Biography Books

Book Synopsis'They were not just reporters; they were also pioneers, and Judith Mackrell has done them proud.' –SpectatorGoing with the Boys follows six intrepid women as their lives and careers intertwined on the front lines of the Second World War.Martha Gellhorn got the scoop on D-Day by traveling to Normandy as a stowaway on a Red Cross ship; Lee Miller went from being a Vogue cover model to the magazine’s official war correspondent; Sigrid Schultz hid her Jewish identity and risked her life by reporting on the Nazi regime; Virginia Cowles, transformed herself from ‘society girl columnist’ to combat reporter; Clare Hollingworth was the first English journalist to break the news of the war, while Helen Kirkpatrick was the first woman to report from an Allied war zone to be granted equal privileges to her male colleagues.Barred from official briefings and from combat zones, their lives made deliberately difficult by entrenched prejudice, all six set up their own informal contacts and found their own pockets of war action. In this gripping, intimate and nuanced account, Judith Mackrell celebrates these extraordinary women and reveals how they wrote history as it was being made, changing the face of war reporting forever.'This is a book that manages to be thoughtful and edge-of-your-seat thrilling.' – Mail on Sunday 'Like the copy filed by her subjects, it is an essential read.' – BBC History MagazineTrade ReviewWomen's ability to cope was apparently beyond military imagination, yet ironically, as Judith Mackrell's compelling book shows, navigating newspaper bias and military restrictions often gave women the professional edge . . . They were not just reporters; they were also pioneers, and Judith Mackrell has done them proud. -- Clare Mulley * Spectator *Hugely entertaining and informative . . . the author is excellent on the way that being a girl in a man's world had serious dangers . . . This is a book that manages to be thoughtful and edge-of-your-seat thrilling. -- Katherine Hughes * Mail on Sunday *[Mackrell] has done an extraordinary job of mining their reportage, interviews and memoirs, and creates an experiential tapestry based on their experiences . . . a powerful complement to previous histories of Second World War correspondence. -- Anne Nelson * TLS *Although Mackrell reminds us male war correspondents still roughly outnumber women by three to one, the women in her book prove gender is no barrier to doing the job well. -- Helen Brown * Daily Mail *This book is a salutary reminder that it is not only men who experience wars, and it is not only men who report on them . . . Like the copy filed by her subjects, it is an essential read. -- Lucy Noakes * BBC History Magazine *The female journalists who feature here were pioneers in their fields. -- Frances Cairncross * Literary Review *Brutality goes hand in hand with high spirits. Danger was inseparable from exhilaration . . . This book could easily become a television drama. What women they were, in pursuit of war. -- Sarah Sands * Oldie *An engrossing book, highly recommended. * Choice Magazine *The strength of Mackrell’s insightful book is the way she shows just how many obstacles this courageous sextet faced in getting to the front . . . Women reporting the news from dangerous places may be a common sight today but reading Judith Mackrell’s Going with the Boys is an important reminder that it was not always so. -- Anne Sebba, author of Les Parisiennes and That Woman: The Life of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of WindsorIt’s excellent — beautifully researched, deeply sympathetic, and particularly insightful about Martha Gellhorn and Clare Hollingworth. They and the other women who went to war were pioneers in a dangerous profession who overcame fear and discrimination with grace and skill. Judith shows us clearly why their example is so important to today’s journalism. I really enjoyed it. -- John SimpsonThese six remarkable women writers shared courage, intelligence, competitiveness and a determination not be sidelined into the woman's angle; more than that, they left a legacy for war reporting that has shaped all those who have followed in their steps. -- Caroline Moorehead, Samuel Johnson Prize shortlisted author of Village of SecretsFast-paced and informative, [Going With The Boys] puts these women’s trail-blazing accomplishments in the social, military, and historical contexts we need to grasp how remarkable they were . . . Highly recommended, especially for readers who want to learn about the challenges met by these female pioneers. -- Carolyn Burke, author of Foursome and Lee Miller: A LifeA brilliant, gripping account of six journalists covering World War Two from deep inside the danger zone. Mackrell’s writing so captures the drama of the period that you can almost hear her characters’ typewriter keys tapping out their reports amid the rumble of tanks . . . one of the best books I have read in years. It is thrilling from the first page to the last -- Mary Gabriel, author of Ninth Street WomenA vivid portrait of the women whose clear-eyed reporting brought home the tragedy and heroism of one of history’s most pivotal conflicts. We owe these journalists a great debt. -- Liza Mundy, author of Code GirlsDefinitive, deeply researched, and beautifully told . . . reminds us how a few brave souls can blaze a trail and change the world -- Keith O’Brien, author of Fly GirlsBold newswomen such as Clare Hollingworth and Martha Gellhorn wrote the first draft of World War II, now Judith Mackrell gives us a chance to learn about the lives behind the headlines -- Sarah Rose, author of D-Day Girls[An] immersive and revealing group biography . . . Sparkling quotations from the reportage are woven throughout, and colorful biographical details shed light on the correspondents’ defiance of conventions . . . A rousing portrait of women who not only reported on history, but made it themselves. * Publishers Weekly *An exhilarating read packed with emotion and genuine humanity. A vivid portrayal of six remarkable women who made history reporting on World War II. * Kirkus *

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Book SynopsisThe bestselling historian and journalist James Rosen provides the first comprehensive account of the brilliant and combative Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, whose philosophy and judicial opinions defined our legal era. With SCALIA: Rise to Greatness, 1936–1986, the opening instalment in a two-volume biography, acclaimed reporter and bestselling historian James Rosen provides the first comprehensive account of the life of Justice Antonin Scalia, whose singular career in government—including three decades on the Supreme Court—shaped American law and society in the twenty-first century. A decade in the making, Rise to Greatness tells the story of the kid from Queens who became the first Italian American on the Court and one of the most profoundly influential figures of our time. This volume takes us from Scalia’s birth to his ascension to the Court, providing a fresh and probing look at his Catholic upbringing and education; his stints in academia and published works, some of them obscure and long-overlooked; and his service in the Nixon and Ford administrations, when Scalia played a central role in reforming the U.S. intelligence community and in the approval of sensitive covert operations. Deeply researched and based on unparalleled access to documentary and personal sources, and written with an intellectual rigor and wit befitting its subject, Rosen’s narrative reads like a novel while presenting startling new insight into the life, mind, career, faith, and legacy of the man whom family and friends called “Nino.” The result is a compelling portrait of an American legend with whom the author personally corresponded, broke bread, drank wine, and braved the streets of the capital as a (nervous) passenger in the justice’s famously speedy BMW. Rosen has unearthed previously unpublished writing from every phase of Scalia’s career, including private Supreme Court emails, and has interviewed Scalia’s family, classmates, students, colleagues from the Nixon, Ford, and Reagan administrations, priests, poker buddies, hunting companions, and fellow judges and justices. Rise to Greatness is a landmark of modern biography, a rich and moving study, accessible to lay readers, that brings to life a towering figure of American history. It is the book Scalia fans, and all citizens interested in history and the law, have long awaited.

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Book SynopsisIn this uproariously funny memoir, Ludwig Bemelmans uncovers the fabulous world of the Hotel Splendide, the luxury New York hotel where he worked as a waiter. With equal parts affection and barbed wit, he records the everyday chaos that reigns behind the smooth facades of the gilded dining room and banquet halls. In hilarious detail, Bemelmans sketches the hierarchy of hotel life and its strange and fascinating inhabitants: from the ruthlessly authoritarian maître d'hôtel Monsieur Victor to the kindly waiter Mespoulets to Frizl the homesick busboy. Illustrated with his own charming line drawings, Bemelmans' tales of a bygone era of extravagance are as charming as they are riotously entertaining.Trade Review“An uproarious account of his life as a waiter at the thinly disguised Ritz-Carlton in the 1920s . . . He is a canny observer with a wry sense of humor, an innocent bystander who simply looks on. He’s like P.G. Wodehouse, with a touch of the Marx Brothers. . . . a delight from beginning to end.” --The Wall Street Journal"Hotel Splendide, Bemelmans’s 1941, out-of-print memoir, which is being reissued by Pushkin Press this month, is a delightful passport to a long-lost era"--Air Mail“The original bad boy of the New York restaurant/hotel underbelly. Bemelmans is always funny, insightful and dead on target.” --Anthony Bourdain “Freshness and vitality…wit, humor, pathos, and the inimitable Bemelmans’ touch.” --Kirkus Reviews “The kitchen memoir to end them all.” --Slightly Foxed“A seemingly light-hearted yet deceptively dark memoir of [Bemelmans'] time working in a luxury hotel in 1920s New York. A gently flowing, delightfully gossipy read, I could easily picture the entirety shot in black-and-white vignettes, Woody Allen style.” --Irish Times “A charming memoir.” --Independent “Immensely fun and an absolutely charming book... a beautiful classic” --WAMC North East Public Radio Book Picks. Table of ContentsCONTENTS 1. The Animal Waiter 7 2. Art at the Hotel Splendide 14 3. The Lost Mandolin 23 4. Easy Money 35 5. Kalakobe 43 6. A Night in Granada 51 7. The Hispano 56 8. The Homesick Bus Boy 62 9. The New Suit 70 10. The Ballet Visits the Magician 82 11. The Magician Does a New Trick 89 12. The Dreams of the Magician 96 13. My Valet Lustgarten 105 14. The Banquet 116 15. The Murderer of the Splendide 129

