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The World According to Harry
By Harry Redknapp. 2019
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER'The beautiful game has taught me a lot, but I’ve had quite a life outside of football…
too. This book is full of my best stories – kickabouts with jumpers for goalposts with Bobby Moore, mine and Sandra’s disastrous honeymoon to Torquay in a dodgy car and my funniest ‘Mr Pastry’ moments – as well as my thoughts on the important things in life. I’m finally sharing what I’ve learned on and off the pitch: from growing up poor in Poplar to the heights of the Premiership and even lying in a coffin with a load of rats on national television. It’s everything I know about true team spirit, hard work, tough times, why family are so important and why everyone deserves respect no matter whether they’re royal or sleeping rough – and, of course, the real joy of a jam roly-poly.'The Wright Stuff
By Rick Glanvill. 1996
Ian Wright is one of the English game's great football heroes. He is an England international and the leading marksman…
and trophy-winner for Arsenal. Yet he also regularly collects yellow cards, and is rarely out of the headlines.From humble beginnings to the heights of international stardom, this is the story of the rise of a boy from South London who has as many enemies as he has friends; of a role model who never forgot his roots; of a superstar, hungry for success, but almost denied the chance to play professional football by blatant discrimination and his own hot-headedness.The Wizard: The Life of Stanley Matthews
By Jon Henderson. 2013
‘Stanley Matthews taught us the way football should be played’ Pelé'I couldn't believe he was just a man. He was…
the best player in the world' Bobby Charlton'He told me that he used to play for just twenty pounds a week. Today he would be worth all the money in the Bank of England' Gianfranco ZolaStanley Matthews is one of the most famous footballers ever to play the beautiful game. Nicknamed ‘The Wizard of Dribble’ for his deadly skills, he made fools of defenders around the world. He played 84 matches for England in a career that spanned an extraordinary 33 years and such was his popularity that attendance for his club teams, Stoke City and Blackpool, more than doubled when he played. He was a global superstar decades before Beckham, Ronaldo or Messi, yet what do we really know about this legendary man?This first full and objective biography looks beyond the public face of the ‘first gentleman of soccer’ to explore a life not without controversy. This was a player who clashed with his managers, who felt undervalued in the age of the maximum wage – leading to a charge of blackmarketeering – and who was criticised for his showmanship and perceived lack of team spirit. There were private dramas too – an unhappy first marriage that produced two beloved children, and a second, to the love of his life, a Czech with a dark secret even Matthews never knew and which acclaimed biographer Jon Henderson reveals for the first time.Recreating the magic on the pitch and analyzing the key moments that made Matthews great, this is a meticulously researched story of a national hero and a fascinating insight into English football in the 20th century.The Worst of Friends: The Betrayal of Joe Mercer
By Colin Shindler. 2009
Before the Thai millions and Abu Dhabi billions, Manchester City was always a club that attracted fierce controversy.July 1965: Manchester…
City are on the scrapheap, managerless and languishing in Second Division mediocrity. Desperate to reverse the club's fortunes, the board turns to Joe Mercer, a respected football veteran hungry for a final chance to achieve management glory. Yet age and ill health are against Joe: he needs an assistant, and volatile, ambitious coaching genius Malcolm Allison is his man. Recently sacked from managing Plymouth, Malcolm is out to prove that his innovative tactics can breathe new life into the staid English game. City is the perfect opportunity to show off his talents - especially since Joe promises him the manager's job in two years' time . . .July 1970: City rule supreme, having just won their fifth trophy in as many seasons. The Mercer-Allison partnership is the most successful management team in the club's history. But, unwilling to let go of his success, Joe breaks his word and refuses to step aside. In order to fulfil his self-proclaimed destiny as the greatest manager in English football, an embittered Malcolm engineers a boardroom takeover that risks everything he and Joe have worked for.Based on real events, Colin Shindler's novel explores the clash of personalities that led to the spectacular rise and fall of Manchester City's 'Golden Age'. Malcolm and Joe's story is a cautionary tale of how ambition and betrayal brought down two men who had the world at their feet and of how two of the greatest management partners in British football history became the worst of friends.Without Hope: A Childhood Ruined by the Man she should Trust the Most
By Barbara Naughton. 2010
