Carlo Rovelli is an internationally acclaimed writer whose books, including Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, The Order of Time, Helgoland and White Holes, have been number one bestsellers around the world and translated into over forty languages. As a theoretical physicist, he has made significant contributions to the physics of space and time and he is currently directing the quantum gravity research group of the Centre de physique théorique in Marseille, France.

Carlo Rovelli

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A.G.D. Maran

The pre-dawn arrests of the last remaining mafiosi in December 2008 signalled the end of the Sicilian Mafia as we know it. In Mafia: Inside the Dark Heart, A.G.D. Maran charts the complete history of the world's most infamous criminal organisation, from its first incarnation as an alternative form of local government in the Sicilian countryside and arguable force for 'good' to the more familiar form that has been immortalised in films such as The Godfather, and its final defeat after a long-awaited change of attitude by the Italian government. 
 
The author has used his many Italian contacts and a decade of exhaustive research to bring to life the story of the Sicilian Mafia while also exploring the links to the Cosa Nostra in America. Along the way, he asks many provocative questions, including: 
 
 Why was Lucky Luciano, the father of modern organised crime, freed from a life sentence in America and deported to Italy, allowing him to organise the international drug trade? 
 Was the Mafia involved in the death of Pope John Paul I? 
 Why did the Mafia murder Roberto Calvi, known as God's Banker? 
 What is the relationship between the Mafia and Freemasonry? 
 Why did successive Italian governments fail to tackle the Mafia? 
 Why did it take 40 years to find the Last Godfathers? 
 
These and many other riveting issues are covered in Maran's refreshing new take on a perennially enthralling subject.

Mafia

Inside the Dark Heart

Roger Hutchinson

Into the Light reveals the full thrilling story of Sunderland Football Club - charting the club's progress from being the first great team to dominate the Football League, to the squad which returned to the top of English soccer at the dawn of the new millennium. Hutchinson traces a journey from Newcastle Road to the Stadium of Light by way of Roker Park. 
 
The early days of the Team Of All The Talents - the side in red-and-white stripes which took the English League by storm, breaking records and their opponents' hearts year after brilliant year - are brought vividly to life for the first time. 
 
Great goalscorers like Johnny Campbell and Jimmy Gillespie and sensational goalkeepers such as the legendary Ned Doig stride out of the pages of Into The Light; and the figures whose brilliance made Roker roar - from Len Shackleton and Brian Clough to the modern greats - are vividly portrayed. 
 
League successes came easily and early to Sunderland. Into The Light explores the club's devotion to winning trophies with style. The long - and finally triumphant - quest for FA cup victories is followed game by game. The heartbreaks and disappointments are also here in this see-saw ride through 120 years of English football, which ends as it began - right at the very top. This is the history of a football club and more - it is the tale of British soccer.

Into the Light

A Complete History of Sunderland Football Club

Nigel Goldman

Nigel Goldman wrote the autobiographical High Stakes while in prison paying the price for two decades of risk-taking on the financial markets. Through his dealings in the tempestuous silver futures market and a sideline in rare coin investments, Goldman developed a taste for the champagne lifestyle. Desperate to maintain the high life, his deals became riskier and were increasingly financed by his clients' money. Taking advantage of trading loopholes and insider tip-offs, Goldman peaked with an account balance of £14 million but troughed with two spells in prison. 
 
The story begins with Goldman placing a £50 bet on the roulette table and walking away with £10,000. And so his adventures continue. There are personal trades, investment businesses, gold bullion deals, racehorses and an American gentleman who allows Goldman to play with his fortune on the New York Stock Exchange. But there are also Customs and Excise investigations and lifelong enemies waiting to exact their revenge. 
 
High Stakes provides a detailed insight into the little-known twilight world of insider-dealing and shows how the search for the ultimate win can lead to a life on the run.

High Stakes

How I Blew £14 Million

Mario Risoli

As a young striker with Third Division club Swansea Town in the ’60s, Giorgio Chinaglia stole milk bottles from the doorsteps of local terraced houses because he couldn’t afford breakfast. Nine years later, as Lazio’s star centre-forward, Chinaglia owned apartments in Rome, a villa, a tennis club and a boat. With an annual salary of £85,000, this son of a Cardiff restaurateur was one of the world’s highest-paid footballers. 
 
