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Forty Autumns: A family's story of courage and survival on both sides of the Berlin Wall
By Nina Willner. 2016
In Forty Autumns, Nina Willner recounts the history of three generations of her family - mothers, sisters, daughters and cousins…
- separated by forty years of Soviet rule, and reunited after the fall of the Berlin Wall.Shortly after the end of the Second World War, as the Soviets took control of the eastern part of Germany, Hanna, a schoolteacher's daughter, escaped with nothing more than a small suitcase and the clothes on her back. As Hanna built a new life in the West, her relatives (her mother, father and eight siblings) remained in the East. The construction of the Berlin Wall severed all hope of any future reunion. Hanna fell in love and moved to America. She made many attempts to establish contact with her family, but most were unsuccessful. Her father was under close observation; her mother, younger sister Heidi and the others struggled to adjust to life under a bizarre and brutal regime that kept its citizens cut off from the outside world. A few years later, Hanna had a daughter - Nina - who grew up to become the first female US Army intelligence officer to lead sensitive intelligence collection operations in East Berlin at the height of the Cold War. At the same time, Heidi's daughter, Cordula, was training to become a member of the East German Olympic cycling team. Though separated by only a few miles, Nina and her relatives led entirely different lives. Once the Berlin Wall came down, and the families were reunited, Nina Willner discovered an extraordinary story. In Forty Autumns she vividly brings to life many accounts of courage and survival, set against the backdrop of four decades that divided a nation and the world.The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames: A Foundling's Story
By Justine Cowan. 2021
A gripping memoir and revelatory investigation into the history of the Foundling Hospital and one girl who grew up in…
its care - the author's own mother.'Extraordinary ... A fascinating, moving book: part history of the Foundling Hospital and the development of child psychology, part Cowan's own story, and part that of Cowan's mother' LUCY SCHOLES, TELEGRAPH Growing up in a wealthy enclave outside San Francisco, Justine Cowan's life seems idyllic. But her mother's unpredictable temper drives Justine from home the moment she is old enough to escape. It is only after her mother dies that she finds herself pulling at the threads of a story half-told - her mother's upbringing in London's Foundling Hospital. Haunted by this secret history, Justine travels across the sea and deep into the past to discover the girl her mother once was.Here, with the vividness of a true storyteller, she pieces together her mother's childhood alongside the history of the Foundling Hospital: from its idealistic beginnings in the eighteenth century, how it influenced some of England's greatest creative minds - from Handel to Dickens, its shocking approach to childcare and how it survived the Blitz only to close after the Second World War.This was the environment that shaped a young girl then known as Dorothy Soames, who was left behind by a mother forced by stigma and shame to give up her child; who withstood years of physical and emotional abuse, dreaming ofescape as German bombers circled the skies, unaware all along that her own mother was fighting to get her back.'As a social history of the Foundling Hospital, this is a fascinating read' SUNDAY TIMES'Page-turning and profoundly moving' VIRGINIA NICHOLSON'A gripping true story' Christina Baker Kline, bestselling author of ORPHAN TRAIN'Breathtaking' Adrienne Brodeur, bestselling author of WILD GAMEThe Legend of Tutankhamun
By Sally Jane Morgan. 2018
A young king... a lost tomb... and a treasure trove of unimaginable splendour... The Legend of Tutankhamun is a sumptuous…
visual retelling of the story of one of the most well-known Egyptian pharaohs. More than 3,000 years ago, a young boy became King in ancient Egypt and his life, death and final resting place is something that has fascinated people ever since. Readers are taken on a dramatic journey, from the deserts of ancient Egypt to the excavation of Tutankhamun's tomb and the artefacts on show today. As the pages turn, you can witness the passing of a great King, his tomb being lost to the sand dunes, and its thrilling rediscovery. Powerful and vivid illustrations by James Weston Lewis bring the history, discovery and treasures of this young boy and his reign to life.Benjamin Franklin in London: The British Life of America's Founding Father
By George Goodwin. 2016
'Sensitive, moving and finely textured' Guardian'Fantastic' Dan SnowFor the great majority of his long life, Benjamin Franklin was a loyal…