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Book SynopsisMelodrama, biography, cold war thriller, drug memoir, essay in fragments, mystery – Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors is cult critic Ian Penman’s long awaited first original book, a kaleidoscopic study of the late West German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945–1982). Written quickly under a self-imposed deadline in the spirit of Fassbinder himself, who would often get films made in a matter of weeks or months, Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors presents the filmmaker as a pivotal figure in the late 1970s moment between late modernism and the advent of postmodernism and the digital revolution. Compelling, beautifully written and genuinely moving, echoing the fragmentary and reflective works of writers like Barthes and Cioran, this is a story that has everything: sex, drugs, art, the city, cinema and revolution.Trade Review‘[Fassbinder] Thousands of Mirrors is not a sorrowful kill-your-heroes recanting. It’s much more interesting than that – a freewheeling, hopscotching study of the Fassbinder allure and an investigation of Penman’s younger self…It’s a book about a film-maker but also, hauntingly, about the way our tastes and passions change over time.’ — Anthony Quinn, Observer‘Do Penman’s flurries of quickfire erudition add up to a dazzling kaleidoscope overall, or a labyrinth of aborted pathways? The answer is “both”. He’s boldly querying his subject’s genius from every vantage point – angry and young; older and (maybe) wiser.’ — Tim Robey, Telegraph‘Ian Penman is an ideal critic, one who invites you in, takes your coat, and hands you a drink as he sidles up to his topic. He has a modest mien, a feathery way with a sentence, a century’s worth of adroit cultural connections at the ready, and a great well of genuine passion, which quickly raises the temperature.’ — Lucy Sante, author of The Other Paris‘This is a wonderful book, and a surprisingly encouraging one too. Acute in its glancing survey of Fassbinder’s films, it also engages the early Seventies as a moment of ideological dishevelment that refuses to pass. If Penman lingers over those years in his own taut and revealing way, that is partly because they produced a kind of critical thought that, having not yet been squared up to fit the academic conveyor belt, could be rarified, speculative and experimental while also remaining closely engaged with political reality. Fassbinder is a great model for anyone puzzling over how we might remember as well as think and act in this chaotic time.’ — Patrick Wright, author of The Sea View Has Me Again‘Ian Penman – critic, essayist, mystical hack and charmer of sentences like they’re snakes – is the writer I have hardly gone a week without reading, reciting, summoning to mind. The writer without whom, etc.’ — Brian Dillon, author of Affinities‘Approached from all angles, Fassbinder is by turns a figure of intense corporeality, glistening with sweat, and an overblown mass of meaning.’ — Georgie Carr, Times Literary Supplement‘The book is many things, but above all it is a reckoning with the idea that art might enter the commodity world and awaken its inhabitants.... [T]he late 1970s/early 1980s, in which Penman was a shadowy but vital presence – post-punk, new pop, new romanticism – is remembered similarly as a moment where a sudden societal switch led to an efflorescence of radical popular culture. Writing his book in 2022, Penman was remembering Penman in 1982 remembering the just-dead Fassbinder marking one historical moment of transition by making reference to another that took place decades earlier. To read Penman doing this in what feels like another moment of passage into something unknown and frightening is rather eerie.’ — Owen Hatherley, London Review of Books‘This is a jittery, clammy book, sweat beading on every page… In its exuberant phrase making, obsessive listing, emotional explosions and crashes, bursting seams – the book has three appendices – and its linguistic pyrotechnics, it ultimately comes down on the side of willing delirium.’ — John Douglas Miller, Frieze‘[A] slender love letter.’ — Stuart Jeffries, Spectator‘[T]his is the efficient, gregarious guidebook that neophytes have been missing’ —Chris Molner, Los Angeles Review of Books ‘Drifting through personal back alleys and intellectual boulevards à la the wanderings of Walter Benjamin and Geoff Dyer. A maze of epigrams, aphorisms (“Aren’t all masks death masks?”), anecdotes, and numbered fragments. An exquisitely companionable guidebook-inventory of a vast, intimate mental space Penman dubs the Fassbundesrepublik…A Thousand Mirrors doesn’t try to solve the contradictions of its subject but lays them out like a suit and inhabits them.’ —Howard Hampton, Artforum‘Ian Penman’s Fassbinder Thousands Of Mirrors isn’t a biography of the epic and controversial master filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder – it’s much more. It’s chock-a-block with quotes and confessions, famous writers, artists, politics, history, social commentary and a bit of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll, among – of course – film talk. Like me, you’ll have to re-read this, not least because it’s a who’s who of post-WWII culture world.’ — Rhonda Lee Reali, Buzz Magazine‘And so, as if making a pact with his young review-churning self, Penman opted for a different strategy: to write quickly, finishing in a matter of months a critical portrait of Fassbinder in the style of Fassbinder — fast, made-to-deadline, bristling with ideas yet economical.The book rushes by in a flurry of numbered one-or-so-paragraph notes. The notes drift, venture lightly and suggestively down quick-flash exploratory tunnels, turn Fassbinder and his films over and peer at them from various heights.’ — William Harris, Jacobin‘Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors, by the British critic Ian Penman, offers… an erotics—of cinema, of memory, of the gradual wreck of history. The sensuality of Penman’s book is inseparable from the music of his prose.’ — Jeremy Lybarger, The Baffler‘Ian Penman – legendary writer, critic and master of lucid, joyous prose – instead offers up a patchwork portrait of RWF, one assembled of 450 observations, reflections, bits of research and more. Through those fragments you get a proper sense of how one can really wallow in both Fassbinder’s massive body of work and his personal mythology – but Mirrors also reeks of adoration and joy, a delightful, emotive and appropriately flashy ode.’ — Ed Cunningham,Timeout Books of the Year 2023

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Book SynopsisFOURTEEN CENTURIES AGO, the final revelation descended upon Muhammad (PBUH). This message, Islam, spread rapidly across Arabia to nearby lands, and across the world. Today, over a billion people believe in and follow his message. But who was Muhammad (PBUH) and how can we develop certainty that he was the true messenger of God?In this book, Sh. Mohammad Elshinawy shares the multitude of proof surrounding Muhammad’s  prophethood. There are abundant comprehensive rational pathways that lead to this one certain conclusion: Muhammad (PBUH) was indeed the final messenger of God to this world.Table of ContentsCONTENTSForeword viiPreface ixQuenching a Parched World ixThe Proof Within Us xiThe Multiple Forms of Proof xiv1 Humanity’s Need for Prophethood 11. The Spiritual Necessity of Prophethood 12. The Moral Necessity of Prophethood 43. The Historical Necessity of Prophethood 64. The Biblical Necessity of Prophethood 8i. A Gentile Prophet Like Moses 8ii. John the Baptist and the Awaited Prophet 10iii. God’s Servant Where Kedar Lives 10iv. Jesus and the Comforter 12v. Zamzam and the Flourishing City 132 The Prophet’s Character 171. His Honesty and Integrity 202. His Simplicity and Humility 243. His Mercy and Compassion 284. His Clemency and Forgiveness 315. His Bravery and Valour 356. His Generosity 377. His Perseverance and Trust in God 39iv The Final Prophet3 The Prophet’s Accomplishments 471. A Love Larger than Life 512. History’s Greatest Success Story 563. Restoring the Unity of God 604. Revolutionizing Human Rights 625. Molding a Model Generation 674 The Prophet’s Message 751. Pure Monotheism 772. Faith in Destiny 803. The Ritual Prayer (Ṣalāh) 834. Devotional Fasting (Ṣiyām) 875. Prohibiting Extramarital Relations 896. Prohibiting Interest-Based Lending 917. Prohibiting Alcohol Consumption 938. Healthy Eating and Personal Hygiene 979. Science and Medicine 1025 The Prophet’s Prophecies 1071. The Byzantines will Rebound 1082. The Abode of Abū Lahab 1093. The Globalization of Islam 1094. Undeterred by Time or Distance 1115. Six in Sequence 1126. Counting the Conquests 1137. Security will Prevail 1158. The Last Emperors 1169. A Whisper in His Daughter’s Ear 11610. The Longest Arm 11711. The Martyrdom of ʿUmar and ʿUthmān 11812. Inevitable Infighting 11913. Tensions Among the Prophet’s Household 12014. The Fate of ʿAmmār 12115. ʿAlī Suppressing the Khārijites 12216. Repairing the Rift 12317. Cycling Back to Virtue is Promised 124Contents v18. Asmā’ Sends a Tyrant Home 12419. Umm Ḥarām’s Date with Destiny 12520. Preempting the Questioner 12621. An Unforgettable Sermon 12722. The Emergence of Selective Textualism 12723. A Horrific Wildfire 12724. Prosperity and Hedonism Before the End Times 12825. Competing in Materialism 12926. The Unavoidability of Interest (Ribā) 13027. An Increase in Brutality and Killing 13028. The Plunge into Immorality 13229. Muslims Becoming Easy Prey 13330. The Immortality of His Nation 13531. Never Thought You Would Speak 1366 The Prophet’s Physical Miracles 1391. The Possibility of Miracles 1412. The Demonstrability of Miracles 1453. Specific Miracles Performed by the Prophet 148i. Splitting the Moon 149ii. The Night Journey 152iii. The Weeping Tree 155iv. The Talking Stones 156v. Increasing the Water Supply 158vi. Increasing the Food Supply 159vii. Answered Prayers 1637 The Inimitable Qur’an 1691. A Literary Masterpiece 170i. Muhammad or Shakespeare? 1732. Knowledge of the Inaccessible Past 178i. Pharaoh’s Body Will Survive 179ii. The Heavens Did Not Grieve for Pharaoh 180iii. Joseph’s King Wasn’t a Pharaoh 180iv. Was Muhammad Spoon-Fed Biblical History? 1833. Preserved as Promised 184vi The Final Prophet4. An Extraordinary Potency 1875. Echoes of a Prophet 192A Parting Word on the Journey of Faith 199Bibliography 203English Sources 203Arabic Sources 209Index 215

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewA wonderfully readable account of one of the great, and difficult, figures in world literature, Dostoevsky in Love brings the subject brilliantly to life. Anyone who loves his novels will be fascinated by this book. -- Sue Prideaux, author of 'I Am Dynamite! A Life of Friedrich Nietzsche'Christofi immerses us in the forcefield of Dostoevsky’s thought … Beautifully crafted and realised, but it is the great love that Christofi feels for his subject that makes this such a moving book. -- Frances Wilson * Guardian *Whether you know everything or nothing about Dostoevsky, whether you love or hate him (and he was extremely annoying), this is the perfect modern biography. A celebration of human complexity which fuses surprising new information about the life of the writer with a passionate love for his books. Alex Christofi has created the most charismatic and engaging portrait of a tortured, brilliant man. Dostoevsky In Love is as entertaining as it is insightful. -- Viv Groskop, author of 'The Anna Karenina Fix: Life Lessons from Russian Literature'A wonderfully written life of Dostoevsky, in which the boundaries that conventionally separate biography and autobiography are dissolved to revelatory effect. -- Tom HollandCombining equal parts fact and fiction with literary flair, Alex Christofi has crafted in Dostoevsky in Love a stunning, genre-bending work certain to captivate fans of Dostoevsky and the Russian classics. A daring and mesmerizing twist on the art of biography. -- Douglas Smith, author of 'Rasputin: The Biography'Alex Christofi has created a dazzling hybrid, a narrative account of Dostoevsky’s life that blends the known facts with his letters and the most autobiographical elements of his fiction. The effect is like that of colourised film footage: the Dostoevsky that shambles through these pages possesses an immediacy and a realness that’s almost uncanny. -- Chris Power, novelist and author of 'Mothers'A fierce account of Dostoevsky’s inner and outer life … Christofi’s rapidly unrolling tapestry helps to capture the madcap, tumbling and ferocious quality of Dostoevsky’s style. * Financial Times *Innovative biography ... The sociopolitical ferment of Russia bubble[s] up through Mr Christofi’s pages * Wall Street Journal *Fluently readable and warmly entertaining * Daily Telegraph *[A] compelling portrait of the writer’s inner world … Christofi reminds us how much Dostoevsky’s own failings and endless remorse informed his work and shaped his characters. My only caveat is that this lively account is too short. * New Humanist *An immersive and visceral journey through the life of the revolutionary author … [Dostoevsky in Love] feels like a cinematic thriller with one of those protagonists that you want to grasp by the shoulders and shake. * Irish Times *An utterly charming, lively and original work that reads like a novel itself. * Globe and Mail *... qualities which we ascribe to [Dostoevsky’s] unforgettable fictional characters, were all to be found in “Fyodor” himself and Christofi describes them with warmth and understanding. -- A. N. Wilson * Times Literary Supplement *In Dostoevsky in Love, Alex Christofi managed to pack the life and works into just two hundred understated pages. -- Oliver Ready * Literary Review *Crafted with novelistic skill, it is a book to fit the vast complexity of the man and his work. -- Frances Wilson * New Statesman *Alex Christofi collages fragments from the fiction and journals to explore Dostoevsky’s three great love affairs. The result, a meticulously sourced, semi-novelistic “biography”, is both immersive and extraordinary. -- Sunday Times * Literary Non-fiction Books of the Year *... Christofi creates a kind of speculative memoir, part juicy information, part romantic guesswork. For me it worked beautifully, being both unexpectedly moving…and an exciting, unpredictable page-turner. * Big Issue *Table of ContentsAuthor's Note Prologue: Life is a Gift (1849) 1 White Nights (1821-45) 2 Circles within Circles (1846-49) 3 The Dead House (1850-54) 4 The Devil's Sandbox (1854-59) 5 Young Russia (1860-62) 6 Polina (1863) 7 Epoch's End (1864-66) 8 The Gambler (1866-67) 9 The Idiot (1867) 10 Death for the Russian (1868-71) 11 The Citizen (1872-77) 12 The Prophet (1878-81) Epilogue Notes Select Bibliography Acknowledgements Index

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Book SynopsisA refreshingly modest memoir.' THE TIMESVerse, Chorus, Monster! is the memoir of iconic British musician and Blur co-founder Graham Coxon, charting a life of music, fame, addiction and art. Before the noise and clamour of the Britpop era, Coxon was a shy Army kid tempering his anxiety through painting and a growing love of music. As he honed his artistic skill at school, his band with school friend Damon Albarn, fellow student Alex James, and a drummer called Dave Rowntree began to get noticed. But there are things they don't tell you before you get famous. There are monsters out there. And some may even be lurking inside yourself.Charting the hedonism of his Nineties heyday and the ensuing fallout, Blur''s reluctant guitar hero is finally making himself heard.' EVENING STANDARDBreaks off with Coxon, a classically tortured artist, on a blessedly even keel.' OBSERVER

