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My Cousin Maria Schneider: A Memoir
By Vanessa Schneider. 2018
&“A beautiful eulogy and a much-needed corrective&” (The New York Times)—a love letter to Maria Schneider, the 1970s movie starlet…
who catapulted to fame in the controversial film Last Tango in Paris—only to live the rest of her life plagued by scandal, as told from the perspective of her adoring younger cousin.The late French actress Maria Schneider is perhaps best known for playing Jeanne in the provocative film Last Tango in Paris, directed by Bernardo Bertolucci and released to international shock and acclaim in 1972. It was Maria&’s first major role, alongside film legend Marlon Brando, when she was barely eighteen years old. The experience would haunt her for the rest of her life, traumatizing her and sparking a tabloid firestorm that only ceased when she began to retreat from the public eye nearly two decades later. To Maria&’s much younger cousin, Vanessa Schneider, Maria was a towering figure of another kind—a beautiful and fearsome fixture in Vanessa&’s childhood, a rising star turned pariah whose career and struggles with addiction won the family shame and pride in equal measure. Here, Vanessa recounts the challenges of their overlapping youths and fraught adulthood and reveals both the tragedy and inevitability of Maria&’s path in a family plagued by mental illness and in a society rife with misogyny. Unsentimental and moving, My Cousin Maria Schneider is a love letter to a talented artist and the cousin who admired her, and a powerful story of exploitation and how its lingering effects can reverberate through a lifetime.House of Sticks: A Memoir
By Ly Tran. 2021
New York City Book Awards Hornblower Award Winner One of Vogue and NPR&’s Best Books of the Year This beautifully…
written &“masterclass in memoir&” (Elle) recounts a young girl&’s journey from war-torn Vietnam to Queens, New York, &“showcas[ing] the tremendous power we have to alter the fates of others, step into their lives and shift the odds in favor of greater opportunity&” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis).Ly Tran is just a toddler in 1993 when she and her family immigrate from a small town along the Mekong river in Vietnam to a two-bedroom railroad apartment in Queens. Ly&’s father, a former lieutenant in the South Vietnamese army, spent nearly a decade as a POW, and their resettlement is made possible through a humanitarian program run by the US government. Soon after they arrive, Ly joins her parents and three older brothers sewing ties and cummerbunds piece-meal on their living room floor to make ends meet. As they navigate this new landscape, Ly finds herself torn between two worlds. She knows she must honor her parents&’ Buddhist faith and contribute to the family livelihood, working long hours at home and eventually as a manicurist alongside her mother at a nail salon in Brooklyn that her parents take over. But at school, Ly feels the mounting pressure to blend in. A growing inability to see the blackboard presents new challenges, especially when her father forbids her from getting glasses, calling her diagnosis of poor vision a government conspiracy. His frightening temper and paranoia leave a mark on Ly&’s sense of self. Who is she outside of everything her family expects of her? An &“unsentimental yet deeply moving examination of filial bond, displacement, war trauma, and poverty&” (NPR), House of Sticks is a timely and powerful portrait of one girl&’s coming-of-age and struggle to find her voice amid clashing cultural expectations.Theodora: Portrait in a Byzantine Landscape
By Antony Bridge. 2005
&“First rate popular history/biography, evoking the Byzantine empire at its peak. A remarkable story in an entertaining, informative book.&” —The…
Wall Street Journal This is the biography of a Byzantine courtesan who rose from the gutter to the throne of an empire. It is a romantic and improbable story, and Theodora is an extraordinary woman, indeed. Her background and her many actions were scandalous, but she had qualities of greatness and this book sets the record straight. This account of her life is a pageant in which Emperors and barbarian kings, Popes and Patriarchs, eunuchs and generals, heretics and orthodox opponents, charioteers and ladies of easy virtue, saints and sinners move in a formal and splendid rhythm. This formality was often marred by violence: one of the worst riots in Byzantine history took place when Theodora had been empress for a short time, and during much of her reign there was war in Italy, marked by appalling suffering and barbarity. Toward the end of her life, Constantinople was devastated by Bubonic plague. Yet Theodora triumphed over every adverse circumstance, tough and clever to the end. &“ . . . Bridge&’s book, with its exceptionally vivid and evocative style, brings the period alive.&” —Library Journal &“Puts [Theodora] in her own time and place in the vast panorama of the golden age of an empire which lasted 1,100 years.&” —Boston Herald &“Conveys the passion and the fervor of the sixth century A.D.&” —Los Angeles Herald ExaminerRunning with the Firm
