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Sad Men
by Dave RobertsAll Dave Roberts ever wanted to do (apart from collect football programmes) was to work in advertising. More specifically, to work for the world's best advertising agency, Saatchi and Saatchi. There was just one problem. Even when he managed to persuade someone to employ him, Dave's copywriting assignments were mainly for second hand car dealers and double glazing companies. And Leeds, Manchester and, bizarrely, New Zealand were a long way from Charlotte Street and Madison Avenue. This was the world of the Sad Men.In his sparkling new memoir, Dave tells the story of a life shaped by his love of adverts, from seeing the PG Tips chimps at the age of three to writing infamous ads such as the Westpac Rap and having David Jason plug a family restaurant. Bursting with brilliant ideas - and some pretty daft ones - it is the cautionary tale of a quest for advertising glory... and not quite ever getting there.
George Farquhar: A Migrant Life Reversed (Cultural Histories of Theatre and Performance)
by David RobertsGeorge Farquhar (1677–1707) is one of the most successful and enduringly popular Restoration playwrights. His two masterpieces, The Recruiting Officer and The Beaux' Stratagem, are still regularly performed today. Yet aspects of Farquhar's biography, and in particular his Irish roots and family life, have remained obscure. This is the first study to treat Farquhar's works as documents of migration and the fragmented identity that resulted. Told in reverse chronological order, beginning with Farquhar's last and best-known works, it reveals previously undiscovered material about his life and connections.Born in Londonderry, Farquhar arrived in London at the end of the 1690s but struggled throughout his life to find acceptance in the English literary culture. David Roberts explores how Farquhar used comedy to negotiate his Anglo-Irish Protestant identity while perpetually being treated as an outsider. George Farquhar: A Migrant Life Reversed challenges traditional critical thinking on historiographic approaches to scholarly biography and offers a complex but highly readable account of the interpenetrating pasts, presents and futures of the migrant writer.
George Farquhar: A Migrant Life Reversed (Cultural Histories of Theatre and Performance)
by David RobertsGeorge Farquhar (1677–1707) is one of the most successful and enduringly popular Restoration playwrights. His two masterpieces, The Recruiting Officer and The Beaux' Stratagem, are still regularly performed today. Yet aspects of Farquhar's biography, and in particular his Irish roots and family life, have remained obscure. This is the first study to treat Farquhar's works as documents of migration and the fragmented identity that resulted. Told in reverse chronological order, beginning with Farquhar's last and best-known works, it reveals previously undiscovered material about his life and connections.Born in Londonderry, Farquhar arrived in London at the end of the 1690s but struggled throughout his life to find acceptance in the English literary culture. David Roberts explores how Farquhar used comedy to negotiate his Anglo-Irish Protestant identity while perpetually being treated as an outsider. George Farquhar: A Migrant Life Reversed challenges traditional critical thinking on historiographic approaches to scholarly biography and offers a complex but highly readable account of the interpenetrating pasts, presents and futures of the migrant writer.
Suffragette: The Battle for Equality
by David RobertsAn exquisitely illustrated history of the women's suffrage movement, created by the New York Times-bestselling David Roberts and introduced by BBC presenter Lauren Laverne.It is over a century since the first women won the vote in the United Kingdom, and Suffragette tells the story of their fight. This is a tale of astounding bravery, ingenuity and strength.David's writing is accessible and his artwork full of rich detail, bringing to life the many vivid characters of the women's suffrage movement – from the militant activist and wheelchair user Rosa May Billinghurst to the world-famous Emmeline Pankhurst, Millicent Fawcett and Emily Wilding Davison.Covering the whole range of female and male suffragist experiences – from aristocrats to the middle and working class as well as a look at the global struggle for universal suffrage, Suffragette: The Battle for Equality makes a fantastic introduction to a fascinating topic. David Roberts' exquisite artwork and clear, exceptionally well-researched text make this the perfect gift.This 128 page book is fully colour illustrated on every page, and has been completed with advice from June Purvis, Emeritus Professor of Women's and Gender History at the University of Portsmouth.
