Other books that might interest you

• 

  The Last Time I Saw Paris

  Elliot Paul

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Elliot Paul, an American journalist, first walked into rue de la Huchette in the summer of 1923. 'There,' he wrote, 'I found Paris.' His biography of the street brings to life a cast of charaters, from the stately M. de Malancourt to l'Hibou the tramp, from the culturally precocious Hyacinthe to a bevy of prostitutes. Their friendships and enmities, culture and way of life are woven into a tapestry as compelling as a novel. Yet as the threat of the Second World War grows and the political polarisation between right and left intensifies, it endows their quiet, heroic lives with a tragic poignancy. The Last Time I Saw Paris is one of the great portraits of an unforgettable city.

  Show book

• 

  Graeme Edge The Moody Blues

  Cyril Taylor-Carr

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Graeme Edge was born on 30th March 1941 in Rochester, Staffordshire. His mother was a pianist for the silent movies and his father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all music-hall singers.Edge trained as a draughtsman but soon went into music full time. He never started out to be a drummer, he was, in fact the manager of a group called the Blue Rhythm Band. Graeme always watched the drummer in the group and fooled around on the drums, but never really drummed professionally until that drummer quit and he had to fill in. He then bought his first drum kit.The first band he formed was the Silhouettes followed by The Blue Rhythm Band. He then helped to form Gerry Levene and the Avengers, who recorded a single for Decca, and appeared on TV in "Thank Your Lucky Stars". Following the collapse of this group in April 1964 Edge formed The R & B Preachers, which included Denny Laine and Clint Warwick. When that group disbanded the three of them linked up with Ray Thomas and Mike Pinder to form The M & B 5, which later changed its name to The Moody Blues.

  Show book

• 

  Zero to Hero - The Gareth...

  Rob Mason

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Gareth Southgate got the England job by accident. Taking over after Big Sam Allardyce's reign came to an untimely end after just one game, former England Under 21 boss Southgate looked like the traditional FA blazers' safe bet: a man who wouldn't upset anyone, would look smart and be on the back pages, not the front ones. With his trademark waistcoat, finely trimmed fashionable beard and a willingness to share credit rather than look to monopolise it, the former Crystal Palace, Aston Villa and Middlesbrough man fitted the image. Had England stumbled through the group stage of the 2018 FIFA World Cup and then lost gallantly once the knock-out stuff began, Southgate would have simply been another page in the list of England failures, ready to be replaced by a high profile manager of world renown as the FA looked for yet another blueprint for future success. Southgate showed the leadership to bravely cast aside the old guard represented by Joe Hart and Wayne Rooney. Fittingly for a man who had worked successfully with the nation's brightest young players at Under 21 level he pulled together not just a team of three lions but young lions ready to roar. Suddenly England was a team of pace and panache that could even win penalty shoot-outs. People such as Jordan Pickford, Harry Maguire and Kieran Trippier stepped up to join the immense Harry Kane on the world stage, a stage where Southgate had made headlines for England. This tale traces how Southgate went from zero to hero, from the days when he was a youngster at Crystal Palace to the days when surely Buckingham Palace will be giving him a call as the toast of the nation joins Sir Alf Ramsey and Sir Bobby Robson in the pantheon of England's most successful managers.

  Show book

• 

  Rat Pack Confidential - Frank...

  Shawn Levy

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  January 1960. Las Vegas is at its smooth, cool peak. The Strip is a jet-age theme park, and the greatest singer in the history of American popular music summons a group of friends there to make a movie. One is an insouciant singer of Italian songs, ex-partner to the most popular film comedian of the day. One is a short, black, Jewish, one-eyed, singing, dancing wonder. One is an upper-crust British pretty boy turned degenerate B-movie star actor, brother-in-law to an ascendant politician. And one is a stiff-shouldered comic with the quintessential Borscht Belt emcee's knack for needling one-liners. The architectonically sleek marquee of the Sands Hotel announces their presence simply by listing their names: Frank Sinatra. Dean Martin. Sammy Davis, Jr. Peter Lawford. Joey Bishop. They call themselves The Clan. But to an awed world, they are known as The Rat Pack.
   
  They had it all. Fame. Gorgeous women. A fabulous playground of a city and all the money in the world. The backing of fearsome crime lords and the blessing of the President of the United States. But the dark side - over the thin line between pleasure and debauchery, between swinging self-confidence and brutal arrogance - took its toll. In four years, their great ride was over, and showbiz was never the same.

  Show book

• 

  Report from the Interior

  Paul Auster

  • 1
  • 0
  • 0

  Paul Auster's most intimate autobiographical work to date. 
  In the beginning, everything was alive. The smallest objects were endowed with beating hearts... 
  Having recalled his life through the story of his physical self in Winter Journal, internationally acclaimed novelist Paul Auster now remembers the experience of his development from within through the encounters of his interior self with the outer world in Report from the Interior. 
  From his baby's-eye view of the man in the moon, to his childhood worship of the movie cowboy Buster Crabbe, to the composition of his first poem at the age of nine, to his dawning awareness of the injustices of American life, Report from the Interior charts Auster's moral, political, and intellectual journey as he inches his way toward adulthood through the postwar 1950s and into the turbulent 1960s. Auster evokes the sounds, smells, and tactile sensations that marked his early life—and the many images that came at him, including moving images (he adored cartoons, he was in love with films), until, at its unique climax, the book breaks away from prose into pure imagery: The final section of Report from the Interior recapitulates the first three parts, told in an album of pictures. At once a story of the times—which makes it everyone's story—and the story of the emerging consciousness of a renowned literary artist, this four-part work answers the challenge of autobiography in ways rarely, if ever, seen before. A Macmillan Audio production.

  Show book

• 

  Killing the Dream - James Earl...

  Gerald Posner

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  A deep dive into James Earl Ray’s role in the national tragedy: “Superb . . . a model of investigation . . . as gripping as a first-class detective story” (The New York Times).   On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in Memphis, Tennessee, by a single assassin’s bullet. A career criminal named James Earl Ray was seen fleeing from a rooming house that overlooked the hotel balcony from where King was cut down. An international manhunt ended two months later with Ray’s capture. Though Ray initially pled guilty, he quickly recanted and for the rest of his life insisted he was an unwitting pawn in a grand conspiracy. In Killing the Dream, expert investigative reporter Gerald Posner reexamines Ray and the evidence, even tracking down the mystery man Ray claimed was the conspiracy’s mastermind.   Beginning with an authoritative biography of Ray’s life, and continuing with a gripping account of the assassination and its aftermath, Posner cuts through phony witnesses, false claims, and a web of misinformation surrounding that tragic spring day in 1968. He puts Ray’s conspiracy theory to rest and ultimately manages to disclose what really happened the day King was murdered.

  Show book