By James Bannon. 2013
'Of course I'm a f**king hooligan, you pr**k. I am a hooligan...there I've said it...I'm a hooligan. And, do you…
know why? Because that's my f**king job.'In 1995, a film called I.D., about an ambitious young copper who was sent undercover to track down the ‘generals’ of a football hooligan gang, achieved cult status for its sheer brutality and unsettling insight into the dark and often bloody side of the so-called beautiful game.The film was so shocking it was hard to believe the mindless events that took place could ever happen in the real world. Well, believe it now...Almost twenty years on, the man behind the film has explosively revealed that the script was largely a true story. That man, James Bannon, was the ambitious undercover cop. The football club was Millwall F.C. and the gang that he infiltrated was The Bushwackers, among the most brutal and fearless in English football. In Running with the Firm, Bannon shares his intense and dangerous journey into the underworld of football hooliganism where sickening levels of violence prevail over anything else. He introduces you to the hardest thugs from football’s most notorious gangs, tells all about the secret and almost comical police operations that were meant to bring them down, and, how once you’re on the inside, getting out from the mob proves to be the biggest mission of all.A disturbing but compelling read, this is the book that proves fact really is stranger than fiction.Rough: How violence has found its way into the bedroom and what we can do about it
By Rachel Thompson. 2021
**AS HEARD ON BBC RADIO 4'S WOMEN'S HOUR**Rough is a revolutionary non-fiction work exploring the narratives of sexual violence that…
we don't talk about.A bad sexual experience.A grey area. Not rape but... A violation .These are the terms we use to describe the experiences we don't have words for. The way we talk about topics such as sex, consent, assault aren't fit for purpose.Through powerful testimony from 50 women and non-binary people, this book shines a light on the sexual violence that takes place in our bedrooms and beyond, sometimes at the hands of people we know, trust, or even love. Rough investigates violations such as 'stealthing,' non-consensual choking, and non-consensual rough sex acts that our culture is only starting to recognise as sexual violence.The book explores the ways in which systems of oppression manifest in our sexual culture - from racist microaggressions, to fatphobic acts of aggression, and ableist dehumanising behaviour. An intersectional, sex-positive, kink-positive work, the book also examines how white supremacy, transphobia, biphobia, homophobia, and misogyny are driving forces behind sexual violence.Rough is an urgent, timely call for change to the systems that oppress us all.'An incredible investigation into a frighteningly common part of our sexual experience,' Dr Fern Riddell'Rough speaks to how many women often feel after sexual encounters ...This book is excellent and demonstrates just how valid those feelings are,' Adele Walton, founder of Humanitarian HotgirlRotten Days in Late Summer
By Ralf Webb. 2021
A TELEGRAPH AND IRISH TIMES BOOK OF THE YEARLONGLISTED FOR THE POLARI FIRST BOOK PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE FORWARD PRIZE…
FOR BEST FIRST COLLECTIONSHORTLISTED FOR THE JOHN POLLARD FOUNDATION INTERNATIONAL POETRY PRIZE 'Impressive . . . tender, unflinching' Guardian'This is poetry in the grand tradition of annihiliation by desire. It's what the young are always learning, and the old, if they are wise, never forget' Anne Boyer, author of The Undying'Brilliant . . . heralds the arrival of a frank and vital poetic voice' Sharlene Teo, author of Ponti'Frank and alert . . . an important voice in British poetry' Eley Williams, author of The Liar's Dictionary'Direct and heart-breaking' Alex Dimitrov, author of Love and Other Poems'A rare thing . . . razor-sharp' Julia Copus, author of This Rare Spirit: A Life of Charlotte MewIn Rotten Days in Late Summer, Ralf Webb turns