The author of this memoir thought he was walking the Camino alone until, on the evening of the 4th of September 2017, a clairvoyant hospitelera told him someone was walking with him. It’s the son who killed himself 26 years earlier. After this revelation the pilgrimage to Santiago becomes a walk into a mirror: the further they walk onwards together, the deeper they return to the past. In this way their family’s bohemian life is laid unsparingly bare until, at journey’s end, at Finisterre, ...

There is Britain before 1965 and Britain after 1965 - and they are not the same thing.1965 was the year Britain democratised education, it was the year pop culture began to be taken as seriously as high art, the time when comedians and television shows imported the methods of modernism into their work.It was when communications across the Atlantic became instantaneous, the year when, for the first time in a century, British artists took American gallery-goers by storm. In 1...

Sean Connery's personification of secret agent James Bond invigorated Britain and its cinema, allowing a cash-strapped, morale-sapped country in decline to fancy itself still a player on the world stage. But while Bond would make Connery the first actor to command a million dollar-plus fee, the man himself was forever pouring scorn on the fantasies audiences found it increasingly hard to separate him from.Spirited, argumentative and sardonically celebratory, Christopher Bray's ...

Vibrant and candid memoirs of the late, great British character actor, Pete Postlethwaite.After training as a teacher, Pete Postlethwaite started his acting career at the Liverpool Everyman Theatre where his colleagues included Bill Nighy, Jonathan Pryce, Antony Sher and Julie Walters. After routine early appearances in small parts for television programmes such as THE PROFESSIONALS, Postlethwaite's first success came with the acclaimed British film DISTANT VOICES,...

There's so much more to Ray's on-screen tough-guy image, and his path to the top has been anything but plain sailing. He was every inch the rebel in his youth and was even a London schoolboy boxing champion; but he always had an affinity for acting. Deciding to pursue his dream through drama school, he soon found himself an outsider and was expelled. But he managed to blag his way into an audition for what would prove to be his big break -- his cocky, aggressive boxer's gait making him per...

Les Dawson: a comedian who, more than any other, spoke for the phlegmatic, resigned, sarcastic, glorious British way of life. This is his story.A Northern lad who climbed out of the slums thanks to an uncommonly brilliant mind, Les Dawson was always the underdog, but his bark was funnier and more incisive than many comics who claimed to bite.Married twice in real life, he had a third wife in his comic world - a fictional ogre built from spare parts left by ...

An in-depth and fascinating study of one of Hollywood's most popular icons - fully updated and including previously unreleased pictures.Doris Day is almost always portrayed as the sunny, squeaky-clean girl next door. This wholesome image kept her at the top for twenty-four years and thirty-nine films.But behind the effervescent, ever-cheerful image that Doris Day portrayed through dozens of classic Hollywood movies was an extraordinary story of private pain...

The year 2000 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of The Great War and Modern Memory, winner of the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and recently named by the Modern Library one of the twentieth century's 100 Best Non-Fiction Books. Fussell's landmark study of WWI remains as original and gripping today as ever before: a literate, literary, and illuminating account of the Great War, the one that changed a generation, ushered in the mode...

Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light is the definitive biography of the Master of Suspense and the most widely recognized film director of all time.In a career that spanned six decades and produced more than 60 films – including The 39 Steps, Vertigo, Psycho, and The Birds – Alfred Hitchcock set new standards for cinematic invention and storytelling. Acclaimed biographer Patrick McGilligan re-examines his life and extraordinary work, challenging perceptions of Hitchcock a...

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year that Sir Ian McKellen called a shocking tale of heroes and villains-illuminating and upsetting in equal measure.”The first production of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé in 1918, with American exotic dancer Maud Allan dancing lead, ignited a firestorm in London spearheaded by Noel Pemberton Billing, a member of Parliament and self-appointed guardian of family values. Billing attacked Allan in the right-wing newspaper...

‘Rigorously researched, yet reads like a novel you can’t put down’ LUCY WORSLEY‘Joshua Levine is a fantastic and passionate individual. I highly recommend him for the breadth of knowledge he has’ STEVE Mc****QUEENThe Blitz is one of the most iconic and tumultuous periods in modern British history – and one of the most misunderstood.From the first page, readers will discover a different story to the one they thought ...

Bringing to mind rockers and royals, Buckingham Palace and the Scottish Highlands, Britain holds a special interest for international audiences who have flocked in recent years to quality exports like Fish Tank, Trainspotting and The King's Speech. A series of essays and articles exploring the definitive films of Great Britain, this addition to Intellect's Directory of World Cinema series turns the focus on England together with Northern Ireland, Scotlan...