Barbara's father was a sadistic man at the best of times - his idea of fun was to kill the…
family dog by tying it to the back of his car and driving off. Also for kicks, he took his children out on to the lake and held them under until they were gasping for their lives.He sexually assaulted Barbara from a young age, often when the rest of the family were in the house. He repeatedly threatened to kill her, and made two very serious attempts. During the final attempt, as he was raping and choking her, Barbara made a vow - if she survived, she would come forward and get justice against her father ...Without Hope is a powerful and inspiring true story of a girl who finally found the inner strength to escape her brutal childhood.Win or Learn: MMA, Conor McGregor and Me: A Trainer's Journey
By John Kavanagh. 2016
Conor McGregor's trainer tells the amazing story of his long road to success in the world's fastest-growing sportGrowing up in…
Dublin, John Kavanagh was a skinny lad who was frequently bullied. As a young man, after suffering a bad beating when he intervened to help a woman who was being attacked, he decided he had to learn to defend himself. Before long, he was training fighters in a tiny shed, and promoting the earliest mixed-martial arts events in Ireland. And then, a cocky kid called Conor McGregor walked into his gym ...In Win or Learn, John Kavanagh tells his own remarkable life story - which is at the heart of the story of the extraordinary explosion of MMA in Ireland and globally. Employing the motto 'win or learn', Kavanagh has become a guru to young men and women seeking to master the arts of combat. And as the trainer of the world's most charismatic champion, his gym has become a magnet for talented fighters from all over the globe. Kavanagh's portrait of Conor McGregor - who he has seen in his lowest moments, as well as in his greatest triumphs - is a revelation. What emerges from Win or Learn is a remarkable portrait of ambition, discipline, and persistence in the face of years and years of disappointment. It is a must read for every MMA fan - but also for anyone who wants to understand how to follow a dream and realize a vision.'For anyone interested in following their dream to the end of the line' Tony Parsons'It kept me up well past my bedtime' Sean O'Rourke, RTE Radio One'Remarkable' Irish Times'Kavanagh is open and honest about his upbringing ... The journey hasn't been easy, but Kavanagh's inbuilt determination has carried him all the way' Irish ExaminerWilliams: The legendary story of Frank Williams and his F1 team in their own words
By Maurice Hamilton. 2009
A story of true drive – now the topic of a major documentaryFounded in 1977 by Sir Frank Williams and…
Patrick Head, Williams F1 represents the last of the true independent teams; a company devoid of corporate dogma and run by enthusiasts driven by a love of racing and the satisfaction that comes with beating the rest of the world. Since its first Grand Prix victory at Silverstone on 14 July 1979, the team has won a further 116 GPs, delivered seven World Champions - among them Nigel Mansell and Damon Hill - and won nine Constructors Championships.This is the definitive history of the Williams team as told by those who have worked for Williams past and present. At the heart of the book are Sir Frank's personal recollections, along with memories and anecdotes from those at every level: from the shop floor to the upper strata of management; from the mechanics and machinists to the drivers - Mansell, Hill, Alain Prost and Alan Jones among them. It relates both the incredible highs of winning against the odds while never shying the terrible lows - the tragic deaths of Piers Courage in 1970 and Ayrton Senna in 1994 among them.Conveying the history and soul of a unique band of people, Williams F1 explains exactly why the Williams team is held in more affection than any other team in Britain, if not the world.Slow Getting Up: A Story of NFL Survival from the Bottom of the Pile
By Nate Jackson. 2014
One man's odyssey into the brutal hive of the National Football LeagueAs an unsigned free agent who rose through the…
practice squad to the starting lineup of the Denver Broncos, Nate Jackson took the path of thousands of unknowns before him to carve out a professional football career twice as long as the average player. Through his story recounted here—from scouting combines to preseason cuts to byzantine film studies to glorious touchdown catches—even knowledgeable football fans will glean a new, starkly humanized understanding of the NFL's workweek. Fast-paced, lyrical, dirty, and hilariously unvarnished, Slow Getting Up is an unforgettable look at the real lives of America's best athletes putting their bodies and minds through hell.Margaret Thatcher: The Autobiography
By Margaret Thatcher. 2010
Published in a single volume for the first time, Margaret Thatcher is the story of her remarkable life told in her own…
