Biografier

Mrs Hinch: Life in Lists is a captivating book by the renowned author, Mrs Hinch. Published by Penguin Books Ltd in 2021, this book offers a unique perspective on life, presented in the form of lists. The author, known for her engaging and profound style of writing, takes the readers on a journey through various aspects of life, touching upon joy, sorrow, triumphs, and struggles, all encapsulated in her lists. This book is a must-read for anyone who enjoys insightful and thought-provoking literature. Published by the esteemed Penguin Books Ltd, this work is a testament to the author's talent and her ability to touch upon the human experience in a unique and impactful way. The book is written in English.

The British comedian of Nigerian heritage and co-executive producer and writer of the CBS hit series Bob Hearts Abishola chronicles her odyssey to get to America and break into Hollywood in this lively and humorous memoir.According to family superstition, Gina Yashere was born to fulfil the dreams of her grandmother Patience. The powerful first wife of a wealthy businessman, Patience was poisoned by her jealous sister-wives and marked with a spot on her neck. From birth, Gina carried a similar birthmark - a sign that she was her grandmother's chosen heir, and would fulfil Patience's dreams. Gina would learn to speak perfect English, live unfettered by men or children, work a man's job, and travel the world with a free spirit.Is she the reincarnation of her grandmother? Maybe. Gina isn't ruling anything out. In Cack-Handed, she recalls her intergenerational journey to success foretold by her grandmother and fulfilled thousands of miles from home. This hilarious memoir tells the story of how from growing up as a child of Nigerian immigrants in working class London, running from skinheads, and her overprotective mum, Gina went on to become the first female engineer with the UK branch of Otis, the largest elevator company in the world, where she went through a baptism of fire from her racist and sexist co-workers. Not believing her life was difficult enough, she later left engineering to become a stand up comic, appearing on numerous television shows and becoming one of the top comedians in the UK, before giving it all up to move to the US, a dream she'd had since she was six years old, watching American kids on television, riding cool bicycles, and solving crimes.A collection of eccentric, addictive, and uproarious stories that combine family, race, gender, class, and country, Cack-Handed reveals how Gina's unconventional upbringing became the foundation of her successful career as an international comedian.

In The Pastor, Eugene H. Peterson, the translator of the multimillion-selling The Message and the author of more than thirty books, offers his life story as one answer to the surprisingly neglected question: What does it mean to be a pastor? When Peterson was asked by his denomination to begin a new church in Bel Air, Maryland, he surprised himself by saying yes. And so was born Christ Our King Presbyterian Church. But Peterson quickly learned that he was not exactly sure what a pastor should do. He had met many ministers in his life, from his Pentecostal upbringing in Montana to his seminary days in New York, and he admired only a few. He knew that the job's demands would drown him unless he figured out what the essence of the job really was. Thus began a thirty-year journey into the heart of this uncommon vocation?the pastorate.The Pastor steers away from abstractions, offering instead a beautiful rendering of a life tied to the physical world?the land, the holy space, the people?shaping Peterson's pastoral vocation as well as his faith. He takes on church marketing, mega pastors, and the church's too-cozy relationship to American glitz and consumerism to present a simple, faith-filled job description of what being a pastor means today. In the end, Peterson discovered that being a pastor boiled down to "paying attention and calling attention to 'what is going on right now' between men and women, with each other and with God." The Pastor is destined to become a classic statement on the contemporary trials, joys, and meaning of this ancient vocation.

This book tells the amazing story of one the Royal Australian Navy's most decorated officers. He joined the Navy as 13-year-old boy and served in World War II, the Korean War, and Vietnam. This is the story of the Navy during those dramatic years.

A fresh telling of the rise and fall of the House of Medici, the family that dominated political and cultural life in Florence for three centuries.

New Zealand's underworld of organised crime and deadly gangs 'The best true-crime book of the year by a long stretch.' - Steve Braunias, Newsroom 'A series of rip-snorting yarns about gangs, drugs, fancy cars, wads of cash, violence, and guns - Aotearoa New Zealand style.'- Simon BridgesNew Zealand is now one of the most lucrative illicit drug markets in the world. Organised crime is about making money. It's a business. But over the past 20 years, the dealers have graduated from motorcycle gangs to Asian crime syndicates and now the most dangerous drug lords in the world - the Mexican cartels.In Gangland, award-winning investigative reporter Jared Savage shines a light into New Zealand's rising underworld of organised crime and violent gangs.The brutal execution of a husband-and-wife; the undercover cop who infiltrated a casino VIP lounge; the midnight fishing trip which led to the country's biggest cocaine bust; the gangster who shot his best friend in a motorcycle shop: these stories go behind the headlines and open the door to an invisible world - a world where millions of dollars are made, life is cheap, and allegiances change like the flick of a switch.

Two weeks before a near-certain death sentence drug smuggler McMillan escapes from a high-security prison in Bangkok, never to be seen in Thailand again.

A comprehensive work based on personal interviews and insider knowledge - bound to become a classic.