British royalist. In 1757, having made his fortune in Philadelphia and established his fame as a renowned experimental scientist, he crossed the Atlantic to live as a gentleman in the heaving metropolis of London. With just a brief interlude, a house in Craven Street was to be his home until 1775. From there he mixed with both the brilliant and the powerful, whether in London coffee house clubs, at the Royal Society, or on his summer travels around the British Isles and continental Europe. He counted David Hume, Matthew Boulton, Joseph Priestley, Edmund Burke and Erasmus Darwin among his friends, and as an American colonial representative he had access to successive Prime Ministers and even the King.The early 1760s saw Britain's elevation to global superpower status with victory in the Seven Years War and the succession of the young, active George III. These two events brought a sharp new edge to political competition in London and redefined the relationship between Britain and its colonies. Though Franklin long sought to prevent the break with Great Britain, his own actions would finally help cause that very event. On the eve of the American War of Independence, Franklin fled arrest and escaped by sea. He would never return to London. With his unique focus on the fullness of Benjamin Franklin's life in London, George Goodwin has created an enthralling portrait of the man, the city and the age.Victoria: An Intimate Biography of the Woman who Ruled an Empire
By Julia Baird. 2017
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY JANET MASLIN, THE NEW YORK TIMES'Victoria the Queen, Julia Baird's…
exquisitely wrought and meticulously researched biography, brushes the dusty myth off this extraordinary monarch' The New York Times Book Review (Editor's Choice).The true story for fans of the hit ITV drama series Victoria starring Jenna Coleman, this page-turning biography reveals the real woman behind the myth: a bold, glamorous, unbreakable queen. Drawing on previously unpublished papers, this stunning book is a story of love and heartbreak, of devotion and grief, of strength and resilience.When Victoria was born, in 1819, the world was a very different place. Revolution would begin to threaten many of Europe's monarchies in the coming decades. In Britain, a generation of royals had indulged their whims at the public's expense, and republican sentiment was growing. The Industrial Revolution was transforming the landscape, and the British Empire was commanding ever larger parts of the globe. Born into a world where woman were often powerless, during a century roiling with change, Victoria went on to rule the most powerful country on earth with a decisive hand.Fifth in line to the throne at the time of her birth, Victoria was an ordinary woman thrust into an extraordinary role. As a girl, she defied her mother's meddling and an adviser's bullying, forging an iron will of her own. As a teenage queen, she eagerly grasped the crown and relished the freedom it brought her. At twenty years old, she fell passionately in love with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, eventually giving birth to nine children. She loved sex and delighted in power. She was outspoken with her ministers, overstepping boundaries and asserting her opinions. After the death of her adored Albert, she began a controversial, intimate relationship with her servant John Brown. She survived eight assassination attempts over the course of her lifetime. And as science, technology, and democracy were dramatically reshaping the world, Victoria was a symbol of steadfastness and security-queen of a quarter of the world's population at the height of the British Empire's reach.Drawing on sources that include revelations about Victoria's relationship with John Brown, Julia Baird brings vividly to life the fascinating story of a woman who struggled with so many of the things we do today: balancing work and family, raising children, navigating marital strife, losing parents, combating anxiety and self-doubt, finding an identity, searching for meaning. This sweeping, page-turning biography gives us the real woman behind the myth.The Wedding Heard 'Round the World: America's First Gay Marriage
By Gail Langer Karwoski, Jack Baker, Michael McConnell. 2016
Fifty years after their marriage, Jack and Michael's story is one of the milestone events in the fight for equal…
rights, and this memoir the unmissable account a remarkable couple.On September 3, 1971, at the dawn of the modern gay movement, Michael McConnell and Jack Baker exchanged vows in the first legal same-sex wedding in the United States. But the battle to get there - legal and emotional - was only the start of their incredible lives together.Jack enrolled in law school, keeping his promise to Michael that he would figure out a way to marry. He did, but the repercussions would echo not only through their lives, but through those of everyo gay person in the US who ever wanted what this one pioneering couple did: a happy family life. This is the story of how they met, how they married, and what came after. And one wedding heard 'round the world.'A beautiful, well-written love story that is heartrending and ultimately heartwarming'Robert Alexander, New York Times bestselling author of The Kitchen Boy'A fascinating story of love and struggle that reads like a novel'Washington Book ReviewCatherine the Great & Potemkin: The Imperial Love Affair
