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万本电子书0元读

More Blood, More Sweat and Another Cup of Tea
More Blood, More Sweat and Another Cup of Tea
Tom Reynolds
¥63.18
The sequel to the bestselling memoir Blood, Sweat & Tea. Tom Reynolds is an ambulance worker. On any given day he can be attacked by strangers, sworn at by motorists, puked on, covered in blood and other much more unpleasant substances. He could help to deliver a baby in the morning and witness the last moments of a dying man in the afternoon. He deals with road accidents, knife attacks, domestic violence, drug overdoses, neglect and suffering. And you think you’re having a bad day at work? Tom blogs about his experiences at the end of each shift. His Random Acts of Reality website has a huge following with over 30,000 visitors every day. He is an internet legend and a remarkable writer. His first book, Blood, Sweat & Tea came out of nowhere to be a surprise bestseller in 2006. Readers were stunned by the stories he had to tell and impressed by the sheer quality of his writing. Critics who sneer at blogs-to-books have never read this one. More Blood, More Sweat and Another Cup of Tea charts the past two years of Tom’s life as an ambulance worker. He is tired, he is frustrated and he is more pissed off than ever but he still manages to capture the more moving, heartwarming and inspirational moments alongside the chaos.
Matt Cardle: My Story: The Official X Factor Winner's Book
Matt Cardle: My Story: The Official X Factor Winner's Book
Matt Cardle
¥130.87
In those weeks following the audition I'd started to think that maybe I could do well in the competition, and even to see beyond bootcamp and what doing well could mean. I knew I never wanted to go back to painting, whatever happened.' Matt's dream has come true, and this is his story. Painter-decorator, bricklayer, milkman, even Santa, Matt's always been in bands, always putting off starting a career because he knew that what he really wanted to do was sing. Charismatic but down to earth, loved by the judges, the other contestants and, of course, the public for his cheeky smile and warm heart, Matt is a true star in the making. Packed full of unseen photographs shot especially for the book, backstage footage, behind-the-scenes gossip and the full and remarkable story of the winner from X Factor hopeful to popstar sensation, this book is a must-have for all X Factor fans.
A Small Dog Saved My Life
A Small Dog Saved My Life
Bel Mooney
¥88.39
A story of survival, transformation and love. In a beautiful and powerful memoir which mixes honest, personal revelation with literature, history, and inspirational self-help, Bel Mooney tells the story of her rescue dog, Bonnie, who in turn rescued Bel when her world fell apart with the all-too public break-up of her 35-year marriage. SMALL DOGS CAN SAVE YOUR LIFE really is a story of survival, and also one of love. This is an account of six years in Bel's life, from when she first acquired Bonnie from a rescue home, through Bel’s years of personal heartbreak and disappointment, and on to the happiness which she has now found in a new marriage and a new life, with the Maltese at her side all the way. This is a book about transformation and change, about picking yourself up and attacking life in the way that a small dog will go for the postman's trousers - and about celebrating life, much as your canine companion will always celebrate your return, even from the shortest trip. Beautifully engaging, entertaining, full of personal anecdotes and deeply moving, SMALL DOGS CAN SAVE YOUR LIFE will take the reader on an inspirational walk with one very small but very remarkable dog - a dog who became a symbol for all that is best about dogs, and about we humans too. Bel Mooney is a journalist with almost forty years' experience. Well-loved by millions for her advice columns, first for the Times and now in the Daily Mail, as well as countless programmes for radio and television, Bel takes the reader on a journey of discovery, in which she finds herself transformed into a dog-lover by one small and lively bundle of white fur, as well as telling her own gripping story.
The Mitfords: Letters between Six Sisters
The Mitfords: Letters between Six Sisters
Charlotte Mosley
¥100.26
Carefree, revelatory and intimate, this selection of unpublished letters between the six legendary Mitford sisters, compiled by Diana Mitford’s daughter-in-law, is alive with wit, passion and heartbreak. The letters chronicle the social quirks and political upheavals of the twentieth century but also chart the stormy, enduring relationships between the uniquely gifted – and collectively notorious – Mitford sisters. There’s Nancy, the scalding wit and bestselling novelist; Pamela, who craved a quiet country life; Diana, the fascist wife of Sir Oswald Mosley; Unity, whose obsession with Adolf Hitler led to personal tragedy; Jessica, the runaway communist; and Deborah, the socialite who became Duchess of Devonshire. Writing to one another to confide, tease, rage and gossip, the Mitford sisters set out, above all, to amuse. A correspondence of this scope is rare; a collection penned by six born storytellers is irreplaceable.
