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John F. Kennedy carried on a lifelong love affair with England and
the English. From his speaking style to his tastes in art,
architecture, theatre, music and clothes, his personality reflected
his deep affinity for a certain kind of idealised Englishness.
Setting his work against a backdrop of some of the twentieth
century’s most profound events – the Great Depression, the
Second World War, the Cold War and its arms race – noted
biographer Christopher Sandford tracks Kennedy’s exploits in
Great Britain between 1935 and 1963, and looks in depth at the
unique way Britain shaped JFK throughout his adult life and how he
in turn charmed British society.
When Arthur Conan Doyle was a lonely 7-year-old schoolboy at
pre-prep Newington Academy in Edinburgh, a French emigre named
Eugene Chantrelle was engaged there to teach Modern Languages. A
few years later, Chantrelle would be hanged for the particularly
grisly murder of his wife, marking the beginning of Conan Doyle's
own association with some of the bloodiest crimes of the Victorian
and Edwardian eras. This early link between actual crime and the
greatest detective story writer of all time is one of many. Conan
Doyle would also go on to play a leading role in the notorious case
of the young Anglo-Indian lawyer George Edalji, convicted and
imprisoned as the 'mad ripper' who supposedly prowled the fields
around his Staffordshire home by night looking for animals to
mutilate; and the equally chilling story of Oscar Slater and his
alleged murder of an elderly spinster as she sat in her Glasgow
home one winter's night in 1908, a crime with a spectacular
denouement 18 years later. Using freshly available evidence and
eyewitness testimony, Christopher Sandford follows these links and
draws out the connections between Conan Doyle's literary output and
factual criminality, a pattern that will enthral and surprise the
legions of Sherlock Holmes fans. In a sense, Conan Doyle wanted to
be Sherlock - to be a man who could bring order and justice to a
terrible world.
Laker and Lock is the first dual biography of Surrey and England
'spin twins' Jim Laker and Tony Lock, who helped their county and
Test teams to an unparalleled run of dominance in the 1950s.
Besides their peerless achievements on the field, the two men had
little in common. Laker, the elder by seven years, was Yorkshire
born, cool, phlegmatic, known to sulk, and not greatly enamoured
with the class distinctions then inherent in English cricket and
society as a whole. Lock, a southerner, was dynamic, ebullient,
indefatigable both on and off the field, and tended to wear his
heart on his sleeve, an attitude no less at odds with the
prevailing social order. Both men courted controversy. Laker's
post-retirement autobiography caused such a furore that he was made
unwelcome at Lord's and the Oval for years afterwards. Lock
suffered the stigma of being labelled a 'chucker' and ultimately
moved to Australia, where his retirement was clouded by allegations
of sexual abuse. This is the full story of the pair's uneasy
partnership.
The biography of the original Mr. Cool, Steve McQueen. The actor
who perhaps, first epitomised the Action Hero; a complex man, prone
to casual affairs and violence, yet capable of helping those more
unfortunate than him.
The life and times of Middlesex and England wicketkeeper-batsman
John 'JT' Murray, one of the acknowledged greats of English
post-war cricket. Irresistibly cool, glamorous and apparently
unapproachable, Murray was Christopher Sandford's consuming hero at
the time the author was confined in an English seaside boarding
school in the 60s. Twenty or more years later, the two became
friends. In 2017 Murray eventually succumbed to a decade-long
campaign and agreed to share in full his lifetime's reminiscences,
recounting his experiences of a quarter of a century as a
professional English sportsman. Murray proved unfailingly generous
and humorous (if by no means uncritical) in his accounts of the
great Tests, the tours and the parade of celebrities, sporting and
otherwise, he encountered. This treasure trove of stories -
described not just in the dry accountancy of scores and averages,
but in droll anecdotal detail - lies at the heart of a unique
cricket book illustrated by photographs, letters and notes from
Murray's own collection.
