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Frail Riffs: The Rules of the Game, Volume 4 (The Margellos World Republic of Letters #4)
By Michel Leiris. 2024
The fourth and final volume of Michel Leiris’s renowned autobiography, now available in English for the first time, translated by…
Richard Sieburth Ex-surrealist and maverick anthropologist Michel Leiris (1901–1990) crafted his multivolume autobiography over the course of thirty-five years, profoundly influencing generations of French writers, from Sartre and Beauvoir to Modiano and Ernaux. In this fourth and final volume, Richard Sieburth completes the project of bringing Leiris’s monumental experiment in self-portraiture into English. With wit and playfulness, Leiris assembled a scrapbook of fragments—journal extracts, travel notes, transcriptions of dreams, poems—to document the vagaries of a life committed to the difficult marriage of poetry and revolutionary politics, which he witnessed firsthand in Mao’s China, Castro’s Cuba, and on the Paris streets in May ’68. Frail Riffs is a jazz improvisation on the twilight of a life, at once a painstaking self-examination and a chronicle of a century. As Leiris wrote, it is "neither a private diary nor a formal work, neither an autobiographical narrative nor a work of the imagination, neither prose nor poetry, but all this at the same time. . . . A perpetual work in progress.&rdquoThe Stolen Light: Continents of Exile: 6 (Penguin Modern Classics)
By Ved Mehta. 1989
Book 6 in Ved Mehta's Continents of Exile series. Nearly 50 years in the making, Continents of Exile is one…
of the great works of twentieth-century autobiography: the epic chronicle of an Indian family in the twentieth century. From 1930s India to 1950s Oxford and literary New York in the 1960s-80s, this is the story of the post-colonial twentieth century, as uniquely experienced and vividly recounted by Ved Mehta.The Stolen Light engages with the particular difficulties of Mehta's experience: he was blind in a college made for the seeing, he was an Indian in the United States, a Hindu in a Christian environment, a dark-skinned man surrounded by white people. With compelling honesty and humour, Mehta describes his struggles to live an ordinary university life - dating, riding a bicycle, keeping up with his studies - while dealing with incredible obstacles.Book 5 in Ved Mehta's Continents of Exile series. Nearly 50 years in the making, Continents of Exile is one…
of the great works of twentieth-century autobiography: the epic chronicle of an Indian family in the twentieth century. From 1930s India to 1950s Oxford and literary New York in the 1960s-80s, this is the story of the post-colonial twentieth century, as uniquely experienced and vividly recounted by Ved Mehta.In 1949, fifteen-year-old Ved Mehta -- blind since the age of four -- left his native India and travelled alone to a school for the blind in Arkansas, USA. For the next three years he studied with over a hundred blind or partially sighted children at the school. Here, he would learn how to deal with Western teachers, date girls, and begin to perceive objects by means of 'sound-shadows'. Sound-Shadows of the New World brilliantly traces the emigrant experience amid the difficult transition from adolescence into adulthood.So Much To Tell
By Valerie Grove. 2010
Kaye Webb, a journalist with no publishing experience, burst into the world of children's books in 1961 and changed the…
face of children's publishing forever. Her child-like enthusiasm and shrewd business mind led her to become Puffin's most successful editor and the genius behind the Puffin Club, which opened up the exciting world of authors and books to children across Britain. But whilst Kaye's professional life had worked out beautifully, her private life had been the reverse. Kaye had two husbands before her marriage to the artist Ronald Searle, and the torment of his sudden and shocking departure never left her.Yet to the outside world Kaye Webb remained passionate and unstoppable. This is the unknown story of the woman who brought the joy of books to children everywhere whilst battling the emotional pain that plagued her private life.Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies: How Doubting the Bard Became the Biggest Taboo in Literature
By Elizabeth Winkler. 2023
An &“extraordinarily brilliant&” and &“pleasurably naughty&” (André Aciman) investigation into the Shakespeare authorship question, exploring how doubting that William Shakespeare…
