Harper Perennial – serie

The long-awaited memoir, generously illustrated with never-before-seen photos, from the iconic Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, Rush bassist, and New York Times bestselling author of Geddy Lee's Big Beautiful Book of Bass.Geddy Lee is one of rock and roll's most respected bassists. For nearly five decades, his playing and work as co-writer, vocalist and keyboardist has been an essential part of the success story of Canadian progressive rock trio Rush. Here for the first time is his account of life inside and outside the band.Long before Rush accumulated more consecutive gold and platinum records than any rock band after the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, before the seven Grammy nominations or the countless electrifying live performances across the globe, Geddy Lee was Gershon Eliezer Weinrib, after his grandfather was murdered in the Holocaust.As he recounts the transformation, Lee looks back on his family, in particular his loving parents and their horrific experiences as teenagers during World War II.He talks candidly about his childhood and the pursuit of music that led him to drop out of high school.He tracks the history of Rush which, after early struggles, exploded into one of the most beloved bands of all time.He shares intimate stories of his lifelong friendships with bandmates Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart—deeply mourning Peart’s recent passing—and reveals his obsessions in music and beyond.This rich brew of honesty, humor, and loss makes for a uniquely poignant memoir.

Alex Ross’s sweeping history of twentieth-century classical music, winner of the Guardian First Book Award, is a gripping account of a musical revolution.The landscape of twentieth-century classical music is a wild one: this was a period in which music fragmented into apparently divergent strands, each influenced by its own composers, performers and musical innovations. In this comprehensive tour, Alex Ross, music critic for the ‘New Yorker’, explores the people and places that shaped musical development: Adams to Zweig, Brahms to Björk, pre-First World War Vienna to ‘Nixon in China’.Above all, this unique portrait of an exceptional era weaves together art, politics and cultural history to show how twentieth-century classical music was both a symptom and a source of immense social change.This edition includes a definitive list of the greatest recordings of twentieth-century music.

A stunning reissue of the international bestseller, from the much-loved author of The Joy Luck Club and The Bonesetter’s Daughter.Pearl Louie Brandt has a terrible secret which she tries desperately to keep from her mother, Winne Louie. And Winnie has long kept her own secrets – about her past and the confusing circumstances of Pearl’s birth. Fate intervenes in the form of Helen Kwong, Winnie’s so-called sister-in-law, who believes she is dying and must unburden herself of all falsehoods before she flies off to heaven. But, unfortunately, the truth comes in many guises, depending on who is telling the tale…Thus begins a story that takes us back to Shanghai in the 1920s, through World War II, and the harrowing events that led to Winnie’s arrival in America in 1949. The story is one of innocence and its loss, tragedy and survival and, most of all, the enduring qualities of hope, love and friendship.

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLERFrom the bestselling author of The Taking of Jemima Boone, the unbelievable true story of a real-life Swiss Family Robinson (and their dog) who faced sharks, shipwreck, and betrayal.On December 10, 1887, a shark fishing boat disappeared. On board the doomed vessel were the Walkers—the ship’s captain Frederick, his wife Elizabeth, their three teenage sons, and their dog—along with the ship’s crew. The family had spotted a promising fishing location when a terrible storm arose, splitting their vessel in two and leaving those onboard adrift on the perilous sea.When the castaways awoke the next morning, they discovered they had been washed ashore—on an island inhabited by a large but ragged and emaciated man who introduced himself as Hans. Hans appeared to have been there for a while and could quickly educate the Walkers and their crew on the island’s resources. But Hans had a secret . . . and as the Walker family gradually came to learn more, what seemed like a stroke of luck to have the mysterious man’s assistance became something ominous, something darker.Like David Grann and Stacy Schiff, Matthew Pearl unveils one of the most incredible yet little-known historical true stories, and the only known instance in history of an actual family of castaways. Save Our Souls asks us to consider who we might become if we found ourselves trapped on a deserted island.

