Showing results by author "James" in Entertainment & Celebrities

While James Blunt's crimes against music are well-documented, he also has some stories that are not. In Loosely Based On A Made-Up Story, James reveals his most riotous anecdotes to date for your amusement - and his parents' horror - in this highly anticipated non-memoir. From his questionable Norfolk roots, eccentric family, boarding school antics, misjudged military service, rise to music stardom and tour escapades, James delves into his (surprisingly) fascinating life to date.

Bernard Cribbins's life has been an eventful one. In 1943, he left school aged fourteen and joined Oldham Repertory Company where he earned fifteen bob for a seventy-hour week. After being called up for National Service in 1946 he became a paratrooper and spent several months in Palestine being shot at. On returning home, and to the theatre, Bernard was eventually approached by George Martin, then an A&R man for Parlophone Records, who suggested he made a record.

George Michael was an extravagantly gifted, openhearted soul singer whose work was both pained and smolderingly erotic. He was a songwriter of true craft and substance, and his music swept the world, starting in the mid-1980s. His fabricated image—that of a hypermacho sex god—loomed large in the pop culture of his day. It also hid—for a time—the secret he fought against revealing: Michael was gay. George Michael: A Life explores the compelling story of a superstar whose struggles, as well as his songs, continue to touch fans all over the world.

James Herriot, strapped into the cockpit of a Tiger Moth trainer, feels rather out of place, but he hasn't found a new profession and it surely won't be long before the RAF come round to his point of view. James Herriot's sixth volume of unforgettable memoirs sees him dreaming of the day when he can rejoin his wife Helen, little son Jimmy, veterinary partner Siegfried, the eternal student Tristan - and all the old Darrowby crows, both two-legged and four.

Written with a searing honesty and published for the 10th anniversary of Amy Winehouse's death, My Amy is an evocative portrait of unbreakable lifelong friendship - and a devastating study into fame, addiction and self-sabotage. Only one person knows what really happened to Amy, other than Amy herself. He is Tyler James, Amy’s best friend from the age of 13. They met at stage school as two insecure outsiders, formed an instant connection and lived together from their late teenage years right up until the day she died, aged just 27.

When Marco Pierre White's mother died when he was just six years old, it transformed his life. Soon his father was urging him to earn his own keep, and by 16 he was working in his first restaurant. White went on to learn from some of the best chefs in the country, such as Albert Roux, Raymond Blanc and Pierre Koffmann. He survived the intense pressure of hundred-hour weeks in the heat of the kitchen, developed his own style and then struck out on his own.

James Rolfe is an independent filmmaker and creator of the Angry Video Game Nerd web series and feature film. A Movie Making Nerd is a personal account of his origins, starting with an early love of making home movies before the rise of the internet and digital video.

Perhaps the most unconventional and literally breathtaking father-son story you'll ever read, My Friend Leonard pulls you immediately and deeply into a relationship as unusual as it is inspiring. The father figure is Leonard, the high-living, recovering coke addict, "West Coast Director of a large Italian-American finance firm" (read: mobster) who helped to keep James Frey clean in A Million Little Pieces.

Howard Hughes lived one of the greatest, most heroic, misunderstood, mysterious, bizarre, and tragic lives in American history. In this brilliantly documented biography, the mythology that surrounded that life is disentangled from the truth.

He was the billionaire financier and close confidant of presidents, prime ministers, movie stars, and British royalty, the mysterious self-made man who rose from blue-collar Brooklyn to the heights of luxury. But while he was flying around the world on his private jet and hosting lavish parties at his private island in the Caribbean, he also was secretly masterminding an international child sex ring-one that may have involved the richest and most influential men in the world.

This is a self help-book like no other. Because you are not helping yourself, James Acaster is helping you. When James quit all forms of social media in 2019 he felt like he'd been born anew, but he was worried he'd suffer withdrawal and get lured back online to compete in a never ending popularity contest with only one possible winner (f--king Zuckerberg). He knew that in order to stay clean he'd have to replace everything social media used to give him with three-dimensional real-life activities.

For many people, Clive James will always be a TV presenter first and foremost, and a writer second -- this despite the fact that his adventures with the written word took place before, during and after his time on the small screen.

Charming, vibrant, witty and edifying, The Life of Samuel Johnson is a work of great obsession and boundless reverence. The literary critic Samuel Johnson was 54 when he first encountered Boswell; the friendship that developed spawned one of the greatest biographies in the history of world literature. The book is full of humorous anecdote and rich characterization, and paints a vivid picture of 18th-century London, peopled by prominent personalities of the time.

Legendary sitcom director James Burrows has spent five decades making America laugh. Here listeners will find never-revealed stories behind the casting of the dozens of great sitcoms he directed, as well as details as to how these memorable shows were created, how they got on the air, and how the cast and crew continued to develop and grow. Burrows also examines his own challenges, career victories, and defeats, and provides advice for aspiring directors, writers, and actors.

As far back as he can remember James Corden has only ever wanted to be in one place: in front of you, doing something to make you laugh, cry, shout, or giggle uncontrollably. At the age of 4, he grandstanded throughout his baby sister’s christening, standing on a chair in front of the whole congregation, pulling faces and cracking everyone up. Despite himself, the vicar was impressed. And from then on he couldn’t get enough of the spotlight, even when it always seemed to avoid him. Throughout his teens, he and his Dad trudged up and down towards London....

1959 saw Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the other members of Miles's sextet come together to record the seminal jazz album of all time Kind of Blue. 3 Shades of Blue is a magnificent blended biography on the meandering paths which led Miles, Coltrane and Evans to the mountaintop of 1959 and the aftermath. It's a book about music, business, race, addiction and the cities that gave jazz its home; from New York and LA to Philadelphia, Chicago and Kansas City. Kaplan meditates on creativity and the great forebears of this golden age who would take the music down strange new paths.

One winter’s night, Alex James received an unexpected call. Blur had been invited to play their biggest gig ever: Wembley Stadium. The only trouble was, he and his bandmates hadn’t spoken to – or even shouted at – each other for years. And he now had five children, an out-of-control menagerie of cats, and a sprawling farm to run. This is the story of what happened next.

In the summer of 1980, 10 years after the break-up of The Beatles, Lennon signed with a new label and hired a top producer to recruit the best session musicians, ready to record new music for the first time in years. They were awestruck when Lennon dashed off '(Just Like) Starting Over'. Lennon was back in peak form, with his best songwriting since 'Imagine'. Even before Lennon left The Beatles, becoming a solo artist and making a life with Yoko Ono in New York City, Mark David Chapman had become obsessed with murdering his former hero.

October 1982: ABC, Culture Club, Shalamar and Survivor dominate the top twenty when the Pogues barrel out from the backstreets of King's Cross, a furious, pioneering mix of punk energy, traditional melodies and the powerfully poetic songwriting of Shane MacGowan.

Tiger Woods is unrivalled as an athlete. He made the ultimate commitment to his chosen sport - and transformed it. Before the age of twenty-five, he rose to phenomenon status: twice named 'Sportsman of the Year' by Sports Illustrated, champion of more than thirty professional tournaments and the youngest player to win all four Grand Slam tournaments. Tiger, Tiger taps into the transformative moments of Woods's life, revealing in vivid, dramatic scenes what he saw and felt on the course and in his inner life.