So I Have Thought of You: The Letters of Penelope Fitzgerald
So I Have Thought of You: The Letters of Penelope Fitzgerald
Penelope Fitzgerald
¥76.91
A fascinating collection of letters from the great English novelist – and prolific correspondent – Penelope Fitzgerald. Acclaimed for her exquisitely elegant novels – including the Booker Prize-winning ‘Offshore’ – and superb biographies, Penelope Fitzgerald was one of the finest British authors of the last century. Published here for the first time are her collected letters. An unparalleled record of the life of this greatly admired writer, these letters reveal her most important family relationships and friendships, and paint a clear picture both of herself and of her correspondents. They show us how she managed her own career – according to her own convictions – and how determined she was to put her world view across. A fascinating portrait of Penelope Fitzgerald as a mother, as a friend and as a writer, these letters give the same pleasure they gave to those who first opened them. Penelope Fitzgerald was one of the most distinctive voices in British literature. The prize-winning author of nine novels, three biographies and one collection of short stories, she died in 2000.
Sidetracks
Sidetracks
Richard Holmes
¥95.75
In this classic work, the author of 'Footsteps' collects the biographical stories that have captured his fancy in the course of researching his books on the romantic poets, creating a captivating mixture of biography and memoir. ‘Sidetracks' is a sister book to 'Footsteps', conjured up from decades of 'wanderings from the straight and narrow' of his major biographies of Shelley and Coleridge. As Holmes himself says, 'to be sidetracked is, after all, to be led astray by a path or an idea, a scent or a tune, and maybe lost forever.' The centerpiece of the book is the poignant, inspiring story of Mary Woolstonecraft, the great feminist crusader and philosopher and her husband, William Godwin. But 'Sidetracks' winds through an extraordinary and eclectic assortment of Romantic and Gothic writers and personalities, all made hypnotically alive through Holmes's transforming touch. We meet Chatterton and Gautier, Pierrot and Voltaire, Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda, James Boswell and Zelide, MR James and some very unpleasant gothic apparitions. 'Sidetracks' is a renewed examination of the strange and sometimes shadowy pathways of biography.
The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton (Text Only)
The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton (Text Only)
Kathryn Hughes
¥80.25
We each of us strive for domestic bliss, and we may look to Delia and Nigella to give us tips on achieving the unattainable. Kathryn Hughes, acclaimed for her biography of George Eliot, has pulled back the curtains to look at the creator of the ultimate book on keeping house. In Victorian England what did every middle-class housewife need to create the perfect home? ‘The Book of Household Management’. ‘Oh, but of course!’ Mrs Beeton would no doubt declare with brisk authority. But Mrs Beeton is not quite the matronly figure that has kept her name resonating 150 years after the publication of ‘The Book of Household Management’. The famous pages of carefully costed recipes, warnings about not gossiping to visitors, and making sure you always keep your hat on in someone else’s house were indispensable in the moulding of the Victorian domestic bliss. But there are many myths surrounding the legend of Mrs Beeton. It is very possible that her book was given so much social standing through fear as she was believed to be a bit of an old dragon. It seems though that Mrs Beeton was a series of contradictions. Kathryn Hughes reveals here that Bella Beeton was a million miles away from the stoical, middle-aged matron. She was in fact only 25 years old when she created the guide to successful family living and had only had five years experience of her own to inform her. She lived in a semi-detached house in Pinner with the bare minimum of servants. She bordered on being a workaholic, and certainly wasn’t the meek and mild little wife that her book was aimed at – more a highly intelligent and ambitious young woman. After preaching about wholesome and clean living, Bella Beeton died at the age of 28 from (contrary to her parent’s belief) bad hygiene. Kathryn Hughes sympathetically explores the irony behind Bella Beeton’s public and private image in this highly readable and informative study of Victorian lifestyle.
