A moving, unflinching memoir of hard-won success, struggles with addiction, and a lifelong mission to give back. When Michael K. Williams died on 6 September 2021, he left behind a career as one of the most electrifying actors of his generation. From his star turn as Omar Little in The Wire to Chalky White in Boardwalk Empire to Emmy-nominated roles in HBO’s The Night Of and Lovecraft Country, Williams inhabited a slew of indelible roles that he portrayed with a rawness and vulnerability that leapt off the screen. Beyond the nominations and acclaim, Williams played characters who connected, whose humanity couldn’t be denied, whose stories were too often left out of the main narrative. At the time of his death, Williams had nearly finished a memoir that tells the story of his past while looking to the future, a book that merges his life and his life’s work. Mike, as his friends knew him, was so much more than an actor. In Scenes from My Life, he traces his life in whole, from his childhood in East Flatbush and his early years as a dancer to his battles with addiction and the bar fight that left his face with his distinguishing scar. He was a committed Brooklyn resident and activist who dedicated his life to working with social justice organisations and his community, especially in helping at-risk youth find their voice and carve out their future. Williams worked to keep the spotlight on those he fought for and with, whom he believed in with his whole heart. Imbued with poignance and raw honesty, Scenes from My Life is the story of a performer who gave his all to everything he did – in his own voice, in his own words, as only he could.

The twenty-year journey, intimately told in his own words and pictures. Ever since a sixteen-year-old boy called Robert Peter Williams joined a boy band and was told his new name, he has been Robbie Williams. It has been twenty years now. Twenty years of singing, songwriting and performing. Twenty years of adventure, mischief, hiding and self-exposure. Twenty years of triumph, mishap, uncertainty and irrepressibility. Twenty years of searching for the right balance between growing up and gloriously refusing to grow up. 'It's like it happened to someone else' he says, as if he needs to remind himself that it did happen. But it really did. Here is the evidence.

The 4th novel in the bestselling Conqueror series, continuing the life and adventures of the mighty Khan dynasty. Genghis Khan is dead, but his legend and his legacy live on. His son Ogedai has built a white city on a great plain and made a capital for the new nation. Now the armies have gathered to see which of Genghis' sons has the strength to be khan. The Mongol empire has been at peace for two years, but whoever survives will face the formidable might of their great enemy, China’s Song dynasty. The great leader Tsubodai sweeps into the west: through Russia, over the Carpathian mountains and into Hungary. The Templar knights have been broken and there is no king or army to stop him reaching France. But at the moment of Tsubodai's greatest triumph, as his furthest scouts reach the northern mountains of Italy, Tsubodai must make a decision that will change the course of history forever.

Svetoslav Roerich (1904-1993), Founder and Honorable President of the Museum by name of N. K. Roerich in Moscow, is known not only as a distinguished Artist, educator and public figure but also as a profound and original thinker, the author of a number of remarkable essays, and a brilliant lecturer.Search for Beauty – in Art, in the World, in a Man – that was the golden thread of his life and creativity, as well as his faith in triumph of the spirit and creative thought were reflected in the articles constituted this book.In order to present unique philosophical, artistic heritage of the Roerichs to our readers more comprehensively, the edition is supplemented with colour reproductions of the Nicholas and Svetoslav Roerichs paintings illustrating the text, and the Svetoslav Roerich Chronology. 0

Svetoslav Roerich (1904-1993), Founder and Honorable President of the Museum by name of N. K. Roerich in Moscow, is known not only as a distinguished Artist, educator and public figure but also as a profound and original thinker, the author of a number of remarkable essays, and a brilliant lecturer.Search for Beauty – in Art, in the World, in a Man – that was the golden thread of his life and creativity, as well as his faith in triumph of the spirit and creative thought were reflected in the articles constituted this book.In order to present unique philosophical, artistic heritage of the Roerichs to our readers more comprehensively, the edition is supplemented with colour reproductions of the Nicholas and Svetoslav Roerichs paintings illustrating the text, and the Svetoslav Roerich Chronology. 0

It is the scene for our hopeful beginnings and our intended ends, and the timeless experiences of coming and going, meeting, greeting and parting. It is an institution with its own rituals and priests, and a long-neglected aspect of Britain's architecture. And yet so little do we look at the railway station. Simon Jenkins has travelled the length and breadth of Great Britain, from Waterloo to Wemyss Bay, Betws-y-Coed to Beverley, to select his hundred best railway stations. Blending his usual insight and authority with his personal reflections and experiences - including his founding the Railway Heritage Trust - the foremost expert on our national heritage deftly reveals the history, geography, design and significance of each of these glories. Beautifully illustrated with colour photographs throughout, this joyous exploration of our social history shows the station's role in the national imagination; champions the engineers, architects and rival companies that made them possible; and tells the story behind the triumphs and follies of these very British creations. These are the marvellous, often undersung places that link our nation, celebrated like never before.

