2011

Foreword by Roy Hudd OBE

Richard Baker’s companion volume to British Music Hall takes us on a grand tour of variety theatres and stars from the 1920s up to the 1960s, when they finally succumbed to the mass appeal of television.  A wonderfully nostalgic book, about which Roy Hudd OBE writes: “Richard’s research is thorough, immaculate and painstaking, but never, ever boring.  He, like the folk from the exciting, highly coloured world he writes about, makes facts fun.  His love for his subject comes through on every page.”

Foreword by Victoria Pendleton MBE

Peta Bee, award-winning journalist on health and fitness, principally in The Times, wrote this copiously illustrated official London 2012 Olympic Games guide for anyone aiming to improve their exercise and fitness levels, both in the run-up to the Games and for the “legacy” years which followed.

A collector’s item featuring all the stunning dresses worn by Marilyn on and off the set and designed by her trusted and beloved designer, Billy Travilla, including the famous white dress from the skirt-billowing scene in The Seven Year Itch and the purple-pink satin dress from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.  Packed with photographs of Marilyn wearing the dresses and Travilla’s exquisite colour sketches of the designs.

Linda was plunged into the dark, terrifying world of 1960s institutional life at St Anne’s Convent, Orpington, a Catholic children’s home run by the infamous Sisters of Mercy and a former monk, who inflicted bizarre and barbaric practices on the children in their care.  Cry and You Cry Alone is the achingly honest story of a survivor of shocking child abuse that took place in the heart of an English suburb.

What have spondulics to do with spines or lawyers with avocados?  In It’s A Wonderful Word, Albert Jack collects over 500 of the strangest, funniest-sounding and most downright delightful words in the English language, and traces them back to their often puzzling origins.

Sarah’s parents had no idea when they sent their teenage daughter to board at a school within an evangelical church community, that they were consigning her to a cult, which would isolate her from her family, brutalise her and brainwash her into submission.  Sarah looked on in helpless distress as each of her very young children was being beaten and force-fed by the Church’s leaders.  Call Me Evil, Let Me Go is the shocking, but inspiring true story of a mother’s ultimately successful attempt to free herself and her children from the cruel grip of the Church.

Hope Randall leads a quiet life, but that peace is about to be shattered.  When a stranger turns up on her doorstep, bringing news of a half-sister she never knew she had, he’s going to change her world for ever.  Connie’s in deep trouble and the mysterious Flint needs Hope’s help in finding her.  Returning to London, Hope is forced to confront old demons – and new ones.  But when she enters the dark underworld of the East End, it’s not only the notoriously savage Street family she’ll have to worry about: there’s also a psychopath on the loose, attacking working girls.

Discover British Rail’s plan for a spaceship, the scheme to cover Manhattan in a glass dome, and why the Victorian Channel Tunnel hit a dead end.  From nuclear-powered cars to Thomas Edison’s concrete furniture, this book explores fifty exciting ideas that either became victims of the eccentric figures behind them, succumbed to financial and political misfortune, or were simply just too far ahead of their time.

Kim Noble is an accomplished artist and the mother of 14-year-old Aimee.  There’s just one problem.  To all extents and purposes, Kim Noble does not exist.  Kim’s mind had fragmented as a result of repeated and horrific abuse before her third birthday.  Diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), her body plays host to 20 or more different personalities, each of whom paints in a completely different style.  Kim’s memoir takes us into her world of multiple realities, which is by turns shocking, funny and inspiring.  A top 10 bestseller.