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George: A Memory of George Michael
￥66.22
George is the story of two extraordinary lives – the private man and the public legend. Georgios Panayiotou was just eighteen when he decided to adopt the stage name of George Michael. Sometimes his two worlds would collide with shattering consequences. Bestselling biographer Sean Smith has gone back to the neighbourhoods of North London to trace the astonishing journey of a sensitive but determined boy who grew up to be one of the biggest British pop stars of all time. Along the way, he talks to those close to George, revealing the real man – funny, articulate, intelligent and generous spirited – who hid behind the powerful image he created. He reveals the complex relationship with his high-achieving Greek-Cypriot father; the unconditional love of his mother; his teenage relationships with girls; and his first tragic love affair with another man. George’s career began falteringly with a schoolboy band, exploded with Wham! before he became a solo phenomenon. But at the height of his fame, the world seemed to turn against him. Smith describes his despair at losing the two people who mattered most, how he sought consolation in drugs, his notorious ‘coming out’ and how he ended up in jail. His health failed him and he died heartbreakingly alone on Christmas Day, 2016. Affectionate yet honest and moving, George is both a celebration of George Michael’s music and a lasting tribute to a decent and much-loved man.
Friends who rowed 3000 miles,broke a world record and learnt a lot about life al
￥66.22
A TOP 10 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 SPORTS BOOK AWARDS LONGLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 The incredible true story of four ordinary working mums from Yorkshire who took on an extraordinary challenge and broke a world record along the way. Janette, Frances, Helen and Niki, though all from Yorkshire, were four very different women, all juggling full time jobs alongside being mothers to each of their 2 children. They could never be described as athletes, but they were determined to be busy and the local Saturday morning rowing club was the perfect place to go to have a laugh and a gossip, get the blood pumping in the open air, and feel invigorated. Brought together by their love of rowing, they quickly became firm friends, and it wasn’t long before they cooked up a crazy idea over a few glasses of wine: together, they were going to do something that fewer people than had gone into space or climbed Everest had succeeded in doing. They were going to cross 3,000 miles of treacherous ocean in the toughest row in the world, The Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge. Yes, they had children and husbands that they would be leaving behind for two months, yes they had businesses to run, mortgages to pay, responsibilities. And there was that little thing of them all being in their 40s and 50s. But two years of planning, preparation, fundraising, training and difficult conversations later, and they found themselves standing on the edge of the San Sebastian harbour in the Canary Islands, petrified, exhilarated and ready to head up the race of their lives. This is the story of how four friends together had the audacity to go on a wild, terrifying and beautiful adventure, not to escape life, but for life not to escape them.
Trafficked Girl: Abused. Abandoned. Exploited. This Is My Story of Fighting Back
￥58.86
When Zoe was taken into care at the age of 13, she thought she was finally going to escape from the cruel abuse she had suffered throughout her childhood. Then social services placed her in a residential unit known to be 'a target for prostitution', and suddenly Zoe's life was worse than it had ever been before. Abused and ostracized by her mother, humiliated by her father’s sexual innuendos, physically assaulted and bullied by her eldest brother, even as a young child Zoe thought she deserved the desperately unhappy life she was living. ‘I’ve sharpened a knife for you,’ her mother told her the first time she noticed angry red wounds on her daughter’s arms. And when Zoe didn’t kill herself, her mother gave her whisky, which she drank in the hope that it would dull the miserable, aching loneliness of her life. One day at school Zoe showed her teacher the livid bruises that were the result of her mother’s latest physical assault and within days she was taken into care. Zoe had been at Denver House for just three weeks when an older girl asked if she’d like to go to a party, then took her to a house where there were just three men. Zoe was a virgin until that night, when two of the men raped her. Having returned to the residential unit in the early hours of the morning, when she told a member of staff what had happened to her, her social worker made a joke about it, then took her to get the morning-after pill. For Zoe, the indifference of the staff at the residential unit seemed like further confirmation of what her mother had always told her – she was worthless. Before long, she realised that the only way to survive in the unit was to go to the ‘parties’ the older girls were paid to take her to, drink the drinks, smoke the cannabis and try to blank out what was done to her when she was abused, controlled and trafficked around the country. No action was taken by the unit's staff or social workers when Zoe asked for their help, and without anyone to support or protect her, the horrific abuse continued for the next few years, even after she left the unit. But in her heart Zoe was always a fighter. This is the harrowing, yet uplifting story, of how she finally broke free of the abuse and neglect that destroyed her childhood and obtained justice for her years of suffering.
