Title search results
Showing 1 - 20 of 55023 items
Servants of the People: The Inside Story of New Labour
By Andrew Rawnsley. 2001
'Downing Street is said to be 'furious' at this book - and it is easy to understand why. It is…
the first meticulous chronicle of all that has happened since that bright May Day three years ago which first brought the Blair government to office' Anthony Howard, Sunday TimesA Series of Unrelated Events
By Richard Bacon. 2012
Have you ever been stitched up to the national press by your best mate?Or unintentionally upset a band with a…
slip of the tongue on a live TV show?Or ruined a dinner party by transforming everything alcoholic into water?Hello. I’m Richard Bacon and this is A Series of Unrelated Events. All of the stories are true. All of them happened to me. I’ve made the mistakes so you don’t have to (you’re welcome). So now, if you should ever find yourself sobbing on top of a box of gherkins in the stockroom of a Mansfield McDonald’s… having a Twitter conversation with your mum while she’s pretending to be an illiterate dog… performing stand-up to an audience who are funnier than you are… or just letting down all of the children of Great Britain……you’ll know exactly what to do.Semi-Detached
By Griff Rhys Jones. 2006
Semi-detached Griff relives freezing bus journeys to school and the impulsive stealing of that half-a-crown from Charlie Hume’s money box;…
sitting outside Butlins at Clacton (longing to be inside and on the Waltzer instead of stranded on the pebbles with his dad); hazy summer afternoons spent with feral gangs in the woods, or storming the mud flats singing extracts from the Bonzo Dog Dooh Dah Band. The memories are like Mivvis, frozen and fuzzy at the edges, but a sweet jam of pure recollected goo at the centre.From birth to the BBC, this is a story of a confident middle child. Griff’s devoted parents Gwynneth and Elwyn gave him love, security and plenty of asparagus soup from a fake wicker vacuum flask with a plastic top. Griff’s father Elwyn, a retiring hospital doctor with a penchant for sweeties and ice-cream, loathed the tedium of English social ritual and hid behind his family and woodwork. From tree houses to boats, puppets to tables, he sawed and hammered his way into his family’s affections.Griff left the bosom of his loving, irascible, eccentric, solid, all engulfing family for the firm embrace of real life; via the Upminster Fun Gang, the Direct Grant System and Party Sevens, losing his virginity down the back of a bunk in a twenty nine foot yacht, discovering the romantic advantages of shared babysitting engagements and the drawbacks of infatuation with identical twins. If he hadn’t moved around so much as a child, would Griff have felt less like a voyeur, looking in on the lighted window across the square, the Georgian house glowing in the sun, the clink of glasses and the bray of public school certainties? Would he be able to tuck in his own shirt? Would he be fully detached? A laugh-aloud buffet of baby boomer Britain, Griff’s self-deprecating, elegant, affectionate prose reveals a little bit better how on earth you got from there to here.Selected Letters
By Madame Sevigne. 1982
One of the world's greatest correspondents, Madame de Sévigné (1626-96) paints an extraordinarily vivid picture of France at the time…
of Louis XIV, in eloquent letters written throughout her life to family and friends. A significant figure in French society and literary circles, whose close friends included Madame de La Fayette and La Rochefoucauld, she reflected on both significant historical events and personal issues, and in this selection of the most significant letters, spanning almost fifty years, she is by turns humorous and melancholic, profound and superficial. Whether describing the new plays of Racine and Molière, speculating on court scandals - including the intrigues of the King's mistresses - or relating her own family concerns, Madame de Sévigné provides throughout an intriguing portrait of the lost age of Le Roi Soleil.The See-Through House: My Father in Full Colour
By Shelley Klein. 2020
'A charming account of a daughter, a house and a fastidious dad' Sunday TimesShelley Klein grew up in the Scottish…
Borders, in a house designed on a modernist open-plan grid. With colourful glass panels set against a forest of trees, it was like living in a work of art. Her father, Bernat Klein, was a textile designer whose pioneering colours and textures were a major contribution to 1960s and 70s style.Thirty years on, Shelley moves back home to care for her father, now in his eighties: the house has not changed and neither has his uncompromising vision - or his distinctive way of looking at the world. Told with great tenderness and humour, this is Shelley's account of looking after an adored yet maddening parent and a piercing portrait of the grief that followed his death. 'A sad, funny, utterly fascinating book about families, home and how to say goodbye' Mark Haddon'Original, moving and bracingly honest... often hilarious' Blake Morrison, Guardian'It is strange that grief should produce such a life-affirming book, but it has. Read it for the solace it contains, or for its captivating descriptions. Either way, it's a delight' TelegraphThe Second World War: An Illustrated History
