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Shakespeare
￥66.22
From bestselling author Bill Bryson comes this compelling short biography of William Shakespeare, our greatest dramatist and poet. Examining centuries of myths, half-truths and downright lies, Bill Bryson makes sense of the man behind the masterpieces. As he leads us through the crowded streets of Elizabethan England, he brings to life the places and characters that inspired Shakespeare’s work. Along the way he delights in the inventiveness of Shakespeare’s language, which has given us so many of the indispensable words and phrases we use today, and celebrates the Bard’s legacy to our literature, culture and history. Drawing together information from a vast array of sources, this is a masterful account of the life and works of William Shakespeare, one of the most famous and most enigmatic people ever to have lived – not to mention a classic piece of Bill Bryson.
How Starbucks Saved My Life
￥72.30
A candid, moving and inspirational memoir about a high-flying business man who is forced to re-evaluate his life and values when he suddenly loses everything and goes to work in Starbucks. Michael Gill had it made. He was educated, wealthy and well-connected. He had a creative and lucrative advertising job, which he loved and which he was good at, and a model family and home life. Then he loses it all. He is fired by a young exec whom he had mentored. He has an extramarital affair that destroys his family and results in a newborn son. Then he is diagnosed with brain cancer. He has no insurance, no income. One day he wanders into Starbucks and by chance signs up for a job interview. His would-be boss is a young black woman who gives him a job, and sets about training him and mentoring him. What follows is an inspirational eye-opener as Gill experiences a whole new world compared to his former life – with people from completely different ethnic and social backgrounds. ‘How Starbucks Saved My Life’ follows Gill's journey of discovery as gradually he is forced to question his ingrained assumptions, prejudices and habits. Gill emerges from his fall from grace with humility and gratitude. His new-found empathy teaches him how anyone who has lost their way, or made a mistake, can start again.
Unbroken
￥66.22
The incredible true story of Louis Zamperini, now a major motion picture directed by Angelina Jolie. THE INTERNATIONAL NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER In 1943 a bomber crashes into the Pacific Ocean. Against all odds, one young lieutenant survives. Louise Zamperini had already transformed himself from child delinquent to prodigious athlete, running in the Berlin Olympics. Now he must embark on one of the Second World War’s most extraordinary odysseys. Zamperini faces thousands of miles of open ocean on a failing raft. Beyond like only greater trials, in Japan’s prisoner-of-war camps. Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini’s destiny, whether triumph or tragedy, depends on the strength of his will … Now a major motion picture, directed by Angelina Jolie and starring Jack O’ Connell.
Microadventures: Local Discoveries for Great Escapes
￥125.18
‘Enthusiastic, pleasingly madcap’ Geographical Adventure – something that’s new and exhilarating, outside your comfort zone. Adventures change you and how you see the world, and all you need is an open mind, bags of enthusiasm and boundless curiosity. So what’s a microadventure? It’s close to home, cheap, simple, short and 100% guaranteed to refresh your life. A microadventure takes the spirit of a big adventure and squeezes it into a day or even a few hours. The point of a microadventure is that you don’t need lots of time and money to meet a new challenge. This practical guide is filled with ideas for microadventures – for you to experience on your own or with friends and family – and over 150 stunning photographs, plus tips and advice on safety and kit. Whether it’s sleeping on a hilltop or going for a wild swim, cycling a lap of the Isle of Wight or walking home for Christmas, it’s time you discovered something new about yourself and the world outside your window. Adventure is everywhere, every day and it is up to us to find it.
Kick
￥73.58
The remarkable life of the vivacious, clever – and forgotten – Kennedy sister, who charmed the English aristocracy and was almost erased from her family history. When Kathleen Kennedy sailed to England after her father had been appointed Ambassador to Great Britain in 1938, her wit, aloofness and sexual charisma at once became the source of endless fascination for the British public. ‘Kick’ became the star of the family and the press loved her, London magazine Queen headlining her as ‘America’s Most Important Debutante’. Her meeting at a summer garden party with a shy, tall, handsome man called ‘Billy’ who it transpired was the heir to the Duke of Devonshire and Chatsworth, the most eligible bachelor in England, became first an intrigue and soon a scandal for the Kennedys. She was Catholic and he an Anglican. But Kick had fallen in love with Billy, and with England. In 1944, they were married. In September Billy was killed in combat with the British Army. Widowed as Lady Hartington, Kathleen Kennedy remained in England after the loss of her husband until her own tragic death. In ‘Kick’, Paul Byrne tells the story of a woman who was more than simply the second sister of Jack, Bobby and Ted: a feisty and unique product of two countries, she was the force of personality the Kennedys rarely mentioned, a life long hidden from the legendary family history.