Letting Go: A true story of murder, loss and survival by Rachel Nickell’s son
￥58.86
This is Alex Hanscombe’s powerful, inspirational account as seen on This morning, BBC Breakfast, BBC Newsnight and published in The Sunday Times, Mail on Sunday and The Sun. ‘I was the most famous child in the British Isles…’ A coming-of-age story that begins with tragedy but ends in understanding, forgiveness and peace. The stunning and heartbreaking story of the young son of Rachel Nickell – who witnessed the brutal attack on his mother and whose childhood was shaped by the media storm that followed. A coming-of-age story that begins with a tragedy but ends in optimism, forgiveness and peace. On a beautiful July morning in 1992, just three weeks before his third birthday, Alex Hanscombe and his young mother, Rachel Nickell, went walking on Wimbledon Common. Life was never the same again. Shortly after ten o’clock that morning, Alex was discovered by the side of his mother’s body – she had been assaulted, stabbed forty-nine times in a frenzied attack, and left dead. Alex was the only witness to the attack. Letting Go is Alex’s heartbreaking account of that morning, the aftermath, and the devastating effect on his father, the extended family and the wider community. Alex tells the story of the resulting media storm, the legal cases following and the peace and understanding that he has now found, as a young man. In telling his story, and the truth, this is the last stage of Alex’s incredible journey to letting go.
Hidden Sin: When the past comes back to haunt you
￥58.86
The explosive sequel to #1 Sunday Times bestseller Bad Blood. Set 18 years later, Hidden Sin is the story of Joey, his girlfriend Paula and Rasta Mo, the man he is to discover is his dad. Joey Parker is a young man with big dreams. Almost eighteen, he’s desperate to escape the shackles of his window cleaning round, so when’s offered the chance to try out as a drummer in a local Blondie tribute band he jumps at the chance. But it isn’t just the music that moves him. It’s also the fact that Paula Foster is the lead singer. The daughter of his mum’s old mate, Josie, she was once a childhood friend. They’ve not seen each other in years, and their mutual attraction is immediate. Meanwhile, notorious local drug overlord, Rasta Mo, has recently returned to Bradford after a spell inside and years in Marbella. He is instantly enamored with the good-looking drummer he discovers is his son. He decides that his new club is in need of a house band – and so begins his attempts to woo him. This book charts a journey between two men into a future neither visualized. And, in Joey’s case, into a dangerous criminal world he’s never known. And, while his mother and step-father can only look on in horror as Joey potentially becomes the one thing she’s always dreaded – his father’s son. Joey is oblivious to who Mo is. The truth has always been hidden from him. All he cares about is that his and Paula’s dreams are all starting to come true. But will the cost of achieving them be too high to pay?
Are you talking to me?: A Life Through the Movies
￥68.57
A combination of wit and heartbreak in a memoir of a life intertwined with an obsession with film. A Fever Pitch for cinema lovers. 'This book will consider the influence of movies on one life, the interaction of celluloid fantasy and the growth of a personality. It's not just a film buff's record of his enthusiasm's. It's about how some films do, weirdly, change your life.' Beginning with his first cinema outing, The Mutiny on the Bounty, and tracing his passion through his growing up years to adulthood, Walsh will weave together his own life experiences with his rapturous dependence on key moments in film. He will write a funny, personal, loving account of the magic and drama of the silver screen and its ultimate, all-encompassing power to become larger than (real) life.
