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Relish: The Extraordinary Life of Alexis Soyer, Victorian Celebrity Chef
by Ruth CowenFascinating biography of a 19th-century celebrity chefRarely has a man defined the spirit of an age as well as Alexis Soyer: celebrity chef, best-selling author, entrepreneur, inventor, philanthropist and Crimean war hero. Soyer built the world famous kitchens of London's Reform Club - which he filled with such ingenious inventions as the gas stove and steam lifts. He set up the most innovative culinary theme park ever seen in the capital, and devised the sauces and relishes that would make household names of Mr Crosse and Mr Blackwell. In the 1840s he set up revolutionary soup kitchens during the Irish potato famine, and in the following decade risked his life by travelling to the Russian peninsula to reform army catering for the troops - saving thousands of soldiers from the effects of malnutrition. Alexis Soyer was one of the most famous names of the early Victorian age, and his legacy lives on through the radical army reforms his work set in train. He was also ¿ in a similar spirit of the age - a secret womaniser, near bankrupt and alcoholic.Yet this brilliant man, who during his lifetime was more famous than the men he regularly brushed shoulders with - men such as Thackeray, Disraeli, Dickens and Palmerston - dropped completely from public view after his untimely death. His friend Florence Nightingale, never one to praise lightly, wrote that his passing was 'a great disaster' for the nation. Yet despite making several fortunes he died virtually penniless, his personal papers were destroyed, his funeral was a hushed-up affair and today his grave lies neglected and rotting in Kensal Green cemetery. This is the first full length, fully researched biography of Alexis Soyer, which explores the life, career and legacy of one of the most enigmatic and extraordinary figures of the Victorian age.
Hitler's Spy Chief: The Wilhelm Canaris Mystery
by Richard BassettHow Hitler's spy chief sabotaged the German war effort.Wilhelm Canaris was appointed by Hitler to head the Abwehr (the German secret service) 18 months after the Nazis came to power. But Canaris turned against the Fuhrer and the Nazi regime, believing that Hitler would start a war Germany could not win. In 1938 he was involved in an attempted coup, undermined by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. In 1940 he sabotaged the German plan to invade England, and fed General Franco vital information that helped him keep Spain out of the war. For years he played a dangerous double game, desperately trying to keep one step ahead of the Gestapo. The SS chief, Heinrich Himmler, became suspicious of the Abwehr and by 1944, when Abwehr personnel were involved in the attempted assassination of Hitler, he had the evidence to arrest Canaris himself. Canaris was executed a few weeks before the end of the war.
Gielgud’s Letters
by Richard Mangan‘Reads like the autobiography Gielgud never wrote’ Independent. ‘In this comprehensive volume, we see the actor in a range of roles: loving son, wicked gossip, star actor, indecisive director, anguished lover, brilliant anecdotist… This splendid book reveals an infinitely complicated and attractive character. We may not look upon his like again’ Jonathan Croall, Spectator The above quotes sums it up - this astonishing collection of letters brings us up close to one of the foremost, and best loved, actors of this century. John Gielgud wrote letters almost every day of his adult life. Whether at home in London or abroad, he delighted in recounting what he felt about events around him. Here for the first time - and not previously available to biographers - are Gielgud’s love letters. They show that he was not shy is expressing the intimacies of personal relationships. He also loved gossip and writes about his contemporaries, including the great actors of period: Olivier, Richardson, Redgrave, Peggy Ashcroft, Edith Evans and the like. A revealing account but also a hugely warm and compelling insight into a man of many sides.