Daddy’s Little Earner
￥45.62
The shocking story of a young girl forced into prostitution by her own father, and her painful journey to escape her horrific childhood and build a new life for herself and her sons. Maria's dad was a pimp, living in a world of thieves and street-walkers. Her mother, tiring of turning tricks for her husband, walked out, leaving the children in his chaotic, violent and sometimes cruel care. By the age of nine, Maria's father was abusing her and getting a prostitute friend to dress her up in stockings and make-up. By the time she was fourteen he was selling her on the streets of the red light district in Norwich. Despite everything Maria still loved her swaggering and sometimes charming father and found it hard to sort out her own feelings. At fifteen she ran away to King's Cross with an older lover who turned out to be just another pimp. Furious at losing a nice little earner her father involved the police and both he and the other man were jailed for living off Maria's immoral earnings. Only then could Maria escape her traumatic childhood and follow her dream of becoming a mother.
Raising the Dead: A True Story of Death and Survival
￥83.88
A true story of death and survival in the world’s most dangerous sport, cave diving. Two friends plunge 900 ft deep into a water-filled crater in the Kalahari Desert to raise the body of a diver who had perished there a decade before. Only one returns. Unquenchable heroism and complex human relationships amid the perils of extreme sport. On New Year's Day, 2005, David Shaw travelled halfway around the world on a journey that took him to the Kalahari Desert of South Africa, to a site known locally as Boesmansgat: Bushman's Hole. His destination was nearly 900 feet below the surface. On 8 January, he stepped into the water. He wore and carried on him some of the most advanced diving equipment ever developed. Mounted to a helmet on his head was a video camera. David Shaw was about to attempt what had never been done before, and he wanted the world to see. He descended. About fifteen feet below the surface was a fissure in the dolomite bottom of the basin, barely wide enough to admit him and his equipment and the aluminum tanks slung under his shoulders. He slipped through the opening, and disappeared from sight, leaving behind the world of light and life. Then, a second diver descended through the same crack in the stone. This was Don Shirley, Shaw's friend and frequent dive partner, one of the few people in the world qualified to follow where Shaw was about to go. In the community of extreme diving, Don Shirley was a master among masters. Twenty-five minutes later, one of the men was dead. The other was in mortal peril, and would spend the next 10 hours struggling to survive, existing literally from breath to breath. What happened that day at Bushman's Hole is the stuff of nightmarish drama, juxtaposing classic elements of suspense with an extreme environment beyond most people’s comprehension. But it’s also a compelling human story of friendship, heroism, unswerving ambition and of coming to terms with loss and tragedy.
Seminary Boy
￥80.25
One of the most extraordinary memoirs of recent years, the acclaimed writer John Cornwell has finally written his own story, and the story of a choice he had to make between the Church and a life lived outside its confines. John Cornwell decided to become a priest at the age of thirteen, a strange choice perhaps for a boy who'd been sent to a 'convalescent home' for having whacked a nun about the head. Growing up in a chaotic household, sharing two rooms with his brothers and sisters, his hot-headed mother and – when he was around – absconding father, John spent his time roaming the war-torn streets of London looking for trouble. One day, at his mother's suggestion, he responded to a call from his local parish priest for altar servers. The 'dance of the rituals', the murmur of Latin and the candlelit dawn took hold of his imagination and provided him with a new and unexpected comfort. He left post-war London for Cotton, a seminary in the West Midlands. In this hidden, all-male world, with its rhythms of devotion and prayer, John grew up caught between his religious feelings and the rough and tumble of his life back in London; between seeking the face of God in the wild countryside around him and experiencing his first kiss; between monitoring his soul and watching a girl from a moving train whose face he will never forget. Cornwell tells us of a world now vanished: of the colourful community of priests in charge; of the boys and their intense and sometimes passionate friendships; of the hovering threat of abuse in this cloistered environment. And he tells us of his struggle to come to terms with a shameful secret from his London childhood – a vicious sexual attack which haunts his time at Cotton. A book of tremendous warmth and humour, ‘Seminary Boy’ is about an adolescent's search for a father and for a home.
