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Westlife: Our Story
Westlife: Our Story
Westlife
¥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.
Matt Cardle: My Story: The Official X Factor Winner's Book
Matt Cardle: My Story: The Official X Factor Winner's Book
Matt Cardle
¥130.87
In those weeks following the audition I'd started to think that maybe I could do well in the competition, and even to see beyond bootcamp and what doing well could mean. I knew I never wanted to go back to painting, whatever happened.' Matt's dream has come true, and this is his story. Painter-decorator, bricklayer, milkman, even Santa, Matt's always been in bands, always putting off starting a career because he knew that what he really wanted to do was sing. Charismatic but down to earth, loved by the judges, the other contestants and, of course, the public for his cheeky smile and warm heart, Matt is a true star in the making. Packed full of unseen photographs shot especially for the book, backstage footage, behind-the-scenes gossip and the full and remarkable story of the winner from X Factor hopeful to popstar sensation, this book is a must-have for all X Factor fans.
Bad Blood: A Memoir (Text Only)
Bad Blood: A Memoir (Text Only)
Lorna Sage
¥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’.
Humble Pie
Humble Pie
Gordon Ramsay
¥12.56
Everyone thinks they know the real Gordon Ramsay: rude, loud, driven, stubborn. But this is his real story… In this fast-paced, bite-sized edition of his bestselling autobiography Ramsay tells the real story of how he became the world’s most famous and infamous chef: his difficult childhood, his brother’s heroin addiction, his failed first career as a footballer, his fanatical pursuit of gastronomic perfection and his TV persona - all the things that have made him the celebrated culinary talent and media powerhouse that he is today. Gordon talks frankly about: ? his tough childhood: his father’s alcoholism and violence and the effects on his relationships with his mother and siblings ? his first career as a footballer: how the whole family moved to Scotland when he was signed by Glasgow Rangers at the age of fifteen, and how he coped when his career was over due to injury just three years later ? his brother’s heroin addiction. ? Gordon’s early career: learning his trade in Paris and London; how his career developed from there: his time in Paris under Albert Roux and his seven Michelin-starred restaurants. ? kitchen life: Gordon spills the beans about life behind the kitchen door, and how a restaurant kitchen is run in Anthony Bourdain-style. ? and how he copes with the impact of fame on himself and his family: his television career, the rapacious tabloids, and his own drive for success.
Niall Mackenzie: The Autobiography
Niall Mackenzie: The Autobiography
Niall Mackenzie,Stuart Barker
¥63.77
he 40-year-old Scot has been Britain's most successful Grand Prix racer since the legendary Barry Sheene. At his final race in Knockhill in August 2001, more than 20,000 fans turned up to watch Mackenzie and to bid farewell to their local hero. Niall has come a long way from Denny where he would regularly get into trouble for racing round the streets, as well as in and out of the local chip shops, to impress the girls. As an amateur it was recognized he had an abundance of talent, especially after winning his first race at Knockhill, but he also had a wild side and looks back on a time when chasing girls and getting drunk were as important as winning races. After moving up through the amateur ranks and securing his first factory 500cc rides on a Suzuki, Niall notched up a host of 500cc GP podium finishes before moving to Superbikes. He proved unbeatable between 1996 and 1998 when he claimed a hat-trick of British Superbike titles. On each occasion he beat big-name team-mates such as Jamie Whitham, Chris Walker and Steve Hislop. This fascinating look into the British GP and Superbike scene through the eyes of one of its legends, has now been fully updated with Mackenzie’s latest adventures in his career off the track in 2003.
The Friendship: Wordsworth and Coleridge
The Friendship: Wordsworth and Coleridge
Adam Sisman
¥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?
Not that Kinda Girl
Not that Kinda Girl
Lisa Maxwell
¥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.
Unravelled: Life as a Mother
Unravelled: Life as a Mother
Maria Housden
¥54.65
Maria Housden tells of her own transformation, as a mother, a wife and a woman, as she struggled to cope with the death of her daughter Hannah and make the hardest decision of her life. From the author of the bestselling Hannah’s Gift. At the age of 36, instead of enjoying the perfect family life she had imagined as a child, Maria felt judged and found wanting by others. She realised that, no matter how much she still loved her husband and how powerful her bond of love was with her children, she had to change her life radically – she had to make it her own again. What followed was an emotional and enlightening search for herself. Written in the same moving, lyrical style as Hannah’s Gift, the story unfolds in a series of painful, joyful and humorous moments. At times the story is heart-wrenchingly sad but ultimately it is uplifting and inspiring.
