Title search results
Showing 141 - 160 of 30678 items
Odd Boy Out: The ‘hilarious, eye-popping, unforgettable’ Sunday Times bestseller 2021
By Gyles Brandreth. 2021
The compelling, witty and remarkably honest autobiography from beloved star of Just a Minute, QI, Have I Got News For…
You and Celebrity GoggleboxTHE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER'Hilarious, ribald, eye-popping, unforgettable, will make you laugh out loud' DAILY MAIL'Warm, witty, charming. A moving and very affectionate family history. An enthusiast for life' THE TIMES________Enter the world of Gyles Brandreth - broadcaster, actor, writer, former politician - as he takes us on an extraordinary journey into his past.From growing up in an apparently well-to-do but strapped-for-cash middle-class English family to his adventures in swinging London, Gyles encounters princes, presidents, pop stars and prime ministers, gets involved in everything from setting up Scrabble championships to examining Danish sex shops, and thrills us with countless tales of family, friends and acquaintances, both famous and infamous.Filled with incredible and sometimes shocking stories, Odd Boy Out is the story of Gyles Brandreth's fascinating life told with his unique wit and charm.________'Staggeringly brilliant, funny and touching, I loved it' JOANNA LUMLEY 'Light-hearted and dark events alike are described with his customary jaunty style, making them funny, moving an sometimes deeply shocking ' Sheila HancockNot Waving But Drowning: The Troubled Life and Times of a Frontline RUC Officer
By Edmund Gregory. 2004
Not Waving But Drowning tells the harrowing true story of one man's childhood struggle against poverty and his subsequent drive…
to become a policeman in the Royal Ulster Constabulary. From his earliest days, Edmund Gregory possessed an awareness beyond his years. During the course of his parents' turbulent and doomed marriage, he soaked up the horror of seeing his mother and father tearing each other apart. After they separated, he experienced a lonely boyhood, starved of affection, while living in welfare homes, dingy Belfast bedsits, and a sordid care home for young boys. However, Gregory later found solace in his marriage to Agnes, and in a concerted effort to drag himself and his new family out of poverty, he joined the Royal Ulster Constabulary. After five trauma-filled years serving in Belfast's riot squads, Gregory transferred into the somewhat elitist VIP protection branch of the RUC, where he was involved in providing bodyguard protection to many high-threat members of Northern Ireland's establishment. While working within that unit, he was also involved in teams protecting several members of the Royal family and then US President Bill Clinton throughout the course of their visits to the Province. During his last four years in the force, Gregory was charged with protecting the Reverend Ian Paisley's deputy, Peter Robinson MP, an outspoken personality who was under constant and serious threat of assassination. After 21 years of service, however, Gregory was diagnosed as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, which resulted in his medical retirement. Not Waving But Drowning is an emotionally charged journey through Gregory’s impoverished childhood and the dark underbelly of his later life as a policeman in Northern Ireland performing what was, according to Interpol, the most dangerous policing role in the world.Not A Games Person (Yellow Jersey Shorts Ser.)
By Julie Myerson. 2005
P.E. You either loved it or hated it, looked forward to it or dreaded it, but we've all been forced…
to do it. Sometimes a note could get you out of it, but the following week there you'd be again, writhing on a cold and dusty gym floor in your underwear. Skinny, timid, knock-kneed Julie Myerson was 'not a games person', according to her teachers. In this touching, funny and occasionally devastating exploration of her childhood, she now asks the question: why not?Sue Martin was not three years old when she began life at her first children's home: a home that could…
at best be described as cold and regimented; at worst, torturous and terrifying. When her mother abandoned her to the protection of the home, Sue was soon to discover that behind the welcoming doors of this reputedly kind-hearted organisation lay a world steeped in lies, cover-ups, victimisation and abuse. At its heart was Boagey, whose perverse bullying was targeted at Sue. Her attacks quickly progressed from the gratuitous punishment of an innocent child to sordid gratification of her sexual whims.Sue's story is one of institutional abuse - of physical, mental and emotional torture of the most appalling kind - but it also a story full of joy, humour and many victories - small and large - against her abusers.Utterly compelling and shockingly revelatory, No Way Home will astound, move and inspire.No One Wants You: A true story of a child forced into prostitution
By Celine Roberts. 2008
Given away by her mother at five months old, raped on the day of her first communion at age seven…
