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Full Blown: Me and My Bipolar Family
￥90.57
David Lovelace, along his brother and both his parents, is bipolar. This is his extraordinary and vivid memoir of life within his memorable, maddening, loving and unique family. Full Blown is Lovelace's poignant, humorous, and vivid account of growing up and coming to terms with the highs and lows of manic depression. David's father was a Princeton-trained theology professor deemed too eccentric for the ministry and his mother battled depression all her life. Manic episodes were part of family life - they called them the 'whim-whams'. David was a teenager when his first serious depression hit, and at college when he first became manic. He ran to escape it – to Mexico, South America and then New York, to drugs and alcohol – before he realised the futility of running. A father himself, a son and a brother, David's matter-of-fact approach to growing up surrounded by the unique creativity often sparked by manic depression is compelling. In the vein of Stuart, A Life Backwards and Augusten Burroughs’ Running with Scissors , David’s poetic ability to detail the unique highs and harrowing lows makes a remarkable and gripping read.
Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?: The Autobiography
￥37.77
The long-awaited, never-before-told, no-holds-barred memoir from the legendary Aerosmith frontman. Finally, all the lurid tales of debauchery, sex, drugs and rock n' roll are told straight from the horse's lips as The Demon of Screamin' describes his unimaginable highs and unbelievable lows as lead singer of the biggest rock band in the world. Prolific frontman, rock icon and sex symbol, Steven Tyler is a living legend. With his raw, sharp-edged vocals, musical versatility and unprecedented song writing skills, Tyler has, as lead singer of Aerosmith, sold millions of records and played sell-out concerts to as many as 450,000 people. Now, at last, he tells his own story, taking us on a wild rollercoaster ride through the bust-ups, binges, orgies and good old American excess in the jaw-droppingly honest, in-your-face way that only Tyler can. Following a fateful meeting with his 'mutant twin' Joe Perry in the summer of 1970, Aerosmith was formed…and the rest, as they say, is rock history. They released their first album in 1973, and by 1976 Aerosmith had gone from being nobodies to massive to off the radar, making history as a multi-platinum, chart-topping band. But with great success comes great excess. Nicknamed the Toxic Twins for their insatiable appetite for drugs, booze and women, Tyler and Perry got caught up in the glamour of self-destruction - smashing each other up with guitars, having seizures and passing out on stage. By 1980 it seemed that the band and its members were set to implode, but after successful stints in drug rehab, Aerosmith were back on track and better than ever. But although he may have given up his wicked, wicked ways, Tyler still enjoys talking about the bad old days. He has so many outrageous stories to tell, and he's gonna tell them all. All the uncensored, head-spinning tales of debauchery, sex, booze, transcendence and chemical dependence you will ever want to hear. As raucous, intoxicating and edgy as his music, this is the most outrageous rock n' roll autobiography of all time.
The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh
￥73.58
This edition does not include illustrations. From the author of ‘Britons’, the story of the exceptional life of the intrepid Elizabeth Marsh – an extraordinary woman of her time who was caught up in trade, imperialism, war, exploration, migration, growing maritime reach, and new ideas. This is a book about a world in a life. An individual lost to history, Elizabeth Marsh (1735-85) travelled farther, and was more intimately affected by developments across the globe, than the vast majority of men. Conceived in Jamaica and possibly mixed-race, she was the first woman to publish in English on Morocco, and the first to carry out extensive overland explorations in eastern and southern India, journeying in each case in close companionship with an unmarried man. She spent time in some of the world's biggest ports and naval bases, Portsmouth, Menorca, Gibraltar, London, Rio de Janeiro, Calcutta and the Cape. She was damaged by the Seven Years War and the American Revolutionary War; and linked through her own migrations with voyages of circumnavigation, and as victim and owner, she was involved in three different systems of slavery. But hers is a broadly revealing, not simply an exceptional, life. Marsh's links to the Royal Navy, the East India Company, empire and international trade made these experiences possible. To this extent, her career illumines shifting patterns of British and Western power and overseas aggression. The swift onset of globalization occurring in her lifetime also ensured that her progress, relationships and beliefs were repeatedly shaped and deflected by people and events beyond Europe. While imperial players like Edmund Burke and Eyre Coote form a part of her story, so do African slave sailors, skilled Indian weavers and astronomers, ubiquitous Sephardi Jewish traders, and the great Moroccan Sultan, Sidi Muhammad, who schemed to entrap her. Many modern biographies remain constrained by a national framework, while global histories are generally impersonal. By contrast, in this dazzling and original book, Linda Colley moves repeatedly and questioningly between vast geo-political transformations and the intricate detail of individual lives. This is a global biography for our globalizing times.
