Book picks similar to
Michael O'Leary: A Life In Full Flight by Alan Ruddock
biography
business
aviation
non-fiction
Ari: The Life and Times of Aristotle Onassis
Peter Evans - 1986
After months of exclusive conversations, years of extensive research, and in-depth interviews with Onassis's friends, lovers and rivals, Evans produced the only true, full account of the charismatic and ruthless Aristotle Onassis. To be a major ABC miniseries in February. 32 pages of photos.
Between The Lines My Story Uncut
Jason Donovan - 2007
Kylie and Jason became the celebrity couple of the 1980s and released the number one hit Especially For You in 1988. But behind the squeaky-clean pop star image was a man increasingly addicted to recreational drugs and on a spiraling downwards path until love pulled him through. His pop career launched, Jason went on to sell more than 30 million records worldwide and appeared in West End musicals such as Joseph and His Technicolor Dreamcoat and, more recently, The Rocky Horror Show. But just as Jason reached the pinnacle of his career, everything collapsed around him. When Jason sued style magazine The Face for calling him gay, the press tore him apart. Years of binge drug taking, and partying to excess followed. In his frank and honest account of his life, Jason talks candidly about the drugs that nearly saw the end of his career, about his relationship with the princess of pop, Kylie Minogue, and how he finally got his own very happy ending with the woman who saved him, his partner Angela, and their two children.
John Key: Portrait of a Prime Minister
John Roughan - 2014
As Key and his Government begin campaigning for a third term in Parliament, this in-depth portrait will give a clearer idea of Key, the man and politician. Journalist John Roughan has secured unprecedented access to John Key and his closest advisors. This book will provide insights into what motivates a multi-millionaire to become Prime Minister and examines his thoughts and aspirations. It will provide the clearest picture yet of what drives this country's Prime Minister. The book will follow Key's early life, starting with the break-up of his parents, his upbringing in a state house with an interesting Jewish refugee mother and his years at high school and university. It will follow his early career as a finance trader, his move into politics and his performance in power so far. Roughan will explore how Key's political views were formed by his life experiences, and how his political decisions fit within the context of his life story. John Key and his wife Bronagh have agreed to be interviewed for the book.
Funny Peculiar
Will Young - 2012
It was clear from the start that he would never be a typical pop star - and more than ten years later he has become one of our best-loved and most intriguing artists.From his dramatic experiences on Pop Idol; to coming out in the glare of the media spotlight; to his valiant struggles against depression; to the crazy reality of being famous, Will is open about both the highs and lows of his life. He also provides sound and practical advice on dealing with the DVLA helpline - something that has been woefully neglected by all other celebrity memoirs.If you have ever wondered what it's like to attend a fashion show (and find yourself accidentally waving at Anna Wintour); how it feels to sing in front of thousands while fighting a catastrophic bout of low self-esteem; or be subjected to the terror that is a This Morning 'makeover', then Funny Peculiar reveals all. It also reveals what not to say if you ever meet David Beckham.Moving, witty and scrupulously honest, Funny Peculiar is a refreshingly different and fascinating autobiography by a true original.
One Last Great Thing: A Story of a Father and a Son, a Story of a Life and a Legacy
John Burke - 2012
With his friend Bevil Hogg, he founded the Trek Bicycle Corporation in 1976 and then went on to establish the company as one of the leading bicycle companies in the world. He was a man who called his son, John, his best friend. Indeed, they did many great things together: ran the Boston Marathon, followed the Tour de France throughout France, and later ran Trek together. In March 2008, he passed away after complications of heart surgery. The Big Guy touched people’s lives in countless ways, and his passing was deeply emotional for many. Now John (current president of Trek Bicycle) has written a powerful tribute to the incredible life his father led and the ways in which he was an inspiring businessman, leader, and person. Taking readers deep into the history of Trek, John shares how his father taught, trained, and instilled in him the confidence and desire to be a leader. A portrait of a great man, the book culminates with John telling his father on his deathbed of their twenty greatest moments together. This is an intimate portrayal of a father-son relationship filled with poignant experiences and lessons on how to get the most out of life. *** My father was an amazing man and he taught me many of life’s lessons. This book takes you through a great relationship between a father and a son. It takes you through the building of Trek Bicycle, and most importantly it tells the story of how my father and how our family dealt with his fight for life, and ultimately how my father and how our family dealt with his death. Death is a destination that we all share and yet there is so little written about it and so many people are unprepared to deal with it. My father amazed me throughout his life, but he saved his best act for last. The way he dealt with his death is a story that should be of some help to any family facing this most difficult time. —from the preface
Dan Carter: The Autobiography of an All Blacks Legend
Dan Carter - 2015
Indeed, heading into the 2015 World Cup he had never finished the competition on his own terms.His autobiography tells of that redemption, and gets you up close and personal with one of the most celebrated sportsmen of our time.Threaded throughout the book is an intimate diary of his final year as a Crusader and All Black, during which he worked tirelessly to make one last run at that elusive goal: a World Cup victory achieved on the field.Dan Carter's autobiography is essential reading for all sports fans.
