Black Sabbath is currently on The End Tour," which they have proclaimed as their final concert tour . Iron Man chronicles the story of both pioneering guitarist Tony Iommi and legendary band Black Sabbath, dubbed The Beatles of heavy metal" by Rolling Stone . Iron Man reveals the man behind the icon yet still captures Iommi's humour, intelligence, and warmth. He speaks honestly and unflinchingly about his rough-and-tumble childhood, the accident that almost ended his career, his failed marriages, personal tragedies, battles with addiction, band mates, famous friends, newfound daughter, and the ups and downs of his life as an artist. Everything associated with hard rock happened to Black Sabbath first: the drugs, the debauchery, the drinking, the dungeons, the pressure, the pain, the conquests, the company men, the contracts, the combustible drummer, the critics, the comebacks, the singers, the Stonehenge set, the music, the money, the madness, the metal.

Redeem your story, redefine your creativity, and make a life that truly matters Sometimes the greatest gift you can receive is for your life to fall apart. After years stuck in a painful cycle fueled by past abuse and ongoing addiction, actor, artist, and director Blaine Hogan finally hit rock bottom. No longer able to hide behind the veneer of success or find comfort in the shadows of compulsion, Blaine was forced to look at the story his life was telling and realize he'd lost the plot. Desperate to find hope, he gave up a budding career and took a major life detour where he discovered that facing his past was the key to unlocking a new kind of creativity. In Exit the Cave, Blaine shares the stories that shaped him while exploring how our relationship to our past defines how we imagine the future and live in the present. Through powerful personal revelations, he invites you to take up the practices of radical imagination and real creativity so you can tell a better story with your life. If you've ever been stuck, addicted, ashamed, discontented, or lost, take courage--a richer, more imaginative, and meaningful life is waiting for you just outside the cave. "A tender but fierce story of survival, reckoning, and redemption. Blaine manages to somehow weave themes of acting, allegory, addiction, family, and faith into one beautifully written account of his own healing. This is the kind of story that will redeem you."--Laura McKowen, bestselling author of We Are the Luckiest "Blaine Hogan has inspired me for many years with his unique way of seeing the world. In this book you'll find a blast of inspiration and a trusty guide to help you exit the cave and enter a world that is real and beautiful and vital."--Brad Montague, New York Times bestselling author and illustrator of The Circles All Around Us, Becoming Better Grownups, and Kid President's Guide to Being Awesome

This definitive biography of John Mellencamp is "a true coming-of-age story" (John Sykes, chairman of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation) of an iconic American rock and roll original, featuring exclusive in-depth interviews and never-before-told details. Perfect for fans of Janis and Born to Run.

John Mellencamp is not your typical rock star.

With music inspired by the work of William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, and other giants of American literature, he has experienced a colorful career unlike any other. Now, this fascinating biography fully charts the life of one of this country's most important voices in American music.

Mellencamp's story is also the story of the American heartland. His growth as an artist and evolution into legendary status directly reflected the major changes of the last fifty years. From the Summer of Love to the growing divisiveness of American politics and beyond, his music has served as the backdrop to this country for millions of fans.

Featuring exclusive interviews with friends, family, and colleagues, and exploring everything from the founding of Farm Aid to his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, this is a fresh, expansive, and "inspirational" (Nora Guthrie, president of The Woody Guthrie Foundation) look at a true original.

The Man Who Inspired the World's Fastest-Growing Religion

"Muhammad" presents a fascinating portrait of the founder of a religion that continues to change the course of world history. Muhammad's story is more relevant than ever because it offers crucial insight into the true origins of an increasingly radicalized Islam. Countering those who dismiss Islam as fanatical and violent, Armstrong offers a clear, accessible, and balanced portrait of the central figure of one of the world's great religions.

Systemic racism and sexism caused one of South Africa’s most important writers to disappear from public consciousness. Is it possible to justly restore her historical presence?

Regina Gelana Twala, a Black South African woman who died in 1968 in Swaziland (now Eswatini), was an extraordinarily prolific writer of books, columns, articles, and letters. Yet today Twala’s name is largely unknown. Her literary achievements are forgotten. Her books are unpublished. Her letters languish in the dusty study of a deceased South African academic. Her articles are buried in discontinued publications. Joel Cabrita argues that Twala’s posthumous obscurity has not developed accidentally as she exposes the ways prejudices around race and gender blocked Black African women like Twala from establishing themselves as successful writers.