From the lens of Magnum's Abbas - the mystical world of the Hindu revealed, from ancient rites to contemporary beliefsThis latest in Abbas's transcendent series of books on major world religions, featuring ritualistic elements - wind, water, earth, and fire, magic, the spiritualism of animals - to explore the mysteries of the Hindu faith. Shot over three years in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bali, Abbas's images examine the enigmatic beliefs of sub-sects such as Sikhs and Jains, alongside the everyday life of Hindus, and extend beyond his characteristic black-and-white work to include a series of colour photographs - in his words: 'In India, colour was a temptation I couldn't resist.' The result is this sumptuous volume, a must-have for collectors and armchair travellers around the globe.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire is the tale of a catastrophic confrontation between fantasy and reality, embodied in the characters of Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski. This Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Arthur Miller. 'I have always depended on the kindness of strangers' Fading southern belle Blanche DuBois is adrift in the modern world. When she arrives to stay with her sister Stella in a crowded, boisterous corner of New Orleans, her delusions of grandeur bring her into conflict with Stella's crude, brutish husband Stanley Kowalski. Eventually their violent collision course causes Blanche's fragile sense of identity to crumble, threatening to destroy her sanity and her one chance of happiness. Tennessee Williams's steamy and shocking landmark drama, recreated as the immortal film starring Marlon Brando, is one of the most influential plays of the twentieth century. Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) was born in Columbus, Mississippi. When his father, a travelling salesman, moved with his family to St Louis some years later, both he and his sister found it impossible to settle down to city life. He entered college during the Depression and left after a couple of years to take a clerical job in a shoe company. He stayed there for two years, spending the evenings writing. He received a Rockefeller Fellowship in 1940 for his play Battle of Angels, and he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1948 and 1955. Among his many other plays Penguin have published The Glass Menagerie (1944), The Rose Tattoo (1951), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), The Night of the Iguana (1961), and Small Craft Warnings (1972). If you enjoyed A Streetcar Named Desire, you might like The Glass Menagerie, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 'Lyrical and poetic and human and heartbreaking and memorable and funny' Francis Ford Coppola, director of The Godfather 'One of the greatest American plays' Observer

In the novels of R. K. Narayan (1906-2001), the forefather of modern Indian fiction, we witness the birth of a nation as it awakens to its place in the world. The three novels brought together in this volume, all written after India's independence, are masterpieces of social comedy, rich in local colour and abounding in affectionate humour and generosity of spirit. Mr Sampath - The Printer of Malgudi is the story of a businessman who adapts to the collapse of his weekly newspaper by shifting to screenplays, only to have the glamour of it all go to his head. In The Financial Expert, a man of many hopes but few resources spends his time under a banyan tree dispensing financial advice to those willing to pay for his knowledge. In Waiting for the Mahatma, a young drifter meets the most beautiful girl he has ever seen - an adherent of Mahatma Gandhi - and commits himself to Gandhi's Quit India campaign, a decision that will test the integrity of his ideals against the strength of his passions.

From the bestselling author of The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England, comes the story of King Edward III, who - like Elizabeth and Victoria after him - embodied the values of his age, forged a nation out of war and re-made England. He ordered his uncle to be beheaded; he usurped his father's throne; he started a war which lasted for more than a hundred years, and taxed his people more than any other previous king. Nineteenth century historians saw in Edward the opportunity to decry a warmonger, and painted him as a self-seeking, rapacious, tax-gathering conqueror. Yet, in this first full study of the King's character and life, Dr Ian Mortimer unveils that behind the strong warrior king was a compassionate, conscientious and often merciful man - resolute yet devoted to his wife, friends and family, and the father of both the English nation and the English people.