Alone on the Wall: Alex Honnold and the Ultimate Limits of Adventure
by David Roberts Alex Honnold‘Riveting . . . Honnold is neither crazy nor reckless. Alone on the Wall reveals him to be an utterly unique and extremely appealing young man’ Jon Krakauer, bestselling author of Into the Wild Alex Honnold is one of the world's best ‘free solo’ climbers, he scales impossible rock faces without ropes, pitons or and support of any kind. Exhilarating, brilliant and dangerous, there is a purity to Alex's climbs that is easy to comprehend, but also impossible to fathom; in the last forty years, only a handful of climbers have pushed themselves as far, ‘free soloing’ to the absolute limit of human capabilities. Half of them are dead. From Yosemite's famous Half Dome to the frighteningly difficult El Sendero Luminoso in Mexico, Alone on the Wall explores Alex's seven most extraordinary climbing achievements so far. These are tales to make your palms sweat and your feet curl with vertigo. Together, they get to the heart of how – and why – Alex does what he does. Exciting, uplifting and truly awe-inspiring, Alone on the Wall is a book about the essential truth of being free to pursue your passions and the ability to maintain a singular focus, even in the face of mortal danger.Alex is the subject of the BAFTA winning and Oscar nominated film Free Solo.
I'll Climb Mount Everest Alone: The Story of Maurice Wilson
by Dennis RobertsThis is a sad, strange and touchingly heroic book. It tells of a mad, misguided adventure: one man's attempt to conquer Mount Everest. Maurice Wilson belonged to the 'lost generation'. He fought in the First World War, winning the Military Cross, but found the transition to civilian life difficult. He led a restless, rootless life and suffered ill-health. This changed mysteriously in 1932 when through, it would seem, a combination of prayer and fasting he cured himself. His Mount Everest ambitions started to take shape. They could not have been more ambitious. His odyssey was to begin in Britain. He bought himself an airplane. He couldn't fly, was a poor student, but finally learnt the rudiments. Despite all the odds, and much official obstruction, he managed to fly to India. More obstacles followed, but on 21 March, 1934 Maurice Wilson and three Sherpas slipped out of Darjeeling disguises as Buddhist monks. Wilson's first attempt on Mount Everest was solo. It failed. He tried again this time with the three Sherpas. They made better progress initially. From the base camp, Wilson made two more attempts on the final ascent. A year later Eric Shipton's reconnaissance party found his body at the approaches to the North Col. They also found his diary: the final entry read, 'Off again, gorgeous day.' The diary provides an astonishing record of persistence, courage, and a faith that never wavered in the face of appalling hardship and adversity.Although this is a chronicle of failure, the achievement can still be marvelled at. Here was a man with no flying or mountaineering experience whatsoever who managed to fly from Britain to India and then nearly conquers Mount Everest : there are even those who speculate he might have done so but even without that fanciful embellishment it is an extraordinary story.This book, first published in 1957, has been out of print for a very long time. Its renewed availability will delight not just those interested in mountaineering but also connoisseurs of adventure stories.
A Lucid Dreamer: The Life of Peter Redgrove
by Dr Neil Roberts Peter RedgroveThe work of the poet Peter Redgrove is one of the great unexplored treasures of late twentieth century literature. His prolific output presents an intriguing variety of personae: magician, scientist, lover, psychologist, joker, madman. It is only now, with the publication of his Collected Poems and this biography, that we can see how and why these personae developed - and discover the full depth and range of this visionary writer.Born into an apparently conventional middle-class family that was in reality deeply disturbed, the poet finally emerged: transforming himself from the neurotic, Oedipal young scientist, through a process of mental breakdown, insulin coma therapy, erotic revelation and the discovery of poetic companionship at Cambridge - and particularly his friendship and rivalry with Ted Hughes.Neil Roberts explores the inner story of this emergence, and Redgrove's later development through marriage, family life, the fellowship of the 'Group', alcoholic excess, infidelity and marital breakdown to his triumphant later partnership with Penelope Shuttle. We also discover, for the first time, some darker secrets: his fascination with Aleister Crowley, his damaged and damaging relationship with his father, and the lifelong sexual fetish which he called the 'Game'. Drawing on the poet's intimate journals and correspondence, and interviews with family, friends and colleagues, A Lucid Dreamer tells the exceptionally inward and revealing story of an astonishing creative life.