Arrivederci Swansea is the remarkable rags to riches tale of one of football's original 'bad boys'. Chinaglia was given a free transfer by Swansea in 1966 because the coaching staff considered him too lazy and disliked his attitude. Chinaglia returned to his native Italy to rebuild his ailing career. He joined Roman side Lazio in 1969. There, in the awesome Olympic Stadium, Chinaglia became the idol of the Lazio tifosi. In 1974, he finished as Seria A top scorer with 24 goals and helped Lazio to their first league title. He also played for Italy in the 1974 World Cup and, on being substituted, caused outrage by making gestures at the Italian bench before storming off the pitch. After Lazio he played alongside Pelé and Franz Beckenbauer at New York Cosmos. After retiring from playing, Chinaglia became a football pundit on Italian television and radio until his death from a heart attack on 1 April 2012.

Arrivederci Swansea

The Giorgio Chinaglia Story

Sal Polisi

Steve Dougherty

The Mob was the biggest, richest business in America – until it was destroyed from within by drugs, greed and the decline of traditional crime-family values. And by guys like Sal Polisi. 
 
Born into one of the New York Mob’s feared Five Families, Polisi ran an illegal after-hours gambling den, The Sinatra Club, that was a hangout for up-and-coming mobsters like John Gotti and the three wiseguys immortalised in Goodfellas: Henry Hill, Jimmy Burke and Tommy DeSimone. Yet for Polisi, the glory days spent robbing banks and pulling heists were fleeting. When he was busted, and already sickened by the bloodbath that had engulfed the Mob as it teetered towards extinction, he flipped and became one of a breed he had loathed all his life: a rat. 
 
In this riveting first-person chronicle of his brazen crimes, wild sexual escapades and personal tragedies, Polisi tells his story of life inside the New York Mob. With shocking candour, he draws on a hard-won knowledge of Mob history to paint a revelatory picture of the inner workings of the Mafia and its larger-than-life characters.

The Sinatra Club

My Life Inside the New York Mafia

Herbert Breslin

Anne Midgette

In 1967, Luciano Pavarotti was an up-and-coming young tenor with a voice far more impressive than his stage technique or presence. So Decca, his record company, told him, 'Luciano, you're a real nice guy. So you need a real bastard to do your publicity.' Enter Herbert Breslin. The two of them hit it off and thus began a professional association and a friendship that lasted over 36 years. 
 
The King and I is the story of that relationship, during which Breslin guided what he calls, justifiably, 'the greatest career in classical music', moving Pavarotti out of the opera house and into the arms of the mass public. He and Pavarotti changed the landscape of opera and Breslin relates the story of their journey in a candid, witty fashion that is often hysterically frank and profane. His portrait of his friend and client is full of hilarious details that could only come from a true insider. 
 
The King and I is the ultimate backstage book about the greatest opera star of the past century - and the last word comes from none other than Luciano Pavarotti himself.

The King and I

The Uncensored Tale of Luciano Pavarotti's Rise to Fame by his Manager, Friend and Sometime Adversary

‘Whenever I look at him, it is as though the Messiah has returned.’ That's how Jimmy Murphy, manager of Wales’ 1958 World Cup side, described John Charles. In Italy, where he played for Juventus and Roma, Charles was known as Il Gigante Buono – the Gentle Giant – because of his placid temperament. 
 
One of the greatest footballers Britain has ever produced, Charles left his native Swansea at 16 to join Leeds United, where his phenomenal strike rate helped the club reach the First Division for the first time in its history. His goal-scoring exploits at Ellan Road then attracted the attention of Juventus, who paid a British record of £65,000 to take him to Turin in 1957. Charles went on to score an incredible 105 goals in 178 appearances for I Bianconeri – the Black and Whites – and helped them to win three Series A titles in five years. 
 
 In contrast to his humble upbringing in South Wales, he enjoyed a glamorous lifestyle in Italy. However, it was not all glory. A disasterous return to Leeds United in 1962 was followed by a spell at Roma, where he struggled to recapture his past form. The man who was treated as a god in Turin wound down his playing career with Cardiff City before turning to management in the Southern League. 
 
 This detailed and engrossing biography contains candid interviews with former teammates and family members and follows Charles’ life after football, detailing his failed business ventures and his brave fight against cancer.

John Charles

Gentle Giant

Trevor Royle

The Royal Highland Fusiliers came into being in 1959 as a result of the amalgamation of two regiments, both of which had strong connections with Glasgow and the west of Scotland: The Royal Scots Fusiliers, founded in 1678 by Charles Erskine, fifth Earl of Mar; and The Highland Light Infantry, or HLI, created in 1881 as a result of the amalgamation of the 71st Highlanders and the 74th Highlanders. 
 
Two distinctive infantry traditions can be found in the names of these regiments, which have helped to form the line infantry regiments of the British Army. Fusiliers were armed with the flintlock fusil instead of the more common matchlock musket, and light infantry came into being during the Napoleonic Wars to provide the army with a corps of skirmishing sharpshooters similar to Austrian and German Jäger troops. 
 
