"Absolutely fabulous!" - Sir Ray Davies.The Kinks"We Danced On Our Desks offers a window on another lost world, a silver age of journalism when a magazine could please itself and celebrities would wait to be invited into its charmed circle. It's also an unbeatable portrait of a writer finding his voice amid the distractions of a dementedly sybaritic decade." - The Observer"It's wonderful. It intrigued and amused and delighted ... done with wit, verve, charm and self-deprecation." - bestselling author Anthony Quinn"A classic of its genre." - author David TaylorWE DANCED ON OUR DESKS is a compelling, entertaining and thrilling look at acclaimed journalist and writer Philip Norman's experiences working on the Sunday Times Magazine at the height of its popularity in the 60s and 70s. From incredible interviews with the Beatles to Bob Dylan, Gaddafi to Indira Ghandi, and through seismic historical events such as the Vietnam War, Philip provides a vibrant cultural insight into the Swinging Sixties and uniquely documents key events in his own incredible life. provides a unique front row seat to the seminal events and the people who defined a generation and continue to impact us todayit's a compelling story of an extraordinary life, as a young man moves from a provincial existence headfirst into the heady world of the Swinging Sixties in all its provocative glorygives an addictive first-hand account of work and life at The Sunday Times Magazine, one of the world's most influential publicationsIncludes interviews with many icons of the rock, film, political and media worlds, including Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, P.G. Wodehouse, J.R.R Tolkein, Truman Capote, David Hockney, Philip Roth, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, Johnny Cash, the Beach Boys, Fleetwood Mac, the Everly Brothers, King Hussein of Jordan, Indira Gandhi, and President Gadaffi.Philip has led - and is leading - an extraordinary life, full of drama, emotion, experience and positivity. His book is not simply a snapshot of a particular time in history, or remembrances of famous people and places, but a genuinely revealing and compelling account of a life lived and lived well.
This account of the heroic efforts to operate meaningfully within the deformed heart constitutes one of the greatest stories ever told. The surgeons were deemed psychopaths, the body count enormous. Yet with persistence and innovation those surgeons and their heart-lung machines ultimately triumphed. Professor Stephen Westaby trained with, then worked alongside, these pioneers on both sides of the Atlantic allowing him to write the most accurate, most exclusive, most insightful history of this taxing specialty.
Olivia Fane addresses the politics, the obsessions, the misconceptions of one of the most important aspects of human existence.
This book chronicles the triumphs and failures of his surgical life, the lives saved and extended, the innovations (such as artificial hearts) he developed, and his research discoveries.
Touching, humane and at times heartbreakingly honest, Branson's family memoir is a vivid and charming tapestry of English eccentricity, fortune, fate and passion.
Ever wondered about the untold stories of bravery and resilience during World War II? Penned by esteemed author and documentary maker John Willis, this poignant narrative unveils the harrowing experiences of British and Australian POWs in Japan during World War II. It's a tale of resilience, camaraderie, and the indomitable human spirit under the shadow of the devastating atomic bombing of Nagasaki.Will the POWs endure the brutalities of war and survive the horrors of the atomic bombing? Can they keep their spirits high amidst the darkness and despair?For our protagonists, it's a battle for survival, where the odds are stacked against them. Their will to live determines their fate in this harsh and unforgiving world of war.Reading this book is an emotional roller coaster, taking you through the depths of despair and the heights of hope, leaving you profoundly moved by the resilience of the human spirit.John Willis, a celebrated British television executive and award-winning documentary maker, brings his expertise to the fore in this deeply researched and compelling narrative.
Good Scammer tells the story of Clive 'Bangaz' Thompson, an orphan born in west Jamaica raised with no love, education, or prospects of ever getting a decent job. He designs an ingenious business model that brings millions of dollars annually to the little villages around the sandy inlets of the Jamaican coast, making himself a vast personal fortune and a hero to his community. He achieves all of this without using a knife or a gun or even the threat of violence.Many people see scammers as simple criminals.But Bangaz's life, when seen from his perspective as a victim of the theft and duplicity of slavery and colonialism, tells a different, more complex human story. Through his eyes, our sympathy and smiles justifiably remain with him and his righteous band of reparation bredren.
A timely, beautifully observed debut novel set in near future New York about a young woman who finds herself tangled in a secret Government project combating loneliness.
