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Back on Top: Confessions of a High-Class Escort - from the author of the bestselling HOOKED
by Samantha XHigh-profile escort, journalist, author, mum and sex-industry pioneer. A woman who prides herself on staying true and being empowered - even mentoring other women - yet who, when it comes to her own life, had become a dishevelled bloody mess. We left Samantha X confused at the end of HOOKED - should she stay escorting or hang up her high heels? In this fascinating, compelling sequel we see Samantha grow in to her new role as boss of her escort agency Samantha X Angels, how she deals with the girls, falling in love with Mr Big (while still managing to sneak in a few clients) ... and much, much more!BACK ON TOP is fast-paced and occasionally outrageous, told with the flair readers loved in HOOKED. Samantha X does not hold back when it comes men, love, sex - and getting herself back on top.
Back on Track: How one man and his dogs are changing the lives of rural kids
by James Knight Bernie ShakeshaftAs a kid, Bernie Shakeshaft's mischievous and reckless behaviour led him to became known as the wild one of his devout Catholic family. It isn't surprising that his path led him to the Northern Territory, a place where people often go to either lose themselves or find themselves. Bernie, a searcher for his purpose in life, found himself.He had many jobs, firstly as a ringer on a cattle station owned by the Packer family, and later as a dingo trapper for the Parks and Wildlife Service. Throughout it all, he drank, he swore, he fought, and took chances with his own well-being. But, crucially, he also developed deep connections with the Indigenous people, and it was these connections that helped lay the foundations for what was to come. He worked for youth welfare organisations, and all the while he built up his knowledge about helping wayward youths, particularly those from Indigenous communities.Years later, Bernie was living in Armidale. He'd been visiting too many kids in prison and going to too many funerals. The usual methods weren't working so that reckless, mischievous kid inside him decided he could do better. He started a youth program called BackTrack, with three aims: To keep them alive, out of jail and chasing their hopes and dreams. For most, this was their last chance. Combining life skills, education, job preparedness with rural work, Bernie threw in one other factor: dogs! And it works. With the help of these working dogs, the lost boys (and girls) find their way back on track. These days, Backtrack youth tour the country competing in dog-jumping trials. Bernie and the BackTrack team are now supporting other communities in Lake Cargelligo, Broken Hill, Dubbo and Grafton and have forged a new beginning for over 1000 young people. This one man is making a huge difference.In Back on Track, bestselling author James Knight tells Bernie's story and the stories of those whose lives he has saved. It is a powerful reminder that we should never give up on our kids.'This fella Bernie, he's a good fella, a bit of a genius really. What a great story.' - Russell Crowe
Back to the Boy
by James Arthur'The thought behind this book is not just me wanting to tell my story in the standard autobiographical fashion but to create a kind of self-help book that includes my story. There are many things people don't know about me and maybe when they read about those things they will have an understanding of the journey I have been on, why I've made the mistakes I have and hopefully help other people overcome their adversities.'Life has presented its fair share of setbacks for James Arthur, from his disrupted childhood - during which he felt like a stray and a misfit, entering the care system in his teens - to a very public fall from favour just at the point when all his dreams should have been coming true. With an extraordinary comeback in 2016, starting with No. 1 single 'Say You Won't Let Go' and his Platinum album Back From The Edge, Back To The Boy shows the British singer and songwriter reflecting not only on his past but also on his return to the charts, and the phenomenal global success that followed. James shares his struggles with mental health issues which led to drug abuse, and how he dealt with the feelings of intense pressure and loneliness that accompanied his sudden rise to fame. Back to the Boy gives an insight into the life of one of the most exciting musicians of today, and how his experiences are reflected in the raw emotion and passion in his music. This is a story of hope and self-discovery to inspire those who have ever hit rock-bottom and managed to pick themselves up again.
The Back-Up Plan
by Alice Judge-TalbotAt 27 years old, I found myself with a broken down marriage and two children under two to raise on my own. I had no other option than to survive. Nah, scratch that, I needed to thrive. But where would I begin? I wasn't sure if I knew how to live alone, let alone how to boss it solo with a couple of kids in tow. It's been a hell of a journey signposted with dating fails, money worries and ex-husband woes, but when was a Back-up Plan ever straightforward? This book is the one I needed to read in the lonely 3am darkness of an unfixable marriage, lying next to a man I was sure I didn't want to be tied to anymore but whom I was too scared to leave. This book is the one I needed to read when I picked up my first packet of anti-depressants and read Elizabeth Wurtzel's Prozac Nation to feel off-the-cuff and cool (but just felt more depressed). This book is the one I needed to read in the infinitely long days that stretched ahead of me alone with two infants, minimal sleep and no hope. This book is the one I needed to read when shamefully I carted my two toddlers to Boots to pick up my very first Morning After Pill after my very first One Night Stand. This book is the I needed to read when my world was about to fall apart.
