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The Last British Bullfighter
by Frank EvansThe Last British Bullfighter tells the astonishing story of Frank Evans, the only recognised British matador. The son of a Salford butcher, Frank Evans' dream began after he'd saved enough money to attend a wedding in Spain. He was so entranced by life there that he remained, earning a living as a waiter before finally getting his first chance to enter the arena in 1966 as a rookie matador in the closed world of Franco's Spain. Frank went on to gain the widespread admiration of his fellow matadors, critics and audiences, who nicknamed him 'El Ingles'. After four decades of blood, guts, passion and artistry (not to mention foot-long welts and a perforated buttock), he was forced to retire in 2005 with a shot knee and a failing heart. But retirement didn't suit Evans, despite being a successful businessman away from the ring, and so after a quadruple bypass and reconstructive knee surgery, he again donned his cape at the age of 65 and, incredibly, stepped back into the ring. He has vowed to stay there until he can no longer lift the sword. Evans has lived a colourful life in and out of the arena. The Last British Bullfighter is a fascinating insight into the sport, with its ritual, drama, protocol and politics, but it is also the story of a likely lad from Salford who ran away to fulfil a dream - a dream he is still living four decades later.
The Last British Dambuster: One man's extraordinary life and the raid that changed history
by George Johnny MbeJohnny Johnson has been awarded an MBE for his remarkable services in World War II'I was anxious to fight. Hitler was the bastard who had started all this and he needed sorting out. We were under threat. Everything we stood for: our country, our families and our way of life was being attacked by this maniac. He could not be allowed to win. So for me and many, many others like me, there was no alternative. We were in a pickle and something had to be done.’Johnny Johnson is 95 years old and one of very few men who can recall first-hand the most daring and ingenious air raid of all time. He can also vividly remember his childhood spent working on a farm with his controlling father, the series of events that led him to the RAF and the rigorous training that followed. But it was his decision to join 617 Squadron, and the consequences, that have truly stayed etched in his mind. On 16 May 1943, Johnny, alongside 132 specially selected comrades, took off from Scampton airbase in Lincolnshire. For six weeks they had been trained to fulfil one mission that was near impossible: to destroy three dams deep within Germany’s Ruhr Valley. It was a daring task but, against the odds, Johnny and his crew survived. Sadly, 53 comrades did not.For the first time, Johnny relives every moment of that fatal night – and the devastating aftermath. He recalls with unique wit and insight the difficult training conducted in secrecy, the race against time to release the bombs, and the sheer strength and bravery shown by a small unit faced with great adversity and uncertainty. Embodying a whole squadron, and leaving a lasting legacy for generations to come, Johnny’s story is like no other.
Last Call at the Hotel Imperial: The Reporters Who Took On A World At War
by Deborah Cohen‘A fresh, fast-paced history … Riveting’ MAYA JASANOFF ‘The celebrated journalists of the lost generation were voracious, reckless, promiscuous, funny, and drunk, and they were also shrewd and deeply political … As intimate and gripping as a novel … I read it all at once. I couldn’t stop … Brilliant’ LARISSA MACFARQUHAR
The Last Cambridge Spy: John Cairncross, Bletchley Codebreaker and Soviet Double Agent
by Chris SmithJohn Cairncross was among the most damaging spies of the twentieth century. A member of the infamous Cambridge spy ring, he leaked highly sensitive documents from Bletchley Park, MI6 and the Treasury to the Soviet Union – including the first Atomic secrets and raw decrypts from Enigma and Tunny that influenced the outcome of the Battle of Kursk. Based on newly released archival materials, this biography will be the first to cover the life and espionage of this singularly important spy. In 2014 Cairncross appeared as a secondary, though key, character in the biopic of Alan Turing's life, The Imitation Game. The result was considerable negative reaction within the national press. Despite this clear interest, the function filled by Cairncross remains an untold story. Where all of the other members of the Cambridge spy ring have been the subject of extensive biographical study, Cairncross has largely been omitted by both academic and popular writers, and no biography has yet been penned of his life.
