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The People on the Street: A Writer's View of Israel
by Linda GrantThe further away anyone was from that block of Ben Yehuda street, the easier it seemed to find a solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, that stubborn mess in the centre of the Middle East and the more I studied these solutions, the more I thought that they depended for their implementation on a population of table football men, painted in the colours of the two teams: blue and white for the Israelis, green, red and black for the Palestinians. All the international community had to do was to twist the levers and the little players would kick and swing and send the ball into the net, to victory' One block of a Tel Aviv street is the starting point for Linda Grant's exploration of the inner dynamics of Israelis - not the government and its policies, but the people themselves, in all their variety. Iraqi shop-keepers, Teenage soldiers, Mob bosses, Tunisian-born settlers, Russian scientists, and the father of the child victim of a suicide bomber are some of the people she meets.
Kafka
by Nicholas MurrayThis gripping biography of the great Czech novelist, diarist and short story writer chronicles Kafka's entire (if tragically curtailed) life (1883-1924), but it focuses upon the writer's relationship to his father and his inheritance as a member of the Jewish mercantile bourgeoisie in Prague. Born into a German-speaking Jewish family, Kafka was a subject of the Austro-Hungarian empire until 1919 yet through his work he is one of the most modern of writers. While previous works have concentrated on Kafka and his women, Nicholas Murray will concentrate on his extraordinary relationship with his father which found its most eloquent literary expression in the story 'The Judgement' written in 1912 when Kafka was twenty-nine:in a reverse Oedipal move, the father condemns his son to death by drowning. This work is essential for an understanding of the intensely private and complex Kafka and the kind of writer he turned out to be - the creator in THE CASTLE, THE TRIAL and METAMORPHOSIS (the dazzling short story whose hero wakes up to find himself transformed into a giant insect) of some of the defining literature of the 20th century.
Kafka: A Biography
by Nicholas MurrayThis gripping biography of the great Czech novelist, diarist and short story writer chronicles Kafka's entire (if tragically curtailed) life (1883-1924), but it focuses upon the writer's relationship to his father and his inheritance as a member of the Jewish mercantile bourgeoisie in Prague. Born into a German-speaking Jewish family, Kafka was a subject of the Austro-Hungarian empire until 1919 yet through his work he is one of the most modern of writers. While previous works have concentrated on Kafka and his women, Nicholas Murray will concentrate on his extraordinary relationship with his father which found its most eloquent literary expression in the story 'The Judgement' written in 1912 when Kafka was twenty-nine:in a reverse Oedipal move, the father condemns his son to death by drowning. This work is essential for an understanding of the intensely private and complex Kafka and the kind of writer he turned out to be - the creator in THE CASTLE, THE TRIAL and METAMORPHOSIS (the dazzling short story whose hero wakes up to find himself transformed into a giant insect) of some of the defining literature of the 20th century.
Every Secret Thing: My Family, My Country
by Gillian SlovoA passionate witness to the colossal upheaval that has transformed her native South Africa, Gillian Slovo has written a memoir that is far more than a story of her own life. For she is the daughter of Joe Slovo and Ruth First, South Africa's pioneering anti-apartheid white activists, a daughter who always had to come second to political commitment. Whilst recalling the extraordinary events which surrounded her family's persecution and exile, and reconstructing the truth of her parents' relationship and her own turbulent childhood, Gillian Slovo has also created an astonishing portrait of a courageous, beautiful mother and a father of integrity and stoicism.
Every Secret Thing: My Family, My Country
by Gillian SlovoA passionate witness to the colossal upheaval that has transformed her native South Africa, Gillian Slovo has written a memoir that is far more than a story of her own life. For she is the daughter of Joe Slovo and Ruth First, South Africa's pioneering anti-apartheid white activists, a daughter who always had to come second to political commitment. Whilst recalling the extraordinary events which surrounded her family's persecution and exile, and reconstructing the truth of her parents' relationship and her own turbulent childhood, Gillian Slovo has also created an astonishing portrait of a courageous, beautiful mother and a father of integrity and stoicism.
