Biografier

Foreword by Bob StanleyOn a sunny Saturday morning in May 1956, a fifteen-year-old, then called Harry Webb, was mooching down Waltham Cross High Street. He heard some music blaring out of a parked car. It stopped him in his tracks.The song was 'Heartbreak Hotel' by Elvis Presley. It sounded like nothing he had ever heard before. In that instant, the schoolboy who was destined to take the hit parade by storm as Cliff Richard fell in love with rock and roll. It gave him the thrill, the purpose and the mission that has shaped his life ever since.Cliff lives in and for music. And with 65 years as a hitmaker, the music filling his head is a broad category. His soundtrack begins by blasting us all back into that first life-changing explosion of rock and also includes great soul soul stars such as Aretha Franklin, longtime colleagues like Elton John, and much-missed close friends Cilla Black and Olivia Newton-John.This book is meaningful to Cliff on many levels. The 30 or so songs here that make up the soundtrack to his life have each moved him deeply, but it's also about the legendary artists he met, and often got to know. He shares those stories and memories with you, too.A Head Full of Music is a vibrant personal journey for Cliff, and it's a joy to accompany him on it. Get wired for sound with him and read on.

A curious collection of essays, seeking answers to BURNING QUESTIONS such as: Why do people everywhere tell stories? How much of yourself can you give away without evaporating? What do zombies have to do with authoritarianism? In over fifty pieces, Atwood aims her prodigious intellect and impish humour at our world, and reports back to us.

Philip Guston paintings?particularly the liberated and instinctual forms of his late work?continue to exert a powerful influence on younger generations of contemporary painters. His daughter, Musa Mayer, manages the estate of Philip Guston and is president of The Guston Foundation. She has curated exhibitions of Guston's work and written books including the memoir Night Studio, first published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1988. In 2022 the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced that more than two hundred Guston works from her collection would be gifted to the museum.

Explore the works of one of Hollywood's most renowned filmakers - the iconic Clint Eastwood.

"Featuring 8 newly commissioned pieces alongside more than 20 classic essays from the likes of Fraçnois Truffaut and Jonas Mekas, DO NOT DETONATE explores key influences on celebrated director Wes Anderson's new film Asteroid City. Together they form a detailed, captivating portrait of the mid-century film world and the enduring myths of the American West." --

"A collection of essays in which the author discusses the small and large things that delight him"--

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLERWINNER OF THE 2024 NATIONAL OUTBOOK AWARD FOR JOURNEYSSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 SPEAKER'S BOOK AWARDFINALIST FOR THE BANFF MOUNTAIN BOOK COMPETITION FOR ADVENTURE TRAVELFrom Canada’s most accomplished adventurer and storyteller comes a gripping journey into the vastness of Canada’s landscape and history.Looking out his porch window one spring morning, Adam Shoalts spotted a majestic peregrine falcon flying across the neighbouring fields near Lake Erie. Each spring, falcons migrate from southernmost Canada to remote arctic mountains. Grabbing his backpack and canoe, Shoalts resolved to follow the falcon’s route north on an astonishing 3,400-kilometre journey to the Arctic.Along the way, he faces a huge variety of challenges and obstacles, including storms on the Great Lakes, finding campsites in the urban wilderness of Toronto and Montreal, avoiding busy commercial freighter traffic, gale force winds, massive hydroelectric dams, bushwhacking without trails, dealing with hunger, multiple bear encounters, and navigating white-water rapids on icy northern rivers far from any help.In his signature style, Shoalts roams as much across space as he does time, winding his way through a stunning diversity of landscapes ranging from lush Carolinian forests to lonely windswept mountains, salty seas to trackless swamps, pristine lakes to glittering mega-cities, as well as the sites of long ago battles, shipwrecks, forgotten forts, and abandoned trading posts. Through his travels, he reveals how interconnected wild places are, from the loneliest depths of the northern wilderness to busy urban parks, and the vital importance of these connections.Where the Falcon Flies invites readers on an extraordinary armchair adventure that spans five ecoregions and centuries of fascinating history, and is a masterwork by one of Canada’s most successful and audacious authors.

