Edition: New edition
Publication date: 2004-10-14
Dewey code: 355
RRP: £7.99
Price: £3.55
Review Soldier Five: The Real Truth About the Bravo Two Zero Mission: The Real Truth About the Bravo Two Zero Mission / Mainstream Publishing:
Edition: Reprint
Publication date: 2008-06-05
Dewey code: 359.960941
RRP: £7.99
Price: £3.75
Review Commando / Arrow Books Ltd:
Publication date: 2002-07-05
Dewey code: 942.6084092
RRP: £9.99
Price: £4.76
Review Betty's Wartime Diary 1939-1945 / Thorogood:
Edition: New edition
Publication date: 1999-11-25
Dewey code: 332.109224
RRP: £18.99
Price: £9.07
Review The House of Rothschild: Money's Prophets 1798-1848 / Penguin:
Publication date: 2006-03-08
Dewey code: 940
RRP: £10.95
Price: £5.27
Review Enemy Coast Ahead Uncensored: The Real Guy Gibson / Crecy Publishing:
Publication date: 2007-10-25
RRP: £12.99
Price: £7.04
Review The Lion and the Unicorn / Pimlico:
Authors
- British Hispanic Foundation Visiting Chair at the Complutense University in Madrid for the academic year 2008-9.
- Glyn Redworth
Dewey code: 282.092
RRP: £16.99
Price: £8.99
Review The She-apostle: The Extraordinary Life and Death of Luisa De Carvajal / OUP Oxford:
Publication date: 2008-09-01
RRP: £20.00
Price: £11.04
Review Balti Britain: A Journey Through the British Asian Experience / Granta Books:
Edition: New edition
Publication date: 1988-09-16
RRP: £8.99
Price: £3.70
Review The Past is Myself / Corgi Books:
Authors
- Greg Marinovich
- Joao Silva
Publication date: 2001-09-06
Dewey code: 323
RRP: £8.99
Price: £3.65
Review The Bang-bang Club: The Making of the New South Africa / Arrow Books Ltd:Ask any foreign editor on a national paper what part of the job gives them the most grief, and you'll almost certainly be told, "the foreign correspondents". Almost without exception, the reporters who bring back the best stories from war zones are neurotic, dysfunctional, paranoid and almost impossible to deal with. And if The Bang-Bang Club is anything to go by, you can include war photographers in the same category. The Bang-Bang Club was the name given to four South African photo-journalists, Greg Marinovich, Joao Silva, Ken Oosterbroek and Kevin Carter, who made a name for themselves going into the townships to capture first-hand the violence that erupted in South Africa between ANC supporters and the predominantly Zulu Inkhata party after the release of Nelson Mandela and prior to the first democratic elections. As a guide to the different factions and as a record of brutality, the book cannot be faulted. The British media predictably only ever reported the more sensational atrocities, and The Bang-Bang Club is a potent reminder of the ever-present violence and hatred that have dominated South African life since the early 1990s. Where the authors are on shakier ground is in the analysis of their own condition. Marinovich writes of the "addiction to adrenaline" in his pursuit of the story, and we do get to hear the downside of the booze, drugs and failed relationships that were a by-product of this addiction. But though Marinovich admits to questioning his motivation in getting up close and personal to the violence, he rather lets himself and the others off the hook with the notion that everything is justified by the importance of the story. This is as maybe, but another interesting line of enquiry might have been to ask whether the photographers' sublimated their own violent urges through their work. [+]In other words, they let the death squads act out their feelings, while still retaining a moral high ground. The Bang-Bang Club exacted a high price of membership; Oosterbroek was killed by a stray bullet, Carter committed suicide and Marinovich was badly wounded and it's certainly not a club I would have been keen to join myself. But whatever you might think of the authors' psychiatric condition, you have to give them credit for exposing the stories that other journalists refused to touch. As The Bang-Bang Club might have said, "It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it. " -John Crace.
