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Alamein to Zem Zem
by Keith Douglas'This is the only book from the Second World War comparable with the first-war narratives of Sassoon, Blunden or Graves... When the battle of El Alamein began, the poet Keith Douglas was in Cairo with Divisional HQ. Eager not to miss the action, he took a truck and, against orders, drove to re-join his regiment. He served as a tank commander throughout the whole of the allied advance across North Africa, and Alamein to Zem Zem (1946) is his story. Boyishness and inexperience give it flash-bulb immediacy... Scenes of unforgettable pity and terror unfold... Everything, from flowers carpeting the desert in winter to vanquished enemies, is seen with a poet's eye and the generosity of youth.' John Carey, GuardianThis Faber Finds edition of Keith Douglas's classic work - originally published two years after his death in Normandy in 1944 - includes a new preface by the novelist Richard Skinner.
Alexander von Humboldt: A Metabiography
by Nicolaas A. RupkeAlexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) is one of the most celebrated figures of late-modern science, famous for his work in physical geography, botanical geography, and climatology, and his role as one of the first great popularizers of the sciences. His momentous accomplishments have intrigued German biographers from the Prussian era to the fall of the Berlin wall, all of whom configured and reconfigured Humboldt’s life according to the sensibilities of the day. This volume, the first metabiography of the great scientist, traces Humboldt’s biographical identities through Germany’s collective past to shed light on the historical instability of our scientific heroes. “Rupke’s study . . . will doubtless become a standard reference for the Humboldt industry and for writers of scientific metabiographies to come.”—Isis “Engaging. . . . Rupke’s meticulous analysis is fascinating on many scores.”—Times Higher Education Supplement (UK) “A study borne of considerable scholarship and one with important methodological implications for historians of geography.”—Charles W. J. Withers, Progress in Human Geography
All God's Children Need Travelling Shoes
by Dr Maya AngelouNow a major Radio 4 drama.'A brilliant writer, a fierce friend and a truly phenomenal woman' Barack ObamaMaya Angelou's five volumes of autobiography are a testament to the talents and resilience of this extraordinary writer. Loving the world, she also knows its cruelty. As a black woman she has known discrimination and extreme poverty, but also hope, joy, achievement and celebration. In the fifth volume, Maya Angelou emigrates to Ghana only to discover that 'you can't go home again' but she comes to a new awareness of love and friendship, civil rights and slavery - and the myth of mother Africa.
Always a Cowboy: Judge Wilson McCarthy and the Rescue of the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad
by Will BagleyCowboy, judge, federal official, then business executive, Wilson McCarthy mirrored change and growth in the twentieth-century West. Leading the Denver & Rio Grande back from the brink saved a vital link in the national transportation system. The D&RGW ran over and through the scenic Rockies, developing mineral resources, fighting corporate wars, and helping build communities. The Depression brought it to its knees. Accepting federal assignment to save the line, McCarthy turned it into a paragon of mid-century railroading, represented by the streamlined, Vista-Domed California Zephyr, although success hauling freight was of more economic importance. Prior to that, McCarthy’s life had taken him from driving livestock in Canada to trying to drive the national economy as a director of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, the first line of federal attack on the Depression. Always a Cowboy positions McCarthy’s story in a rich historical panorama.. Will Bagley is the author of Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows
American Patriot: The Life and Wars of Colonel Bud Day
by Robert CoramDuring the course of his military career, Bud Day won every available combat medal, escaped death on no less than seven occasions, and spent 67 months as a POW in the infamous Hanoi Hilton, along with John McCain. Despite sustained torture, Day would not break. He became a hero to POWs everywhere -- a man who fought without pause, not a prisoner of war, but a prisoner at war. Upon his return, passed over for promotion to Brigadier General, Day retired. But years later, with his children grown and a lifetime of service to his country behind him, he would engage in another battle, this one against an opponent he never had expected: his own country. On his side would be the hundreds of thousands of veterans who had fought for America only to be betrayed. And what would happen next would make Bud Day an even greater legend.
