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My Happy Days In Hell
by György FaludyMy Happy Days in Hell (1962) is Gyorgy Faludy's grimly beautiful autobiography of his battle to survive tyranny and oppression. Fleeing Hungary in 1938 as the German army approaches, acclaimed poet Faludy journeys to Paris, where he finds a lover but merely a cursory asylum. When the French capitulate to the Nazis, Faludy travels to North Africa, then on to America, where he volunteers for military service. Missing his homeland and determined to do the right thing, he returns - only to be imprisoned, tortured, and slowly starved, eventually becoming one of only twenty-one survivors of his camp.
So Bright and Delicate: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne
by Jane Campion John KeatsPublished to coincide with the release of the film Bright Star, written and directed by Oscar Winner Jane Campion (The Piano, In the Cut), starring Abbie Cornish (Elizabeth: The Golden Age) and Ben Whishaw (Brideshead Revisited, Perfume)John Keats died aged just twenty-five. He left behind some of the most exquisite and moving verse and love letters ever written, inspired by his great love for Fanny Brawne. Although they knew each other for just a few short years and spent a great deal of that time apart - separated by Keats' worsening illness, which forced a move abroad - Keats wrote again and again about and to his love, right until his very last poem, called simply 'To Fanny'. She, in turn, would wear the ring he had given her until her death. So Bright and Delicate is the passionate, heartrending story of this tragic affair, told through the private notes and public art of a great poet.
Rome in Crisis
by Plutarch Christopher PellingBringing together nine biographies from Plutarch's Parallel Lives series, this edition examines the lives of major figures in Roman history, from Lucullus (118-57 BC), an aristocratic politician and conqueror of Eastern kingdoms, to Otho (32-69 AD), a reckless young noble who consorted with the tyrannical, debauched emperor Nero before briefly becoming a dignified and gracious emperor himself.Ian Scott-Kilvert's and Christopher Pelling's translations are accompanied by a new introduction, and also includes a separate introduction for each biography, comparative essays of the major figures, suggested further reading, notes and maps.
Come What May: The Autobiography
by Dónal Óg CusackDónal Óg Cusack has been one of Ireland's leading hurlers for the past decade, winning five Munster titles and three All-Ireland medals with Cork, and establishing himself as one of the game's most compelling and articulate figures. In this book, he tells the story of his life and extraordinary career.'This is not simply one of the best and most readable sports books to be published anywhere this year, it is one of the best and most important books to be published in Ireland this year' Sunday Tribune'Certain to become a sports classic' The Times'Certainly the book of the year' Irish Times'The engine of the book is truthfulness: raw, compelling and uncomfortable' Sunday Times
CLINGING TO THE WRECKAGE: A Part Of Life (Penguin Modern Classics)
by John MortimerClinging to the Wreckage is the first part of John Mortimer's acclaimed autobiography. Here he recounts his solitary childhood in the English countryside, with affectionate portraits of his remote parents - an increasingly unconventional barrister father, whose blindness must never be mentioned, battling earwigs in the mutinous garden, and a vague and endlessly patient mother. As a boy dreaming of a tap-dancing career on the stage and forming a one-boy communist cell at boarding school, his father pushes him to pursue the law, where Mortimer embarks on the career that was to inspire his hilarious and immortal literary creations. Told with great humour and touching honesty, this is a magnificent achievement by one of Britain's best-loved writers.
