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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 Candice Bergen. 2015
In this New York Times bestseller, acclaimed actress Candice Bergen “shows how to do a memoir right...The self-possessed, witty, and…
down-to-earth voice that made Bergen’s first memoir a hit when it was published in 1984 has only been deepened by life’s surprises” (The New York Times Book Review).“Candice Bergen is unflinchingly honest” (The Washington Post), and in A Fine Romance she describes her first marriage at age thirty-four to famous French director Louis Malle; her overpowering love for her daughter, Chloe; the unleashing of her inner comic with Murphy Brown; her trauma over Malle’s death; her joy at finding new love; and her pride at watching Chloe blossom. In her decidedly nontraditional marriage to the insatiably curious Louis, Bergen takes readers on world travels to the sets where each made films. Pregnant with Chloe at age thirty-nine, this mature primigravida also recounts a journey through motherhood that includes plundering the Warner Bros. costume closets for Halloween getups and never leaving her ever-expanding menagerie out of the fun. She offers priceless, behind-the-scenes looks at Murphy Brown, from caterwauling with Aretha Franklin to the surreal experience of becoming headline news when Dan Quayle took exception to her character becoming a single mother. Bergen tackles familiar rites of passage with moving honesty: the rigors of caring for a spouse in his final illness, getting older, and falling in love again after she was tricked into a blind date. By the time the last page is turned, “we’re all likely to be wishing Bergen herself—funny, insightful, self-deprecating, flawed (and not especially concerned about that), and slugging her way through her older years with bemused determination—was living next door” (USA TODAY).By Gregory Royal Pratt. 2024
"Gregory Pratt had a rare front-row seat to the passions, problems, peculiarities, hopes, disappointments, shenanigans, and pettiness in the drama…
and farce that was Lori Lightfoot's uneasy tenure on the fifth floor at City Hall. What he delivers on these pages takes us backstage to give us a powerful, incisive portrait of the woman, the details of her mayoralty, and the many players who shared the stage." —Rick Kogan, Chicago Tribune reporter and author of A Chicago Tavern Chicago is a world-class city, but it is also a city in crisis. Crime is up, schools have repeatedly shut down due to conflict between City Hall and the powerful teachers' union, and COVID-19 only deepened the entrenched poverty, institutional racism, and endless tug of war between the city's haves and have nots. For four years, the person at the center of this storm was Lori Lightfoot. A groundbreaking figure—the first Black, gay woman to be elected mayor of a major city and only the second female mayor of Chicago—she knew the city was at a critical turning point when she took office in 2019. But the once-in-a-lifetime challenges she ended up facing were beyond anything she or anyone else saw coming. Chicago Tribune reporter Gregory Royal Pratt offers the first comprehensive behind-the-scenes look at the tumultuous single term of Mayor Lightfoot and the chaos that roiled the city and City Hall as she fought to live up to her promises to change the city's culture of corruption and villainy, reform its long-troubled police department, and make Chicago the safest big city in America. Some of Chicago's problems can be explained by forces greater than the mayor: national polarization, long-standing cultural and racial tensions, our plague years. But some are the result of Lightfoot's poor leadership at City Hall, a story that hasn't been told in full—until now.By Billy Connolly. 2021
In his first full-length autobiography, comedy legend and national treasure Billy Connolly reveals the truth behind his windswept and interesting…
