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Books > Biography
Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon's political partnership changed
the face of Scotland, bringing the country to within 200,000 votes
of independence and holding sway at Holyrood for more than a
decade. So how and why has their thirty-year alliance irretrievably
broken down? Break-Up tells the inside story of how the once
unbreakable unity of the Scottish National Party was ripped apart
amid shocking claims of sexual assault. With unrivalled access to
both camps and the women who made the allegations, and with
rigorously fair-minded reporting, journalists David Clegg and
Kieran Andrews go behind the headlines to uncover the truth about
this extraordinary episode, in a piece of political history that
reads like a thriller. Now fully updated, this is a jaw-dropping
tale of inappropriate behaviour in the highest reaches of power, of
lies, distrust and alleged conspiracy, with profound implications
not only for Salmond and Sturgeon themselves but for Scotland's
governing party and the wider independence campaign.
Is he Jumpin' Jack Flash? A Street Fighting Man? A Man of Wealth
and Taste? All this, it turns out, and far more. By any definition,
Mick Jagger is a force of nature, a complete original--and
undeniably one of the dominant cultural figures of our time.
Swaggering, strutting, sometimes elusive, always spellbinding, he
grabbed us by our collective throat a half-century ago and--unlike
so many of his gifted peers--never let go. For decades, Mick has
jealously guarded his many shocking secrets--until now. As the
Rolling Stones mark their 50th anniversary, #1 New York Times
bestselling author Christopher Andersen tears the mask from rock's
most complex and enigmatic icon in a no-holds-barred biography as
impossible to ignore as Jagger himself.
Roy lost his first leg at six years of age and his second leg at
twenty-one. He had little schooling and walked with artificial
legs, refusing to use a wheelchair until he was forty-six. As told
through conversations with Richard Dunn, the reader gets to know
Roy's fulfilled and incredible life-story and how he has, over the
years, helped those less fortunate than himself.
Best known for the hit musicals West Side Story and Gypsy, Arthur
Laurents began his career writing socially minded plays such as
Home of the Brave and Time of the Cuckoo. He also garnered
impressive credits as a screenwriter (The Way We Were) and stage
director (La Cage aux Folles). Such a varied professional life
makes for absorbing reading, as unleashed in his lively 2000
autobiography, Original Story By. Laurents passed away early in
2011, but not before writing The Rest of the Story, in which he
revealed all that had happened in his life since Original Story By,
filled with the wisdom he gained in growing older and a new
perspective brought on by Laurents' experience of deep personal
loss, including the death of his longtime companion, Tom Hatcher.
Laurents' style remains engrossing and brutally honest. His voice
is still highly intelligent, loving, generous, and gracious. He
remained committed to his artistic vision to the very end, as
captured in the epilogue, which he completed only days before his
death. The book ends with a loving and insightful coda by Laurents'
good friend and the editor of this book, David Saint.
The shocking true story of Allison Moore, a cop in Hawaii who
became addicted to meth, deceived her entire police department, and
endured prison, prostitution, and torture--until finally seeking
redemption.
As a beautiful, ambitious, and fearless young woman, Allison Moore
had everything going for her: She had been the star student of her
recruit class, was quickly promoted to vice cop at the Maui Police
Department, and gained the respect of her colleagues and a stellar
reputation. Her future couldn't have been brighter. But when a
doomed love affair with another cop led Allison to seek escape in
crystal meth, she suddenly found her whole life turned around.
Using her position of authority and skill of manipulation, Allison
hid her addiction to methamphetamines from her lover and her
department for as long as possible. She fabricated an elaborate
story that she had ovarian cancer and needed to seek treatment on
the mainland, while actually escaping to get a steady supply of
meth through a brutal Seattle drug dealer. Allison's friends and
colleagues donated their sick leave to her and organized
fundraisers for her fictitious cancer treatment. Meanwhile,
Allison's dependence on meth put her at the mercy of a ruthless
drug lord, who made her a virtual prisoner in his house, beating,
raping, and torturing her repeatedly.
Allison was able to escape with the help of her mother, but just as
the nightmare seemed to be fading and she got sober in rehab, she
was extradited to Maui to face twenty-five felony charges filed by
her own department. After a trial, she was sentenced to and served
one year in the Federal Detention Center in Honolulu.
Astounding, gripping, and told firsthand in a deeply sympathetic
voice, "Shards" spares no detail of Allison's horrific experiences
and the web of addiction and betrayal that cost her everything--a
career she loved, the colleagues who adored her, and the island
that was once her paradise.
