Meik Wiking founded the world's first Happiness Research Institute in 2013, in Copenhagen, Denmark and is a New York Times and Sunday Times Bestselling author. Meik has been called The Indiana Jones of Smiles and probably the World's Happiest Man by The Times. He is the author of four globally bestselling books which have sold over 2 million copies worldwide: The Little Book of Hygge, The Little Book of Lykke, The Art of Making Memories and My Hygge Home.

Meik Wiking

Sue Meikle has always been obsessed with picture books, and after working as an Early Years Specialist for over 25 years, she has read stories to children from Stockport to South Africa. In schools, in early years centres, while on forest school adventures... Sue has even read stories on a travelling play bus! So, perhaps it was always in the stars for Sue to not just read books, but write them, too! When she's not reading or writing stories, Sue can be found walking her dog or chauffeuring her teenagers around the Greater Manchester area (because that’s where they live… in a home that they made from a derelict barn!)

Sue Meikle

David Meikle is a TV scriptwriter and Sunday Times bestselling author. He has written and co-written seven books, including the autobiographies of Charlie Richardson and Bobby Cummines.

David Meikle

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Iain Duff

For more than 120 years, Rangers and Celtic have vied for supremacy in one of the world's sporting hotbeds. The rivalry between the two teams is among the fiercest anywhere in sport, making an Old Firm derby much more than a football game. Controversy is rarely far away when the Glasgow giants meet, but amid the fallout that invariably follows their contests, the actual game is often forgotten. 
 
In Follow, Follow, Iain Duff recounts the greatest footballing moments of Rangers' illustrious history in Old Firm clashes, from their very first competitive win over Celtic, in the 1893 Glasgow Cup final, through to the 1-0 victory at Ibrox that was a vital factor in Rangers' 2009-10 SPL title win. 
 
The intervening years saw famous Old Firm contributions from legendary Ibrox names such as Gillick, Meiklejohn, McPhail, Baxter, Johnston, McCoist, Cooper, Laudrup, Ferguson and Novo, all of which are revisited here, along with the goals, the flare-ups and the controversies that make these derby days simply unforgettable for every Rangers fan.

Follow, Follow

Classic Rangers Old Firm Clashes

Dominic Stevenson

In 1993, Dominic Stevenson left a comfortable life with his girlfriend in Kyoto, Japan, to travel to China. His journey took him to some of the most inhospitable and dangerous places in the world, from the poppy fields of the Afghan-Pakistan border to the ancient trade routes of the Silk Road, before he was arrested for drug smuggling while boarding a boat from Shanghai to Japan. 
 
After eight months on remand in a Chinese police lock-up, Stevenson was sentenced to two and a half years in one of the biggest prisons in the world, the Shanghai Municipal Prison aka 'The Monkey House'. There, he was imprisoned alongside just five westerners amongst five thousand Chinese criminals in a block for death row inmates and political prisoners, where the guards drank green tea and let the prison run itself. 
 
The experience led him to reflect on his previous life in Japan, India and Thailand, during which time he took on a varied array of jobs, including English teacher, karaoke-bar host, factory worker, busker, crystal seller and dope smuggler. 
 
From Afghan gun shops to Tibetan monasteries, Thai brothels and the stirrings of the rave culture in Goa, Monkey House Blues is a tale of discovery and rediscovery, of friendship and betrayal.

Monkey House Blues

A Shanghai Prison Memoir

Alan Hill

Sporting twins Alec and Eric Bedser are a remarkable duo. From humble origins at Woking to their reign as key members of the Surrey team during the magnificent succession of seven championships in the 1950s, they share a rare and precious relationship. 
 
The Bedsers is Alan Hill's engrossing study which explores the puzzles of their identical twinship. Alec Bedser was England's bowling standard bearer in the years following the Second World War. His exceptional strength and prowess yielding almost 1,924 wickets, including 236 in 51 Tests. He was at the peak of his powers in the 1953 series against Australia, when his aggregate of 39 wickets beat the previous record held by Maurice Tate. It included match figures of 14 wickets for 99 runs at Nottingham - a feat only surpassed against Australia by Wilfred Rhodes, Hedley Verity and Jim Laker. High among his other distinctions was his record against Don Bradman whom he dismissed on eight occasions. 
 
