Biography Books
Pan Macmillan Ronnie
Book SynopsisRonnie Wood has been a member of the Rolling Stones for over thirty years. His other bands include The Birds, The Creation, The Jeff Beck Group, The Small Faces and The Faces. He's married to Jo Wood and lives in Surrey and Ireland.
£10.44
Little, Brown Book Group The Centre Cannot Hold
Book SynopsisElyn Saks is Professor of Law and Psychiatry at University of Southern California Law School. She''s the author of several books. Happily married. And - a schizophrenic. Saks lifts the veil on schizophrenia with her startling and honest account of how she learned to live with this debilitating disease. With a coolly clear, measured tone she talks about her condition, the stigma attached and the deadening effects of medication. Her controlled narrative is disrupted by interjections from the part of her mind she has learned to suppress. Delusions, hallucinations and threatening voices cut into her reality and Saks, in a remarkably vivid way, enables us to hear and see them too. This is a powerful book that is as informative as it is moving. There are parallels with Jane Lapotaire''s Time Out of Mind and with Girl, Interrupted.
£14.24
Penguin Books Ltd Return to My Native Land
Book Synopsis
£10.44
HarperCollins Publishers Fen Bog and Swamp
Book SynopsisA BBC Radio 4 Book of the WeekMagnificent' GuardianRemarkable A compact classic!' Bill McKibbenI learned something new and found something amazing on every page' Anthony Doerr, author of All the Light We Cannot SeeFens, bogs, swamps and marine estuaries are the earth's most desirable and dependable resources. Here, Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Proulx brings her witness and research to the vitally important role they play in preserving the environment, and their systemic destruction in the pursuit of profit. Travelling from the fens of sixteenth-century England to America's Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, Fen, Bog and Swamp is both a revelatory history and an urgent plea for wetland reclamation, from one of our greatest prose stylists.A rousing call to action' EsquireSparklingly furious it has a profoundly positive message' Richard Mabey, TelegraphThis haunting tribute is a pleasure to read' Financial TimesTrade Review‘Proulx wants us to see the loss of wetlands – and to appreciate the beauty in these swampy and often stinking places. Boy, does she succeed. The prose is just magnificent, bringing to life hitherto overlooked habitats’ Guardian ‘Proulx’s book is truly peat-ish: layered, learned, feisty, wildly discursive, and most certainly “undulating, dreaming [and] philosophising”’ Richard Mabey, Telegraph ‘A haunting tribute to the world’s peatlands … Proulx’s poetic description of these places, and peat itself, is a pleasure to read’ Financial Times ‘This sobering history of our world’s rich wetlands explains the chilling ecological consequences of their destruction’ New York Times Book Review ‘An enchanting work of nature writing’ Esquire ‘Delves into the history of peatland destruction and its role in the climate crisis … Proulx uses nimble prose to knit together scientific facts, personal experiences, and literary references while deciphering the nomenclature of these three subtly diverse wetlands which collectively hold the key to human history’ Vogue ‘A fierce declaration of peat’s importance to climate stability and human survival ’ New York Review of Books ‘[Proulx’s] astute and impassioned examinations of all kinds of wetlands … show a new side of the novelist we thought we knew’ Los Angeles Times ‘So often feared, dredged and drained, swamps, bogs and fens (it turns out) are just as vital to our species’ survival on this planet as healthy forests and oceans – perhaps more so. Proulx has written a moving elegy and cri de coeur for our world’s wetlands’ Anthony Doerr, author of All the Light We Cannot See ‘Annie Proulx is, as ever, remarkable – her mind, her heart and her learning take us on an unforgettable and unflinching tour of past and present’ Bill McKibben
£9.49
Hawksmoor Publishing Are We Still Rolling?: Studios, Drugs and Rock
Book SynopsisAre We Still Rolling? is more than a recollection of treasured music-making over 50 years. It is one man's journey through a life where drug abuse, chaos, rampant egos, greed, lies and the increasingly invasive record business all took their toll.
£16.14
Fitzcarraldo Editions Animal Joy: A Book of Laughter and Resuscitation
Book SynopsisLaughter shakes us out of our deadness. An outburst of spontaneous laughter is an eruption from the unconscious that, like political resistance, poetry, or self-revelation, expresses a provocative, impish drive to burst free from external constraints. Taking laughter’s revelatory capacity as a starting point, and rooted in Nuar Alsadir’s experience as a poet and psychoanalyst, Animal Joy seeks to recover the sensation of feeling alive and embodied. Writing in a poetic, associative style, blending the personal with the theoretical, Alsadir ranges from her experience in clown school, Anna Karenina’s morphine addiction, Freud’s unfreudian behaviors, marriage brokers and war brokers to ‘Not Jokes’, Abu Ghraib, Fanon’s negrophobia, smut, the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, laugh tracks, the problem with adjectives, to how poetry can wake us up. At the centre of the book, though, is the author’s relationship with her daughters, who erupt into the text like sudden, unexpected laughter. These interventions – frank, tender, and always a challenge to the writer and her thinking – are like tiny revolutions, pointedly showing the dangers of being severed from our True Self and hinting at ways we might be called back to it. A bold and insatiably curious prose debut, Animal Joy is an ode to spontaneity and feeling alive.Trade Review‘To read Animal Joy is to become alive to the condition of wakefulness in the world. This spectacular achievement by the psychoanalyst and writer Nuar Alsadir provokes and destabilizes our understanding of a life’s competing narratives. I can think of no other contemporary work of nonfiction that brings together autobiography, a learned history of psychoanalysis, lyrical poetics, ontological investigations of our attempt to manage our own feelings, with such astute engagement. This is a work that will change conversations about who we are, what we think motivates us, what makes us us. The meeting place of the intentional and the unintentional erupts in Animal Joy in order that we might reinvestigate our incoming thoughts and feelings with a sense of vigor and curiosity. If you are open to introducing “tiny revolutions” of thought into your life by resisting received and uninterrogated scripts, read this book.’ — Claudia Rankine, author of Citizen‘Reading this book you are on a joy ride with the mind of a free thinker who will surprise you, make you laugh uncontrollably, and trouble you until you come out changed.’ — Orna Guralnik, Psychologist, Psychoanalyst, Couples Therapy (BBC)‘Few things feel as important right now as what Nuar Alsadir is thinking about in her brilliant new book. She considers the ways in which, despite our most determined curation of our public-faces, and despite our approval-seeking and plain old quotidian bullshittery, laughter reveals to us (and sometimes others) what we might really feel.’ — Ross Gay, author of The Book of Delights‘Nuar Alsadir has wandered fearlessly through the wordless regions of everyday life and returned intact, bearing this exhilaratingly personal and artful weave of stories and meditations. As precise as it is lyrical, Animal Joy invites us to attend anew to human feelings, those elusive, barely noticed entities transmitting everywhere, all the time, “with a frequency outside of measurement.”’ — Josh Cohen, author of Not Working‘Nuar Alsadir’s lyrical, hilarious and beautifully undefended meditation has the capacity to widen our consciousness to allow notice of what occurs in the interstices of attention and mortification. In that way, Animal Joy is a book that seems compassionately able to read us as we turn its pages.’ — Jonathan Lethem‘A genuine masterpiece. Nuar Alsadir’s Animal Joy might be the best thing I’ve ever read on psychoanalysis and its deep connection to living a full, real, embodied life. Utterly compelling, radical, dizzyingly original, and beautiful, this is the work of a writer at the height of their powers.’ — Rebecca Tamás, author of Strangers‘Gorgeously written and by turns hilarious and crushing, Alsadir’s examination of humanity’s “savage complexity” is not to be missed.’ — Publishers Weekly ‘It will leave you feeling enlightened and emboldened, and will even make you laugh.’ — Observer‘Nuar Alsadir’s Animal Joy is extravagant with revelations. Alsadir reads the human psyche with brilliant rigor and generosity, patiently prodding underneath the surface of human behavior, language, politics and race to get at the root of the real. After I finished Animal Joy, I came away feeling more awake, more present, and more connected to myself and the world.’ — Cathy Park Hong, author of Minor Feelings‘Through the awesome and heterogeneous study of this book, laughter at first feels like the most enigmatic act, a convulsing creature in the psyche, in the home, in awkward publics, but then it is returned to us as the most true form of comprehension; an animal attitude to reality, a culturing note of corpsing, creasing and cracking up, that snags on the meaning of everything.’ — Holly Pester, author of Comic Timing‘Where do laughter, psychoanalysis, poetry, motherhood, creativity, thought, language, and so much more intersect? In Animal Joy Nuar Alsadir shows us in dazzling fashion, demonstrating what only the essay form, in the hands of a true artist, critic, and thinker, can achieve.’ — John Keene, author of Counternarratives‘Alsadir’s Granta essay on the emotional flagellation of clowning is one of the best pieces of writing I have ever read, and her longer interrogation into the act—and release—of laughing is equally powerful and moving.’ — Courtney Maum, Literary Hub ‘Expansive and erudite. . . . Watching the motion of [Alsadir’s] mind across her capacious subject matter is captivating.’ — Kathleen Rooney, Liber
£11.69
Peninsula Press Ltd On Breathing
Book SynopsisA beautiful, expansive essay about care, dependence, and what it means to breathe in an age of environmental catastrophe
£11.69
HarperCollins Publishers The Shed That Fed 2 Million Children
Book SynopsisAn updated edition of The Shed That Fed A Million Children first published in 2015.The original book tells the incredible story of how Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, a quiet, unassuming fish farmer from Argyll, Scotland, became the international CEO of a global school-feeding charity.At that time, Mary's Meals was feeding a million children every school day in some of the poorest countries of the world.Fast forward six years and that figure has now doubled to more than 2 million children who now receive Mary's Meals daily in their place of education.In this edition, which features an additional chapter as well as a new preface and epilogue, Magnus brings the story right up-to-date, recounting how the continued growth of the international movement has been made possible, thanks to a global legion of staff, volunteers and supporters. Their unwavering commitment, dedication and continued little acts of love' have created an organisation that now holds the key to eradicating child hunger altogeTrade Review‘MacFarlane-Barrow … writes simply, modestly andmovingly. It is a book full of kindness that stirs you, on everypage, to want to be better.’ Independent ‘It is a remarkably straightforward aim, but one that changeslives.’ Telegraph ‘The power of the message lay in its simplicity and the no-frills ethos … inscribed on Magnus’ heart.’ Daily Record ‘Mary’s Meals has come of age by holding firm to its governing values, negotiating corrupt regimes, poor infrastructure,natural disasters and even Ebola to keep on feeding some ofthe world’s poorest people.’ Scotsman
£10.44
HarperCollins Publishers Restoring the Wild
Book SynopsisThe RSPB's Book of the SeasonThe distinctive white-tailed sea eagle was driven to extinction in Britain more than 200 years ago, but this immense predator is making a return to our skies, thanks to Roy Dennis, an ornithologist, conservationist and arguably the driving force behind the UK's reintroduction agenda.Roy was instrumental in returning the Osprey, red kite and golden eagle to the British Isles, but the road to reintroduction isn't an easy one. In what will surely be the seminal book on British reintroductions, Roy details the painstaking process of returning the Goldeneye to Scotland, one duckling at a time, the die-hard determination needed to make a dazzling success of the red kite reintroduction and the leap of faith we will all need to make to accept sharing our forests and skies with large carnivores again. He also illustrates all that we have to gain by restoring our ecosystems to balance.Filled with a lifetime's worth of stories from the front lines of conservation, Reintroduction offers an eye-opening insight into the complexities of reintroducing extinct animals to Britain. It's also an intimate portrait of these apex predators and a reminder of why we need them.Trade Review‘Dennis is the most significant conservationist you’ve probably never heard of, and possessed of a radicalism that would startle the most outspoken young environmentalist … Dennis’s vision of how to halt the extinction crisis and restore lost habitats and species in Britain deserves attention because