Summary - Hillbilly Elegy: By James David Vance - A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
e-Summary - 2016
The book is written by JD (James David by author's full name) Vance and in it the author tries to describe the overall life and struggles of people in post-industrial time in the United States. This book deals with the problems of white working-class and the book is not just some book where the author tries to describe lives of ordinary white people. The book is actually a memento and a message to the readers; in it Vance describes his life and his starts, especially growing up while being poor in Ohio. We can find out about this when we find out that Vance's family is of Scottish-Irish descent and that his ancestors have longer history of poverty and hard work that they need to endure in order to survive the hard times that were at hand. We also find out that since the 18th century many Scottish-Irish people were working as plantation workers, as miners and/or as millworkers. Because these people worked only the hardest jobs that hardly anyone else would take many people belittled them. Words like 'white trash, redneck' and/or 'hillbilly' were unfortunately a common everyday word for those people. Hillbilly Elegy is a fascinating work, not because it was written based on a true story but because it was written from a man who lived 'through' his story. The fact that the entire book contains a message is, of course, welcoming plus and something we want from literature of this genre. Here Is A Preview Of What You Will Get: In Hillbilly Elegy, you will get a summarized version of the book.In Hillbilly Elegy, you will find the book analyzed to further strengthen your knowledge.In Hillbilly Elegy, you will get some fun multiple choice quizzes, along with answers to help you learn about the book.Get a copy, and learn everything about Hillbilly Elegy.
Never Tell Me Never
Janine Shepherd - 1994
A champion cross-country skier in training for the Winter Olympics, her life was irrevocably altered during a bike ride to the Blue Mountains when she was hit by a truck. Her neck and back were broken in four places, as were her right arm, collarbone, and five ribs. Her right leg had been ripped open, she had sustained massive internal injuries and severe lacerations to her abdominal area, and she had lost five liters of blood. The bleeding alone was enough to kill her. Doctors warned her parents that she was not expected to survive her ordeal. Even if by some small chance she recovered, she would never walk again. Coming to terms with her shattered Olympic dreams, refusing to believe what expert medical staff were telling her about her chances of any kind of recovery, Janine focused every sinew of her being on healing her broken body and crushed morale. Her fighting spirit was rekindled watching small planes flying overhead. She said to herself, "If I can’t walk, I’ll fly." And fly she did. Within a year she had her private pilot’s license; 12 months later, her commercial license; soon after, her instructor’s permit and aerobatic endorsement. And all the while she pushed her body to mend itself, forced her legs to walk again, step by painful step. Here is her story, a testament to the power of the human spirit, and one that will move and inspire all who read it.
Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer’s Life in Music
Ted Templeman - 2020
Along the way, Ted details his late ’60s stint as an unlikely star with the sunshine pop outfit Harpers Bizarre and his grind-it-out days as a Warner Bros. tape listener, including the life-altering moment that launched his career as a producer: his discovery of the Doobie Brothers. Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer’s Life in Music takes us into the studio sessions of No. 1 hits like “Black Water” by the Doobie Brothers and “Jump” by Van Halen, as Ted recounts memories and the behind-the-scene dramas that engulfed both massively successful acts. Throughout, Ted also reveals the inner workings of his professional and personal relationships with some of the most talented and successful recording artists in history, including Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, Eric Clapton, Lowell George, Sammy Hagar, Linda Ronstadt, David Lee Roth, and Carly Simon.
