Bigger than Hitler – Better than Christ
¥73.58
In this electrifying autobiography, Rik stands naked in front of his vast legions of fans and disciples and invites them to take communion with the blood he has spilled for them during his thirty year war on show business. He invented alternative comedy with The Young Ones, he brought down the Thatcher administration with The New Statesman and he changed the face of global culture with his masterpiece Bottom. Not only was his number one single ‘Living Doll’ the saviour of rock 'n' roll but he also rescued the British film industry with the vast revenues created by his legendary movie Drop Dead Fred. In 1998, he survived an assassination attempt and spent five days in a coma before he literally came back from the dead. Having completed countless phenomenal feature films, TV series, live extravaganzas and radio voice-overs since then, Rik Mayall is now poised on the brink of a whole new epoch-shattering revolution. For the first time ever, Rik reveals in print the deep inner truth behind his gargantuan ascent to the pinnacle of international light entertainment – the mental hospitals he has broken out of, the television executives he has assaulted, the drugs he has definitely not taken, the charities he has bankrupted, the countless pregnancies he has engendered, and so much more.
My Life As a Medium
¥73.58
The inside story of the ‘reluctant medium’, finally available in a mass-market A-format edition Betty Shine was originally an opera singer, but studied all forms of alternative healing, becoming a vitamin and mineral therapist. Guided by spirit voices from the age of two, she became a world-famous medium. This is the story of how she became the best known medium and healer in the UK. Through her books, tapes and absent healing service, she is in touch with thousands of people worldwide. The hardback publication of her book produced a tremendous response from both the media and the general public and this A-format edition will bring her story to an even wider audience.
What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women and the Food That Tells Their Stories
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‘If you find the subject of food to be both vexing and transfixing, you’ll love What She Ate’ Elle Dorothy Wordsworth believed that feeding her poet brother, William, gooseberry tarts was her part to play in a literary movement. Cockney chef Rosa Lewis became a favourite of King Edward VII, who loved her signature dish of whole truffles boiled in Champagne. Eleanor Roosevelt dished up Eggs Mexican – a concoction of rice, fried eggs, and bananas – in the White House. Eva Braun treated herself to Champagne and cake in the bunker before killing herself, alongside Adolf Hitler. Barbara Pym's novels overflow with enjoyment of everyday meals – of frozen fish fingers and Chablis – in midcentury England. Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown's idea of “having it all” meant having almost nothing on the plate except a supersized portion of diet gelatin. In the irresistible What She Ate, Laura Shapiro examines the plates, recipe books and shopping trolleys of these six extraordinary women, casting a new light on each of their lives – revealing love and rage, desire and denial, need and pleasure.
The Duchess: The Untold Story – the explosive biography, as seen in the Daily Ma
¥73.58
THE #2 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ‘The last untold account of the biggest crisis to hit the royals since the abdication … Explosive biography by Britain’s top royal author … A gripping story of human frailty, love, loss, sadness, and tragedy’ Daily Mail In her relationship with Charles that has survived for more than forty years, Camilla’s story has seen a great many myths. This book is the definitive account. The relationship between Charles, Prince of Wales and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, is one of the most remarkable love stories of the age. It has endured against all the odds, and in the process nearly destroyed the British monarchy. It is a rich and remarkable story that has never been properly told – indeed, it is one of the most extraordinary, star-crossed love stories of the past fifty years.
Ma’am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret
¥73.58
WINNER OF THE SOUTH BANK SKY ARTS LITERATURE AWARD 2018 A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR ? A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR ? A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR ? A DAILY MAIL BOOK OF THE YEAR ‘A masterpiece’ Mail on Sunday ‘I honked so loudly the man sitting next to me dropped his sandwich’ Observer She made John Lennon blush and Marlon Brando clam up. She cold-shouldered Princess Diana and humiliated Elizabeth Taylor. Andy Warhol photographed her. Jack Nicholson offered her cocaine. Gore Vidal revered her. John Fowles hoped to keep her as his sex-slave. Dudley Moore propositioned her. Francis Bacon heckled her. Peter Sellers was in love with her. For Pablo Picasso, she was the object of sexual fantasy. “If they knew what I had done in my dreams with your royal ladies” he confided to a friend, “they would take me to the Tower of London and chop off my head!” Princess Margaret aroused passion and indignation in equal measures. To her friends, she was witty and regal. To her enemies, she was rude and demanding. In her 1950’s heyday, she was seen as one of the most glamorous and desirable women in the world. By the time of her death, she had come to personify disappointment. One friend said he had never known an unhappier woman. The tale of Princess Margaret is pantomime as tragedy, and tragedy as pantomime. It is Cinderella in reverse: hope dashed, happiness mislaid, life mishandled. Combining interviews, parodies, dreams, parallel lives, diaries, announcements, lists, catalogues and essays, Ma’am Darling is a kaleidoscopic experiment in biography, and a witty meditation on fame and art, snobbery and deference, bohemia and high society. ‘Brown has been our best parodist and satirist for decades now … Ma’am Darling is, as you would expect, very funny; also, full of quirky facts and genial footnotes. Brown has managed to ingest huge numbers of royal books and documents without losing either his judgment or his sanity. He adores the spectacle of human vanity’ Julian Barnes, Guardian
The Genius of Jane Austen: Her Love of Theatre and Why She Is a Hit in Hollywood
¥73.58
Paula Byrne is the author the bestselling biographies ‘Perdita’, ‘Mad World’, ‘The Real Jane Austen’, ‘Belle’ and ‘Kick’. She is founder and chief executive of ReLit, the Bibliotherapy Foundation, a charity devoted to the mental health benefits of reading. She is married to Sir Jonathan Bate and lives in Oxford.
