“You have the luck of Croesus on stilts (as my Auntie Vi would have said) if you’ve had the sort of career, ups and downs, warts and all that I have in that wondrous little corner of show business called musical theatre.” One of the most successful and distinguished artists of our time, Andrew Lloyd Webber has reigned over the musical theatre world for nearly five decades. The winner of numerous awards, including multiple Tonys and an Oscar, Lloyd Webber has enchanted millions worldwide with his music and numerous hit shows, including Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Cats, The Phantom of the Opera―Broadway’s longest running show―and most recently, School of Rock. In Unmasked, written in his own inimitable, quirky voice, the revered, award-winning composer takes stock of his achievements, the twists of fate and circumstance which brought him both success and disappointment, and the passions that inspire and sustain him. The son of a music professor and a piano teacher, Lloyd Webber reveals his artistic influences, from his idols Rodgers and Hammerstein and the perfection of South Pacific’s ‘Some Enchanted Evening,’ to the pop and rock music of the 1960s and Puccini’s Tosca, to P. G. Wodehouse and T. S. Eliot. Lloyd Webber recalls his bohemian London youth, reminiscing about the happiest place of his childhood, his homemade Harrington Pavilion―a make-believe world of musical theatre in which he created his earliest entertainments. A record of several exciting and turbulent decades of British and American musical theatre and the transformation of popular music itself, Unmasked is ultimately a chronicle of artistic creation. Lloyd Webber looks back at the development of some of his most famous works and illuminates his collaborations with luminaries such as Tim Rice, Robert Stigwood, Harold Prince, Cameron Mackintosh, and Trevor Nunn. Taking us behind the scenes of his productions, Lloyd Webber reveals fascinating details about each show, including the rich cast of characters involved with making them, and the creative and logistical challenges and artistic political battles that ensued. Lloyd Webber shares his recollections of the works that have become cultural touchstones for generations of fans: writings songs for a school production that would become his first hit, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat; finding the coterie of performers for his classic rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar; developing his first mega-hit, Evita, which would win seven Tonys Awards, including Best Musical; staking his reputation and fortune on the groundbreaking Cats; and making history with the dazzling The Phantom of the Opera. Reflecting a life that included many passions (from architecture to Turkish Swimming Cats), full of witty and revealing anecdotes, and featuring cameo appearances by numerous celebrities―Elaine Paige, Sarah Brightman, David Frost, Julie Covington, Judi Dench, Richard Branson, A.R. Rahman, Mandy Patinkin, Patti LuPone, Richard Rodgers, Norman Jewison, Milos Forman, Plácido Domingo, Barbra Streisand, Michael Crawford, Gillian Lynne, Betty Buckley, and more―Unmasked at last reveals the true face of the extraordinary man beneath the storied legend.

What pushed Blunt, Burgess, Cairncross, Maclean and Philby into Soviet hands? With access to recently released papers and other neglected documents, this sharp analysis of the intelligence world examines how and why these men and others betrayed their country and what this cost Britain and its allies. Enemies Within is a new history of the influence of Moscow on Britain told through the stories of those who chose to spy for the Soviet Union. It also challenges entrenched assumptions about abused trust, corruption and Establishment cover-ups that began with the Cambridge Five and the disappearance of Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean on the night boat to Saint-Malo in 1951. In a book that is as intellectually thrilling as it is entertaining and illuminating, Richard Davenport-Hines traces the bonds between individuals, networks and organisations over generations to offer a study of character, both individual and institutional. At its core lie the operative traits of boarding schools, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the Intelligence Division, Foreign Office, MI5, MI6 and Moscow Centre. Davenport-Hines tells many stories of espionage, counter-espionage and treachery. With its vast cope, ambition and scholarship, Enemies Within charts how the undermining of authority, the rejection of expertise and the suspicion of educational advantages began, and how these have transformed the social and political temper of modern Britain.