The Last Champion: The Life of Fred Perry
by Jon Henderson'The first clear-eyed account of an extraordinary life' Independent on SundayWimbledon champion three times in the 1930s, Fred Perry is the finest tennis player that Britain has ever produced. Less well known is that Perry came from an unprivileged background and found himself - despite his supreme talent - an outsider in a sport that looked down on the advancement of the under-classes.Not afraid to ruffle a few establishment feathers, Perry discarded his hallowed amateur status in 1936 and turned professional. He compounded this perceived sin by taking out US citizenship when the Second World War broke out. He embraced his new country wholeheartedly. From Hollywood to Florida, Perry led a scandalous private life, marrying four times and charming himself into the beds of numerous Hollywood starlets and beautiful models along the way.The Last Champion is the first biography of Fred Perry. Through extensive research and revealing interviews, Jon Henderson, tennis correspondent of the Observer, brilliantly tells the remarkable story of this remarkable man.Longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award.
Last Chance Texaco: Chronicles of a Troubadour
by Rickie Lee JonesThis troubadour life is only for the fiercest hearts, only for those vessels that can be broken to smithereens and still keep beating out the rhythm for a new song.Last Chance Texaco is the first-ever no-holds-barred account of the life of two-time Grammy Award-winner Rickie Lee Jones, in her own words. It is a tale of desperate chances and impossible triumphs, an adventure story of a girl whobeat the odds and grew up to become one of the most legendary artists of her time, turning adversity and hopelessness into timeless music.With candour and lyricism, the 'Duchess of Coolsville' (Time) takes us on a singular journey through her nomadicchildhood, to her years as a teenage runaway, through her legendary love affair with Tom Waits, and ultimately herlongevity as the hardest working woman in rock and roll. Rickie Lee's stories are rich with the infamous characters of her early songs - 'Chuck E's in Love,' 'Weasel and the White Boys Cool,' 'Danny's All-Star Joint' and 'Easy Money' - but long before her notoriety in show business, there was a vaudevillian cast of hitchhikers, bank robbers, jail breaks, drug mules, a pimp with a heart of gold, and tales of her fabled ancestors.In this electrifying and intimate memoir by one of the most remarkable, trailblazing and tenacious women in musicare never-before-told stories of the girl in the raspberry beret, a singer-songwriter whose music defied categorization and inspired pop culture for decades.
The Last Consolation Vanished: The Testimony of a Sonderkommando in Auschwitz
by Zalmen GradowskiA unique and haunting first-person Holocaust account by Zalmen Gradowski, a Sonderkommando prisoner killed in Auschwitz. On October 7, 1944, a group of Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz obtained explosives and rebelled against their Nazi murderers. It was a desperate uprising that was defeated by the end of the day. More than four hundred prisoners were killed. Filling a gap in history, The Last Consolation Vanished is the first complete English translation and critical edition of one prisoner’s powerful account of life and death in Auschwitz, written in Yiddish and buried in the ashes near Crematorium III. Zalmen Gradowski was in the Sonderkommando (special squad) at Auschwitz, a Jewish prisoner given the unthinkable task of ushering Jewish deportees into the gas chambers, removing their bodies, salvaging any valuables, transporting their corpses to the crematoria, and destroying all evidence of their murders. Sonderkommandos were forcibly recruited by SS soldiers; when they discovered the horror of their assignment, some of them committed suicide or tried to induce the SS to kill them. Despite their impossible situation, many Sonderkommandos chose to resist in two interlaced ways: planning an uprising and testifying. Gradowski did both, by helping to lead a rebellion and by documenting his experiences. Within 120 scrawled notebook pages, his accounts describe the process of the Holocaust, the relentless brutality of the Nazi regime, the assassination of Czech Jews, the relationships among the community of men forced to assist in this nightmare, and the unbearable separation and death of entire families, including his own. Amid daily unimaginable atrocities, he somehow wrote pages that were literary, sometimes even lyrical—hidden where and when one would least expect to find them. The October 7th rebellion was completely crushed and Gradowski was killed in the process, but his testimony lives on. His extraordinary and moving account, accompanied by a foreword and afterword by Philippe Mesnard and Arnold I. Davidson, is a voice speaking to us from the past on behalf of millions who were silenced. Their story must be shared.