By James Holland. 2023
Discover the story of the Second World War brought to life in full colour by renowned historian James Holland and…
award-winning artist Keith Burns'A fully immersive experience. A comprehensive yet fast-paced and gripping insight into the Second World War. Not just accessible, but riveting. An absolute pleasure to read' GET HISTORY'A ground-breaking collaboration between bestselling historian James Holland and award-winning artist Keith Burns presents the war in full colour, bringing the text vividly to life' HISTORY OF WAR__________From the great cities of Europe to the jungles of Burma, and from the deserts of North Africa to the remote islands of the South Pacific and the freezing waters of the Arctic, the Second World War touched every continent and ocean on the planet. And from the Blitzkrieg to the atom bomb, the fighting fuelled new technological development on land, at sea and in the air at a ferocious pace. Our future was forged by war.Combining compelling personal stories with a clear and accessible appreciation of the strategic and operational battle for supremacy between the Allies and the Axis powers, bestselling historian James Holland weaves an irresistible narrative, with over 250 illustrations by acclaimed artist Keith Burns, commissioned specially for this project.Together, they bring events in The Second World War: An Illustrated History to life with stunning drama and dynamism.Over five years in the making, their groundbreaking collaboration has produced a unique and unforgettable account of the most extraordinary events the world has ever seen.__________'Gripping text, masterful imagery and touching personal stories make this a must-buy for anyone with an interest in World War Two' CLASSIC MILITARY VEHICLES'A bold attempt to expand the market for military history . . . aimed at a general reader who wants to get an overall grasp of a massive subject . . . this is an impressive achievement' BOOKBRUNCHSeason of Blood: A Rwandan Journey
By Fergal Keane. 1995
When President Habyarimana’s jet was shot down in April 1994, Rwanda erupted into a hundred-day orgy of killing – which…
left up to a million dead. Fergal Keane travelled through the country as the genocide was continuing, and his powerful analysis reveals the terrible truth behind the headlines.‘A tender, angry account … As well as being a scathing indictment – Keane says the genocide inflicted on the Tutsis was planned well in advance by Hutu leaders – this is a graphic view of news-gathering in extremis. It deserves to become a classic’ Independent.ScreenAge: How TV shaped our reality, from Tammy Faye to RuPaul’s Drag Race
By Fenton Bailey. 1979
'Like a superheated kernel of corn, the world has gone Pop... Drag has become mainstream. Being gay became cool. From…
being the criminal outsider, being queer has even become representative of the way the outsider voice is common to us all.'When he moved to New York in 1982, Fenton Bailey saw the world go Pop. Together with filmmaking partner Randy Barbato, their production company World of Wonder would pioneer the genre of Reality TV and chronicle the emerging Screen Age through their extraordinary programs and outrageous subjects - from Bible Belt televangelists and conspiracy theories to pioneering drag queens.Working with icons such as Britney Spears, Tammy Faye Bakker and RuPaul, the production company's shows tell a wider story of how television has fundamentally shifted our reality.Packed with glorious insider gossip and amazing celebrity stories, these are the riotous tales behind the shows that would make ScreenAgers of us all.A Scottish Football Hall of Fame
By John Cairney. 1998
Those who have been football supporters all their lives can never forget the first match they ever saw, although they…
