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Agatha Christie: Agatha Christie - A Life In The Theatre
by Julius GreenA revealing and witty new examination of how Agatha Christie became the world’s most successful and popular female playwright, including details of never-before-published scripts and stories.
Agatha Christie: A Biography
by Janet MorganJanet Morgan’s definitive and authorised biography of Agatha Christie, with a new retrospective foreword by the author.
Agatha Christie: The Finished Portrait
by Andrew NormanWhen Agatha Christie, the so-called 'Queen of Crime', disappeared from her home in Sunningdale in Berkshire for eleven days on 3 December 1927, the whole nation held its breath. This work explains, in the light of scientific knowledge, her behaviour during that troubled time.
Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life
by Laura Thompson'Laura Thompson's outstanding biography . . . is a pretty much perfect capturing of a life' - Kate MosseIt has been 100 years since Agatha Christie wrote her first novel and created the formidable Hercule Poirot. In this biography, Laura Thompson describes the Edwardian world in which she grew up, explores the relationships she had, including those with her two husbands and daughter, and investigates the mysteries still surrounding Christie's life - including her disappearance in 1926. Agatha Christie is a mystery and writing about her is a detection job in itself. But, with access to all of Christie's letters, papers and writing notebooks, as well as interviews with her grandson, daughter, son-in-law and their living relations, Thompson is able to unravel not only the detailed workings of Christie's detective fiction, but the truth behind her private life as well.First published in 2007 as 'Agatha Christie: An English Mystery', this is a fully updated edition with a new introduction by the author
Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life
by Laura ThompsonFans of Murder on the Orient Express won't want to miss out on this insight into the life of arguably the greatest crime writer in the world, as Laura Thompson turns her highly acclaimed biographical skills to Agatha Christie. 'Laura Thompson's outstanding biography . . . is a pretty much perfect capturing of a life' Kate Mosse, Book of the Year 2007It has been 100 years since Agatha Christie wrote her first novel and created the formidable Hercule Poirot. In this biography, Laura Thompson describes the Edwardian world in which she grew up, explores the relationships she had, including those with her two husbands and daughter, and investigates the mysteries still surrounding Christie's life - including her disappearance in 1926. Agatha Christie is a mystery and writing about her is a detection job in itself. But, with access to all of Christie's letters, papers and writing notebooks, as well as interviews with her grandson, daughter, son-in-law and their living relations, Thompson is able to unravel not only the detailed workings of Christie's detective fiction, but the truth behind her private life as well.Praise for Laura Thompson'Laura Thompson has certainly written the last word on Agatha Christie. Her book is a superb piece of biography' Literary Review'Affectionate, admiring, perceptive and absolutely convincing' Sunday Telegraph'This splendid account of [Christie's] life and work is unlikely to be bettered' Evening Standard'A triumphant success' Daily Mail'This book is a gem: fresh, intelligent and assured' Sunday Times'Laura Thompson is a fine writer . . . and one can't help admire the way she breathes new life into an intriguing tale' London Review of Books'Laura Thompson delivers the goods: a compelling narrative' The Times
Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman
by Lucy Worsley'One brilliant woman writing about another: an irresistible combination.' - Antonia Fraser'One of the most delightful biographies I have ever read.' - A.N. Wilson'Reading Worsley is as enjoyable as reading Christie herself.' - Ruth Scurr'Full of unique insight, eye opening detail, sharp analysis... Gripping.' - Kate Williams'Read it at one sitting. It's frothy and fast and properly, subtly, furious.' - Annie Gray'Nobody in the world was more inadequate to act the heroine than I was.'Why did Agatha Christie spend her career pretending that she was 'just' an ordinary housewife, when clearly she wasn't? As Lucy Worsley says, 'She was thrillingly, scintillatingly modern'. She went surfing in Hawaii, she loved fast cars, and she was intrigued by the new science of psychology, which helped her through devastating mental illness. So why - despite all the evidence to the contrary - did Agatha present herself as a retiring Edwardian lady of leisure? She was born in 1890 into a world which had its own rules about what women could and couldn't do. Lucy Worsley's biography is not just of an internationally renowned bestselling writer. It's also the story of a person who, despite the obstacles of class and gender, became an astonishingly successful working woman. With access to personal letters and papers that have rarely been seen, Lucy Worsley's biography is both authoritative and entertaining and makes us realise what an extraordinary pioneer Agatha Christie was - truly a woman who wrote the twentieth century.