The Knox Brothers
The Knox Brothers
Penelope Fitzgerald,Richard Holmes
¥76.42
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.
Tommy’s Honour: The Extraordinary Story of Golf’s Founding Father and Son
Tommy’s Honour: The Extraordinary Story of Golf’s Founding Father and Son
Kevin Cook
¥81.03
The definitive account of golf’s founding father and son, Old and Young Tom Morris. For the first time, the two will be portrayed as men of flesh and blood – heroic but also ambitious, loving but sometimes confused and angry. Two men from one household, with ambitions that made them devoted partners as well as ardent foes. Tommy's Honour is a compelling story of the two Tom Morrises, father and son, both supremely talented golfers but utterly different, constituting a record-breaking golfing dynasty that has never been known before or since. Father, Old Tom Morris, grew up a stone's throw away from golf's ancestral home at St Andrews, a whisky-fuelled caddie, a wonderful 19th century character who became an Open Champion three times before running the Royal & Ancient, then sole governing body of the game. His son, Young Tom, arguably an even more prodigious talent than his father, was a golfing genius, the Tiger Woods of his era, who at 17 became the youngest player, to this day, to win the Open Championship. He then went on to win it four times in a row, an unprecedented achievement. On one occasion, father and son fought it out at the last hole of the Championship before the son finally triumphed. But then came the pivotal day that would change their lives forever, the death of Young Tom’s wife and unborn child. The cataclysmic events of that day eventually lead to Young Tom’s tragic death, aged 24, with his father living on for another 20 years in deep remorse. So on the one hand, you have the story of one of the most influential figures in the history of golf, a pioneer in the birth of the modern game and of Scottish and Open Championship golf. And on the other hand – and this is the real appeal of this book – you have an extraordinary father-and-son story. It’s for every son who ever competed with his father, and every father who has guided his son towards manhood, then found it hard to let go.
Lime Street at Two
Lime Street at Two
Helen Forrester
¥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
The Tiger’s Child
Torey Hayden
¥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.
Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens
Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens
Jane Dunn
¥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.
Sidetracks
Sidetracks
Richard Holmes
¥95.75
In this classic work, the author of 'Footsteps' collects the biographical stories that have captured his fancy in the course of researching his books on the romantic poets, creating a captivating mixture of biography and memoir. ‘Sidetracks' is a sister book to 'Footsteps', conjured up from decades of 'wanderings from the straight and narrow' of his major biographies of Shelley and Coleridge. As Holmes himself says, 'to be sidetracked is, after all, to be led astray by a path or an idea, a scent or a tune, and maybe lost forever.' The centerpiece of the book is the poignant, inspiring story of Mary Woolstonecraft, the great feminist crusader and philosopher and her husband, William Godwin. But 'Sidetracks' winds through an extraordinary and eclectic assortment of Romantic and Gothic writers and personalities, all made hypnotically alive through Holmes's transforming touch. We meet Chatterton and Gautier, Pierrot and Voltaire, Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda, James Boswell and Zelide, MR James and some very unpleasant gothic apparitions. 'Sidetracks' is a renewed examination of the strange and sometimes shadowy pathways of biography.
Queen Victoria: A Personal History
Queen Victoria: A Personal History
Christopher Hibbert
¥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.
So I Have Thought of You: The Letters of Penelope Fitzgerald
So I Have Thought of You: The Letters of Penelope Fitzgerald
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.
The Mitfords: Letters between Six Sisters
The Mitfords: Letters between Six Sisters
Charlotte Mosley
¥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.
The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton (Text Only)
The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton (Text Only)
Kathryn Hughes
¥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
Spike: An Intimate Memoir
Norma Farnes
¥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.
Cruel to Be Kind: Part 2 of 3: Saying no can save a child’s life
Cruel to Be Kind: Part 2 of 3: Saying no can save a child’s life
Cathy Glass
¥23.45
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. 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.
A Long Way from Home: Part 2 of 3
A Long Way from Home: Part 2 of 3
Cathy Glass
¥28.45
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.