Amongst those who have served as fusiliers or light infantrymen are Hugh Trenchard, who became Air Chief Marshal of the Royal Air Force, Winston Churchill and David Niven, who joined the HLI from Sandhurst in the inter-war years. All these traditions and personalities went into the making of a regiment whose name lives on in the 2nd battalion of The Royal Regiment of Scotland, which was formed in 2006 as a result of the restructuring of the infantry regiments of the British Army.

The Royal Highland Fusiliers

A Concise History

Bho chionn deich bliadhna fichead, bha cnan agus cultar na Gidhlig, a bha air a bhith iomraiteach ann an Alba airson 1,300 bliadhna, a rir coltais ann an ceumannan deireannach cronadh bsmhor a mhair 200 bliadhna. Bha an ireamh de dhaoine a bhruidhinneadh Gidhlig ann an Alba air tuiteam deich uiread thairis air an linn a chaidh roimhe. Cha robh an cnan fhin cumanta ach a-mhin ann an coimhearsnachdan sgapte ceann an iar-thuath na Gaidhealtachd agus Innse Gall.Ro bhliadhnaichean trtha na ciad linne thar fhichead, ge-t, bha atharrachadh mara air tighinn. Theireadh cuid gun robh a' Ghidhlig - a bha na cuspair magaidh is nimhdeis airson ineachan - a-nise 'fasanta'. Bha obraichean Gidhlig rim faotainn; chaidh foghlam tro mheadhan na Gidhlig a stidheachadh ann an iomadh ite; agus chunnaic luchd-poileataigs agus luchd-gnomhachais gun robh buannachdan an lib a bhith cirdeil ris a' chultar. Ged a bha ireamh luchd-labhairt na Gidhlig a' sor thuiteam agus seann daoine a' caochladh, dh'fhs an cronadh na bu mhaille, agus airson a' chiad uair ann an 100 bliadhna, thisich rdachadh co-roinneil a' tighinn air an ireamh de dhaoine ga s a' cheud a bha a' cleachdadh a' chnain. B' e sersa de dh'ath-bhethachadh a bha anns na thachair: ath-bhethachadh Gidhlig a dh'fhoillsich e fhin ann an cel pop, litreachas, ealain, brdachd, foillseachadh, drma, ridio agus telebhisean. B' e morbhail annasach a bh' ann ris nach robh dil. Agus aig cridhe a' ghluasaid sin, bha foghlam. Gealach an Fhis ag innse sgeulachd aon ionaid, Sabhal Mr Ostaig, a' cholaiste Ghidhlig san Eilean Sgitheanach a tha air a bhith aig teis-meadhain an dsgaidh seo. Ach, thar gach rud, tha an leabhar a' mion-sgrdadh mar a thugadh dchas airson an ama ri teachd do chultar urramach aig m nuair a shaoilear gun robh gach n caillte.

Gealach an Fhais

Ur Bheothachadh na Gaidhlig

Peter Jackson

This collection of revealing profiles captures the essence of a galaxy of Welsh world-beaters from across the sporting spectrum: athletics, boxing, cricket, football, golf, horse racing, motor racing, rugby union, rugby league and tennis. 
 
 Those featured include arguably the best Welsh rugby union player of the twentieth century; the greatest bowler never to play for England; the farmer's boy who became a master golfer; the Cardiff boy from Splott who made such a name for himself in Hull that they named a thoroughfare after him; the 'Gentle Giant' from Swansea still revered in Italy some 50 years after his last match for Juventus; the only post-war Welsh jockey to win the Grand National twice; and the unsung hero from the Rhondda who became the saviour of Manchester United in the weeks after the Munich air disaster. 
 
 Their stories, based on exclusive interviews and coloured with anecdotes, will inspire future generations to believe that nothing is impossible.

Triumph and Tragedy

Welsh Sporting Legends

Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) - mystic, writer, poet, astrologer, sexual revolutionary, painter, mountain climber and social critic - has a terrifying reputation. The contemporary press labelled him the 'wickedest man in the world', while he called himself the 'great beast'. Crowley dabbled in the occult, supported Germany in the First World War, was addicted to opiates, and many who associated with him died tragically in mysterious circumstances. 
 
Working from the starting point that behind the demonic reputation there stood a human being, and that beyond the self-proclaimed black magician there was a man hungry for publicity and fame, Roger Hutchinson lifts the smokescreen of mythology to reveal a truly astonishing figure. 
 
