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By Edited by Katherine Howe. 2024
Real-life accounts of the world&’s most notorious pirates—both men and women, from the Golden Age of Piracy and beyond—compiled by…
the New York Times bestselling author of A True Account: Hannah Masury&’s Sojourn Amongst the Pyrates, Written by HerselfA Penguin ClassicSpanning three centuries and eight thousand nautical miles, and compiled by a direct descendant of a sailor who waged war with pirates in the early nineteenth century, The Penguin Book of Pirates takes us behind the eye patches, the peg legs, and the skull and crossbones of the Jolly Roger and into the no-man&’s-land of piracy that is rife with paradoxes and plot twists. Here, in a fascinating array of accounts that include trial transcripts, journalism, ship logs, and more, are the grit and patois of real maritime marauders like the infamous Blackbeard; the pirates who inspired Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean, Stede Bonnet in Max&’s Our Flag Means Death, and the Dread Pirate Roberts in The Princess Bride; the astoundingly egalitarian multi-ethnic and multilingual crews that became enmeshed in historical horrors like the slave trade; and lesser-known but no less formidable women pirates, many of whom disguised themselves as men. By turns brutal, harrowing, and inspiring, these accounts of the &“radically free&” sailors who were citizens more of the oceangoing world than of any nation on land remind us of the glories and dangers of the open seas and the seductive appeal of communities forged in resistance.By Angel Au-Yeung, David Jeans. 2023
A Financial Times best business book of 2023In 1998, at the age of 24, Tony Hsieh sold his first company…
to Microsoft for $265 million.In 2009, at the age of 35, he sold his e-commerce company, Zappos, to Amazon for $1.2 billion.In 2020, at the age of 46, he died.Tony Hsieh revolutionized both the tech world and corporate culture. He was a business visionary. He was also a man in search of happiness. So why did it all go so wrong?Tony Hsieh’s first successful venture was in middle school, selling personalized buttons. At Harvard, he made a profit compiling and selling study guides. From there, he went on to build the billion-dollar online shoe empire of Zappos.The secret to his success? Making his employees happy.At its peak, Zappos’s employee-friendly culture was so famous across the tech industry that it inspired copycats and earned a cult following. Then Hsieh moved the Zappos headquarters to Las Vegas, where he personally funded a nine-figure campaign to revitalize the city’s historic downtown area. But as Hsieh fell deeper into his struggles with mental health and drug addiction, the people making up his inner circle began changing from friends to enablers.Drawing on hundreds of interviews with a wide range of people whose lives Hsieh touched, journalists Angel Au-Yeung and David Jeans craft a rich portrait of a man who was plagued by his eternal search for happiness and ultimately succumbed to his own demons.By Alice Randall. 2024
Alice Randall, award-winning professor, songwriter, and author with a &“lively, engaging, and often wise&” (The New York Times Book Review)…
voice, offers a lyrical, introspective, and unforgettable account of her past and her search for the first family of Black country music.Country music had brought Randall and her activist mother together and even gave Randall a singular distinction in American music history: she is the first Black woman to cowrite a number one country hit, Trisha Yearwood&’s &“XXX&’s and OOO&’s&”. Randall found inspiration and comfort in the sounds and history of the first family of Black country music: DeFord Bailey, Lil Hardin, Ray Charles, Charley Pride, and Herb Jeffries who, together, made up a community of Black Americans rising through hard times to create simple beauty, true joy, and sometimes profound eccentricity. What emerges in My Black Country is a celebration of the most American of music genres and the radical joy in realizing the power of Black influence on American culture. As country music goes through a fresh renaissance today, with a new wave of Black artists enjoying success, My Black Country is the perfect gift for longtime country fans and a vibrant introduction to a new generation of listeners who previously were not invited to give the genre a chance.By Sara Hawys Roberts, Leon Noakes. 2019
New discoveries and a fresh perspective, with unprecedented access to Richey's personal archiveOn 1 February 1995, Richey Edwards, guitarist of…
