Director of over forty-five movies, playwright, writer, actor, and jazz clarinetist, Woody Allen is one of the great artistic polymaths of our time. From Sleeper through Annie Hall and on to Midnight in Paris, his films embody a sensibility that's unmistakably his. In this first biography of Allen in over a decade, David Evanier discusses key movies and Allen's scandalous romantic entanglements.

Evanier has spoken to artistic collaborators, family, and friends, including Allen's first wife, Harlene Rosen, who hasn't commented about Allen since the end of their marriage in the 1960s. Often romantically involved with actresses he also directed, including Diane Keaton and Mia Farrow. Allen keeps a very private life while pursuing the most public of careers. His affair with Farrow's daughter Soon-Yi turned into a lasting marriage, but he continues to make headlines for his unconventional, some say criminal relationship with Farrow's other children. Evanier reports, untangling fact from public censure and connecting events to Allen's movies, his fascination with moral parsing, and his unquestioned sexual relationships with young women. Evanier's biography tackles the themes that Allen has spent a lifetime sorting through in art: morality, sexuality, Judaism, the eternal struggle of head and heart.

Woody will be the definitive word on a major American talent as he begins his ninth decade, and his sixth decade of making movies.

Albert Luthuli was the first African to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Let My People Go is as much his extraordinary story as that of the African National Congress which he led for 15 years.

He gives a first-hand account of the repression and resistance that were to shape the South African political landscape forever: the Defiance Campaign, which marked the first mass challenge to apartheid, the drafting of the Freedom Charter, the 1957 Treason Trial, the Alexandra bus boycott and the 1959 potato boycott, as well as the tragedies of Sharpeville, Langa and Nyanga.

Let My People Go bears witness to Luthuli's unfailing humility, perseverance, and passionate commitment to the values of non-racialism and non-sexism. His vision, crucial to the shaping of the South Africa we live in today, continues to move and inspire.

Lady Gaga is a once-in-a-decade artist, and the rare instant celebrity whose appearance can become a cultural event. No other music star of the last decade combines the talents Lady Gaga possesses: she’s a genuine singer, composer, songwriter, designer, and performance artist, who uses technology and social media to shape her art and career. In the space of fifteen months, she has become a demographic-smashing pop icon with global reach and impact.

Not since Madonna’s breakout success in the mid-eighties has the world witnessed the advent of a pop-culture provocateur who mixes high-and-low culture, the avant-garde with the accessible, “downtown” authenticity with the sheen of glamorous artifice. She has quickly formed a symbiotic relationship with her rabid fan base who have taken to dressing as she does, imitating her hair and make-up in tribute. Gaga, too, is a cultural shape-shifter, allowing her fans to project their needs, wants, confusions, and desires onto her.

This is a must-read for Gaga fans, who, devoted as they are, know next to nothing about who she is and how she got that way, as well as for anyone who has heard Lady Gaga on television and the radio and is curious about America’s latest over-the-top cultural success story.

Good Morning, Mr Mandela tells the extraordinary story of how Zelda la Grange’s life, beliefs and prejudices were transformed by the greatest statesman of our time.

It is the incredible journey of an awkward, terrified young typist in her twenties who was chosen to become Nelson Mandela’s most loyal servant, spending the greater part of her adult working life travelling with and caring for the man she would come to call ‘Khulu’.

This is a book about love and second chances. It will touch your life and make you believe that every one of us, no matter who we are or what we have done, has the power to change.

Each of us has a place to return to in our minds, a place of clarity and peace, a place to think, to create, to dream. For Bryce Courtenay this place was a waterhole in Africa where he used to escape to as a boy, in search of solitude. One evening, while lingering there, he witnessed the tallest of the great beasts drinking from the waterhole in the moonlight, and was spellbound. Ever since, he drew inspiration from this moment.

