2 Biography / Autobiography


independence of her four children, but suffers a breakdown in her marriage and her husband’s final illness. This ordinary working class woman tells her story with humour and intelligence. 436pp in paperback, family photos. £8.99 NOW £4


77296 MARY BERRY: Queen of British Baking


the Biography by A. S. Dagnell The Great British Bake Off has once again put Mary back into the limelight and has reignited a passion for baking across the nation. The undisputed Queen of the Aga, she has been the focus of many television shows and regularly contributes her expertise on Woman’s Hour. Inspired by domestic science classes at school, Mary took a catering course at her local college before gaining qualifications from the Cordon Bleu School in Paris. After a stint demonstrating to new owners of electric cookers how to operate them by cooking a Victoria sponge, and then as editor for Housewife and Ideal Home magazine, Mary published her first cookbook ‘The Hamlyn All Colour Cookbook’ in 1970 and hasn’t looked back since. She collaborated with her daughter Annabel to produce their own range of dressings and sauces, but her personal life has been touched by tragedy, as her son William was killed in a car accident at the age of just 19. Her gentle personality and classic ‘family’ cooking style are a remarkable contrast to the more outspoken celebrity TV chefs and is one reason why even after 40 years in the industry she is so well loved. Here is her heart warming story. 244pp with many colour photos including one of HRH The Prince of Wales making Mary a Commander of the British Empire. £17.99 NOW £7


77295 BRUCIE: The Biography of Sir Bruce Forsyth by Jules Stenson


Loved by millions for his warm personality, great sense of humour, nifty dance steps and outrageous sense of fun, Sir Bruce Forsyth is perhaps best remembered for hosting The Generation Game and much more recently Strictly Come Dancing. Born into a family of performers at heart, Bruce spent years travelling the country working in pier shows and music halls, and was on the verge of quitting showbusiness before he got his big break in 1958 when he was asked to host the TV series Sunday Night at the London Palladium. He was so popular that the original two-week stint ended up lasting five years and he went on to present game shows like The Price is Right and You Bet! and developed catchphrases that were to last a lifetime - ‘Nice to see you, to see you, nice.’ The authoritative biography offers insight into his life and loves covering his three marriages including his current wife, 1975 Miss World, Wilnelia Merced, and his passion for golf, an obsessive hobby that has led him to set up his main residence adjacent to Wentworth Golf Course in Surrey. The author paints a complete portrait of a living legend, our last true variety performer. 298pp, colour photos. £17.99 NOW £7


77180 IS THE VICAR IN,


PET? by Barbara Fox By the author of ‘Bedpans and Bobby Socks’, here is a charming memoir of moving from a nice suburban Newcastle to Ashington, a rather dirty mining town in the North-East where her father was to become the new vicar and given a generously proportioned five bedroom vicarage designed by its first occupant in the 1930s for just


himself and his housekeeper. In the heart of this bustling Geordie mining town, the vicarage had rambling gardens and stood proudly among the rows of terraced houses. It also had a ‘play room’. It was the perfect place for the four young children of the family to play games, keep secrets and hunt the ghosts of previous occupants. It was nine year old Barbara’s new home. She recalls a childhood where parishioners knocked on the door at all hours of the day and night, and where no one batted an eye at the collection of waifs and strays who regularly joined the family at the kitchen table. Heartwarming. 308pp in paperback. £7.99 NOW £4


76884 SUPERMAC: The Life


of Harold MacMillan by D. R. Thorpe


A book to be read for its footnotes as well as for its compelling narrative, this unforgettable portrait of a turbulent age is the culmination of 35 years of research into the era by one of Britain’s most respected historians. Destined to become a classic in its genre, it examines key events of the time, including the


controversy over the Cossacks’ repatriation, the Suez crisis, ‘You’ve Never Had It So Good’, the ‘Winds of Change’, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Profumo Scandal. The great-grandson of a crofter and the son-in- law of a Duke, Harold Macmillan was both complex as a person and influential as a politician. Marked by terrible experiences in the trenches in the First World War and by his work as an MP during the Depression, he was a Tory rebel, an outspoken backbencher, opposing the economic policies of the 1930s and the appeasement policies of his own government. During the Second World War, Churchill gave him responsibility with executive command as ‘Viceroy of the Mediterranean’. After the war, in opposition, he was one of the principal reformers of the Conservatives along progressive and radical lines. After 1951, in government, he served as Minister of Housing, Minister of Defence, Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer. Between 1957 and 1963, as Prime Minister, he presided over Great Britain’s transition from the age of austerity to that of affluence. He was also one of the major publishers of his generation and here, for the first time, is a comprehensive overview of both his place in publishing history and his private life. A vast 879 pages with archive b/w photos, notes, list of abbreviations, envoi, and appendix: The Memorandum for the Queen, 18 October 1963. £25 NOW £8