the Manic Street Preachers, went missing at the age of 27. On the eve of a promotional trip to America, he vanished from his London hotel room, his car later discovered near the Severn Bridge, a notorious suicide spot.Over two decades later, Richey’s disappearance remains one of the most moving, mysterious and unresolved episodes in recent pop culture history. For those with a basic grasp of the facts, Richey's suicide seems obvious and undeniable. However, a closer investigation of his actions in the weeks and months before his disappearance just don’t add up, and until now few have dared to ask the important questions.Withdrawn Traces is the first book written with the co-operation of the Edwards family, testimony from Richey’s closest friends and unprecedented and exclusive access to Richey’s personal archive. In a compelling real-time narrative, the authors examine fresh evidence, uncover overlooked details, profile Richey's state of mind, and brings us closer than ever before to the truth.By Lisa Verrico, Noddy Holder. 1999
As lead singer and extraordinary frontman of SLADE, Noddy Holder was one of the most successful musicians of the '70s…
and '80s. The epitome of the Glam Rock look and lifestyle, they released anthem after anthem as they mixed pure pop madness with football chant choruses. Seemingly on a mission to corrupt the spelling of a generation, the hits are songs we still hold dear today: MAMA WEER ALL CRAZEE NOW, LOOK WOT YOU DUN, CUM ON FEEL THE NOIZE. . . In a short few years they had 12 top five hits, 6 of them making #1 spot. Their albums also topped the charts and their huge Christmas anthem MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY has entered the top twenty over 7 times. In the '80s Slade made a brilliant revival with even more hits, especially RUN RUN AWAY and the classic MY OH MY. Today Noddy is as loved by the British public as he has ever been and in this hilarious autobiography he will tell us his complete life story, from growing up in the Midlands, to performing in the working men's clubs. The information of their first group, The N'Betweens and the mutation into an unlikely skinhead group, Ambrose Slade. And then, of course, Glam Rock and all the excesses of lifestyle that accompanied the outrageous clothes, not to mention guitarist Dave Hill's incredible hair style.By Dylan Jones. 1972
And then there was David Bowie, the uber-freak with the mismatched pupils, the low-tech space face from the planet Sparkle.…
This was Bowie's third appearance on TOTP but this was the one that properly resonated with its audience, the one that would go on to cause a seismic shift in the Zeitgeist. This is the performance that turned Bowie into a star, embedding his Ziggy Stardust persona into the nation's consciousness. With a tall, flame-orange cockade quiff (stolen from a Kansai Yamamoto model on the cover of Honey), lavishly applied make-up, white nail polish, and wearing a multi-coloured jump-suit that looked as though it were made from fluorescent fish skin (chosen by Ziggy co-shaper, the designer Freddie Buretti), and carrying a brand spanking new, blue acoustic guitar, a bone-thin Bowie appeared not so much as a pop singer, but rather as some sort of benevolent alien, a concept helped along by the provocative appearance of his guitarist, the chicken-headed Mick Ronson, with both of them unapologetically sporting knee-length patent leather wrestler's boots (Bowie's were red). 'Most people are scared of colour,' Bowie said later. 'Their lives are built up in shades of grey. It doesn't matter how straight the style is, make it brightly coloured material and everyone starts acting weird.' Suddenly Bowie - a man called alias - had the world at his nail-varnished fingertips, and in no time at all he would be the biggest star in the world.By Wensley Clarkson. 2011
The compelling and disturbing true story of Vanessa George and the evil abuse she doled out upon the children of…
more than 300 families.As a nursery worker, wife and mother, she was a figure to place trust in. Yet her adulterous relationship and sick love triangle with Colin Blanchard and Angela Allen drew her into a dark world of violence and sexual abuse. To compete for Blanchard's attention she would do everything in her power to impress him, even if this meant committing unspeakable acts of sexual violence on children as young as two years old.What could have driven a mother to betray not only her daughters and loving husband, but the very families who entrusted her with their children? How could a seemingly caring women become engaged in a sordid and vile love triangle with a man and woman she had never met? Were there events in her own childhood that pushed her to commit these acts?True crime expert Wensley Clarkson pieces together the events surrounding the case as well as new investigative research to compile a fascinating yet disturbing account of a case which shocked a nation.We may never know the full extent of Vanessa George's cruelty, but the horror of her story will remain as a chilling memory for generations.By Craig David. 2022