Uncle Bill: The Authorised Biography of Field Marshal Viscount Slim
by Russell MillerMasterly biography of the 'greatest commander of the 20th century'.Field Marshal Slim is less well known than other Second World War generals, but is now widely regarded as the best. To the men under his command he was 'Uncle Bill', probably the most respected and loved military leader since the Duke of Marlborough. Born into an impoverished family in Bristol in 1891 and brought up in the Black Country, he was commissioned as a temporary Second Lieutenant on the outbreak of the First World War. Twice seriously wounded, in Gallipoli and Mesopotamia, he was awarded the Military Cross in 1918. After the war he was unable to remain an officer in the class-ridden British Army without private means and transferred to the Indian Army, where he developed an enduring affection for the Ghurkhas and began writing short stories to supplement his income.Slim's career stalled between the wars, but during this time he developed the leadership techniques that would make him a national hero within a decade and which are still taught today at Sandhurst. Promotion came rapidly with the Second World War, and in March 1942 he was sent to Burma to take command of the British-Indian First Burma Corps, then in full flight from the advancing Japanese. Through the force of his leadership, Slim turned disorderly panic into a controlled military withdrawal across the border into India. Two years later, having raised and retrained the largest army ever assembled by Britain, Slim drove the enemy out of Burma and shattered the myth of Japanese invincibility which had hamstrung the Allied operations in the East for so long. Slim returned to Britain laden with awards and honours. He became a popular Governor-General of Australia in 1953, was raised to the peerage, and died in London in 1970.This important biography will be written with the full cooperation of the Slim family, and Russell Miller has had access to all their papers.
Catherine the Great and Potemkin: The Imperial Love Affair (Master Bridge Ser.)
by Simon Sebag MontefioreThe epic bestselling biography of Catherine the Great and Prince Potemkin, her outrageous lover and co-ruler - by a bestselling historian
The Company of Trees: A Year in a Lifetime’s Quest
by Thomas Pakenham'The master. Puts all other modern tree-writers in the shade' John Lewis-Stempel, author of MeadowlandThomas Pakenham is an indefatigable champion of trees. In The Company of Trees he recounts his personal quest to establish a large arboretum on the family estate, Tullynally in Ireland; his forays to other tree-filled parks and plantations; his often hazardous seed-hunting expeditions; and his efforts to preserve magnificent old trees and historic woodlands.Whether writing about the terrible storms breaking the backs of hundred-year-old trees or a fire in the peat bog on Tullynally which threatens to spread to the main commercial spruce-woods, his fear of climate change and disease, or the sturdy young saplings giving him hope for the future, his book is never less than enthralling.
The John Lennon Letters: Edited and with an Introduction by Hunter Davies
by Hunter Davies John LennonA lifetime of letters, collected for the first time, from the legendary The Beatles musician and songwriter John LennonJohn Lennon is one of the world's greatest-ever song writers, creator of 'Help!', 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds', 'Imagine' and dozens more. Now, his letters have been collected and published, illuminating as never before the intimate side of a private genius.Hunter Davies, author of the only authorised biography of The Beatles, has tracked down almost three hundred of Lennon's letters and postcards - to relations, friends, fans, strangers, lovers and even to the laundry. Some of the letters are tender, informative, funny, angry and abusive, and some are simply heart-breaking - from his earliest surviving thank-you note, written when he was ten, to his last scribbled autograph given on 8 December 1980, the day he was shot, aged forty.
Strictly Ann: The Autobiography
by Ann WiddecombeForthright memoirs of a singular personality - former MP and Strictly Come Dancing star, Ann Widdecombe.In this life story of one of our most outspoken and celebrated politicians, Ann Widdecombe offers a unique insight into her time as a minister in three government departments and the Shadow Cabinet in the 1990s, as well as taking us back to her wandering childhood and explaining the roots of her deeply held views.A rare anti-hunting Tory, who campaigned for prison education and once donned a miner's overalls to go down a coal mine, Ann Widdecombe has never shied away from controversy. Her memoirs reveal a singular personality who lives life to the full. From feisty appearances on Have I Got News for You to her unforgettable and star-turning performances on Strictly Come Dancing, Ann has earned her place in the public's affections and has been heralded as a 'national living treasure' by the Guardian.
