Other books that might interest you

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  Rassie - The Inspirational...

  Rassie Erasmus

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  THE BOLD NEW MEMOIR FROM SOUTH AFRICA'S DOUBLE WORLD CUP-WINNING COACH RASSIE ERASMUSRassie Erasmus has been called a genius. He’s been called reckless. All his life, he’s done things differently. Now, with his trademark candour, Rassie talks openly about his adventures and misadventures at the pinnacle of world rugby, both as player and coach.From his role in Nick Mallett's record-breaking Springbok team of the late 1990s, to the devastating injuries that cut short his playing career, to his revolutionary coaching career, Rassie is an essential window into one of the most successful figures of modern rugby.When his teammates relaxed, Rassie preferred to watch hours of video and devise winning strategies. His coaching methods were initially laughed off – before being eagerly adopted when their success proved undeniable. He fought the rugby establishment at the Stormers, and later earned the grudging respect of Irish fans at Munster.Most crucially, Rassie talks about his greatest contribution to South African rugby: appointing its first black captain, Siya Kolisi, without much fanfare or controversy. As his bold plans for effective racial transformation of the national team achieved immediate success, they culminated in glory at the 2019 Rugby World Cup. Here, that monumental period is recounted in vivid, insightful detail.Entertaining and eye-opening, Rassie is full of behind-the-scenes revelations, telling the story of a towering figure in world rugby.

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  The Invention of Memory - An...

  Simon Loftus

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  From the arrival of his first ancestor in Dublin in 1560, Simon Loftus traces the fascinating story of his family's heritage in Ireland - piecing together fragments of legend and biography that span over 350 years of Irish history.
  
  The background is the colonial conquest of Ireland and the clash of religious and national identity, but the focus is close at hand, familial. The passions and eccentricities, the daily concerns and relationships, the rich dramas and anecdotes of individuals in this Ascendancy family - over eight generations - combine to form an enthralling memoir of shifting viewpoints and entertainingly inconsistent accounts of a shared past.
  
  The Invention of Memory is a profound family portrait and a sweeping history that examines the nature of recollection and how our memories are shaped by experience and time.
  
  'Spell-binding, full of treasures and often extremely moving.' -
  Selina Hastings
  'A series of beautifully rendered evocations of landscape, people, attitudes, emblems and events. It treats the sweep of a melancholy history with the utmost poise and discernment.' -
  Irish Times
  'A wonderful excursion through history, illuminating more famous events of Anglo-Irish history through the delicious, inconsequential details of Simon Loftus's family.' -
  Matthew Fort
  'A powerfully evocative mixture of biography and legend, peppered with heart-warming and heart-wrenching anecdotes.' -
  Financial Times
  'Apart from the sheer enjoyment of Loftus's exhumations, his thoughts on the multiple uses of 'the memory of a past that never was' deserve to be pondered.' -
  Times Literary Supplement

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  Jeremy Piven and Rebecca Eaton...

  Jeremy Piven, Rebecca Eaton

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  Best known as Ari Gold, the agent you love to hate on HBO’s “Entourage,” Emmy and Golden Globe winner Jeremy Piven has one of Hollywood’s most diverse resumes.Piven surprised audiences by taking on the title role in the British series “Mr. Selfridge,” about the real-life department stores mogul, which airs on "Masterpiece" on PBS. Go behind the scenes of the show as he talks with "Masterpiece" executive producer Rebecca Eaton and “Today”’s Matt Lauer about the making of Selfridge, the upcoming Entourage film and what’s next for Jeremy Piven.

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  Five of the Few - Survivors of...

  Steve Darlow

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  A personal wartime human history of five RAF airmen who fought Fighter Command’s air battles during World War II. Five distinguished RAF airmen, four pilots and one radar operator/navigator, who fought air battles during the Battle of Britain and the Blitz, have recounted their experiences in detail to author Steve Darlow. Their stories have never before been published, and they talk engagingly of their service life, combats, losses, injuries, friendships and fears—flying Spitfires, Hurricanes, Blenheims, Beaufighters and Havocs. One pilot tells of the time he fell victim to the enemy, knowing he was going down with his plane. A Beaufighter radar operator remembers being involved in shooting down a German aircraft—“He took a vertical dive, struck the ground and exploded with a shower of incendiaries. I felt like a child with a new toy. I had at last proved myself but for some reason I suddenly felt a little sad.” These men would also distinguish themselves in subsequent air campaigns—night defense of the UK, offensive operations over the continent and support to D-Day and beyond. In between the aerial combats and ground attack operations, promotions, decorations and command responsibilities would come their way. But not all would make it through safely to the end of the war. One would end up behind barbed wire. Collectively Five of the Few is a war story of youth maturing, through aspiration and idealism, courage and bravado, fear and heroism, memory and reflection. It is a reminder of why so much was owed, and still is, by so many to so few.

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  The Havana Papers

  Michael L Daly

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  With a 1958 portable typewriter in his suitcase, the writer wanders Havana's crumbling back alleys, bullet-sprayed museums, and grand hotels where the relics of the Revolution and the ghost of Hemingway still speak loudly.
  
  When his typewriter breaks in transit, the writer is forced to reconsider his writing holiday and put his novel on hold, until a new story emerges from the vibrancy and history in the Old City - Habana Vieja. Recipient of a 2016 Eric Hoffer Award for nonfiction, The Havana Papers reveals a complex, contemporary portrait of one of the world's great historic cities.An Author's Republic audio production.

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  The Drillmaster of Valley Forge...

  Paul Lockhart

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  The image of the Baron de Steuben training Washington's ragged, demoralized troops in the snow at Valley Forge is part of the iconography of our Revolutionary heritage, but most history fans know little more about this fascinating figure.In the first book on Steuben since 1937, Paul Lockhart, an expert on European military history, finally explains the significance of Steuben's military experience in Europe. Steeped in the traditions of the Prussian army of Frederick the Great-the most ruthlessly effective in Europe-he taught the soldiers of the Continental Army how to fight like Europeans. His guiding hand shaped the army that triumphed over the British at Monmouth, Stony Point, and Yorktown. And his influence did not end with the Revolution. Steuben was instrumental in creating West Point and in writing the "Blue Book"-the first official regulations of the American army. His principles have guided the American armed forces to this day.Steuben's life is also a classic immigrant story. A failure in midlife, he uprooted himself from his native Europe to seek one last chance at glory and fame in the New World. In America he managed to reinvent himself-making his background quite a bit more glamorous than it really was-but redeeming himself by his exceptional service and becoming, in a sense, the man he claimed to be.

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