Drawing upon Twala’s family papers, interviews, newspapers, and archival records from Pretoria, Uppsala, and Los Angeles, Cabrita argues that an entire cast of characters—censorious editors, territorial White academics, apartheid officials, and male African politicians whose politics were at odds with her own—conspired to erase Twala’s legacy. Through her unique documentary output, Twala marked herself as a radical voice on issues of gender, race, and class. The literary gatekeepers of the racist and sexist society of twentieth-century southern Africa clamped down by literally writing her out of the region’s history.

Written Out also scrutinizes the troubled racial politics of African history as a discipline that has been historically dominated by White academics, a situation that many people within the field are now examining critically. Inspired by this recent movement, Cabrita interrogates what it means for her —a White historian based in the Northern Hemisphere—to tell the story of a Black African woman. Far from a laudable “recovery” of an important lost figure, Cabrita acknowledges that her biography inevitably reproduces old dynamics of White scholarly privilege and dominance. Cabrita’s narration of Twala’s career resurrects it but also reminds us that Twala, tragically, is still not the author of her own life story.

No business, legitimate or otherwise, has had a more raucous influence on the history of a city than that of the Outfit in Chicago. From the roots of organized crime in the late 19th century to the present day, The Chicago Outfit examines the evolution of the city's underworld, focusing on their business activities and leadership along with the violence and political protection they employed to become the most successful of the Cosa Nostra crime families. Through a vivid and visually stunning collection of images, many of which are published here for the first time, author John Binder tells the story of the people and places of the world of organized crime from a fresh and informed point of view.

One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2021 The New York Times bestseller from the Grammy-nominated indie rockstar Japanese Breakfast, an unflinching, deeply moving memoir about growing up mixed-race, Korean food, losing her Korean mother, and forging her own identity in the wake of her loss. 'As good as everyone says it is and, yes, it will have you in tears. An essential read for anybody who has lost a loved one, as well as those who haven't' - Marie-Claire In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humour and heart, she tells of growing up the only Asian-American kid at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother's particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother's tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food. As she grew up, moving to the east coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, performing gigs with her fledgling band - and meeting the man who would become her husband - her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live. It was her mother's diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her. Vivacious, lyrical and honest, Michelle Zauner's voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread. 'Possibly the best book I've read all year . . . I will be buying copies for friends and family this Christmas.' - Rukmini Iyer in the Guardian 'Best Food Books of 2021' 'Wonderful . . . The writing about Korean food is gorgeous . . . but as a brilliant kimchi-related metaphor shows, Zauner's deepest concern is the ferment, and delicacy, of complicated lives.' - Victoria Segal, Sunday Times, 'My favourite read of the year'

Ken Thompson served as Sarasota's city manager from 1950 to 1988, making him the longest-serving manager in United States history. During these years, Sarasota experienced a population explosion and an unprecedented modernization of city services. The city moved from a sleepy little town to an independent city with an identifiable economy. This period of growth gave residents a vastly improved bayfront that included Island Park and the Marina Jack development and saw the creation of the current city hall and the Van Wetzel Theater. In thirty-eight years, Sarasota moved from the Circus City to the multifaceted city it is today. Follow well-known Sarasota historian Jeff LaHurd as he recounts the sometimes controversial era of Sarasota's greatest growth.

In the 1970s Hennie Keyter was an angry young man, fresh out of military service for the apartheid government of South Africa, unsure of his path in life and deeply uneasy about his faith. When God revealed to him that He had a purpose for him and a calling on his life, at first Hennie was not ready to hear it. When he finally accepted and understood his mission, a flame was lit in his heart that nothing could have extinguished.

But nothing could have prepared him either for the extraordinary spiritual journey he was about to embark on which would take him wherever God wanted him to go: from Malawi, "the warm heart of Africa", to Mozambique at the height of its civil war, where he was sentenced to death and faced a firing squad, from a less than welcoming beginning in Zanzibar, to the United Nations base at Lokichokio on the border between Kenya and Sudan (where on one trip he discovered that he had a price of US 10 000 on his head). Desiring only to do the will of God and to spread the Gospel, Hennie took up the challenge of taking the Gospel to many of the countries on the African continent and in the Middle East, building up leaders and planting churches in poverty stricken areas, lands devastated by years of conflict and deprivation, and war zones where soldiers seemed to have lost everything, even hope.