***I'm still learning, still making mistakes, but I feel ready now - after a lot of twists and turns along…
the way - to share my journey with you. In his much-anticipated first book, celebrated singer-songwriter Craig David takes us on a journey of connecting, disconnecting and reconnecting, weaving together stories of his life and music - starting with his early days in Southampton working with The Artful Dodger, to his overnight chart-topping success, through to the present day, and everything in between.This is Craig as we've never seen him before - the always-positive showman, baring his soul for the first time.From physical pain, lost love, public humiliation and depression, Craig takes us past his comfort zone, in a raw, honest and courageous account of his own lived experience. In opening up about how he overcame these obstacles, Craig shares his insight and provides practical advice that will help us to navigate the daily challenges we all face.This is Craig's story of how he learned to tune into his best life.By Jayne-Anne Gadhia. 2017
Jayne-Anne Gadhia, the straight-talking CEO of Virgin Money, looks back at the events that have influenced, shaped and inspired her…
to become one of the most powerful women in banking.With anecdotes from her life before becoming a banker, including beating the bullies and experiencing racism as part of a mixed race marriage, through to building a business from scratch, working at RBS under Fred Goodwin just before the financial crash, and steering Virgin Money to become a listed business, breaking boundaries along the way, professionally and personally.Jayne-Anne shines a light on issues surrounding the role of women in banking and the alpha-male dinosaurs that dominate the industry. She draws on the relationships and deals that have shaped her career so far, including her personal experience with mental health issues, which has helped her attitude and approach to both her business and personal life. This is not a conventional biography, nor a ‘how to do it’ business book. It is a candid, fresh and fascinating insight into being a woman in business, the financial crisis and the way in which business can be conducted as a force for good.By Her Honour Wendy Joseph. 2022
THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERWINNER OF THE CWA GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION 2023'Wendy Joseph's gripping account of the law at…
work reads like a cliffhanger.' Sunday Times'Absolutely superb. 5 stars for sheer readability alone. Her Honour entertains as she educates us about murder, about the law and about how we human beings are shaped as we create the culture we live with.' PHILIPPA PERRY, author of THE BOOK YOU WISH YOUR PARENTS HAD READ___________________________________________________________________________________'Every day in the UK lives are suddenly, brutally, wickedly taken away. Victims are shot or stabbed. Less often they are strangled or suffocated or beaten to death. Rarely they are poisoned, pushed off high buildings, drowned or set alight. Then there are the many who are killed by dangerous drivers, or corporate gross negligence. There are a lot of ways you can kill someone. I know because I've seen most of them at close quarters.'High-profile murder cases all too often grab our attention in dramatic media headlines - for every unlawful death tells a story. But, unlike most of us, a judge doesn't get to turn the page and move on. Nor does the defendant, or the family of the victim, nor the many other people who populate the court room.And yet, each of us has a vested interest in what happens there. And while most people have only the sketchiest idea of what happens inside a Crown Court, any one of us could end up in the witness-box or even in the dock.With breath-taking skill and deep compassion, the author describes how cases unfold and illustrates exactly what it's like to be a murder trial judge and a witness to human good and bad. Sometimes very bad.The fracture lines that run through our society are becoming harder and harder to ignore. From a unique vantage point, the author warns that we do so at our peril._____________________________________________________________________________________________'The most exceptional book I have read in a long time.' CLARE MACKINTOSH'A very rare gem. written with authority, humility and compassion. Compellingly clever and sharply honest.' PROFESSOR DAME SUE BLACK, author of ALL THAT REMAINS'Riveting, thought-provoking, and very, very entertaining. I loved it.' RODDY DOYLE'Will make you question all the fundamentals that you've come to take for granted about offenders, the crimes that they commit - especially murder - and the punishment they deserve. A page turner that will leave you wanting to know more.' EMERITUS PROFESSOR DAVID WILSON, author of MY LIFE WITH MURDERERSThe instant Sunday Times bestseller, March 2023By Joe Carter. 2016