Beautiful Child
￥45.62
From the bestselling author of One Child comes this amazing, true story of a mute and withdrawn seven--year--old girl and the special education teacher determined never to abandon a child in need. Seven-year-old Venus Fox never spoke, never listened, never even acknowledged the presence of another human being in the room with her. Yet an accidental playground "bump" would release a rage frightening to behold. The school year that followed would be one of the most trying, perplexing, and ultimately rewarding of Torey Hayden's career, as she struggled to reach a silent child in obvious pain. It would be a strenuous journey beset by seemingly insurmountable obstacles and darkened by truly terrible revelations--yet encouraged by sometimes small, sometimes dazzling breakthroughs--as a dedicated teacher remained committed to helping a "hopeless" girl, and patiently and lovingly leading her toward the light of a new day.
William Wilberforce: The Life of the Great Anti-Slave Trade Campaigner (Text Onl
￥80.25
William Hague has written the life of William Wilberforce who was both a staunch conservative and a tireless campaigner against the slave trade. Hague shows how Wilberforce, after his agonising conversion to evangelical Christianity, was able to lead a powerful tide of opinion, as MP for Hull, against the slave trade, a process which was to take up to half a century to be fully realised. Indeed, he succeeded in rallying to his cause the support in the Commons Debates of some the finest orators in Parliament, having become one of the most respected speakers of those times. Hague examines twenty three crucial years in British political life during which Wilberforce met characters as varied as Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, Tsar Alexander of Russia, and the one year old future Queen Victoria who used to play at his feet. He was friend and confidant of Pitt, Spencer Perceval and George Canning. He saw these figures raised up or destroyed in twenty three years of war and revolution. Hague presents us with a man who teemed with contradictions: he took up a long list of humanitarian causes, yet on his home turf would show himself to be a firm supporter of the instincts, interests and conservatism of the Yorkshire freeholders who sent him to Parliament. William Hague's masterful study of this remarkable and pivotal figure in British politics brings to life the great triumphs and shattering disappointments he experienced in his campaign against the slave trade, and shows how immense economic, social and political forces came to join together under the tireless persistence of this unique man. Note that it has not been possible to include the same picture content that appeared in the original print version.
Scott on Zélide: Portrait of Zélide by Geoffrey Scott
￥88.39
‘Lives that Never Grow Old’ is a wonderful series– edited by Richard Holmes – that recovers the great classical tradition of English biography. Every book is a biographical masterpiece, still thrilling to read and vividly alive. Zélide lived in her father’s moated castle in Holland, like a fairytale princess in a tower. She was the clever, sexy, mercurial young Dutch blue-stocking with whom Boswell fell disastrously in love in 1764. The rest of Zélide’s story was unknown until the brilliant young Boswell scholar Geoffrey Scott pieced it together from her intimate letters and essays. Subsequent affairs with a cynical cavalry officer, a celebrated but vacillating writer (aptly named Benjamin Constant), and a thoroughly reliable music master, took her eventually to another fairytale mansion in Switzerland. This tender, funny, faintly salacious portrait of a ‘belle-esprit’ is one of the most exquisite biographical miniatures ever written.
