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As an artist, she had few peers. Her lyrical prowess and timeless contralto vocals made her an instant revelation when her debut album Frank was released in 2003. And as her star continued to rise it became evident that this seemingly delicate girl from north London was much more than just a precocious talent.Genius, inspiration, icon; there are many ways to describe Amy Winehouse, but it was her wit, charm and lust for life that cemented her place in the hearts of her fans.Here, using exclusive extracts from his own personal diaries, Amy’s father and confidant Mitch celebrates what influenced his daughter. Documenting her early years from Sylvia Young to the Brit School, and the darker side of her life as she struggled to cope with her addictions under the glare of the media spotlight, he gives new insights.With never before seen photos, notes and drawings, this book brings together the many layers of Amy’s life – the personal, the private and the public – to create an honest and intensely moving account of the life of the most talented recording artist of her generation.

Shortlisted for the 2017 PEN Ackerley Prize‘The thing to remember about this story is that every word is true. If I never told it to a soul, and this book did not exist, it would not cease to be true. I don’t mind at all if you forget this.The important thing is that I don’t.’On a hot still morning on a beautiful beach in Jamaica, Decca Aitkenhead’s life changed for ever.Her four-year-old boy was paddling peacefully at the water’s edge when a wave pulled him out to sea. Her partner, Tony, swam out and saved their son’s life – then drowned before her eyes.When Decca and Tony first met a decade earlier, they became the most improbable couple in London. She was an award-winning Guardian journalist, famous for interviewing leading politicians. He was a dreadlocked criminal with a history of drug-dealing and violence. No one thought the romance would last, but it did. Until the tide swept Tony away, plunging Decca into the dark chasm of random tragedy.Exploring race and redemption, privilege and prejudice, ALL AT SEA is a remarkable story of love and loss, of how one couple changed each other’s lives and of what a sudden death can do to the people who survive.

Something has gone wrong. We're living in an age of celebratory racism, extreme inequality, uncertainty and fear. We're governed by people who claim to be populist but who seem to hate everyone. There are idiots at the wheel and we're heading for a cliff in a big red bus and no one knows how to save us.Enemies of The People reveals who has taken us to this dizzying precipice. It provides the actual, non-alternative facts about Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, Vladimir Putin and their charming friends – and also explains where they got their crazy ideas. Why did people turn so mean? How did so-called social networks like Facebook become so very anti-social? Why did anyone think it would be a good idea to privatise railways? Just how much should we fear the robots? Why is no one doing anything about Global Warming? Why is no one doing anything about Boris Johnson either?This book explains all those vital questions and more.Remember, though – they say history is written by the victors and fortunately, many of those currently winning can’t seem to write more than 140 characters at a time. This gives us the golden opportunity to set the record straight and snatch back the narrative. But if we’ve any chance of victory, we first need to know our enemy.

David Mitchell, who you may know for his inappropriate anger on every TV panel show except Never Mind the Buzzcocks, his look of permanent discomfort on C4 sex comedy Peep Show, his online commenter-baiting in The Observer or just for wearing a stick-on moustache in That Mitchell and Webb Look, has written a book about his life.As well as giving a specific account of every single time he's scored some smack, this disgusting memoir also details:• the singular, pitbull-infested charm of the FRP (‘Flat Roofed Pub’)• the curious French habit of injecting everyone in the arse rather than the arm• why, by the time he got to Cambridge, he really, really needed a drink• the pain of being denied a childhood birthday party at McDonalds• the satisfaction of writing jokes about suicide• how doing quite a lot of walking around London helps with his sciatica• trying to pretend he isn’t a total **** at Robert Webb’s wedding• that he has fallen in love at LOT, but rarely done anything about it• why it would be worse to bump into Michael Palin than Hitler on holiday• that he’s not David Mitchell the novelist. Despite what David Miliband might think

A fascinating insight into the life of one of the country's bestselling and best-loved authors, marrying her work with her extraordinary life, and looking at her rise to fame and fortune against all the odds.‘Everything I have touched in my life figures in my books. Every single book I write has something that has happened to me or my family or to my friends.’Josephine Cox was born in Blackburn during its decline as the cotton-weaving capital of the world. Life was hard but characterful, the joys and tragedies of her youth later inspiring her multi-million selling novels.One of ten children, Josephine knew poverty, hunger and charity. Between births, her mother worked in the cotton mills, her father on the roads. Sleeping up to six in a bed, her family lived in the tightly packed, working-class terraces of Blackburn. But Josephine never felt victimised or shamed.Transforming their closed-in community into one that inspired ‘another kind of love, a deep sense of belonging’ were the characters Josephine writes about in her novels with such fondness and feeling.But alas reality was not always so easy. Hand in hand with poverty came deprivation and domestic difficulties. At the end of her tether, Jo’s mother gathered her children around her in the bus station one day and announced they were leaving Blackburn. Josephine was fourteen years old. Not only did she lose her friends, she also lost her brothers too who were left behind. ‘Belonging to a street, to a place, to a family, is the most important thing.’ Out of this tremendous loss, Josephine’s novels were born.