A compelling true story of the reality of undercover police workFor over 20 years, Joe Carter has worked for the…
police as an undercover cop. Travelling the globe on different passports, fraternising with thieves and international drugs and arms dealers, working alongside dangerous criminals, Carter always knew his life would come crashing down around him at any point. His story is a gripping account of the secret, solitary work of an undercover officer and the many ‘sticky’ situations he found himself in, as well as the moving confession of the difficulty in reconciling his two identities with his family life.This book explores the resilience needed to lead a double life, the thrilling challenge of working with the biggest criminals in Britain, and maintaining a sense of justice through the many adventures he encounters.By Damian Bradfield. 2019
From the moment we wake up and unlock our phones, we're producing data. We offer up our unique fingerprint to…
the online world, scan our route to work, listen to a guided meditation or favourite playlist, slide money around, share documents and update our social media accounts. We reach for our phones up to 200 times a day, not knowing which companies are storing, using, selling and manipulating our data. But do we care? We're busy. We've got lives. We're pressed for time! There aren't enough hours in the day to read the terms and conditions. Or, maybe we're happy to trade our personal data for convenient services and to make our lives easier?Big data is the phenomenon of our age, but should we trust it without question? This is the trust dilemma.In 2009, Damian Bradfield founded WeTransfer, the largest file-sharing platform in the world with 50 million global users shipping more than one billion files of data a month. His unique experience of the big data economy has led him to question if there is another way to build the internet, one that is fairer and safer for everyone and, in The Trust Manifesto, he lays out this vision.By Peter Lance. 2014
In Deal with the Devil, five-time Emmy Award–winning investigative reporter Peter Lance draws on three decades of once-secret FBI files…
to tell the definitive story of Greg Scarpa Sr., a Mafia capo who “stopped counting” after fifty murders, while secretly betraying the Colombo crime family as a Top Echelon FBI informant.Lance traces Scarpa’s shadowy relationship with the FBI all the way back to 1960, when his debriefings went straight to J. Edgar Hoover. In forty-two years of murder and racketeering, Scarpa served only thirty days in jail thanks to his secret relationship with the Feds. This is the untold story that will rewrite Mafia history as we know it —a page-turning work of journalism that reads like a Scorsese film. Deal with the Devil includes more than 130 illustrations, crime scene photos, and never-before-seen FBI documents.By Anne Bird. 2005
What happens if, after being given up for adoption in childhood, you reestablish contact with your biological family -- only…
to discover that your newfound brother is a killer?Anne Bird, the sister of Scott Peterson, knows firsthand.Soon after her birth in 1965, Anne was given up for adoption by her mother, Jackie Latham. Welcomed into the well-adjusted Grady family, she lived a happy life. Then, in the late 1990s, she came back into contact with her mother, now Jackie Peterson, and her family -- including Jackie's son Scott Peterson and his wife, Laci. Anne was welcomed into the family, and over the next several years she grew close to Scott and especially Laci. Together they shared holidays, family reunions, and even a trip to Disneyland. Anne and Laci became pregnant at roughly the same time, and the two became confidantes.Then, on Christmas Eve 2002, Laci Peterson went missing -- and the happy façade of the Peterson family slowly began to crumble. Anne rushed to the family's aid, helping in the search for Laci, even allowing Scott to stay in her home while police tried to find his wife. Yet Scott's behavior grew increasingly bizarre during the search, and Anne grew suspicious that her brother knew more than he was telling. Finally she began keeping a list of his disturbing behavior. And by the time Laci's body -- and that of her unborn son, Conner -- were found, Anne was becoming convinced: Her brother Scott Peterson had murdered his wife and unborn child in cold blood.Filled with news-making revelations and intimate glimpses of Scott and Laci, the Peterson family, and the investigation that followed the murder, Blood Brother is a provocative account of how long-dormant family ties dragged one woman into one of the most notorious crimes of our time.“This book grills up an enjoyable read for both avid foodies and novice diners alike! Perman’s sneak peek into the…
