Книги, похожие на «Mickey Hess, A Guest in the House of Hip-Hop»

A tale of Catherine Cookson-esque tragedy and Northern grit, Pauline Prescott's life story will shock and amaze.A mother and a faithful friend, Pauline is not your typical politician's wife. She is immensely proud of her role as a housewife and over the near-forty years she has been in the public eye she has remained discreet, dignified and deeply loyal.The daughter of a bricklayer, who died when she was young, Pauline came from humble backgrounds. At 15 she found herself pregnant by a married US serviceman. Resisting all attempts to give her son up for adoption, she struggled on for three years, until she was finally persuaded it was for his own good. She never expected to see him again.She trained as a hairdresser and got a good job at a salon in Chester. Soon afterwards she met John, a dashing waiter who whisked her off her feet and married her. John's dreams of becoming a union activist meant that he spent the next eight years in university. It was Pauline's wages that paid for everything. She never complained.John quickly rose through the ranks and suddenly, it seemed, he was the Deputy Prime Minister. Pauline went almost overnight from a Hull hairdresser to a key participant at political events. Always immaculate, she quickly became known for her fashion, style and stunning hats.But Pauline's world was turned upside down when, more than forty years after she put her son up for adoption, John received a call to say the press had tracked him down. The decision to give up her son had been heart-rending. All these years later, Pauline was overjoyed to be reunited with the child she had pined for for so long, finally getting the happy ending she had dreamed of for years.Throughout John's career, Pauline has had to cope with the lack of privacy his position has afforded their family. Through it all she has emerged a figure of admiration.Loyal, sharp, good humoured and articulate, Pauline has entranced the nation. Now tells us her story in her own words. Warm, moving and at times painfully sad, Pauline's autobiography is an honest account of a fascinating life.

My name is Amrou Al-Kadhi – by day. By night, I am Glamrou, an empowered, confident and acerbic drag queen who wears seven-inch heels and says the things that nobody else dares to. Growing up in a strict Iraqi-British Muslim household, it didn’t take long for me to realise I was different. When I was ten years old, I announced to my family that I was in love with Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. The resultant fallout might best be described as something like the Iraqi version of Jeremy Kyle. And that was just the beginning. This is the story of how I got from there to here. You’ll read about my stint at Eton college, during which I wondered if I could forge a new identity as a British aristocrat (spoiler alert: it didn’t work). You’ll read about my teenage obsession with marine biology, and how fluid aquatic life helped me understand my non-binary gender identity. You’ll read about how I discovered the transformative powers of drag while at Cambridge university; about how I suffered a massive breakdown after I left, and very nearly lost my mind; and about how, after years of rage towards it, I finally began to understand Islam in a new, queer way. Most of all, this is a book about my mother, my first love, the most beautiful and glamorous woman I’ve ever known, the unknowing inspiration for my career as a drag queen – and a fierce, vociferous critic of anything that transgresses normal gender boundaries. It’s about how we lost and found each other, about forgiveness, understanding, hope – and the life-long search for belonging.

From the bestselling author of ‘The Binding Chair’, this dazzling follow-up to her memoir ‘the Kiss’ explores the bonds of motherhood between four generations.When Kathryn Harrison was a little girl, her young mother left her in the care of her British grandmother who was raised in Shanghai. To Kathryn, her mother's mother seemed an almost unimaginably powerful figure: an imperious arbiter of good taste and a master storyteller, who, when coaxed, might reveal stories of a magic and vanished world. She jilted an array of suitable men before concluding that she was not quite modern enough to have a baby without a husband. At the age of 43 she finally married, and the fruit of this union, Harrison's mother, was no more interested than she in being bound by convention. An occasional witness to her daughter's growth to adulthood, she would appear sporadically in film-star clothes and urge unwanted glamour on her shy child. Harrison grew up a spectator of the remarkable, striving to comprehend these women and yet find her own way to live.In this witty, touching memoir, Harrison writes of the ties that bind mothers to their children – and the forces that can drive them apart. She ponders the legacy of storytelling she inherited from her grandmother, and peers into the deep well of family history from which she draws inspiration for her novels. Reconsidering her past as she watches her own children grow, she recalls the thrilling risk of shoplifting; the longing for perfection that resulted in a fierce eating disorder; the thunderous fights that showed how impossible and how necessary it was to leave home. ‘Seeking Rapture’ conveys the aching tenderness Harrison feels toward her children, and her awe of their imaginary worlds that no adult can enter. This powerfully evocative book will awaken readers to sift through their own sense of motherhood, loss and regeneration. In prose that sings, ‘Seeking Rapture’ chronicles the unforgettable episodes that form the drama of domestic life.