.14
WW Norton & Co The Great Air Race Glory Tragedy and the Dawn of
Book SynopsisThe untold, almost unbelievable, story of the daring pilots who risked their lives in an unprecedented air race in 1919—and put American aviation on the map.Trade Review"Among the many virtues of John Lancaster’s delightful The Great Air Race is how vividly it conveys the entirely different world of aviation at the dawn of the industry, a century ago . . . My favorite book about Antarctic exploration is The Worst Journey in the World, by the British writer Apsley Cherry-Garrard, a survivor of a doomed expedition in 1910. The Great Air Race has the same horrific but heroic fascination. Page by page you think, What else can go wrong? Page by page, you want to learn more . . . This is Lancaster’s first book. But he deftly pulls off some tricks that are harder than they seem. He embeds social, economic and political history as he writes—for instance, how coast-to-coast air travel fits into the history of wagon trails, railroads and highways connecting the continent . . . I have read a lot about aviation and the aircraft industry over the years, but almost everything in this tale was new to me. You might take it on your next airline flight, pause to look out the window and spare a thought for those who helped make it all possible." -- James Fallows - New York Times Book Review"Although the race took place during peacetime, Lancaster is in solid military-history territory… The race itself was fraught with peril, and the author recounts in great detail the inherent struggles of trying to fly cross-country when there were no navigational aids, and the weather could prove deadly. In the end, there were numerous crashes, injuries, and fatalities, and Lancaster covers all of it, making for thrilling reading. The book also includes outstanding photographs. An excellent read for those interested in aviation, the military, and American history." -- Colleen Mondor - Booklist"A dramatic account of the massive 1919 cross-country air race, ‘the likes of which the world had never seen.’… In this well-researched text, Lancaster delivers an expert description of the planes (mostly ex-WWI fighters) and biographies of the volunteers… Entertaining fireworks during the early days of flight." -- Kirkus Reviews"[An] energetic and entertaining history of ‘the greatest airplane race ever flown,’ a 1919 round-trip race between San Francisco and Long Island. . . . Lancaster brings to vivid life the eccentric cast of racers. . . The result is a high-flying history of aviation’s white-knuckle early days." -- Publishers Weekly
£15.19
Houghton Mifflin Ali
Book Synopsis
£20.69
Houghton Mifflin When Nobody Was Watching
Book Synopsis
£14.39
Hyperion Hello Friends
Book SynopsisWELCOME TO A COMEDIC TRIP THROUGH THE LIFE OF ONE OF THE COUNTRY’S MOST EXCITING COMEDIANS. MEET DULCÉ SLOAN, WHOSE LIFE HAS BEEN AN INCREDIBLE JOURNEY FILLED WITH LESSONS AND LAUGHTER. IN ADDITION TO DOING STAND-UP AROUND THE WORLD, DULCÉ IS A TRAINED ACTOR, SINGER, AND HAS BEEN A CORRESPONDENT ON THE DAILY SHOW ON COMEDY CENTRAL.Dulcé Sloan’s first memoir is organized into essays from her life. From a childhood moving between cities, starting her own business selling toys at a Miami flea market, to being a Black kid in a predominately white school, she’s always used her masterful wit to challenge the status quo. Her purpose in comedy unfolded while navigating clubs and the set of The Daily Show. Have you ever dated an adult who roller skated, or went out with a mechanic just to get free auto service? Yup, she’s got that story for you. Her stories are both wildly
£22.39
Vintage Espanol El País Bajo Mi Piel The Country Under My Skin
Book Synopsis
£18.00
Random House USA Inc The Year of Magical Thinking
Book Synopsis
£22.40
Waterbrook Press (A Division of Random House Inc) Unbroken
Book Synopsis
£24.00
Random House USA Inc Mom Me Mom
Book SynopsisNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A moving memoir about the legendary author’s relationship with her own mother.Emma Watson’s Our Shared Shelf Book Club Pick!The story of Maya Angelou’s extraordinary life has been chronicled in her multiple bestselling autobiographies. But now, at last, the legendary author shares the deepest personal story of her life: her relationship with her mother. For the first time, Angelou reveals the triumphs and struggles of being the daughter of Vivian Baxter, an indomitable spirit whose petite size belied her larger-than-life presence—a presence absent during much of Angelou’s early life. When her marriage began to crumble, Vivian famously sent three-year-old Maya and her older brother away from their California home to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. The subsequent feelings of abandonment stayed with Angelou for years, but their r
£20.80
Random House USA Inc Yours in Truth A Personal Portrait of Ben Bradlee
Book SynopsisAn intimate profile of the legendary Washington Post editor whose life and career encompassed Watergate, the Pentagon Papers, and the Kennedys—as portrayed by Tom Hanks in the Steven Spielberg film The Post “A fairly complete and rare portrait of this last of the lion-king newspaper editors.”—The New York Times Book Review Ben Bradlee was a fixture on the American scene for nearly half a century—a close friend to John F. Kennedy; the center of D.C. social life; and a crusty, charismatic editor whose decisions at the helm of the Post during Watergate changed the course of history. Granted unprecedented access to Bradlee and his colleagues, friends, and private files, Jeff Himmelman draws on never-before-seen internal Post memos, correspondence, personal photographs, and private interviews to trace the full arc of Bradlee’s forty-five-year career—from his early days as a pre