words--the definitive account of an extraordinary woman and consummate politician, bringing together her bestselling memoirs The Downing Street Years and The Path to Power. Margaret Thatcher is the towering political figure of late-twentieth-century Great Britain. No other prime minister in modern times sought to change the British nation and its place in the world as radically as she did.Writing candidly about her upbringing and early years and the formation of her character and values, she details the experiences that propelled her to the very top in a man's world. She offers a riveting firsthand history of the major events, the crises and triumphs, during her eleven years as prime minister, including the Falklands War, the Brighton hotel bombing, the Westland affair, the final years of the Cold War, and her unprecedented three election victories. Thatcher's judgments of the men and women she encountered during her time in power-from statesmen, premiers, and presidents to Cabinet colleagues-are astonishingly frank, and she recalls her dramatic final days in office with a gripping, hour-by-hour description from inside 10 Downing Street. Powerful, candid, and compelling, Margaret Thatcher stands as a testament to a great leader's significant legacy.She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth
By Helen Castor. 2011
“Helen Castor has an exhilarating narrative gift. . . . Readers will love this book, finding it wholly absorbing and rewarding.” —Hilary Mantel, Booker…
Prize-winning author of Wolf Hall In the tradition of Antonia Fraser, David Starkey, and Alison Weir, prize-winning historian Helen Castor delivers a compelling, eye-opening examination of women and power in England, witnessed through the lives of six women who exercised power against all odds—and one who never got the chance. With the death of Edward VI in 1553, England, for the first time, would have a reigning queen. The question was: Who?Four women stood upon the crest of history: Katherine of Aragon’s daughter, Mary; Anne Boleyn’s daughter, Elizabeth; Mary, Queen of Scots; and Lady Jane Grey. But over the centuries, other exceptional women had struggled to push the boundaries of their authority and influence—and been vilified as “she-wolves” for their ambitions. Revealed in vivid detail, the stories of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, Margaret of Anjou, and the Empress Matilda expose the paradox that England’s next female leaders would confront as the Tudor throne lay before them—man ruled woman, but these women sought to rule a nation.Joe and Me: An Education In Fishing And Friendship
By James Prosek. 2007
When James Prosek was just fifteen, a ranger named Joe Haines caught him fishing without a permit in a stream…
near Prosek's home in Connecticut. But instead of taking off with his fishing buddy, James put down his rod and surrendered. It was a move that would change his life forever. Expecting a small fine and a lecture, James instead received enough knowledge about fishing and the great outdoors to last a lifetime.The story of an unlikely friendship, Joe and Me is a book for those who remember the mentor in their life, the one who changed the way they look at the world.Memories Before and After the Sound of Music: An Autobiography
By Agathe Von Trapp. 2004
Agathe von Trapp, the oldest daughter in the Trapp Family Singers, offers readers the real story behind an American classic…
in her poignant and fascinating autobiography Memories Before and After The Sound of Music. The courageous family and events immortalized in the beloved Broadway musical and hit Hollywood film come vibrantly alive in these pages, and Agathe’s post-Sound of Music life is equally compelling.Moederland: Nine Daughters of South Africa
By Cato Pedder. 2024
'Exploring the past, bringing it to vivid life with wonderful prose . . . Pedder writes with perspicacity and sensitivity…
. . . We need more books like this' Observer'Fascincating and engrossing' Literary ReviewHow did South Africa turn out the way it did? In Moederland - 'Motherland', in Afrikaans - Cato Pedder takes us on an eye-opening journey across four centuries, tracing the country's turbulent past and the rise and fall of apartheid (and her family's charged legacy) through the lives of nine very different women.KROTOA is Khoikhoi translator to the newly arrived Dutch East India Company ANGELA, a former slave from Bengal, climbs the ladder of settler society ELSJE arrives from Germany aged 3, marries at 13, a mother at 15ANNA, mistress of the Cape's grandest estate, regains control from her violent husbandMARGARETHA, uncompromising Afrikaner farmer, resists the abolition of slavery ANNA loads her family on an ox-wagon and treks into the interior to elude the British ISIE survives the Boer War to become wife of South Africa's Prime Minister and 'Mother of the Nation' CATO escapes to England and the Quakers as white supremacy mutates into apartheidPETRONELLA, returning to the Motherland, falls in love across the colour bar and risks everything to fight the system her grandfather set in motion.Committed: A Memoir of Finding Meaning in Madness
By Suzanne Scanlon. 2024
'A deep, sometimes harrowing book about loss, grief, and the way literary representations of mental illness shaped Scanlon's experience of…