Ben Viljoen sal in die eerste plek onthou word as die
Boeregeneraal, die oorwinnaar in die Slag van Vaalkrans en, danksy
FW Reitz se bekende gedig, die veroweraar van die Lady Roberts.
Viljoen was flambojant van geaardheid, romanties, ’n sterk leier,
behulpsaam en lojaal. Gedurende die Anglo-Boereoorlog word hy
bevorder van kommandant tot assistent-kommandant-generaal. Sy
individualisme het hom egter verhinder om effektief in ’n groter
georganiseerde eenheid te funksioneel. Hy verkies om sy eie kop te
volg en sy besluite was dikwels omstrede. Kort voor die einde van
die oorlog word hy krygsgevange geneem en na St. Helena verban. Na
die oorlog vestig hy hom in Nieu-Mexiko in die VSA en Mexiko en
word daar militere raadgewer van die Mexikaanse president.
Seasons come and go, but Wynter seemed to leave too soon. When
Jonathan Pitts took his wife of 15 years into his arms for their
anniversary dance, he had no idea that within a month he would be
on a completely different journey, navigating life after Wynter's
sudden death at the age of 38. One moment he was married to a
successful author and magazine publisher, and putting the finishing
touches on their book about marriage. The next he was a widower and
a single father of four grieving daughters. Without warning, the
future his family had planned together dissolved, leaving Jonathan
trying to answer the question that echoed through his daughters'
hearts and his own: How could a loving God allow this unspeakable
loss? My Wynter Season is Jonathan's story of losing the most
wonderful gift he had ever been given and his journey toward
understanding life without her. Yet in the wilderness of his grief,
Jonathan found himself surrounded by God's extravagant love, and
came to truly understand Christ's life-giving promise that death is
not the end.
Priscilla: The Hidden Life of an Englishwoman in Wartime France
by Nicholas Shakespeare is a transcendent work of narrative
nonfiction in the vein of The Hare with Amber Eyes.
When Nicholas Shakespeare stumbled across a trunk full of his
late aunt's personal belongings, he was unaware of where this
discovery would take him and what he would learn about her hidden
past. The glamorous, mysterious figure he remembered from his
childhood was very different from the morally ambiguous young woman
who emerged from the trove of love letters, journals and
photographs, surrounded by suitors and living the precarious
existence of a British citizen in a country controlled by the enemy
during World War II.
As a young boy, Shakespeare had always believed that his aunt
was a member of the Resistance and had been tortured by the
Germans. The truth turned out to be far more complicated.
Piecing together fragments of his aunt's remarkable and tragic
story, Priscilla is at once a stunning story of detection, a loving
portrait of a flawed woman trying to survive in terrible times, and
a spellbinding slice of history.
A hilarious, poignant memoir from comedian Todd Glass about his
decision at age forty-eight to finally live openly as a gay
man--and the reactions and support from his comedy pals, from Louis
CK to Sarah Silverman.
Growing up in a Philadelphia suburb in the 1970s was an easy life.
Well, easy as long as you didn't have dyslexia or ADD, or were a
Jew. And once you added gay into the mix, life became more
difficult. So Todd Glass decided to hide the gay part, no matter
how comic, tragic, or comically tragic the results.
It might have been a lot easier had he chosen a profession other
than stand-up comedy. By age eighteen, Todd was opening for big
musical acts like George Jones and Patti LaBelle. His career
carried him through the Los Angeles comedy heyday in the 1980s, its
decline in the 1990s, and its rebirth via the alternative comedy
scene and the explosion in podcasting. But the harder he worked at
his craft, the more difficult it became to manage his "situation."
There were the years of abstinence and half-hearted attempts to
"cure" himself. The fake girlfriends so that he could tell
relationship jokes onstage. The staged sexual encounters to burnish
his reputation offstage. It took a brush with death to cause him to
rethink the way he was living his life; a rash of suicides among
gay teens to convince him that it was finally time to come out to
the world.
Now, Todd has written an open, honest, and hilarious memoir in an
effort to help everyone--young and old, gay and straight--breathe a
little more freely. Peppered with anecdotes from his life among
comedy's greatest headliners and tales of the occasionally insane
lengths Todd went through to keep a secret that--let's face it--he
probably didn't have to keep for as long as he did, "The Todd Glass
Situation" is a front-row seat to the last thirty plus years of
comedy history and a deeply personal story about one man's search
for acceptance.