Aldous Huxley: An English Intellectual
by Nicholas MurrayThe grandson of biologist T. H. Huxley, Aldous Huxley had a privileged background and was educated at Eton and Oxford despite an eye infection that left him nearly blind. Having learned braille his eyesight then improved enough for him to start writing, and by the 1920s he had become a fashionable figure, producing witty and daring novels like CROME YELLOW (1921), ANTIC HAY (1923) and POINT COUNTER POINT (1928). But it is as the author of his celebrated portrayal of a nightmare future society, BRAVE NEW WORLD (1932), that Huxley is remembered today. A truly visionary book, it was a watershed in Huxley's world-view as his later work became more and more optimistic - coinciding with his move to California and experimentation with mysticism and psychedelic drugs later in life. Nicholas Murray's brilliant new book has the greatest virtue of literary biographies: it makes you want to go out and read its subject's work all over again. A fascinating reassessment of one of the most interesting writers of the twentieth century.
A Life In Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Lost Agents of SOE
by Sarah HelmDuring World War Two the Special Operation Executive's French Section sent more than 400 agents into Occupied France -- at least 100 never returned and were reported 'Missing Believed Dead' after the war. Twelve of these were women who died in German concentration camps -- some were tortured, some were shot, and some died in the gas chambers. Vera Atkins had helped prepare these women for their missions, and when the war was over she went out to Germany to find out what happened to them and the other agents lost behind enemy lines. But while the woman who carried out this extraordinary mission appeared quintessentially English, she was nothing of the sort. Vera Atkins, who never married, covered her life in mystery so that even her closest family knew almost nothing of her past. In A LIFE IN SECRETS Sarah Helm has stripped away Vera's many veils and -- with unprecedented access to official and private papers, and the cooperation of Vera's relatives -- vividly reconstructed an extraordinary life.
A Life In Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Lost Agents of SOE
by Sarah HelmDuring World War Two the Special Operation Executive's French Section sent more than 400 agents into Occupied France -- at least 100 never returned and were reported 'Missing Believed Dead' after the war. Twelve of these were women who died in German concentration camps -- some were tortured, some were shot, and some died in the gas chambers. Vera Atkins had helped prepare these women for their missions, and when the war was over she went out to Germany to find out what happened to them and the other agents lost behind enemy lines. But while the woman who carried out this extraordinary mission appeared quintessentially English, she was nothing of the sort. Vera Atkins, who never married, covered her life in mystery so that even her closest family knew almost nothing of her past. In A LIFE IN SECRETS Sarah Helm has stripped away Vera's many veils and -- with unprecedented access to official and private papers, and the cooperation of Vera's relatives -- vividly reconstructed an extraordinary life.
Bess Of Hardwick: First Lady of Chatsworth
by Mary S. LovellFrom the bestselling author of The Mitford Girls: A 'wonderfully researched' (Sunday Express) biography of Bess of Hartwick, the most powerful woman in England next to Queen Elizabeth Bringing 'the Tudor Age to exuberant life' (Hugh Massingberd, Mail on Sunday), Mary S. Lovell tells the story of Bess of Hardwick,, one of the most remarkable women of the Tudor era. Gently-born in reduced circumstances, she was married at 15 and when she was widowed at 16, she was still a virgin. At 19 she married a man more than twice her age, Sir William Cavendish, a senior auditor in King Henry VIII's Court of Augmentations. Responsible for seizing church properties for the crown during the Dissolution, Cavendish enriched himself in the process. During the reign of King Edward VI, Cavendish was the Treasurer to the boy king and sisters, and he and Bess moved in the highest levels of society. They had a London home and built Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. After Cavendish's death her third husband was poisoned by his brother. Bess' fourth marriage to the patrician George, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, Earl Marshall of England, made Bess one of the most important women at court. Her shrewd business acumen was a byword, and she was said to have 'a masculine understanding', in that age when women had little education and few legal rights. The Earl's death made her arguably the wealthiest, and therefore - next to the Queen - the most powerful woman in the country. 'This wonderfully researched book is an intimate portrait of [Bess's] life and a vivid insight into life in Tudor society' Sunday Express
Bess Of Hardwick: First Lady of Chatsworth