The Last Consolation Vanished: The Testimony of a Sonderkommando in Auschwitz
by Zalmen GradowskiA unique and haunting first-person Holocaust account by Zalmen Gradowski, a Sonderkommando prisoner killed in Auschwitz. On October 7, 1944, a group of Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz obtained explosives and rebelled against their Nazi murderers. It was a desperate uprising that was defeated by the end of the day. More than four hundred prisoners were killed. Filling a gap in history, The Last Consolation Vanished is the first complete English translation and critical edition of one prisoner’s powerful account of life and death in Auschwitz, written in Yiddish and buried in the ashes near Crematorium III. Zalmen Gradowski was in the Sonderkommando (special squad) at Auschwitz, a Jewish prisoner given the unthinkable task of ushering Jewish deportees into the gas chambers, removing their bodies, salvaging any valuables, transporting their corpses to the crematoria, and destroying all evidence of their murders. Sonderkommandos were forcibly recruited by SS soldiers; when they discovered the horror of their assignment, some of them committed suicide or tried to induce the SS to kill them. Despite their impossible situation, many Sonderkommandos chose to resist in two interlaced ways: planning an uprising and testifying. Gradowski did both, by helping to lead a rebellion and by documenting his experiences. Within 120 scrawled notebook pages, his accounts describe the process of the Holocaust, the relentless brutality of the Nazi regime, the assassination of Czech Jews, the relationships among the community of men forced to assist in this nightmare, and the unbearable separation and death of entire families, including his own. Amid daily unimaginable atrocities, he somehow wrote pages that were literary, sometimes even lyrical—hidden where and when one would least expect to find them. The October 7th rebellion was completely crushed and Gradowski was killed in the process, but his testimony lives on. His extraordinary and moving account, accompanied by a foreword and afterword by Philippe Mesnard and Arnold I. Davidson, is a voice speaking to us from the past on behalf of millions who were silenced. Their story must be shared.
The Last Consolation Vanished: The Testimony of a Sonderkommando in Auschwitz
by Zalmen GradowskiA unique and haunting first-person Holocaust account by Zalmen Gradowski, a Sonderkommando prisoner killed in Auschwitz. On October 7, 1944, a group of Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz obtained explosives and rebelled against their Nazi murderers. It was a desperate uprising that was defeated by the end of the day. More than four hundred prisoners were killed. Filling a gap in history, The Last Consolation Vanished is the first complete English translation and critical edition of one prisoner’s powerful account of life and death in Auschwitz, written in Yiddish and buried in the ashes near Crematorium III. Zalmen Gradowski was in the Sonderkommando (special squad) at Auschwitz, a Jewish prisoner given the unthinkable task of ushering Jewish deportees into the gas chambers, removing their bodies, salvaging any valuables, transporting their corpses to the crematoria, and destroying all evidence of their murders. Sonderkommandos were forcibly recruited by SS soldiers; when they discovered the horror of their assignment, some of them committed suicide or tried to induce the SS to kill them. Despite their impossible situation, many Sonderkommandos chose to resist in two interlaced ways: planning an uprising and testifying. Gradowski did both, by helping to lead a rebellion and by documenting his experiences. Within 120 scrawled notebook pages, his accounts describe the process of the Holocaust, the relentless brutality of the Nazi regime, the assassination of Czech Jews, the relationships among the community of men forced to assist in this nightmare, and the unbearable separation and death of entire families, including his own. Amid daily unimaginable atrocities, he somehow wrote pages that were literary, sometimes even lyrical—hidden where and when one would least expect to find them. The October 7th rebellion was completely crushed and Gradowski was killed in the process, but his testimony lives on. His extraordinary and moving account, accompanied by a foreword and afterword by Philippe Mesnard and Arnold I. Davidson, is a voice speaking to us from the past on behalf of millions who were silenced. Their story must be shared.