poetry to an examination of the textures of class, youth, adulthood and death in the working communities of the West Country, from mobile home parks, boyish factory workers and saleswomen kept on the road for days at a time, to the yearnings of young love and the complexities of masculinity.Alongside individual poems, three sequences predominate: a series of 'Love Stories', charting a course through the dreams, lies and salt-baked limbs of multiple relationships; 'Diagnostics', which tells the story of the death from cancer of the poet's father; and 'Treetops', a virtuosic long poem weaving together grief and mental health struggles in an attempt to come to terms with the overwhelming data of a life.The world of these poems is close, dangerous, lustrous and difficult: a world in which whole existences are lived in the spin of almost-inescapable fates. In searching for the light within it, this prodigious debut collection announces the arrival of a major new voice in British poetry.Rothschild Buildings: Life in an East-End Tenement Block 1887 - 1920
By Jerry White. 1980
Winner of the Jewish Chronicle Harold H. Wingate Literary Award.Rothschild Buildings were typical of the 'model dwellings for the working…
classes' which were such an important part of the response to late-Victorian London's housing problem. They were built for poor but respectable Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, and the community which put down roots there was to be characteristic of the East End Jewish working class in its formative years. By talking to people who grew up in the Buildings in the 1890s and after, and using untapped documentary evidence from a wide range of public and private sources, the author re-creates the richly detailed life of that community and its relations with the economy and culture around it. The book shows how cramped and austere housing was made into homes; how the mechanism of class domination, of which the Buildings were part, was both accepted and fought against; how a close community was riven with constantly shifting tensions; and how that community co-existed in surprising ways with the East End casual poor of 'outcast London'. It provides unique and fascinating insights into immigrant and working-class life at the turn of the last century.The Rainbow Comes and Goes
By Diana Cooper. 1958
Lady Diana Cooper was a star of the early twentieth stage, screen and social scene. This first instalment of her…
sparkling autobiography tells of her upbringing, her beautiful artistic mother and aristocratic father, her debut into high society and the glittering parties - 'dancing and extravagance and lashing of wine, and charades and moonlit balconies and kisses' - which were interrupted with the outbreak of the First World War. This volume ends with Diana's marriage to the 'love of her life', diplomat and politician Duff Cooper.Queen of the Ploughing
By Anna May McHugh. 2017
'The embodiment of the spirit of rural Ireland'Anna May McHugh's name is synonymous with 'the Ploughing' - the annual Championships…
of the National Ploughing Association. The event is the biggest outdoor agricultural show in Europe and Anna May is the driving force behind its spectacular growth.Anna May now tells her story. Her description of growing up as part of a large family in rural County Laois is an evocative and affectionate account of an Ireland that is now gone. But in her account of how she went from being a secretary of the Ploughing Association, her first job, to becoming - to her own amazement - its managing director twenty years later is a story of leadership and people skills that are very much of the twenty-first century. Anna May was truly ahead of her time.Still living in County Laois, close to where she grew up, and now in her eighties, Anna May still runs the multi-million euro operation from her home, alongside her daughter, Anna Marie. Queen of the Ploughing is a captivating read, full of warmth, lively stories and Anna May's sharp observations. And it's not just about Anna May's life, but is also a celebration of the best of Irish life over eight decades.Poor: Grit, courage, and the life-changing value of self-belief
By Katriona O'Sullivan. 2023
The No. 1 BestsellerBiography of the Year, Irish Book Awards 2023The Last Word Listeners' Choice Award, Irish Book Awards 2023'One…
