Search results for ""author dr andrew norman""

In Agatha Christie: The Finished Portrait, Dr Andrew Norman delves deep into the crime writer’s past to discover the desperate insecurity that sparked her disappearance in 1926. Agatha Christie suffered from recurrent nightmares where she was petrified that one or other of her family would be replaced by a terrifying figure called the ‘Gunman’ and lost to her forever. She was reminded of this figure both when her father died, and when her husband Archie demanded a divorce. This event precipitated such a crisis in Agatha’s mind that she became temporarily unhinged. She lost her memory and assumed a new identity: that of her husband’s mistress. Only now, thirty years after Agatha’s death, is it possible to explain fully, in the light of scientific knowledge, her behaviour during her troubled disappearance, when she lived incognito in a Harrogate hotel.One of Agatha’s novels, Unfinished Portrait, which is largely autobiographical, gives a unique insight into how the heroine, Celia (who is really Agatha in disguise), may have managed finally to rid herself of the Gunman and go on to lead a happier and more fulfilled life. By deciphering clues from this and her other works, Agatha Christie: The Finished Portrait sheds light on what is perhaps the greatest mystery of all to be associated with Agatha Christie, namely that of the person herself.

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The people of Zimbabwe are brutalised, disenfranchised, starved. This is the only book to tell the full story of the birth of a dictatorship, including the 2008 election travesty. Robert Gabriel Mugabe, a former teacher and guerrilla leader, swept to power in Zimbabwe on a tide of euphoria in 1980 with the promise of peace, prosperity and racial harmony. He proceeded to preside over the economic ruination of the country, which he himself once described as the 'Jewel of Africa'. In his desperate attempts to create and perpetuate a one-party state, he thwarted the democratic process, used torture against his own people and deliberately obstructed aid organisations when they offered assistance to the persecuted and starving. This is the first book to explain what goes on in Mugabe's mind and only by understanding this is it possible to understand why he has destroyed his country - and what is about to happen there now.

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Bournemouth was known as a health resort long before it became a holiday destination. W.H. Smith was one of the first patrons of the town’s National Sanatorium for the treatment of chest diseases, including tuberculosis. Here ‘invalids’, including Robert Louis Stevenson and D.H. Lawrence, came to rest and recuperate, assisted by the beneficial breezes from the sea and soothing emanations from the pine trees, for which the area was famous. Others came for different reasons: Guglielmo Marconi transmitted wireless signals across the bay to the Isle of Wight, and Lillie Langtry, whose love letters have only recently been discovered in the attic of a farmhouse in Jersey, spent many years in the area. Bournemouth also attracted many notable twentieth-century visitors and residents, including Winston Churchill and Flora Thompson. From Tregonwell to Tolkien, this book celebrates the town’s founders, and also its notable visitors during the last 200 years. Written by established local author Andrew Norman, this new title is ideal for anyone who wants to explore the tale of Bournemouth and its key figures.

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A biography of the man who founded St Dunstan's for blinded service personnel.

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