The Last Consolation Vanished: The Testimony of a Sonderkommando in Auschwitz
by Zalmen GradowskiA unique and haunting first-person Holocaust account by Zalmen Gradowski, a Sonderkommando prisoner killed in Auschwitz. On October 7, 1944, a group of Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz obtained explosives and rebelled against their Nazi murderers. It was a desperate uprising that was defeated by the end of the day. More than four hundred prisoners were killed. Filling a gap in history, The Last Consolation Vanished is the first complete English translation and critical edition of one prisoner’s powerful account of life and death in Auschwitz, written in Yiddish and buried in the ashes near Crematorium III. Zalmen Gradowski was in the Sonderkommando (special squad) at Auschwitz, a Jewish prisoner given the unthinkable task of ushering Jewish deportees into the gas chambers, removing their bodies, salvaging any valuables, transporting their corpses to the crematoria, and destroying all evidence of their murders. Sonderkommandos were forcibly recruited by SS soldiers; when they discovered the horror of their assignment, some of them committed suicide or tried to induce the SS to kill them. Despite their impossible situation, many Sonderkommandos chose to resist in two interlaced ways: planning an uprising and testifying. Gradowski did both, by helping to lead a rebellion and by documenting his experiences. Within 120 scrawled notebook pages, his accounts describe the process of the Holocaust, the relentless brutality of the Nazi regime, the assassination of Czech Jews, the relationships among the community of men forced to assist in this nightmare, and the unbearable separation and death of entire families, including his own. Amid daily unimaginable atrocities, he somehow wrote pages that were literary, sometimes even lyrical—hidden where and when one would least expect to find them. The October 7th rebellion was completely crushed and Gradowski was killed in the process, but his testimony lives on. His extraordinary and moving account, accompanied by a foreword and afterword by Philippe Mesnard and Arnold I. Davidson, is a voice speaking to us from the past on behalf of millions who were silenced. Their story must be shared.
Last Dance: Behind the Scenes at the Final Four
by John FeinsteinExploring what it means to be a school, a coach, and a player in college basketball's Final Four, Feinstein exposes the driving forces behind one of the most revered events in American sports. Readers will also find dramatic stories from the officials and referees to the scouts and ticket-scalpers.
The Last Days: A memoir of faith, desire and freedom
by Ali MillarA Scotsman Book to Watch for 2022 It is 1982 and in the Kingdom Hall we are Jehovah's Witnesses. The state of the world shows us the end is close, and Satan is like a roaring lion, seeking to devour us. Ali Millar is waiting for Armageddon. Born into the Jehovah's Witnesses in a town in the Scottish Borders, her childhood revolves around regular meetings in the Kingdom Hall, where she is haunted by vivid images of the Second Coming, her mind populated by the bodies that will litter the earth upon Jehovah's return. In this frightening, cloistered world Ali grows older. As she does, she starts to question the ways of the Witnesses, and their control over the most intimate aspects of her life. As she marries and has a daughter within the religion, she finds herself pulled deeper and deeper into its dark undertow, her mind tormented by one question: is it possible to escape the life you are born into? A tale of love and darkness, of faith and absolution, The Last Days is an unforgettable memoir of one woman's courageous journey to freedom.
The Last Days
by Laurent Seksik"He looked long and deep into her eyes. "I'll go first," he said. "You'll follow me... if that's what you want." On the 22nd February 1942 Stefan Zweig, one of the most popular authors of his generation, committed suicide with his wife Lotte. The final, desperate gesture of this great writer has fascinated ever since. Zweig was an exile, driven from his home in Austria by the Nazis. Fleeing first to London, then New York, trying always to escape both those who demonised him and those who acclaimed him, he eventually took his young bride to Brazil, where they were haunted by the life they'd been forced to abandon and by accounts of the violence in Europe.. Blending reality and fiction this novel tells the story of the great writer's final months. Laurent Seksik uncovers the man's hidden passions, his private suffering, and how he and his wife came to end their lives one peaceful February afternoon."A novel of a staggering beauty. We see into the inconsolable soul of the great humanist, become a pariah."-- Le Nouvel Observateur"A marvel, which will enchant all lovers of Zweig."-- Le Figaro;This tragedy-Racine transplanted to the twentieth century-is told with talent by Laurent Seksik. -- Livres Hebdo"Laurent Seksik recounts this tragedy with a stunning gentleness" Le PointLaurent Seksik trained as a doctor, was a radiologist in a Paris hospital and continues to practise medicine alongside his work as a writer. Before The Last Days (2010) he published Les Mauvaises Pensées (1999, translated into ten languages), La Folle Histoire (2004, awarded the Littré Prize) and several other books, including a biography of Albert Einstein. The Last Days was a bestseller in France and has been translated into ten languages. The novel has been adapted for the stage into a very successful play, and a film version is currently in production. Seksik lives and works in Paris.