might not recall the result. This is because it is the players that stay in the memory and the magic moments they provided for millions of spectators in their time.Every generation throws up its own football field magicians and The Scottish Football Hall of Fame encapsulates the Saturday afternoon spell cast by fine footballers for ordinary working men who lived to cheer on their heroes every week. Fervour was passed down from father to son, and in this way the future of the clubs as well as the fame of a few golden greats was guaranteed. Players like R.S.McColl (Queen's Park), Bobby Walker (Hearts), Alan Morton (Rangers), Denis Law (Manchester United) and Kenny Dalglish (Celtic) are in this pantheon, and they span the arc of Scottish football from its earliest days till modern times. These, and more than a hundred like them, are the men you will read about in these pages. Men who were once household names are captured here in their sporting immortality and introduced to generations of football enthusiasts who never saw them play. The Scottish Football Hall of Fame gives a unique overview of the beautiful game, where by means of illuminating narrative and anecdote, legend can unite with historical fact to honour not only the wearers of the famous dark blue shirt but every foot-soldier in the Tartan Army who has ever shouted 'Scotland! Scotland!' from the terraces.‘Oh my goodness – another girl Mrs Swain!’ Clara’s normal iron composure broke and she screamed, ‘No! That’s not the…
bloody deal!’And that is how my nanna, Bertha Swain, entered the world.When Helen Batten’s marriage breaks down, she starts on a journey of discovery into her family’s past and the mysteries surrounding her enigmatic nanna’s early life. What she unearths is a tale of five feisty red heads struggling to climb out of poverty and find love through two world wars. It’s a story full of surprises and scandal – a death in a workhouse, a son kept in a box, a shameful war record, a clandestine marriage and children taken far too soon. It’s as if there is a family curse. But Helen also finds love, resilience and hope – crazy wagers, late night Charlestons and stolen kisses. As she unravels the story of Nanna and her scarlet sisters, Helen starts to break the spell of the past, and sees a way she might herself find love again.Scandal!: An Explosive Exposé of the Affairs, Corruption and Power Struggles of the Rich and Famous
By Colin Wilson, Damon Wilson. 2007
What makes a good scandal? Money, politics and power, and a huge dose of media interest. Scandal reigns in the…
world of politics, celebrity, business, religion, royalty and art, and this book covers it all - from Watergate to Michael Jackson, Diana to Oscar Wilde. Distinguished writer Colin Wilson delves into the murky intrigues of British and American life to bring the most scandalous secrets to light.Containing brand new chapters on Michael Jackson, ENRON, the death of David Kelly, the Catholic Church sex scandals and the cash-for-honours scandal, and an updated chapter on OJ Simpson, here are the embarrassing true stories the rich and famous tried but failed to hide.Education, Colonial Sickness: A Decolonial African Indigenous Project
By Njoki Nathani Wane. 2024
In the last two decades, we have witnessed the quest for decolonization; through research, writing, teaching, and curriculum across the…
globe. Calls to decolonize higher education have been overwhelming in recent year. However, the goal of decolonizing has evolved past not only the need to dismantle colonial empires but all imperial structures. Today, decolonization is deemed a basis for restorative justice under the lens of the psychological, economic, and cultural spectrum. In this book, the editor and her authors confront various dimensions of decolonizing work, structural, epistemic, personal, and relational, which are entangled and equally necessary. This book illuminates other sites and dimensions of decolonizing not only from Africa but also other areas. This convergence of critical scholarship, theoretical inquiry, and empirical research is committed to questioning and redressing inequality in contemporary history and other African studies. It signals one of many steps in a bid to consultatively examine how knowledge and power have been both defined and subsequently denied through the sphere of academic practice.The Northeast Corridor: The Trains, the People, the History, the Region
By David Alff. 2024
All aboard for the first comprehensive history of the hard-working and wildly influential Northeast Corridor. Traversed by thousands of…
trains and millions of riders, the Northeast Corridor might be America’s most famous railway, but its influence goes far beyond the right-of-way. David Alff welcomes readers aboard to see how nineteenth-century train tracks did more than connect Boston to Washington, DC. They transformed hundreds of miles of Atlantic shoreline into a political capital, a global financial hub, and home to fifty million people. The Northeast Corridor reveals how freight trains, commuter rail, and Amtrak influenced—and in turn were shaped by—centuries of American industrial expansion, metropolitan growth, downtown decline, and revitalization. Paying as much attention to Aberdeen, Trenton, New Rochelle, and Providence as to New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, Alff provides narrative thrills for history buffs, train enthusiasts, and adventurers alike. What’s more, he offers a glimpse into the future of the corridor. New infrastructural plans—supported by President Joe Biden, famously Amtrak’s biggest fan—envision ever-faster trains zipping along technologically advanced rails. Yet those tracks will literally sit atop a history that links the life of Frederick Douglass, who fled to freedom by boarding a train in Baltimore, to the Frederick Douglass Tunnel, which is expected to be the newest link in the corridor by 2032. Trains have long made the places that make America, and they still do.Rufus Dawes of the Iron Brigade: [Illustrated Edition]