Publication date: 2000-08-28
Dewey code: 796.620944
RRP: £9.95
Price: £4.29
Review The Unknown Tour De France: The Curious Story of the World's Biggest Bicycle Race (Cycling Resources Book.) / Van Der Plas Publications,U.S.:
Edition: New edition
Publication date: 2007-04-05
Dewey code: 382.456234
RRP: £7.99
Price: £2.16
Review As Used on the Famous Nelson Mandela: Underground Adventures in the Arms and Torture Trade / Ebury Press:
Edition: New edition
Publication date: 2003-05-01
Dewey code: 808
RRP: £14.99
Price: £10.12
Review The Diaries of Samuel Pepys - A Selection (Penguin Classics) / Penguin Classics:
Edition: New edition
Publication date: 2002-08-01
Dewey code: 920
RRP: £9.99
Price: £1.99
Review Mary Queen Of Scots (Women In History) / Phoenix:
Publication date: 2006-02-23
Dewey code: 796.750993
RRP: £12.99
Price: £5.49
Review One Good Run: The Legend of Burt Munro / Penguin:
Publication date: 2006-11-06
Dewey code: 709
RRP: £24.95
Price: £13.44
Review Turner in His Time / Thames & Hudson Ltd:
Publication date: 2007-08-09
Dewey code: 941.085092
RRP: £18.99
Price: £10.46
Review Zara Phillips: The Biography: A Revealing Portrait of a Royal World Champion / Virgin Books:
Creator: Gordon Hutner
Publication date: 2006-11-07
Dewey code: 338.7672092
RRP: £4.67
Price: £1.40
Review The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie and the Gospel of Wealth (Signet Classics) / Signet Classics:
Edition: New Ed
Publication date: 2003-07-03
Dewey code: 920
RRP: £8.99
Price: £1.09
Review Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self / Penguin:Claire Tomalin was born to write a biography of Samuel Pepys. Her previously acclaimed biographies of Jane Austen and Mary Wollstonecraft have defined her as a scrupulous biographer who establishes a unique empathy with her subjects. In Pepys Tomalin has found her perfect subject, a man who is "both the most ordinary and the most extraordinary writer you will ever meet". Pepys wrote his diary throughout the 1660s, "a period as intellectually thrilling as it was dangerous and bloody", and Tomalin's book vividly brings to life the tumultuous world of 17-century London, where Pepys grew up. Pepys' life spanned the execution of one king and the restoration of another, and Tomalin elegantly recreates both Pepys' public and private lives. From his early days in London and then Cambridge, Tomalin pieces together the crucial years when "the private Samuel Pepys began to develop and yearn". She chronicles his rise through the bureaucracy of the restored king, Charles II, to his position as energetic reformer of the navy and successful husband to his vivacious, mercurial wife Elizabeth. But the book also deals with Pepy's personal tragedies, his struggle to secure patronage as a commoner, his frank and hilarious extra-marital exploits, and the cataclysmic Fire of London in 1666. This is a fine biography of an extraordinary man who "found the energy and commitment to create a new literary form" while also coming across as a generous, likeable, flawed human being. Tomalin's admiration for her subject is infectious, and will ensure that her biography becomes the standard reference for anyone interested in both Pepys's life and his art. [+]-Jerry Brotton.
Edition: New edition
Publication date: 2000-05-15
Dewey code: 960
RRP: £9.99
Price: £5.18
Review Mandela: The Authorised Biography / HarperCollins Publishers Ltd:In 1975, imprisoned for life on Robben Island, Nelson Mandela covertly wrote his autobiography. After painstaking months the text was smuggled out-and was promptly quashed by the African National Congress. In his later Long Walk to Freedom Mandela politely expresses "surprise" at this. Sampson reveals that Joe Slovo suppressed the book for not giving enough prominence to Communists. This revelation is remarkable-the ANC could have made much mileage from the book at a time of low fortune-yet Sampson does not follow up. There is too often a sense of eggshells lightly walked upon. Mandela improves as the prisoner's release approaches. Sampson sharply exposes the machinations of those undermining the ANC's struggle. The CIA knew of the Third Force years before the ANC, yet said nothing. Right-wing governments attacked "Mandela the Communist", preferring to promote Inkhata's Buthelezi, at that time secretly and violently colluding with de Klerk's apartheid regime. [+]Against the small-minded figures of Reagan, Thatcher and Kohl it is Mandela who emerges here a giant. South Africa won her freedom through Mandela: his strength of character and willingness to forgive helped push a country into an alternative future, avoiding the racial civil war almost all predicted. Yet he and his kin paid an awful price. Sampson draws a painful, clear picture of a disintegrating family: dislocation from children; the terrible effects of the war on Winnie, and her increasingly erratic, later murderous behaviour; Mandela's own aching loneliness. It is in capturing Madiba, the ultimate public figure, at his most intense and private, that Sampson's Mandela succeeds best. -Chris Woods.
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Soldier Five: The Real Truth About the Bravo Two Zero Mission: The Real Truth About the Bravo Two Zero Mission, Commando, Betty's Wartime Diary 1939-1945, The House of Rothschild: Money's Prophets 1798-1848, Enemy Coast Ahead Uncensored: The Real Guy Gibson, The Lion and the Unicorn, The She-apostle: The Extraordinary Life and Death of Luisa De Carvajal, Balti Britain: A Journey Through the British Asian Experience, The Past is Myself, The Bang-bang Club: The Making of the New South Africa, The Unknown Tour De France: The Curious Story of the World's Biggest Bicycle Race (Cycling Resources Book.), As Used on the Famous Nelson Mandela: Underground Adventures in the Arms and Torture Trade, The Diaries of Samuel Pepys - A Selection (Penguin Classics), Mary Queen Of Scots (Women In History), One Good Run: The Legend of Burt Munro, Turner in His Time, Zara Phillips: The Biography: A Revealing Portrait of a Royal World Champion, The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie and the Gospel of Wealth (Signet Classics), Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self, Mandela: The Authorised Biography |