A Long Way from Home
￥58.86
The true story of 2 year-old Anna, abandoned by her natural parents, left alone in a neglected orphanage. Elaine and Ian had travelled half way round the world to adopt little Anna. She couldn’t have been more wanted, loved and cherished. So why was she now in foster care and living with me? It didn’t make sense. Until I learned what had happened. … Dressed only in nappies and ragged T-shirts the children were incarcerated in their cots. Their large eyes stared out blankly from emaciated faces. Some were obviously disabled, others not, but all were badly undernourished. Flies circled around the broken ceiling fans and buzzed against the grids covering the windows. The only toys were a few balls and a handful of building bricks, but no child played with them. The silence was deafening and unnatural. Not one of the thirty or so infants cried, let alone spoke.
Birds Art Life Death: The Art of Noticing the Small and Significant
￥66.22
‘Now when I hear birdsong, I feel an entry to that understory. When I am feeling too squeezed on the ground, exhausted by everything in my care, I look for a little sky. There are always birds flying back and forth, city birds flitting around our human edges, singing their songs.’ One winter, Kyo Maclear became unmoored. Her father had recently fallen ill and she suddenly found herself lost for words. As a writer, she could no longer bring herself to create; her work wasn’t providing the comfort and meaning that it had before. But then Kyo met a musician who loved birds. The musician felt he could not always cope with the pressures and disappointments of being an artist in a big city. When he watched birds and began to photograph them, his worries dissipated. Intrigued, Kyo found herself following the musician for a year, accompanying him on his birdwatching expeditions; the sounds of birds in the city reminded them both to look outwards at the world. Intricate and delicate as birdsong, Birds Art Life Death asks how our passions shape and nurture us, and how we might gain perspective, overcome our anxieties and begin to cherish the urban wild spaces where so many of us live.
Dead Now Of Course
￥95.75
‘My future mother-in-law burst into tears when she heard her son was to marry an actress. There’s still something disturbing, I grant you, about the word “actress”. If an MP or some other outstanding person plays fast and loose with an actress the world is unsurprised. She is certainly no better than she should be, and probably French…’ As well as being a mother (to the actresses Sophie and Emma Thompson) and a devoted carer to her own mother and mother-in-law, Phyllida Law is also a distinguished actress, and Dead Now Of Course is the tale of her early acting career. As a young member of a travelling company, Phyllida learned to cope with whatever was thrown at her, from making her own false eyelashes to battling flammable costumes and rogue cockroaches. We find her in Mrs Miller’s digs, which were shared with a boozy monkey bought from Harrods, an Afghan hound known as the ‘the flying duster’, several hens and various children. Filled with funny, charming anecdotes, Dead Now Of Course paints a fascinating picture of life in the theatre – and at the heart of the story is an enchanting account of Phyllida’s courtship with her future husband, the actor and writer Eric Thompson.
Then Again: Travels in search of my younger self
￥68.57
For fans of Lorna Sage and Paula Fox, a unique memoir from Irma Kurtz, the acclaimed author of 'The Great American Bus Ride' and internationally renowned agony aunt. "A girl of indisputable gifts, she should of course use them someday to make a beautiful home and raise a family in elegant surroundings!" School psychologist's report on Irma Kurtz, 1950. In 1954 eighteen-year-old Irma Kurtz left New Jersey to travel across Europe, intent on transforming herself and changing the world. She looked to the Old World for an alternative destiny to that mapped out by the traditional expectations at home. On her post-war Grand Tour she found what she believed in: Art and Culture and Beauty and Love, and some horror as a Jewish girl encountering the seat of much of her family's destruction. Years later, sifting through a cardboard box filled with memories at her mother's house, she rediscovered the journal of her first journey, the one that marked the beginning of a life of writing and living abroad. Gripped by intense recollections of sailing across the Atlantic, and intrigued by the exuberant remarks of her adventurous younger self, she decided to leave her London home and retrace her footsteps, this time with herself as a guide. Testing her theory that older women are invisible, Kurtz's journey is peppered with acute observations of human behaviour, not to mention some sharp advice for her ghostly travel companion, a teenager who thinks she knows it all, yet is blind to what lies ahead of her. Part-memoir, part-travelogue, this unique book contrasts the experience of two very different travellers, offering an insight into what has endured, and what has been lost, in the life of one woman and the altered environment of Europe at the dawn of a new millennium. Beautifully written, moving and funny, Then Again is time-travel at its best, revealing the pains and pleasures of growing older and wiser.