The Spiral Staircase
¥73.58
A raw, intensely personal memoir of spiritual exploration from one of the world’s great commentators on religion.
The Man Who Created the Middle East: A Story of Empire, Conflict and the Sykes-P
¥73.58
At the age of only 36, Sir Mark Sykes was signatory to the Sykes-Picot agreement, one of the most reviled treaties of modern times. A century later, Christopher Sykes’ lively biography of his grandfather reassesses his life and work, and the political instability and violence in the Middle East attributed to it. The Sykes–Picot agreement was drawn by the eponymous British and French diplomats in 1916 to determine the divide of the collapsing empire in the event of an allied victory in World War I. Excluding Arab involvement, it negated their earlier guarantee of independence made by the British – and controversy has raged around it ever since. But who was Mark Sykes? A century on, Christopher Simon Sykes reveals new facets of a misremembered diplomatic giant. Using previously undisclosed family letters and cartoons by his grandfather, he delivers a comprehensive and humbling account of the man behind one of the most impactful policies in the Middle East.
Uggie, the Artist:My Story
¥73.58
Chronicling Uggie’s life and that of his humans in intimate detail, Uggie: My Story is the hilarious and heart-warming life story of Hollywood’s favourite dog. The undisputed canine star of multiple-award-winning movie The Artist tells all. From his humble beginnings as a pound-bound hound, Uggie confesses to his youthful misdemeanours including Cat-Gate and Goat-Gate, before taking the reader on a page-turning journey through his career as a Jack Russell pin-up, star of numerous commercials, and bit-part player in several B-list movies. Aged almost seventy in human years, Uggie finally made it to the Oscars in the silent movie that set the world talking before being forced to retire at the peak of his career through ill health. Uggie’s memoir offers an entertaining romp through his encounters with celebrity actors (animal and human) as well as directors, politicians, journalists and vets. It also covers his disastrous dalliance with alcohol and his squirrel obsession. As well as a love letter to his acting coach Omar Von Muller, Uggie: My Story is revealingly frank about Uggie’s enduring crush on his one-time co-star Reese Witherspoon, which was finally sealed with a kiss at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner. Everyone loves a happy ending, especially a dog. ‘Uggie’s the catch of the day!’ Katy Perry ‘That was the best action I’ve had in years!’ Whoopi Goldberg, after being kissed by Uggie ‘You have no idea how star struck I am!’ Gerard Butler ‘Uggie was my shadow and my friend’ Jean Dujardin Warm, funny and totally absorbing, this is the perfect Christmas gift for film and dog fans alike.
One Direction:Where We Are (100% Official):Our Band, Our Story
¥73.58
Calling all One Direction fans! This is the only official book from 1D, charting their journey over the last year and a half – from the places they’ve visited and fans they’ve met, to their thoughts and feelings, hopes and dreams, highs and lows. It has been a phenomenal year – and this is a phenomenal story. This Christmas, there will be no other book that true One Direction fans will want! They’ve won dozens of awards. They’ve had a bigger US debut than the Beatles. They’ve played Madison Square Garden, the Royal Variety Show, and sold-out venues across the globe. One Direction – just five young guys from small British towns – has truly gone global. Now the lives of Louis, Liam, Harry, Zayn and Niall are changing beyond recognition. This year, with their own movie hitting theatres and a 133-date tour stretching across the globe, the 1D star is shining brighter than ever. How did they feel when they debuted twice at no. 1 in the US – and in 37 countries around the world? How have they kept themselves grounded? And now that they’ve come so far, what are their dreams for the future? In Where We Are, the boys offer you a chance to find out about this breathtaking chapter of their story, straight from the heart and in their own words. Packed with exclusive beautiful photos, backstage snapshots, hand-written annotations and brand new insights into the boys’ world, Where We Are is a unique book that no fan’s life is complete without – bringing the 1D story right up to date.
