The Centre of the Bed: An Autobiography

Author: Joan Bakewell
Publisher: Sceptre
ISBN: 1529362180
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 375

Book Description
'Honest and intriguing ... beautifully written.' Observer 'Joan Bakewell was everywhere at every stage: reporting on the Cuban missile crisis, interviewing Allen Ginsberg and Vaclav Havel, taking chunks out of the Berlin Wall when it fell...draped in the kaftan of Sixties sophistication.' Independent on Sunday Joan Bakewell's life and times spans the Blitz in Manchester, Cambridge during the glittering era of Michael Frayn, Peter Hall, Jonathan Miller et al, London at its most exciting in the swinging sixties and the world of the media and the arts from the 60s to the present. As she reflects on the choices she has made and the influences that shaped her, she confronts painful childhood memories of her mother's behaviour and describes both her affair with Harold Pinter and her two marriages with remarkable honesty. Throughout she uses her own experience to explore the extraordinary change in women's roles during her lifetime. This is no ordinary celebrity autobiography but a memoir that is beautifully written, frank and absorbing, which draws a thought-provoking portrait of Britain in the last 70 years. Dame Joan Bakewell was awarded the BAFTA Fellowship in 2019.

Bed Number Ten

Author: Sue Baier
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 9780849342707
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Book Description
A patient's personal view of long term care. Seen through the eyes of a patient totally paralyzed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, this moving book takes you through the psychological and physical pain of an eleven month hospital stay. BED NUMBER TEN reads like a compelling novel, but is entirely factual. You will meet: The ICU staff who learned to communicate with the paralyzed woman - and those who did not bother. The physicians whose visits left her baffled about her own case. The staff and physicians who spoke to her and others who did not recognize her presence. The nurse who tucked Sue tightly under the covers, unaware that she was soaking with perspiration. The nurse who took the time to feed her drop by drop, as she slowly learned how to swallow again. The physical therapist who could read her eyes and spurred her on to move again as if the battle were his own. In these pages, which reveal the caring, the heroism, and the insensitivity sometimes found in the health care fields, you may even meet people you know.

Autobiography of a Restless Mind

Author: Dee Hock
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1475966555
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 265

Book Description
Volume 1 Autobiography of a Restless Mind is a fascinating, exceptionally diverse collection of observations and reflections written over the past twenty-five years by one of the most innovative thinkers, writers, and leaders of the past half century. Witty and wise, playful and profound, prophetic and immensely quotable, it is a companion no thinking, caring person should be without. Written in an unforgettable style reminiscent of Aurelius, Montaigne, Lao-Tse, and Bacon, it is a classic that will be read with pleasure and profit for generations to come.

Heads in Beds

Author: Jacob Tomsky
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0385535643
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 250

Book Description
In the tradition of Kitchen Confidential and Waiter Rant, a rollicking, eye-opening, fantastically indiscreet memoir of a life spent (and misspent) in the hotel industry. “Highly amusing."—New York Times Jacob Tomsky never intended to go into the hotel business. As a new college graduate, armed only with a philosophy degree and a singular lack of career direction, he became a valet parker for a large luxury hotel in New Orleans. Yet, rising fast through the ranks, he ended up working in “hospitality” for more than a decade, doing everything from supervising the housekeeping department to manning the front desk at an upscale Manhattan hotel. He’s checked you in, checked you out, separated your white panties from the white bed sheets, parked your car, tasted your room-service meals, cleaned your toilet, denied you a late checkout, given you a wake-up call, eaten M&Ms out of your minibar, laughed at your jokes, and taken your money. In Heads in Beds he pulls back the curtain to expose the crazy and compelling reality of a multi-billion-dollar industry we think we know. Heads in Beds is a funny, authentic, and irreverent chronicle of the highs and lows of hotel life, told by a keenly observant insider who’s seen it all. Prepare to be amused, shocked, and amazed as he spills the unwritten code of the bellhops, the antics that go on in the valet parking garage, the housekeeping department’s dirty little secrets—not to mention the shameless activities of the guests, who are rarely on their best behavior. Prepare to be moved, too, by his candor about what it’s like to toil in a highly demanding service industry at the luxury level, where people expect to get what they pay for (and often a whole lot more). Employees are poorly paid and frequently abused by coworkers and guests alike, and maintaining a semblance of sanity is a daily challenge. Along his journey Tomsky also reveals the secrets of the industry, offering easy ways to get what you need from your hotel without any hassle. This book (and a timely proffered twenty-dollar bill) will help you score late checkouts and upgrades, get free stuff galore, and make that pay-per-view charge magically disappear. Thanks to him you’ll know how to get the very best service from any business that makes its money from putting heads in beds. Or, at the very least, you will keep the bellmen from taking your luggage into the camera-free back office and bashing it against the wall repeatedly.