A brilliant study of a brilliant woman' LUCY WORSLEY History has forgotten Caroline of Ansbach, yet in her lifetime she was compared frequently to Elizabeth I and considered by some as ‘the cleverest queen consort Britain ever had’. The intellectual superior of her buffoonish husband George II, Caroline is credited with hastening the Enlightenment to Britain through her sponsorship of red-hot debates about science, religion, philosophy and the nature of the universe. Encouraged by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, she championed inoculation; inspired by her friends Leibniz and Samuel Clarke, she mugged up on Newtonian physics; she embraced a salon culture which promoted developments in music, literature and garden design; she was a regular theatre-goer who loved the opera, gambling and dancing. Her intimates marvelled at the breadth of her interests. She was, said Lord Egmont, ‘curious in everything’. Caroline acted as Regent four times while her husband returned to Hanover, and during those periods she possessed authority over all domestic matters. No subsequent royal woman has exercised power on such a scale. So why has history forgotten this extraordinary queen? In this magnificent biography, the first for over seventy years, Matthew Dennison seeks to reverse this neglect. The First Iron Lady uncovers the complexities of Caroline’s multifaceted life: the child of a minor German princeling who, through intelligence, determination and a dash of sex appeal, rose to occupy one of the great positions of the world and did so with distinction, élan and a degree of cynical realism. It is a remarkable portrait of an eighteenth-century woman of great political astuteness and ambition, a radical icon of female power.

Here for the first time is the full horror and madness of sharing a house, told by someone who’s been there. Birmingham pulls no punches: from dead rats in the kitchen to tent-dwelling lodgers in the living room, you’ll run for the safety of living alone. ‘A rat died in the living room at King Street and we didn’t know. There was at least six inches of compacted rubbish between our feet and the floor. Old Ratty must have crawled in there and died of pleasure. A visitor uncovered him while groping around for a beer.’ Tales of debauchery, drugs, flatmates from hell and nasty things lurking in the kitchen sink abound in Rolling Stone journalist John Birmingham’s hilarious account of sharing houses in Melbourne and Brisbane. He Died with a Felafel in His Hand makes Withnail & I look like a lesson in clean living.

Stanley Spencer (1891 – 1959) has recently been recognised by a wide general public, as well as by art historians, as probably the greatest English painter of the twentieth century. His strange and thrilling settings of biblical and semi-biblical scenes, his grippingly realist portraits, his intense English landscapes, hang in pride of place in our national collections and fetch ever-escalating prices at auction. Although there have been many books about Spencer, Pople's biography is the first to give a thoroughly convincing and coherent account of the life and psyche of the man who produced these extraordinary pictures. Pople has not only had the co-operation of Spencer's daughters and remaining friends' he has had unrestricted access to the artist's letters, diaries and other writings, and has spent ten years unravelling the familiar but so often impenetrable mysteries we see on the canvas. His analysis demonstrates that there never was as artist for whom life and art were so much of a piece, and that without understanding Spencer's doings and circumstances, we have no hope of understanding his paintings.

The Times has the most famous letters page of any newspaper. This delightful selection of over 300 items of correspondence over the last century shows precisely why. As a forum for debate, playground for opinion-formers, advertising space for decision-makers and noticeboard for eccentrics, nothing rivals it for entertainment value. By turns well-informed, well-intentioned, curious, quirky and bizarre, since 1914 it has taken the temperature of the British way of life and provided a window on the national character. Among those who have written to The Times to have their say are some of the major political and literary figures of the modern era, including Margaret Thatcher, Benito Mussolini, Graham Greene and John Le Carré. There are contributions, too, from Agatha Christie, Alastair Campbell, AA Milne, Yehudi Menuhin, Theresa May and Morrissey. If you want to know why kippers are dyed, who first turned up their trousers, how to make perfect porridge or just how to have a letter printed in The Times, this infinitely witty, diverting and memorable anthology should be, sincerely, yours.

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.

‘Gripping … so powerfully emotional that at times I had to put it down to wipe my eyes’ Mail on Sunday ‘How do you say thank you to someone for giving you their heart? It is the greatest gift a person can ever give.’ Marc is a promising young footballers of 15, growing up in Scotland. A few hundred miles away in England, Martin is a fun-loving 16-year-old. Both are enjoying their summers when they are suddenly struck down by debilitating illnesses. Within days, the boys are close to death. Although their paths have never crossed, their fortunes are about to be bound in the most extraordinary, intimate way. One of them will die and in doing so, he will save the other’s life. This is a deeply powerful and dramatic story. It is extremely rare for the family of a donor to have any personal contact with the recipient of their loved one’s organ. Yet remarkably, the mothers of these two boys meet and become friends, enabling the extraordinary, bittersweet moment in which a mother who has lost her son meets the boy he saved. Reaching out and placing her palm flat against his chest, she feels the heart of her son beating away inside another. Her boy, the boy who gave his heart away.