Edmund Burke:The Visionary Who Invented Modern Politics
¥73.58
Longlisted for the Orwell Prize and the Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction; both conservative and subversive, Burke’s beliefs have never been more relevant, as MP Jesse Norman explains. Philosopher, statesman, and founder of modern conservatism, Edmund Burke is both the greatest and most under-rated political thinker of the past three-hundred years. Born in Ireland in 1729, and greatly affected by its bigotry and extremes, his career constituted a lifelong struggle against the abuse of power. Amid the 18th century’s golden generation that included his companions Adam Smith, Samuel Johnson and Edward Gibbon, Burke’s controversial mixture of conservative and subversive theories made him first a marginal figure, and finally a revered theorist – a hero of the Romantics. He warned of the effects of British rule in Ireland, the loss of the American colonies, and most famously, he foresaw the disastrous consequences of revolution in France. This he predicted, would trigger extremism, terror and the atomisation of society – a profound analysis that continues to resonate today. In this absorbing new biography Conservative MP Jesse Norman gives us Burke anew, vividly depicting his dazzling intellect, imagination and empathy against the rich tapestry of 18th century Europe. Burke’s wisdom, Norman shows, applies well beyond the times of empire to the conventional democratic politics practised in Britain and America today. We cannot understand the defects of the modern world, or modern politics, without him.
Memories of Milligan
¥73.58
An arresting collection of interviews, collated by Norma Farnes, Spike Milligan's close friend and longstanding agent, bringing to life the late, great Milligan in all his various guises. Heralded as brilliant and difficult in equal measure, Spike Milligan is one of the most prolific and mould-breaking writers of the twentieth century. Fantastically funny and incredibly talented, on his death in 2002, Spike left behind him one of the most diverse legacies in British entertainment history. Creative, inspirational, and at times doggedly loyal, yet famously tempestuous and fickle, Spike was many things to many people. In Memories of Milligan, Norma Farnes sets out to interview those who knew him best, amassing an array of personal memories from fellow performers and comedians, long time friends and former girlfriends. Compiled of intimate stories, small exchanges and habits that go into making up a relationship, be it personal or professional, Memories of Milligan captures another side to the performer's well-known public persona, to build a complete picture of one of the greatest British comic writers to date. Ranging from interviews with fellow comedian Barry Humphries, *writers Galton and Simpson, director Jonathan Miller, stalwart presenters Michael Palin and Terry Wogan, to comic geniuses such as Eric Sykes and producer George Martin, this original book encapsulates a moving portrait of a man who is synonymous with a unique era in post-war entertainment.
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.
Barefoot in Mullyneeny: A Boy’s Journey Towards Belonging
¥73.58
Bryan Gallagher's reminiscences of the Ireland of his youth, first heard on Radio 4's 'Home Truths', transport you to a world of boyhood pranks, playground politics and the confusion of growing up in a land that is every bit as magical and captivating as the stories he has to tell. Barefoot in Mullyneeny is Bryan Gallagher's evocative tale of a childhood remembered through the people and landscape of Fermanagh, near the beautiful shores of Lough Erne in Ireland. Bryan chronicles a time when all the big boys went to school in bare feet and secretly watched the Saturday night bands and dances in halls lit by Tilley lamps; where it was known to be nothing less than the biblical truth that if you put a horse-hair across the palm of your hand when you were about to be punished at school, the cane would split in two. Gallagher's writing will touch the hearts of those who long for the innocence of childhood and the simplicity of an era long past. Whether relating tales of murderous bicycle chases through the darkened streets of Cavan, of ghosts and fairy forts or the anguish of emigration, this remarkable memoir vividly recreates life in rural Ireland in the 1940s and 50s. For those who thought that life in Ireland was one of the poverty and misery of James Joyce or Frank McCourt, Barefoot in Mullyneeny offers a view of the Ireland of yesteryear that combines the touching, homely nostalgia of Nigel Slater's Toast and Laurie Lee's Cider with Rosie with a humorous optimism that is unmistakably Ireland at its best.