life.Born in a tenement flat in Glasgow in 1942, orphaned by the age of 4, and a survivor of appalling abuse at the hands of his own family, Billy's life is a remarkable story of success against all the odds.Billy found his escape first as an apprentice welder in the shipyards of the River Clyde. Later he became a folk musician - a 'rambling man' - with a genuine talent for playing the banjo. But it was his ability to spin stories, tell jokes and hold an audience in the palm of his hand that truly set him apart.As a young comedian Billy broke all the rules. He was fearless and outspoken - willing to call out hypocrisy wherever he saw it. But his stand-up was full of warmth, humility and silliness too. His startling, hairy 'glam-rock' stage appearance - wearing leotards, scissor suits and banana boots - only added to his appeal.It was an appearance on Michael Parkinson's chat show in 1975 - and one outrageous story in particular - that catapulted Billy from cult hero to national star. TV shows, documentaries, international fame and award-winning Hollywood movies followed. Billy's pitch-perfect stand-up comedy kept coming too - for over 50 years, in fact - until a double diagnosis of cancer and Parkinson's Disease brought his remarkable live performances to an end. Since then he has continued making TV shows, creating extraordinary drawings... and writing.Windswept and Interesting is Billy's story in his own words. It is joyfully funny - stuffed full of hard-earned wisdom as well as countless digressions on fishing, farting and the joys of dancing naked. It is an unforgettable, life-affirming story of a true comedy legend.'I didn't know I was Windswept and Interesting until somebody told me. It was a friend who was startlingly exotic himself. He'd just come back from Kashmir and was all billowy shirt and Indian beads. I had long hair and a beard and was swishing around in electric blue flairs.He said: "Look at you - all windswept and interesting!"I just said: "Exactly!"After that, I simply had to maintain my reputation...'By Benjamin Moser. 2019
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZEFinalist for the Lambda Literary AwardFinalist for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for BiographyNamed one of…
the Best Books of the Year by: O Magazine, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Seattle TimesThe definitive portrait of one of the American Century’s most towering intellectuals: her writing and her radical thought, her public activism and her hidden private faceNo writer is as emblematic of the American twentieth century as Susan Sontag. Mythologized and misunderstood, lauded and loathed, a girl from the suburbs who became a proud symbol of cosmopolitanism, Sontag left a legacy of writing on art and politics, feminism and homosexuality, celebrity and style, medicine and drugs, radicalism and Fascism and Freudianism and Communism and Americanism, that forms an indispensable key to modern culture. She was there when the Cuban Revolution began, and when the Berlin Wall came down; in Vietnam under American bombardment, in wartime Israel, in besieged Sarajevo. She was in New York when artists tried to resist the tug of money—and when many gave in. No writer negotiated as many worlds; no serious writer had as many glamorous lovers. Sontag tells these stories and examines the work upon which her reputation was based. It explores the agonizing insecurity behind the formidable public face: the broken relationships, the struggles with her sexuality, that animated—and undermined—her writing. And it shows her attempts to respond to the cruelties and absurdities of a country that had lost its way, and her conviction that fidelity to high culture was an activism of its own. Utilizing hundreds of interviews conducted from Maui to Stockholm and from London to Sarajevo—and featuring nearly one hundred images—Sontag is the first book based on the writer’s restricted archives, and on access to many people who have never before spoken about Sontag, including Annie Leibovitz. It is a definitive portrait—a great American novel in the form of a biography.By Tippi Hedren. 2016
In this absorbing and surprising memoir, one of the biggest names of classic Hollywood—the star of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds…
and Marnie—tells her story, including never-before-revealed experiences on the set of some of the biggest cult films of all time . . . now with a foreword by Melanie GriffithFor decades, Tippi Hedren’s luminous beauty radiated from the silver screen, enchanting moviegoers and cementing her position among Hollywood’s elite—beauty and star power that continue to endure. For too long Hedren’s story has been told by others through whispered gossip and tabloid headlines. Now, Hedren sets the record straight, recalling how a young and virtuous Lutheran girl from small-town Minnesota became a worldwide legend—as one of the most famous Hitchcock girls, as an unwavering animal activist, and as the matriarch of a powerful Hollywood dynasty that includes her movie star daughter Melanie Griffith, and rising star Dakota Johnson, her granddaughter.For the first time, Hedren digs deep into her complicated relationship with the man who discovered her talent, director Alfred Hitchcock, the benefactor who would become a repulsive and controlling