Search Results for: true story

‘As good an explanation as you will ever read of how the deindustrialisation of the 70s and 80s fuelled Brexit’ The Times

‘Magnificent . . . A fascinating insight into a decade that changed the nature of sport and changed the face of the country’ Rory Smith, Chief Soccer Correspondent, New York Times

Featuring many interviews with sportsmen, managers, miners, musicians, fans and local politicians, this deeply researched and moving investigation casts a new light on an era that read the last rites for the country’s collective culture.

TIME IS SHORT.
THE AIR IS RUNNING OUT.

Selected as one of Goodread’s Best Ecological Horror novels

Scientists have been warning for decades that we are poisoning the Earth. Now their prophecy is coming true. The oceans have become polluted, destroying a crucial link in the planet’s life-support system.

Instead of joining in friendship to meet this deadly future, corrupt superpowers are plotting to secure the last remaining clean air for the privileged few.

This is the terrifying 21st-century prophecy of what we are doing to our home in space.

Once it was just a scary bedtime story. Now it has become horrifyingly real.

A clear and unpatronising guide to money for teenagers.

Jonathan Self’s user-friendly guide demystifies every aspect of money and money management, covering such critical topics as bank accounts, living on a budget, the dangers of credit cards, and how to cope with money at university.

The Teenager’s Guide to Money treats what can be the driest and most daunting of topics with the lightest and easiest of touches. Rich in information and advice, but also accessible, easy to follow and entertaining to read, this is a book that parents should ensure finds its way into the hands of every teenager.

In fact, so clear and coherent is the counsel it offers, that it wouldn’t be a bad idea if the book was read by parents themselves, just in case they’ve forgotten its core message that having enough money has very little to do with how much money you earn, and a great deal to do with how well you manage it.

Everyone knows the story of Joan of Arc, a peasant girl who put Charles VII on the throne – before being burned by the English as a heretic and witch.

But things are not always as they appear.

Jeanne d’Arc was only five when three angels and saints first came to her. Shrouded by a halo of heavenly light, she believed their claim to be holy. The Archangel Michael and Saint Margaret told her she was the foretold Warrior Maid of Lorraine, fated to free France and put a king upon his throne.

Saint Catherine made her promise to obey their commands and embrace her destiny; the three saints would guide her every step. Jeanne bound herself to these creatures without knowing what she’d done. As she got older, Jeanne grew to mistrust and fear the voices, and they didn’t hesitate to punish her cruelly for disobedience. She quickly learned that their cherished prophecy was more important than the girl expected to make it come true.

Jeanne is only a shepherd’s daughter, not the Warrior Maid of the prophecy, but she is stubborn and rebellious, and finds ways to avoid doing – and being – what these creatures want. Resistance has a terrifying price, but Jeanne is determined to fight for the life she wants.

But when the cost grows too high, Jeanne will risk everything to save the three people she loves most in all the world.

Not everyone is destined to be a hero. Sometimes you have no choice.

The story of a personal housing crisis that led to a discovery of the true value of home.

*’You will marvel at the beauty of this book, and rage at the injustice it reveals’ George Monbiot*

*’Incredibly moving. To find peace and a sense of home after a life so profoundly affected by the housing crisis, is truly inspirational’ Raynor Winn, bestselling author of The Salt Path*

Aged thirty-one, Catrina Davies was renting a box-room in a house in Bristol, which she shared with four other adults and a child. Working several jobs and never knowing if she could make the rent, she felt like she was breaking apart.

Homesick for the landscape of her childhood, in the far west of Cornwall, Catrina decides to give up the box-room and face her demons. As a child, she saw her family and their security torn apart; now, she resolves to make a tiny, dilapidated shed a home of her own.

With the freedom to write, surf and make music, Catrina rebuilds the shed and, piece by piece, her own sense of self. On the border of civilisation and wilderness, between the woods and the sea, she discovers the true value of home, while trying to find her place in a fragile natural world.

This is the story of a personal housing crisis and a country-wide one, grappling with class, economics, mental health and nature. It shows how housing can trap us or set us free, and what it means to feel at home.

Inventive, electrifying and daring, True Story is a novel like nothing you’ve ever read before.

