Biography Books
Transworld Publishers Ltd Mack the Life
Book SynopsisHis book is a joy to read, full of homespun wisdom and hilarious asides' Independent____________________Where do comedians come from? Why is it that one person is a funny bloke down the pub while another actually makes a living by standing up in front of an audience telling jokes? And where does all that material come from? Well, young Lee McKillop used to wonder that too.___________________ Growing up in his parents' pub, small and wiry in a world of bigger and chunkier specimens, Lee quickly learned that cracking jokes was a way to get attention. After a somewhat random series of jobs, which included being Red Rum's stableboy and a bingo hall barman, it was as a Great Yarmouth holiday camp entertainer that he had his first crack at telling jokes on stage. It got him some laughs, the sack and a punch in the face.*Now, as Lee Mack, he's one of our best loved and most successful comedians, both Trade ReviewA first-class comic. His autobiography, Mack the Life, has all the cheerful candour of one of his barnstorming shows. Mack has polished this narrative until it shines, and his book is a joy to read, full of homespun wisdom and hilarious asides. * Independent *A cracking read. Jokes liberally dot the narrative … a frank picture of a man who can’t believe his luck, but still manages to keep his feet on the ground * Chortle *a truly fascinating read, genuinely funny throughout * British Comedy Guide *
£10.44
Transworld Publishers Ltd GIFT OF HOPE A B
Book SynopsisTHE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLERIn her powerful memoir His Bright Light, Danielle Steel opened her heart to share the devastating story of the loss of her beloved son. In A Gift of Hope, she shows us how she transformed that pain into a campaign of service that enriched her life beyond what she could imagine.For eleven years, Danielle Steel took to the streets with a small team to help the homeless of San Francisco. She worked under cover of darkness distributing food, clothing, bedding, tools, and toiletries to the city's most vulnerable citizens. She sought no publicity for her efforts and remained anonymous throughout. Now she has chosen to tell her story to bring attention to their plight.In this unflinchingly honest and deeply moving memoir, the famously private author speaks out publicly for the first time about her work among the most desperate members of society. She offers achingly acute portraits of the people she met Trade ReviewA must read for all fans * Bella *
£9.49
Cooper Square Press Oscar Peterson
Book SynopsisBased on extensive interviews, Oscar Peterson is a well-informed and provocative exploration of Peterson's music.Trade Review[An] enthusiastic account of a musician's development as the thinking person's pianist. * The New York Times Book Review *There are five requisites for a readable and valuable book on jazz: enthusiasm, wit, insight, compassion, and technical knowledge of the music. Gene Lees has them all. -- Leonard Feather * Los Angeles Times *A fine, richly detailed book...that explains the essence of jazz and of jazz playing as well as any written. * The Toronto Sun *
£13.49
Transworld Publishers Ltd The Good Psychopaths Guide to Success
Book SynopsisWhat is a good psychopath? McNab is a diagnosed psychopath but he is a GOOD PSYCHOPATH. Unlike a BAD PSYCHOPATH, he is able to dial up or down qualities such as ruthlessness, fearlessness, conscience and empathy to get the very best out of himself – and others – in a wide range of situations.
£10.44
Schiffer Publishing Ltd Mother of Eagles
Book Synopsis
£23.79
Transworld Publishers Ltd Hiroshima Nagasaki
Book SynopsisJapan 1945. In one of the defining moments of the twentieth century, more than 100,000 people were killed instantly by two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by US Air Force B29s. Hundreds of thousands more succumbed to their horrific injuries, or slowly perished of radiation-related sickness. Hiroshima Nagasaki tells the story of the tragedy through the eyes of the survivors, from the twelve-year-olds forced to work in war factories to the wives and children who faced it alone. Through their harrowing personal testimonies, we are reminded that these were ordinary people, given no warning and no chance to escape the horror.American leaders claimed that the bombings were ''our least abhorrent choice'' and fell strictly on ''military targets''. Even today, most people believe they ended the Pacific War and saved millions of American and Japanese lives. Hiroshima Nagasaki challenges this deep-set perception, revealing that the atomic bombings were the final crippling blow to the Japanese in a stratgic air war waged primarily against civilians.Trade Review[A] vivid, comprehensive and quietly furious account...Paul Ham brings new tools to the job, unearthing fresh evidence of a deeply disturbing sort. He has a magpie eye for the telling detail -- Ben Macintyre * The Times *We are in Paul Ham's debt for showing that it is unjustifiable to consider ever again dropping an atomic bomb...Comprehensive and horrifying -- Jonathan Mirsky * Literary Review *Provocative and challenging, Paul Ham's book strips away the cosy myth that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the Second World War...A voice that is both vigorous and passionate -- Christopher Sylvester * Daily Express *Controversial...Gives an eye-witness picture that leaves Dante's Inferno looking pale...Well documented and stringently argued -- Peter Lewis * Daily Mail *With more detail than the average text book yet written in a way that pulls you in ... this is essential for anyone remotely interested in our history * Sydney Sunday Telegraph *
