Grease Junkie: A book of moving parts


Edd China - 2019
    Think big. Think the unthinkable!' As you'll discover in his incomparable memoir, inventor, mechanic, TV presenter and walking tall as the definition of the British eccentric, Edd China sees things differently.An unstoppable enthusiast from an early age, Edd had 35 ongoing car projects while he was at university, not counting the double-decker bus he was living in. Now he's a man with not only a runaround sofa, but also a road-legal office, shed, bed and bathroom. His first car was a more conventional 1303 Texas yellow Beetle, the start of an ongoing love affair with VW, even though it got him arrested for attempted armed robbery.A human volcano of ideas and the ingenuity to make them happen, Edd is exhilarating company. Join him on his wild, wheeled adventures; see inside his engineering heroics; go behind the scenes on Wheeler Dealers.Climb aboard his giant motorised shopping trolley, and let him take you into his parallel universe of possibility.

Mary King: The Autobiography


Mary King - 2009
    In her two Caveliers—Call Again Cavalier and Imperial Cavalier—she has two of the very best event horses in the world. Mary Kings's success in the world of eventing has been hard won. She does not come from a privileged background. Her first pony was the ancient "cast off" from the local vicar's children—and success with this pony gave her an iron will to succeed. To support herself in the early days she had a variety of unglamorous jobs—including butcher delivery rounds and cleaning out toilets in the local campsite. Her talent was apparent from very early on and she first competed at Badminton in 1985, had her first win there on King William in 1992, and had her second on Star Appeal in 2000. Just when everything seemed to be going well she suffered a terrible fall in 2001 and broke her neck but she was back competing at the very top level the following year. Mary King's story is fascinating and inspiring for anyone with an interest in equestrian sports.

Last Day of My Life


Jim Moret - 2009
    This veteran television broadcaster and interviewer turns the camera on himself, taking the reader on an intimate journey. He moves beyond depression, tragedy, and self-doubt and grapples with his greatest decision: not simply whether to live but how to live. If you had only 24 hours left... what would you do?

Vitamin H


Abhishek Vipul Thakkar - 2020
    It aims to elevate the lives of people by fostering inner confidence and strengthening their faith. In a turbulent and chaotic world, people are in dire need of words of motivation and inspiration. Vitamin H provides the much needed therapy which will successfully cure the diseases such as negativity, pessimism, cynicism and envy. It will awaken the dreamer within you and help you achieve the seemingly impossible.

Cinderella Man: The James J. Braddock Story


Michael DeLisa - 2005
    His boxing career blighted by broken hands, the New York Irishman had won five of his previous 21 bouts and had been forced to quit. The Great Depression was at its height. When work dried up on the Hudson River docks, Braddock was forced to claim welfare relief to feed his young family.Then came a visit from his old manager, asking if he wanted one more fight. Desperate for money, Braddock had no choice but to say yes. Four wins later, he was the heavyweight champion of the world in the greatest upset in the sport’s history.Braddock’s rags-to-riches success led Damon Runyon to call him the Cinderella Man. His story captivated the nation in much the way the racehorse Seabiscuit’s would a few years later. Braddock came to represent the struggle for survival facing many families in mid-1930s America.James J. Braddock was born in New York City in 1906, one of seven children. He developed an early taste for fighting and quit school to work a series of menial jobs before resolving to pursue his boxing dream. Over the next decade he became a contender, before injury ruined his prospects. Redemption came on the night of June 13, 1935, with his famous victory over the outrageous champion Max Baer. Braddock would later lose his title to the great Joe Louis, but his place as the people’s champion was cemented forever.Author Michael DeLisa is historical consultant on a major motion picture entitled The Cinderella Man, starring Russell Crowe and Renée Zellweger, to be released in the summer of 2005.