Against The Wall
by Simon YatesSimon Yates is 'the one who cut the rope' in Joe Simpson's award-winning account of their epic struggle for survival in Touching the Void. Afterwards, Yates continued mountaineering on the hardest routes. Perhaps the most testing of all was one of the world's largest vertical rockfaces, the 4, 000-ft East Face of the Central Tower of Paine in Chile. Battered by ferocious storms and almost crippled with fear just below the summit, Yates and his three companions are forced into a nightmare retreat. After resting in a nearby town, they return to complete the climb, but Yates knows he still has to face one of life's greatest challenges...
Against the Wind: An Autobiography
by Geoffrey HouseholdGeoffrey Household's, author of ROGUE MALE, unconventional amusing and exciting autobiography.Ever since the publication of ROGUE MALE, Geoffrey Household has been known in the English-reading world for his audacious and unorthodox tales of adventure. Now, in his autobiography, AGAINST THE WIND, he tells us the story of his own life, sharing with us the background and the experiences from which he emerged as a writer. A gradaute from Oxford he then worked as an apprentice-clerk in the Ottoman Bank, as a banana salesman in Spain, and he served in British Intelligence during World War II in Romania, Greece and the Middle East. In the final chapters he speaks of the writer's craft and of his personal aspirations.
Against the Tide: The widely acclaimed autobiography of Irish politician and doctor Noël Browne
by Noël Browne'Against the Tide' is a story told with honesty and great emotion; the narrative of a life in which tragedy and good fortune succeeded each other with bewildering speed. After training as a doctor, Noël Browne experienced at first hand the devastating ravages of tuberculosis both personally and professionally. Drawn to politics, he was appointed Minister for Health on his first day in the Dáil at the age of thirty three. His single-minded campaign for reform of the health system encountered the strenuous opposition of both the Catholic Church and the medical establishment. Abandoned by his party colleagues, he embarked on a stormy political career over the following thirty years. He was idolised by his supporters; demonised by those who opposed him. 'Against the Tide' was an instant bestseller on its publication in 1986. It has become a classic political memoir - subjective, passionate, controversial and beautifully written.
Against Racial Capitalism: Selected Writings (Black Critique)
by Neville Alexander‘Amidst all this talk of racial capitalism and abolition, there is one thinker we should all be reading: Neville Alexander. He is a revolutionary intellectual for our times and for our planet. For anyone committed to abolishing, not just studying, racial capitalism, this is the book to read’--Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams‘Profound and provocative. Grounded in history, engaged with revolutionary theory, and informed by a lifetime of practice, Neville’s intellectual acuity and passion for freedom shine through in every page. Read, learn, and join the growing global struggle against racial capitalism’--Barbara Ransby, historian, activist, author of Making All Black Lives Matter‘Alexander’s beautiful writing patiently connects theory and method with purpose. Against Racial Capitalism is absolutely necessary for all who struggle to understand and change twenty-first-century conditions’--Ruth Wilson Gilmore, author of Abolition GeographyAs a revolutionary public intellectual, activist, and former political prisoner, Neville Alexander is among the most important theorists of racial capitalism to emerge during the struggle against apartheid. Alexander’s writings engage with some of the important debates in South Africa from the last 50 years, many of which have international resonance today. An opponent of the neoliberal trajectory embarked upon by the post-apartheid establishment in the 1990s, Alexander was always reflective and humble but never wavered from his own self-description: a non-dogmatic Marxist, pan-Africanist, and internationalist.This carefully curated collection brings his incredible body of work to an international audience for the first time. It features a comprehensive introduction, a timeline of key events in the life of Alexander, selected articles, speeches, op-eds, book chapters, and a bibliography of his writings.Neville Alexander was a revolutionary scholar, educator, and activist in the struggles against apartheid and in post-apartheid South Africa. He spent ten years (1964–74) as a political prisoner on Robben Island alongside Nelson Mandela and others before emerging as one of South Africa’s foremost public intellectuals.