‘A mind-blowing page-turning un-put-downable heartwarming empathetic formally inventive horror suspense thriller, with a life-affirming and timely feminist message‘ Elif Batuman, author of The Idiot

‘Where our obsession with true-life crime meets page-turner’ Stylist, The best summer reads for 2020
‘Provocative’ Red

‘Clever and inventive, this is a supremely accomplished debut about the nature of truth in a world littered with monsters both real and imagined. It’s up to the reader to decide which is which’ Daily Express


After a college party, two boys drive a girl home: drunk and passed out in the back seat. Rumours spread about what they did to her, but later they’ll tell the police a different version of events. Alice will never remember what truly happened. Her fracture runs deep, hidden beneath cleverness and wry humour. Nick – a sensitive, misguided boy who stood by – will never forget.

That’s just the beginning of this extraordinary journey into memory, fear and self-portrayal. Through university applications, a terrifying abusive relationship, a fateful reckoning with addiction and a final mind-bending twist, Alice and Nick will take on different roles to each other – some real, some invented – until finally, brought face to face once again, the secret of that night is revealed.

Startlingly relevant and enthralling in its brilliance, True Story is by turns a campus novel, psychological thriller, horror story and crime noir, each narrative frame stripping away the fictions we tell about women, men and the very nature of truth. It introduces Kate Reed Petty as a provocative new voice in contemporary fiction.

*THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER*

*ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE’S MUST-READ BOOKS OF 2019*

*WITH NEW & EXCLUSIVE AFTERWORD*

‘Addictive … a jaw-dropping read’ STYLIST

‘Explosive … Definitely one for the beach’ ELLE

‘Paints a fascinating picture of an eccentric egomaniac who rails against all authority … gripping stuff’ SUNDAY TIMES
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How does it feel to be betrayed by your closest friend? A close friend who turns out to be the most prolific grifter in New York City…

This is the true story of Anna Delvey (real name Anna Sorokin), the fake heiress whose dizzying deceit and elaborate con-artistry deceived the Soho hipster scene before her ruse was finally and dramatically exposed.

After meeting through mutual friends, the ‘Russian heiress’ Anna Delvey and Rachel DeLoache Williams soon became inseparable. Theirs was an intoxicating world of endless excess: high dining, personal trainer sessions, a luxury holiday … and Anna footed almost every bill.

But after Anna’s debit card was declined in a Moroccan medina whilst on holiday in a five-star luxury resort, Rachel began to suspect that her increasingly mysterious friend was not all she seemed.

This is the incredible story of how Anna Sorokin conned the high-rollers of the NYC social scene and convinced her close friend of an entirely concocted fantasy, the product of falsified bank documents, bad cheques and carefully edited online photos.

Written by Rachel DeLoache Williams, the Vanity Fair photography editor who believed Anna’s lies before helping the police to track her down (fittingly, deciphering Anna’s location using Instagram), this is Catch Me If You Can with Instagram filters. Between Anna, Fyre Festival’s Billy McFarland (Anna even tried to scam Billy) and Elizabeth Holmes, whose start-up app duped the high and mighty of Silicon Valley, this is the year of the scammer.

NOW A MAJOR FEATURE DOCUMENTARY

Determined to cover the Syrian regime’s brutal crackdown on dissent and the devastating impact of the war on Syria’s civilians, veteran photographer Paul Conroy and Marie Colvin,one of the foremost war correspondents of her generation, decided to smuggle themselves across enemy lines and into the blood and terror of Homs.

But tragedy struck before the pair could finish documenting the slaughter. A rocket killed Colvin and ripped a hole in Conroy’s leg. As Syrian ground forces closed in on his position,Conroy was forced to make a terrifying last-ditch attempt to escape from a regime that appeared determined to murder him.

Under the Wire is the epic, untold account of Conroy and Colvin’s last, tragic assignment together. A rare and touching portrait of an extraordinary woman driven by an unquenchable desire to ‘bear witness’, it is as much a tale of courage and survival as it is the poignant account of a friendship forged amid the carnage of war.

Arctic explorer, survival expert and naturalist Freddy Spencer Chapman was trapped behind enemy lines when the Japanese overran Malaya in 1942. His response was to begin a commando campaign of such lethal effectiveness that the Japanese deployed an entire regiment to hunt him down, believing that a 200-strong guerrilla army was responsible for the wholesale destruction of their convoys.

