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Showing 161 - 180 of 2717 items
By David Leslie. 2005
Crimelord is the gripping life story of elusive multimillionaire gangster Tam McGraw. A notorious criminal kingpin, McGraw has risen from…
extreme poverty in the East End of Glasgow to become one of Scotland's wealthiest men. When hash started to flood into Scotland from the late 1980s onwards, suspicion centred on McGraw, leader of the infamous Barlanark Team. After a two-year surveillance operation, police discovered the drug had been hidden in buses carrying young footballers and deprived Glasgow families on free holidays abroad. It was a scam reminiscent of the movie The Italian Job, only this time Scots kids had been sitting on hash worth over £40 million. Police claimed McGraw was the financier and mastermind but in 1998 a jury declared him innocent while other suspects were jailed. As McGraw refuses to discuss his life publicly, his remarkable tale is told through friends, fellow crooks and the occasional rival. It is an outrageous, often hilarious, true gangster story.By Alan Stewart. 2003
As the son of Mary Queen of Scots, born into her 'bloody nest', James had the most precarious of childhoods.…
Even before his birth, his life was threatened: it was rumoured that his father, Henry, had tried to make the pregnant Mary miscarry by forcing her to witness the assassination of her supposed lover, David Riccio. By the time James was one year old, Henry was murdered, possibly with the connivance of Mary; Mary was in exile in England; and James was King of Scotland. By the age of five, he had experienced three different regents as the ancient dynasties of Scotland battled for power and made him a virtual prisoner in Stirling Castle. In fact, James did not set foot outside the confines of Stirling until he was eleven, when he took control of his country. But even with power in his hands, he would never feel safe. For the rest of his life, he would be caught up in bitter struggles between the warring political and religious factions who sought control over his mind and body. Yet James believed passionately in the divine right of kings, as many of his writings testify. He became a seasoned political operator, carefully avoiding controversy, even when his mother Mary was sent to the executioner by Elizabeth I. His caution and politicking won him the English throne on Elizabeth's death in 1603 and he rapidly set about trying to achieve his most ardent ambition: the Union of the two kingdoms. Alan Stewart's impeccably researched new biography makes brilliant use of original sources to bring to life the conversations and the controversies of the Jacobean age. From James's 'inadvised' relationships with a series of favourites and Gentlemen of the Bedchamber to his conflicts with a Parliament which refused to fit its legislation to the Monarch's will, Stewart lucidly untangles the intricacies of James's life. In doing so, he uncovers the extent to which Charles I's downfall was caused by the cracks that appeared in the monarchy during his father's reign.By Gavanndra Hodge. 2020
The must-read memoir about the dazzling days and dark nights of a Chelsea childhood . . .'Brilliant and moving' The…
Times'Dazzling' Evening Standard'Beautifully written' Marian Keyes'Unflinchingly honest Sunday Times'Superbly written' Guardian'A triumph' i_______Her father was a hairdresser to the rich and famous - he was also their drug dealer.Her mother was an alcoholic fashion model.Her days and nights were non-stop parties - she spent them taking care of her little sister and putting out naked flames.And when her sister dies aged nine, Gavanndra is left alone with her grief. Growing up in the dazzling days and dark nights of her parents' social lives, surviving means fitting into their dysfunctional world, while stopping the family from falling apart . . ._________'A redemptive tale of an emotional reckoning' i'This story will stay with you long after you put the book down' Emma Gannon'There are scenes that will reduce you to tears, but there's also humour, forgiveness and uplifting optimism. By the end of this dazzling debut you just want to give her a huge cheer for coming through' Evening Standard'A masterful writer with a gift for storytelling' iFact is often stranger than fiction, and when Rod McLean, an escaped drug baron and alleged MI6 agent, was mysteriously…