Just Another Kid: Each was a child no one could reach – until one amazing teache
￥68.67
A dramatic and remarkable narrative of an extraordinary teacher's determination, from the author of the Sunday Times bestsellers ‘The Tiger's Child’ and ‘One Child’. Torey Hayden faced six emotionally troubled kids no other teacher could handle – three recent arrivals from battle-torn Northern Ireland, badly traumatised by the horrors of war; an eleven-year-old boy, who only knew life inside an institution; an excitable girl, aggressive and sexually precocious at the age of eight; and seven-year-old Leslie, perhaps the most hopeless of all, unresponsive and unable to speak. But Torey's most daunting challenge turns out to be Leslie's mother, a stunning young doctor who soon discovers that she needs Torey's love and help just as much as the children. ‘Just Another Kid’ is a beautiful illustration of nurturing concern, not only for a few emotionally disturbed children, but for one woman facing a personal battle.
A Scandalous Life: The Biography of Jane Digby (Text only)
￥81.03
The biography of Jane Digby, an ‘enthralling tale of a nineteenth-century beauty whose heart – and hormones – ruled her head.’ Harpers and Queen A celebrated aristocratic beauty, Jane Digby married Lord Ellenborough at seventeen. Their divorce a few years later was one of England s most scandalous at that time. In her quest for passionate fulfilment she had lovers which included an Austrian prince, King Ludvig I of Bavaria, and a Greek count whose infidelities drove her to the Orient. In Syria, she found the love of her life, a Bedouin nobleman, Sheikh Medjuel el Mezrab who was twenty years her junior. Bestselling biographer Mary Lovell has produced from Jane Digby’s diaries not only a sympathetic and dramatic portrait of a rare woman, but a fascinating glimpse into the centuries-old Bedouin tradition that is now almost lost. Note that it has not been possible to include the same picture content that appeared in the original print version.
Charlotte Mew: and Her Friends
￥81.03
Penelope Fitzgerald’s fascinating portrait of the tragic poet and her life at the heart of the Bloomsbury set. Charlotte Mew (1869-1928) cut one of the most distinctive figures of the twentieth century – beloved of Siegfried Sassoon and Walter de la Mare (for whom she was ‘a very rare being’), unafraid of Virginia Woolf, and considered by Hardy to be ‘far and away the best living woman poet’. Part of a new wave of fashionable female dandies who lived passionate, precarious existences in Bloomsbury, she was an enchanting and spirited personality. But behind the brave face was a life riddled with grief: left to care for her disturbed mother, two siblings with undiagnosed Schizophrenia and Charlotte herself burdened by depression and closeted lesbianism; she killed herself by drinking household disinfectant. In this unexpectedly gripping portrait of a life of passion unfulfilled, Penelope Fitzgerald brings all her novelist’s skills into play in telling a story that is at once tragic, beautiful and deeply human.
Coleridge: Darker Reflections
￥80.25
Timely reissue of the second volume of Holmes’s classic biographies of one of the greatest Romantic poets. Richard Holmes’s biography of Coleridge transforms our view of the poet of ‘Kubla Khan’ forever. Holmes’s Coleridge leaps out of these pages as the brilliant, animated and endlessly provoking poet of genius that he was. This second volume covers the last 30 years of Coleridge’s career (1804-1834) during which he travelled restlessly through the Mediterranean, returned to his old haunts in the Lake District and the West Country, and finally settled in Highgate. It was a period of domestic and professional turmoil. His marriage broke up, his opium addiction increased, he quarrelled with Wordsworth, his own son Hartley Coleridge (a gifted poet himself) became an alcoholic. And after a desperate time of transition, Coleridge re-emerged on the literary scene as a new kind of philosophical and meditative author. Note that it has not been possible to include the same picture content that appeared in the original print version.
Coleridge: Early Visions
￥95.75
Winner of the 1989 Whitbread Prize for Book of the Year, this is the first volume of Holmes’s seminal two-part examination of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, one of Britain’s greatest poets. ‘Coleridge: Early Visions’ is the first part of Holmes’s classic biography of Coleridge that forever transformed our view of the poet of ‘Kubla Khan’ and his place in the Romantic Movement. Dismissed by much recent scholarship as an opium addict, plagiarist, political apostate and mystic charlatan, Richard Holmes’s Coleridge leaps out of the page as a brilliant, animated and endlessly provoking figure who invades the imagination. This is an act of biographical recreation which brings back to life Coleridge’s poetry and encyclopaedic thought, his creative energy and physical presence. He is vivid and unexpected. Holmes draws the reader into the labyrinthine complications of his subject’s personality and literary power, and faces us with profound questions about the nature of creativity, the relations between sexuality and friendship, and the shifting grounds of political and religious belief. Note that it has not been possible to include the same picture content that appeared in the original print version.