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Book SynopsisThe arch, witty, outspoken memoirs of the pioneering archaeologist and scholar Mary Beard has called “my hero.”First published by Virginia and Leonard Woolf in 1925, Jane Ellen Harrison’s Reminiscences are the irreverent memoirs of a student who declared Victorian education “ingeniously useless,” who blazed a trail for female scholars, and who changed the way we see the ancient world. Growing up in the Yorkshire countryside, Harrison showed an early aptitude for languages: by the age of seventeen, with the help of a governess, she had learned Greek, Latin, German, and some Hebrew. (“Unfortunately, having no guide, we began with the Psalms, which are hard nuts to crack.”) She went on to become the most influential Classicist of her generation. Drawing on the insights of Nietzsche, Bergson, and Freud, and on archaeological research, she helped to revolutionize the study of Greek myth. “The great Mother,” she wrote, &ldq

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Book SynopsisThe enigmatic and elusive filmmaker Stanley Kubrick has not been treated to a full-length biography in over twenty years. Stanley Kubrick: An Odyssey fills that gap. It is based on access to the latest research, especially into his archive at the University of the Arts, London, and other papers as well as new interviews with family members and those who worked with him. It offers comprehensive and in-depth coverage of Kubrick's personal, private, public, and working life. We discuss not only the making of his films, but also about those he wanted but failed to make like Burning Secret, Napoleon, Aryan Papers, and A.I. We discover what he was doing when he was not making films. This biography will puncture a few myths about this allegedly reclusive filmmaker, who created some of the most important works of art of the twentieth century

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Book SynopsisBrotherhood of the Screaming Abyss: My Life with Terence McKenna, is an autobiographical account of renowned ethnobotanist Dennis McKenna’s childhood, his relationship with his brother, and the author’s experiences with and reflections on psychedelics, philosophy, and scientific innovation.Chronicling the McKenna brothers’ childhood in western Colorado during the 1950s and 1960s, Dennis writes of his adolescent adventures including his first encounters with alcohol and drugs (many of which were facilitated by Terence), and the people and ideas that shaped them both. Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss weaves personal narrative through philosophical ideas and tales of psychedelic experimentation. In this book, Dennis describes these inquiries with the wisdom of perspective. In his account of what has become known as “The Experiment at La Chorrera”— which Terence documented in his own 1989 book, True Hallucinations — Dennis describes how he had visions of merging mushroom and human DNA, the brothers’ predictions for the future, and their evolving ideas about society and consciousness. He also offers an intellectual understanding of the hallucinogenic effects of high-dose psychedelic mushrooms and other psychedelic substances. Dennis, now world-renowned for this ethnobotanical work, describes in Brotherhood his early interests in cosmology and astrology, his sometimes rocky relationship with his older brother and how their paths diverged later in their lives. Dennis describes his academic career in between touching accounts of both his mother’s and Terence’s battles with cancer. In the 10th Anniversary edition of Brotherhood, Dennis reflects on scientific revelations, climate change, and the social and political crises of our time. The new edition also features both the original foreword by Luis Eduardo Luna and a new foreword by Dr. Bruce Damer. Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss is a story about brotherhood, psychedelic experimentation, and the intertwining nature of science and myth. Table of ContentsTABLE OF CONTENTSForeword to the 2023 EditionForeword to the First EditionPreface to the 2023 EditionPreface to the First Edition Part One: Beginnings1 Beginnings2 Three Sisters3 Roots and Wars4 Terry and Denny5 Happy Day Rides6 The Nobody People7 The Collector8 Flying, Fishing, and Hunting9 Goodbye to All That10 The Big Picture11 First Loves: 196212 The California Crusade13 The Experimental College: 196514 Cannabis: 196615 The Tutor16 A Psychedelic Education17 Mapping Inner Space: Carl Jung18 The Ladders of Ecstasy: Mircea Eliade19 Summer of Love: 196720 The Secret Encountered21 The Stoners’ Revenge22 My Datura Misadventure23 Escape from Mordor: 196824 The Church Lawn Bunch25 Busted Again: 196926 Girl with a Gun: 1970Part Two: Into the Abyss27 The Brotherhood Forms28 Our Mother’s Death29 A Narrow Passage: 197130 On the Edge of the Abyss31 The Experiment at La Chorrera32 Waiting for the Stone33 The Bell Tower and a UFO34 Reflections on La ChorreraPart Three: Invisible Landscapes35 Invisible Landscapes36 The Timewave37 To See the Great Man38 Fun with Fungi: 197539 A Lab in Paradise40 In the Trenches41 An Encounter with Ayahuasca42 The River of Poisons43 Adulthood and Its Victims44 The Plant Teachers: 198545 The Perpetual Postdoc46 Climbing the Vine: 199147 New in Town48 The Bard in Light and Shadow49 A Desperate Situation50 Into the FireEpilogueThe Rearview MirrorAcknowledgmentsBibliographyAppendixIndex

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Book SynopsisThe No. 2 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER from the author of the No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling Canon Clement Series''Immensely moving and disarmingly witty'' Nigella Lawson''Such a moving, tough, funny, raw, honest read'' Matt Haig''Beautifully written, moving and gut-wrenching, but also at times very funny'' Ian Rankin''Captures brilliantly, beautifully, bravely the comedy as well as the tragedy of bereavement'' The Times''Will strike a chord with anyone who has grieved''IndependentWhen the Reverend Richard Coles'' partner died suddenly, shortly before Christmas in 2019, what came next took Richard by surprise. Despite his years of experience assisting his parishioners in examining life''s moral questions, Richard now found he needed guidance himself. Much about grief was unexpected: the volume of ''sadmin'' that must be undertaken, how much harder it is travellingTrade ReviewBeautiful, honest and massively comforting -- DAWN FRENCHImmensely moving and disarmingly witty -- NIGELLA LAWSONWill strike a chord with anyone who has grieved . . . shines with the sort of wry, self-analytical wisdom you might expect from Coles. Full of resonating reflections, ones that urge us all to be kinder, to love more strongly * INDEPENDENT *Such a moving, tough, funny, raw, honest read. The beautiful articulation of Richard's grief will be a comfort to so many -- MATT HAIGCaptures brilliantly, beautifully, bravely the comedy as well as the tragedy of bereavement . . . simultaneously heartwarming and heartbreaking, painful and strangely comforting as it confronts the reality of what happens to us all in the end * THE TIMES *Beautifully written, moving and gut-wrenching, but also at times very funny, each smile and laugh a candle in the dark -- IAN RANKINAn astonishingly brave, bold and honest book about the tragedy - and unexpected comedy - of bereavement. Such a harrowing, hopeful and comforting book. If I could prescribe Richard Coles, I'd administer him stat to us all * Dr Rachel Clarke, author of DEAR LIFE *This is not a self-help book on how to cope with death and loss, it is an honest, raw and personal account of a man's descent into the Madness of Grief. Richard provides a frank account of the trials and tribulations he endured during the weeks between the death and the funeral of the man he loved. Funny, sad, touching and thought provoking, it reminds us that grief has no normality, no time limit and most importantly, no rules -- PROFESSOR DAME SUE BLACK, author of ALL THAT REMAINSBold, intimate writing . . . THE MADNESS OF GRIEF is not a manual for the bereaved, but as a vivid account of how it feels when the world suddenly falls away, it performs another kind of service * THE SUNDAY TIMES *Deeply moving . . . has an immediacy that is not born of long reflection and it is all the better for it * FINANCIAL TIMES *Heartbreakingly sad and searingly honest . . . For those who find themselves bereaved, this book is sure to help * DAILY MIRROR *You don't need to be religious to find comfort in this book. Anybody who has experienced a similar complex grief will relate to many of Coles's anecdotes -- Helen Brown * THE DAILY TELEGRAPH *In this memoir, Coles shares his truth, stays kind, and, when possible, brings a smile . . . By reflecting the hurts of others' losses with such beauty and integrity, he confirms that it is his open humanity that is priestly. It gives me yet another reason to admire him * CHURCH TIMES *An honest book, and a brave one * THE OLDIE *Moving and candid, this book will resonate with anyone who has lost a loved one, or has had to cope with someone they love whom they just cannot help * I NEWSPAPER *Although not a self-help book, the homilies, experience and catharsis within creates invaluable solace. It will resonate for the myriad struggling with grief wrought by the pandemic * THE QUIETUS *Beautifully written, raw and deeply personal . . . A revealing and often funny insight into love and loss * ATTITUDE *This brief, wise, frank book deals with the surreal mundanity of bereavement * THE DAILY TELEGRAPH, Books of the Summer *His reading is pitch-perfect . . . creating an aural kaleidoscope. It is, at heart, a meditation on the nature of loss and one that is as strangely comforting as it is wrenching and painful -- Alex Clark * FINANCIAL TIMES, Audio Books review round up *A WORTHY heir to C. S. Lewis's 'A Grief Observed'... To be in Coles's company is always uplifting, even when he's writing about unbearable sadness and loss. -- Ysenda Maxtone-Graham * DAILY MAIL, Best Books of 2021 *

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Book Synopsis'I never imagined that the wind would blow me here, to a kind of isolation I have never experienced... There is never anything out here but my shadow, that no one treads on any more'When Jade's partner leaves the barn that they moved into just weeks before, he leaves a dent in the wall and her life unravelled. Numbed from years in a destructive, abusive relationship, she faces an uncertain future and complete solitude. Slowly, with the help of Devon's salted cliffs and damp forested footpaths, Jade comes back to life and discovers the power of being alone.As Jade reacclimatizes, she considers what it means to live alone. Through conversations with other hermits across the world, Fitton sheds light on the myriad - and often misunderstood - ways of living alone: from monks to hikikomori, and the largely ignored female hermit. Jade questions whether hermitic living is possible in an era of constant communication and increased housing costs as she finds herself financially unstable and itinerant. She realises that home doesn't exist within walls, but within the landscape of her childhood home county.Lyrically written, this is an inspirational story of recovery, of finding home, and of celebrating solitude in the natural world.Trade ReviewA dreamy, beautiful book about the consolations of solitude. In Hermit, Jade wanders a sunlit, windswept, delicately drawn landscape of loss and longing, and in doing so finds the stillness at the centre of herself. Hopeful and open-hearted. -- Cal Flyn, author of 'Islands of Abandonment'A compelling, engrossing memoir that beautifully encapsulates the human experience (both the misery and the magic) of suddenly finding yourself rebuilding life from the ground up, alone. I loved it. * Emma Gannon *Hermit is a beautiful written debut memoir drawing on the hermetic tradition that shows the power of being alone. -- Katherine May, author of WinteringA book of spellbinding brilliance by a writer of rare talent. -- Tristan GooleyThis distinctive, alluring memoir, reminiscent of The Outrun by Amy Liptrot, relates how Fitton slowly learns to live alone and celebrate solitude in the natural world. * The Bookseller *

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Book SynopsisEnter a world of ancient secrets, old money, new ambitions and the discovery of priceless treasure in this revelatory new biography.Between November 1922 and spring 1923, a door to the ancient Egyptian world was opened. The discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun would be the most astonishing archaeological find of the century, revealing not only the boy pharaoh's preserved remains, but thousands of finely crafted objects, from the iconic gold mask and coffins to a dagger made from meteorite, chalices, beautiful furniture and even 3000-year-old food and wine. The world's understanding of Ancient Egyptian civilisation was immeasurably enhanced, and the quantity and richness of the objects in the tomb is still being studied today. Two men were ultimately responsible for the discovery: Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter. It was Lord Carnarvon who held the concession to excavate and whose passion and ability to finance the project allowed the eventual discovery to take place.The Earl and the PhTrade Review Early praise for the The Earl and the Pharaoh ‘The story of their quest for the tomb of an obscure pharaoh is familiar but still exciting, and the countess tells it well, conjuring up the fights, the frustrations, the times when Carnarvon came close to cutting his losses and giving up, and the moment in November 1922 when Carter held his candle up to a hole in the wall of Tutankhamun’s tomb and in answer to Carnarvon’s question, “Can you see anything?” answered, “Yes, wonderful things”… Carnarvon’s life makes a good story, with plenty of Downton-esque period details’ Daily Telegraph Praise for the Countess of Carnarvon’s previous works 'Bright, breezy and unpretentious'Guardian ‘If you can’t wait for the new season of Downton Abbey … this one’s for you … A revealing portrait of the changing times’New York Post ‘[A] fascinating insight into how the seriously rich once lived’Newsweek Daily Beast ‘Lady Carnarvon's narrative is a vivid time-stamp of a tempestuous period in history, aptly incorporating its political situation and social structure, to satisfy history buffs’Publishers Weekly

