12 Entertainment


A Study in Scarlet. From 1891, beginning with The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the now legendary and pioneering Strand Magazine began serialising Arthur Conan Doyle’s matchless tales of detection, featuring the incomparable sleuth patiently assisted by his doggedly loyal and lovably pedantic friend and companion, Dr Watson. The stories are illustrated by the remarkable Sydney Paget. 1408 page well-bound softback. ONLY £7


29430 SHADOWS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES edited by David Stuart Davies


Meet The Crime Doctor, Professor Augustus S.F.X.Van Dusen - The Thinking Machine, Max Carrados - the incredible blind detective, the repulsive but brilliant Skin o’ My Teeth, and the natty, ingenious French sleuth Eugene Valmont. The stories include: The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allan Poe, The Stolen Cigar Case by Bret Harte, The Swedish Match by Anton Chekhov, Nine Points of the Law by E.W. Hornung, The Ghost at Massingham Mansions by Ernest Bramah and The Great Pearl Mystery by Baroness Orczy. 384pp. Paperback. ONLY £2


74591 A DIRTY DEATH: A West Country Mystery by Rebecca Tope


When irascible farmer Guy Beardon meets a very dirty death in his own farmyard, it seems at first to be an accident, despite the fact that he was widely disliked. Only his daughter Lilah is prepared to defend his memory and when slowly she begins to suspect foul play, no one is eager to help her investigate.


Two more deaths occur and are unmistakably murder. The difficulty lies in discovering who, among Guy’s many enemies, hated him enough to want him dead. Local policeman Den Cooper must investigate. 510pp in paperback.


£7.99 NOW £3.25


74605 THE WINDERMERE WITNESS by Rebecca Tope


Following a personal tragedy, florist Persimmon ‘Simmy’ Brown has moved to the beautiful region of the Lake District, content to lose herself in her work. But the peace she has found is shattered when, at the wedding of a millionaire’s daughter, the bride’s brother is found dead in the lake. As the wedding florist and one of the last people to talk to Mark Baxter alive, Simmy gradually becomes involved with the grief-ridden and angry relatives. And when events take another sinister turn, she becomes a prime witness. 414pp, paperback. £7.99 NOW £3.50


74838 MALICE IN THE COTSWOLDS by Rebecca Tope


Thea and her beloved spaniel Hepzie have a new assignment for the mysterious Yvonne Parker. The somewhat unsettling village of Snowshill has Thea on edge as soon as she arrives and soon enough she becomes entangled in another horrifying murder. Along with friends Drew Slocombe and DS Sonia Gladwin, she uncovers a sinister plot where seemingly separate lives are intertwined in strange and secretive relationships. 414pp, paperback. £7.99 NOW £3


74590 A COTSWOLD


ORDEAL by Rebecca Tope Thea Osborne and her spaniel Hepzibah embark on their second house-sitting commission with few worries. Despite her first disastrous venture, in which she became drawn into a murder case, Thea is convinced that lightning will not strike twice, and arrives at the idyllic Frampton Mansell with renewed enthusiasm. However it seems she is jinxed - within days of


her arrival she finds a body hanging from the rafters in one of the barns. Suicide or murder? With plenty of plot twists. 408pp in paperback. £7.99 NOW £3.25


74521 VENDETTA by Michael Dibdin Inspector Zen has an impossible murder to solve. An eccentric billionaire was killed inside a heavily fortified Sardinian fortress where every room was monitored by video camera. But although the cameras captured the billionaire's grisly death, they did not record the face of his killer. As Zen gets to work, he is plunged into a menacing and violent world where his own life is soon at risk. Originally published in 1990, 400 page paperback reprint.


£7.99 NOW £3


74845 PLAYING WITH FIRE by Peter Robinson


In the early hours of a cold January morning two narrowboats catch fire on the dead end stretch of the Eastvale canal. When signs of accelerant are found at the scene, DCI Banks and DI Annie Cabbot are summoned. By the time they arrive, only the smouldering wreckage is left, and human remains have been found on both boats. The evidence points towards a deliberate attack, but who was the intended victim? Was it Tina, the 16 year old who had been living a drug- fuelled existence with her boyfriend or was it Tom, the mysterious, lonely artist? It appears that a number of people are acting suspiciously and then the arsonist strikes again. 448pp in paperback. £7.99 NOW £4