The witty, incisive and frank memoirs from the legend of Newsnight and long-standing quiz master of University Challenge. Filled with views, opinions and stories from 4 decades in front of the camera.Jeremy Paxman is Britain’s bravest, most incisive political interviewer. The no-nonsense star of BBC Newsnight, Paxman is a supreme inquisitor, a master at skewering mammoth egos with his relentless grilling. Few figures in public life have escaped. From John Major to Theresa May, from Tony Blair to Ed Miliband, Paxman had them quaking in their boots.His working life has been defined by questions. ‘Why is this lying bastard lying to me?’ was at the front of his mind as he conducted every interview. But it wasn’t just politicians. Paxman’s interviews with Dizzee Rascal, David Bowie, Russell Brand, Vivienne Westwood are legendary. He discussed belief with religious leaders and philosophers, economics with CEOs and bankers, books with writers and art and theatre with artists. After 22 years on University Challenge, Paxman is also the longest-serving active quizmaster on British television.Now, in these long-awaited memoirs, he spills the beans behind four decades in front of the camera. He offers reflections and stories from a career that has taken him as a reporter to many of the world’s war zones and trouble spots – Central America, Beirut, Belfast, to the studios of Tonight, Panorama, Breakfast Time, the Six O’clock News. Filled with candid stories about the great, the good and the rotters that have crossed his path, his memoirs are as magnetic to read as Paxman is to watch.Candid, uncompromising, compassionate, reflective and astute, he writes of the principles that have governed his professional life, the inner workings of the BBC, the role of journalists in political debate, the scandals and rows he’s been part of, the books he has written and the series he has made. In a book that tells some terrific stories and laughs at much of the silliness in the world, A Life in Questions charts the life of the greatest political interviewer of our time.

Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author and foster carer Cathy Glass’ moving memoir Will You Love Me now combined in a single volume with her heartbreaking title Daddy’s Little Princess, about a little girl who doesn’t understand what her father has done wrong.Daddy’s Little Princess tells the story of Cathy’s suspicions about there being something wrong with the relationship between Beth, aged 7, and her father Derek. Despite Cathy flagging her concerns to the social worker Jessie, no action is taken. Until Jessie accompanies Beth to the hospital to see her father… Then, suddenly, everything changes. All contact is stopped and Cathy is left to help pick up the pieces as poor Beth struggles to understand what her daddy has done wrong.Will You Love Me tells the true story of Cathy’s adopted daughter Lucy, who was abused and neglected for most of her childhood. When she comes to live with Cathy, it is thought the damage done is irreversible. But Cathy and her two children bond with Lucy in a way no-one else has been able to, finally showing her the loving home she never believed existed. Cathy and Lucy believe they were always destined to be mother and daughter – it just took them a little while to find each other.

An entertaining biography of Dickens by one of our finest actorsAcclaimed actor and writer Simon Callow captures the essence of Charles Dickens in a sparkling biography that explores the central importance of the theatre to the life of the greatest storyteller in the English language.From his early years as a child entertainer in Portsmouth to his reluctant retirement from ‘these garish lights’ just before his death, Dickens was obsessed with the stage. Not only was he a dazzling mimic who wrote, acted in and stage-managed plays, all with fanatical perfectionism; as a writer he was a compulsive performer, whose very imagination was theatrical, both in terms of plot devices and construction of character.Like many actors, Dickens felt the need to be completed by contact with his audience. He was the original ‘celebrity’ author, who attracted thousands of adoring fans to his readings in Britain and across the Atlantic, in which he gave voice to his unforgettable cast of characters.In Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World, Callow brings his own unique insight to a life driven by performance and showmanship. He reveals an exuberant and irrepressible talent, whose ‘inimitable’ wit and personality crackle off the page.