Johnny Cash: The Life
by Robert Hilburn'Johnny Cash ... Every man could relate to him, no man could be him, and only one man could get inside his head - Robert Hilburn' BONOPeople don't just listen to Johnny Cash: they believe in him. But no one has told the Man in Black's full story, until now.In Johnny Cash: The Life, Robert Hilburn conveys the unvarnished truth about a musical icon, whose colourful career stretched from his days at Sun Records with Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis to his remarkable, brave and deeply moving 'Hurt' video, aged sixty-nine. As music critic for the Los Angeles Times, Hilburn knew Cash well throughout his life: he was the only music journalist at the legendary Folsom Prison concert in 1968, and he interviewed Cash and his wife June Carter for the final time just months before their deaths in 2003. Hilburn's rich reporting shows the remarkable highs and deep lows that followed and haunted Cash in equal measure. A man of great faith and humbling addiction, Cash aimed for more than another hit for the jukebox; he wanted his music to lift people's spirits.Drawing upon his personal experience with Cash and a trove of never-before-seen material from the singer's inner circle, Hilburn creates an utterly compelling, deeply human portrait of one of the most iconic figures in modern popular culture - not only a towering figure in country music, but also a seminal influence in rock, whose personal life was far more troubled, and whose musical and lyrical artistry much more profound, than even his most devoted fans ever realised.
Notes on a Century: Reflections of A Middle East Historian
by Bernard Lewis Buntzie Ellis ChurchillThe memoirs of the greatest living historian of the Middle East, Professor Bernard Lewis.After 9/11, people who had never given much thought to the politics of the Middle East found themselves wondering why there was such rage brewing in the region. Many of them turned to Bernard Lewis for an explanation. The world's pre-eminent historian of the Middle East, Lewis was among the first to identify the phenomenon of Islamic fundamentalism.In this exceptional memoir, he looks back over his long career - taking us from his discovery of the Crusades, as a young boy in London, and his service in British intelligence during the Second World War, through to the Iraq wars, the crisis with Iran, and the great upheavals of the Arab Spring.Over the course of his distinguished career, he has at times been as much a player in political events as well as a scholar. He has advised monarchs, presidents, prime ministers and dissidents in the Middle East and elsewhere. Now 95, and still sharper than most college students, he writes with barbed wit about the people he has known and the events he has witnessed and participated in. No subject is more fraught in the Middle East than history - and so Bernard Lewis has found himself unexpectedly part of the story that he tells in this extraordinary memoir of a life that spans the 20th century, and has already had a great impact on the 21st.
William S. Burroughs: A Life
by Barry MilesAuthoritative biography of cult writer and author of NAKED LUNCH, William Burroughs (1914-1997).It has been 50 years since Norman Mailer asserted, 'I think that William Burroughs is the only American novelist living today who may conceivably be possessed by genius.' This assessment holds true today. No-one since then has taken such risks in their writing, developed such individual radical political ideas, or spanned such a wide range of media - Burroughs has written novels, memoirs, technical manuals and poetry, he has painted, made collages, taken thousands of photographs, made visual scrapbooks, produced hundreds of hours of experimental tapes, acted in movies and recorded more CDs than most rock groups.Made a cult figure by the publication of NAKED LUNCH, Burroughs was a mentor to the 1960s youth culture. Underground papers referred to him as 'Uncle Bill' and he ranked alongside Bob Dylan and the Beatles, Buckminster Fuller and R.D. Laing as one of the 'gurus' of the youth movement who might just have the secret of the universe.Based upon extensive research, this biography paints a new portrait of Burroughs, making him real to the reader and showing how he was perceived by his contemporaries in all his guises - from icily distant to voluble drunk. It shows how his writing was very much influenced by his life situation and by the people he met on his travels around America and Europe. He was, beneath it all, a man torn by emotions: his guilt at not visiting his doting mother; his despair at not responding to reconciliation attempts from his father; his distance from his brother; the huge void that separated him from his son; and above all his killing of his wife, Joan Vollmer.