wrote his plays became an act of blasphemy…and who the Bard might really be.The theory that Shakespeare may not have written the works that bear his name is the most horrible, unspeakable subject in the history of English literature. Scholars admit that the Bard&’s biography is a &“black hole,&” yet to publicly question the identity of the god of English literature is unacceptable, even (some say) &“immoral.&” In Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies, journalist and literary critic Elizabeth Winkler sets out to probe the origins of this literary taboo. Whisking you from London to Stratford-Upon-Avon to Washington, DC, she pulls back the curtain to show how the forces of nationalism and empire, religion and mythmaking, gender and class have shaped our admiration for Shakespeare across the centuries. As she considers the writers and thinkers—from Walt Whitman to Sigmund Freud to Supreme Court justices—who have grappled with the riddle of the plays&’ origins, she explores who may perhaps have been hiding behind his name. A forgotten woman? A disgraced aristocrat? A government spy? Hovering over the mystery are Shakespeare&’s plays themselves, with their love for mistaken identities, disguises, and things never quite being what they seem. As she interviews scholars and skeptics, Winkler&’s interest turns to the larger problem of historical truth—and of how human imperfections (bias, blindness, subjectivity) shape our construction of the past. History is a story, and the story we find may depend on the story we&’re looking for. &“Lively&” (The Washington Post), &“fascinating&” (Amanda Foreman), and &“intrepid&” (Stacy Schiff), Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies will forever change how you think of Shakespeare…and of how we as a society decide what&’s up for debate and what&’s just nonsense, just heresy.Screw It, Let's Do It: Lessons in Life and Business
By Richard Branson. 2010
Richard Branson is an iconic businessman. In Screw It, Let's Do It, he shares the secrets of his success and…
the invaluable lessons he has learned over the course of his remarkable career. As the world struggles with the twin problems of global recession and climate change, Richard explains why it is up to big companies like Virgin to lead the way in finding a more holistic and environmentally friendly approach to business. He also looks to the future and shares his plans for taking his business and his ideas to the next level.Richard reveals the new and exciting areas into which Virgin is currently moving, including biofuels and space travel, and brings together all the important lessons, good advice and inspirational adages that have helped him along the road to success. This is a fantastic motivational business book that will help every reader achieve their own dreams.&“Concentrating on personal finance don&’ts is a clever idea . . . an intriguing reminder of what not to do when investing your…
money.&” —The New York Times Brilliant investors and top businesspeople make mistakes, too—very expensive ones. Drawing on his twenty-plus years of experience at some of Wall Street&’s most prestigious firms, as well as original research and interviews with these legendary investors, Stephen Weiss offers fascinating narrative accounts of their billion-dollar blunders. Here, such prominent figures as Kirk Kerkorian, Bill Ackman, David Bonderman, Aubrey McClendon, and Leon Cooperman discuss the most significant trade or investment that went against them, the magnitude of the loss, its effect on their businesses—and on their personal lives. The book skillfully examines the causal relationship between the quirks of each investor&’s personality and the mistakes they have committed—as well as the lessons learned. While some investors made errors of judgment, others made errors of perception. But no matter how many zeros were attached to these particular losses, investors at any level can profit from the wisdom gained—and avoid the same missteps. &“When a great investor flubs it, everyone can learn a lesson. With that in mind, author Stephen Weiss delves into the biggest mistakes of such Wall Street luminaries as Bill Ackman, Leon Cooperman and Richard Pzena.&” —Barron&’sSad Men
By Dave Roberts. 2014
All Dave Roberts ever wanted to do (apart from collect football programmes) was to work in advertising. More specifically, to…
work for the world's best advertising agency, Saatchi and Saatchi. There was just one problem. Even when he managed to persuade someone to employ him, Dave's copywriting assignments were mainly for second hand car dealers and double glazing companies. And Leeds, Manchester and, bizarrely, New Zealand were a long way from Charlotte Street and Madison Avenue. This was the world of the Sad Men.In his sparkling new memoir, Dave tells the story of a life shaped by his love of adverts, from seeing the PG Tips chimps at the age of three to writing infamous ads such as the Westpac Rap and having David Jason plug a family restaurant. Bursting with brilliant ideas - and some pretty daft ones - it is the cautionary tale of a quest for advertising glory... and not quite ever getting there.Rosamond Lehmann: A Life
