Биографии и Мемуары - скачать книги или читать онлайн. Страница 295

Family is not always a place of safety.Kathleen was just eight years old when her mother was tragically killed in a car accident. And when her father remarries it is to the bitter and resentful Irene who has two children of her own and no space in her heart for another. Irene goes out of her way to make Kathleen's life as miserable as possible and will stop at nothing to get her out of their lives…When Kathleen is sixteen, a shocking incident rocks the family, and life takes a darker turn.Among this darkness, Kathleen finds a glimmer of hope in an older man, but Irene is ruthless in her mission to destroy her.Can Kathleen find happiness or is she destined for tragedy?

It’s 1983 and best friends Vicky and Lucy swear that they will always be there for each other, that they’ll never let anyone come between them. But fast forward 4 years and life on the Canterbury Estate has gotten very messy.Lucy has fallen for local policeman’s son, Jimmy. And Vicky is madly in love with Paddy, the charming but ruthless local bad boy. The boys are bitter enemies and determined to keep the two girls apart. But then Vicky is accused of murder, and even her drug-dealer boyfriend wants her mouth shut, permanently. Maybe Lucy is the only one who can save her…Love, murder, revenge. Who can you really trust when there’s blood on your hands?

Previously published as My Uncle Charlie.If you lived on the notorious Canterbury Estate in the ‘40s and ‘50s, then you knew there was one man you did not want to cross: Charlie Hudson.A solitary man, feared and respected by the gangsters of the time, Charlie was a boxer who never lost a fight, in or out of the ring – the most infamous of The Canterbury Warriors.Blood Line, the second title in the explosive series unravels a story of debauchery, crime and self-destruction. Charlie Hudson was a born leader. The eldest of eight brothers and four sisters and with a boxer for a father, fighting was in his blood. And as the young protégé of local Italian gangster, Mr Cappovanni, Charlie not only learned to knock every opponent out, he also learned the tools of the crime and extortion trade well; emerging into adulthood in the middle of the war years as a natural heir: running cons, illegal books and a band of prostitutes.But when Charlie met Betty, a sweet, caring girl, he was determined to be a better man for her. He’d still deal with ‘business’ but no more would he bed his working girls, and the birth of their baby girl, Elizabeth, sealed it: he knew life could not get any better. But for a man who had only ever lived in the belly of the Canterbury Estate underworld, it could definitely get worse…Gritty and engrossing, book two of the Hudson family saga delves deeper into history of the infamous Canterbury Warriors; the true story of one man’s ascendancy to power, and the tragedy that brought it all crashing down.

Simon Callow plunges headlong into Wagner’s world to discover what it was like to be Wagner, and to be around one of music’s most influential figures.A hundred and thirty-five years after his death, Richard Wagner’s music dramas stand at the centre of the culture of classical music. They have never been more popular, nor so violently controversial and divisive. His music is still banned in Israel – the only classical composer whose music is banned in the western world. His ten great mature masterpieces constitute an unmatched body of work, created against a backdrop of poverty, revolution, violent controversy, critical contempt and hysterical hero-worship.As a man, he was a walking contradiction, aggressive, flirtatious, disciplined, capricious, heroic, visionary and poisonously anti-Semitic. At one point, he had four lengthy operas written with no hope of being performed when, as if in a fairy-tale, he was rescued by a beautiful young king with limitless wealth which he bestowed on the composer. When one of those works, Tristan and Isolde, was at last performed, it revolutionised classical music at a stroke. Finally he fulfilled his lifelong dream of creating a vast epic to rival the work of the great Greek playwrights, a music drama in four massive segments, ushering gods and dwarves, heroes and thugs, dragons and rainbows onto the stage, the apotheosis of German art as he saw it, so extreme in its demands that he had to train a generation of singers and players to perform it, and erect a custom-built theatre to house it. Wagner died, exhausted, after creating one final piece – Parsifal – that seems to point to an even more radical new future for music.Simon Callow recalls the intellectual and artistic climate in which Wagner worked, recording the almost superhuman effort required to create his work, and evoking the extraordinary effect he had on people – this composer like no other who ever lived, extreme in everything, creator of the most sublime and most troubling body of work ever known.

