Brian McDonald est un auteur acclamé dont les œuvres explorent souvent des relations humaines complexes et des dilemmes moraux. Son écriture est connue pour sa perspicacité incisive et sa capacité à capturer les nuances de la nature humaine. McDonald explore magistralement le thème de la recherche d'identité et de sens dans le monde moderne. Son style unique et sa profonde compréhension de la psychologie humaine résonnent auprès des lecteurs du monde entier.
Ink Spots is a collection of brief but powerful essays on writing, story structure and filmmaking by award-winning writer/director/producer Brian McDonald. With inspiring wit and wisdom, he will not only teach you how to be a better writer, but a more observant person and a better student in any field. You'll find yourself uncontrollably thinking deeply and analytically about writing, film or anything else you are passionate about in life.
Decades before the Krays, London was plagued by gang warfare as vicious and terrifying as anything that was to come. Territorial tribes fought pitched battles for honour and pride. As the Bethnal Green Boys hunted Hackney's Broadway Boys, Clerkenwell fought Somers Town, the Red Hands haunted Deptford and the Silver Hatchets terrorised Islington. The first ever history of these intriguing street mobs is a riveting journey through the violent underbelly of one of the world's great cities.
Rescue Me meets Blue Bloods in this riveting social history of the New York City Fire Department told from the perspective of the Feehan family, who served in the FDNY for four generations and counting.Seen through the eyes of four generations of a firefighter family, Five Floors Up the story of the modern New York City Fire Department. From the days just after the horse-drawn firetruck, to the devastation of the 1970s when the Bronx was Burning, to the unspeakable tragedy of 9/11, to the culture-busting department of today, a Feehan has worn the shoulder patch of the FDNY. The tale shines the spotlight on the career of William M. Feehan. “Chief” Feehan is the only person to have held every rank in the FDNY including New York City’s 28th Fire Commissioner. He died in the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. But Five Floors Up is at root an intimate look at a firefighter clan, the selflessness and bravery of not only those who face the flames, but the family members who stand by their sides. Alternately humorous and harrowing, rich with anecdotes and meticulously researched and reported, Five Floors Up takes us inside a world few truly understand, documenting an era that is quickly passing us by.
The Forty Elephants were unique in the annals of British crime. Known also as the Forty Thieves, they were the country's only all-female crime syndicate, a gang of tough but glamorous women who plundered the fashion stores and jewel shops of the West End. They were led to infamy by Alice Diamond and were 'notorious for their good looks, fine stature, and smart clothing' as well as for stealing the most expensive gems and clothes. Crime historian Brian McDonald has uncovered a wealth of material to write the first ever full-length account of these remarkable women.
New York Times bestselling author Malachy McCourt offers an authoritative and engrossing one-volume chronicle of Ireland from pre-Christian times to the present, told with Irish flair by the gifted storyteller. The pages are populated with figures from myth, history, and the present-from Saint Patrick to Oliver Cromwell, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, and Charles Parnell to Sinead O'Connor and Bono. Some beloved, some controversial-each influenced the course of Irish and world history. While McCourt vividly describes Ireland's turbulent history, he also offers a cultural survey with fresh insights to the folklore, literature, art, music, and cuisine of Ireland, producing an irresistible tour through the Emerald Isle.
Slapped with a libel suit after an appearance on a talk show,Malachy McCourt crows, "If they could only see me now in the slums of Limerick, a big shot, sued for a million. Bejesus, isn't America a great and wonderful country" His older brother Frank's Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, Angela's Ashes, took its somber tone from the bleak atmosphere of those slums, while Malachy's boisterous recollections are fueled by his zestful appreciation for the opportunities and oddities of his native land. He and Frank were born in Brooklyn, moved with their parents to Ireland as children, then returned to the States as adults. This book covers the decade 1952-63, when Malachy roistered across the U.S., Europe, and Asia, but spent most of his time in New York City. There his ready wit and quick tongue won him an acting job with the Irish Players, a semiregular stint on the Tonight show hosted by Jack Paar, and friendships with some well-heeled, well-born types who shared his fondness for saloon life and bankrolled him in an East Side saloon that may have been the first singles bar. He chronicles those events--and many others--with back-slapping bonhomie. Although McCourt acknowledges the personal demons that pursued him from his poverty-stricken childhood and destroyed his first marriage, this is on the whole an exuberant autobiography that pays tribute to the joys of a freewheeling life.
Before he runs out of time, Irish bon vivant MALACHY MCCOURT shares his views
on death - sometimes hilarious and often poignant - and on what will or won't
happen after his last breath is drawn.