Dagbøker og memoarer

'Gavin & Stacey' is a TV series like no other. Now, for the first time, its creators James Corden and Ruth Jones tell the full extraordinary story of how they turned their little show into a full-on cultural phenomenon.As they recount the rejection, obstacles and challenges they faced on the way to giving birth to their beloved comedy creation, James and Ruth also explore the flourishing of their own real-life friendship. While their now legendary on-screen characters Nessa and Smithy had a profound awkwardness to negotiate, culminating in that marriage proposal in the 2019 Christmas special, Ruth and James forged a magical relationship of mutual support based also on a deep, shared sense of subversive fun.Here, from their tentative initial pitch to the emotionally overwhelming final day of filming, the duo detail what's occurred every step of the way, bouncing off each other in inimitable style. Full of revelations and never-before-heard stories, this is a one-of-a-kind book about a show that's already gone down in history.

A hauntingly beautiful hybrid memoir that uses the journey and cultivation of a single fruit - the orange - to reckon with the author's own identity and unpack themes of globalisation, colonialism and migration

In this new and wide-ranging collection of essays Ken Worpole journeys to the Essex marshlands to discover radical communities, and travels further afield to discover how new ideas filtered into England, always from the east.

Writers Like Us is a poignant literary memoir by Barnaby Conrad, who had the good fortune to be mentored by Sinclair Lewis, the first American author to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. In the spring of 1947, the 25 year-old Conrad was living in Santa Barbara, California, when he met Lewis. Conrad was struggling with his first novel, while Lewis, then 62, was in the twilight of his career. While they both had studied at Yale and had the same literary agent, they could not have been more different. A charming San Francisco-native, Conrad had been a dashing diplomat in Spain during World War II, an amateur bullfighter, a cocktail pianist, and a gifted portrait artist. Lewis was an awkward but strident genius from the Midwest, a sharp-tongued literary giant whose face had been ravaged by skin cancer. He had been married and divorced twice and was deeply lonely. Conrad was in awe of Lewis's global stature and charmed by his crusty humor and humanity. This Odd Couple instantly developed a camraderie. For four summer months, Conrad worked as Lewis's personal secretary, chauffeur, and chess partner at Thorvale, a 700-acre estate near Williamstown, Massachusetts. In turn, Lewis mentored the young man's first novel-in-progress. Although Sinclair Lewis has fallen out of fashion, many agree that no one wrote more clearly about America than he did. Barnaby Conrad's Writers LIke Us, is a fascinating literary memoir about the intertwined lives of authors and the elusive nature of literary success.

Description to come.

A brand-new collection of Mary Shelley's work, written during and inspired by the short yet influential time she spent in the literary city of Bath.

An essential, universally resonant new memoir from the number one bestselling author of Eat Pray Love and Big Magic. What if your most beautiful love story turned into your biggest nightmare? Twenty years ago, Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love inspired millions of readers to embark upon their own journeys of self-discovery. A decade later, Big Magic empowered countless others to live their most creative lives. Now comes another landmark book - about love and loss, addiction and recovery, grief and liberation. In 2000, a friend sent Liz to see a new hairdresser named Rayya Elias. An intense and unlikely curiosity sparked between these two apparent opposites: Rayya, an East Village badass who lived boldly on her own terms but feared she was a failed artist; Liz, a married people-pleaser with a surprisingly unfettered sense of creativity. Over the years, they became friends, then best friends, then inseparable. When tragedy entered their lives, the truth was finally laid bare: the two were in love. Unacknowledged: they were also a pair of addicts, on a collision course toward catastrophe. What if the love of your life - and the person you most trusted in the world - became a danger to your sanity and wellbeing? What if the dear friend who taught you so much about your self-destructive tendencies became the unstable partner with whom you disastrously reenacted every one of them? And what if your most devastating heartbreak opened a pathway to your greatest awakening? All the Way to the River is for everyone who has ever been captive to love - or to any other passion, substance, or craving - and who yearns, at long last, for peace and freedom.

Actor, rock 'n' roll singer, the prince of Halloween, confusing sex symbol. Many labels have been given to the inimitable Tim Curry over the years. All are true, and yet none are quite right.Here, for the first time, Curry reveals the raucous and true story of the man who has captivated audiences on stage and screen for over 50 years.From iconic roles as Frank N Furter, Wadsworth, and Pennywise the Clown, to brushes with the likes of Ian McKellen, Andy Warhol and even Kermit the Frog, Vagabond is a fascinating and riotous portrait of one the most enigmatic performers of our time.

Professor Nomalungelo Goduka's spiritual journey began in her mother's womb. It continued eziko-around the fireplace, in the rondavel, in her village kwaManxeba, South Africa. This is where she was received by warm hands zabazalisikazi-indigenous birth attendants. From infancy to adult life, she was nourished and sustained ngamanz' eQala river, ampompoza phantsi kweeNtaba zoKhahlamba. This landscape formed the cradle of her childhood dreams, and gave her a sense of gravitas, meaning and purpose in life. Rhythms from the landscape served as magnets that drew her from luxuries she enjoyed for three decades, in the US; back to her humble roots, to follow various spiritual paths to fulfil her childhood dreams, towards her ultimate destiny. Prof. Goduka's memoir, provides a treasure trove of indigenous knowledge to inspire creativity in aspiring readers and authors, in this and next generations.Dr. Yolisa Madolo, Senior Lecturer, Dept of African Languages, Walter Sisulu University. South Africa.