By Simon Sebag Montefiore. 2000
From the author of The Romanovs: a vivid account of history's most successful political partnership—as sensual and fiery as it…
was creative and visionary. Catherine the Great was a woman of notorious passion and imperial ambition. Prince Potemkin—wildly flamboyant and sublimely talented—was the love of her life and her co-ruler.Together they seized Ukraine and Crimea, territories that define the Russian sphere of influence to this day. Their affair was so tumultuous that they negotiated an arrangement to share power, leaving each of them free to take younger lovers. But these &“twin souls&” never stopped loving each other.Drawing on the pair&’s intimate letters and on vast research, Simon Sebag Montefiore's widely acclaimed biography restores these imperial partners to their rightful place as titans of their age.Ethel Rosenberg: A Cold War Tragedy
By Anne Sebba. 1974
"Totally riveting. I couldn't put it down" VICTORIA HISLOP"Masterful, original and painfully gripping" PHILIPPE SANDS"A heart-piercingly brilliant book about a…
woman whose personal life put her in the cross-hairs of history" HADLEY FREEMAN"I don't think I've ever read a book that has moved me more" ANTHONY HOROWITZ"A brilliant and fresh take on a famous case" SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIOREEthel Rosenberg's story has been called America's Dreyfus Affair: a catastrophic failure of humanity and justice that continues to haunt the national conscience, and is still being played out with different actors in the lead roles today.On 19th June 1953 Ethel Rosenberg became the first woman in the US to be executed for a crime other than murder. She was thirty-seven years old and the mother of two small children. Yet even today, at a time when the Cold War seems all too resonant, Ethel's conviction for conspiracy to commit espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union makes her story still controversial. This is an important moment to recount not simply what FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover called the 'trial of the century', but also a timeless human story of a supportive wife, loving mother and courageous idealist who grew up during the Depression with aspirations to become an opera singer. Instead, she found herself battling the social mores of the 1950s and had her life barbarically cut short on the basis of tainted evidence for a crime she almost certainly did not commit.Anne Sebba's masterly biography makes full use of the dramatic prison letters Ethel exchanged with her husband, lawyer and psychotherapist over a three-year period. Sebba has also interviewed Ethel's two sons and others who knew her, including a fellow prisoner. Ethel's tragic story lays bare a nation deeply divided and reveals what happens when a government motivated by fear tramples on the rights of its citizens.Killer Women: Chilling, Dark and Gripping True Crime Stories of Women Who Kill
By Nigel Cawthorne. 2018
The Chilling Inside Story of Women Who Are Driven to Kill Killer Women are the most disturbing yet compelling of…
all criminals, representing the very darkest side of humanity and subverting the conventional view of women as the weaker sex. From Elizabeth Bathory, 'The Bloody Countess' whose vampire-like tendencies terrorised sixteenth-century Hungary, to the Moors Murderer Myra Hindley and the Florida Highway Killer Aileen Wuornos, these women transfix us with their extreme ability to commit savage acts of cruelty and depravity. Most chilling is the fact that many of their victims represent the most vulnerable in society: babies, the ill and infirm, and the elderly. In some cases their methods of disposing of the corpses fall nothing short of ingenious: meet Leonarda Cianciulli, 'The Soap-Maker of Correggio', who used the fat from her victims' bodies to make soap and teacakes to sell to unsuspecting customers. These killers' backgrounds, methods and their crimes are described in forensic and gripping detail.50 terrifying cases of killer women are brought to life, including:Elizabeth Bathory 'The Bloody Countess'Amelia Dyer, The Reading Baby FarmerJane Toppan, 'Jolly Jane'Juana Barraza, The Old Lady KillerLeonarda Cianciulli, 'The Soap-Maker of Correggio'Bonnie Parker, 'Bonnie & Clyde'Rosemary WestMyra HindleyAileen WuornosChurchill & Son
By Josh Ireland. 2021
'A compelling tragedy, but one which casts valuable new light on the outsized human dimensions of both men ... Agonising…