After retirement, Alex maintained his connection with cricket in fulfilling administrative duties, which included a record term as Chairman of the Test selectors. Knighted in 1997 for his services to cricket, he is the only English bowler to receive the honour.

The Bedsers

Twinning Truimphs

Chelsea Haywood

Step into the surreal world of a Tokyo hostess club and gain an exclusive underground pass courtesy of Chelsea Haywood as she sets out to explore a vocation where £400 dinners, Harajuku shopping sprees and first-class trips to Kyoto are just part of the job. 
 
This is the true story of one girl's immersion in the world of hostessing, a late-night entertainment for wealthy Japanese men drawn from the traditional institution of the geisha. In an attempt to make the foreign familiar, Chelsea's initial fascination takes an unexpected turn as she struggles to maintain sanity in an illusory world full of empty flattery, unrelenting temptation and material excess.

90-Day Geisha

My Time as a Tokyo Hostess

Bruce Dover

When China's reformers eased open the communist giant's doors to the world, they found Rupert Murdoch standing outside in his best suit with a bunch of flowers. Used to being courted by those in power, Murdoch made a clumsy suitor. If the billionaire media mogul thought he could swagger into China and add the world's biggest audience to his News Corp empire, he quickly discovered that things worked differently in the Middle Kingdom. The communist leadership kept the 'ultimate capitalist' at arm's length. 
 
Nonetheless, amid many blunders and much wasted money, News Corp managed to connect China to the world through the Internet and to transform its staid television service into a popular-entertainment medium. But was Beijing simply using Murdoch to help the country modernise and to rehabilitate its image in the wake of Tiananmen Square? 
 
Bruce Dover, Murdoch's man on the ground in China for much of the 1990s, delivers a rollicking insider's account of doing deals at the highest level of business and politics. In this intimate portrait of the impulsive billionaire in his prime, Dover describes fatefully introducing his boss to Wendi Deng, the woman who would become his second wife - News Corp's future has a Chinese face after all.

Rupert's Adventures in China

How Murdoch Lost a Fortune and Found a Wife

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

Derek Dohren

Ghost on the Wall is the official biography of one of Liverpool Football Club's greatest ever servants: Roy Evans. Born in Bootle in 1948, Evans attracted the attention of many First Division club managers while playing for England's schoolboys team in the early 1960s. In 1964, legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly stepped in to sign him. But while the '60s were an exciting time to play for Liverpool, they were also very challenging, and Evans found it hard to break into the first team on a regular basis. 
 
Following Shankly's shock resignation in 1974, Evans was given the opportunity to become a member of the backroom staff. It was here that he really made his mark, taking the reserve team to seven Central League titles in nine years and coming of age as a coach and trainer, emerging as an invaluable member of the legendary 'Boot Room'. 
 
The decline in the club's fortunes during the 1980s meant that the resignation of manager Graeme Souness in 1994 left the incoming manager facing an exciting challenge - to return the club to its glory days. Roy Evans, 'the last of the Shankly lads', was handed his date with destiny. 
 
While the Reds did not win another League Championship under Evans' charge, neither did they finish any lower than fourth, and Evans' commitment to developing future Liverpool stars such as Robbie Fowler, Steve McManaman and Michael Owen ensured that he would not become another 'ghost on the wall' at Anfield. 
 
In this engrossing account, Evans reveals the inside story of life as a member of Liverpool's famous Boot Room. He recollects his close working relationships with Reds legends from Shankly to Houllier and provides a vivid portrait of operations at the celebrated club over four action-packed decades. 
 
Finally, he discusses the challenges he faces in his new role as assistant manager of the Welsh national side and considers the way forward for Liverpool after their Champions League victory under Rafael Benítez in 2005.

Ghost on the Wall

The Authorised Biography of Roy Evans

Andy Coogan

Andy Coogan was born in Glasgow in 1917, the oldest child of poor Irish immigrants. He was tipped for Olympic glory, but a promising running career was interrupted by war service. His capture during the fall of Singapore marked the beginning of a three-and-a-half-year nightmare of starvation, torture and disease. 
 