A travel writing classic, available for the first time in 20 years.The inspiration behind the Sunday Times bestseller A Theatre for Dreamers, in paperback April '21. New introduction by Polly Samson. 'These are blissful reissues that will bring Grecian heat and light to your life, and much more besides'Editor's Travel Choice. The Bookseller

Meave Leakey's thrilling, high-stakes memoirwritten with her daughter Samiraencapsulates her distinguished life and career on the front lines of the hunt for our human origins, a quest made all the more notable by her stature as a woman in a highly competitive, male-dominated field.

To this day, Beatrix Potter's tales delight children and grown-ups around the world. But few people realise how extraordinary her own story is. Respected biographer Sarah Gristwood discovers a life crisscrossed with contradictions and marked by tragedy, yet one that left a remarkable literary - and environmental - legacy.

A charming and heartfelt story about war, art, and the lengths a woman will go to to find the truth about her family.'As devourable as a thriller... Incredibly moving' Elle'Pauline Baer de Perignon is a natural storyteller - refreshingly honest, curious and open' Menachem KaiserIt all started with a list of paintings. There, scribbled by a cousin she hadn't seen for years, were the names of the masters whose works once belonged to her great-grandfather, Jules Strauss: Renoir, Monet, Degas, Tiepolo and more. Pauline Baer de Perignon knew little to nothing about Strauss, or about his vanished, precious art collection.But the list drove her on a frenzied trail of research in the archives of the Louvre and the Dresden museums, through Gestapo records, and to consult with Nobel laureate Patrick Modiano. What happened in 1942? And what became of the collection after Nazis seized her great-grandparents' elegant Parisian apartment?The quest takes Pauline Baer de Perignon from the Occupation of France to the present day as she breaks the silence around the wrenching experiences her family never fully transmitted, and asks what art itself is capable of conveying over time.

Psyche Unbound: Essays in Honor of Stanislav Grof is an extraordinary compilation of 22 essays that honor the path-breaking lifework of Stanislav Grof, M.D., Ph.D., the world's leading researcher in psychedelic-assisted therapy, breathwork, and the exploration of non-ordinary states of consciousness. Psyche Unbound features contributions from thought leaders of the last five decades, including a piece from Joseph Campbell's 1971 lecture in the Great Hall at Cooper Union and Huston Smith's 1976 summary of Grof's work as it relates to the study of religion and mysticism. More recent writing includes reflections by renowned psychiatrists and researchers that discuss the importance of Grof's contributions on the current wave of interest and research into psychedelic-assisted therapies and alternative states of consciousness.Psyche Unbound, considered a festschrift for Stanislav Grof, includes essays that explore Grof's work on numerous fronts including transpersonal sexual experiences, implications for social and cultural change, comparative studies with Asianreligious systems, the perinatal dimensions of Jean-Paul Sartre's transformational 1935 mescaline experience, and parallel findings from quantum and relativistic physics.Edited by Richard Tarnas, Ph.D., and Sean Kelly, Ph.D., Psyche Unbound also features contributions from renowned academics, scientists and researchers including Charles Grob, Michael Mithoefer, Jenny Wade, William Keepin, Thomas Purton, Thomas Riedlinger, Fritjof Capra and more.

Sir Thomas Swymmer Mostyn-Champneys was born in Frome, Somerset in 1769 the last in a line of aristocrats who claimed origins back to William of Normandy. A series of bad judgements resulted in Thomas being born into a third generation of bankruptcy and despite marrying a very rich widow he was never able to extricate himself from this. Regardless of an ever-decreasing amount of funds he spent lavishly on masquerade balls, pageants and building projects - but most of all on litigation.He became involved in a serious legal dispute over the right to appoint the sexton of the local church, he won the case at great expense and published a long and a surreal poem ridiculing his opponents. A segment of this poem contains a description of some original manuscripts that he believed to have been written by William Shakespeare and describes a night Shakespeare spent in Frome where he was ''tricked by the natives.''The book details numerous and often humorous court cases as well as his imprisonment for debt, extravagant building projects and his time as a popular magistrate At one point he was kidnapped from an inn at knifepoint by bailiffs and thrown into the debtor''s prison spending many years imprisoned in London and Ilchester.When not entertaining lavishly he spent much of his time in dispute with local worthies one of whom, a local solicitor, spread rumours about him engaging in homosexual relations which involved a court case for slander which Champneys won - and produced another book as a result.In 1832 he stood in the local election which resulted in three days of rioting and the local militia firing on the crowd. He lost despite being popular with the working people who were not enfranchised. His debts became so large that his mansion, at Orchardleigh was raided by bailiffs on many occasions and the contents sent off to auction until eventually the estate was purchased by a relative and he was allowed to stay there with his wife until his death in 1839.