The Silver Moon gathers together some of the most personal and sustaining life lessons from Australia's favourite storyteller. In short stories and insights, many written in his final months, Bryce reflects on living and dying, and how through determination, respect for others and taking pleasure in small moments of joy, he lived life to the fullest.

From practical advice on how to write a bestseller to inspiration on how to realise your dreams, The Silver Moon celebrates Bryce Courtenay's lifelong passion for storytelling, language and the creative process, and brings us closer to the man behind the bestsellers.

In the first half of the nineteenth century, Southern Africa was a jumble of British colonies, Boer republics and African chiefdoms, a troublesome region of little interest to the outside world. Into this frontier world came the Reitz family, Afrikaner gentry from the Cape, who settled in Bloemfontein and played a key role in the building of the Orange Free State.

Frank Reitz, successively chief justice and modernising president of the young republic, went on to serve as State Secretary of the Transvaal Republic. In 1899, he stood shoulder to shoulder with President Paul Kruger to resist Britain’s war of conquest in Southern Africa. At the heart of this tale is the extraordinary life of Deneys Reitz, third son of Frank Reitz and Bianca Thesen. The young Reitz’s account of his adventures in the field during the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902), published as Commando, became a classic of irregular warfare. After a period of exile in Madagascar, he went on become one of South Africa’s most distinguished lawyers, statesmen and soldiers. Martin Meredith interweaves Reitz’s experiences, taken from his unpublished notebooks, with the wider story of Britain’s brutal suppression of Boer resistance.

Concise and readable, Afrikaner Odyssey is a wide-ranging portrait of an aristocratic Afrikaner family whose achievements run like fine thread through these turbulent times, and whose presence is still marked on the South African landscape.

Nelson Mandela is one of the most inspiring and iconic figures of our age. Now, after a lifetime of taking pen to paper to record thoughts and events, hardships and victories, he has opened his personal archive, which offers an unprecedented insight into his remarkable life.

From letters written in the darkest hours of his twenty-seven years of imprisonment to the draft of an unfinished sequel to Long Walk to Freedom, Conversations With Myself gives readers access to the private man behind the public figure.

Here he is making notes and even doodling during meetings, or recording troubled dreams on the desk calendar of his cell on Robben Island; writing journals while on the run during the anti-apartheid struggles of the early 1960s, or conversing with friends in almost seventy hours of recorded conversations. Here he is neither an icon nor a saint; here he is like you and me.

An intimate journey from the first stirrings of his political conscience to his galvanizing role on the world stage, Conversations With Myself is a rare chance to spend time with Nelson Mandela the man, in his own voice: direct, clear, private.

Sir Alex Ferguson's compelling story is always honest and revealing he reflects on his managerial career that embraced unprecedented European success for Aberdeen and 26 triumphant seasons with Manchester United.

Sir Alex Ferguson's best-selling autobiography has now been updated to offer reflections on events at Manchester United since his retirement as well as his teachings at the Harvard Business School, a night at the Oscars and a boat tour round the Hebrides, where he passed unrecognised.

The extra material adds fresh insights and detail on his final years as United's manager.

Both the psychology of management and the detail of football strategy at the top level can be complex matters but no-one has explained them in a more interesting and accessible way for the general reader than Sir Alex does here.

My Autobiography is revealing, endlessly entertaining and above all inspirational.

Two months into a planned solo source-to-sea navigation of the Amazon River, adventure Davey du Plessis was ambushed and shot within the isolated jungles of Peru.

The adventure turned into an intense moment-to-moment struggle to survive as he made his way, wounded, through the dense jungle, seeking rescue and safety.

Choosing To Live is Davey's personal account of his Amazon experience. He retells the remarkable story with an endearing openness, while sharing unique insights into the power of compassion and his ability to maintain motivation in his balance between life and death.

Shirley, Goodness & Mercy is a heart-warming, yet compellingly honest story about a young boy growing up in the coloured townships of Newclare, Coronationville and Riverlea during the apartheid era.