In early 2006, Chuck Ramkissoon is found dead at the bottom of a New York canal.In London, a Dutch banker named Hans van den Broek hears the news, and remembers his unlikely friendship with Chuck and the off-kilter New York in which it flourished: the New York of 9/11, the powercut and the Iraq war. Those years were difficult for Hans – his English wife Rachel left with their son after the attack, as if that event revealed the cracks and silences in their marriage, and he spent two strange years in New York’s Chelsea Hotel, passing stranger evenings with the eccentric residents.Lost in a country he'd regarded as his new home, Hans sought comfort in a most alien place – the thriving but almost invisible world of New York cricket, in which immigrants from Asia and the West Indies play a beautiful, mystifying game on the city's most marginal parks. It was during these games that Hans befriends Chuck Ramkissoon, who dreamed of establishing the city's first proper cricket field. Over the course of a summer, Hans grew to share Chuck's dream and Chuck's sense of American possibility – until he began to glimpse the darker meaning of his new friend's activities and ambitions.‘Netherland’ is a novel of belonging and not belonging, and the uneasy state in between. It is a novel of a marriage foundering and recuperating, and of the shallows and depths of male friendship. With it, Joseph O'Neill has taken the anxieties and uncertainties of our new century and fashioned a work of extraordinary beauty and brilliance.

They say that behind (or in this case beside) every great man lies a great(er) woman, but this was not always so in the game of chess.

A third memoir from the author of the huge international bestsellers Angela’s Ashes and ‘Tis. In Teacher Man, Frank McCourt details his illustrious, amusing, and sometimes rather bumpy long years as an English teacher in the public high schools of New York City…Frank McCourt arrived in New York as a young, impoverished and idealistic Irish boy – but one who crucially had an American passport, having been born in Brooklyn. He didn't know what he wanted except to stop being hungry and to better himself. On the subway he watched students carrying books. He saw how they read and underlined and wrote things in the margin and he liked the look of this very much. He joined the New York Public Library and every night when he came back from his hotel work he would sit up reading the great novels.Building his confidence and his determination, he talked his way into NYU and gained a literature degree and so began a teaching career that was to last 30 years, working in New York's public high schools. Frank estimates that he probably taught 12,000 children during this time and it is on this relationship between teacher and student that he reflects in ‘Teacher Man’, the third in his series of memoirs.The New York high school is a restless, noisy and unpredictable place and Frank believes that it was his attempts to control and cajole these thousands of children into learning and achieving something for themselves that turned him into a writer. At least once a day someone would put up their hand and shout 'Mr. McCourt, Mr. McCourt, tell us about Ireland, tell us about how poor you were …' Through sharing his own life with these kids he learnt the power of narrative storytelling, and out of the invaluable experience of holding 12,000 people's attention came ‘Angela's Ashes’.Frank McCourt was a legend in such schools as Stuyvesant High School – long before he became the figure he is now he would receive letters from former students telling him how much his teaching influenced and inspired them – and now in ‘Teacher Man’ he shares his reminiscences of those 30 years and reveals how they led to his own success with ‘Angela's Ashes’ and ‘'Tis’.