''There''s an entire generation of South African women who ought to read this book.'' - Sara-Jayne King, author of Killing Karoline''Ougat is masterfully written - raw, unpretentious, unsettling. Shana Fife captures all the darkness from her body, psyche and life with fearless honesty and transparency.'' - Frazer Barry, award-winning theatre practitioner, writer and musician"A bold, unapologetic memoir about abuse, coming-of-age, a woman owning her sexuality and seizing her power. Shana Fife has a unique and compelling voice, which she uses with great effect to break with gender and sexuality taboos." - Dr Barbara Boswell, author of GraceBy the time Shana Fife is 25 she has two kids from different fathers. To the Coloured people she grew up around, she is a jintoe, a jezebel, jas, a woman with mileage on the pussy. She is alone, she has no job and, as she is constantly reminded by her community, she is pretty much worthless and unloveable. How did she become this woman, the epitome of everything she was conditioned to strive not to be?Unsettlingly honest and brutally blunt, Ougat is Shana Fife''s story of survival: of surviving the social conditioning of her Cape Flats upbringing, of surviving sexual violence and depression and of ultimately escaping a cycle of abuse.A powerful, fresh and disarming new voice - Shana''s writing is like nothing you''ve read before.

A sparkling celebration of our much-loved Queen Elizabeth II for her Platinum Jubilee including special writings and illuminating insights around key moments in her 70-year reign, introduced and edited by her biggest fan Joanna Lumley.

A collection of folk stories about art, money, drugs and love told first hand by the songwriter and storyteller Beans on Toast. "Beans is a legend and I love him"Kae Tempest"One of England's most loved troubadours"Blaine Harrison"A voice I'll always pay attention to, and you should too"Frank Turner

A deeply human memoir by the actress, model, mother and Multiple Sclerosis survivorThe first story Selma Blair ever heard about herself is that she was a mean, mean baby. She spent years living up to her reputation: biting, lying, getting drunk on Passover wine and stealing the limelight.Mean Baby recounts a childhood spent in worship of her mother, an adolescence of love and pain, her destructive ways of coping with an unidentified illness, her struggles and successes in Hollywood, the birth of her son and the devastating, surprising salvation of her MS diagnosis in a voice that is powerfully original, fiercely intelligent, and full of hard-won wisdom.

IT WAS THE EARLY 1960s. The place, a far-off corner of the Himalayas long fabled in Tibetan tradition to be hiding a valley of immortality among its peaks and glaciers-a real-life Shangri-La. They waited generations for the prophesied lama to come, the one with the secret knowledge of how to 'open' the Hidden Land. Then, one day, he came. His name was Tulshuk Lingpa.THIS BOOK TELLS THE TRUE STORY of this charismatic visionary lama and his remarkable expedition. Against the wishes of the kings of both Sikkim and Nepal, he and over three hundred followers ventured up the snowy slopes of the third highest mountain of the planet. Their aim: to open a crack in the very fabric of reality and go to a land we would all wish to inhabit if it were only there-a land of peace and concord.FORTY YEARS LATER, the author spends over five years tracking down the surviving members of this extraordinary expedition. He deftly weaves their stories together with humor, wisdom, and scholarly research into Tibetan traditions of Hidden Lands, all the while reflecting on what this means for the rest of us."Like no other book I have ever read...a riveting tale of adventure...honest to the real spirit of Tibet...both unique and intriguing...an engrossing read. Highly recommended."Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, from the ForewordFrom Tulshuk Lingpa's Guidebook to the Hidden Land:"Don't listen to anybody. Decide by yourself and practice madness. Develop courage for the benefit of all sentient beings. Then you will automatically be free from the knot of attachment. Then you will continually have the confidence of fearlessness and you can then try to open the Great Door of the Hidden Place."WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED...If Lewis Carroll had proclaimed the Reality of Alice's Wonderland?What if he had gathered a Following & launched an Expedition?Available in Paperback, eBook, and Audio Book formats!FIRST PUBLISHED BY PENGUIN 201CITY LION PRESS EDITION 2017THIS EDITION IS NOT FOR SALE IN SOUTH ASIA, MALAYSIA, OR SINGAPORE

In February 2019, award-winning writer Alex Roddie left his online life behind to walk 300 miles through the Scottish Highlands. The Farthest Shore is the story of his solo trek along the remote Cape Wrath Trail. Journeying through a vanishing winter, Alex learnt about solitude, nature and the threats faced by Scotland's mountain landscape.

In thirty years on the front line of British policing, there is very little that Iain Donnelly didn't do: from being a uniformed constable on the beat in London to running counter-terrorism and surveillance operations, combatting child sexual exploitation and overseeing the investigation of the most serious crimes. During that time, he saw the job change irrevocably, to the point where the public no longer knows what to expect from the police and the police service no longer knows what to expect of itself.Tango Juliet Foxtrot - police code for 'the job's fucked' - reveals how constant political meddling and a hostile media narrative have had a devastating impact on the morale of police officers and their ability to protect the public. With the organisation cut by 20,000 officers and 23,000 police staff, only 7 per cent of reported crime now results in a charge - compared with around 20 per cent ten years ago.By turns fascinating and funny, poignant and uplifting, this compelling account paints a vivid picture of what life is really like for those tasked with keeping us safe - and, crucially, explores what needs to change to secure the future of British policing.