director who contractually controlled her every move. She speaks openly about the dark pain she endured working with him on their most famous collaborations, The Birds and Marnie, and finding the courage she needed to break away.Hedren’s incandescent spirit shines through as she talks about working with the great Charlie Chaplin, sharing the screen with some of the most esteemed actors in Hollywood, her experiences on some of the most intriguing and troubling film sets—including filming Roar, one of the most dangerous movies ever made—and the struggles of being a single mother—balancing her dedication to her work and her devotion to her daughter—and her commitment to helping animals. Filled with sixteen pages of beautiful photos, Tippi is a rare and fascinating look at a private woman’s remarkable life no celebrity aficionado can miss.By Shannon Molloy. 2020
Optioned for a major film and adapted to the stage, Fourteen is this generation&’s Holding the Man – a moving coming-of-age…
memoir about a young man&’s search for identity and acceptance in the most unforgiving and hostile of places: high school. This is a story about my fourteenth year of life as a gay kid at an all-boys rugby-mad Catholic school in regional Queensland. It was a year in which I started to discover who I was, and deeply hated what was revealed. It was a year in which I had my first crush and first devastating heartbreak. It was a year of torment, bullying and betrayal – not just at the hands of my peers, but by adults who were meant to protect me. And it was a year that almost ended tragically. I found solace in writing and my budding journalism; in a close-knit group of friends, all growing up too quickly together; and in the fierce protection of family and a mother&’s unconditional love. These were moments of light and hilarity that kept me going. As much as Fourteen is a chronicle of the enormous struggle and adversity I endured, and the shocking consequences of it all, it&’s also a tale of survival. Because I did survive.Longlisted for the 2021 ABIA Biography Book of the Year &‘Teenagers should read this book, parents should read this book. Human beings, above all, should read this book.&’ Rick Morton, bestselling author of One Hundred Years of Dirt &‘I love this book … a beautifully written account of a young man struggling with his sexuality, overcoming shocking abuse and finding his way to pride.&’ Peter FitzSimons, bestselling author &‘Shannon is unflinching in recounting the horror, but he is also funny, empathetic and, above all, full of courage.&’ Bridie Jabour, author of The Way Things Should Be &‘A slice of life as experienced quite recently in the &“lucky country&”.&’ The Hon Michael Kirby, AC CMG &‘Shannon's bitter struggle is painfully recognisable and happening in playgrounds around the world. But he not only triumphs, he relives his past using his best weapon: beautiful words.&’ Australian Women&’s Weekly &‘A stunning memoir about heartbreak and acceptance … a unique, hilarious and bittersweet insight into the heart of a boy, the courage of survival, and the fierce love of a mother.&’ Frances Whiting, Courier Mail &‘Australia hasn&’t changed all that much from what Shannon describes in Fourteen. Marriage equality isn&’t the end; there is still such a long way to go, and books like this are an important part of that journey.&’ FIVE STARS. Good Reading &‘Intensely raw and incredibly moving.&’ OUTinPerth 'A book in which many will undoubtably see themselves and take solace' The AgeBy Samantha Renke. 2022
'A powerful book on how to live boldly and love your fabulous self' Fearne CottonWe are made to think that…
what makes us human - our flaws, failures, and heartaches - are things to keep hush-hush. Being unapologetically imperfect is seen as something we should be embarrassed by. But what I've learned is that we all experience the same insecurities. We just aren't talking about it. Well, I'm here to break the silence.For starters, I have way too many nipple hairs. I prefer the company of my pets to other people. And repeatedly I question Am I normal? I was born with brittle bone condition and so far, I've broken my bones 200 times. But most of the hurdles I face don't come from my disability, they come from things we all experience.In this book, I will share the lessons I have learned and why you should embrace your uniqueness as what makes you fabulous. We spend a lot of time living by others' expectations and it's only when you stop, that you start saying yes to life. Irrespective of who you are and the obstacles you might face, you can do whatever you want. Be free and unapologetically you.By Matt Baker. 2021