Andy was imprisoned in the notorious Changi camp before being transported to Taiwan, where he worked as a slave in a copper mine and was twice ordered to dig his own grave. He was later taken to Japan on a hellship voyage that nearly killed him, but Andy’s athleticism and spirit enable him to survive an ordeal in which many died. 
 
From his poverty-stricken boyhood in the slums of the Gorbals to the atomic wasteland of Nagasaki, Andy’s life story is vividly recounted in Tomorrow You Die, an epic, compassionate tale that will shock, enthral and inspire.

Tomorrow You Die

The Astonishing Survival Story of a Second World War Prisoner of the Japanese

Pete May

Many feared that West Ham would fade and die during the 2001-2002 season. Former gaffer Harry Redknapp had been sacked in mysterious circumstances and would never again exclaim that a Hammers side is 'down to the bare bones'. Meanwhile, Glenn Roeder - the man who was initially told not even to apply for the job - admitted to feeling like a 100-1 outsider who had won the Grand National upon being handed the job no one else would take. Young England stars Rio Ferdinand and Frank Lampard had been sold for 30 million and Leeds fans greeted the appearance of the massive new Dr. Martens stand with a refrain of 'Is that the Rio stand?' Furthermore, the bookies had West Ham down as certainties for relegation and there was universal bemusement at West Ham's appointment of a rookie Premiership manager. Pete May has supported the Hammers ever since he heard cries from the Chicken Run of 'Come on Hammers really pep it up and make it mediocre!' and 'Remember goals, West Ham? They were big in the Seventies!' He offers a supporters' view of Glenn Roeder's crucial first season, while also reminiscing about some of the funniest moments in Hammers' history.

West Ham

Irons in the Soul

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

Philip Hills

This is a book in which Scots tell the truth about their national drink. Ignoring the mythology which surrounds Scotland and her favourite tipple, it is written by people who are passionate about their subject, who know what they write about and who love what they know. It is about whisky and about Scotland - the real Scotland behind the invented one of the advertisers and the gift shops. 
 
Over the last 40 years Scots have reasserted their spiritual and cultural independence, and as part of this process they have redicovered the unique quality of their national drink. This renaissance not is a cause for celebrations not only by Scots but also by the rest of the world. Malt whiskies have risen from a minority taste in a small nation to become internationally recognised as the connoisseur's spirit par excellence. 
 
Contributors include acclaimed writers Ruth Wishart, George Rosie, Trevor Royle, Colin McArthur, Alan Bold and Derek Cooper; Russell Sharp, formerly chief chemist at Chivas and now president of the Caledonian Brewing Company; and poets Hamish Henderson, Hugh MacDiarmid and Norman McCaig.

Scots On Scotch

The Book of Whisky

Phil Sparrowhawk

Martin King

Martin Knight

Grass is the incredible story of Phil Sparrowhawk, a working-class boy with gambling in his blood. Like most punters, he enjoyed an incredible run of luck, but finally rolled the dice once too often. 
 
Before he had come of age, Phil had accumulated a small fortune from street trading. He then staked his entire capital on Njinsky in the 1970 Derby - and won. With his now large capital base, he launched a business importing clothes. Enter Howard Marks (aka Mr Nice), who was enthused by Phil's Far East connections and introduced him to the far more lucrative world of the 'movement of beneficial herbs' - or drug smuggling, as it is known to the authorities. 
 
Phil struck out on his own and from his new base in Thailand became involved in many large-scale cannabis deals, whilst at the same time developing highly successful legitimate businesses. Read of his encounters with Greenpeace, Mother Teresa, gangsters and leading politicians, Lord Moynihan, religious cults, former pop singers and many other diverse characters as his life became more and more surreal. 
 
The winning streak came to an end in 1988 when the US Drug Enforcement Agency closed in. Phil's £30m fortune was promptly confiscated and he spent the next four years in two of Thailand's most notorious jails before being extradited to the US, where he served further time in a series of penitentiaries. 
 
Grass details the life of an ordinary young man with a taste for adventure, who ended up on the most extraordinary journey. Sit back, take a deep breath and enjoy.

Grass

Colin Ward

Chris Henderson

Chris Henderson formed the Chelsea Headhunters – who later earned a reputation as the most dangerous fans in Britain - as well as the band Combat 84 who, with their punk attitude and uncut, Orwellian lyrics, represented the antithesis of middle-class England. 
 
