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Blue: All Rise: Our Story
Blue: All Rise: Our Story
Antony Costa,Duncan James
¥139.99
For the first time, more than 15 years after four boys from London were first thrown together to form what would go on to become one of the most successful and infamous groups of the boyband era, Lee, Antony, Duncan and Simon tell their full, no-holds-barred story in their own inimitable words. Blue first rose to fame and mega-stardom in 2001. With 3 UK Number 1 Platinum-selling albums, 2 Brit Awards and 16 million records to their name, they quickly became the crushes of choice for the noughties generation. But their tendency to say exactly what they think, wear their hearts on their sleeves and court controversy (usually unintentionally) has meant that they’ve rarely left the limelight, or public hearts and minds, since. Blue: All Rise: Our Story is the boys’ intimate tell-all account charting the highs and the lows of their incredible career, the stories behind the headlines, and our favourite face-palm-worthy Blue moments. With explosive new reveals, never-before-seen photos, and all the latest updates – including Simon’s engagement and his struggle with depression, Lee’s brush with cancer, Duncan’s devastation at the passing away of his best friend, original It Girl Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, and how Antony’s adapting to fatherhood all over again, this is the story every 2000s teen has been waiting for, from four lads who’ve come out the other side older, wiser and closer than ever.
Cruel to Be Kind: Saying no can save a child’s life
Cruel to Be Kind: Saying no can save a child’s life
Cathy Glass
¥58.86
Cruel To Be Kind is the true story of Max, aged 6. He is fostered by Cathy while his mother is in hospital with complications from type 2 diabetes. Fostering Max gets off to a bad start when his mother, Caz, complains and threatens Cathy even before Max has moved in. Cathy and her family are shocked when they first meet Max. But his social worker isn’t the only one in denial; his whole family are too.
The Wife’s Tale: A Personal History
The Wife’s Tale: A Personal History
Aida Edemariam
¥125.18
The extraordinary story of an indomitable 95-year-old woman – and of the most extraordinary century in Ethiopia’s history. A new Wild Swans A hundred years ago, a girl was born in the northern Ethiopian city of Gondar. Before she was ten years old, Yetemegnu was married to a man two decades her senior, an ambitious poet-priest. Over the next century her world changed beyond recognition. She witnessed Fascist invasion and occupation, Allied bombardment and exile from her city, the ascent and fall of Emperor Haile Selassie, revolution and civil war. She endured all these things alongside parenthood, widowhood and the death of children. The Wife’s Tale is an intimate memoir, both of a life and of a country. In prose steeped in Yetemegnu’s distinctive voice and point of view, Aida Edemariam retells her grandmother’s stories of a childhood surrounded by proud priests and soldiers, of her husband’s imprisonment, of her fight for justice – all of it played out against an ancient cycle of festivals and the rhythms of the seasons. She introduces us to a rich cast of characters – emperors and empresses, scholars and nuns, Marxist revolutionaries and wartime double agents. And through these encounters she takes us deep into the landscape and culture of this many-layered, often mis-characterised country – and the heart of one indomitable woman.
The Mighty Franks: A Memoir
The Mighty Franks: A Memoir
Michael Frank
¥73.58
A TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR A NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR A story at once extremely strange and entirely familiar – about families, innocence, art and love. This hugely enjoyable, totally unforgettable memoir is a classic in the making. ‘My aunt called our two families the Mighty Franks. But, she said, you and I, Lovey, are a thing apart. The two of us have pulled our wagons up to a secret campsite. We know how lucky we are. We’re the most fortunate people in the world to have found each other, isn’t it so?’ Michael Frank’s upbringing was unusual to say the least. His aunt was his father’s sister and his uncle his mother’s brother. The two couples lived blocks apart in the hills of LA, with both grandmothers in an apartment together nearby. Most unusual of all was his aunt, ‘Hankie’: a beauty with violet eyelids and leaves fastened in her hair, a woman who thought that conformity was death, a Hollywood screenwriter spinning seductive fantasies. With no children of her own, Hankie took a particular shine to Michael, taking him on Antiquing excursions, telling him about ‘the very last drop of her innermost self’, holding him in her orbit in unpredictable ways. This love complicated the delicate balance of the wider family and changed Michael’s life forever.