He was wounded, and racked by tropical disease. His companions were killed, or captured and then beheaded. Cut off from friendly forces, his only shelter the deep jungle, Chapman held out for three years and five months. Jungle Soldier recounts the thrilling and unforgettable adventures of the North country orphan who survived against all odds to become a legend of guerrilla warfare.

Music, Magazines & Mayhem

Between 1994 and 1997, James Brown’s loaded magazine became the must-buy and must-be-in publication of the decade. It won every award going, year after year, and came to define not only its audience but also a generation. Bright, loud, funny, provocative, ambitious and careless, loaded was read from the barracks of Afghanistan to the England dressing room at Euro ’96. It captured a hedonistic lifestyle of alcohol, cocaine and more. The last great hurrah before the end of the century. It was the biggest noise in the golden generation of magazine publishing, rocketing from zero to half a million sales in a matter of months. What MTV had been to the 80s, loaded was to the 90s.

ANIMAL HOUSE follows James Brown’s remarkable career from a high school drop-out fanzine writer with few qualifications to NME features editor aged 22, and loaded founder at 27. In between, his mother died in tragic circumstances and gradually his own drug and alcohol use began to take over. Loaded‘s unexpected success legitimised (and paid for) James’s lifestyle, and it wasn’t until he crashed and burned at GQ, and went through rehab, that any sense of perspective kicked in.

Recuperating on the island of Mustique whilst plotting his return with Oz founder Felix Dennis, James was asked by neighbour Lord Patrick Lichfield: “How on earth did you manage to sell so many magazines whilst taking so many drugs?”

This book is his answer.

‘A humbling, inspiring account of some of the real founders of modern day Special Forces soldiering’ Bear Grylls


Praise for Sunday Times No.1 bestselling author Damien Lewis’ SAS mission series:

‘One of the great untold stories of WWII’ – Bear Grylls on SAS Ghost Patrol

‘A tale of bravery against desperate odds’ – Sunday Times on Churchill’s Secret Warriors

‘True adventures laced with staggering bravery and sacrifice’ – Sun on Hunting the Nazi Bomb

SAS Nazi Hunters is the incredible, hitherto untold story of the most secret chapter in the SAS’s history. Officially, the world’s most elite special forces unit was dissolved at the end of the Second World War, and not reactivated until the 1950s. Among their last actions was a disastrous commando raid into occupied France in 1944, which ended in the capture,torture and execution of 31 soldiers.

It can now be revealed that the SAS never was dissolved: it lived on, commanded personally by Churchill and hidden even from the British government. They were tasked with hunting through the ruins of the Reich for the SS commanders responsible for the murder of their comrades, including many who had escaped the failed justice of the Nuremberg trials. Along the way, they discovered before anyone else the full horror of Hitler’s regime, and the growing threat from Stalin’s Russia.

Still studied by the SAS today and a central part of their founding myth, the story of the Nazi hunters is now told by bestselling author Damien Lewis.

Sex. Drugs. Danger. Death.

FROM THE ACCLAIMED AUTHOR OF BESTSELLERS HOTEL KEROBOKAN AND SNOWING IN BALI

This is the adrenaline-pumping story of the world’s most audacious drug runners and the police hunt, ‘Operation Playboy’, to track them down.

These drug-running playboys travel the globe: they ski in Europe, surf in Bali, hook up with celebrity models and live in five-star hotels. They are 24/7 party boys with brass balls, steely nerves and reckless ambitions. They pay for their high-risk, hedonistic lifestyle by trafficking cocaine, ecstasy and marijuana on international flights and through the world’s biggest airports.

But to ride the wave you have to roll the dice. And in this game a bust means prison – or even a firing squad. A Brazilian cop is watching closely, determined to close the net. With a small team, he battles corrupt colleagues and bent judges to learn the secrets of the playboys and bring about their downfall.

Celebrated true-crime writer and journalist Kathryn Bonella has travelled the world to collect first-person testimony from an international network of mules and their bosses, as well as from the elite cops who are hot on their trail.

