Biographies

The second volume of beloved actress Julie Andrews' memoirs: Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music and her enduring career in Hollywood. 'An intimate and heart-warming memoir' WOMAN & HOME

A classic memoir of prison breaks and adventure - a bestselling phenomenon of the 1960sCondemned for a murder he had not committed, Henri Charriere (nicknamed Papillon) was sent to the penal colony of French Guiana. Forty-two days after his arrival he made his first break, travelling a thousand gruelling miles in an open boat. Recaptured, he went into solitary confinement and was sent eventually to Devil's Island, a hell-hole of disease and brutality. No one had ever escaped from this notorious prison - no one until Papillon took to the shark-infested sea supported only by a makeshift coconut-sack raft. In thirteen years he made nine daring escapes, living through many fantastic adventures while on the run - including a sojourn with South American Indians whose women Papillon found welcomely free of European restraints...Papillon is filled with tension, adventure and high excitement. It is also one of the most vivid stories of human endurance ever written.Henri Charriere died in 1973 at the age of 66.

An account of the last seven years of Freddie Mercury's life by his lover Jim Hutton. A former barber at the Savoy Hotel, Jim never fully assimilated into Mercury's jet-setting lifestyle, but was closer to him than anyone else, and knew all his friends, including Elton John and Phil Collins.

Includes a new foreword by the author and a preface by Douglas Hofstadter. Alan Turing was the extraordinary Cambridge mathematician who masterminded the cracking of the German Enigma ciphers and transformed the Second World War.

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERFamed American actress Demi Moore at last tells her own story in a surprisingly intimate and emotionally charged memoir.

The first full biography of Albert Einstein since all of his papers have become available -- a fully realised portrait of this extraordinary human being, and great genius.

It seems excessive...but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.The mass of black curls. The top hat. The cigarette dangling from pouty lips. These are the trademarks of one of the world's greatest and most revered guitarists, a celebrity musician known by one name: Slash.Saul "e;Slash"e; Hudson was born in Hampstead to a Jewish father and a black American mother who created David Bowie's look in The Man Who Fell to Earth. He was raised in Stoke until he was 11, when he and his mother moved to LA. Frequent visitors to the house were David Bowie, Joni Mitchell, Ronnie Wood and Iggy Pop.At this time Slash got into BMX bikes and would eventually turn professional, winning major awards and money, but at 15 his grandmother gave him his first guitar. Sessions with numerous local LA rock bands followed until a fateful meeting with singer W Axl Rose...and the rest was rock history. Guns N' Roses spent two years builiding their reputation before Appetite for Destruction was unleashed on an unsuspecting world.Chart success and global domination followed but with it came the inevitable fall - addicted to heroin, booze and cigarettes the band imploded in a rift between Axl and Slash that is as deep today as ever. But with a new wife, kids and new band Velvet Revolver, Slash is back on track. As raucous and edgy as his music, Slash sets the record straight and tells the real story as only Slash can.

An inspiring and radical celebration of 70 women, girls, and gender nonbinary people who have changed--and are still changing--the world, from the Civil Rights Movement and Stonewall riots through Black Lives Matter and beyond.With a radical and inclusive approach to history, Modern HERstory profiles and celebrates seventy women and nonbinary champions of progressive social change in a bold, colorful, illustrated format for all ages. Despite making huge contributions to the liberation movements of the last century and today, all of these trailblazers come from backgrounds and communities that are traditionally overlooked and under-celebrated: not just women, but people of color, queer people, trans people, disabled people, young people, and people of faith. Authored by rising star activist Blair Imani, Modern HERstory tells the important stories of the leaders and movements that are changing the world right here and right now--and will inspire you to do the same.

Joan Didion's savage masterpiece, which, since first publication in 1968, has been acknowledged as an unparalleled report on the state of America during the upheaval of the Sixties Revolution.

In the 150 years since the end of the Civil War and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment (the abolition of slavery), the story of race and America has remained a brutally simple one. It is the story of the black body, exploited to create the country''s foundational wealth, violently segregated to unite a nation after a civil war and, today, still disproportionately threatened, locked up and killed in the streets. How can America reckon with its fraught racial history? Between The World And Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates'' attempt to answer that question.