Doc Holliday: The Life and Legend
by Gary L. RobertsAcclaim for Doc Holliday "Splendid . . . not only the most readable yet definitive study of Holliday yet published, it is one of the best biographies of nineteenth-century Western 'good-bad men' to appear in the last twenty years. It was so vivid and gripping that I read it twice." --Howard R. Lamar, Sterling Professor Emeritus of History, Yale University, and author of The New Encyclopedia of the American West "The history of the American West is full of figures who have lived on as romanticized legends. They deserve serious study simply because they have continued to grip the public imagination. Such was Doc Holliday, and Gary Roberts has produced a model for looking at both the life and the legend of these frontier immortals." --Robert M. Utley, author of The Lance and the Shield: The Life and Times of Sitting Bull "Doc Holliday emerges from the shadows for the first time in this important work of Western biography. Gary L. Roberts has put flesh and soul to the man who has long been one of the most mysterious figures of frontier history. This is both an important work and a wonderful read." --Casey Tefertiller, author of Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend "Gary Roberts is one of a foremost class of writers who has created a real literature and authentic history of the so-called Western. His exhaustively researched and beautifully written Doc Holliday: The Life and Legend reveals a pathetically ill and tortured figure, but one of such intense loyalty to Wyatt Earp that it brought him limping to the O.K. Corral and into the glare of history." --Jack Burrows, author of John Ringo: The Gunfighter Who Never Was "Gary L. Roberts manifested an interest in Doc Holliday at a very early age, and he has devoted these past thirty-odd years to serious and detailed research in the development and writing of Doc Holliday: The Life and Legend. The world knows Holliday as Doc Holliday. Family members knew him as John. Somewhere in between the two lies the real John Henry Holliday. Roberts reflects this concept in his writing. This book should be of interest to Holliday devotees as well as newly found readers." --Susan McKey Thomas, cousin of Doc Holliday and coauthor of In Search of the Hollidays
Doc Holliday: The Life and Legend
by Gary L. RobertsAcclaim for Doc Holliday "Splendid . . . not only the most readable yet definitive study of Holliday yet published, it is one of the best biographies of nineteenth-century Western 'good-bad men' to appear in the last twenty years. It was so vivid and gripping that I read it twice." --Howard R. Lamar, Sterling Professor Emeritus of History, Yale University, and author of The New Encyclopedia of the American West "The history of the American West is full of figures who have lived on as romanticized legends. They deserve serious study simply because they have continued to grip the public imagination. Such was Doc Holliday, and Gary Roberts has produced a model for looking at both the life and the legend of these frontier immortals." --Robert M. Utley, author of The Lance and the Shield: The Life and Times of Sitting Bull "Doc Holliday emerges from the shadows for the first time in this important work of Western biography. Gary L. Roberts has put flesh and soul to the man who has long been one of the most mysterious figures of frontier history. This is both an important work and a wonderful read." --Casey Tefertiller, author of Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend "Gary Roberts is one of a foremost class of writers who has created a real literature and authentic history of the so-called Western. His exhaustively researched and beautifully written Doc Holliday: The Life and Legend reveals a pathetically ill and tortured figure, but one of such intense loyalty to Wyatt Earp that it brought him limping to the O.K. Corral and into the glare of history." --Jack Burrows, author of John Ringo: The Gunfighter Who Never Was "Gary L. Roberts manifested an interest in Doc Holliday at a very early age, and he has devoted these past thirty-odd years to serious and detailed research in the development and writing of Doc Holliday: The Life and Legend. The world knows Holliday as Doc Holliday. Family members knew him as John. Somewhere in between the two lies the real John Henry Holliday. Roberts reflects this concept in his writing. This book should be of interest to Holliday devotees as well as newly found readers." --Susan McKey Thomas, cousin of Doc Holliday and coauthor of In Search of the Hollidays
Going Solo: My choice to become a single mother using a donor
by Genevieve RobertsGoing Solo is the empowering and uplifting story of one woman's choice to become a single mother. 'I hope this story gives hope to anyone who wants children and to anyone who finds themselves single. Not to follow this path necessarily, but to remember that there are always many options.'Aged thirty-seven, single and having experienced two miscarriages, Genevieve Roberts found out that her fertility levels were dwlindling. On hearing this news, she made the courageous decision to embark on motherhood solo and eventually became pregnant using a sperm donor.Genevieve describes her initial fear of the prospect of birth without a partner, and the trepidation she felt towards all the responsibility she has taken on. She recounts all the milestones of pregnancy and motherhood that most women share with their partner -- going to NCT classes alone, taking part in birthing workshops with her sister-in-law, her amazement that two people in her pregnancy yoga class are following the same path as her. But ultimately what triumphs is Genevieve's excitement at meeting her daughter. She recalls the first months of parenthood, navigating the love, worry and tiredness of life with a newborn without a partner. She describes the beautiful simplicity of the relationship between herself and her daughter, as she gets to know Astrid without having to consider a partner. Going Solo is for anyone whose life has taken an unexpected twist; for people who are interested in modern families and for those who want to take control of their life and follow their dreams of parenthood. It celebrates the fulfilment that comes from following what makes you happy, and reminds us that beauty may be found when life offers a surprise or a deviation from convention.
