is one of the most recognizable figures in American politics. In the past six decades, he has overcome heartbreaking personal tragedies and discouraging political setbacks to become a popular U.S. senator, U.S. Vice President, and U.S. Presidential candidate.Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania to a large, hard-working, Catholic family, Biden was ridiculed for his stutter, emerged as a popular football player, was elected class President, married his college sweetheart, went to law school, practiced law, became a public defender, won a county council seat, became the sixth-youngest U.S. senator in American history, grieved the tragic deaths of his wife and young daughter, chaired the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, caused some plagiarism scandals, served as the 47th Vice President of the United States, grieved the tragic death of his adult son, and ran for President of the United States.This short book tells the intensely human story of a man who is changing the world in a way that no one else can.

    After a rejection from an elite New York conservatoire—a rejection she always believed stemmed from the color of her skin—she began performing jazz, blues, and classical songs in a bar to fund her music studies. In 1958 her rendition of the Gershwin standard “I Loves You Porgy” became a Top 40 hit, and her subsequent debut album Little Girl Blue launched what would become an extensive singing and songwriting career. Drawing on a wealth of original interviews with Simone’s closest associates, this extraordinary biography follows her sparkling career as well as her passionate belief in racial equality that eventually led her to undergo self-imposed exile from America in 1970. Featuring rare photographs and a review of Simone’s more than 40 albums and numerous hits, this is an extensive look at the complex and extremely talented diva.

    He was resident director of Chicago's famed Second City and house metaphysician for Saturday Night Live, a talent in his own right, and one of the brightest and wackiest theater gurus ever. Jeff Griggs was a student of Close's at the ImprovOlympic in Chicago when he was asked to help the aging mentor (often in ill health) by driving him around the city on his weekly errands. The two developed a volatile friendship that shocked, angered, and amused both of them--and produced this hilarious and ultimately endearing chronicle of Close's last years. With all the elements of a picaresque novel, Guru captures Close at his zaniest but also shows him in theatrical situations that confirm his genius in conceptualizing and directing improvisational theater. Between comic episodes, Jeff Griggs gives the reader the essentials of Close's biography: his childhood in Kansas, early years as an actor, countercultural exploits in the 1960s (he toured with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters and designed light shows for the Grateful Dead), years with the Compass Players and then with Second City, and continuing experimentation with every drug imaginable, which pretty much cost him his health and ultimately his life. He was comedian, director, teacher, writer, actor, poet, fire-eater, junkie, and philosopher. Being a really good actor does not necessarily guarantee that you will be a very good improviser, Close liked to say. Being an actual, complete, hopeless, wretched geek in real life doesn't disqualify you from being a solid improviser, either. He approached improv the same way he conducted his life--in bizarre, dark, and dangerous fashion. Guru captures it.

    Edward went on to become Archbishop of Canterbury and little Minnie - as Mary Benson - to preside over Lambeth Palace, and a social world that ranged from Tennyson and Browning to foreign royalty and Queen Victoria herself. Prime Minister William Gladstone called her 'the cleverest woman in Europe'.Yet Mrs Benson's most intense relationships were not with her husband and his associates, but with other women. When the Archbishop died, Mary - 'Ben' to her intimates - turned down an offer from the Queen to live at Windsor, and set up home in a Jacobean manor house with her friend Lucy Tait. She remained at the heart of her family of fiercely eccentric and 'unpermissably gifted' children, each as individual as herself. They knew Henry James, Oscar Wilde and Gertrude Bell. Arthur wrote the words for 'Land of Hope and Glory'; Fred became a hugely successful author (his Mapp and Lucia novels still have a cult following); and Maggie a renowned Egyptologist. But none of them was 'the marrying sort' and such a rackety family seemed destined for disruption: Maggie tried to kill her mother and was institutionalized, Arthur suffered numerous breakdowns and young Hugh became a Catholic priest, embroiled in scandal.

    As a young man, voraciously addicted to drugs and sex, with men as much as women, marriage and parenthood for the impetuously wayward playboy prince, with his night-clubbing lifestyle and intimate liaisons, was seen as the only stabilizing influence. Enter the stylish and sophisticated Princess Marina, the cultured, artistic and multilingual youngest daughter of Prince Nicholas of Greece and his Russian-born wife, Grand Duchess Yelena Vladimirovna. As Duke and Duchess of Kent, George and Marina were the Crown’s most glittering representatives, not least in the aftermath of the Abdication of George’s adored elder brother, the briefly-reigned King Edward VIII; the man with whom he had not only shared both home and high-flying lifestyles, but who had helped cure him of his addiction to morphine and cocaine.On and off duty, the Duke and Duchess lived life to the full, and after George’s untimely death, Marina continued to do so during the twenty-six years of her widowhood. Revisiting his 1988 best-selling biography, George and Marina: Duke and Duchess of Kent, Christopher Warwick, in this revised and partly re-written study, tells their story anew.