The declaration of war against Germany on 3 September 1939 brought
an end to the second (and as yet, final) Golden Age of English
cricket. Over 200 first-class English players signed up to fight in
that first year; 52 never came back. In many ways, the summer of
1939 was the end of innocence. Using unpublished letters, diaries
and memoirs, Christopher Sandford recreates that last summer,
looking at men like George Macaulay, who took a wicket with his
first ball in Test cricket but was struck down while serving with
the RAF in 1940; Maurice Turnbull, the England all-rounder who fell
during the Normandy landings; and Hedley Verity, who still holds
cricketing records, but who died in the invasion of Sicily. Few
English cricket teams began their first post-war season without
holding memorial ceremonies for the men they had lost: The Final
Innings pays homage not only to these men, but to the lost
innocence, heroism and human endurance of the age.
A new, updated edition of Christopher Sandford's classic biography
of the band, The Rolling Stones is a gripping account of the band's
remarkable 60 years at the top of the rock industry. In 1962 Mick
Jagger was a bright, well-scrubbed boy (planning a career in the
civil service), while Keith Richards was learning how to smoke and
to swivel a six-shooter. Add the mercurial Brian Jones (who'd been
effectively run out of Cheltenham for theft, multiple impregnations
and playing blues guitar), the wryly opinionated Bill Wyman and
drummer Charlie Watts, and the potential was obvious. During the
1960s and 70s the Rolling Stones were the polarising figures in
Britain, admired in some quarters for their flamboyance, creativity
and salacious lifestyles, and reviled elsewhere for the same
reasons. Confidently expected never to reach 30, the band is now
celebrating 60 years together with a European tour, Sixty, to mark
the occasion. Of the original line-up, only Jagger and Richards
remain, along with 'new boy' Ronnie Wood, who joined the band in
1975. In The Rolling Stones, Christopher Sandford tells the human
drama at the centre of the Rolling Stones story. Sandford has
carried out interviews with those close to the Stones, family
members (including Mick's parents), the group's fans and
contemporaries - even examined their previously unreleased FBI
files. Like no other book before The Rolling Stones makes sense of
the rich brew of clever invention and opportunism, of talent, good
fortune, insecurity, self-destructiveness, and of drugs, sex and
other excess, that made the Stones who they are.
Renowned mystery author Arthur Conan Doyle and famous illusionist
Harry Houdini first met in 1920, during the magician's tour of
England. At the time, Conan Doyle had given up his lucrative
writing career, killing off Sherlock Holmes in the process, in
order to concentrate on his increasingly manic interest in
Spiritualism. Houdini, who regularly conducted seances in an
attempt to reach his late mother, was also infatuated with the idea
of what he called a "living afterlife," though his enthusiasm came
to be tempered by his ability to expose fraudulent mediums, many of
whom employed crude variations of his own well-known illusions.
Using previously unpublished material on the murky relationship
between Houdini and Conan Doyle, this sometimes macabre, sometimes
comic tale tells the fascinating story of the relationship between
two of the most loved figures of the twentieth century and their
pursuit of magic and lost loved ones.
This dramatic account weaves together the rich and complex life of
the celebrated and controversial film director, Holocaust survivor,
and exile, based on a wealth of sources and new material. New
revelations about Polanski's life include: -- The connection
between his mother's death in Auschwitz and wife Sharon Tate's
murder by the Manson family--both women were pregnant -- His
radical transition from childhood poverty in a Krakow ghetto to a
glamorous Hollywood life among socialites -- The psychological
complexity and central thread of sexuality that runs throughout his
films and his relationships with younger women -- A culmination of
tragedies in Polanski's life, from the Holocaust to the Manson
murders to his sexual assault charges and subsequent exile from the
U.S. The unique humor of the rascal genius that keeps the world
watching and awaiting his new projects Acclaimed biographer
Sandford draws on dozens of interviews with actors who have worked
with Polanski, as well as previously sealed transcripts of his
criminal hearings, testimony before the California grand jury
following the accusations that led to his exile, and personal
reflections on the murders of Sharon Tate and other friends of the
couple. Polanski's films from 1962 to 2005 are contextualized
within his life, including such highlights as Rosemary's Baby,
Chinatown, and the Oscar-winning The Pianist. Sandford's
fascinating biography illuminates the life and work of one of the
most important careers in modern cinema.
