We All Live In a Perry Groves World: My Story


Perry Groves - 2006
    Perry Groves spent over a decade in the footballing spotlight. Sometimes he was at the top, often he was at the bottom and that's half the reason the fans loved him so much--and still do. This is the most truthful and hilarious book about professional football you will ever read. Perry Groves was the first signing by the legendary Arsenal manager George Graham, and that unmistakeable figure with his Tin-Tin haircut and cheeky grin was a player in one of the Gunners' greatest sides. Now he has decided to tell all about his rollercoaster years of booze binges, girl-chasing and gambling sprees. He's a nonstop fund of of hilarious anecdotes, recounting top-flight games played with a hangover, 125 mph motorway chases with international stars, visits to a brothel with an England World Cup hero and revealing how one drunken escapade ended with a group of internationals beting questioned over an attempted murder charge. This is a unique chance to find out what top-flight footballers really get up to off the field and how they behave when the dressing room door is closed.

A Wizard a True Star: Todd Rundgren in the studio


Paul Myers - 2010
    If you don't know what you want, I'll do it for you."Few record producers possess the musical facility to back up such a bold promise, but in over forty-plus years behind the glass, Todd Rundgren has willed himself into becoming a not only a rock guitar virtuoso, an accomplished lead vocalist and vocal arranger and visionary keyboard player, not to mention a serviceable drummer. But arguably, Rundgren's greatest instrument of all is the recording studio itself. After learning his craft with Nazz, Rundgren engineered The Band's Stage Fright album and soon became the producer of a string of noteworthy albums for Sparks, Grand Funk, The New York Dolls, Badfinger, Hall & Oates, Meat Loaf, Patti Smith Group, Cheap Trick, The Psychedelic Furs and XTC. Meanwhile, Rundgren played almost every instrument on his solo albums such as Something/Anything?, A Wizard A True Star and Hermit Of Mink Hollow while collaborating on a series of albums by his band, Utopia. A Wizard A True Star: Todd Rundgren In The Studio by Paul Myers is a fascinating and authoritative trip through the land of flickering red lights inhabited by a studio wizard - and true star - who has rarely enjoyed a proper victory lap along the many trails that he has blazed. Researched and written with the participation and cooperation of Rundgren himself.

Turn Around Bright Eyes: The Rituals of Love & Karaoke


Rob Sheffield - 2013
    He is a young widower devastated by grief, trying to build a new life in a new town after his wife's death. As a writer for Rolling Stone, he naturally takes solace in music. But that's when he discovers the sublime ridiculousness of karaoke, and despite the fact that he can't carry a tune, he begins to find his voice. His karaoke obsession takes him to some strange places, whether that means singing a Frank Sinatra song in a senior-citizen community in Florida, attempting a Merle Haggard classic at a cowboy saloon in the Mojave desert, or clearing the room at an after-hours dive in Chinatown. But he finds the music leads him to the most surprising place of all--a new life and a new love.Turn Around Bright Eyes is a story about finding the courage to start over, move on, and rock the mike. It's about falling in love and navigating your way through adult romance. It's about how you can learn the weirdest things about yourself just by butchering a Hall & Oates song at 2 A.M. under fluorescent lights in a room full of strangers. It's about how songs get tangled up in our deepest emotions, evoking memories of the past while inspiring hope for the future. But most of all, it's a book about all the strange ways music brings people together.Sweet, funny, honest, and full of the music you love, hate and love to hate, Turn Around Bright Eyes is Rob Sheffield at his very best.

Wylie the Brave Street Dog Who Never Gave Up


Pen Farthing - 2014
    But for Wylie, the gentle, cropped eared ball of fur, miracles seemed to happen quite regularly. Beaten and abused at the hands of uncaring humans, Wylie suffered terrible injuries that needed urgent treatment. Rescued close to death, with hacked off ears and a severed tail, he was attended to by soldiers who feared he would not last the night. Astonishingly he did, only to return days later with new injuries. However a lifeline came when he was handed over to animal welfare Charity Nowzad and flown to Britain in the hope of finding a new life. But would anyone take a chance on a seemingly undomesticated stray? Luckily for Wylie his biggest adventure yet was about to begin...

Gift of Life


Henri Landwirth - 2009
    He started the Give Kids the World foundation andDignity U Wear charity.

Memoirs of a Beatnik


Diane di Prima - 1969
    Filled with anecdotes about her adventures in New York City, Diane di Prima's memoir shows her learning to "raise her rebellion into art," and making her way toward literary success. Memoirs of a Beatnik offers a fascinating narrative about the courage and triumphs of the imagination.

Billy Bragg: Still Suitable for Miners: The Official Biography


Andrew Collins - 1998
    He was a soldier. He was a flag-waver for the Labour Party. He is Billy Bragg, best known as a passionate political songwriter and urbane folk singer, but equally admired for his offbeat love songs. Billy Bragg is a British institution who never went out of fashion (he was never in fashion in the first place). In America he was chosen as the spiritual heir to legendary protest singer Woody Guthrie, beating rival claims from the likes of Bob Dylan and Neil Young. In the UK he surfaced on current affairs TV programmes during the 2001 election dressed as a Roman legionary advocating tactical voting to keep the Tories out. Billy Bragg is a one-off and Still Suitable for Miners is his official story, a portrait of a peerless entertainer and a fearless campaigner growing up in Britain in the years after rock 'n' roll. The book includes childhood photos and previously unseen images from Billy's personal archive.