During the 1930s at Oxford, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams--remarkable friends, writers, and scholars--met regularly to discuss philosophy and literature and to read aloud from their own works in progress. Calling themselves the Inklings, their circle grew. It was in this company that such classics as The Lord of the Rings, The Screwtape Letters, and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe first found an audience. Author Humphrey Carpenter was born in Oxford and was acquainted with Tolkien, Hugo Dyson, and several other Inklings. In this remarkable reconstruction of their meetings and momentous friendships, Carpenter brings to life those warm and enchanting evenings in Lewis' rooms at Magdalen College, when their imaginations ran wild. His account offers exciting insights into the influence these brilliant individuals had on each other's developing ideas and writing.

Originally published in 1997 and now available as an ebook. It has not been possible to include the illustrations in the electronic edition. Perhaps the bravest and most inspiring actor of his generation, Harvey Keitel has made his menacing presence felt in some of the greatest cult movies ever, from Scorsese's Mean Streets and Taxi Driver to Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. With over fifty films to his name, a dozen of them since 1992, Keitel is one of the most ubiquitous and sought-after actors in Hollywood. Yet unlike so many of his contemporaries, he constantly surprises with daring and risk-taking performances in ground-breaking films such as Bad Lieutenant, The Last Temptation of Christ, The Piano and Smoke. Since his tough childhood in Brooklyn, Keitel's life has been a dramatic and unconventional as his screen roles. 'Harvey Keitel: The Art of Darkness 'tells, for the first time, the story of the rollercoaster career and turbulent personal life of this most powerful performer.

Bear Grylls has always sought the ultimate in adventure. Growing up on a remote island off of Britain's windswept coast, he was taught by his father to sail and climb at an early age. Inevitably, it wasn't long before the young explorer was sneaking out to lead all-night climbing expeditions. As a teenager at Eton College, Bear found his identity and purpose through both mountaineering and martial arts. These passions led him into the foothills of the mighty Himalayas and to a karate grandmaster's remote training camp in Japan, an experience that soon helped him earn a second-degree black belt. Returning home, he embarked upon the notoriously grueling selection course for the British Special Forces to join the elite Special Air Service unit 21 SAS a journey that would push him to the very limits of physical and mental endurance. Then, disaster. Bear broke his back in three places in a horrific free-fall parachuting accident in Africa. It was touch and go whether he would walk again, according to doctors. However, only eighteen months later, a twenty three-year-old Bear became one of the youngest climbers to scale Mount Everest, the world's highest summit. But these were just the beginning of his many extraordinary adventures. . . . Known and admired by millions as the star of Man vs. Wild , Bear Grylls has survived where few would dare to go. Now, for the first time, Bear tells the story of his action-packed life. Gripping, moving, and wildly exhilarating, Mud, Sweat, and Tears is a must-read for adrenaline junkies and armchair explorers alike.

If you want to play the Game, you've got to know the Rules. In his international bestseller The Game , Neil Strauss delved into the secret world of pick-up artists men who have created a science out of the art of seduction. Not only did he reveal the techniques that they had developed, but he became a master of The Game, and the world's No. 1 PUA, as Style. Now, in this bestselling companion, Strauss reduces three books of life-changing knowledge into a single-volume set. The first book, The Stylelife Challenge , breaks down the knowledge he learned and techniques he invented into simple step-by-step instructions that anyone can follow to meet and land the women of their dreams. In the second book, Strauss takes readers into the dark side of The Game. The Style Diaries offers a series of tales of seduction and sexual (mis)adventure. From accidentally getting married during a drunken night in Reykjavik, to luring a famous musician's granddaughter into a threesome; to the stress and frustration of the torturous and highly unorthodox "30 Day Sex Experiment," The Style Diaries takes you further into the seduction underworld than ever before. Finally, in the all-new, updated third volume, Strauss collects the greatest, most powerful, field-tested, word-for-word routines. You don't need money, looks, or fame to succeed with women. All you need is an understanding of how attraction works and this thirty-day workout program for your social skills, which has already guided countless men from frustration to fulfillment.