American Prince: My Autobiography
by Peter Golenbock Tony CurtisHe has appeared in over a hundred films. Elvis copied his looks. The Beatles put him on the cover of Sgt. Pepper. Tony Curtis is without question a Hollywood legend and part of its Golden Age. In American Prince he tells the whole story, from his hard-knock childhood growing up in the Bronx to his wild days as a Hollywood playboy, his destructive drug addiction and his life now as an artist in his eighties. He talks frankly about the people he has known during his long and illustrious career, from the studio owners and directors to his famous friends, such as Jack Lemmon, Cary Grant and James Dean, and the women in his life, including Janet Leigh and Natalie Wood.Forthright and enthralling, and sparing no detail and no ego, American Prince is the true record of a life lived to the full.
America's Queen: The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
by Sarah BradfordThe definitive biography of Jackie Kennedy, by Britain's best royal biographer Jackie Kennedy was a twentieth-century icon of glamour, elegance and grace. As the beautiful young wife of President John F. Kennedy, she was adored, her style imitated across the world.But beneath the perfection of her public life lay contradiction, passion, and, all to often, tragedy. Sarah Bradford's brilliant new biography not only gives a fascinating account of her time with JFK, but also of her life after his assassination in 1963, in all its colour and controversy.
Amis & Son: Two Literary Generations
by Neil PowellTwo of the most successful British novelists of the last fifty years, Kingsley and Martin Amis are both known for their savage wit and their indifference to causing controversy. In his critical biography, Neil Powell looks at the careers of these two very divisive, and hugely talented writers: how they were formed by their upbringings, developed as writers and in turn how they affected literature, and each other. He examines how success (which is the title of one of Martin Amis's novels) affected their relationship, and themselves as writers (Kingsley: "Martin's spending a year abroad for tax purposes. 29, he is. Little shit."). Through this we see what it has meant to be a man, and a writer, (and, most importantly, a comic writer) in Britain over the last sixty years, following Kinglsey from jazz-loving iconoclast to Thatcher-loving Tory and Martin from wild young man of letters to God knows what.
An Angel At My Table: The Complete Autobiography (Virago Modern Classics #2353)
by Janet FrameOne of the great autobiographies of the twentieth century ... A journey from luminous childhood, through the dark experiences of supposed madness, to the renewal of her life through writing fiction. It is a heroic story, and told with such engaging tone, humorous perspective and imaginative power' Michael Holroyd, Sunday TimesAfter being misdiagnosed with schizophrenia as a young woman, Janet Frame spent several years in psychiatric institutions. She escaped undergoing a lobotomy when it was discovered that she had just won a national literary prize. She then went on to become New Zealand's most acclaimed writer. As she says more than once in this autobiography: 'My writing saved me.'This edition contains all three volumes of Frame's autobiography: To the Is-Land, An Angel at My Table and An Envoy from Mirror City.'One of the most beautiful and moving books I have ever read . . . A masterpiece . . . Janet's autobiography had an enormous effect on me. She struck a blow right to my heart' Jane Campion
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: Our Year of Seasonal Eating
by Barbara Kingsolver"We wanted to live in a place that could feed us: where rain falls, crops grow, and drinking water bubbles up right out of the ground."Barbara Kingsolver opens her home to us, as she and her family attempt a year of eating only local food, much of it from their own garden. Inspired by the flavours and culinary arts of a local food culture, they explore many a farmers market and diversified organic farms at home and across the country. With characteristic warmth, Kingsolver shows us how to put food back at the centre of the political and family agenda. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is part memoir, part journalistic investigation, and is full of original recipes that celebrate healthy eating, sustainability and the pleasures of good food.
Antigona and Me
by Kate Clanchy‘An absolutely wonderful book’ - Deborah Moggach One morning in London, two neighbours start to chat over the heads of their children. Kate Clanchy is a writer, privileged and sheltered. Antigona is a refugee from Kosovo. On instinct, Kate offers Antigona a job as a nanny, and Antigona accepts. Over the next five years and a thousand cups of coffee Antigona’s extraordinary story slowly emerges. She has escaped from a war, she has divorced a violent husband, but can she escape the harsh code she was brought up with, the Kanun of Lek? At the kitchen table where anything can be said, the women discover they have everything, as well as nothing, in common.
Apprenticeship
by Peter GillApprenticeship is Peter Gill's potent recollection of the changing theatrical landscape of the 1960s. Part history, part memoir, part polemic, it puts into context his recently discovered diary of 1962 in which he vividly recalls his experiences as a young actor in Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle as part of their first London season. This intensely personal account, by turns witty and evocative, includes a penetrating analysis of the figures and themes of twentieth century drama and marks the beginning of Gill's development into one of the most important and influential playwrights and directors in the British Theatre.