of the best [books] I have read about the complexities of poverty . . . one of the most remarkable people you will ever meet' GuardianLike young girls everywhere Katriona O’Sullivan grew up bright, enthusiastic, curious. But she was also surrounded by abject poverty and chaos, and after she became pregnant and homeless at 15, what followed was five years of barely surviving. Yet today Katriona is an award-winning academic whose work explores barriers to education for girls like her.What set Katriona on this unexpected path were the mentors and supporters who truly saw her. The teachers who showed her how to wash in the school toilets or turned up at her door to convince her to sit at least one GCSE. The community worker who encouraged her to apply for training schemes. The friend who introduced Katriona to Trinity College’s access program while she was a cleaner. Simple acts that would help her turn her life around.Told with warmth, clarity and compassion – compassion for her parents, for her younger self, for others – Poor is both an astonishing personal testimony and an impassioned plea for the future of our children. ‘Powerful – Katriona is a legend’ Barry Keoghan‘Raw, passionate and resolutely honest – I’ll never forget it’ Annie Mac'Full of insight . . . so important' Fi Glover, Times Radio 'I read poor in one sitting I found it so compelling . . . moving, uplifting, brave, heroic' Nuala McGovern, Woman's Hour, BBC Radio Four'Moving, funny, brave and original - just like the author . . . absolutely incredible' Roísín Ingle, Irish Times Women's Podcast‘One of the books of the year’ Patrick Kielty, Late Late Show, RTÉ One'One of the most important books I have ever read … a beautiful telling of determination despite the odds' Lynn Ruane, Irish Times 'Fearless, funny and searingly honest' Adil Ray OBE'Raw and remarkable' Irish Independent 'A book of empowerment and hope' Patricia Scanlan ‘Remarkable . . . a vivid retelling of Katriona flourishing, despite her beginnings’ BBC News West MidlandsA 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 reviewPlease Will Someone Help Me?
By Sophie Young. 2013
Sophie Young tells her shocking true story in Please Will Someone Help Me?Sophie Young was born into a dysfunctional family,…
with a violent mother and father. Sophie was routinely neglected and harmed, starved and left to fend for herself. Social workers were often involved but, despite numerous visits and extensive reports, nothing was ever done.When Sophie was six, her life took another horrible turn: her adored grandfather began to sexually abuse her.Please Will Someone Help Me? is Sophie Young's heartbreaking story about a young girl at the mercy of the adult world. With full access to her social work files, she shows how those who are meant to help children can be blind to the reality of their lives; but how, ultimately, love conquers all.Sophie Young was the eldest of three, born into a dysfunctional family that she fought for years to escape. Now forty years old, she lives in England with her husband and children, and works as a volunteer for a national children's charity.Please Let It Stop: The true story of my abused childhood
By Jacqueline Gold. 2007
'In retrospect, I can see I was the perfect candidate for child abuse. My parents had divorced and my mother…
didn't show me much love. Her self-imposed isolation kept me away from other children. My abuser had nobody in his way.'Please Let It Stop is a gripping and ultimately inspiring memoir of suffering and determination, of obstacles and inner battles. Jacqueline Gold was abused by her stepfather for many years, but one day she summoned the courage to ask him to stop. Jacqueline went on to become Chief Executive of Ann Summers, but the journey was far from easy. In this, her no-holds-barred autobiography, Jacqueline describes her abused childhood, her tumultuous struggles to find love and conquer depression, and the heartbreak of undergoing IVF. Told with remarkable honesty, her story is a testament to one woman's ability to overcome the darkest of times.Paying for It: How Turning Tricks Paid the Mortgage, Kept the Kids in Trainers and Gave Me Back My Life
By Scarlett O'Kelly. 2012
Combining the sexual frankness of Fifty Shades of Grey and of Belle de Jour's writing, with the fascinating insights of…