By Selina Hastings. 2002
The life of Rosamond Lehmann was as romantic and harrowing as that of any of her fictional heroines. Her first…
novel, the shocking Dusty Answer, became wildly successful launching her career as a novelist and, just as her novels depicted the tempestuous lives of her heroines, Rosamond's personal life would be full of heartbreaking affairs and lost loves. Escaping from a disastrous early marriage Rosamond moved right into the heart of Bloomsbury society with Wogan Philipps. Later on she would embark on the most important love affair of her life, with the poet Cecil Day Lewis; nine years later he abandoned her for a young actress - a betrayal from which she would never recover. Selina Hastings masterfully creates a portrait of a woman whose dramatic life, work and relationships criss-crossed the cultural, literary and political landscape of England in the middle of the twentieth century.Romain Gary: A Tall Story
By David Bellos. 1950
Airman, war hero, immigrant, law student, diplomat, novelist and celebrity spouse, Romain Gary had several lives thrust upon him by…
the history of the twentieth century, but he also aspired to lead many more. He wrote more than two dozen books and a score of short stories under several different names in two languages, English and French, neither of which was his mother tongue. Gary had a gift for narrative that endeared him to ordinary readers, but won him little respect among critics far more intellectual than he could ever be. His varied and entertaining writing career tells a different story about the making of modern literary culture from the one we are accustomed to hearing.Born Roman Kacew in Vilna (now Lithuania) in 1914 and raised by only his mother after his father left them, Gary rose to become French Consul General in Los Angeles and the only man ever to win the Goncourt Prize twice.This biography follows the many threads that lead from Gary's wartime adventures and early literary career to his years in Hollywood and his marriage to the actress Jean Seberg. It illuminates his works in all their incarnations, and culminates in the tale of his most brilliant deception: the fabrication of a complex identity for his most successful nom de plume, Émile Ajar.In his new portrait of Gary, David Bellos brings biographical research together with literary and cultural analysis to make sense of the many lives of Romain Gary - a hero fit for our times, as well as his own.Riding the Storm
By Duncan Bannatyne. 2013
Can money buy you happiness?A few years ago Duncan Bannatyne might have said so. He was happily married and his…
businesses were thriving. Life was good. He couldn't have known that a storm was brewing on the horizon and that he would soon face immense personal and professional struggles, including the strain of a divorce and the impact of the recession on his business empire. Riding the Storm is the inspirational account of how Duncan overcame these setbacks. It's a survival story, full of insights into how he adapted his businesses and his life to new financial realities. In it, Duncan explains exactly how a working-class boy from Clydebank built himself a multimillion-pound business empire, and talks with incredible frankness about the current strategies, goals and finances of his companies. He reveals the true nature of his feuds and friendships with the other Dragons and uses his experiences from Dragons' Den to offer advice to start-up entrepreneurs in today's market. He speaks openly about the terrible pain of his divorce and how his children's love gave him the strength to get through it. He discusses the opportunities that success has given him, from learning to dance for Sport Relief to trekking up Kilimanjaro with his daughter. And finally he explains why, in spite of having just gone through the toughest years of his life, he feels positive about the future - and why you should too.Book 9 in Ved Mehta's Continents of Exile series. Nearly 50 years in the making, Continents of Exile is one…
