'I, Kusama, am the modern Alice in Wonderland' Yayoi KusamaNonagenarian Japanese artist is simultaneously one of the most famous and most mysterious artists on the planet. A wild child of the 1950s and 1960s, she emerged out of the international Fluxus movement to launch naked happenings in New York and went on to become a doyenne of that city's counter-cultural scene. In the early 1970s, she returned to Japan and by 1977 had checked herself in to a psychiatric hos...

King of Pop Art Andy Warhol is one of the greatest artists of all time. Rarely venturing into public without his camera and tape recorder, Warhol was a great observer and documentarist of the American social scene.Somewhere within the iconic images, carefully-made personae, star-studded milieu, million-dollar price tags and famous quotes lies the real Andy Warhol. But who was he?Andy Warhol,Robert Shore unfolds the multi-dimensional Warhol, dissect...

A book to put the Midlands back on the map.Everyone knows what they think of the North and South of England – the clichés abound. But what about that big, anonymous stretch of land in between: the Midlands? Despite being home to around a third of the English population, it’s a region that seems to have neither purpose nor identity. In this humorous exploration, the author – a Midlander exiled in London – sets off on a tour of the country’s belly in order to piece together his Midla...

King of Pop Art Andy Warhol is one of the greatest artists of all time. Rarely venturing into public without his camera and tape recorder, Warhol was a great observer and documentarist of the American social scene.Somewhere within the iconic images, carefully-made personae, star-studded milieu, million-dollar price tags and famous quotes lies the real Andy Warhol. But who was he?With Andy Warhol,Robert Shore unfolds the multi-dimensional Warhol, di...

Revelling in the off-beat and eccentric, Londoner Suggs takes us on a nostalgic adventure to explore the disappearing history of his extraordinary home town: from the sharp tailors of Saville Row to the sex traders of Bohemian Soho, by way of quaint and quirky habitats, brilliant but endangered boozers, unique eateries that have introduced the capital to the world's finest foods and a music scene that's dear to his heart.

On the way to a show in Skipton, in North Yorkshire, I noticed a road sign to a town called Keighley. So later, during the show, I mentioned this, asking the audience 'Is that your rival town?' And the room went chillingly quiet, until one woman called out with understated menace, 'Keighley is a sink of evil.'Based on his award-winning BBC Radio 4 series, Mark Steel's ‘In Town’, is a celebration of the quirks of small town life in a country of increasingly homogenized high streets....

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERThe definitive autobiography from the nation's best-loved broadcaster.Written in the style familiar to his millions of listeners, rich with warmth and irony, Mustn't Grumble is Terry's definitive autobiography. Not only does he introduce the reader to his life in Ireland, his chain-smoking maiden aunts, his quick-witted mother and hard-working father and the (not so) Christian Fathers who tried to knock h...

Anna Quindlen first visited London from a chair in her suburban Philadelphia home—in one of her beloved childhood mystery novels. She has been back to London countless times since, through the pages of books and in person, and now, in Imagined London, she takes her own readers on a tour of this greatest of literary cities. While New York, Paris, and Dublin are also vividly portrayed in fiction, it is London, Quindlen argues, that has always been the star, both because of the primacy of Eng...

Passionate, affectionate and indefatigably curious, In Search of England joins a tradition of writing, from William Cobbett to JB Priestley, that makes a journey around the English countryside and character. England is the most various of countries; within its borders, life changes mile on mile. Roy Hattersley celebrates crumbling churches and serene Victorian architecture, magnificent hills and wind-whipped coast, our music, theatre and local customs, and, above all, the quirky good humou...

Britain. What's that all about then?Having skewered modern life and culture in the bestselling Is it Just Me or is Everything Shit?, Steve Lowe and Alan McArthur set out to uncover the deep dark truth about Britain - its history, its myths and its people.Over the course of a year they endure the Last Night of the Proms and search for a couple of pissed dragons under a hill in Wales. They witness Scotland rising again (a bit), encounter terrifying Europhobe ...

'It is tremendously good fun winding up the Scots. It is terribly easy, particularly Scottish politicians. They can take things far too seriously.' Jeremy Paxman*It's 700 years since England fought Scotland at the Battle of Bannockburn. Miraculously - we still don't understand how - the Scots actually won. It's pretty much the only time they've ever beaten us at anything. So has there ever been a better opportunity to celebrate seven centuries of w...

Why did London Underground once employ a one-legged man to ride up and down the escalators at Earl's Court tube station? What did Hitler plan to do with Nelson's Column? Why is London's only medieval mummy a prostitute named Clarice la Claterballock? How did a beer flood in Tottenham Court Road drown nine people? Where can you see a pair of Queen Victoria's knickers?Containing chapters covering London past and present; buildings and streets; famous and unexpected Londoners; arts, li...