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Book SynopsisThis sensational 1941 memoir of life on wartime Europe's frontline by a trailblazing female reporter is an 'unforgettable' (The Times) rediscovered classic, introduced by Christina Lamb.Paris as it fell to the NazisLondon on the first day of the BlitzBerlin the day Germany invaded PolandMadrid in the Spanish Civil WarPrague during the Munich crisisLapland as the Russians attackedMoscow betrayed by the GermansVirginia Cowles has seen it all.As a pioneering female correspondent, she reported from the frontline of 1930s Europe into WWII always in the right place at the right time. Flinging off her heels under shellfire; meeting Hitler ('an inconspicuous little man'); gossiping with Churchill by his goldfish pond; dancing in the bomb-blasted Ritz ... Introduced by Christina Lamb, Cowles' incredible dispatches make you an eyewitness to the twentieth century as you haveTrade Review'A brilliant describer with an uncanny ability to be present in the right country when it falls into the abyss ... One of the most atmospheric war descriptions I've read ... Unforgettable.' - The Times'An amazingly brilliant reporter ... One of the most engrossing [books] the war has produced in all its diverse richness of drama and compassion and penetration and wit.' - New York Times

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Book SynopsisFrom influential and iconic star Constance Wu, a powerful and poignant memoir-in-essays full of funny and intimate observations that will resonate with readers everywhere.Growing up in the friendly suburbs of Richmond, Virginia, Constance Wu thought that girls were supposed to be reserved, graceful, and polite.  Everyone around her praised ladylike behaviour while seeming to disapprove of the louder, rougher girls – the kind of girls who made scenes. And while she spent most of her childhood suppressing her bold, emotional nature, Constance found an early outlet in local community theatre.  The stage was the one place where big feelings were okay – were good, even.  As she continued to reconcile her personality with the expectations of daily life, acting became more than a hobby. It was her refuge, her touchstone, and eventually her vocation.  She went to New York to study classical theatre and pursue an acting career while wait

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Book Synopsis*WINNER OF THE ROYAL PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY STORYTELLING AWARD**SHORTLISTED FOR THE SLIGHTLY FOXED BEST FIRST BIOGRAPHY PRIZE 2023*The lives, loves, adventures and trailblazing musical careers of four extraordinary women from a stunning debut biographer.''Fabulous.'' Sunday Times ''A rare gift.'' Financial Times ''Passionate ... Vivid ... Timely.'' Telegraph ''Readable and inspiring.'' Guardian ''Compelling ... Ambitious ... Poignant.'' Spectator ''Magnificent.'' Kate Mosse ''Riveting.'' Antonia Fraser ''A breath of fresh air.'' Kate Molleson ''Fascinating.'' Alexandra Harris ''Wonderful.'' Claire Tomalin ''Splendid.'' Miranda Seymour ''Remarkable.'' Fiona Maddocks ''Pioneering.'' Andrew Motion ''Brilliant'' Helen PankhurstEthel Smyth (b.1858): Famed for her operas, this trailblazing queer Victorian

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Book SynopsisSeptember 1, 1985. The RMS Titanic, which has been missing since April 15, 1912, is found in the North Atlantic where it lies at a depth of 3,821 metres.Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a commander in the French Navy, directed underwater research of part of many expeditions to the wreck, from 1987 until his untimely death in 2023.With hundreds of hours of diving to the liner and more than five thousand objects brought to the surface, including bottles of champagne, luggage and jewellery, the last secrets of the liner will be revealed, reliving the ship's maiden voyage and tragic destiny.Through the incredible story of his expeditions, Paul-Henri Nargeolet brings to life the Titanic, that of its passengers and its crew, and offers a unique point of view on this maritime disaster.

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Book SynopsisNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * “Do we need still another Watergate book? The answer turns out to be yes—this one.” —The Washington Post * “Dazzling.” —The New York Times Book Review From the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Plane in the Sky, comes the first definitive narrative history of Watergate—“the best and fullest account of the crisis, one unlikely to be surpassed anytime soon” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)—exploring the full scope of the scandal through the politicians, investigators, journalists, and informants who made it the most influential political event of the modern era.In the early hours of June 17, 1972, a security guard named Frank Wills enters six words into the log book of the Watergate office complex that will change the course of history: 1:47 AM Found tape on doors; call police. The subsequent arrests of five men seeking to bug and burgle the Democratic National Committee offices—three of them Cuban exiles, two of them former intelligence operatives—quickly unravels a web of scandal that ultimately ends a presidency and forever alters views of moral authority and leadership. Watergate, as the event is called, becomes a shorthand for corruption, deceit, and unanswered questions. Now, award-winning journalist and bestselling author Garrett M. Graff explores the full scope of this unprecedented moment from start to finish, in the first comprehensive, single-volume account in decades. The story begins in 1971, with the publication of thousands of military and government documents known as the Pentagon Papers, which reveal dishonesty about the decades-long American presence in Vietnam and spark public outrage. Furious that the leak might expose his administration’s own duplicity during a crucial reelection season, President Richard M. Nixon gathers his closest advisors and gives them implicit instructions: Win by any means necessary. Within a few months, an unsteady line of political dominoes are positioned, from the creation of a series of covert operations code-named GEMSTONE to campaign-trail dirty tricks, possible hostage situations, and questionable fundraising efforts—much of it caught on the White House’s own taping system. One by one they fall, until the thwarted June burglary attracts the attention of intrepid journalists, congressional investigators, and embattled intelligence officers, one of whom will spend decades concealing his identity behind the alias “Deep Throat.” As each faction slowly begins to uncover the truth, a conspiracy deeper and more corrupt than anyone thought possible emerges, and the nation is thrown into a state of crisis as its government—and its leader—unravels. Using newly public documents, transcripts, and revelations, Graff recounts every twist with remarkable detail and page-turning drama, bringing readers into the backrooms of Washington, chaotic daily newsrooms, crowded Senate hearings, and even the Oval Office itself during one of the darkest chapters in American history. Grippingly told and meticulously researched, Watergate is the defining account of the moment that has haunted our nation’s past—and still holds the power to shape its present and future.Trade ReviewPRAISE FOR WATERGATE: A NEW HISTORY “Do we need still another Watergate book? The answer turns out to be yes — this one: Garrett M. Graff’s Watergate: A New History. It is a remarkably rich narrative with compelling characters, who range from criminal and flawed to tragic and heroic. As someone who played a small role in the drama while I was editing many of The Washington Post’s Watergate stories, I found that Graff convincingly populates and re-creates an extraordinary time in the history of the country and this city. ... fast-paced ... filled with apt sketches of its many characters, major and minor, from all the president’s men, and some of their spouses, to journalists, investigators, lawyers and members of Congress. It vividly re-creates all the key events, from Nixon’s overreaction to the revelation of the Pentagon Papers about the Vietnam War in June 1971 to his resignation in August 1974.... engaging, informative and thought-provoking, more than earning its place on bookshelves alongside the old histories.” —Len Downie, Jr., The Washington Post “Dazzling. . . A lively writer, Graff explores the dramatic scope of the Watergate saga through its participants — politicians, investigators, journalists, whistle-blowers and, at center stage, Nixon himself.” —Douglas Brinkley, The New York Times Book Review “Award-winning author Graff aims to give readers the full scope of Watergate — a much bigger, more bizarre story than even remembered — telling the full story from start to finish in this ambitious book.” —New York Post “A definitive, exhaustive account of the scandal. . . a fascinating, horrifying examination of the Nixon presidency up close—enough to scare the record straight.” —AirMail “A meticulously researched, expansive history of the Watergate scandal from start to finish, from the release of the Pentagon Papers in 1971 to the reverberations that echo through present day.” —Barbara VanDenburgh, USA TODAY “A brisk, riveting, compulsively readable, comprehensive, up-to-date narrative of the entire tangled affair, and it's hard to imagine it better told. . . . Now the best and fullest account of the Watergate crisis, one unlikely to be surpassed anytime soon.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Monumental. . . effortlessly clarifies the strands of one of the most complex episodes in modern history. . . A masterful, epic look at a story that is still barely believable.” —The Daily Mail “This meticulously researched and documented book should now become the definitive source for those who wish to dive into the cesspool of deceit, intrigue and criminal behavior that were associated with the seemingly innocuous break-in and the cover-up. ... [Graff] makes a valiant attempt to connect all the disparate threads from the confusing tapestry of multiple investigations, muffled tapes and self-serving memoirs available. His organization of the book makes the 700-plus pages flow seamlessly as the investigators reach their inevitable conclusions. In summary, this book should be required reading for any citizen with the faintest interest in how the sausage-factory of Washington politics functions and how our country has managed to arrive at today’s dysfunctional impasse.” —J. Kemper Campbell, Lincoln Journal-Star “Lively, wide-ranging, detailed.” —Erica J. Smith, The Virginian Pilot “Garrett Graff aptly calls Watergate a 'Gordian knot of scandal.' This comprehensive, searching, yet elegant book untangles it more completely than any attempt so far. I learned a lot!” —Rick Perlstein, bestselling author of Nixonland and Reaganland “Watergate is one of the great tragic double-edged swords of modern American history: its crimes were swiftly exposed, the criminals punished, the rule of law restored––and it profoundly, permanently undermined American citizens' trust in their government. Garrett Graff's fresh chronicle of that inflection point is lucid, enlightening and indispensable.” —Kurt Andersen, author of Evil Geniuses and writer-host of Nixon at War “I thought I knew all the Watergate stories. I was wrong. Graff did a herculean job going through so much existing Watergate material to pull together a compelling new story and make it all fresh again. Think you know the entire story from beginning to end? Not until you’ve read this.” —Howard Mortman, C-SPAN communications director and author of When Rabbis Bless Congress “Expertly researched and assembled, this is a valuable introduction to one of history’s greatest political scandals. . . . Graff skillfully interweaves the perspectives of journalists and law enforcement officials investigating the Watergate break-in with the Nixon team’s attempts to “use the organs of government to cover up their own rogue operation,” and incisively analyzes how the congressional inquiry into the scandal resulted in Democrats and Republicans coming together to uphold the Constitution and limit the powers of the president.” —Publishers Weekly

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Book SynopsisThe first essay collection from one of the most acclaimed writers of our time.This trenchant, unrepentant collection reminds you that she's a brilliant writer Order a copy in case she's cancelled by Christmas' THE TIMES (Book of the Year)You may disagree with Lionel Shriver's bracing journalism, but her right to spark disquiet goes to the heart of the freedom of expression issue' Rachel Cooke, OBSERVERMutinous essays about modern politics and culture An independent mind and a sense of humour are dangerous things to possess. The spiky, politically incorrect novelist Lionel Shriver has them in abundance' THE TIMESTestament to the fierce intelligence of a writer who wants us to think more, probe more, challenge more and who also makes it fun' THE SUNDAY TIMESNovelist, cultural observer and social satirist Lionel Shriver is among the sharpest talents of our age. A writer who embraces under-expressed, unpopular or downright dangerous' points of view, she regularly deplores the conformity oTrade Review‘This trenchant, unrepentant collection reminds you that she’s a brilliant writer… Order a copy in case she’s cancelled by Christmas’ THE TIMES (Book of the Year) This trenchant, unrepentant collection reminds you that she’s a brilliant writer on writing’ THE TIMES ‘Abominations is a refreshing mix of the personal and the political. Shriver’s essays beat with deliciously, dangerous opinions, but the cadence is catchingly humane. The world and my mind feel a little bigger and a little clearer’ Laura Dodsworth ‘Provocative, funny, original and pithy’ THE TIMES ‘Testament to the fierce intelligence of a writer who wants us to think more, probe more, challenge more — and who also makes it fun’ SUNDAY TIMES ‘You may disagree with Lionel Shriver’s bracing journalism, but her right to spark disquiet goes to the heart of the freedom of expression issue’ Rachel Cooke, OBSERVER ‘Mutinous essays about modern politics and culture… An independent mind and a sense of humour are dangerous things to possess. The spiky, politically incorrect novelist Lionel Shriver has them in abundance’ THE TIMES