it is rooted in 60 years of pioneering conservation action … Like Dennis, the book is modest, deeply informative and profoundly hopeful, in that it shows a new generation how to bring back lost species’ Patrick Barkham, Guardian ‘Now 81, Dennis is possibly the UK’s most senior and influential conservationist you may never have heard of … Restoring the Wild covers Dennis’s career, which he built on the profound knowledge of ecology and species interaction. It is a book based on his diaries of 60 years, which reveal the sheer number of reports, town hall lectures, licences, risk assessments, acronyms, obstacles and setbacks before the excitement comes … exhilarating’ Kathleen Jamie, New Statesman ‘If you want to find out how to help wildlife survive, thrive, and expand their own horizons, Roy Dennis is the very man: according to the RSPB, no-one else has done more for nature conservation in Scotland in the last 100 years. Informed by sixty years of fieldwork, his new book is a comprehensive guide to how well – or poorly – we are placed to rewild our skies, woods and waterways’ David Robinson, Books from Scotland ‘Roy’s passion and love of wildlife is visible in every crevice of the book … a tantalising and inspiring read’ The Scottish Field ‘A wonderful book, steeped in knowledge and experience of nature and of the more practical ends of nature conservation … No one else could write this book from personal experience – it’s a treat … A joy to read, and gives plenty of information but also food for thought.’ Mark Avery ‘A leading figure in UK reintroductions, Roy explains the process and necessity of bringing back our extinct apex predators’ Nature’s Home
£10.44
HarperCollins Publishers Animal Farm
Book SynopsisAll animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.The animals at Manor Farm have had enough of Farmer Jones he's drunk, reckless and cares little for their welfare. When the boar, Old Major, shares his revolutionary plans, the animals are convinced they can thrive on their own once the despot Jones is overthrown. But as the pigs vie for power, they begin to bear an uncanny resemblance to the tyrants they have overthrownGeorge Orwell's renowned fable became an instant success on publication after the Second World War. The novel has continued to captivate readers of all ages, and has secured Orwell's position as one of the great writers of the twentieth century.Trade Review‘[Orwell’s] wit is both edged and human. Few writers of any period have been able to use the English language so simply and accurately to say what they mean, and at the same time to mean something’ The New Republic (1946) ‘The book for everyone and Everyman, its brightness undimmed after fifty years’ Daily Telegraph ‘Orwell … has written in a prose so plain and spare, so admirably proportioned to his purpose, that Animal Farm even seems very creditable if we compare it with Voltaire and Swift’ The New Yorker ‘A prophet who thought the unthinkable and spoke the unspeakable, even when it offended conventional thought’ Daily Express ‘Matchlessly sharp and fresh … The clearest and most compelling English prose style this century’ Sunday Times
£7.59
Cornerstone The Mistresses of Cliveden
Book Synopsis''It covers three centuries of high living, high politics and high drama [...] it is so fascinating'' MEL SYKES_____________________________A Sunday Times bestsellerFive women. One house. One extraordinary history.Even today, Cliveden retains its royal mystique - it is where Meghan Markle and her mother spent the night before the royal wedding - but from its construction in the 1660s to its heyday in the 1960s, Cliveden has played host to a dynasty of remarkable and powerful women.Anna Maria, Elizabeth, Augusta, Harriet, and Nancy were five ladies who, over the course of three centuries, shaped British society through their beauty, personalities, and political influence.Restoration and revolution, aristocratic rise and fall, world war and cold war form the extraordinary backdrop against which their stories unfold. An addictive history of the period and an intimate exploration of the timeless relatiTrade ReviewNarratively enthralling … chronicled with scholarship, readability, wit and a fine eye for telling detail. -- Andrew Roberts * Evening Standard *Her scholarship is considerable and yet she wears it lightly, producing a book which is always lively, entertaining and immensely readable. * Daily Express *Natalie Livingstone has written an utterly fascinating and completely beguiling account of three centuries of high living, high politics, and high drama at one of Britain's most famous stately homes. A page turner from start to finish, The Mistresses of Cliveden perfectly illustrates why social history rules the shelves; it's history with all the good stuff left in. -- Amanda Foreman, author of GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIREA wonderful voyage through the fascinating history of Cliveden - this is a brilliant book full of gripping personalities and beautiful detail. -- Kate Williams, author of BECOMING QUEEN and JOSEPHINEWide-ranging and deliciously enjoyable... -- Juliet Nicholson * The Telegraph *
£999.99
Penguin Books Ltd The Road to Wigan Pier
Book SynopsisGeorge Orwell's searing account of working-class life in the bleak industrial heartlands of Yorkshire and Lancashire in the 1930s, The Road to Wigan Pier is a brilliant and bitter polemic that has lost none of its political impact over timeOrwell's graphically unforgettable descriptions of social injustice, cramped slum housing, dangerous mining conditions, squalor, hunger and growing unemployment are written with unblinking honesty, fury and great humanity. It crystallized the ideas that would be found in his later works and novels, and remains a powerful portrait of poverty, injustice and class divisions in Britain.Includes illustrations, explanatory footnotes, and an introduction by Richard Hoggart
£8.54
Thames and Hudson Ltd JeanMichel Basquiat
