Critically-acclaimed and bestselling author Paul Morley’s long-awaited biography of Factory Records co-founder and Manchester icon Tony Wilson. Tony Wilson was a man who became synonymous with his beloved city. As the co-founder of the legendary Factory Records and the Hacienda, he appointed himself a custodian of Manchester’s legacy of innovation and change, becoming a cultural pioneer for the North. To Paul Morley, he was this and much more: bullshitting hustler, flashy showman, inventive broadcaster, self-deprecating chancer, publicity seeker, loyal friend. It was Morley to whom Wilson left a daunting final request: to write this book. From Manchester with Love is the biography of a man who changed the world around him through sheer force of personality. In the cultural theatre of Manchester, Tony Wilson broke in and took centre stage.

Factory Records' fame and fortune were based on two bands - Joy Division and New Order - and one personality - that of its director, Tony Wilson. At the height of the label's success in the late 1980s, it ran its own club, the legendary Hacienda, had a string of international hit records, and was admired and emulated around the world. But by the 1990s the story had changed. The back catalogue was sold off, top bands New Order and Happy Mondays were in disarray, and the Hacienda was shut down by the police. Critically acclaimed on its original publication in 1996, this book tells the complete story of Factory Records' spectacular history, from the label's birth in 1970s Manchester, through its '80s heyday and '90s demise. Now updated to include new material on the re-emergence of Joy Division, the death of Tony Wilson and the legacy of Factory Records, it draws on exclusive interviews with the major players to give a fascinating insight into the unique personalities and chaotic reality behind one of the UK's most influential and successful independent record labels.

In this original and vibrant examination of the life and times of Queen Elizabeth II, biographer and novelist A.N. Wilson paints a vivid portrait of ‘Lilibet’ the woman, and of her reign. He also considers the history of the monarchy, drawing a line that stretches from Queen Victoria to the bloody history of Europe in the twentieth century, examining how and why the Royal Family has survived. In part historical overview, but with a keen eye to the future, Wilson writes with his signature warmth, intelligence and humour, celebrating the life of the Queen and her role as figurehead of Britain and the Commonwealth.

In I Love This Game, the long-awaited autobiography of Patrice Evra, the former Manchester United and France star looks back on a remarkable life and career. Having played alongside some of the club's greatest legends, such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Paul Scholes, in one of United's most successful eras, Evra has now found a new role as an in-demand pundit and social media star. But, as he reveals in this frank, often shocking, but always compelling memoir, beneath the surface things were not so simple, and he had to fight all the way to get to the top. Initially, it was football that saved him from being sucked into the gang culture of his tough neighbourhood of Les Ulis in the suburbs of Paris. Then, once he achieved his dream of becoming a professional, he had to deal with racism and a notorious dispute with Luis Suarez; he also became a central figure in the infamous 'strike' by the France national team in the 2010 World Cup; and there was the moment he launched an attack against a Marseille fan while warming up. 'I Love This Game' has become Evra's catchphrase. Throughout this wonderful book, his passion for his sport shines through and there are revealing and entertaining behind-the-scenes insights about the players and managers he's worked with, from Sir Alex Ferguson to Paul Pogba, who knows him as Uncle Pat. With infectious enthusiasm and sharp observation, Evra takes the reader where few football autobiographies dare to tread.

Gabe Wallach, freshly discharged from the Korean War army, reeling from his mother's recent death, and thus freed from old attachments, is hungrily seeking new ones. He's drawn to Paul Herz, a fellow graduate in literature, and to Libby - Paul's moody, Catholic-turned-Jewish wife. Gabe wonders: how to reconcile the ordered 'world of feeling' found in books with the anarchy of life, responsible adulthood, and his own love affairs? When Gabe meets Martha Reganhart, a spirited, outspoken, divorced mother of two, she poses the greatest challenge that he, and his moral enthusiasm, will face.

The 1001 Ways To series addresses themes of major concern for the vast majority of people. Who doesn't want to be happy, wise, successful, confident, enlightened, patient, tranquil, and capable of attracting and keeping good friends? Featuring profound, humorous, and life-enhancing opinions from great minds throughout history, these books provide a treasury of thoughtful contributions from thinkers of different cultures over the centuries and genuine insights into states of being to which we all aspire.From learning how to unlock your inner confidence and becoming the person you always wanted to be, to understanding the exact meaning and importance of patience, this series will help guide you on your way with wise and witty opinions on some of the most contradictory and elusive human goals.