Backable: The surprising truth behind what makes people take a chance on you
by Suneel Gupta Carlye AdlerA groundbreaking book that boldly claims the key to success in business is not talent, connections, or ideas, but the ability to persuade people to take a chance on potential. 'The most successful people aren't just brilliant - they're backable' DAN PINK, bestselling author of Drive'Whether you want to get ahead inside a company or build a startup from the ground up, this fascinating book is a must-read.' REID HOFFMAN, co-founder of LinkedInNo one makes it alone. But there's a reason why some people can get investors or bosses to believe in them while others cannot. And that reason has little to do with experience, pedigree or a polished business plan. Backable people seem to have a hidden quality that inspires others to take action. We often chalk this up to natural talent or charisma . . . either you have 'it' or you don't. After getting rejected by every investor he pitched, Suneel Gupta had a burning question: could 'it' be learned? Drawing lessons from hundreds of the world's biggest thinkers, Suneel discovered how to pitch new ideas in a way that has raised millions of dollars, influenced large-scale change inside massive corporations, and even convinced his 8-year-old daughter to clean her room.Inside the book are long-held secrets from producers of Oscar-winning films, members of Congress, military leaders, culinary stars, venture capitalists, founders of unicorn-status startups, and executives at iconic companies like Lego, Method and Pixar. Suneel used these invaluable lessons to become the New York Stock Exchange's 'New Face of Innovation'. Backable reveals how the key to success is not charisma, connections, or even your CV, but rather your ability to persuade others to take a chance on you. This groundbreaking book will show you how.
Backcloth: A Memoir
by Dirk BogardeFirst published in 1986, Backcloth is volume four of Dirk Bogarde's best-selling memoirsFilling the gaps left between his previous memoirs, as well as highlighting new episodes, Backcloth explores the patterns of pleasure and pain that have made up Bogarde's extraordinary life. Based on personal letters, notebooks and diaries and covering many aspects of a celebrated life, we share experiences from his family home in Hampstead through to his farmhouse retreat in Provence. This memoir highlights the people, emotions and experiences that made him into the man loved by so many. Written with all the honesty, wit and intelligence that made Bogarde such a popular writer, Backcloth is both eloquent and touching.
Backing into Forward: A Memoir
by Jules FeifferSubversive, funny, and effortlessly droll, Jules Feiffer’s cartoons were all over New York in the 1960s and ’70s—featured in the Village Voice, but also cut out and pinned to bulletin boards in offices and on refrigerators at home. Feiffer describes himself as “lucking into the zeitgeist,” and there’s some truth to the sentiment; Feiffer’s brand of satire reflected Americans’ ambivalence about the Vietnam War, changing social mores, and much more. Feiffer’s memoir, Backing into Forward, like his cartoons, is sharply perceptive with a distinctive bite of mordant humor. Beginning with his childhood in Brooklyn, Feiffer paints a picture of a troubled kid with an overbearing mother and a host of crippling anxieties. From there, he discusses his apprenticeship with his hero, Will Eisner, and his time serving in the military during the Korean War, which saw him both feigning a breakdown and penning a cartoon narrative called “Munro” that solidified his distinctive aesthetic as an artist. While Feiffer’s voice grounds the book, the sheer scope of his artistic accomplishment, from his cartoons turning up in the New Yorker, Playboy, and the Nation to his plays and film scripts, is remarkable and keeps the narrative bouncing along at a speedy clip. A compelling combination of a natural sense of humor and a ruthless dedication to authenticity, Backing into Forward is full of wit and verve, often moving but never sentimental. “Jules Feiffer’s original and neurotic voice. . . . reinvented comics in the 1950s and made possible what’s now called the ‘graphic novel.’ His engaging new memoir is told in that same witty and perceptive New York cadence, mellowed and laced with wisdom. He’s an inspiration.”—Art Spiegelman
Backing into the Spotlight: A Memoir
by Michael Whitehall'Backing into the Spotlight is a hilarious and an unashamedly non-PC memoir . . . Now in his eighth decade, Whitehall is a fine raconteur, gloriously unreconstructed and still deeply suspicious of modernity' Daily MailStanding in front of a full-length mirror in my dressing room at ITV studios, waiting to go on to the set of Backchat, I had a brief conversation with my reflection.'Michael, what the f*** do you think you're doing?'Theatrical agent Michael Whitehall spent a career pushing others into the spotlight. He had been involved behind the scenes with the careers of many prominent actors, including Colin Firth, Richard Griffiths, Daniel Day-Lewis, Tom Courtenay, Ian Ogilvy, Judi Dench, Edward Fox, Michael Fassbender, Angela Thorne and Nigel Havers.But then, much to his surprise, his son Jack becomes a successful comedian and actor and decides that his new comedy partner should be his father. Whitehall Snr. finds himself reluctantly appearing on stage and then television, cast as the archetypal grumpy old man and thrust, in his early seventies, into a whole new career in front of the camera. Minor fame comes at a sedate pace: one of the highlights being a record £300,000 win for charity with Jack on Channel 4's The Million Pound Drop.In this enchanting memoir Whitehall looks back on his life, from growing up in suburban London in the 1940s and '50s with his saintly father and social climbing-mother, who coined the phrase 'à la carte' to describe people who were posher than she was and whose company she craved, to falling into a career as a successful theatrical agent and producer. As he says, 'Actors can be egotistical, greedy and vain, but they're not half as bad as agents and producers.'Charming, gossipy and above all very funny, Backing Into The Spotlight is no ordinary show business memoir.