of the great works of twentieth-century autobiography: the epic chronicle of an Indian family in the twentieth century. From 1930s India to 1950s Oxford and literary New York in the 1960s-80s, this is the story of the post-colonial twentieth century, as uniquely experienced and vividly recounted by Ved Mehta.In Remembering Mr. Shawn's New Yorker, Ved Mehta provides an unparalleled glimpse into the inner workings of the one of world's most famous magazines. He portrays in detail the strange, nurturing atmosphere at the New Yorker, and he recounts the earthquakes that shook the magazine as it moved into the hands of more commercial ownership. At once a tribute to William Shawn - one of the longest serving editors in the New Yorker's history - Mehta's memoir is also a joyful tribute to the intricately linked arts of editing, writing, and reading.The Red Letters: Continents of Exile: 12 (Penguin Modern Classics)
By Ved Mehta. 2005
The last volume of Ved Mehta's Continents of Exile series. Nearly 50 years in the making, Continents of Exile is…
one of the great works of twentieth-century autobiography: the epic chronicle of an Indian family in the twentieth century. From 1930s India to 1950s Oxford and literary New York in the 1960s-80s, this is the story of the post-colonial twentieth century, as uniquely experienced and vividly recounted by Ved Mehta.During the clamour of a New York dinner party, Mehta is startled to find his father crying on his mother's shoulders. This episode begins a painful and revealing voyage into his father's personal history. In stark prose, Mehta unravels a passionate, clandestine affair that bore quiet yet extraordinary consequences for himself and his family. Red Letters also serves as a brilliant exploration and a recreation of British India: its sights and sounds, its injustices and its secrecy.The Real Deal: The Autobiography of Britain’s Most Controversial Media Mogul
By Richard Desmond. 2015
From the age of five, when he helped his deaf father negotiate advertising contracts, Richard Desmond has always had an…
eye for business. In The Real Deal he offers a no-holds-barred account of an extraordinary career that has taken him from cloakroom attendant at a north London club to billionaire media owner. En route he tells of his early life as a rock and roll drummer, his first steps in the world of magazine publishing as a purveyor of leisure and top-shelf titles, and finally, after decades of paying his dues building smaller brands, his arrival in the big league with the launch of OK! magazine and the acquisition of Express Newspapers, his purchase and sale of Channel 5, and his £80 million investment in the Health Lottery, combining business innovation with help for good causes. Along the way, he imparts many of the secrets of his astounding success, as well as giving his forthright opinion (and he always has one) on such diverse subjects as politicians, religion, and the similarities between being a rock and roll drummer and running a business – as well as his views on a cast of characters ranging from Alan Sugar to Victoria Beckham and from Simon Cowell to Jennifer Aniston.Often controversial, frequently revelatory, always entertaining, The Real Deal is the brilliantly frank account of a life spent at the sharp end.The Real Deal: My Story from Brick Lane to Dragons' Den
By James Caan. 2008
After dropping out of school at just sixteen, James Caan started his business life in a broom cupboard with no…
qualifications and two pieces of fatherly wisdom: 'observe the masses and do the opposite' and 'always look for opportunities where both parties benefit'. Armed with this advice, natural charm and the Yellow Pages, he built a market-leading business with a turnover of £130 million and swiftly became one of Britain's most successful entrepreneurs.From Caan's childhood as a Pakistani immigrant to the phenomenal success of his first company and beyond, The Real Deal traces both his financial and personal achievements. It offers a frank account of what success at thirty really signifies and brings us right up to the present, including his impact on Dragons' Den and what his charity work, from saving a hospital in London to building a school in Lahore, means to him. Ultimately, it is a story of learning what money is really worth, told by one the country's most insightful businessmen.The key to rising to the top of your company lies in a simple message and philosophy. The ultimate inspirational…
story for ambitious innovators, market-disruptors, and global business entrepreneurs. Celebrating DHL’s fiftieth anniversary as a world-leading delivery company, global CEO Ken Allen tells the unique story of his journey to the top of the industry. In this business memoir, he shares the strategies and skills he has developed throughout his career, drawing on both his core values and extensive experience. This book is an inimitable guide to succeeding in any business, focusing on strategy and practical advice while revealing the simple lessons you need to learn to excel in life and work. It is an accessible read for entrepreneurs and managers at any stage of their career, packed with motivational material and no-nonsense tips. This simple and honest book is a must-have for anyone looking to reach the top of their field.The Quest for Corvo: An Experiment in Biography (Penguin Modern Classics)
