"Queen: The Early Years" by Mark Hodkinson offers an authentic account of Queen's rise to fame, featuring interviews with over 60 friends and colleagues of the band. The book presents a captivating collection of anecdotes and includes previously unseen early photographs of Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor, and John Deacon.
The story of two men who almost single-handedly saved their football club from extinction. In the 80s David Kilpatrick and Graham Morris spied architects' plans to turn Spotland, the home of their beloved, beleaguered Rochdale AFC, into a housing estate. They set about saving the club but first had to take on the alleged 'enemy within'.
The Rochdale team of 1973-74 are considered the worst to play in the Football League. They finished bottom of the third division, winning just two of 46 league matches. Meanwhile, the country was in meltdown. A three-day working week came in as inflation took hold and mineworkers went on strike. This is part sports book, part social history.
John Barrett is northern, working-class and possesses petrol-soaked charisma. His band, Killing Stars, toured the world and enjoyed numerous Top Ten hits while holding on to an integrity they forged through the revolution of punk and new wave. Inevitably, the hits dried up, his time ran out. He's now washed up, an alcoholic who considers his current album utter s**t' and says so on national television. Dave Carey, his boyhood mate and a fellow cultural insurrectionist, was left behind years before, severed from the dream. After a string of humiliating public incidents, Barrett summons him from a humdrum job on a local weekly newspaper to ghost-write his autobiography. He undertakes the task by Barrett's hospital bed where the pair reflect on fame, addiction, the legacy of punk, girls they've loved (and lost), suicide, mortality, where it all went wrong. And right.
This love letter to reading is a philosophical take on why we read and collect books, told through a working-class lens Mark Hodkinson grew up among the terrace houses of Rochdale in a house with just one book. Today, Mark is an author, journalist and publisher. He still lives in Rochdale but is now surrounded by 3,500 titles - at the last count. No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy is his story of growing up a working-class lad during the 1970s and 1980s. It's about the schools, the music, the people - but pre-eminently and profoundly the books and authors that led the way and shaped his life. It's about a family who didn't see the point of reading, and a troubled grandad who taught Mark the power of stories. It's also a story of how writing and reading has changed over the last five decades.
Set in 2004. A young writer-to-be is having doubts. To clear his head he embarks on a road trip with pals, starting at rainy Grasmere. Hopes don’t rise there. In the best tradition of classic novels of the 1960s, he is torn between two girls. Meanwhile, his university lecturer is breaking down in a rundown pub on the edge of town and his young nephew’s illness has set a fault-line through the entire family.A lot of life impacting — sad, happy, funny, all of it.
Herbert Kenny, an army dispatch rider, was the first ally to push open the gates at Belsen Concentration Camp, in April 1945.He kept his story from the world until a chance correspondence with a trainee journalist brought it to light. Now, forty years on, that reporter is ready to share Herbert's incredible tale with the world.With unprecedented access to Herbert's diaries, letters and interviews, Mark Hodkinson brings to life the harrowing conditions of Bergen-Belsen and its eventual liberation. From the events leading up to its gruesome discovery, to the trauma Herbert faced and his abandonment in the aftermath, this is a testament to the power of one person in the face of unimaginable darkness.This is the tale of an ordinary man thrown into an extraordinary, life-changing situation. How can a person cope when they come face-to-face with history's darkest moment? Herbert Kenny was that man. This is his story.
Eine Fußballjugend in Nordengland
Believe in the Sign spielt in einer verlassenen Ecke nördlich von Manchester. Es sind die Erinnerungen eines Jungen, der halbwegs glücklich und normal hätte aufwachsen können, wenn er nicht einer perversen Leidenschaft erlegen wäre: der Hingabe an den örtlichen Fußballclub AFC Rochdale, der seit 35 Jahren in der vierten englischen Liga dümpelt. Schlaglichtartig wird das Aufwachsen in den 1970er- und 1980er-Jahren beleuchtet: Jugendliche stürzen auf Partys ab und suchen Orientierung in Kirchengruppen, Elton John erscheint, Fabriken schließen und seelenlose Supermärkte eröffnen, Schulabgänger hängen rum, während ihre arbeitslosen Mütter Tupperwarenpartys feiern. Und der AFC Rochdale verliert auch das nächste Spiel ohne Gegenwehr … Believe in the Sign war eines der Sportbücher des Jahres der Times und des Guardian.
DAS Buch für die ganze Familie - zum Kino-Ereignis 2015. Mit vielen Bildern und dem grandiosen Abenteuer zum Vorlesen: Zwei Tierkinder müssen sich vor der großen Flut retten! Zwar steht eine Arche bereit, aber leider stehen nicht alle Tiere auf der Passagierliste. So auch Finny und Leah, die es zwar mit einiger List auf das Schiff schaffen, aber in letzter Sekunde ins Wasser fallen. Plötzlich sind die beiden Tierkinder allein und aufeinander angewiesen, doch mithilfe neuer Freunde schaffen sie es bis zur rettenden Bergspitze.
