Download or read book Stalin Ate My Homework written by Alexei Sayle and published by Sceptre. This book was released on 2010-09-02 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Fascinating and hugely entertaining' Daily Telegraph 'It's not like other comedians' memoirs. It's funny' Guardian THE SAYLES MIGHT NOT HAVE BEEN THE ONLY JEWISH ATHEIST COMMUNIST FAMILY IN LIVERPOOL, BUT ALEXEI KNEW FROM AN EARLY AGE THAT THEY WERE ONE OF THE MORE ECCENTRIC. Born on the day egg rationing came to an end, Alexei was the only child of Joe, an affable trade unionist who led the family on railway expeditions across eastern Europe, and Molly, a hot-tempered red-head who terrified teachers and insisted Alexei see the Red Army Choir instead of the Beatles. Perceptive and hilarious, this is a portrait of a family, a city, a country and a continent going through enormous changes. 'Sayle's book has charm and substance, both as memoir and history' Times Literary Supplement

Download or read book Thatcher Stole My Trousers written by Alexei Sayle and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-03-10 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Enlightening ... Funny, smart, original and provocative ... It is hard to imagine the stalwarts of Mock the Week recognising the Druze militia leader Walid Jumblatt in a London cinema' NEW STATESMAN 'Few standups have come close to capturing a fraction of this creative energy in a book ... Alexei Sayle is an exception' GUARDIAN "What I brought to comedy was an authentic working-class voice plus a threat of genuine violence - nobody in Monty Python looked like a hard case who'd kick your head in." In 1971, comedians on the working men's club circuit imagined that they would be free to continue telling their tired, racist, misogynistic gags forever. But their nemesis, a nineteen-year-old Marxist art student, was slowly coming to meet them... Thatcher Stole My Trousers chronicles a time when comedy and politics united in electrifying ways. Recounting the founding of the Comedy Store, the Comic Strip and the Young Ones, and Alexei's friendships with the comedians who – like him – would soon become household names, this is a unique and beguiling blend of social history and memoir. Fascinating, funny, angry and entertaining, it is a story of class and comedy, politics and love, fast cars and why it's difficult to foul a dwarf in a game of football.

Download or read book Stalin Ate My Homework written by Alexei Sayle and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fantastically entertaining, poignant and surprising, this is a brilliantly written memoir of an unusual childhood by one of Britain's most-loved comedians.

Download or read book Barcelona Plates written by Alexei Sayle and published by . This book was released on 2006-12-28 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A septuagenarian contract killer, a chronic hypochondriac, two zombie-creating comedians, a good Samaritan and a man called Barnaby whose holiday takes an unexpected turn. In these sleek and witty tales, described by Loaded as 'an excellent collection of dark, funny and bizarre short stories', Alexei Sayle's characters are vividly, wryly - and occasionally disturbingly - portrayed. Their voices, and the stories they have to tell will remain in the mind for a long, long time.

Download or read book Red Azalea written by Anchee Min and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2012-11-05 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The acclaimed memoir from the bestselling author of Empress Orchid 'Historically remarkable ... intensely moving' SUNDAY TIMES 'The book sings. It is a small masterpiece' VOGUE Born into a devoutly Maoist family in 1950s Shanghai and forced to work on a communal farm from the age of seventeen, Anchee Min found herself in an alienating and hostile political climate, where her only friendships were perilous and intense. Both candid and touching, this compelling memoir documents her isolation and illicit love against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution. From her coming of age in the Red Guard to her recruitment into Madame Mao's burgeoning industry of propaganda movies, Red Azalea explores the secret sensuality of a repressive society with elegance and honesty.

Download or read book Fierce Attachments written by Vivian Gornick and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2005-09-14 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vivian Gornick’s Fierce Attachments—hailed by the New York Times for the renowned feminist author’s “mesmerizing, thrilling” truths within its pages—has been selected by the publication’s book critics as the #1 Best Memoir of the Past 50 Years. In this deeply etched and haunting memoir, Vivian Gornick tells the story of her lifelong battle with her mother for independence. There have been numerous books about mother and daughter, but none has dealt with this closest of filial relations as directly or as ruthlessly. Gornick’s groundbreaking book confronts what Edna O’Brien has called “the principal crux of female despair”: the unacknowledged Oedipal nature of the mother-daughter bond. Born and raised in the Bronx, the daughter of “urban peasants,” Gornick grows up in a household dominated by her intelligent but uneducated mother’s romantic depression over the early death of her husband. Next door lives Nettie, an attractive widow whose calculating sensuality appeals greatly to Vivian. These women with their opposing models of femininity continue, well into adulthood, to affect Gornick’s struggle to find herself in love and in work. As Gornick walks with her aged mother through the streets of New York, arguing and remembering the past, each wins the reader’s admiration: the caustic and clear-thinking daughter, for her courage and tenacity in really talking to her mother about the most basic issues of their lives, and the still powerful and intuitively-wise old woman, who again and again proves herself her daughter’s mother. Unsparing, deeply courageous, Fierce Attachments is one of the most remarkable documents of family feeling that has been written, a classic that helped start the memoir boom and remains one of the most moving examples of the genre. “[Gornick] stares unflinchingly at all that is hidden, difficult, strange, unresolvable in herself and others—at loneliness, sexual malice and the devouring, claustral closeness of mothers and daughters...[Fierce Attachments is] a portrait of the artist as she finds a language—original, allergic to euphemism and therapeutic banalities—worthy of the women that raised her.”—The New York Times

