Books published by Unbound

Sport has an extraordinary, unique capacity to challenge and change society - to bring joy and hope; to improve physical and mental health, reduce loneliness and build self-esteem and happiness. It's also a multi-billion-pound commercial industry that can transform lives, businesses, nations and regions. Why has half the population been deprived of access to something so culturally powerful?In recent years, the landscape for women's sport has finally begun to shift. We've seen significant increases in investment, spectators and media coverage. More women as professional athletes and taking influential roles as board directors, editors, officials and CEOs.Yet female athletes still don't get equal opportunities or funding. In many sports, women receive less prize money, lower sponsorship revenues and a tiny fraction of the media coverage. Drawing on her own experiences, and interviews with high profile Olympic and Paralympic champions, broadcasters, journalists, sports scientists, CEOs, officials and sponsors, Sue Anstiss investigates why women have been excluded from the world of sport for centuries - and why we are now witnessing positive change as never before.Game On is a celebration of the trailblazing women opening doors for others and a manifesto for women's sport - a rallying cry to ensure the progress we are currently seeing goes from strength to strength.

In this long overdue and affectionate salute, celebrated comedy historian Robert Ross pays tribute to some of the finest, funniest and most fascinating names in comedy from both sides of the Atlantic. Monty Python's Terry Jones wrote the foreword. With the passionate input of such comics as Tim Brooke-Taylor, Hattie Hayridge, Roy Hudd, Michael Palin, Ross Noble, Chris Addison and Bernard Cribbins, Ross honours these legends of humor who, for a variety of reasons, didn't quite reach the heady heights of stardom or, once they had, couldn't cope with the pressures. Whether it is a favorite from the distant smoke- and ale-stained world of the Music Hall like the great George Robey, or the downbeat poetry of Hovis Presley, who dropped disenchanted bombs on the late 1990s, Forgotten Heroes of Comedy will finally elevate them to the Hall of Fame where they belong. Forgotten, no longer. UKJoe Baker UKEric Barker UKAlfie Bass UKMichael Bates India (to English parents)David Battley UKMichael Bentine UKHarold Berens UKWilie Best USAAlec Bregonzi UKMichael Ward UKDouglas Byng UKMarti Caine UKEsma Cannon Australia (but moved to UK)Patrick Cargill UKJimmy Clitheroe UKDanny Ross UKBilly Dainty UKJanet Davies UKFlorence Desmond UKJerry Desmonde UKEddie Leslie UKMaidie Dickson UKCharlie Drake UKJimmy Edwards UKGus Elen UKRay Ellington UKDick Emery UKPierre Etaix FranceBarry Evans UKMario Fabrizi UKDoug Fisher UKRonald Frankau UKLeslie Fuller UKDustin Gee UKPeter Glaze UKTommy Godfrey UKHarry Locke UKKen Goodwin UKBernard Gorcey Russia (died USA)Bert Gordon USAMonsewer' Eddie Gray UKRaymond Griffith USADeryck Guyler UKBrian Hall UKLloyd Hamilton USAArthur Haynes UKRichard Hearne UKDickie Henderson UKGerard Hoffnung Germany (died UK)Shemp Howard USANat Jackley UKRex Jameson UKSpike Jones USAJohn Junkin UKDave King UKRoy Kinnear UKDennis Kirkland UKPatsy Knox USADebbie Linden UKHugh Lloyd UKMalcolm McFee UKMoore Marriott UKGraham Moffatt UKRay Martine UKZeppo Marx USAGlenn Melvyn UKEric Merriman UKChristopher Mitchell UKAlbert Modley UKRobert Moreton UKGladys Morgan UKLily Morris UKRichard Murdoch UKTom E. Murray USADavid Nixon UKLarry Noble UKOle Olsen USAChic Johnson USAKen Platt UKSandy Powell UKVince Powell UKHovis Presley UKCardew Robinson UKJoe E. Ross USAPatsy Rowlands UKDerek Roy UKDerek Royle UKLeslie Sarony UKLarry Semon USARonald Shiner UKJohnnie Silver USADennis Spicer UKLarry Stephens UKJake Thackray UKThelma Todd USAJack Train UKKarl Valentin GermanyLiesl Karlstadt GermanyNorman Vaughan UKTom Walls UKRalph Lynn UKElsie and Doris Waters UKRita Webb UKJohn Wells UKGeorge and Kenneth Western UKGordon Wharmby UKBert Wheeler USARobert Woolsey USAAlbert Whelan Australia (died UK)Robb Wilton UKMike and Bernie Winters UKGeorgie Wood UKDolly Harmer UKHarry Worth UKMario Zampi Italy (died UK)