Through the bushfire of mass evangelism and his dedicated teams of volunteers, supported by the love and faith of his wife Rita and his children Anton and Mari, in His Call, My All: An African Drumbea, A Missionary's Heartbeat Hennie Keyter looks back at his life in the service of the Lord and forward to continuing His work for as long as God requires it of him.

Spanning nearly 100 years, Faith & Defiance: The Life of Sally Motlana tells the story of one of South Africa’s most eminent women activists and community builders - Sally Bampifeletseng (Maunye) Motlana.

Born of humble roots in the old village of Moremela near Pilgrims Rest in the then-Transvaal, Sally grew into a fierce activist and voice of the oppressed who answered the call when she saw all that needed to be done in the struggle for freedom and a democratic South Africa. As a toddler, Sally moved to Johannesburg with her mother, where they joined her father and lived first in Vrededorp and then Sophiatown. Educated at St Cyprian’s School, she was taken under the wing of esteemed Anglican missionary Father Trevor Huddleston.

Profoundly influenced by her religious upbringing, she developed a passionate protectiveness of the poor – especially women and children– and an unquenchable thirst for justice that never diminished during her numerous detentions and harassment by the Security Police. Instead of a straight biography, author Mukoni Ratshitenga has skilfully crafted a riveting account of a woman and her country, rich with vignettes and fascinating encounters of great historical significance.

One of the many encounters in the book tells how during his hiding from the police for seventeen months before his arrest in 1962, Nelson Mandela, visited Sally at her Dube home and what transpired thereafter. Another tells how during one of her spells of detention in 1978 at Jeppe Police station, she came across two Azanian People’s Liberation Army (APLA) combatants who had been detained there after they had been deployed from Tanzania. Fearing that they would be killed, she hatched and executed a daring plan for their escape - all whilst being detained herself.

The book contains many accounts of Sally’s fearlessness in the face of apartheid police harassment and brutality. It highlights how her commitment to the struggle for liberation and her deep Christian faith reinforced each other. Faith & Defiance: The Life of Sally Motlana is a record of both the brutality of apartheid and colonialism and the determination of one woman to fight it and through her story, the story of millions.

From Jon King, legendary front man of iconic post-punk band Gang of Four, comes a memoir to remember.

TO HELL WITH POVERTY! documents King’s story from a south London slum and working-class background to international success as core musician, lyricist, writer, and producer in the legendary post-punk/funk band Gang of Four. King’s memoir takes the reader on an episodic journey full of raucous adventures from his childhood and teenage years, to the height of Gang of Four’s success in the seventies and eighties.

Thrown off Top of the Pops, truncheoned by police at an anti-Nazi rally, coming of age in the heart of the Leeds music scene and the UK post-punk movement, mingling with Hells Angels and other undesirables, supported by bands like R.E.M. and playing with the likes of the Police, Iggy Pop, and the Buzzcocks―King’s time with Gang of Four is rich with jaw-dropping stories. Evocative, fast-paced, and witty, To Hell with Poverty! is a music memoir for the ages.

Gang of Four’s Entertainment! LP is consistently ranked as one of the greatest debut albums of all time and continues to inspire new generations of musicians today. The band has influenced many artists, from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana, and INXS, to 2025-era Frank Ocean, the Idles, and hip-hop giants Run the Jewels. Gang of Four have been championed by the likes of Flea, Sofia Coppola, Massive Attack, Damien Hirst, Greil Marcus, and many more.

Eierigting is‘n regsterm wat beteken dat jy die reg in jou eie hande neem.

In ‘n grondwetlike bestel is die uitgangspunt dat die burgery kollektief hul reg om hulself te beskerm oordra aan die staat. Wanneer die staat faal en nie meer sy burgers beskerm nie, verander die situasie. Dan raak eierigting nodig.

Willie Spies skryf sedert 2016 – die jaar van Fees Must Fall in Suid-Afrika en die verkiesing van Donald Trump in die VSA – rubrieke vir Beeld en Netwerk 24.

Die rubrieke ontgin die stand van die makro-omgewing van verval van die staat waarin Suid-Afrikaners hulle bevind gedurende die jare van staatskaping, die einde van die Zuma-bewind, die EFF, die einde van Afrikaans in die universiteitswese, die era van Rama-forie, die COVID-pandemie en gepaardgaande wêreld gebeure in historiese konteks.