Download or read book The Dog Catcher written by Alexei Sayle and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The acclaimed BARCELONA PLATES revealed Alexei Sayle as a writer with an outstanding ability to describe contemporary life in an unusual way. Now, in his new collection THE DOG CATCHER, he brilliantly captures the morals and absurdities of our so-called 'cool' culture, populated by characters as recognizable as they are memorable. THE DOG CATCHER will confirm Alexei Sayle's reputation as not only one of the great exponents of the short story genre, but also as a profound commentator on the way we live now.

Download or read book The Rook written by Daniel O'Malley and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2012-01-11 with total page 602 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Myfanwy Thomas awakens in a London park surrounded by dead bodies. With her memory gone, she must trust the instructions left by her former in order to survive. She quickly learns that she is a Rook, a high-level operative in a secret agency that protects the world from supernatural threats. But there is a mole inside the organization, and this person wants her dead. Battling to save herself, Myfanwy will encounter a person with four bodies, a woman who can enter her dreams, children transformed into deadly fighters, and terrifyingly vast conspiracy. Suspenseful and hilarious, The Rook is an outrageously imaginative thriller for readers who like their espionage with a dollop of purple slime. "Utterly convincing and engrossing -- -totally thought-through and frequently hilarious....Even this aging, jaded, attention-deficit-disordered critic was blown away."-Lev Grossman, Time

Download or read book Alexei Sayle s Imaginary Sandwich Bar written by Alexei Sayle and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Godfather of Alternative Comedy reveals his true vocation: proprietor of an imaginary sandwich shop. Blending politics, comedy, philosophy and memoir, this is the inimitable Alexei Sayle at his most anarchic and irresistibly entertaining Alexei Sayle has been telling people he runs a sandwich bar on Gray's Inn Road that doesn't exist since the mid-1970s. From behind this imaginary counter Alexei dispenses wisdom and focaccia to his famous customers as he explores his love of pretending, reveals why he disappeared from our TV screens in the 1990's, lobbies for eleven-hour long episodes of Newsnight and discusses rampant nepotism in coveted careers. And from drawing striking comparisons between capitalism and all-you-can-eat buffets to discussing the hidden depths of Taylor Swift, this flight of fancy packs a surprising punch and will leave you hungry for more."--Publisher.

Download or read book Sophie s World written by Jostein Gaarder and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2007-03-20 with total page 735 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.

Download or read book The Trials and Triumphs of Les Dawson written by Louis Barfe and published by Atlantic Books. This book was released on 2012-02-22 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: STRONGThe first ever narrative biography of a towering figure in British comedy Les Dawson, more than any other comedian, spoke for the phlegmatic, pessimistic British way of life. A Northern lad who climbed out of the slums thanks to an uncommonly brilliant mind, he was always the underdog, but his bark was funnier and more incisive than many comics who claimed to bite. Married twice in real life, he had a third wife in his comic world—a fictional ogre built from spare parts left by fleeing Nazis at the end of World War II—and an equally frightening mother-in-law. He was down to earth, yet given to eloquent, absurd flights of fancy. He was endlessly generous with his time, but slow to buy a round of drinks. He was a mass of contradictions. In short, he was human, he was genuine, and that's why audiences loved him. This is his story.

Download or read book The Fetish Room written by Rudi Rotthier and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2011-03-10 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Redmond O'Hanlon is known as an amiable anti-hero - the debunker of classical exploration literature - and here on this joint road trip with journalist Rudi Rotthier, O'Hanlon visits places from his dark childhood. With a fine sense of the comic and beautifully rendered observations of the people they encounter, Rotthier excels in painting a portrait of this English author as he details the escapades of their journey. O'Hanlon provides a stream of jokey anecdotes which offset the bleakness of almost all his memories as do their conversations on God, Darwin and nature. Plagued by depression and scarred by his childhood and sadistic teachers, O'Hanlon drinks excessively, pops caffeine and nicotine pills. One of his most important possessions is a jar containing some of the charred remains of a close friend who committed suicide. In his house in Oxfordshire piles of books have spilled over tables and shelves and tottering mounds of dirty crockery obscure the sink. Yet, unlikely as it may seem, this is a remarkably light-hearted, sensitive and funny book.

