Me


Book Description

In his first and only official autobiography, music icon Elton John reveals the truth about his extraordinary life. Me is the joyously funny, honest and moving story of the most enduringly successful singer/songwriter of all time. The Sunday Times bestseller with a new chapter bringing the story up to date. 'The rock memoir of the decade' – Daily Mail 'The rock star's gloriously entertaining and candid memoir is a gift to the reader' – Sunday Times ______________ Christened Reginald Dwight was a shy boy with Buddy Holly glasses who grew up in the London suburb of Pinner and dreamed of becoming a pop star. By the age of twenty-three, he was performing his first gig in America, facing an astonished audience in his bright yellow dungarees, a star-spangled T-shirt and boots with wings. Elton John had arrived and the music world would never be the same again. His life has been full of drama, from the early rejection of his work with songwriting partner Bernie Taupin to spinning out of control as a chart-topping superstar; from half-heartedly trying to drown himself in his LA swimming pool to disco-dancing with the Queen; from friendships with John Lennon, Freddie Mercury and George Michael to setting up his AIDS Foundation. All the while, Elton was hiding a drug addiction that would grip him for over a decade. In Me Elton also writes powerfully about getting clean and changing his life, about finding love with David Furnish and becoming a father. In a voice that is warm, humble and open, this is Elton on his music and his relationships, his passions and his mistakes. This is a story that will stay with you, by a living legend. ______________ 'Self-deprecating, funny . . . You cannot help but enjoy his company throughout, temper tantrums and all' – The Times 'Racy, pacy and crammed with scurrilous anecdotes - what more could you ask from the rocket man' – Guardian (Book of the Week) 'Chatty, gossipy, amusing and at times brutally candid' – Telegraph




Identity Crisis


Book Description

Why are we all so hostile? So quick to take offence? Truly we are living in the age of outrage. A series of apparently random murders draws amiable, old-school Detective Mick Matlock into a world of sex, politics, reality TV and a bewildering kaleidoscope of opposing identity groups. Lost in a blizzard of hashtags, his already complex investigation is further impeded by the fact that he simply doesn’t ‘get’ a single thing about anything anymore. Meanwhile, each day another public figure confesses to having ‘misspoken’ and prostrates themselves before the judgement of Twitter. Begging for forgiveness, assuring the public “that is not who I am”. But if nobody is who they are anymore - then who the f##k are we? Ben Elton returns with a blistering satire of the world as it fractures around us. Get ready for a roller-coaster thriller, where nothing - and no one - is off limits.




Meltdown


Book Description

For amiable City trader Jimmy Corby money was the new Rock n' Roll. His whole life was a party, adrenaline charged and cocaine fuelled. If he hadn't met Monica he would probably have ended up either dead or in rehab. But Jimmy was as lucky in love as he was at betting on dodgy derivatives, so instead of burning out, his star just burned brighter than ever. Rich, pampered and successful, Jimmy, Monica and their friends lived the dream, bringing up their children with an army of domestic helps. But then it all came crashing down. And when the global financial crisis hit, Jimmy discovers that anyone can handle success. It's how you handle failure that really matters.




Elton's Ecologists


Book Description

From its creation by Charles Elton in 1932 to its demise when he retired in 1967, the Bureau of Animal Population at Oxford was a mecca for ecologists from around the world. Crowcroft provides an anecdotal history of this small research institute that so strongly influenced the development of modern animal ecology. "[This] is a very good account of the work and personal interactions of a group that played an important part in the development of animal ecology in the period 1930-60."—John Krebs, TREE




His Song


Book Description

A comprehensive overview of the musical career of Elton John provides the full story behind all of the musician's recordings, a complete chronicle of his concert tours, an assessment of his musical odyssey, and a study of his sometimes turbulent personal life, along with more than forty photographs and a complete discography.