What the Nanny Saw, Scarlett O'Kelly's memoir of her year as a high-end escort, Paying For It, is an explicit, astonishing and compulsive story of living a double life .Facing financial meltdown, mother of three Scarlett O'Kelly did what the average woman would find unthinkable: she set herself up a sex worker. There was the sex, which, surprisingly for Scarlett, could have unexpected pleasures. Then the clients - ordinary men who worried that they had to hide their sexual needs, desires and fantasies from their wives or girlfriends. Not to mention her realisation that women just like her could build stronger relationships if they could let go their hang-ups in and out of bed. And there's the high price Scarlett paid for her double life - one she is still coming to terms with.Paying For It is a raw, intimate and powerful story of one brave woman's sacrifice in a time of hardship. It is a searingly honest and truly eye-opening account of modern life and what really goes on in couples' bedrooms.It is also an intriguing and risqué account of one woman's sexual odyssey - from her decision to make money from sex to her realisation that she had become sexually liberated in the process.Scarlett O'Kelly is a middle class everywoman - and her clients were ordinary middle class men - so this is an intriguing picture of a side of life that is usually hidden.Brought together for the first time in one edition, both of Christabel Bielenberg's bestselling memoirs give an incredibly moving, emotionally…
charged and compelling insight into life in Nazi Germany during The Third Reich and during the aftermath of World War Two. Offering a new perspective, this is a must-read for anyone interested in the wartime era.'This is one of the best WWII books I have ever read' -- ***** Reader review'An excellent book and a must-read for anyone interested in this era' -- ***** Reader review'Absorbing' -- ***** Reader review'Intensely moving' -- ***** Reader review'A wonderful book. I couldn't put it down' -- ***** Reader review***********************************************************************************************The Past is MyselfChristabel Bielenberg, a niece of newspaper magnate Lord Northcliffe, married a German lawyer in 1934. She lived through the war in Germany, as a German citizen under the horrors of Nazi rule and Allied bombings. The Past is Myself is her story of that experience - and an unforgettable portrait of an evil time.The Road AheadFollowing the extraordinary success of her wartime memoir, The Past is Myself, Christabel Bielenberg received thousands of letters from readers begging her to describe what happened next. In The Road Ahead she continues her story with the outbreak of peace - a time of struggle for reconciliation with, and the rebuilding of, a defeated nation. She also tells of life in her newly adopted country, Ireland, her involvement with the Peace Women of Northern Ireland, and with characteristic modesty and gratitude, looks back on a rich, full life.Anyone interested in the Second World War and life in the 1930s and 1940s will devour these unflinchingly honest and enthralling memoirs, published together in one edition for the first time.Paradise Lust
By Kit McCann. 2011
Everywhere you look, for heaven's sake, there are ladies. Never mind for heaven's sake, this is heaven. It is the…
Garden of Eden, where you are allowed to eat all the apples you want. The air itself is sexy. Never mind meanderings on hill tribes and Buddhist temple architecture, or burble about meditation and mantras, and dire warnings about 'prostitutes' and 'the sex industry'. Because that is why you have come here. You are a man with ample leisure time and money in your pocket, and you are here for the ladies. Because they do it.Welcome to Thailand, where hundreds of thousands of male tourists are lured every year by thoughts of luscious silk-skinned maidens whose smiles promise ecstasy. And despite the exotic sights, gorgeous beaches and mouth-watering food, for many the magic of the east means sex. In the raucous seaside resorts like Patang and Pattaya, armies of sultry young temptresses ensare the hearts and bankrolls of besotted foreigners.Totally frank, Kit McCann charts his own uninhibited rake's progress through the moonscape of lust and its pitfalls. A vast comedy of corruption, deceit, drugs, murder, despair, suicide, and above all, greed. He should know, he saw it all.Outlaw: Learning lessons the hard way as Britain’s most wanted man
By Ray Bishop. 2014
Follow Britain's most wanted man into London's underworld and back out again Ray Bishop was on the run, skulking in…
a dealer's house in north London, when an image of his face flashed up on the TV, accompanied by a public warning. The assembled company were aghast, and Ray felt sick at what he saw. How had he become Britain's most wanted man? Growing up in a council estate in South East London, where he and his friends were regularly brutalised by the police Ray tells all of his early days of petty crime. Being despatched to notoriously violent youth-detention centres where he was further criminalized he graduated with flying colours to a career in London's underworld as an armed robber, a drug smuggler and a people trafficker, developing a serious addiction to cocaine and heroin along the way. But Ray's is also story of redemption, of coming back from rock bottom and learning lessons the hard back. Enrolling in a rigorous rehabilitation programme, Ray turned his life around. He went on to realise his childhood dream of becoming British Middleweight Boxing Champion, setting up his own business and advocating for others along the way. Here's how he did it.Our World: Our OFFICIAL autobiography