Our Last Best Chance: The Pursuit of Peace in a Time of Peril
by King Abdullah II of JordanWhen a dying King Hussein shocked the world by picking his son rather than his brother, the longtime Crown Prince, to be the next King of Jordan, no one was more surprised than the young head of Special Forces who discovered his life was in for a major upheaval. In this exceptionally candid memoir, King Abdullah tackles the single toughest issue he faces head on - how to solve the Israeli-Palestinian standoff - and reveals himself to be an invaluable intermediary between America and the Arab world. He writes about the impact of the Iraq war on his neighborhood and how to confront the threat from Iran. This is the inspirational story of a man who went to boarding school in America and military academy in Britain, and grew up believing he would be a soldier. Back home, he hunted down terrorists and modernized Jordan's Special Forces. Then, suddenly, he found himself king. Together with his wife, Queen Rania, King Abdullah transformed what it meant to be a monarch, going undercover to escape the bubble of the court while she became the Muslim world's most passionate advocate of women's rights. Why would a sitting head of state choose to write about the most explosive issues he faces? King Abdullah does so now because he believes we face a moment of truth: a last chance for peace in the Middle East. The prize is enormous, the cost of failure unimaginable
The Kid (Film Tie-in): A True Story
by Kevin LewisKevin Lewis never had a chance. Growing up on a poverty-stricken London council estate, beaten and starved by his parents, bullied at school and abandoned by social services, his life was never his own. Even after he was put into care, he found himself out on the streets caught up in a criminal underworld that knew him as 'The Kid'. Yet Kevin survived to make a better life for himself, and has become a bestselling novelist in his own right.The Kid and The Kid Moves On, published together for the first time in this film tie-in edition, are his heartbreaking and inspiring true story . . .
Following Atticus: How a little dog led one man on a journey of rediscovery to the top of the world
by Thomas F. RyanFollowing Atticus is Tom Ryan's moving true story, of a man and his remarkable dog.Tom Ryan is a middle-aged, overweight, no-nonsense newspaper editor. But when Atticus M. Finch, a Miniature Schnauzer, arrives, he is forced to question everything about his life. Wanting to raise money in memory of a friend who died of cancer, Tom decides that they will both climb 48 of New Hampshire's mountains during a single winter - twice.What awaits the pair is the adventure of a lifetime. In an enchanting but dangerous winter wonderland, they face raging blizzards, frostbite and storms. It is a rare test of endurance that soon becomes a soul-searching journey. And then, within a month of returning home, tragedy strikes. Atticus goes blind, and the blood tests suggest something even worse. Now facing an even greater challenge, Tom and Atticus undertake a journey through darkness and into light. For anyone that loved Marley and Me, Following Atticus by Tom Ryan is a heartwarming story of friendship, selflessness, redemption -- and above all, love.Tom Ryan worked as an editor until 2007, when he decided to sell his newspaper move to the White Mountains of New Hampshire. He started climbing in memory of a friend who died of cancer, and in the last five years has climbed an incredible four hundred and fifty 4,000-foot peaks.
To Miss with Love
by Katharine BirbalsinghFrom the whistle-blowing teacher behind the headlines: one inspirational teacher, one extraordinary year, hope and heartbreak on the front lines of an inner-city school, To Miss With Love by Katharine Birbalsingh is the remarkable and eye opening exposé of our education system.A third of teachers leave within their first term on the job. This one wouldn't quit for all the world. Meet Furious - sixteen, handsome and completely out of control. Nothing frightens him and no one can get through to him. Now meet Munchkin - a sweet kid with glasses who's an easy target and needs protecting. Then there's Seething and Deranged, two girls who are brimming with bad attitude; Fifty and Cent, who act like gangsters but are afraid of getting beaten up; and Stoic, a brilliant young mind struggling to survive. In the midst of them all, there is a bodyguard and bouncer, a counsellor and confidante, a young woman whose job it is to motivate and inspire them and somehow keep them out of trouble: their teacher. None will make it through the year unscathed. Some may not even make it at all...Spanning a year of shocking truths and hard-won victories, of fights and phone-thefts, teenage pregnancies and the dreaded OFSTED report, this is the remarkable diary of an inner-city school teacher. Revealing the extraordinary chaos, mismanagement