The Concord Quartet: Alcott, Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau and the Friendship That Freed the American Mind

Tom Mitchelson (Author)

Don't Ask Me about My Dad: An Inspiring True Story of a Scared Little Boy with a Dark Secret

Growing up with him was like being in my own war zone, living in perpetual fear of when the bombs would fall. I was terrified of becoming him, and in moments I could feel I might. He still lives within me grimly like some battered demon spright. And I'm fearful of his shadow. The rage, and his blood. There are some moments when he arrives and I want to tear up the whole world with my bare hands, and all I really want is love. I want him away now. Please. Just go. While growing up in Essex, Tom Mitchelson and his identical triplet sisters routinely witnessed unspeakable acts of violence and abuse at the hands of their dad. They would watch in horror as he dragged their mum around the house, but they never dared breathe a word. Tom knew his dad was a monster, but it seemed he had nowhere to turn until a kindly teacher sought his company... Don't Ask Me About My Dad is an inspirational story of how one isolated young boy overcame the odds and finally found his voice.

Graham Poll

Seeing Red

The most high-profile referee this country has ever seen, the controversial and opinionated Graham Poll, exposes the myth that referees are the game's silent men, and opens the lid on the shocking and often unbelievable world of football that few outsiders get to see. Fully updated paperback edition with new chapters.Seeing Red is Graham Poll's incisive insight into football from his prime position as the man in black, the one in control, the eye that sees all. A Premier League referee since 1991 and with ten years as an international referee, Graham Poll has handled some of the toughest games in the Premiership involving Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea, as well as European Championships and World Cups - in total over 1500 matches.What is it like to referee the biggest matches in international football? What really goes on between the players in the tunnel before a match and in the dressing room after? Who are the nastiest footballers? And the funniest? Who is the smartest manager? And are the bureaucrats ruining the beautiful game?Controversial and opinionated, Poll has crossed swords with some of the biggest names in world football and shares private ...

Richard Holmes

Wellington: The Iron Duke

Richard Holmes, highly acclaimed military historian and broadcaster, tells the exhilarating story of Britain's greatest-ever soldier, the man who posed the most serious threat to Napoleon. The Duke of Wellington's remarkable life and extraordinary campaigns are recreated with Holmes' superb skill in this compelling book.Richard Holmes charts Wellington's stellar military career from India to Europe, and in the process, rediscovers the reasons Queen Victoria called him the greatest man the nineteenth century had produced. Combining his astute historical analysis with a semi-biographical examination of Wellington, Holmes artfully illustrates the rapid evolution in military and political thinking of the time.Wellington is a brilliant figure, idealistic in politics, cynical in love, a wit, a beau, a man of enormous courage often sickened by war. As Richard Holmes charts his progress from a shy, indolent boy to commander-in-chief of the allied forces, he also exposes the Iron Duke as a philanderer, and a man who sometimes despised the men that he led, and was not always in control of his soldiers. Particularly infamous is the bestial rampage of his men after the capture of Cuidad ...