but excellent' The Telegraph'In this fascinating account of the turbulent Churchill father-and-son relationship, Josh Ireland shows how central Winston and Randolph were to each other's lives' Andrew RobertsFew fathers and sons can ever have been so close as Winston Churchill and his only son Randolph. Both showed flamboyant impatience, reckless bravery, and generosity of spirit. The glorious and handsome Randolph was a giver and devourer of pleasure, a man who exploded into rooms, trailing whisky tumblers and reciting verbatim whole passages of classic literature. But while Randolph inherited many of his fathers' talents, he also inherited all of his flaws. Randolph was his father only more so: fiercer, louder, more out of control. Hence father and son would be so very close, and so liable to explode at each other.Winston's closest ally during the wilderness years of the 1930s, Randolph would himself become a war hero, serving with the SAS in the desert and Marshal Tito's guerrillas in Yugoslavia, a friend of press barons and American presidents alike, and a journalist with a 'genius for uncovering secrets', able to secure audiences with everyone from Kaiser Wilhelm to General Franco and Guy Burgess.But Randolph's political career never amounted to anything. As much as he idolised Winston and never lost faith in his father during the long, solitary years of Winston's decline, he was never able to escape from the shadow cast by Britain's great hero. In his own eyes, and most woundingly of all his father's, his life was a failure. Winston, ever consumed by his own sense of destiny, allowed his own ambitions to take priority over Randolph's. The world, big as it was, only had space for one Churchill. Instead of the glory he believed was his birthright, Randolph died young, his body rotted by resentment and drink, before he could complete his father's biography.A revealing new perspective on the Churchill myth, this intimate story reveals the lesser-seen Winston Churchill: reading Peter Rabbit books to his children, admonishing Eton schoolmasters and using decanters and wine glasses to re-fight the Battle of Jutland at the table. Amid a cast of personalities who defined an era - PG Wodehouse, Nancy Astor, The Mitfords, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Lord Beaverbrook, William Randolph Hearst, Oswald Mosley, Graham Greene, Duff and Diana Cooper, the Kennedys, Charlie Chaplin, and Lloyd George - Churchill & Son is the lost story of a timeless father-son relationship.Khazana: An Indo-Persian cookbook with recipes inspired by the Mughals
By Saliha Mahmood Ahmed. 2018
OBSERVER FOOD MONTHLY COOKBOOK OF THE YEAR 2019Shortlisted for 'Travel Cookery Book of the Year' in the 2019 Edward Stanford…
Travel Writing Awards.Winner of the Summer Harvest Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2020, in the category Celebrity Chef in English.'Delving into this book feels like taking a leap back into an exotic, saffron-scented past - with her beautiful writing and delicious recipes, Saliha takes you on a culinary journey of discovery.' - Thomasina MiersSaliha, who won over the MasterChef judges with her fusion of Indo-Persian food, has written a book that will delight. Drawing on the rich culinary heritage of the region and her own travels in modern-day India and Pakistan, the recipes are bang up-to-date and will inspire 21st century food lovers.Steeped in Persian flavours, Khazana, which means treasure trove, is a cookbook that promises to become a much-loved classic, introducing recipes like Smoked Chicken & Basil Kebabs with Beetroot Basil Salad & Beetroot Buttermilk Raita, Mughul Baked Cod Korma and Crème Fraîche & Rose Ice Cream with Honey-glazed Figs.'This debut cookbook from the 2017 MasterChef winner is inspired by the opulent Mughal empire and her travels across India. The perfect blend of Indian and Persian flavours, curries, rice, and beautiful samosas are lifted with rosewater, saffron, almonds and pomegranate' - BBC Good Food Magazine'A glittering hoard of Indo-Persian dishes' - Aldo Zilli, Express S MagazineThe Husband Hunters: Social Climbing in London and New York
By Anne De Courcy. 2017
Towards the end of the nineteenth century and for the first few years of the twentieth, a strange invasion took…
place in Britain. The citadel of power, privilege and breeding in which the titled, land-owning governing class had barricaded itself for so long was breached. The incomers were a group of young women who, fifty years earlier, would have been looked on as the alien denizens of another world - the New World, to be precise. From 1874 - the year that Jennie Jerome, the first known 'Dollar Princess', married Randolph Churchill - to 1905, dozens of young American heiresses married into the British peerage, bringing with them all the fabulous wealth, glamour and sophistication of the Gilded Age.Anne de Courcy sets the stories of these young women and their families in the context of their times. Based on extensive first-hand research, drawing on diaries, memoirs and letters, this richly entertaining group biography reveals what they thought of their new lives in England - and what England thought of them.The Riviera Set: Glitz, Glamour, And The Hidden World Of High Society
By Mary S. Lovell. 2016
'I loved every word' Sarra Manning, Red'[A] blissful book - it's like basking in the warm Med' Rachel Johnson, Mail…
