Other books that might interest you

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  I Know This Much: From Soho to...

  Gary Kemp

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  I Know This Much – written and read by Gary Kemp – Spandau Ballet's prime mover – is simply the freshest, most exciting and best read memoir to arrive for years 
  Gary's story begins in North London, where the Kemp family rented a home with no bathrooms and chickens in the yard. After a couple of failed attempts to kill his brother Martin, his parents gave him a guitar for Christmas. 
  From schoolyard battles between the Bowie Boys and the Prog Rockers to Mrs Kemp's firm insistence on net curtains, from acting for the Children's Film Foundation to manning a fruit and veg stall on Saturdays, Gary brilliantly evokes an upbringing full of love, creativity and optimism. 
  As the Thatcher years begin, Gary's account of the outrageous London club scene centred around the Blitz and Billy's is just sizzling. Out of this glamorous mayhem of kilt-wearing mascara'd peacocks would emerge Spandau Ballet - the band that would define the era, and hold high the victorious standard of the New Romantics. 
  Gary's thrilling journey with Spandau Ballet would see them record worldwide hits such as True, Gold and Through the Barricades, play the biggest stadiums in the world, and take to the stage in togas when their luggage gets lost in flight. Stallions, supermodels and dwarves would be hired for video shoots, and through it all, Gary records the wonderful friendships, and the slowly-building tensions that would eventually see five old friends facing each other in court. 
  I Know This Much tells the story of Spandau Ballet, but it's far more than a book about being in a band. Whether it's meeting Ronnie Kray before filming The Krays, sketching out the fashions and subcultures of the day, or hanging out with Princess Diana, this book offers a story on every page. And all the more so because it's all written – brilliantly – by Gary himself. 
  In this top-rated autobiography, Gary Kemp doesn't just recount the story of Spandau Ballet, he paints a vibrant picture of the era and the subcultures that shaped it. This is not just a biography, it's a time capsule of a pivotal moment in music history. 
  For fans of Shirlie Kemp (Pepsi & Shirlie), Peter Crouch (How to Be an Ex-Footballer), Dylan Jones (When Ziggy Played Guitar), Pete Burns (Freak Unique), and Martyn Ware (Electronically Yours).

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  Rome's Last Citizen - The Life...

  Rob Goodman, Jimmy Soni

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  Marcus Porcius Cato: aristocrat who walked barefoot and slept on the ground with his troops, political heavyweight who cultivated the image of a Stoic philosopher, a hardnosed defender of tradition who presented himself as a man out of the sacred Roman past—and the last man standing when Rome's Republic fell to tyranny. His blood feud with Caesar began in the chamber of the Senate, played out on the battlefields of a world war, and ended when he took his own life rather than live under a dictator.Centuries of thinkers, writers, and artists have drawn inspiration from Cato's Stoic courage. Saint Augustine and the early Christians were moved and challenged by his example. Dante, in his Divine Comedy, chose Cato to preside over the souls who arrive in Purgatory. George Washington so revered him that he staged a play on Cato's life to revive the spirit of his troops at Valley Forge. Now, in Rome's Last Citizen, Rob Goodman and Jimmy Soni deliver the first modern biography of this stirring figure.Cato's life is a gripping tale that resonates deeply with our own turbulent times. He grappled with terrorists, a debt crisis, endemic political corruption, and a huge gulf between the elites and those they governed. In many ways, Cato was the ultimate man of principle—he even chose suicide rather than be used by Caesar as a political pawn. But Cato was also a political failure: his stubbornness sealed his and Rome's defeat, and his lonely end casts a shadow on the recurring hope that a singular leader can transcend the dirty business of politics.Rome's Last Citizen is a timeless story of an uncompromising man in a time of crisis and his lifelong battle to save the Republic.

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  Saint Athanasius: The Father of...

  Francis Alice Forbes

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  A short and rather old fashioned biography a great saint. Don't expect subtlety; it's unapologetic hagiography. The saint is presented as a figure of pristine brilliance, courage and integrity and his persecutors as conniving villains. But to those who appreciate what was at stake in the controversy, Athanasius is indeed a God-sent hero. This is an informative, if quaint, introduction to a fascinating figure in history. (Summary by Pattymarie)

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  Resolute Rebel - General Roswell...

  Chet Bennett

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  The first biography of the general’s complex, often contradictory military service in the US and Confederate armies and his postwar British exploits. 
   