My Father’s Watch: The Story of a Child Prisoner in 70s Britain
￥63.18
The intensely moving memoir of Patrick Maguire, one of the ‘Maguire Seven’ wrongly imprisoned as a teenager for making bombs for the IRA. On the night of October 5 1974, an IRA unit left bombs in two Guildford pubs: five people were killed. On the night of December 3 1974, on the strength of fabricated testimony extracted under duress from Paul Hill and Gerard Conlon (whom the police mistakenly believed had planted the Guildford bombs), Anne and Paddy Maguire, two of their four children, Vincent and Patrick, plus other family members and friends, a total of seven in all, were arrested at their home in West London. On 22 October 1975 the Guildford Four were wrongfully convicted of bombing the two pubs in Guildford. On the 4 March 1976 the Maguire Seven, as they had become known, were found guilty of possession of the nitro-glycerine used in those bombings. On 19 October 1989 the verdicts on the Guildford Four were quashed. On 26 June 1991 the convictions against the Maguire Seven of handling explosives were quashed and just over a year later, Sir John May, after producing a report on the Maguire Seven case, described it as the worst miscarriage of justice he had ever seen. Behind these dates lie human stories – ‘My Father's Watch’ tells that of Patrick, who was the youngest of the accused, at fourteen years old. He was sentenced to four years and when he came out he had no home and no family, as both parents were still in jail. This book takes us through Patrick's entire life, from his working-class childhood in West London to the difficult life he has led since prison, the roots of which go back to the wrongful convictions and the destruction of the family that followed. Patrick Maguire and the novelist Carlo Gébler have written ‘My Father's Watch’ jointly. It is not a ghosted work – told in Patrick's own voice, it is a lucid and inspiring account of one individual's experience of an appalling injustice, as well as a reminder, as the war against terror ratchets up, of just how much harm a state can do to its own innocent citizens in the name of security.
Cameron: Practically a Conservative
￥68.67
A fully updated edition of the first major biography of David Cameron – now covering his first years as Prime Minister and leader of the coalition government. David Cameron is the first Conservative Prime Minister in a generation, and also the first leader of a coalition government for eighty years. But what is the reality behind his brand of repackaged Conservatism? And who is Cameron the man? Here, for the first time, is an independent examination of the ‘saviour’ of the Conservative Party and the life that brought him to Number 10. Based on extensive interviews with his closest friends, his most senior lieutenants and his critics, it traces his meteoric rise from an idyllic, privileged childhood, to the heart of government by the age of 25, to leader of the country. Critical and insightful by turn, this updated edition now covers Cameron’s first year as Prime Minister – a time that has seen unprecedented scandal in the political world, as well as challenges unique to the Conservative leader.
We Bought a Zoo
￥65.16
A film tie-in edition to 20th Century Fox’s film adaptation of the heart-warming international bestseller starring Scarlett Johansson and Matt Damon and directed by Oscar-winning director Cameron Crowe. An amazing true story that has inspired the major Hollywood motion picture this Christmas, to be repackaged for release alongside the film. We Bought a Zoo is about one young family, a broken down zoo, and the wild animals that changed their lives forever. When Ben [played by Damon] and his wife Katherine [played by Johansson] sold their small flat in Primrose Hill, upped sticks with their children and invested their savings into a dilapidated zoo on the edge of Dartmoor, they were prepared for a challenge and a momentous change in all their lives. With over 200 exotic animals to care for – including an African lion, a wolf pack, a Brazilian tapir and a jaguar – Ben’s hands, and those of his wife, children and tiny team of keepers, were full. What they weren’t prepared for was Katherine’s devastating second brain cancer diagnosis. Ben found himself juggling the daunting responsibilities of managing the park’s staff and finances, while holding the bailiffs at bay and caring for his wife. A moving and entertaining story of courage and a family’s attempts to rebuild a zoo, and carry on after Katherine’s tragic death.