Hannah Dines and Jess Leyden are two perfectly normal, brilliant women. One, a world record-holding athlete and a Paralympian on the trike. The other, a multiple age-group world champion and one of the most promising rowers Great Britain has to offer. In the five years (yes, that's right) between Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020, they will face cancer scares, crushing defeats, and the biggest global health crisis in a century. They will get dropped, they will get injured, and they will win medals. They will spend the best years of their lives knowing that at any moment, it could all come crashing down. That all the training, all the sacrifice could be in vain, wasted effort as a pandemic raged. That maybe these could be the years that will shape their finest hour - or that maybe, after everything that they've been through, it could all still be snatched away at the last...

On a painful, freezing Easter Monday in 1917, Private Robert Gooding Henson of the Somerset Light Infantry is launched into the Battle of Arras. Robert is twenty-three years old, a farmer's boy from Somerset, who joins up against his father's wishes. Robert forms fast friendships with Stanley, who lied about his age to go to war, and Ernest, whose own slippery account betrays a life on the streets. Their friendship is forged through gas attacks, trench warfare, freezing in trenches, hunting rats, and chasing down kidnapped regimental dogs. Their life is one of mud and mayhem but also love and laughs.This is the story of Robert's journey to Arras and back, his dreams and memories drawing him home. His story is that of the working-class Tommy, the story of thousands of young men who were caught in the collision between old rural values and the relentlessness of a new kind of war. It is a story that connects the past with the present through land, love and blood.

Kris was living a totally normal life as a twenty-three-year-old: travelling the world, falling in love, making plans.However, when she found a lump in her boob and was told that it was not only cancer, but also incurable, life took on a completely new meaning. She was diagnosed at an age when life wasn't something to be grateful for, but a goddamn right.Little did Kris know it was cancer that would lead her to a life she had never considered: a happy one. From founding a charity to visiting Downing Street, campaigning at festivals to appearing on TV, and being present at the birth of her nephew; in the face of all the possible prognoses, Kris is surviving, thriving, and resolutely living.Glittering a Turd is more than just another cancer memoir; it's a handbook for living life to the fullest, shining a new perspective on survival and learning to glitter your own turd, whatever it might be. Kris has survived the unsurvivable for twelve years. Here, she begins to discover why.

Dolly Considine runs a late-night drinking establishment catering to the needs of thirsty politicians and theatricals in Dublin's legendary drinking area, the Catacombs.Julian Ryder (aka Paddy Butler) is an eighteen-year-old aspiring writer in need of shelter from his bullying older brother.As the new live-in lounge assistant at Dolly Considine's Hotel, Julian soon embroils himself in the shebeen's gossip - and the guests' bedsheets - and turns Dolly's entourage into fodder for his literary ambitions. Reality quickly becomes difficult to separate from fantasy...Set against the run-up to the Pro-life Constitutional Amendment of September 1983 and moving fluidly between the 1950s of Dolly's youth and Julian's Summer of Unrequited Love, the hotel becomes a stage for farce and tragedy. Between Julian's fictions, Dolly's Secrets, and narrow party politics - and featuring a papier-mache figure of Mother Ireland giving birth and clashing sword-wielding dancers - this rich cocktail threatens to blow them, and even Ireland itself, wide apart.

Britain is awash, the sea creeps into the land, brambles and forest swamp derelict towns. Food production has moved overseas and people are forced to move to the cities for work. The countryside is empty. A chorus, the herd voice of feral cows, wander this newly wild land watching over changing times, speaking with love and exasperation. Jesse and his puppy Mister Maliks roam the woods until his family are forced to leave for London. Lee runs from the terrible restrictions of the White Town where he grew up. Isolde leaves London on foot, walking the abandoned A12 in search of the truth about her mother.