After the jailing of Stephen 'Hickey' Hickmott, Henderson organised a gang of Chelsea fans who travelled to matches by luxury coach with the aim of causing havoc and destruction. They were finally arrested and their subsequent trial was meant to be the crowning glory of Thatcher's campaign to vanquish hooliganism. Instead, the dramatic collapse of the case sounded the death knell for all the undercover police operations and mass indiscriminate arrests that had been ordered by the authorities to squash the activities of Henderson and others. 
 
The 'Ministry' continued to pursue Henderson and prior to the 2002 World Cup, he and Hickmott were named as the two leaders planning hooligan and criminal acts for the tournament in South Korea and Japan, which culminated in Henderson being arrested and refused entry to Japan for the England v. Argentina match. 
 
Told in Henderson's exact words, this is the dramatic story of an era of music and football, when how you looked counted as much as how you performed. With its depiction of events surrounding South Korea/Japan 2002, Who Wants It? also shows how the scourge of hooliganism continues to blight the beautiful game today.

Who Wants It?

Billy Webb

Running with the Krays lifts the liid off London's underworld, from street gangs and race-course con games to protection rackets, beatings, maimings, intimidation and even murders. It reveals elements of police corruption and provides insights into the interdependence of both sides of the underworld scene - a compelling and gruesome account of how the other half of London lives. 
 
Born in wartime London's east end, Billy Webb grew up in the violence of air-raids and street warfare. His first weapon was a knuckleduster which he had made to measure for the price of five cigarettes when he was 11. When he first met the Krays they were scraping a living by doorknocking for old clothes to be sold in street markets. For three years he and the twins were on the run together as army deserters, and over the course of time, he was a friend, ally and foe of the Krays in their violent rise to fame.

Running with the Krays

My Life in London's Gangland

Norman Dabell

Norman Dabell, journalist, broadcaster and notorious jinx, has been covering the European golf circuit for over 20 years, though after reading this hilarious account of his mishaps, you may well come to wonder how he has managed to survive for so long. 
 
Join Norman as he retraces his pursuit of the travelling circus of the golf world from St Andrews to Sun City, Malaga to Morocco, encountering all the great faces of the modern game. Woods, Ballesteros, Faldo, Montgomerie, Westwood, Lyle, Woosnam, Langer, Olazabal, Garcia... they have all made the headlines. Dabell is there to make sure they do - while also trying to survive another day. 
 
Golf isn't really meant to be fun, they say, and sometimes it can be toture. But Danbell's rib-tickling (and his have been more than tickled) account will have even the most serious enthusiast in stitches. Fate has caused him many a tumble, broken bone and on-air gaffe, and Dabell's presence inside the ropes has been known to make even the toughest tour professional blanche. However, he is a favourite of Major-winner Vijay Singh, who might have never have got his career on the road if his ball had plummeted out of bounds instead of ricocheting onto the fairway off Dabell's head in Spain in 1990. Singh made a birdie instead of a possible double-bogey, won the tournament and ten years later went on to beat the world at Augusta. Just one of a thousand escapades which happened to a living, breathing Natural Hazard.

Natural Hazard

The Diary of an Accident-Prone Golf Watcher

Roger Hutchinson

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

Rachael Oakes-Ash

Between the ages of 17 and 31, Rachael Oakes-Ash lost 63kg and gained 76kg on a roller-coaster of body image problems and food obsession. She went through anorexia, bulimia, bulimarexia, gym mania, strict dieting and binge eating before she finally she figured out how to stop torturing herself and hating her body. Good Girls Do Swallow is the very black and very funny story of her downfall and her recovery. 
 
 Rachael might have taken things further than many of us, but this is a story every woman can relate to. You might not have rescued food from the rubbish bin in a moment of binge-madness but if you've ever felt lousy and reached for a chocolate biscuit for comfort, this book is for you. 
 
 'What the diet promised, I got,' writes Rachael. `I got the body that can wear the clothes. I got the job I love, I got the man I want. But I only got it for keeps when I stopped dieting.' From the Carol Brady Syndrome and Thindarella to Mutiny in Aisle Six, Good Girls Do Swallow tells how she did it.

