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The Good Room: Why we ended up in a debtors' prison – and how we can break free
By David McWilliams. 2012
A forensic, entertaining polemic from the author of The Pope's Children.Ireland is deeply in debt, beholden to the IMF, the…
EU and the bond markets. Its economy is frozen, and years of austerity are ahead.It didn't have to be this way - and it doesn't have to be this way. In The Good Room, David McWilliams, who spotted the dangers of the Irish property bubble and imbalances within the eurozone at a time when other commentators were cheerleading the boom, explains the bizarre economics behind Ireland's current predicament, and illuminates a different path for the country. He illustrates the consequences of debt and austerity for ordinary Irish people and explains why austerity can't work. And he shows that history offers numerous useful models for Irish recovery - provided we open our eyes to them. Economics is about people like you. The Pope's Children was the book that connected the dots between economics and daily life in Ireland during the boom years. The Good Room does the same for the Ireland of the bust, and is - in its call for a completely different approach - an even more urgent and necessary work.'McWilliams has a great knack for bringing a complex economics story to life. He is also funny. In economics, that's a rare and persuasive combination.' Stephanie Flanders, Irish Times'A gifted and often courageous polemicist who has done more to popularize the debate about economics in Ireland than anyone else' Irish Independent'McWilliams makes a compelling argument for the need for a different approach to Irish and European economic management ... [A] realistic, pragmatic call for innovative policies that take account of proven economic theory' Sunday Business PostDavid McWilliams is Ireland's leading popular economist, and a columnist for the Irish Independent and the Sunday Business Post. He is the author of the bestsellers The Pope's Children, The Generation Game, and Follow the Money.A Good African Story: How a Small Company Built a Global Coffee Brand
By Andrew Rugasira. 2013
Since it was founded in 2003, Good African Coffee has helped thousands of farmers earn a decent living, send their…
children to school and escape a spiral of debt and dependence. Africa has received over $1 trillion in aid over the last fifty years and yet despite these huge inflows, the continent remains mired in poverty, disease and systemic corruption. In A Good African Story, as Andrew Rugasira recounts the very personal story of his company and the challenges that he has faced – and overcome – as an African entrepreneur, he provides a tantalising glimpse of what Africa could be, and argues that trade has achieved what years of aid have failed to deliver.This is a book about Africa taking its destiny in its own hands, and dictating the terms of its future.You May Never See Us Again: The Barclay Dynasty: A Story of Survival, Secrecy and Succession
By Jane Martinson. 2023
'A tour de force' - Guardian'Forensic ... Strong on financial detail' - Financial TimesA Financial Times Book of the Year…
2023The untold story of post-war Britain. Told through the lives of the two men who helped shape it: Sir David Barclay and Sir Frederick Barclay.You May Never See Us Again is the only definitive story of David and Frederick Barclay - commonly known as the Barclay brothers. Born poor, these enigmatic twins built one of the biggest fortunes in Britain together from scratch and spent six decades at the epicentre of British business, media and politics. Their empire, said to be worth £7bn at its height, included Littlewoods, the Ritz Hotel, The Daily Telegraph and the channel island of Brecqhou. They were major advocates for Brexit and well-connected with influential politicians including Margaret Thatcher, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage.And yet despite their fortune and influence, their fiercely guarded desire for privacy has meant that their story remained largely unknown - until a very public family dispute pitched Barclay against Barclay in the High Court.Journalist Jane Martinson unravels the fascinating story of these once inseparable billionaire brothers. Through their lives she offers compelling insights into post-war Britain, from the conditions that enabled their way of doing business to thrive through to the tightly enmeshed webs of influence between capitalism, politics and the media that shape Britain today.Flying High: My Story: From AirAsia to QPR
By Tony Fernandes. 2017
'What a life. Tony Fernandes has accomplished amazing things - and who's to say what he can go on to…