A #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER.In this searing political memoir, Congressman Jamie Raskin tells the story of the forty-five days at the start of 2021 that permanently changed his life—and his family’s—as he confronted the painful loss of his son to suicide, lived through the violent insurrection in our nation’s Capitol, and led the impeachment effort to hold President Trump accountable for inciting the political violence. On December 31, 2020, Tommy Raskin, the only son of Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin, tragically took his own life after a long struggle with depression. Seven days later on January 6, Congressman Raskin returned to Congress to help certify the 2020 Presidential election results, when violent insurrectionists led by right wing extremist groups stormed the U.S. Capitol hoping to hand four more years of power to President Donald Trump. As our reeling nation mourned the deaths of numerous people and lamented the injuries of more than 140 police officers hurt in the attack, Congressman Raskin, a Constitutional law professor, was called upon to put aside his overwhelming grief and loss—both personal and professional—and lead the impeachment effort against President Trump for inciting the violence. Together this nine-member team of House impeachment managers riveted a nation still in anguish, putting on an unprecedented Senate trial that produced the most bipartisan Presidential impeachment vote in American history. Now for the first time, Congressman Raskin discusses this unimaginable convergence of personal and public trauma, detailing how the painful loss of his son and the power of Tommy’s convictions fueled the Congressman’s work in the aftermath of modern democracy’s darkest day. Going inside Congress on January 6, he recounts the horror of that day, a day that he and other Democrats had spent months preparing for under the correct assumption that they would encounter an attempted electoral coup—not against a President but for one. And yet, on January 6, he faced the one thing he had failed to anticipate: mass political violence designed to block Biden’s election. With an inside account of leading the team prosecuting President Trump in the Senate, Congressman Raskin shares never before told stories of just how close we came to losing our American democracy that fateful day and lays out the methodical prosecution that convinced Democrats and Republicans alike of Trump’s responsibility for inciting insurrectionary violence against our government. Through it all, he reckons with the loss of his brilliant, remarkable son, a Harvard Law student whose values and memory continually inspired the Congressman to confront the dark impulses unleashed by Donald Trump. At turns, a moving story of a father coping with loss and a revealing examination of holding President Trump accountable for the violence he fomented, this book is a vital reminder of the ongoing struggle for the soul of American democracy and the perseverance that our Constitution demands from us all. One family’s unimaginable trauma. One nation’s constitutional crisis.An Unforgettable Memoir: Follow Congressman Raskin through the forty-five days that began with the tragic loss of his son, Tommy, and ended with him leading the impeachment of a president.Inside the January 6th Insurrection: An unflinching, moment-by-moment account of being trapped in the U.S. Capitol as violent insurrectionists tried to overturn the 2020 election.A Constitutional Crisis: Witness the prosecution of Donald Trump through the eyes of a Constitutional law professor tasked with defending the principles of American democracy.

“Eric Blehm offers an insightful perspective on how Craig Kelly became the effortless icon that we all revered as well as sobering details of how his heroic journey tragically ended. The Darkest White is a must read, not just for fans of snowboarding, but for anyone looking for inspiration from an unlikely hero.”—Tony HawkFrom Eric Blehm, the bestselling author of The Last Season and Fearless, comes an extraordinary new work of adventure nonfiction in the vein of Into the Wild, the story of the legendary snowboarder Craig Kelly and his death in the 2003 Durrand Glacier Avalanche—a devastating and controversial tragedy that claimed the lives of seven people.On January 20, 2003, a thunderous crack rang out and a violent tide of snow barreled down the northern Selkirk Mountains in British Columbia, Canada, burying thirteen skiers and snowboarders. Among them was Craig Kelly—“the Michael Jordan of snowboarding”—a world champion who had propelled the sport into the mainstream before walking away from competitions to rekindle his passion in the untamed alpine wilds of North America.The Darkest White tells the story of Craig Kelly’s life, an extraordinary and inspiring odyssey of a latchkey kid whose athletic prowess and innovations revolutionized winter sports, carried him around the globe, and pushed him into increasingly extreme backcountry environments. It is also a definitive, immersive account of winter sports history, detailing how snowboarding grew from a minor Gen X cult hobby to Olympic centerpiece and a billion-dollar business full of feuds and rivalries. This mesmerizing survival story is a cautionary portrait of the mountains, of the allure and the glory they offer, and of the avalanches they unleash with unforgiving fury."The most unremittingly exciting book of nonfiction I have come across in recent years. I found myself reading late into recent nights wholly transfixed by every paragraph, every word."—Simon Winchester, New York Times Book ReviewGo beyond the headlines of the tragedy and discover the man who changed a sport forever.Sports Biography: The incredible life of Craig Kelly, the ‘Michael Jordan of snowboarding,’ who turned a cult hobby into a global phenomenon before tragically dying at the peak of his powers.Backcountry Snowboarding: A vivid look into the untamed alpine wilds that Kelly was drawn to after walking away from the competition circuit, seeking a purer connection to the mountains.Avalanche Survival: A minute-by-minute account of the controversial 2003 Durrand Glacier Avalanche, a disaster that claimed seven lives and sent shockwaves through the world of extreme sports.Inspirational Story: The journey of a latchkey kid who revolutionized winter sports through sheer talent and innovation, inspiring a generation of riders along the way.