Looking back not only at his own much younger self, but also at the other writers who shared Paris with him - James Joyce, Wyndham Lewis, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald - he recalls the time when, poor, happy and writing in cafes, he discovered his vocation.

New York Times Bestseller • The startling true history of how one extraordinary man from a remote cornerof the world created an empire that led the world into the modern age.The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in twenty-five years than the Romans did in four hundred. In nearly every country the Mongols conquered, they brought an unprecedented rise in cultural communication, expanded trade, and a blossoming of civilization. Vastly more progressive than his European or Asian counterparts, Genghis Khan abolished torture, granted universal religious freedom, and smashed feudal systems of aristocratic privilege. From the story of his rise through the tribal culture to the explosion of civilization that the Mongol Empire unleashed, this brilliant work of revisionist history is nothing less than the epic story of how the modern world was made.

The more I thought about it, the more I realised my career has been unusual. How did I manage to do everything wrong but still end up on the front cover of magazines, headlining world tours and achieving Top 5 albums? How did I attract such obsessive and fanatical fans, many of whom take everything I do or say very personally, which is simultaneously flattering but can also be tremendously frustrating? Even this I somehow cultivated without somehow meaning to. My accidental career.Limited Edition of One is unlike any other music book you will ever have read.Part the long-awaited memoir of Steven Wilson: whose celebrated band Porcupine Tree began as teenage fiction before unintentionally evolving into a reality that encompassed Grammy-nominated records and sold-out shows around the world, before he set out for an even more successful solo career.Part the story of a twenty-first century artist who achieved chart-topping mainstream success without ever becoming part of the mainstream. From Abba to Stockhausen, via a collection of conversations and thought pieces on the art of listening, the rules of collaboration, lists of lists, personal stories, professional adventurism (including food, film, TV, modern art), old school rock stardom, how to negotiate an obsessive fanbase and survive on social media, and dream-fever storytelling.

A personal and powerful essay on loss from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the bestselling author of Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun.'Grief is a cruel kind of education. You learn how ungentle mourning can be, how full of anger. You learn how glib condolences can feel. You learn how much grief is about language, the failure of language and the grasping for language'On 10 June 2020, the scholar James Nwoye Adichie died suddenly in Nigeria.In this tender and powerful essay, expanded from the original New Yorker text, his daughter, a self-confessed daddy's girl, remembers her beloved father. Notes on Grief is at once a tribute to a long life of grace and wisdom, the story of a daughter's fierce love for a parent, and a revealing examination of the layers of loss and the nature of grief.

A new edition of the inspirational memoir that touched thousands - one woman's journey from cancer and near-death to ultimate healing and spiritual freedom. This 10th Anniversary Edition includes a new afterword describing how Anita's life has changed, including the discovery of empathic abilities that gave her a profound new perspective.

'Each of us is born, I believe, with a unique mission, a purpose in life that only we can fulfill. We are linked by a shared responsibility: to help our human family grow kinder and happier.'

Flea, the iconic bassist and co-founder, alongside Anthony Kiedis, of the immortal Red Hot Chili Peppers finally tells his fascinating origin story, complete with all the dizzying highs and the gutter lows you'd expect from an LA street rat turned world-famous rock star. With a foreword by punk rock legend, Patti Smith.

Born and brought up near Mexico City during the Mexican Revolution, painter, Frida Kahlo suffered a devastating accident aged eighteen, which left her crippled and unable to bear children. This book provides an account of this woman.

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.

In June 2005 four US Navy SEALs left their base in Afghanistan for the Pakistani border. Their mission was to capture or kill a notorious al-Qaeda leader known to be ensconced in a Taliban stronghold surrounded by a small but heavily armed force. Less than twenty-four hours later, only one of those Navy SEALs was alive.This is the story of team leader Marcus Luttrell, the sole survivor of Operation Redwing. Blasted unconscious by a rocket grenade, blown over a cliff, but still armed and still breathing, Luttrell endured four desperate days fighting the al-Qaeda assassins sent to kill him, before finding unlikely sanctuary with a Pashtun tribe who risked everything to protect him from the circling Taliban killers.

A true cinephile, Tarantino is famed for his visually arresting approach and this exploration of his career will feature stunning images taken on set and behind the scenes.