Here is the first biography to explore, with shocking detail, the
drama that formed this troubled, tragic rock star. Neither an
apology nor a condemnation, Kurt Cobain presents a vivid insider's
view of the life and death of a man who galvanized a generation and
gave birth to the "grunge" revolution with his band Nirvana.
Sandford portrays the provocative, small-town rebel with the talent
of John Lennon, and then shows him at work on concert stages in
Seattle, New York, and London. Readers follow the struggles of
Cobain's emotional life-his tumultuous relationships with family
and his fellow band members, his drug addiction and sexual
appetite, his stormy marriage to Courtney Love, and the birth of
his daughter, who, as Cobain wrote in his suicide note, "reminds me
too much of who I used to be." During his research, Sandford has
had access to Cobain's family, his colleagues, his former friends
and lovers, and even author William S. Burroughs, whom Cobain
considered to be his "greatest influence." The result is a graphic
account of the life that led to the day in April 1994 when Cobain
turned a shotgun on himself and became a martyr to disaffected
youth around the world.
In this compelling biography, Christopher Sandford explores the
full, inside story of Kurt Cobain. From the disruptive childhood
which had such a crucial impact on Cobain's personality to the
ambitious career musician who, as a friend said, "lunged for
success", and the worldwide breakthrough of Nirvana's Nevermind,
Sandford also writes about Cobain's stormy marriage to Courtney
Love, his heroin addiction, and how he became more and more of a
recluse. Finally, he writes of the crisis when, in April 1994,
Cobain turned a shotgun on himself and became a martyr for
disaffected youth. The result is a saga of success and corruption
which John Peel has called "the ultimate rock and roll morality
story".
This is the gripping history of the Nazi-sponsored attempt to
infiltrate the 1943 wartime Allied conference in Tehran and to
assassinate the "Big Three" leaders: Franklin Roosevelt, Winston
Churchill, and Joseph Stalin. It shows how close the plot came to
success, and how the removal of any one or more of the Allied
chiefs might have significantly altered the future course of the
Second World War. Intended to be led by the SS lieutenant colonel
Otto Skorzeny, Operation Long Jump was ultimately detected by
Soviet agents, and it remains one of the most tantalizing 'what-if'
questions of the 20th century.
August 1914 brought an end to the 'Golden Age' of English cricket.
At least 210 professional cricketers (out of a total of 278
registered) signed up to fight, of whom thirty-four were killed.
However, that period and those men were far more than merely
statistics: here we follow in intimate detail not only the
cricketers of that fateful last summer before the war, but also the
simple pleasures and daily struggles of their family lives and the
whole fabric of English social life as it existed on the eve of
that cataclysm: the First World War. With unprecedented access to
personal and war diaries, and other papers, Sandford expertly
recounts the stories of such greats as Hon. Lionel Tennyson, as he
moves virtually overnight from the round of Chelsea and Mayfair
parties into the front line at the Marne; the violin-playing bowler
Colin Blythe, who asked to be moved up to a front-line unit at
Passchendaele, following the death in action of his brother, with
tragic consequences; and the widely popular Hampshire amateur
player Robert Jesson, whose sometimes comic, frequently horrific
and always enthralling experiences of the ill-fated Gallipoli
campaign are vividly brought to life. The Final Over is undoubtedly
a gripping, moving and fully human account of this most poignant
summer of the twentieth century, both on and off the field of play.
Based on interviews with family members, colleagues, lovers, and
the previously silent William Burroughs, this unsparing yet
even-handed biography guides the reader through the many personas,
crises, and musical metamorphoses of David Bowie - also known as
Davy Jones, the Laughing Gnome, Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin
Sane, the Thin White Duke, a drug-addled grandfather of punk,
actor, art aficionado, political activist, one of rock's most
resonant icons, and a totem of modern pop culture. Nowhere else is
the man and musician so convincingly deconstructed and so
compellingly humanized.
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