Spike: An Intimate Memoir
Spike: An Intimate Memoir
Norma Farnes
¥72.40
The complete memoirs of a man of many talents and faces – the late, great Spike Milligan – affectionately recounted by his close friend and agent for 35 years, Norma Farnes. "'What's he really like?' Wherever I went and was introduced as Spike Milligan's manager I waited for the inevitable question. In not far short of 60 years it never altered. It wasn't one that could be answered in a few words so I generally made do with 'Interesting' or 'don't ask'…" After chancing on an advert for a secretarial position, Norma Farnes found herself initiated into the world of No.9 Orme Court – a hub of writing and creativity for many post-war entertainment names. Soon promoted to be his agent, Norma was working for a man with a celebrated reputation for brilliance and difficulty in equal measure. Much loved for many decades, Milligan was often heralded as creative and 'zany' but the truth went much deeper. He could be endearing, despicable, loyal, traitorous, challenging, inspirational, frenetic…sometimes all of these things in a single day, but never boring. In these affectionate and truthful memoirs of 35 years as agent, close friend and sometime-foe, Norma Farnes portrays Spike Milligan in all his guises. Uncovering a great many personal anecdote, Spike reveals his extraordinary sense of humour, his ongoing battle with a restless mind, his remarkable, life-long friendships with Peter Sellers and Erik Sykes, his relationship his family and the industry, and his heartening struggles with society at large. In Spike, Norma Farnes has captured a comprehensive and moving portrait of this truly extraordinary man of many talents and faces, and of her greatest friend.
Westlife: Our Story
Westlife: Our Story
Westlife
¥66.22
The biggest pop band in the world celebrate 10 years at the top – telling their full story in their own words for the very first time. 40 million albums 14 UK number 1 singles 7 UK number 1 albums Westlife have had more number ones than any other artist apart from The Beatles and Elvis and with songs that have become modern classics like Flying without Wings, they have ensured their place in the annals of pop history. Westlife – The Autobiography will chart the highs and lows of their phenomenonal career and a unique friendship that has seen them endure as a band for an extraordinary ten years. The book will chronicle the band’s story from the grass-roots of Sligo, Ireland to multi-platinum records, celebrity collaborations and chart achievements. But bubbling under this public face is a private and unseen story never before recorded, crammed with candid personal revelations, including of course the departure of Brian McFadden. Westlife have been a staple part of British entertainment for years, yet the public has no idea of the astounding life they have led – and still live – behind the headlines and soundbites. Here, for the first time, Westlife will take us into their confidence and reveal their lives and amazing ten year journey as the UK’s biggest pop band as never before.
Street Kid Fights On: She thought the nightmare was over
Street Kid Fights On: She thought the nightmare was over
Judy Westwater
¥73.58
How can you forget your past when it keeps coming back to haunt you? Judy Westwater, the Sunday Times bestselling author of Street Kid, was determined to turn her back on her cruel and violent childhood. She didn't stand a chance. All too soon hope turned to fear and she knew she'd have to run again. Judy was only 11 years old when she was forced to live on the streets. Beaten, half-starved and horrifically abused, she finally escaped to a life in the circus and fell in love with one of the circus hands. But the charming man who seemed so perfect had a dark and sinister side. If she wanted to survive she had to get away. Judy fled to South Africa, taking with her her two young children. But the streets of South Africa were just as cruel. One day a man took her five-year-old daughter and her violent past was replayed in front of her eyes. Judy's incredible story of courage and determination will inspire as it will amaze.
Silent Boy
Silent Boy
Torey Hayden
¥45.62
From the author of Sunday Times bestsellers One Child and Ghost Girl comes a heartbreaking story of a boy trapped in silence and the teacher who rescued him. When special education teacher Torey Hayden first met fifteen-year-old Kevin, he was barricaded under a table. Desperately afraid of the world around him, he hadn’t spoken a word in eight years. He was considered hopeless, incurable. But Hayden refused to believe it, though she realised it might well take a miracle to break through the walls he had built around himself. With unwavering devotion and gentle, patient love, she set out to free him – and slowly uncovered a shocking violent history and a terrible secret that an unfeeling bureaucracy had simply filed away and forgotten. Torey refused to give up on this tragic “lost case.” For a trapped and frightened boy desperately needed her help – and she knew in her heart she could not rest easy until she had rescued him from the darkness.
Humble Pie
Humble Pie
Gordon Ramsay
¥12.56
Everyone thinks they know the real Gordon Ramsay: rude, loud, driven, stubborn. But this is his real story… In this fast-paced, bite-sized edition of his bestselling autobiography Ramsay tells the real story of how he became the world’s most famous and infamous chef: his difficult childhood, his brother’s heroin addiction, his failed first career as a footballer, his fanatical pursuit of gastronomic perfection and his TV persona - all the things that have made him the celebrated culinary talent and media powerhouse that he is today. Gordon talks frankly about: ? his tough childhood: his father’s alcoholism and violence and the effects on his relationships with his mother and siblings ? his first career as a footballer: how the whole family moved to Scotland when he was signed by Glasgow Rangers at the age of fifteen, and how he coped when his career was over due to injury just three years later ? his brother’s heroin addiction. ? Gordon’s early career: learning his trade in Paris and London; how his career developed from there: his time in Paris under Albert Roux and his seven Michelin-starred restaurants. ? kitchen life: Gordon spills the beans about life behind the kitchen door, and how a restaurant kitchen is run in Anthony Bourdain-style. ? and how he copes with the impact of fame on himself and his family: his television career, the rapacious tabloids, and his own drive for success.