Book SynopsisShortly after his untimely death in 1988, Jean-Michel Basquiat's meteoric art-world ascent was in retreat. Nearly four decades later, the artist's paintings are amongst the world's most recognizable and valuable. Based on over 100 interviews, Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Making of an Icon finally fills in long-missing chapters from the life and work of an artist who helped reframe contemporary art. When Jean-Michel Basquiat died in 1988 at the age of twenty-seven, major critics called his work a flash in the pan and the meteoric rise in the prices of his paintings started to fall back. Almost thirty years later Basquiat joined Picasso, Modigliani and Munch when one of his paintings sold for over $100 million. Nearly four decades after his untimely death, he remains one of the most recognizable artists in the world his work not only headlines major museum exhibitions and private collections but also appears on T-shirts, sneakers, tattoos and accessories from Rio to Singapore. What happened? For the first substantive biography in over twenty-five years, art world insider Doug Woodham conducted more than 100 interviews with family members, friends, lovers, gallery owners, collectors, musicians, academics and other artists to weave a thoughtful and revealing account of Basquiat's life, work and legacy. Woodham's account takes readers from the artist's rich and complex family background through to his commercial and critical resurrection an ascent that has played a role in reshaping the art-world. In the process, he has also crafted a unique account of how the twenty-first century art world selects its icons and cements their place in history. Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Making of an Icon examines key aspects of the artist's life such as his childhood trauma, sexuality, cultural identities and struggles with addiction topics long downplayed in the museum and art world, arguably due to the controlling role played by his estate. Simultaneously Woodham uncovers the previously untold story of how a few against-the-grain speculators and gallerists plus his deftly skilled and strategic father, the band U2 and a bestselling children's book all contributed to bringing what Basquiat accomplished back to the centre of the conversation and in the process helped to birth a new era in contemporary art.
£24.00
Faber & Faber Country Girl
Book SynopsisThe iconic memoir from the Irish author of the legendary The Country Girls trilogy.''Get ready to applaud, ladies and gentlemen, because there is no one like her.'' Anne Enright''One of the last great lights of the golden age of Irish literature.'' Eimear McBride''Glittering energy.'' Colm TóibínI thought of life''s many bounties, to have known the extremities of joy and sorrow, love, crossed love and unrequited love, success and failure, fame and slaughter ...Born in Ireland in 1930 and driven into exile after publication of her controversial first novel, The Country Girls, was burned in public, Edna O''Brien is now hailed as one of the most majestic writers of her era - and Country Girl is her fabulous memoir.Born in rural Ireland, O''Brien weaves the tale of her life from convent school to elopement, divorce, single-motherhood, moving on to the wild parties of 1960s bohemian in London, encounters with Hollywood giants, pop stars, and literary titans, love and unrequited love, and glamorous trips to America as a celebrity writer.Country Girl is a rich and heady accounting of the events, people, emotions, and landscape that have forged a legendary author. O''Brien recasts her life with the imaginative alchemy of a poet, and the result is a memoir of sparkling wisdom and honesty.
£11.69
British Library Publishing Stories for Christmas and the Festive Season
Book SynopsisThe Women Writers Christmas Collection of Short Stories explores the joys and disappointments, pressures and preparations of this time of year from a female perspective.
£10.44
John Wiley and Sons Ltd A Room of Ones Own
Book SynopsisTable of ContentsAn Introduction by Jessica Gildersleeve vii About Jessica Gildersleeve xxiii About Tom Butler-Bowdon xxv A Room of One’s Own xxvii
£8.99
The Dovecote Press Out of Town A Life Relived on Television
Book Synopsis
£10.59
Michael Baggott As Found
Book SynopsisAutobiography on a life within the UK antiques industry
£16.19
Pen & Sword Books Ltd She Was The Cat
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£19.80
Orion Publishing Co My Life
Book SynopsisBlockbusting film GOLDA starring Helen Mirren is out now''The gripping memoir of a remarkable woman who rose to the top in a man''s world. A compelling political story of courage and struggle, power and leadership, war and crisis - and the making of Israel. A classic of 20th century history'' Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of JERUSALEM: THE BIOGRAPHY''A remarkable, almost incredible personal history ... stimulating and fascinating'' IRISH TIMES''A rare and wholly unforgettable work'' SATURDAY REVIEWWITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY JULIA NEUBERGERGolda Meir was without doubt one of the most incredible women of her - and any - time. Born in 1898 in Kyiv, she was the daughter of an impoverished carpenter - and became the first (and only) female Prime Minister of Israel. Meir''s earliest memory is of her father boarding up the front door in response to rumours of an imminent pogrom. The family emigrated to the US and fTrade ReviewThe gripping memoir of a remarkable woman who rose to the top in a man's world. A compelling political story of courage and struggle, power and leadership, war and crisis - and the making of Israel. A classic of 20th century history -- Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of JERUSALEM: THE BIOGRAPHYA remarkable, almost incredible personal history ... stimulating and fascinating * IRISH TIMES *Remarkable ... a book to be read * SPECTATOR *A trailblazing leader ... her legacy and impact remain alive in the hearts and deeds of all those whom she inspired -- Hillary Rodham ClintonMany of us have long regarded Mrs Golda Meir as by far the most formidable woman leader in the public life of our times. This book proves it. It is an astonishing record of courage, iron determination and achievement ... compulsory reading and of absorbing interest * BOOKS AND BOOKMEN *A rare and wholly unforgettable work * SATURDAY REVIEW *A story of a girl cowering from a pogrom who grew up to pioneer a new state and become its prime minister must be fantastical. But it's not. Here, in her own passionate words, Golda Meir gives us the astonishing story of her life and of her role in the making of the nation that realized the 2,000 year-old dream of the Jewish people. -- Pamela S. Nadell, author of America’s Jewish Women: A History from Colonial Times to Today
£11.69
John Murray Press The Undisputed King of Selston
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£9.99
Union Square & Co. Inventions Researches and Writings of Nikola
Book SynopsisThe Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla
£31.50
Ebury Publishing The Leopard in my House
Book SynopsisSony and Writers' Guild Award-winning writer and comedian Mark Steel is best known for his critically acclaimed BBC Radio 4 show Mark Steel's in Town. Mark has presented the BAFTA-nominated Mark Steel Lectures for BBC Two, and is a regular on BBC One's Have I Got News for You and BBC Radio 4's The News Quiz. He has also written several acclaimed books, including Reasons to be Cheerful and What's Going On? He has also written an adaptation of his critically acclaimed stand-up show Who Do I Think I Am? for Audible, which was released in 2021.