Taken: Part 3 of 3
￥24.33
Experienced foster carer, Rosie Lewis, takes on the heart-breaking case of Megan, a baby born with a drug addiction and a cleft palate. Addicted to drugs from birth because of her mother’s substance abuse during pregnancy, new-born Megan is taken into Rosie’s loving care. Rosie is supposed to help Megan find her new permanent home, but it turns out that Megan has already found her ‘forever mummy’ in Rosie. Rosie grows incredibly attached to Megan and applies to adopt her, but the system refuses her in favour of a young couple and Rosie is devastated. Against all her instincts, Rosie does her job and prepares Megan for her new ‘forever family’, but everything about Megan leaving feels wrong. When Rosie learns a few months later that Megan’s adoption has broken down, she is saddened but also filled with hope – will this little girl be allowed to return to her true ‘forever home’?
Part 2 of 3: The true story of a lonely little girl abused by those she trusted
￥25.60
The moving true story of a little girl with Asperger syndrome, controlled and abused by the one person she called her friend. Taylor had always struggled to make friends – she felt ‘different’. Taylor never knew her father and her mother wasn’t around much. She just didn’t understand people, and was alone and scared much of the time. That was until, aged just 11, an older married man called Tom befriended her. She loved having someone who would talk to her, listen to her, a protector. But when he moved away a few months later she was easy prey to the gang of drug dealers and petty criminals who groomed and abused her, using her as a form of currency to appease their debtors and amuse their friends. Increasingly isolated and desperate, it began to look as though the pattern of Taylor's life had been set – until she started to fight back, determined to build a safe future for herself, however long it took.
Ruud Gullit: Portrait of a Genius (Text Only)
￥46.11
First published in 1997 and now available as an ebook. Two years after arriving in London, Ruud Gullit took English football by storm, not only revolutionising Chelsea Football Club but helping to transform the image of the Premier League so that it now attracts the best footballers from all over the world. Not that it was plain sailing for Chelsea’s player-manager throughout his career. In between winning European Cups with AC Milan and a European championship with Holland, Gullit experienced a succession of bust-ups with former managers and fellow players, disputes with his clubs and personal distractions off the pitch, suggesting that there is a harder, ruthless side to his character. What are the pressures involved in being a player-manager for a top London club? Who, in 1997, were the best players in England? How did Chelsea’s foreign stars such as Zola, Vialli and Di Matteo adjust to the demands of Premiership football? The answers can be found in Harry Harris’s profile of Gullit which includes Chelsea’s memorable 1997 FA Cup triumph and a review of the club’s 1996/97 Premier League season.
Power and Glory: Jacobean England and the Making of the King James Bible (Text o
￥73.58
A fascinating, lively account of the making of the King James Bible. James VI of Scotland – now James I of England – came into his new kingdom in 1603. Trained almost from birth to manage rival political factions, he was determined not only to hold his throne, but to avoid the strife caused by religious groups that was bedevilling most European countries. He would hold his God-appointed position and unify his kingdom. Out of these circumstances, and involving the very people who were engaged in the bitterest controversies, a book of extraordinary grace and lasting literary appeal was created: the King James Bible. 47 scholars from Cambridge, Oxford and London translated the Bible, drawing from many previous versions, and created what many believe to be the greatest prose work ever written in English – the product of a culture in a peculiarly conflicted era. This was the England of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Jonson and Bacon; but also of extremist Puritans, the Gunpowder plot, the Plague, of slum dwellings and crushing religious confines. Quite how this astonishing translation emerges is the central question of this book. Far more than Shakespeare, this Bible helped to create and shape the language. It is the origin of many of our most familiar phrases, and the foundations of the English-speaking world. It was a generous and deliberate decision to make the Bible available to the common man: not an immediate commercial success, but which later became a bestseller, and has remained one ever since. Adam Nicolson gives a fascinating and dramatic account of the early years of the first Stewart ruler, and the scholars who laboured for seven years to create the world's greatest book; immersing us in a world of ingratiating bishops, a fascinating monarch and London at a time unlike any other.