ORDER HOTLINE: 020 74 74 24 74 77182 LIVING YEARS: The


First Genesis Memoir by Mike Rutherford


The author is a founding member of the talented prog rock group Genesis. In 2010, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This revealing memoir is the inside story of how a humble schoolboy band grew into global superstars. At its centre stood Mike, driving the music from pioneering prog rock to chart-


topping hits. Against a background of drink, drugs and line-up changes, Mike’s father, a World War II naval officer, was always there. He would watch Genesis grow, supporting them from the very beginning when they toured the country in the back of a Hovis bread van. Through their extreme highs and lows, Captain Rutherford remained loyal, earplugs at the ready. However, when his father suddenly died, Mike was forced to re-examine their relationship and only then did he begin to understand how much their lives had overlapped. This book is a frank and touching account of the bond between father and son. It is also the story of how music, families and friendship intertwine. 243 pages with colour and b/w archive photos. £20 NOW £6.50


76842 BUILDING: Letters


1960-1975 Isaiah Berlin edited by Henry Hardy and Mark Pottle


Highly esteemed, not only as a prominent thinker but also as one of the very best letter-writers of the 20th century, Isaiah Berlin secured his place in history as a charismatic intellectual leader by creating a new institution in Oxford - Wolfson College, which is today a thriving research community imbued with


his remarkable personality. During the period covered by these selected letters, Berlin dined with President John F. Kennedy on the day he was told of the Soviet missile bases in Cuba, JFK and his brother Robert were assassinated, the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War of 1967 created problems that are still with us today, Richard M. Nixon succeeded Johnson as US President and resigned over Watergate, and the long agony of the Vietnam War was still grinding on in the background. At the same time, Berlin published some of his most important work, including Four Essays on Liberty, the key texts to his liberal pluralism. He talked on the BBC Third Programme (later Radio 3) and appeared on TV and in documentary films. He was a director of Covent Garden and was appointed to the Order of Merit. He also spent many months in the US, principally as a visiting professor at Harvard, CUNY and Princeton and gave numerous lectures, especially his celebrated Mellon Lectures in Washington DC, later published as The Roots of Romanticism. Berlin writes about an enormous range of topics to a sometimes dazzling cast of correspondents. He clarifies and amplifies his ideas, and reacts, always vividly and entertainingly, to the people and places he encounters. Behind the public events there is a constant stream of gossip and commentary, acerbic humour and warm personal feeling. The social and intellectual comedy of the period finds in him its perfect observer and narrator, and Berlin displays his own personality in all its maddening complexity. Here too, are passionate letters to his wife Aline, made public for the first time. This volume is the third of four and it made us long to read the other three. 680 pages with b/w archive photos, key to the icons on Berlin’s study door, list of conventions and abbreviations, chronology, index of correspondents, select biographical glossary, and two appendices: Taking Sides on Vietnam and ‘Freedom as Politics’: Popular Summary by Bernard Crick. £40 NOW £9


76848 IN MY FATHER’S SHADOW: A Daughter


Remembers Orson Welles by Chris Welles Feder The great Orson Welles’ daughter, Christopher, is keen for readers to know that this is not just another biography of her father. It is an intimate memoir, much of it told in dialogue, in which she reveals the essence of her beloved Daddy as she knew him, from her earliest childhood until the day he died. It


is the story of their times together and apart, of the great impact this larger-than-life figure had on her from an early age, and of how much she owes to him. Of all the myriad stars and celebrities that Hollywood has produced, only a handful have achieved the fame, or some would say notoriety, of Orson Welles, the creator and star of what is arguably the greatest film ever, Citizen Kane. Many books have been written about him, detailing his foibles as well as his achievements as an artist, but none has come so close to the real man as his daughter does in this beautifully realised portrait of her father. He was a complicated, contradictory, mercurial and brilliant film-maker. 279 pages illustrated with b/w archive photos. £14.99 NOW £6