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Book SynopsisA lingering, long-haul collection of writing about sailing for readers of Julietta Singh and Kyo Maclear.In Relative to Wind, Phoebe Wang delivers a poetic rendering of her decade-long journey of learning to sail and a deep dive into what it means to be a newcomer to an old tradition. From working along­side crewmates in tempestuous conditions to becoming an avid racer and organizer to drafting a wistful love letter to a Wayfarer dinghy—while examining the loose tether between sailing and a creative life—Wang delivers a book for sailors and would-be sailors that is thoughtful and surprising at every tack."A thoughtful, illuminating look at life away from land."—Kirkus

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Book SynopsisThere are few women in English history more famous or controversial than Queen Anne Boleyn. She was the second wife of Henry VIII, mother of Elizabeth I and the first English queen to be publicly executed. Much of what we think we know about her is coloured by myth and legend, and does not stand up to close scrutiny. Reinvented by each new generation, Anne is buried beneath centuries of labels: homewrecker, seductress, opportunist, witch, romantic victim, Protestant martyr, feminist. In this vivid and engaging account of the triumphant and harrowing final year of Queen Anne Boleyn's life, the author reveals a very human portrait of a brilliant, passionate and complex woman. The last twelve months of Anne's life contained both joy and heartbreak. This telling period bore witness to one of the longest and most politically significant progresses of Henry VIII's reign, improved relations between the royal couple, and Anne's longed-for pregnancy. With the dawning of the new year, the pendulum swung. In late January 1536, Anne received news that her husband had been thrown from his horse in his tiltyard at Greenwich. Just days later, tragedy struck. As the body of Anne's predecessor, Katherine of Aragon, was being prepared for burial, Anne miscarried her son. The promise of a new beginning dashed, the months that followed were a rollercoaster of anguish and hope, marked by betrayal, brutality and rumour. What began with so much promise, ended in silent dignity, amid a whirlwind of scandal, on a scaffold at the Tower of London. Through close examination of these intriguing events considered in their social and historical context, readers will gain a fresh perspective into the life and death of the woman behind the tantalising tale. "Natalie Grueninger skilfully unravels the myths surrounding Anne Boleyn's downfall, and presents the most compelling account of her final months to date. A Triumph." - Dr Owen Emmerson, Historian and Assistant Curator, Hever Castle "A heart-stirring account of Anne Boleyn's last living year. Researched flawlessly, the events are revealed in a compelling read; little-known facts adding to the tension which builds toward an emotional end. A must-read for fans and students of Tudor history." - Sandra Vasoli, author of Anne Boleyn's Letter From the Tower: A New Assessment "Genuinely ground-breaking, provocative yet sensitive, exquisitely well-researched and fair - both to Anne's friends and enemies - Natalie Grueninger's book shows us the complexities, and the secrets, that wove together during Anne Boleyn's final twelve months as queen. This is an exciting and important book of Tudor history." - Gareth Russell, Historian and author of The Ship of Dreams and Young and Damned and Fair "Astonishingly well-researched, The Final Year of Anne Boleyn triumphantly re-writes the fall of one of England's most famous queen consorts, shedding new light on a well-known story. A riveting and emotional read." - Kate McCaffrey, Assistant Curator, Hever Castle "The Final Year of Anne Boleyn is proof that a thoughtful, serious, and sensitive work of scholarship can also be entertainingly and delightfully written. Grueninger grasps the nitty-gritty and gives us a deeply considered, elegantly restrained, and often freshly compelling interpretation of this thrilling, contested, and fatal year." - Professor Suzannah Lipscomb, Historian, Author and Broadcaster. "Meticulously researched: check, well-referenced: check, a fascinating read: check, an engaging style: check. That's what I look for in a history book! Thank you, Natalie, for meddling in Anne's cause so delightfully well." - Claire Ridgway, Author and Historian "From the scaffold, she asked that we 'judge the best', but history has not been fair to Anne Boleyn. Finally, in this engrossing and meticulously researched exploration of the final year of the controversial queen's life, the real Anne leaps to life in all her tangible humanity. Brilliant, loving, compassionate, acerbic, resilient and breathtakingly bold, this is the Anne we've never fully met. From her dedication to the most vulnerable in her community, to her courage in fronting up to injustice, here was a woman who was speaking truth to power centuries before the term entered the lexicon. The prevailing patriarchy thought they'd silenced her but her enduring popularity has proven them wrong. Weaving primary sources and exhaustive contemporary research, Natalie Grueninger masterfully places the reader front and centre of one of the most portentous years in English history, untangling the complex web of intrigue that ended in the sanctioned murder of an English queen."- Karina Machado, Author and Podcaster

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Book SynopsisChasing Salah will shed a truer light on Liverpool legend and the most famous Egyptian footballer in the history of the sport.

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Book SynopsisJoyrideis the empowering story of the inspirational, iconic former World Champion Trials Cyclist and pioneering paraplegic, Martyn Ashton. Beginning with his life-altering accident, it follows Martyn as he discovers the power in facing one of the worst things one can imagine and realising he can take it.Including conversations with legendary trials rider Danny MacAskill and others,Joyride explores Martyn''s ability to cope with previously unimaginable physical and mental health challenges.Martyn believes we all possess an inner strength that we can call upon when we need it most and shares his strategies for finding that strength. For a man who describes himself as ''unremarkable'', Martyn approaches each stage of rehabilitation with remarkable humility, humour and positivity.He blazes a trail as the first paraplegic to get back on two wheels, creates film content that attracts millions of views and is a motivation

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Book SynopsisFrom Nobel Prize-winning writers to debut novelists,Britain''s most prestigious literary magazine brings you the best in newwriting, photography and art from around the world.No nation boasts more manufacturing capacity than thePeople''s Republic of China, yet few countries'' literary products are less knownin the English-speaking world. Witnesses to the country''s revolutionarymodernisation, China''s writers have experienced historical whiplashes andsprints forward on an extreme scale. Thezhiqing? theeducated youth whom Mao ''sent down'' to the countryside and who experienced adecade of extreme austerity ? are at a vast distance from the generations belowthem, who have lived through an epoch of self-assertion and creative dreaming.In China today, writers across generations look abroad, to new technologies, aswell as to rich veins in the Chinese literary past for new modes of expression.Granta''sspecial issue on the writing of contemporary Chinacollects the mainland''s most thrilling voices. Featuring memoir from Xiao Haion moving to Shenzhen at fifteen to work in its factories, reportage from HanZhang, who visits the working-class writers carving out a living in Picun, aswell as new fiction from Mo Yan, Yu Hua, Yan Lianke, Shuang Xuetao, ZhangYueran, Ban Yu,Wang Zhanhei, Zhou Jingzhi, and many more. Poetry by Huang Fan, Lan Lan, Hu Xudong andZheng Xiaoqiong.Photography by Feng Li, Haohui Liu, and Li Jie andZhang Jungang.

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Book SynopsisThe real Molly-Mae, in her own wordsMolly-Mae Hague is no stranger to the limelight, having found fame on TV and online. But behind the polished exterior there is a young girl with a unique story. It's the Molly not everyone gets to see.In Becoming Molly-Mae she unravels herself completely for the first time to open up about how she nurtured her creativity from a young age, took ownership of her body image, battle self-doubt and built a happy life. Along the way she shares the moments, relationships and life lessons that have made her who she is. From the energetic child who loved Irish dancing and pageants, to the teenager holding down a job at Boots whilst building her dreams at fashion school, her journey to Love Island and how she copes with fame today.By sharing these parts of herself, Molly-Mae gives a fresh take on finding beauty and balance in a busy world.

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Book Synopsis** Shortlisted for the @CrimeFest H.R.F. Keating Award **'A smart and highly entertaining portrait of a literary powerhouse'- THE TIMES BOOKS OF THE YEAR'A riveting portrait' - GUARDIAN BOOKS OF THE YEAR***'Christie lovers should read this biography for the same reason they read her novels.' - The Times'A model of how to combine biographical information, analysis and literary criticism into a propulsive narrative' - Daily Telegraph'Worsley's book excels in bringing a broader historical perspective to Christie's life and work, and her enthusiasm is infectious.' - ObserverMs Worsley herself writes engagingly... She combines an almost militant support for her subject with a considered analysis of her books and plays.' - Economist'Nobody in the world was more inadequate to act the heroine than I was.'Why did Agatha Christie spend her career pretending that she was 'just' an ordinary housewife, when clearly she wasn't? As Lucy Worsley says, 'She was thrillingly, scintillatingly modern'. She went surfing in Hawaii, she loved fast cars, and she was intrigued by the new science of psychology, which helped her through devastating mental illness. So why - despite all the evidence to the contrary - did Agatha present herself as a retiring Edwardian lady of leisure? She was born in 1890 into a world which had its own rules about what women could and couldn't do. Lucy Worsley's biography is not just of an internationally renowned bestselling writer. It's also the story of a person who, despite the obstacles of class and gender, became an astonishingly successful working woman. With access to personal letters and papers that have rarely been seen, Lucy Worsley's biography is both authoritative and entertaining and makes us realise what an extraordinary pioneer Agatha Christie was - truly a woman who wrote the twentieth century.Trade ReviewAgatha Christie was a modernist, an iconoclast, and a groundbreaker, according to this excellent biography from historian Worsley. Worsley offers close readings of Christie's work and presents a careful reframe of the novelist's famous 1926 disappearance. Drawing on personal letters and modern criticism, Worsley manages to make her subject feel fresh and new. This is a must-read for Christie fans. * Publishers Weekly, (starred review) *One brilliant woman writing about another: an irresistible combination. * Antonia Fraser *This is a warm, intelligent book, which does justice , both to Agatha Christie's character, and to her distinctive genius as a writer of plays and novels. Someone once said that the greatest character Agatha Christie ever invented was Agatha Christie herself. If that's true, she was waiting for the perfect biographer to bring her back to life, and she has found her in Dr Lucy Worsley. * A.N. Wilson *Lucy Worsley brings Agatha Christie back to life, revealing a strong, pioneering, highly intelligent woman whose detective novels rank among the best ever written. Worsley shows us Christie's faults and flaws in the context of her time; she evokes her houses, clothes and the central mystery of her life in spritely sentences with a sharp ear for dialogue. Reading Worsley is as enjoyable as reading Christie herself. * Ruth Scurr *Lucy Worsley's biography of Agatha Christie is as unputdownable as any of the novels by the Queen of Crime herself. Gripping, revealing, and ultimately extremely moving, Agatha Christie is a wonderful tribute to one of the best-loved writers of the 20th century. * Amanda Foreman *Fascinating, seductive, incisive, this beautiful exploration into Christie, her life and times, is full of unique insight, eye opening detail, sharp analysis. Lucy Worsley is a brilliant detective into the letters, the emotion, the drive of Christie, the ambition. Gripping. * Kate Williams *'In the best biography of Agatha Christie ever written, Lucy Worsley gets to the soul - the complex, troubled, but big soul - of our greatest whodunnit writer with laser-like precision. There will not now need to be another biography of the queen of the detective story written for decades.' * Andrew Roberts, author of ‘Napoleon the Great’ and ‘Churchill: Walking with Destiny’ *'Gosh this is BRILLIANT. Read it at one sitting. It's frothy and fast and properly, subtly, furious.' * Annie Gray *'Reading Lucy Worsley's biography is like sharing Agatha Christie's favourite drink: cream. Rich, hearty and extremely satisfying, this book fills the void and, more than that, shows us with much brio and charm why Christie remains a writer for our times' * Dr Daisy Dunn, author of Not Far From Brideshead *Lucy Worsley is simply unparalleled as a biographer who couples historical insight with riveting storytelling. She proves it once again by capturing the life of the elusive Agatha Christie in a book so full of sensitive interpretations and surprising revelations that you won't want to put it down. * Devoney Looser *'Entertaining and authoritative, shining a light on just what an extraordinary pioneer Christie was.' * Belfast Telegraph *'(An) authoritative and entertaining biography.' * Irish Independent *Written with the cooperation of the Christie family and all of Lucy Worsley's trademark wit and wisdom, Agatha Christie emerges from the page as a thoroughly modern woman, full of light and shade and a world away from the cosy little old lady that she's so often perceived to be. * Red *Paint(s) an intriguing picture of Christie as an upper-middle-class Victorian and Edwardian child whose life, then and later, encompassed significant losses and reversals of fortune, * Guardian *With great affection, Worsley masterfully maneuvers her way through Christie's life and prolific oeuvre. * Kirkus (Starred Review) *Ms Worsley herself writes engagingly, with a smattering of racy phrases (Archie Christie, that adulterous first husband, is said to have been "incredibly hot"). She combines an almost militant support for her subject with a considered analysis of her books and plays-making the case that, in her themes and formal innovation, Christie was much more than a writer of formulaic potboilers. * Economist *Presenting Christie in a stimulating new light... the book is a model of how to combine biographical information, analysis and literary criticism into a propulsive narrative. Christie would have hated it, as she would have hated all biographies, but even so she might have saluted the skill of an author who shares her gift for supreme readability. * Jake Kerridge, Daily Telegraph *What makes this biography so fascinating is the way Worsley demonstrates how "everything Agatha experienced became copy". An irreverent historian, she sets in context the events of her subject's life with great skill, then shows how Christie reflected them in her work... Christie lovers should read this biography for the same reason they read her novels: they "address dark, uncomfortable feelings. They address the darkness that can lurk within even normal, respectable people. People like your own spouse." Worsley not only makes you want to reread them all over again, she actually makes you love the talented yet tormented woman who wrote them. * Mark Sanderson, The Times *The first significant biography of Christie since Laura Thompson's... Worsley's book excels in bringing a broader historical perspective to Christie's life and work, and her enthusiasm is infectious. * Stephanie Merritt, Observer *Provocative new biography... the narrative is buoyed by colourful details about Christie's fondness for surfing, fast cars and drinking glasses of neat cream. She certainly emerges as a more subversive figure than is generally realised. * Business Post *Worsley is refreshingly down to earth, and her passion for her subject is palpable... What a shame she never met her heroine - they would have got on like a house on fire. * Irish Examiner *A superlative biography of the Queen of Crime, Worsley's page-turning volume is a fitting tribute to Christie's extraordinary life. * Waterstones Weekly, Best New Literary Biographies *Agatha Christie fans intrigued to learn where the queen of crime gained her real-life inspiration will enjoy Lucy Worsley's new biography. * Yours *Fascinating... A wonderful tribute to one of our most brilliant national treasures. * Best *