by Mary S. LovellFrom the bestselling author of The Mitford Girls: A 'wonderfully researched' (Sunday Express) biography of Bess of Hartwick, the most powerful woman in England next to Queen Elizabeth Bringing 'the Tudor Age to exuberant life' (Hugh Massingberd, Mail on Sunday), Mary S. Lovell tells the story of Bess of Hardwick,, one of the most remarkable women of the Tudor era. Gently-born in reduced circumstances, she was married at 15 and when she was widowed at 16, she was still a virgin. At 19 she married a man more than twice her age, Sir William Cavendish, a senior auditor in King Henry VIII's Court of Augmentations. Responsible for seizing church properties for the crown during the Dissolution, Cavendish enriched himself in the process. During the reign of King Edward VI, Cavendish was the Treasurer to the boy king and sisters, and he and Bess moved in the highest levels of society. They had a London home and built Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. After Cavendish's death her third husband was poisoned by his brother. Bess' fourth marriage to the patrician George, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, Earl Marshall of England, made Bess one of the most important women at court. Her shrewd business acumen was a byword, and she was said to have 'a masculine understanding', in that age when women had little education and few legal rights. The Earl's death made her arguably the wealthiest, and therefore - next to the Queen - the most powerful woman in the country. 'This wonderfully researched book is an intimate portrait of [Bess's] life and a vivid insight into life in Tudor society' Sunday Express
The Last Matchmaker: The heartwarming true story of the man who brought love to Ireland
by Willie DalyTHE HEARTWARMING TRUE STORY OF THE MAN WHO BROUGHT LOVE TO IRELAND For centuries, Irish matchmakers have performed a vital service, bringing people together in love and marriage. It is a mysterious art, and the very best matchmakers have an almost magical quality to them. Willie Daly, whose father and grandfather were matchmakers before him, is the most celebrated of them all. Each year his tiny home town of Lisdoonvarna (population 800) hosts a matchmaking festival that attracts 40,000 visitors from around the world. They all hope to meet Willie, 'the horse whisperer of matchmaking'. With his unique blend of intuition, quiet wisdom and a small drop of cunning, Willie has brought together hundreds of couples over the years. In The Last Matchmaker he recounts some of the best stories along with his own. The path to love can be heart-warming, hilarious, sometimes hair-raising - and Willie is the perfect guide.The Last Matchmaker is a fascinating journey into the world of matchmaking and a timely reminder that the search for love is the greatest quest of all. And should the reader be looking for love, Willie has some hard-learned, practical advice to share . . .
Tokyo Hostess: Inside the shocking world of Tokyo nightclub hostessing
by Clare CampbellThe ambition of Tokyo businessman Joji Obara was to have sex with five hundred women. He set up a kind of date-rape production line to do it - the horrible workings of which would become infamous in the course of a sensational trial.'In recent years, a number of high profile murder cases involving Western women who work as hostesses in Tokyo nightclubs have attracted the attention of the media. 'Gaijin' generally means 'foreign' or 'non-Japanese'. This book focuses on the victims of businessman Joji Obara, who was controversially acquitted of the murder of Lucie Blackman but jailed for that of Carita Ridgway. Samantha Ridgway, Carita's sister, and the Blackman family never gave up their fight for justice and finally Obara was jailed. But there are many more tragic stories of the men who prey on the gaijin girls...
Tokyo Hostess: Inside the shocking world of Tokyo nightclub hostessing
by Clare CampbellThe ambition of Tokyo businessman Joji Obara was to have sex with five hundred women. He set up a kind of date-rape production line to do it - the horrible workings of which would become infamous in the course of a sensational trial.'In recent years, a number of high profile murder cases involving Western women who work as hostesses in Tokyo nightclubs have attracted the attention of the media. 'Gaijin' generally means 'foreign' or 'non-Japanese'. This book focuses on the victims of businessman Joji Obara, who was controversially acquitted of the murder of Lucie Blackman but jailed for that of Carita Ridgway. Samantha Ridgway, Carita's sister, and the Blackman family never gave up their fight for justice and finally Obara was jailed. But there are many more tragic stories of the men who prey on the gaijin girls...
Amelia Earhart: The Sound of Wings
by Mary S. LovellWhen she disappeared in 1937 over a shark-infested sea, Amelia Earhart had lived up to her wish - internationally famous, a daring and pioneering aviator, and ambassador extraordinary for the United States. Married to a man with a genius for publicity, her life was crowded, demanding and adventurous. Mary S. Lovell's superb biography examines a legend to reveal the pressures and influences that drove Amelia, and shows how her life, career and manner of death foreshadowed the tragedies and excesses of a media-dominated age.