Why did this curious product of the Plymouth Brethren found the first 'hippy commune' in Sicily? What led this Cambridge graduate to be celebrated 20 years after his death on the cover of The Beatles' Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album? Why did Mussolini expel him from Italy? Why did a British magazine label him 'the man we'd like to hang'? 
 
Roger Hutchinson reveals the real Crowley: warts, wickedness, talent, courage, cowardice and all.

Aleister Crowley

The Beast Demystified

David Leslie

Crimelord is the gripping life story of elusive multimillionaire gangster Tam McGraw. A notorious criminal kingpin, McGraw has risen from extreme poverty in the East End of Glasgow to become one of Scotland's wealthiest men. 
 
When hash started to flood into Scotland from the late 1980s onwards, suspicion centred on McGraw, leader of the infamous Barlanark Team. After a two-year surveillance operation, police discovered the drug had been hidden in buses carrying young footballers and deprived Glasgow families on free holidays abroad. It was a scam reminiscent of the movie The Italian Job, only this time Scots kids had been sitting on hash worth over £40 million. Police claimed McGraw was the financier and mastermind but in 1998 a jury declared him innocent while other suspects were jailed. 
 
As McGraw refuses to discuss his life publicly, his remarkable tale is told through friends, fellow crooks and the occasional rival. It is an outrageous, often hilarious, true gangster story.

Crimelord: The Licensee

The True Story of Tam McGraw

David Smith

Carol Ann Lee

Despite standing as chief prosecution witness in the Moors Murders trial, David Smith was vilified by the public due to the accusations thrown at him by Myra Hindley and Ian Brady about his involvement in their crimes. Hindley's later confession that she and Brady had lied in an attempt to reduce their sentences did little to diminish the slurs against his name. 
 
 For almost 45 years, Smith was asked by writers and film-makers to tell his story. Apart from a handful of brief interviews, he always refused. Carol Ann Lee met Smith during her research for One of Your Own, her critically acclaimed biography of Hindley, following which he finally agreed to reveal all. 
 
 In Witness, interviews, archival research and, most significantly, David Smith's own vivid memoir are fused to create an unforgettable, often harrowing account of his life before, during and after the Moors Murders.

Witness (later issued as Evil Relations)

The Story of David Smith, Chief Prosecution Witness in the Moors Murders Case

Mervyn Davies

David Roach

Few rugby players have matched the achievements of Welshman Mervyn Davies, the shrewd, gutsy number 8 with the heart of a lion. In what was a remarkable career, he won two Grand Slams, three Triple Crowns, earned thirty-eight consecutive Wales caps, was captain of his national team and played in two victorious Lions tours. 
 
 From the tail end of the 1960s through the first half of the glorious '70s period, 'Merv the Swerve' - with that mop of black hair and trademark headband - cut an iconic figure in the world's great rugby arenas. Teammates and opponents respected him, fans loved him and he was a natural leader of men both on and off the field.Then, in March 1976, everything changed. Mervyn was leading Swansea in a semi-final cup clash when he suffered a massive brain haemorrhage. He began that fateful Sunday preparing for just another high-profile game but ended it fighting for his life. Wales, and the watching sporting world, could do nothing but wait and hope. And just when the odds seemed stacked irreversibly against him, Mervyn did what he had always done: he beat them. 
 
 Mervyn's life story is one of what was and what might have been. From locker-room tales to the loneliness of rehabilitation, Mervyn's account is funny, moving and honest. He writes about his many highs and lows, about losing rugby but regaining his life, and shares his thoughts on the days he spent in shadow and in strength.

In Strength And Shadow

The Mervyn Davies Story

James Mackay

Thomas Lipton burst onto the national scene in 1897, the year of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. The Princess of Wales had launched a £30,000 fund to provide a Jublilee dinner for the poor, but, with only weeks to go, no more than £5,000 had been subscribed. Lipton saved the day by writing a cheque for £25,000. The annonymous gift created massive press speculation and even greater publicity when the identity of the donor leaked out two days later. Lipton's generosity earned him a knighthood and propelled him into society at the highest level, a personal friend of the future King and Queen. 
 
Many of the myths that surrounded Lipton in the latter part of his life were created at this time and would be fixed for ever in his autobiography, published shortly after his death in 1931. Until now, what we know of Sir Thomas Lipton, grocery millionaire and yachtsman, is what he chose to tell the world about himself. Now literally detective James Mackay has uncovered the true story of one of the turn of the century's most extrordinary, larger-than-life characters, a story which is indefinitely more dramatic than the accepted version. 
 
Virtually everything Lipton tells us about himself is now shown to be untrue - even the origins of his family, his name, his date of birth and the place where he was born. The man who was hailed as the world's most eligible bachelor (his name was linked romantically with Rose Fitzgerald, the future mother of John F. Kennedy) had at least two skeletons in the closet - a youthful indescretion which led to a forced marriage, and a homosexual affair which lasted for thirty years. 
 
