Biography / Autobiography permanent abandonment of her own political career in


4


1950. As a young mother she nursed Cheltenham for Labour followed by six years nursing the King’s Morton Division of Birmingham. Elizabeth was the eldest daughter of a distinguished Harley Street doctor and his wife Katherine was niece of the statesman George Chamberlain and first cousin to the future Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain. At Oxford, she was one of the few women to be accepted into the intellectual circle led by Maurice Bowra and Hugh Gaitskell, both of whom fell in love with her. It was at Oxford that she had her first romantic glimpse of Frank Pakenham and thus began a love story which plays a central role in the book. She recounts numerous lively anecdotes about her friends including David Cecil, John Betjeman, Evelyn Waugh, Dick Crossman and Harold Wilson. 446pp in large paperback with 32 pages of family photos. £12.99 NOW £4.50


71088 GLITTER AND THE GOLD


by Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan The 9th Duchess married the 9th Duke of Marlborough in 1895 and went to live in England from America. Consuelo was young, beautiful and the heiress to a vast family fortune and also deeply in love with an American suitor when her mother chose instead for her to marry an English Duke. Leaving


her life in America she came to England and took up residence in her new home, Blenheim Palace. An unsnobbish but often amused observer of the intricate hierarchy both upstairs and downstairs, Consuelo is also a revealing witness to the glittering balls, huge weekend parties and major state occasions she attended or hosted. Here are her encounters with every important figure of the day from Queen Victoria, Edward VII and Queen Alexandra to Tsar Nicolas, Prince Metternich and the young Winston Churchill. A wonderfully observant portrait of England’s golden age. 290pp in paperback reprint of the 1973 original plus many pages of photos. £8.99 NOW £4.50


71025 MY PAPER CHASE: True Stories of Vanished


Times by Harold Evans Harold Evans was editor of the Sunday Times and The Times and earlier of the Northern Echo and assistant editor of the Manchester Evening News. He has written a number of bestselling histories and followed the late Alastair Cooke in commentaries on America for the BBC. In 2001, British journalists


voted him the all-time greatest British newspaper editor. He was knighted in 2004. Anyone who feels cynical about public life and journalists in particular should drink down this wonderful book in a single gulp which is also a jaw dropping social history. From a wartime beach in Wales to the gleaming skyscrapers of 21st century Manhattan, the extraordinary career of Fleet Street legend Harold Evans has spanned five decades. Whether unpicking the murderous chaos of Bloody Sunday, giving an exposé of Kim Philby or uncovering the atrocity of thalidomide, this consummate newsman evokes his contagious passion - for the real story and the truth. 582pp. 16 pages of b/w photos. Paperback. $16.99 NOW £5


69536 THE TEMPTRESS by Paul Spicer


The scandalous life of Alice, Countess de Janzé, here is passion and murder in Kenya’s Happy Valley. No one paid too much attention to the privileged and decadent colonial set until on a January morning in 1941, Josslyn Hay, Earl of Erroll, was shot dead at the wheel of his Buick. Some say the good-looking womaniser


had it coming. Cuckolded husband Jock Delves Broughton stood trial for Erroll’s murder but was acquitted and the mystery remained unsolved, until now. American heiress Alice de Janzé had been conducting a clandestine affair with Joss for years. She arrived in Kenya as a glamorous, newly married countess in the 1920s, but by 1941 she had turned 40 and Erroll was courting younger lovers. Increasingly isolated, she was thrown into despair, resulting in his murder and her own tragic demise. A page turner, 308pp in paperback with eight pages of b/w photos. £7.99 NOW £3


71101 SOME GIRLS,SOME


HATS AND HITLER by Trudi Kanter


When the Nazis marched into Austria in 1938, welcomed by cheering crowds, Trudi Kanter made an artistic decision in her millinery business. Just returned home to Vienna from a buying trip to Paris, she found that ‘the mob now had the upper hand…worked up, ordered by their leaders to commit terrible


crimes, they did as they were told.’ Trudi’s recollection reflected the new reality: she decided she would use more veiling, to hide the sadness in women’s eyes. Young, beautiful, successful, independent and determined, Trudi designed hats for the smartest women in Vienna. Here she is falling in love with Walter, a charming and charismatic businessman, but their idyll is about to end. Trudi and Walter are Jewish, and as Hitler’s tanks roll into Austria, Trudi immediately realises they have to flee. An incredible true story moving from Vienna to Prague to Blitzed London, the prose fizzes with pin-point recall. 242pp in paperback. £7.99 NOW £4