April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Death and How it Changed America
by Michael Eric DysonOn April 4, 1968, at 6:01 p.m., while he was standing on a balcony at a Memphis hotel, Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and fatally wounded. Only hours earlier King ended his final speech with the words, "I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight, that we as a people will get to the Promised Land.”Acclaimed public intellectual and best-selling author Michael Eric Dyson examines how King fought, and faced, his own death, and how America can draw on his legacy in the twenty-first century. April 4, 1968 celebrates the leadership of Dr. King, and challenges America to renew its commitment to his vision.
April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Death and How It Changed America
by Michael Eric DysonOn April 4, 1968, at 6:01 PM, while he was standing on a balcony at a Memphis hotel, Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and fatally wounded. Only hours earlier King -- the prophet for racial and economic justice in America -- ended his final speech with the words, "I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight, that we as a people will get to the Promised Land." Acclaimed public intellectual and best-selling author Michael Eric Dyson uses the fortieth anniversary of King's assassination as the occasion for a provocative and fresh examination of how King fought, and faced, his own death, and we should use his death and legacy. Dyson also uses this landmark anniversary as the starting point for a comprehensive reevaluation of the fate of Black America over the four decades that followed King's death. Dyson ambitiously investigates the ways in which African-Americans have in fact made it to the Promised Land of which King spoke, while shining a bright light on the ways in which the nation has faltered in the quest for racial justice. He also probes the virtues and flaws of charismatic black leadership that has followed in King's wake, from Jesse Jackson to Barack Obama. Always engaging and inspiring, April 4, 1968 celebrates the prophetic leadership of Dr. King, and challenges America to renew its commitment to his deeply moral vision.
Are You There, God? It's Me. Kevin.: A Memoir
by Kevin KeckIn this hilarious, confessional memoir, Kevin Keck tries to come to terms with the intense lack of meaning in his life. At twenty-six, Keck felt like he was losing his mind. When anxieties about his "Ultimate Purpose" aren't manifesting themselves in struggles with OCD or depression, they swing him into a mania that drives him from one dysfunctional girlfriend to the next...all of whom resemble his mother in their shared capacities for personalized madness. In search of sanity, he returns to his childhood home in North Carolina, only to be met with serious doses of reality in the form of his congenitally reclusive brother, manic depressive mother, and grandmother suffering from advanced Alzheimer's. His grandfather and dad are there, too, but they never leave the basement where they continually repair a single lawnmower. Will Keck's anxieties about the failure of his Ultimate Purpose to manifest drift away as he looks for life's meaning in the comforting Carolina hills? No way. That wouldn't be funny. Are You There, God? It's Me. Kevin is a madcap journey to faith (in life? in God?) from an insanely talented comedic genius.
Arthur Carhart: Wilderness Prophet
by Tom WolfArthur Carhart (1892 -1978), America's first champion of wilderness, the first Forest Service landscape architect, and the most popular conservation writer of mid-century America, won none of the titan status of his contemporary Aldo Leopold. A political maverick, he refused to side with any major advocacy group and none has made him its saint. Carhart was a grassroots thinker in a top-down era. Arthur Carhart, the first biography of this Republican environmentalist and major American thinker, writer, and activist, reveals the currency of his ideas. Tom Wolf elucidates Carhart 's vision of conservation as "a job for all of us," with citizens, municipal authorities, and national leaders all responsible for the environmental effects of their decisions. Carhart loved the local and decried interest groups - from stockmens' associations to wilderness lobbies - as cliques attempting blanket control. He pressured land management agencies to base decisions on local ecology and local partnerships. A lifelong wilderness advocate who proposed the first wilderness preserve at Trappers Lake, Colorado, in 1919, Carhart chose to oppose the Wilderness Act, heartsick at its compromises with lobbies. Because he shifted his stance and changed his views in response to new information, Carhart is not an easy subject for a biography. Wolf traces Carhart's twists and turns to show a man whose voice was distinctive and contrary, who spoke from a passionate concern for the land and couldn't be counted on for anything else. Readers of American history and outdoor writing will enjoy this portrait of a historic era in conservation politics and the man who so often eschewed politics in favor of the land and people he loved.