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The Wretched of the Earth
(Paperback)
Frantz Fanon; Introduction by Cornel West; Translated by Richard Philcox; Foreword by Homi K. Bhabha; Preface by Jean-Paul Sartre
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R465
R377
Discovery Miles 3 770
Save R88 (19%)
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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The sixtieth anniversary edition of Frantz Fanon's landmark text,
now with a new introduction by Cornel WestFirst published in 1961,
and reissued in this sixtieth anniversary edition with a powerful
new introduction by Cornel West, Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the
Earth is a masterfuland timeless interrogation of race,
colonialism, psychological trauma, and revolutionary struggle, and
a continuing influence on movements from Black Lives Matter to
decolonization. A landmark text for revolutionaries and activists,
The Wretched of the Earth is an eternal touchstone for civil
rights, anti-colonialism, psychiatric studies, and Black
consciousness movements around the world. Alongside Cornel West's
introduction, the book features critical essays by Jean-Paul Sartre
and Homi K. Bhabha. This sixtieth anniversary edition of Fanon's
most famous text stands proudly alongside such pillars of
anti-colonialism and anti-racism as Edward Said's Orientalism and
The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
Scratching the Surface: Adventures in Storytelling is a deeply
personal and intimate memoir told through the lens of Harvey
Ovshinsky's lifetime of adventures as an urban enthusiast. He was
only seventeen when he started The Fifth Estate, one of the
country's oldest underground newspapers. Five years later, he
became one of the country's youngest news directors in commercial
radio at WABX-FM, Detroit's notorious progressive rock station.
Both jobs placed Ovshinsky directly in the bullseye of the nation's
tumultuous counterculture of the 1960s and 70s. When he became a
documentary director, Ovshinsky's dispatches from his hometown were
awarded broadcasting's highest honors, including a national Emmy, a
Peabody, and the American Film Institute's Robert M. Bennett Award
for Excellence. But this memoir is more than a boastful trip down
memory lane. It also doubles as a survival guide and an instruction
manual that speaks not only to the nature of and need for
storytelling but also and equally important, the pivotal role the
twin powers of endurance and resilience play in the creative
process. You don't have to be a writer, an artist, or even
especially creative to take the plunge, Ovshinsky reminds his
readers. ""You just have to feel strongly about something or have
something you need to get off your chest. And then find the courage
to scratch your own surface and share your good stuff with
others."" Above all, Ovshinsky is an educator, known for his
passionate support of and commitment to mentoring the next
generation of urban storytellers. When he wasn't teaching
screenwriting and documentary production in his popular workshops
and support groups, he taught undergraduate and graduate students
at Detroit's College for Creative Studies, Wayne State University,
Madonna University, and Washtenaw Community College. ""The thing
about Harvey,"" a colleague recalls in Scratching the Surface, ""is
that he treats his students like professionals and not like newbies
at all. His approach is to, in a very supportive and
non-threatening way, combine both introductory and advanced
storytelling in one fell swoop.
FINALIST FOR THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTION A landmark
biography by two prizewinning Washington Post reporters that
reveals how systemic racism shaped George Floyd's life and
legacy-from his family's roots in the tobacco fields of North
Carolina, to ongoing inequality in housing, education, health care,
criminal justice, and policing-telling the story of how one man's
tragic experience brought about a global movement for change. "It
is a testament to the power of His Name Is George Floyd that the
book's most vital moments come not after Floyd's death, but in its
intimate, unvarnished and scrupulous account of his life . . .
Impressive." -New York Times Book Review "Since we know George
Floyd's death with tragic clarity, we must know Floyd's America-and
life-with tragic clarity. Essential for our times." -Ibram X.
Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist "A much-needed portrait of
the life, times, and martyrdom of George Floyd, a chronicle of the
racial awakening sparked by his brutal and untimely death, and an
essential work of history I hope everyone will read." -Henry Louis
Gates, Jr., author of The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is
Our Song The events of that day are now tragically familiar: on May
25, 2020, George Floyd became the latest Black person to die at the
hands of the police, murdered outside of a Minneapolis convenience
store by white officer Derek Chauvin. The video recording of his
death set off the largest protest movement in the history of the
United States, awakening millions to the pervasiveness of racial
injustice. But long before his face was painted onto countless
murals and his name became synonymous with civil rights, Floyd was
a father, partner, athlete, and friend who constantly strove for a
better life. His Name Is George Floyd tells the story of a beloved
figure from Houston's housing projects as he faced the stifling
systemic pressures that come with being a Black man in America.