Wings of Madness: Alberto Santos-Dumont and the Invention of Flight
￥85.74
This ebook does not include illustrations. From the author of The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, winner of the prestigious Rhone-Poulenc science award: the history of aviation told through the extraordinary story of Alberto Santos-Dumont, the forgotten man who battled to be the first to free himself from the confines of the earth. Ask most people who flew the first aeroplane and you'll get the same response: Orville and Wilbur Wright. But ask a Brazilian the same question and you will get a different answer: Alberto Santos-Dumont, the man they have crowned the 'father of aviation'. Fearless Alberto Santos-Dumont was a slight and wiry man who built flying machines that could hold no one heavier than himself and required a daredevil dexterity to stay aloft. Never before or since has there been an aeroplane in which the pilot has had to stand up for the whole flight (he had to perfect the rumba in order to get his Bird of Prey into the air at all). Nor has anyone else had a personal flying machine – a small powered balloon that he kept tied to a lamp post outside his apartment when he was not bar-hopping, handing the reins of the airship to the doorman at his favourite night spot. His genius and charisma led him to be celebrated in Paris, London and New York: he dined with the Cartiers, the Rothschilds and the Roosevelts, and fast became the darling of the press. With his blithe faith in the future of technology, Santos-Dumont did not foresee the destructive power of his beloved machines. Yet his indomitable spirit was slowly crushed as competition grew and the skies became full of hazardous aircraft. With the dawn of World War I, he saw their potential for devastation and began to blame himself for every fatality. The guilt placed too great a weight on his mind, and as he became distracted from his aeronautical dream, family and friends began to fear for his sanity. On his last attempt to fly he glued feathers to his arms and tried to launch himself through a window in a sanatorium.
Nobody’s Son: All Alex ever wanted was a family of his own
￥55.23
Born in a prison and removed from his drug-dependent mother, rejection is all that 7-year-old Alex knows. When Cathy is asked to foster little Alex, aged 7, her immediate reaction is: Why can’t he stay with his present carers for the last month? He’s already had many moves since coming into care as a toddler and he’ll only be with her a short while before he goes to live with his permanent adoptive family. But the present carers are expecting a baby and the foster mother isn’t coping, so Alex goes to live with Cathy. He settles easily and is very much looking forward to having a forever family of his own. The introductions and move to his adoptive family go well. But Alex is only with them for a week when problems begin. What happens next is both shocking and upsetting, and calls into question the whole adoption process.
An Unlikely Countess: Lily Budge and the 13th Earl of Galloway (Text Only)
￥77.01
A vivid and moving portrait of the inimitable Lily Budge, who overcame poverty and class to become the 13th Countess of Galloway, and one of Scotland's most colourful eccentrics. Randolph Stewart was lobotomized as a teenager after a crude diagnosis of schizophrenia. When the operation went wrong, he was hidden away by his aristocratic parents in a mental institution and then taken in by a sect of monks. By the time Lily Budge met him in 1975, he appeared a shy and lonely tramp. In reality he was the future Earl of Galloway, heir to a fortune and a title considered to be linchpin of the Scottish establishment. Lily, an extroverted character from a working-class family, would join him in a powerful bond of love that challenged conventions, made national headlines, and led to enormous heartache. A vibrant portrait of 20th-century Scotland, 'An Unlikely Countess' is also a profile of two unforgettable characters, and the doomed love that they shared.