71176 THE EYES OF MAX CARRADOS by Ernest Bramah


Max Carrados is one of the most unusual detectives in all fiction. He is blind - and yet he has developed his other faculties to such an amazing degree that they more than compensate for his lack of sight. Carrados can read a newspaper headline with the touch of his fingers, detect a man wearing a false moustache and shoot a villain by aiming at the sound of his beating heart. Assisted by his sharp-eyed manservant, Parker, Carrados is the mystery- solver par excellence. Here is a set of stories featuring a series of baffling puzzles. 670 page paperback. ONLY £2.50


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I love acting. It is so much more real than life. - Oscar Wilde


75675 PICK OF THE OLDIE


FROM THE LAST 21 YEARS edited by Sonali Chapman The Oldie is for the mature individual of any age, a welcome antidote to celebrity culture, never featuring people who are famous for being famous. Over 50 fascinating features from the last 21 years are collected in this bumper volume.


Joanna Lumley’s top six pin-ups give Elvis the crown, natch, but her runners-up are intriguing: John Betjemen and Barry Humphries. Patricia Highsmith tells us how she almost bumped into the elusive Garbo, and Eleanor Berry interviews a grumpy Barbara Cartland, though since Berry takes it for granted she is invited to stay the night, our sympathies may on balance lie with the Princess of Pink. In “Universally Challenged”, Paxo asks whether modern students really do know less than the Oldies. Paul Pickering reflects on Vicars he has known, some of them nearer to hell than to heaven, and William Trevor muses on the careers of fellow school mates as gnomically revealed in the Old Boys’ Bulletin. Richard Ingleby’s appreciation of war artist Eric Ravilious’s body of work before he was lost on reconnaissance keeps alive the memory of a brilliant artist. Contributions from the world of the theatre include Nell Dunn’s celebration of sleeplessness and John Wells’s fascination with the “swoops, mutters and yelps” of Olivier in tragic mode. 89pp, colour illustrations.


£9.99 NOW £4


75259 MARILYN & ME by Lawrence Schiller Sub-titled ‘A Photographer’s Memoirs’ there are 18 never previously published photographs by the Life and Newsweek photo journalist Lawrence Schiller in this special US import. The 23 year old Schiller when he arrived at 20th Century-Fox studios in LA in 1960 told himself this was just another


assignment and just another pretty girl. A photographer for Look magazine, his subject was Marilyn Monroe, America’s sweetheart and sex symbol. In this intimate memoir, Schiller recalls the friendship that developed between the two while he photographed her over a two year period. Monroe knew how to use her looks and sexuality to generate publicity, and in 1962 she allowed Schiller to publish the first nude photographs of her in more than 10 years, which she then used as a weapon against a studio that wanted to have her fired, and ultimately succeeded. The Marilyn Schiller knew and writes about was adept at hiding deep psychological scars, but was also warm and open, candid and disarming, a movie star who wished to be taken more seriously than she was. 118 rough cut pages. £14.99 NOW £7


75255 DRAMATIC IMPRESSIONS: Japanese Theatre Prints From the Gilbert Luber Collection by


the Arthur Ross Gallery Osaka prints made a vibrant engagement between actors and their audience, the ‘floating world’ and its imagery. By the first quarter of the 19th century, the arts of


kabuki had long been intertwined in Japan and established as a theatrical form as early as the 17th century. Images of the performers on stage were being shown in paintings by the latter half of the 17th century and kabuki’s celebrated actors were being represented in woodblock prints that were made available as souvenirs and advertisements. These actor prints were part of a spectrum of images made to illustrate an array of popular activities available in major cities in the Edo period of Japan (1603-1868) showing various entertainments called Ukiyo or the ‘floating world’. Pleasure quarters, sumo wrestling, famous places and the like were produced by commercial publishers. Heavily painted faces, outlined eyes, grimacing, beautiful Geisha women, warriors, with their stylised hair, cloaks, gowns and kimonos, these bold posters are here reproduced in a catalogue of prints, listed by gallery numbers and with useful glossary of prints and theatrical terms. Outsize softback, 56pp, all in colour. £14 NOW £6


75293 AMERICA’S MISTRESS: The Life and


Times of Eartha Kitt by John L. Williams


Orson Welles described the actress/ chanteuse/dancer as ‘the most exciting woman in the world’ and possibly she was, but how many people know that she was once subject to a CIA investigation and that they called her ‘a sadistic nymphomaniac?’ Here is the low-


down on a woman who spent her first eight or so years on a South Carolina cotton field and the rest of her childhood in Harlem yet - by the time she reached her early twenties - had reinvented herself as the epitome of cosmopolitan glamour. Small, skinny, of mixed race and with striking rather than conventionally beautiful features, she nevertheless carried herself with an apparent absolute certainty and was not only sexy and


exotic but also very funny. At a time when the overwhelming majority of black Americans were still suffering under explicitly racist laws forbidding them to sit at the front of a bus, drink from the same water fountains as whites, and so on, she was living the glamorous life, defying racial stereotypes just at a time when those stereotypes were most powerfully in force. Sadly, as the Civil Rights struggle gained momentum, her style proved to be unsustainable and she sank into oblivion. 336 paperback pages with colour and b/w plates.


