Octopus Publishing Group strana 20 z 27

'Written with such an emotional literacy that you want to show it to people who don't see the point of football so you can go "This! This is what it's all about. This is why it's great!" I highly recommend it'. - Jim Campbell, Football Ramble'A book so beautiful that it finally made me understand what football means. An exceptional writer.'- Bella Mackie'So much more than a book about football. A book about aging, community and memory. Rich in detail and great jokes. I wish I had written it.' - Josh Widdicombe'Mesmerising and unputdownable, like Fever Pitch meets The Sportswriter. I commend it in the highest terms.' - Amol RajanFrom the Sunday Times bestselling author of It's Always Summer Somewhere comes a moving and often hilarious journey through the 2024/25 FA Cup - from the first muddy preliminary round in Penrith toa glorious sunny day at Wembley. On the brink of turning 40, Felix White sets out to watch a match from every round of the Cup, meeting fans, players and dreamers at every level of the English game. As he travels the country, football becomes a way to explore memory, identity, grief and joy. While he reflects on his own lifelong obsessions, his story becomes a unique expression of how the game communicates something vital, both literal and internal, between a child and an adult. Told with lyrical wit and heartfelt honesty, Whatever Will Be, Will Be is more than just a story about football - it's about growing up, holding on and the strange ways sport connects us all.

''David is one of the most courageous men I know . . . His book is one that everyone should read to understand coercive control, and what it is like to be a child growing up in a house where there is domestic abuse'' Melanie Brown MBE, aka Mel B''Unthinkable stares down horror and heartbreak. A story told with unflinching courage and a compelling drive for the truth'' Laura Kuenssberg''Beautifully written and deeply moving, I found David''s book so compelling I read it in one sitting. It is a powerful call to action as much as a very personal memoir'' Samira Ahmed''A devastating portrayal of coercive control as depicted by a son'' Irish Independent"When my mum struck, it was with the cumulative rage of thirty years of hurt."David Challen grew up in the perfect home with the model family.He also grew up inside a house which concealed his father''s manipulation and control.One Saturday in 2010, David''s mother struck more than twenty blows to the back of her husband''s head with a hammer after thirty years of abuse. She then washed the dirty dishes from the lunch she had just cooked and left the house. In those few minutes, David''s life was changed forever.Over the next decade, he led the fight to overturn her conviction; and in doing so he not only freed his mother and helped change the legal system, but also became a voice for the countless victims of coercive control across the country. This is a powerful story of a son''s love for his mother; of an insidious form of abuse that must be better understood if we are to truly tackle it; and fight that reshaped how society understands domestic abuse.

THIS BOOK IS A LOVE STORY TO BOOKS. A love story to climbing all the way down a book's rope, free diving to its bottom, and then resurfacing at its close, ready to breathe a different kind of air. Nanako Hanada's life is in crisis. Recently separated from her husband, living in youth hostels and internet cafes, her work is going no better. Book sales at the eccentric Village Vanguard bookstore in Tokyo, which Nanako manages, are dwindling. Fallen out of love in all aspects of her life, Nanako realises how narrow her life has become, with no friends outside of her colleagues, and no hobbies apart from reading and arranging books. That's when Nanako, in a bid to inject some excitement into her life, joins a meet-up site where people meet for 30-minute bursts to find romance, build a network, or just share ideas. She describes herself as a sexy bookseller who will give you a personalised book recommendation. In the year that follows, Nanako meets an eclectic range of strangers, some of whom wanted more than just a book, others she became real friends with. Written with a subtle but sharp sense of humour, The Bookshop Woman is a heart-warming book about a bookseller's self-discovery. It offers a glimpse into bookselling in Japan and the quirky side of Tokyo and its people. Books, once again, offer inspiration and serve as channels for human communication. A heartwarming true story of how one woman in crisis turned her life around by meeting people off a dating website and giving them personalised book recommendations.

All You Need is Love is a ground-breaking oral history of the Beatles and how it all came to an end. Based on never-before-published or heard interviews with Paul McCartney, Yoko Ono, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and their families, friends, and business associates, this is a landmark book, containing stunning new revelations, about the biggest band the world has ever seen. In 1980-1981 former COO of Apple Corp, Peter Brown and author Steven Gaines interviewed everyone in the Beatles' inner circle and included a small portion of the transcripts in their international bestselling book The Love You Make, which spent four months on the New York Times bestseller list. But left in their archives was a treasure trove of unique and candid interviews that they chose not to publish, until now. A powerful work assembled through honest, intimate, sometimes contradictory and always fascinating testimony, All You Need is Love is a one-of-a-kind insight into the final days, weeks, months and years of the Beatles phenomenon.