- when Celine Roberts was told 'No one wants you', she believed it.Illegitimate and unwanted, Celine was forced by her foster mother into prostitution. Her bones were broken, her nose was crushed and she ate candle wax to stay alive.Celine was finally rescued and sent to an industrial school, where she picked up the pieces of her shattered life. She also began the search for her parents. But what she found gave her battered survival instincts the hardest knock of all ...Full of the most heartbreaking tragedy but ultimately survival and hope, No One Wants You is the remarkably honest and compelling memoir of a woman triumphing over her brutal past.No Mean Glasgow: Revelations of a Gorbals Guy
By Colin MacFarlane. 2008
In his last book, The Real Gorbals Story, Colin MacFarlane detailed how he witnessed a once great area, home to…
wonderful characters and grand old buildings, disappear before his eyes. By the time MacFarlane's tenement was knocked down in the early 1970s, he had left school and been rehoused in another part of the city. In an attempt to extricate himself from his Gorbals gang days, he took a job as an apprentice chef at one of Glasgow's top restaurants, where he soon discovered that his colleagues were just as insane as those he had mixed with on the city streets. Meanwhile, MacFarlane struggled to integrate into the more affluent area that his family had been moved to and soon found himself returning to his old haunts and back in trouble again.In No Mean Glasgow, MacFarlane charts his eventful, fun-packed passage from Gorbals street boy to grown man on the brink of a new beginning. He describes his adventures with a mixture of humour, sadness and delight. It is a book for those people living all over the world who remember the old Glasgow - a city teeming with warmth, passion, patter and characters who could brighten up even the darkest of days.No Cake, No Jam: Hardship and happiness in wartime London
By Marian Hughes. 2014
No Cake, No Jam is the heart-warming true story of a little girl’s London childhood during the Blitz, and of…
how she rose above adversity through sheer guts and strength of character.Marian Hughes was born in the same year as her father committed suicide. She spent most of her early childhood with her elder sisters and brother in Spurgeon’s Orphanage in South London. There she learned to love extravagant hymns and to receive regular beatings.Suddenly, when Marian was ten, her mother appeared. All four children were swept up by their mother to live in a damp and filthy flat off Baker Street. There began a life of moonlight flits, camping and squats. Marian’s mother forgot to feed her children, and paid no attention to school or the bombing. Marian soon turned to begging and stealing to help the family get by.Marian’s brother and elder sisters left home as soon as they could, but Marian remained to support her deranged and frequently violent mother, evading Care and Protection Orders and often running away. Then the day finally came when Marian had to sign the papers to have her mother committed. From that moment, 14-year-old Marian had to find out if she was strong enough to live for herself ...Throughout all the twists and turns of her childhood, Marian never lost her spirit and never faltered in her loyalty. Full of vigour, truth, humour and curiosity, No Cake, No Jam is a passionate celebration of a life and love.Nikolaus Pevsner: The Life
By Susie Harries. 2011
Born Nikolai Pewsner into a Russian-Jewish family in Leipzig in 1902, Nikolaus Pevsner was a dedicated scholar who pursued a…
promising career as an academic in Dresden and Göttingen. When, in 1933 Jews were no longer permitted to teach in German universities, he lost his job and looked for employment in England. Here, over a long and amazingly industrious career, he made himself an authority on the exploration and enjoyment of English art and architecture, so much so that his magisterial county-by-county series of 46 books on The Buildings of England (first published 1951 - 74) is usually referred to simply as 'Pevsner'. As a critic, academic and champion of Modernism, Pevsner became a central figure in the architectural consensus that accompanied post-war reconstruction; as a 'general practitioner' of architectural history, he covered an astonishing range, from Gothic cathedrals and Georgian coffee houses to the Festival of Britain and Brutalist tower blocks.Susie Harries explores the truth about Nikolaus Pevsner's reported sympathies with elements of Nazi ideology, his internment in England as an enemy alien and his sometimes painful assimilation into his country of exile. His Heftchen - secret diaries he kept from the age of 14 for another sixty years - reveal hidden aspirations and anxieties, as do his numerous letters (he wrote to his wife, Lola, every day that they were apart).Harries is the first biographer to have read Pevsner's private papers and, through them, to have seen into the workings of his mind.Her definitive biography is not only rich in context and far-ranging, but is also brought to life by quotations from Pevsner himself. He was born a Jew but converted to Lutheranism; trained in the rigour of German scholarship, he became an Everyman in his copious commissions, publications, broadcasts and lectures on art, architecture, design, education, town planning, social housing, conservation, Mannerism, the Bauhaus, the Victorians, Zeitgeist, Englishness and how a nation's character may, or must, be reflected in its art. His life - as an outsider yet an insider at the heart of English art history - illuminates both the predicament and the prowess of the continental émigrés who did so much to shape British culture after 1945.The New Philanthropists
