Showing 133–144 of 178 resultsSorted by latest
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£9.99
Returning to the UK in September 2010 after serving in Iraq as the political adviser to the top American general, Emma Sky felt no sense of homecoming. She soon found herself back in the Middle East travelling through a region in revolt. ‘In A Time of Monsters’ bears witness to the demands of young people for dignity and justice during the Arab Spring; the inability of sclerotic regimes to reform; the descent of Syria into civil war; the rise of the Islamic State; and the flight of refugees to Europe.
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£18.99
In 1971 Deirdre Bair was a journalist and recently minted PhD who managed to secure access to Nobel Prize-winning author Samuel Beckett. He agreed that she could write his biography despite never having written – or even read – a biography herself. The next 7 years of intimate conversations, intercontinental research, and peculiar cat-and-mouse games resulted in ‘Samuel Beckett: A Biography’, which went on to win the National Book Award and propel Deirdre to her next subject: Simone de Beauvoir. The catch? De Beauvoir and Beckett despised each other – and lived essentially on the same street. While quite dodging one subject or the other, and sometimes hiding out in the backrooms of the great cafés of Paris, Bair learned that what works in terms of process for one biography rarely applies to the next.
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£25.00
A groundbreaking and revealing portrait of two of the greatest British political leaders by a prize-winning historian.
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£9.99
When Korede’s dinner is interrupted one night by a distress call from her sister, Ayoola, she knows what’s expected of her: bleach, rubber gloves, nerves of steel, and a strong stomach. This’ll be the third boyfriend Ayoola’s dispatched in, quote, self-defence and the third mess that her lethal little sibling has left Korede to clear away. She should probably go to the police for the good of the menfolk of Nigeria, but she loves her sister and, as they say, family always comes first. Until, that is, Ayoola starts dating the doctor where Korede works as a nurse. Korede’s long been in love with him, and isn’t prepared to see him wind up with a knife in his back – but to save one would mean sacrificing the other.
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£25.00
The success story of the British royal family can be laid at the door of Prince Albert, who, after his death in 1861, turned into a man who could do no wrong. His statues were to be seen all over the Empire. Albert Halls, Albert Squares, Albert Streets filled every English-speaking town, and many of the towns in India. In this exhaustively researched and definitive biography, A.N. Wilson reveals Prince Albert to be a man of prodigious gifts. Not only was he politically astute, he had administrative gifts which could have made him a great general. He was scientifically informed. He understood, and was enthused by, modern technology. He was a knowledgeable art collector. He was a musician and composer. He was the father of a family. Between them, Victoria and Albert rescued the British monarchy from grave crisis and established the kind of country Britain would become over the next century.
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£8.99
A frank, smart and captivating memoir by the daughter of Apple founder Steve Jobs, ‘Small Fry’ is Lisa Brennan-Jobs’s poignant story of a childhood spent between two imperfect but extraordinary homes. Scrappy, wise and funny, young Lisa is an unforgettable guide through her parents’ fascinating and disparate worlds. Part portrait of a complex family, part love letter to California in the seventies and eighties, this is an enthralling book by an insightful new literary voice.
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£14.99
Though anxiety has risen among young people overall, recent research studies confirm that it has skyrocketed in girls since the turn of the century. So what’s to blame? And how can we help these girls? In the same engaging, anecdotal style and reassuring tone that won over thousands of readers of her first book, ‘Untangled’, clinical psychologist Lisa Damour starts by examining the science of stress and anxiety, then turns to the many facets of girls’ lives where stress hits them hard: the parental expectations they face at home, pressures at school, social anxiety among their peers, and on social media.
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£16.99
Leading transplant surgeon Dr Joshua Mezrich creates life from loss, moving organs from one body to another. In this intimate, profoundly moving work, he examines more than one hundred years of remarkable medical breakthroughs, connecting this fascinating history with the stories of his own patients. Gripping and evocative, ‘How Death Becomes Life’ takes us inside the operating room and presents the stark dilemmas that transplant surgeons must face daily: How much risk should a healthy person be allowed to take to save someone she loves? Should a patient suffering from alcoholism receive a healthy liver? The human story behind the most exceptional medicine of our time, Mezrich’s book is a poignant reminder that a life lost can also offer the hope of a new beginning.
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£17.99
Following her father’s death, Katharine Smyth turned to her favourite novel, Virginia Woolf’s ‘To the Lighthouse’, as a way of making sense of her bereavement. Written out of a lifelong admiration for Woolf and her work, Katharine’s story moves between the New England of her childhood and Woolf’s Cornish coasts and Bloomsbury squares, addressing universal questions about family, loss and homecoming. But ‘All the Lives We Ever Lived’, which braids memoir, biography, and literary criticism, is also an intimate reading of one woman’s talismanic text.
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£8.99
If you want to make God laugh, Woody Allen once said, tell him about your plans. But most of us don’t find it all that funny when things go wrong. Most of us want love. Most of us want a nice job, healthy children and a comfortable home. Many of us grew up with parents who made these things look relatively easy and assumed we would manage it, too. So what do you do if you don’t? Or if you had some of these things and lost them? What do you do when you feel you’ve messed it all up and your friends seem to be doing just fine? For the journalist Christina Patterson, it was her work as a writer and columnist on a national newspaper that kept her going through the ups and downs of life, health and mid-life dating. And then she lost that, too. Dreaming of revenge and irritated by self-help books, she decided to do the kind of interviews she’d never done before.
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£7.99
We all have our secrets. They were six university students from Oxford – friends and sometimes more than friends – spending an idyllic week together in a French farmhouse. It was supposed to be the perfect summer getaway – until they met Severine, the girl next door. For Kate Channing, Severine was an unwelcome presence, her inscrutable beauty undermining the close-knit group’s loyalties amid the already simmering tensions. And after a huge altercation on the last night of the holiday, Kate knew nothing would ever be the same. There are some things you can’t forgive. And there are some people you can’t forget – like Severine, who was never seen again. Now, a decade later, the case is reopened when Severine’s body is found in the well behind the farmhouse.
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£8.99
Overachieving parents want you to believe the harder you work, the better your children will turn out. That lie ends now. The truth is most kids end up remarkably unremarkable no matter what you do, so you might as well achieve mediocrity by the easiest possible route. In ‘Bare Minimum Parenting’, amateur parenting sort-of expert James Breakwell will teach you to stop worrying and embrace your child’s destiny as devastatingly average. To get there, you’ll have to overcome your kid, other parents, unnecessary sporting activity, broccoli, and yourself. Everyone will try to make your life more difficult than necessary. Honestly, by reading this far, you’re already trying too hard. But don’t stop now. You’re exactly the kind of person who needs this book.