achieve?' Sir Richard BransonThe inspiring story of business hero and Apprentice Asia star Tony FernandesAs a boy, Tony Fernandes wanted to be a pilot, a footballer or a racing driver. By 2011 he'd gone one better: founding his own airline and his own formula one team, and becoming Chairman of Queens Park Rangers, helping them reach the Premier League again after a 15-year absence from the top flight. Flying High is the memoir of an exceptional business leader; the man who created Asia's first budget airline, democratizing air travel in Asia and building AirAsia into a multi-billion-dollar company in the process. Published as Tony returns as the face of the second series of Apprentice Asia, this inspiring personal story will be a major global publishing event.Tony Fernandes studied at Epsom College, UK, and the London School of Accoutancy. He worked for Virgin Communications and Warner Music before acquiring AirAsia and relaunching it as Asia's first low-cost carrier in 2001/2. He is currently Group CEO of AirAsia, Chairman of QPR football club and owner of the Caterham F1 team. Tony has been awarded a CBE, titled twice by the King of Malaysia and awarded the Legion d'Honneur by the French government. He has also received awards from major business media outlets including theInternational Herald Tribune, Business Times, Business Week, Fast Company and Forbes.Elizabeth II: The Steadfast (Penguin Monarchs)
By Douglas Hurd. 2835
In September 2015 Queen Elizabeth II becomes Britain's longest-reigning monarch. During her long lifetime Britain and the world have changed…
beyond recognition, yet throughout she has stood steadfast as a lasting emblem of stability, continuity and public service.Historian and senior politician Douglas Hurd has seen the Queen at close quarters, as Home Secretary and then on overseas expeditions as Foreign Secretary. Here he considers the life and role of Britain's most greatly admired monarch, who, inheriting a deep sense of duty from her father George VI, has weathered national and family crises, seen the end of an Empire and heard voices raised in favour of the break-up of the United Kingdom.Hurd creates an arresting portrait of a woman deeply conservative by nature yet possessing a ready acceptance of modern life and the awareness that, for things to stay the same, they must change.With a preface by HRH Prince William, Duke of CambridgeElizabeth I: A Study in Insecurity (Penguin Monarchs)
By Helen Castor. 2017
'The experience of insecurity, it turned out, would shape one of the most remarkable monarchs in England's history' In the…
popular imagination, as in her portraits, Elizabeth I is the image of monarchical power. But this image is as much armour as a reflection of the truth. In this illuminating account of England's iconic queen, Helen Castor reveals her reign as shaped by a profound and enduring insecurity that was a matter of both practical politics and personal psychology.Elizabeth: An intimate portrait from the writer who knew her and her family for over fifty years
By Gyles Brandreth. 2022
THE NO 1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER NOW FEATURING EXCLUSIVE MATERIAL ABOUT CHARLES III's CORONATION WITH ADDED PHOTOGRAPHSA personal account of…
the life and character of Britain's longest-reigning monarch, from the writer who knew her family best'Compelling . . . Fascinating' DAILY MAIL'The writer who got closest to the human truth about our long-serving senior royals' THE TIMES'The book overflows with nuggets of insider knowledge' TELEGRAPHPaints a unique picture of the remarkable woman who reigned for seven decades. Fascinating insights' HELLO!__________Gyles Brandreth first met the Queen in 1968, when he was twenty.Over the next fifty years he met her many times, both at public and at private events. Through his friendship with the Duke of Edinburgh, he was given privileged access to Elizabeth II.He kept a record of all those encounters, and his conversations with the Queen over the years, his meetings with her family and friends, and his observations of her at close quarters are what make this very personal account of her extraordinary life uniquely fascinating.From her childhood in the 1920s to the era of Harry and Meghan in the 2020s, from her war years at Windsor Castle to her death at Balmoral, this is both a record of a tumultuous century of royal history and a truly intimate portrait of a remarkable woman.Enjoy this special edition now featuring an exclusive postscript about King Charles III's Coronation with photographs.__________Praise for Gyles Brandreth's bestselling royal writing:'Beautifully written book. I have read many other books about Philip but this is the best' DAILY EXPRESS'Brilliant, totally inspiring . . . It's a joy to read a book that comes from a perspective of fondness' KIRSTIE ALLSOPP, THE TIMES'As a sparkling celebration of Prince Philip, the book will be hard to beat' TELEGRAPH'So readable and refreshing even after the millions of words that have been written about Prince Philip in the past couple of weeks' THE TIMES'Brilliant . . . There is so much in this book you won't find anywhere else' LORRAINEElizabeth: The Scandalous Life of an 18th Century Duchess