A collection of the best moments from the ‘Ricky Gervais Show’ with further musings from Karl Pilkington, star of Sky 1’s ‘An Idiot Abroad’.Karl Pilkington’s is a brilliant mind, locked inside a perfectly round head and uncluttered by the unhelpful constraints of logic or common sense. He both baffles and enlightens with his take on topics as diverse as population control, the rights of monkeys and how long you can stay alive with your head chopped off.Featuring the best conversations from ‘The Ricky Gervais Show’ podcasts and original illustrations and scribblings by Karl Pilkington, this is a unique trip into the mind of our most innovative visionary – or, as Gervais and Merchant know him, ‘the funniest man alive in Britain today’.

Stunning reissue of the phenomenal worldwide bestseller: Frank McCourt's sad, funny, bittersweet memoir of growing up in New York in the 30s and in Ireland in the 40s.It is a story of extreme hardship and suffering, in Brooklyn tenements and Limerick slums – too many children, too little money, his mother Angela barely coping as his father Malachy's drinking bouts constantly brings the family to the brink of disaster. It is a story of courage and survival against apparently overwhelming odds.Written with the vitality and resonance of a work of fiction, and with a remarkable absence of sentimentality, ‘Angela’s Ashes’ is imbued on every page with Frank McCourt's distinctive humour and compassion. Out of terrible circumstances, he has created a glorious book in the tradition of Ireland's literary masters, which bears all the marks of a great classic.

The brilliantly original new novel from Michael Chabon, author of THE ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY and WONDER BOYS.What if, as Franklin Roosevelt once proposed, Alaska – and not Israel – had become the homeland for the Jews after the Second World War? In Michael Chabon’s Yiddish-speaking ‘Alyeska’, Orthodox gangs in side-curls and knee breeches roam the streets of Sitka, where Detective Meyer Landsman discovers the corpse of a heroin-addled chess prodigy in the flophouse Meyer calls home. Marionette strings stretch back to the hands of charismatic Rebbe Gold, leader of a sect that seems to have drawn its mission statement from the Cosa Nostra. Meyer is determined to unsnarl the meaning behind the murder. Even if that means surrendering his badge and his dignity to the chief of Sitka’s homicide unit – his fearsome ex-wife Bina.A novel of colossal ambition and heart, THE YIDDISH POLICEMEN’S UNION interweaves a homage to the stylish menace of 1940s film noir with a bittersweet fable of identity, home and faith.

Salley Vicker’s sensational debut novel, ‘Miss Garnet’s Angel’ is a voyage of discovery; a novel about Venice but also the rich story of the explosive possibilities of change in all of us at any time.Julia Garnet is a teacher. Just retired, she is left a legacy which she uses by leaving her orderly life and going to live – in winter – in an apartment in Venice. Its beauty, its secret corners and treasures, and its people overwhelm a lifetime of reserve and caution. Above all, she’s touched by the all-prevalent spirit of the Angel, Raphael.The ancient tale of Tobias, who travels to Media unaware he is accompanied by the Archangel Raphael, unfolds alongside Julia Garnet’s contemporary journey.The two stories interweave with parents and landladies, restorers and priests, American tourists and ancient travellers abounding.The result is an enormously satisfying journey of the spirit – and Julia Garnet is a character to treasure.

Sex, intrigue and adultery in the world of high politics and huge wealth in late eighteenth-century England.Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire was one of the most flamboyant and influential women of the eighteenth century. The great-great-great-great aunt of Diana, Princess of Wales, she was variously a compulsive gambler, a political savante and operator of the highest order, a drug addict, an adulteress and the darling of the common people.This authoritative, utterly absorbing book presents a mesmerizing picture of a fascinating world of political and sexual intrigues, grand houses, huge parties, glamour and great wealth – always on the edge of being squandered by the excesses and scandals of individuals.

The forest primeval, the river of life, the sacred mount – read ‘Landscape and Memory’ to have these explained…‘Landscape and Memory’ is a history book unlike any other. In a series of journeys through space and time, it examines our relationship with the landscape around us – rivers, mountains, forests – the impact each of them has had on our culture and imaginations, and the way in which we, in turn, have shaped them to answer our needs.This is not a conventional history book, but a book that builds up its argument by a series of poetic stories and impressions which cumulatively have the effect of a great novel. The forest primeval, the river of life, the sacred mount – at the end of this wonderful book we understand where these ideas have come from, why they are so compelling and how they still lie all around us.

