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Not My Idea of Heaven
￥51.50
Those who had not discovered our truth had Satan in their hearts. We lived amongst them, but not with them, ‘in the world, but not of the world’. We were special. We were the disciples of the Fellowship. When she was a child, Lindsey Rosa’s every waking moment was governed by the rules of an extreme separatist sect. It controlled what she wore and what she ate; it forbade her to listen to music, to cut her hair, to watch television, to use a computer. The Fellowship said her family was special. Why would she believe otherwise? Then, when Lindsey was seven, her elder brother was caught listening to music and the family were expelled from the sect. But Lindsey’s parents knew nothing but the ways of the Fellowship, so they remained in hope that they would be accepted and continued to make the family live by the sect’s strict rules--cutting themselves off from their local community. But as Lindsey grew, so too did her awareness of a world outside. And, feeling increasingly isolated, she struggled with her own identity. Until finally she was faced with a devastating choice: to continue to live by the rules of the religious sect or to be brutally cast out and leave the family she loved behind forever.
Jumbo to Jockey: Fasting to the Finishing Post
￥81.03
How one man turned a midlife crisis into the realisation of a childhood dream at 4pm at Wincanton Dominic Prince, journalist, documentary-maker, racing enthusiast and bon viveur hit the scales at nearly 16 stone on his 45th birthday. It was not always so. His first love was and still is horses. As a child he would bunk off school to ride his first horse, Conker, and it was only after an horrific accident that left him and his horse wound up in barbed wire that he stepped down off his mount and gave in to the lure of Fleet Street and the three hour lunch. But the smell of oats and the mist of early morning canters were never far away, even if he was living it from the other side of the paddock. In the 20 years since he last rode a horse he has made a film on Lester Piggott, bought and sold one race horse and won and lost thousands on 'the occasional flutter'. Through the drastic changes to his overindulgent lifestyle that he has had to go through to make the weight for the 4pm at Wincanton in October, is weaved an insider's account of the very particular world of jockeys, racing and the multi-billionaire owners who pull the strings at the world's greatest race courses. Memoir, sports book, exposé of the dark world of horse racing, at heart Jumbo to Jockey is the story that all middle aged men will know well of the realisation of a childhood dream before it is too late.
Did You Really Shoot the Television?: A Family Fable
￥73.58
Max Hastings's account of his family's tumultuous 20th century experiences embraces the worlds of fashion and newspapers, theatre and TV, pioneering in Africa and even – his father's most exotic 1960 stunt – being cast away on a desert island in the Indian Ocean. The author is the son of broadcaster and adventurer Macdonald Hastings and journalist and gardening writer Anne Scott-James. One of his grandfathers was a literary editor while the other wrote plays and essays, and penned an enchanting memoir of his own Victorian childhood. His great-uncle was an African hunter who wrote poetry and became one of Max's heroes. The author tells a richly picaresque story, featuring guest appearances by a host of celebrities from Thomas Hardy and Joseph Conrad to John Betjeman and Osbert Lancaster, who became Anne Scott-James's third husband. 'All families are dysfunctional', Anne asserted impenitently to Max, but the Hastings’ managed to be more dysfunctional than most. His father roamed the world for newspapers and as a presenter for BBC TV's legendary Tonight programme, while his mother edited ‘Harper's Bazaar’, became a famous columnist and wrote best-selling gardening books. Here, the author brings together this remarkable cast of forebears, 'a tribe of eccentrics', as he himself characterises them. By turns moving, dramatic and comic, the book portrays Max's own childhood fraught with rows and explosions, in which the sudden death of a television set was only one highlight. His story will make a lot of people laugh and perhaps a few cry. It helps to explain why Max Hastings, whose family has produced more than eighty books over three generations, felt bound to follow their path of high adventure and popular journalism.
The Knox Brothers
￥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
￥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
￥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.
Bad Blood: A Memoir (Text Only)
￥73.58
From 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. Lorna Sage’s memoir of childhood and adolescence is a brilliantly written bravura piece of work, which vividly and wickedly brings to life her eccentric family and somewhat bizarre upbringing in the small town of Hanmer, on the border between Wales and Shropshire. The period as well as the place is evoked with crystal clarity: from the 1940s, dominated for Lorna by her dissolute but charismatic vicar grandfather, through the 1950s, where the invention of fish fingers revolutionised the lives of housewives like Lorna’s mother, to the brink of the 1960s, where the community was shocked by Lorna’s pregnancy at 16, an event which her grandmother blamed on ‘the fiendish invention of sex’.
Westlife: Our Story
￥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.
Manhood for Amateurs
￥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.
Propellerhead
￥66.22
Described by Pilot magazine in 2011 as ‘Inspirational … one of the best books ever written about flying’. Join the real Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines as they compete in the Round Britain race. Woodward’s warm, wry account of learning to fly will lift hearts everywhere. BBC2 documentary based on the book – 23 January 2012. Antony Woodward hated flying. It was, quite simply, not his thing. But when his flatmate Richard returned from Africa with a pilot's licence – and instant sex appeal – there was only one option … Eccentric characters, recalcitrant lawnmower engines, lousy weather, unhappy landings – can these really be the things to get a relationship off the ground? As Woodward's passage from man to airman hits ever-increasing turbulence, he finds himself embarked on a jaunt of self-discovery that will strike a chord with many a disaffected urbanite.
Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens
￥81.52
This is the first biography of the fateful relationship between Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots. It was the defining relationship of their lives and marked the intersection of the great Tudor and Stuart dynasties. At its core were their rival claims to the throne of England. Distinguished biographer Jane Dunn reveals an extraordinary story of two queens ruling in one isle, both embodying opposing qualities of character, ideals of womaliness and divinely ordained kingship. Theirs is a drama of sex and power, recklessness, ambition and political intrigue, with a rivalry that could only be resolved by death. As regnant queens in an overwhelmingly masculine world they were deplored for their femaleness, compared unfavourably with each other, and courted by the same men. By placing this dynamic and ever-changing relationship at the centre of the book, Dunn throws new light and meaning on the complexity of their natures. She reveals an Elizabeth revolutionary in her insistence on ruling alone and inspired in her use of celibacy as a political tool, yet deeply feeling and more sympathetic than the usual picture of the virgin queen. Mary, too, is not the romantic victim of history but a courageous adventurer with a reckless heart, and a magnetic influence over men and women alike. Vengeful against her enemies and the more ruthless of the two, she was untroubled by plotting Elizabeth’s murder. Elizabeth, however, was in anguish at having to sanction Mary’s death warrant for treason. Jane Dunn brings her skills as a biographer to bear on history’s two most charismatic queens. Working almost exclusively from contemporary letters and writings, she lets them speak to us across more than 400 years, their voices and responses surprisingly familiar to our own, their characters vivid, by turns touching and terrible. The death in 1603 of Elizabeth, our greatest English queen, was to mark the end of the Tudors and the posthumous triumph of Mary, whose son, James I united the English and Scottish thrones under a Stuart king.
The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton (Text Only)
￥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
￥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.
Burnt Toast
￥57.09
Toast. You know when you're trying to make it and you just can't get it right? It's too light or too soft, then totally burnt. Are you the kind of person who tries to scrape off the black? Or do you smother it with jam to hide the taste? Do you throw it away, or do you just eat it? Up until now, I ate the burnt toast … then I hit forty. It took Teri Hatcher a divorce, the experience of single motherhood, a parade of bad dates, a stalled career and a memorable fortieth birthday to realize that she didn't want to spend another decade preparing herself for the next disaster. Burnt Toast is the heartfelt, funny, poignant and inspiring account of Teri's jagged route to happiness. Teri reveals her life in unexpected ways, in the hopes of keeping other women from eating the burnt toast, and explains why you'll never get a second chance if you don't open yourself up to the possibility.
The Mitfords: Letters between Six Sisters
￥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
￥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.
Street Kid Fights On: She thought the nightmare was over
￥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.
The Other Side of Me
￥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.
The Friendship: Wordsworth and Coleridge
￥91.23
The first book to explore the extraordinary story of the legendary friendship – and quarrel – between Wordsworth and Coleridge, two giants of English Romanticism. Wordsworth and Coleridge’s passionate intimacy, shared ambition and subsequent estrangement contribute to a tragic tale. But Sisman’s biography of this most remarkable friendship – the first to devote itself wholly to exploring the impact of their relationship on each other – seeks to re-examine the orthodox assumption that these two poets flourished as a result of it. Instead, Sisman argues that it was a meeting that may well have been disastrous for both: for it was Wordsworth’s rejection of Coleridge, and not primarily his opium addiction, that destroyed the latter as a poet, and that Coleridge’s impossible ambitions for Wordsworth pushed the latter towards failure and disappointment. Underlying the poignancy of the tale is the intriguing subject of the influence one writer can have on another. Sisman seeks to answer fundamental questions about this relationship: why was Wordsworth so reliant on Coleridge, and why was he so easily swayed in the most critical decision of his career? Was it in Coleridge’s nature to play second fiddle? Would it, in fact, have been better for both men if they had never met?
Queen Victoria: A Personal History
￥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.
Not that Kinda Girl
￥58.86
Lisa Maxwell, an addition to the quick-witted Loose Women team, is a bundle of fun and laughter and a natural storyteller. Here, for the first time, she tells her astonishing story - a tale of remarkable spirit, incredible experiences and family secrets. A much-loved presenter and respected actress, Lisa got her first onscreen role at the age of just 11. In the eighties she became a TV presenter on series like Splash and No Limits, interviewing the icons of the time and partying with the likes of George Michael, Robert Downey Junior and Michael Hutchence, before moving more firmly into comedy, appearing on sketch shows like, The Les Dennis Laughter Show, The Russ Abbott Show and her very own, self-titled, The Lisa Maxwell Show. She narrowly missed out on the part of Daphne in a little show called Frasier. And then for seven years played the part of The Bill's DI Sam Nixon, before joining Loose Women in 2009, where she quickly became an audience favourite. But behind the fun, glamour and onscreen success, is a south London girl, hiding the secret she's been taught never to talk about. An illegitimate child, brought up in Elephant and Castle, Lisa's life very nearly took a different path. Lucky for her, her dear old Nan had a kind heart, and in a last minute change of plan she was brought home to her grandparent's flat on the Rockingham Estate. With warmth, honesty and humour, Lisa takes us to the heart of the Elephant, revealing a home filled with love, laughter and drama. From having the drawer of an old chest for her bed to hiding from the Tally Man, waiting for her Nan outside the betting shop to dabbling in petty crime, discovering her dad was still alive, and always looking for a way to be in the lime light, Lisa has written a colourful memoir of life as a daughter, a granddaughter, a mother, and an actress.