£22.50
Random House USA Inc Climbing the Mango Trees A Memoir of a Childhood
Book SynopsisThe enchanting autobiography of the seven-time James Beard Award-winning cookbook author and acclaimed actress who taught America how to cook Indian food.“Wistful, funny and tremendously satisfying.... Jaffrey's taste memories sparkle with enthusiasm, and her talent for conveying them makes the book relentlessly appetizing. —The New York Times Book Review Whether climbing the mango trees in her grandparents' orchard in Delhi or picnicking in the Himalayan foothills on meatballs stuffed with raisins and mint, tucked into freshly baked spiced pooris, Madhur Jaffrey’s life has been marked by food, and today these childhood pleasures evoke for her the tastes and textures of growing up. Following Jaffrey from India to Britain, this memoir is both an enormously appealing account of an unusual childhood and a testament to the power of food to prompt memory, vividly bringing to life a lost time and place. Also included here are recip
£14.36
Random House USA Inc The Woman Behind the New Deal The Life and Legacy
Book Synopsis“Kirstin Downey’s lively, substantive and—dare I say—inspiring new biography of Perkins . . . not only illuminates Perkins’ career but also deepens the known contradictions of Roosevelt’s character.” —Maureen Corrigan, NPR Fresh Air One of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s closest friends and the first female secretary of labor, Perkins capitalized on the president’s political savvy and popularity to enact most of the Depression-era programs that are today considered essential parts of the country’s social safety network.
£17.85
Random House USA Inc Ayn Rand and the World She Made
Book SynopsisA New York Times Notable Book A Chicago Tribune Favorite Book of the Year A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the YearAyn Rand’s books have attracted three generations of readers, shaped the Libertarian movement, influenced White House economic policies throughout the Reagan years and beyond, and inspired the Tea Party movement. Yet twenty-eight years after her death, readers know very little about her life. In this seminal biography, Anne C. Heller traces the controversial author’s life from her childhood in Bolshevik Russia to her years as a Hollywood screenwriter, the publication of her blockbuster novels, and the rise and fall of the cult that worshipped her in the 1950s and 1960s. Based on original research in Russia and scores of interviews with Rand’s acquaintances and former acolytes, Ayn Rand and the World She Made is a comprehensive and eye-opening portrait of one of the most significant and impr
£17.09
Random House USA Inc Civil War Wives
Book SynopsisIn these moving stories if Angelina Grimké Weld, wife of abolitionist Theodore Weld, Varina Howell Davis, wife of Confederate president Jefferson Davis, and Julia Dent grant, wife of Ulysses S. Grant, Carol Berkin reveals how women understood the cataclysmic events of their day. Their stories, taken together, help reconstruct the era of the Civil War with a greater depth and complexity by adding women''s experiences and voices to their male counterparts.Trade Review"A Fascinating and lively narrative"— The Christian Science Monitor "Thoroughly fascinating. . . . belongs on the bookshelf of all Civil War enthusiasts, right next to the biographies of Ulysses S. Grant, Jefferson Davis, and Mary Lincoln."— Jay Winik, author of April 1865 and The Great Upheaval "Using letters, books and other historical documents, Berkin paints a lively and empathetic picture of these women's lives."— St. Petersburg Times "A well written, highly accessible exploration of marriage and the cult of true womanhood as it played out in the lives of three southern women. Berkin's fascinating case studies . . . reveal the complex interplay out in the lives of southern women of the Civil War era."— Civil War Book Review
£15.26
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group DESERT QUEEN
Book SynopsisThe definitive biography, mesmerizing and “richly textured ” (Chicago Tribune), that inspired the acclaimed documentary, Letters from Baghdad. • With a new Afterword • Desert Queen...plucks Gertrude Bell out of the shadow of Lawrence of Arabia. —The Boston GlobeHere is the story of Gertrude Bell, who explored, mapped, and excavated the Arab world throughout the early twentieth century. Recruited by British intelligence during World War I, she played a crucial role in obtaining the loyalty of Arab leaders, and her connections and information provided the brains to match T. E. Lawrence's brawn. After the war, she played a major role in creating the modern Middle East and was, at the time, considered the most powerful woman in the British Empire. In this masterful biography, Janet Wallach shows us the woman behind these achievements—a woman whose passion and defiant independence were at odds with the confined and custom-bound England she left behind. Too long eclipsed by Lawrence, Gertrude Bell emerges at last in her own right as a vital player on the stage of modern history, and as a woman whose life was both a heartbreaking story and a grand adventure.