Against My Will: Groomed, Trapped And Abused. This Is My True Story Of Survival
by Sophie Crockett Douglas Wight‘Asperger’s made me a prisoner in my own home. When I finally entered the real world, evil was waiting.’ A shocking true account of one girl’s harrowing journey to survival.
Against Memoir: Complaints, Confessions, And Criticisms
by Michelle Tea‘I must find my own complicated junkie to have violent sex with. In 1994, nothing seemed like a better idea, save being able to write about it later.’ Michelle Tea is our exuberant, witty guide to the hard times and wild creativity of queer life in America. Along the way she reclaims SCUM Manifesto author Valerie Solanas as an absurdist, remembers the lives and deaths of the lesbian motorbike gang HAGS and listens to activists at a trans protest camp. This kaleidoscope of love and adventure also makes room for a defence of pigeons and a tale of teenage goths hustling for tips at an ice creamery in a ‘grimy, busted city called Chelsea’. Unsparing but unwaveringly kind, Michelle Tea reveals herself and others in unexpected and heartbreaking ways.Against Memoir is the winner of the 2019 PEN Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. Best known as writer of fiction and memoir, this is the first time Tea’s journalism has been collected. Delivered with her signature candour and dark humour, Against Memoir solidifies her place as one of the leading queer writers of our time.
Against The Law
by Peter Wildeblood'This right which I claim for myself and for all those like me is the right to choose the person whom I love' Peter WildebloodIn March 1954 Peter Wildeblood, a London journalist, was one of five men charged with homosexual acts in the notorious Montagu case. Wildeblood was sentenced to eighteen months in prison, along with Lord Montagu and Major Michael Pitt-Rivers. The other two men were set free after turning Queen's Evidence.Against the Law tells the story of Wildeblood's childhood and schooldays, his war service, his career as a journalist, his arrest, trial and imprisonment, and finally his return to freedom. In its honesty and restraint it is eloquent testimony to the inhumanity of the treatment of gay men in Britain within living memory.
Against Enough: An Essay From The Collection, Of This Our Country
by J K ChukwuTo define Nigeria is to tell a half-truth. Many have tried, but most have concluded that it is impossible to capture the true scope and significance of Africa’s most populous nation through words or images.
Against All Odds
by R.A. LangAgainst All Odds takes you on a worldwide adventure filled with unexpected events, impossible and sometimes life-threatening situations including romance, tragedy, being shot at, ambushed, voodoo, cholera, Venezuelan riots, oil site evacuations, attempted murder escape from a crazed Kazakh psychopath, the KGB and more!
Against All Odds: The epic story of the Oceanos rescue
by Andrew Pike‘Recording the time as 12.05 am and date as 4 August, musician Moss Hills added calmly: “so I guess we’re going down”.’In August 1991, excited holiday-makers boarded the Oceanos at East London for the trip of a lifetime. Despite treacherous weather, the captain ordered the ship to set sail for Durban. And so began the ill-fated voyage.Hurricane force winds and giant rogue waves aggravated the hostile storm. Soon the ship started taking water. Panicked senior crew members scrambled into lifeboats leaving the ship’s evacuation to the on-board entertainers. At one point, a musician manned the bridge, at another, a magician.Women and children clambered aboard lifeboats which were launched into terrifying seas, leaving their husbands behind, unsure if they would see each other again. After all the operational lifeboats had been utilised, 221 passengers and junior crew were left stranded on the rapidly sinking ship.During this catastrophe the South African Air Force embarked on their biggest air rescue ever, with helicopter crews and Navy divers risking everything to evacuate the remaining passengers.In Against All Odds, maritime lawyer Andrew Pike, who was part of the legal investigation into the Oceanos’ sinking, recreates the compelling drama and extraordinary heroism of the greatest maritime rescue in South African history.