As a self-publicist he was a genius, and this was the key to his remarkable success. Beginning with a small shop in Glasgoe in 1871 he created a nationwide grocery chain second to none. In the process, he revolutionised the grocery retail trade, dealing direct with producers and eventually controlling production himself, with tea estates in Ceylon and meat-packing plants in Chicago. He combined a flair for organisation with superb showmanship, with stunts such as five-ton cheeses stuffed with gold sovereigns. In 1898 his company went public in one of the most successful share issues in stockmarket history. 
 
Lipton developed an interest in yachting which he pursued with the same single-mindedness as his business ventures. Between 1898 and 1930 he challenged for the America's Cup with a succession of yachts called Shamrock, but the rules of the race were heavily weighted in favour of the American defenders. The saga of his challenges, his near triumphs and the disappointments that would have destroyed a less heroic figure has become the most stirring in the annals of sport, and provides a fitting conclusion to the life of a maverick and outsider who was also one of the most colourful and flamboyant tycoons of all time.

Sir Thomas Lipton

The Man Who Invented Himself

Colin Fry

The Krays were a product of their age, nurtured by a doting mother and created by their community, the East End of London. Their name alone conjures up images of power, violence and greed - and even brother Charlie couldn't steer the twins Ron and Reg clear of murder mayhem as they killed their way to the top of the criminal tree. They lived by their own rules. And they died by them. The three brothers will never be forgotten. They are an indelible part of our history, whether we like it or not. And from media manipulation to control freak paranoia, The Krays were masters of deception. Even at the end Reg Kray was still portraying himself as just an ordinary East Ender - mistreated by the Home Office and the police, misunder-stood and mistakenly labelled `Godfather of Crime' by the media. The Kray Anthology traces their history from childhood and early adolescence to manhood and death. This book explores the brothers' fantasy lives, full as they were of mind games and false memories. Whatever you want to know about the Krays and the real reasons behind their success, you can read it here for the first time. Only now can the truth be revealed - without fear of intimidation, retribution or revenge. The Krays are dead and buried, but the myth lives on.

The Krays - The Final Countdown

The Ultimate Biography Of Ron, Reg And Charlie Kray

Martin Greig

Since his move to Celtic in the summer of 2005, Shunsuke Nakamura has become a cult hero in both Scotland and the Far East. From the wonderful goal in his Champions League debut against Manchester United in 2006 to the strike against Kilmarnock that secured Celtic's league win in 2006-07, Nakamura has firmly established himself as a Celtic legend. 
 
Nakamura's ability to confront and overcome adversity has been the key to his success. From his rejection as a youngster by home-town club Yokohama Marinos to his omission from the 2002 World Cup squad by Philippe Troussier and his struggle to adapt to the defensive nature of Italian football, Nakamura has bounced back stronger every time. 
 
The Zen of Naka is a comprehensive, revealing account of Nakamura's career to date. It explores his development from the early stages of his footballing journey to his time with Celtic at present, and looks ahead at what the future may hold for the star.

The Zen of Naka

The Journey of a Japanese Genius

Claudia Joseph

With her glossy dark hair, classic looks, natural appearance and cut-glass accent, Kate Middleton displays all the poise and breeding expected from the wife-to-be of the heir to the throne. Sophisticated beyond her years, Kate has charmed William's louche circle of friends as well as the House of Windsor. Yet behind her polished veneer lies the extraordinary tale of an impoverished working-class family that overcame deprivation and adversity to rise to the upper echelons of society. 
 
Claudia Joseph has spoken to members of Kate's family and friends, who have provided an intriguing insight into the extraordinary journey her family has made from the mining villages of Durham to the gates of Buckingham Palace. 
 
Drawing on exclusive interviews and containing previously unpublished photographs, this is the authoritative account of Kate Middleton's life so far.

Kate

The Making of a Princess

Brian Cookson

Some of the most beautiful views of London are those from the many bridges which span the River Thames. Millions of people cross over the Thames every day but most are too concerned with reaching their destination to notice the structures they use, let alone consider their history or the risks taken in building them. 
 
 Triumphs of architecture and engineering, London's bridges have inspired artists as diverse as Dickens and Monet. From the elegant Richmond Bridge to the Gothic, quintessentially British Tower Bridge, they have formed the backdrop to battles, rebellions, pageantry and mysteries for two millennia. Crossing the River tells these stories, including the assassination of a dissident with a poisoned umbrella on Waterloo Bridge; the apparent suicide of 'God's banker', an Italian financier with links to the Vatican, the Masons and the Mafia; and the Marchioness tragedy and its controversial aftermath. 
 