found dead in a London flat after two months on the run, even Hollywood couldn't have scripted it better.McLean had only served seven years of his twenty-eight-year sentence he received following a 1996 sting operation off the Caithness coast in which a Customs officer lost his life. Despite being described as one of the most ruthless and important figures on the country's drug scene, McLean had found his security status downgraded from Category A to D and had been transferred to HMP Leyhill, an open prison which had seen 82 prisoners escape in 2002 alone. Shortly after the media had accused the security services of helping him to escape, McLean was found – dead. But not only did it take the Metropolitan Police 29 days to make the news public, it also took them that long to inform Avon and Somerset - the very police force who were still trying to recapture him. Why? Who was McLean and what made him so important? So important, in fact, that the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, had been compelled to order a report into his disappearance, much of which remains secret to this day. Cut-Throat is a truly unique account of Rod McLean's life and death, told in the first person using material from McLean's own hand. Whether as a mercenary in the Congo, an armed robber in Newcastle or as an international drug-smuggler and gun-runner who operated where few others have dared, McLean will take you through his life as he struggles against the darkest realms of humanity and himself until the very end, an end which overshadows the greatest secret of all – not of how he died, but of how he lived.By Paul Mason. 2012
Paul Mason’s father was a policeman. He was also a member of a sadistic paedophile ring. He would keep Paul…
locked up and naked in a tiny cupboard under the stairs of their home before sexually abusing him. This cycle of abuse continued for several years and also affected his brother. The cupboard became a horrific prison where fear and terror filled his every moment.The Cupboard Under the Stairs is a story of abuse at the mercy of adults whom Paul should have been able to trust. There followed a life almost destroyed by their actions. It is the harrowing story of one man’s fight for justice and an end to the horrific memories that still haunt him daily.By Adam Henson. 2011
In 2001, Adam Henson was chosen from 3,500 applicants to become a presenter on Countryfile. Adam's agricultural knowledge and open…
manner soon made him a popular figure and when the programme moved to its current Sunday evening slot in 2009, he began to present a weekly report from his own farm in the Cotswolds.There, the ups and downs of the farming calendar, as told in Adam's straight-talking fashion, soon became one of the most popular parts of the programme as viewers watched him endure the stress of TB testing and his sadness at losing valuable cattle as well as the highs of spring lambing. This is the first book by Adam Henson, and it is an enthralling, first-person account of the drama, emotion and sheer hard work that is life on Adam's Farm.By Angela Clarke. 2013
The incredibly popular Daily Mail column, 'Confessions of a Fashionista', feeds its hungry readers snippets of a life in the…
glittering yet deranged world of fashion. Now its anonymous author reveals both her identity and the true story of her giddyingly glamorous time in the style industry, with insider gossip on the people who populate it. Propelled by a painful end to a relationship and determined to prove her ex wrong for breaking up with her, our Fashionista lands a place on the Harrods Graduate Scheme. A complete outsider to the fashion world, she sets out on a wing and a pair of Guccis, and finds herself in a whirlwind of couture and craziness. Along the way she learns how to stay sane in a world where hairdressers have egos as big as their clients' bouffants, where dogs fly business class, and if you're eating carbs it can only be because you're pregnant. Confessions of a Fashionista is a book for anyone who's ever been an outsider, for anyone who's ever had a relationship end badly and thought they'd never find true love, and for anyone who thinks that cakes were made to be eaten, not sniffed. By turns hilarious, sad, thrilling, romantic and fun, it is the It book for fashionistas everywhere.By Jeff Farrell, Paul Keany. 2012
‘It won’t happen to me. That’s what I thought when I got on the plane to Venezuela. But it did…
– I got caught.’Caught smuggling half a million euros’ worth of cocaine, Paul Keany was sexually assaulted by Venezuelan anti-drugs officers before being sentenced to eight years in the notorious Los Teques prison outside Caracas. There he was plunged into a nightmarish world of coke-fuelled killings, gun battles, stabbings, extortion and forced hunger strikes until finally, just over two years into his sentence, he gained early parole and embarked on a daring escape from South America . . .Aided by his extensive prison diaries, Keany reveals the true horror of life inside Los Teques: a shocking underworld behind bars where inmates pay protection money to stay alive, prostitutes do the rounds and vast amounts of cocaine are smuggled in for cell-block bosses to sell on to prisoners for huge profits. The Cocaine Diaries is a remarkable story, told by Keany with honesty, courage and even humour, despite knowing that every day behind bars might have been his last.By Steven McLaughlin. 2013