A beautifully written love story set in 1960s Soho amid the revival of fascism When twenty-year-old Vivien Epstein, a Jewish hairdresser from Manchester, moves to London to make a new start, she quickly finds herself swept up in a city buzzing with life, on the cusp of the Swinging Sixties. But beneath the surface, Vivien is desperate to find Jack Fox, a man she had a brief but intense romance with. Her search will lead her to confront the dark resurgence of fascism in London's East End, which has forced some in the Jewish community to take to the streets. Caught between life, death and a secret that could risk everything, can Vivien and Jack's love survive?

The stunning, New York Times bestselling follow-up to The Notebook a story of an ordinary man who goes to extraordinary lengths to win back the love of his life. After thirty years, Wilson Lewis is forced to face a painful truth: the romance has gone out of his marriage. His wife, Jane, has fallen out of love with him, and it is entirely his fault. Despite the shining example of his in-laws, Noah and Allie Calhoun, and their fifty year love affair, Wilson himself is a man unable to express his true feelings. He has spent too little time at home and too much at the office, leaving the responsibility of raising their children to Jane. Now his daughter is about to marry, and his wife is thinking about leaving him. But if Wilson is sure of anything, it is this: His love for Jane has only grown over the years, and he will do everything he can to save their marriage. With the memories of Noah and Allie's inspiring life together as his guide, he vows to find a way to make his wife fall in love with him... all over again. In this powerfully moving tale of love lost, rediscovered, and renewed, Nicholas Sparks once again brings readers his unique insight into the only emotion that ultimately really matters.

Paul Lake was Manchester born, a City fan from birth. His footballing talent was spotted at a young age and, in 1983, he signed coveted schoolboy forms for City. Only a short time later he was handed the team captaincy. An international career soon beckoned and, after turning out for the England under-21 and B teams, he received a call-up to the England training camp for Italia '90. Earmarked as an England captain in the making, Paul became a target for top clubs like Manchester United, Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool, but he always stayed loyal to his beloved club, deeming Maine Road the spiritual home at which his destiny lay. But then, in September 1990, disaster struck. Paul ruptured his cruciate ligament; sustaining the worst possible injury that a footballer can suffer. And so began his nightmare. Neglected, ignored and misunderstood by his club after a succession of failed operations, Paul's career began to fall apart. Watching from the sidelines as similarly injured players regained their fitness, he spiralled into a prolonged bout of severe depression. With an enforced retirement from the game he adored, the death of his father and the collapse of his marriage, Paul was left a broken man. Set against a turning point in English football, I'm Not Really Here is the powerful story of love and loss and the cruel, irreparable damage of injury; of determination, spirit and resilience and of unfulfilled potential and broken dreams.

In It All Adds Up, Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning author Saul Bellow takes readers on a brilliantly insightful journey through literary America over a forty-year period. In sentence after sentence, page after page, readers are offered brilliant perceptions and unusual insights into everyday life in America and the life of the mind. Moving from political figures like Roosevelt and Khrushchev to artists like Mozart, Dostoevsky, and John Cheever, from New York and Chicago to Paris-and including the deeply personal "Autobiography of Ideas"-Bellow, with great humor and wisdom, records the enduring thoughts and opinions of a lifetime of observation, thoughts that speak to us with renewed energy for our times.

Written in the last year of Roth's life, this is the impassioned story of a young man's love affair with literature, and with his teacher. As Ira Stigman turns from his incestuous childhood affairs, he finds himself competing with his best friend for the attention of their literature professor. From Bondage is the the moving culmination of a great writer's life.

After thirty years, Wilson Lewis is forced to face a painful truth: the romance has gone out of his marriage. His wife, Jane, has fallen out of love with him, and it is entirely his fault. Despite the shining example of his in-laws, Noah and Allie Calhoun, and their fifty-year love affair (originally recounted in The Notebook), Wilson himself is a man unable to express his true feelings. He has spent too little time at home and too much at the office, leaving the responsibility of raising their children to Jane. Now his daughter is about to marry, and his wife is thinking about leaving him. But if Wilson is sure of anything, it is this: his love for Jane has only grown over the years, and he will do everything he can to save their marriage. With the memories of Noah and Allie's inspiring life together as his guide, he vows to find a way to make his wife fall in love with him… all over again.