Nowhere to Run: Where do you go when there’s nowhere left to hide?
¥73.58
Where do you go when there's nowhere left to hide? 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.
Smell of Summer Grass: Pursuing Happiness at Perch Hill
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The Smell of Summer Grass is the story of the years spent in finding and building a personal idyll, sometimes a dream, sometimes a nightmare, by writer Adam Nicolson and his wife, cook and gardener, Sarah Raven. Without knowing one end of a hay baler from the other, Adam Nicolson and Sarah Raven, fed up with London and with life, escaped with his family to a run-down farm in the Sussex Weald. Looking for Arcadia, they found a mixture of intense beauty and profound chaos. Over three years they struggled with dock leaves, spring flowers, bloody-minded sheep and neighbours before eventually arriving at some kind of equilibrium. Funny, poetic, ironic and wise, ‘The Smell of Summer Grass’ is based partly on the long out of print 'Perch Hill'. It traces the growing intimacy between man and his chosen place, his love affair with it and his frustrations with its intractable realities. As an attempt to live out the pastoral vision, it makes one heartfelt plea: we should never abandon our dreams.
To Fight Alongside Friends: The First World War Diaries of Charlie May
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The First World War Diaries of Manchester Pals Captain Charlie May – written and kept in secret and published now for the first time. A born storyteller, Charlie May’s vivid eye for detail and warm good humour brings his experience in the trenches (and the experience of millions of ordinary men like him) to life for a 21st-century readership. Captain Charlie May was killed, aged 27, in the early morning of 1st July 1916, leading the men of ‘B Company’, 22nd Manchester Service Battalion (the Manchester Pals) into action on the first day of the Somme. This tolerant and immensely likeable man had been born in New Zealand and – against King’s regulations – he kept a diary in seven small, wallet-sized pocket books. A journalist before the war and a born storyteller, May’s diaries give a vivid picture of battalion life in and behind the trenches during the build-up to the greatest battle fought by a British army and are filled with the friendships and tensions, the home-sickness, frustrations, delays and endless postponements, the fog of ignorance, the combination of boredom and terror to which every man that has ever fought could testify. His diaries reflect on the progress of the war, tell jokes – good and bad, give details of horse-rides along the Somme valley, afternoons with a fishing rod, lunch in Amiens, a gastronomic celebration of Christmas 1915 and concerts in ‘Whiz Bang Hall’. He describes battles not just with the enemy, but with rats, crows and on the makeshift football pitch – all recorded with a freshness that brings these stories home as if for the first time. The diaries are also written as an extended and deeply-moving love letter to his wife Maude and baby daughter Pauline. ‘I do not want to die’, he wrote – ‘Not that I mind for myself. If it be that I am to go, I am ready. But the thought that I may never see you or our darling baby again turns my bowels to water.’ Fresh, eloquent and warm, these diaries were kept secret from the censor and were delivered to his wife after his death by a fellow soldier in Charlie’s company. Edited by his great-nephew and published for the first time, these diaries give an unforgettable account of the war that took Charlie May’s life, and millions of others like him.
An A–Z of Exceptional Dogs
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In this charming bestiary of exceptional dogs, Mikita Brottman reflects on the role dogs play in our world, all explored through her relationship with her dog Grisby and many other examples of the dogs of great writers and artists from literature, lore, and life. While gradually unveiling her eight-year love affair with her French bulldog, Grisby, Mikita Brottman ruminates on the singular bond between dogs and humans. Why do prevailing attitudes warn us against loving our pet “too much”? Is her relationship with Grisby nourishing or dysfunctional, commonplace or unique? Challenging the assumption that there’s something repressed and neurotic about those deeply connected to a dog, she turns her keen eye on the many ways in which dog is the mirror of man. The Great Grisby is organised into twenty-six alphabetically arranged chapters, each devoted to a particular human-canine union drawn from history, art, philosophy, or literature. Here is Picasso’s dachshund Lump; Freud’s chow Yofi; Bill Sikes’s mutt Bull’s Eye in Oliver Twist; and Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s spaniel Flush, whose biography was penned by Virginia Woolf. There are royal dogs, like Prince Albert’s greyhound Eos, and dogs cherished by authors, like Thomas Hardy’s fox terrier, Wessex. Brottman’s own beloved Grisby serves as an envoy for sniffing out these remarkable companions. Quirky and delightful, and peppered with incisive personal reflections and back-and-white sketches portraying a different dog and its owner, The Great Grisby reveals how much dogs have to teach us about empathy, happiness, love―and what it means to be human.