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Book SynopsisThe scandal of nineteenth-century Britain: the sensational trial of Caroline Norton for adultery with the first Victorian Prime MinisterTrade ReviewFraser gives insightful judgment on the questions that remain questions despite Caroline's extensive archive ... Fraser's is a spirited book, particularly moving on Norton's old age. It is impressive to see one of our most important intellectual figures turning her mind to this remarkable woman from an earlier, different and not so different era -- Lara Feigel * THE GUARDIAN *Fraser's is the first [book] to emphasise what a modern figure [Norton] is, portraying her not as a hapless victim but as a working mother and bestselling writer who refused to submit to what can only be called the patriarchy - a "difficult" woman whose bloody-mindedness improved the lot of other women. Fraser is surely right to call her a 19th-century heroine -- Daisy Goodwin * THE SUNDAY TIMES *Antonia Fraser's tale of double standards is a delight. Combining high society campery and historical scholarship in ways rivalling Nancy Mitford, Antonia Fraser is the great chronicler of melodramatic queens and fearsome princes, from Boadicea to Louis XIV, even Harold Pinter. She is peerless at pageantry, and no slouch when it comes to technical footnotes - there are plenty in her new book, The Case of the Married Woman... The major theme of Fraser's book is rage - hers and Caroline's - that women in those days had no rights over their children. In the eyes of the law, married women simply didn't exist... This is a rousing book - classic Antonia Fraser -- Roger Lewis * THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH *The life of Caroline Norton, the 19th century author and campaigner who is the remarkable subject of Antonia Fraser's engaging new biography The Case of the Married Woman, plays out like a Victorian sensation novel... It's a fascinating story, and Fraser's account is compulsively readable, filled with intriguing period details (early Victorian aristos' favourite euphemism for pregnancy, we learn, was "going on the sofa"). The veteran biographer paints Caroline as a very modern woman, but doesn't try to smooth out her complexities and contradictions to fit her tidily into the mould of 21st century feminism... this is a fitting tribute to a captivating, campaigning heroine -- Katie Rosseinsky * EVENING STANDARD *[Caroline Norton's] life and writings are vividly realised in Fraser's new analysis of the woman and her words, straddling both the Regency and Victorian eras in the fight for women's rights as wives, mothers and workers ... In Fraser's book the woman who leaps from the page is vastly complex, at times almost unlikeable, and yet equally unforgettable ... For those who wish for a detailed history of one of the most important female figures of the 19th century and the world around her, this is an ideal read. Fraser's illuminating book shows how Caroline Norton's presence in 19th-century society still has so much to say about the rights women lack and the abuses they suffer, even today -- Fern Riddell * BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE *[A] blend of adroit character study and readable prose ... In this retelling, [Caroline Norton] is revealed in all her complexity: as a flawed, difficult woman who, against the odds, still managed to make the world better for the women who came after her -- Caroline Crampton * THE SPECTATOR *

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Book SynopsisPeople lie, cheat, steal and even kill for a variety of reasons, one of which is to go motor racing, a particularly expensive and egotistical sport. This intriguing book, the result of years of research, encompasses not just those who have been 'driven to crime' in order to pay for their sport but also characters within motor racing who have been involved in wrongdoing, sometimes through no fault of their own. Over 60 true stories cover webs of deceit and numerous crimes including drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement, robbery, fraud, murder and money laundering. The author investigates misdemeanours at all levels, from drivers, designers and mechanics to team owners, entrants and sponsors. This book will appeal not only to motor racing enthusiasts and cognoscenti on both sides of the Atlantic but also to anyone who enjoys reading about crime. Key content • Stories of motorsport chicanery from all over the world, including… • Fraud: Southern Organs (lay preachers who faked suicide and hid on a remote Scottish island); Jerry Dominelli (a Ponzi scheme that funded top-level racing Porsches); Jean-Pierre Van Rossem (self-styled stock-market guru who bankrolled an F1 team); Dominic Chappell (serial bankrupt racer brought down after purchasing a British department store); David Thieme (the Lotus sponsor who vanished). • Murder: David Blakely (the driver killed by his lover Ruth Ellis); Franco Ambrosio (F1 sponsor of Shadow and Arrows); Elmer George (American racer who married into Indy ‘royalty’); Ricardo Londoño-Bridge (Colombia’s first F1 driver); Mickey Thompson (1960s American drag-racing icon); Nick Whiting (casualty of the biggest gold bullion heist in British history). • Swindles: James Munroe (accounts manager who embezzled his way to a racing McLaren F1 GTR); Lord Brocket (jailed for staging the theft of his classic cars, including Ferraris); Andrea Harkness (stripper who ripped off NASCAR). • Drugs: Ian Burgess (sometime British F1 racer); Randy Lanier (drug-smuggling IMSA champion); John Paul Sr and Jr (talented son dragged into a racing father’s drug-running); Vic Lee (super-successful team owner with a dodgy transporter); the Whittington brothers (more misdeeds in IMSA circles). • Other misdemeanours: Roy James (Great Train Robbery getaway driver); Bertrand Gachot (jailed after road rage in London); Juan Manuel Fangio (kidnapped by Cuban rebels in 1958); Colin Chapman (the unresolved ‘DeLorean Affair’); ‘Spygate’ (Ferrari design secrets passed to McLaren).

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Book SynopsisFirsthand accounts of the life, practice, and teachings of pioneering Aikido master Robert Nadeau, direct disciple of Aikido founder Morihei Ueshiba• Explores Nadeau’s personal journey and pioneering role in the spread of Aikido, including firsthand accounts and historical photographs published for the first time• Explains Nadeau’s unique teaching, his core concepts, and basic practices centered on energy refinement, direct experience and inner transformation• Presents inspiring personal stories about Nadeau contributed by students, including Dan Millman, Richard Strozzi-Heckler, Peter Ralston, and Renée GregorioA widely influential figure in the development of Aikido in America, Robert Nadeau is known as one of the few American direct disciples of Aikido’s founder Morihei Ueshiba Osensei. Now an 8th dan Aikido master teacher, Nadeau has taught generations of students, and several have become prominent teacher

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Book SynopsisPhil Elwood is a public relations operative. He was born in New York City, grew up in Idaho, and moved to Washington, DC at age twenty to intern for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He completed his undergraduate degree from Georgetown University, and his graduate studies at the London School of Economics before starting his career at a small PR firm. Over the last two decades, Elwood has worked for some of the top - and bottom - PR firms in Washington. He lives in DC.