Stalin's General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov
by Geoffrey RobertsMarshal Georgy Zhukov is one of military history’s legendary names. He played a decisive role in the battles of Moscow, Stalingrad and Kursk that brought down the Nazi regime. He was the first of the Allied generals to enter Berlin and it was he who took the German surrender.He led the huge victory parade in Red Square, riding a white horse, and in doing so, dangerously provoking Stalin’s envy. His post-war career was equally eventful – Zhukov found himself sacked and banished twice, and wrongfully accused of disloyalty. However, he remains one of the most decorated officers in the history of both Russia and the Soviet Union. Since his death in 1974, Zhukov has increasingly been seen as the indispensable military leader of the Second World War, surpassing Eisenhower, Patton, Montgomery and MacArthur in his military brilliance and ferocity. Making use of hundreds of documents from Russian military archives, as well as unpublished versions of Zhukov’s memoirs, Geoffrey Roberts fashions a remarkably intimate portrait of a man whose personality was as fascinating as it was contradictory. Tough, decisive, strong-willed and brutal as a soldier, in his private life he was charming and gentle. Zhukov’s relations with Stalin’s other generals were often prickly and fraught with rivalry, but he was the only one among them to stand up to the Soviet dictator. Piercing the hyperbole of the Zhukov personality cult, Roberts debunks many of the myths that have sprung up around Zhukov’s life, to deliver fresh insights into the marshal’s relations with Stalin, Khrushchev and Eisenhower. A highly regarded historian of Soviet Russia, Roberts has fashioned the definitive biography of this seminal 20th-century figure.
Stalin's Library: A Dictator and his Books
by Geoffrey RobertsA compelling intellectual biography of Stalin told through his personal library In this engaging life of the twentieth century’s most self-consciously learned dictator, Geoffrey Roberts explores the books Stalin read, how he read them, and what they taught him. Stalin firmly believed in the transformative potential of words and his voracious appetite for reading guided him throughout his years. A biography as well as an intellectual portrait, this book explores all aspects of Stalin’s tumultuous life and politics. Stalin, an avid reader from an early age, amassed a surprisingly diverse personal collection of thousands of books, many of which he marked and annotated revealing his intimate thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. Based on his wide-ranging research in Russian archives, Roberts tells the story of the creation, fragmentation, and resurrection of Stalin’s personal library. As a true believer in communist ideology, Stalin was a fanatical idealist who hated his enemies—the bourgeoisie, kulaks, capitalists, imperialists, reactionaries, counter-revolutionaries, traitors—but detested their ideas even more.
Trump And The Puritans
by James Roberts Martyn WhittockThe year 2020 is a hugely significant one for the United States of America, marking as it does the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the Mayflower Pilgrims to the New World and their establishment of a ‘godly’ colony in (what was for them) the ‘American wilderness’. But it is also the year of the next Presidential election, one where the current occupant is expected to stand for re-election.Many millions of Americans will not see this as a random juxtaposition of events, since for them the unlikely person of Donald Trump is the one chosen by God to implement a twenty-first-century programme of godly rule and the restoration of American spiritual exceptionalism that is directly rooted in those far-off times when Puritan settlers (who followed in 1630) first established a semi-theocratic ‘New Jerusalem’ in the ‘New World’.The USA is the home of more Christians than any other nation on earth. In 2014 research revealed that 70.6 per cent of Americans identified as Christians of some form with 25.4% identifying as ‘Evangelicals’. Eighty-one per cent of them, around 33.7 million people, voted Trump in 2016. How can it be that self-described Christians of the ‘Evangelical Religious Right’ see, of all people, Donald Trump as their political representative and thus defender of their cause?Trump and the Puritans argues that while Donald Trump is no Puritan, the long-term influence of these 17th century radicals makes the USA different from any other Western democracy, and that this influence motivates and energizes a key element of his base to an astonishing degree and has played a major part in delivering political power to Trump.