An unforgettable novel for children from one of America’s greatest living storytellers, SUMMERLAND is about redemption and the true nature of heroism.Ethan is a young hero on a quest though the strange world of American Faery. Since baseball is the favourite game of American fairies, or ‘ferishers’ as the North American Fairy Folk call themselves, this is necessarily a story of baseball, too. Zeppelins, werefoxes, Indians and Indian mythology, sasquatches, wendigos, Alaska, the haunted 161-year-old husk of George Armstrong Custer, and a boy who thinks he’s an android, also figure in the action. Along the way, the hero and heroine find themselves and each other; a band of ferishers triumphs over their ancient enemy and finally find someone new to play baseball against; a widower’s heart will heal as his airship conquers the northern sky; and a burned-out Colombian slugger named Rodrigo Buendia will find redemption in discovering, with Ethan Feld and Jennifer T. Rideout, the true nature of heroism.

‘Locked-in syndrome: paralysed from head to toe, the patient, his mind intact, is imprisoned inside his own body, unable to speak or move. In my case, blinking my left eyelid is my only means of communication.’In December 1995, Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor-in-chief of French ‘Elle’ and the father of two young children, suffered a massive stroke and found himself paralysed and speechless, but entirely conscious, trapped by what doctors call ‘locked-in syndrome’. Using his only functioning muscle – his left eyelid – he began dictating this remarkable story, painstakingly spelling it out letter by letter.His book offers a haunting, harrowing look inside the cruel prison of locked-in syndrome, but it is also a triumph of the human spirit. The acclaimed 2007 film adaptation, directed by Julian Schnabel, won Best Director at Cannes and was nominated for the Palme d’Or.

A compelling history of the Black Death that scoured Europe in the mid 14th-century killing twenty-five million people. It was one of the worst human disasters in history.‘The bodies were sparsely covered that the dogs dragged them forth and devoured them…And believing it to be the end of the world, no one wept for the dead, for all expected to die.’ Agnolo di Turo, Siena, 1348In just over a thousand days from 1347 to 1351 the 'Black Death' travelled across medieval Europe killing thirty per cent of its population. It was a catastrophe that touched the lives of every individual on the continent. The deadly Y. Pestis virus entered Europe in October 1347 by Genoese galley at Messina, Sicily. In the spring of 1348 it was devastating the cities of central Italy, by June 1348 it had reached France and Spain, and by August England. At St Mary’s, Ashwell, Hertfordshire, an anonymous hand carved the following inscription for 1349: ‘Wretched, terrible, destructive year, the remnants of the people alone remain.’According to the Foster scale, a kind of Richter scale of human disaster, the plague of 1347-51 is the second worst catastrophe in recorded history. Only World War II produced more death, physical damage, and emotional suffering. Defence analysts use it as the measure of thermonuclear war – in geographical extent, abruptness and casualties.In ‘The Great Mortality’ John Kelly retraces the journey of the Black Death using original source material – diary fragments, letters and manuscripts. It is the devastating portrait of a continent gripped by an epidemic, but also a very personal story, narrated by the individuals whose lives were touched by it.

A classic of mountaineering literature, this is the story of the harrowing first ascent of the North Face of the Eiger, the most legendary and terrifying climb in history.Heinrich Harrer, author of ‘Seven Years in Tibet’ and one of the twentieth century’s greatest mountaineers, was part of the team that finally conquered the Eiger’s fearsome North Face in 1938. It was a landmark expedition that pitted the explorers against treacherous conditions and the limits of human endurance, and which many have since tried – and failed – to emulate.Armed with an intimate knowledge that comes only from first-hand experience of climbing the Eiger, Harrer gives a gripping account of physical daring and mental resilience. A new introduction by Joe Simpson, author of ‘Touching the Void’, confirms the lasting relevance of this true adventure classic.