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Brian May: The definitive biography
by Laura JacksonAs the lead guitarist of Queen, Brian May is one of rock's most recognisable stars. Brian May: the definitive biography charts his life from his childhood, through his years studying astro physics and teaching, his success with Queen, his more recent projects and his volatile relationship with actress Anita Dobson. Bestselling writer Laura Jackson examines closely the many aspects of the musician's life revealing his true story for the first time. The book reveal's Queen's struggles to gain success and life at the top, throwing some of the most notorious and wildly salacious parties in the business. It charts the camaraderie and conflicts within Queen as well as Brian's difficult years throughout the disintegration of his first marriage, the death of his father and the profound professional and emotional effects of Freddie Mercury's illness and death. The book is packed with nearly 70 first-hand exclusive interviews with some of his closest friends, colleagues and fellow musicians. These include school and college friends, early band members and colleagues in the scientific world. Interviewees include, Tony Iommi, Joe Elliott, Raul Rodgers, Cliff Richard and Spike Edney.
Brief Lives
by W. F. DeedesIn this eclectic selection of biographical sketches Bill Deedes remembers some of the key figures of the twentieth century. Political heavyweights such as Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin and Anthony Eden are reassessed and re-evalued, while record breakers such as Sir Edmund Hillary and Roger Bannister are shown to be far more than just their achievements. Further afield, W. F. Deedes ruminates on the chaotic and shady world of Imelda Marcos, the dignity and determination of anti-apartheid campaigner Helen Suzman and the controversial leadership of Ian Smith in Rhodesia. But there are lighter portraits too. Noel Coward, with his useful advice on trains, Mary Whitehouse’s inadvertent demonstration of pornography and Malcolm Muggeridge’s half-hearted suicide attempt all feature in this delightful compendium. Like his previous books, Dear Bill and At War With Waugh, Brief Lives is an affectionate, perceptive and anecdotal book, bursting with life, humour and wit.
Bringing Nothing to the Party: True Confessions Of A New Media Whore
by Paul CarrA fascinating and hilarious expose of how a group of young opportunists, chancers and geniuses found instant fame and fortune by messing about on the web. And one man's attempt to follow in their footsteps.Having covered the first dot com boom, and founded a web-to-print publishing business during the second one, Paul counts many of the leading Internet entrepreneurs amongst his closest friends. These friendships mean he doesn't just attend their product launches and press conferences and speak at their events, but also gets invited to their ultra-exclusive networking events, and gets drunk at their parties.Paul has enjoyed this bizarre world of excess without having to live in it. To help the moguls celebrate raising millions of pounds of funding without having to face the wrath of the venture capitalists himself. But in 2006, Paul decided he didn't want to be a spectator any more. He had been harbouring a great dot com project of his own and decided it was time to do something about it.
Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy
by Alison WeirFascinating and authoritative of Britain's royal families from Henry VIII to Elizabeth I to Queen Victoria, by leading popular historian Alison Weir 'George III is alleged to have married secretly, on 17th April, 1759, a Quakeress called Hannah Lightfoot. If George III did make such a marriage…then his subsequent marriage to Queen Charlotte was bigamous, and every monarch of Britain since has been a usurper, the rightful heirs of George III being his children by Hannah Lightfoot...' Britain's Royal Families provides in one volume, complete genealogical details of all members of the royal houses of England, Scotland and Great Britain - from 800AD to the present. Drawing on countless authorities, both ancient and modern, Alison Weir explores the crown and royal family tree in unprecedented depth and provides a comprehensive guide to the heritage of today's royal family – with fascinating insight and often scandalous secrets.'Staggeringly useful... combines solid information with tantalising appetisers.’ Mail on Sunday
Broken
by Shy Keenan'I was born and broken in Birkenhead. I was unwanted, beaten, sold, swapped, photographed, filmed, left for dead, corrupted, blamed, betrayed and ignored. But I was also born with a fire inside me. I call it my Phoenix Fire. I am no victim - that word only describes what happened to me. Nor am I a survivor because that implies I am over it. I am a Phoenix - a work in progress. This is my story.' Shy wasn't meant to survive her childhood. Her mother beat her so severely that Shy was deaf by her first day in school. She would have boiling water poured over her in punishment for wetting the bed. And virtually every day, from the age of four, Shy was raped by her stepfather, Stan. When she was ten she was attacked so viciously by the gang of dockworkers Stan had sold her to that she was left for dead in a field, her skull fractured. Six years ago her testimony secured the imprisonment of Stan and his associates for a catalogue of crimes against children. But it was only after a journey fraught with horror - stealing to survive on the streets of London, prison and a suicide bid.Today, Shy is the internationally admired chief advocate for Phoenix Survivors, the campaigning group she founded with Sara Payne to fight for justice for victims of child sexual abuse. They have worked tirelessly with politicians, social services, the legal system and the media for justice for victims of child sex abuse. BROKEN is the most hard-hitting memoir of overcoming abuse you will ever read. It is both a challenge and an inspiration.