Hidden somewhere, in nearly every major city in the world, is an underground seduction lair. And in these lairs, men trade the most devastatingly effective techniques ever invented to charm women. This is not fiction. These men really exist. They live together in houses known as Projects. And Neil Strauss, the bestselling author and journalist, spent two years living among them, using the pseudonym Style to protect his real-life identity. The result is one of the most explosive and controversial books of the last decade guaranteed to change the lives of men and transform the way women understand the opposite sex forever. On his journey from AFC (average frustrated chump) to PUA (pick-up artist) to PUG (pick-up guru), Strauss not only shares scores of original seduction techniques but also has unforgettable encounters with the likes of Tom Cruise, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Heidi Fleiss, and Courtney Love. And then things really start to get strange and passions lead to betrayals lead to violence. The Game is the story of one man's transformation from frog to prince to prisoner in the most unforgettable book of this generation.

The sharp, lyrical, and no-holds-barred autobiography of the iconoclastic writer and musician Richard Hell, charting the childhood, coming of age, and misadventures of an artist in an indelible era of rock and roll... From an early age, Richard Hell dreamed of running away. His father died when he was seven, and at seventeen he left his mother and sister behind and headed for New York City, place of limitless possibilities. He arrived penniless with the idea of becoming a poet; ten years later he was a pivotal voice of the age of punk, starting such seminal bands as Television, the Heartbreakers, and Richard Hell and the Voidoids whose song Blank Generation remains the defining anthem of the era. Hell was significantly responsible for creating CBGB as punk ground zero; his Voidoids toured notoriously with the Clash, and Malcolm McLaren would credit Hell as inspiration for the Sex Pistols. There were kinetic nights in New York club demi-monde, descent into drug addiction, and an ever-present yearning for redemption through poetry, music, and art. We lived in the suburbs in America in the fifties, Hell writes. My roots are shallow. I'm a little jealous of people with strong ethnic and cultural roots. Lucky Martin Scorsese or Art Spiegelman or Dave Chappelle. I came from Hopalong Cassidy and Bugs Bunny and first grade at ordinary Maxwell Elementary. How this legendary downtown artist went from a prosaic childhood in the idyllic Kentucky foothills to igniting a movement that would take over New York and London restless youth cultures and spawn the careers of not only Hell himself, but a cohort of friends such as Tom Verlaine, Patti Smith, the Ramones, and Debbie Harry is just part of the fascinating story Hell tells. With stunning powers of observation, he delves into the details of both the world that shaped him and the world he shaped. An acutely rendered, unforgettable coming-of-age story, I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp evokes with feeling, clarity, and piercing intelligence that classic journey: the life of one who comes from the hinterlands into the city in search of art and passion.

Six Regency heroes One royal hangover After a royal bachelor party of the century,Lady Verity Fitzroy wakes up to find her brother's archenemy,Rory Lennox, the Duke of Abshire, in her bed. WhileRory has always fascinated her, nothing can convince her tomarry this rake even though her reputation is in peril.Indeed, there are far graver worries that plague her. If sheis unmasked as the author of the infamous Duke Diaries,no one can save her . . . not even the man of her dreams. Though he has known Verity since she was still in theschoolroom, Rory never imagined her to be sucha spitfire! Which only makes the challenge of winning herhand more intriguing. Never mind that he has nointerest in a wife. But when this secret war hero discoversthe root of Verity's horrendous troubles, he realizes he must face down his greatest fears not only to save her . . .but to win her hand and her heart.