Reggie Kray's East End Stories: The lost memoirs of the gangland legend
by Reggie Kray Peter GerrardThe name Reggie Kray remains synonymous with London's East End to this day, and yet although much is known about Reg and his brother Ronnie's life of crime in the '50s and '60s, to date precious little has been revealed about their formative years. Reggie wrote his EAST END STORIES in the early 1990s, but they haven't seen the light of day until now. In the book, he recalls the close-knit East End community in which he and his brother grew up, the characters in his family and neighbourhood, and of course, the many villains he worked with. Filled with anecdotes about the area's most outlandish personalities and notorious criminals, and offering a fascinating journey around the Krays' 'manor' including their favourite haunts and business enterprises, the book paints a vivid portrait of a London that has long since disappeared.
A History Of British Serial Killing: The Shocking Account of Jack the Ripper, Harold Shipman and Beyond
by David WilsonBE THE FIRST TO READ DAVID WILSON'S NEW TRUE CRIME BOOK "A PLOT TO KILL" BY PRE-ORDERING NOW Expanded and updated, this is the definitive history of British serial killing 1888-2020 - by the UK's leading criminologist, David WilsonIn this fascinating and informative book, Professor David Wilson tells the stories of Britain's serial killers from Jack the Ripper to the extraordinary Suffolk Murders case. David Wilson has worked as a Prison Governor and as a profiler, and has been described as the UK's leading expert on serial killers. His work has led him to meet several of the UK's deadliest killers, and build up fascinating insights into what makes a serial killer - and who they are most likely to target. A vivid narrative history and a call for prison and social reform, Professor Wilson's new book is a powerful and gripping investigation of Britain's serial murderers.
Ashes To Ashes: 35 Years of Humiliation (And About 20 Minutes of Ecstasy) Watching England v Australia
by Marcus BerkmannIn summer 2009, by far the most popular event in the cricketing calendar comes round again - the Ashes series between England and Australia. The anticipation will be intense, the hype absurd, the sense of expectation never remotely likely to be satisfied, for two good reasons. England won in 2005 by a whisker. We can't expect anything so good again, possibly for the rest of our lives. The second reason is even more brutally realistic. For the truth is that, over the past twenty years at least, Australia have usually won very easily. We begin with hope, we end in despair. For the many of us who follow English cricket closely, it's a strange and terrible form of biennial punishment for crimes we didn't know we had committed. 'Hell is other people,' said Jean-Paul Sartre, and as so often he was completely wrong. Hell is Ricky Ponting winning the toss on a perfect batting strip on a glorious sunny day. Hell is what happened in Australia in 2007, when the home side won 5-0. Of course we look forward to 2009. But we also dread it, as we would dread exams or major surgery. We would be foolish to do otherwise.
The Remarkable Lives Of Bill Deedes
by Stephen RobinsonDrawing on a rich selection of private papers and hours of interviews with Deedes and his contemporaries, Stephen Robinson charts brilliantly the depths and shallows of the life of the man who inspired Evelyn Waugh's hapless reporter William Boot in Scoop and was the recipient of Private Eye's famous Dear Bill letters. Deedes was also a husband and father of five and Robinson explores the rumour and reality with equal measure to reveal the true character of one of the most extraordinary men to have graced the pages of the British national press.
The Remarkable Lives Of Bill Deedes
by Stephen RobinsonDrawing on a rich selection of private papers and hours of interviews with Deedes and his contemporaries, Stephen Robinson charts brilliantly the depths and shallows of the life of the man who inspired Evelyn Waugh's hapless reporter William Boot in Scoop and was the recipient of Private Eye's famous Dear Bill letters. Deedes was also a husband and father of five and Robinson explores the rumour and reality with equal measure to reveal the true character of one of the most extraordinary men to have graced the pages of the British national press.
