These peculiar outlooks bring to life the unique world of Peter Kay like never before. The Book That's More Than Just a Book - Book invites you into a world of suspect characters and awkward situations. Here you will meet Peter's family, their friends, some familiar faces, and some completely unexpected ones. Chock full of brand new material and crammed with photographs and illustrations, creating one of the funniest books you're ever likely to read.

    Their name is synonymous with American royalty. Their commitment to public service is legendary. But, for all the successes, the family has been blighted by assassinations, fatal accidents, drug and alcohol abuse and sex scandals.To this day, the Kennedys occupy a unique, contradictory place in the world's imagination: at once familiar and unknowable; charmed and cursed. The Kennedy Curse is a revealing, fascinating account of America’s most famous family, as told by the world's most trusted storyteller.

    It begins with Sally’s visionary crack-up on the streets of Greenwich Village, and continues, among other places, in the out-of-time world of a Manhattan psychiatric ward during the city’s most sweltering months. “I feel like I’m traveling and traveling with nowhere to go back to,” Sally says in a burst of lucidity while hurtling away toward some place her father could not dream of or imagine. Hurry Down Sunshine is the chronicle of that journey, and its effect on Sally and those closest to her–her brother and grandmother, her mother and stepmother, and, not least of all, the author himself. Among Greenberg’s unforgettable gallery of characters are an unconventional psychiatrist, an Orthodox Jewish patient, a manic Classics professor, a movie producer, and a landlord with literary dreams. Unsentimental, nuanced, and deeply humane, Hurry Down Sunshine holds the reader in a mesmerizing state of suspension between the mundane and the transcendent.

    The script for his first movie took him four years to complete: My Best Friend’s Birthday, a seventy-minute film in which he both acted and directed. The script for his second film, Reservoir Dogs (1992), took him just under four weeks to complete. When it debuted, he was immediately hailed as one of the most exciting new directors in the industry. Known for his highly cinematic visual style, out-of-sequence storytelling, and grandiose violence, Tarantino’s films have provoked both praise and criticism over the course of his career. They’ve also won him a host of awards—including Oscars, Golden Globes, and BAFTA awards—usually for his original screenplays. His oeuvre includes the cult classic Pulp Fiction, bloody revenge saga Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, and historical epics Inglorious Basterds, Django Unchained, and The Hateful Eight . This stunning retrospective catalogs each of Quentin Tarantino’s movies in detail, from My Best Friend’s Birthday to The Hateful Eight. The book is a tribute to a unique directing and writing talent, celebrating an uncompromising, passionate director’s enthralling career at the heart of cult filmmaking.

    Sellou's fictional reincarnation, Driss, played to critical acclaim by French comedian Omar Sy in the movie Les Intouchables, captured the hearts of millions. Already a bestseller in France and Germany, You Changed My Life shows us the real man behind Sy's edgy charm. The book takes us from his childhood spent stealing candy from the local grocery store, to his career as a pickpocket and scam artist, to his unexpected employment as a companion for a quadriplegic. Sellou has never before divulged the details of his past. In many interviews and documentaries, he has evaded or shrugged off the question of his childhood and his stay in prison, until now. He tells his story with a stunning amount of talent, with humor, style, and-though he denies that he has any-humility. Sellou's idiosyncratic and candidly charming voice is magnificently captured in this memoir, a fact to which his friend Philippe Pozzo di Borgo testifies in his touching preface for the book.

    An acclaimed singer/songwriter, he is proud of the way  he handled his difficult past: poverty in the 1950s Dublin slums and the brutality of the Artane Industrial School. He felt as though he had safely disposed of it all, until one night, while writing the powerful song that would launch his highly-praised album, 800 Voices ("A searing testament." —Irish Times), Danny's past crept back to haunt him. Confronted by forgotten memories of betrayal and abandonment, he was stunned to discover that his eight-year-old self was still trapped in a world he thought he had left behind.Although unnerved by his experience, Danny begins an arduous journey that leads him back to the streets of Dublin, the tenement slums, and, ultimately, the malice and mischief of the Artane playground. What he discovers with each twist and turn of his odyssey will forever change his life. Elegantly written, this is a brutally honest, often harrowing, depiction of a young boy's struggle to survive orphanage life, and stands as an inspiring testament to the healing power of music and love.

    A child prodigy as a pianist and a virtuoso conductor of symphonics and operas, Barenhoim has known and worked with many of the most distinguished and exciting musicians of the 20th century, including Rubinstein, Furtwangler, Zubin Meta, Pierre Boulez, Fisher-Diskau, Pablo Casals, and not least his wife, Jacqueline du Pre. Recent years have included his work at the annual Wagner festival Bayreuth; in Berlin at the rebirth of the State Opera House; taking over from George Solti's 22-year regin in Chicago; his summer festival in Weimar, Germany, where young Arabs and Israelis can play music together; and his worldwide travels. Barenboim has revised and updated his memoir, giving us trenchant thoughts on Israel today, the problems facing young musicians, and the changing world of music at the beginning of the 21st century.-One of the world's greatest musicians, Barenboim has a dedicated following who will be interested in reading about his life in his own words.-Barenboim was married to celebrated cellist Jacqueline du Pre, the subject of the controversial film Hilary and Jackie.-His championship of peaceful coexistence with Palestinians is highly controversial, as is his insistence on playing Wagner in Israel.