on SundayThe Riviera Set is the story of the group of people who lived, partied, bed-hopped and politicked at the Château de l'Horizon near Cannes, over the course of forty years from the time when Coco Chanel made southern French tans fashionable in the twenties to the death of the playboy Prince Aly Khan in 1960. At the heart of this was the amazing Maxine Elliott, the daughter of a fisherman from Connecticut, who built the beautiful art deco Château and brought together the likes of Noel Coward, the Aga Khan, the Windsors and two very saucy courtesans, Doris Castlerosse and Daisy Fellowes, who set out to be dangerous distractions to Winston Churchill as he worked on his journalism and biographies during his 'wilderness years' in the thirties.After the War the story continued as the Château changed hands and Prince Aly Khan used it to entertain the Hollywood set, as well as launch his seduction of and eventual marriage to Rita Hayworth.Mary Lovell tells her story of high society behaviour with tremendous brio and relish, and this book has all the charm and fascination of her bestselling The Mitford Girls and The Churchills.Charles Dickens (LIVES #4)
By Jane Smiley. 2002
Superb, highly accessible biography of one of the giants of English literature by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A THOUSAND…
ACRES'Engaging and stimulating' Simon Callow'Jane Smiley, in her admirable contribution to Weidenfeld's series of short biographies, deals briskly with Dickens's career and works, and treats with sympathy and sense his relations with the women in his life' LITERARY REVIEWFrom a bitter and poverty-stricken childhood to a career as the most acclaimed and best loved writer in the English-speaking world, Charles Dickens had a life as full of incident as any of those he created in his novels of life in Victorian England. The enormous quantity of work, his public readings and his difficult relationships has made him a figure of enduring fascination. In this biography Jane Smiley reveals Charles Dickens as his contemporaries would have done, getting to know him more intimately than ever before. At the same time Smiley offers interpretations of almost all of Dickens' major works, showing how 'his novels shaped his life as much as his life shaped his novels'.Agent Jack: The True Story of MI5's Secret Nazi Hunter
By Robert Hutton. 2018
'Highly readable' Ben Macintyre'Pacy, original and frequently chilling' Henry HemmingJune 1940. Britain is Europe's final bastion of freedom - and…
Hitler's next target. But not everyone fears a Nazi invasion. In factories, offices and suburban homes are men and women determined to do all they can to hasten it.Throughout the Second World War, Britain's defence against the enemy within was Eric Roberts, a former bank clerk from Epsom. Equipped with an extraordinary ability to make people trust him, he was recruited into the shadowy world of espionage by the great spymaster Maxwell Knight. Roberts penetrated first the Communist Party and then the British Union of Fascists, before playing his greatest role for MI5 - as Hitler's man in London. Codenamed Jack King, he single-handedly built a network of hundreds of British Nazi sympathisers, with many passing secrets to him in the mistaken belief that he was a Gestapo officer. Operation Fifth Column, run by a brilliant woman scientist and a Jewish aristocrat with a sideline in bomb disposal, was kept so secret it was omitted from the reports MI5 sent to Winston Churchill. In a narrative that grips like a thriller, Robert Hutton tells the fascinating story of an operation whose existence has only recently come to light. Drawing on newly declassified documents and private family archives, Agent Jack shatters the comfortable notion that Britain could never have succumbed to fascism, and celebrates - at last - the courage of individuals who protected the country they loved at great personal risk.Becoming Belle
By Nuala O'Connor. 2018
'Luminous' SEBASTIAN BARRY'Incandescent characters and mellifluous prose' LISA CAREY'Reminiscent of Edith Wharton at her very best' LIZ NUGENT_________The true story…
of a woman ahead of her time . . . In 1887, Isabel Bilton is the eldest of three daughters of a middle-class military family, growing up in a small garrison town. By 1891 she is the Countess of Clancarty, dubbed "the peasant countess" by the press, and a member of the Irish aristocracy. Becoming Belle is the story of the four years in between, of Belle's rapid ascent and the people that tried to tear her down. Reimagined by a novelist at the height of her powers, Belle is an unforgettable woman. Set against an absorbing portrait of Victorian London, hers is a timeless rags-to-riches story a la Becky Sharpe._________Praise for BECOMING BELLE'Nuala O'Connor has the thrilling ability to step back nimbly and enter the deep dance of time. This is a hidden history laid luminously before us of an exultant Anglo-Irish woman navigating the dark shoals and the bright fields of a life' SEBASTIAN BARRY, award-winning author of The Secret Scripture and Days Without End'Becoming Belle is so mesmerizing you will be distraught when it ends.O'Connor has resurrected a fiery, inexorable woman who rewrites the script on a stage supposedly ruled by men. Sensual, witty, daring, and unapologetically forward.' Lisa Carey, author of The Stolen Child'Belle's determination to live her life on her own terms and in defiance of her times makes