A Tug On The Thread: From the British Raj to the British Stage: A Family Memoir
by Diana QuickAs an actress, Diana Quick was forever trying on the mask of other people's lives - raiding her own memory to service the character she was playing. Coming from a large, noisy family in Kent that seemed to be plain-speaking and straightforward, she was astonished to find on her beloved father's death that his childhood in India was far from idyllic. She was then thunderstruck to hear that he was to have a requiem mass. She had no idea he was Catholic. She discovered that his stepmother had got rid of him and his sister upon marrying his father and that he had grown up in almost total separation from his family. In the India office library she found records of a whole extended family she knew nothing about. Her search for the Quicks in India found roots that go back to Calcutta in the early 18th century. This is a story of a search for a past, the search for an understanding of exile and denial, and also the story of a very fine actress who has always had a sense of not quite belonging.
The Bolter: Idina Sackville - The woman who scandalised 1920s Society and became White Mischief's infamous seductress
by Frances OsborneOn Friday 25th May, 1934, a forty-one-year-old woman walked into the lobby of Claridge's Hotel to meet the nineteen-year-old son whose face she did not know. Fifteen years earlier, as the First World War ended, Idina Sackville shocked high society by leaving his multimillionaire father to run off to Africa with a near penniless man. An inspiration for Nancy Mitford's character The Bolter, painted by William Orpen, and photographed by Cecil Beaton, Sackville went on to divorce a total of five times, yet died with a picture of her first love by her bed. Her struggle to reinvent her life with each new marriage left one husband murdered and branded her the 'high priestess' of White Mischief's bed-hopping Happy Valley in Kenya. Sackville's life was so scandalous that it was kept a secret from her great-granddaughter Frances Osborne. Now, Osborne tells the moving tale of betrayal and heartbreak behind Sackville's road to scandal and return, painting a dazzling portrait of high society in the early twentieth century.
Full Hearts And Empty Bellies: A 1920s Childhood from the Forest of Dean to the Streets of London
by Winifred FoleyWinifred Foley grew up in the 1920s, a bright, determined miner's daughter - in a world of unspoilt beauty and desperate hardship, in which women were widowed at thirty and children died of starvation. Living hand-to-mouth in a tumbledown cottage in the Forest of Dean, Foley - 'our Poll' - had a loving family and the woods and streams of a forest 'better than heaven' as a playground. But a brother and sister were dead in infancy, bread had to be begged from kindly neighbours and she never had a new pair of shoes or a shop-bought doll. And most terrible of all, like her sister before her, at fourteen little Poll had to leave her beloved forest for the city, bound for a life in service among London's grey terraces.
Full Hearts and Empty Bellies: A 1920s Childhood from the Forest of Dean to the Streets of London
by Winifred FoleyWinifred Foley grew up in the 1920s, a bright, determined miner's daughter - in a world of unspoilt beauty and desperate hardship, in which women were widowed at thirty and children died of starvation. Living hand-to-mouth in a tumbledown cottage in the Forest of Dean, Foley - 'our Poll' - had a loving family and the woods and streams of a forest 'better than heaven' as a playground. But a brother and sister were dead in infancy, bread had to be begged from kindly neighbours and she never had a new pair of shoes or a shop-bought doll. And most terrible of all, like her sister before her, at fourteen little Poll had to leave her beloved forest for the city, bound for a life in service among London's grey terraces.
Tehran, Lipstick And Loopholes
by Nahal TajadodA wry and humorous account of the author's quest to get her Iranian passport renewed. She embarks on a bizarre and circuitous journey, meeting a colourful cast of characters along the way: two photographers who specialise in Islamic portraits, a forensic surgeon who trades in human organs, a madam who wants to send prostitutes to Dubai and a grandmother who offers a live chicken to an implacable official.Tehran, Lipstick and Loopholes is a fascinating look at the constraints and contradictions of contemporary life in Tehran from the author's unique standpoint of being both a native of Iran and a foreigner.
Tehran, Lipstick and Loopholes
by Nahal TajadodA wry and humorous account of the author's quest to get her Iranian passport renewed. She embarks on a bizarre and circuitous journey, meeting a colourful cast of characters along the way: two photographers who specialise in Islamic portraits, a forensic surgeon who trades in human organs, a madam who wants to send prostitutes to Dubai and a grandmother who offers a live chicken to an implacable official.Tehran, Lipstick and Loopholes is a fascinating look at the constraints and contradictions of contemporary life in Tehran from the author's unique standpoint of being both a native of Iran and a foreigner.