The Inheritor's Powder: A Cautionary Tale of Poison, Betrayal and Greed
by Sandra HempelIn the nineteenth century it was criminally easy to bump off unwanted relatives. A Household Thrown into Chaos Plumstead village, 2 November 1833. Wealthy landlord, George Bodle is taken violently ill. He dies within hours. When his wife, daughter and two maids are also taken ill, there is only one terrifying explanation . . . arsenic poisoning. A Murder Most FoulYet, while arsenic was readily available over the counter in the 1800s, poisoning was almost impossible to prove. As the evidence mounted up, a picture emerged of bitter family rivalries, brewing resentment, greed and ill-will. A Sensational TaleIn this account of one of history's most notorious poisonings, Sandra Hempel tells the story of the birth of toxicology - the science of poison - and of a mystery which gripped the nation.
Young Elizabeth: The Making of our Queen
by Kate WilliamsThe story of how Elizabeth II became queen.We can hardly imagine a Britain without Elizabeth II on the throne. It seems to be the job she was born for. And yet for much of her early life the young princess did not know the role that her future would hold. She was our accidental Queen.As a young girl, Elizabeth was among the guests in Westminster Abbey watching her father being crowned, making her the only monarch to have attended a parent's coronation. Kate Williams explores the sheltered upbringing of the young princess with a gentle father and domineering mother, her complicated relationship with her sister, Princess Margaret, and her dependence on her nanny, Marion 'Crawfie' Crawford. She details the profound and devastating impact of the abdication crisis when, at the impressionable age of 11, Elizabeth found her position changed overnight: no longer a minor princess she was now heiress to the throne.Elizabeth's determination to share in the struggles of her people marked her out from a young age. Her father initially refused to let her volunteer as a nurse during the Blitz, but relented when she was 18 and allowed her to work as a mechanic and truck driver for the Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service. It was her forward-thinking approach that ensured that her coronation was televised, against the advice of politicians at the time.Kate Williams reveals how the 25-year-old young queen carved out a lasting role for herself amid the changes of the 20th century. Her monarchy would be a very different one to that of her parents and grandparents, and its continuing popularity in the 21st century owes much to the intelligence and elusive personality of this remarkable woman.
The Silver Spitfire: The Legendary WWII RAF Fighter Pilot in his Own Words
by Wg Cdr Tom NeilA brilliantly vivid Second World War memoir by one of 'the Few' Spitfire fighter pilots.Following the D-Day landings, Battle of Britain hero Tom Neil was assigned as an RAF liaison to an American fighter squadron. As the Allies pushed east, Neil commandeered an abandoned Spitfire as his own personal aeroplane. Erasing any evidence of its provenance and stripping it down to bare metal, it became the RAF's only silver Spitfire. Alongside his US comrades, he took the silver Spitfire into battle until, with the war's end, he was forced to make a difficult decision. Faced with too many questions about the mysterious rogue fighter, he contemplated increasingly desperate measures to offload it, including bailing out mid-Channel. He eventually left the Spitfire at Worthy Down, never to be seen again.THE SILVER SPITFIRE is the first-hand, gripping story of Neil's heroic experience as an RAF fighter pilot and his reminiscences with his very own personal Spitfire.
The Life and Times of Herbert Chapman: The Story of One of Football's Most Influential Figures
by Patrick BarclayThe definitive story of the father of modern football, Herbert Chapman.Herbert Chapman, the boss of the all-conquering Arsenal team of the 1930s, was the father of modern football management. A relative journeyman as a player, he moved into the dugout aged 29 with Northampton Town, before building a multiple-title-winning team with Huddersfield in the 1920s. It was at Arsenal, however, where Chapman would leave an indelible mark on the landscape of football. Patrick Barclay's poignant and detailed biography weaves Chapman's story into the momentous times through which he lived, including the tragedy of the First World War, the subsequent Depression and the rise of fascism. Deeply influential on Arsenal successors such as George Graham and Arsène Wenger, he also pioneered changes in the game's scenery and tactical approaches. As Sir Matt Busby later remarked, Herbert Chapman changed the game of football.