Good Girls Do Swallow

The Darkly Comic True Story of How One Woman Stopped Hating Her Body

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

Jimmy Stockin

Everyone is familiar with the gypsy race but few outside their close-knit and ancient community really know what being a gypsy is about -how they live and how they think. This is the story of a gypsy man, Jimmy Stockin, born into a world where fighting is first nature. Whilst football maybe the chosen sport for most British males, bare-knuckle fighting is a passion among gypsies both as participants and spectators. Jimmy was born into fighting family. His father and grand-father before him 'trod the cobbles' and young Jimmy was being put up against other boys on gypsy camps from the age of five. He took on bare knuckle challenges from wherever they came. Before long Jimmy was widely recognised as the champion of the bare-knuckle fighters. On the Cobbles is a rare insight into a community under threat - a community that treasures tradition - and a man who had little choice in becoming a fighter but was nevertheless determined to be the best. Shocking and sad, humourous and brutal, this story opens the door to a different world. The world of a gypsy warrior.

On The Cobbles

Jimmy Stockin: The Life Of A Bare Knuckled Gypsy Warrior

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

Matt Rendell

Every week for much of the year, millions of Brits view and vote on Strictly Come Dancing, with the salsa being one of the most popular dances. Dark, enticing Afro-Caribbean rhythms; moving bodies gently interlaced, responding to the music: at first sight, salsa dancing seems to recover something our regimented British lives suppress. For not much more than a fiver, salsa can reconnect us with our bodies. So we seem to think: with perhaps a million Britons taking a class every week, salsa is statistically our national dance. 
 
Matt Rendell learned salsa the British way, as an adult, rote-learning figures and routines. His Colombian wife, Vivi, acquired salsa in early childhood from her parents and grandparents; the dance made her part of her community. 
 
A love story about two people from cultures at sometimes comical cross-purposes, Salsa for People Who Probably Shouldn't explores how the world's most popular dance went global, how it reached the UK and whether the saucy, salacious salsa of our national fantasy life is really as exotic as we like to think.

Salsa for People Who Probably Shouldn't

Derek Flory

Blanche Le Fleur

Sybil Le Fleur

When Sybil and Blanche Le Fleur were growing up in idyllic Burma in the 1920s and '30s, little did they realise the changes and challenges that they would face during their lives. With the death of first their mother and then their father, they had to cope with enormous personal tragedy, including the loss of all their family wealth. Then the Japanese bombed Rangoon on 23 December 1941. Sybil managed to get out of the city, but there was no way for her to return to her sister, or even to know if Blanche was still alive, as the death toll was so high. 
 
While Sybil escaped from Burma and settled in Scotland after marrying a Scottish soldier, Blanche lived for over three years under Japanese occupation. After leaving for India in 1958, Blanche made a new life while still thinking of and praying for her sister. Decades later, a chance set of circumstances led to the discovery by Sybil's son that Blanche was alive and living in India. 
 
Torn Apart is the heart-rending, inspirational account of how the Le Fleur sisters lived separate lives for more than 65 years before an emotional reunion brought them together again in 2007.

Torn Apart

How Two Sisters Found Each Other After Sixty-Five Years

John Cairney

'Clutching in my hand my seven copper pennies, I ran down the two flights of stone stairs from our tenement flat and through the East End to Kinloch Street, where, puffing a bit, I joined the queue of other wee boys lining up to place their coins on the brass plate above the iron turnstile, push hard against it, then climb up onto the dirt terracing and into Paradise. The rest of the world called it Celtic Park.' 
 
This is a story seen through green-and-white spectacles. It begins when nine-year-old Glaswegian John Cairney walks through the boys' gate at Celtic Park and embarks on a series of adventures that, over the years, take him all over Scotland and beyond. 
 
The Sevenpenny Gate is about a search for heroes, Celtic heroes. It is also the tale of an East End club of humble Irish origins that has developed into a worldwide brand and continues to command the devotion of its fans, even with the Celtic diaspora now spread across the globe.

