Coast to Coast, by Jan Morris

Fresh from her successful scoop reporting the first ascent of Everest in 1953, Jan Morris spent a year journeying across the United States, by car, train, ship and aeroplane. In her words a ‘period piece’, Coast to Coast describes an American identity markedly different from today.

In her brilliant prose, Morris records with exuberence and curiosity a time of innocence in the US – when television was in its infancy, the Big Mac had not been invented and the popular song of the day was ‘Chattanooga Choo-Choo’.

The Newsagent’s Window: Adventures in a World of Second-Hand Cars and Lost Cats, by John Osborne

‘I had met a lot of special people through newsagents’ windows, and spent many enjoyable days with them. I found out about a community I never knew existed, the heart of rural Britain. I learned that everyone had a story to tell, and that people who live very ordinary lives are much more fascinating than explorers or pop stars.’

John Osborne’s second book is a comic voyage through small-town Britain via the ads in newsagents’ windows: lost kittens, personal ads, a second-hand bike for sale, yoga classes … Moving into an unfurnished house, John at first uses the ads in newsagents’ windows to buy practical things like a bed and a settee. But on impulse one day he replies to an advert for a psychic masseur named Lucy, who tells him some startling home-truths as he sits on her settee in his pants.

So begins a year of self-discovery and a wild obsession with newsagents’ windows, which take John to a shoe-exhibition, to an Alan Ayckbourn play, to a wrestling match. He finds himself the owner of a man’s entire video collection, a second-hand bike, a clapped-out Ford Escort – and discovers a community of a bygone age. Looking to improve his German, he meets a pretty German girl named Leni …

Hilarious and thought-provoking, The Newsagent’s Window restores our faith – in our fellow human beings, in a world without ebay – and reveals the odd things that can happen if you let newsagents’ windows dictate your day.

Disgusting Bliss: The Brass Eye of Chris Morris, by Lucian Randall

The Sun newspaper asked if Chris Morris’s July 2001 Brass Eye Special on paedophilia was ‘the sickest TV ever?’ It was certainly the most controversial, though his uncompromising style of comedy meant he was rarely far from trouble.

Morris first came to national prominence at the heart of a group of virtually unknown comedians brought together by Armando Iannucci. This book follows them from their 1991 news satire On the Hour, which transferred from radio to television where it was reinvented as the equally successful The Day Today. It became impossible to watch bulletins without thinking of Morris’s Paxmanesque anchor character chastising a reporter — ‘Peter! You’ve lost the news!’ — or authoritatively delivering nonsense headlines: ‘Sacked chimney worker pumps boss full of mayonnaise.’ Meanwhile co-star Steve Coogan created a lasting anti-hero in Alan Partridge, imbued with a horrible life all of his own.

But Morris himself was always the most compelling character of all. Drawing on exclusive new interviews and original research, this book creates a compelling portrait of Morris from his earliest radio days and of the comedians and writers who frequently took on the industry they worked in, polarising opinion to such a degree that government ministers threatened to ban them entirely. THIS IS THE NEEEWWWWS!

Contested Will, by James Shapiro

From the bestselling and prize-winning author of 1599, an investigation of one of the most contentious issues in English history: who did write Shakespeare’s plays? And why does it matter so much to us?

For two hundred years after Shakespeare’s death, no one thought to argue that somebody else had written his plays. Since then dozens of rival candidates – including Sir Francis Bacon and the Earl of Oxford – have been proposed as their true author. Contested Will unravels the mystery of when and why so many people began to question whether Shakespeare wrote the plays, among them such leading writers and artists as Sigmund Freud, Henry James, Mark Twain, Helen Keller, Orson Welles and Sir Derek Jacobi.

Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro’s fascinating search for the source of this controversy retraces a path strewn with fabricated documents, calls for trials, false claimants, concealed identity, bald-faced deception and a failure to grasp what could not be imagined. If Contested Will does not end the authorship question once and for all, it will nonetheless irrevocably change the nature of the debate by confronting what is really contested: are the plays and poems of Shakespeare autobiographical and, if so, do they hold the key to the question of who wrote them?

The Leader Who Had No Title A Modern Fable on Real Success in Business and in Life, by Robin Sharma

Robin Sharma believes there are certain skills and attitudes that allow you to rise to extraordinary success. In his powerful new parable, he offers a story designed to help people from all walks of life to achieve great things.

Blake DiFranco is down on his luck, trying to make ends meet. His job is unsatisfying, and he is disenchanted with the world around him. One day, an enigmatic family friend offers him a life-altering opportunity: spend a day studying with a mysterious group of teachers and learn the secrets of limitless success. Blake is sceptical, but something compels him to take the opportunity seriously. The next morning, he embarks on a journey to discover the true meaning of the LWT philosophy – Lead Without a Title. He is ushered through the lessons of the four teachers: Anna, a maid who shows him that every job can be done with passion; Ty, a surfer who reminds him how important it is to rise to the riskiest challenges; Jackson, a former CEO who shows him the value of relationships; and Jet, a masseur who proves that greatness begins within. Blake’s world changes as the teachers make him realize his own potential to achieve greater things than he’d ever imagined.

The book is packed with real-world lessons, catchy aphorisms and inspiring exercises that will help any business person realize extraordinary results. Sharma distils over fifteen years of working with high-performers to deliver real-world strategies and foster a winning mindset. Here are formulas that will build success amidst times of deep change and will help readers to make positive changes both at work and at home.

Emergency, by Neil Strauss

With the economic downturn, the hysterical Swine Flu frenzy and the systemic corruption of our political system we need someone to guide us through these difficult times. Emergency tells how Strauss went from shivering the whole night through in a water-logged sleeping bag on a tracking course, with only his broken Blackberry for company, to being the well-trained and even better equipped survival expert he is today. Encountering a host of weird and hilarious characters along the way, Strauss’s timely and wry look at the The End of the World As We Know It will make you glad you chose to be on his side.

Gross Misconduct My Year of Excess in the City, by Venetia Thompson

Venetia Thompson takes the reader on a rollercoaster ride inside the final year of excess in the City. Working as one of only a few female inter-dealer bond brokers, the blonde ex-public school girl (nicknamed ‘posh bird’ and ‘airbags’ ) threw herself headlong into a ‘work hard, play hard’ culture of extravagance. Determined not to be bullied by the brash Essex wide boys and Alpha males around her, she partied with as much gusto as her colleagues, taking all the life offered: the £900 bottles of wine, the six-hour lunches, the days out at Cartier Polo, the Champagne-fuelled nights at lap-dancing clubs, the Chanel handbags and the meaningless sex.

Then, as easily as she’d slipped into the life, she was catapulted back out, when a satirical article she penned for The Spectator, spilled the beans on how her co-workers and bosses really behaved. Now, in Gross Misconduct, Thompson tells the full, unexpurgated story of what really went on in the mad, macho world of London’s City traders during the boom years.

The Four Gospels, by Various

Encouraging the reading of the Bible as literature rather than doctrine, the four central gospels are presented here in the beauty of the Authorised King James Version, with four fresh, modern introductions. The revelatory essays, by A.N. Wilson, Nick Cave, Richard Holloway and Blake Morrison, were commissioned for the groundbreaking Pocket Canons series. They offer piercing, moving and highly personal responses to the most influential story of the last two thousand years: the life of Jesus Christ. Including: A.N. Wilson on The Gospel According to Matthew; Nick Cave on The Gospel According to Mark; Richard Holloway on The Gospel According to Luke; Blake Morrison on The Gospel According to John and the Authorised King James Version of all four Gospels.

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