He was a brilliant teller of tales, one of the most widelyread authors of the twentieth century, and at one time the mostfamous writer in the world, yet W. Somerset Maugham’s own truestory has never been fully told. At last, the fascinating truth isrevealed in a landmark biography by the award-winning writer SelinaHastings. Granted unprecedented access to Maugham’s personalcorrespondence and to newly uncovered interviews with his onlychild, Hastings portrays the secret loves, betrayals, integrity,and passion that inspired Maugham to create such classics as TheRazor’s Edge and Of Human Bondage. Hastings vividly presents Maugham’s lonely childhood spentwith unloving relatives after the death of his parents, a traumathat resulted in shyness, a stammer, and for the rest of his lifean urgent need for physical tenderness. Here, too, are his adulttriumphs on the stage and page, works that allowed him a glitteringsocial life in which he befriended and sometimes fell out with suchluminaries as Do
Tony Blair has dominated British political life for more thana decade. Like Margaret Thatcher before him, he has changed theterms of political debate and provoked as much condemnation asadmiration. At the end of his era in power, this book presents awide-ranging overview of the achievements and failures of the Blairgovernments. Bringing together Britain's most eminent academics andcommentators on British politics and society, it examines theeffect of the Prime Minister and his administration on themachinery of government, economic and social policy and foreignrelations. Combining serious scholarship with clarity andaccessibility, this book represents the authoritative verdict onthe impact of the Blair years on British politics andsociety. Covers the full term of Blair's leadership of Labour ? AnthonySeldon is a recognized authority on British Prime Ministers, andTony Blair in particular ? Uniquely authoritative with a superbcollection of contributors including John Curtice, Vernon Bogdanor,Sir La
One climbed to the very top of the social ladder, the otherchose to live among tramps. One was a celebrity at twenty-three,the other virtually unknown until his dying days. One wasright-wing and religious, the other a socialist and an atheist.Yet, as this ingenious and important new book reveals, at the heartof their lives and writing, Evelyn Waugh and George Orwell wereessentially the same man. Orwell is best known for "Animal Farm"and "1984," Waugh for "Brideshead Revisited" and comic novels like"Scoop" and "Vile Bodies." How ever different they may seem, thesetwo towering figures of twentieth-century literature are linked forthe first time in this engaging and unconventional biography, whichgoes beyond the story of their amazing lives to reach the core oftheir beliefs-a shared vision that was startlingly prescient aboutour own troubled times. Both Waugh and Orwell were born in 1903,into the same comfortable stratum of England's class-obsessedsociety. But at first glance they seem to have lived
An inspiring story of one doctor’s struggle in a war-tornvillage in the heart of Sudan In 2007, James Maskalyk, newly recruited byDoctors Without Borders, set out for the contested border town ofAbyei, Sudan. An emergency physician drawn to the ravaged parts ofthe world, Maskalyk spent six months treating malnourishedchildren, coping with a measles epidemic, watching for war, andstruggling to meet overwhelming needs with few resources. Six Months in Sudan began as a blog thatMaskalyk wrote from his hut in Sudan in an attempt to bring hisfamily and friends closer to his experiences on the medical frontline of one of the poorest and most fragile places on earth. It isthe story of the doctors, nurses, and countless volunteers wholeave their homes behind to ease the suffering of others, and it isthe story of the people of Abyei, who endure its hardship becauseit is the only home they have. A memoir of volunteerism that recalls Three Cupsof Tea, Six Months in Sudan is written with humanity, convicti