By Rufus R Dawes. 2024
Includes Civil War Map and Illustrations Pack - 224 battle plans, campaign maps and detailed analyses of actions spanning the…
entire period of hostilities.“With the Iron Brigade on campaign and battlefieldFor students of the American Civil War, the name Rufus Dawes will be forever associated with the famous Iron Brigade of the Union Army—that hardy and courageous assembly of regiments from the western states whose steadfastness in the thickest of battlefield conflicts earned them their descriptive nickname. Born in 1838, Dawes was just 23 years old when the Civil War broke out and he became a captain in the 6th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, the regiment he would, in time, come to famously command. Dawes was always an ardent and aggressive battlefield commander. He served with the regiment at Groveton, Antietam, Fredericksburg and through the Chancellorsville campaign. At Gettysburg he notably led the counter-attack on Davis's Confederate brigade sheltering in a railway cutting and there took some 200 prisoners. Dawes served at Mine Run, the Wilderness Campaign, the sieges of Petersburg and Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor in 1864. Worn out physically and mentally, Dawes was mustered out after three years of the most intensive combat—he was just 26 years old. The following year he was promoted to brevet brigadier general. This book, Dawes' own account of his regiment of 'Black Hats' of the Iron Brigade, is an acknowledged classic of the period.”-Print ed.The Journal of the C. I. V. in South Africa: The Boer War Record of the London Volunteers by Their Commanding Officer
By Major General W H MacKinnon. 2024
“London men at war against the BoersThe turn of the 19th century to 20th was a time of popularity for…
the military volunteer movement in the British Empire. When the Anglo-Boer War broke out the City Imperial Volunteers quickly filled its ranks with the men of the City of London anxious to serve their country in South Africa. The venture was supported by the Lord Mayor and the popularity of London's effort had widespread appeal. All manner of men hurried to join the C. I. V's ranks and many of them were professionals from the city's law firms and financial institutions, artists, writers or gentlemen of private means. The author of The Riddle of the Sands, Erskine Childers was one of their number. This book is comprised of the journal entries of the officer commanding the regiment and it follows the C. I. V's wartime experiences from recruitment to its return home. The C. I. V was well regarded on campaign and earned the praise of peers and senior officers alike. This book delivers its information in the sober manner one might expect of its author in the circumstances, but is nevertheless essential source material about each part of the unit-the infantry, mounted infantry, cyclists, medical staff etc. Included as an appendix is a substantial honour role that will be of special interest to genealogists.”-Print ed.The Lean, Brown Men: with the 25th Royal Fusiliers-The Legion of Frontiersmen
By Angus Buchanan. 2024
“Lean men, brown men, men from overseas,Men from all the outer world; shy and ill at easeThere were Canadian Mounties,…
American cowboys, Arctic explorers, adventurers, rogues, big game hunters and sportsmen. There were famous men like Cherry Kearton, the naturalist and explorer and the grand old man of Africa—Frederick Selous himself. All these men had come together under the Union Flag to do battle against colonial Imperial Germany in East Africa. They came under the command of Driscoll of Driscoll's Scouts who performed with renown during the Boer War. These were the men of the 25th Royal Fusiliers—The Legion of Frontiersmen—and their battlegrounds were to be the great plains of Africa rich in wildlife and elemental danger. This is their story through the years of the Great War told by one of their own officers in vivid detail. It is a story of campaigns and hardship which would be equal to the best of them and lay many a 'lean, brown man' in a shallow grave in the red earth before it was concluded.”-Print ed.My Cousin Maria Schneider: A Memoir
By Vanessa Schneider. 2018
&“A beautiful eulogy and a much-needed corrective&” (The New York Times)—a love letter to Maria Schneider, the 1970s movie starlet…