£12.99 NOW £6


75261 RICHARD BURTON DIARIES


edited by Chris Williams “How would you like to die on a boat on the Thames - a privilege not granted to many. I am stupefied with nostalgia. I am madly in love with the idea of remaining alive. I am agog with desire to see Elizabeth and Joe and that infinitely removed and eclectic Patricia. It’s rough in this world to


find anybody that loves you, or anybody that you love. I think I better go back to bed, don’t you?” The Richard Burton that we “know” as acclaimed actor, international film star and multi-married jet-set superstar is a man very different from the one that emerges from his private diaries. This person is a family man, a father, husband and a man often troubled but always with a keen eye for the unusual and mundane . Born Richard Walter Jenkins in 1925 in the Afan valley, Glamorgan, the twelfth child and sixth son of Richard Snr and Edith. Tragically Edith died in 1927 and in 1943 Richard became legal ward of Philip Burton, his English and Drama teacher, whose surname he would adopt. It was at the age of 14 that he began writing a diary, which he continued to do until 1983, a year before he died. He is watching his weight and drinking, then doing exactly the opposite and jealously guarding Elizabeth from other men’s eyes. As you would expect, those people who crop up read like the Who’s Who of movie and theatre. 26 b/w photos, many from personal collections, a whopping 703 pages. £25 NOW £10


75667 HERGÉ: The Man Who


Created Tintin by Pierre Assouline


In 1982 Hergé received an offer he could not possibly refuse: Stephen Spielberg, a lifelong admirer, wanted to make a Tintin film. Hergé overcame his worries about Americanisation, but at the last minute an extra clause was slipped in and he withdrew. Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of


Doom, however, is a testimony to the influence of the world’s greatest cartoon character: the Shanghai cabaret, the sacrifices, the magic diamond are all inspired by Tintin’s adventures. Georges Remi, alias Hergé, overturns all popular misconceptions about Belgians. A hyperactive child who had a difficult relationship with his parents, Georges took refuge in boy-scouting and the movies. He was soon creating cartoons for a scouting magazine, and on leaving school became a journalist on a right-wing Catholic newspaper presided over by Father Norbert Wallez, who commissioned him to create a teenager with a dog, embodying Catholic virtues. This figure eventually became Tintin, but for Hergé, Belgian culture was self-satisfied and narrow, and he gradually expanded his young hero into an international figure. The author analyses the Tintin books and the way they changed over the years. He also investigates Herge?’s troubled relationships with his wife Germaine and mistress Fanny, as well as the charge of collaboration levelled at Remi following the liberation of Belgium. 276pp, paperback. £9.99 NOW £4


74607 BABY, LET’S PLAY HOUSE by Alanna Nash


Subtitled ‘The Life of Elvis Presley Through the Women Who Loved Him’, this biography explores Elvis Presley’s love affairs with among others Ann-Margret who was really the love of his life, Linda Thompson, Barbara Leigh and Cybil Shepherd, as well as his friendships with actresses like Raquel Welch and Barbara Eden. It also spotlights important early girlfriends and the women who dared to turn him down including Cher, Petula Clarke and Karen Carpenter as well as two women who taught him the dance moves he used on stage. Blowing away the polite, buttoned-up crooners by harnessing the feral sexual energy of the Blues, Presley’s rock ‘n’ roll scandalised America and Britain. 684 pages, photos. £25 NOW £7.50


74707 HOME: A Memoir of My Early Years by Julie Andrews


‘It is my opinion that had Camelot come before My Fair Lady, it would have had its own success.’ ‘After an introductory number entitled ‘Together’, we did a send-up of The Sound of Music, called The Swiss Family Pratt. I portrayed the mother, Carol was Cynthia, the last child and only girl in the family of 12


boys, played by our wonderful dancers. It was great fun, and I had no idea at the time that I would later be asked to play Maria in that beautiful film.’ ‘When Walt [Disney] appeared in my dressing room, he exuded natural charm and friendliness. After the formalities, he told me and Tony about a combination live action/ animated film that he was planning to make, based on the Mary Poppins books by P. L. Travers. I was familiar with the title, but had never read the books.’ Shame on you, Julie! Fast paced, full of fun and vitality like the lady herself, this is showbiz biography at its very best. First edition. 340pp with 32 pages of b/w photos. SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR.