Matthew Dennison creates a revealing portrait of the brave and charismatic Vita, in the first biography of her to be written for thirty years.Vita Sackville-West was a woman who defied categorisation. She was the dispossessed girl whose lonely childhood at Knole inspired enduring feats of imagination, the celebrated author and poet, the adored and affectionate wife whose marriage included passionate homosexual affairs (most famously with Virginia Woolf ), and the recluse who found in nature and her garden at Sissinghurst Castle solace from the contradictions of her extraordinary life. In this dazzling new biography, Matthew Dennison traces these complexities, depicting a prolific, radical, sensitive and uncompromising figure in all her depth.

Hadley Freeman, Guardian features writer and author of the popular ‘Ask Hadley…’ column, reminds the modern lady to ‘Be Awesome’.‘Being single is often awesome. You can leave a party when you want to, whether that be 9pm or 9am; you don't have to live in fear of ever hearing yourself described as “my better half”; and you can spend all day lying on the sofa in your pajamas watching “Murder She Wrote” and eating peanut butter straight out of the jar’Covering topics vital for any modern woman to consider (from ‘How to read women’s magazines without wanting to grow a penis’ to ‘Beyond the armpit: a guide to being a modern day feminist’), ‘Be Awesome’ tackles body image, sex, dating and feminism head on.With an attitude that is unfalteringly funny, smart and surprisingly heartwarming, Hadley Freeman is a voice of sanity that every woman should hear.

Bryan Gallagher's reminiscences of the Ireland of his youth, first heard on Radio 4's 'Home Truths', transport you to a world of boyhood pranks, playground politics and the confusion of growing up in a land that is every bit as magical and captivating as the stories he has to tell.Barefoot in Mullyneeny is Bryan Gallagher's evocative tale of a childhood remembered through the people and landscape of Fermanagh, near the beautiful shores of Lough Erne in Ireland. Bryan chronicles a time when all the big boys went to school in bare feet and secretly watched the Saturday night bands and dances in halls lit by Tilley lamps; where it was known to be nothing less than the biblical truth that if you put a horse-hair across the palm of your hand when you were about to be punished at school, the cane would split in two.Gallagher's writing will touch the hearts of those who long for the innocence of childhood and the simplicity of an era long past. Whether relating tales of murderous bicycle chases through the darkened streets of Cavan, of ghosts and fairy forts or the anguish of emigration, this remarkable memoir vividly recreates life in rural Ireland in the 1940s and 50s.For those who thought that life in Ireland was one of the poverty and misery of James Joyce or Frank McCourt, Barefoot in Mullyneeny offers a view of the Ireland of yesteryear that combines the touching, homely nostalgia of Nigel Slater's Toast and Laurie Lee's Cider with Rosie with a humorous optimism that is unmistakably Ireland at its best.

Collection of 5 short stories – The Little Princess, No Place for Nathan, Daddy’s Boy, The Wild Child and Scarlett’s Secret – previously available as individual e-shorts.A collection of inspiring and moving real life short stories from foster carer and New York Times bestselling author Casey Watson.Darby, whose parents keep her locked in her bedroom, and who arrives pale and terrified one Christmas Eve.Nathan, who lives with his cruel, violent father, and no longer knows who he is.Paulie, just five, who’s been rejected by his mother, and accused of a sickening crime.Connor, who, at only eight years of age, is delivered to the Watsons in a secure prison van.Scarlett, who, along with her twin sister, Jade, carries the weight of a devastating secret.

In a memoir of staggering power and candour, award-winning journalist Fergal Keane addresses his experience of wars of different kinds, some very public and others acutely personal.During his years of reporting from the world's most savage and turbulent regions, Fergal Keane has witnessed the violence of the South African townships and the terror in Rwanda, the most extreme kinds of human behaviour, the horror of genocide and the bravery of peacekeepers faced with overwhelming odds. As one of the BBC's leading correspondents, he recounts extraordinary encounters on the front lines. Alongside his often brutal experiences in the field, he also describes unflinchingly the challenges and demons he has faced in his personal life growing up in Ireland.Keane’s existence as a war reporter is all that we imagine: frantic filing of reports and dodging shells, interspersed with rest in bombed-out hotels and concrete shelters. Life in such vulnerable areas of the globe is emotionally draining, but full of astonishing moments of camaraderie and human bravery. And so this is also a memoir of the human connections, at once simple and complex, that are made in extreme circumstances. These pages are filled with the memories of remarkable people. At the heart of Fergal Keane's story is a descent into and recovery from alcoholism, spanning two generations, father and son; a different kind of war, but as much part of the journey of the last twenty-five years as the bullets and bombs.