The Bromley Boys: The True Story Of Supporting The Worst Football Club In Britain
by Dave RobertsThe book that inspired the major motion picture 'I loved it … extremely funny. A must-read for anyone who loves football.' Peter Crouch
Burnham of Chicago: Architect and Planner, Second Edition
by Thomas S. Hines2009 marks the centennial of the influential Plan of Chicago. Designed by Daniel H. Burnham, coauthored by Edward Bennett and produced in collaboration with the Commercial Club of Chicago, the forward-thinking plan proposed many of the city’s most distinctive features, including its lakefront parks and roadways, the Magnificent Mile, and Navy Pier. As a result, by the time he died in 1912, Burnham was one of the most famous architects in America as well as an internationally renowned city planner. Thomas S. Hines’s book is at once both a biography of Burnham and a vivid portrait of the birth and growth of an American city. In commemoration of the historic anniversary of Burnham’s Plan, this edition of Burnham of Chicago includes a new introduction by American history scholar, Neil Harris. “Indeed, the book as a whole is a model of the balanced portrait, sure of Burnham’s importance but always conscious of his failings.”—Paul Goldberger, New York Times Book Review “In every sense this is the definitive biography.”—Harry Weese, Chicago Tribune “Professor Hines has written what may prove to be an epoch-making book in the study of American civilization.”—Reyner Banham, Times Literary Supplement
By His Own Rules: The Ambitions, Successes, and Ultimate Failures of Donald Rumsfeld
by Bradley GrahamOnce considered among the best and brightest of his generation, Donald Rumsfeld was exceptionally prepared by successful careers in politics and business to assume the Pentagon's top job in 2001. Yet six years later, he left office as the most controversial Defense Secretary since Robert McNamara, widely criticized for his management of the Iraq war and for his difficult relationships with Congress, administration colleagues, and military officers. Was he really the arrogant, errant, over-controlling Pentagon leader frequently portrayed-or as his supporters contend, a brilliant, hard-charging visionary caught in a whirl of polarized Washington politics, dysfunctional federal bureaucracy, and bad luck?Bradley Graham, a longtime Washington Post reporter who closely covered Rumsfeld's challenging tenure at the Pentagon, offers an insightful biography of a complex personality. In the tradition of Karen DeYoung's Soldier and Bart Gellman's Angler, By His Own Rules is a layered and revealing portrait of a man whose impact on U.S. national security affairs will long outlive him.
Caesar: A Life in Western Culture
by Maria WykeMore than two millennia have passed since Brutus and his companions murdered Julius Caesar—and inaugurated his legend. Though the assassins succeeded in ending Caesar’s dictatorship, they could never have imagined that his power and influence would only grow after his death, reaching mythic proportions and establishing him as one of the central icons of Western culture, fascinating armchair historians and specialists alike. With Caesar, Maria Wyke takes up the question of just why Julius Caesar has become such an exalted figure when most of his fellow Romans have long been forgotten. Focusing on key events in Caesar’s life, she begins with accounts from ancient sources, then traces the ways in which his legend has been adapted and employed by everyone from Machiavelli to Madison Avenue, Shakespeare to George Bernard Shaw. Napoleon and Mussolini, for example, cited Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon in defense of their own dictatorial aims, while John Wilkes Booth fancied himself a new Brutus, ridding America of an imperial scourge. Caesar’s personal life, too, has long been fair game—but the lessons we draw from it have changed: Suetonius derided Caesar for his lustfulness and his love of luxury, but these days he and his lover Cleopatra serve as the very embodiment of glamour, enticingly invoked everywhere from Caesars Palace in Las Vegas to the hit HBO series Rome. Caesar is the witty and perceptive work of a writer who is as comfortable with the implications of Xena: Warrior Princess as with the long shadow cast by the Annals of Tacitus. Wyke gives us a Caesar for our own time: complicated, hotly contested, and perpetually, fascinatingly renewed.