Backstabbing for Beginners: My Crash Course in International Diplomacy
by Michael SoussanSoon to be a major motion picture starring Ben Kingsley and Theo James, the gripping true story of a young program coordinator at the United Nations who stumbles upon a conspiracy involving Iraq's oil reserves."What made this episode in our collective history possible was not so much the lies we told one another, but the lies we told ourselves."A recent Brown University graduate, Michael Soussan was elated when he landed a position as a program coordinator for the United Nations' Iraq Program. Little did he know that he would end up a whistleblower in what PBS NewsHour described as the "largest financial scandal in UN history."Breaking a conspiracy of silence that had prevailed for years, Soussan sparked an unprecedented corruption probe into the Oil-for-Food program that exposed a worldwide system of bribes, kickbacks, and blackmail involving ruthless power-players from around the globe.At the crossroads of pressing humanitarian concerns, crisis diplomacy, and multibillion-dollar business interests, Soussan's story highlights core flaws of our international system and exposes the frightening, corrupting power of the black elixir that fuels our world's economy.
Backstabbing for Beginners: My Crash Course in International Diplomacy
by Michael SoussanSoon to be a major motion picture starring Ben Kingsley and Theo James, the gripping true story of a young program coordinator at the United Nations who stumbles upon a conspiracy involving Iraq's oil reserves. "What made this episode in our collective history possible was not so much the lies we told one another, but the lies we told ourselves." A recent Brown University graduate, Michael Soussan was elated when he landed a position as a program coordinator for the United Nations' Iraq Program. Little did he know that he would end up a whistleblower in what PBS NewsHour described as the "largest financial scandal in UN history." Breaking a conspiracy of silence that had prevailed for years, Soussan sparked an unprecedented corruption probe into the Oil-for-Food program that exposed a worldwide system of bribes, kickbacks, and blackmail involving ruthless power-players from around the globe. At the crossroads of pressing humanitarian concerns, crisis diplomacy, and multibillion-dollar business interests, Soussan's story highlights core flaws of our international system and exposes the frightening, corrupting power of the black elixir that fuels our world's economy.
Backstage Stories
by Barbara BakerGaining a view behind the scenes into the jobs and personalities of people who work in the theatre is a privilege afforded to few. This book grants that privilege to all its readers. Twenty-one highly respected backstage professionals are interviewed, from artistic director to wig maker, working in all kinds of theatres in Britain and the United States. Their stories inform and entertain as they describe what they do and how they got to do it. Their anecdotes and observations intrigue and amuse as they reminisce about working with people such as Alan Bennett, Judi Dench, Placido Domingo, Ian McKellen and Andrew Lloyd Webber, to name just a few. Whether you enjoy watching theatrical performances and want to know more about them, or you would like to work in the theatre, Backstage Stories is the book for you.
Backstage Stories
by Barbara BakerGaining a view behind the scenes into the jobs and personalities of people who work in the theatre is a privilege afforded to few. This book grants that privilege to all its readers. Twenty-one highly respected backstage professionals are interviewed, from artistic director to wig maker, working in all kinds of theatres in Britain and the United States. Their stories inform and entertain as they describe what they do and how they got to do it. Their anecdotes and observations intrigue and amuse as they reminisce about working with people such as Alan Bennett, Judi Dench, Placido Domingo, Ian McKellen and Andrew Lloyd Webber, to name just a few. Whether you enjoy watching theatrical performances and want to know more about them, or you would like to work in the theatre, Backstage Stories is the book for you.