The Duchess (Text Only)
￥72.99
A tale of decadence and excess, great houses and wild parties, love and sexual intrigue, this biography of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, casts an astonishing new light on the nobility of eighteenth-century England. Fashionable, extravagant and universally adored, Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, was one of the most influential women of her day. But her flamboyant public persona hid a multitude of personal troubles: drug addiction, vast gambling debts, an unhappy ménage à trois with her husband and best friend, and a doomed affair with the future prime minister. Like her descendant, Diana, Princess of Wales, Georgiana was a vulnerable woman living the life of an icon. This utterly absorbing biography, recently made into a major film starring Keira Knightley as the Duchess of Devonshire, paints a touching portrait of a misunderstood woman.
Walter Sickert: A Life (Text Only)
￥82.01
This edition does not include illustrations. The first major life of the outstanding British painter – and Jack the Ripper suspect – Walter Sickert (1860-1942), by the highly acclaimed biographer of Aubrey Beardsley. Walter Richard Sickert is perhaps the outstanding figure of British art during the last hundred years. Many contemporary painters, from Hodgkin and Bacon to Auerbach and Kossof, acknowledge a debt to his influence. His career spanned six decades of unceasing experiment and achievement. As a young artist, he was welcomed and encouraged by Degas. He was the disciple of Whistler and mentor of Beardsley. He founded the London Impressionists and the Camden Town Group. He was taken up by both the Woolfs and the Sitwells. He gave painting lessons to Winston Churchill. His energy was prodigious and his personality fascinating: he was also an illustrator, cartoonist, writer, polemicist, teacher and wit. He relished controversy: his early paintings of London music halls and his late works, based on 18th-century etchings and contemporary news photographs, provoked outraged criticism from conventional commentators. Sturgis also devotes an appendix to charting in detail Sickert's posthumous life as a player in the 'Jack the Ripper' circus, assessing (and demolishing) the arguments of Patricia Cornwell and others in the light of his own discoveries.
The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things
￥73.58
Who was the real Jane Austen? Overturning the traditional portrait of the author as conventional and genteel, bestseller Paula Byrne’s landmark biography reveals the real woman behind the books. In this paperback of the landmark biography, bestselling biographer Paula Byrne uses objects that conjure up a key moment in Austen’s life and work – a silhouette, a vellum notebook, a topaz cross, a writing box, a royalty cheque, a bathing machine, and many more – to unlock the biography of this most beloved author. The woman who emerges is far tougher, more socially and politically aware, and altogether more modern than the conventional picture of ‘dear aunt Jane’ allows. Byrne’s lively book explores the many forces that shaped Austen’s life, her long struggle to become a published author, and brings Miss Austen dazzlingly into the twenty-first century.
Welcome to My World
￥58.86
One of the most photographed women in Britain, Coleen knows what it's like to live in the celebrity glare. Since she was a teenager the press have followed her every move. Welcome to My World' is Coleen’s first book and offers exclusive insights into her transformation from an ordinary Liverpudlian schoolgirl into a glamorous style icon. Coleen has become a huge inspiration to girls everywhere. We have watched in admiration as she has become sought after for the cover of the world’s fashion and style magazines, featured in Vogue, presented her own TV programme, become a regular magazine columnist and worked as the face of high profile brands. ‘Welcome to My World’ is Coleen's chance to share with her millions of fans the ways in which she has developed her taste in fashion, and the tips she can pass on from her increasingly admired style and her fitness regime. She also gives fascinating insights into what life is really like in the unrelenting celebrity spotlight and amidst the glare of the constant paparrazi flashbulbs. Along with often humorous insights into Coleen's world, the book includes her tips on fashion and style do's and don'ts based on her own experience of growing up in the limelight. It will be an inspiration to anyone interested in fashion, glamour and how one girl coped when she was thrust into the celebrity spotlight and her life changed forever.