Can I Recycle My Granny?: And Other Eco-dilemmas
by Ethan GreenhartMeet Ethan Greenhart, committed eco-activist, ethicist and campaigner. In this must-have guide, Ethan answers some of today’s most pressing environmental dilemmas such as, ‘Is it ethical to watch sport?’, ‘Is it ethical to get into an ambulance?’ and crucially, ‘Is it ethical to laugh?’Ethan makes no compromises as he advises us that having a baby is ‘an unethical crime of the highest order’ and that confetti is ‘Wedding Day acid rain’. Described as ‘One of this country’s sharpest social commentators’ (Telegraph) Brendan O’Neill has created a hugely popular fictional columnist, most famous for his contributions to online magazine, Spiked. Is it ethical to buy this book? Probably not, but it’ll be worth every tree-murdering page . . .
Cancer on Five Dollars a Day (chemo not included): How Humor Got Me Through the Toughest Journey of My Life
by Robert SchimmelIn the spring of 2000, stand-up comedian Robert Schimmel was diagnosed with stage III non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and soon the fire of his white-hot career started to fizzle.But Schimmel never lost his sense of humor, his searing honesty, and most of all, his passion to make people laugh. Indeed, it was his basic need to entertain-even if the only people around him were suffering from cancer and the room he was playing was the Mayo Clinic infusion center-that carried him through his ordeal.Alternately laugh-out-loud funny and deeply moving, Cancer on 5 a Day is a stirring account of how one man's face-off with a deadly disease helped him better understand himself, and ultimately changed his life.
Can't Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain, and America
by Jonathan GouldJonathan Gould's Can't Buy Me Love is more than just a book on the Beatles; it's a stunning recreation of the 1960s in England and America through the prism of the world's most iconic band. The Beatles, perhaps more than any act before or since, were a quintessential product of their time, and Gould brilliantly blends cultural history, musical analysis and group biography to show the unique part they played in the shaping of post-war Britain and America. Gould examines the influence of R&B, rockabilly, skiffle and Motown as the Fab Four forged a sound of their own; he illuminates the mercurial relationship the most productive and lucrative in recording music history between John Lennon and Paul McCartney; he critiques the songs they played and the movies they made, and their impact on competing bands and musicians, as well as on fashion, hairstyles, and humour; and he shows how events on both sides of the Atlantic created exactly the right cultural climate for the biggest music phenomenon of 20th century. Beautifully written, insightful, and wonderfully evocative, this is a magisterial biography by a popular historian of the very first rank.
Capello: Portrait Of A Winner
by Gabriele MarcottiFabio Capello is a born winner. As a midfielder with Roma, Juventus and Milan, he won four Italian league championships and two cups, and played for his country 32 times, scoring a goal at Wembley in 1973 in Italy's first ever win in England. As a manager, Capello's fierce determination has seen him win championships with every club he has taken charge of, from Milan in the early 1990s to Real Madrid with David Beckham in 2007.Now he faces his greatest challenge yet: to restore England to the top of world football and take them to the World Cup in South Africa in 2010 - and win. For Capello, nothing less than the best will do.In Capello: Portrait of a Winner, award-winning writer Gabriele Marcotti travels from Capello's early days in Italy to the first months in his new job to tell the story of the man behind the steely glare. Capello has made more than a few enemies over the years, and Marcotti has talked to them all, as well as his closest associates. No-one has ever got this close to Capello before, and this is the story not just of a remarkable career, but of the life of a truly extraordinary man.
Carra: My Autobiography
by Jamie CarragherFor the Anfield faithful, Jamie Carragher represents everything that is great about Liverpool Football Club, prompting the Kop to sing 'we all dream of a team of Carraghers'. The club's vice-captain, longest-serving player and one of a select band of players to have made more than 500 appearances for the Reds, Carra never gives less than 100 per cent for the cause. He is the embodiment of old-fashioned football values - a rarity in the modern game - honest and uncompromising.In Carra: My Autobiography, the Liverpool defender takes us deep into the heart of Anfield, into the club's past glories and its uncertain future. In his typically down-to-earth style, Carra reveals what made him discard his blue Evertonian roots to become a fully fledged Red, how he mended his wild ways to become a true professional and a multiple trophy-winner, and the truth about a succession of managers - Evans, Houllier, Benítez - in the hottest seat in football. A Scouser through and through, Carra also has some forthright views on the England team, and tells why he rejected calls to return to the international fold.Full of sensational stories and controversial opinions, of glory and heartbreak on and off the pitch, Carra: My Autobiography is a football book unlike any other. The authentic voice of Anfield, Carra is one of the Bootroom Boys in true Liverpool tradition, and is as committed on the page as in every game he has played.