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Book SynopsisThe first major anthology by parents with disabilities. ‘Being a disabled parent is a rebellious act. Disabled people should have the same right to parent as anyone else, but often when we decide to start a family we are met with judgement and discrimination. We are questioned rather than supported. We have to push up against the medical system. And we have to confront society’s model of parenting. Yet, despite all this, we still choose to parent. And we are damn good at it too!’ When writer and musician Eliza Hull was pregnant with her first child, like most like most parents-to-be she felt a mix of nerves and excitement. But as a disabled person, she faced added complexities. She wondered: Will the pregnancy be too hard? Will people judge me? Will I cope with the demands of parenting? In We’ve Got This, thirty parents who identify as Deaf, disabled, neurodivergent, or chronically ill discuss the highs and lows of their parenting journeys and show that the greatest obstacles lie in other people’s attitudes. The result is a moving, revelatory, and empowering anthology that celebrates the richness of disabled parenting in the twenty-first century. ‘Such an important book. Joyous, eye-opening, and deeply moving, these powerful stories will challenge long-held assumptions and hopefully shift societal attitudes towards disabled parents. Everyone should read this.’ Francesca Martinez, author of What the **** Is Normal?!Trade Review‘Moving … the essays are at their richest when the authors describe what ought to be mundane (for example, discussing how to adjust the height of a kitchen counter for a wheelchair) or when they are brutally honest.’ -- James Coney, The Sunday Times‘A brilliant, positive, and empowering read full of inspirational stories … really eye-opening.’ -- Anita Rani, Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio 4‘A luminous collection filled with stories of resistance, innovation, joy, and love, We’ve Got This shows that the biggest challenge disabled parents face is not their disability, but how ableist society is. I’m so glad this book exists!’ -- Eloise Rickman, author of Extraordinary Parenting‘We’ve Got This shows what’s possible — that disabled people make brilliant parents. Eliza Hull is a skilful curator. This book should be mandatory reading for healthcare professionals, educators, and everyone wanting to be a better disability ally.’ -- Carly Findlay OAM, writer, speaker and appearance activist‘We’ve Got This sparkles with insight that will make sense to every parent trying to figure out a way to live with whatever curveball the universe has thrown their way. Surprise is a constant. There is no such thing as normal. And it's not a sin to admit that you don’t always know what you are doing. The stories of disabled parents in this book prove that love and ingenuity are a powerful combination.’ -- Al Etmanski, author of The Power of Disability‘Eliza is a legend — and a great advocate for our community. This book will help a lot of people!’ -- Dylan Alcott, Paralympian‘We’ve Got This is the book I needed many years ago when I was considering whether to have children. Now, as I embark on motherhood, these stories from these incredible parents will teach me so much.’ -- Nas Campanella, journalist‘Such an important book. Joyous, eye-opening, and deeply moving, these powerful stories will challenge long-held assumptions and hopefully shift societal attitudes towards disabled parents. Everyone should read this.’ -- Francesca Martinez, author of What the **** Is Normal?!‘All parenting is a leap of faith: with a disability it’s a powerful affirmation of life — as the stories in We’ve Got This demonstrate.’ -- Virginia Trioli, journalist and radio/TV presenter ‘We’ve Got This challenges the narrow stereotype of what disability looks like. It shows that disabled people are parents too — and bloody good ones at that! Thank you, Eliza, for disrupting the discourse.’ -- Lisa Cox, media professional and disability advocate‘Full of deep, beautiful, important stories. I’ve learnt so much from this book.’ -- Clare Bowditch, musician, actress, and radio presenter‘Eye-opening and heartwarming, We’ve Got This will make you laugh, cry, and rethink disability entirely. A must-read.’ -- Holly Ransom, public speaker and author of The Leading Edge‘This is the book I needed on my pregnancy journey. It’s a source of affirmation and representation that disabled parents deserve.’ -- Alexis Hillyard, disability advocate, keynote speaker, and creator of Stump Kitchen‘An important and necessary read.’ * The Bookseller *‘Something I admire about Hull is that … She wants to do the best for the disability community as a whole.’ * The Saturday Paper *‘Everyone should find something empowering in this first major anthology by parents with disabilities. They show what’s achievable: disabled people make exceptional parents.’ * PS News *‘Parenthood can tangle with grief and loss. Disability can include joy and abundance. And goddammit — disabled parents exist.’ -- Rebekah Taussig‘We’ve Got This attests to the capacities of disabled parents and to the joys of parenting in an authentic way.’ * ArtsHub *‘Eliza Hull begins the book by stating that “being a disabled parent is a rebellious act”. What follows are riveting essays that explain why, all brimming with creativity and pluck.’ -- Louise Kinross, Editor of BLOOM and Special Projects Manager at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital in Toronto, Canada‘There are many myths and misconceptions surrounding disabled parents. One of ableism’s greatest myths questions our capacity to bring a child into our lives. For this reason there is so much joy in reading this book. Reading so many wonderful essays addressing how parenting plays out for other disabled parents opens doors to my own joy parenting. So open the book already!’ -- Neil Hughes, Paralympic snowboarder and disability advocate‘Being a disabled parent is a “rebellious act”, which is why We’ve Got This is so important. Although disabled parents exist in substantial numbers, they remain in the shadows. This groundbreaking anthology confronts this phenomenon by telling the stories of parents with disabilities and their families — in their voices. We’ve Got This is a must-read!’ -- Robyn M. Powell, disability advocate and Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma College of Law‘As the mother of a daughter with a disability I am grateful for Eliza Hull’s We’ve Got This: essays by disabled parents. There is a lot I can give to my daughter, but perspective on what it’s like to be a disabled parent is not one of those things. Of course, these stories aren’t just for her: they’re for everyone! The world needs to become more deeply acquainted with the breadth and depth of humanity found within the stories and experiences of disabled individuals, including disabled parenthood. This book is a revelation and full of beauty, humour, and grace. It’s hard to be what you can’t see — thank you to Eliza and all the parents in this book sharing their stories to help my daughter, and others, see ever more possibility.’ -- Amy Webb, disability advocate and author of When Charley Met Emma and Awesomely Emma‘The rawness, vulnerability, and authenticity in these stories is refreshing! Too often in the disability community we don't feel reflected accurately in TV, news, and the media, and these stories shine a light on that. The need to be heard and respected is something we can all relate to, disabled or not, and these messages are exactly what we need to hear more of.’ -- Marco Pasqua, public speaker and accessibility consultant‘The collection includes authors from a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences … it also includes essays and interviews from parents with intellectual disabilities, a frequently missing discourse in disability spaces … As a disabled parent, this was such an affirming and moving read for me, though I think all parents will benefit from reading it.’ -- Margaret Kingsbury * Book Riot *‘[M]uch-needed … [W]onderfully intersectional … Eliza Hull has done a fantastic job of curating this book. The essays themselves are brilliant, written from the heart and are very informative … The wealth of experiences, knowledge and sense of community that We’ve Got This offers is invaluable … [A] necessary read.’ -- Heather T. * Just Geeking By *‘Beautiful.’ * PosAbility Magazine *

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Book Synopsis'[An] immersive debut... with detailed accounts of his trips and vivid descriptions of the scents ... [Roques'] rich travelogue will transport readers' Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)In Search of Perfumes is a fragrant journey across the world, revealing the beauty and mysteries of the perfume trade.Fruits, flowers, spices, bark, leaves, and branches are just some of the natural ingredients from the plant world that are used in the creation of perfume. Dominique Roques, travelling from Andalusia to Somaliland by way of Bulgaria, Laos, El Salvador, Indonesia and Egypt, describes his search to find the best natural ingredients, precious to perfumers everywhere.In Search of Perfumes demonstrates how the prestigious multi-million-pound perfume industry may begin its life as a single plant harvested by producers surviving on ancestral traditions and techniques and often risking their lives in the process as they combat the rising threat of climate change. Roques reveals the beauty and mysteries of a familiar trade; a return to the source of the world's scents.Trade Review'A fresh and informative book of warmth and intelligence' -- Virginie Bloch-Lainé, Libération'Dominique Roques' passionate account of his journey in search of the world's unique and sometimes ancient scents inspires us to join him' -- Rosan Hollak, NRC Handelsblad'[An] immersive debut... with detailed accounts of his trips and vivid descriptions of the scents ... [Roques'] rich travelogue will transport readers' * Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) *'A joy to read... I would recommend it to everyone who wants an insight into perfumery and its ingredients' -- Marianne Martin, President of the British Society of Perfumers

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Book SynopsisGeorge Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. Inside the Whale, the eighth in the Orwell’s Essays series, discusses Henry Miller’s controversial Tropic of Cancer, and considers the driving power behind the great books of the 1930s. Comparing Miller with other literary giants, Orwell lambasts the notion that all literature is good, forcing the reader to think for themselves, with his final words ringing in their ears: ‘five thousand novels are published in England every year and four thousand nine hundred of them are tripe.’

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Book SynopsisShortlisted for the 2023 Highland Book PrizeJoyful and mindful, a powerful argument for being still and listening' Sunday TimesA book about birds, birdsong and the countryside they inhabit, from the critically acclaimed author of Raptor.In Wild Air, James Macdonald Lockhart sets out to write about a series of birds as though he has his granny's role of listening to birds' songs and calls and relaying what she heard to her aged and by then quite deaf father the famous naturalist Seton Gordon. From a nightjar's strange churring song on a heath in the south of England, to a lapwing displaying over the machair in the Outer Hebrides, he writes about eight different birds who he has spent most time with, returned to most often and relays what he hears.The eight species are all representative of a different habitat. Nightjars on a lowland heath; shearwaters on a mountain overlooking the sea; dippers on a river; skylarks in farmland; ravens in woodland; divers on a loch; lapwings on the coastTrade Review'My oh my this is a beautiful book. My favourite kind of nature writing: quiet, subtle, watchful, immanent.' Helen Jukes, author of A Honeybee Heart Has Five Openings ‘Lockhart is committed to understanding each (bird) in its habitat, and to capturing that sense of place in the song… It is both joyful and mindful, a powerful argument for being still and listening.Lockhart doesn’t make the point explicitly, but I think he would say that these songs, and these creatures, are beautiful in themselves, and that beauty alone justifies protecting them and enjoying them — and writing about them. At the close of the book, he passes a fellow enthusiast in the dark out listening for nightingales. It’s “just extraordinary”, the man says. The book is pretty extraordinary too.’Sunday Times ‘As I see it, Lockhart is really attempting to enter into the realm of these creatures, and to convey a feeling of what their lives are like… He writes beautifully, using words to paint exquisite portraits of his subjects… Poetry, folklore and natural history are woven into the mix. But what I particularly liked about this book is that Lockhart treats the birds and their surroundings as inextricably linked. A dipper’s stream is painted as vividly as the animal itself, giving a sense of clear, cold, running water, small pools, mossy banks.’ Financial Times ‘(A) fascinating insight into the lives of the twittering, fluttering creatures that share our world.’ The Herald ‘Lockhart’s skills as a naturalist are second to none, his observations of skylarks especially fresh and sharp.’ Countryfile ‘Enchanting’ Nature

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Book Synopsis“The answer is not to silence me. . . . The answer is for you to have better arguments.”Go the Joe Rogan way. Sh*t Joe Rogan Says is a book of motivation, inspiration, and reflections from the man who talks to everybody. Not one to back down from a conversation or an f-bomb, Joe Rogan tells it like it is and gives everyone a fair shake.From years of discipline and expertise in martial arts, to unabashed comedy and showing people how to face their fears, to his stratospheric ascent to podcast greatness, Joe Rogan knows a little something about life, discipline, hard work, and an unrelenting pursuit of personal freedoms and free thought. Get Joe Rogan’s take on philosophy, comedy, politics, free speech, mind-altering experiences, censorship, and happiness with this collection of his most influential quotes and ideas. Get your hands on 150 Joe Rogan-isms on life, free thought, and common sense Find motivation, momentum, and real talk in Joe Rogan’s no-nonsense reflections Follow the Joe Rogan route to achieve confidence, nonconformity, and an uncensored life

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Book SynopsisAn inspiring memoir of finding strength and resilience from the former England Lioness.From the football cages of East London to broadcasting to millions, the engine powering Alex Scott's remarkable journey has always been her resilience. But thanks to a 'push-through mentality' the world has only ever seen the 'strong' side of Alex. Now, she is ready to lower the shield.In her candid memoir How (Not) to Be Strong, Alex shares the lessons that have shaped her, from finally confronting the legacy of a tumultuous childhood to tarnished truth behind the gleaming football trophies.With raw honesty, Alex shows how she's tackled life's challenges and that sometimes the strongest thing you can do is show your most vulnerable side to the world.Trade ReviewAn inspiration -- Taylor SwiftI was incredibly moved by Alex's story and her bravery is second to none -- Steven Bartlett, entrepreneur and host of 'The Diary of a CEOAn amazing read. What a book. -- Alex Jones * One Show *A real story of growth -- Holly Willoughby * This Morning *Such a powerful and raw story, honestly told -- Wes Streeting MP

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Book SynopsisBill Bryson's biography of William Shakespeare unravels the superstitions, academic discoveries and myths surrounding the life of our greatest poet and playwright.Ever since he took the theatre of Elizabethan London by storm over 400 years ago, Shakespeare has remained centre stage. His fame stems not only from his plays performed everywhere from school halls to the world''s most illustrious theatres but also from his enigmatic persona. His face is familiar to all, yet in reality very little is known about the man behind the masterpieces.Shakespeare's life, despite the scrutiny of generations of biographers and scholars, is still a thicket of myths and traditions, some preposterous, some conflicting, arranged around the few scant facts known about the Bard from his birth in Stratford to the bequest of his second best bed to his wife when he died.Taking us on a journey through the streets of Elizabethan and Jacobean England, Bryson examines centuries of stories, half-truths and downrTrade Review'A brilliantly funny and gently insightful travel guide to 16th century England. Bryson is great at picking out of the morass of Elizabethan fact the small details that illuminate and amuse…he also uncovers from the world that surrounded the theatre some fascinating examples of Elizabethan eccentricity…As an abbreviated tour around the world of Shakespeare, this could hardly be bettered' Sunday Times 'Less a biography than a delightful account of Shakespeare's elusiveness – and the extraordinary lengths people have gone to remedy it…the pairing of Bryson with Shakespeare is a happy on.’ TLS 'Bill Bryson jogs along in his own ineffable way, good–humoured, undoctrinaire, nodding respectfully at experts but confidently following his own inclinations…he is shrewd on telling detail’ Times ‘Bill Bryson has always been able to spot a market; and there ought to be a market for his latest book…an accessible, sensible Life of Shakespeare…surely a fine gift for someone encountering Shakespeare for the first time…Bryson is shrewd…and as funny as you'd expect…he sets down all the important bits of evidence, and assesses them in a measured scholarly way. He's good value too.’ Daily Telegraph ‘Measured, sensible and, at times, as wryly humorous as you'd expect’ Times ‘Bryson uses an inimitably light touch and squeezes a vast subject down to manageable proportions…he is a warm and funny guide through the whole complicated morass of Shakespearean scholarship’ Financial Times

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Book SynopsisDonna Leon is author of the much-loved, best-selling series of novels featuring Commissario Brunetti and one of The Times' 50 Greatest Crime Writers. Widely considered one of the best detective series ever, with admirers including Ursula K. Le Guin and Antonia Fraser, the Brunetti Mysteries have won numerous awards around the world and been translated into thirty-five languages.