Music critic and writer Paul Morley weaves together memoir and history in a spiralling tale that establishes classical music as the most rebellious genre of all. Paul Morley had stopped being surprised by modern pop music and found himself retreating into the sounds of artists he loved when, as an emerging music journalist in the 70s, he wrote for NME. But not wishing to give in to dreary nostalgia, endlessly circling back to the bands he wrote about in the past, he went searching for something new, rare and wondrous – and found it in classical music. A soaring polemic, a grumpy reflection on modern rock, and a fan's love note, A Sound Mind rejects the idea that classical music is establishment; old; a drag. Instead, the book reveals this genre to be the most exciting and varied in music. A Sound Mind is a multi-layered memoir of Morley's shifting musical tastes, but it is also a compelling history of classical music that reveals the genre's rich and often deviant past – and, hopefully, future. Like a conductor, Morley weaves together timelines and timeframes in an orchestral narrative that declares the transformative and resilient power of classical music from Bach to Shostakovich, Brahms to Birtwistle, Mozart to Cage, travelling from eighteenth century salons to the modern age of Spotify.

'A beautiful debut novel... A real achievement... This is a wise and incisive first novel from a real talent' - Scotsman Winner of the Betty Trask Award. Carmel McKisco is wry, volatile and full of longing: a twenty-year-old girl working nights in a Manchester dive bar. Cut off from her family, and from Tony, her carefree ex, she forges strange alliances with her customers, and daydreams, half-heartedly, about escaping to Cornwall. Cold Water is a poignant picaresque of barmaids and barflies; eccentric individuals all somehow tethered to their past - not least Carmel herself, who is nurturing mordant fixations on both her lost love, Tony, and her washed-up adolescent hero: a singer from Macclesfield. As she spins out the days and nights of an unrelentingly rainy winter she finds herself compelled to confront her romantic preoccupations, for better or worse.

A glittering trip back in time to the 1920s! ‘Wild glamour, class conflict, buried secrets and a cameo appearance by Hetty Feather are all delivered with Wilson’s inimitable, intensely readable flair, interspersed with Nick Sharratt’s cheery illustrations’ - The Guardian A sparkling and glamorous novel from the beloved, bestselling children’s author, Jacqueline Wilson! In a little cottage on the edge of the grand Somerset Estate, Mona lives with her aunt - a dressmaker to the lady of the house. Life on the edge of the Somerset Estate means that Mona knows she will never have a life full of beautiful clothes and riches. But soon, that will all change . . . When Lady Somerset dies and a new member of the family inherits the house, Mona is propelled into a life of razzle-dazzle parties, new Bohemian friends and wonderful trips to London. However, even with these changes Mona discovers that she cannot dance away from her past. History is brought to life for children like never before, from the bestselling author of Hetty Feather and Tracy Beaker!

Paul McGrath is Ireland's best loved sportsman and also its least understood. An iconic football presence during a professional career stretching over 14 years, he played for his country in the European Championship finals of 1988 and the World Cup finals of 1990 and 1994. But, behind the implied glamour of life in the employ of great English clubs like Manchester United and Aston Villa, McGrath wrestled with a range of destructive emotions that made his success in the game little short of miraculous. That story has until now never been told. It is a story that runs from a hard, hidden childhood spent in Dublin's orphanages all the way to the pain of two marriage break-ups and the struggle to cope with life after football. Quite apart from his all too public struggle with alcoholism, the story runs through the surreal highs and calamitous lows of a life lived habitually on the edge of chaos. It is not just a football story. It is an extraordinary human story that is certain to surprise with its candour. Here, for the first time, read about the father he never met; the mother whose love never died; the routine loneliness and ritual bullying endured by a black kid growing up behind closed doors in 1960s Dublin; the emotional breakdown suffered on leaving that institution; the recovery that - remarkably - brought him all the way to Old Trafford; the rollercoaster ride that followed. Here, the guilt, fear, self-loathing are all laid bare in a story fired with hope and determination for the future. It may well be the most candid sports book ever written.