£17.99
Walker & Co Galileos Daughter A Historical Memoir of Science
Book Synopsis
£15.99
Transworld Publishers Ltd Brief Candle in the Dark
Book SynopsisIn An Appetite for Wonder Richard Dawkins brought us his engaging memoir of the first 35 years of his life from early childhood in Africa to publication of The Selfish Gene in 1976, when he shot to fame as one of the most exciting new scientists of his generation. In Brief Candle in the Dark he continues his autobiography, following the threads that have run through the second half of his life so far and homing in on the key individuals, institutions and ideas that inspired and motivated him. He paints a vivid picture, coloured with wit, anecdote and digression, of the twenty-five postgraduate years he spent teaching at Oxford. He pays affectionate tribute to past colleagues and students, recalling the idiosyncrasies of an establishment steeped in ancient tradition and arcane ritual while also recording his respect for the profound commitment to learning and discovery that lies at its core. He invites us to share the life of a travelling scientist, from Trade ReviewReaders of Brief Candle are in for many treats: lively prose from one of our greatest living writers; stimulating ideas on the nature of life and the human condition; and the opportunity to eavesdrop on the workings of an extraordinary mind, intellectually fierce yet personally generous. * Steven Pinker *[Dawkins] is a thunderously gifted science writer * The Times *Dawkins's greatest gift has been as a lyricist ... His writing can still sparkle. He excels at capturing the scenes behind a scene, deftly explaining a scientific principle, capping a story with an amusing anecdote ... At such moments, one feels transported to a tweedy evening at Oxford, pouring the sherry as a charming senior faculty member holds court. * Nature *A highly readable account of the fascinating career of the science populariser ... Among its attractions are handy summaries of the central arguments of each of Dawkins's books ... It shows Dawkins in all his contradictory guises * Prospect *Dawkins has written with passion, urgency and clarity * Guardian *
£13.49
University of Oklahoma Press Charles Goodnight
Book SynopsisTells the exciting story of a Texas Ranger, adventurer, and immigration officer who became a symbol of his age while gambling with death in the wild frontier regions of Texas, Arizona, and Old and New Mexico.
£18.86
John Wiley & Sons Cleopatra A Sourcebook
Book Synopsis
£19.76
Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc I Asimov
Book Synopsis
£8.80
Random House Publishing Group Call ME Anna The Autobiography of Patty Duke
Book Synopsis
£6.99
Transworld Publishers Ltd Clough
Book SynopsisFor the last three decades Brian Clough has been the most charismatic manager in football. Funny, outrageous, sentimental, he stands out sharply from the bland men in suits. Though his talent has earned him a fortune, he remains a working-class hero. As a player he was one of the most gifted forwards of his day. He scored 251 goals in 274 League appearances - and would have scored more had a cruel injury not forced him to retire.As a manager his record was full of superlatives. He took both Derby County and then Nottingham Forest out of the doldrums of the Second Division and made them world-beaters. Tactically brilliant, Clough had an unmatched ability to motivate players. He is the best manager England never had. Behind his back, they call him Old Big ''Ead. He has never been far from controversy, and some of his rows, particularly with his long-standing managerial partner Peter Taylor, are the stuff of tabloid legend. Not so long ago he was televised running onto the pitc
£10.44
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Orson Welles A Biography Limelight
Book SynopsisORSON WELLES W/ NEW EPILOGUE
£13.49
City Lights Books Youll Be Okay My Life with Jack Kerouac
Book SynopsisYou have a unique viewpoint from which to write about Jack as no one else has or could write. I feel very deeply that this book must be written. And no one else, I repeat, can write it.—William S. BurroughsEdie Parker was eighteen years old when she met Jack Kerouac at Columbia University in 1940. A young socialite from Grosse Pointe, Michigan, she had come to New York to study art, and quickly found herself swept up in the excitement and new freedoms that the big city offered a sheltered young woman of that time.Jack Kerouac was also eighteen, attending Columbia on a football scholarship, impressing his friends with his intelligence and knowledge of literature. Introduced by a mutual friend, Jack and Edie fell in love and quickly moved in together, sharing an apartment with Joan Adams (who would later marry William S. Burroughs). This is the story of their life together in New York, where they began lifetime friendships with Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs,
£13.21
Transworld Publishers Ltd Go Like Hell