By Claire Gervat. 2003
Elizabeth Chudleigh was one of the eighteenth century's most colourful characters. Born into impoverished gentility, her beauty, wit and vitality…
soon earned her a place at the centre of court life. When she married the Duke of Kingston in 1769 she had reached the highest rung of the social ladder. But Elizabeth was carrying a dark secret. In 1744 she had secretly married a naval lieutenant called Augustus Hervey, and after the Duke's death her first marriage was discovered. Bigamy fever swept London society and, in a very public trial, Elizabeth was found guilty. But her strength of character ensured that, even when her friends deserted her, her courage and zest for life did not. In an engaging history of this strong and wilful woman, Gervat shows there was far more to Elizabeth than the caricature villain her contemporaries made her out to be.Edward VIII: The Uncrowned King (Penguin Monarchs)
By Piers Brendon. 2016
'After my death,' George V said of his eldest son and heir, 'the boy will ruin himself within twelve months.'The…
forecast proved uncannily accurate. Edward VIII came to the throne in January 1936, provoked a constitutional crisis by his determination to marry the American divorcée Wallis Simpson, and abdicated in December. He was never crowned king.In choosing the woman he loved over his royal birthright, Edward shook the monarchy to its foundations. Given the new title 'Duke of Windsor' and essentially sent into exile, he remained a visible skeleton in the royal cupboard until his death in 1972 and he haunts the house of Windsor to this day.Drawing on unpublished material, notably correspondence with his most loyal (though much tried) supporter Winston Churchill, Piers Brendon's superb biography traces Edward's tumultuous public and private life from bright young prince to troubled sovereign, from wartime colonial governor to sad but glittering expatriate. With pace and panache, it cuts through the myths that still surround this most controversial of modern British monarchs.Edward VII: The Cosmopolitan King (Penguin Monarchs)
By Richard Davenport-Hines. 2015
Like his mother Queen Victoria, Edward VII defined an era. Both reflected the personalties of their central figures: hers grand,…
imperial and pretty stiff; his no less grand, but much more relaxed and enjoyable. This book conveys Edward's distinct personality and significant influences. To the despair of his parents, he rebelled as a young man, conducting many affairs and living a life of pleasure. But as king he made a distinct contribution to European diplomacy and - which is little known - to London, laying out the Mall and Admiralty Arch. Richard Davenport-Hines's book is as enjoyable as its subject and the age he made.Edward VI: The Last Boy King (Penguin Monarchs)
By Stephen Alford. 2014
Edward VI, the only son of Henry VIII, became king at the age of nine and died wholly unexpectedly at…
the age of fifteen. All around him loomed powerful men who hoped to use the child to further their own ends, but who were also playing a long game - assuming that Edward would long outlive them and become as commanding a figure as his father had been. Stephen Alford's wonderful book gives full play to the murky, sinister nature of Edward's reign, but is also a poignant account of a boy learning to rule, learning to enjoy his growing power and to come out of the shadows of the great aristocrats around him. England's last child monarch, Edward would have led his country in a quite different direction to the catastrophic one caused by his death.Edward the Confessor: The Sainted King (Penguin Monarchs)
By David Woodman. 2020
Edward the Confessor, the last great king of Anglo-Saxon England, canonized nearly 100 years after his death, is in part…
a figure of myths created in the late middle ages.In this revealing portrait of England's royal saint, David Woodman traces the course of Edward's twenty-four-year-long reign through the lens of contemporary sources, from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Vita Ædwardi Regis to the Bayeux Tapestry, to separate myth from history and uncover the complex politics of his life. He shows Edward to be a shrewd politician who, having endured a long period of exile from England in his youth, ascended the throne in 1042 and came to control a highly sophisticated and powerful administration.The twists and turns of Edward's reign are generally seen as a prelude to the Norman Conquest in 1066. Woodman explains clearly how events unfolded and personalities interacted but, unlike many, he shows a capable and impressive king at the centre of them.Edward IV: The Summer King (Penguin Monarchs)