Need, Respect, Trust: The Memoir of a Vision
by Nemir KirdarNeed Respect Trust is the remarkable story of the internationally renowned investment bank founded by Nemir Kirdar.Intent on pursuing a career in public life in the land of his birth, the young Kirdar finds his aspirations brutally cut short by a coup d'état and the massacre of Iraq's royal family. Seeing no future in Iraq, Kirdar flees to the United States to continue his studies. Persuaded to return and set up his own business, he is later incarcerated in a Ba'ath Party jail.Freed, he arrives for the second time on US shores with $800 in his pocket and begins training at the lowest level in New York's banking industry. Through talent and application, he climbs the corporate ladder and ends up running Chase Manhattan's business in the Arabian Gulf. There, a convergence of business and economic trends changes his life and leads him to create a new kind of banking institution. Built on integrity and principle, Investcorp becomes a bridge between the burgeoning oil wealth of the Gulf and alternative investment opportunities in the West, on both sides of the Atlantic.This is an inspirational book about overcoming obstacles and what can be achieved through courage, vision, passion and leadership. Need, Respect, Trust is a stirring personal manifesto of what it takes to succeed in business - and in life.
The Rival Queens: Catherine de’ Medici, her daughter Marguerite de Valois, and the Betrayal That Ignited a Kingdom
by Nancy Goldstone'A gripping tale of royal feuds and divided kingdoms' - AMANDA FOREMANParis, 1572. Catherine de' Medici, the infamous queen mother of France, is a consummate pragmatist and powerbroker who has dominated the throne for thirty years. Her youngest daughter, Marguerite, the glamorous 'Queen Margot', is a passionate free spirit, the only adversary whom her mother can neither intimidate nor fully control. When Catherine forces the Catholic Marguerite to marry the Protestant Henry of Navarre, she creates not only savage conflict within France but also a potent rival within her own family. Treacherous court politics, poisonings, international espionage and adultery form the background to a extraordinary story about two formidable queens, featuring a fascinating array of characters including such celebrated figures as Elizabeth I, Mary, Queen of Scots and Nostradamus.
Herzl: Theodor Herzl and the Foundation of the Jewish State
by Shlomo AvineriThe first biography in more than a generation of the father of modern political Zionism and in effect the state of Israel.Drawing extensively on his diaries as well as his published works, this intellectual biographical follows Herzl's transformation from a private person into the founder and leader of a political movement which made the quest for a Jewish state into a player in international politics. Contrary to the conventional view which saw the Dreyfus affair as the trigger for Herzl's loss of belief in the promise of Jewish emancipation, Avineri shows how it was the political crisis of the Austro-Hungarian Habsburg Empire, torn apart by contending national movements, which convinced Herzl of the need for a Jewish polity.In response to the wide resonance for his 1896 THE JEWISH STATE, Herzl convened the first Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897, which established the World Zionist Organization with its representative and elected institutions; this in turn became the foundation for Israel's democratic political system. In his efforts to gain international support for a Jewish state, Herzl met with the Ottoman Sultan, the German Emperor Wilhelm II, Pope Pius X, British, Russian and German ministers, as well as an enormous number of other government and public opinion leaders of most European countries. By the time of his early death in 1904 at the age of 44, Herzl succeeded in putting Zionism on the map of world politics, no longer an esoteric idea held by a small group of Jewish intellectuals in Eastern Europe.
Letters to the Midwife: Correspondence with Jennifer Worth, the Author of Call the Midwife
by Jennifer WorthLetters to the Midwife is a wonderful collection of correspondence received by Jennifer Worth, offering a fascinating glimpse into a long-lost world.Along with readers' responses and personal histories, it is filled with all sorts of heart-warming gems. There are stories from other midwives, lorry drivers, even a seamstress, all with tales to tell.Containing previously unpublished material describing her time spent in Paris and some journal entries, this is also a portrait of Jennifer herself, complete with a moving introduction by her family about the woman they knew and loved.