City Centre

Author: Simon Halliday
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 178306112X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Book Description
Simon Halliday has tackled everything that life has thrown at him, be it on the rugby field, or in the City. He has been hit hard in his time, now he is hitting back. In his candid and lucidly written autobiography City Centre, Simon Halliday, a former England rugby international takes the reader on a roller-coaster trip along Twickenham’s corridors of power and lifts the lid on the departure of, not one, but two chief executives, as the game’s rulers fought among themselves for control of the RFU. He is scathing about England’s descent from World Cup heroes to zeroes after proving they were the best in 2003. He slams the game’s rulers for driving Sir Clive Woodward out of the game and for eschewing the opportunity to welcome him back to Twickenham a few years later. Halliday transcended the world of amateur and professional and he delivers a crushing analysis of the twin pressures of existing at the top of business and international sport. In addition to analysing his rugby career, City Centre is also a personal account of the fateful morning in September 2008 when Lehman Brothers collapsed, triggering a global financial crisis. Except that Halliday tells it from the inside, on the trading floor where he worked with thousands of others. Halliday also details the truth behind the ruthless mid-90s merger of the Swiss banking giants UBS and SBC, and the appalling behaviour of Crédit Suisse in their ill-fated acquisition of his beloved DLJ at the end of the tech boom. It was while he was playing for Bath’s all conquering rugby team of the 1980s that the double Oxford Blue in cricket and rugby suffered a horrific injury a week before his England debut. He describes the injury and talks movingly about how he was able to put this into perspective while lying in his hospital bed. That he played again is testament to his indomitable will – and his reward was to wear the Red Rose of England. In City Centre Halliday talks about some of the greatest players he has played with and against, and provides a shrewd analysis of the genius coach Jack Rowell, who transformed the fortunes of Bath, turning them from a minor West Country club into one of the best outfits in Europe. There are also assessments of Will Carling, a close friend, and the brilliant Jerry Guscott. Today Halliday is a parton of Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY) and Help For Heroes and used his business and sporting profile to raise awareness of both these charities. This book does not pull punches. Halliday talks honestly and unashamedly about key people in his playing and business careers. This is an open book – just like the man.

Decoded

Author: Jay-Z
Publisher: One World
ISBN: 1588369595
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Book Description
Decoded is a book like no other: a collection of lyrics and their meanings that together tell the story of a culture, an art form, a moment in history, and one of the most provocative and successful artists of our time. Praise for Decoded “Compelling . . . provocative, evocative . . . Part autobiography, part lavishly illustrated commentary on the author’s own work, Decoded gives the reader a harrowing portrait of the rough worlds Jay-Z navigated in his youth, while at the same time deconstructing his lyrics.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times “One of a handful of books that just about any hip hop fan should own.”—The New Yorker “Elegantly designed, incisively written . . . an impressive leap by a man who has never been known for small steps.”—Los Angeles Times “A riveting exploration of Jay-Z’s journey . . . So thoroughly engrossing, it reads like a good piece of cultural journalism.”—The Boston Globe “Shawn Carter’s most honest airing of the experiences he drew on to create the mythic figure of Jay-Z . . . The scenes he recounts along the way are fascinating.”—Entertainment Weekly “Hip-hop’s renaissance man drops a classic. . . . Heartfelt, passionate and slick.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Voices In The Mirror

Author: Gordon Parks
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
ISBN: 0767922123
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 464

Book Description
The famed photographer, film director, writer, and composer recounts the dramatic story of his life, from his poor Kansas origins, through his breaking of racial barriers, to his triumph in America and abroad. Reprint. 12,500 first printing.

Inside the Dream Palace

Author: Sherill Tippins
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1471135284
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 696

Book Description
The Chelsea Hotel, since its founding by a visionary French architect in 1884, has been an icon of American invention: a cultural dynamo and haven for the counterculture, all in one astonishing building. Sherill Tippins, author of the acclaimed February House,delivers a masterful and endlessly entertaining history of the Chelsea and of the successive generations of artists who have cohabited and created there, among them Thomas Wolfe, Dylan Thomas, Arthur Miller, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith, Robert Mapplethorpe, Andy Warhol, Sam Shepard, Sid Vicious, and Dee Dee Ramone. Now as legendary as the artists it has housed and the countless creative collaborations it has sparked, the Chelsea has always stood as a mystery as well: why and how did this hotel become the largest and longest-lived artists' community in the known world? Inside the Dream Palaceis the intimate and definitive story.

In Spite of Myself

Author: Christopher Plummer
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN: 0307373126
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 658

Book Description
Canada’s most celebrated and acclaimed actor lets loose in a magnificent memoir that will delight and enchant readers across the country. A rollicking, rich self-portrait written by one of today’s greatest living actors. The story of a “young wastrel, incurably romantic, spoiled rotten” – his privileged Montreal background, rich in Victorian gentility, included steam yachts, rare orchid farms, music lessons in Paris and Berlin – “who tore himself away from the ski slopes to break into the big, bad world of theater not from the streets up but from an Edwardian living room down.” Plummer writes of his early acting days – on radio and stage with William Shatner and other fellow Canadians; of the early days of the Stratford Festival in southern Ontario; of his Broadway debut at twenty-four in The Starcross Story, starring Eva Le Gallienne (“It opened and closed in one night, but what a night!”); of joining Peter Hall’s Royal Shakespeare Company (its other members included Judi Dench, Vanessa Redgrave and Peter O’Toole); of his first picture, Stage Struck, directed by Sidney Lumet; and of The Sound of Music, which he affectionately dubbed “S&M.” He writes about his legendary colleagues: Dame Judith Anderson (“the Tasmanian devil from Down Under”); Sir Tyrone Guthrie; Sir Laurence Olivier; Elia Kazan (“this chameleon of chameleons might change into you, wear your skin, steal your soul”); and “that reprobate” Jason Robards, among many others. A revelation of the wild and exuberant ride that is the actor’s – at least this actor’s – life.

Bound for Glory

Author: Woody Guthrie
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1440672784
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
First published in 1943, this autobiography is also a superb portrait of America's Depression years, by the folk singer, activist, and man who saw it all. Woody Guthrie was born in Oklahoma and traveled this whole country over—not by jet or motorcycle, but by boxcar, thumb, and foot. During the journey of discovery that was his life, he composed and sang words and music that have become a national heritage. His songs, however, are but part of his legacy. Behind him Woody Guthrie left a remarkable autobiography that vividly brings to life both his vibrant personality and a vision of America we cannot afford to let die. “Even readers who never heard Woody or his songs will understand the current esteem in which he’s held after reading just a few pages… Always shockingly immediate and real, as if Woody were telling it out loud… A book to make novelists and sociologists jealous.” —The Nation