Search results for ""Author John Lucas""

For travellers through the Aegean from Odysseus onwards, the Greek islands have proved to be places of beauty and enchantment, but also of violence, of love and death. "Isles of Greece" doesn't plot a course from island to island. Instead it groups together poems and prose extracts in order to provide some sense of the glittering delights and dark tragedies that are part of the history and the present of all Greek islands. Solomos, the Greek national poet, was born on the island of Zante, as was his contemporary, Kalvos. Byron, was perhaps the first non-Greek of modern times to sing the island's praises, but there have been many since including the English poets Lawrence Durrell and Michael Ayrton, the Americans Rachel Hadas and David Mason and Australia's Chairman Clift. These are small books that open our vast landscapes of the mind.

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Serial killer Patrick Mackay was dubbed the most dangerous man in Britain when he appeared in court in 1975 charged with three killings, including the axe murder of a priest. The Nazi-obsessed alcoholic had stalked the upmarket streets of West London hunting for victims and was suspected of at least eight further murders. Now, after more than 40 years behind bars, where he has shunned publicity, Mackay has been allowed to change his name and win the right to live in an open prison - bringing him one step closer to freedom. For the first time, _Britain's Forgotten Serial Killer_ reveals the full, untold story of Patrick Mackay and the many still-unsolved murders linked to his case.

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Now available in paperback to coincide with the 50th anniversary of his death, this biography corrects many of the myths surrounding the often controversial Thomas Beecham. Thomas Beecham was one of Britain's greatest conductors of orchestral music and opera as well as an entrepreneur and impresario of exceptional energy and brilliant wit. This acclaimed biography places him - musically, politicallyand socially - in the troubled times in which he lived and corrects the stories and myths, many of them Beecham's own making, that have grown up around this uniquely gifted and controversial figure. Drawing upon extensive research, Lucas presents new material on his early years, his complicated private life, his father's catastrophic attempt to buy a large part of Covent Garden - which brought the family to its knees financially - and the orchestras andopera companies that Beecham founded. New light is shed on his visits to Nazi Germany and his view of its leaders, as well as the much misunderstood and previously unchronicled years of the Second World War, which he spent in Australia and America. Thomas Beecham: An Obsession with Music will remain the standard biography for years to come. JOHN LUCAS was on the staff of the Observer for 25 years, completed Peter Heyworth's monumentalbiography of Otto Klemperer, wrote Genius of Valhalla, the biography of Reginald Goodall, and is responsible for the current entries on Beecham and Klemperer in the New Grove .

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'Somewhere in the world there may be a noisier street than Acharnon Street; but I hope not.' 92 Acharnon Street is a loving portrait of Athens in all its dusty, dirty, trafficridden reality, complete with bars, prostitutes, corruption and imperious bureaucrats. This is a book about Greeks not just Greece, in all their rich and confusing humanity.

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The life of enigmatic Wagner conductor, Reginald Goodall, by the author of the acclaimed Thomas Beecham: An Obsession with Music, newly available in paperback. When Sir Reginald Goodall died in 1990, at the age of 88, he had already acquired cult status and was considered one of the greatest Wagner conductors of our times. Although he had conducted the première of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes in 1945 and was admired by Erich Kleiber and Otto Klemperer, he suffered years of neglect until his triumphant return to conduct Die Meistersinger at Sadler's Wells in 1968. John Lucas, author of theacclaimed Thomas Beecham: An Obsession with Music, examines the mysteries of Goodall's early career, his Mosleyite sympathies, his remarkable late flowering and the fame of his last 20 years. Drawing upon letters and diaries as well as extensive interviews with friends and colleagues, Lucas pieces together the life of this enigmatic, self-effacing figure - a great Wagner conductor in a tradition stretching back through Knappertsbusch and Karl Muckto Hans Richter. Previously available as Reggie: The Life of Reginald Goodall - now available for the first time in paperback with a new Preface and Introduction. Published in association with the Peter Moores Foundation.

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Drawing on biographical information, letters, reminiscences and anecdotes, John Lucas pieces together Gurney’s difficult, indeed tragic life, in order to show that Gurney’s poetry, while undoubtedly affected by his mental problems, his trench experiences in World War One, and his complex relationship to Gloucester, the Cotswalds and London, is the sane utterance of a deeply radicalized writer. There is no suggestion that Gurney’s experiences were unique. On the contrary, they were typical, as he well knew, and as he declares in poems which celebrate the implications of comradeship. What is unique is Gurney’s ability to turn these experiences into major poetry. Gurney is the greatest of all those poets who fought in and survived the war and his achievement drastically affects our understanding of twentieth century poetry.

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In a bold new direction, writer Joe Casey and artist Nathan Fox flip the Haunt series on its head. Still figuring out their newfound ability, brothers Daniel and Kurt Kilgore start experiencing the dark side of their powers — and no one is safe!

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