    When her Uncle Arthur dies, actress Phyllida Law returns to the tiny Scottish village of Ardentinny to look after her ma, Mego. Mego's always been deliciously dotty. She once put a new packet of tights in the fridge (and the bacon in her sock drawer). But Mego's older now and becoming ever more muddled. So Phyllida devotes herself to looking after Mego, but not without the help of friends, local villagers, and her two daughters, actresses Emma and Sophie Thompson: pulling together, they maintain order in the cottage, find Delia on the telly and keep Mego's spirits up-with a G&T if all else fails. Somehow, Phyllida even manages to slip away on acting jaunts in Glasgow and Italy. Running through Phyllida's account of Mego's final months are the anecdotes, memories and legends that form the fabric of every family. Phyllida's account captures the warmth and tenderness of two generations of daughters brought together to care for their much-loved mother and grandmother.(Waterstones.com)

    Not only did Dinah O'Dowd face the harsh and unforgiving elements of her background - an upbringing in poverty-stricken 50s Dublin, teenage pregnancy and a lone journey to London, but she also fought like a tigress against the shadows cast across four decades of her life by the dark central figure of her existence, her psychotically abusive husband Gerry. Over the years Dinah suffered repeated physical assault, prolonged mental torture and destructive ignorance, yet successfully raised a family of six and nurtured the unique personality of a world superstar, her son Boy George. Finally she has reached equilibrium in the wake of the death of her husband, and is now ready to tell her story, striking a chord with women everywhere.Unflinchingly honest, heart-rending in the telling and packed with inconsolable tragedy and biting wit, Cry Salty Tears recounts the long and painful journey Dinah had to take. From the moment when she first set eyes on the charming, blue-eyed Gerry, to the first blow he struck when she was pregnant with their child, the suicide attempt that depression and all encompassing fear led her to and ultimately to her release from his psychotic clutches, Cry Salty Tears tells how, despite it all, this extraordinary woman could at last reclaim her life.

    He's also got one of the most interesting CVs I have ever seen.' - Sarah Brett, BBC Radio Five LiveGARY BELL QC is one of Britain's top barristers, with his own hit BBC TV show, a Who's Who entry and a wife whose family is listed in Burke's Landed Gentry.But behind his silk gown and horsehair wig is a compelling and hilarious backstory.The chronic bedwetting son of a teenaged cigarette factory worker and a nineteen-year-old miner, Gary grew up in a condemned Nottingham slum, and left his tough comprehensive school without taking any exams to follow his dad down the pit.He spent his teenage years as a drunken football hooligan known as 'Animal' (for his terrible eating habits, not his fighting skills), baking pies at Pork Farms, stacking shelves at Asda, and trying and failing to become (among other things) a miner, a bricklayer, and a fireman. After being convicted of fraud and sentenced to six months (he worked out how to fiddle pub fruit machines), he was homeless for some years.Finally deciding to make something of himself, he took O and A levels and hitch-hiked to Bristol University as a mature law student in his mid 20s. After three hilarious years - he somehow managed to wangle a job with a Beverly Hills law firm before he'd even graduated - he went on to become a barrister and, twenty years later, achieved the rare honour of being appointed Queen's Counsel.His preposterous story - which contains some fascinating details of the many major cases he has worked on - reads like a strange dream and redefines the word 'amazing', as well as being extremely funny, very moving, and utterly life-affirming.

    She stopped at no lengths in her campaign to tear him to pieces both mentally and physically. In his chilling memoir, Alex describes how he received the most unnecessary and appalling treatment in mental institutions because of her actions, to the point where his mental and physical health deteriorated to a perilous state. Covering her tracks with cunning deception, his mother began by beating him repeatedly and forcing him to take a dangerous mix of amphetamines and Valium. His health already in balance, and raped by an uncle, the professionals believed his mother's lies. Mental asylums in Greece and the UK followed, as did isolation cells and ECT. But his mother's hatred was to take a more sinister turn still - how much more could Alex take and still survive? Not since Sickened has there been a book that catalogues a child's experience of being made devastatingly ill at the hands of their mother. Dramatic and uniquely shocking, this is a memoir that will haunt the reader long after they close the final page.

    It contains accounts by Richard 'The Iceman' Kuklinski, the contract killer who claimed to have murdered over 200 people in a career lasting 43 years.

    Formed in the early Eighties, it took its name from its followers love of soul music and brought together disparate mobs from the Welsh capital city and from the surrounding valleys and industrial towns. And it has left mayhem in its wake. David Jones and Tony Rivers are former members of the Soul Crew and give a riveting insider's account of clashes with the violent crews from as far afield as London, Middlesborough, Plymouth and Glasgow. They describe the intense rivalry with the 'Jacks' of Swansea City, reveal how internal tensions have prevented the gang from having a clear leadership, tell of their obsession with the 'casual' fashion scene and explain how they have forged friendships with fellow terrace obsessives from all over Britain.Told with black humor and unflinching honesty, 'Soul Crew' is an explosive account of how the hooligan culture has prevailed despite the best efforts of police, politicians and the football authorities to stamp it out.

    City infrastructure was crumbling, strong financial policies and systems were nonexistent, many executive positions were vacant, public satisfaction was low, ethical standards were weak, and public safety union salaries and benefits were outpacing revenues, crowding out other essential city services. Simply put: San Antonio was on the verge of collapse.Greedy Bastards tells the story of Sheryl and her new team's uphill battle to turn around San Antonio city government. She takes you behind closed doors to share the hard changes she made and the strategies she used to create mutually beneficial solutions to the city's biggest problems.Many of the issues Sheryl found in San Antonio are present in cities across the US. Packed with wins and losses, lessons learned, and pitfalls encountered, Greedy Bastards is a guidebook for any city official tasked with turning around a struggling city.

    Feathers from My Nest reveals a more contemplative and personal side of Beth, very much in the spirit of her Things Pondered.Feathers from My Nest is a collection of vignettes, as Beth reflects on items belonging to her daughters who have left the nest for college. As she ponders each item, rich in memories, Beth draws from its spiritual significance.This book not only tugs gently on the sentimental heartstrings of parents, it also reminds us all of the gift of grace children offer our lives every day.