To Cut A Long Story Short

In this autobiography Tony Hadley, lead singer of 80s band Spandau Ballet and winner of the ITV1 series Reborn in the USA will reveal the highs and lows of his twenty year career in music. At the height of New Romantic fever classic songs such as 'True', 'Through the Barricades' and 'Gold' earned Tony Hadley, with his good looks and stage presence, a legion of teenage fans around the world. With his unique vocals, Tony appeared to have it all-on the surface at least-and then he lost it. His autobiography will be a great slice of 80s nostalgia.

The fourteen short stories in To Cut a Long Story Short show Jeffrey Archer's great skills with a wide variety of character, of subject and of setting, but all with that trademark twist in the tale. Every reader will have their own favourites: the choices run from love at first sight across the train tracks to the cleverest of confidence tricks, from the quirks of the legal profession – and those who are able to manipulate both sides of the Bar – to the creative financial talents of a member of Her Majesty's diplomatic service – but for a good cause. The last story, The Grass is Always Greener, is possibly the best piece Archer has written, and will haunt you for the rest of your life.

In this autobiography Tony Hadley, lead singer of 80s band Spandau Ballet and winner of the ITV1 series Reborn in the USA, reveals the highs and lows of his twenty year career in music. At the height of New Romantic fever, classic songs such as 'True', 'Through the Barricades' and 'Gold' earned Tony Hadley, with his good looks and stage presence, a legion of teenage fans around the world. With his unique vocals, Tony appeared to have it all - then he lost it. After a series of bitter rows, Spandau Ballet split. Along with former bandmates John Keeble and Steve Norman, Tony launched a legal battle against Gary Kemp over royalties - and lost. Professionally his life was in disarray. Personally he was beset by tragedy. His father died. His wife suffered miscarriages. Yet Tony has emerged intact. Tony's fanbase has remained loyal to him through the years as evidenced by his popularity on Reborn in the USA, where he was clearly earmarked as a potential winner early on in the series. His autobiography is a great slice of 80s nostalgia which enjoyed enormous success in hardback.

In this powerful, unforgettable memoir, acclaimed novelist Darin Strauss examines the far-reaching consequences of the tragic moment that has shadowed his whole life. In his last month of high school, he was behind the wheel of his dad's Oldsmobile, driving with friends, heading off to play mini-golf. Then: a classmate swerved in front of his car. The collision resulted in her death. With piercing insight and stark prose, Darin Strauss leads us on a deeply personal, immediate, and emotional journey—graduating high school, going away to college, starting his writing career, falling in love with his future wife, becoming a father. Along the way, he takes a hard look at loss and guilt, maturity and accountability, hope and, at last, acceptance. The result is a staggering, uplifting tour de force. Look for special features inside, including an interview with Colum McCann.

Ingenious and amusing illustrated inventions from the brilliant mind of Dominic Wilcox 'I love this book. Laugh-out-loud funny. I want a salty thumb lolly now!' Harry Hill As we go about our day-to-day business, we see the same stuff every day. The bath, the fridge, the lamp post, the bicycle, the tree... so far, so humdrum. But not if you are Dominic Wilcox. Dominic sees things a little differently. For him, inside each of these everyday things are hundreds of surprising ideas waiting to be discovered. The Portable Bottom Seat, the Sick Bag Beard, Wrist Nets for the Butterfingered – Dominic's unexpected inventions, conflations and modifications promise to make your life that little bit easier, or at least more amusing. Normal will never seem quite so normal again.

Brevity is the soul of wit. It is definitely the soul of these four and twenty pieces written as flash fiction, short story and a few that are prose-poems. In most of these pieces the idea is to attempt a sketch, to flash an image, to evoke a quick ‘Ah!’ rather than to tell an elaborate story. It is hoped that these tiny literary experiences lead to larger thoughts, memories and images in the reader's mind. The abused child, the undermined mother, the naughty old man, the bewildered artist, the lost transgender – they all find themselves captured in these pages. The revenge of a battered wife, the disgust of a domestic pet, the dreams of a struggling mother, the state of sexual politics a hundred years from now, the horror of war, the reality of a writer’s vocation and many more aspects of life as we see it – and don’t – are portrayed in these vignettes.

“What does ‘allegiance’ mean?” the New Teacher asked, hand over her heart. In this classic and chilling tale about an elementary school classroom in post-war occupied America, James Clavell brings to light the vulnerability of children and the power educators have to shape and change young minds. Originally written in the Cold War era, Clavell’s extraordinary and enduringly relevant allegory on the impressionability of the human mind is still read in schools around the globe today, and is a call to every person to keep questioning and keep learning.

This edition brings together three of Jeffrey Archer's classic collections of short stories: To Cut a Long Story Short, Cat O' Nine Tales and And Thereby Hangs a Tale, showcasing the master storyteller's skill like never before. Every reader will have their own favourites: the choices run from love at first sight across the train tracks to the cleverest of confidence tricks, from the quirks of the legal profession - and those who are able to manipulate both sides of the Bar - to the creative financial talents of a member of Her Majesty's diplomatic service - but for a good cause. In 'Caste-Off', Jamwal and Nisha fall in love while waiting for a traffic light to turn green in Delhi, and in 'Don't Drink The Water', a company chairman tries to poison his wife while on a trip to St Petersburg - with unexpected consequences ... The stories held in these pages are irresistible: ingeniously plotted, with richly drawn characters and deliciously unexpected conclusions.