Last Days in Babylon: The Story of the Jews of Baghdad
by Marina BenjaminMarina Benjamin grew up in London, feeling estranged from her family's Middle Eastern ways, refusing to speak Arabic or eat their food. But when Benjamin had her own child a few years ago, she realised that she was losing her link to the past, inspiring a journey to Baghdad and into her family's history. Her discoveries will haunt anyone who seeks to understand a country whose ongoing struggles continue to command the world's attention. By turns moving and funny, Last Days in Babylon is an adventure story, a riveting history and a timely reminder that behind today's headlines are real people whose lives are caught in the crossfire of misunderstanding, prejudice and ambition.
Last Days in Old Europe: Trieste ’79, Vienna ’85, Prague ’89
by Richard BassettThe final decade of the Cold War, through the eyes of a laconic and elegant observerIn 1979 Richard Bassett set out on a series of adventures and encounters in central Europe which allowed him to savour the last embers of the cosmopolitan old Hapsburg lands and gave him a ringside seat at the fall of another ancien regime, that of communist rule. From Trieste to Prague and Vienna to Warsaw, fading aristocrats, charming gangsters, fractious diplomats and glamorous informants provided him with an unexpected counterpoint to the austerities of life along the Iron Curtain, first as a professional musician and then as a foreign correspondent.The book shows us familiar events and places from unusual vantage points: dilapidated mansions and boarding-houses, train carriages and cafes, where the game of espionage between east and west is often set. There are unexpected encounters with Shirley Temple, Fitzroy Maclean, Lech Walesa and the last Empress of Austria. Bassett finds himself at the funeral of King Nicola of Montenegro in Cetinje, plays bridge with the last man alive to have been decorated by the Austrian Emperor Franz-Josef and watches the KGB representative in Prague bestowing the last rites on the Soviet empire in Europe.Music and painting, architecture and landscape, food and wine, friendship and history run through the book. The author is lucky, observant and leans romantically towards the values of an older age. He brilliantly conjures the time, the people he meets, and Mitteleuropa in one of the pivotal decades of its history.
The Last Days of Hitler
by Hugh Trevor-RoperLate in 1945, Trevor-Roper was appointed by British Intelligence in Germany to investigate conflicting evidence surrounding Hitler's final days and to produce a definitive report on his death. The author, who had access to American counterintelligence files and to German prisoners, focuses on the last ten days of Hitler's life, April 20-29, 1945, in the underground bunker in Berlin—a bizarre and gripping episode punctuated by power play and competition among Hitler's potential successors. "From exhaustive research [Trevor-Roper] has put together a carefully documented, irrefutable, and unforgettable reconstruction of the last days in April, 1945."—New Republic "A book sound in its scholarship, brilliant in its presentation, a delight for historians and laymen alike."—A. J. P. Taylor, New Statesman
The Last Days of John Lennon
by James PattersonThe greatest true-crime story in music history.A GLOBAL SUPERSTARIn the summer of 1980, ten years after the break-up of the Beatles, John Lennon signed with a new label, ready to record new music for the first time in years. Everyone was awestruck when Lennon dashed off '(Just Like) Starting Over'. Lennon was back in peak form, with his best songwriting since 'Imagine'.A DANGEROUSLY OBSESSED FANIn the years after Lennon left the Beatles, becoming a solo artist and making a life with Yoko Ono in New York City, Mark David Chapman had become fixated on murdering his former hero. He was convinced that Lennon had squandered his talent and betrayed his fans. In December 1980, Chapman boarded a flight from Hawaii to New York with a handgun stowed in his luggage. He was never going home again. A MURDER THAT STUNNED THE WORLDEnriched by exclusive interviews with Lennon's friends and associates, including Paul McCartney, The Last Days of John Lennon is a true-crime drama about two men who changed history. One whose indelible songs enliven our world to this day, and the other who ended the music with five pulls of a trigger.