As I Lay Me Down to Sleep
by Carol McKay Eileen MunroWhen Eileen Munro's mother became pregnant at 16, she was told to give her baby away to a 'good family', but the couple who paid the fee at the Salvation Army mother-and-baby home in Glasgow in 1963 turned out to be alcoholics who neglected and physically abused Eileen. Then, when their marriage broke down, they failed to protect her from sexual abuse at the hands of a family friend. After watching her adoptive mother drown on inhaled vomit, Eileen and her younger sister were taken into care, but her nightmare was to continue as she was subjected to further physical, sexual and emotional abuse. At the age of only seventeen, seven months into a secret pregnancy, she decided that the only way out was through a bottle of painkillers; when she survived and gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, he became her lifeline.
As You Do: Adventures With Evel, Oliver, and The Vice-President Of Botswana
by Richard HammondThe life and times of the No.1 bestselling author of ON THE EDGE.The wry, honest and often hilarious chronicles of a very brave and clever TV presenter, Arctic Explorer and general drawer of the Short Straw. As one third of the BBC's Top Gear team, Richard Hammond's year since his near-fatal accident has been full of stunts and drama. From a race to the North Pole (with skis and dog-sled) to a journey through Botswana in a car named Oliver, and a seventeen-mile run through floods to his Gloucestershire home, in order to get to his daughter's birthday party, the year has been eventful, to say the least . . .With his boundless optimism in the face of certain failure, Richard Hammond has become one of our funniest writers about a life (and a job) which constantly present a challenge.
At Her Majesty's Pleasure
by Robert DouglasIn the final instalment in his autobiographical trilogy, Robert Douglas takes us through the sixties and into the eighties with his memories of life as a prison officer, and, at the end of his career, as an electricity chargehand driving around the Yorkshire Dales. He tells us of his prison experiences, with anecdotes about many of the most famous criminals in British history -- the Krays, the Richardsons, the Great Train Robbers, Soviet spies and many more. Told in the same endearing and fascinating voice that readers of LAST SONG OF THE NIGHT TRAM and SOMEWHERE TO LAY MY HEAD first fell in love with, this volume continues the story of Robert's remarkable journey of self-education, introducing us to larger-than-life characters on both sides of the bars, and evoking a strong sense of social change as Britain emerged from the post-War gloom into the bright lights of the Beatles years.
At Large and at Small: Confessions of a Literary Hedonist
by Anne FadimanButterflies, ice-cream, writing at night, playing word games...in this witty, intimate and delicious book Anne Fadiman ruminates on her passions, both literary and everyday. From mourning the demise of letter-writing to revealing a monumental crush on Charles Lamb, from Balzac's coffee addiction to making ice-cream from Liquid Nitrogen, she draws us into a world of hedonistic pleasures and literary delights. This is the perfect book for life's ardent obsessives.
Athol Fugard: His Plays, People And Politics
by Alan ShelleyA playwright whose work is appreciated on a global scale, Athol Fugard’s plays have done more to document and provide a cultural commentary on Apartheid-era South Africa than any other writer in the last century. Using mostly migrant workers and township dwellers, and staging guerrilla-raid productions in black areas, Fugard frequently came into conflict with the government, forcing him to take his work overseas. Consequently, powerful plays such as The Blood Knot, Sizwe Banzi is Dead, and Master Harold... and the boys came to broadcast the inequities of the Apartheid-era to the world. Fugard’s work retains an insistent influence, and is studied and performed the world over.Alan Shelley’s study is an accessible but profound analysis of the man, his work and its influence, the social injustices that drive him, and the lives of those who people his remarkable plays.