Placing his narrative within the context of the country's enduring
legacy of institutional racism, this deeply reported account
examines Floyd's family roots in slavery and sharecropping, the
segregation of his schools, the overpolicing of his community amid
a wave of mass incarceration, and the callous disregard toward his
struggle with addiction-putting today's inequality into uniquely
human terms. Drawing upon hundreds of interviews with Floyd's
closest friends and family, his elementary school teachers and
varsity coaches, civil rights icons, and those in the highest seats
of political power, Washington Post reporters Robert Samuels and
Toluse Olorunnipa offer a poignant and moving exploration of George
Floyd's America, revealing how a man who simply wanted to breathe
ended up touching the world.
A TRUE STORY OF FINDING THE AMERICAN DREAM . . . ABROAD
India is a country with more than one billion people, a fanatical
national cricket obsession, and exactly zero talent scouts. There,
superstar sports agent J. B. Bernstein knew that he could find the
Yao Ming of baseball-- someone with a strong arm and enough raw
talent to pitch in the major leagues. Almost no one in India is
familiar with the game, but Bernstein had heard enough coaches
swear that if you gave them a guy who throws a hundred miles an
hour, they could teach him how to pitch. So in 2007, Bernstein flew
to Mumbai with a radar gun and a plan to find his diamond in the
rough. His idea was "The Million Dollar Arm," a reality television
competition with a huge cash prize and a chance to become the first
native of India to sign a contract with an American major-league
team.
The result is a humorous and inspiring story about three guys
transformed: Bernstein, the consummate bachelor and shrewd
businessman, and Dinesh and Rinku, the two young men from small
farming villages whom he brought home to California. "Million
Dollar Arm" is a timeless reflection on baseball and the American
dream, as well as a tale of victory over incredible odds. But,
above all, it's about the limitless possibilities inside every one
of us.
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Spare
(Hardcover)
Prince Harry The Duke Of Sussex
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R849
R665
Discovery Miles 6 650
Save R184 (22%)
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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This autobiography by Leanne Benjamin with Sarah Crompton reveals
the extraordinary life and career of one of the worlds most
important ballet dancers of the past fifty years. The book takes
you behind the scenes to find a real understanding of the pleasure
and the pain, the demands and the intense commitment it requires to
become a ballet dancer. It is a book for ballet-lovers which will
explain from Benjamins personal point of view, how ballet has
changed and is changing. It is a book of history: she was first
taught by the people who created ballet in its modern form and now
she works with the dancers of today, handing on all she has known
and learnt. But it is also a book for people who are just
interested in the psychology of achievement, how you go from being
a child in small-town Rockhampton in the centre of Australia to
being a power on the worlds biggest stages -- and how an individual
copes with the ups and downs of that kind of career. It is a story
full of big names and big personalities -- Margot Fonteyn, Kenneth
MacMillan, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Darcey Bussell, Carlos Acosta to
name a few. President Clinton, Michelle Obama, Diana Princess of
Wales and David Beckham all make an appearance. But it is also a
book of small moments of insight: what makes a performance special,
how you recover from injury, illness and childbirth; how you
combine athletic and artistic prowess with motherhood, how a
different partner can alter everything, what it is like to fall
over in front of thousands of people and what it is like to
triumph. Above all, it seeks to explain, in warm and human terms,
why women get the reputation for being difficult in a world where
being a good girl is too much prized. And what they can do about
it.
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Quite
(Paperback)
Claudia Winkleman
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R255
Discovery Miles 2 550
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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'A delight' Stylist 'Funny, real and caring' YOU Magazine 'Funny,
irreverent and moving... everything you would expect from the
thick-fringed presenter who's won a place in the nation's hearts'
The Sun 'Full of hilarious insights' Vanity Fair A SUNDAY TIMES
BESTSELLER Funny, moving and truthful... Quite Claudia Winkleman's
warmth, humour, no-holds-barred attitude and smoky eye have made
her the favourite broadcaster of millions and a much-loved
household name. In this, her first ever book, Claudia invites us
all into her world. She shares her observations on topics such as
the importance of melted cheese, why black coats are vital, how
it's never okay to have sex with someone who has an opinion on your
date outfit, how nurses are our most precious national treasure,
and why colourful clothing is only for the under 10s (if you're
reading this sporting a bright red jumper and you're 9, great! If
you're older, sorry). This is a love letter to life - the real,
sometimes messy kind. Quite celebrates friendship, the power of
art, the highs and lows of parenting, and of course, how a good
eyeliner can really save your life. Heartfelt, wry and unmistakably
Claudia, this book gets to the heart of what really matters.
Claudia Winkleman's Quite was a No.1 Sunday Times bestseller w/c
27th December 2020.
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