 Featuring illustrations and photographs old and new, this book will undoubtedly increase the reader's knowledge and appreciation of the bridges and the people who built them, and thereby enhance the pleasure of seeing them, whether at leisure or stuck in a traffic jam.

Crossing the River

The History of London's Thames River Bridges from Richmond to the Tower

Jim Wilkie

The star Argentiniean striker Claudio Caniggia has described Dundee as 'a football town' and, as the favoured partner of arguably the world's greatest-ever player Diego Maradona, he should know. But why should he care? What was this man doing, plying his trade in Dundee? 
 
Dundee Football Club - the Dark Blues - do have a tradition; they have produced a number of outstanding players, won all the major Scottish trophies and, in 1963, reached the semi-final of the European Cup. For the next three decades, however, their story was one of gradual decline - and you can lose a lot of supporters in 30 years. 
 
When brothers Peter and Jimmy Marr, local businessmen, took over at Dens Park in 1997, the fans didn't know what to expect. They were a different proposition from their predecessors in that they had experience of running successful amateur and junior football clubs - but while the team performed creditably under Jocky Scott, there were still a number of very average players getting a game and the wider fan base was only inclined to attend a handful of matches during the season. 
 
Having battled to get promotion to the Scottish Premier League and build new stands, however, Peter Marr proceeded to make a leap of cultural faith. He knew that quality football was the key to any form of success and that, generally speaking, it could be found on the European continent. 
 
Marr originally expressed interest in Ivano Bonetti as a player, but when he discovered that the Italian was also interested in management, decided to embark on a footballing adventure with him. What followed has been one of the most remarkable episodes in recent Scottish football history. In the face of great cynicism and limited resources, Bonetti has assembled a squad of outstanding international talent, with his friend Claudio Caniggia the jewel in the crown. Results have been both good and bad - and sometimes downright weird - but the football has always been consistently entertaining and frequently breathtaking. No Dundee fan will ever forget season 2000-01. In this book Jim Wilkie reviews the tradition of the club and, using key profiles and reports, charts their amazing transformation to Bonetti's Blues.

Bonetti's Blues

Dundee FC and its Cultural Experiment

Jackie Turpin

Now in his 80th year, 'Battling' Jack Turpin is the last surviving member of his generation of Britain's best-known and best-loved boxing family. 
 
Jack's father, Lionel Turpin, came from British Guiana to volunteer for the British Army during the Great War. He was wounded on the battlefields of France and invalided to Warwick, the first black man to settle in the area. Lionel married a local girl but his early death left her struggling to raise their three sons and two daughters in pre-Welfare State England. 
 
As young men, the excitement and gladiatorial glamour of the ring lured Jack and his brothers into professional boxing. From a home-made backstreet gymnasium, they punched their way into the record books and into the hearts of the British people. 
 
Battling Jack is a wonderfully narrated account of the life and times of a remarkable man who was once Britain's busiest featherweight. It is also the history of the beginnings of a black presence in British boxing. Turpin offers us a ringside seat at heroic battles and comic encounters. He takes us behind the scenes of a scandal that rocked the sporting world and into his confidence about the mystery that surrounds his younger brother's death. 
 
Jack Turpin has out-stared ignorance and prejudice, tasted triumph and celebrity, and endured hardship and tragedy. Heart-rending, raw, honest and funny, his is a story that had to be told.

Battling Jack Turpin

You Gotta Fight Back

Henry Allingham

Dennis Goodwin

Henry Allingham is the last British serviceman alive to have volunteered for active duty in the First World War and is one of very few people who can directly recall the horror of that conflict. In Kitchener's Last Volunteer, he vividly recaptures how life was lived in the Edwardian era and how it was altered irrevocably by the slaughter of millions of men in the Great War, and by the subsequent coming of the modern age. 
 
Henry is unique in that he saw action on land, sea and in the air with the British Naval Air Service. He was present at the Battle of Jutland in 1916 with the British Grand Fleet and went on to serve on the Western Front. He befriended several of the young pilots who would lose their lives, and he himself suffered the privations of the front line under fire. 
 
In recent years, Henry was given the opportunity to tell his remarkable story to a wider audience through a BBC documentary, and he has since become a hero to many, meeting royalty and having many honours bestowed upon him. 
 
This is the touching story of an ordinary man's extraordinary life - one who has outlived six monarchs and twenty-one prime ministers, and who represents a last link to a vital point in our nation's history.