71023 ANTHONY BURGESS by Roger Lewis


Anthony Burgess, man of letters, polymath, bigot, wit, composer of brilliant novels and disastrous music, is worthily celebrated in this biography whose energy and passion are as compelling as Burgess’s own writing and personality. The success of his rip- roaring life of Shakespeare, Nothing Like the Sun, in 1963, was followed by the Enderby books and the


controversial fame of A Clockwork Orange, filmed in 1972 by Stanley Kubrick. After the death of his wife Lynne in 1968, Burgess married Liliana Macellari and settled in Malta and Italy. He reaped the fruits of 60s liberation with his notorious lecture on obscenity and was also at work on the highly acclaimed translations of Cyrano de Bergerac and Oedipus Rex. A gem of a biography. 434pp with b/w photos. Paperback. £9.99 NOW £4


71094 ME AND MINE by Anna May Mangan A warm-hearted memoir of a London Irish family which captivates us with their joys and sorrows as this large, working-class emigrant family arrive in 1950s London. ‘The doors of the register office were shunted open by a nine-month- pregnant stomach deployed as a battering ram. It was encased in a frilled with frills topped with frills dress. My cousin Aednat, a ruched


blind on swollen ankles, moved like a tank to clear her space…’ As soon as they had saved up for the three S’s - shoes, suitcases and a suit - they left rural Ireland. No blacks, no Irish, no dogs, London was still better for Anna May Mangan’s family than the poverty they had hailed from - the dance halls, the holy water and the gossip where there was no front door. Warm hearted and with many memorable characters, these are funny and delicately described memoirs. 275pp in paperback. £6.99 NOW £3


71097 A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE PRIVATE LIFE OF


ELIZABETH II by Michael Paterson Queen Elizabeth II is, by a considerable margin, the most important woman in the world. By nature she is quietly dutiful. Her face is a national icon, endlessly seen on postcards, plates, tea towels, stamps and every coin and bank note we spend. She appoints


ministers, ambassadors, bishops, judges and military officers and gives out medals to those people who deem worthy of them. She discusses that state of the country every week with the head of the government and is allowed to suggest or advise solutions to problems although she cannot herself vote. She is within a few years of becoming the longest-reigning British monarch. She has known every Prime Minister since Winston Churchill and every American President since Eisenhower, yet what of the woman beneath the crown? Here we take a fresh look at this exhaustedly documented life and explore how Queen Elizabeth became the person she is. What are her greatest influences, her likes and dislikes? What are her hobbies and who are her friends? How does she feel about the demands of duty and protocol? Does she behave differently when out of the public eye? 220pp in paperback.


£8.99 NOW £4.50


56216 THOMAS HARDY by Thomas and Florence Hardy


Originally published as a biography of Thomas Hardy by his widow Florence, this ‘Life’ is now known to have been essentially the work of the writer himself. There has been much critical discussion of its hybrid status and of Hardy’s motives for contriving what some have seen as a deception. More than that, it offers a wonderful miscellany of reminiscences, anecdotes, folk tales, personal insights, diary entries and intriguing reflections on art in general and fiction and poetry in particular. With a new introduction by Michael Irwin, this is a brand new Wordsworth paperback, 482pp. ONLY £4


68609 MACMILLAN: The Official Biography,


20th Anniversary Edition by Alistair Horne Horne describes the politician’s background and his full role in the Suez crisis, explaining his baffling volte-face and the role of his reputation in winning him the Prime Ministership after Eden’s resignation. Macmillan’s rehabilitation of the demoralised Tory Party, his inspired visit to Khrushchev to calm the escalating Cold War, his recognition of the rise of black nationalism within the Commonwealth and his re-establishment of the Special Relationship with America ensured his place as one of the most consummate politicians of British history. The Night of the Long Knives and the Profumo affair, as well as his battle with prostate cancer ultimately forced Macmillan out of office. 1,295 pages with silk bookmark. £60 NOW £9