The result is a page-turning, white-knuckle thriller – the true story of a manhunt codenamed OPERATION PLAYBOY.

***THE FOLLOW UP TO THE AWARD-WINNING AND BESTSELLING STORIES FOR BOYS WHO DARE TO BE DIFFERENT***

Tom Daley, Oliver Sacks, the Jamaican Bobsled team, Amrou Al-Kadhi, Carlos Acosta… all dared to be different.



This is the follow-up to the much loved and hugely successful Stories for Boys Who Dare to be Different, the bestselling book that changed countless boys’ lives around the world and gave them the confidence to be themselves.

What have the footballer Kylian Mbappé, the philosopher Socrates and the singer Ed Sheeran all got in common? All three of them defied expectations – going against the grain and pursuing their dreams – despite a seemingly impossible barrage of obstacles and difficulties. Their stories are incredible, as are those of the tap-dancer Evan Ruggiero, the Pokémon creator Satoshi Tajiri, and the other inspirational boys who fill the pages of this extraordinary book.

It’s books like these that can make a huge difference to parents and their children’s lives. In this day and age, any publication that shows how we can triumph in the face of adversity and prejudice deserves to be read over and over again.

“In our evermore hectic and overwhelming world, Stories for Kids Who Dare to be Different is refreshing proof that dreams do come true and that it is ok to be different. An inspiring read for any young person, particularly those struggling to find their place in the world.” Megan Hine

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Björk, Dr Seuss, Whoopi Goldberg, Andy Warhol, Ellen MacArthur, Greta Gerwig, Andrea Bocelli, Hua Mulan … these are men and women who all dared to be different.

Boys will be boys and girls will be girls – or so the meaningless saying goes. Because what if you’re a girl and you like cage fighting? Or you’re a boy and you love ballet? And what if you’ve always dreamed of being a scientist but you can’t see anyone who looks or sounds like you, and who has left a legacy – in the form of microscopes and Bunsen burners – for you to follow?

This is the book for children who want to know about the lives of those heroes who have led the way, changing the world for the better as they go.

Following the runaway success of Stories for Boys Who Dare to be Different, parents asked for a celebration of role models of both genders for boys and girls within the same book. Stories for Kids Who Dare to Be Different is the answer. These are the extraordinary stories of 100 famous and not-so-famous men and women, every single one of them an inspiring pioneer and creative genius in their own way, who broke the mould and made their dreams come true.

Like Stories for Boys Who Dare to be Different, this is a beautifully illustrated, evocative and inspirational book of amazing stories of amazing people, that will delight sons and daughters, nephews and nieces, and give them the courage to be themselves.

*For tales of even more brilliant people who have dared to be different, STORIES FOR BOYS WHO DARE TO BE DIFFERENT 2 is out now!*

‘COMPLETELY BEGUILING AND BEAUTIFULLY TOLD’ Kate Furnival
‘A PERFECT SUMMER READ’ Rachel Hore
‘A GORGEOUS, MOUTH-WATERING DREAM OF A HOLIDAY READ’ Red
‘PERFECT HOLIDAY READING, WHEREVER YOU GO’ The Lady

The bestselling author of The Lemon Tree Hotel returns with an enchanting new summer read about family bonds and following your heart, wherever it might take you…

With her marriage in danger of falling apart, Joanna returns home to the beautiful but dilapidated Mulberry Farm Cottage in rural Dorset, where her sister Harriet is struggling to keep the Farm afloat and cope with their eccentric mother.

When Joanna discovers a bundle of love letters in the attic, written by a watercolourist named Emmy, she is intrigued and sets out to discover Emmy’s true story. Emmy’s letters take Joanna to the picturesque alleyways and bridges of Lisbon, Prague, and the most romantic place of all: Venice – where a whole new magical world seems to unfold in front of her.

Meanwhile, back at Mulberry Farm Cottage, a mysterious prowler adds to Harriet’s problems and interrupts her search for a perfect partner. Will she ever find true love? Where will Emmy’s mesmerising pathway lead? And more importantly, will Joanna and Harriet be able to rescue the cottage and finally be able to re-discover their sisterly bond?