The Prince Who Would Be King: The Life and Death of Henry Stuart
The Prince Who Would Be King: The Life and Death of Henry Stuart
Sarah Fraser
¥73.58
Henry Stuart’s life is the last great forgotten Jacobean tale. Shadowed by the gravity of the Thirty Years’ War and the huge changes taking place across Europe in seventeenth-century society, economy, politics and empire, his life was visually and verbally gorgeous. NOW THE SUBJECT OF BBC2 DOCUMENTARY The Best King We Never Had Henry Stuart, Prince of Wales was once the hope of Britain. Eldest son to James VI of Scotland, James I of England, Henry was the epitome of heroic Renaissance princely virtue, his life set against a period about as rich and momentous as any. Educated to rule, Henry was interested in everything. His court was awash with leading artists, musicians, writers and composers such as Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones. He founded a royal art collection of European breadth, amassed a vast collection of priceless books, led grand renovations of royal palaces and mounted operatic, highly politicised masques. But his ambitions were even greater. He embraced cutting-edge science, funded telescopes and automata, was patron of the North West Passage Company and wanted to sail through the barriers of the known world to explore new continents. He reviewed and modernised Britain’s naval and military capacity and in his advocacy for the colonisation of North America he helped to transform the world. At his death aged only eighteen, and considering himself to be as much a European as British, he was preparing to stake his claim to be the next leader of Protestant Christendom in the struggle to resist a resurgent militant Catholicism. In this rich and lively book, Sarah Fraser seeks to restore Henry to his place in history. Set against the bloody traumas of the Thirty Years’ War, the writing of the King James Bible, the Gunpowder Plot and the dark tragedies pouring from Shakespeare’s quill, Henry’s life is the last great forgotten Jacobean tale: the story of a man who, had he lived, might have saved Britain from King Charles I, his spaniels and the Civil War with its appalling loss of life his misrule engendered.
I Owe You Nothing
I Owe You Nothing
Luke Goss,Jean Ritche
¥38.36
The truth behind the spectacular rise and fall of a pop legend in his own words. For three years the Goss twins, Luke and Matt, had the world at their feet. Their records ripped to the top of the charts, they filled concert halls and were mobbed wherever they went. Their fall was as fast and spectacular as their rise. From being pop’s golden boys they became the band that everyone loved to hate, amidst spectacular rumours of bankruptcy and media manipulation. What went wrong? In this compelling book Luke Goss tells the whole incredible story, including: ? The million-point contract that left the band broke. ? The ‘weird unreality’ of going from unknown to superstar almost overnight. ? So-called ‘friends’ who turned their backs as soon as the bubble burst. It’s a cautionary tale for anyone aspiring to pop stardom, it is a saga of hurt and heartache, and, above all, it is a tribute to the family and friends – including Matt – who have stood by him through those frenetic years. It is, as Luke says, the laying to rest of a nightmare.
The Songaminute Man: How music brought my father home again
The Songaminute Man: How music brought my father home again
Simon McDermott
¥117.52
The nostalgic memoir of a young man, eldest of fourteen, growing up in 40s Wednesbury. The heartbreaking true account of his son struggling to come to terms with his father’s dementia. A tribute to the unbreakable bond between father and son. When Simon McDermott first noticed his dad Ted’s sudden flares of temper and fits of forgetfulness, he couldn’t have guessed what lay ahead. Then came the devastating, inevitable diagnosis. As Ted retreated into his own world, Simon and his mum Linda desperately tried to reach him until at last: an idea. Turning the ignition in his mum’s little runaround, Simon hit play on Ted’s favourite song Quando Quando Quando. And like that, they were just two mates driving around Blackburn, singing at the top of their lungs. Simon filmed their adventure, uploaded the video to YouTube and woke up to messages, tweets and his phone ringing off the hook. Their carpool karaoke had gone viral all the way across the globe. But a record deal, Pride of Britain Awards, over ?130,000 raised for The Alzheimer’s Society and a Top 10 single later, Simon was still losing Ted. That’s when he made a decision. His Dad – the storyteller of his childhood and his best friend – couldn’t tell his own story, so Simon would tell it for him. This is that story. Set in the heart of the Black Country just before WWII, and written with the help of Ted’s friends and family, The Songaminute Man recalls a boy who became a gutsy and fiercely loyal man. It remembers a childhood of sleeping top-to-toe, rationing, adventure in the woods and making-do-and-mending, a close-knit community, and a life-long passion for music. Full of poignant moments, the ups and downs of family life and treasured memories, The Songaminute Man is a story of two halves: a celebration of the man Ted was, and a powerful and moving account of caring for a loved one.
J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography
J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography
Humphrey Carpenter
¥57.09
The only authorised biography, and the only one written by an author who actually met J.R.R. Tolkien, with a redesigned cover to match the distinctive paperback editions of The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales. In the 25 years since Tolkien's death in September 1973, millions have read The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion and become fascinated about the very private man behind the books. Born in Bloemfontein in January 1892, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was orphaned in childhood, brought up in near-poverty and almost thwarted in adolescent romance. He served in the First World War, surviving the Battle of the Somme, where he lost some of his closest friends, and returned to academic life, achieving high repute as a scholar and university teacher, eventually becoming Merton Professor of English at Oxford. Then suddenly his life changed dramatically. One day while marking essay papers he found himself writing 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit' -- and worldwide renown awaited him. Humphrey Carpenter was given unrestricted access to all Tolkien's papers, and interviewed his friends and family. From these sources he follows the long and painful process of creation that produced The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion and offers a wealth of information about the life and work of the twentieth century's most cherished author.