Despite Van Wyk’s later becoming involved in the struggle, this is not a book about racial politics. Instead, it is a delightful account of one boy’s special relationship with the relatives, friends and neighbours who made up his community, and of the important coping role laughter and humour played during the years he spent in bleak and dusty townships.

In Shirley, Goodness & Mercy Chris van Wyk – poet, novelist and short story writer – has created a truly remarkable work, at once both thought-provoking and vastly entertaining.

Tutu: The Authorised Portrait is a celebration of eighty years of the life of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, an icon whose humanity and compassion have touched the lives of millions around the world.

Born in Klerksdorp, South Africa, and trained as a teacher because his family could not afford to send him to medical school, Desmond Tutu was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1960. He vigorously opposed apartheid and has dedicated his life to fighting all forms of oppression, advocating non-violence, peaceful reconciliation and social justice for all.

This extraordinary book features a biography by legendary South African journalist Allister Sparks, authorised by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and includes over forty interviews conducted by Tutu's daughter Reverend Mpho Tutu with close family, friends, colleagues, comrades and critics.

Complemented by an unprecedented collection of images and unpublished artefacts drawn from Tutu's private files, this is a phenomenal story of one man's life-long commitment to the liberation of the oppressed. Includes interviews with Kofi Annan, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and President Barack Obama.

This is the story of a Kavango tracker who served for six years with Koevoet ('Crowbar'), the elite South African Police anti-terrorist unit, during the South West African -Angolan bush war of the '80s. Most white team leaders lasted only two years; the black trackers walked the track for years. Sisingi Kamongo tells the story of the 50 or so firefighters he was involved in; he survived five anti-personnel mine and POMZ explosions and an RPG rocket on his Casspir APC vehicle; he was wounded three times; he tells of the trackers looking for shadows on the ground, facing ambush and AP mines at every turn; he tells of the art of tracking...where dust can tell time. Kamongo's story is supported by two accounts from renowned Koevoet team leaders, Herman Grobler and Francois du Toit- a powerful collection of experiences from South Africa's most successful counter-insurgency unit. The first-ever account of the bush war by a non-white member of the South African security forces. A unique, previously untold perspective of the bush war, by an on-the-ground tracker. A powerful, harrowing read; the tension is palpable.

Posterity has not been kind to Douglas Haig, the commander of the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front for much of the First World War. Haig has frequently been presented as a commander who sent his troops to slaughter in vast numbers at the Somme in 1916 and at Passchendaele the following year. The Good Soldier re-examines Haig's record in these battles and presents his predicament with a fresh eye. More importantly, it re-evaluates Haig himself, exploring the nature of the man, turning to both his early life and army career before 1914, as well as his unstinting work on behalf of ex-servicemen's organizations after 1918. Finally, in this definitive biography, the man emerges from the myth.

Coach: The Life And Soccer Times Of Clive Barker is the insightful biography of Clive Barker, South Africa’s longest-serving national football coach and arguably the most successful following Bafana Bafana’s win in 1996 at the CAF Africa Cup of Nations. With the help of writer Michael Marnewick, Barker reveals himself as a modest man, a dedicated husband and father, and a force to be reckoned with in the football fraternity, both in Mzansi and in the rest of the continent.

Coach examines Barker’s life from his pre-coaching days and how he avoided bankruptcy by driving taxis, to his early coaching jobs at amateur level, into the professional ranks with Durban City, then Bush Bucks, to AmaZulu and ultimately to the position as national coach. Delving back into his early pre-coaching days, the book gives the reader a glimpse of the man himself, while anecdotes from former players, at both club and international level, provide an in-depth but entertaining look into his coaching style and ability. In-between the book explores the politics of the time, including Clive’s opposition to apartheid; his take on witchcraft practices in local football; the success at the 1996 Africa Cup of Nations; and the positive and powerful influence of Nelson Mandela, the national football team’s talisman.