  Roswell S. Ripley (1823–1887) was a man of considerable contradictions exemplified by his distinguished antebellum service in the US Army, followed by a controversial career as a Confederate general. After the war he was active as an engineer/entrepreneur in Great Britain. Author Chet Bennett contends that these contradictions drew negative appraisals of Ripley from historiographers, and in Resolute Rebel Bennett strives to paint a more balanced picture of the man and his career. 
   
  Born in Ohio, Ripley graduated from the US Military Academy and served with his classmate Ulysses S. Grant in the Mexican War, during which Ripley was cited for gallantry in combat. In 1849 he published The History of the Mexican War, the first book-length history of the conflict. While stationed at Fort Moultrie in Charleston, Ripley met his Charleston-born wife and began his conversion from unionism to secessionism. After resigning his US Army commission in 1853, Ripley became a sales agent for firearms manufacturers. When South Carolina seceded from the Union, Ripley took a commission in the South Carolina Militia and was later commissioned a brigadier general in the Confederate army. Wounded at the Battle of Antietam in 1862, he carried a bullet in his neck until his death. Unreconciled in defeat, Ripley moved to London, where he unsuccessfully attempted to gain control of arms-manufacturing machinery made for the Confederacy, invented and secured British patents for cannons and artillery shells, and worked as a writer who served the Lost Cause. 
   
  After twenty-five years researching Ripley in the United States and Great Britain, Bennett asserts that there are possibly two reasons a biography of Ripley has not previously been written. First, it was difficult to research the twenty years he spent in England after the war. Second, Ripley was so denigrated by South Carolina’s governor Francis Pickens and Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard that many writers may have assumed it was not worth the effort and expense. Bennett documents a great disconnect between those negative appraisals and the consummate, sincere military honors bestowed on Ripley by his subordinate officers and the people of Charleston after his death, even though he had been absent for more than twenty years. 
   
  “A vitally useful addition to the Civil War Charleston literature.” —Civil War Books and Authors 
   
  “[A] deeply researched and closely argued study. General Roswell S. Ripley emerges from the margins of Civil War history thanks to the able pen of Chet Bennett.” —A. Wilson Greene, author of Civil War Petersburg: Confederate City in the Crucible of War

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  Logged Off - My Journey of...

  Jordan Wells

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  How many likes did you receive on your last post?   
  Are you satisfied with that number of likes?  Jordan Wells once believed that social media was the beginning of great success for his career, his relationships with people, his whole life in general.  Wells was very much so mistaking.  In this memoir, you will take a journey into the mind of Jordan Wells, who will try to guide you out of this world we have fallen in love with so much; the great and powerful social media world.  You will read about the struggle Wells once had with his addiction to social media, and his excessive use of smartphones.  Wells will elaborate his theories on why people should take a sharp break from social media, to avoid being pulled into a never-ending downward spiral.  You will also read about Wells’ profound visions of what he believes could happen in the very far future, beyond the twenty-first century.   
  What do you gain from posting on an app?  Posting about your personal lives, your business, love, family, friends, and all of that personal information that gives you nothing in return except likes.  Likes, comments, views, and followers from random strangers that you will never even know. 
  After reading “Logged Off: My Journey of Escaping the Social Media World,” you will possibly have a change of heart on what you post on your social media accounts, or perhaps avoid social media at all cost. 
  The mission that Wells is hoping to accomplish with you, the reader, is to let you know that you have a choice. To present you with another alternative, to have a different perspective, and to see what life is like on the other side of the fence. 
  Jordan Wells has logged off, never to return. Will you?

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  A Man Called Possum - The...

  Max Jones

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  This is the story of a bush legend of the 20th Century. A man who shunned society and chose to live a life alone with nature, with the mighty Murray River as his lifeline for 54 years. Max Jones, a Detective Sergeant with the South Australian Police Force became interested in "The Possum" and to why he had "gone bush."  
  Was he a murderer on the run?  
  Had he committed serious crimes that lead to him avoiding all human contact for years? Max Jones instincts as a police officer lead him on a 28 year quest to get to the bottom of the mystery. The Possum roamed hundreds and a times thousands of kilometres along the Murray and often was not sighted for years at a time.  
  Max Jones during breaks in his police duties would set out in search of the Possum, often tracking him for many days only for the Possum's tracks to disappear into the Murray where the recluse would swim across the river or seek refuge on one other many small islands in the river system. But Max persisted and not only did he track down the Possum, he gained his confidence and heard the real reason why he had turned his back on society.  
  This is a remarkable story of survival against the odds and of two men who have established themselves in Australian outback folklore.

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