Book SynopsisComing to cinemas in November 2019, under the title LE MANS ''66 ____________________In the 1960s Enzo Ferrari emerged as the dominant force in sports cars in the world, creating speed machines that were unbeatable on the race track. In America, the Ford Motor Company was quickly losing ground as the pre-eminent brand. Henry Ford II saw a solution. He decided to declare war on Ferrari, to build a faster car than anything Ferrari had brought to the track, and to beat him at the world''s biggest race, Le Mans. Ferrari was just as determined to see off this challenge from across the Atlantic.With practically no safety regulations in place in the European Grand Prix races, horrific accidents were routine, with both drivers and spectators killed in many races. The stakes were incredibly high, money and men were thrown at the competition, neither Ford or Ferrari would accept anything but victory. The battle to become the fastest in the world trulTrade ReviewA must-buy for any motorsports fan * Daily Express *All I can say is: Wow!...If you like cars - nay, if you have ever seen a car - you must read this book! -- Garth Stein, bestselling author of The Art of Racing in the RainGo Like Hell is a wonder, chuck-a-block with great heroes and villains, a pedal-to-the metal account of greed and gumption, a chronicle of obsession and vain glory. Don't worry about that seat belt. Just go for the ride. -- Leigh Montville, author of At the Altar of SpeedReliving the titanic battles between Ford and Ferrari that payed out in the mid-sixties at Le Mans . . . a riveting read * Choice Magazine *
£10.44
Faber & Faber Now All Roads Lead to France The Last Years of
Book SynopsisEdward Thomas was perhaps the most beguiling and influential of First World War poets. Now All Roads Lead to France is an account of his final five years, centred on his extraordinary friendship with Robert Frost and Thomas''s fatal decision to fight in the war.The book also evokes an astonishingly creative moment in English literature, when London was a battleground for new, ambitious kinds of writing. A generation that included W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, Robert Frost and Rupert Brooke were ''making it new'' - vehemently and pugnaciously. These larger-than-life characters surround a central figure, tormented by his work and his marriage. But as his friendship with Frost blossomed, Thomas wrote poem after poem, and his emotional affliction began to lift. In 1914 the two friends formed the ideas that would produce some of the most remarkable verse of the twentieth century. Their writing was far more than just war poetry, but it was World War I that put an ocean b
£11.69
Faber & Faber White Savage William Johnson and the Invention of
Book SynopsisA dramatic, exciting and tragic book about the Irish fur trapper who held the fate of America and the British Empire in his hands.William Johnson began life as a poor Irish Catholic peasant. After converting to Protestantism, he emigrated to America where he became the leading fur trader in the British colony and one of its richest men. He also ''went native'', marrying an Indian woman and adopting the religion of her tribe, the Iroquois. When war broke out between the French and English, Johnson held the fate of the British Empire in his hands. If the Indians fought with the French, the British were doomed. A fascinating historical biography of this adventurous man, whose reinvention in the New World made him the first modern American.Trade Review"'Accomplished and supremely readable... Tells the astonishing story of Sir William Johnson... Hero, adventurer, servant of the crown, Irishman, lover - Johnson was all of these.' Stella Tillyard, Sunday Times"
£11.69
Quercus Publishing Murder at Wrotham Hill
Book SynopsisMurder at Wrotham Hill takes the killing in October 1946 of Dagmar Petrzywalski as the catalyst for a compelling and unique meditation on murder and fate. Dagmar, a gentle, eccentric spinster, was the embodiment of Austerity Britain''s prudence and thrift. Her murderer Harold Hagger''s litany of petty crimes, abandoned wives, sloughed-off identities and desertion was its opposite. Featuring England''s first celebrity policeman, Fabian of the Yard, the celebrated forensic scientist, Keith Simpson, and history''s most famous and dedicated hangman, Albert Pierrepoint, this is a gripping and deeply moving book. Trade Review'A brilliantly formulated and well-written account of a tawdry murder that shines a bright light on postwar austerity England' Jenny Diski, London Review of Books. * London Review of Books *'Souhami's hypnotic narrative grips throughout' Daily Telegraph. * Daily Telegraph *'Superbly captures the shattered mood in this era, and shows us ordinary men and women grappling with new definitions of good and evil ... Murder At Wrotham Hill is more than a pacy whodunit ... It reads, above all, like an unsettling dream' Kathryn Hughes, Mail on Sunday. * Mail on Sunday *'Evokes these drab, joyless [postwar] years with painful brilliance, so that one can almost feel the shabby poverty and smell the foggy, coal-dust-filled air' Juliet Gardiner, Spectator. * Spectator *'Souhami's dissection of the murder is completely engrossing in its insistence that fatality is about fallible human beings' The Times. * The Times *Table of ContentsThe Crime. The Victim. The Hever Estate. The Criminal. Murder at Wrotham Hill. The Trial. The Executioner. And After. Acknowledgements. Index.