Unbreakable: My life with Paul – a story of extraordinary courage and love
￥80.25
Unbreakable tells Lindsey Hunter’s moving and heartbreaking story. Lindsey is the widow of snooker star Paul Hunter, who died tragically aged only 27 after a battle with cancer in October 2006, leaving Lindsey and their one year-old daughter Evie bereft and alone. Lindsey met Paul Hunter when she was 21 and he was 18. When they married seven years later, Paul had become a golden boy in the world of snooker, dubbed ‘the Beckham of the baize,’ having won the Masters trophy three times, and attained a world ranking of number four, and Lindsey's happiness looked assured. But tragedy struck when Paul was diagnosed with a rare type of cancer, neuro-endocrine tumours in his abdomen. Aggressive chemotherapy appeared to work, and within six months Paul was competing in a major championship, with Lindsey cheering him on from the side-lines. More joy came when Lindsey gave birth to their daughter, Evie Rose. But tragically, Paul died in October 2006, 18 months after his diagnosis, leaving Lindsey a widow and single mother. Lindsey was determined to celebrate Paul's life rather than mourn his death, and has dealt with the loss of her young husband on the eve of their life together with strength and courage, for the sake of their daughter. This heartbreaking and inspirational story has huge universal appeal.
Tell Me Why, Mummy
￥73.58
The inspirational true story of one man overcoming enormous odds – including sexual abuse from his alcoholic mother – to choose his own path in life and become a truly exceptional human being. From the age of four David Thomas was sexually abused by his alcoholic mother and subsequently physically abused by his aged stepfather. By the age of 16 he had committed multiple burglaries, assaulted a police officer with an iron bar, attempted suicide, received a criminal conviction from a juvenile court, and been expelled from school. He left home as soon as he could and joined the fire service at 20. At the age of 27 he bought a book on memory. Within 8 months he had come fourth in the World Memory Championships and went on to develop one of the most powerful memories in history, even breaking an 18-year-old Guinness Book of Records memory record by reciting the mathematical formula Pi (3.1459) to 22,500 digits from memory. In 1999 he was reunited with his mother after 4 years apart but tragically, a year later he found her dead at home after she had died of an alcohol induced heart attack. David's shocking and moving story is one of abuse, alcoholism, courage, determination, forgiveness, love and how everyone can choose their own path through life irrespective of their upbringing, background or perceptions about what they think is possible. David is an incredible example of how this can happen.
Hidden
￥63.77
From the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author of ‘Damaged’ comes the poignant and shocking memoir of Cathy’s recent relationship with Tayo, a young boy she fosters whose good behaviour and polite manners hide a terrible past. Tayo arrives at Cathy’s with only the clothes he stands up in. He has been brought to her by the police, but he is calm, polite, and very well spoken, and not at all like the children she normally fosters. The social worker gives Cathy the forms which should contain Tayo’s history, but apart from his name and age, it is blank. Tayo has no past. Tayo is an 'invisible' child, kidnapped from his loving father in Nigeria and brought illegally to the UK by his drink and drugs dependent prostitute mother, where he is put to work in a sweat shop in Central London. When he sustains an injury and is no longer earning, he is cast out. When Cathy takes Tayo to school he points out a dozen different addresses where he has stayed in the last six months, often being left alone. Tayo lies, and manipulates situations to his own advantage and Cathy has to be continually on guard. Tayo’s social worker searches all computer databases but there is no record of Tayo – he has only attended school for 3 terms and has never seen a doctor. He and his mother have been evading the authorities by living ‘underground’. With his mother recently released from prison, Tayo is desperate to live with his father in Nigeria, but no one can track him down or even prove that he exists.