This hilarious, relatable, and interactive journal is the perfect companion for those nine (or ten?!) months of excitement, milestones, hormone swings, and baby/fruit size comparisons. Right this very moment, you're growing a tiny life in your body and with that life-growing comes a lot of feelings-some beautiful, some exhilarating, and some straight-up ridiculous. You'll have a lot on your mind and with The Big Journal for Pregnant People you can record all the ups, downs, and in-betweens. With playful prompts, brilliant quotes, pregnancy facts, straight-talking advice, and plenty of space to draw, this book is a must-have for anyone who wants to make some time for themselves before that precious arrival changes, well, everything.Most baby books are about the baby. This one is for you. Now go grab a pencil, you've got memories to make.

The first biography of a major American cultural symbol ever written, Betty Boop: The Most Popular Female Comic Strip and Cartoon Character of All Time describes Betty Boop's creation and incredibly active romantic and family life as revealed in her numerous comic strips, comic books, cartoons, and movies since 1930.

Unforgettable as it was, the public response to the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022 was not without precedent. When her great-grandfather King Edward VII - glamorous, cosmopolitan and extraordinarily popular - died in May 1910, the political, social and cultural anxieties of a nation in turmoil were temporarily set aside during a summer of intense and ritualised mourning.In The King is Dead, Long Live the King! Martin Williams charts a period of tension and transition as one era slipped away and another took shape. Witnessed by a diverse but interconnected cast of characters - crowned heads and Cabinet ministers, debutantes and suffragettes, artists and murderers - here is the swansong of Edwardian Britain. Set against a backdrop of bereavement and parliamentary crisis overshadowed by the gathering clouds of war, we see a people caught between past and future, tradition and modernity, as they unite to bid farewell to a much-loved monarch who had personified his age. From Buckingham Palace to Bloomsbury, and from the lying-in-state in Westminster Hall to a now legendary Royal Ascot enveloped in black, this is a vivid evocation of a world on the brink of seismic upheaval.

"In the mid-eighteenth century, as new ideas...begin to sweep the Continent, a young Jew of mysterious origins arrives in a village in Poland. Before long, he has changed not only his name but his persona; visited by what seem to be ecstatic experiences, Jacob Frank casts a charismatic spell that attracts an increasingly fervent following. In the decade to come, Frank will traverse the Hapsburg and Ottoman empires with throngs of disciples in his thrall as he reinvents himself again and again, converts to Islam and then Catholicism, is pilloried as a heretic and revered as the Messiah, and wreaks havoc on the conventional order, Jewish and Christian alike, with scandalous rumors of his sect's secret rituals and the spread of his increasingly iconoclastic beliefs"--

Wonder Boy is a riveting investigation into the turbulent life of Zappos visionary Tony Hsieh, whose radical business strategies revolutionized both the tech world and corporate culture, based on rigorous research and reporting by two seasoned journalists. Tony Hsieh's first successful venture was in middle school, selling personalized buttons. At Harvard, he made a profit compiling and selling study guides. In 1998, Hsieh sold his first company to Microsoft for $265 million. About a decade later, he sold online shoe empire Zappos to Amazon for $1.2 billion. The secret to his success? Making his employees happy. At its peak, Zappos's employee-friendly culture was so famous across the tech industry that it became one of the hardest companies to get hired at, and CEOs from other companies regularly toured the headquarters. But Hsieh's vision for change didn't stop with corporate culture: Hsieh went on to move Zappos headquarters to Las Vegas and personally funded a nine-figure campaign to revitalize the city's historic downtown area. There, he could be found living in an Airstream and chatting up the locals. But Hsieh's forays into community-revival projects spun out of control as his issues with mental health and addiction ramped up, creating the opportunity for more enablers than friends to stand in his mercurial good graces. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with a wide range of people whose lives Hsieh touched, journalists Angel Au-Yeung and David Jeans craft a rich portrait of a man who was plagued by the pressure to succeed but who never lost his generous spirit.