76860 ANGELA MERKEL: The


Chancellor and Her World by Stefan Kornelius On the wall of Angela Merkel’s office is a picture of the Russian Empress Catherine the Great, whose 34 years on the throne was a golden age for her country. Merkel has Catherine’s ruthlessness combined with astute political skills and the ability to compromise. This authorised biography describes not only her political challenges,


triumphs and a few failures, but also the personality behind the capable exterior. Merkel rose to power almost unnoticed, inheriting Helmut Kohl’s pledge that the country would remain at the heart of the European


Union to allay fears resulting from the 20th century’s two wars. Merkel’s own commitment to Europe has seen her masterminding bailouts and financial incentives to keep a fragile European economy moving. The Chancellor’s role in foreign policy is a new development and her detractors have not been slow to compare her to dictators such as Kim Jong-un. The intensity of events in the Arab world caught Merkel off-guard and she has proceeded with caution. The most emotionally charged foreign trip of her career was to the 60th anniversary celebrations of the state of Israel, where she risked a speech in German and acknowledged German responsibility for the Shoah. But what did she and her entourage wear for a state dinner at the White House? This fascinating book leaves no important detail unexamined. 279pp, paperback. £14.99 NOW £4


77124 GEORGETTE HEYER:


The Biography of a Bestseller by Jennifer Kloester Written by an author who is not only a foremost expert on Georgette Heyer but also a sought- after speaker on the Regency, this engaging, authoritative and meticulously researched book offers a comprehensive insight into the life and writing of a ferociously private woman, exclusive access to whose personal papers was granted by


Heyer’s son. Despite her enormous popularity, she never gave an interview or appeared in public - saying: ‘I am to be found in my work’. During ten years of research, Kloester also had unlimited access to notebooks, the family records and several untapped archives of early letters. Georgette Heyer remains an enduring international bestseller, read and loved by four generations of readers and extolled by today’s bestselling authors. She wrote her first novel, The Black Moth, when she was 17, in order to amuse her convalescent brother. It was published in 1921 to instant success and, 90 odd years later, it has never been out of print. A phenomenon even in her own lifetime, to this day she is the undisputed queen of Regency romance. 448 gripping paperback pages with b/w archive photos, author’s note, list of reference to published sources, G.H. Novels (UK First Editions), ditto (USA First Editions), G.H. (Known) Short Stories and Heyer-Related Archives. £8.99 NOW £4


77159 MRS ADOLF HITLER: The Eva Braun Photograph


Albums 1912-1945 by Blain Taylor


Until now, Eva Braun Hitler has been a figure shrouded in controversy, legend, myth and misinformation. This extensively researched ‘strange-but true’ pictorial biography gives a tragic account of a pretty, well-liked, middle-class shop girl who, in death,


became one of the most famous women in history. In the last week of the Second World War, she married the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler a mere 36 hours before their joint suicides. Fortunately for posterity, she had a passion for photography, and this is reflected in the huge array of imagery collected by the multi-award-winning author, who amplifies the striking photos with informative text. Here is the full story of the Catholic, convent-bred young woman who met Hitler in a Munich photography shop when she was 17 and he was already 40. For the very first time, the true nature of their long relationship is explained in detail. She was heterosexual and he was bisexual, but it is probable that she remained a virgin until the day she died at the age of 33. Although many reports after the war claimed that he shot himself and that she took poison, the official Russian autopsy of their partially-burnt bodies stated that both died by cyanide capsules. Why then did all Hitler’s closest aides testify that this was not the case? The answers to all the puzzles are here in this revealing volume. 192 pages 30.5cm x 21.54cm absolutely packed with nearly 300 b/w photos plus a number of contemporary colour shots, and captured German archives, and two appendices: Eva Braun Hitler Partial Family Tree and ‘Angela Lambert’. £34.95 NOW £10


77184 RABBIT STEW AND A PENNY OR TWO


by Maggie Smith-Bendell Born in a Somerset pea-field in 1941, the second of eight children in a Romany family, as a child, Maggie rode and slept in a horse- drawn wagon, picked hops and flowers, and sat beside her father’s campfire on ancient verges, poor but free to roam. As the 20th century progressed, common land was fenced off and the traditional