and wrong-thinking that plague our education system, it is a funny, surprising and sometimes heartbreaking journey from the frontlines of the classroom to the heart of modern Britain.'The constant frustration, the struggle to hold on to your ideals in the face of a broken system - this book is the story of contemporary state education. It's both heart-breaking and inspiring' Toby Young'Everyone should read this book and do a bit of re-thinking. Straight from the chalk-face - a book which explains why our kids have been failed by State Education' Rod Liddle'The teacher who laid bare the chaos in the education systems. . . by delivering some brutal home truths. . . articulate and inspirational' Daily Mail'Charismatic. . . .electrifying. . . This remarkable woman has neatly identified the problem with education' The TimesKatharine Birbalsingh is Britain's most outspoken and controversial teacher. Educated at a comprehensive school, she earned a degree in philosophy and modern languages at Oxford university and has taught for over a decade in inner-city schools. To Miss with Love was for several years an anonymous blog that exposed the reality of inner-city schools and the problems with the education system. She now writes regularly for the Telegraph and has given evidence at the Commons select committee for education. Her views have sparked a national debate. www.katharinebirbalsingh.com
The Three Emperors: Three Cousins, Three Empires and the Road to World War One
by Miranda CarterThe Three Emperors by Miranda Carter is the juicy, funny story of the three dysfunctional rulers of Germany, Russia and Great Britain at the turn of the last century, combined with a study of the larger forces around them.Three cousins. Three Emperors. And the road to ruin.As cousins, George V, Kaiser Wilhelm II and the last Tsar Nicholas II should have been friends - but they happened also to rule Europe's three most powerful states. This potent combination together with their own destructive personalities - petty, insecure, bullying, absurdly obsessive (stamp collecting, uniforms) - led not only to their own dramatic fallouts and falls from grace, but also to the outbreak of the First World War. Miranda Carter's riveting account of how three men who should have known better helped bring down an entire world is a gripping story of abdication, betrayal and murder.'Fascinating. A wonderfully fresh and beautifully choreographed work of history' Mail on Sunday'Miranda Carter's story is full of vivid quotations...a romp though the palaces of Europe in their last decades before Armageddon' Sunday Times'Fascinating. Carter is a gifted storyteller and has written a very readable account' Independent'That these three absurd men could ever have held the fate of Europe in their hands is a fact as hilarious as it is terrifying. I haven't enjoyed a historical biography this much since Lytton Strachey's Victoria' Zadie SmithMiranda Carter's first book, Anthony Blunt: His Lives, won the Royal Society of Literature Award and the Orwell Prize and was shortlisted for the Whitbread Biography Prize, the Guardian First Book Award, the Duff Cooper Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. The book was named as one of the New York Times Book Review's seven best books of 2002. Miranda lives in London with her husband and two sons.
Childhood, Boyhood, Youth
by Leo Tolstoy Rosemary EdmondsThe artistic work of Leo Tolstoy has been described as 'nothing less than one tremendous diary kept for over fifty years'. This particular 'diary' begins with Tolstoy's first published work, Childhood, which was written when he was only twenty-three. A semi-autobiographical work, it recounts two days in the childhood of ten-year-old Nikolai Irtenev, recreating vivid impressions of people, place and events with the exuberant perspective of a child enriched by the ironic retrospective understanding of an adult. Boyhood and Youth soon followed, and Tolstoy was launched on the literary career that would bring him immortality.
Selected Letters: With Notes For The Use Of Schools
by D. Bailey CiceroThe greatest orator in Roman history, Marcus Tullius Cicero remained one of the republic's chief supporters throughout his life, guided by profound political beliefs that illuminated his correspondence with both close friends and powerful aristocrats. A chronicle of a crumbling civilization during the era when the republic disintegrated and was replaced by despotism, his Letters portray a world dominated by characters who have since acquired almost mythic status - including Pompey, Caesar, Brutus, Cassius, and Mark Antony. Whether describing the vagaries of war, the collapse of Roman society, his beloved republic, or his own personal domestic dramas, all compellingly reflect the complex personality of an honourable and selfless man whose refusal to compromise ultimately cost him his life.