By A J Pollard. 2016
In 1461 Edward earl of March, an able, handsome, and charming eighteen-year old, usurped the English throne from his feeble…
Lancastrian predecessor Henry VI. Ten years on, following outbreaks of civil conflict that culminated in him losing, then regaining the crown, he had finally secured his kingdom. The years that followed witnessed a period of rule that has been described as a golden age: a time of peace and economic and industrial expansion, which saw the establishment of a style of monarchy that the Tudors would later develop. Yet, argues A. J. Pollard, Edward, who was drawn to a life of sexual and epicurean excess, was a man of limited vision, his reign remaining to the very end the narrow rule of a victorious faction in civil war. Ultimately, his failure was dynastic: barely two months after his death in April 1483, the throne was usurped by Edward's youngest brother, Richard III.The FitzPatrick Tapes: The Rise and Fall of One Man, One Bank, and One Country
By Tom Lyons, Brian Carey. 2011
The FitzPatrick Tapes: The sensational story of the man and the bank that brought Ireland lowOne day in May 2009,…
Sean FitzPatrick - the disgraced former chief executive and chairman of Anglo Irish Bank - sat down to lunch in a Holiday Inn in Dublin. Across the table sat Tom Lyons, a business reporter with the Sunday Times. Seven months later, the two met for the first of what would be seventeen formal, tape-recorded interviews over the course of 2010: a year when Ireland, its public finances ruined in large part by the cost of covering Anglo's losses, went bust itself. In these interviews, FitzPatrick talked at length and in detail about his banking experiences and philosophy, his colleagues and clients, his investments, his public disgrace, his arrest and his bankruptcy.Lyons and his colleague Brian Carey draw on the FitzPatrick tapes and on their many sources within Anglo, the state and the business community to tell the story of that crisis - and of the man who became the face of it. This is a tale of toothless regulators, hopeless accountants, politicians and civil servants out of their depth, and businessmen in denial about the crash. Above all, though, it is the story of FitzPatrick: the man who built that bank that has been at the centre of Ireland's economic meltdown.'A sensational document' Eamon Dunphy, Newstalk'It is a journalistic scoop; the story of a bank that got too big; a snapshot of an economic era; and, already, a piece - or at least a version - of history' Sunday Business PostEdward III: A Heroic Failure (Penguin Monarchs)
By Jonathan Sumption. 2016
Edward III lived through bloody and turbulent times. His father was deposed by his mother and her lover when he…
was still a teenager; a third of England's population was killed by the Black Death midway through his reign; and the intractable Hundred Years War with France began under his leadership. Yet Edward managed to rule England for fifty years, and was viewed as a paragon of kingship in the eyes of both his contemporaries and later generations. Venerated as the victor of Sluys and Crécy and the founder of the Order of the Garter, he was regarded with awe even by his enemies. But he lived too long, and was ultimately condemned to see thirty years of conquests reversed in less than five. In this gripping new account of Edward III's rise and fall, Jonathan Sumption introduces us to a fêted king who ended his life a heroic failure.Edward II: The Terrors of Kingship (Penguin Monarchs)
By Christopher Given-Wilson. 2662
'He seems to have laboured under an almost child-like misapprehension about the size of his world. Had greatness not been…
thrust upon him, he might have lived a life of great harmlessness.'The reign of Edward II was a succession of disasters. Unkingly, inept in war, and in thrall to favourites, he preferred digging ditches and rowing boats to the tedium of government. His infatuation with a young Gascon nobleman, Piers Gaveston, alienated even the most natural supporters of the crown. Hoping to lay the ghost of his soldierly father, Edward I, he invaded Scotland and suffered catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Bannockburn. After twenty ruinous years, betrayed and abandoned by most of his nobles and by his wife and her lover, Edward was imprisoned in Berkeley Castle and murdered - the first English king since the Norman Conquest to be deposed.Edward I: A New King Arthur? (Penguin Monarchs)