By Charles Handy. 2006
Who are the new philanthropists? And how is their philanthropy 'new'?In this remarkable and inspiring book, the eminent management writer…
Charles Handy and his wife Elizabeth, a portrait photographer, have collaborated to portray a new generation of practical philanthropists, men and women who have made their own fortunes and decided to move on from financial success to try to help those in need. They are doing so not simply by giving their money away to charities and agencies but by helping actively, working on the spot with the very people who need their aid, ensuring that the initiatives are sustainable in the longer term.As in their acclaimed The New Alchemists, the Handys have both interviewed and photographed their subjects in order to tell their inspiring stories; from the Sydney restaurateur Jeff Gambin, who personally helps to cook hot and cold menus for homeless people; to Niall Mellon, a young Irish property developer who is replacing the shacks with breeze-block homes in a South African township; and Sara Davenport, who sold her art gallery and set up the breast-cancer care centre the Haven Trust to offer integrated and holistic treatment and support. This striking book of words and photographs reveals the energy and inspiration of these new ways of using wealth, revealing the motivations and satisfactions of such direct action.Never Call Me Mummy Again
By Peter Kilby. 2013
The heartbreaking but inspiring true story of a childhood of abuse, and finding a way out of the darkness. Peter…
was just a toddler when his mother tragically died after trying to abort a child they simply couldn't support. When his father swiftly replaced her with his mistress, Peter made the mistake of calling her 'Mummy'. Dragged outside, trampled on and shouted at, Peter never made that mistake again. Peter tried time and time again to flee the terrible abuse that dominated his childhood; his hands held against burning stoves, being thrown from a window and even his small feet nailed to the floorboards to prevent his running away. In Never Call Me Mummy Again, the devastating yet profoundly moving and uplifting memoir, Peter Kilby tells of how he finally escaped the stepmother from hell and started again.Natural Hazard: The Diary of an Accident-Prone Golf Watcher
By Norman Dabell. 2002
Norman Dabell, journalist, broadcaster and notorious jinx, has been covering the European golf circuit for over 20 years, though after…
reading this hilarious account of his mishaps, you may well come to wonder how he has managed to survive for so long.Join Norman as he retraces his pursuit of the travelling circus of the golf world from St Andrews to Sun City, Malaga to Morocco, encountering all the great faces of the modern game. Woods, Ballesteros, Faldo, Montgomerie, Westwood, Lyle, Woosnam, Langer, Olazabal, Garcia... they have all made the headlines. Dabell is there to make sure they do - while also trying to survive another day. Golf isn't really meant to be fun, they say, and sometimes it can be toture. But Danbell's rib-tickling (and his have been more than tickled) account will have even the most serious enthusiast in stitches. Fate has caused him many a tumble, broken bone and on-air gaffe, and Dabell's presence inside the ropes has been known to make even the toughest tour professional blanche. However, he is a favourite of Major-winner Vijay Singh, who might have never have got his career on the road if his ball had plummeted out of bounds instead of ricocheting onto the fairway off Dabell's head in Spain in 1990. Singh made a birdie instead of a possible double-bogey, won the tournament and ten years later went on to beat the world at Augusta. Just one of a thousand escapades which happened to a living, breathing Natural Hazard.My Story: The official story of inspirational Olympic legend Tom Daley
By Tom Daley. 2013
DIVE INTO THE REMARKABLE FIRST OFFICIAL MEMOIR OF OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALLIST TOM DALEY AND DISCOVER WHERE IT ALL BEGAN'I laughed,…