Kitchener's Last Volunteer

The Life of Henry Allingham, the Oldest Surviving Veteran of the Great War

David V. Herlihy

In the spring of 1892, Frank G. Lenz, a gallant young accountant from a modest German American family, set forth from his unhappy home in Pittsburgh to circle the globe atop a new 'safety' bicycle with inflatable tyres (the forerunner of today's road bike). He brought along a large wooden camera and arranged to send regular reports to his sponsor, Outing magazine, effectively making him a harbinger of the great bicycle boom that was about to explode with stunning social and industrial repercussions. Two years, fourteen thousand miles and many adventures later, after crossing the United States, Japan, China, Burma, India and Persia, just as he was about to enter Europe for the home stretch, Lenz vanished. His presumed murder in Asiatic Turkey jolted the American public and became an international cause célèbre. 
 
The Lost Cyclist recounts, for the first time ever, the short but remarkable life of Lenz and the heroic efforts of another American 'globe girdler', William L. Sachtleben, who was sent by Outing to unravel Lenz's mysterious death in Turkey - all set against the horrifying backdrop of the Hamidian massacres.

The Lost Cyclist

The Untold Story of Frank Lenz's Ill-Fated Around-the-World Journey

Clive Everton

Throughout its chequered history, snooker has had more than its fair share of heroes and villains, champions and chumps, rascals and rip-off artists. In the last 20 years, every sleazy scandal imaginable has attached itself to this raffish sport: corruption, match fixing, bribery, sex, recreational drugs, performance-enhancing drugs, ballot rigging, fraud, theft, domestic violence, common-or-garden violence, paranoid politicking, dirty tricks - all against a background of inept petty tsars fixated on the pursuit, retention and abuse of power. 
 
 In Black Farce and Cue Ball Wizards, Clive Everton recounts the glory and despair, the dreams and disillusion, and the treachery and greed that have characterised the game since it was invented as an innocent diversion by British Army officers in India in the nineteenth century. He tells the true and unexpurgated tale of snooker's transformation into a television success story second only to football and exposes how its potential has been shamefully squandered.

Black Farce and Cue Ball Wizards

The Inside Story of the Snooker World

Diane Blood

Diane Blood first hit the headlines in 1996 when she went to court to fight for the right to use her late husband's sperm to try for the child they had planned together before his sudden death from meningitis. Diane's case caused an ethical storm and was debated in the courts, in Parliament and in the media. With huge public support, yet against almost impossible odds, she won on appeal and went on to have two miraculous little boys. 
 
 The legal battles were not over, however, as the law still prevented Diane from naming the boys' father on their birth certificates. After many hurdles and stumbling blocks, she triumphed again and made constitutional history when the Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Deceased Fathers) Act finally came into force on 1 December 2003 and she was allowed to re-register her children's births. 
 
 Flesh and Blood asks many important questions and helps provide some of the answers. It shows how controversial policies are made that affect all our lives. Beyond that, it is a simple story of life, death and procreation: an incredibly vivid account written by the woman who lived through the despair and jubilation.

Flesh and Blood

The Harrowing and Moving Story of a Mother's Fight to Bear Her Late Husband's Children

Andrew Mourant

Don Revie was the football man about whom few were neutral. The Leeds United team he created was possibly the finest in the history of English league football, one of legendary endurance, it characters strong and unyeilding. Yet is remained unpopular, for many felt its voracious pursuit of honours was hallmarked by cynicism and ruthlessness. 
 
This fascinating study of Revie, one of English football's most complex and controversial figures, examines the factors and influences that moulded him. In interviews with team-mates, the footballers he managed and others who worked alongside him, Andrew Mourant reflects on the many seemingly paradoxical aspects of Revie's nature. 
 
After depicting Revie's childhood living on the breadline in Middlesbrough, from which the game was his great escape, Mourant traces his development through playing days with five league clubs to management of Leeds United, England and beyond. He also considers the legacy Revie left Leeds: a craving for a return to the days of glory and triumph he engineered. 
 
It is a turbulent story of success and failure. The tragic nature of Revie's untimely death in 1989 through motor neurone disease served only to sharpen memories of his achievements. He continues to cast a shadow over Elland Road and remains the yardstick against whom all successors are judged. Amid the triumphs, near misses and traumas, his reign brought Leeds United an era of unparalleled prosperity and stability. 
 
The story of Revie's career is one of intense dedication, willpower and pursuit of the near impossible. For some it was an inspiration; while for others its darker elements tainted the success he brought to Elland Road and all he strove to achieve for England.