Backstairs Billy: The Life of William Tallon, the Queen Mother's Most Devoted Servant
by Tom Quinn"William Tallon was a creature of extremes: though intensely loyal, he was also a dangerous risk-taker; though charming, he could also be vicious; though considerate and amusing, he could be ruthless and predatory. For much of his life he was driven by two demons: a powerful sex drive and an intense, almost pathological love for the Queen Mother…”From humble beginnings as a shopkeeper’s son in Coventry to ‘Page of the Backstairs’ at Clarence House, William Tallon, or ‘Backstairs Billy’ as he came to be known, entered royal service at the age of fifteen. Over the next fifty years, he became one of the most notorious and flamboyant characters ever to have graced the royal household - the one servant the Queen Mother just could not do without. While others came and went, he remained by her side, becoming one of her most trusted friends and confidants.The fascinating life story of the man who spent more than half a century working for one of the world’s most elusive institutions, Backstairs Billy provides a rare glimpse of what the royals really get up to behind closed doors…
The Backwoods Boy Or The Boyhood and Manhood of Abraham Lincoln (Classics To Go)
by Jr. AlgerAmong our public men there is not one whose life can be studied with more interest and profit by American youth than that of Abraham Lincoln. It is not alone that, born in an humble cabin, he reached the highest position accessible to an American, but especially because in every position which he was called upon to fill, he did his duty as he understood it, and freely sacrificed personal ease and comfort in the service of the humblest. This is the story of Lincoln’s boyhood and manhood.
The Backyard Parables: Lessons on Gardening, and Life
by Margaret RoachMargaret Roach has been harvesting thirty years of backyard parables-deceptively simple, instructive stories from a life spent digging ever deeper-and has distilled them in this memoir along with her best tips for garden making, discouraging all manner of animal and insect opponents, at-home pickling, and more.After ruminating on the bigger picture in her memoir And I Shall Have Some Peace There, Margaret Roach has returned to the garden, insisting as ever that we must garden with both our head and heart, or as she expresses it, with "horticultural how-to and woo-woo." In THE BACKYARD PARABLES, Roach uses her fundamental understanding of the natural world, philosophy, and life to explore the ways that gardening saved and instructed her, and meditates on the science and spirituality of nature, reminding her readers and herself to keep on digging.
The Bad Beekeepers Club: How I stumbled into the Curious World of Bees - and became (perhaps) a Better Person
by Bill TurnbullHello. My name is Bill and I'm a bad beekeeper. A really bad beekeeper.' So begins Bill Turnbull's charming and often hilarious account of how he stumbled into the world of beekeeping (sometimes literally). Despite many setbacks - including being stung (twice) on his first day of training - beekeeping somehow taught Bill a great deal about himself, and the world around him. The Bad Beekeeper's Club also highlights the very real threats to Britain's bee population. One in every three tablespoons of food derives directly from the pollinating process of the humble bumble bee. But hives are collapsing at an accelerating rate with significant environmental consequences. Fascinating and extremely funny, The Bad Beekeeper's Club is a universally appealing story about a very singular passion.
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup: The Story of Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos Scandal
by John CarreyrouNow with a new afterword covering the months-long landmark trials of Theranos founders Elizabeth Holmes and Sunny Balwani.‘I couldn’t put down this thriller’ – Bill GatesWinner of the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award.The shocking true story of the breathtaking rise and collapse of Theranos, the multibillion-dollar biotech startup founded by Elizabeth Holmes, written by the prize-winning journalist who first broke the story and pursued it to the end.Seen as the female Steve Jobs, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was a brilliant Stanford dropout whose startup ‘unicorn’ promised to revolutionize the medical industry with a machine that would make blood testing significantly faster and easier. Backed by wealthy investors, Theranos sold shares that valued the company at more than $9 billion.There was just one problem: the technology didn’t work . . .Despite threats of legal action, brave whistleblowers started to talk. They revealed a culture of intimidation and secrecy, technology that repeatedly failed, results sent to real patients that were incorrect but upon which life-changing medical decisions were being made, with devastating consequences.The riveting story behind The Dropout, in Bad Blood, John Carreyrou investigates the biggest corporate fraud since Enron, a tale of ambition and scandal set amid the bold promises of Silicon Valley.'A tale of corporate fraud and legal browbeating that reads like a crime thriller' - The 10 Best Nonfiction Books, TIME
Bad Blood: A Memoir (text Only) (Perennial Non-fiction Promotion Ser. #Vol. 9)
by Lorna SageFrom a childhood of gothic proportions in a vicarage on the Welsh borders, through adolescence, leaving herself teetering on the brink of the 1960's, Lorna Sage vividly and wittily brings to life a vanished time and place and illuminates the lives of three generations of women.