£11.24
Faber & Faber Selected Letters Ted Hughes
Book SynopsisAt the outset of his career Ted Hughes described letter-writing as ''excellent training for conversation with the world'', and he was to become a prolific master of this art which combines writing and talking. This selection begins when Hughes was seventeen, and documents the course of a life at once resolutely private but intensely attuned to other lives (including a readership comprising both adults and children); a life pared down to essentials and yet eventful, peripatetic, at times publicly controversial.Trade Review"'This is a book, like the letters of Keats, which will be read in 200 years' time.' Philip Hensher, Spectator 'This year's most surprising and rewarding book.' Blake Morrison, Guardian 'Reid's succinct annotation allows the full, unique personality to blaze out unimpeded, and the result is magnificent.' John Carey, Sunday Times"
£18.00
Skyhorse Publishing Red Horizons The True Story of Nicolae and Elena
Book Synopsis
£20.90
Ohio University Press Subversive Lives
Book SynopsisFrom the 1960s to the 1990s, seven members of the Quimpo family dedicated themselves to the anti-Marcos resistance in the Philippines, sometimes at profound personal cost.
£25.19
Faber & Faber To Reach the Clouds
Book SynopsisOne night in 1974, a young Frenchman secretly - and illegally - rigged a tightrope between the twin towers of the World Trade Center. At daybreak, he gave the high-wire performance of all time, making eight crossings over the course of an hour, 110 floors up above the earth, as a hundred thousand people gathered on the ground to watch.In To Reach the Clouds, now filmed as The Walk, Philippe Petit re-creates a six-year quest to realise his dream, an adventure as thrilling as the walk itself. In an unforgettable memoir he tells the story of how he conspired, connived, improvised, and insisted his way to this ''coup'', abetted by a motley crew of accomplices, the occasional miracle, and his own unflagging passion. He reveals himself to be not only a virtuoso of the air but also a bold and inspired performer on the page. Animated by never-seen photographs and Petit''s ingenious sketches, To Reach the Clouds is a tour de force of the imagination and a serenad
£6.74
Faber & Faber Other Colours
Book SynopsisA collection of immediate relevance and timeless value, ranging from lyrical autobiography to criticism of literature and culture, from humour to political analysis, from delicate evocations of Pamuk's friendship with his daughter Ruya to provocative discussions of Eastern and Western art.
£13.49
Abbeville Press Inc.,U.S. Volume the Second by Jane Austen In Her Own Hand
Book SynopsisForever immortalised as the author of Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen actually produced her first ''books'' as a teenager. Taking their names from the inscriptions on their covers - Volume the First, Volume the Second, and Volume the Third - these brilliant little collections include the stories, playlets, verses, and moral fragments she wrote likely from the ages of 12 to 18.As a young author, Jane Austen delighted in language, employing it with great humour and surprising skill. She was adept at parodying the popular stories of her day and entertained her readers with outrageous plotlines and characters. Kathryn Sutherland places Austen''s earliest works in context and explains how she mimicked even the style and manner in which this contemporary popular fiction was presented and arranged on the page.Volume the Second, housed at the British Library, contains Austen''s famous The History of England, illustrated with watercTrade ReviewPraise for the In Her Own Hand series: " a unique contribution to the world of Austen publications. Kathryn Sutherland’s engaging and thought-provoking introductions help the reader to share in the fun of many of the Austen family’s jokes while also gaining a greater understanding of the world they lived in. Readers will be entertained and inspired by this experience of Jane Austen’s 'playful apprenticeship in the art of bookmaking.'” austenprose(dot)com "This beautiful edition places Jane Austen’s three precious notebooks into the hands of the common reader." Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA) Table of ContentsTable of Contents from Volume the Second Teenage Reading and Rebellion by Kathryn Sutherland Volume the Second:Love and FriendshipLesley CastleThe History of EnglandCollection of LettersScraps Transcription
£15.29
Faber & Faber Autumn Journal
Book SynopsisWritten between August and December 1938, Autumn Journal is still considered one of the most valuable and moving testaments of living through the thirties by a young writer. It is a record of the author''s emotional and intellectual experience during those months, the trivia of everyday living set against the events of the world outside, the settlement in Munich and slow defeat in Spain.Trade Review"'He completely seizes the atmosphere of the year of Munich. He tolls the knell of the political thirties with melancholy triumph.' Cyril Connolly"
£11.69
Lulu.com Life Gave Me A Chance
£38.44
Faber & Faber Admirals
Book SynopsisThe true story of how Britain''s maritime power helped gain this country unparalleled dominance of the world''s economy, Admirals celebrates the rare talents of the men who shaped the most successful fighting force in world history. Told through the lives and battles of eleven of our most remarkable admirals - men such as James II and Robert Blake - Andrew Lambert''s book stretches from the Spanish Armada to the Second World War, culminating with the spirit which led Andrew Browne Cunningham famously to declare, when the army feared he would lose too many ships, ''it takes three years to build a ship; it takes three centuries to build a tradition.''