I cried, I loved it! Probably the most inspirational book I have ever read' 5***** Reader Review'You feel like you're there with Tom through the highs and lows of his life' 5***** Reader Review_______In 2012, at the age of eighteen, Tom Daley had the whole country behind him as he won bronze at the Olympic Games in London.A double Commonwealth gold medal winner, he was already one of the sport's most exciting athletes.But behind his rise to sporting stardom, there is also a heartbreaking and inspiring story of a young man coping with the death of his father whilst under the glare of the world's media spotlight.In this, Tom's first official memoir, he writes honestly and openly about the pressures, challenges and fascinating experiences of being a world-class Olympian. From his day-to-day schedule, to his hobbies and family life, to sharing his hopes and dreams in the build-up to the London Olympics, this book offers a unique chance to get close to Tom.You already know him as the legendary Olympic athlete. Now, get the know the man behind the medals.My Story
By Steven Gerrard. 2015
Get ready for the Euros by journeying through the iconic and searingly honest story of one of the country's best…
ever footballers'A truly world class career . . . This is a must read' 5***** READER REVIEW'An astonishing tale of commitment, loyalty and determination' 5***** READER REVIEW'A heart on sleeve account of success and failure' 5***** READER REVIEW________In My Story, legendary Liverpool and England captain Steven Gerrard tells the story of the highs and lows of a twenty-year career at the top of English and world football As the only player ever to have scored in a FA cup final, a league cup final, a UEFA cup final and a champion's league final, Steven Gerrard is an inspiration to fans and footballers alike. After joining his beloved Liverpool at the age of eight, he spent the next 28 years, and over 700 games, devoted to this one club. His loyalty ensures he will be remembered not only as one of the all-time Anfield greats but one of England's finest footballers. In My Story, Gerrard dissects his full playing career. He examines the defining games such as the 2005 Champion's League Final when he inspired 'The Miracle of Istanbul' as Liverpool came back from 3-0 down against AC Milan to become champions of Europe. He talks about his 114 caps for England, including World Cup and European Championship campaigns, asking what went right - and wrong. He writes candidly of those he's played with and competed against, from Luis Suárez to Jose Mourinho, his experiences under Brendan Rodgers and Roy Hodgson. He also has an incredible and rare personal story, telling us of the extraordinary ups and downs of staying loyal to one club for your entire career. Explosive and searingly honest, Steven Gerrard's My Story is the last word from an era-defining player.My Name Is Angel
By Rhea Coombs. 2007
This moving memoir tells the story of how a young woman descended into the world of prostitution and drug abuse,…
yet found the strength to rebuild her life.Rhea Coombs's father is a convicted murderer and she grew up with a hippy mother who constantly moved house and lived in a succession of squats and communes before settling in Bristol. It was in Bristol that Rhea had her first introduction to drugs, pimps and prostitution. Pregnant at sixteen, she escaped to London and mixed with gangsters in seedy Soho nightclubs, eventually becoming addicted to crack and heroin and running a crack house. Rhea was forced to give up her children, but she never stopped loving them and through her strength and courage was finally able to escape for the world of drugs and prostitution, and regain custody of her children. This is her remarkable story.My Life and Work with Alfred Vogel
By Jan De Vries. 2005
My Life and Work with Alfred Vogel is the third instalment of Jan de Vries's memoirs covering his life and…
career as a renowned alternative health practitioner. This volume focuses on his long and fruitful working relationship with Alfred Vogel, which prospered right up until Vogel's death in 1996. Jan de Vries was the only person to whom Vogel taught his unique healing methods and philosophies, and as a result of their close professional links they also became great friends, sharing a mutual respect and trust over a period of 40 years. In this revealing and informative memoir, de Vries details the methods employed by Vogel and the profound influence that the Swiss naturopath had on him and his career. De Vries reflects upon the controversial, often almost impossible, situations that he shared with Vogel as they travelled throughout the world to promote their methods and practices. De Vries also provides invaluable practical advice for daily living and stresses how, by employing old folklore methods and taking on board aspects of dietary management, long-term health and happiness can be achieved by all.My Family and Other Strangers: Adventures in Family History
By Jeremy Hardy. 2010
When Jeremy Hardy decided to explore his ancestry it was, in part, to get to the bottom of his grandmother…
Rebecca's dubious claims that the family descended from a certain 17th-century architect and that, more recently, Jeremy's great-grandfather was a Royal bodyguard. Other legends ranged from the great aunt who ran illegal hooch during Prohibition to the wronged Victorian servant girl who bore an illegitimate Hardy, not forgetting the family's rightful claim to a large country estate. Wild stories aside, Jeremy sets out to such diverse locations as the Croydon one-way system and the hostile waters around Malta in order to find traces of recognisable family traits and a sense of how he came to be. With wry humour and a keen eye for the absurd and the frustrating, Jeremy takes us on a by turns funny and moving journey into the world of family ancestry. My Family and Other Strangers will be enjoyed by anyone who has tried to decipher the 1901 census records, or simply wishes they too had asked their grandparents more about their lives.My Account: The official autobiography