Centre Stage
by Jamie Roberts Ross HarriesIn a nation of rugby heroes, Jamie Roberts has become a legend.Jamie Roberts is your quintessential hard man: a 6 foot 4, 17 stone slab of rippling muscle, conditioned to run hard into other huge men in an arena where physical dominance is the prime currency. Yet away from rugby, he's a mild-mannered and thoughtful man - a qualified doctor with a thirst for knowledge and a curiosity about the world around him. It's an intriguing contradiction.In his first full season with the Cardiff Blues he was picked by new Wales coach Warren Gatland in the Grand Slam-winning side of 2008. He was still establishing his position in the national team when he toured with the 2009 Lions, emerging as Player of the Series. He went on to win 97 Test caps and play for clubs in Paris, London and Cape Town, yet his career has seldom been straightforward. A fractured skull was one of many injuries he had to overcome, and from the start he had to juggle the competing demands of university life and professional rugby. The joy of Six Nations success with Wales was balanced by heartbreak in the World Cup and disappointment against southern-hemisphere teams, while major trophies at club level proved frustratingly elusive.In this colourful and frank account of a sterling career, Jamie Roberts reveals all about life on tour, in boot camps and in dressing rooms filled with once-in-a-generation characters such as Mike Phillips, Andy Powell, Shaun Edwards, Martyn Williams, Brian O'Driscoll and Johnny Sexton. He also shares his views on concussion in rugby, the failings of the professional structure in Wales and the vital role of old-school team-bonding.
Lorenz: Breaking Hitler’s Top Secret Code at Bletchley Park
by Jerry RobertsThe breaking of the Enigma machine is one of the most heroic stories of the Second World War and highlights the crucial work of the codebreakers of Bletchley Park, which prevented Britain’s certain defeat in 1941. But there was another German cipher machine, used by Hitler himself to convey messages to his top generals in the field. A machine more complex and secure than Enigma. A machine that could never be broken. For sixty years, no one knew about Lorenz or ‘Tunny’, or the determined group of men who finally broke the code and thus changed the course of the war. Many of them went to their deaths without anyone knowing of their achievements. Here, for the first time, senior codebreaker Captain Jerry Roberts tells the complete story of this extraordinary feat of intellect and of his struggle to get his wartime colleagues the recognition they deserve. The work carried out at Bletchley Park during the war to partially automate the process of breaking Lorenz, which had previously been done entirely by hand, was groundbreaking and is recognised as having kick-started the modern computer age.
American Desperado: My life as a Cocaine Cowboy
by Jon Roberts Evan WrightAmerican Desperado is possibly the most jaw-dropping, event-filled, adrenaline-soaked criminal autobiography ever written. Like a real-life Scarface Jon was born into the upper levels of the Gambino crime family and witnessed his first murder at age seven. He became a one-man juvenile crime wave before joining an assassination squad in Vietnam. He returned to New York at age 20 to become one of the city's top nightclub promoters, then journeyed to Miami where he became the de facto transportation chief of the Medellin Cartel, and along with a tech-wizard partner, created some of the most sophisticated smuggling technologies ever. With a hulking 6'6" bodyguard always at his side, and a rural fortress protected by mortars, tear-gas cannons, and a gold-fanged attack dog, Roberts was brutally effective at what he did. To law enforcement, he was known as the "Bearded Gringo," a spectre they could never touch. To United States senators and CIA officials, he was "the guy who can get things done". He eventually formed a clandestine alliance with the US government and in the end found personal late-life redemption.
One Hundred Lengths of the Pool
by Julia RobertsJulia Roberts was one of the first two faces to appear on QVC The Shopping Channel in 1993, and her warmth and honesty have encouraged millions to shop from the comfort of their own homes ever since. She was not, however, a stranger to television, having previously appeared in Beadle's About, The Price is Right and numerous advertisements, including the Woolwich Building Society where she famously asked, 'Can I help you?'None of this would have come about id she hadn't survived the killer disease polio in the 1950s. Not only did she survive but, against all the odds and the advice of her careers teacher at school, she became a professional dancer. That was the start of a long and varied career in the entertainment industry, unless you count appearing on the front cover of a cookery book at the age of ten. She has worked as a DJ, a singer, and actress and, for the last 24 years, a presenter; and it's all in her book One Hundred Lengths of the Pool.Each of the hundred lengths is associated with special moments from her life - some professional, some personal, some happy and some sad. However, there is an extra length of the pool that she didn't expect to swim and it has changed her life completely, testing her belief in her favourite saying, 'That which does not kill us, makes us stronger...'