£13.49
Faber & Faber The West End Front
Book SynopsisMeet the girl from MI5 who had the gravy browning licked from her legs by Dylan Thomas; the barman who was appointed the keeper of Winston Churchill's private bottle of whisky; the East End Communist who marched with his comrades into the air-raid shelter of the Savoy; the throneless prince born in a suite at Claridge's declared...
£12.34
Faber & Faber The Red Notebook
Book SynopsisIn this acrobatic and virtuosic collection, Paul Auster traces the compulsion to make literature. In a selection of interviews, as well as in the essay ''The Red Notebook'' itself, Auster reflects upon his own work, on the need to break down the boundary between living and writing, and on the use of certain genre conventions to penetrate matters of memory and identity. The Red Notebook both illuminates and undermines our accepted notions about literature, and guides us towards a finer understanding of the dangerously high stakes involved in writing. It also includes Paul Auster''s impassioned essay ''A Prayer for Salman Rushdie'', as well as a set of striking and bittersweet reminiscences collected under the apposite title, ''Why Write?''Trade Review'Bears testimony to Auster's sense of the metaphysical elegance of life and art.' Literary Review
£10.44
Faber & Faber The Letters of T S Eliot Volume 3 19261927
Book SynopsisIn the period covered by this richly detailed collection, which brings the poet to the age of forty, T.S. Eliot was to set a new course for his life and work. Forsaking the Unitarianism of his American forebears, he was received into the Church of England and naturalised as a British citizen - a radical and public alteration of the intellectual and spiritual direction of his career.The demands of Eliot''s professional life as writer and editor became more complex and exacting during these years. The celebrated but financially-pressed periodical he had been editing since 1922 - The Criterion - switched between being a quarterly and a monthly, before being rescued by the fledgling house of Faber & Gwyer. In addition to writing numerous essays and editorials, lectures, reviews, introductions and prefaces, his letters show Eliot involving himself wholeheartedly in the business of his new career as a publisher. His Ariel poems, Journey of the Magi (192
£30.00
Faber & Faber The Faber Book of Reportage
Book Synopsis***FEATURED ON BBC 2''s BETWEEN THE COVERS WITH SARA COX***The Faber Book of Reportage is John Carey''s remarkable collection of eyewitness accounts that draws on the voices and emotions of the people who experienced some of history''s most memorable events.''Stunning . . . There are descriptions in this book so fresh that they sear themselves into the imagination.''JEREMY PAXMAN''Fascinating - there's funny stuff, interesting stuff, loads of brilliant stuff really.''JO BRAND (on BBC 2''s Between the Covers)What was it like to be caught in the firestorm that destroyed Pompeii? To have dinner with Attila the Hun? To watch the charge of the Light Brigade? To see the Titanic slide beneath the waves? John Carey''s best-selling Faber Book of Reportage draws its eyewitness account from memoirs, travel books and newspapers. This is history with the varnish removed.