£18.70
Simon & Schuster Untitled Ss Nf
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£24.00
Unbound The Last Landlady: An English Memoir
Book SynopsisShortlisted for Harper's Bazaar Book of the Year 2019A Guardian, Spectator and Mail on Sunday Book of the Year 2018'A lyrical portrait of a fast-vanishing way of life . . . Thompson is a terrific writer' New StatesmanLaura Thompson’s grandmother Violet was one of the great landladies. Born in a London pub, she became the first woman to be given a publican’s licence in her own name and, just as pubs defined her life, she seemed in many ways to embody their essence.Laura spent part of her childhood in Violet’s Home Counties establishment, mesmerised by her gift for cultivating the mix of cosiness and glamour that defined the pub’s atmosphere, making it a unique reflection of the national character. Her memories of this time are just as intoxicating: beer and ash on the carpets in the morning, the deepening rhythms of mirth at night, the magical brightness of glass behind the bar…Through them Laura traces the story of the English pub, asking why it has occupied such a treasured position in our culture. But even Violet, as she grew older, recognised that places like hers were a dying breed, and Laura also considers the precarious future they face.Part memoir, part social history, part elegy, The Last Landlady pays tribute to an extraordinary woman and the world she epitomised.Trade Review 'A lyrical portrait of a fast-vanishing way of life ... Thompson is a terrific writer, and her detailed evocation of the day in the life of the pub ... has all the visual richness and emotional power of a Terence Davies film' New Statesman 'Just occasionally a book comes along that leaves you breathless with pleasure, admiration and a dash of envy too. The Last Landlady is Laura Thompson's exquisitely observed and brilliantly written memoir of the life and times of her grandmother, the first woman in England to hold a pub licence in her own right... Simply delicious' Kathryn Hughes, Mail on Sunday 'You really mustn’t miss Laura Thompson’s brilliant The Last Landlady … A wonderfully observed story about female agency in the post-war period' Guardian 'It is about the pub as theatre … A typically eclectic mix of social history and elegy, ironic comedy and indelible Englishness' The Spectator, Books of the Year 'The award-winning Thompson turns her acute eye for detail on her own family in this gorgeous memoir of her indomitable grandmother, Vi, the first woman to hold a pub licence in England' Independent
£9.49
Vintage Publishing Why We Make Things and Why it Matters: The
Book SynopsisWhy do we make things? Why do we choose the emotionally and physically demanding work of bringing new objects into the world with creativity and skill? Why does it matter that we make things well? What is the nature of work? And what is the nature of a good life?Whether you're honing your craft or turning your hand to a new skill, discover the true value in what it means to be a craftsman in a mass-produced world.Part memoir, part polemic, part philosophical reflection, this is a book about the process of creation. For woodworker Peter Korn, the challenging work of bringing something new and meaningful into the world through one's own efforts is exactly what generates authenticity, meaning, and fulfilment, for which many of us yearn. This is not a 'how-to' book in any sense, Korn wants to get at the 'why' of craft in particular, and the satisfaction of creative work in general, to understand its essential nature.How does the making of objects shape our identities? How do the products of creative work inform society? In short, what does the process of making things reveal to us about ourselves? Korn draws on four decades of hands-on experience to answer these questions eloquently in this heartfelt, personal and revealing book.'If you are in the building trade or just love creating things as a hobby, you will find this book fascinating' The Sun Trade ReviewIt’s a beautifully written account of one man’s journey, making beautiful items over his lifetime. -- Vanessa King * Psychologies *
£999.99
Vintage Publishing Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman: Adventures of a
Book SynopsisWITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY BILL GATESIn this warm, insightful portrait of the Winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1965, we see the wisdom, humour and curiosity of Richard Feynman through a series of conversations with his friend Ralph Leighton.Winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1965, Richard Feynman was one of the world's greatest theoretical physicists, but he was also a man who fell, often jumped, into adventure. An artist, safecracker, practical joker and storyteller, Feynman's life was a series of combustible combinations made possible by his unique mixture of high intelligence, unquenchable curiosity and eternal scepticism.Over a period of years, Feynman's conversations with his friend Ralph Leighton were first taped and then set down as they appear here, little changed from their spoken form, giving a wise, funny, passionate and totally honest self-portrait of one of the greatest men of our age.
£10.44
Biteback Publishing The Usual Channels
Book SynopsisIt's like the Society of Jesus in the eighteenth century, said one former party whip. You show them the Bible but also the instruments of torture.