The Sevenpenny Gate

A Lifelong Love Affair with Celtic FC

West Ham are back in the Premiership and, to celebrate, Pete May reflects on a lifetime of supporting the Irons. It's all here in Hammers in the Heart, from a full account of West Ham's triumph against Preston in the Coca-Cola Championship play-off final at Cardiff on 30 May 2005 to his early recollections of Bobby Moore, high-leg DM boots in the North Bank, Billy Bonds' pirate chic, obscene humour in the Chicken Run, Trevor Brooking's sideburns, the FA Cup triumphs of 1975 and 1980, promotions, relegations and sides invariably 'down to the bare bones'. 
 
 With the dark humour necessary to be a Hammers fan, Pete May recalls Frank McAvennie's Neighbours mullet; Paolo Di Canio's walk-off against Bradford; 'Two Bob' Florin Raducioiu, who preferred shopping in Harvey Nichols to playing for West Ham; Iain Dowie's legendary own goal at Stockport; homeboy Joey Beauchamp; John Hartson attempting to kick off Eyal Berkovic's head in training; beating Bury 10-0 and signing their centre-half; chants of 'We want a new back four!' and relegation with the most talented side ever to go down; and, of course, the sublime skills of Brooking, Devonshire and Di Canio. 
 
 You'll laugh, you'll wince, you'll probably need a cup of Rosie Lea in Ken's Café after reading Hammers in the Heart, an epic tale of dreams that didn't always fade and die.

Hammers in the Heart

A Lifetime of Supporting West Ham

Peter Storey

True Storey is the compelling autobiography of notorious 1970s football legend Peter Storey, dubbed 'the bastard's bastard', who gained a reputation for ultra-violence on the pitch and had a capacity to find even greater trouble off it - a fact borne out by a string of criminal convictions and several jail sentences. 
 
 A key member, as their midfield enforcer, of the resilient Arsenal team that won the European Fairs Cup followed by the cherished Double in 1970-71, Storey was a confirmed ladies' man who loved a drink. In the mid-'70s, Storey's pub, the Jolly Farmers in Islington, became a magnet for north London villains and he rubbed shoulders with Great Train Robber Tommy Wisbey and Howard 'Mr Nice' Marks, Britain's biggest drug smuggler. 
 
 Storey talks candidly about the crimes he committed and the spells in prison that blighted his life. He reveals the truth about his feud with George Best and relays an astonishing account of how Bertie Mee tried to make him miss the 1971 FA Cup final against Bill Shankly's Liverpool side because the Arsenal manager wanted Eddie Kelly to start instead. 
 
 Today, Peter is an elusive character but a man transformed and at ease with life. Only now does he feel the circumstances are right to set the record straight and tell his side of a remarkable True Storey.

True Storey

My Life and Crimes as a Football Hatchet Man

Alan Jones

Jussi Kantonen

If all disco means to you is records like 'I Will Survive' and 'YMCA', tacky fashions and glitter eyeshadow, this book will be a real revelation. For Alan Jones and Jussi Kantonen, disco was an essential soundtrack to their lives. They loved its total hedonistic excess, its drive, its punch and its sweet, catchy melodies. For every chart hit that pounded into the public's consciousness, countless other better tracks were causing hair-raising highs on dance floors where Alan and Jussi and thousands of aficionados like them were strutting their funky stuff. 
 
Disco started in obscure underground clubs as a glamour-filled reaction to the plodding, self-indulgent rock music of the late '60s and really took off in the excitement-parched early '70s. Created by people marginalised by their colour (black), race (Latino), sexuality (gay) or class (working), the music and its attendant lifestyle inevitably became watered down and distorted once it slipped from the control of small independent labels and became a worldwide craze. The massive popularity of films such as Saturday Night Fever and the accompanying Bee Gees soundtrack led people to believe that this was disco. But the authors, by exploring such diverse strands as Eurodisco and roller disco, gay disco, and disco fashions, drugs and clubs, show this to be untrue, and instead uncover the magical, multi-layered genre in all its shining, strobe-lit glory. They believe in mirror balls.