£17.99
Duke University Press Hit Me Fred
Book SynopsisThe famous trombonist and arranger from the James Brown band and Parliament-Funkadelic tells his own story.Trade Review“As passionately crafted as one of his solos, Hit Me, Fred becomes a shout-out to all sidemen who play their hearts out--just outside the spotlight. As a musician, Wesley could always capture the feverish moment. Now, as a storyteller, he has revealed yet another way to take us higher.” * Boston Globe *"[Fred Wesley is] one of the most influential instrumentalist/composer/arrangers in the annals of R&B, soul-jazz, and hip-hop . . . [and] one of the most sampled musicians in the world today." -- Timothy White * Billboard *"[T]he book reads easily—it sounds like Fred's telling you all this over a plate of rice 'n' ribs. . . . When James [Brown] and George [Clinton] are long gone, the music they brought to life between 1967 and 1977 will still be tearing the roof off the sucker—and Fred Wesley was an indispensable part of that revolution." -- Dan Warburton * Signal to Noise *“A remarkable autobiography. . . . This candid and hilarious account of working alongside James Brown, Parliament/Funkadelic, and on his own, should solidify [Wesley’s] reputation as much as the music he created.” * DownBeat *"In his autobiography Hit Me, Fred, Mr. Wesley talks about dancing around the continent-size ego of James Brown. He juxtaposes the courtliness of the South against the hardscrabble desperation of poverty, mentioning the hideous conditions that created Brown though understanding that nothing could explain his boss’s monstrous behavior." -- Elvis Mitchell * New York Times *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations ix Foreword xi 1. A Musical Upbringing 1 2. Higher Education 31 3. Uncle Sam's Army 55 4. James Brown 84 5. California 115 6. James Brown Again 132 7. Bootsy's Rubber Band and Parliament/Funkadelic 190 8. Count Basie 211 9. Hollywood, Hollywood 228 10. Mile High in Denver 263 11. JB Horns 285 12. Star Time 301 Selected Discography 313 Index 317
£25.19
Faber & Faber The Caliban Shore
Book SynopsisThe enthralling true story of a famous eighteenth-century shipwreck off the coast of Africa.Trade Review"'A wonderful book, hugely satisfying on many levels - as a survival-and-ordeal chronicle, as social history, as anthropology, and an early foray into the exotic, but most of all as an adventure' Paul Theroux"
£11.69
Seagull Books London Ltd Tahrir Tales
Book SynopsisThe ten plays in this collection offer unprecedented grassroots perspectives on the jubilation, terror, hope, and heartbreak of mass uprising as seen during and in the wake of the Tahrir Square demonstrations. Collectively tracing events as they unfolded in Egypt from the last days of Hosni Mubarak's regime through Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's ascendance to the presidency, the plays present a picture of Egypt in the midst of epochal change, with all the attendant fear, hope, and uncertainty. Ranging from naturalism to documentary to more avant-garde representations, the plays collected in Tahrir Tales represent contemporary Egyptian drama at its most interesting, and, not coincidentally, most politically, committed.
£32.30
Faber & Faber Wellingtons Smallest Victory
Book Synopsis''A first-class work of historical investigation.'' Andrew Roberts, author of Napoleon and WellingtonThe extraordinary story of how one man''s obsession to build a huge model of Waterloo - the greatest model of the greatest battle of all time - incurred the wrath of the Duke of Wellington.''A book that should be read and pondered deeply by anyone interested even vaguely in the Napoleonic wars . . . Hofschröer''s impeccable research shows that the Iron Duke was guilty of self-regarding pettiness, obsessive vanity, spin-doctoring and a shameful vendetta against a man whose only crime was to tell the truth.'' Daily Express''Mightily impressive.'' Richard Holmes, author of Redcoat''This important book reveals what happens when a loyal subject runs up against an establishment that will stop at nothing to suppress the truth.'' GuardianTrade Review"'Remarkable... a book that should be pondered deeply by anyone interested even vaguely in the Napoleonic wars.' Daily Express 'This important book reveals what happens when a loyal subject runs up against an establishment that will stop at nothing to suppress the truth.' Guardian"
£11.69
Faber & Faber Ivans War
Book Synopsis''Essential reading, not just for those interested in the Eastern Front, but for anyone who wants to understand Russia.'' Antony Beevor, Sunday Times They died in their millions, shattered by German shells and tanks, freezing behind the wire of prison camps, driven forward in suicidal charges by the secret police. Yet in all the books about the Second World War on the eastern front, there is very little about how the Russian soldier lived, dreamed and died. Catherine Merridale''s discovery of archives of letters, diaries and police reports have allowed her to write a major history of a figure too often treated as part of a vast mechanical horde. Here are moving and terrible stories of men and women in appalling conditions, many not far from death. They allow us to understand the strange mixture of courage, patriotism, anger and fear that made it possible for these badly fed, dreadfully governed soldiers to defeat the Nazi army that would otherwise have ensTrade Review"'Essential reading, not just for those interested in the Eastern Front, but for anyone who wants to understand Russia.' Antony Beevor, Sunday Times 'Outstanding.' Simon Sebag Montefiore 'A harrowing but unforgettable report on the chaos and tragedy that brought this Europe to birth... Magnificent.' Boyd Tonkin, Independent"