£17.00
Quercus Publishing Hidden Valley Road
Book Synopsis'Unforgettable' The Times'Grippingly told and brilliantly reported' Mail on Sunday'Startlingly intimate' Sunday Times'Fascinating' Daily Mail'Groundbreaking' Evening Standard'Exceptional and moving' Spectator"Hidden Valley Road contains everything: scientific intrigue, meticulous reporting, startling revelations, and, most of all, a profound sense of humanity. It is that rare book that can be read again and again."-David Grann, author of Killers of the Flower MoonOne of the New York Times' "20 most anticipated books of 2020": the heartrending story of a mid-century American family with twelve children, six of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science's great hope in the quest to understand the disease."An extraordinary case study and tour de force of reporting."-Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful MindDon and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the American dream. After World War II, Don's work with the Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their twelve children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965. In those years, there was an established script for a family like the Galvins - aspiration, hard work, upward mobility, domestic harmony - and they worked hard to play their parts. But behind the scenes was a different story: psychological breakdown, sudden shocking violence, hidden abuse. By the mid-1970s, six of the ten Galvin boys, one after the other, were diagnosed as schizophrenic. How could all this happen to one family?What took place inside the house on Hidden Valley Road was so extraordinary that the Galvins became one of the first families to be studied by the National Institutes of Mental Health. Their story offers a shadow history of the science of schizophrenia, from the era of institutionalization, lobotomy, and the schizophrenogenic mother, to the search for genetic markers for the disease, always amidst profound disagreements about the nature of the illness itself. And unbeknownst to the Galvins, samples of their DNA informed decades of genetic research that continues today, offering paths to treatment, prediction, and even eradication of the disease for future generations.With clarity and compassion, bestselling and award-winning author Robert Kolker uncovers one family's unforgettable legacy of suffering, love and hope."This book tore my heart out. It is a revelation-about the history of mental health treatment, about trauma, foremost about family-and a more-than-worthy follow-up to Robert Kolker's brilliant Lost Girls." -Megan Abbott, Edgar Award-winning author of Dare Me and Give Me Your HandTrade ReviewFascinating * Daily Mail *An exceptional and moving dissection of what this means for those forced to live with the depredations of madness * the Spectator *Grippingly told and brilliantly reported * Mail on Sunday *A startlingly intimate account of a family ruptured from within by forces they could not control * The Sunday Times *Kolker is a fine writer and a first-class investigative journalist ... this unforgettable book will surely increase people's understanding of a terrifying disorder * The Times *Groundbreaking... Kolker uses his prodigious journalistic skills to balance his darkly riveting tale of the family's implosion against shifting attitudes to the treatment of this devastating condition * Evening Standard *A feat of narrative journalism but also a study in empathy * New York Times *Storytelling at its most immersive * Sunday Times *
£11.69
Michael O'Mara Books Ltd Iron Maiden
Book SynopsisUsing unseen photographs and new stories from over seventy-five original interviews, renowned music writer Joe Shooman has painted a truly kaleidoscopic, 360-degree portrait of Iron Maiden and their immortal music.
£21.25
Rowanvale Books The Cave
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£10.79
Icon Books Face to Face
Book SynopsisWhen his identical twin brother Simon was kicked to death, all Nick Dawson felt for the killers was hatred.Struggling in a world where his mirror image had vanished, he came to realise there was only one way to stop the torture - acceptance. Travelling to the absolute limits of personal darkness, Nick came face to face with his brother''s killers.Now a champion of restorative justice, Nick heads behind bars, asking hardened criminals to change, to think of their victims, to make amends.In Face To Face he takes us with him on a journey into this hidden and unpredictable world.
£17.09
Canongate Books The Acid Queen
Book SynopsisRosemary Woodruff Leary has been known only as the wife of Timothy Leary, the Harvard professor-turned-psychedelic high priest, whose jailbreak captivated the counterculture and whose life on the run with Rosemary inflamed the U.S. government. But Rosemary was more than a mere accessory. She was a beatnik, a psychonaut and a true believer who tested the limits of her mind and the expectations for women of her time.Long overlooked by those who have venerated her husband, Rosemary spent her life on the forefront of the counterculture, working with Leary on his books and speeches, sewing his clothing and shaping - for better and for worse - the media''s narrative about LSD. Ultimately, Rosemary sacrificed everything for the safety of her fellow psychedelic pioneers and the preservation of her husband''s legacy.Drawing from a wealth of interviews, diaries, archives and unpublished sources, Susannah Cahalan writes the definitive portrait of Rosemary Woodruff Leary, reclaiming her narrative and her voice from those who dismissed her. Page-turning, revelatory and utterly compelling, The Acid Queen shines an overdue spotlight on a pioneering psychedelic seeker.
£18.70
Everyman I Write to Find Out What I am Thinking
Book SynopsisThis hardcover omnibus edition of Didion''s collected nonfiction contains her final four books: Blue Nights, South and West, Let Me Tell You What I Mean, and her bestselling and most famous work, The Year of Magical Thinking In her essay Why I Write (included in this volume), Joan Didion explained what lies behind her iconic nonfiction writing: I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. Across her long and prolific career, readers have been blessed time and again by her brilliance as a prose stylist and a social commentator. Form her unforgettable reckonings with grief (for her husband in The Year of Magical Thinking and for her daughter in Blue Nights), to her exploration of two iconic regions of America in South and West, through the indelible pieces of reporting collected from across her career in Let Me Tell You What I Mean, the books collected here show Didion at her best: bearing witness to our history, illuminating our culture, and shedding light on the human condition.