In the Days of Rain: WINNER OF THE 2017 COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD
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WINNER OF THE 2017 COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD In the vein of Bad Blood and Why be Happy when you can be Normal?: an enthralling, at times shocking, and deeply personal family memoir of growing up in, and breaking away from, a fundamentalist Christian cult. As heard on Jeremey Vine ‘At university when I made new friends and confidantes, I couldn’t explain how I’d become a teenage mother, or shoplifted books for years, or why I was afraid of the dark and had a compulsion to rescue people, without explaining about the Brethren or the God they made for us, and the Rapture they told us was coming. But then I couldn’t really begin to talk about the Brethren without explaining about my father…’ As Rebecca Stott’s father lay dying he begged her to help him write the memoir he had been struggling with for years. He wanted to tell the story of their family, who, for generations had all been members of a fundamentalist Christian sect. Yet, each time he reached a certain point, he became tangled in a thicket of painful memories and could not go on. The sect were a closed community who believed the world is ruled by Satan: non-sect books were banned, women were made to wear headscarves and those who disobeyed the rules were punished. Rebecca was born into the sect, yet, as an intelligent, inquiring child she was always asking dangerous questions. She would discover that her father, an influential preacher, had been asking them too, and that the fault-line between faith and doubt had almost engulfed him. In In the Days of Rain Rebecca gathers the broken threads of her father’s story, and her own, and follows him into the thicket to tell of her family’s experiences within the sect, and the decades-long aftermath of their breaking away.
An Odyssey: A Father, A Son and an Epic: SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRI
¥73.58
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 2017 SHORTLISTED FOR THE LONDON HELLENIC PRIZE 2017 WINNER OF THE PRIX M?DITERRAN?E 2018 From the award-winning, best-selling writer: a deeply moving tale of a father and son’s transformative journey in reading – and reliving – Homer’s epic masterpiece. When eighty-one-year-old Jay Mendelsohn decides to enrol in the undergraduate seminar on the Odyssey that his son Daniel teaches at Bard College, the two find themselves on an adventure as profoundly emotional as it is intellectual. For Jay, a retired research scientist who sees the world through a mathematician’s unforgiving eyes, this return to the classroom is his ‘one last chance’ to learn the great literature he’d neglected in his youth – and, even more, a final opportunity to understand his son. But through the sometimes uncomfortable months that follow, as the two men explore Homer’s great work together – first in the classroom, where Jay persistently challenges his son’s interpretations, and then during a surprise-filled Mediterranean journey retracing Odysseus’ legendary voyages – it becomes clear that Daniel has much to learn, too. For Jay’s responses to both the text and the travels gradually uncover long-buried secrets that allow the Daniel to understand his difficult father at last. As this intricately woven memoir builds to its wrenching climax, Mendelsohn’s narrative comes to echo the Odyssey itself, with its timeless themes of deception and recognition, marriage and children, the pleasures of travel and the meaning of home. Rich with literary and emotional insight, An Odyssey is a renowned writer’s most revelatory entwining yet of personal narrative and literary exploration.
Being Wagner: The Triumph of the Will
¥73.58
The perfect introduction to the Master. One hundred and thirty-five years after his death, Richard Wagner’s music dramas stand at the centre of the culture of classical music. They have never been more popular, nor so violently controversial and divisive. As a man, he was a walking contradiction: aggressive, flirtatious, disciplined, capricious, heroic, visionary and poisonously anti-Semitic. His ten great mature masterpieces constitute an unmatched body of work, created against a backdrop of poverty, revolution, violent controversy, critical contempt and hysterical hero-worship. His work often dealt with myth, but his own life had the character of a fable. At one point, in his early fifties, desperately poor after a life of heroic productivity, he had four lengthy operas written with no hope of seeing them done, when, as if in a fairy-tale, he was rescued by a beautiful young king with limitless wealth. When one of those works, Tristan and Isolde, was at last performed, it revolutionised classical music at a stroke. Wagner went on to create The Ring of the Nibelung: a vast epic in four massive segments, ushering gods and dwarves, heroes and thugs, dragons and rainbows onto the stage. This was the apotheosis of German art as he saw it, so extreme in its demands that he had to train a generation of singers and players to perform it, and erect a custom-built theatre to house it. Wagner died, exhausted, after creating one final piece – Parsifal – that seems to point to an even more radical new future for music. Simon Callow plunges the reader headlong into Wagner’s world, examining the intellectual and artistic climate in which Wagner, a composer like no other who ever lived, extreme in everything, creator of perhaps the most sublime and most troubling body of work in the history of music.

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