Saturday Night Forever

The Story of Disco

Christopher Ling

At a time when the influence of Islam and the Arab world dominate newspaper headlines as a result of bloodshed and terrorist threats, it will come as a welcome relief to learn of Sultan Qaboos. The very term 'Sultan' conjures up shades of peacock thrones and riches beyond the dreams of avarice. This incredible scene has almost vanished . . . but not quite.In today's oil-rich Arabia, one Sultan remains. He is one of the world's very last absolute rulers and presides over daily rituals the Ottomans of old Istanbul would recognise immediately. Arabia's sole surviving Sultan is, however, an arch exponent of the very British practice of discretion and reserve, which is far from surprising given that he owes his throne to the machinations of a very British coup. Indeed, so wide ranging is the cloak of Sultan Qaboo's reticence that his country has been described as the world's most secretive state. It would be quite impossible to divorce the man from the land which he has ruled for the past 33 years, so immediate is his authority, so absolute is his exercise of unfettered power. But who exactly is Qaboos bin Said Al Said? What of the journey without maps which led him to be complicit in the betrayal and overthrow of his own father? What role did he personally take in the Dhofar war of the 1970s, when he became the first Arab monarch to defeat the armed exponents of Marx and Lenin? And what of his hitherto secret connections with Margaret Thatcher and the incident that became known as the 'Thatcher necklace affair'?

Sultan In Arabia

A Private Life

Juliette Lac

Am I unlucky because of the terrible things that happened to me as a child, or am I lucky because of the life I lead now? I hardly know myself. All I can tell you is that no sane person would ever choose war over peace. War is inhuman madness. War is what people do to each other when they have completely forgotten the sacredness of life. 
 
In 1978, Juliet Lac fled war-ravaged Vietnam in a fishing boat, desperately hoping to find freedom in America. Conditions on the small, overcrowded vessel were horrific, and eight days into the journey, disaster struck. As the craft came in sight of shore, it was hit by a ferocious storm. The boat sank with the loss of half of the 350 passengers on board, but miraculously Juliet escaped, eventually making her way to the USA to begin her new life. 
 
Aged only 11, Juliet had witnessed at first hand the barbarity of war, and after the death of her father and her younger sister, she and her mother were left to struggle on in poverty. But their flight to the West did not have a fairy-tale ending, and in the coming years they faced a struggle to integrate into their new society. 
 
This is a remarkable and inspirational story of a war child's fight first for survival in the devastated landscape of Vietnam and then for acceptance in the affluent West.

War Child

A Vietnamese Girl's Story of Survival and Hope Across Three Continents

John Burrowes

There are few cities in the world to rival Glasgow and the extraordinary happenings that have occurred there, and in this engrossing sequel to Great Glasgow Stories, more of the finest of these are recounted. 
 
From the story of the biggest youth movement the world has ever known to the life and crimes of Scotland's most colourful criminal, Johnny Ramensky, whom even the police dubbed 'Gentle Johnny', a vivid picture of the city's eventful history emerges. 
 
Elsewhere, the hilarious scenes that greeted the most sensational visitor Glasgow ever had - Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess - are recounted, and the shocking case of one of BBC radio drama's best-known personalities, who was found brutally murdered in his flat in Govan, is explored. 
 
Read, too, about doomed pugilist Jackie Peterson, dubbed 'the second Benny Lynch', and about the accidental death in 1931 of Celtic's 'Prince of Goalkeepers', John Thomson, which shocked the city and remains the saddest event in the club's history. 
 
These are just some of the highlights to be found in this compelling collection of stories about the great city of Glasgow and its myriad entertaining characters.

Great Glasgow Characters

Jan de Vries

Water is one of the basic necessities of life - no organism can survive in its absence. In recent years, however, it has become increasingly clear that our public water supply is not as pure as it should be and many are questioning its high chemical content. 'Water scares' are becoming all too frequent. Beaches, seas and oceans themselves are being increasingly contaminated. Plankton are beginning to die and the Earth is being deprived of one of its primary sources of oxygen. 
 
 In this important addition to his Nature's Gift series, Jan de Vries discusses the implications of this self-inflicted damage and points out the health risks of the various forms of water contamination. 
 
 Yet, in its pure form, water is one of nature's greatest healers and this volume draws on Jan de Vries' extensive experience of the various water-treatment methods. It provides his readers with guidance and sensible advice on the benefits to be gained from pure, unadulterated water, and it's safe use. 
 
 Anyone who has been perturbed or confused by the conflicting reports and guidelines concerning this important issue will welcome such an informative book.

Water

Healer or Poison?

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