Against a Tide of Evil: How One Man Became the Whistleblower to the First Mass Murder of the Twenty-First Century
by Dr Mukesh Kapila Damien LewisIn this no-holds-barred account, the former head of the United Nations in Sudan reveals for the first time the shocking depths of evil plumbed by those who designed and orchestrated ‘the final solution’ in Darfur.A veteran of humanitarian crisis and ethnic cleansing in Iraq, Rwanda, Srebrenica, Afghanistan and Sierra Leone, Dr Mukesh Kapila arrived in Sudan in March 2003 having made a promise to himself that if he were ever in a position to stop the mass-killers, they would never triumph on his watch.Against a Tide of Evil is a strident and passionate cri de coeur. It is the deeply personal account of one man driven to extreme action by the unwillingness of those in power to stop mass murder. It explores what empowers a man like Mukesh Kapila to stand up and be counted, and to act alone in the face of global indifference and venality.Kapila’s story reads like a knife-edge international thriller as he risks all to use the powers at his disposal to bring to justice those responsible for the first mass murder of the twenty-first century: the Darfur genocide.
Aftershocks: Dispatches from the Frontlines of Identity
by Nadia OwusuI have lived in disaster and disaster has lived in me. Our shared languages are thunder and reverberation.When Nadia Owusu was two years old her mother abandoned her and her baby sister and fled from Tanzania back to the US. When she was thirteen her beloved Ghanaian father died of cancer. She and her sister were left alone, with a stepmother they didn't like, adrift. Nadia Owusu is a woman of many languages, homelands and identities. She grew up in Rome, Dar-es-Salaam, Addis Ababa, Kumasi, Kampala and London. And for every new place there was a new language, a new identity and a new home. At times she has felt stateless, motherless and identity-less. At others, she has had multiple identities at war within her. It's no wonder she started to feel fault lines in her sense of self. It's no wonder that those fault lines eventually ruptured. Aftershocks is the account of how she hauled herself out of the wreckage. It is the intimate story behind the news of immigration and division dominating contemporary politics. Nadia Owusu's astonishingly moving and incredibly timely memoir is a nuanced portrait of globalisation from the inside in a fractured world in crisis.
Aftershock: One Man's Quest and the Quake on Everest
by Jules MountainJules Mountain is a survivor. The odds of surviving his type of cancer were one in five; the odds of dying on Everest are one in sixty. But just as he reaches Base Camp in April 2015, the giant earthquake in Nepal sets off an avalanche that will kill 21. Jules is within touching distance of his life's ambition and is now faced with an agonising choice about his next move. Aftershock is a heart-stopping eyewitness account of the deadliest day in history on the world's most iconic mountain. It is also an exploration of the choices we make in life, and throws up difficult questions about how logic and compassion can be affected by altitude and extreme stress.
Afternoons with the Blinds Drawn
by Brett Anderson'A compelling personal account of the dramas of a singular British band' Neil TennantThe trajectory of Suede - hailed in infancy as both 'The Best New Band in Britain' and 'effete southern wankers' - is recalled with moving candour by its frontman Brett Anderson, whose vivid memoir swings seamlessly between the tender, witty, turbulent, euphoric and bittersweet. Suede began by treading the familiar jobbing route of London's emerging new 1990s indie bands - gigs at ULU, the Camden Powerhaus and the Old Trout in Windsor - and the dispiriting experience of playing a set to an audience of one. But in these halcyon days, their potential was undeniable. Anderson's creative partnership with guitarist Bernard Butler exposed a unique and brilliant hybrid of lyric and sound; together they were a luminescent team - burning brightly and creating some of the era's most revered songs and albums.In Afternoons with the Blinds drawn, Anderson unflinchingly explores his relationship with addiction, heartfelt in the regret that early musical bonds were severed, and clear-eyed on his youthful persona. 'As a young man . . . I oscillated between morbid self-reflection and vainglorious narcissism' he writes. His honesty, sharply self-aware and articulate, makes this a compelling autobiography, and a brilliant insight into one of the most significant bands of the last quarter century.
Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation
by Rachel CuskUsing her own life as a starting point, Rachel looks at the issues that arise for a woman in the years after she has lived the defining experiences of feminity. She writes about marriage, separation, motherhood, work, money, domesticity and love. Cusk considers the kinds of generational knowledge the contemporary woman harbours, the terrors or expectations that have been passed down to her and that are refracted through the modern transformation of female status.Aftermath is written in the personal/political mode that characterised A Life's Work, Cusk's acclaimed book about becoming a mother.