68778 LIFE OF A LONG-DISTANCE WRITER: The Biography of Alan Sillitoe by Richard Bradford


Sillitoe’s first two works of fiction, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958) and The Loneliness of the Long- Distance Runner (1959) changed the history of the English language novel, and the abundance of work he produced subsequently was outstanding. In the latter 1960s, he turned against these totalitarian states and campaigned tirelessly on behalf of political prisoners. At the turn of the 21st century he had developed a fascination with Judaism, becoming a staunch defender of the need for a Jewish homeland, and still enjoying ruffling feathers whilst still well into his 70s. Includes correspondence with Ted Hughes. 390pp, photos. £25 NOW £4


69910 EDWARD HEATH by Philip Ziegler Edward Heath’s humble beginnings can be contrasted with his flamboyant taste in interior decoration, and his notoriously appalling French accent with his passionate championship of Europe. Always ill at ease with women, in 1938 Heath opposed admitting them to the Oxford Union, saying “Women have no original contribution to make to our debates”. In spite of this, Heath enjoyed entertaining, and as a musician himself it gave him great satisfaction to host a 70th birthday party for the composer Sir William Walton, with music commissioned for the occasion. Politically speaking Heath’s most turbulent year was 1974 when he faced the militant miners, strikes, a blackout, confrontations in Northern Ireland, a personal and ideological struggle with Harold Wilson, a hung parliament and two disastrous elections, while in the Conservative party Margaret Thatcher was beginning to challenge his leadership. Heath’s later years were darkened by resentment of both Wilson and Thatcher. 654 pages, photos. £30 NOW £5.50


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68862 CONVERSATIONS WITH MYSELF by Nelson Mandela


Here is the private man behind the public figurehead - from letters written in the darkest hours of his 27 year incarceration at Robben Island to the draft of an unfinished sequel to Long Walk to Freedom, doodles scribbled during meetings to the recording of troubling dreams, journals whilst on the run during the early ’60s to sound recordings of chats with friends. This is the chance to spend time with Nelson Mandela the man in his own direct, clear words. Slightly scuffed. 454pp with b/w photos and green satin bookmark. £25 NOW £4


70506 SNOWDON: The


Biography by Anne De Courcy Described by the Sunday Telegraph as ‘the most sensational book on the Royal Family in recent times’, this frank and fearless volume provides a no-holds-barred account of Lord Snowdon’s life, reflecting as it does so the social mores of his day. Now in his eighties, he still has not escaped the limelight as more and more is revealed about the wild milieu in which he used to spend his


time. The author had unprecedented access to both Snowdon and the people closest to him so that she was able to uncover the real man behind the myth. How did a photographer who was a relentless playboy, an unashamed womaniser and a leather-clad motorcyclist rise in the ranks to marry the Queen’s sister, Princess Margaret, and become an Establishment figure? The brilliant and talented Antony Armstrong-Jones, as he then was, often humiliated Princess Margaret, and their marriage was eventually to end in divorce. Here are the facts about the secret courtship of Margaret, the love child born just weeks after the royal marriage, the affairs on both sides, the suicide of one mistress and the birth of an illegitimate son to another. Readers’ eyes will not stop popping out of their heads! 404 paperback pages packed with colour and b/w plates. £9.99 NOW £5


68924 ROAD BACK HOME: A Bittersweet


Northern Childhood by Sid Waddell Everybody knows Sid Waddell as the overexcited voice of TV darts, but how many of you knew that this son of a miner from Lynemouth in Northumberland graduated from Cambridge with a degree in history and ended up big in TV darts by being a BBC Sports producer in the 1970s? Theirs was a colourful community with good times and hard work, peopled by god-fearing women and hard-drinking men. B/w photos, 318 page paperback. Contents same as 67092. £6.99 NOW £2