    Throw in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and the murders of John F. Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, Marilyn Monroe, Bugsy Siegel, Sam Giancana, Lucky Luciano, Tony the Ant Spilotro, Johnny Roselli and Jimmy Hoffa. Toss in Hollywood scandal and the mobbed up career of Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack. Now you can begin to grasp the epic story of Tony Accardo. Why has this story never been told? Accardo killed everyone in his path: family, friends, cops, reporters, movie stars, and politicians. Operating from deep within the shadows Tony influenced national policy, exploited the FBI, owned politicians, and fixed presidential elections. Connected to every gangster from Al Capone to Lucky Luciano to John Gotti, Joe Batters is the must-read that every Godfather fan is craving.

    Gasping for breath, down and out, it was then that something extraordinary happened: 20,000 fans began to sing his name. Ricky Hatton: War and Peace is the story of one of British boxing’s true icons. From a Manchester council estate to the lights of Las Vegas, Ricky Hatton experienced incredible highs in his career, including one of the greatest ever wins by a British boxer, over the IBF Light Welterweight champion Kostya Tszyu. But heavy defeats to two legends of the ring, Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, brought him quickly down to earth to face a new set of battles against depression, drink and drugs.Through it all, however, Ricky Hatton has remained the same charismatic, genuinely funny, eloquent man – a man who boxing fans have always taken to their heart. A man who has survived a lifetime of wars both in and out of the ring, and who in defeat has finally found something close to peace.

    Arthur, the Marquis of Douro, his beautiful wife, Marion, and their infant son lead a happy and carefree existence in the city of Verdopolis—until a chance encounter brings the youthful Marchioness’ childhood governess back into their lives. The meeting proves to be the catalyst for an increasingly tortuous series of events involving blackmail, imposture, and shocking revelations regarding the birth of the young Marchioness. Will the Marquis ever forgive his wife her secret? English novelist Charlotte Brontë is best remembered for her perennially popular novel, Jane Eyre.

    Including the writer Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen), the pioneering aviator Beryl Markham and the troubled socialite Idina Sackville whose life was told in Frances Osborne’s bestselling The Bolter, the Happy Valley set’s notoriety was sealed in 1941 with the sensational – and still unsolved - murder of the Earl of Errol, the investigation of which laid bare the extent of the set’s decadence and irresponsibility, and made for another bestselling book in James Fox’s White Mischief. But what is left now? Juliet Barnes, who has lived in Kenya for many years, has set out to explore Happy Valley in a remarkable and indefatigable archaeological quest to find the homes and haunts of this extraordinary and vanished set of people – grand residences like Clouds up in the hills that once hosted opulent and scandalous parties. With the help of African guides, and guided by the memories of elderly expats she tracks down to the Muthiaga old enough to have first-hand memories of the likes of Idina and Lord Errol and the lives they led, what she finds - ruins reclaimed by luxuriant bush, tumbledown dwellings in which an African family ekes a subsistence living, or even a modest school – is a revelation of the state of modern Africa that makes the gilded era of the Happy Valley set seem even more fantastic. A book to set alongside such singular evocations of Africa and its strange colonial history as The Africa House, Happy Valley: The Biography is a mesmerising blend of travel narrative, social history and personal quest.

    The complex and troubled relationship with discipline, alcohol and authority during his exhilarating cricket career. The search for an authentic voice as a player, free from the blandness and conformity of modern professionalism. Is Flintoff the last of his kind, in any sport?Through all his highs and lows, triumphs and reversals, this book reveals a central tension. There is 'Fred' - performer, extrovert, centre of attention. Then there is 'Andrew' - reflective, withdrawn and uncertain. Two people contained in one extraordinary life. And sometimes, inevitably, keeping the two in balance proves too much.We are taken backstage, seeing the mischief and adventure that has defined Andrew Flintoff's story. Above all, we observe the enduring power of fun, friendship and loyalty - the pillars of Flintoff's career. At ease with his faults as well as his gifts, Andrew Flintoff has sought one thing, even more than success: to be himself.

    

    Yes, the 'F' word. Tipping the scales at nearly 20 stone, with creaking knees and a dodgy ankle to boot, at the beginning of 2011 Pauline had reached a crisis point. Something had to change, and fast. It was never going to be an easy ride, but with her trademark warmth and sense of humour, Pauline recounts the highs and lows of the rollercoaster year in which she whips herself, and her life, into shape - with a fair few tales from her celebrated forty-year acting career thrown into the bargain. She reveals all: from the strain of working long hours away from home on one of Britain's most popular soaps to renewing her wedding vows and reuniting with her Birds of a Feather co-stars; from battling the bulge and facing the naysayers to rediscovering the joys of airline travel . . . without a seatbelt extension.Honest and revealing, Where Have I Gone? is brimming with brilliantly funny anecdotes and truly moving moments. So put your feet up and join Pauline as she embarks on the most incredible year of her life.

    And in portraying the politics and inflated economics surrounding the podiums of today's international classical music scene, the author investigates the awesome power of superagents, the obstacles faced by blacks, women, and gays, and the mounting crisis in a profession where genuine talent grows ever scarcer.

    It may be hard to believe but it was against the background of all this that Eamonn won the WBU world welterweight and Commonwealth light welterweight titles. The author, Paul Gibson, has managed to decipher a very dark, very troubled, very flawed individual who happened to have an exceptional gift to box at the highest world level. The Lost Soul of Eamonn Magee reads like the screenplay of the kind of gritty rags-to-riches-to-rags boxing story that Hollywood producers seem to love.