Atlantic Families: Lives And Letters In The Later Eighteenth Century (pdf)
by Sarah M. S. PearsallThe Atlantic represented a world of opportunity in the eighteenth century, but it represented division also, separating families across its coasts. Whether due to economic shifts, changing political landscapes, imperial ambitions, or even simply personal tragedy, many families found themselves fractured and disoriented by the growth and later fissure of a larger Atlantic world. Such dislocation posed considerable challenges to all individuals who viewed orderly family relations as both a general and a personal ideal. The more fortunate individuals who thus found themselves 'all at sea' were able to use family letters, with attendant emphases on familiarity, sensibility, and credit, in order to remain connected in times and places of considerable disconnection. Portraying the family as a unified, affectionate, and happy entity in such letters provided a means of surmounting concerns about societies fractured by physical distance, global wars, and increasing social stratification. It could also provide social and economic leverage to individual men and women in certain circumstances. Sarah Pearsall explores the lives and letters of these families, revealing the sometimes shocking stories of those divided by sea. Ranging across the Anglophone Atlantic, including mainland American colonies and states, Britain, and the British Caribbean, Pearsall argues that it was this expanding Atlantic world, much more than the American Revolution, that reshaped contemporary ideals about families, as much as families themselves reshaped the transatlantic world.
The Autobiography: The Autobiography
by Johnnie WalkerJohnnie Walker is an inspiration. One of the best-known and most beloved broadcasters in Britain, the charismatic BBC Radio 2 DJ has achieved legendary status with a hugely loyal following thanks to his tireless pioneering of new music, his warm and passionate personality and his soothing voice.Having thrown away the rule book as a teenager, Johnnie has always made decisions from the heart. As a result, he has had a brilliantly colourful life, with more ups and downs than a rollercoaster ride. He made his name in the 1960s when he and Radio Caroline, where his night-time show was essential listening for 86% of radio listeners, continued broadcasting in defiance of Government legislation. In 1976 he walked out of Radio 1 because of his outspoken views and his insistence on playing album tracks. He made front page news when he described the Bay City Rollers as 'musical garbage' and when he was caught snorting cocaine.In his memoir, he reveals all about his time with Radio Caroline, his drug addiction, his fight against cancer and his spiritual awakening. Honest, passionate and humorous, his autobiography will provide inspiring and entertaining listening to his million of fans.
Axel Munthe: The Road to San Michele
by Bengt JangfeldtAxel Munthe: The Road to San Michele' tells for the first time the riveting life-story of an extraordinary individual, who came to define the times he lived in. The precociously bright son of a Swedish pharmacist, Axel Munthe worked under Jean Martin Charcot, and in 1880, became the youngest doctor in French history. By the 1890s, he was world-famous for his healing powers, believed by some to be supernatural. He moved in the most colourful and exalted circles of fin de siecle Europe, counting amongst his friends Henry James, Howard Carter, Rainer Maria Rilke, Lady Ottoline Morrell and Count Zeppelin. Though physician to the Swedish court, where he became the lover of the Crown Princess Victoria, Munthe was more at home with nature than with people. He travelled through remotest Lapland, as well as across Europe, and his great love was animals, whom he went to great lengths to protect. In 1929 he published 'The Story of San Michele', an account of his life, shot through with his love for Italy and Capri, where he built a bird sanctuary and the house of his dreams, the Villa San Michele. The book became an international best seller, translated into 40 languages, and has become one of the classics of the last century. Bengt Jangfeldt is the first person to have gone through Munthe's diaries, letters and notebooks to produce this definitive account of one of 20th Century Europe's most vibrant figures. Written with the verve and exuberance of its subject, 'Axel Munthe: The Road to San Michele' evokes a lost time, a life of passions, and a man who believed in every sense in the power of dreams.
Backstabbing for Beginners: My Crash Course in International Diplomacy
by Michael SoussanSoon to be a major motion picture starring Ben Kingsley and Theo James, the gripping true story of a young program coordinator at the United Nations who stumbles upon a conspiracy involving Iraq's oil reserves."What made this episode in our collective history possible was not so much the lies we told one another, but the lies we told ourselves."A recent Brown University graduate, Michael Soussan was elated when he landed a position as a program coordinator for the United Nations' Iraq Program. Little did he know that he would end up a whistleblower in what PBS NewsHour described as the "largest financial scandal in UN history."Breaking a conspiracy of silence that had prevailed for years, Soussan sparked an unprecedented corruption probe into the Oil-for-Food program that exposed a worldwide system of bribes, kickbacks, and blackmail involving ruthless power-players from around the globe.At the crossroads of pressing humanitarian concerns, crisis diplomacy, and multibillion-dollar business interests, Soussan's story highlights core flaws of our international system and exposes the frightening, corrupting power of the black elixir that fuels our world's economy.