Mia’s World: An Extraordinary Gift. An Unforgettable Journey
￥54.25
In the follow up to the Sunday Times bestseller, The Gift, we are taken on a journey further into the psychic world of Mia Dolan, one of Britain's most gifted psychics. Mia’s World is an amazing psychic adventure which reveals the truth about the spirit world. In Mia’s World, Mia Dolan takes on a student – Roz Chissick, a writer with absolutely no previous psychic training, and teaches her how to tap into her innate psychic gift. The result is an exciting psychic adventure not only for Roz but also for you the reader. Mia reveals more of her fascinating experiences of ghosts, spirits and explains the truth about the darker forces from the other side. We are taken on ghost-busts, to the mystical site of Avalon and astral travels to the home of her spirit guide. Mia reveals how we find happiness in this world and answers profound questions about life, death and psychic phenomena: - What is it like to die? - How can we still communicate with loved ones after death? - Do angels and demons exist? - Is there such a thing as a soul mate? - Is there such a thing as destiny or do we control our own fate? - What happens to our souls after we die? 'I wish there was some way I could share my ability to see things other people can't. We all have a guide, but not everyone can see or hear theirs. I've no idea what opened up the link between Eric and me, but I consider it a gift.' Mia Dolan in Real magazine
Out of the Frying Pan: Scenes from My Life
￥68.67
Keith Floyd’s exuberant personality, as much as his cooking skills, has made him a favourite both as bestselling author and as television presenter. But here, for the first time, he tells his own story – and it is full of surprises. The stories from his childhood in Somerset are vivid and moving: his grandfather with his tin leg, his mother at the mills, and his uncle, the ferret keeper, and the black sheep of the family for ‘carrying on’ with married women. Keith Floyd spent a short spell on a local newspaper, and then, in a hilarious episode, joined the army. After he and the Ministry of Defence decided that they did not suit each other, he took his first cooking job as an assistant vegetable cook in a Bristol hotel. The great period of bistros and cafes had dawned and Keith Floyd was in the forefront, cooking in an open kitchen, with Pink Floyd blaring from the speakers. What is wonderful about this book is the vividness of the scenes he paints and the deftness with which he draws the characters – including his several wives. Those who have admired Keith Floyd’s way with a whisk will now be impressed to discover and enjoy his remarkable skill with words.
Southey on Nelson: The Life of Nelson by Robert Southey
￥72.99
LIVES THAT NEVER GROW OLD A radical new series – edited by Richard Holmes – that recovers the great classical tradition of English biography. Every book is a biographical masterpiece, still thrilling to read and vividly alive. This short, brilliant, action-packed biography appeared only eight years after Nelson’s death at the Battle of Trafalgar (a scene unforgettably described). It helped transform Nelson into the most popular wartime hero that Britain has ever placed on top of a column. It first gave currency to the proverbial stories of his courage and exhibitionism, from the ‘blind eye’ at Copenhagen, to ‘Kiss me, Hardy’ and the scandal of ‘Beloved Emma’ at Naples. It was written by the romantic poet and historian Robert Southey, a one-time radical who was converted to patriotism by Nelson’s shining (though not ‘untarnished’) example.
Sunshine on Putty: The Golden Age of British Comedy from Vic Reeves to The Offic
￥72.40
The definitive history of a golden age in British show-business, Sunshine On Putty is based on hundreds of interviews with the leading comedians of the era, as well as managers, agents, producers, directors, executives and TV personalities. In the 1990s, British comedy underwent a renaissance – shows like The Fast Show, The Day Today, Shooting Stars, The League of Gentlemen, The Royle Family and The Office were hugely popular with critics and audiences alike. Just as politics, sport, art, literature and religion seemed to move towards light entertainment, the comedy on the nation's televisions not only offered a home to ideas and ideals of community which could no longer find one elsewhere, but also gave us a clearer picture of what was happening to our nation than any other form of artistic endeavour. From Ricky Gervais' self-destructive love affair with dairy products to Steve Coogan's suicidal overtaking technique; from the secrets of Vic Reeves' woodshed, to the stains on Caroline Aherne's sofa; from Victor Meldrew's prophetic dream to Spike Milligan's final resting place, Ben Thompson reveals the twisted beauty of British comedy’s psyche.