Bad Blood
by Julie ShawIt’s 1971 and seventeen-year-old Christine is about to give birth to her son. When her family throw her out, Christine has the biggest fight of her life to bring up her son safe on the infamous Canterbury Estate in Bradford, rife with crime, alcohol and drugs, a place where family is everything and nothing.
Bad Blood: The Secret Life of the Tour de France
by Jeremy WhittleEven the biggest cycling fan can one day wake up to find that he has lost his faith Bad Blood is the story of Jeremy Whittle's journey from unquestioning fan to Tour de France insider and confirmed sceptic. It's about broken friendships and a sport divided; about having to choose sides in the war against doping; about how galloping greed and corporate opportunism have led the Tour de France to the brink of destruction.Part personal memoir, part devastating exposé of a sport torn apart by drugs and scandal, Bad Blood is a love letter to one man's past, and a warning to cycling's future.‘Whatever you think about doping, you must read this book ... Well-balanced, considered, compelling’ RouleurShortlisted for the 2008 William Hill Sports Book of the Year
Bad Blood: Part 1 of 3
by Julie ShawIt’s 1971 and seventeen-year-old Christine is about to give birth to her son. When her family throw her out, Christine has the biggest fight of her life to bring up her son safe on the infamous Canterbury Estate in Bradford, rife with crime, alcohol and drugs, a place where family is everything and nothing.
Bad Blood: Part 2 of 3
by Julie ShawIt’s 1971 and seventeen-year-old Christine is about to give birth to her son. When her family throw her out, Christine has the biggest fight of her life to bring up her son safe on the infamous Canterbury Estate in Bradford, rife with crime, alcohol and drugs, a place where family is everything and nothing.
Bad Blood: Part 3 of 3
by Julie ShawIt’s 1971 and seventeen-year-old Christine is about to give birth to her son. When her family throw her out, Christine has the biggest fight of her life to bring up her son safe on the infamous Canterbury Estate in Bradford, rife with crime, alcohol and drugs, a place where family is everything and nothing.
The Bad Boys of Brexit: Tales of Mischief, Mayhem & Guerrilla Warfare in the EU Referendum Campaign
by Arron BanksFULLY UPDATEDArron Banks enjoyed a life of happy anonymity flogging car insurance in Bristol until he dipped his toes into the sharkinfested waters of politics and decided to plunge right in. Charging into battle for Brexit, he tore up the political rule book, sinking £8 million of his personal fortune into a mad-cap campaign targeting ordinary voters up and down the country. His anti-establishment crusade upset everyone from Victoria Beckham to NASA and left MPs open-mouthed.Lurching from comedy to crisis (often several times a day), he found himself in the glare of the media spotlight, fending off daily bollockings from Nigel Farage and po-faced MPs. From talking Brexit with Trump and trying not to embarrass the Queen, to courting communists and wasting a fortune on a pop concert that descended into farce, this is his honest, uncensored and highly entertaining diary of the campaign that changed the course of history.
Bad Call: A Summer Job on a New York Ambulance
by Mike ScardinoAn adrenaline-fueled read that will stay with you long after you turn the final page, Bad Call is a "compulsively readable, totally unforgettable" memoir about working on a New York City ambulance in the 1960s (James Patterson).Bad Call is Mike Scardino's visceral, fast-moving, and mordantly funny account of the summers he spent working as an "ambulance attendant" on the mean streets of late-1960s New York. Fueled by adrenaline and Sabrett's hot dogs, young Mike spends his days speeding from one chaotic emergency to another. His adventures take him into the middle of incipient race riots, to the scene of a plane crash at JFK airport and into private lives all over Queens, where New Yorkers are suffering, and dying, in unimaginable ways. Learning on the job, Mike encounters all manner of freakish accidents (the man who drank Drano, the woman attacked by rats, the man who inflated like a balloon), meets countless unforgettable New York characters, falls in love, is nearly murdered, and gets an early and indelible education in the impermanence of life and the cruelty of chance. Action-packed, poignant, and rich with details that bring Mike's world to technicolor life, Bad Call is a gritty portrait of a bygone era as well as a bracing reminder that, though "life itself is a fatal condition," it's worth pausing to notice the moments of beauty, hope, and everyday heroism along the way.