fascinating history of In-N-Out is as good as the delicious burgers themselves.”—Mario Batali, celebrity chef and author of Molto ItalianoA behind-the-counter look at the fast-food chain that breaks all the rules, Stacy Perman’s In-N-Out Burger is the New York Times bestselling inside story of the family behind the California-based hamburger chain with a cult following large enough to rival the Grateful Dead’s. A juicy unauthorized history of a small business-turned-big business titan, In-N-Out Burger was named one of Fast Company magazine’s Best Business Books of 2009, and Fortune Small Business insists that it “should be required reading for family business owners, alongside Rich Cohen’s Sweet and Low and Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks.”By Antonio Garcia Martinez. 2016
The instant New York Times bestseller, now available in paperback and featuring a new afterword from the author—the insider's guide to the…
Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal, the inner workings of the tech world, and who really runs Silicon Valley“Incisive.... The most fun business book I have read this year.... Clearly there will be people who hate this book — which is probably one of the things that makes it such a great read.”— Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York TimesImagine a chimpanzee rampaging through a datacenter powering everything from Google to Facebook. Infrastructure engineers use a software version of this “chaos monkey” to test online services’ robustness—their ability to survive random failure and correct mistakes before they actually occur. Tech entrepreneurs are society’s chaos monkeys. One of Silicon Valley’s most audacious chaos monkeys is Antonio García Martínez.After stints on Wall Street and as CEO of his own startup, García Martínez joined Facebook’s nascent advertising team. Forced out in the wake of an internal product war over the future of the company’s monetization strategy, García Martínez eventually landed at rival Twitter. In Chaos Monkeys, this gleeful contrarian unravels the chaotic evolution of social media and online marketing and reveals how it is invading our lives and shaping our future.By Jim Morrison. 2021
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERThe definitive anthology of Jim Morrison's writings with rare photographs and numerous handwritten excerpts of unpublished and…
published poetry and lyrics from his 28 privately held notebooks.You can also hear Jim Morrison’s final poetry recording, now available for the first time, on the CD or digital audio edition of this book, at the Village Recorder in West Los Angeles on his twenty-seventh birthday, December 8, 1970. The audio book also includes performances by Patti Smith, Oliver Ray, Liz Phair, Tom Robbins, and others reading Morrison’s work. Created in collaboration with Jim Morrison’s estate and inspired by a posthumously discovered list entitled “Plan for Book,” The Collected Works of Jim Morrison is an almost 600-page anthology of the writings of the late poet and iconic Doors’ front man. This landmark publication is the definitive opus of Morrison’s creative output—and the book he intended to publish. Throughout, a compelling mix of 160 visual components accompanies the text, which includes numerous excerpts from his 28 privately held notebooks—all written in his own hand and published here for the first time—as well as an array of personal images and commentary on the work by Morrison himself. This oversized, beautifully produced collectible volume contains a wealth of new material—poetry, writings, lyrics, and audio transcripts of Morrison reading his work. Not only the most comprehensive book of Morrison’s work ever published, it is immersive, giving readers insight to the creative process of and offering access to the musings and observations of an artist whom the poet Michael McClure called “one of the finest, clearest spirits of our times.” This remarkable collector’s item includes: Foreword by Tom Robbins; introduction and notes by editor Frank Lisciandro that provide insight to the