Wild Life: Dispatches from a Childhood of Baboons and Button-Downs
by Keena RobertsDon't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight meets Mean Girls in this funny, insightful fish-out-of-water memoir about a young girl coming of age half in a "baboon camp" in Botswana, half in a ritzy Philadelphia suburb.Keena Roberts split her adolescence between the wilds of an island camp in Botswana and the even more treacherous halls of an elite Philadelphia private school. In Africa, she slept in a tent, cooked over a campfire, and lived each day alongside the baboon colony her parents were studying. She could wield a spear as easily as a pencil, and it wasn't unusual to be chased by lions or elephants on any given day. But for the months of the year when her family lived in the United States, this brave kid from the bush was cowed by the far more treacherous landscape of the preppy, private school social hierarchy.Most girls Keena's age didn't spend their days changing truck tires, baking their own bread, or running from elephants as they tried to do their schoolwork. They also didn't carve bird whistles from palm nuts or nearly knock themselves unconscious trying to make homemade palm wine. But Keena's parents were famous primatologists who shuttled her and her sister between Philadelphia and Botswana every six months. Dreamer, reader, and adventurer, she was always far more comfortable avoiding lions and hippopotamuses than she was dealing with spoiled middle-school field hockey players. In Keena's funny, tender memoir, Wild Life, Africa bleeds into America and vice versa, each culture amplifying the other. By turns heartbreaking and hilarious, Wild Life is ultimately the story of a daring but sensitive young girl desperately trying to figure out if there's any place where she truly fits in.
Wild Life: Dispatches from a Childhood of Baboons and Button-Downs
by Keena RobertsDon't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight meets Mean Girls in this funny, insightful fish-out-of-water memoir about a young girl coming of age half in a "baboon camp" in Botswana, half in a ritzy Philadelphia suburb.Keena Roberts split her adolescence between the wilds of an island camp in Botswana and the even more treacherous halls of an elite Philadelphia private school. In Africa, she slept in a tent, cooked over a campfire, and lived each day alongside the baboon colony her parents were studying. She could wield a spear as easily as a pencil, and it wasn't unusual to be chased by lions or elephants on any given day. But for the months of the year when her family lived in the United States, this brave kid from the bush was cowed by the far more treacherous landscape of the preppy, private school social hierarchy.Most girls Keena's age didn't spend their days changing truck tires, baking their own bread, or running from elephants as they tried to do their schoolwork. They also didn't carve bird whistles from palm nuts or nearly knock themselves unconscious trying to make homemade palm wine. But Keena's parents were famous primatologists who shuttled her and her sister between Philadelphia and Botswana every six months. Dreamer, reader, and adventurer, she was always far more comfortable avoiding lions and hippopotamuses than she was dealing with spoiled middle-school field hockey players. In Keena's funny, tender memoir, Wild Life, Africa bleeds into America and vice versa, each culture amplifying the other. By turns heartbreaking and hilarious, Wild Life is ultimately the story of a daring but sensitive young girl desperately trying to figure out if there's any place where she truly fits in.
Single Mother on the Verge
by Maria RobertsMaria is twenty-nine years old. She is a single mother and lives on a council estate in Manchester. She's also a chronic day-dreamer. One day she'd like to marry a beautiful man with a huge income to look after her and Jack, her nine-year-old son.The only problem is that her current boyfriend, Rhodri, a chickpea-loving vegan eco-warrior, has turned his back on career ladders. Neither does he believe in monogamy. And so Maria finds herself unexpectedly juggling one, two, three lovers . . .When Damien, Jack's abusive father, who threatened more times than Maria cares to remember to kill her makes an unwelcome reappearance, she gets a wake-up call. Will Maria find a wonderful father figure for Jack by the time she turns thirty?A surprisingly humorous memoir with heartbreaking and unexpected moments, Single Mother on the Verge is a seductive and extremely touching read.