who catapulted to fame in the controversial film Last Tango in Paris—only to live the rest of her life plagued by scandal, as told from the perspective of her adoring younger cousin.The late French actress Maria Schneider is perhaps best known for playing Jeanne in the provocative film Last Tango in Paris, directed by Bernardo Bertolucci and released to international shock and acclaim in 1972. It was Maria&’s first major role, alongside film legend Marlon Brando, when she was barely eighteen years old. The experience would haunt her for the rest of her life, traumatizing her and sparking a tabloid firestorm that only ceased when she began to retreat from the public eye nearly two decades later. To Maria&’s much younger cousin, Vanessa Schneider, Maria was a towering figure of another kind—a beautiful and fearsome fixture in Vanessa&’s childhood, a rising star turned pariah whose career and struggles with addiction won the family shame and pride in equal measure. Here, Vanessa recounts the challenges of their overlapping youths and fraught adulthood and reveals both the tragedy and inevitability of Maria&’s path in a family plagued by mental illness and in a society rife with misogyny. Unsentimental and moving, My Cousin Maria Schneider is a love letter to a talented artist and the cousin who admired her, and a powerful story of exploitation and how its lingering effects can reverberate through a lifetime.“Colonial warfare on the Dark ContinentThe British Empire rapidly spread its influence throughout the globe during the nineteenth century. Predictably…
these intrusions rarely found favour with the indigenous populations and so, inevitably, the imperial interests of power and commerce were reinforced by the imposition of military and naval might courtesy of the British Army and the Royal Navy. British interests in West Africa proved to be no exception to the rule and the so called 'Ashanti Wars' were fought with varying degrees of savagery and through eight campaigns from 1806 until 1900. This book is about the Third Anglo-Ashanti War which was fought during 1873-74. Garnet Wolseley, commanding a force of British, West Indian and local forces marched against the Ashanti who had invaded British territory. The campaign gained particular notoriety because it occurred during the golden age of newspaper correspondents and was covered by both G. A. Henty and Henry Morton Stanley. It made Wolseley's reputation and he became a household name. The conflict was made singular by the nature of the terrain-often thick jungle-across which it was fought and by its exotic protagonists and this makes it a subject of particular interest for students of the colonial wars in the Victorian era. The outcome of the war was, perhaps, predictable and the British both occupied the enemy capital Kumasi and then burnt it down as an object lesson. This book is particularly useful because the author was an eyewitness to the storming of Amoaful by the Black Watch, the storming of Ordahsu by the Rifle Brigade and the fall of the capital.”-Print ed.With Maximilian in Mexico: a Lady's Experience of the French Adventure
By Sara Yorke Stevenson. 2024
“A remarkable experience of little reported events.The Second Empire of France was, by the early 1860's in good health. France…
had acquitted itself well in the Crimea and in the war against Austria. The idea of a European monarch on the throne of Mexico was not a new one. France was attracted to the idea of a 'Latin' influence in America and thus the opening chords were struck of what would eventually be—to quote the author—'A Dance of Doom', the steps of which would lead the Archduke Maximilian to a stark wall there to be riddled with bullets from a Mexican firing squad. The author of this account—a young American woman living in Paris—was swept up in these extraordinary events and found herself in Mexico amongst its most influential figures. This is her essential and riveting story of turmoil and rebellion.”- Print ed.“The struggles for AfricaThere can be few more interesting and evocative periods of British imperial history than the struggles for…
south-eastern Africa. The empire had found itself colliding with the interests of many native powers across the globe during the decades of its expansion. Many had fought to maintain their independence and some, like the Sikhs of the Punjab, were sufficiently well versed in the practice of warfare as to be a serious threat. This could not be said of the tribes which rose from the Zulu nation, yet the Zulu War of 1879 gave British forces a chilling and brutal lesson in what a 'primitive' African tribal army was capable of achieving on the field of battle. The Matabele, as an off-shoot of the martial Zulus, also inevitably came into conflict with the British during the closing decade of the 19th century. The First Matabele War did not decisively subjugate the tribe and in 1896 it rose again laying siege to Bulawayo with over 10,000 Ndebele warriors.”-Print ed.