Showing results by publisher "HarperCollins Publishers Limited" in Biographies & Memoirs

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.

WITH AN INTERVIEW RECORDING OF STEVEN TYLER. The no-holds-barred memoir from the legendary Aerosmith frontman has arrived. Tales of debauchery, sex, drugs and rock n' roll are read for the audiobook. The Demon of Screamin' describes the highs and lows as lead singer of the biggest rock band in the world.

Published in time to mark the seventieth anniversary of the death of John Maynard Keynes, this thematic biography revives our understanding of the twentieth century's most charismatic and revolutionary economist, a man whose ideas continue to influence global finance today. John Maynard Keynes saved Britain from financial crisis twice over the course of two world wars and instructed Western industrialised states on how to protect themselves from revolutionary unrest.

From Aristotle to Ada Lovelace: a brief history of the mathematical ideas that have forever changed the world and the everyday people and pioneers behind them. The story of our best invention yet. From our ability to calculate the passing of time to the algorithms that control computers and much else in our lives, numbers are everywhere. They are so indispensable that we forget how fundamental they are to our way of life.

This first volume of Margaret Thatcher's memoirs encompasses the whole of her time as Prime Minister This first volume of Margaret Thatcher's memoirs encompasses the whole of her time as Prime Minister - the formation of her goals in the early 1980s, the Falklands, the General Election victories of 1983 and 1987 and, eventually, the circumstances of her fall from political power. She also gives frank accounts of her dealings with foreign statesmen and her own ministers.

A real-life detective story, investigating how Agatha Christie and colleagues in a mysterious literary club transformed crime fiction, writing books casting new light on unsolved murders whilst hiding clues to their authors' darkest secrets. This is the first book about the Detection Club, the world's most famous and most mysterious social network of crime writers. Drawing on years of in-depth research, it reveals the astonishing story of how members such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers reinvented detective fiction.

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 story of a fascinating man who connected the great politicians, artists and thinkers at the height of British global power and influence. A famed aesthete and patron, Philip Sassoon's world was one of luxury and classic English elegance with oriental flair. He gathered a social set that would provide inspiration for Brideshead Revisited.

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.

King Charles faces many challenges as he succeeds his mother to the throne. Despite his hard work and genuine concern for the disadvantaged, King Charles III has struggled in the past to overcome his unpopularity. After Diana’s death, his approval rating crashed to 4% and has been only rescued by his marriage to Camilla. In unearthing many secrets and dramas surrounding King Charles, Bower’s book, relies on the testimony from over 120 people employed or welcomed into the inner sanctum.

"I'm going to love my baby and give her lots of attention," Jade said. "I'll show my mum she's wrong." Jade, 17, is pregnant, homeless, and alone when she's brought to live with Cathy. Jade is desperate to keep her baby, but, little more than a child herself, she struggles with the responsibilities her daughter brings. Cathy is worried as soon as Jade arrives: she's never looked after a pregnant teenager before, but none of the mother-and-baby carers is free.

Shocking, funny and unflinchingly honest, Emergency Admissions gives us a fascinating glimpse into the extraordinary world of ambulance driving from the man behind the wheel.

Kit Wharton has been an ambulance driver for a dozen years. This book is his report from the frontline of that work: 999 calls that hurtle him to critical moments in other peoples' lives. Nothing in this job is normal; every job is different. From the bizarre to the terrifying and tragic, Wharton takes his audience through his strange work.

Emma loathes her period. Really, she does. But there’s something she loathes even more: not being able to talk about it. Despite women having had periods since the dawn of time, we’ve totally clammed up on anything to do with menstruation. Why, oh why, would we rather say ‘Auntie Flo’ than ‘period’? Why, in the 21st century, are periods still seen as icky? Why are we still so ignorant about such a fundamental bodily process?

'Nothing wilfully invented. Memory invents unbidden.' The 1950s were not grey. In Jonathan Meades's detailed, petit-point memoir they are luridly polychromatic. They were peopled by embittered grotesques, bogus majors, vicious spinsters, reckless bohos, pompous boors, suicides. Death went dogging everywhere.

Although Professor Stephen Westaby was born with the necessary coordination and manual dexterity, it was a head trauma sustained during university that gifted him the qualities of an exceptional heart surgeon: qualities that are frequently associated with psychopathy. His 35-year career has been characterised by fearlessness and ruthless ambition, leaving empathy at the hospital door as thousands of patients put their lives in his hands.

Five years in the making, Cameron at 10 is the gripping inside story of the Cameron premiership, based on over 300 in-depth interviews with senior figures in 10 Downing Street, including the Prime Minister himself. As dusk descended on 11 May 2010, David Cameron entered 10 Downing Street as the youngest prime minister since Lord Liverpool in 1812. He stood at the head of the first Coalition government in 65 years, with the country in dire economic straits following a deep financial crisis.

Britain's most popular cook describes his personal culinary odyssey, from dangerous encounters with his mother's weevil-seasoned cakes to being harangued by readers who think he deliberately styles Yorkshire puddings to look like a woman's private parts.

Gary's story begins in North London, where the Kemp family rented a home with no bathrooms and chickens in the yard. After a couple of failed attempts to kill his brother, Martin, his parents gave him a guitar for Christmas. From schoolyard battles between the Bowie Boys and the Prog Rockers to Mrs Kemp's firm insistence on net curtains, from acting for the Children's Film Foundation to manning a fruit and veg stall on Saturdays, Gary brilliantly evokes an upbringing full of love, creativity and optimism.

Agatha Christie's personal memoirs about her travels to Syria and Iraq in the 1930s with her archaeologist husband, Max Mallowan, where she worked on the digs and wrote some of her most evocative novels. Think you know Agatha Christie? Think again! To the world she was Agatha Christie, legendary author of best-selling whodunits. But in the 1930s she wore a different hat, travelling with her husband, renowned archaeologist Max Mallowan, as he investigated the buried ruins and ancient wonders of Syria and Iraq.

Best-selling biographer Sean Smith traces the astonishing journey of the shy little boy with a stammer who, avoiding flashy showmanship, grew up to be a global phenomenon. Through compelling new research and interviews, he tells the story of Ed’s remarkable mum and dad who gave their son the courage to pursue his dream, the friends and mentors who encouraged him and the lovers who inspired his most famous songs.