A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants
by Jaed CoffinSix years ago at the age of twenty-one, Jaed Muncharoen Coffin, a half-Thai American man, left New England's privileged Middlebury College to be ordained as a Buddhist monk in his mother's native village of Panomsarakram--thus fulfilling a familial obligation. While addressing the notions of displacement, ethnic identity, and cultural belonging, A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants chronicles his time at the temple that rain season--receiving alms in the streets in saffron robes; bathing in the canals; learning to meditate in a mountaintop hut; and falling in love with Lek, a beautiful Thai woman who comes to represent the life he can have if he stays. Part armchair travel, part coming-of-age story, this debut work transcends the memoir genre and ushers in a brave new voice in American nonfiction.
A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants
by Jaed CoffinSix years ago at the age of twenty-one, Jaed Muncharoen Coffin, a half-Thai American man, left New England's privileged Middlebury College to be ordained as a Buddhist monk in his mother's native village of Panomsarakram--thus fulfilling a familial obligation. While addressing the notions of displacement, ethnic identity, and cultural belonging, A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants chronicles his time at the temple that rain season--receiving alms in the streets in saffron robes; bathing in the canals; learning to meditate in a mountaintop hut; and falling in love with Lek, a beautiful Thai woman who comes to represent the life he can have if he stays. Part armchair travel, part coming-of-age story, this debut work transcends the memoir genre and ushers in a brave new voice in American nonfiction.
Charles Darwin: Origins And Arguments (Pocket Essential Ser.)
by Bill PriceThe publication of The Origin of Species in 1859 was the culmination of more than twenty years of work by Charles Darwin and the ideas he presented in it would lead to a fundamental change in the way we think about life on earth. Evolution, as it came to be known, described how the extraordinary variety of life could develop and adapt by natural means rather than being entirely the creation of a supreme being. It was controversial at the time and now, as the bicentenary of Darwin's birth approaches in 2009, it remains the subject of bitter argument, with the opposing sides of the debate, the supporters of Darwinian evolution like Richard Dawkins and the proponents of intelligent design, as polarised as they have ever been. Bill Price looks at the origins of Darwin's theory and the arguments that have surrounded it ever since.
Charles Darwin: The Concise Story of an Extraordinary Man
by Tim M. BerraTwo hundred years after Charles Darwin's birth (February 12, 1809), this thoroughly illustrated, yet concise biography reveals the great scientist as husband, father, and friend. Tim M. Berra, whose "Darwin: The Man" lectures are in high demand worldwide, tells the fascinating story of the person and the idea that changed everything. Berra discusses Darwin’s revolutionary scientific work, its impact on modern-day biological science, and the influence of Darwin’s evolutionary theory on Western thought. But Berra digs deeper to reveal Darwin the man by combining anecdotes with carefully selected illustrations and photographs. This small gem of a book includes 20 color plates and 60 black-and-white illustrations, along with an annotated list of Darwin’s publications and a chronology of his life.
Charlotte Bronte: A Passionate Life (Andanzas Ser.)
by Lyndall GordonIn this groundbreaking and unconventional biography, Lyndall Gordon dismantles the insistent image of Charlotte Bronte as a modest Victorian lady, the slave to duty in the shadow of tombstones, revealing instead a strong and fiery woman who shaped her own life and transformed it into art. 'Sensitive, open-minded, vivid, full of psychological insight, [Gordon's] book is a brilliant reappraisal of Charlotte Bronte's life, work, and the flow between the two . . . It is also a deeply moving story' Jackie Wullschlager, Financial Times
Chasing Killers: Three Decades of Cracking Crime in the UK's Murder Capital
by Joe JacksonGlasgow is known as the murder capital of Britain and no one understands why better than Joe Jackson. For over 30 years, Jackson worked the crime beat, first as a uniformed cop then as a seasoned murder squad detective. In this hard-hitting memoir of his most memorable cases, he reveals the reality behind chasing killers and other crooks in 'No Mean City'.As a young cop, Jackson was threatened by Glasgow's most ruthless gangster, Arthur Thomson, and, as a fresh detective, he took part in the hunt for Bible John, Glasgow's most shadowy serial killer. He locked up more than his fair share of paedophiles and sex beasts along the way and, as a veteran Senior Investigating Officer, he cracked the hardest homicide nut there is: a murder without a body. Jackson's investigations have grabbed headlines, while his 'collars' have filled jails.Chasing Killers will shock readers with its behind-the-scenes look at how murder probes are run. Every case is related with candour and humour, and is laced with the kind of detail that only an expert can provide. Joe Jackson has been called the real-life Taggart, but this is no TV fantasy - this is real city police work: concrete hard, soot black and blood red.