work; prologue by Anne Morrison ChewningPublished and unpublished work and a vast selection of notebook writings The transcript, the only photographs in existence, and production notes of Morrison’s last poetry recording on his twenty-seventh birthday The Paris notebook, possibly Morrison’s final journal, reproduced at full reading sizeExcerpts from notebooks kept during his 1970 Miami trialThe shooting script and gorgeous color stills from the never-released film HWYComplete published and unpublished song lyrics accompanied by numerous drafts in Morrison’s handEpilogue: “As I Look Back”: a compelling autobiography in poem form Family photographs as well as images of Morrison during his years as a performerBy Cheryl Cole. 2010
Through My Eyes is the first official book from Cheryl Cole. Featuring a series of stunning exclusive new photos plus…
informal shots from her own personal collection, it gives us a unique glimpse into the life of our favourite star.From the recording studio in LA as she works on her debut album to backstage in Dublin on the opening night of her tour with the Black Eyed Peas, Cheryl shares with us some of her stand-out moments as a solo artist. We also explore the other elements of her stratospherically successful career as she takes us behind the scenes at The X Factor, into the world of L'Oreal, through the music industry's top awards ceremonies and into the windswept desert in California for a spectacular shoot under freezing conditions where we see her taking time off and enjoying rare moments of anonymity. Through the pictures that mean the most to her and their stories, which are told in her own words, Through My Eyes is a revealing and intimate portrait of the world of Cheryl Cole.By Peter Jones. 2022
Donald Fagen will forever be associated with Steely Dan, the band he formed with Walter Becker and four other musicians…
in 1972. The smooth, radio-friendly veneer of the duo's songs made Steely Dan internationally popular and famous in the 1970s, but the polish glossed over the underlying layers of anger, disappointment, sleaze, and often downright weirdness lurking just beneath the surface. The elliptical lyrics were—and continue to be—an endless source of fascination. What kind of person was capable of writing such songs? Fagen has always kept his true self hidden behind walls of irony, confounding most journalistic enquiries with a mixture of obscurity and sarcasm. Nightfly cracks open the door to reveal the life behind the lyrics and traces Fagen's story from early family life in suburban New Jersey, to his first encounter with Walter Becker at Bard College, their long struggle for recognition as songwriters, and the formation of Steely Dan. The band's break-up in 1981, re-formation in 1993, and Fagen's parallel solo career are covered in detail.Author Peter Jones seeks to explain the public's continuing fascination with Fagen's music, both in collaboration with Becker and as a solo artist.By Rita Coolidge, Michael Walker. 2016
The two-time Grammy Award-winning singer and songwriter bares her heart and soul in this intimate memoir, a story of music,…
stardom, love, family, heritage, and resilience.She inspired songs—Leon Russell wrote “A Song for You” and “Delta Lady” for her, Stephen Stills wrote “Cherokee.” She co-wrote songs—“Superstar” and the piano coda to “Layla,” uncredited. She sang backup for Eric Clapton, Joe Cocker, and Stills, before finding fame as a solo artist with such hits as “We're All Alone” and “(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher.” Following her story from Lafayette, Tennessee to becoming one of the most sought after rock vocalists in LA in the 1970s, Delta Lady chronicles Rita Coolidge’s fascinating journey throughout the ’60s-’70s pop/rock universe.A muse to some of the twentieth century’s most influential rock musicians, she broke hearts, and broke up bands. Her relationship with drummer Jim Gordon took a violent turn during the legendary 1970 Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour; David Crosby maintained that her triangle with Stills and Graham Nash was the last straw for the group. Her volatile six-year marriage to Kris Kristofferson yielded two Grammys, a daughter, and one of the Baby Boom generation’s epic love stories. Throughout it all, her strength, resilience, and inner and outer beauty—along with her strong sense of heritage and devotion to her family—helped her to not only survive, but thrive. Co-written with best-selling author Michael Walker, Delta Lady is a rich, deeply personal memoir that offers a front row seat to an iconic era, and illuminates the life of an artist whose career has helped shape modern American culture.