Queen Victoria: A Personal History
Queen Victoria: A Personal History
Christopher Hibbert
¥80.25
Christopher Hibbert’s acclaimed biography of Queen Victoria is as impressive and authoritative as the great woman herself. In 1837 an eighteen-year-old girl, raised by a German mother, inherited the throne of the United Kingdom. She was to reign as queen – and later Empress of India – for almost sixty-four years, presiding over twenty prime ministers and a period of unprecedented social and political change. Her era became synonymous with moral rigidity and colonial expansion, and this absorbing biography of Queen Victoria, the unlikely figurehead of a vast and powerful empire, explores how the young monarch transformed herself into a formidable matriarch and the epitome of an age. Embracing her life and family, her politics and personality, her love for Prince Albert and her relationship with John Brown, Hibbert’s touching biography is a persuasive portrait of a remarkable woman.
The Times Great Irish Lives
The Times Great Irish Lives
Garret FitzGerald,Charles Lysaght
¥67.49
For the first time, The Times brings together a unique collection of obituaries of Ireland's most distinguished individuals from the last two centuries.
Tommy’s Honour: The Extraordinary Story of Golf’s Founding Father and Son
Tommy’s Honour: The Extraordinary Story of Golf’s Founding Father and Son
Kevin Cook
¥81.03
The definitive account of golf’s founding father and son, Old and Young Tom Morris. For the first time, the two will be portrayed as men of flesh and blood – heroic but also ambitious, loving but sometimes confused and angry. Two men from one household, with ambitions that made them devoted partners as well as ardent foes. Tommy's Honour is a compelling story of the two Tom Morrises, father and son, both supremely talented golfers but utterly different, constituting a record-breaking golfing dynasty that has never been known before or since. Father, Old Tom Morris, grew up a stone's throw away from golf's ancestral home at St Andrews, a whisky-fuelled caddie, a wonderful 19th century character who became an Open Champion three times before running the Royal & Ancient, then sole governing body of the game. His son, Young Tom, arguably an even more prodigious talent than his father, was a golfing genius, the Tiger Woods of his era, who at 17 became the youngest player, to this day, to win the Open Championship. He then went on to win it four times in a row, an unprecedented achievement. On one occasion, father and son fought it out at the last hole of the Championship before the son finally triumphed. But then came the pivotal day that would change their lives forever, the death of Young Tom’s wife and unborn child. The cataclysmic events of that day eventually lead to Young Tom’s tragic death, aged 24, with his father living on for another 20 years in deep remorse. So on the one hand, you have the story of one of the most influential figures in the history of golf, a pioneer in the birth of the modern game and of Scottish and Open Championship golf. And on the other hand – and this is the real appeal of this book – you have an extraordinary father-and-son story. It’s for every son who ever competed with his father, and every father who has guided his son towards manhood, then found it hard to let go.
Unravelled: Life as a Mother
Unravelled: Life as a Mother
Maria Housden
¥54.65
Maria Housden tells of her own transformation, as a mother, a wife and a woman, as she struggled to cope with the death of her daughter Hannah and make the hardest decision of her life. From the author of the bestselling Hannah’s Gift. At the age of 36, instead of enjoying the perfect family life she had imagined as a child, Maria felt judged and found wanting by others. She realised that, no matter how much she still loved her husband and how powerful her bond of love was with her children, she had to change her life radically – she had to make it her own again. What followed was an emotional and enlightening search for herself. Written in the same moving, lyrical style as Hannah’s Gift, the story unfolds in a series of painful, joyful and humorous moments. At times the story is heart-wrenchingly sad but ultimately it is uplifting and inspiring.