Dit keer telkens terug na die mikro-werklikheid van eie menswees, geloof, hartseer, eensaamheid, verlies, ouer-word en vergifnis.

Dit ondersoek ’n nuwe vryheidsideaal, 30 jaar na die verkiesing van 27 April 1994 en beskryf hoe eierigting regmatig deur instellings van die burgerlike samelewing plaasvind wat leemtes vul wat die staat ooplaat.

The brilliant autobiography from the ‘saviour of Nike’

If you’re a sneaker head, you know him as the Savior of Nike. If you’ve watched Air you saw Matt Damon’s portrayal of the man who discovered Michael Jordan and how he revolutionized the payment structure of endorsements for athletes. Legends and Soles tells Sonny’s story – his blind-sided firing by Nike Chairman Phil Knight, the landmark 2021 Supreme Court decision that upended big-time college sports, the countless days and nights of watching athletes compete, and so much more that only Sonny can retell.

Written in collaboration with six-time New York Times bestselling author Armen Keteyian, Legends and Soles provides truth to storylines and headlines including:

· Vaccaro’s pivotal role in the never-before-told story of the courting and signing of Michael Jordan
· How Nike, at the behest of an embittered Knight, went as far as having the Portland FBI investigate Vaccaro who was working for archival Adidas on a RICO charge of corporate espionage
· His close relationships with NBA superstars Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Kevin Garnett and Tracy McGrady and Hall of Fame coaches Jerry Tarkanian of UNLV and John Thompson of Georgetown
· The high stakes drama behind the O’Bannon lawsuit that changed the entire landscape in college sports
· Filled with in-depth stories and photos illuminating some of Sonny’s most treasured career memories, Legends and Soles is the long-awaited memoir of a giant in the story of American sports.

From his humble beginnings in a quaint Welsh mining village to the dazzling lights of Hollywood, much-loved star, Luke Evans takes us on a poignant and inspiring journey that spans from the heart of Wales to behind the scenes of the global stage.

Growing up in a small village in the Rhymney Valley, south Wales, Luke Evans’' early life was shaped by his Jehovah's Witness upbringing. While most children of his age spent their Saturday mornings watching Going Live on television, young Luke would dress in a suit and tie and join his parents to knock on doors to spread the word of his religion. From an early age, he felt different. This feeling of displacement was not limited to his faith; as he came to terms with his own sexuality, he also faced a difficult and uncertain path. In his poignant, tender and often humorous account, Luke shares his bold decision to leave home – and the religion – at seventeen to move to London, where the vibrant Soho scene captured his heart, invigorated his creative journey as an actor and opened a whole new world of opportunity.

In finding himself, Luke also discovered his passions of singing, acting and performing. Starring first on the West End stages in iconic productions like Miss Saigon, Avenue Q and Rent, he quickly captivated the hearts of audiences and caught the eye of Hollywood's elite, going on to secure roles in blockbuster films such as The Hobbit, Beauty and the Beast, Fast and Furious and Dracula Untold.

In this intimate memoir, Luke takes us behind the scenes of his career on the stage and screen. He writes beautifully of the relationship he now has with his family and the respect they all have for one another on their different paths. Luke's story is a powerful tale of resilience, courage, and the pursuit of finding a sense of belonging and identity, but mostly (and hopefully) a story of inspiration.

George Michael was an extravagantly gifted, openhearted soul singer whose work was both pained and smolderingly erotic. He was a songwriter of true craft and substance, and his music swept the world, starting in the mid-1980s. His fabricated image―that of a hypermacho sex god―loomed large in the pop culture of his day. It also hid―for a time―the secret he fought against revealing: Michael was gay.

Soon his obsession with fame would start to backfire. As one of the industry’s most privileged yet tortured men began to self-destruct, the press showed little sympathy. George Michael: A Life explores the compelling story of a superstar whose struggles, as well as his songs, continue to touch fans all over the world.

Acclaimed music biographer James Gavin traces Michael’s metamorphosis from the shy and awkward Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou into the swaggering, dominant half of the leading British pop duo of the 1980s Wham! He then details Michael’s sensational solo career and its subsequent unraveling. With deep analysis of the creative process behind Michael’s albums, tours, and music videos, as well as interviews with hundreds of his friends and colleagues, George Michael: A Life is a probing, definitive portrait of a pop legend.