On Food, Sex And God: On Inspiration and Writing
by Michele RobertsFood, sex and God' is what Michèle Roberts answers when strangers ask what she writes about, and indeed, she has made these subjects her own in her fiction and her poetry. Now we see that extended to non-fiction in this collection of essays, reviews and articles. Ranging over people and places, writing and imagination, books, spirituality, art and food, Roberts shows herself to be a perceptive and provocative commentator on contemporary life. From a funny monologue on would-be writers who prefer last year's creative writing teacher (male); to musings on a writer's life and work; to reviews of Marina Warner and Jeanette Winterson; to a magnificent piece on autobiographical writing and the imagination, this collection adds to our understanding of her as writer. Her keen sense of the outrageous, her striving for intellectual honesty and her ability to find the sensual in the everyday, leave one in no doubt about a talent that is as original and generous in non-fiction as in her celebrated novels.
Paper Houses: A Memoir of the 70s and Beyond
by Michele RobertsRebellion, revolution, experimental living, feminist communes, street theatre, radical magazines, love affairs - gay and straight - sex, drugs and rock and roll.Michèle Roberts, one of Britain's most talented and highly acclaimed novelists, now considers her own life, in this vibrant, powerful portrait of a time and place: alternative London of the 1970s and beyond. A fledgling writer taking a leap into radical politics, Roberts finds alternative homes, new families and lifelong friendships in the streets and houses of Holloway, Peckham, Regent's Park and Notting Hill Gate. From Spare Rib to publishing her first book, Paper Houses is Roberts' story of finding a space in which to live, love and write - and learning to share it.'Beguiling, enthusiastic, charming and vivid, this is an autobiography to be savoured' Amanda Craig, DAILY TELEGRAPH
I Am Norwell Roberts: The story of the Met’s first Black police officer
by Norwell RobertsNorwell Roberts, who beacme the Met's first Black police officer in 1967, found out he had a new job the same way the rest of the country did - from a Daily Telegraph headline that read 'MET TO HAVE FIRST COLOURED POLICEMAN'. From that day forward his face became a symbol - of acceptance, of a diverse police force, of a changing Britain. He was turned into the poster boy for progressive policing - but his day-to-day reality was anything but. Greeted with prejudice, ridicule, and rejection, he refused to quit. And thus began an extraordinary career that placed him on the frontlines for a tumultuous period in Britain's history. Stationed at embassies, anti-war protests, and riots, his race singled him out and landed him on front pages around the world. This is the story of the man behind the headlines, in his own words. Conversations about the police as an institution have never been more heated or more urgent than they are today, but to appreciate the present and how far we have come we sometimes need to revisit the past, no matter how painful. Honest, moving, and impossible to forget, I am Norwell Roberts is a story of resilience against the odds, and of one man's ability to make a difference.
Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship Between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X
by Randy Roberts Johnny SmithThe first book to bring to life the influential friendship between Malcolm X and Muhammad AliIn 1962, no one believed that the obnoxious Cassius Clay would ever become the heavyweight champion of the world. But Malcolm X saw the potential in Clay, not just for boxing greatness, but as a means of spreading the Nation of Islam's radical message. Malcolm secretly molded Clay into Muhammad Ali--a patriotic boxing star in public, and a radical reformer behind the scenes. Soon, however, their friendship would sour, with disastrous and far-reaching consequences.Based on previously untapped sources, Blood Brothers is the first book to offer an in-depth portrait of this complex bond. An extraordinary narrative of love, betrayal, and violence, this story is a window into the lives of two of our greatest national icons, and the tumultuous period in American history that they helped to shape.
Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X: The Fatal Friendship (A Young Readers Adaptation of Blood Brothers)
by Randy Roberts Johnny SmithCelebrate Black History Month and discover the remarkable relationship between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X, and how their bond affected the movement for Black pride and independence in the 1960s in this nonfiction book for young readers. ★ "From Civil Rights to Black Pride and Black Lives Matter, there isn&’t one social justice movement that these two men haven&’t impacted. Purchase for all American history shelves." —SLJ, starred review Freshly adapted for young readers, this in-depth portrait showcases the complex bond between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X, revealing how Malcolm helped mold Cassius Clay into Muhammad Ali and influenced his rise as an international symbol of Black pride and Black independence. Yet when Malcolm was expelled from the Nation of Islam for criticizing the conduct of its leader, Elijah Muhammad, Ali turned his back on Malcolm, a choice that some believe tragically contributed to the minister's assassination in February 1965.Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X is the story of how Ali redefined what it means to be a Black athlete in America, informed by Malcolm's leadership. An extraordinary portrait of love, friendship, and power as well as deceit and betrayal, here is a window into the public and private lives of two national icons, and the tumultuous period in the American Civil Rights Movement that they helped to shape.