When eighty-one-year-old Jay Mendelsohn decides to enrol in the undergraduate seminar on the Odyssey that his son Daniel teaches at Bard College, the two find themselves on an adventure as profoundly emotional as it is intellectual. For Jay, a retired research scientist who sees the world through a mathematician’s unforgiving eyes, this return to the classroom is his ‘one last chance’ to learn about the great literature he’d neglected in his youth – and, even more, a final opportunity to understand his son.But through the sometimes-uncomfortable months that follow, as the two men explore Homer’s great work together – first in the classroom, where Jay persistently challenges his son’s interpretations, and then during a surprise-filled Mediterranean journey retracing Odysseus’ legendary voyages – it becomes clear that Daniel has much to learn, too: for Jay’s responses to both the text and the travels gradually uncover long-buried secrets that allow the son to understand his difficult father at last. As this intricately woven memoir builds to its wrenching climax, Mendelsohn’s narrative comes to echo The Odyssey itself, with its timeless themes of deception and recognition, marriage and children, the pleasures of travel and the meaning of home.Rich with literary and emotional insight, An Odyssey is a renowned author-scholar’s most revelatory entwining yet of personal narrative and literary exploration.

On 7 July 2005, Julie Nicholson's life was changed forever. Her daughter, Jenny, was killed on her way to work in the London bombings, shaking Julie's beliefs. With heartbreaking honesty and integrity, Julie tells her story of love, tragedy and heartache for the first time.Jenny Nicholson was travelling to work when a bomb exploded at Edgware Road Tube station. Her mother, Reverend Julie Nicholson, was on holiday in Anglesey at the time and watched the situation unfold on the television before travelling to London to search for her missing daughter. After five terrible days, her daughter's death was confirmed. Struggling to comprehend the tragedy, Julie's sorrow and longing for her beloved daughter turned to rage and anger at the senseless death.In what will doubtless be considered a landmark grief memoir, Julie Nicholson takes us painstakingly through each moment from when Jenny fails to answer her mobile, to anointing her body.Devastatingly honest and courageous, Julie tells of her love and loss as only a mother can.

Autobiography by the singer and creative force of 70s rock group The Stranglers.This edition does not include illustrations.This is the first autobiography by any leading figure from the punk era and the first to be written by the author, drawing from his own unique and unforgettable experiences. Hugh was lead singer, guitarist and main songwriter with The Stranglers, and now brings his unique style, humour and insight to describe the story of his life.The book begins with a chapter about Hugh's decision to leave The Stranglers in 1990, and explains, in full and frank detail, why this key moment in UK music history has never been fully explained. The book will also covers the heady days of early punk in London, described by someone who was at its epicentre, along with the Sex Pistols, the Clash and the Damned.The life and times of the Stranglers, one of the most notorious and gifted rock groups of the 70s and 80s, are described in detail, including the drug busts, fights, prison terms and – in one case – the tying up of journalists. Throughout this time Hugh encountered a host of other extraordinary people, who are now household names: Malcolm McClaren, Joe Strummer, Kate Bush, Debbie Harry and Hazel O'Connor, to name a few, and he will recount the outrageous times he lived through with them.His 'inside take' on the other members of The Stranglers will be of special interest to the huge fan base of the era, which enabled The Stranglers’ – Greatest Hits album to sell one million copies in the UK on its release in 1990, and which continues to be discovered by the younger music generation of today.

This Edition does not include illustrations.A hilariously funny history of a bizarre 19th-century life of the woman who was a proto-type Pankhurst. The non-fiction debut of one of the most talented comic historians of social manners.Georgina Weldon was born in 1837 and, although almost no one will have heard of her, the only talent she really had was for self-advertisement. She is one of the great undiscovered and unsung eccentrics of the 19th-century.Her ego was monstrous and manifested itself in the 6-volume record of her life which she sold through a spiritualistic medium. Her garrulous work was composed in a convent cell in Gisors where she lived with her pet monkey Titilehee. She was born to parents on the margins of aristocracy and spent her early life in Florence. After a string of liaisons which ‘ruined her reputation’ she had an affair with a penniless Hussar officer called Harry Weldon and eloped with him to a two-bedroom cottage in Beaumaris. She opened a singing academy in a house formerly owned by Dickens but, with things going characteristically awry, she met the composer Gounod, who came to live with them. The singing ladies were dumped in favour of orphans who drove around the West End of London in a converted milk float advertising their weekly concerts at the Langham Hotel. With her husband trying to commit her for lunacy, Georgina fled to France, only to flee back again when Harry threatened divorce. It was at this point that she discovered her metier – dragging people through courts. She published pamphlets, embraced spirtualism, had a lesbian affair with a French lady and eventually lived out her days in Gisors surrounded by 37 tea chests and many trunks filled with paper.Brian Thompson’s gift is as a narrative historian. He excels at writing human-interest stories which embrace both his love of social history and his warm embrace of the eccentric, original, bizarre aspects of human nature.There was no other Victorian woman like Georgina Weldon. With this book Brian Thompson will establish himself as a new original and utterly sublime commercial and hilariously funny historian.