Clubland UK is a story of violent men and the worlds they inhabit. At the height of the hedonistic ’90s…
rave era, Steven McLaughlin policed some of Blackpool’s busiest seafront clubs on chaotic nights, as the virulent dance and drug craze exploded onto the scene. From the front line, he witnessed the dark underbelly of clubland culture and the predatory menace lurking beneath the smiley-face T-shirts, pilled-up clubbers and frantically waving arms. He saw people revel in it; he saw people excel in it; he saw people profit in it; and he saw people suffer in it. Because sometimes being ‘a face’ in clubland demands the highest price of all. From small-town gyms to big-time steroid dealers, from martial-arts myths to back-alley fights, door wars and gang grudges in Britain's gaudiest seaside town, Clubland UK is a story that takes the reader into a twilight world where testosterone, brotherhood, ego and a warrior mentality all collide in a bruising mess. This book is a must-read trip into the dark side of the dance decade, a roller-coaster ride of pills and blood-spilling thrills, where agony and ecstasy co-exist in a blurred neon blaze.By Paul Winder, Tom Hart Dyke. 2003
The Darién Gap is a place of legend. The only break in the Pan-American highway, which runs from Alaska to…
the tip of South America, it is an almost impregnable strip of swamp, jungle and cloud forest between the vast landmasses of North and South America. Stories of abduction and murder there are rife and in recent years more people have successfully climbed Everest or trekked to the South Pole than have crossed the Darién Gap. In 2000, Tom Hart Dyke, a young botanist, set off to Central America with one thing on his mind: orchids. He knew that in order to find the rare and beautiful species he so fervently admired, he would have to visit some of the most inhospitable places on earth. Unbeknown to Tom, another young explorer, Paul Winder, was backpacking through the area at the same time. Though he sometimes worked freelance in the City of London, Paul was a fearless and intrepid traveller, happier scaling volcanoes than lounging on beaches. In every bar and café along his route, rumours abounded of the Darién Gap - and the more he heard, the greater became his desire to make the journey. Pure chance brought Paul and Tom together in northern Mexico; they formed an instant bond and their fate was sealed. Ignoring a final, succinct warning from the Lonely Planet guide - 'Don't even think about it!' - Tom and Paul set off into the Darién: Tom in search of orchids, Paul in search of adventure. They would find plenty of each. For six days they made good progress. Then, just hours away from Colombia, the dream ended and the horror began. Paul and Tom were ambushed by FARC guerrillas who were to hold them hostage for the next nine months. From that day on, their survival was a matter of extraordinary endurance, incredible ingenuity and not a little good luck ...By Robert Fraser. 2001
The poet George Barker was convinced that his biography could never be written. 'I've stirred the facts around too much,'…
he told Robert Fraser. 'It simply can't be done.' Eliot wrote of his 'genius'. Yeats thought him the most interesting poet of his generation. Dylan Thomas envied his power over women. War trapped him in Japan. In America he conducted one of the most celebrated love affairs of the century. He fathered fifteen children in several countries, three during one battle-torn summer. By the 1950s he was the toast of Soho. Barker was Catholic and bohemian, frank and elusive, tender and boisterous. In Eliot's phrase, he was 'a most peculiar fellow.' Robert Fraser's biography offers both a portrait of a talented, tormented and irresistibly entertaining man, and a broad cultural landscape. Around the central figure cluster painters like Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Johnny Minton and the 'Roberts' Colquhoun and MacBryde; writers such as Dylan Thomas, Walter de la Mare and Elizabeth Smart, whose By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept hymns their liaison; the lugubrious humorist Jeffrey Bernard. After closing time at the Colony Room, Minton declared, they had to sweep up the jokes.'An inspirational manifesto for change' Caroline Lucas, former leader of The Green Party 'A remarkable and important book' Steve Backshall,…