Churchill and Empire: A Portrait Of An Imperialist
by Lawrence JamesA genuinely new biography of Churchill, focusing on his contradictory and lifelong relationship with the British Empire.One of our finest narrative historians, and journalist for the SUNDAY TIMES and LITERARY REVIEW, Lawrence James, has written a genuinely new biography of Winston Churchill, set within a fully detailed historical context, but solely focusing on his relationship with the British Empire. As a young army officer in the late 19th century, Churchill's first experience of the Empire was serving in conflicts in India, South Africa and the Sudan. His attitude towards the Empire at the time was the stereotypical Victorian paternalistic approach - a combination of feeling responsible and feeling superior. Conscious even then of his political career ahead, Churchill's natural benevolence towards the Empire was occasionally overruled for political reasons, and he found himself reluctantly supporting - or at least not publicly condemning - British atrocities.As a politician he consistently relied on the Empire for support during crises, but was angered by any demands for nationalisation. He held what many would regard today as racist views, in that he felt that some nationalities were superior to others, but he didn't regard those positions as fixed. His (some might say obsequious) relationship with America reflected that view. America was a former colony where the natives had become worthy to rule themselves, but - he felt - still had that tie to Britain. Thus he overlooked the frequently expressed American view that the Empire was a hangover from a bygone era of colonisation, and reflected poorly on Britain's ability to conduct herself as a political power in the current world order.This outmoded attitude was one of the reasons the British voters rejected him after a Second World War in which - it was universally felt - he had led the country brilliantly. His attitude remained Victorian in a world that was shaping up very differently. However, it would be a mistake to consider Churchill merely as an anachronistic soldier. He grasped the problems of the Cold War immediately, believing that immature nations prematurely given independence would be more likely to be sucked into the vortex of Communism. This view chimed with American foreign policy, and made the Americans rather more pragmatic about their demands for self-governance for Empire countries.Lawrence James has written a fascinating portrait of an endlessly interesting statesman - and one that includes tantalising vignettes about his penchants for silk underwear and champagne.
Dorothea's War: The Diaries of a First World War Nurse
by Dorothea CrewdsonThe evocative diaries of a young nurse stationed in northern France during the First World War, published for the first time. A rare insight into the great war for fans of CALL THE MIDWIFE.In April 1915, Dorothea Crewdson, a newly trained Red Cross nurse, and her best friend Christie, received instructions to leave for Le Tréport in northern France. Filled with excitement at the prospect of her first paid job, Dorothea began writing a diary. 'Who knows how long we shall really be out here? Seems a good chance from all reports of the campaigns being ended before winter but all is uncertain.'Dorothea would go on to witness and record some of the worst tragedy of the First World War at first hand, though somehow always maintaining her optimism, curiosity and high spirits throughout. The pages of her diaries sparkle with warmth and humour as she describes the day-to-day realities and frustrations of nursing near the frontline of the battlefields, or the pleasure of a beautiful sunset, or a trip 'joy-riding' in the French countryside on one of her precious days off. One day she might be gossiping about her fellow nurses, or confessing to writing her diary while on shift on the ward, or illustrating the scene of the tents collapsing around them on a windy night in one of her vivid sketches. In another entry she describes picking shells out of the beds on the ward after a terrifying air raid (winning a medal for her bravery in the process).Nearly a hundred years on, what shines out above all from the pages of these extraordinarily evocative diaries is a courageous, spirited, compassionate young woman, whose story is made all the more poignant by her tragically premature death at the end of the war just before she was due to return home.