Escape into nature with Matt Baker's fascinating journey through the natural year and family life on the farm'A delight' Countryfile…
Magazine_______Matt Baker finds his calm on the farm.Surrounded by nature with his family, dogs, array of sheep, Mediterranean miniature donkeys and a whole host of wildlife in the farm's ancient woodland, Matt shows us how the power and beauty of the countryside can bring joy to us all.Following the ever-changing seasons of the year, we see woodland animals emerge after a long winter of hibernation and lambs begin to gambol in April. We hear the dawn chorus in the height of summer and see the preparations unfold for the harsh and wild winter months.Peppered with hand drawn sketches, unforgettable moments from Matt's TV career and stories of a landscape you'll fall in love with - from its sun-soaked pastures to 6ft snow drifts - Matt reveals how the outdoors has made him who he is today.By Gerry Ryan. 2008
Gerry Ryan on life, the world, the universe - and a few things besides. Here are his experiences, stories and…
opinions drawn from nearly thirty years of talking to the nation. It's a sharp, punchy read all told in his no-nonsense, irreverent, straight to the bone style. It's the best, the worst, the funniest, the most outrageous. And threaded through it's the story of coming of age as a broadcaster at the same time as Ireland became a truly modern country. A smart, sassy and wildly entertaining read.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 Graeme Thomson. 2006
In this intimate and engaging biography, Graeme Thomson interviews Nelson himself, his band and those who knew him best en…
route to discovering the real Willie Nelson. The Outlaw brilliantly describes a complex and compelling man whose life and music reflect something fundamental at the heart of twentieth-century America. Thomson's revealing portrait is a timely reminder of the stature and achievements of a true living legend. Covering everything from dirt poor beginnings in Texas, global fame in the 70s, four marriages, the death of a son and affairs with Amy Irving and Candice Bergen up to his current position as a 73-year-old pot smoking man of the road, Thomson's account emerges as the first detailed, clear-eyed account of Nelson's fascinating life.By Jonathan Ross. 2008
Why is catalogue shopping responsible for Jonathan Ross's inimitable sense of style?Why might wearing cape and mask be a fast…
track to heaven?Why does Jonathan wince every time he sees a Hoover?And why did he fall in love with a deep-sea diver?Why? Because this is Jonathan Ross. And nothing is out of bounds when it comes to talking about life as he knows it. From sex and pugs to rock 'n' roll and genital warts, Jonathan holds forth as only he can. This sharply observed, laugh-out-loud, outrageous page-turner will leave you asking just one question . . . Why didn't he write it sooner?By Pauline Quirke. 2012
Pauline Quirke was a skinny child, a slim teenager, a curvy woman, then - according to her bathroom scales (curse…
them) - just plain fat. Yes, the 'F' word. Tipping the scales at nearly 20 stone, with creaking knees and a dodgy ankle to boot, at the beginning of 2011 Pauline had reached a crisis point. Something had to change, and fast. It was never going to be an easy ride, but with her trademark warmth and sense of humour, Pauline recounts the highs and lows of the rollercoaster year in which she whips herself, and her life, into shape - with a fair few tales from her celebrated forty-year acting career thrown into the bargain. She reveals all: from the strain of working long hours away from home on one of Britain's most popular soaps to renewing her wedding vows and reuniting with her Birds of a Feather co-stars; from battling the bulge and facing the naysayers to rediscovering the joys of airline travel . . . without a seatbelt extension.Honest and revealing, Where Have I Gone? is brimming with brilliantly funny anecdotes and truly moving moments. So put your feet up and join Pauline as she embarks on the most incredible year of her life.By Spike Milligan. 1985
VOLUME FIVE OF SPIKE MILLIGAN'S LEGENDARY MEMOIRS IS A HILARIOUS, SUBVERSIVE FIRST-HAND ACCOUNT OF WW2'The Godfather of Alternative Comedy' Eddie…