The Perfect Mile (Text Only)
The Perfect Mile (Text Only)
Neal Bascomb
¥76.22
There was a time when running the mile in four minutes was believed to be beyond the limits of human foot speed, and in all of sport it was the elusive holy grail. In 1952, after suffering defeat at the Helsinki Olympics, three world-class runners each set out to break this barrier. Roger Bannister was a young English medical student who epitomized the ideal of the amateur — still driven not just by winning but by the nobility of the pursuit. John Landy was the privileged son of a genteel Australian family, who as a boy preferred butterfly collecting to running but who trained relentlessly in an almost spiritual attempt to shape his body to this singular task. Then there was Wes Santee, the swaggering American, a Kansas farm boy and natural athlete who believed he was just plain better than everybody else. Spanning three continents and defying the odds, their collective quest captivated the world and stole headlines from the Korean War, the atomic race, and such legendary figures as Edmund Hillary, Willie Mays, Native Dancer, and Ben Hogan. In the tradition of Seabiscuit and Chariots of Fire, Neal Bascomb delivers a breathtaking story of unlikely heroes and leaves us with a lasting portrait of the twilight years of the golden age of sport.
Trafficked Girl: Abused. Abandoned. Exploited. This Is My Story of Fighting Back
Trafficked Girl: Abused. Abandoned. Exploited. This Is My Story of Fighting Back
Zoe Patterson,Jane Smith
¥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.
Size Zero: My Life as a Disappearing Model
Size Zero: My Life as a Disappearing Model
Victoire Dauxerre
¥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.
Ruud Gullit: Portrait of a Genius (Text Only)
Ruud Gullit: Portrait of a Genius (Text Only)
Harry Harris
¥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.
Hotel Tiberias: A Tale of Two Grandfathers
Hotel Tiberias: A Tale of Two Grandfathers
Sebastian Hope
¥77.01
Part history, part travel journal and part autobiography, ‘Hotel Tiberias’ is a journey of many layers and resonances, as Sebastian Hope follows the tumultuous story of his family’s hotel in Palestine.
A Long Way from Home
A Long Way from Home
Cathy Glass
¥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.
Blood-Dark Track: A Family History
Blood-Dark Track: A Family History
Joseph O’Neill
¥66.22
From the bestselling and PEN/Faulkner Award-winning author of Netherland, a fascinating, personal, and beautifully crafted family history. Joseph O'Neill's grandfathers--one Turkish, one Irish--were both imprisoned for suspected subversion during the Second World War. The Irish grandfather, a handsome rogue from a family of small farmers, was an active member of the IRA. O'Neill's other grandfather, a debonair hotelier from the tiny and threatened Turkish Christian minority, was interned by the British in Palestine on suspicion of being an Axis spy. With intellect, compassion, and grace, O'Neill sets the stories of these individuals against the history of the last century's most inhuman events.
Blood Sisters: Can a pledge made for life endure beyond death?
Blood Sisters: Can a pledge made for life endure beyond death?
Julie Shaw
¥58.86
It’s 1983 and best friends Vicky and Lucy swear that they will always be there for each other, that they’ll never let anyone come between them. But fast forward 4 years and life on the Canterbury Estate has gotten very messy. Lucy has fallen for local policeman’s son, Jimmy. And Vicky is madly in love with Paddy, the charming but ruthless local bad boy. The boys are bitter enemies and determined to keep the two girls apart. But then Vicky is accused of murder, and even her drug-dealer boyfriend wants her mouth shut, permanently. Maybe Lucy is the only one who can save her… Love, murder, revenge. Who can you really trust when there’s blood on your hands?
The 15:17 to Paris: The True Story of a Terrorist, a Train and Three American He
The 15:17 to Paris: The True Story of a Terrorist, a Train and Three American He
Anthony Sadler,Alek Skarlatos
¥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.
I Know What You Are: The true story of a lonely little girl abused by those she
I Know What You Are: The true story of a lonely little girl abused by those she
Taylor Edison,Jane Smith
¥58.57
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 most 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.
Dead Now Of Course
Dead Now Of Course
Phyllida Law
¥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.
He Died With a Felafel in His Hand
He Died With a Felafel in His Hand
John Birmingham
¥46.11
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.
Letters to the Lady Upstairs
Letters to the Lady Upstairs
Marcel Proust,Lydia Davis
¥73.67
A charming, funny, poignant collection of twenty-three letters from Marcel Proust to his upstairs neighbour 102 Boulevard Haussmann, an elegant address in Paris’s eighth arrondissement. Upstairs lives Madame Williams, with her second husband and her harp. Downstairs lives Marcel Proust, trying to write In Search of Lost Time, but all too often distracted by the noise from upstairs. Written by Proust to Madame Williams between the years 1909 and 1919, this precious discovery of letters reveals the comings and goings of a Paris building, as seen through Proust’s eyes. You’ll read of the effort required to live peacefully with annoying neighbours; of the sadness of losing friends in the war; of concerts and music and writing; and, above all, of a growing, touching friendship between two lonely souls. ‘Delightful. Big news for Proustians’ Daily Telegraph ‘If you have suffered from noisy neighbours, you will sympathize with Marcel Proust’ Times Literary Supplement ‘A haunting portrait of a friendship between two people who lived within earshot of one another, separated only by a few inches of plaster and floorboard, but who scarcely ever met’ New Statesman