All That Glittered

Stop in the name of love ... and of Motown, and read Tony Turner's dazzling insider's story -- updated with new material for the blockbuster 2000 Supremes tour!

The definitive, classic account of the fall of the House of Baring, the oldest merchant bank in London, in 1995 and the ultimate rogue trader, Nick Leeson, who brought down the venerable institution with speculative investing. John Gapper, associate editor of the Financial Times, and his coauthor Nicholas Denton, now founder of Gawker Media, interviewed all the major players involved in the collapse of one of England's oldest banks. All That Glitters reveals the Faustian deal struck between the whizz-kid derivatives traders who seemed to be bringing in huge profits and the old guard who were happy to pocket them without asking too many questions. Gapper and Denton present a thrilling, in-depth account of Nick Leeson's motives and methods for hiding the unauthorized speculative trading as well as the final days of Barings and the last-ditch attempts by politicians and bankers to save the bank.

From New York to London to St Tropez, All That Glitters by the world's favourite storyteller, Danielle Steel, is the story of a young woman finding her place in the world and learning the hardest lesson of all - who to trust. Coco Martin, the adored only child of wealthy parents, has lived a charmed existence in their beautiful Manhattan home, and summers in a fabulous Hamptons house. Despite her privileged upbringing, Coco's parents instilled in their daughter their own values of hard work, honesty and kindness. But as she's just entering her twenties, Coco's world is devastated by the sudden death of her beloved parents. Now the heir to a considerable fortune, Coco must find her way in a world that no longer makes sense to her. The estate is protected by a trustee, a close friend of her mother and father. But is he the honourable man she believes him to be? Beginning a new life in London, she falls in love with a charismatic, handsome, penniless aristocrat, who introduces her to a world of fabulous parties and extravagance. Coco's oldest friend Sam fears that this whirlwind romance won't last, but Coco is sure that she has finally found happiness. In the middle of London's glamorous social scene, Coco struggles to see things as they really are . . .

World-renowned ice climber Margo Talbot shares her compelling story of healing and self-discovery amid the frozen landscapes of the planet. Born and raised in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Margo Talbot grew up with a distant mother who "ruled the household with her eyes"; a father who opted to spend much of his time away from home; and four siblings struggling to deal with their particular domestic situation. As a result of her family's dysfunction and her own growing mental illness, young Margo rarely smiled, had difficulty connecting with others, and was plagued with a black wave of anger and sadness that overshadowed much of the world around her. In time, drugs, alcohol, sex, and violence became her primary ways to connect with herself and others. From the depths of suicidal depression and a conversation with Death, Talbot eventually found solace and redemption in both the healing power of nature and the glory of climbing frozen landscapes in some of the world's most pristine and challenging environments. Heartbreaking, honest, energizing, and inspiring All That Glitters is a remarkable memoir that shines a fresh light of hope on mental illness.

The interlocking lives of five Hollywood leading ladies spawn “tragedies, dark doings, jealousies, murder, passion on the grand scale” (Chicago Tribune). Charlie Caine has been to too many Hollywood funerals. The studio system is long gone, and its stars—some forgotten, some preserved for display on a late-night show—are beginning to pass on, as well. Only a few turn out for the final performance of Babe Austrian, a peroxide-blond beauty whose red-hot talkies changed the way America thought about sex. As he gazes into her coffin, Caine remembers Babe as she was: a dynamite beauty with secrets that could have burned Hollywood to the ground. In Babe and four other interlocking novellas, Caine recalls the leading ladies of long-lost Hollywood: Belinda, whose daughter was as cruel as she was lovely; Claire, who would do anything to stay in the public eye; April, fragile, beautiful, and mad; and Maude, Hollywood’s most respected matron, whose happy marriage had a lie at its heart. Charlie Caine knows where cinema’s bodies are buried, and he’s anxious to start digging.

From the late 1920s to late 1950s, the Broadway theatre was America's cultural epicenter. Television didn't exist and movies were novelties. Entertainment took the form of literature, music, and theatre. During this golden age of Broadway, actors and actresses became legends and starred in now classic plays. Laurence Olivier, Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontaine were names to remember, etching plays into memory as they brought the words of Tennessee Williams or Eugene O'Neill to life. Joseph Cotton romanced Katherine Hepburn in Philip Barry's The Philadelphia Story while Laurette Taylor became The Glass Menagerie's Amanda Wingfield. Frederic March, Florence Eldridge, Jason Robards Jr. and Bradford Dillman showed us life among the ruins in Long Day's Journey Into Night. In All That Glittered, Ethan Mordden, long one of Broadway's best chroniclers, recreates the fascinating lost world of its golden age.

Sisters Aly and Brooke launch a nail service for kids at their overworked mother's salon only to discover that their brilliant idea needs a bit of polish.

During the century after 1750, Great Britain absorbed much of the world's supply of gold into its pockets, cupboards, and coffers when it became the only major country to adopt the gold standard as the sole basis of its currency. Over the same period, the nation's emergence was marked by a powerful combination of Protestantism, commerce, and military might, alongside preservation of its older social hierarchy. In this rich and broad-ranging work, Timothy Alborn argues for a close connection between gold and Britain's national identity. Beginning with Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, which validated Britain's position as an economic powerhouse, and running through the mid-nineteenth century gold rushes in California and Australia, Alborn draws on contemporary descriptions of gold's value to highlight its role in financial, political, and cultural realms. He begins by narrating British interests in gold mining globally to enable the smooth operation of the gold standard. In addition to explaining the metal's function in finance, he explores its uses in war expenditure, foreign trade, religious observance, and ornamentation at home and abroad. Britons criticized foreign cultures for their wasteful and inappropriate uses of gold, even as it became a prominent symbol of status in more traditional features of British society, including its royal family, aristocracy, and military. Although Britain had been ambivalent in its embrace of gold, ultimately it enabled the nation to become the world's most modern economy and to extend its imperial reach around the globe. All That Glittered tells the story of gold as both a marker of value and a valuable commodity, while providing a new window onto Britain's ascendance after the 1750s.