69270 DIARY OF A YOUNG WIFE 1953 by Hazel Wheeler


Working in the local libraries in and around Huddersfield, Hazel desperately fights to fit her passion of writing around the unenviable daily demands of a 1950s housewife. ‘6am washing clothes. Cooked breakfast, ironing. Cleaned oven, bedroom, the windows. Walked Crosland Moor then down the fields to mother’s. Played with Major (the dog) in the field. Library. 140 issues. Left at 8.30pm.’ Hazel Wheeler is a feisty young woman who passed her 11 plus to attend Greenhead Girls High and who chronicles in her daily diary the first shaky steps of marriage. Photos and contemporary advertising. 128pp in large softback. £12.99 NOW £3.50


70586 EDIE’S TALE: Growing Up in Darlaston


by Edith Rushton Darlaston was a small Black Country town with a population of less than 20,000, three miles southwest of Walsall. It boasted not only the great Rubery Owens but also the big works of GKN where all kinds of nuts and bolts were made. Darlaston punched


well above its weight on the economic world stage. Noted from the late 1600s for its nails and coal, it was also marked out by its gun-lock-makers and that its ‘workmen are incredibly ingenious, being able to forge almost anything on the anvil’. Growing up in Foster Street in the 1930s, Edie spent much of her childhood behind the shop run by her Mom. Foster Street boasted five sweet shops, one greengrocer, two pubs, a pawnbroker, an old lady who sold lamp oil, another who sold sand for floor coverings and her own family’s general store. The old red-brick houses were lined up in terraces, had communal brew houses, miskins, wells and privies. Here are games from marlies to jackstones and enchanting characters like Alice the Milk and Billy Muggins who had bostin’ bargains for a tanner or a bob. Here too are the high days and holidays. 80 photos, 118pp in large softback. £12.99 NOW £3.50


69462 IRIS MURDOCH AS I KNEW HER by A. N. Wilson


A. N. Wilson probably knew Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) better than anybody, other than her husband of 43 years, John Bayley. In the late 1980s she asked him to be her biographer. In 1995 Iris began to suffer from what she thought was writer’s block. Sadly, it was the onset of Alzheimer’s. The film Iris which came out in 2001 was based largely on Bayley’s increasingly spiteful memoirs of her, and focused on her decline rather than her talent. Thus Wilson was glad to set the record straight, especially for those whose image of Murdoch is either sexy young undergrad (as played by Kate Winslet) or deranged frump in a dirty cardigan (Judi Dench). Here is Iris the witty conversationalist, the emotional chaotic and, above all, the writer par excellence. Unashamedly personal, Wilson gives us back the fierce intelligence and philosophy of his subject which will amuse, delight and occasionally sadden the reader. Photos, 285pp. £18.99 NOW £6.50


69499 SMOKE IN THE LANES by Dominic Reeve


!


Subtitled Happiness and Hardship on the Road with the Gypsies in the 1950s, Dominic Reeve describes his life among the gypsies. In the 1950s the Romani people lived on the brink of great change. In their brightly painted wooden wagons, they journeyed between horse-fairs and traditional stopping-places - stoic, humorous and wild, often poverty-stricken but protective of their freedom, they lived on the fringes of a society that was soon to close around them. Reeve evokes an


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unforgettable cast of fireside characters. 343pp in paperback.


£5.99 NOW £3.25


69481 EDITH CAVELL by Diana Souhami


The renowned First World War nurse Edith Cavell was the war’s true angel of mercy and here her story is related by a first-rate biographer. Edith Cavell was a pioneering nurse who tragically became a war hero. On 20th August 1914, she watched 50,000 German soldiers march into Brussels. Nothing in her Victorian upbringing as the vicar’s daughter in a small Norfolk village, nor her nursing career, had prepared her for the subversion of her new life as a Resistance worker. ‘Deeply regret to inform you that Miss Edith Cavell has been executed by German authorities on charge of assisting escape of British soldiers. She died as she lived devoted to the service of her country.’ 478pp in paperback with illus. £8.99 NOW £4.50


70472 GYPSY BOY ON THE


RUN by Mikey Walsh Described as ‘a revelation’ by Stephen Fry, this is the true-life story of bestselling author Mikey Walsh. It follows his previous autobiography, Gypsy Boy, and tells more of his childhood and journey to acceptance. Walsh grew up living in a caravan on sites across the UK, adoring his family and the rich and vibrant Romany culture he had been born into.