Class, Power and the State in Capitalist Society: Essays on Ralph Miliband (PDF)
by Clyde W. Barrow Peter Burnham Paul WetherlyRalph Miliband was a leading contributor to the development of Marxist political theory in the late twentieth century, particularly on the state, democracy, class analysis and socialist politics. His writings remain highly influential in twenty-first century social and political theory. Class, Power and the State in Capitalist Society brings together, for the first time, a collection of essays to re-examine and evaluate the central themes in Miliband's work. The editors' introduction traces the development of Miliband's thought and identifies key themes and debates. The essays that follow deal with the New Left, Labourism, the potential for a new socialist organization, the 'instrumentalist' theory of the state, the debate with Poulantzas, the 'withering away' of the state, American exceptionalism, and policy making. The book finishes with a critical reflection on the issues raised in the collection.
The Classmates: Privilege, Chaos, and the End of an Era
by Geoffrey DouglasFifty years ago, in the fall of 1957, two thirteen-year-old boys were enrolled at an elite, boys-only New England boarding school. One of them, descended from wealth and eminence, would go on to Yale, then to a career as a navy officer and Vietnam war hero, and finally to the U.S. Senate, from where he would fall just short of the White House. The other was a scholarship student, a misfit giant of a boy from a Pennsylvania farm town who would suffer shameful debasements at the hands of his classmates, then go on to a solitary and largely anonymous life as a salesman of encyclopedias and trailer parts--before dying, alone, twelve months after his classmate's narrow loss on Election Day 2004. It is around these two figures, John Kerry and a boy known here only as Arthur, the bookends of a class of one hundred boys, that Geoffrey Douglas--himself a member of that boarding-school class--builds this remarkable memoir. His portrait of their lives and the lives of five others in that class--two more Vietnam veterans with vastly divergent stories, a federal judge, a gay New York artist who struggled for years to find his place in the world, and Douglas himself--offers a memorable look back to a generation caught between the expectations of their fathers and the sometimes terrifying pulls of a society driven by war, defiance, and self-doubt. The class of 1962 was not so different from any other, with its share of swaggerers and shining stars, outcasts and scholarship students. Its distinction was in its timing: at the precise threshold of the cultural and political upheavals of the late 1960s. The world these boys had been trained to enter and to lead, a world very similar to their fathers', would be exploded and recast almost at the moment of their entrance--forcing choices whose consequences were sometimes lifelong. Douglas's chronicle of those times and choices is both a capsule history of an era and a literary tour de force.
Cleopatra the Great: The woman behind the legend
by Joann FletcherCleopatra the Great tells the story of a turbulent time and the extraordinary woman at its centre. She was Greek by descent – the last, and greatest, Egyptian pharaoh. But our understanding of her has been obscured by Roman propaganda, Shakespearean tragedy and Hollywood, with little attempt to tell her true story – until now. In the first biography for over thirty years, Joann Fletcher draws on a wealth of overlooked detail and the latest research to reveal Cleopatra as she truly was, from her first meeting with Julius Caesar to her legendary death by snakebite.Bringing the ancient world to life, Cleopatra the Great is full of tantalising details about the Pharaoh’s infamous banquets, her massive library, her goddess outfits, beauty regimes and hairstyles. Joann Fletcher discovers the real woman behind the myth.
Cliff: An Intimate Portrait of a Living Legend
by Stafford Hildred Tim EwbankFifty years ago he was just the boy Harry Webb, performing in a local youth club. Now he is Sir Cliff Richard, the first rock star to be knighted, with a massive international fan base and a top ten hit in each of the last six decades. Yet, despite his huge public persona, the man himself remains a reserved and private figure.Unflinching in its portrayal of the man behind the musical icon, this revealing biography marks fifty years of music from the first British pop star. His fellow musicians, co-stars, directors and Cliff himself talk candidly about his musical ascendance, the women in his life, his religious beliefs and his lasting regret that he has never broken America.
Cochrane the Dauntless: The Life and Adventures of Thomas Cochrane, 1775-1860
by David CordinglyPatrick O'Brian, C.S. Forester and Captain Marryat all based their literary heroes on Thomas Cochrane, but Cochrane's exploits were far more daring and exciting than those of his fictional counterparts. He was a man of action, whose bold and impulsive nature meant he was often his own worst enemy. Writing with gripping narrative skill and drawing on his own travels and original research, Cordingly tells the rip-roaring story of a flawed Romantic hero who helped define his age.