£11.69
Faber & Faber Believe in People The Essential Karel Capek
Book SynopsisPlayful and provocative, irreverent and inspiring, Capek is perhaps the best-loved Czech writer of all time. Novelist and playwright, famed for inventing the word ''robot'' in his play RUR, Capek was a vital part of the burgeoning artistic scene of Czechoslovakia of the 1920s and 30s. But it is in his journalism - his brief, sparky and delightful columns - that Capek can be found at his most succinct, direct and appealing.This selection of Capek''s writing, translated into English for the first time, contains his essential ideas. The pieces are animated by his passion for the ordinary and the everyday - from laundry to toothache, from cats to cleaning windows - his love of language, his lyrical observations of the world and above all his humanism, his belief in people. His letters to his wife Olga, also published here, are extraordinarily moving and beautifully distinct from his other writings. Uplifting, enjoyable and endlessly wise, Believe in People
£14.44
Faber & Faber A Long Walk Home
Book SynopsisThis is the story of how, over a period of one hundred and ninety-two days, I was torn away from the life I knew and loved, and dragged down to the depths of despair; of how I endured enforced isolation and near-starvation at the hands of Somali pirates; and of how I made a choice to survive by any and all means that I could muster.In September 2011 Judith Tebbutt and her husband David set out on an adventurous holiday to Kenya. A couple for thirty-three years, they had first met in Zambia: Africa had played a major part in their life together. After a joyous week on safari in the Masai Mara, they flew on to a beach resort forty kilometres south of Somalia. And there, in the early hours of 11 September, tragedy struck them.Judith was torn away from David by a band of armed pirates, dragged over sea and land to a village in the arid heart of lawless Somalia, and there held hostage in a squalid room, a ransom on her head. There, too, she lear
£10.44
Faber & Faber Promises Promises
Book SynopsisHas psychoanalysis failed to keep its promise? What are psychoanalysis and literature good for? And what, if anything, have they got to do with each other? Promises, Promises is a delightful new collection of essays which sets out to make and break the links between psychoanalysis and literature. It confirms Adam Phillips as a virtuoso performer able to reach far beyond the borders of psychoanalytic discourse into art, drama, poetry and history. This collection gives us insights into anorexia and cloning, the work of Tom Stoppard and A.E. Housman, the effect of the Blitz on Londoners, Nijinsky''s diary and Martin Amis''s Night Train, and provides a case history of clutter. In a final essay, the author turns to the question - why sign up for analysis when you could read a book?Promoting everywhere a refreshing version of a psychoanalysis that is more committed to happiness and inspiration than to self-knowledge or some absolute truth, Promises, Promises reaffirms Adam Phillips as a writer whose work, in the words of one reviewer, ''hovers in a strange and haunting borderland between rigour and delight.''Trade Review'He writes compellingly... Because he loves literature and plainly loves writing too, Adam Phillips makes psychoanalysis plausible to the outsider. By questioning its aims and qualifying its claims, he reduces its scientific pretensions but makes it a lot more credible as therapy.' Christian Tyler, Financial Times; 'A brilliant collection of essays around the subjects in which Phillips excels.' Melvyn Bragg, Observer
£13.49
Faber & Faber Letters of T S Eliot Volume 7 19341935 The
Book SynopsisT. S. Eliot's career as a successful stage dramatist gathers pace throughout the fascinating letters of this volume. Following his early experimentation with the dark comedy Sweeney Agonistes (1932), Eliot is invited to write the words of an ambitious scenario sketched out by the producer-director E. Martin Browne (who was to direct all of Eliot's plays) for a grand pageant called The Rock (1934). The ensuing applause leads to a commission from the Bishop of Chichester to write a play for the Canterbury Festival, resulting in the quasi-liturgical masterpiece of dramatic writing, Murder in the Cathedral (1935). A huge commercial success, it remains in repertoire after eighty years.Even while absorbed in time-consuming theatre work, Eliot remains untiring in promoting the writers on Faber's ever broadening lists George Barker, Marianne Moore and Louis MacNeice among them. In addition, Eliot works hard for the Christian Church he has espous
£42.50
Faber & Faber A Fish in the Water
Book SynopsisMario Vargas Llosa''s A Fish in the Water is a twofold book: a memoir by one of Latin America''s most celebrated writers, beginning with his birth in 1936 in Arequipa, Peru; and the story of his organization of the reform movement which culminated in his bid for the Peruvian presidency in 1990.Llosa evokes the experiences which gave rise to his fiction, and describes the social, literary, and political influences that led him to enter the political arena as a crusader for a free-market economy.A deeply absorbing look at how fact becomes fiction and at the formation of a courageous writer with strong political commitments, A Fish in the Water reveals Mario Vargas Llosa as a world figure whose real story is just beginning.