Without Frontiers: The Life & Music of Peter Gabriel


Daryl Easlea - 2013
    A quintessential Englishman, he has since pursued several overlapping careers, bringing to each of them his trademark preoccupation with quality control and restless curiosity.In 1975, after leaving the band that made him famous he diversified into writing movie soundtracks, various audio-visual ventures, tireless charity work and supporting major peace initiatives. He also became world music’s most illustrious champion, launching the WOMAD festival and recording solo albums that featured musicians from every corner of the globe. These and several other careers make writing Peter Gabriel’s biography an unusually challenging task, but Daryl Easlea has undertaken hours of new interviews with key friends, musicians, aides and confidants to get to the very heart and soul of Peter Gabriel, his music and his complex life. The result is an extraordinary biography of an extraordinary man.

Two or Three Things I Know for Sure


Dorothy Allison - 1995
    Now, in Two or Three Things I Know for Sure, she takes a probing look at her family's history to give us a lyrical, complex memoir that explores how the gossip of one generation can become legends for the next.Illustrated with photographs from the author's personal collection, Two or Three Things I Know for Sure tells the story of the Gibson women -- sisters, cousins, daughters, and aunts -- and the men who loved them, often abused them, and, nonetheless, shared their destinies. With luminous clarity, Allison explores how desire surprises and what power feels like to a young girl as she confronts abuse. As always, Dorothy Allison is provocative, confrontational, and brutally honest. Two or Three Things I Know for Sure, steeped in the hard-won wisdom of experience, expresses the strength of her unique vision with beauty and eloquence.

Out of the Blue: The Sometimes Scary and Often Funny World of Flying in the Royal Air Force, as Told by Some of Those Who Were There


Ian Cowie - 2011
    It's a perfect example of the wry humour that permeates the mind-set of Service personnel, and it resonates throughout this book. Whether the tale is set in the air or on the ground, it offers a glimpse of what life was, and probably still is, really like in the RAF.Over a period of two years, three ex-military pilots, who joined the RAF on the same day and have been life-long friends, collected the stories. Sometimes terrifying, occasionally outrageous, and frequently funny, they show that the business of flying military aircraft sporadically throws up challenges that even the most capable of aviators struggle to meet. Without exception, the stories are related with a refreshing candour that acknowledges the failures as well as the triumphs on each author's part. Equally importantly, they are presented in a way that anyone can enjoy, regardless of whether or not they have any knowledge of flying or military life.Many of the events recounted here happened during the Cold War, when the surreal world of potential nuclear conflict was the backdrop to day-to-day operations, and nearly all the stories appear in print for the first time. Indeed, it is true to say that, from an aviation perspective, they are frequently more remarkable for the fact that the protagonist got away with it rather than demonstrated great flying skill.Amount going to charity £3.32/$5.43 (at current rate)

Smokin' Joe: The Life of Joe Frazier


Mark Kram Jr. - 2019
    In this riveting and nuanced portrayal, acclaimed sports writer Mark Kram, Jr. unlinks Frazier from Ali and for the first time gives a full-bodied accounting of Frazier’s life, a journey that began as the youngest of thirteen children packed in small farm house, encountering the bigotry and oppression of the Jim Crow South, and continued with his voyage north at age fifteen to develop as a fighter in Philadelphia.Tracing Frazier’s life through his momentous bouts with the likes of Ali and George Foreman and the developing perception of him as the anti-Ali in the eyes of blue-collar America, Kram follows the boxer through his retirement in 1981, exploring his relationship with his son, the would-be heavyweight Marvis, and his fragmented home life as well as the uneasy place that Ali continued to occupy in his thoughts.A propulsive and richly textured narrative that is also a powerful story about race and class in America, Smokin' Joe is unparalleled in its scope, depth, and access and promises to be the definitive biography of a towering American figure whose life was galvanized by conflict and whose mark has proven lasting.

Natalie and R.J


Warren G. Harris - 1988
    Their devotion so intense they wed each other not once, but twice. In the first book to focus on both Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner, the author of the bestseller Gable & Lombard and the critically acclaimed book Cary Grant gives us a scintillating portrait of this glamorous and exciting couple from their early years working for the studio system to the final, shattering hours before Natalie Wood's life tragically ended. We follow them on their roller-coaster ride of the ups and downs and the magic and the madness of this couple who became Hollywood royalty.