This lavishly illustrated full-colour hardback explores the life and work of French modernist painter Eduard Manet. Manet was one of the first artists in the 19th century to paint modern life and everyday subjects, including the then scandalous Le dejeuner sur l'herbe. Recognized for his paintings of bars and other everyday meeting places, Manet marked the transition from realism to the looser, freer style that signaled the beginnings of modern art. Art historian Ann Sumner explores the contribution he made to the art world, particularly his embracing of ordinary people as appropriate artistic subjects. She also analyses his technique, the materials he used, and showcases his most iconic paintings - including Olympia, A Bar at the Folies-Bergere and Corner of a Cafe-Concert - alongside fascinating biographical detail. Featuring timelines and information boxes, this addition to The Great Artists series provides a wonderful introduction to this influential modernist painter.

Kiese Laymon is a fearless writer. In his essays, personal stories combine with piercing intellect to reflect both on the state of American society and on his experiences with abuse, which conjure conflicted feelings of shame, joy, confusion and humiliation. Laymon invites us to consider the consequences of growing up in a nation wholly obsessed with progress yet wholly disinterested in the messy work of reckoning with where we’ve been. In Heavy, Laymon writes eloquently and honestly about growing up a hard-headed black son to a complicated and brilliant black mother in Jackson, Mississippi. From his early experiences of sexual violence, to his suspension from college, to his trek to New York as a young college professor, Laymon charts his complex relationship with his mother, grandmother, anorexia, obesity, sex, writing, and ultimately gambling. By attempting to name secrets and lies he and his mother spent a lifetime avoiding, Laymon asks himself, his mother, his nation, and us to confront the terrifying possibility that few in this nation actually know how to responsibly love, and even fewer want to live under the weight of actually becoming free. weekend has only just begun.

Kiese Laymon is a fearless writer. In his essays, personal stories combine with piercing intellect to reflect both on the state of American society and on his experiences with abuse, which conjure conflicted feelings of shame, joy, confusion and humiliation. Laymon invites us to consider the consequences of growing up in a nation wholly obsessed with progress yet wholly disinterested in the messy work of reckoning with where we’ve been. In Heavy, Laymon writes eloquently and honestly about growing up a hard-headed black son to a complicated and brilliant black mother in Jackson, Mississippi. From his early experiences of sexual violence, to his suspension from college, to his trek to New York as a young college professor, Laymon charts his complex relationship with his mother, grandmother, anorexia, obesity, sex, writing, and ultimately gambling. By attempting to name secrets and lies he and his mother spent a lifetime avoiding, Laymon asks himself, his mother, his nation, and us to confront the terrifying possibility that few in this nation actually know how to responsibly love, and even fewer want to live under the weight of actually becoming free. weekend has only just begun.

A national treasure's journey to the brink and back. 'Will I wake up?' 'There's a 50:50 chance.' Michael Rosen wasn't feeling well. Soon he was struggling to breathe, and then he was admitted to hospital, suffering from coronavirus as the nation teetered on the edge of a global pandemic. What followed was months on the wards: six weeks in an induced coma, and many more weeks of rehab and recovery as the NHS saved Michael's life, and then got him back on his feet. Throughout Michael's stay in intensive care, a notebook lay at the end of his bed, where the nurses who cared for him wrote letters of hope and support. Embarking on the long road to recovery, Michael was soon ready to start writing about his near-death experience. Combining stunning new prose poems by one of Britain's best loved poets and the moving coronavirus diaries of his nurses, doctors and wife Emma-Louise Williams, this is a beautiful book about love, life and the NHS. Featuring original illustrations by Chris Riddell, each page celebrates the power of community, the importance of kind gestures in dark times, and the indomitable spirits of the people who keep us well.

Agu is just a boy when war arrives at his village. His mother and sister are rescued by the UN, while he and his father remain to fight the rebels. 'Run!' shouts his father when the rebels arrive. And Agu does run. Straight into the rebels' path. In a vivid, sparkling voice, Agu tells the story of what happens to him next; his life as a child-soldier. His story is shocking and painful, and completely unforgettable. Beasts of No Nation gives us an extraordinary portrait of the chaos and violence of war.

London, 1563. England is a troubled nation. Catholic plots against the young Queen Elizabeth spring up all over the country. The herald William Harley known to everyone as Clarenceux - receives a book from his friend and fellow Catholic, Henry Machyn. But Machyn is in fear of his life... What secret can the book hold? And then Clarenceux is visited by the State in the form of Francis Walsingham and his ruthless enforcers, who will stop at nothing to gain possession of it. If Clarenceux and his family are to survive the terror of the state, he must solve the clues contained in the book to unlock its dangerous secrets before it s too late. And when he does, he realises that it's not only his life and the lives of those most dear to him that are at stake...