The Afterlife of Billy Fingers: Life, Death and Everything Afterwards
by Annie KaganIn 2004, bad boy Billy Fingers Cohen, a homeless small-time drug dealer and addict in a state of drug induced euphoria ran into a busy intersection and was killed instantly by a speeding automobile. He left behind a grieving sister. For weeks she struggled with grief and tried to make sense of Billy's seemingly wasted life and tragic death.A few weeks after his death, William Cohen, aka Billy Fingers, woke his sister Annie at dawn. 'I'm drifting weightlessly through these glorious stars and galaxies and I feel a Divine Presence, a kind, loving beneficent presence, twinkling all around me.'Billy's ongoing after-death communications take his sister on an unprecedented journey into the bliss and wonder of life beyond death. Billy's profound, detailed description of the mystical realms he traverses, the Beings of Light that await him, and the wisdom he receives take the reader beyond the near-death experience. Billy is, indeed, as Dr. Raymond Moody points out in his foreword, explaining the phenomena we've known about since ancient times, an afterworld walker. A fascinating page-turner filled with wisdom, humour and hope, The Afterlife of Billy Fingers, will forever change your views about life, death and the hereafter.If I could give you a gift it would be to find the glory inside yourself, beyond the roles and the drama, so you can dance the dance of the game of life with a little more rhythm, a little more abandon, a little more shaking-those-hips.
Afterglow: A Dog Memoir (Books That Changed The World Ser.)
by Eileen MylesSkinny's Book of the Year, 2018In 1990, Myles chose Rosie from a litter on the street, and their connection instantly made an indelible impact on the writer's way of being. Over the course of sixteen years together, Myles was devoted to the pit bull and their linked quality of life. And starting from the emptiness following Rosie's death, Afterglow launches a playful and incisive investigation into the mostly mutually beneficial, sometimes reprehensible power dynamics between pet and pet-owner. At the same time, it reimagines Myles's experiences with alcoholism and recovery, intimacy and mourning, celebrity and politics, spirituality and family history, while joyously transcending the parameters of memoir.Moving from an imaginary talk show where Rosie is interviewed by Myles's childhood puppet, to a critical reenactment of the night Rosie mated with another pit bull; from shimmering poetic transcriptions of video footage taken during their walks, to Rosie's final enlightened narration from the afterlife, this totally singular text combines elements of science fiction, screenplay, monologue, and lucid memory to get to the heart of how and why we dedicate our existence to our dogs.
After They Killed Our Father: A Refugee from the Killing Fields Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind
by Loung UngIn 1980, at the age of ten, Loung Ung escaped a devastated Cambodia and flew to the US as a refugee. She and her eldest brother, with whom she escaped, left behind their three surviving siblings, and her book is alternately heart-wrenching and heart-warming, as it follows the parallel lives of Loung and her closest sister, Chou, during the 15 years it took for them to be reunited. Their two worlds were very different, and Loung's depiction of the contrast between her life in the affluent West and that of her sister, who navigated her way through landmine-strewn fields and survived raids by the Khmer Rouge, is laced with the guilt she feels about being the lucky one. This powerful story helps us to understand what happens when a family is torn apart by politics, adversity and war. It is also the compelling and inspirational tale of a remarkable woman.
After the Worst has Happened: Tales from a funeral director on the lighter side of death
by Richard GoslingWhen Richard Gosling's young daughter faced emergency surgery, a colleague carelessly asked what would happen if she died. In that moment, Richard was forced to picture his own daughter's funeral, and the people who are there to help families after the worst has happened.Aged 40, Richard left his job in the public service and started preparing coffins, driving hearses, assisting in the mortuary and bringing in the deceased from hospitals and nursing homes, slowly working his way up to become operations manager of a venerable Sydney funeral home.After the Worst Has Happened lifts the curtain on a world we all try to avoid but must pass through. It shows the lighter side of death amid all its other facets, as Richard steers families through heartbreak, anger and grief while holding space for love and acceptance. Ultimately, it's about how extraordinarily beautiful it can be to spend a daily life surrounded by our final rite of passage.