From the author of the New York Times bestselling How to Read Literature Like a Professor comes a highly entertaining and informative new book on the twenty-five works of literature that have most shaped the American character. Foster applies his much-loved combination of wit, know-how, and analysis to explain how each work has shaped our very existence as readers, students, teachers, and Americans. Foster illuminates how books such as The Last of the Mohicans , Moby-Dick , My ?ntonia , The Great Gatsby , The Maltese Falcon , Their Eyes Were Watching God , On the Road , The Crying of Lot 49 , and others captured an American moment, how they influenced our perception of nationhood and citizenship, and what about them endures in the American character. Twenty-five Books That Shaped America is a fun and enriching guide to America through its literature.

Three young heirs, imprisoned by anunscrupulous uncle, escaped to the sea,to the streets, to faraway battle awaiting the day when they wouldreturn to reclaim their birthright . . . Lord Rafe Easton may be of noble blood, but survival taughthim to rely only on himself and to love no one. Yet when he setseyes on Miss Evelyn Chambers, an earl's illegitimate daughter,he is determined to have her, if only as his mistress . . . After her father's death, Evelyn Chambers never imaginedshe would be sold to the highest bidder, yet circumstancesgive her little choice but to accept the lord's indecent proposal. Rafe is wealthy, as well as ruthless. Yet his coldnessbelies deep passion and deeper secrets. If she must be his,Evelyn intends to lay bare everything the Lord of Pembrookis hiding. But dark discoveries threaten to destroythem both until unexpected love leadsthe last lost lord home . . .

Flying the not-so-friendly skies... In her more than fifteen years as an airline flight attendant, Heather Poole has seen it all. She's witnessed all manner of bad behavior at 35,000 feet and knows what it takes for a traveler to become the most hated passenger onboard. She's slept in flight attendant crashpads in "Crew Gardens," Queens sharing small bedrooms crammed with bunk beds with a parade of attractive women who come and go at all hours, prompting suspicious neighbors to jump to the very worst conclusions. She's watched passengers and coworkers alike escorted off the planes by police. She can tell you why it's a bad idea to fall for a pilot but can be a very good one (in her case) to date a business-class passenger. Heather knows everything about flying in a post-9/11 world and she knows what goes on behind the scenes, things the passengers would never dream. Heather's true stories in Cruising Attitude are surprising, hilarious, sometimes outrageously incredible the very juiciest of "galley gossip" delightfully intermingled with the eye-opening, unforgettable chronicle of her fascinating life in the sky.

The Inspirational Classic That Has Sold More Than 250,000 Copies! In this 40th anniversary edition of Eric Butterworth's inspiring tour de force , the author shares the greatest discovery of all time: the ability to see the divine within us all. Jesus saw this divine dimension in every human being, and Butterworth reveals this hidden and untapped resource to be a source of limitless abundance. Exploring this "depth potential," Butterworth outlines ways in which we can release the power locked within us for better health, greater confidence, increased success, and inspired openness to let our "light shine" forth for others.

Illustrations in this ebook appear in vibrant full color on a full color ebook device, and in rich black and white on all other devices. Narnia . . . where giants wreak havoc . . . where evil weaves a spell . . . where enchantment rules. Through dangers untold and caverns deep and dark, a noble band of friends is sent to rescue a prince held captive. But their mission to Underland brings them face-to-face with an evil more beautiful and more deadly than they ever expected. The Silver Chair is the sixth book in C.S. Lewis The Chronicles of Narnia, a series that has become part of the canon of classic literature, drawing readers of all ages into a magical land with unforgettable characters for over fifty years. This is a complete stand-alone read, but if you want to discover what happens in the final days of Narnia, read The Last Battle , the seventh and concluding book in The Chronicles of Narnia.

Illustrations in this ebook appear in vibrant full color on a full color ebook device, and in rich black and white on all other devices. Narnia . . . where a dragon awakens . . . where stars walk the earth . . . where anything can happen. A king and some unexpected companions embark on a voyage that will take them beyond all known lands. As they sail farther and farther from charted waters, they discover that their quest is more than they imagined and that the world end is only the beginning. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is the fifth book in C.S. Lewis The Chronicles of Narnia, a series that has become part of the canon of classic literature, drawing readers of all ages into a magical land with unforgettable characters for over fifty years. This is a novel that stands on its own, but if you would like to continue to the journey, read The Silver Chair , the sixth book in The Chronicles of Narnia.