However, he was faced with a heart breaking decision - should he stay and keep secrets, or escape and find where he truly belonged? Going it alone, Mikey soon discovers that life on the outside world is nothing like he thought it would be. His father has put a contract out on him, causing him to be hunted by gangs of thugs determined to claim the reward, and Mikey realises that his life will never be the same again. This is an extraordinary story, brimming with vivid characters and unforgettable moments - a true blend of humour and harsh reality, powerful to the very last page. Softback, 306 pages.


£13.99 NOW £4


69488 HAROLD MACMILLAN by Charles Williams


The author is otherwise known as Lord Williams of Elvel, former industrialist and Labour peer and one of Britain’s most distinguished biographers. His subject, Harold Macmillan, was a figure of paradox. He was a courageous soldier in the First World War and from then on it was politics which was to be his future. Appointed Minister in Residence in North Africa, his career flowered, and as Churchill’s Minister of Housing in the early 1950s he achieved the target of building 300,000 houses annually. Over the Suez affair in 1956 he played a difficult and somewhat devious hand and Eden’s resignation left him as the clear choice of his cabinet colleagues to become Prime Minister. 548pp in paperback, photos. £14.99 NOW £4.50


69911 FIRST LADY OF FLEET STREET: The Life, Fortune and Tragedy of Rachel Beer by Eilat Negev


and Yehuda Koren The name Rachel Beer may be unfamiliar to readers but, as well as being a member of the famous Sassoon family, and aunt to the poet Siegfried Sassoon, she was a truly remarkable woman in her own right. She is not only of the first


and only woman to edit not one, but two national British newspapers simultaneously, but also of two venerable Jewish families and their rise to eminence. As a woman, Rachel was barred from not only the Press Gallery of the House of Commons but also from the London Clubs where she would have been likely to glean political gossip. Nonetheless, she managed to make her controversial views known not only on social and women’s issues but also on national and foreign political events including the notorious Dreyfus Affair. Her husband abandoned the Jewish religion and baptized their son. But worse was to follow when her much loved husband died and she succumbed to pathological chronic grief which resulted in a prolonged depression. 342 pages with b/w archive photos. £20 NOW £4


69605 JELLIED EELS AND ZEPPELINS:


Witness to a Vanished Age by Sue Taylor How can you cram more than 90 years of someone’s life into the pages of a book? Ethel May Elvin, a child of ‘delicate health’ escaped the dreaded Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-19 as well as both World Wars, including the London Blitz. She came out of it all and is still laughing, and here is her own journey through life in the 20th century from Walthamstow E17 in an ordinary working class family. She recalls her father’s account of standing sentry at Queen Victoria’s funeral, doodlebugs and dugouts, bombs, buses and her dog Dalmatian Bill, motorbikes and primus stoves, boyfriends and Christmas time. 134pp in illustrated paperback. £8.99 NOW £3.50


69904 BAD FAITH: A Forgotten History of Family and Fatherland by Carmen Callil


Louis Darquier during the abhorrent reign of the Vichy government in France, was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Jewish men, women and children. He was a practising Catholic, a Nazi collaborator and Commissioner for Jewish Affairs, which in reality


meant that he conspired to exterminate the Jewish population. Here is the incredible account of how he rose to power, driven by an obsession with racial purity, continually reinventing himself until he was able to become responsible for confiscating the property of Jews and sending them off to the death camps. After the war, Darquier fled to Spain - never to be brought to justice. Together with his alcoholic wife, he abandoned their daughter, Anne, who grew up in England, not surprisingly hating her father, and suffered a tragic fate. 614 pages illus in b/w, archive photos, maps. £20 NOW £4.50


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