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Book SynopsisFour popular novelists of the same generation each wrote a novel inspired by a holiday that the author spent in France. In the nineteen-fifties, Rumer Godden based The Greengage Summer on her recollections of her family’s 1923 battlefield-tour manqué in the Champagne region. Margery Sharp’s 1936 holiday in Southern France led to ‘Still Waters’ and The Nutmeg Tree: both the short story and the novel are set in and around the region of Aix-les-Bains. In 1955, Daphne Du Maurier first visited the department of Sarthe to research French family history; the novel The Scapegoat was the immediate result of the holiday. And in 1966, Stella Gibbons’ last trip to the continent took the form of a visit to an old friend in her summer home near Grenoble. The stay is obliquely reflected in The Snow-Woman, in which a similar holiday leads a never-married septuagenarian to experience a renaissance of sorts.Trade Review"This is a very original literary study of the work of four British writers who, though still remembered today, are not as celebrated or read as much as they deserve to be. Through the prism of visits to France in the novels and stories of these writers, Anne Hall explores the delicate and subtle interplay of relations between those two nations in fiction. It is elegantly written, illuminating and informative. There is some fascinating original scholarship here, but, above all, Four French Holidays is highly entertaining and tempts you to go and read for yourself (if you haven’t already) or re-read the works under consideration." Reggie Oliver, nephew and biographer of Stella Gibbons

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Book SynopsisStealing Horses presents arguably the finest considerations yet of the origins of the First World War. Breaking with accounts which focus on the actions of a single state or the final countdown to hostilities, Paul W. Schroeder describes the systemic crisis engulfing the Great Powers. They were more interested in colonial plunder overseas ('stealing horses to great applause', in the old Spanish adage) than the traditional statecraft of European peace-making. Preserving the balance of power required preserving all the essential actors in it, including a tottering Austria-Hungary. This the British in particular failed to recognise. The Central Powers may have started the War but that does not mean they in any real sense caused it. In the end Schroeder recalls the verdict of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet: 'All are punished'.Stealing Horses includes appraisals of Niall Ferguson and A. J. P. Taylor, and an extensive unpublished final paper re-thinking the First World War as 'the last 18th-century war'.With an Introduction by Perry Anderson.

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Book SynopsisFrom beloved CBS Sunday Morning correspondent Mo Rocca, author of New York Times bestseller Mobituaries, comes an inspiring collection of stories that celebrates the triumphs of people who made their biggest marks late in life. Eighty has been the new sixty for about twenty years now. In fact, there have always been late-in-life achievers, those who declined to go into decline just because they were eligible for social security. Journalist, humorist, and history buff Mo Rocca and coauthor Jonathan Greenberg introduce us to the people past and present who peaked when they could have been puttering—breaking out as writers, selling out concert halls, attempting to set land-speed records—and in the case of one ninety-year tortoise, becoming a first-time father. (Take that, Al Pacino!) In the vein of Mobituaries, Roctogenarians is a collection of entertaining and unexpected profiles of these unretired titans—

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Book SynopsisFrom acclaimed journalist Adam Hay-Nicholls, the very first biography of rising star Charles Leclerc, published to mark the start of the 2023 Formula One season.Few of the drivers on the F1 grid have the racing pedigree of Charles Leclerc. Widely regarded as one of the sport's hottest prospects, he was crowned F3 and then F2 champion in back-to-back seasons before he made his F1 debut with Sauber in 2018. Now firmly established as Ferrari's great hope, following in the footsteps of legends Alberto Ascari, Niki Lauda and Michael Schumacher, Leclerc has his eyes set on becoming world champion.Born in Monaco to a family of comparatively modest means, Leclerc remembers playing with toy cars on a friend's balcony as the best drivers in the world whizzed around the Monte Carlo circuit on the streets below. This early experience inspired him to get behind the wheel, encouraged by his father Hervé, and so began his meteoric rise in the sport. Along the way, he lost his father, his godfather and his best friend - all racing drivers - and this gave Leclerc the inner steel to become a winner.Writer Adam Hay-Nicholls, who has spent much of his career in the Formula One paddock, provides the inside track on this rising star, recounting how he has taken the racing world by storm. And as Leclerc's Ferrari is beginning to fire on all cylinders, will he beat his old rival and adversary Max Verstappen to the world title?

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Book SynopsisSince her death in 2011, the legendary Surrealist Leonora Carrington has been reconstructed and reinvented many times over. In this book, Gabriel Weisz Carrington draws on remembered conversations and events to demythologise his mother, revealing the woman and the artist behind the iconic persona.He travels between Leonora’s native England and adopted homeland of Mexico, making stops in New York and Paris and meeting some of the remarkable figures she associated with, from Max Ernst and André Breton to Remedios Varo and Alejandro Jodorowsky. At the same time, he strives to depict a complex and very real Surrealist creator, exploring Leonora not simply in relation to her romantic partners or social milieus but as the artist she always was.A textured portrait emerges from conversations, memories, stories and Leonora’s engagement with the books that she read.Trade Review'Gabriel Weisz Carrington's gentle, grieving memoir of his mother allows us a glimpse of their extraordinary life together in Mexico City. It is a life enchanted by art and anchored by love, a wild, irreverent love for all the world's creatures, passed on from mother to son, and now, from son to reader.' Merve Emre, Associate Professor of English, University of Oxford'Gabriel Weisz Carrington’s intense memoir of his mother explores her inner life as both artist and writer. He reveals the range of her experiments with the magical and the esoteric as well as her profound and sometimes dangerous quest to plumb the mysteries of manifest creation.' Marina Warner, writer and cultural historian'To spend time with this book is to spend time with Leonora Carrington — a pure delight from start to finish.' Viktor Wynd, author of The UnNatural History Museum'An enchanting portrait of what it was like to grow up as Leonora’s son — here, too, as in some of her paintings, the domestic and the fantastical are tightly, wonderfully, intertwined.' Chloe Aridjis, author of Sea Monsters 'One can never know enough about Leonora Carrington. Through a wealth of fascinating vignettes, Gabriel Weisz captures the magic and mystery of her inimitable persona.' Homero Aridjis, author of Eyes to See Otherwise ‘A touching account of a continuous conversation, The invisible painting sheds light on the extraordinary life of Leonora Carrington from a witness able to share his lived experience and give emotional texture to her biography and creative processes.' Francesco Manacorda, Artistic Director, V-A-C Foundation ‘Utterly exhilarating and poetically accurate. A vital addition to Leonora Carrington studies. The invisible painting wilfully debunks existing myths around the official Carrington family narrative. The preface by Jonathan P. Eburne also paints a glowing portrait of Gabriel Weisz Carrington as someone “deliciously weird” – a creative intellectual in his own right.’ Catriona McAra, author of The medium of Leonora Carrington'This is a moving portrait, tinged with palpable grief. Yet its abiding spirit is joyful: Leonora emerges as a character exuding the same magic and puckish vision that imbues her writing and painting.'Francesca Wade, RA Magazine -- .Table of ContentsPreface by Jonathan EburneMy memoir of Leonora Carrington

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Book Synopsis''Clear, cool, plainly written and devastating' Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Times Literary SupplementA major history of the rise and fall of Italian fascism: a dark tale of violence, ideals and a country at war.In the aftermath of the First World War, the seeds of fascism were sown in Italy. While the country reeled in shock, a new movement emerged from the chaos: one that preached hatred for politicians and love for the fatherland; one that promised to build a New Roman Empire', and make Italy a great power once again. Wearing black shirts and wielding guns, knives and truncheons, the proponents of fascism embraced a climate of violence and rampant masculinity. Led by Benito Mussolini, they would systematically destroy the organisations of the left, murdering and torturing anyone who got in their way. In Blood and Power, historian John Foot draws on decades of research to chart the turbulent years between 1915 and 1945, and beyond. Drawing widely from accounts of peoplTrade ReviewA book swarming with people, each one of whose stories adds another touch to the big picture … This is history as viewed, not by those who shaped it, but by those who endured it … Clear, cool, plainly written and devastating. -- Lucy Hughes-Hallett * Times Literary Supplement *Excellent ... Highly readable ... A fascinating glimpse into the actual experience of living under fascist terror... The first book I have read which brings the reader to the heart of the period. -- William Wall * Dublin Review of Books *John Foot has written some fine books on Italy … Blood and Power: the Rise and Fall of Italian Fascism is his finest to date ... He has given us a superb historical work, accessible and weighty, of how fascism once gripped a country, and has never fully let go. Blood and Power is essential reading of a political past that presages warning signs for all our political futures. -- N. J. McGarrigle * Irish Independent *Foot has provided us with new villains and heroes ... [and] tells the interested reader stories that they will have probably never heard before -- David Aaronovitch * The Times *This book is not a history of Italy, nor a Mussolini biography, but a study of his political movement — a fragmented word gallery of personalities and events -- Max Hastings * The Sunday Times *Meticulous ... Fascinating ... Where Foot’s book is invaluable is in the light it sheds on dozens of unremembered heroes – who often, like [Giuseppe] Di Vagno, gave their lives attempting to save Italy from dictatorship – and in providing rounded pictures of men and women whose adventures we know about only partially. -- Caroline Moorhead * Literary Review *Foot's fascinating book offers a new and disturbing reading of the Fascist era and its origins ... He presents a compelling kaleidoscope of individual stories that break through fascism's historic silences -- Vanda Wilcox * History Today *Magnificent ... A tremendous work: vivid, visceral, and highly relevant to our own time ... Foot is a terrific writer and brings to life some of the key characters and events of the period ... Instead of dense political theory or detailed chronology, Foot gives us a history “through episodes, fragments, massacres and trials, moments of violence and escape, defeats and victories, silences and noise, rhetoric and reality”. His approach succeeds brilliantly -- David Winner * Camden New Journal *A deeply detailed historical excavation but written in part as warning ... John Foot is an academic who writes like a journalist (this is a compliment) -- Simon KuperLively, readable and provocative …. John Foot uses anecdotes and episodes, vignettes and thumbnail portraits to tell the story of Fascism … Foot’s plausible thesis is that it was violence that brought Fascism to power and underpinned the regime … Overall, Foot’s quirky book is a joy -- David Laven * BBC History Magazine *This is scholarly history at its best - vivid and clear. John Foot’s narrative glitters from beginning to end. It offers both a highly readable account of Mussolini’s ventennio and a rare depiction of how ordinary - and a few extraordinary - Italians experienced his thuggish dictatorship. Warmly recommended for anyone seeking to know what can happen when power falls into the hands of vainglorious nationalists. * John Hooper *Fascinating and illuminating throughout. John Foot has done the hard work of documenting in great detail the many lives and events that connected the Italy of the common people with the figure of Mussolini. Blood and Power offers disturbing intuitions as to the role of violence in the politics of the modern era. * Tim Parks *A highly readable, horrifying and extremely timely overview -- Steven Wishnia * The Indypendent *A gripping new history of fascism that privileges the voices of ordinary Italians and reminds us of the central role of violence in establishing and enforcing Mussolini's dictatorship. An excellent and timely work. * Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Professor of History and Italian Studies, New York University *One hundred years after the rise to power of Fascism in Italy, John Foot’s bracing and bold Blood and Power vividly recreates the on-the-ground experience of life under the regime. * Robert S C Gordon, Serena Professor of Italian, University of Cambridge *

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