Download or read book Between Shades of Gray written by Ruta Sepetys and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-03-22 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inspiration for the major motion picture Ashes in the Snow! "Few books are beautifully written, fewer still are important; this novel is both." --The Washington Post From New York Times and international bestseller and Carnegie Medal winner Ruta Sepetys, author of Salt to the Sea, comes a story of loss and of fear -- and ultimately, of survival. A New York Times notable book An international bestseller A Carnegie Medal nominee A William C. Morris Award finalist A Golden Kite Award winner Fifteen-year-old Lina is a Lithuanian girl living an ordinary life -- until Soviet officers invade her home and tear her family apart. Separated from her father and forced onto a crowded train, Lina, her mother, and her young brother make their way to a Siberian work camp, where they are forced to fight for their lives. Lina finds solace in her art, documenting these events by drawing. Risking everything, she imbeds clues in her drawings of their location and secretly passes them along, hoping her drawings will make their way to her father's prison camp. But will strength, love, and hope be enough for Lina and her family to survive? A moving and haunting novel perfect for readers of The Book Thief. Praise for Between Shades of Gray: "Superlative. A hefty emotional punch." --The New York Times Book Review "Heart-wrenching . . . an eye-opening reimagination of a very real tragedy written with grace and heart." --The Los Angeles Times "At once a suspenseful, drama-packed survival story, a romance, and an intricately researched work of historial fiction." --The Wall Street Journal * "Beautifully written and deeply felt . . . An important book that deserves the widest possible readership." --Booklist, starred review “A superlative first novel. A hefty emotional punch.”--The New York Times Book Review “A brilliant story of love and survival.”--Laurie Halse Anderson, bestselling author of Speak and Wintergirls * “Beautifully written and deeply felt…an important book that deserves the widest possible readership.”--Booklist, Starred Review

Download or read book Overtaken written by Alexei Sayle and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kelvin is a 33-year-old property developer living in a small Lancashire town. He has five close friends, all in well-paid jobs. Having bought their lovely houses cheaply in the early 1990s, they are free to spend money on their own pleasures - particularly clothes, meals and cars. Most of all, their life revolves around going to see things - art exhibitions, comedians, live music, plays... When we first meet the six friends they are on their way to see a new kind of circus. Once there Kelvin does something unforgivable to a clown, has a strange snack and meets the most beautiful girl he has ever seen. It's the beginning of the end of the good life.

Download or read book Everyday Stalinism written by Sheila Fitzpatrick and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1999-03-04 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on urban areas in the 1930s, this college professor illuminates the ways that Soviet city-dwellers coped with this world, examining such diverse activities as shopping, landing a job, and other acts.

Download or read book Weeping Women Hotel written by Alexei Sayle and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2007-05-17 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A funny, frightening book that is also refreshingly bonkers' Guardian 'A brilliant writer...a great novelist' Richard and Judy Northern girl Harriet lives and works on a London estate which is a battleground between the white working class plus the immigrants versus the newly arrived middle class focaccia-eaters. Unhappy and overweight, she hires a personal trainer who lures her into joining the martial arts class he runs. There she learns the regime of the completely phoney martial arts master and embarks on a spiritual and literal journey which leads her to a hotel opposite the railway station at Crewe, the Weeping Women Hotel. 'If you like your weirdness with warmth and wit, Sayle's your man' Metro

Download or read book The Liberator written by Alex Kershaw and published by Crown. This book was released on 2013-10-15 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The untold story of the bloodiest and most dramatic march to victory of the Second World War—now a Netflix original series starring Jose Miguel Vasquez, Bryan Hibbard, and Bradley James “Exceptional . . . worthy addition to vibrant classics of small-unit history like Stephen Ambrose’s Band of Brothers.”—Wall Street Journal Written with Alex Kershaw's trademark narrative drive and vivid immediacy, The Liberator traces the remarkable battlefield journey of maverick U.S. Army officer Felix Sparks through the Allied liberation of Europe—from the first landing in Italy to the final death throes of the Third Reich. Over five hundred bloody days, Sparks and his infantry unit battled from the beaches of Sicily through the mountains of Italy and France, ultimately enduring bitter and desperate winter combat against the die-hard SS on the Fatherland's borders. Having miraculously survived the long, bloody march across Europe, Sparks was selected to lead a final charge to Bavaria, where he and his men experienced some of the most intense street fighting suffered by Americans in World War II. And when he finally arrived at the gates of Dachau, Sparks confronted scenes that robbed the mind of reason—and put his humanity to the ultimate test.