Biography

The story of a fascinating man who connected the great politicians, artists and thinkers at the height of British global power and (read more)

The story of a fascinating man who connected the great politicians, artists and thinkers at the height of British global power and influence. A famed aesthete and patron, Philip Sassoon's world was one of luxury and classic English elegance with oriental flair. He gathered a social set that would provide inspiration for Brideshead.

There you might find Winston Churchill arguing over the tea cups with George Bernard Shaw, the Prince of Wales playing tennis with Charlie Chaplin, Noel Coward mingling with flamingos and Lawrence of Arabia and Rex Whistler painting murals as the party carried on around him. But Philip Sassoon was not just a wealthy aesthete. He worked at the right hand of Douglas Haig during the First World War and then for Prime Minister Lloyd George for the settlement of the peace. (hide)

Churchill has gone down in history as one of the greatest leaders the world has ever known. From the day the Second World War was (read more)

Churchill has gone down in history as one of the greatest leaders the world has ever known. From the day the Second World War was declared he stood out as the only man wanting to take offensive action. But is this accolade deserved?The first few years of the war were nothing short of disastrous, and author Stephen Napier shows how Churchill's strategies - and his desire not to be the first British prime minister to surrender the nation - brought the war effort to the brink of ruin and back again.

Published:20 Aug 2018 (hide)

Theodor W. Adorno and Siegfried Kracauer were two of the most influential philosophers and cultural critics of the 20th century. (read more)

Theodor W. Adorno and Siegfried Kracauer were two of the most influential philosophers and cultural critics of the 20th century. While Adorno became the leading intellectual figure of the Frankfurt School, Kracauer's writings on film, photography, literature and the lifestyle of the middle classes opened up a new and distinctive approach to the study of culture and everyday life in modern societies.

This volume brings together for the first time the long-running correspondence between these two major figures of German intellectual culture. As left-wing German Jews who were forced into exile with the rise of Nazism, Adorno and Kracauer shared much in common, but their worldviews were in many ways markedly different. These differences become clear in a correspondence that ranges over a great diversity of topics, from the nature of criticism and the meaning of utopia to the work of their contemporaries, including Bloch, Brecht and Benjamin.
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Little Lien wasn't taken from her Jewish parents - she was given away in the hope that she might be saved. Hidden and raised by a (read more)

Little Lien wasn't taken from her Jewish parents - she was given away in the hope that she might be saved. Hidden and raised by a foster family in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation, she survived the war only to find that her real parents had not.

Much later, she fell out with her foster family, and Bart van Es - the grandson of Lien's foster parents - knew he needed to find out why. His account of tracing Lien and telling her story is a searing exploration of two lives and two families. It is a story about love and misunderstanding and about the ways that our most painful experiences - so crucial in defining us - can also be redefined.

*** WINNER OF THE COSTA BOOK OF THE YEAR 2018 ***' (hide)

Volumes 1 and 2 of the Diary of John Quincy Adams begin the publication of the greatest diary, both in mass and substance, in American (read more)

Volumes 1 and 2 of the Diary of John Quincy Adams begin the publication of the greatest diary, both in mass and substance, in American History. Recording a span of sixty-eight years, it has been known heretofore only in partial form. When, over a hundred years ago, Charles Francis Adams edited his grandfather's diary, he chose to omit "the details of common life," reduce "the moral and religious speculations," and retain criticisms of others only if they applied to public figures "acting in the same sphere with the writer."Now the diary is being published complete for the first time.

Starting with the entries of a twelve-year-old, the present volumes cover John Quincy Adams's formative year-his schooling and travel abroad, study at Harvard, and the first months of training for the law. Adams's six years overseas with his father took him to a half dozen countries, with lengthy stays in Paris, the Netherlands, and St. Petersburg.

Published:31 Mar 2021 (hide)

Volumes 1 and 2 of the Diary of John Quincy Adams begin the publication of the greatest diary, both in mass and substance, in American (read more)

Volumes 1 and 2 of the Diary of John Quincy Adams begin the publication of the greatest diary, both in mass and substance, in American History. Recording a span of sixty-eight years, it has been known heretofore only in partial form. When, over a hundred years ago, Charles Francis Adams edited his grandfather's diary, he chose to omit "the details of common life," reduce "the moral and religious speculations," and retain criticisms of others only if they applied to public figures "acting in the same sphere with the writer."Now the diary is being published complete for the first time.

Starting with the entries of a twelve-year-old, the present volumes cover John Quincy Adams's formative year-his schooling and travel abroad, study at Harvard, and the first months of training for the law. Adams's six years overseas with his father took him to a half dozen countries, with lengthy stays in Paris, the Netherlands, and St. Petersburg.

Published:31 Mar 2021 (hide)

At the age of 23, Brian Wood was thrust into the front line in Iraq, in the infamous Battle of Danny Boy. Ambushed, he led a charge (read more)

At the age of 23, Brian Wood was thrust into the front line in Iraq, in the infamous Battle of Danny Boy. Ambushed, he led a charge across open ground with insurgents firing at just five soldiers. On his return, he was awarded the Military Cross.

But Brian's story had only just begun. Struggling to re-integrate into family life, he suffered from PTSD. Then, five years later, a letter arrived- it summoned him to give evidence at the Al-Sweady Inquiry into allegations of war crimes by British soldiers during the Iraq invasion of 2003. (hide)

A heartbreaking memoir from a girl who escaped county line trafficking only to become prey to other abusers... Emily has always (read more)

A heartbreaking memoir from a girl who escaped county line trafficking only to become prey to other abusers...

Emily has always felt like an outsider, so when a family friend takes her under his wing she is delighted. But soon it becomes clear that his motives are not all they seem.

At the age of 11, Emily is groomed into being a 'county lines' drug trafficker. It is the beginning of a vicious cycle that sees her become prey to one abuser after another, involving a huge child-sex-trafficking gang. The scale of the abuse - at the hands of hundreds of men - is sickening, and at times it feels like there will never be an escape. (hide)

During the week Kenneth Grahame sat behind a mahogany desk as Secretary of the Bank of England; at the weekend he retired to the (read more)

During the week Kenneth Grahame sat behind a mahogany desk as Secretary of the Bank of England; at the weekend he retired to the house in the country he shared with his fanciful wife Elspeth and fragile son Alistair and took lengthy walks along the Thames in Berkshire, 'tempted [by] the treasures of hedge and ditch; the rapt surprise of the first lords-and-ladies, the rustle of a field-mouse, the splash of a frog'. (hide)

'I was saying things in songs that female singers didn't really say back then. I wasn't submissive or begging him to come back, I (read more)

'I was saying things in songs that female singers didn't really say back then. I wasn't submissive or begging him to come back, I was kicking his ass, kicking him out, kicking my own ass too. My Blondie character was an inflatable doll but with a dark, provocative, aggressive side.

I was playing it up, yet I was very serious.' BRAVE, BEAUTIFUL AND BORN TO BE PUNK DEBBIE HARRY is a musician, actor, activist and the iconic face of New York City cool. As the front-woman of Blondie, she and the band forged a new sound that brought together the worlds of rock, punk, disco, reggae and hip-hop to create some of the most beloved pop songs of all time. As a muse, she collaborated with some of the boldest artists of the past four decades.
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