Deep Country: Five Years in the Welsh Hills
by Neil AnsellDeep Country is Neil Ansell's account of five years spent alone in a hillside cottage in Wales.'I lived alone in this cottage for five years, summer and winter, with no transport, no phone. This is the story of those five years, where I lived and how I lived. It is the story of what it means to live in a place so remote that you may not see another soul for weeks on end. And it is the story of the hidden places that I came to call my own, and the wild creatures that became my society.'Neil Ansell immerses himself in the rugged British landscape, exploring nature's unspoilt wilderness and man's relationship with it. Deep Country is a celebration of rural life and the perfect read for fans of Robert Macfarlane's Landmarks, Helen Macdonald's H is for Hawk orJames Rebanks' A Shepherd's Life.'A beautiful, translucent portrayal of mid-Wales' Jay Griffiths'Touching. Through Ansell's charming and thoroughly detailed stories of run-ins with red kites, curlews, sparrowhawks, jays and ravens, we see him lose himself . . . in the rhythms and rituals of life in the British wilderness' Financial Times'Remarkable, fascinating' Time Out'A gem of a book, an extraordinary tale. Ansell's rich prose will transport you to a real life Narnian world that CS Lewis would have envied. Find your deepest, most-comfortable armchair and get away from it all' CountryfileNeil Ansell spent five years living on a remote hillside in Wales, and wrote his first book, Deep Country, about the experience. Since that time, he has become an award-winning television journalist with the BBC. He has travelled in over fifty countries and has written for the Guardian, the New Statesman and the Big Issue.
The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead
by David ShieldsMesmerized and somewhat unnerved by his 97-year-old father's vitality and optimism, David Shields undertakes an original investigation of our flesh-and-blood existence, our mortal being.Weaving together personal anecdote, biological fact, philosophical doubt, cultural criticism, and the wisdom of an eclectic range of writers and thinkers - from Lucretius to Woody Allen - Shields expertly renders both a hilarious family portrait and a truly resonant meditation on mortality.
Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Our Times
by Sarah BradfordElizabeth II has lived through the Abdication, the Blitz and World War Two, the sex and spy scandals of the swinging sixties, the Cold War and the nuclear threat and the Fall of the Berlin Wall. She has known 11 US Presidents including JFK and Ronald Reagan, and other world leaders like President Mandela and Pope John XXII. Her Prime Ministers have ranged from Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher to David Cameron, the last only ten years older than her grandson. Her own family experiences, a mixture of happiness and crisis, weddings and divorces, and, in the case of Diana, violent death, have been lived in the glare of tabloid headlines. More than 2 billion people watched the wedding of her grandson Prince William to Catherine Middleton in 2010 shortly before she made the first State Visit to Ireland by a British monarch for 100 years. Our world has changed more in her lifetime than in any of her predecessors': the Queen has remained a calm presence at the centre, earning the respect of monarchists and republicans. How has she done it?
Hancox
by Charlotte MooreHancox is the Tudor hall house in rural Sussex where Charlotte Moore grew up, and where she lives today. It's a time warp where little has changed since her family took it on in 1888. They were a diverse family of doctors and soldiers, liberal politicians and educational pioneers. What they all had in common though was a habit of writing everything down and never throwing anything away. Every cupboard and every drawer is crammed with relics of family history - letters, diaries, sketchbooks, photograph albums, even old shopping lists and chequebook stubs - which together constitute a huge archive of Victorian and Edwardian family life containing fascinating stories of love and jealousy, heroism and defeat, riches and poverty as well as snapshots of the wider world beyond of Hastings, London and the empire.Told with a novelist's vigour, Hancox offers a richly detailed portrait of a vanished way of life: an English country house at the turn of the twentieth century, just before the tragedy of the First World War, with its presiding family, its servants, its farm and its local village.
Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years (The\adrian Mole Ser. #4)
by Sue Townsend'A classic. The Adrian Mole diaries are thoroughly subversive. A true hero for our time' Richard IngramsCelebrate Adrian Mole's 50th Birthday with this new edition of the FOURTH BOOK in his diaries, where we catch up with a hapless Adrian and his desperate attempts to win back the love of his life.--------------------------- Thursday January 3rd I have the most terrible problems with my sex life. It all boils down to the fact that I have no sex life. At least not with another person. Finally given the heave-ho by Pandora, Adrian Mole finds himself in the unenviable situation of living with the love-of-his-life as she goes about shacking up with other men. Worse, as he slides down the employment ladder, from deskbound civil servant in Oxford to part-time washer-upper in Soho, he finds that critical reception for his epic novel, Lo! The Flat Hills of My Homeland, is not quite as he might have hoped. But Adrian is about to discover that extraordinary and wonderful things may blossom even in the wilderness . . . 'A very, very funny book' Sunday Times 'The funniest person in the world' Caitlin Moran
Susan Boyle: Dreams Can Come True
by Alice MontgomeryFrom that moment when Susan Boyle burst onto our screens on Britain's Got Talent, she has become an unexpected phenomenon, and has gone on to become the creator of the fastest selling female debut album of all time - in the UK and worldwide - hitting the number one spot in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Ireland. Susan's own personal dream has finally come true, but the phenomenal success story doesn't end here - Susan has arrived and she's here to stay.This book will be the first to tell the full story of Susan's incredible journey from rags to riches, from West Lothian to Times Square. Ever since her mesmerising, historic performance on Britain's Got Talent, Susan has captured the heart of millions. Hers is a very modern fairytale that is at once uplifting and compelling. Bestselling biographer Alice Montgomery charts her meteoric rise from humble beginnings to global superstardom, exploring the relationships, events and people that have played a role in her astonishing story - a 21st century fairytale that became reality.
A Preparation for Death
by Greg BaxterIn his early thirties, Greg Baxter found himself in a strange place. He hated his job, he was drinking excessively, he was sabotaging his most important relationships, and he was no longer doing the thing he cared about most: writing. Strangest of all, at this time he started teaching evening classes in creative writing - and his life changed utterly.A Preparation for Death is a document of the chaos and discovery of that time and of the experiences that led Greg Baxter to that strange place - an extraordinarily intimate account of literary failure (and its consequences), personal decay, and redemption through reading, writing, and truth-telling. 'Brilliant and wonderfully original ... Yes, this is a book about drinking and shagging. But rarely have these things been written about so well' William Leith, Literary Review'Baxter is a serious, thoughtful writer, bend on emotional truth and artistry. He has written an unusual, provocative book' Suzi Feay, Financial Times'Brave, honest and propulsive' Metro'The triumph is the steely courage it takes to put a life down with such uncompromising clarity' Hugo Hamilton, Irish Times'This is an occasionally infuriating and completely wonderful book. I read it in one sitting, unsettled and delighted by its ferocity' Anne Enright
The Governor
by John LonerganIn his talks to communities throughout the length and breath of Ireland, John Lonergan finds himself coming back to one theme: the importance of kindness. It is an unexpected theme for the former boss of Ireland's biggest and toughest prison, Mountjoy, but then John Lonergan is an unusual man. John entered the prison service in 1968 and in the years that followed, as he saw human nature at its worst - and often, unexpectedly, at its best - he developed a deep understanding both of human nature and of Irish society.Now, after 42 years in the service, 26 of them as the most senior prison officer in the country, John tells his fascinating life story - from his idyllic childhood in rural Tipperary, to coming face to face with the ugliest face of Irish life, to grappling with the politics of working in a service that was the plaything of officials and politicians. His description of life in the prison service is not only a gripping account of humanity at its rawest, but also an invaluable primer for anyone in top level management.Revealing, surprising and inspiring The Governor gives a unique insight into modern Ireland.
