After several failed attempts he got out over the wire and journeyed for weeks as a fugitive from northern France to Marseilles, then across the Pyrenees to Spain and Gibraltar and freedom. He was guided along the way by French civilians, resistance fighters and the organizers of the famous Pat escape line. His straightforward, honest and vivid memoir of his work as a surgeon at Dunkirk, life in the prison camps and his escape attempts gives a fascinating insight into his wartime experience. It records the ingenuity and courage of the individuals, the ordinary men and women, who risked their lives to help him on his way. It is also one of the best accounts we have of what it was like to be on the run in occupied Europe.

    My wife Marie (pronounced Marry) and I thought that as we hadn't set foot in a van before it would be a great idea to head off into the sunset in a cloud of diesel smoke; our trusty steed Gemima (the Hymer) wanted to stay at home and Marie seemed determined to maim me. The following is a tale of mechanical mischief, foolishness and an exploration of the human psyche. We visited some amazing places; met some fantastic people and in between the endless problems had a fabulous time. Hope you enjoy it!(From Amazon.co.uk)

    In his car were the drugs the team needed if they were to have any chance of playing a competitive part in the 1998 Tour de France. The car was searched, he was immediately arrested and so the story that has been undermining the sport of cycling since the death of Tommy Simpson in 1967, finally broke. Imprisoned for sixteen days, sacked from the Festina team and ostracised from the sport to which he had dedicated his life, Willy Voet at last was able to tell the truth. His sensational story will change cycling forever.Cocaine, amphetamines, EPO, heroin - all these are now considered not optional but necessary, not to win but just to compete in the Tour de France. Details of how these drugs are obtained, mixed together to make cocktails, administered and concealed are all included in this graphic and uninhibited account of how drugs brought cycling to its knees.

    Cole's harrowing account of his life spent in the ER and on the battlegrounds, fighting to save lives. In addition to his gripping stories of treating victims of gunshot wounds, stabbings, attempted suicides, flesh-eating bacteria, car crashes, industrial accidents, murder, and war, the book also covers the years during Cole's residency training when he was faced with 120-hour work weeks, excessive sleep deprivation, and the pressures of having to manage people dying of traumatic injury, often with little support.Unlike the authors of other medical memoirs, Cole trained to be a surgeon in the military and served as a physician member of a Marine Corps reconnaissance unit, United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), and on a Navy Reserve SEAL team. From treating war casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq to his experiences as a civilian trauma surgeon treating alcoholics, drug addicts, criminals, and the mentally deranged, TRAUMA is an intense look at one man's commitment to his country and to those most desperately in need of aid.

    She was determined to find a better life for herself, away from the oppression and isolation of her Satmar upbringing in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. And in Exodus, Revisited she delves into what happened next--taking the reader on a journey that starts with her beginning life anew as a single mother, a religious refugee, and an independent woman in search of a place and a community where she can belong. Originally published in 2014, Deborah has now revisited and significantly expanded her story, and the result is greater insight into her quest to discover herself and the true meaning of home. Travels that start with making her way in New York expand into an exploration of America and eventually lead to trips across Europe to retrace her grandmother's life during the Holocaust, before she finds a landing place in the unlikeliest of cities. Exodus, Revisited is a deeply moving examination of the nature of memory and generational trauma, and of reconciliation with both yourself and the world.

    Filled with 'the holy spirit of rock n roll' his destiny is sealed with the arrival of the Sex Pistols and punk rock which to Bobby, represents an iconoclastic vision of class rebellion and would ultimately lead to him becoming an artist initially in the Jesus and Mary Chain then in Primal Scream.Structured in four parts, Tenement Kid builds like a breakbeat crescendo to the final quarter of the book, the Summer of Love, Boys Own parties, and the fateful meeting with Andrew Weatherall in an East Sussex field. As the '80s bleed into the '90s and a new kind of electronic soul music starts to pulse through the nation's consciousness, Primal Scream become the most innovative British band of the new decade, representing a new psychedelic vanguard taking shape at Creation Records.Ending with the release of Screamadelica and the tour that followed in the autumn, Tenement Kid is a book filled with the joy and wonder of a rock n roll apostle who would radically reshape the future sounds of fin de siecle British pop. Published thirty years after the release of their masterpiece, Bobby Gillespie's memoir cuts a righteous path through a decade lost to Thatcherism and saved by acid house.