The Last Days of Richard III and the fate of his DNA: The Book That Inspired The Dig
by John Ashdown-HillThe Last Days of Richard III contains a new and uniquely detailed exploration of Richard’s last 150 days. By deliberately avoiding the hindsight knowledge that he will lose the Battle of Bosworth Field, we discover a new Richard: no passive victim, awaiting defeat and death, but a king actively pursuing his own agenda. It also re-examines the aftermath of Bosworth: the treatment of Richard’s body; his burial; and the construction of his tomb. And there is the fascinating story of why, and how, Richard III’s family tree was traced until a relative was found, alive and well, in Canada. Now, with the discovery of Richard’s skeleton at the Greyfrairs Priory in Leicester, England, John Ashdown-Hill explains how his book inspired the dig and completes Richard III’s fascinating story, giving details of how Richard died, and how the DNA link to a living relative of the king allowed the royal body to be identified.
The Last Days of Roger Federer: And Other Endings
by Geoff Dyer'Quite possibly the best living writer in Britain' Daily Telegraph Much attention has been paid to so-called late style – but what about last style? When does last begin? How early is late? When does the end set in? In this endlessly stimulating investigation, Geoff Dyer sets his own encounter with late middle age against the last days and last achievements of writers, painters, athletes and musicians who’ve mattered to him throughout his life. With a playful charm and penetrating intelligence, he examines Friedrich Nietzsche’s breakdown in Turin, Bob Dylan’s reinventions of old songs, J.M.W. Turner’s paintings of abstracted light, John Coltrane’s cosmic melodies, Jean Rhys’s return from the dead (while still alive) and Beethoven’s final quartets – and considers the intensifications and modifications of experience that come when an ending is within sight. Oh, and there’s stuff about Roger Federer and tennis too. This book on last things – written while life as we know it seemed to be coming to an end – is also about how to go on living with art and beauty, on the entrancing effect and sudden illumination that an Art Pepper solo or an Annie Dillard reflection can engender in even the most jaded sensibilities. Blending criticism, memoir and repartee into something entirely new, The Last Days of Roger Federer is a summation of Dyer’s passions and the perfect introduction to his sly and joyous work.
The Last Days of Stalin
by Joshua RubensteinJoshua Rubenstein’s riveting account takes us back to the second half of 1952 when no one could foresee an end to Joseph Stalin’s murderous regime. He was poised to challenge the newly elected U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower with armed force, and was also broadening a vicious campaign against Soviet Jews. Stalin’s sudden collapse and death in March 1953 was as dramatic and mysterious as his life. It is no overstatement to say that his passing marked a major turning point in the twentieth century. The Last Days of Stalin is an engaging, briskly told account of the dictator’s final active months, the vigil at his deathbed, and the unfolding of Soviet and international events in the months after his death. Rubenstein throws fresh light onthe devious plotting of Beria, Malenkov, Khrushchev, and other “comrades in arms” who well understood the significance of the dictator’s impending death;the witness-documented events of his death as compared to official published versions;Stalin’s rumored plans to forcibly exile Soviet Jews;the responses of Eisenhower and Secretary of State Dulles to the Kremlin’s conciliatory gestures after Stalin’s death; andthe momentous repercussions when Stalin’s regime of terror was cut short.
Last Days of the Bus Club: From the author of Driving Over Lemons
by Chris StewartIt's two decades since Chris Stewart moved to his farm on the wrong side of a river in the mountains of southern Spain and his daughter Chloe is preparing to fly the nest for university. In this latest, typically hilarious dispatch from El Valero, we find Chris, now something of a local literary celebrity, using that fame to help out his old sheep-shearing partner; cooking a TV lunch for visiting British chef, Rick Stein; and discovering the pitfalls of Spanish public speaking. Yet it's at El Valero, his beloved sheep farm, that Chris is most in his element as he, his wife Ana and their assorted dogs, cats and sheep weather a near calamitous flood and emerge as newly certified organic farmers. His cash crop? The lemons and oranges he once so blithely drove over, of course.