The True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole: True Confessions Of Adrian Albert Mole, Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years, And Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years (The\adrian Mole Ser. #3)
by Sue TownsendCelebrate Adrian Mole's 50th Birthday with this new edition of the third book in his diaries, as 16-year-old Adrian navigates his way into adulthood Monday June 13th I had a good, proper look at myself in the mirror tonight. I've always wanted to look clever, but at the age of twenty years and three months I have to admit that I look like a person who has never even heard of Jung or Updike. Adrian Mole is an adult. At least that's what it says on his passport. But living at home, clinging to his threadbare cuddly rabbit 'Pinky', working as a paper pusher for the DoE and pining for the love of his life, Pandora, has proved to him that adulthood isn't quite what he expected. Still, without the slings and arrows of modern life what else would an intellectual poet have to write about . . . Included here are two other less well-known diarists: Sue Townsend and Margaret Hilda Roberts, a rather ambitious grocer's daughter from Grantham. 'Wonderfully funny and sharp as knives' Sunday Times 'Essential reading for Mole followers' Times Educational Supplement 'Townsend has held a mirror up to the nation and made us happy to laugh at what we see in it' Sunday Telegraph'The funniest person in the world' Caitlin Moran
Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane
by Andrew Graham DixonMichelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio lived the darkest and most dangerous life of any of the great painters. The worlds of Milan, Rome and Naples through which Caravaggio moved and which Andrew Graham-Dixon describes brilliantly in this book, are those of cardinals and whores, prayer and violence. On the streets surrounding the churches and palaces, brawls and swordfights were regular occurrences. In the course of this desperate life Caravaggio created the most dramatic paintings of his age, using ordinary men and women - often prostitutes and the very poor - to model for his depictions of classic religious scenes. Andrew Graham-Dixon's exceptionally illuminating readings of Caravaggio'spictures, which are the heart of the book, show very clearly how he created their drama, immediacy and humanity, and how completely he departed from the conventions of his time.
Sold as a Slave (Great Journeys Ser. #No. 8)
by Olaudah EquianoIn an adventurous and extraordinary life, Equiano (c.1745-c.1797) criss-crossed the Atlantic world, from West Africa to the Caribbean to the USA to Britain, either as a slave or fighting with the Royal Navy. His account of his life is not only one of the great documents of the abolition movement, but also a startling, moving story of danger and betrayal.Great Journeys allows readers to travel both around the planet and back through the centuries – but also back into ideas and worlds frightening, ruthless and cruel in different ways from our own. Few reading experiences can begin to match that of engaging with writers who saw astounding things: Great civilisations, walls of ice, violent and implacable jungles, deserts and mountains, multitudes of birds and flowers new to science. Reading these books is to see the world afresh, to rediscover a time when many cultures were quite strange to each other, where legends and stories were treated as facts and in which so much was still to be discovered.
More About Boy: Tales of Childhood
by Roald Dahl Quentin BlakeThis new rebrand of MORE ABOUT BOY is a favourite book containing a wealth of new photos, facts and writings about Roald Dahl and his childhood, together with the original text and illustrations from his much-loved memoir. With lots of little-known details, this is a must-have for all Dahl fans!Look out for new Roald Dahl apps in the App store and Google Play- including the disgusting TWIT OR MISS! and HOUSE OF TWITS inspired by the revolting Twits.
Adam Smith: An Enlightened Life (The\lewis Walpole Series In Eighteenth-century Culture And History)
by Nicholas PhillipsonAdam Smith is celebrated all over the world as the author of The Wealth of Nations and the founder of modern economics. A few of his ideas - that of the 'Invisible Hand' of the market and that 'It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest' - have become icons of the modern world. Yet Smith saw himself primarily as a philosopher rather than an economist, and would never have predicted that the ideas for which he is now best known were his most important. This book, by one of the leading scholars of the Scottish Enlightenment, shows the extent to which The Wealth of Nations and Smith's other great work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, were part of a larger scheme to establish a grand 'Science of Man', one of the most ambitious projects of the European Enlightenment, which was to encompass law, history and aesthetics as well as economics and ethics.Nicholas Phillipson reconstructs Smith's intellectual ancestry and formation, of which he gives a radically new and convincing account. He shows what Smith took from, and what he gave to, the rapidly changing and subtly different intellectual and commercial cultures of Glasgow and Edinburgh as they entered the great years of the Scottish Enlightenment. Above all he explains how far Smith's ideas developed in dialogue with those of his closest friend, the other titan of the age, David Hume. This superb biography is now the one book which anyone interested in the founder of economics must read.