Ready, Steady, Go!: Swinging London and the Invention of Cool (Text Only)
￥76.91
Shawn Levy, author of ‘Rat Pack Confidential’ brings alive London in the swinging Sixties with a gripping, groovy story of those who created the scene that changed the world. For a few years in the 1960s, London was the coolest city on earth: a spontaneous, dizzying stew of pop music, fashion, film, scandal, drugs & sex, crime, the avant garde underground and the tabloid obsession with fame. The rest of the world watched in awe. Snaking through it are such eminent swinging Londoners as The Dreamer (actor Terence Stamp), The Chameleon (Rolling Stone Mick Jagger), The Loner (Beatles manager Brian Epstein), The Snapper (photographer David Bailey) and The Blue Blood (art dealer Robert Fraser), as well as such figures as comedian Peter Cook; hairdresser Vidal Sassoon; singer Marianne Faithfull; fashion designer Mary Quant; supermodels Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy; gangsters Ron and Reggie Kray; actor Michael Caine; actresses Catherine Deneuve, Lynn Redgrave and Julie Christie; pop groups The Beatles, The Who and The Kinks; filmmakers Roman Polanski, Richard Lester and Michelangelo Antonioni; as well as the various participants in the Profumo scandal, the Great Train Robbery, the rise of LSD, the radical underground, the heyday of the gambling club and the fashion boutique and various and sundry scandals, scenes and sensations. Due to a combination of massive talent and sheer luck, they dominated the world scene. But the party was to end – after seven short years it seemed that everyone was now a Swinging Londoner and the same vibe was found in Paris, New York and San Francisco. ‘Ready, Steady, Go’ recreates the whole show and contrasts a series of emblematic lives with the great events that shaped the time. Through these stories, Shawn Levy, author of ‘Rat Pack Confidential’, shows how the city reinvented cool and then seemed to lose its swing altogether.
From Coal Dust to Stardust
￥51.50
As Britain's most successful and high profile make-up artist, for the past 15 years Gary Cockerill has glossed the lips, curled the lashes and shared the secrets of the famous and fabulous. With his unique style of super-sexy, uber-glamorous make-up, Gary has been responsible for helping to launch the careers and keep the secrets of a host of famous names, including his best friend Katie Price. But behind the glitz and glamour is a heart-warming and at times hilarious story of how a former Yorkshire coal miner with no training or contacts fought his way up to become the celebrity world's make-up artist of choice. In From Coal Dust to Star Dust, Gary reveals how a job spray-painting the faces of shop mannequins in a grimy West London factory led him to America and a hair-raising stint working with the superstars of the adult film industry. He explains how he landed his first celebrity client and within a few years was back in Los Angeles again, only this time working with true Hollywood movie legends. Today, with a star-studded client list that reads like a copy of Vanity Fair magazine, Gary has become a loyal friend and confidante to many of his regular clients. In his role at the heart of the celebrity circus, he reveals what it was like to have a ringside seat for some of the most notorious tabloid scandals of the Noughties. Running alongside Gary's rise to fame is his candid and moving account of coming to terms with his sexuality and meeting his first boyfriend – now husband, Phil Turner – while in the middle of planning a wedding to his glamour model fiancée Tracey. He also lays bare his own struggles with shopping addiction, his dabbles with drugs and how his newfound celebrity lifestyle threatened to spiral out of control and destroy everything he had worked for. Gary's fairytale journey from the mines of Doncaster to the VIP rooms of London and LA is a moving and funny tale in the mould of Billy Elliot – if, that is, Billy ended up pole-dancing in a strip joint at the start of Act Two. Entertainingly gossipy but never bitchy or cruel, Coal Dust to Stardust will be a must-read for anyone interested in contemporary celebrity culture.