That's Me in the Corner: Adventures of an ordinary boy in a celebrity world


Andrew Collins - 2007
    This charmingly funny, self-deprecating resumé of an ordinary man’s career to date and current life in the celebrity bear pit is penned by the author of the Sunday Times-bestselling Where Did It All Go Right?

Duran Duran's Rio (33 1/3 Book 156)


Annie Zaleski - 2021
    No album represented this rip-it-up-and-start-again movement better than the act's breakthrough 1982 LP, Rio. A cohesive album with a retro-futuristic sound-influences include danceable disco, tangy funk, swaggering glam, and Roxy Music's art-rock-the full-length sold millions and spawned smashes such as "Hungry Like the Wolf" and the title track.However, Rio wasn't a success everywhere at first; in fact, the LP had to be buffed-up with remixes and reissued before it found an audience in America. The album was further buoyed by colorful music videos, which established Duran Duran as leaders of an MTV-driven second British Invasion, and the group's cutting-edge visual aesthetic. Via extensive new interviews with band members and other figures who helped Rio succeed, this book explores how and why Rio became a landmark pop-rock album, and examines how the LP was both a musical inspiration-and a reflection of a musical, cultural, and technology zeitgeist.

Bowl. Sleep. Repeat.: Inside the World of England's Greatest-Ever Bowler


Jimmy Anderson - 2019
    565 Test Wickets and counting.Written with Felix White: musician, cricket enthusiast and Anderson's co-host on BBC Five Live's phenomenally popular podcast 'Tailenders', Jimmy invites us all into his world of cricket. Full of test-match sized stories and 20/20 anecdotes, this book contains everything you've dreamed of asking a top cricketer. And Jimmy provides the answers and insights into this world on and off the pitch. We tackle the big questions. And, importantly, the small ones;Do cricketers really watch Countdown instead of the Test whilst waiting to bat? What are those conversations in the slip cordon?And what does he eat as a tailender?

What's My Motivation?


Michael Simkins - 2004
    While his friends were out getting laid and stoned, he was tucked up at home dreaming of his name in lights, of holding an audience rapt, of perhaps becoming a TV heart-throb, or having someone, anyone, ask for his autograph in the supermarket. This is the true story of an obsessive pursuit of acting fame. It is a life marked by occasional hard-fought successes and routine helpings of ritual humiliation: scout hut Gilbert and Sullivan, dodgy rock operas, sewage farm theatre workshop, Christmas panto hell, straight-to-video film flops, leading roles in Crimewatch reconstructions and dressing up as a chicken to advertise TV dinners. It is a hilarious tale of turgid theatre, tights, trusses and tonsil tennis with Timothy Spall.

Feminasty: The Complicated Woman's Guide to Surviving the Patriarchy Without Drinking Herself to Death


Erin Gibson - 2018
    Since women earned the right to vote a little under one hundred years ago, our progress hasn't been the Olympic sprint toward gender equality first wave feminists hoped for, but more of a slow, elderly mall walk (with frequent stops to Cinnabon) over the four hundred million hurdles we still face. Some of these obstacles are obvious-unequal pay, under-representation in government, reproductive restrictions, lack of floor-length mirrors in hotel rooms. But a lot of them are harder to identify. They're the white noise of oppression that we've accepted as lady business as usual, and the patriarchy wants to keep it that way. Erin Gibson has a singular goal-to create a utopian future where women are recognized as humans. In Feminasty -- titled after her nickname on the hit podcast "Throwing Shade" -- she has written a collection of make-you-laugh-until-you-cry essays that expose the hidden rules that make life as a woman unnecessarily hard and deconstructs them in a way that's bold, provocative and hilarious. Whether it's shaming women for having their periods, allowing them into STEM fields but never treating them like they truly belong, or dictating strict rules for how they should dress in every situation, Erin breaks down the organized chaos of old fashioned sexism, intentional and otherwise, that systemically keeps women down.