Barker’s journey wasn’t always smooth sailing and he had his detractors who felt he was too chummy with his players, who felt he was not technically savvy or tactical enough, or who disagreed with his relaxed but focused methods, which were proven over and again to yield results. What comes across so clearly in this book is the love and respect Barker had for his players and that they, in turn, had for him. He treated them as adults and they never faltered in their desire to please him, although Mark Fish may have crossed the line a few times.

Piet Matipa is jonk, swart, gay en Afrikaans. Sy rubrieke in Beeld is baie gewild omdat dit aan ’n sonderlinge lewensuitkyk uitdrukking gee. Hy praat vanuit ’n perspektief wat jy nie sommer in Suid-Afrika kry nie. Sy siening van die wêreld is gevorm deur interessante bestemmings waar sy lewenspad aangedoen het. As skolier aan Hoërskool Waterkloof en student aan die Pukke het Piet uitgeblink. Sy skryftande is geslyp as joernalis in Beeld se misdaadkantoor en as sepieskrywer vir 7de Laan , waar hy steeds werksaam is. Nie sleg vir iemand wat in ’n kinderhuis grootgeword het nie!

Afrikaans het sy lê op ’n unieke manier in Piet se mond gekry. En vir één ding deins hy nie terug nie: dit is om sy mond verby te praat. In Dwarsklap laat Piet hom uit oor aangeleenthede wat alle Suid-Afrikaners raak. Misdaad en taxi-bestuurders is groot klippe in die skoen. Wenke oor gewigsverlies word gegee, en ook hoe om ’n ontkleedanser by ’n henneparty te kry. En oor liefdesavonture kan jy vir Piet min vertel, veral wanneer sosiale media betrokke is.

’n Hoogs vermaaklike boek wat die donkerte van die lewe in ligte skakerings laat glim.

On bended knee, he leaned over the stricken boxer and counted him out. When he waved the fight over, there was exactly one second to go in the dramatic and brutal world championship bout and Víctor Galíndez had retained his title. But the referee, his shirt stained with the champion’s blood, had cemented his reputation as a cool professional, one destined to become an esteemed figure in world boxing.

South Africa’s own Stanley Christodoulou has officiated an unprecedented 242 world title fights over five decades, some of them among the most iconic in boxing history, and became his nation’s very first inductee into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. He rose from humble beginnings, learning his trade in the South African townships of the 1960s, and went on to lead his national boxing board as it sought to shed the racial restrictions of the apartheid era. It was a contribution to his country’s sporting landscape that saw him recognised by the president of the ‘new’ South Africa, Nelson Mandela.

The Life and Times of Stanley Christodoulou is Stanley’s memoir in boxing. It takes the reader to a privileged position, inside the ropes with champions and into the company of boxing legends.

Frank Rautenbach left South Africa for Los Angeles with stars in his eyes. After having great success with Egoli, 7de laan and movies like Faith like Potatoes and The Bang-Bang Club he thought the world was his oyster.

After years of trying and driving more than 10 000 kilometres to one failed audition after the other Frank had to find a job - a proper job that could put food on his table. He ended up driving a taxi in Los Angeles, just to lose that job too.

Eventually became the church's janitor.

But Frank felt betrayed - God promised him a life of abundance - why hasn't he received it yet? Frank felt like all God’s promises had come to nothing; he felt angry and embarrassed.

Frank had to learn that he couldn't ask God to make all this dreams come true, he is in God's service, not the other way around. Life is not about him, it is about God.

In 2011, Tim Cook took on an impossible task - following in the footsteps of one of history's greatest business visionaries, Steve Jobs. Facing worldwide scrutiny, Cook (who was often described as shy, unassuming and unimaginative) defied all expectations. Under Cook's leadership Apple has soared: its stock has nearly tripled to become the world's first trillion-dollar company. From the massive growth of the iPhone to new victories like the Apple Watch, Cook is leading Apple to a new era of success.