her a fascinating subject' Irish Central'Masterful storytelling! I was putty in Nuala O'Connor's hands. She made the unsinkable Belle Bilton and her down-to-earth sister Flo real to me, and brought 1880's London to my living room. Encore! Encore!' Lynn Cullen, bestselling author of Mrs. Poe'A glorious novel in which Belle Bilton and 19th century London are brought roaring to life with exquisite period detail' Hazel Gaynor, New York Times bestselling author of A Memory of Violets'Thoroughly engrossing and entertaining read' Liz Nugent'Thrillingly dramatic and achingly moving and profoundly resonant into this present era' Robert Olen Butler, author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain'O'Connor gently unfolds Belle's tale in a manner that is compelling and disarming. The ambience may be Victorian elegance but the sheer honesty of O'Connor's writing is sensual, authentic and earthy. A delight!' Rose Servitova, author of The Longbourn LettersIbn 'Asakir of Damascus: Champion of Sunni Islam in the Time of the Crusades (Makers of the Muslim World)
By Suleiman A. Mourad. 2021
&‘Ali ibn &‘Asakir (1105–1176) was one of the most renowned experts on Hadith and Islamic history in the medieval era.…
His was a tumultuous time: centuries of Shi&‘i rule had not long ended in central Syria, rival warlords sought control of the capital, and Crusaders had captured Jerusalem. Seeking the unification of Syria and Egypt, and the revival of Sunnism in both, Ibn &‘Asakir served successive Muslim rulers, including Nur al-Din and Saladin, and produced propaganda against both the Christian invaders and the Shi&‘is. This, together with his influential writings and his advocacy of major texts, helped to lay the foundations for the eventual Sunni domination of the Levant – a domination which continues to this day.Mom and Me and Mom
By Dr Maya Angelou. 2013
'In the first decade of the twentieth century, it was not a good time to be born black, or woman,…
in America.' So begins this stunning portrait of Vivian Baxter Johnson: the first black woman officer in the Merchant Marines, purveyor of a gambling business and rooming house, and mother to Maya Angelou, beloved and bestselling author I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS.'A brilliant writer, a fierce friend and a truly phenomenal woman' BARACK OBAMAAnyone who's read the classic, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, knows Maya Angelou was raised by her paternal grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. In Mom & Me & Mom, Angelou details what brought her mother to send her away and unearths the well of emotions Angelou experienced long afterward as a result. While Angelou's six autobiographies tell of her out in the world, influencing and learning from statesmen and cultural icons, Mom & Me & Mom shares the intimate, emotional story about her own family.'She moved through the world with unshakeable calm, confidence and a fierce grace . . . She will always be the rainbow in my clouds' OPRAH WINFREY 'She was important in so many ways. She launched African American women writing in the United States. She was generous to a fault. She had nineteen talents - used ten. And was a real original. There is no duplicate' TONI MORRISONAll God's Children Need Travelling Shoes
By Dr Maya Angelou. 1986
A memoir about home and belonging, from the author of I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS'A brilliant writer, a…
fierce friend and a truly phenomenal woman' BARACK OBAMAMaya Angelou's five volumes of autobiography, beginning with I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS, are a testament to the talents and resilience of this extraordinary writer. Loving the world, she also knows its cruelty. As a black woman she has known discrimination and extreme poverty, but also hope, joy, achievement and celebration. In the fifth volume, Maya Angelou emigrates to Ghana only to discover that 'you can't go home again' but she comes to a new awareness of love and friendship, civil rights and slavery - and the myth of mother Africa.'She moved through the world with unshakeable calm, confidence and a fierce grace . . . She will always be the rainbow in my clouds' OPRAH WINFREY'She was important in so many ways. She launched African American women writing in the United States. She was generous to a fault. She had nineteen talents - used ten. And was a real original. There is no duplicate' TONI MORRISONYoung Stalin
By Simon Sebag Montefiore. 2007
Winner of the Costa Biography AwardWhat makes a Stalin? Was he a Tsarist agent or Lenin's bandit? Was he to…
blame for his wife's death? When did the killing start? Based on revelatory research, here is the thrilling story of how a charismatic cobbler's son became a student priest, romantic poet, prolific lover, gangster mastermind and murderous revolutionary. Culminating in the 1917 revolution, Simon Sebag Montefiore's bestselling biography radically alters our understanding of the gifted politician and fanatical Marxist who shaped the Soviet empire in his own brutal image. This is the story of how Stalin became Stalin.