A propulsive account of our history's most surprising, most consequential political club: the Wide Awake anti-slavery youth movement that marched America from the 1860 election to civil war.
Cancer sadly afflicts many women of reproductive age and infertility affects 10 % of couples. Without doubt cancer and infertility have a devastating effect on women's lives and their families. The vast majority of people will go to enormous lengths to seek remission from long-term cancer, but a woman who has cancer and no children will often be prepared to risk her life to have a baby.This book is about hope. Hope of a cure. Hope of having a baby. Hope of good strategies to live well. The majority of women with gynaecological cancer are cured and the remainder live for many years with their disease. There are an increasing number of clinical and support options open to women facing a life-changing diagnosis.¿Dr Richard Smith, a world-leading expert and pioneer in the management of gynaecological cancer and infertility provides practical guidance and reassurance on the best choices available to women. This book will be essential reading not only for those facing a life changing diagnosis, but for their partners and families who inevitably share the burden.
A mile long thoroughfare from the Circus to Hyde Park Corner, Piccadilly is a microcosm of 400 years of British history. With an incredible roster of past residents, ranging from bizarre aristocrats and larger than life politicians to celebrated writers and artists, Piccadilly is rich in tales of the weird and wonderful.The backdrop is an ever-evolving street life centred on iconic shops and galleries, hotels and restaurants, a pageant of London and Londoners through the ages.Piccadilly teems with famous names: the Ritz, Fortnum & Mason, Hatchards, the Wolseley, the Royal Academy and Cordings. You can have your shoes shined, buy the most luxurious cashmeres and expensive jewellery or indulge in macaroons all undercover in the elegant arcades running off the thoroughfare.Deemed "the magic mile", it takes a gentle half-hour stroll, up one side and back the other, to revel in a most fascinating story.Whether you love history or are just curious to know more about this famous thoroughfare, join Barry Turner as he brings alive the people and places that make Piccadilly so special.
It's 1978 and Nick Du Pont, one-time PR man to Sixties rock behemoths the Helium Kids, is back in London and bent on founding his own record label. A new kind of music - sharp, hard and dangerous - is bursting onto the airwaves on both sides of the Atlantic and Nick wants a slice of the action - in particular, the work of The Flame Throwers, the most provocative assemblage of street-smart desperadoes ever to hail from downtown Los Angeles. Picking up from where the highly-praised Rock and Roll is Life (2018) left off, this is the story of Resurgam Records and the personal traumas and tragedies that attended its coruscating rise - until the time when, as so invariably happens, the dancers shuffle to a halt and the music stops.
Rock and Roll is Life pays homage to a formative period in music history, at the height of the Helium Kids' popularity. Three decades after their heyday in the late '60s and early '70s, the band's publicist Nick Du Pont looks back on the turbulent trajectory of the supergroup, traversing the bacchanalian excesses and tragedies of a golden age in British music.
Philip Hook returns to fiction in this collection of short stories. Many are set in the art world, of which the author has deep inside knowledge. Others are about cricket, football, war, espionage and marriage. Some are funny, some are moving, some are surreal. All of them are compulsive reading.
For readers of Minor Feelings, Girlhood, and Gay Bar, an incisive memoir-in-essays about art and desire, style and politics, madness and salvation, and coming of age in the image-obsessed culture of the 2010s.You recognize a mean boy when you see one. Mean boys take up space. They dominate the high school cafeteria of life, wielding cruelty to claim their place in the pecking order. Some mean boys make art or music or fashion; others make memes. Some mean boys are girls. Mean boys stomp the runways in Milan and Paris; mean boys marched at Charlottesville. One mean boy became president.For art critic Geoffrey Mak, mean boys are the emblem of a society so ravenous for novelty, so skilled at discovering and exploiting the next edgy thing, that it can even sell itself the unthinkable. In these eight pyrotechnic essays, Mak ranges widely over the landscape of art and fashion in our era of paranoia, crisis, and frenetic, clickable consumption. He grants readers an inside pass to the spaces where culture was made and unmade over the past decade, from the antiseptic glare of white-walled galleries to the darkest corners of Berlin techno clubs. As the gay son of an evangelical minister, Mak fled to those spaces, hoping to cut himself off from family and join a rootless, influential elite. But when calamity struck, it forced Mak to confront the costs of mistaking status for belonging. Through searingly intimate memoir, Mean Boys investigates exile and return, transgression and forgiveness, and the value of faith, empathy, and friendship in a world designed to make us want what is bad for us.