Li Na: My Life


Li Na - 2012
    Now read her life story. Li Na claimed an unprecedented victory at the 2011 French Open at age twenty-nine, and became the first player from an Asian country to win a Grand Slam singles title. Outspoken and likeable, the 'late-blooming' Chinese tennis superstar is one of the world's top ten players, and has championships on grass, clay and hard courts to her name.Li Na is a tennis player few forget. She claimed an unprecedented victory at the 2011 French Open at age twenty-nine, and became the first player from an Asian country to win a Grand Slam singles title. Outspoken and likeable, the 'late-blooming' Chinese tennis superstar is one of the world's top ten players, and has championships on grass, clay and hard courts to her name.Beyond the rankings and million-dollar endorsements is a life just as remarkable as her success. Li Na grew up within a rigid national sports system, living away from home and training six days a week, and spent years struggling to believe in herself. Her outstanding feats in a sport she grew to love, recovering from three knee surgeries and conquering her own demons, are nothing short of inspirational.Told with honesty and humour, Li Na: My Life is the moving story behind an extraordinary sporting icon.

You Can Run But You Can't Hide


Duane "Dog" Chapman - 1975
    From troubled beginnings and tragedy to triumph and transformation, he reveals all for the first time in this no-holds-barred memoir. Dog spent the first twenty-three years of his life on the wrong side of the law. In You Can Run but You Can't Hide, he offers an inside look at his days as a gang member; his dark years of addiction and abuse; and how serving eighteen months in prison for a murder he didn't commit helped him recommit to his faith. He also shares stories of some of his most dangerous bounty hunts--including his capture of Max Factor heir and convicted rapist Andrew Luster, which made international headlines. In You Can Run but You Can't Hide, Dog recounts his incredible story, chronicling his journey from his onetime criminal past to the guiding faith that has led him to become one of the most successful bounty hunters in American history. Against all odds, Dog turned his life around and went from ex-con to American icon in the process. This is his story.

To Air is Human: One Man's Quest to Become the World's Greatest Air Guitarist


Björn Türoque - 2006
     The true story of how mildly successful guitarist and New York Times writer Dan Crane relinquished his instrument and became Björn Türoque (pronounced "b-yorn too-RAWK"), the second greatest air guitarist in the nation. This exploration of the international air guitar sub-culture addresses the issue of dedicating oneself to an invisible art in order to achieve the ultimate goal of "airness"-that is, when air guitar transcends the "real" art that it imitates and becomes an art form in and of itself.

Street Justice


Chuck Zito - 2002
    From Hells Angel to celebrity bodyguard. The revealing autobiography of an American man.Chuck Zito comes by his reputation honestly as one of the toughest, most uncompromising men ever to sit astride a Harley. Now, with tales both hilarious and chilling, violent and truthful, Zito tells his life story in his own words.From growing up on the mean streets of Brooklyn and the Bronx, where fighting was a way of life, to becoming president of the New York chapter of the Hells Angels, to the wild and crazy life of protecting some of the world's biggest celebrities, Zito might be seen as a latter-day outlaw, the last of a dying breed of men. But throughout his tempestuous days, one thing defined him: his unfailing sense of justice, of what's really right and what's really wrong. That's how Zito found himself facing his biggest challenge: refusing to cooperate with a federal investigation into his brothers, the Hells Angels, and in the process losing the very thing he cherished most-his freedom.Zito's astonishing recovery from this experience, and the unique kind of stardom he forged based on hard work and sheer will, is a testament to his courage, his ambition, and his indomitable heart-a testament now recorded unflinchingly in Street Justice.

Making It: How Love, Kindness and Community Helped Me Repair My Life


Jay Blades - 2021
    

Ozzy: Unauthorized


Sue Crawford - 2002
    This biography is a comprehensive study of his past, and with its specially commissioned astrological chart, the future of this survivor and star.

True


Martin Kemp - 2000
    He writes openly about his film career, the huge success of The Krays, his tremendous fight against brain cancer and on to today with fame again in EastEnders. This is a stunningly written account of a fascinating life written with candour and wit. 'There are tears and laughter, and it's all told with honesty, style and unexpected humour. This inspiring tale reveals his hopes and fears as he battled for his life while trying to get his career back into the groove. It will have you glassy-eyed, torn between the Kleenex and digging out your old Spandau Ballet albums' The Mirror

Hurry Up Nurse!: Memoirs of nurse training in the 1970'


Dawn Brookes - 2016
    It follows the experiences of the author as she and her friends come to terms with the non-stop hustle and bustle of hospital life. This book treats the reader to a peep behind the scenes as we enter the hospital wards. As well as an insight into nurse training, hurry up nurse provides a glimpse into the social history of life in the 1970's and early 1980's.