'One of the best accounts ever written of deep-water diving and its staggering, haunting dangers' Robert Kurson, New York Times bestselling author of Shadow DiversDeep underwater lurks a mysterious man-made illness. It has gone by many names over the years - Satan's disease, diver's palsy, the chokes - but today, medics call it decompression sickness. You know it as the bends.That's the devil British diver Martin Robson faces each time he plunges beneath the surface. In the winter of 2012, Robson was part of an expedition to Blue Lake, southern Russia, which sought to find a submerged cave system never seen by the human eye. On the final day of the expedition, as Robson returned from diving deeper into the lake than anyone had before, disaster struck: just seventy-five feet down, he was ambushed by the bends.Robson knew that if he continued up to the surface he would probably die before help arrived. Instead, he sank back into the water, gambling on an underwater practice most doctors believe is a suicidal act. Soon the only hope he had of saving his life would rest in the hands of a dramatic mercy mission organised at the highest levels of the Russian government.Between the Devil and the Deep is the first book to tell the terrifying true story of what it feels like to get the bends, taking you inside the body and mind of a man who suffered the unthinkable. Writer Mark Cowan also explores the grimly fascinating history of decompression sickness, the science behind what causes the disease, and the stories of the forgotten divers who pushed the limits of physical endurance to help find a solution.

In the summer of 1992, Jason Salkey was cast in a role that would change his life forever. Sharpe's Rifles, a Napoleonic war drama, was to be shot in the Crimean Peninsula. Little did the producers know that they would be sending Jason and the crew to film in a rapidly disintegrating Soviet Union. There they faced near-starvation and danger round every corner as they set about creating one of Britain's most successful and critically acclaimed television programmes.From Crimea with Love documents the mishaps, blunders, incompetence and downright corruption that made Sharpe's Rifles go down in British television folklore for its unique tales of hardship. Follow the cast through intense depravation and constant catastrophe until they become every bit the jaded, battle-hardened soldiers we saw on screen. Tapping into his diaries, photo journals and video log, Jason brings you an eye-opening, jaw-dropping insider's account of one of the best-loved shows ever made.

A 'gentle and enormously enjoyable' (Metro) memoir detailing conductor Lev Parikian's attempt to spot 200 birds in a year

What if we responded to death... by throwing a party? Journalist Erica Buist travels to seven death festivals around the world (Mexico, Nepal, Sicily, Thailand, Madagascar, Japan, Indonesia) in search of better attitudes towards mortality

In 2023, the Accelerated Regeneration Compound (ARC) was created: a serum that stimulates regrowth of human tissue - and which quickly drew notice from the United States government. In 2035, 'Project Golem' was created: Five genetically augmented super-soldiers, imbued with ARC...Twenty years later, the world is finally beginning to recover from the effects of the 'Turmoil': a near-apocalyptic collision of terrorist attacks, brushfire wars, economic collapse, industrial accidents, and internal disorder and uprisings across the globe. Here and there, rumors circulate of 'giants in black' who fought against the worst violence - and then suddenly disappeared, hidden or dead.Cut off from the Project, a small group of surviving Golems has spent the past five years in hiding. In that time, they have been seeking out others of their kind, trying to bring them together in a community all their own. They know nothing of their lives before the Project - if those even existed.Now, however, two of them are setting out on a journey to find answers. But the truth of their origins goes far deeper than they could ever believe. And there are some in the covert world they left behind who will kill to keep this truth buried...

An anthology of lively and imaginative short fiction by eight autistic writers, with a foreword by David Mitchell and introduction by Joanne Limburg

Forget everything you think you know about strippersIn this powerful book, Stacey Clare, a stripper with over a decade of experience, takes a detailed look at the sex industry - the reality of the work as well as the history of licensing and regulation, feminist themes surrounding sex work, and stigma. Bringing her personal knowledge of the industry to bear, she offers an unapologetic critique and searing indictment of exploitation, and raises the rights of sex workers to the top of the agenda.The Ethical Stripper rejects notions of victimhood, challenges stigma and shame, and unpacks decades of confusion and contradictions. It's about the sex-work community's fight for safety and self-determination, and it challenges you to think twice about every newspaper article, documentary and film you have seen about stripping and sex work.

Whether negotiating the mind-games of the Israeli intelligence services or performing ablutions in a London bathroom, Mohammad Chowdhury's life as a British Muslim travelling the world brings daily challenges. Border Crossings is the story of Chowdhury's journey, gripping in some parts and shame-inducing in others, as he describes a lifelong struggle to reconcile the British, Asian and Muslim sides of his identity, constantly dealing with the mistrust of Westerners alongside the hypocrisies of his own community and their misunderstanding of Islam.Chowdhury's story echoes the experience of thousands of Western Muslims who since 9/11 have been subjected to a constant barrage of questions that cast doubt over the very goodness of their faith. It is the story of a man who cries when England win the Ashes, yet still finds himself screaming in the face of racism and religious bigotry. This timely book powerfully rejects the poisonous narrative that Muslims can no longer be trusted as honest citizens of the West.