    Featuring pithy, humorous, and illuminating one-on-one songwriting lessons with Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, Ray Davies of the Kinks, Andy Partridge of XTC, Arthur Lee of Love, Chan Marshall of Cat Power, Bob Stanley of Saint Etienne, Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals, and a host of others who run the gamut from unknown muses to cult icons to superstars-including Hodgkinson's lovable crew of ne'er-do-wells first introduced in Guitar Man-Song Man is at once an investigation into the most ephemeral of arts and a highly readable journey of discovery.

    In this first-ever chronicling of that revolutionary tour from the inside, author Ivor Davis serves up the stories behind the stories as only an insider can.In the rowdy and riotous recollections of THE BEATLES AND ME ON TOUR, Ivor Davis, then a reporter for the London Daily Express, shares his unrestricted access to the Liverpool lads as a member of the Beatles entourage. From inside the band’s hotel suites to the concert arenas to the private jets, the madness and magic plays out through Davis’ personal accounts of hanging with the Beatles for thirty-four jam-packed days.Go behind the scenes for all-night Monopoly games with John Lennon, witness the Beatles’ legendary living-room jam with Elvis, and be there the night Bob Dylan introduces the band to pot. Roll up for this definitive account of the legendary band at a critical moment in the history of rock ’n’ roll.

    His greatest hits were sung tearfully in pubs up and down Britain, garlands of flowers were left at the Aladdin Sane mural in his old stomping ground of Brixton and tributes poured in from a galaxy of stars. To many of us, Bowie was so much more than a pop idol. But why?In Why Bowie Matters, Professor Will Brooker answers that question persuasively, as both a fan and an academic. A Bowie obsessive since childhood, he hit the headlines over the course of a year-long immersive research project that took him from London to Berlin and New York, following in Bowie’s footsteps, only listening to music and reading books he loved, and even at times adopting his fashion.In this original and illuminating book, Professor Brooker approaches Bowie from various angles, re-tracing his childhood on the streets of Bromley, taking us through his record collection and bookshelves, and deciphering the symbols and codes of his final work, Blackstar to piece together how an ordinary suburban teenager turned himself into a legend, and how perhaps we too could be a little more Bowie.He shows us that while David Robert Jones died on that terrible day in January, David Bowie will live on forever.

    Across five decades, Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts has had the best seat in the house. Charlie Watts, the anti-rock star--an urbane jazz fan with a dry wit and little taste for the limelight--was witness to the most savage years in rock history, and emerged a hero, a warrior poet. With his easy swing and often loping, uneven fills, he found nuance in a music that often had little room for it, and along with his greatest ally, Keith Richards, he gave the Stones their swaggering beat. While others battled their drums, Charlie played his modest kit with finesse and humility, and yet his relentless grooves on the nastiest hard-rock numbers of the era ("Gimme Shelter," "Street Fighting Man," "Brown Sugar," "Jumpin' Jack Flash," etc.) delivered a dangerous authenticity to a band that on their best nights should have been put in jail. Author Mike Edison, himself a notorious raconteur and accomplished drummer, tells a tale of respect and satisfaction that goes far beyond drums, drumming, and the Rolling Stones, ripping apart the history of rock'n'roll, and celebrating sixty years of cultural upheaval. He tears the sheets off of the myths of music making, shredding the phonies and the frauds, and unifies the frayed edges of disco, punk, blues, country, soul, jazz, and R&B--the soundtrack of our lives. Highly opinionated, fearless, and often hilarious, Sympathy is as an unexpected treat for music fans and pop culture mavens, as edgy and ribald as the Rolling Stones at their finest, never losing sight of the sex and magic that puts the roll in the rock --the beat, that crazy beat!--and the man who drove the band, their true engine, the utterly irreplaceable Charlie Watts.

    Suede began by treading the familiar jobbing route of London's emerging new 1990s indie bands - gigs at ULU, the Camden Powerhaus and the Old Trout in Windsor - and the dispiriting experience of playing a set to an audience of one. But in these halcyon days, their potential was undeniable. Anderson's creative partnership with guitarist Bernard Butler exposed a unique and brilliant hybrid of lyric and sound; together they were a luminescent team - burning brightly and creating some of the era's most revered songs and albums.In Afternoons with the Blinds drawn, Anderson unflinchingly explores his relationship with addiction, heartfelt in the regret that early musical bonds were severed, and clear-eyed on his youthful persona. 'As a young man . . . I oscillated between morbid self-reflection and vainglorious narcissism' he writes. His honesty, sharply self-aware and articulate, makes this a compelling autobiography, and a brilliant insight into one of the most significant bands of the last quarter century.