WHAT READERS ARE SAYING ABOUT FROM VENICE WITH LOVE

‘Romantic and magical’ *****
‘The escapism we all need’ *****
‘A love story with a difference’ *****

Three of the greatest football clubs: Celtic, Liverpool and Manchester United. Their three greatest managers: Jock Stein, Bill Shankly and Matt Busby.

Three men born within a 20-mile radius of each other in the central lowlands of Scotland; forged in mining communities to subsequently shape the course of modern football. From a BAFTA-winning documentary film maker and the people who brought us AMY, I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES and SENNA, this is a book for anyone who loves football and its history.

‘As a mayor, I am responsible for the upkeep of rural roads; as poet, I prefer to see them neglected.’

Jules Renard was a French literary figure of the late nineteenth century. Not a Parisian but a committed countryman, he was elected mayor in 1904 of the tiny village of Citry-le-Mines in a remote part of northern Burgundy. He had the soul of a rustic bourgeois but the ambition of a metropolitan, and his wife’s money allowed him to move in elevated circles, though he seemed an awkward customer, a badger, and looked like one. He wrote fiction, journalism and drama, very successfully, but the Journal is Renard’s masterpiece, the least categorizable work of the French fin de siècle.

The Journal constitutes a profusion of entries, without stitching or pattern: mordant reflections on style, literature and theatre; portraits of family, friends and the Parisian literary scene; quasi-ethnographical observations on village life and notations of the natural world which are unlike anything except themselves.

Samuel Beckett spoke of Renard in the same breath as Proust and Celine, wrote of the Journal that ‘for me it is as inexhaustible as Boswell ‘ and believed his style was learnt from despair. Gide said the Journal was ‘not a river but a distillery’. Sartre wrote that ‘He invented the literature of silence’. But above all it is a moving and splintery piece of self-scrutiny.

Julian Barnes has admired the Journal for many years and has made this new selection from the twelve hundred page Pléiade edition. Theo Cuffe’s translation will help bring this fierce judge of human foibles to a new generation of readers.

“This is an exquisitely interesting book. It’s a deeply serious one too and, for those like me who have little maths, it’s delightfully readable” – IAN MCEWAN

“Kit Yates is a natural storyteller. Through fascinating stories and examples, he shows how maths is the beating heart of so much of modern life. An exciting new voice in the world of science communication” – MARCUS DU SAUTOY

“Used wisely, mathematics can save your life. Used unwisely, it can ruin it. A lucid and enthralling account of why maths matters in everyone’s life. A real eye-opener.” – Prof Ian Stewart FRS, author of Do Dice Play God?
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Maths is the story of the world around us, and the wisdom it gives us can be the difference between success and disaster.

We are all doing maths all the time, from the way we communicate with each other to the way we travel, from how we work to how we relax. Many of us are aware of this. But few of us really appreciate the full power of maths – the extent to which its influence is not only in every office and every home, but also in every courtroom and hospital ward.

In this eye-opening and extraordinary book, Yates explores the true stories of life-changing events in which the application – or misapplication – of mathematics has played a critical role: patients crippled by faulty genes and entrepreneurs bankrupted by faulty algorithms; innocent victims of miscarriages of justice and the unwitting victims of software glitches. We follow stories of investors who have lost fortunes and parents who have lost children, all because of mathematical misunderstandings.

Along the way, Yates arms us with simple mathematical rules and tools that can help us make better decisions in our increasingly quantitative society. You will discover why it’s always sensible to question a statistic, often vital to ask for a second opinion and sometimes surprisingly handy to stick to the 37% rule…

Everyone loves Toff and she has come a long way since bursting onto our screens on E4’s Made in Chelsea in 2014. As the runaway winner of I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here 2017, Toff surprised us all, not least herself, with her positive, happy-go-lucky attitude and kindness to others, no matter what challenge came her way in the jungle.

In ALWAYS SMILING, Toff is here to share her experiences, some funny, some sad, some that make her cringe with embarrassment. So whether it is friendships, family dramas, heartbreak and relationships, or how she coped with living her life in front of millions of viewers of Made in Chelsea, Toff reveals how she has learnt to keep a smile on her face, whatever life throws at her.

Told with her trademark honesty, humour and endless sense of fun, ALWAYS SMILING is a must-have for any fan.