Elton


Book Description

One of music’s true global superstars and most admired figures, Elton John has sold an estimated 200 million albums worldwide to date, and continues to appear regularly in the singles charts, thanks largely to a series of high-profile collaborations with new faces. But he is loved as much for his outrageous personality and witty outspokenness as for his music: recent memorable outbursts have included a public comment that "people who charge �75 and lip-sync should be shot” and calling some pushy photographers "rude, vile pigs.” He has even admitted that, in one of his more comedic cocaine-fueled moments, he phoned one of his management team "to tell him to do something about the wind outside my hotel room.” Such shamelessness and sheer silliness rivals anything uttered by punk rockers, yet it is so typically Elton: honest and wittily intemperate. Tragedy and heartbreak have played a large part in his life too. Behind the parties, the hedonism, the lavish stage costumes and silly glasses lies a more somber story. There have been disputes with managers, legal wranglings, splits with partners, and a divorce. Added to that there have been serious health problems, a very public battle with his expanding waistline and receding hairline, drug addictions, and spells when he wanted to quit the music business altogether. But now, at 60 years old, Elton enjoys a stable relationship with his husband David Furnish. His demons have been overcome. His commercial and critical stock is rising. With popular acts like the Scissor Sisters sounding more like Elton than Elton himself, Elton John is finally cool again. Drawing on many firsthand interviews with his associates and musical collaborators, this page-turning story of high drama and prodigious talent traces Elton’s astonishing journey through life as the colossus of camp, while also offering a critical history of his work and analyzing afresh his contribution to popular music.




England Under the Tudors


Book Description

‘Anyone who writes about the Tudor century puts his head into a number of untamed lions’ mouths.’ G.R. Elton, Preface Geoffrey Elton (1921–1994) was one of the great historians of the Tudor period. England Under the Tudors is his major work and an outstanding history of a crucial and turbulent period in British and European history. Revised several times since its first publication in 1955, England Under the Tudors charts a historical period that witnessed monumental changes in religion, monarchy, and government – and one that continued to shape British history long after. Spanning the commencement of Henry VII's reign to the death of Elizabeth I, Elton’s magisterial account is populated by many colourful and influential characters, from Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas Cranmer, and Thomas Cromwell to Henry VIII and Mary Queen of Scots. Elton also examines aspects of the Tudor period that had been previously overlooked, such as empire and commonwealth, agriculture and industry, seapower, and the role of the arts and literature. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new foreword by Diarmaid MacCulloch.




Elton's Shoes


Book Description

Eltons Shoes is set in the mid 1970s in an inner city neighborhood. Elton is a twelve year old boy who struggles to deal with bullying by older boys on the street and belittling by his peers in school. It is a story about perseverance and what it means to believe in yourself and others. It speaks to what it means to be responsible and to question what you do not understand. Through his unfolding life experiences, Elton learns that things are not always what they appear to be. At the center of Eltons story is the power of friendship and family.




Mr. Toppit


Book Description

When Arthur Hayman, an unsuccessful screenwriter turned children’s book author, is accidentally hit by a cement truck in London, his dying moments are spent with a passing American tourist, Laurie Clow, who is fated to bring posthumous fame to his obscure series, The Hayseed Chronicles, and the enigmatic and sinister Mr. Toppit who is at the center of the books. While Arthur doesn’t live to reap the benefits of his books’ success, his legacy falls to his widow, Martha, and their children—the fragile Rachel, and Luke, reluctantly immortalized as the fictional Luke Hayseed, hero of his father’s books. But others want their share of the Hayseed phenomenon, particularly Laurie, who has a mysterious agenda of her own that changes all of their lives as Martha, Rachel, and Luke begin to crumble under the heavy burden of their inheritance. Spanning several decades, from the heyday of the postwar British film industry to today’s cutthroat world of show business in Los Angeles, Mr. Toppit is a riveting debut novel that captures an extraordinary family and their tragic brush with fame to wonderfully funny and painful effect.




Time and Time Again


Book Description

'The best I've read of Elton's many bestsellers' The Times Imagine a world where no one you have ever known or loved has been born yet. Perhaps they never will be. 1st June 1914: this is Hugh Stanton's reality. Ex-soldier and celebrated adventurer, he is is quite literally the loneliest man on earth. Stanton knows that a great and terrible war is coming. A collective suicidal madness that will destroy European civilization and bring misery to millions in the century to come. He knows this because, for him, that century is already history. Somehow he must change that history. He must prevent the war. A war that will begin with a single bullet. But can a single bullet truly corrupt an entire century? And, if so, could another single bullet save it?