By Little Mix. 2016
Celebrate Little Mix's first UK number-one album - Glory Days - by reading the full story of the girls' astonishing…
rise to pop super stardom. Our World is full of exclusive photos and inspirational stories about Jade, Perrie, Jesy and Leigh-Anne's unique friendship.Little Mix are the UK's most successful girl band. They first found fame - and each other - on The X Factor in 2011. Five years later they have gone from strength to strength, achieving huge global success. With three platinum-selling albums in the UK and over 14 million record sales worldwide, the band are both adored by their fans and critically acclaimed for their brilliant music. In this book the girls share the real behind-the-scenes story of both their personal lives and their success. They reveal the many highs - what it feels like to perform in front of thousands of people; the excitement of seeing your music soar to Number One around the world - but also the lows. Through it all the girls have had each other, and their incredibly close friendship has grown stronger and stronger as the years have gone by. Now the girls are like sisters, and in this book they share their journeys and how it feels for your dreams to come true.Brimming with exclusive photos, this book shares with us the girls' innermost secrets - their hopes and dreams for the future, their families, their relationships, their style advice and above all their friendship. This book is Little Mix's story in their own words and tells you everything you need to know about their lives both in and out of the spotlight.Openhearted: Eighty Years of Love, Loss, Laughter and Letting Go
By Ann Ingle. 2021
SHORTLISTED FOR TWO IRISH BOOK AWARDS'Something they don't tell you about getting older is that you fall. Oh, you hear…
about it in passing, of course, "She had a fall, poor thing". Falling is not something you ever think about as a younger woman. You think about falling in love . . .'At 20 Londoner Ann Ingle fell madly in love with an Irish fellow she met on holiday in Cornwall. At the church to arrange their shotgun wedding she discovered that he hadn't even told her his real name.Sixty-odd years later Ann looks back on that first glorious fall and in a series of essays considers what she has learned from the life that followed - bringing eight children into the world, their father's years of mental illness and tragic death at 40, being a cash-strapped single mother in 1980s Dublin, coming into her own in her middle years - going to college, working and writing, and continuing to evolve and learn into her ninth decade, even as she accepts the realities of being 'old'.Candid about everything that matters - love, sex, heartbreak, money, class, religion, mental health, rearing children (and letting them go), reading and writing, ageing - Open-Hearted is a compelling story about living life in a spirit of curiosity and delight and with a willingness to look for good in others._________________________________'By some distance the most courageous, most poignant, most life-affirming memoir I've read in the last twenty years and more' Paul Howard'Genuinely inspirational. I LOVE ANN INGLE' Marian Keyes'What a beautiful openhearted, at times broken-hearted memoir ... honest, funny, searingly direct, a wonderful voice ... remarkable' Joe Duffy'Really beautiful. Searingly honest, astonishingly frank and very, very funny' Maia DunphyOnce I Was a Princess: A Mother's Worst Nightmare
By Jacqueline Pascarl. 1999
Can you imagine what it would be like to be swept off your feet by a royal prince to live…
a charmed life in the marble palaces of an oil-rich nation - and then to watch your fairy-tale romance turn into a nightmare of Islamic superstition, isolation, betrayal and abuse? What would you do if you managed to escape your life of torment - and then your children were kidnapped by their own father? This is what happened to Jacqueline Pascarl.In Once I Was a Princess, Jacqueline recounts her part in this controversial, headline-grabbing international drama with heart-rending honesty.