The Last Diaries: In and Out of the Wilderness
by Alan Clark'With his Diaries, he has written himself into the life of our times with a panache and candour that ranks him next to Boswell or Pepys' The TimesThe first two volumes of Alan Clark's were irresistible, irreverent, infamous, outrageous. This last volume is a fitting finale to the work of a man who has been described as 'the best diarist of his century'. The third volume begins in 1991 with Alan Clark contemplating quitting as an MP. Life at Saltwood Castle, his home, hangs heavy; then comes the Scott inquiry and the Matrix Churchill affair. Publication of the first volume of the Diaries leads 'the coven', a family of former girlfriends, to sell their story to the NEWS OF THE WORLD. This volume follows his attempts to return to Westminster, an affair that threatens his marriage, and closes with the tragedy of his final months when he is diagnosed with a brain tumour, but keeps his diary until he can no longer focus on the page.
The Last Dress from Paris: The glamorous, romantic dual-timeline read of summer 2022
by Jade BeerThe glamorous, romantic must-read novel of the summer - escape to Paris with this delicious story of fashion, secrets and forbidden love 'Transporting, dreamy and aspirational . . . an absolute must-read' ADELE PARKS***Each Dior dress tells a story...London, 2017. When her beloved grandmother, Sylvie, sends her to Paris to retrieve a dress she wore decades before, Lucille sees the perfect opportunity to briefly escape the pressures of her own life. But not everything is as it seems, and the long-buried secrets she discovers, hidden in a collection of priceless Dior gowns, could change everything.Paris, 1952. Postwar France is full of glamour and privilege, and Alice Ainsley is in the middle of it all. As the wife to the British ambassador to France, her life is a whirlwind of jewels, banquets and couture dresses, but beneath the glittering facade, Alice is suffocating in a loveless marriage. So when a new face appears in her drawing room, Alice finds herself yearning to follow her heart . . . no matter the consequences.Deliciously evocative and achingly romantic, sweeping from 50s Paris to the V&A museum in London, The Last Dress from Paris is the perfect read for fans of Natasha Lester, Fiona Valpy and Gill Paul***Your favourite authors love The Last Dress from Paris:'A delightful fashion treasure hunt involving some of my favorite Dior gowns made this book a winner for me! The present day and 1950s narratives weave seamlessly together, the dresses dance from the pages, and Paris is resplendently depicted'Natasha Lester, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Secret'A whirlwind tour through Paris, both past and present, the novel is a rich exploration of the power of female friendships and the true meaning of family. Moving and utterly enjoyable'Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Lions of Fifth Avenue'An absolute delight! The Last Dress from Paris is as original, elegant, and romantic as the Dior dresses the novel's mystery is woven around'Hazel Gaynor'As beautifully stitched together as a couture gown, Jade Beer's book entrances with its themes of family and female friendships. I loved it'Jessica Fellowes
The Last Empress: Madame Chiang Kai-Shek and the Birth of Modern China
by Hannah PakulaEntertaining and masterly biography of Madame Chiang Kai-shek - the woman who built modern China.THE LAST EMPRESS revolves around a fascinating, manipulative woman and her family who were largely responsible for dragging China into the modern world. Soong May-ling, or Madame Chiang as she was known, is uniquely positioned at the heart of this story. As her husband came to represent the hopes of the West in the East, she acted as his adviser, English translator, secretary, and most loyal champion, finding herself on the world stage with Franklin D Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. A savvy politician, she remained a popular if controversial figure both at home and abroad.Hannah Pakula brilliantly narrates the life of this extraordinary woman - how she charmed the United States out of billions of dollars while remaining dedicated to her China, and how she managed to influence if not change the history of the twentieth century.
The Last Enemy: The Centenary Collection (The Centenary Collection)
by Richard HillaryIn 1918, the RAF was established as the world's first independent air force. To mark the 100th anniversary of its creation, Penguin are publishing the Centenary Collection, a series of six classic books highlighting the skill, heroism and esprit de corps that have characterised the Royal Air Force throughout its first century.The Last Enemy is Richard Hillary's extraordinary account of his experience as a Spitfire pilot in the Second World War. Hillary was shot down during the Battle of Britain, leading to months in hospital as part of Archibald McIndoe's 'Guinea Pig Club', undergoing pioneering plastic surgery to rebuild his face and hands. The Last Enemy was first published in 1942, just seven months before Hilary's untimely death in a second crash and has gone on to be hailed as one of the classic texts of World War II.