Making the Cat Laugh
￥66.22
SPECIAL PRICE FOR A LIMITED TIME One woman's journal of single life on the margins. A brilliant collection of Lynne Truss’ journalism – recording the life of a metropolitan refugee from coupledom. The alternative ‘Bridget Jones’. For seven long years, starting in ‘The Listener’ in 1988 and continuing in ‘The Times’ and ‘Woman's Journal’, Lynne Truss has been trying to make her cat laugh. It has been an uphill task, which is why she deserves this book, a recognition of outstanding courage in the face of futility. Along the way, 'Margins', 'Single of Life' and 'One Woman's Journal' have collected a band of devoted fans, yet still the cat remains unimpressed. Never have so many jokes about Kitbits been found in such concentration as in ‘Making the Cat Laugh’. But under the headings such as 'The Single Woman Considers Going Out but Doesn't Fancy the Hassle' and 'The Single Woman Stays at Home and Goes Quietly Mad', we discover a writer not only obsessed with cats, but prone to over-reacting generally - to news stories, shopping, passive smoking, Christmas, coupledom, boyfriends, snails, sheds, Andre Agassi, cooking instructions, requests of 'How's the novel going?' and personal remarks of any kind.
Little Prisoners: A tragic story of siblings trapped in a world of abuse and suf
￥51.50
From the Sunday Times bestselling author comes a harrowing and moving memoir about two innocent and frightened ‘unfosterable’ children who do not know what it means to be loved. This is the third book in the series. The shock that strikes Casey and her family when Ashton and Olivia arrive is immeasurable. Two dirty, frightened little waifs stand before them, huge eyes staring around their new surroundings. Ashton – 9, Olivia – 6, have the same urchin look; hair running wild with head lice, filthy nails and skin covered in scabs. And the smell is horrific. The eldest two children of a group of five siblings, Casey had only been told they were coming two days earlier. But it was an emergency, temporary placement, and they were only due to stay a couple of weeks… Casey is desperate to help these poor, lost children, who have been taken away from their family because they were considered at risk, but before she can even start to understand the horrific things that have happened in the past, she has to teach them the most basic of behaviours. Ashton and Olivia have no barriers and no sense of what’s right and wrong – her challenges begin with the toilet and eating habits. The weeks roll into months and the months roll on, but bit by bit the children are starting to feel like they truly belong to a family, for the first time. With this new found security and love, gradually they start to reveal what really happened to them and their siblings at home, and slowly Casey can help them start to rebuild their young lives. Includes a sample chapter of Too Hurt To Stay.
Blue Nights
￥66.22
From one of America’s greatest and most iconic writers: an honest and courageous portrait of age and motherhood. Several days before Christmas 2003, Joan Didion’s only daughter, Quintana, fell seriously ill. In 2010, Didion marked the sixth anniversary of her daughter’s death. ‘Blue Nights’ is a shatteringly honest examination of Joan Didion’s life as a mother, a woman and a writer. Recently widowed, and becoming increasingly frail, ‘Blue Nights’ is Didion’s attempt to understand our deepest fears, our inadequate adjustments to ageing and to put a name to what we refuse to see and as a consequence fail to face up to, ‘this refusal even to engage in such contemplation, this failure to confront the certainties of ageing, illness and death. This fear.’ This fear is tied to what we cherish most and fight to conserve, protect, and refuse to let go, for, ‘when we are talking about mortality we are talking about our children.’ To face death is to let go of memory, to be bereft once more, ‘I know what it is I am now experiencing. I know what the frailty is, I know what the fear is.’ The fear is not for what is lost. The fear is for what is still to be lost. You may see nothing still to be lost. Yet there is no day in her life on which I do not see her. A profound, poetic and powerful book about motherhood and the fierce way in which we continue to exalt and nurture our children, even if they only live on in memory. ‘Blue Nights’ is an intensely personal, and yet, strangely universal account of how we love. It is both groundbreaking and a culmination of a stunning career.