Don Revie

Portrait of a Footballing Enigma

Andrew Carnegie (1835–1922) was a mass of contradictions: a radical Chartist who became a rabid capitalist, an idealist who was also a profound cynic, a committed pacifist who also played a crucial role in the opening part of the American Civil War, and a ladies’ man who had to wait until his fifties (after his domineering mother died) before forming a meaningful relationship with a woman. 
 
 From bobbin boy in a Pittsburgh factory he progressed to messenger boy, telegraphist and railway superintendent. His meteoric rise owed much to his boss, Thomas Scott, who also cut the young Carnegie in on his first lucrative share deal. The youth who earned thirty-five dollars a month was on the road to his first million within a year or two, and he never looked back. Speculation in rolling-stock and railways, the nascent oil industry, iron and, above all, steel made Carnegie the richest man in the world. Along the way he created fortunes for many others, but trampled on friend and foe alike in his relentless pursuit of money. 
 
 Then, the man who amassed the largest fortune in the world proceeded to give most of it away. From free libraries to world peace, the Carnegie millions were pumped into a host of worthy causes. The Peace Palace at the Hague is the lasting legacy of this global philanthropy; but Carnegie’s faith in the Kaiser to achieve world peace was shattered by the outbreak of the First World War, and it was a setback from which he never recovered. 
 
 This candid and penetrating biography follows Carnegie from his humble birthplace in Dunfermline to the squalor of Allegheny City and Pittsburgh in the 1840s, and charts his dramatic rise to fame and fortune. Set against the contrasting backdrops of radical Scotland and America during the most turbulent phase of its development, Little Boss is the definitive story of one of the world’s greatest captains of industry.

Andrew Carnegie

Little Boss

Jan de Vries

Jan de Vries: A Life in Healing is the complete life story of the world-renowned health guru. It recounts his journey from childhood in wartime Holland through an amazing 50-year career, during which he has earned a global reputation as a leader in the field of alternative medicine. 
 
De Vries has encountered many obstacles in his fight to achieve recognition for the benefits of alternative medicine and he was once even threatened with imprisonment. Throughout these struggles he has remained true to his principles and his success can be measured by the large number of conventional doctors who have come to support his work. 
 
In this extraordinary autobiography, de Vries also looks back over his long and fruitful working relationship with Alfred Vogel, the famous Swiss naturopath. De Vries was the only person to whom Vogel taught his unique healing methods and he shares many of the secrets and methods he learned from this remarkable man. 
 
Jan de Vries has helped hundreds of thousands of patients during his long career and in this absorbing account he includes invaluable advice for daily living and achieving good physical, mental and spiritual health.

A Life in Healing

Alex Caine

The Hells Angels. The Bandidos. Asian triads. Russian mobsters and corrupt cops. Even the KKK. Just part of a day's work for Alex Caine, an undercover agent who has seen it all. 
 
After a tour in Vietnam and a stretch in prison on marijuana-possession charges, Caine fell into the cloak-and-dagger world of a contracted agent. Thanks to his quick-wittedness and tough but unthreatening demeanour, Caine could fit into whatever unsavoury situation he found himself. Over 25 years, his assignments ran the gamut from mean bikers to triad toughs. When a job was over, he'd slip away to a new part of the continent or world, where he would assume a new identity and then go back to work on another group of bad guys. 
 
Befriend and Betray offers an unflinching look at some familiar police operations and blows the lid off others that law enforcement would much prefer to keep hidden. It provides an unvarnished account of the toll such a life takes, one that often left Caine to wonder who he really was behind the myriad identities he had assumed and whether justice was ever truly served.

Befriend and Betray

Infiltrating the Hells Angels, Bandidos and Other Criminal Brotherhoods

Jackie Todd

It was love at first sight: the huge pale-green eyes, the ruffled tawny hair and the cute way he held his head to one side. What really swung it, though, was his feet being way too big for his body, his ears too big for his head and that, while trying to look brave, he was obviously terrified. Charly was the first of what grew to be a large family of abandoned Spanish dogs taken in by Jackie Todd and her husband Stephen after they emigrated in 1997 to Frigiliana, a picturesque Spanish village in Andalucia. By the time Charly was four, something magical had happened: the people of the village had become close friends and the Todds' memories of their old lives were as weak as British sunshine. 
 
Fourteen years on from that first arrival they have ten dogs and eight cats of their own and regularly foster tiny strays that need bottle-feeding until they can be found homes. In 2007, 123 puppies and kittens passed through their door; in 2008, it was 119; and the tragic procession continues today. 
 
Millions of people dream of turning their summer holiday into permanent reality. Dog Days in Andalucía is the heart-warming and inspirational story of an ordinary British couple who did just that, making a mighty impression on the village, its people and its surrounding animal population along the way.

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