By Coleen Rooney. 2023
You may think you know everything about the seemingly dazzling life of Coleen Rooney.From growing up in Liverpool, where she…
met her childhood sweetheart Wayne, her career as a successful columnist to raising a family, every detail of her life has been widely reported on. Now in her own words, Coleen reveals the reality of living under such intense public scrutiny and how it has affected her life as a wife, mother and friend.Most notably she reveals her deepest thoughts and feelings about an infamous tale of friendship and betrayal played out on the national stage.More Lives Than One: The Extraordinary Life of Felix Dennis
By Fergus Byrne. 2015
Canny, infuriating, cynical and generous by turns, Felix Dennis was a true one-off. When he died in 2014 he was…
a multi-millionaire. Yet he spent his last months writing poetry and planting the millionth tree in his own forest in Warwickshire. Journalist Fergus Byrne got to know him well in this time and was granted exclusive access to Dennis's archives and papers. He found everything had been kept and, along with hours of interviews with girlfriends, family, staff and friends the world over, he has now written the only authorised biography of a man who described himself as lucky to have led several lives.His early rebellious days started with dropping out of grammar school, playing in a rock 'n' roll band, and being imprisoned (with Richard Neville and Jim Anderson) for charges of obscenity relating to a priapic Rupert Bear in the 'schoolkids' issue of the magazine Oz. The launch of Kung-Fu magazine, created when Dennis spotted a queue at a Leicester Square cinema for a Bruce Lee film, changed his fortunes. An industrious and self-destructive era then followed. He moved to America, added the magazines MacUser and Maxim to his portfolio, but also discovered crack, hookers and S & M. When his lifestyle led him to hospital, he gave up the drugs overnight and took to writing poetry. He acquired a mansion in Warwickshire, bought a much loved home in Mustique from rock star David Bowie, gave generously to charities, planted the largest broadleaf forest in Britain, and published several volumes of verse promoted by very well received readings nationwide. This is a hugely readable account of one of the most extraordinary characters of our time.Mr Nice & Mrs Marks: - Adventures with Howard
By Judy Marks. 2008
'I have long wanted to write a book about my life and the extraordinary years I spent with my husband…
Howard Marks. I feel now is the time. I want to write it from a woman's perspective and describe what it was like to be married to such a charismatic drug smuggler.' Judy MarksHoward Marks's story has passed into hippie folklore. At one time, the world's then most wanted man had 43 aliases, 89 phone lines and 25 registered companies. Thanks to the technical brilliance of his networking skills, it was estimated that he was trafficking as much as a tenth of all the marijuana smoked in the world. But this is only half the story. Intimately involved throughout was Marks's wife Judy. From living the high life hobnobbing with movie stars and euro trash to mixing it with the IRA and CIA, then the long, increasingly desperate years on the run, Mr Nice and Mrs Marks is about the exhilaration of their criminal life and the hell of not knowing what's happening when your husband stops telling you the truth. Now, for the first time, Judy tells her own side of the tale.A Mother's War: One Woman's Fight for the Truth Behind Her Son's Death at Deepcut
By Yvonne Collinson Heath. 2013
Yvonne Collinson Heath will never forget the telephone call that changed her life for ever. On 23 March 2002, her…
eldest son, James – a private with the Royal Logistic Corps – was found dead in mysterious circumstances at the notorious Deepcut barracks. He had a single gunshot wound to the head. It was a tragedy that to this day raises questions.A Mother’s War recounts Yvonne’s anguish at losing her son, a boy who dreamed of serving his country but died before he had even reached his 18th birthday. It is also the powerful story of an extraordinary woman who overcame adversity – including the hurt of being abandoned by her father, bullied as a child and abused by a trusted uncle – to find love and raise a son, only to see him cruelly taken from her within weeks of his joining the Army. It reveals how her decade-long quest for answers uncovered sinister secrets and a series of cover-ups that went right to the heart of Whitehall.Above all else, A Mother’s War is the story of how Yvonne’s grief triggered a search for the truth that took her to Downing Street and captured the hearts of the nation.