Saturday, November 17, 2007

In Black and White: The Jake White story by Jake White


In Black and White: The Jake White storyIn Black and White: The Jake White story
Author: Craig Ray and Jake White
Format: Hardcover




Description:
In Black and White traces the life story of Springbok rugby coach Jake White, right up to and including the 2007 Rugby World Cup.

The first man to coach the Springboks for four successive seasons, White's rise to the top job in SA Rugby is a journey of intense determination to succeed against all odds: a troubled childhood, coming to terms with the fact that he would never wear a provincial or Springbok blazer, starting out as a school coach, to his eventual elevation to arguably the toughest job in world sport.

White takes readers into rugby's inner sanctum, where politicking and hidden agendas sometimes supersede the best interests of the sport, and relates the incredible highs and desperate lows of being part of the Springbok set-up.

Riveting, controversial, sometimes amusing and often unbelievable, White's story will both absorb and astound.


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The Diana Chronicles by Tina Brown


The Diana Chronicles by Tina BrownThe Diana Chronicles
Author: Tina Brown
Format: Hardcover




Description:
"Intensely well researched and an un-put-down-able read, Tina Brown's extraordinary book parts the brocaded velvet and allows us an unprecedented look at the world and mind of the most famous person on the planet. A social commentary, a historical document and a psychological examination, written by a superb investigative journalist."

–Academy Award® Winning Actress Helen Mirren

Ten years after her death, Princess Diana remains a mystery. Was she “the people’s princess, ” who electrified the world with her beauty and humanitarian missions? Or was she a manipulative, media-savvy neurotic who nearly brought down the monarchy?

Only Tina Brown, former Editor-in-Chief of Tatler, England’s glossiest gossip magazine; Vanity Fair; and The New Yorker could possibly give us the truth. Tina knew Diana personally and has far-reaching insight into the royals and the Queen herself.

In The Diana Chronicles, you will meet a formidable female cast and understand as never before the society that shaped them:   Diana's sexually charged mother, her scheming grandmother,  the stepmother she hated but finally came to terms with,  and bad-girl Fergie, her sister-in-law, who concealed wounds of her own.  Most formidable of them all was her mother-in-law, the Queen, whose admiration Diana sought till the day she died. Add Camilla Parker-Bowles, the ultimate "other woman" into thiscombustible mix, and it's no wonder that Diana broke out of her royal cage into celebrity culture, where she found her own power and used it to devastating effect.  


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Zhoozsh by Jeremy Mansfield


Zhoozsh by Jeremy MansfieldZhoozsh
Author: Jeremy Mansfield and Jacqui Mansfield
Format: Hardcover



Description:
For those who love to cook, and those who don't, comes this cookbook from one of South Africa's celebrity couples.

Chock-a-block with quick and easy recipes, humorous stories, travel anecdotes and a behind-the-scenes look at the life of the authors, this is a laugh-out-loud cookbook to be enjoyed in other rooms of your home, and not just the kitchen!


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The Chameleon's Shadow by Minette Walters


The Chameleon's Shadow by Minette WaltersThe Chameleon's Shadow
Author: Minette Walters
Format: Softcover




Description:
This is the stunning new bestseller from Minette Walters.

When Lieutenant Charles Acland is flown home from Iraq with serious head injuries, he faces not only permanent disfigurement but also an apparent change to his previously outgoing personality. Crippled by migraines, and suspicious of his psychiatrist, he begins to display sporadic bouts of aggression, particularly against women, especially his ex-fiancee who seems unable to accept that the relationship is over. After his injuries prevent his return to the army, he cuts all ties with his former life and moves to London.

Alone and unmonitored, he sinks into a private world of guilt and paranoid distrust... until a customer annoys him in a Bermondsey pub... Out of control and only prevented from killing the man by the intervention of a 250-pound female weightlifter called Jackson, he attracts the attention of police who are investigating three 'gay' murders in the Bermondsey area which appear to have been motivated by extreme rage... Under suspicion, Acland is forced to confront the real issues behind his isolation.

How much control does he have over the dark side of his personality? Do his migraines contribute to his rages?

Has he always been the duplicitous chameleon that his ex-fiancee claims?