Hizzy: The Autobiography of Steve Hislop
￥80.25
Steve Hislop was one of the most famous motorcycle racers in the world. He had always been a controversial and outspoken character having had many famous clashes and splits with teams and riders over the years, not always to his advantage. Season 2003 was no different. Steve’s life was incredible, funny and ultimately tragic. Hislop made his debut in 1979 on a bike paid for by his father, but when the latter died of a heart-attack, he embarked on a self-destructive quest that resulted in more crashed bikes and cars than he can remember. Three years later his brother Garry was killed racing at Silloth. It looked as if he would never race again but while on holiday at the Isle of Man TT races in 1983, he was mesmerised by the sight of Joey Dunlop and he knew he had to try it. He took to the roads immediately, amassing an amazing career record of 11 wins and was the first rider in history to lap the course at an average speed of over 120mph. Hizzy's TT victories over big name rivals like Joey Dunlop and Carl Fogarty made him a living legend beyond the confines of just the UK. He turned his back on the Isle of Man in 1994, claiming it was too fast and dangerous for modern superbikes. However, he had already proved he was just as fast on purpose-built short circuits having won the British 250cc championship in 1990 and then went on to win the British Superbike (BSB) title in 1995 and 2002. Defending a title is always difficult and made even harder when your current team doesn't give you a new contract. However, season 2003 started positively for Steve, inasmuch as he found a new team, but he was sacked half way through the season after a string of poor results on an uncompetitive bike. These events, however, paled into insignificance when Steve was killed in July 2003 when the helicopter he was flying crashed in a remote Scottish border region. His book is a fitting tribute to a motor racing legend.
A Thing in Disguise: The Visionary Life of Joseph Paxton (Text Only)
￥72.40
A biography of an unsung Victorian hero, Joseph Paxton was the man behind the garden design at Chatsworth and the Crystal Palace at the Great Exhibition of 1851. The Victorians heralded a new era of creativity, a revolutionary fervour seizing all forms of design. Joseph Paxton was a leading light of this movement. Head Gardener at Chatsworth House by the age of twenty-three, encouraged by the sixth Duke of Devonshire he transformed the Derbyshire estate into the greatest garden in England. Queen Victoria came to marvel and with the development of the railway, so too did daytrippers from all over the country. His design for the Crystal Palace sealed his reputation. By the time of his death, Paxton ‘the busiest man in England’ according to Charles Dickens, could count Brunel and Stevenson amongst his friends. Horticulturalist, designer, architect – Paxton was one of the most remarkable figures of his time. The greatest age of art and industry is embodied in this compelling portrait of a Victorian hero.
The Checkout Girl
￥81.03
How much do you know about what really goes on at your local supermarket? We see them every week and they are privy to some of our most intimate secrets - those we wouldn't even share with our closest friends. To us they are the anonymous helpers for whom nothing is too much trouble. But for them, every customer has a part in a gripping soap-opera of lovers' tiffs, family feuds and extraordinary innuendos - turning the daily life of a checkout girl into a hilariously entertaining farce. As we began to contend with the recession, Tazeen Ahmad realised that the supermarket checkout was the perfect place to gauge how the nation was coping with increasing job cuts, sky-high food prices and a billion pound hole in our economy. The answer, it turns out, was with white bread, ice cream and lots and lots of potatoes. Sworn at, flirted with and at the receiving end of endless customer rants, The Checkout Girl is the deliciously gossipy memoir of life on the supermarket conveyor belt where each one of us has unwittingly had a walk-on part. Reading her story will change the way you shop forever.
The Kraus Project
￥76.91
A great American writer’s confrontation with a great European critic – a personal and intellectual awakening. Karl Kraus: satirist. Controversialist. Forgotten voice of the early twentieth century. Jonathan Franzen: bestseller. Contrarian. One of the greatest novelists working today. Recalling his student days, the celebrated author of ‘The Corrections’ and ‘Freedom’ recounts his discovery of Kraus and presents his own translations and annotations of the philosopher’s most famous essays. A pioneer of self-publishing, Kraus brilliantly attacked the mass media and the dehumanizing machinery of technology and capitalism. A notoriously difficult writer, Kraus has met his match in Franzen: a popular novelist unafraid to voice unpopular opinions. In the extensive footnotes Franzen explains why Kraus is relevant today – while also revealing his own intellectual and personal preoccupations. Painstakingly wrought, strikingly original, ‘The Kraus Project’ is a feast of thought and literature.