Gypsy ways disappeared. Eventually Maggie married a house-dweller and tried to settle for bricks and mortar, but she never lost the restless spirit, the deep love of the land, and the gift for storytelling that were her Romany inheritance. She recalls the glories of the travelling life in the absolute safety of a loyal and loving extended family. 306pp with common Romany words in a glossary and photo album. Paperback. £8.99 NOW £4


77168 A LONG LUNCH: My Stories and I’m Sticking to


Them by Simon Hoggart The Guardian’s political sketch writer and wine columnist for The Spectator, Hoggart brings a host of memories from his 40-plus years in journalism. He reveals what Alan Clark said about Melvyn Bragg, what really happened at the Lady Chatterley trial, what Cherie Blair said to him and how he reposted,


as well as the time John Sergeant drove a flight attendant to a fury. What happened when he mixed a


drink for W. H. Auden or the day Enoch Powell met Bill Haley? From behind the scenes in Parliament, roving across America and bizarre meetings in TV studios, Simon Hoggart is a shrewd watcher from the wings with some great jokes, excellent stories and insight. 312pp in paperback.


£9.99 NOW £5


77122 DIAMONDS AT DINNER: My Life as a Lady’s Maid in a 1930s Stately Home by Hilda Newman and Tim Tate


When, at the age of 19, Hilda Newman left her parents’ little terraced cottage in Lincolnshire to embark on a new life as a lady’s maid at Croome Court - the enormous stately home of Lord and Lady Coventry - her first impression was that it felt as if she had ‘gone


to a prison’. This touching and very personal story conveys the difficulties of being transplanted from a tiny house with no bath or hot water to an 18th century Neo- Palladian mansion surrounded by gardens landscaped by ‘Capability’ Brown. The year was 1935, the twilight of the English aristocracy. It was a gilded era of wealth and glamour, of lavish balls, evening gowns and tiaras - soon to be swept away by the Second World War. As personal maid to Lady Coventry, Hilda had a unique insight into the leisured life of one of Britain’s most noble families, both upstairs and down. But this is more than a memoir. It is also the story of a historic building which housed the Dutch Royal family who had fled the Nazi occupation, and was also home to the top-secret RAF base where radar was developed. 261 paperback pages with colour and b/w archive photos. £7.99 NOW £4


77135 POLLY: Memories of


an East End Girl by Jeff Smith


Born in 1911 into a close-knit family, Mary Rebecca Chambers, known to all as Polly, spent her formative years in the heart of the East End of London. This vivid account of her life is told with passion and humour, and is brimming with stories of how Londoners, and Polly’s family in


particular, lived through two world wars and the Great Depression and survived into the early post-war years. Polly was a natural storyteller with a compassionate insight. This compilation, arranged in chronological order, tells the story of life as she witnessed it, in her own idiosyncratic way, through adversity and danger, excitement and fun. Here are the rigours of a school where discipline was paramount, the difficulties of a working life in a hot and dirty sweet factory, the ups and downs of married life and the perils of rationing when you might find that your cake was made with yellow horse fat. What a wonderful evocation of a bygone age. Polly’s affectionate memoirs will entrance anyone who reads them. 128 paperback pages with b/ w archive photos. £12.99 NOW £4.50


Contents


ART & ARCHITECTURE AUDIO - BOOKS ON CD BIOGRAPHY / AUTOBIOGRAPHY BUSINESS & COMPUTERS CHILDREN’S COLLECTABLES / ANTIQUES CRIME


CRIME FICTION EARLY LEARNING FOR CHILDREN ENTERTAINMENT / SHOWBIZ EROTICA / SEX FICTION


FOOD & DRINK / COOKERY GARDENING GREAT BRITAIN & MAPS HANDICRAFTS / CRAFT HEALTH & BEAUTY HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY HISTORY HOBBIES HUMOUR LITERATURE MISCELLANY / STATIONERY MODERN HISTORY / CURRENT AFFAIRS MUSIC & DANCE MYTHOLOGY NATURE / COUNTRYSIDE PETS


PSYCHOLOGY & SOCIOLOGY RELIGION & PHILOSOPHY SCIENCE


SCIENCE FICTION / FANTASY SPORT


TRANSPORT


TRAVEL & PLACES WAR & MILITARIA WAR MEMOIRS WORD BOOKS


15 20 1


17 16 20 20 22 28 14 25 12 1


28 5


29 6


29 30 11 25 18 32 8


32 33 33 34 35 34 24 26 35 7


26 9


21 36


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