The Bottom Corner: A Season with the Dreamers of Non-League Football
Nige Tassell - 2016
In these days of oligarch owners, superstar managers and players on sky-high wages, the tide is turning against the big teams as fans search for football with a soul. Enter non-league football – the heartland of the beautiful game.Nige Tassell spends a season among the characters who inhabit this world. The raffle-ticket seller who wants her ashes scattered in the centre-circle. The envelope salesman who discovered a future England international. The ex-pros still playing with undiluted passion on Sunday mornings. One thing unites them: they are all dreamers.Tassell ventures all over the footballing map, from the giantkillers of Salford City to hungover cloggers on Hackney Marshes, interviewing obsessive groundhoppers, record-smashing goalscorers, dictatorial managers, ukulele-strumming fans and the captain of the Filipino national team. He makes extended stopovers at both new boys Tranmere Rovers looking for a speedy return to the Football League and the inhabitants of the ‘bottom corner’ Bishop Sutton, who are just trying to get eleven men on a pitch.Hope and ambition. Triumph and tragedy. Faith and despair. All human life is here in the win-or-sink drama of non-league football.
Betty Broderick: Telling on myself
Betty Broderick - 2015
Worse still, he is a notoriously hard-ball lawyer with every intention of crushing you in any way he can, of erasing you from his life, of reducing you to nothing, so that he can move on as if you never existed. Daniel T. Broderick III’s relentless harassment of his discarded wife, Betty, made her increasingly crazy as he and his girlfriend – then second wife – Linda Kolkena Broderick piled on the pressure, until one day, on November 5, 1989, at her wits’ end and believing herself to be acting in self-defense, she confronted them in the early hours of the morning and in a panic shot them both dead. A multitude of onlookers has absolved Betty for what she did. Many even admire her, especially if they have suffered similar fates to hers. One juror at her trial openly questioned why she had taken so long to kill Dan under such extreme provocation. Now, twenty-five years into a thirty-two year to life prison sentence for her second-degree murder of Dan and Linda Broderick, Betty has reluctantly decided to give her personal account of what led up to that fatal and fateful day, when all three of their futures came violently and abruptly to an end.
The Devil in the Kitchen: Sex, Pain, Madness and the Making of a Great Chef
Marco Pierre White - 2006
In the UK, White's brilliant cooking and high-wattage antics have made him a legend: the first British chef (and the youngest chef anywhere) to win three Michelin stars, a chain-smoking, pot-throwing, multiply married culinary genius whose fierce devotion to food and restaurants has been the only constant in a life of tabloid-ready turmoil. In The Devil in the Kitchen, he tells the story of his life in food, spanning his apprenticeship with Albert and Michel Roux, his wild years in the bacchanal of 1980s Chelsea, his ferocious pursuit of the highest Michelin rating, and his "retirement career" as a hugely successful restaurateur. With cameos from the likes of Michael Caine, Madonna, and Damien Hirst, The Devil in the Kitchen leaves no dish unserved, relating the backroom antics, the blood feuds, and the passion for great food that have driven London's greatest restaurants for decades.
A Spectacle of Dust
Pete Postlethwaite - 2011
The candid memoirs of a great character actor Steven Spielberg called him "the best actor in the world," about which Postlethwaite said: "I'm sure what Spielberg actually said was, 'the thing about Pete is that he thinks he's the best actor in the world.'" This is the story of a diverse and multi-talented actor's eventful life, told in his own vibrant words as he was at the end of it.
The Real Deal: My Story from Brick Lane to Dragons' Den
James Caan - 2008
Armed with this advice, natural charm and the Yellow Pages, he built a market-leading business with a turnover of £130 million and swiftly became one of Britain's most successful entrepreneurs.From Caan's childhood as a Pakistani immigrant to the phenomenal success of his first company and beyond, The Real Deal traces both his financial and personal achievements. It offers a frank account of what success at thirty really signifies and brings us right up to the present, including his impact on Dragons' Den and what his charity work, from saving a hospital in London to building a school in Lahore, means to him. Ultimately, it is a story of learning what money is really worth, told by one the country's most insightful businessmen.
Be Careful What You Wish For
Simon Jordan - 2012
After making million in mobile phones he decided to buy his boyhood club, Crystal Palace. At 31, he became the youngest chairman ever. He was also the most outspoken, announcing at his first Palace press conference: 'I don't give a **** about football protocol.' Football is a notoriously murky world: overpriced players, dodgy transfers, top-level corruption. Of course, the establishment always closes rank and those at the top stay quiet. But Jordan doesn't do quiet. And now, for the first time, he lifts the lid on what really goes on behind the scenes in football. With his year-round tan Jordan may be a 'marmite' figure, but love him or hate him his story is a revelation. Every fan dreams of owning their own club. As a boy Simon would break into the Palace grounds, where his dad once played, for a kick-about with his brother. And Simon's love for Palace remains undimmed to this day. But his owner's tale is a hair-raising story of desire and whimsy, success and disaster. It's a reminder to any fan -- be careful what you wish for.