Naturalist, Broadcaster, and Author'Astute, erudite and crystalline, Bella writes with visionary clarity and passion [...] It's a wonderful book' Dara McAnulty, award-winning author of Diary of a Young Naturalist____________________________Across the planet, the futures of young people hang in the balance as they face the harsh realities of the environmental crisis. Isn't it time we made their voices heard?The Children of the Anthropocene, by conservationist and activist Bella Lack, chronicles the lives of the diverse young people on the frontlines of the environmental crisis around the world, amplifying the voices of those living at the heart of the crisis.Advocating for the protection of both people and the planet, Bella restores the beating heart to global environmental issues, from air pollution to deforestation and overconsumption, by telling the stories of those most directly affected. Transporting us from the humming bounty of Ecuador's Choco Rainforest and the graceful arcs of the Himalayan Mountains, to the windswept plains and vibrant vistas of life in Altiplano, Bella speaks to young activists from around the world including Dara McAnulty, Afroz Shah and Artemisa Xakriabá, and brings the crisis vividly to life.It's time we passed the mic and listened to different perspectives. Bella's manifestos for change will inspire and mobilize you to rediscover the wonders and wilds of nature and, ultimately, change the way you think about our planet in crisis. This is your chance to hear the urgent stories of an endangered species too often overlooked: the children of the Anthropocene. ____________________________'Extraordinarily moving, wild and engaging - the book of the moment' Mary Robinson, Former President of Ireland and author of Climate Justice'A visionary statement for the future [...] Pragmatic, positive & beautifully written' Ben Macdonald, Award-Winning Conservation Writer, Wildlife TV Producer and NaturalistBy Bruce Klein. 2014
"I really enjoyed Chewy – a book with a powerful and heart-warming message. In a world where old-fashioned notions like…
community, closeness and neighbourliness seem to have been lost, it is one of those unexpected stories that restore your faith in our collective nature. It also reminds us, once again, what an important role animals can play in our lives" - James Bowen, author of A Street Cat Named BobThe first time Bruce Klein caught sight of Chewy, this beautiful street dog captured his heart.Chewy had been a stray since he was a puppy. Sometimes he travelled with other street dogs, but more often he made his rounds alone. Bruce began to feed this timid St Bernard Cross, and he soon met other locals who looked out for Chewy too. The neighbours saw Chewy shivering in the winter rain, and knew it would only be a matter of time until the local animal control put him down. Bruce was happy to take him home, but Chewy was big and frightened. Rescuing him wouldn’t be simple – the neighbours had to devise a plan ...Chewy is the uplifting true story of how a whole neighbourhood came together to change one dog’s life. It will capture your heart too.By Geoffrey Beattie, Ben Beattie. 2012
Geoffrey Beattie is an extremely successful academic and celebrity psychologist. He was perhaps a less successful father. His obsession with…
his career and his driving passion for running when he was at home almost destroyed his relationship with his son, but, ironically, it is running that has brought them back together.Chasing Lost Times is the emotional story of a father and son trying to repair a relationship through a shared activity that depends on sheer physical effort, the kind of physical effort that may once have been the source of commonality between father and son in all previous generations but which seems to be absent in the modern world.By Joe Jackson. 2009
Glasgow is known as the murder capital of Britain and no one understands why better than Joe Jackson. For over…
30 years, Jackson worked the crime beat, first as a uniformed cop then as a seasoned murder squad detective. In this hard-hitting memoir of his most memorable cases, he reveals the reality behind chasing killers and other crooks in 'No Mean City'.As a young cop, Jackson was threatened by Glasgow's most ruthless gangster, Arthur Thomson, and, as a fresh detective, he took part in the hunt for Bible John, Glasgow's most shadowy serial killer. He locked up more than his fair share of paedophiles and sex beasts along the way and, as a veteran Senior Investigating Officer, he cracked the hardest homicide nut there is: a murder without a body. Jackson's investigations have grabbed headlines, while his 'collars' have filled jails.Chasing Killers will shock readers with its behind-the-scenes look at how murder probes are run. Every case is related with candour and humour, and is laced with the kind of detail that only an expert can provide. Joe Jackson has been called the real-life Taggart, but this is no TV fantasy - this is real city police work: concrete hard, soot black and blood red.By Catherine Mayer. 1988
The Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller'Breathtaking' The Times'[The book that] made headlines around the world.' IndependentThe former Prince of Wales…