"A poem to mortality and the beauty of how we can cope with it."-Atul Gawande, author of Being MortalNew York Times-bestselling artist Wendy MacNaughton shares wisdom from hospice caregivers: how to be, when to help, what to say-with full-color drawings throughout.As artist-in-residence at the Zen Hospice Project Guest House in San Francisco, Wendy MacNaughton witnessed firsthand how difficult it is to know what to do when we're sharing final moments with a loved one. In this tenderly illustrated guide to saying goodbye, MacNaughton shows how to make sure those moments are meaningful. Using a framework of "the five things" taught to her by a professional caregiver, How to Say Goodbye provides a model for having conversations of love, respect, and closure: with the words "I forgive you," "Please forgive me," "Thank you," "I love you," and "Goodbye," each oriented toward finding mutual peace and understanding when it matters most. With a foreword by renowned physician and author BJ Miller, and practical resources, How to Say Goodbye features MacNaughton's drawn-from-life artwork from both the Zen Hospice Project Guest House and her own aunt's bedside as she died, paired with gentle advice from hospice caregivers on creating a positive sensory experience, acknowledging what you can't control, and sharing memories and gratitude. A poignant guide to embracing the present and deepening relationships during great vulnerability, How to Say Goodbye shows that just as there is no one right way to live a good life, there is no one right way to say goodbye. Whether we're confused, scared, or uncertain, this book is a starting point.
Theo Fennell's picaresque journey from the depths of financial despair to the glittering celebrity world of the rich and famous is a comic classic comparable to Three Men in a Boat or Bill Bryson's The Thunderbolt Kid. Despite the occasional success disasters and failures dominate his business life. Nonetheless his jewellery has brought pleasure to thousands and this book will bring pleasure to millions. "I ripped through this book like a train, snorting with laughter and delight..I cannot recommend the ride highly enough." Stephen Fry".but the end result is that Fennell has produced one of the funniest books I have ever read. Utterly beguiling and superbly well-written, it will become a classic of the genre, I predict." William Boyd
Set in the world of contemporary art, Guy Kennaway's new novel delivers his trademark absurdities and laugh out loud moments.As the globe's most successful super-dealer, Herman Gertsch spent his charmed life jettiing between his galleries in Zurich, London and New York, fawned over by artists, curators, politicians and the uber-rich.As Herman's empire grew, nothing seemed to get in his way, until he made the calamitous decision to open a gallery in a rural English backwater. Here, Herman encountered John 'Brother' Burn, a penniless hippy known as the slipperiest man in south Somerset, and therefore the western hemisphere.In the riotous comedy of errors that follows, Kennaway pours mistaken identity, Amazonian tribesmen, Swiss food, DMT, Arab Royalty, million dollar paintings and worthless tat onto a spin painting of a story that dazzles with surprises and leaves you feeling reassuringly warm about art and life.
This unique and personal compendium of great writing shows how the love and pleasure of reading can liberate the mind and help develop understanding of the worlds of business, culture, and humanity. Reading is therapeutic.
What does it mean to be fair? Why do we feel unfairness so strongly? What has happened to us that we spend more time condemning each other's views than giving each other a fair hearing?
Guy Kennaway, 63, a white, middle class, overweight, English, Tory-voting writer met Hussein Sharif, 22, an African-born, inner city, Tory-hating Muslim, they assumed they had little in common.
This story of a couple whose love is caught in the crossfire of war is a portrait of, not only the turbulent events of WWII, but also how a family survives with so much death and danger swirling.
As the UK's national narrative falters and trust in key political institutions is wavering what does the future hold? Is the UK set to become 'Singapore on Thames?' as some suggest? What might a future relationship with the EU look like? What would it take to rekindle a real enthusiasm for the European project, as opposed to the semi-detached relationship Britain has had with the EU? How do we rebuild trust in our institutions and create a new, 21st century national narrative for Britain?William Waldegrave says ' Whatever happens about Brexit, Britain is going to change forever. We will have to decide what kind of country we want to be. We will need a new national narrative. I want to start people thinking about all our futures.'
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