'Exquisite . . . Angela Carter goes feral with Ursula K. Le Guin' (Jay Griffiths): a beautifully illustrated novel rooted in fantasy and folklore, set in a post-apocalyptic California

They've all got a book in them, unfortunately.In December 2016, Julia Greengage, aspiring writer and resting actor, puts up a poster in her local library inviting people to join a new writers' group. The group will exchange constructive feedback and 'generally share in the pains and pleasures of this excruciating yet exhilarating endeavour we call Literature'.Seven people, each in their own way a bit of a work in progress, heed the call.There's Keith, a mercenary sci-fi geek who can write 5,000 words before breakfast and would sell his mother for a book deal. Tom, a suburban lothario with an embarrassing secret. Peter, a conceptual artist whose main goal in life is to make everyone else feel uncomfortable. Alice, who's been working on her opening sentence for over nine months. Jon, a faded muso with a UFO complex. Blue, whose doom-laden poems include 'Electrocuted Angel in the Headlights of My Dead Lover's Eye Sockets' and the notorious 'Kitten on a Fatberg'. And Mavinder, who sadly couldn't make the first meeting. Or the second. But promises to come to the next one...Soon, under Julia's watchful eye, the budding writers are meeting every month to read out their work and indulge each other's dreams of getting published. But it's not long before the group's idiosyncrasies and insecurities begin to appear. Feuds, rivalries and even romance are on the cards - not to mention an exploding sheep's head, a cosplay stalker, and an alien mothership invasion. They're all on a journey, and God help the rest of us.A novel-in-emails about seven eccentric writers, written by three quite odd ones, Work in Progress is a very British farce about loneliness, friendship and the ache of literary obscurity.

An illustrated compendium and critique of the most beautiful, bulbous and downright dangerous video game butts

Douglas and his father haven't been able to communicate since his mother's death from cancer. Their house is a place of sadness. One day Douglas finds an injured goose and begins their mission to nurse the bird, and themselves, back to health.

According to the latest figures, the number of vegans in the UK has more than quadrupled since 2014, now representing over 1 per cent of the total population. With the rise in plant-based foods and cruelty-free products showing no sign of stopping, Think Like a Vegan explores how vegan ethics can be applied to every area of our daily lives.We all want to live more healthily and ethically, and this book is certainly not just for vegans. It's for anyone interested in veganism, its ideals and what even non-vegans can learn from its practice. Through a personal and often irreverent lens, the authors explore a variety of contemporary topics related to animal use: from the basics of vegan logic to politics, economics, love and other aspects of being human, each chapter draws you into a thought-provoking conversation about your daily ethical decisions.Why should we adopt animals?What's the problem with organic meat?What are the economics of plant-based foods?What about honey?What is the relationship between veganism and feminism?What is vegansexualism?

This landmark, first-of-its-kind anthology presents a groundbreaking perspective on women's writing about the natural world and our place within it

Kate and her Granny Jean have nothing in common. Jean's great claim to fame is raising her weans without two pennies to rub together, and Kate's an aspiring scriptwriter whose anxiety has her stuck in bad thought after bad thought. But what Jean's Glaswegian family don't know is that she dreamed of being a film star and came a hairsbreadth away from making it a reality. Now in her nineties, Jean is a force to be reckoned with. But when the family starts to fall apart Jean must face her failings as a mammy head-on - and Kate too must fight her demons. Either that or let go of her dream of the silver screen forever...

Cullrothes, in the Scottish Highlands, where Innes hides a terrible secret from his girlfriend Alice, a gorgeous, cheating, lying schoolteacher. In the same village, Donald is the aggressive distillery owner, who floods the country with narcotics alongside his single malt; when his son goes missing, he becomes haunted by an anonymous American investor intent on purchasing the Cullrothes Distillery by any means necessary. Schoolgirl Jessie is trying to get the grades to escape to the mainland, while Grandpa counts the days left in his life.This is a place where mountains are immense and the loch freezes in winter. A place with only one road in and out. With long storms and furious midges and a terrible phone signal. The police are compromised the journalists are scum, and the innocent folk of Cullrothes tangle themselves in a fermenting barrel of suspicion, malice and lies...