£16.19
Vintage Publishing README.txt
Book SynopsisAn extraordinarily brave and moving memoir from one of the world''s most famous transparency activists and trans women.In 2010, Chelsea Manning was working as an intelligence analyst for the US Army in Iraq. She disclosed 720,000 classified military documents that she had smuggled out via the memory card of her digital camera. By far the largest leak in history, these documents revealed a huge number of diplomatic cables and footage of atrocities. She was sentenced to 35 years in military prison.The day after her conviction, Chelsea declared her gender identity as a woman and began to transition. She was sent to a male prison, spent much of that time in appalling conditions in solitary confinement and attempted suicide multiple times. In 2017, after a lengthy legal challenge and an outpouring of support, President Obama commuted her sentence.README.txt is a story of personal revolt, resilience and survival. Chelsea details the challenges of her
£17.00
Watkins Media Limited Twelve Cries From Home: In Search of Sri Lanka's
Book SynopsisSince August 2020, the intimidation of witnesses and journalists has surged in Sri Lanka. Twelve Cries from Home navigates the memories and stories of twelve war survivors, mostly women and relatives of the disappeared, who wished to have their stories retold so that a permanent record might be made, and so that those outside the country might understand their experiences. The outcome of a journey across the island in late 2018 by writer and Professor of Literature Minoli Salgado, who was revisiting her ancestral home, Twelve Cries from Home is deeply-layered and localised work of travelling witness. It returns to the concept of home as a place of belonging and security, which is a lost ideal for most, and uses a Sri Lankan measure of distance – the call, or hoowa – to ask how we might attend to stories that are difficult to tell and to hear. Exploring the bitter complexity of war by presenting stories from four regions of Sri Lanka, it reveals the complex network of relationships between the agents of conflict and their victims, as well as the blurred boundary between victims and perpetrators, the role of informers and the process of ethical repair after traumatic experience. Twelve Cries from Home offers a rare glimpse into a country subject to enforced self-censorship, allowing us to take stock of social and political developments in Sri Lanka and what has and has not been achieved in light of the transitional justice mechanisms promised to the UN.Trade Review"This collection of true stories is the vital afterwork of any war. Here, Salgado collects and records testimony from those caught up. We gasp at what is being shared. It must be shared, read, heard, collected, disseminated. This is prize-winning work.”"A deeply sensitive and sensitizing book that offers a sophisticated understanding of real pain. Twelve Cries From Home is driven by a humanity that provides moral anchor in a terrain where the darkest instincts reign free.""A valuable document of testimony gathered during a brief time of greater openness in a country still shattered by war and cruelty.""A masterpiece."
£10.44
New Haven Publishing Ltd Long Way Home
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£23.39
Comma Poetry Voices of Resistance
Book Synopsis
£10.44
Manderley Press Ltd Florence
Book SynopsisA brand new edition of Kathrine Kressmann Taylor's rediscovered diaries, chronicling the 1966 floods in Florence - now re-issued over 50 years after they were first published, introduced by Vanessa Nicolson and illustrated by Agnesbic.
£17.09
Motilal Banarsidass, The Rise and Fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty: Memoirs
Book Synopsis
£30.39
Little, Brown Book Group The Stranger Beside Me
Book SynopsisTHE NEW EDITION OF THE TRUE CRIME CLASSICThe Inside Story of Serial Killer Ted BundyAnn Rule was a writer working on the biggest story of her life, tracking down a brutal mass-murderer. Little did she know that the young man who was her close friend was the savage slayer she was hunting . . .TED BUNDY was everyone''s picture of a natural ''winner'' - handsome, charming, brilliant in law school, successful with women, on the verge of a dazzling career. Fast-forward to 24 January 1989, Ted Bundy is executed. He had confessed to taking the lives of at least thirty-five young women, coast to coast.This is his story: the story of his magnetic power, his unholy compulsion, his demonic double life and his string of helpless victims. It was written by a woman who thought she knew Ted Bundy, until she began to put all the evidence together and the whole terrifying pictuTrade ReviewThe most fascinating killer in modern American history...Ann Rule has an extraordinary angle that makes THE STRANGER BESIDE ME as dramatic and chilling as a bedroom window shattering at midnight * The New York Times *
£10.44
Pan Macmillan When A Crocodile Eats the Sun
Book SynopsisPeter Godwin is the author of Mukiwa, also published by Picador, an account of his childhood and early adulthood. He writes for various publications including the New York Times magazine, National Geographic, Time and Newsweek. He lives in Manhattan.