Evelyn Waugh: A Life Revisited
by Philip Eade'Brisk, lively and wonderfully entertaining' John Banville'Excellent ... read this book' Literary Review'The best single-volume life of the author available' Irish TimesThe much mythologised author of Decline and Fall, A Handful of Dust and Brideshead Revisited was hailed by Graham Greene as 'the greatest novelist of my generation', yet reckoned by Hilaire Belloc to have been possessed by the devil. Evelyn Waugh's literary reputation has continued to rise since Greene's assessment in 1966. Fifty years after his death, Philip Eade draws on extensive unpublished sources to paint a fresh and compelling portrait of this endlessly fascinating man, telling the full story of his dramatic, colourful and frequently bizarre life.
On the Road: Growing up in Eight Journeys - My Early Years
by Richard HammondON THE ROAD: GROWING UP IN EIGHT JOURNEYS - MY EARLY YEARS is a new form of autobiography, in which TOP GEAR presenter Richard Hammond tells the story of his early life through a series of significant driving episodes. He's a child in the back seat of Dad's car on the way to the seaside in Weston-Super-Mare. He's on his first bike, a red one, in Solihull, then on his first motorcycle, a Honda MTX50. He's at the wheel of his first car (and in the back with his first girlfriend). He is driving a furniture delivery van as part of his first job in and around Ripon. Now he is showing off with a friend, risking everything.ON THE ROAD is an emotional road map in which each chapter has its own registration number, and its own distinctive interior. Most importantly, each chapter sets off and arrives. ON THE ROAD surges on to its destination, reversing or moving quickly through the gears, reliving the central episodes and conflicts of Richard's life. Every chapter is a stage in a longer journey. Although there are precious few road-rage monologues against four-wheel drivers and men in vests in white vans, Richard Hammond's readers will quickly recognise the funny self-deprecating and balanced ease that has made him one of Britain's best-loved writers and television presenters.
City of Lies: Love, Sex, Death and the Search for Truth in Tehran
by Ramita NavaiLying in Tehran is about survival. Welcome to Tehran, a city where survival depends on a network of subterfuge. Here is a place where mullahs visit prostitutes, drug kingpins run crystal meth kitchens, surgeons restore girls' virginity and homemade porn is sold in the sprawling bazaars; a place where ordinary people are forced to lead extraordinary lives. Based on extensive interviews, CITY OF LIES chronicles the lives of eight men and women drawn from across the spectrum of Iranian society and reveals what it is to live, love and survive in one of the world's most repressive regimes.
In Pursuit of Fulfilment: Principle Passion Resolve
by Nemir KirdarThis is the life story of one of the most successful business leaders of our time.The formative influence upon Investcorp founder Nemir Kirdar was his father, who was mayor of Kirkuk and who instilled a public-service ethic in all of his sons. The book describes the events that drove Kirdar away from a life in politics in Iraq to the safety of the United States where he worked to establish himself in international investment banking. The first event was the assassination of King Faisal II. The second was his arrest after returning to Iraq to start his own business. By the time he flees from Iraq to Lebanon, Kirdar has married and has one daughter. In the beginning it is hard work, a long day in a training programme and then nights attending Fordham University to get his MBA. He works for a consortium of US banks and then moves on to Chase where he asks for his own department with a specialisation in financial projects in the Middle East. Kirdar is given rein to establish this project and an office in Abu Dhabi. Soon he finds the people he most wants to work with him, an international team, and then with some help from the Arab Monetary Fund he founds his company which is to be an investment company for the entire Gulf region. First he must 'explore the appetite of future investors'. He describes with great tact the difficulties of dealing with ultra-wealthy investors, and the period of the 1980s during which the company turned impressive profits in venture capital schemes through the wobbly dotcom craze to the present. He wanted Investcorp to be 'a bridge linking the Middle East and the West' and he has emphatically succeeded in this aim. IN PURSUIT OF FULFILMENT is a personal testimony from one of the world's most successful businessmen, the memoir of a vision - the story of what happens when an ideal encounters real life.