her own life' Emily Gould, The Cut'Visceral, raw and tender, this candid and timely memoir is, at heart, a love-letter to the profound and redemptive power of literature' Annabel Abbs'An immensely talented writer, at her finest, cutting through propriety and convention to reach what is essential, meaningful, real' Amina CainWhen Suzanne Scanlon was a student at Barnard in the 90s and grieving the loss of her mother, she made a suicide attempt that landed her in the New York State Psychiatric Institute.After nearly three years and countless experimental treatments, Suzanne left the ward on shaky legs. In the decades it took her to recover from the experience, Suzanne came to understand her suffering as part of something larger: a long tradition of women whose complicated and compromised stories of self-discovery are reduced to 'madwoman' narratives. Transporting, honest, and unflinching, Suzanne recounts her story alongside her reading of writers from the 'madwoman canon' - including Audre Lorde, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath and radical feminist Shulamith Firestone. The result is a profoundly moving journey through madness, from breakdown to breakthrough, and a revelatory exploration of being a woman and being mad - and how interwoven those experiences can be.Committed: A Memoir of Finding Meaning in Madness
By Suzanne Scanlon. 2024
'A deep, sometimes harrowing book about loss, grief, and the way literary representations of mental illness shaped Scanlon's experience of…
her own life' Emily Gould, The Cut'Visceral, raw and tender, this candid and timely memoir is, at heart, a love-letter to the profound and redemptive power of literature' Annabel Abbs'An immensely talented writer, at her finest, cutting through propriety and convention to reach what is essential, meaningful, real' Amina CainWhen Suzanne Scanlon was a student at Barnard in the 90s and grieving the loss of her mother, she made a suicide attempt that landed her in the New York State Psychiatric Institute.After nearly three years and countless experimental treatments, Suzanne left the ward on shaky legs. In the decades it took her to recover from the experience, Suzanne came to understand her suffering as part of something larger: a long tradition of women whose complicated and compromised stories of self-discovery are reduced to 'madwoman' narratives. Transporting, honest, and unflinching, Suzanne recounts her story alongside her reading of writers from the 'madwoman canon' - including Audre Lorde, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath and radical feminist Shulamith Firestone. The result is a profoundly moving journey through madness, from breakdown to breakthrough, and a revelatory exploration of being a woman and being mad - and how interwoven those experiences can be.Queen Consort: The Life of Queen Camilla
By Penny Junor. 2017
“Thoroughly well-written, this is a believable portrait of a woman who did not seek publicity or a royal role but…
instead to support the love of her life, Prince Charles.” —Library Journal (starred review)In the first in-depth biography of Camilla—the infamous other woman who made the marriage of Britain’s Prince Charles and Princess Diana "a bit crowded"—esteemed royal biographer Penny Junor tells the unlikely and extraordinary story of the woman reviled as a pariah who, thanks to numerous twists of fate, became the popular princess consort.Few know the Windsor family as well as veteran royal biographer and journalist Penny Junor. In Queen Consort, she casts her insightful, sensitive eye on the intriguing, once widely despised, and little-known Camilla Parker Bowles, revealing in full, for the first time, the remarkable rise of a woman who was the most notorious mistress in the world.As Camilla’s marriage to Charles approached in 2005, the British public were upset at the prospect that this woman, universally reviled for wrecking the royal marriage, would one day become queen. Sensitive to public opinion, the palace announced that this would never happen; when Charles eventually acceded to the throne, Camilla would be known as the princess consort. Yet a decade later British public sentiment had changed, with a majority believing that Camilla should become queen.Junor argues that although Camilla played a central role in the darkest days of the modern monarchy—Charles and Diana’s acrimonious and scandalous split—she also played a central role in restoring the royal family’s reputation, especially that of Prince Charles. A woman with no ambition to be a princess, a duchess, or a queen, Camilla simply wanted to be with, and support, the man who has always been the love of her life. Junor contends that their marriage has reinvigorated Charles, allowing him to finally become comfortable as the heir to the British throne.Moederland: Nine Daughters of South Africa
By Cato Pedder. 2024
'Exploring the past, bringing it to vivid life with wonderful prose . . . Pedder writes with perspicacity and sensitivity…