$26.95 NOW £7 Call the Midwife!


75250 LIFE AND TIMES OF CALL THE MIDWIFE by Heidi Thomas


The official BBC companion to series one and two that takes you behind-the-scenes of the TV sensation that has brought to life Jennifer Worth’s bestselling autobiography of her experiences as a midwife among the slums


and buzzing dockyards of London’s East End in the 1950s. Discover where the real Monnatus House is, how Chatham Dockyard was a godsend for the location manager, all about the babies and the child extras, how Miranda Hart came to play Chummy, all about Fred, the convent handyman who in the book had bowed legs, a spectacular squint and only one tooth, how the nurses loved a good bike ride and the hidden secrets of the nuns and nurses and what flavour cake ruled in the kitchen. Immerse yourself in a world fondly revived in the most perfect detail from the midwife’s medical bag contents, profiles of each nurse, fashion, beauty, homes, food, Christmas and more. 286 big pages, colour photos throughout. £20 NOW £10


74053 CALL THE MIDWIFE by Jennifer Worth


The work of the Midwives of St Raymund Nonnatus was based upon a foundation of religious discipline. Labouring tirelessly through epidemics of cholera, typhoid, polio and TB, they delivered babies in air raid shelters, dugouts, church crypts and underground stations. The brothels of Cable Street, the Kray twins and gang warfare, meths drinkers in the bombsites - this was the world that Jennifer Worth entered when she became a midwife at the age of 22 in the 1950s. 340pp in illustrated paperback. £7.99 NOW £4


74059 SHADOWS OF THE WORKHOUSE by Jennifer Worth


When Jennifer Worth became a midwife in the 1950s, she joined an East End where many lives were touched by the shadow of the workhouse. There’s Peggy and Frank who were separated in the workhouse when their parents died, until Frank’s strength and determination enabled him to make a home for his sister. Jane was a bright, lively child, whose spirit was broken by cruelty until she found kindness and love later in life. Then there is the matchmaking nun, Sister Julienne, and Sister Monica Joan, who ends up in the High Court. 294pp in paperback with photos. £7.99 NOW £4


74055 FAREWELL TO THE EAST END by Jennifer Worth


Following on from the bestselling Shadows of the Workhouse (code 74059), Jennifer continues her story as a midwife in London’s East End in the 1950s. Post- war life could be a struggle - the devastating effects of TB, dangerous back-street abortions, and people driven to extremes by poverty. But there was also warmth and humour, like Megan’mave, identical twins who share the same browbeaten husband, the eccentric Sister Monica Joan, and gauche debutant Chummy, who wants to be a missionary. The book chronicles the lives, cultures and stories of a bygone era. Photos, several from the Isle of Dogs, a glossary of midwifery terms and map. 320 page paperback. £7.99 NOW £4


74113 JENNIFER WORTH: Set of Three by Jennifer Worth


Buy all three paperbacks below and save even more. £23.97 NOW £10.50


74770 SONG OF LEONARD COHEN by Harry Rasky


With previously unpublished songs and poems by the great Canadian songwriter Leonard Cohen, here is the portrait of a poet, of a friendship and a film. In 1979, Cohen set off on his Field Commander Cohen World Tour accompanied by Harry Rasky, a young film maker. From soaking in a jacuzzi with Cohen, drinking wine and discussing the meaning of life, to the pair running away from armed police in Germany suspected of being Bader- Meinhof terrorists, this is the full story of that tour and a rare insight into Leonard Cohen. Plus an abandoned 1966 documentary project with Bob Dylan. 160pp, paperback. £10 NOW £4


73628 SOPHIA LOREN by Kathryn Dixon


With a career spanning six decades, Sophia Loren is one of the grandes dames of cinema, but she is not only a beautiful film star. She has acted in numerous TV roles, authored multiple cooking and beauty books and recorded several chart-topping musical hits. Both her personal and professional life have been profiled in books, on TV interviews, documentaries and autobiographical drama. After a lifetime of love and support from her husband, the director Carlo Ponti, now with two sons - produced with great fortitude following a series of miscarriages - and four grandchildren, she is an inspiration to all women. 96 pages with filmography and photos.


ONLY £3.50


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