The Knox Brothers
The Knox Brothers
Penelope Fitzgerald,Richard Holmes
¥76.52
Penelope Fitzgerald’s biography of her remarkable family. ‘When I was very young I took my uncles for granted, and it never occurred to me that everyone else in the world was not like them.’ In this, only her second book, Penelope Fitzgerald turned her novelist’s gaze on the quite extraordinary lives of her father and his three brothers. A masterly work of biography, within which we see Penelope Fitzgerald exercising her pen magnificently before she began her novel-writing career. Edmund Knox, her father, was one of the most successful editors of Punch. Dillwyn, a Cambridge Greek scholar, was the first to crack the Nazi’s message decoding system, Enigma, and in so doing, is estimated to have shortened the Second World War by six months. Wilfred became an Anglo-Catholic priest and an active welfare worker in the East End of London. Ronald, the best known of the four during his lifetime, was Roman Catholic chaplain to Oxford University’s student body, preacher, wit, scholar, crime-writer and translator of the Bible. A homage to a long-forgotten world and a fascinating account of the generation straddling the divide between late Victorian and Edwardian.
Lime Street at Two
Lime Street at Two
Helen Forrester
¥54.25
The fourth and final part of Helen Forrester’s bestselling autobiography continues the moving story of her early poverty-stricken life with an account of the war years in Blitz-torn Liverpool In 1940 Helen, now twenty, reeling from the news that her fiance Harry has been killed on an Atlantic convoy, is working long hours at a welfare centre in Bootle, five miles from home. Her wages are pitifully low and her mother claims the whole of them for housekeeping. Then, early in 1941, she gets a new job and begins to enjoy herself a little. But in May the bombing starts again and another move brings more trouble to Helen, trouble which will be faced, as ever, with courage and determination.
The Tiger’s Child
The Tiger’s Child
Torey Hayden
¥58.47
Torey Hayden returns with this deeply-moving sequel to her first book, One Child (the Sunday Times bestseller). After seven years, Torey is reunited with Sheila, the disturbed 6-year-old she tried to rescue. Sheila was a deeply disturbed six-year-old when she came into Torey Hayden's life – a story poignantly chronicled One Child. The Tiger's Child picks up the story seven years later. Hayden has lost touch with the child she helped to free from a hellish inner prison of rage and silence. But now Sheila is back, now a gangly teenager with bright orange hair – no longer broken and lost, but still troubled and searching for answers. This story of dedication and caring that began in childhood moves into a new and extraordinary chapter that tests the strength and heart of both Sheila and her one-time teacher. In The Tiger's Child the skilled and loving educator answers the call once again to help a child in need through her difficult yet glorious transition into young womanhood.
The Other Side of Me
The Other Side of Me
Sidney Sheldon
¥51.50
A brilliant, highly spirited memoir of Sidney Sheldon's early life that provides as compulsively readable and racy a narrative as any of his bestselling novels. Growing up in 1930s America, the young Sidney knew what it was to struggle to get by. Millions were out of work and the Sheldon family was forced to journey around America in search of employment. Grabbing every chance he could, Sidney worked nights as a busboy, a clerk, an usher – anything – but he dreamt of becoming something more. His dream was to become a writer and to break Hollywood. By a stroke of luck, he found work as a reader for David Selznick, a top Hollywood producer, and the dream began to materialise. Sheldon worked through the night writing stories for the movies, and librettos for the musical theatre. Little by little he gained a reputation and soon found himself in demand by the hottest producers and stars in Hollywood. But, this was wartime Hollywood and Sidney had to play his part. He trained as a pilot in the US Army Air Corps and waited for the call to arms which could put a stop to his dreams of stardom. Returning to Hollywood and working with actors like Cary Grant and Shirley Temple; with legendary producers like David Selznick and Dore Schary; and musical stars like Irving Berlin, Judy Garland and Gene Kelly, memories of poverty were finally behind Sheldon. This is his story: the story of a life on both sides of the tracks, of struggles and of success, and of how one man rose against the odds to become the master of his game.
Manhood for Amateurs
Manhood for Amateurs
Michael Chabon
¥81.03
Michael Chabon, author of WONDER BOYS and the Pulitzer Prize-wining THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY, has written an autobiographical narrative as inventive, beautiful and powerful as his novels. In these insightful, provocative, slyly interlinked essays, one of our most brilliant and humane writers presents his autobiography and vision of life in the way so many of us experience our own: as a series of reflections, regrets and re-examinations, each sparked by an encounter, in the present, that holds some legacy of the past. What does it mean to be a man today? Chabon invokes and interprets and struggles to reinvent for us, with characteristic warmth and lyric wit, the personal and family history that haunts him even as it goes on being written every day. As a son, a husband and above all as a father of four young children, Chabon’s memories of childhood, of his parents’ marriage and divorce, of moments of painful adolescent comedy and giddy encounters with the popular art and literature of his own youth, are like a theme played – on different instruments, with a fresh tempo and in a new key – by the mad quartet of which he now finds himself co-conductor.