Showing results for "Memoir" in Great Britain

In 1940, Winston Churchill famously set in motion the Special Operations Executive. With only the moon to guide their way, the daring pilots of 161 Squadron constantly faced danger: their locations could be discovered, German night-fighters and flak had to be contended with and, of course, they dealt with the worst of European weather. Despite these extra risks, these Special Duties pilots were remarkably successful.

The British Crown is in crisis, with constitutional threats at home and abroad. Since their infamous 'Megxit' split from the Royal Family, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have dominated global headlines. Ferociously controversial, not least for demanding privacy while seeking the spotlight, the Sussexes have remained a subject of gripping fascination for both supporters and cynics alike. Both camps are united on one platform: what is the endgame? Fighting to preserve their royal titles and privileges, In their attempts to create a Sussex brand the couple have fuelled bitter hostility.

In 10 lectures, award-winning historian Patrick N. Allitt transports listeners to England in the 1840s and 1850s. During those two decades, Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, became one of the most influential people in the country and remains a figure of fascination even today. In fact, the British royal family as we know it wouldn't exist without the private and public actions of this detached, impartial, and upright political figure.

In February 1969, the Beatles began working on what became their final album together. Abbey Road introduced a number of new techniques and technologies to the Beatles' sound and included "Come Together", "Something", and "Here Comes the Sun", which all emerged as classics. Womack's colorful retelling of how this landmark album was written and recorded is a treat for fans of the Beatles. Solid State takes listeners back to 1969 and into EMI's Abbey Road Studios, which boasted an advanced solid state transistor mixing desk.

Assim que Winston Churchill assumiu como primeiro-ministro do Reino Unido, Hitler invadiu a Holanda e a Bélgica. A Polônia e a Tchecoslováquia já haviam sucumbido e a evacuação de Dunquerque ocorreria duas semanas depois. Pelos doze meses seguintes, Hitler travaria uma incessante campanha de bombardeios, matando 45 mil britânicos. Coube a Churchill manter a nação unida e convencer o presidente americano Franklin Roosevelt de que era um aliado valioso―e com disposição para lutar até o fim.

Beginning on the night in November 1963 when his mum took him to see the Beatles live at Manchester’s ABC Cinema, Mike Pickering takes the listener through sixty years of clubs, clothes, gigs, record labels, football matches and politics. Pickering has lived through decades of rapid change in popular music. As an influential DJ he introduced house music into the legendary Haçienda. He signed Happy Mondays and James to Factory Records before working with Kasabian, Gossip and Calvin Harris at Sony.

From Elizabeth II to King William, The Windsor Legacy offers a riveting exploration of the British monarchy's resilience and influence over the past century, looking at its key players and conflicts, with a forward-looking examination of its future. From the abdication crisis, royal family entanglements, Cold War espionage, betrayal, scandalous love affairs, to more recent constitutional crises and the monarchy's most closely guarded secrets and feuds.

Charming, vibrant, witty and edifying, The Life of Samuel Johnson is a work of great obsession and boundless reverence. The literary critic Samuel Johnson was 54 when he first encountered Boswell; the friendship that developed spawned one of the greatest biographies in the history of world literature. The book is full of humorous anecdote and rich characterization, and paints a vivid picture of 18th-century London, peopled by prominent personalities of the time.

December 1936. The king of England, Edward VIII, has given up his crown, foregoing his duty for the love of Wallis Simpson, an American divorcée. Their courtship has been dogged by controversy and scandal, but with Edward's abdication, they can live happily ever after. But do they?

In 1876 Sophia Duleep Singh was born into royalty. Her father, Maharajah Duleep Singh, was heir to the Kingdom of the Sikhs. Exiled to England, the dispossessed Maharajah transformed his estate at Elveden in Suffolk into a Moghul palace. Sophia, god-daughter of Queen Victoria, was raised a genteel aristocratic Englishwoman: presented at court, afforded grace-and-favour lodgings at Hampton Court Palace and photographed wearing the latest fashions for the society pages. But when, in secret defiance of the British government, she travelled to India, she returned a revolutionary.

In this remarkable biography, Carolly Erickson brings Elizabeth I to life and allows us to see her as a living, breathing, elegant, flirtatious, diplomatic, violent, arrogant, and outrageous woman who commands our attention, fascination, and awe. With the special skill for which she is acclaimed, Carolly Erickson electrifies the senses as she evokes with total fidelity the brilliant colors of Elizabethan clothing and jewelry, the texture of tapestries, and even the close, perfumed air of castle rooms. Erickson demonstrates her extraordinary ability to discern and bring to life psychological and physical reality.

In this guide-that’s-not-a-guide, metal detectorist cousins Ellie and Lucie explore their local landscape, getting to grips with the hobby, history and themselves along the way. ‘Enchanting and visceral’ DR MADELEINE PELLING ‘Brilliantly witty and magnificently down to earth’ DR...

Elizabeth Mountbatten never expected her father to die so suddenly, so young, leaving her with a throne to fill and a global institution to govern. Crowned at 25, she was already a wife and mother. Follow the journey of a woman learning to become a queen. As Britain lifted itself out of the shadow of war, the new monarch faced her own challenges.

Written in a style similar to that of Nigel Slater’s multi-award-winning food memoir ‘Toast’, this is a celebration of the glory, humour, eccentricities and embarrassments that are The British at Table. The British have a relationship with their food that is unlike that of any other...

John Milton (1608-1674) has a unique claim on literary and intellectual history as the author of both Paradise Lost, the greatest narrative poem in English, and prose defenses of the execution of Charles I that influenced the French and American revolutions. Tracing Milton’s literary, intellectual, and political development with unprecedented depth and understanding, Poet of Revolution is an unmatched biographical account of the formation of the mind that would go on to create Paradise Lost - but would first justify the killing of a king.

Brought to you by Penguin. #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER *A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR THE FT, GUARDIAN, SUNDAY TIMES, TELEGRAPH, TIMES, OBSERVER, i NEWSPAPER, NEW STATESMAN, PROSPECT, CHURCH TIMES AND SCOTSMAN* The searing inside story of our broken politics from the former Cabinet minister and co-host...

These are entirely Napoleon Bonaparte's own words, written and spoken, and collected in journal form. A particular focus here has been put on Napoleon's writings that pertain to military and state matters. The dates in terms of the revolutionary calendar have been modernized, and names and titles of individuals mentioned have been maintained with no attempt at uniformity. This production was begun on the 250th year of Napoleon's birth.

Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary-Jane are famous for the same thing, though they never met. They came from Fleet Street, Knightsbridge, Wolverhampton, Sweden and Wales. They wrote ballads, ran coffeehouses and lived on country estates; they breathed ink dust from printing presses and escaped people traffickers. What they had in common was the year of their murders: 1888. The person responsible was never identified, but the character created by the press to fill that gap has become far more famous than any of these five women.

Some of the greatest heroes and villains in British history were thrown together in these turbulent times: Henry V, whose victory at Agincourt and prudent rule at home marked the high point of the medieval monarchy; Edward IV, who was handed his crown by the scheming soldier Warwick the Kingmaker, before their alliance collapsed into a fight to the death; and the last Plantagenet, Richard III, who stole the throne and murdered his own nephews, the Princes in the Tower.

James Boswell forever changed the genre of biography when he painstakingly transformed a scholarly profusion of detail into a perceptive, lifelike portrait of Dr. Samuel Johnson. James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson reveals a man of outsized appetites and private vulnerabilities and is the source of much of what we know about one of the towering figures of English literature.