By A. J. Symons. 1955
'What had happened to the lost manuscripts, what train of chances took Rolfe to his death in Venice? The Quest…
continued'One summer afternoon A.J.A. Symons is handed a peculiar, eccentric novel that he cannot forget and, captivated by this unknown masterpiece, determines to learn everything he can about its mysterious author. The object of his search is Frederick Rolfe, self-titled Baron Corvo - artist, rejected candidate for priesthood and author of serially autobiographical fictions - and its story is told in this 'experiment in biography': a beguiling portrait of an insoluble tangle of talents, frustrated ambitions and self-destruction.The Poetry Of Edward Thomas
By Andrew Motion. 1936
When Edward Thomas died at Arras in 1917 few people thought of him as a poet. Yet in the two…
years before his death, after a lifetime writing prose, Thomas wrote some of the most enduring poems of his day: poems of war, nature, friendship, despair and exultation. Andrew Motion's pioneering study of Thomas' life and achievement is scholarly yet utterly absorbing, combining an account of his struggles as a writer with perceptive readings of individual poems.Andrew Motion's books include a biography, The Lamberts, George, Constant and Kil, and several prize-winning collections of poetry, the most recent of which is Love in a Life. He is currently writing the authorized biography of Philip Larkin.A Pocketful of Holes and Dreams
By Jeff Pearce. 2010
The poor boy who made his fortune . . . not just once but twice.Little Jeff Pearce grew up in…
a post-war Liverpool slum. His father lived the life of an affluent gentleman whilst his mother was forced to steal bread to feed her starving children. Life was tough and from the moment Jeff could walk he learned to go door to door, begging rags from the rich, which he sold down the markets. Leaving school at the age of fourteen, he embarked on an extraordinary journey, and found himself, before the age of thirty, a millionaire.Then, after a cruel twist of fate left him penniless, he, his wife and children were forced out of their beautiful home . . .With nothing but holes in his pockets, Jeff had no alternative but to go back down the markets and start all over again. Did he still have what it took? Could he really get back everything he had lost?A Pocketful of Holes and Dreams is the heartwarming true story of a little boy who had nothing but gained everything and proof that, sometimes, rags can be turned into riches . . .______________'An inspirational tale of hard work and determination' 5* Reader review 'I just loved this book from the first chapter - I was gripped' 5* Reader reviewOver Hill and Dale
By Gervase Phinn. 2000
Over Hill and Dale is the second volume in Gervase Phinn's bestselling Dales series.'Miss, who's that funny man at the…
back of the classroom?So begins school-inspector Gervase Phinn's second year among the frankly spoken pupils and teachers of North Yorkshire - the sight of Gervase with his notebook and pen provokes unexpected reactions from the children and adults alike.But Gervase is far from daunted - he is ready to brave the steely glare of the officious Mrs Savage, and even feels up to helping Dr Gore organize a gathering of the Feofees - just as soon as someone tells him what they are! He is still in pursuit of the lovely headteacher Christine Bentley, but will she feel the same?This is a delectable second helping of hilarious tales from the man who has been dubbed 'the James Herriot of schools'. In Over Hill and Dale, Gervase Phinn will have you laughing out loud.'Gervase Phinn's memoirs have made him a hero in school staff-rooms' Daily TelegraphGervase Phinn is an author and educator from Rotherham who, after teaching for fourteen years in a variety of schools, moved to North Yorkshire to be a school inspector. He has written autobiographies, novels, plays, collections of poetry and stories, as well as a number of books about education. He holds five fellowships, honorary doctorates from Hull, Leicester and Sheffield Hallam universities, and is a patron of a number of children's charities and organizations. He is married with four adult children. His books include The Other Side of the Dale, Over Hill and Dale, Head Over Heels in the Dales,The Heart of the Dales, Up and Down in the Dales and Trouble at the Little Village School.