And why - if he hates women - does he look to a woman for help?


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Beach Babylon by Imogen Edwards-Jones


Beach Babylon by Imogen Edwards-JonesBeach Babylon
Author: Imogen Edwards-Jones
Format: Softcover




Description:
How does it feel to live and work in the world's most beautiful and luxurious tropical island resort, surrounded by white sandy beaches and aquamarine seas?

How does it feel to exist in the lap of luxury when you're thousands of miles from anywhere else? And when the guests are some of the richest and most demanding people in the world, where do you find the energy every day to smile, smile and smile again? "Beach Babylon" takes you behind the scenes of the world of the five-star tropical island resort.
Do all of the stories which take place behind closed doors of the exclusive spa have happy endings?

What do the world's richest people expect from room service during their fortnight in paradise? What does the windsurfing instructor do to keep sane after hours?

In the bestselling tradition of her previous Babylon books, Imogen Edwards-Jones here investigates the rivalries and alliances between the staff at a resort where catering for the guests' every whim is only the beginning. With a cast of millionaires, celebrities, hangers-on and prostitutes, "Beach Babylon" takes you to a world where luxury is the norm and where excess somehow isn't always enough...


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Thabo Mbeki: A dream deferred by Mark Gevisser


Thabo Mbeki: A dream deferredThabo Mbeki: A dream deferred
Author: Mark Gevisser
Format: Softcover




Description:
This title is a story about home and exile. It is a story, too, of political intrigue; of a revolutionary movement struggling first to defeat and then to seduce a powerful and callous enemy, of the battle between unity and discord, and the dogged rise to power of a quiet, clever, diligent but unpopular man who seemed to take little joy in power but have much need for it.

By the time he retires in 2009, Thabo Mbeki will have ruled South Africa, in effect, for the full fifteen years of its post-apartheid democracy: the first five as Nelson Mandela's 'prime minister' and the next ten as Mandela's successor.

No African leader since the uhuru generation of Nkrumah and Nyerere has been as influential.

The author's long-awaited biography is a profound psycho-political examination of this brilliant but deeply-flawed leader, who has attempted to forge an identity for himself as the symbol of modern Africa in the long shadow of Mandela. It is also a gripping journey into the turbulent history and troubled contemporary soul of the country; one that tries to make sense of the violence of the past and confusion of the present.

As Mbeki battles, in the current day, with demons ranging from AIDS to Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe and finds his legacy challenged by the ever-growing candidacy of his would-be successor Jacob Zuma, The Dream Deferred tracks us back along the path that brought him here, and helps us understand the meaning of South Africa, post-apartheid and post-Mandela.


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Hide and Seek by James Patterson


Hide and Seek by James PattersonHide and Seek
Author: James Patterson
Format: Paperback




Description:
It was the trial that electrified the world. Not only because of the defendant, Maggie Bradford, the woman whose songs captivated the world's heart. Not only because of the victim, Will Shepard, the world's most glamorous athlete. But also because everyone said Maggie had murdered not just one husband, but two.

And because in Maggie's world -- the world she feared and despised but could not escape, the world of the powerful, the rich, and the ruthless -- both death and life could never be what they seemed.

From James Patterson, bestselling author of KISS THE GIRLS and ALONG CAME A SPIDER, comes his most brilliantly realized thriller, a story that will shatter your expectations...and hold every last one of your nerves in thrall, with each twist of the plot and every turn of the page.


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A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah


A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy SoldierA Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Author: Ishmael Beah
Format: Hardcover




Description:
The first-person account of a 25-year-old who fought in the war in Sierra Leone as a 12-year-old boy.

'My new friends have begun to suspect that I haven't told them the full story of my life. "Why did you leave Sierra Leone?" "Because there is a war." "You mean, you saw people running around with guns and shooting each other?" "Yes, all the time." "Cool." I smile a little. "You should tell us about it sometime." "Yes, sometime."' This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them.

What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived.

Ishmael Beah, now twenty-five years old, tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve in Sierra Leone, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence.;By thirteen, he'd been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found he was capable of truly terrible acts.

This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty. Ishmael Beah came to the United States when he was seventeen, and graduated from Oberlin College in 2003. He lives in New York City.

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