£17.00
HarperCollins Focus El Latin Hit Maker
Book Synopsis
£999.99
John Wiley and Sons Ltd ReScripting Walt Whitman
Book SynopsisThis introductory guide to Walt Whitman weaves together the writer's life with an examination of his works. An innovative introductory guide to Walt Whitman. Weaves together the writer's life with an examination of his works. Focuses especially on Whitman's evolving masterpiece Leaves of Grass. Examines the material conditions and products of Whitman's scripted life, including his original manuscripts. Investigates Whitman's life in print his belief that he could literally embody himself in his books. Linked to a large electronic archive of Whitman's work at www.whitmanarchive.orgTrade Review"...Their Re-Scripting Walt Whitman is far more than an introductory guide to the poet's life and work. Folsom and Price have produced an incisive, gracefully written book that offers an important new approach to Leaves of Grass ... The result is a book valuable for whoever, novice or expert, undertakes to hold Walt Whitman in hand." Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, Volume Twenty-Three, Numbers Three/Four, Winter/Spring 2006 “Drawing on their extensive experience with electronic editing, more specifically, their work with the Walt Whitman Archive, Ed Folsom and Ken Price reconstruct the details of the poet's life and thread through that life the complex but fascinating story of Whitman's evolving master-piece, Leaves of Grass. By emphasizing the manuscript origins of the poetry, Folsom and Price reveal that just about everything we thought we knew about this much-discussed writer and his work is subject to revision. At nearly every turn, Re-Scripting Walt Whitman seems to proclaim, ‘Allons! the road is before us!’ ” Donald D. Kummings, Co-editor, Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia “Whitman is America’s ever-fluid text. Thorough, concise, and engagingly written, Re-scripting Walt Whitman illuminates the life and works — the poet’s sexuality, politics, and ceaseless growth — with an important new emphasis on manuscripts, revision, and the innovative online Whitman Archive that will startle general readers and literary scholars alike.” John Bryant, Hofstra University "A splendid primer to the complexities of Whitman's prose and verse. Folsom and Price expertly trace the evolution of Whitman's career and the gradual growth of Leaves of Grass. Scholars no less than novices will be inspired to read Whitman with fresh insight." Gary F. Scharnhorst, University of New Mexico “Re-Scripting Walt Whitman accomplishes two significant tasks at once. It ties Whitman's poetry to his life in a clear, down-to-earth narrative of biographical detail and literary accomplishment. And it breaks new ground in its portrayal of Whitman as a working poet, one who knew his way around a print shop and based his radical innovations on an intimate knowledge of type, print, ink, and bookmaking. Drawing on their own experience in constructing a new electronic Whitman archive, Ed Folsom and Kenneth Price provide unique lessons in reading the actual materiality of Whitman's poems as the first step toward grasping their meanings.” Alan Trachtenberg, Yale UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgments. List of Abbreviations of Whitman’s Works. Introduction. 1 Growing up in the Age of Accelerating Print: Whitman as Printer, Journalist, Teacher, and Fiction Writer. 2 “Many Manuscript Doings and Undoings”: The Road toward Leaves of Grass. 3 “I Was Chilled with the Cold Types and Cylinder and Wet Paper Between Us”: The First and Second Editions of Leaves of Grass. 4 Intimate Script and the New American Bible: “Calamus” and the Making of the 1860 Leaves of Grass. 5 Blood-Stained Memoranda. 6 Reconstructing Leaves of Grass, Restructuring a Life. 7 Dying into Leaves. Appendix: What Whitman Left Us. References. Index
£29.40
John Wiley and Sons Ltd A History of European Law
