Showing results by publisher "HarperCollins Publishers Limited" in Arts & Entertainment

Lena Dunham, acclaimed writer-director-star of HBO and Sky Atlantic's Girls and the award-winning movie Tiny Furniture, displays her unique powers of observation, wisdom, and humour in this exceptional collection of essays.

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. 

Hello! I’m Brian Limond, aka Limmy. You might know me from Limmy’s Show. Or you might not know me at all. Don’t worry if you don’t. They asked me to write a book about mental health, because I sometimes talk about my mental health in tweets and interviews, like suicidal thoughts and anxiety, and what I’ve done to try to deal with it. I said to them, oh, I don’t know if I could fill a whole book with just that. But how’s about I write a general autobiography type of thing, and all the mental health stuff will naturally appear along the way? 

The definitive history of Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth saga, Anything You Can Imagine takes us on a cinematic journey across all six films, featuring brand-new interviews with Peter, his cast and his crew. From the early days of daring to dream it could be done, through the highs and lows of making the films, to fan adoration and, finally, Oscar glory.

In this intimate account of Amy Winehouse's life, music, and untimely death, her father Mitch Winehouse gives readers full access to his daughter’s private life in the midst of her immensely public triumphs and tragedies. Amy Winehouse needs no introduction. A critically acclaimed recording artist, Amy touched millions with her music during her short but extraordinary life. Following her tragic death in July 2011, Mitch Winehouse wants to tell her incredible story in full. Amy, My Daughter will take the reader through her early years, her rise to stardom and to her addiction.

This sumptuous book to accompany the major BBC TV series of the same name, is a glorious celebration of 50 years in front of the camera. For as long as most can remember, Whicker has roamed far and wide in search of the eccentric, the ludicrous and the socially-revealing aspects of everyday life as lived by some of the more colourful of the world's inhabitants.

The quintessentially English cricket commentator, writer, oenophile, bon viveur, collector and national treasure, fondly known as "Blowers", tells his colourful life story.Born in Norfolk and educated at Eton and Cambridge, Henry Calthorpe Blofeld OBE, nicknamed "Blowers" by the late Brian Johnston, is best known as a cricket commentator for Test Match Special on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra.

Star of stage, screen and television, and one of only two people to be awarded two Knighthoods, Sir Derek Jacobi is one of Britain’s most distinguished actors. ‘If you want to be an actor, don’t. If you need to be an actor, do.’ The world of theatre could not have been further from Derek’s childhood: an only child, born in Leytonstone, London. With his father a department store manager father and his mother a secretary, his was very much a working class background.

Hadley Freeman brings us her personalised guide to American movies from the 1980s - why they are brilliant, what they meant to her, and how they influenced movie-making forever. For Hadley Freeman, American moves of the 1980s have simply got it all. Comedy in Three Men and a Baby, Hannah and Her Sisters, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future and Trading Places; all a teenager needs to know - in Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Say Anything, The Breakfast Club and Mystic Pizza.

The stories from his childhood in Somerset are vivid and moving: his grandfather with his tin leg, his mother at the mills, and his uncle, the ferret keeper and the black sheep of the family for ‘carrying on’ with married women. Keith Floyd spent a short spell on a local newspaper, and then, in a hilarious episode, joined the army. After he and the Ministry of Defence decided that they did not suit each other, he took his first cooking job as an assistant vegetable cook in a Bristol hotel.

When the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Bob Dylan in 2016, the literary world was up in arms. How could the world's most prestigious book prize be awarded to a famously cantankerous singer-songwriter in his 70s, who wouldn't even deign to make a victory speech? In Why Dylan Matters, Harvard professor Richard F. Thomas answers that question with magisterial erudition.

Former Prime Minister John Major takes a remarkable journey into his own unconventional family past to tell the richly colourful story of the British music hall. Music hall was one of the glories of Victorian England. Sentimental, vulgar, class-conscious, but always patriotic and on the side of the underdog, it held a mirror to the audiences’ hopes and fears - and sometimes the general absurdity of life. Vast, smoke-filled auditoriums were packed night after night in nearly every town and city in Britain.

Operation Chastise was one of the most extraordinary episodes of the Second World War, yet it has also become one of the most misunderstood. Max Hastings tells the gripping story of the Dambusters raid, from the invention of the bouncing bomb to the moonlit cockpits of young pilots flying at treetop height through lethal enemy fire. But Hastings also challenges what we think we know about the Dambusters, bringing to light the difficult truths that have often been left out of the legend.

A personal, expert look at iconic beauty products of the past, present and future from Britain's best and most trusted beauty writer. New beauty products are launched every day, but which ones really do the job, underneath all of the packaging? And which long-standing classics deserve to be dusted off before they are forgotten in amongst all the new trends?

In a thrilling narrative built on formidable research, Ben Lewis tracks the extraordinary journey of a masterpiece lost and found, lied and fought over across the centuries. In 2017, Leonardo da Vinci’s small oil painting, the Salvator Mundi was sold at auction for $450m. In the words of its discoverer, the image of Christ as saviour of the world is ‘the rarest thing on the planet by the greatest human being who ever lived’. Its dazzling price also makes it the world’s most expensive painting.  

Founder of one of the most influential and successful rock bands of all time, legendary Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page has nevertheless remained an enigma. In this definitive and comprehensive biography of his life so far, Chris Salewicz draws on his own interviews with Page and those closest around him to unravel the man behind the mystery. Having sold over 300 million copies worldwide, Led Zeppelin was the biggest band of the '70s and has been loved by the legions ever since.

One of the most successful and distinguished artists of our time, Andrew Lloyd Webber has reigned over the musical theatre world for nearly five decades. The winner of numerous awards, including multiple Tonys and an Oscar, Lloyd Webber has enchanted millions worldwide with his music and numerous hit shows, including Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Cats, The Phantom of the Opera - Broadway's longest running show - and, most recently, School of Rock.

He is one of the greatest musical talents Britain has ever produced. But even as the principle songwriter and lead guitarist for The Who, it would be unjust to define Pete Townshend’s life simply through his achievements with bandmates Daltrey, Moon, and Entwistle. Noting that he has sold over 100 million records over a 50-year period goes some way to quantifying his accomplishments, but numbers only scratch the surface of his contribution to popular culture.

Two tales of a city: the historical race to reach one of the world's most mythologized places and the story of how a contemporary band of archivists and librarians, fighting to save its ancient manuscripts from destruction at the hands of al-Qaeda, added another layer to the legend.

The Stig gets his kit off and reveals how he came to be Top Gear's iconic racing driver and so much more - including what it's like to thrash an Aston Martin DBS, train for the Army and face the terror of Jeremy Clarkson's underwear…When the Black Stig disappeared off the end of an aircraft carrier in 2003, we were introduced to The White Stig. Faster. Stranger. Harder to keep clean. And ever since, millions have wondered – who is The Man in the White Suit? They're about to find out.