By Andy King. 2016
The acclaimed Penguin Monarchs series: short, fresh, expert accounts of England's rulers - now in paperbackEdward I (1272-1307) is one…
of the most commanding of all English rulers. He fought in southwest France, in Wales, In Scotland and in northern France, he ruled with ruthlessness and confidence, undoing the chaotic failure of his father, Henry III's reign. He reshaped England's legal system and came close to bringing the whole island of Great Britain under his rule. He promoted the idea of himself as the new King Arthur, his Round Table still hanging in Winchester Castle to this day. His greatest monuments are the extraordinary castles - Caernarfon, Beaumaris, Harlech and Conwy - built to ensure his rule of Wales and some of the largest of all medieval buildings.Andy King's brilliant short biography brings to life a strange, complex man whose triumphs raise all kinds of questions about the nature of kingship - how could someone who established so many key elements in England's unique legal and parliamentary system also have been such a harsh, militarily brutal warrior?The Economist: Perilous Journey (Penguin Specials)
By The Economist Publications. 2012
The Penguin Economist Special reports delve into the most pressing economic issues of the day: from national and global economies,…
to the impact of trade, industry and jobs. Written to be read on a long commute or in your lunch hour - be better informed in under an hour.Pakistan is in a tricky situation. It is under constant scrutiny by the world media but is more often than not described in terms of its problems.There are indeed difficulties - bordering the unsettled nations of Afghanistan and Iran puts it in a precarious position. A poor and badly educated population for the most part is not helping the country's growth.There is hope.The wealth of natural resources, a growing, urban population and a more democratic government all point to a positive future.But with the NATO withdrawal from its troubled neighbours nearing, Pakistan's survival hangs in the balance.Simon Long's special report includes the following sections:Perilous JourneyToo close for comfortState of vulnerabilityCaptain's inningsIn the shadow of the mosqueLights offA taste of HunnyAlways with usDripping with bloodGoing with the flowThe Economist: Revolution in Retreat (Penguin Specials)
By The Economist Publications. 2012
The Penguin Economist Special reports delve into the most pressing economic issues of the day: from national and global economies,…
to the impact of trade, industry and jobs. Written to be read on a long commute or in your lunch hour - be better informed in under an hour.Raúl Castro is changing Cuba. Recognising the limits that the Soviet style economy places upon the Cuban people, he is allowing the market greater freedoms. A new, private sector is emerging and is expected to employ around 25% of the labour force by 2015.What will these changes mean for foreign business and for Cuba's position on the global stage?As there doesn't seem to be a Castro successor and the party is pressured by the younger generation and the digital world, where will Cuba be in ten years time?This report will reflect on the likelihood and impact of political and economic change on the island - essential reading for anyone involved in the region.Sections include:Revolution in retreatThe deal's off - growing inequalitiesHasta la vista, baby - a disappearing populationEdging towards capitalism - slow reformGrandmother's footsteps - political changeThe Miami mirror - Cuba and MiamiThe biological factor - what next for the Castro dynasty?The Economist: Closing the Gap (Penguin Specials)
By The Economist Publications. 2012
The Penguin Economist Special reports delve into the most pressing economic issues of the day: from national and global economies,…
to the impact of trade, industry and jobs. Written to be read on a long commute or in your lunch hour - be better informed in under an hour.When students graduate from university they are employed in equal numbers. Move up the ladder a few rungs and the number of women in high powered positions has fallen dramatically.Women make up just 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs and still generally get paid less than their male counterparts.Barbara Becks ask why this is and what can be done about it. She covers:Closing the gapFemale labour markets: The cashier and the carpenterA world of bluestockingsWork and family: Baby bluesTop jobs: Too many suitsWomen in China: The sky's the limitLooking ahead: Here's to the next half-century