Anthony Holden – författare

BIG DEAL is the mesmerising story of a year spent by bestselling biographer Anthony Holden in the tough world of the professional poker player. He spent days and nights in the poker paradise of Las Vegas, in Malta and Morocco, even shipboard, mingling with the legendary greats, sharpening his game, perfecting his repartee, and learning a great deal about himself in the process.Poker, Holden would insist, is not gambling. Like chess it is a paradigm of life at its most intense, a gladiatorial contest that brings out the best as well as the worst in people. Its heroes, its eccentrics and is comedians stalk the pages of this remarkable book, along with all the hair-raising, nail-biting excitement of the games themselves.A classic of the genre, BIG DEAL is here reissued with a new introduction by the author.

He was born in the year Dr Johnson died, and died in the year A.E. Houseman and Conan Doyle were born. The 75 years of Leigh Hunt's life uniquely span two distinct eras of English life and literature. A major player in the Romantic movement, the intimate and first publisher of Keats and Shelley, friend of Byron, Hazlitt and Lamb, Hunt lived on to become an elder statesman of Victorianism, the friend and chamption of Tennyson and Dickens, awarded a sate pension by Queen Victoria. Jailed in his twenties for insulting the Prince of Wales, Hunt ended his long, productive life vainly seeking the Poet Laureatship with fawning poems to Victoria. A tirelessly prolific poet, essayist, editor and critic, he has been described as having no rival in the history of English criticism. Yet Hunt's remarkable life story has never been fully told.Anthony Holden's deeply researched and vibrantly written biography gives full due to this minor poet - but major influence on his great Romantic contempories.

Holden is an experienced poker player who does not pretend to be as expert as the world's top pros; but he can write better than them - and he knows most well enough to milk them for personalized advice, tips and subtle strategies. HOLDEN ON HOLD'EM thoroughly analyses the difference between home and casino play, between cash and tournament play, between internet poker and the real thing against real human beings. Amid definitive charts and tables of odds, probabilities and other statistics, sample hands, advice on etiquette and other niceties, there will be sections on bluff, tells and the nuances of 'position' and 'outs', as well as a brief history of the game and anecdotes about its great players.This book can claim to be the first really readable manual in the history of poker! An entertaining, anecdote-packed and invaluable companion to the narrative poker classics BIG DEAL and BIGGER DEAL.

‘The best leave you with a renewed sense of how extraordinary it is that poetry can, over the course of one sentence, flood your circuit board with loss, or anger, or love’ IndependentFrom J.J. Abrams to John le Carré, Salman Rushdie to Jonathan Franzen, Daniel Radcliffe to Nick Cave, Ian McEwan to Stephen Fry, Stanley Tucci to Colin Firth, and Seamus Heaney to Christopher Hitchins, 100 men confess to being moved to tears by poems that haunt them.This remarkable collection of poems, from the sixteenth century to the present day, delivers private insight into the souls of men whose writing, acting and thinking are admired around the world.

‘A deep and valuable collection that you could rely upon in your time of need’ The TimesFollowing the success of their anthology Poems That Make Grown Men Cry, father-and-son team Anthony and Ben Holden, working with Amnesty International, have asked the same revealing question of 100 remarkable women: what poem has moved you to tears?The poems chosen range from the eighth century to today, from Rumi and Shakespeare to Sylvia Plath, W. H. Auden to Carol Ann Duffy, Pablo Neruda and Derek Walcott to Imtiaz Dharker and Warsan Shire. Their themes range from love and loss, through mortality and mystery, war and peace, to the beauty and variety of nature. From Yoko Ono to Judi Dench, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to Elena Ferrante, Carol Ann Duffy to Meera Syal, and Joan Baez to Olivia Colman, this unique collection delivers private insights into the minds of women whose writing, acting and thinking are admired around the world.

From poker to poetry, poisoners to princes, opera to the Oscars, Shakespeare to Olivier, Mozart to Murdoch, Anthony Holden seems to have rolled many writers’ lives into one. Author of 40 books on a wide range of subjects, this Lancashire lad-turned-bohemian citizen of the world has led an apparently charmed life from Merseyside to Buckingham Palace, the White House and beyond.As he enters his 70s, the award-winning journalist and biographer – son of a seaside shopkeeper,  grandson of an England footballer, friend of the famous from Peter O'Toole to Princess Diana – spills the beans on showbiz names to literary sophisticates, rock stars to royals as he looks back whimsically and wittily on a richly varied, anecdote- and action-packed career – concluding, in the words of Robert Louis Stevenson, that ‘Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well’.

From poker to poetry, poisoners to princes, opera to the Oscars, Shakespeare to Olivier, Mozart to Murdoch, Anthony Holden seems to have rolled many writers’ lives into one. Author of 35 books on a ‘crazy’ range of subjects, this cocky Lancashire lad-turned-bohemian citizen of the world has led an apparently charmed life from Merseyside to Buckingham Palace, the White House and beyond. As he turns 70, the award-winning journalist and biographer – grandson of an England footballer, son of a seaside shopkeeper, friend of the famous from Princess Diana to Peter O'Toole, Mick Jagger to Salman Rushdie – spills the beans on showbiz names to literary sophisticates, rock stars to royals as he looks back whimsically and wittily on a richly varied, anecdote- and action-packed career – concluding, in the words of Robert Louis Stevenson, that ‘Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well’.

He Played For His Wife…And Other Stories continues a rich tradition of fictional writing on one of the world’s greatest games. A ghost at the table, a heads-up with Shakespeare, a high stakes stick-up, a hand played on Death Row, tales of pioneers and knaves, even a celestial argy-bargy – each story in this anthology reveals that when it comes to playing poker, no one can hide from their true selves. Whoever you are, you can be sure all your passions and compulsions, your desires, your foibles and idiosyncrasies will be unsparingly crystalised and exposed on the baize.   First mentioned in print in a military history book published in 1836, the game of poker quickly found its way into the modern literary canon. Requiring technical skill and creative fiction in equal measure, poker is the quintessential writer’s game. From John Steinbeck, Bret Harte, Henry James to Damon Runyon, writers throughout the ages have found in poker a natural prism to refract complex human experience. Poker is one of the few sports to have spawned a literature almost as rich and colourful as its own exotic history.   Featuring contributions from Booker Prize-winning novelist D.B.C. Pierre, award-winning playwright Patrick Marber, actor Neil Pearson and poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, He Played For His Wife…And Other Stories is a compelling collection that will appeal to poker fans everywhere.

A brilliant collection of the best poker short stories from writers such as Anthony Holden, Patrick Marber, Neil Pearson and Jennifer Tilly