Other books that might interest you

• 

  The Mystery of Lewis Carroll -...

  Jenny Wolf

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  A new biography of Lewis Carroll, just in time for the release of Tim Burton's all-star Alice in Wonderland Lewis Carroll was brilliant, secretive and self contradictory. He reveled in double meanings and puzzles, in his fiction and his life. Jenny Woolf's The Mystery of Lewis Carroll shines a new light on the creator of Alice In Wonderland and brings to life this fascinating, but sometimes exasperating human being whom some have tried to hide. Using rarely-seen and recently discovered sources, such as Carroll's accounts ledger and unpublished correspondence with the "real" Alice's family, Woolf sets Lewis Carroll firmly in the context of the English Victorian age and answers many intriguing questions about the man who wrote the Alice books, such as: • Was it Alice or her older sister that caused him to break with the Liddell family? • How true is the gossip about pedophilia and certain adult women that followed him? • How true is the "romantic secret" which many think ruined Carroll's personal life? • Who caused Carroll major financial trouble and why did Carroll successfully conceal that person's identity and actions? Woolf answers these and other questions to bring readers yet another look at one of the most elusive English writers the world has known.

  Show book

• 

  Thatcher's Spy - My Life as an...

  Willie Carlin

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  In Thatcher's Spy, the Cold War meets Northern Ireland's Dirty War in the remarkable real-life story of a deep under-cover British intelligence agent, a man now doomed forever to look over his shoulder... 
   
  In March 1985, as he climbed the six steps of Margaret Thatcher's prime-ministerial jet on the runway of RAF Aldergrove, little did Willie Carlin know the role Freddie Scappaticci played in saving his life. So began the dramatic extraction of Margaret Thatcher's key undercover agent in Sinn Féin. For 11 years, Willie Carlin worked alongside IRA commander Martin McGuinness in the republican movement's political wing in Derry. He was MI5's man at McGuinness' side and gave the British State unprecedented insight into the IRA leader's strategic thinking. When Carlin's cover was blown in 1985, Thatcher authorized the use of her jet to whisk him to safety. Incredibly, it was another British spy inside the IRA's secretive counter-intelligence unit, the 'nuttin' squad', who saved Carlin's life. This is his story.

  Show book

• 

  Lost & Found - Nine...

  Helen Chandler-Wilde

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  On New Year's Eve of 2018, Helen Chandler-Wilde lost everything she owned in a storage unit fire in Croydon, England, where she'd stowed all her possessions after a big breakup. She was left devastated and forced to re-evaluate her relationship with owning material things. 
   
   
   
  In Lost & Found, she offers a profound mix of memoir, self-help, and journalism to explore the psychological reasons, sociological quirks of human nature, and fascinating science behind why we buy and hold onto things. Helen interviews people from all walks of life, including behavioral psychologists on the science of nostalgia, a nun on what it's like to own almost nothing, and consumer psychologists on why we spend impulsively, to help us better understand why we're surrounded by clutter and what we can do to change it. 
   
   
   
  By the end of this smart-thinking book filled with lessons and engaging prompts to help us gain perspective on our buying habits and the value we place on what we already have, your relationship with your belongings will be changed forever. The perfect "new year, new you" listen or gift for anyone who is downsizing, striving for a more sustainable lifestyle, or is eager to cultivate a minimalist mindset.

  Show book

• 

  A Journey to the Western Islands...

  Samuel Johnson, James Boswell

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  In 1773, an unlikely pair-a dominant figure of English literature and a young lawyer-set out on horseback to follow roads and cattle-trails across the Highlands to the Western Islands of Scotland. Their conversation and accounts are filled with curious detail, flashing wit and fascinating encounters with the high and low of the country.

  Show book

• 

  A German Deserter's War...

  Julius Koettgen

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  A firsthand account of a German soldier’s horrific experiences fighting in France and Belgium, culminating in his escape from military service.   In 1913 Julius Koettgen, a pacifist and a socialist, was drafted into the ranks of sapper battalion No. 30. He dutifully fought in the ranks of the Kaiser’s armies during 1914 and 1915 and saw action in France and Belgium where he describes the terrible events which were to become known as “the rape of Belgium” and also details the extent of the fighting including being forced to form part of a firing squad, crossing the Meuse under heavy fire, using corpses as road building materials, annihilating a cavalry charge, hand-to-hand bayonet fighting, and the awful events of the disastrous German retreat from the Marne.   Koettgen also experienced the horrors of trench warfare and the famous Christmas truce of 1914. In 1915 he decided that enough was enough and escaped military life by deserting the colors and slipping through the lines to neutral Holland. His was memoirs were published by a gleeful allied press under the title A German Deserter’s War Experience.   This English translation—edited and introduced by Emmy Award™-winning historian Bob Carruthers—provides a rare primary source of insight into the German side during the crucial opening battles of the war and is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the Great War from the German perspective.

  Show book

• 

  The Lost Girls - Love and...

  D. J. Taylor

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Who were the Lost Girls? Chic, glamorous, and bohemian, as likely to be found living in a rat-haunted maisonette as dining at the Ritz, Lys Lubbock, Sonia Brownell, Barbara Skelton, and Janetta Parlade cut a swath through English literary and artistic life at the height of World War II.
  
  Three of them had affairs with Lucian Freud. One of them married George Orwell. Another became the mistress of the King of Egypt.
  
  They had very different—and sometimes explosive—personalities, but taken together they form a distinctive part of the wartime demographic: bright, beautiful, independent-minded women with tough upbringings who were determined to make the most of their lives in a chaotic time.
  
  Ranging from Bloomsbury and Soho to Cairo and the couture studios of Schiaparelli and Hartnell, the Lost Girls would inspire the work of George Orwell, Evelyn Waugh, Anthony Powell, and Nancy Mitford. They are the missing link between the Lost Generation and Bright Young People and the Dionysiac cultural revolution of the 1960s. Sweeping, passionate, and unexpectedly poignant, this is their untold story.

  Show book