A guide to the music and multifaceted career of Canadian artists and songwriters Tegan and Sara.Through interviews with Tegan and Sara, their collaborators, journalists, and fans, this book explores the multifaceted career of one of musics most celebrated sister duos, from their start as Neil Youngs protgs to Canadian indie-rock purveyors and, making their riskiest transformation yet, into mainstream pop breakouts.Coming up as grunge-loving musicians in the late '90s and early 2000s, Tegan and Sara found themselves awkwardly pushed into categories that didnt quite fit: a novelty twin sister folk act when they wanted to be taken seriously; pop when they wanted to be indie rock; and sellouts when they finally made their bid for mainstream success. As young, queer musicians who didnt see anyone else like themselves growing up (in a time where Internet access hadnt yet formed global spaces and communities for LGBTQ+ people), Tegan and Saras path to pop stardom was filled with familiar hurdles, but no clear instructions on how to navigate things like homophobic press, niche queer audiences that wanted to claim them, or sexism at every turn.Its a journey with ups and downs, but Tegan and Saras perseverancealongside a music industry and journalism world thats had to learn to confront its own biaseshas helped create a musical world today that more readily accepts and embraces queer voices. Featuring continuous sonic transformations, Tegan and Saras story is essential to Canadian music history.

A rare, riveting insider's account on Wall Streetan updated Liar's Pokerwhere greed coupled with misogyny and discrimination enforces a culture of exclusion in the upper echelons of Goldman SachsJamie Fiore Higgins became one of the few women at the highest ranks of Goldman Sachs. Spurred on by the obligation she felt to her working-class immigrant family, she rose through the ranks and saw it all: out-of-control, lavish parties flowing with never-ending drinks; affairs flouted in the office; rampant drug use; and most pervasively, a discriminatory culture that seemed designed to hold back the few women and people of color employed at the company. Despite Goldman Sachs having the right talking points and statistics, Fiore Higgins soon realized that these provided a veneer to cover up what she found to be an abusive culture. Her account is one filled with shocking stories of harassment and jaw-dropping tales of exclusionary behavior: when she was told she only got promoted because she is a woman; when her coworkers mooed at her after she pumped for her fourth child, defying the superior who had advised her not to breastfeed; or when a male boss used a racial epithet in front of her, other colleagues, and clients without any repercussions. Bully Market sounds the alarm on the culture of finance and corporate America, while offering clear, actionable ideas for creating a fairer workplace. Both a revealing, extraordinary look at the industry and a top Wall Streeter's explosive personal story, Bully Market is an essential account of one woman's experience in a flawed system that speaks to the challenge and urgency for change.

Cassoulet Confessions is an enthralling memoir by award-winning food and travel writer Sylvie Bigar that reveals how a simple journalistic assignment sparked a culinary obsession and transcended into a quest for identity. Set in the stunning southern French countryside, this honest and poignant memoir conveys hunger for authentic food and a universal hunger for home.In Cassoulet Confessions, Sylvie travels across the Atlantic from her home in New York to the origin of cassoulet the Occitanie region of Southern France. There she immerses herself in all things cassoulet: the quintessential historic meat and bean stew. From her first spoonful, she is transported back to her dramatic childhood in Geneva, Switzerland, and finds herself journeying through an unexpected rabbit hole of memories. Not only does she discover the deeper meanings of her ancestral French cuisine, but she is ultimately transformed by having to face her unsettling, complex family history.Sylvie's simple but poetic prose immerses us in her story: we smell the simmering aromas of French kitchens, empathise with her family dilemmas, and experience her internal struggle to understand and ultimately accept herself.

'Allyson Shaw has built a monument in words to the thousands persecuted as witches in Scotland. A fascinating and necessary book.' Peter Ross'It's summer. I stand where perhaps Ellen stood, in this ground thick with new thistle and long grass. She would have ken this coast in all weathers: in the summer when it was as gentle as a lake and in the winter, with the high winds and stinging salt spray.'A moving and personal journey, along rugged coasts and through remote villages and cities, in search of the traces of those accused of witchcraft in seventeenth-century Scotland.In Ashes and Stones we visit modern memorials and standing stones, and roam among forests and hedge mazes, folklore and political fantasies. From fairy hills to forgotten caves, we explore a spellbound landscape.Allyson Shaw untangles the myth of witchcraft and gives voice to those erased by it. Her elegant and lucid prose weaves together threads of history and feminist reclamation to create a vibrant memorial. This is the untold story of the witches' monuments of Scotland and the women's lives they mark. Ashes and Stones is a trove of folklore linking the lives of contemporary women to the horrors of the past, a record of resilience and a call to choose and remember our ancestors.'A compelling and intimate pilgrimage across Scotland' Helen Callaghan