This three-volume collection brings together the best of C.S. Lewis’s letters – some published for the first time. This second volume covers the years from 1931–1949, charting Lewis’ emergence as a great Christian thinker and apologist.C.S. Lewis was a most prolific letter writer and his personal correspondence reveals much of his private life, reflections, friendships and feelings. This collection, carefully chosen and arranged by Walter Hooper, is the most extensive ever published.In this great and important collection are the letters Lewis wrote to J.R.R. Tolkien, Dorothy L. Sayers, Owen Barfield, Arthur C. Clarke, Sheldon Vanauken and Dom Bede Griffiths. To some particular friends, such as Dorothy L. Sayers, Lewis wrote over fifty letters alone. The letters deal with all of Lewis’s interests: theology, literary criticism, poetry, fantasy, children’s stories as well as revealing his relationships with family members and friends.The second volume begins with Lewis quietly trying to lead a Christian life and writing his first major work of literary history, The Allegory of Love. He was unknown during the 1930s and at this time wrote some of his finest letters, mainly to his brother Warren and to his boyhood friend Arthur Greeves. Then he is ‘discovered’ by the BBC and the publishers Geoffrey Bles, resulting in the most popular works of Christian apologetics ever written. C.S. Lewis became a household name and from the 1940s onwards some of his greatest theological letters were written.

This collection brings together the best of C.S. Lewis’s letters, many published for the first time. Arranged in chronological order, this final volume covers the years 1950 – the year ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ was published – through to Lewis’s untimely death in 1963.C.S. Lewis was a most prolific letter-writer and his personal correspondence reveals much of his private life, reflections, friendships and feelings. This collection, carefully chosen and arranged by Walter Hooper, is the most extensive ever published.In this great and important collection are the letters Lewis wrote to J.R.R. Tolkien, Dorothy L. Sayers, Owen Barfield, Arthur C. Clarke, Sheldon Vanauken and Dom Bede Griffiths. To some particular friends, such as Dorothy L. Sayers, Lewis wrote over fifty letters alone. The letters deal with all of Lewis’s interests: theology, literary criticism, poetry, fantasy, children’s stories as well as revealing his relationships with family members and friends.The third and final volume begins with Lewis, already a household name from his BBC radio broadcasts and popular spiritual books, on the cusp of publishing his most famous and enduring book, ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’, which would ensure his immortality in the literary world. It covers his relationship with Joy Davidman, subject of the film ‘Shadowlands’, and includes letters right up to his death on 22 November 1963, the day that John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

This collection brings together the best of C.S. Lewis’s letters – some published for the first time. Arranged in chronological order, this is the first volume covering Family Letters: 1905-1931.C.S. Lewis was a most prolific letter writer and his personal correspondence reveals much of his private life, reflections, friendships and feelings. This collection, carefully chosen and arranged by Walter Hooper, is the most extensive ever published.In this great and important collection are the letters Lewis wrote to J.R.R. Tolkien, Dorothy L. Sayers, Owen Barfield, Arthur C. Clarke, Sheldon Vanauken and Dom Bede Griffiths. To some particular friends, such as Dorothy L. Sayers, Lewis wrote over fifty letters alone. The letters deal with all of Lewis’s interests: theology, literary criticism, poetry, fantasy, children’s stories as well as revealing his relationships with family members and friends.This first volume of Family Letters: 1905-1931 covers Lewis’s boyhood and early manhood, his army years, undergraduate life at Oxford and his election to a fellowship at Magdalen College. Lewis became an atheist when he was 13 years old and his dislike of Christianity is evident in many of his letters. The volume concludes with a letter describing an evening spent with J.R.R. Tolkien and Hugo Dyson when he came to see that he was wrong to think of Christianity as one of ‘many myths.’ ‘What Dyson and Tolkien showed me was that… the story of Christ is simply a true myth… but with this tremendous difference that it really happened.’