. . . We need more books like this' Observer'Fascincating and engrossing' Literary ReviewHow did South Africa turn out the way it did? In Moederland - 'Motherland', in Afrikaans - Cato Pedder takes us on an eye-opening journey across four centuries, tracing the country's turbulent past and the rise and fall of apartheid (and her family's charged legacy) through the lives of nine very different women.KROTOA is Khoikhoi translator to the newly arrived Dutch East India Company ANGELA, a former slave from Bengal, climbs the ladder of settler society ELSJE arrives from Germany aged 3, marries at 13, a mother at 15ANNA, mistress of the Cape's grandest estate, regains control from her violent husbandMARGARETHA, uncompromising Afrikaner farmer, resists the abolition of slavery ANNA loads her family on an ox-wagon and treks into the interior to elude the British ISIE survives the Boer War to become wife of South Africa's Prime Minister and 'Mother of the Nation' CATO escapes to England and the Quakers as white supremacy mutates into apartheidPETRONELLA, returning to the Motherland, falls in love across the colour bar and risks everything to fight the system her grandfather set in motion.The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things
By Paula Byrne. 2013
“A vivacious portrait. . . . Byrne’s Austen emerges as a worldly woman, profoundly enmeshed in a wider world than…
she’s often acknowledged to occupy. This is an Austen with a sense for the political as well as for the finer points of sensibility—and one who will be unfamiliar (though never unrecognizable) to many readers.” — Publishers WeeklyIn The Real Jane Austen, acclaimed literary biographer Paula Byrne provides the most intimate and revealing portrait yet of a beloved but complex novelist.Just as letters and tokens in Jane Austen’s novels often signal key turning points in the narrative, Byrne explores the small things – a scrap of paper, a gold chain, an ivory miniature – that held significance in Austen’s personal and creative life.Byrne transports us to different worlds, from the East Indies to revolutionary Paris, and to different events, from a high society scandal to a case of petty shoplifting. In this ground-breaking biography, Austen is set on a wider stage than ever before, revealing a well-traveled and politically aware writer – important aspects of her artistic development that have long been overlooked.The Real Jane Austen is a fresh, compelling, and surprising biography of the author of some of our most enduring classic books – from Pride and Prejudice to Sense and Sensibility, Emma to Persuasion – and a vivid evocation of the world that shaped her.The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: My Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World
By Lucette Lagnado. 2007
“Poignant . . . deeply personal . . . an indelible history of the largely forgotten Jews of Egypt .…
. . ”—Miami HeraldIn vivid and graceful prose, Lucette Lagnado re-creates the majesty and cosmopolitan glamour of Cairo in the years before Gamal Abdel Nasser’s rise to power. With Nasser’s nationalization of Egyptian industry, her father, Leon, a boulevardier who conducted business in his white sharkskin suit, loses everything, and departs with the family for any land that will take them. The poverty and hardships they encounter in their flight from Cairo to Paris to New York are strikingly juxtaposed against the beauty and comforts of the lives they left behind. An inversion of the American dream set against the stunning portraits of three world cities, Lucette Lagnado’s memoir offers a grand and sweeping story of faith, tradition, tragedy, and triumph.In My Skin: My Life On and Off the Basketball Court
By Brittney Griner, Sue Hovey. 2014
Hailed by ESPN as the world’s most famous female basketball player, Brittney Griner, the dunking phenom and national sensation who…
is shattering stereotypes and breaking boundaries, now shares her coming-of-age story, revealing how she found her strength to overcome bullies and to embrace her authentic self.Brittney Griner, the No. 1 pick in the 2013 WNBA Draft, is a once-in-a-generation player, possessing a combination of size and athleticism never before seen in the women’s game. But “the sport’s most transformative figure” (Sports Illustrated) is equally famous for making headlines off the court, for speaking out on issues of gender, sexuality, body image and self-esteem.At 6’8”, with an 88-inch wingspan and a size 17 shoe (men’s), the Phoenix Mercury star has heard every vicious insult in the book, enduring years of taunting that began in middle school and continues to this day. Through the highs and lows, Griner has learned to remain true to herself, rising above the haters trying to take her down.In her heartfelt memoir, she reflects on painful episodes in her life and describes how she came to celebrate what makes her unique—inspiring lessons she now shares. Filled with all the humor and personality Griner has become known for, In My Skin is more than a glimpse into one of the most original personalities in sports; it’s also a powerful call to readers to be true to themselves, to love who they are on the inside and out.With a 8 pages of photos.