'[A] fantastically readable and endlessly fascinating book... Delicious, occasionally fantastical, revealing in ways that Downtown Abbey never was.' Rachel Cooke, ObserverA Daily Telegraph Book of the YearThere is nothing quite as beautiful as an English country house in summer.

Lady Nijo's A Tale Unasked (Towazugatari) is the last, and arguably the finest, among classical Japanese literature's famous 'women's diaries'. Thought to have been completed around 1307, when the author was in her late forties, the first two thirds of this autobiographical work document in rich and compelling detail the experiences of an imperial concubine whose time at court was ruled and finally ruined by her passionate and complicated love life. The final third of the work equally memorably describes her peripatetic life after the emperor expelled her from the court in her mid-twenties and she became a nun, wandering the roads of Japan as a form of Buddhist austerity.Meredith McKinney's superb translation breathes new life into Lady Nijo's fascinating diaries, which survived her era in a single copy and were only rediscovered in the 1940s.

When Hans Ulrich was six years old, he was knocked down by a speeding car as he was crossing the street. Hospitalised for weeks, a sense of urgency was instilled in him. Enraptured by the healing powers of art from this young age, he began to travel across Europe on night trains, visiting artist studios.?Part unputdownable coming-of-age story, part tour de force of the contemporary art world, part user's manual on how to live a life driven by curiosity, conversation, and not least hope, Obrist takes us through the formative experiences that made him. From his first exhibition in his Zurich kitchen to penning 250 postcards while trapped by an avalanche in Val Bregaglia, Life in Progress is an enchanting ode the healing properties that engaging with art and the people around us boundlessly affords.??

In 2012, English football was rocked by the biggest match-fixing operation to hit these shores in recent times. An Asian syndicate had infiltrated the Conference South with players being offered vast sums of money to help rig games and net millions of pounds for the fixers. Loyal fans attending matches were oblivious to the fact that outcomes had been predetermined. The remarkable story of how this syndicate was able to take hold of the national sport is told to us by a man who not only played in many of these games, but went to jail for helping to fix them - Moses Swaibu. Fixed breaks new ground as Moses Swaibu becomes the first player ever to write openly about how he helped to fix games, revealing exactly what happens on the pitch when a match is being manipulated. He also exposes how the criminal gangs operate, how young professional players are targeted and groomed and the threats of violence that are used to keep them in check. Offering a fascinating insight into the ugly side of the beautiful game, it's a sporting autobiography like none ever written before.

At his trial for impiety and corrupting youth in ancient Greece, Socrates is reputed to have said; "The unexamined life is not worth living." The legendary philosopher believed that a life devoid of introspection, self-reflection, and critical thinking is essentially meaningless and lacks value.This sentiment provides context for Clocking the Goose, a memoir of short stories about growing up and getting over it, by Robert Moseley.The stories in Clocking the Goose illuminate the struggles of childhood, bring insight to the process of individuation, and provide an offbeat, alternative perspective on figuring out and fulfilling personal destiny.As these narratives reveal, the process of discovering and actualizing personal potential necessitates trial and error. Mistakes and missteps are as crucial to becoming a fully realized human being as the positive choices and the successful actions a person takes.If becoming fully human and alive is the reader's cup of tea, which is the core motivation driving Moseley's missives, he or she must endure inner contradictions that can be tormenting but necessary to make one mindful that human beings can do horrific as well as magnificent things at any time.What emerges from these stories is the realization that Moseley wasn't so afraid of making mistakes or of his shadow self, as he was of failing to become wholly himself and fully alive.Starting with his volatile, reactive and painful childhood, the stories in Clocking the Goose take the reader from sad and funny childhood struggles common to us all and the challenges of adolescence and young adulthood, to gaining a mature perspective on what being human is all about.Self-knowledge, self-acceptance, forgiveness and redemption are essential themes that run throughout the book.In tandem to the stories themselves, the pre and post story elements of this memoir provide social context to the author's personal struggles. Here, Moseley weighs in with his views on social media, the Woke movement, and America's corporatized culture in ways that make his personal journey culturally relevant.The emotional thrust of this memoir is that the business of becoming a human being in full is a harrowing and humbling process. Becoming conscious that saintly and savage traits eternally coexist within all individuals has the potential to transform or destroy us depending on the choices we make and the responsibility we take in creating our lives.Being mindful of this, hopefully, makes us more tolerant and compassionate towards our failings and the foibles of others.From a social perspective this memoir is framed in the viewpoint that modern America has been coopted by a corporate mind-set and an immature, unconscious and often rapacious social media culture that truncates our humanity.At the end of the day, Clocking the Goose affirms the value of individuation, and of embracing the light and darker angels of human nature with grace and forgiveness.

The Link in the Chain chronicles the survival of a young Dutch Jewish family through the Nazi occupation of Holland from 1940 to 1945. But it is also a love story. Just days before the Germans invaded, 19-year-old Judic de Vries married Bram Wynberg, the love of her life. Together they spent the next four years in hiding, making countless life-and-death decisions, separated from their families and even their own children. In spite of devastating losses, Judic and Bram rebuilt a life in Holland and then started over again in Canada. This memoir reveals their courage and hopes, and Judic's determination to connect us to all that was taken.

Grit, guts and gumption defined Amarnath's rollercoaster career. According to both Sunil Gavaskar and Imran Khan, Amarnath was the best batsman of their era. But strangely, he kept getting dropped from the Indian team, and subsequently became famous for his comebacks, earning him the moniker 'the comeback king'. He was a player who didn't flinch in the face of fire: a fearless cricketer and a man who just wouldn't be defeated or denied.