But he's also spearheaded a cultural revolution within the company. Since becoming CEO, Cook has introduced a new style of management that emphasizes kindness, collaboration and honesty, and has quietly pushed Apple to support sexual and racial equal rights and invest heavily in renewable energy.

Drawing on authorized access with several Apple insiders, Kahney, the world's leading reporter on Apple, tells the inspiring story of how one man attempted to replace the irreplaceable and succeeded better than anyone thought possible.

Leander Kahney has covered Apple for more than a dozen years and has written four popular books about Apple and the culture of its followers, including Inside Steve's Brain and Jony Ive. The former news editor for Wired.com, he is currently the editor and publisher of CultofMac.com. He lives in San Francisco.

THE NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE, STARRING STEVE CARELL AND TIMOTHEE CHALAMET.

"What had happened to my beautiful boy? To our family? What did I do wrong?" - Those are the wrenching questions that haunted every moment of David Sheff's journey through his son Nic's addiction to drugs and tentative steps toward recovery. Before Nic Sheff became addicted to crystal meth, he was a charming boy, joyous and funny, a varsity athlete and honor student adored by his two younger siblings. After meth, he was a trembling wraith who lied, stole, and lived on the streets.

With haunting candour, David Sheff traces the first subtle warning signs: the denial, the 3am phone calls (is it Nic? the police? the hospital?), the attempts at rehab. His preoccupation with Nic became an addiction in itself, and the obsessive worry and stress took a tremendous toll. But as a journalist, he instinctively researched every avenue of treatment that might save his son and refused to give up on Nic. This story is a first: a teenager's addiction from the parent's point of view - a real-time chronicle of the shocking descent into substance abuse and the gradual emergence into hope.

Beautiful Boy is a fiercely candid memoir that brings immediacy to the emotional rollercoaster of loving a child who seems beyond help.

South Africans of all races remember the moment when Neil Tovey raised the Africa Cup of Nations trophy in 1996, with Nelson Mandela at his side wearing his number 9 jersey. It still represents South Africa’s greatest success in international football.

In his long-awaited autobiography, Tovey tells his fascinating life story, describing his modest upbringing in Durban, his entry into a mainly black sport in a deeply segregated 1980s South Africa, and his time as captain of Kaizer Chiefs and Bafana Bafana. He recalls his introduction to ‘muti’ rituals by team members and his growing popularity among Chiefs supporters, who nicknamed him Mokoko (boss chicken). Tovey also writes about his experiences as a coach and as technical director of the South African Football Association (SAFA), and shares his insights about the state of the sport today. He talks frankly about his family life and about surviving two heart attacks, and gives insights into leadership and success.

This book will appeal to all football fans, but it is also a fascinating story of a man who has lived a truly South African life.

Van laaitie tot politieke kryger, bandiet tot generaal-majoor, ondergrondse operateur tot presidensiële lyfwag…

Van sy kleintyd in Elsiesrivier neem Jeremy Vearey se lewe talle onvoorspelbare wendings. Sy eiesoortige vertelling sluit die ouere manne van sy jeug in, die ooms by die damstafel, kerkjeugkampe en die Kommuniste-manifes, skoolhou en ondergrondse werk vir MK, en sy aanhouding op Robbeneiland. As Mandela se lyfwag help hy ’n opstand in die Karoo ontlont, voor hy deel word van die nuwe SAPD, waar hy saam met die gewese vyand terrorisme en Kaapse bendes takel.

En onder alles loop ’n donker stroom.

Die eiesoortige vriendskap tussen Winston Churchill en Jan Smuts is ’n studie in kontraste. In hul jeug het hulle uiteenlopende wêrelde bewoon: Churchill was die weerbarstige en energieke jong aristokraat; Smuts die asketiese, filosofiese Kaapse plaasseun, wat later aan Cambridge sou gaan studeer. Daar sou hy die eerste student word wat albei dele van die finale regskursus in dieselfde jaar neem en al twee met onderskeiding slaag.