    Journalist Leon Neyfakh has been something more than a fan of Juiceboxxx’s since he was a teenager, when he booked a show for the artist in a church basement in his hometown of Oak Park, Illinois. Juiceboxxx went on to the tireless, lonely, possibly hopeless pursuit of success on his own terms—no club was too dank, no futon too grubby, if it helped him get to the next, next level. And, for years, Neyfakh remained haunted from afar: was art really worth all the sacrifices? If it was, how did you know you’d made it? And what was the difference, anyway, between a person like Juiceboxxx—who devoted his life to being an artist—and a person like Neyfakh, who elected instead to pursue a stable career and a comfortable, middle-class existence? Much more than a brilliant portrait of a charismatic musician always on the verge of something big, The Next Next Level is a wholly contemporary story of art, obsession, fame, ambition, and friendship—as well as viral videos, rap-rock, and the particulars of life on the margins of culture.

    Rick tells The Jam story from growing up in Woking and meeting fellow members Paul Weller and Bruce Foxton at school, through their formation in 1972 and tells of the band's early years before signing to Polydor records. He provides a year by year account of The Jam's progress whilst describing what it was like being a part of the music industry during the 70's and 80's and some of the characters who he met along the way including the Ramones, John Enwhistle, Sid Vicious, Blondie, Boy George and Paul McCartney. Rick shares his own experiences and thoughts about what it was like to be in one of the UK's most successful bands who spent a great deal of time recording, performing and touring. Following The Jam's split in 1982, Rick gives a candid account of how he coped and his subsequent relationship with Paul and Bruce. All three members of The Jam stayed within the music industry and Rick takes the reader through his years in Time UK and various other bands up until forming From the Jam. A must read for any Jam fan.

    He interviews Johnny Marr and John Lydon; Sonic Youth sleep on his floor; he meets writers including Raymond Carver and Jonathan Franzen; he discusses masturbation with Viv Albertine, and ecstasy with Roisin Murphy; he has a gun pulled on him at the Hacienda, a drug dealer threatens to slit his throat; and Morrissey comes to tea.In the late 1970s, a teenage John Peel listener and Joy Division fan, Haslam's face was pressed against a window, looking out at a world of music, books, ideas. In 2017, four decades later, he finds himself in the middle of that world, collaborating with New Order on a series of five shows in Manchester.Haslam builds a rich context to the story of those decades; a definitive portrait of Manchester as a music city; the impact of life-shaking events (from the nightmare of the Yorkshire Ripper to the shock of the Manchester Arena terror attack); and how music has soundtracked his life, his times, his generation.Sonic Youth Slept On My Floor is a masterful insider account of the Hacienda, the rise of Madchester and the birth of the rave era, and so much more . . .

    On a personal level, too, he seemed to take pleasure in insulting everyone who crossed his path. How did this Jewish boy from Long Island, an adolescent doo-wop singer, rise to the status of Godfather of Punk? And how did he maintain that status for decades?Dirty Blvd.—the first new biography of Reed since his death in 2013—digs deep to answer those questions. And along the way it shows us the tender side of his prickly personality.Born in Brooklyn, Reed was the son of an accountant and a former beauty queen, but he took the road less traveled, trading literary promise for an entry-level job as a budget-label songwriter and founding the Velvet Underground under the aegis of Andy Warhol. The cult of personality surrounding his transformation from downtown agent provocateur to Phantom of Rock and finally to patron saint of the avant-garde was legendary, but there was more to his artistic evolution than his abrasive public persona. The lives of many American rock stars have had no second act, but Reed’s did.Dirty Blvd. not only covers the highlights of Reed’s career but also explores lesser-known facets of his work, such as his first recordings with doo-wop group the Jades, his key literary influences and the impact of Judaism upon his work, and his engagement with the LGBT movement. Drawing from new interviews with many of his artistic collaborators, friends, and romantic partners, as well as from archival material, concert footage, and unreleased bootlegs of live performances, author Aidan Levy paints an intimate portrait of the notoriously uncompromising rock poet who wrote “Heroin,” “Sweet Jane,” “Walk on the Wild Side,” and “Street Hassle”—songs that transcended their genre and established Lou Reed as one of the most influential and enigmatic American artists of the past half-century.