Book SynopsisThis book charts the development of law in Europe from its medieval origins to the present day. The author explores the changing social context for the relationship between law and culture and the development of political ideas about modern states.Trade Review"With that said, it remains a remarkable work written by a master of his craft. It conveys complex ideas effortlessly and picks out interesting themes throughout." (The Edinburgh Law Review, 1 September 2011) Table of ContentsPreface x Preliminaries xii 1 Medieval Roots 1 I. A Legal Society Under Construction: The Workshop of Legal Practice 1 II. Medieval Maturity: The Laboratory of Learning 19 2 The Foundations of the Modern Legal System 39 3 Journeys in Contemporary Law 138 Further Reading 163 Notes 169 Bibliography 178 Index 190
£90.86
Read Books My Father Paul Gauguin
£19.94
£25.49
Orion Publishing Co We Aint Got No Drink Pa
Book Synopsis''We ain''t got no drink, Pa.'' I trembled as I spoke. Then somewhere inside me I found the anger, the courage to answer him back.''We don''t have no grog cos you drank it all!''I knew he was going for me tonight, so I reckoned I might as well go down fighting after all.Growing up in the slums of 1920s and 30s Bermondsey, Hilda Kemp''s childhood was one of chaos and fear. Every day was battleground, a fight to survive and a fight to be safe. For Hilda knew what it was to grow up in desperate poverty: to have to scratch around for a penny to buy bread; to feel the seeping cold of a foggy docklands night with only a thin blanket to cover her; to share her filthy mattress with her brothers and sisters, fighting for space while huddling to keep warm. She knew what it was to feel hunger - not the impatient growl of a tummy that has missed a meal; proper hunger, the type that aches in your soul as much as your belly. The elde
£12.58
Orion Publishing Co A Fish Supper and a Chippy Smile
Book Synopsis''A brilliant memoir of a strong woman'' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Amazon reader review''A must-read that will break your heart but also make you laugh'' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Amazon reader review''Oi, Hilda, the sign outside says you''re frying today but I ain''t seeing nothing done in ere!''The voice cut through my daydream. Already there was a queue of hungry customers on the cobbled street of London''s East End. In 1950s and 60s Bermondsey, the fish-and-chip shop was at the centre of the community. And at the heart of the chippy itself was ''Hooray'' Hilda Kemp, a spirited matriarch who dispensed fish suppers and an abundance of sympathy to a now-vanished world of East Enders. For Hilda knew all to well what it was like to feel real, aching hunger. Growing up in the slums of 1920s south-east London, the daughter of a violent alcoholic who drank away his wages rather thanTrade ReviewA lovely, nostalgic portrait of a strong woman in a vanished world. * PRIMA magazine *This memoir of married life in post-war Bermondsey will make the contemporary Londoner's eyes boggle. Before the sleek glass apartments there was a grinding poverty and semi-starvation, but a great sense of community and friendship. Hilda survives through the love of a good man and her job at the fish shop. Gut-wrenching. * The Lady *
£12.58
Orion Publishing Co I Belong to No One
Book SynopsisAbused, afraid and alone. This is the heartbreaking true story of a young woman forced to sacrifice it all to survive...*****GWEN WILSON WAS UNLOVED FROM BIRTH.Illegitimate, fatherless, her mother in and out of psychiatric hospitals, it would have been easy for anyone to despair and give up. Yet Gwen had hope. Despite it all, she was a good student, fighting hard for a scholarship and a brighter future. Then she met Colin. Someone to love who would love her back. Or so she hoped. Her relationship with Colin was the start of a living hell. Rape was just the beginning. By sixteen she was pregnant, and all alone. In an effort to save her son, Jason, from the illegitimacy and deprivation she''d grown up with, Gwen chose to marry Colin - and too quickly the nightmare of physical abuse and poverty seemed inescapable. I BELONG TO NO ONE is a story of desperate lows, the fight for survival and how one woman eventua
£8.50
AuthorHouse WEAVING THE WINDS Emily Howell Warner
£12.94