This is the memoir music fans have been waiting for. Half of one of the greatest creative partnerships in popular music, Bernie Taupin is the man who wrote the lyrics for Elton John, who conceived the ideas that spawned countless hits, and sold millions and millions of records. Together, they were a duo, a unit, an immovable object. Their extraordinary, half-century-and-counting creative relationship has been chronicled in biopics (like 2019's Rocketman) and even John's own autobiography, Me. But Taupin, a famously private person, has kept his own account of their adventures close to his chest, until now. Written with honesty and candour, Scatterhot allows the reader to witness events unfolding from Taupin's singular perspective, sometimes front and center, sometimes from the edge, yet always described vibrantly, with an infectious energy that only a vivid songwriter's prose could offer. From his childhood in the East Midlands of England whose imagination was sparked and forever informed by the distinctly American mythopoetics of country music and cowboys, to the glittering, star-studded fishbowl of '70s and '80s Beverly Hills, Scattershot is simultaneously a Tom Jones­-like picaresque journey across a landscape of unforgettable characters, as well as a striking, first-hand account of a creative era like no other and one man's experience at the core of it. An exciting, multi-decade whirlwind, Scattershot whizzes around the world as we ride shotgun with Bernie on his extraordinary life. We visit New York with him and Elton on the cusp of global fame. We spend time with him in Australia almost in residency at an infamous rock 'n' roll hotel in an endless blizzard of drugs. And we spend late, late night hours with John Lennon, with Bob Marley, and hanging with Frank Sinatra. And beyond the world of popular music, we witness memorable encounters with writers like Graham Greene, painters like Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali, and scores of notable misfits, miscreants, eccentrics, and geniuses, known and unknown. Even if they're not famous in their own right, they are stars on the page, and we discover how they inspired the indelible lyrics to songs such as "Tiny Dancer," "Candle in the Wind," "Bennie and The Jets," and so many more. Unique and utterly compelling, Scattershot will transport the reader across the decades and around the globe, along the way meeting some of the greatest creative minds of the 20th century, and into the vivid imaginings of one of music's most legendary lyricists.

In TAXTOPIA a rogue accountant breaks ranks to share his journey from clueless naif to skilled tax consultant -and in doing so blows the lid on the murky world of making the tax burdens of the ultra-wealthy disappear. In the topsy-turvy world of tax avoidance, you can get richer by buying a yacht, the world's biggest exporter of coffee is Switzerland, and billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Donald Trump and the Duke of Westminster often pay less tax than you do. Written with sharp wit and over-brimming with inside secrets, the anonymous author shows us that not only does the global tax system encourage dubious practice which favours the rich, but that it was specifically founded with that in mind. If you suspect that tax is a rigged game, a con, designed to fleece the little guy, you are about to find out just how shockingly true that really is. Welcome to TAXTOPIA.

'Waypoints is a memoir with a difference! I wanted to tell the stories and share the experiences that have shaped me, but to do that I needed to challenge myself and spend some time in my own company, away from the distractions of everyday life. And for me there's no better place to reflect than in the wild Scottish Highlands.' In this journey of self-discovery, Sam Heughan sets out along the West Highland Way to explore his heritage and reflect on the personal waypoints that define him. The result is a love letter to the wild Scottish landscape that means so much to Sam, and a charming, funny, wise and searching insight to the world through his eyes. The walk itself is the backdrop for this narrative, which tells the story of Sam's life while exploring his outlook, values and interests. Sam is a figure of fascinating contrasts, a Hollywood star with deep roots in rural Scotland, he's both outgoing and content in his own company. He has strong connections with his fans while recognising the fragility and value of anonymity, and in My Peak Challenge he has created a network that brings people together as they chase individual goals. In his new book, while charting a path through a stunning wilderness, Sam maps out the moments that shaped his views on dreams and ambition, family, friendships, love and life. Waypoints is a deeply personal journey that reveals as much to Sam about himself as it does to his readers.