Nadat hulle in die Anglo-Boereoorlog eers as vyande, en later in die Eerste Wêreldoorlog as bondgenote byeengebring is, het die mans ’n vriendskap gesmee wat oor die eerste helfte van die twintigste eeu gestrek het en tot Smuts se dood in 1950 voortgeduur het. Richard Steyn, die skrywer van Jan Smuts: Afrikaner sonder grense, bestudeer dié hegte vriendskap deur twee wêreldoorloë aan die hand van ’n magdom argiefstukke, briewe, telegramme en die omvangryke boeke wat oor albei mans geskryf is.

Dit is ’n fassinerende verhaal oor twee besonderse individue in oorlog en vrede – die een die leier van ’n groot ryk, die ander die leier van ’n klein, weerspannige lid van daardie ryk.

Pre-order the inspiring true story of a father and son's fight to stay together and survive the Holocaust, for anyone captivated by The Choice and The Tattooist of Auschwitz. 'An emotionally devastating story of courage - and survival' i Paper 'Extraordinary' Observer _______ Where there is family, there is hope . . . Vienna, 1930s. The Kleinmann family live a simple, ordinary life. Gustav works as a furniture upholsterer while Tini keeps their modest apartment. Their greatest joy is their children: Fritz, Edith, Herta and Kurt. But after the Nazis annex Austria, the Kleinmanns' world rapidly shifts before their eyes. Neighbours turn on them, the business is seized, as the threat to the family becomes ever greater. Gustav and Fritz are among the first to be taken. Nazi police send the pair to Buchenwald in Germany, the beginning of an unimaginable ordeal. Over the months of suffering that follow, there is one constant that keeps them alive: the love between father and son. Then, they discover that Gustav will be transferred to Auschwitz, a certain death sentence, and Fritz is faced with a choice: let his father to die alone, or join him... Based on Gustav's secret diary and meticulous archival research, this book tells the Kleinemanns' story for the first time - a story of love and courage in the face of unparalleled horrors. The Boy Who Followed His Father Into Auschwitz is a reminder of the worst and the best of humanity, of the strength of family ties and the human spirit.

Few heirs to the throne have suffered as much humiliation as Prince Charles. Despite his hard work and genuine concern for the disadvantaged, he has struggled to overcome his unpopularity. After Diana's death, his approval rating crashed to 4% and has been only rescued by his marriage to Camilla. Nevertheless, just one third of Britons now support him to be the next king.

Many still fear that his accession to the throne will cause a constitutional crisis. That mistrust climaxed in the aftermath of the trial of Paul Burrell, Diana's butler, acquitted after the Queen's sensational ‘recollection'. In unearthing many secrets surrounding that and many other dramas, Bower's book, relying on the testimony from over 120 people employed or welcomed into the inner sanctum of Clarence House, reveals a royal household rife with intrigue and misconduct.

The result is a book which uniquely will probe into the character and court of the Charles that no one, until now, has seen.

Jonathan Kaplan, celebrated international rugby referee and former world record-holder for most Test caps, had his fair share of challenging moments on the field. He was known for his commitment to fair play, ability to defuse tense situations, and courage in making difficult, and sometimes controversial, decisions. All this would stand JK in good stead and come back into play when, at the age of 47, he made two life-changing decisions. The first was to blow his whistle for the last time and end his career as a professional rugby ref. The second was to become a parent – and a solo parent at that.

This is the story of JK’s decision to have a baby by surrogate, the two-year fertility process that followed, and the subsequent birth of his son Kaleb. Winging It draws on the insights of key role-players in JK’s journey, including the extraordinary experience of the surrogate mother herself.

Exchanging rucks for reflux, mauls for milk bottles, scrums for storks (and other stories about Kaleb’s conception), this account of how JK navigates the choppy waters of parenthood is disarmingly frank and scrupulously honest. At times poignant and tender, and at others downright funny, this is a thoroughly contemporary take on what constitutes a family and how we dare to build one.