£10.44
Vintage Publishing The Mechanic: The Secret World of the F1 Pitlane
Book SynopsisMeet Marc 'Elvis' Priestley: the former number-one McLaren mechanic, and the brains behind some of Formula One's greatest ever drivers.Revealing the most outrageous secrets and fiercest rivalries, The Mechanic follows Priestley as he travels the world working in the high-octane atmosphere of the F1 pit lane. While the spotlight is most often on the superstar drivers, the mechanics are the guys who make every World Champion, and any mistakes can have critical consequences.However, these highly skilled engineers don't just fine-tune machinery and crunch data through high-spec computers. These boys can seriously let their hair down. Whether it's partying on luxury yachts or photo opportunities aboard gravity-defying aeroplanes, this is a world which thrills on and off the track.This is Formula One, but not like you've seen it before. Trade ReviewThe principle is sound, as are the author’s credentials… [A] genuine attempt to reflect the day-to-day realities of a relentless life on the road. And it is relayed by someone who doesn’t feel duty-bound to toe the corporate line * Motorsport *Here we are privileged to have Marc’s take on the Formula 1 world from the inside… Marc was lucky enough to work alongside David Coulthard, Mika Hakkinen, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton, among others, but it is his close relationship with Kimi Raikkonen that we gain most insight into as we read… In short, it is a must read for any F1 fan, and I can highly recommend -- Sarah Merritt * Badger GP *
£10.44
Simon & Schuster Ltd Yoko
Book Synopsis ‘Absorbing' Telegraph ‘Gentle, empathetic, committed to righting undeniable wrongs’ Sunday Times, Book of the Week 'Illuminating and affectionate… an intimate and perceptive portrait' Publishers WeeklyAn intimate and revelatory biography of Yoko Ono from bestselling author of Beautiful Boy David Sheff met Yoko Ono and John Lennon in 1980 when conducting an in-depth interview with them just months before John’s murder. In the aftermath, Sheff and Yoko became close friends as she rebuilt her life, survived threats and continued creating groundbreaking art and music. Drawing from their decades-long friendship and interviews with Yoko, her family, close friends and collaborators, Sheff shares the story of one of the most unlikely and remarkable lives ever lived. Yoko spans from her birth to wealthy parents in pre-war Tokyo and her harrowing experience as a child during WW2 to her arrival in the avant-garde art scenes of London, Tokyo and New York. We see how she coped under the most intense, relentless and cynical microscope as she was falsely vilified for the most heinous cultural crime imaginable: breaking up the greatest rock-and-roll band in history. So often remembered only for her impact on The Beatles, Yoko has been caricatured as an opportunistic seductress or manipulative impostor. Yoko delves into her life as an artist, musician, feminist and activist, reframing her incredible achievements independent of Lennon. Yoko is a harrowing, moving, propulsive and vastly entertaining biography of a woman whose story has never been accurately told. It highlights Ono’s incredible talent and acknowledges her as a true artistic icon.
£21.25
HarperCollins Publishers Unsafe
Book SynopsisDamian longs for home, but one man stands in his way Damian is just seven when he is taken in by foster carer Cathy Glass. His mother, Rachel, loves her three young children dearly, but she is vulnerable, naive and unable to cope on her own.Cathy sets about helping Damian overcome his eating issues, with the hope that he will eventually return home. But when Rachel's new boyfriend, Troy, arrives on the scene, Cathy becomes deeply concerned. She soon realises that Damian and his siblings are in great danger
£8.54
Little, Brown Book Group The Drowned And The Saved
Book SynopsisShortly after completing The Drowned and the Saved, Primo Levi committed suicide. The manner of his death was sudden, violent and unpremeditated, and there are some who argue that he kiled himself because he was tormented by guilt - guilt that he had survived the horrors of Auschwitz while others, better than he, had gone to the wall.''The Drowned and the Saved dispels the myth that Primo Levi forgave the Germans for what they did to his people. He didn''t, and couldn''t forgive. He refused, however, to indulge in what he called the bestial vice of hatred which is an entirely different matter. The voice that sounds in his writing is that of a reasonable man . . . it warns and reminds us that the unimaginable can happen again. A would-be tyrant is waiting in the wings, with beautiful words on his lips. The book is constantly impressing on us the need to learn from the past, to make sense of the senseless'' - Paul BaileyTrade ReviewLevi writes of unspeakable things with charity, clarity and objectivity * Sunday Times *Not a word he writes should be missed * Independent *One of the most devastating masterworks of our era * Observer *
£8.24
Simon & Schuster Ltd The Old Man and the Gun
Book Synopsis‘Beautifully told by David Grann, one of the best true-crime writers around… Nuanced and gripping’ Evening StandardNow a major film starring Robert Redford, Sissy Spacek and Casey Affleck, The Old Man and the Gun is joined by two other riveting true-crime tales by the author of the international Number One bestsellers KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON and THE WAGERThe Old Man and the Gun is the incredible story of a bank robber and prison escape artist who modelled himself after figures like Pretty Boy Floyd and who, even in his seventies, refuses to retire. True Crime follows the twisting investigation of a Polish detective who suspects that a novelist planted clues in his fiction to an actual murder. And The Chameleon recounts how a French imposter assumes the identity of a missing boy from Texas and infiltrates the boy's family, only to soon wondTrade Review‘Beautifully told by David Grann, one of the best true-crime writers around… Nuanced and gripping’ * Evening Standard *
£7.59
Bonnier Books Ltd Im Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself
Book SynopsisOne of TIME's 100 Must-Reads of 2024'A delight' The New York Times'Delicious' Vogue'Superb' Time'Joyful, bold and liberating' Emma GannonCome to Paris, August 2021, when the City of Lights was still empty of tourists and a thirst for long-overdue pleasure gripped those who wandered its streets.After New York City emptied out in March 2020, Glynnis MacNicol, aged forty-six, unmarried with no children, spent sixteen months alone in her tiny Manhattan apartment. The isolation was punishing. A year without touch. Women are warned of invisibility as they age, but this was an extreme loneliness no one can prepare you for. When the opportunity to sublet a friend's apartment in Paris arose, MacNicol jumped on it. Leaving felt less like a risk than a necessity.What follows is a decadent, joyful, unexpected journey into one woman's pursuit of radical enjoyment.The weeks in Paris are filled with friendship and food and sex. There is dancing on the Seine; a plethora of gooey cheese; midnight bike rides through empty Paris; handsome men; afternoons wandering through the empty Louvre; nighttime swimming in the ocean off a French island. And yes, plenty of nudity.In the spirit of Nora Ephron and Deborah Levy (think Colette . . . if she'd had access to dating apps), I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself is an intimate, insightful, powerful, and endlessly pleasurable memoir of an intensely lived experience whose meaning and insight expand far beyond the personal narrative. MacNicol is determined to document the beauty, excess, and triumph of a life that does not require permission.The pursuit of enjoyment is a political act, both a right and a responsibility. Enjoying yourself-as you are-is not something the world tells you is possible, but it is.Here's the proof.
£10.44