Plot 29: A Memoir: LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD AND WELLCOME BOOK PRIZE
￥73.58
‘When I am disturbed, even angry, gardening has been a therapy. When I don't want to talk I turn to Plot 29, or to a wilder piece of land by a northern sea. There, among seeds and trees, my breathing slows; my heart rate too. My anxieties slip away.’ As a young boy in 1960s Plymouth, Allan Jenkins and his brother, Christopher, were rescued from their care home and fostered by an elderly couple. There, the brothers started to grow flowers in their riverside cottage. They found a new life with their new mum and dad. As Allan grew older, his foster parents were never quite able to provide the family he and his brother needed, but the solace he found in tending a small London allotment echoed the childhood moments when he grew nasturtiums from seed. Over the course of a year, Allan digs deeper into his past, seeking to learn more about his absent parents. Examining the truths and untruths that he’d been told, he discovers the secrets to why the two boys were in care. What emerges is a vivid portrait of the violence and neglect that lay at the heart of his family. A beautifully written, haunting memoir, Plot 29 is a mystery story and meditation on nature and nurture. It’s also a celebration of the joy to be found in sharing food and flowers with people you love.
AutoBioPhilosophy: An intimate story of what it means to be human
￥110.46
AutoBioPhilosophy is an astonishingly frank and original autobiography that explores the fundamental question of what it means to be human. Robert Rowland Smith’s life story involves a love triangle, office politics, police raids, illegal drugs, the academic elite and a near-death experience. It sees him grappling with the tragic fate of his father, going through a double divorce and encountering a living divinity. We witness him confronting his demons but also looking out for angels. A former Oxford don, Robert uses these deeply personal experiences to generate philosophical insights that will resonate with everybody. What are the recurring patterns, unconscious motives and social forces that govern our behaviour? Through his experiences, and referencing writers from Shakespeare to Freud, he offers new models and ways into human psychology. As we are led into Robert’s private world, we gain an understanding of what it means to be human that is relevant to all.
Size Zero: My Life as a Disappearing Model
￥73.58
A memoir of a brief career as a top model - and the brutally honest account of what goes on behind the scenes in a fascinating, closed industry. Scouted in the street when she is 17, Victoire Dauxerre’s story started like a teenager’s dream: within months she was on the catwalks of New York’s major fashion shows, and part of the most select circle of in-demand supermodels in the world. But when fashion executives and photographers began to pressure her about her weight, forcing her to become ever thinner, Victoire’s fantasy came at a cost. Food was now her enemy, and soon, living on only three apples a day and Diet Coke galore, Victoire became anorexic. An unflinching, painful expose of the uglier face of fashion, her testimony is a shocking example of how our culture’s mechanisms of anorexia and bulimia can push a young woman to the point of suicide. It is the story of a survivor whose fight against poisonous illness and body image shows us how to take courage and embrace life. Written with Valérie Péronnet.
The 15:17 to Paris: The True Story of a Terrorist, a Train and Three American He
￥66.22
The 15:17 to Paris is the amazing true story of friendship and bravery, and of near tragedy averted by three heroic young men who found the unity and strength inside themselves when they – and 500 other innocent travellers – needed it most. On 21st August 2015, Ayoub El-Khazzani boarded train #9364 in Brussels, bound for Paris. There could be no doubt about his mission: he had an AK-47, a pistol, a box cutter and enough ammunition to obliterate every passenger on board. Slipping into the bathroom in secret, he armed his weapons. Another major ISIS attack was about to begin, but Khazzani wasn’t expecting Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos and Spencer Stone. Stone was a martial arts enthusiast and airman first class in the US Air Force, Skarlatos was a member of the Oregon National Guard, and all three were fearless. But their decision, to charge the gunman, then overpower him even as he turned first his gun, then his knife, on Stone, depended on a lifetime of loyalty, support, and faith. Their friendship was forged as they came of age together in California: going to church, playing paintball, teaching each other to swear, and sticking together when they got in trouble at school. Years later, that friendship would give all of them the courage to stand in the path of one of the world's deadliest terrorist organisations.