£13.49
Faber & Faber Time to Be in Earnest A Fragment of Autobiography
Book SynopsisP. D. James''s extraordinary memoir of her early life and time starting out as a novelist, as well as diaries recording her in old age.In this intriguing and very personal book, part diary, part memoir, P. D. James considers the twelve months of her life between her 77th and 78th birthdays, and looks back on her earlier life.With all her familiar skills as a writer she recalls what it was like to be a schoolgirl in the 1920s and 1930s in Cambridge, and then giving birth to her second daughter during the worst of the Doodlebug bombardment in London during the war. It follows her work, starting out as an administrator in the National Health Service, then on to the Home Office in the forensic and criminal justice departments. She later served as a Governor of the BBC, an influential member of the British Council, the Arts Council and the Society of Authors, and eventually entering the House of Lords.Along the way, this diary and personal memoir deals with
£10.44
Simon & Schuster The Woman Who Changed Her Brain How I Left My
Book Synopsis
£15.30
MTV Books No Regrets
Book SynopsisA funny, candid, New York Times bestselling memoir from the former lead guitarist of the legendary rock band KISS, Ace Frehley.The legendary guitar god who exceeded all limits and lived to tell takes fans on a wild ride through KISStory. He was just a boy from the Bronx with stars in his eyes. But when he picked up his guitar and painted stars on his face, Ace Frehley transformed into “The Spaceman”—and helped turn KISS into one of the top-selling bands of all time. Now, for the first time, the beloved rock icon reveals his side of the story with no-holds-barred honesty . . . and no regrets. For KISS fans, Ace offers a rare behind-the-makeup look at the band’s legendary origins, including the lightning-bolt logo he designed and the outfits his mother sewed. He talks about the unspoken division within the band—he and Peter Criss versus Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons—because the other two didn’t “party e
£16.19
Xlibris Geography of a Life
£17.67
Simon & Schuster Ltd My Husband and I
Book SynopsisFor more than 70 years, the marriage of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip was at the centre of the nation's life. Now, in My Husband and I, Ingrid Seward reveals the real story of their loving and enduring relationship. When a young Princess Elizabeth met and fell in love with the dashing Naval Lieutenant Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, it wasn't without its problems. The romance between the sailor prince and the young princess brought a splash of colour to a nation still in the grip of post-war austerity. When they married in Westminster Abbey in November 1947, there were 3000 guests, including six kings and seven queens. Within five years, as Queen Elizabeth II, she would ascend to the throne and later be crowned in front of millions watching through the new medium of television. Throughout her record-breaking reign until Prince Philip's death on 9 April 2021, she relied on the formidable partnersh
£9.49
John Murray Press Abducting a General
Book SynopsisA daring behind-enemy-lines mission from the author of A Time of Gifts and The Broken Road, who was once described by the BBC as 'a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond and Graham Greene'.Trade ReviewIt takes some chutzpah to kidnap a German general - and serious presence of mind to get away with it. Paddy, the Special Operations Executive commander of a group of 11 Cretan andartes, or guerrilla fighters, together with his second-in-command Captain William Stanley Moss, had excessive stores of both . . . Abducting a General . . . is the work of a mature man, anxious to pay proper tribute to the Cretans who were the backbone of the resistance and ran by far the greatest risks. His SOE reports, which run to 90 pages here, provide gripping cinematic portraits of Leigh Fermor the soldier * The Spectator *Beautifully written . . . Fermor's love of Crete and scholarly knowledge of the Classics exude from the pages * The Times *As a pure adventure story . . . it is hard to beat * Financial Times *Superb . . . Leigh Fermor's many fans will find plenty of the old master's fizz in this resurrected work . . . irresistible * Scotsman *Paddy's vividly idiomatic reports irresistibly take us in to the skulduggery and derring-do . . . a wonderful story * Jan Morris, Literary Review *The late, great Pagrick Leigh Fermor, described as a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond and Graham Greene, first became famous in 1944 for his daring kidnap of high-ranking German general . . . Afficionados of the tale were spoilt this year * Daily Express *Gripping buccaneering of the old school * Sun *Paddy was the Byron of our time * Standpoint *A riveting first-hand account * Good Book Guide *Abducting a General is filled with the same rich exuberant prose [as his trilogy] and fulfils its objective as portraying the Cretan people as the true heroes of the resistance * TLS *What shines through in Leigh Fermor's account is his connection to and respect and admiration for the spirit of the Cretan people * Daily Mail *A glorious first-hand account of one of the great adventures of the Second World War * Gentleman's Journal *
£10.44