Izzard______________ 'Back to those haunting days in Italy in 1944, at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, with lava running in great red rivulets down the slope towards us, and Jock taking a drag on his cigarette and saying, "I think we've got grounds for a rent rebate."' Where Have All the Bullets Gone? sees our hero dispatched from the front line to psychiatric hospital and from there to a rehabilitation camp. Considered loony (and 'unfit to be killed in combat by either side'), he becomes embroiled in his own private battle with melancholy. But it is music, wit and a little help from his friends - including one Gunner Harry Secombe - that help carry him through to his first stage appearances . . . ______________'Desperately funny, vivid, vulgar' Sunday Times 'Milligan is the Great God to all of us' John Cleese 'That absolutely glorious way of looking at things differently. A great man' Stephen FryBy 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 Alan Titchmarsh. 2010
In When I Was a Nipper Alan Titchmarsh goes on a personal and nostalgic journey through post-War Britain in search…
of treasured values and traditions that were once the soul of society. With characteristic wit, warmth and humour he draws on the experience of his own childhood, and also takes a broader perspective, creating a wonderfully detailed and evocative portrait of a way of life that is fast disappearing, and asks what can we learn from this era of austerity to make our lives better today?Born in Yorkshire in 1949 and brought up in a Britain still recovering from World War 2, Alan remembers a time of relative calm, when it was enough to return home at night knowing that the house would still be standing. We were known throughout the world for our patience, resourcefulness and resilience. 'Mustn't grumble' was almost a national catchphrase, and queuing was second nature. Peppered with wonderful archive photographs and advertisements, When I Was a Nipper takes us back to those days, down high streets and through farmyards, on to trolley buses and into local pubs. As we move towards a global economy, as communities fragment and customs are lost, When I Was a Nipper captures a world that is fast receding into history. It's powerfully nostalgic for those who remember those days, but it's also Alan's timely call to all recession-hit Brits to heed the lessons of austerity Britain: 'make do and mend'; 'look on the bright side' and 'take the knocks on the chin'.By Michael Simkins. 2003
As a boy, Michael Simkins always wanted to be someone. While his friends were out getting laid and stoned, he…
was tucked up at home dreaming of his name in lights, of holding an audience rapt, of perhaps becoming a TV heart-throb, or having someone, anyone, ask for his autograph in the supermarket. This is the true story of an obsessive pursuit of acting fame. It is a life marked by occasional hard-fought successes and routine helpings of ritual humiliation: scout hut Gilbert and Sullivan, dodgy rock operas, sewage farm theatre workshop, Christmas panto hell, straight-to-video film flops, leading roles in Crimewatch reconstructions and dressing up as a chicken to advertise TV dinners. It is a hilarious tale of turgid theatre, tights, trusses and tonsil tennis with Timothy Spall.By Cilla Black. 2006
Cilla Black is without doubt one of Britain's most treasured personalities. Generations have grown up with Cilla's music, TV shows,…
and performances. But how much do we really know about 'the girl with the bright red hair and the jet black voice'? What's It All About? is Cilla's own story, told for the first time ever. It's the story of a woman who has worked ceaselessly to stay at the top for forty years despite setbacks and personal tragedy; a life of incredible highs and terrible lows. In this deeply personal autobiography she tells her unique story in intimate and vivid detail for the very first time. This is the real Cilla Black.By Matthew Smith. 2003
Suicide? Or murder? Marilyn Monroe's death in August 1962, apparently a suicide, shocked the world. A Hollywood star, a global…
icon, why would she have killed herself? Yet the coroner's report stated her death was due to a massive overdose of 47 Nembutal capsules. But what about the discrepancies between the official report and the scene of her death? What about the forensic evidence that went missing shortly after she died? Matthew Smith has constructed a startling new version of events. His interpretation is based not only on the full and true forensic evidence from the time, but also on the tapes that Marilyn made for her psychiatrist in the days and weeks before her death, tapes that portray a woman in full charge of her life and looking forward to a bright, busy, successful future. Forty years after her death, Marilyn remains an icon and a mystery. Matthew Smith's investigation into her death will lead to a new understanding of what really happened on the night of August 5th 1962 and in the weeks leading up to it.