has lived his whole life in the public eye, yet he remains an enigma. He was born to be king, but he aims much higher. A landmark publication, Charles: The Heart of a King reveals Charles in all his complexity: the passionate views that mean he will never be as remote and impartial as his mother; the compulsion to make a difference and the many and startling ways in which the Prince and now King of the United Kingdom and fifteen other realms has already made his mark.The book offers fresh and fascinating insights into the first marriage that did so much to define him and an assessment of his relationship with the woman he calls, with unintended accuracy, his 'dearest wife': Camilla, now Queen Consort. We see Charles as a father and a friend, a serious figure and a joker. Life at court turns out to be full of hidden dangers and unexpected comedy.Now, updated and revised with a new preface and two new chapters - covering details of Harry and Meghan's exit and its implications, the cash-for-honours scandal, Prince Andrew, and more - this significant study reveals a monarchy threatened and a man in sight of happiness yet still driven by anguish and a remarkable belief system, a charitable entrepreneur, activist, agitator and avatar of the Establishment who just as often tilts against it.Based on multiple interviews with his friends and courtiers, palace insiders and critics, and rare access to Charles himself, before his kingship, this biography explores his philanthropy and his compulsive interventionism, his faith, his significant impact on politics and the philosophy that means when he seeks harmony he sometimes creates controversy.Gripping, at times astonishing, often laugh-out-loud, this is a royal biography unlike any other.'A must-read ... this important book is nothing short of a manual to our future King's world-view' GQ'A sustained piece of higher journalism' IndependentBy Lucy Irvine. 1983
THE SHOCKING STORY OF A DESERT ISLAND DREAM THAT WENT SOUR'Writer seeks "wife" for a year on tropical island.' The…
opportunity to escape from it all was irresistible. Lucy Irvine answered the advertisement - and found herself alone on a remote desert island with a 'husband' she hardly knew.Lucy Irvine fell in love with the seductive, if cruel, beauty of that untouched Eden, whose power to enslave and enchant her never slackened throughout the whole of her amazing adventure.Uncompromisingly candid and sometimes shocking, Castaway is her compulsively readable account of a desert island dream which threatened to turn into a nightmare of illness, thirst and personal antipathy.Now a film by Nicholas Roeg starring Amanda Donohoe and Oliver Reed,By Allan Grice. 2012
Working as a fireman in London’s East End during the early 1970s was no easy ride. In the years before…
workplace health-and-safety legislation had started to exert its grip, Allan Grice had to cut his fire-and-rescue teeth without the advantages of a breathing apparatus for each member of his crew. Back then, the time-tested strategy was to ‘get in’ – to crawl below the intense heat and ‘eat’ the thick smoke – in order to locate a missing child or to halt a rapidly spreading inferno. In Call the Fire Brigade!, Grice recounts his most memorable experiences as a front-line member of the London Fire Brigade working the city’s East End, with its myriad commercial premises, brooding Thames-side warehouses, seedy tenements and colourful cosmopolitan community, ranging from prosperous manufacturers to down-and-out winos with their body-warming bonfires in derelict houses. Fires in factories, tenements and warehouses, and non-fire emergencies such as the Moorgate Tube disaster of 1975, are graphically described, while the elation of rescue, the sadness of being too late to save lives and the warm camaraderie of fire crews during some of the capital’s busiest peacetime years are vividly depicted.By Suzanne Portnoy. 2006
What if you had the power to make all your fantasies come true?Suzanne Portnoy is a woman on a mission.…
Freed from the restraints of marriage and monogamy, she’s no longer looking for Prince Charming. She’s looking for fun. And she intends to find it...This is an erotic memoir with a difference.By Adnan Sarwar. 2014
It isn't nice but you're an animal, so you can do it, dressed in green and brown and black waiting…
to be attacked and smiling because you had bullets for teeth. Adnan Sarwar, a Pakistani boy from Burnley, joined the British Army – the White Man’s Army. Why did he do it? To prove he was as white as his friends? For Queen and Country? Or to work out who he was – British, Muslim or a Soldier? Perhaps he could be all three. ‘British Muslim Soldier’ is Adnan’s journey through the battlegrounds of war, race and identity, facing up to the often brutal realities of these fraught warzones. There is racism, family ties, tedious routine, enemies and torture. But what Adnan’s story really comes down to is love – love for his family, for his fellow squaddies – and a deep-rooted sense of identity and belonging. …when did these clothes fit so well? When did Corporal become an older brother and when did the army become a mother? When did I become a British soldier?