Architects3 Sketchbooks

'My father doesn't feature much in Running with Scissors. And one of the reasons for this is because he didn't feature much in my life. But there's another reason, too: Our relationship was so complicated, so dark, so confusing and so big, that to tell the story would require a book. So finally, upon the death of my father in 2005, I decided to tell the story I have been most afraid yet most compelled to tell.' This prequel to international hit Running With Scissors tells the story of Augusten's relationship with his tormented father: a man who sent his wife mad and saw his other son run away from home, prior to Augusten going into foster care. Harrowing, insightful and amusing by turns.

It all started when Ayn's boyfriend pronounced her pornophobic - in defence of his own eyebrow-raising reading material. In order to prove that she wasn't a prude (just enlightened), this self-confessed Good Girl found herself jumping headlong into the booming sex industry in order to understand what her boyfriend was so interested in. She was intrigued to hear that "Porn is not merely acceptable, it's hip" (New York Magazine) and that women were the fastest growing segment in the porn industry. Ayn's quest soon aroused the curiosity of her female friends: and it transpired that the girls - single or married, involved or not - were desperate for information. And so, (in the name of research!) Ayn created her own "porn-to-do list." The items on the list ranged from: · Reading erotica · Meeting a porn star · Going to a sex store · Testing vibrators · Visiting a strip club Along the way, Ayn ditched the porn-obsessed boyfriend, and learned that one should not try to take change from a stripper's G-string tips, nor is the Hustler store the best place to make a first impression on a hot guy. This is the result of one woman's attempt to pierce the veil that modestly covers something many women are actually fascinated by. Surprising, hilarious, informative, and ultimately non-judgmental, this is one book you won't put down - once you admit you're curious enough to pick it up!

'I have him bitched, balloxed and bewildered, for there's a system and a science in taking the piss out of a screw and I'm a well-trained man at it.' So writes Brendan Behan, poet, writer and literary legend, of the episode that coloured his life. Arrested in Liverpool as an agitator for the IRA, he was tried and sent to reform school. He was sixteen years old. The world he entered was brutal and coldly indifferent. Conditions were primitive, and violence simmered just below the surface. Yet Brendan Behan found something more positive than hate in Borstal: friendship, solidarity and healing flashes of kindness. Extraordinarily vivid, fluent, and moving, this is a superb and unforgettable piece of writing. Borstal Boy was adapted into a film in 2000.

'Amazingly detailed and meticulously crafted ... Hitman will stand the test of time as one of the definitive wrestling biographies' Publishers Weekly 'Bret Hart still makes me believe that wrestling is good' Hulk Hogan 'Packed with drugs, sex, vicious family in-fighting and tales of life on the road ... Hart names names and lays it all bare in his own words' Globe and Mail A story of death, sex, betrayal and revenge; sweat, steroids and duplicity - wrestler Bret Hart lifts the lid on the wacky, mythic, secretive word of pro wrestling in this epic tell-all.

A Woman in Charge reveals the true trajectory of Hillary's astonishing life and career. From a staunchly Republican household and apparently idyllic Midwestern girlhood - her disciplinarian father here revealed as harsher than she has acknowledged - we see the shaping of a brilliant girl whose curiosity was fuelled by the ferment of the 1960s and a desire to change the world. During her student years, she was already perceived as a spokeswoman for her generation. Then, at Yale Law School, she met and fell in love with Bill Clinton, cancelling her own dreams to tie her fortunes to his. Bernstein clarifies the often amazing dynamic of their marriage, charting both her political acumen and her blind spots, and untangling her relationship to the great controversies of Whitewater, Troopergate and Travelgate. And then, in the emotional and political chaos of the Lewinsky affair we see Hillary standing by her husband - evoking a rising wave of sympathy from a public previously cool to her and in effect, Bernstein argues, saving his presidency. It helps carry her into the Senate: her time has come. As she decides to run for President, this self-described 'mind-conservative and heart liberal' has one more chance to fulfill her long-deferred ambitions. Bernstein has interviewed some 200 of her colleagues, friends and enemies and was given unique access to the candid record of the 1992 presidential campaign kept by Hillary's best friend, Diane Blair. Marshalling all the skills and energy that propelled his history-making Pulitzer prize-winning coverage of Watergate, he gives us a detailed, sophisticated, comprehensive and revealing account of the complex human being and political meteor who has already helped define one presidency and may well become the woman in charge of another.

Christopher Fowler's memoir captures life in suburban London as it has rarely been seen: through the eyes of a lonely boy who spends his days between the library and the cinema, devouring novels, comics, cereal packets - anything that might reveal a story. Caught between an ever-sensible but exhausted mother and a DIY-obsessed father fighting his own demons, Christopher takes refuge in words. His parents try to understand their son's peculiar obsessions, but fast lose patience with him - and each other. The war of nerves escalates to include every member of the Fowler family, and something has to give, but does it mean that a boy must always give up his dreams for the tough lessons of real life? Beautifully written, this rich and astute evocation of a time and a place recalls a childhood at once entertainingly eccentric and endearingly ordinary.

On 21 July 1942 the Nazis took control of the small Polish town of Zolkiew, life for Jewish 15-year-old Clara Kramer was never to be the same again. While those around her were either slaughtered or transported, Clara and her family hid perilously in a hand-dug bunker. Living in the house above and protecting them were the Becks. Mr Beck was a womaniser, a drunkard and a self-professed anti-Semite, yet he risked his life throughout the war to keep his charges safe. Nevertheless, life with Mr Beck was far from predictable. From the house catching fire, to Beck's affair with Clara's cousin, to the nightly SS drinking sessions in the room just above, Clara's War transports you into the dark, cramped bunker, and sits you next to the families as they hold their breath time and again. Sixty years later, Clara Kramer has created a memoir that is lyrical, dramatic and heartbreakingly compelling. Despite the worst of circumstances, this is a story full of hope and survival, courage and love.

On 6 February 1958, British European Airways flight 609 crashed in a blizzard on its third attempt to take off from an icy runaway in Munich. On board were the Manchester United football team as well as a number of journalists and other passengers. News of the disaster sent shockwaves around the world. For people who lived in Manchester at the time and for football fans throughout Britain it was one of those moments when everybody remembers exactly where they were and how they heard the terrible news. Manchester United, nicknamed the Busby Babes after their manager, Matt Busby, who had created the world-beating side, were the leading team of the day. Seven of their players were killed instantly in the crash. Three weeks later Duncan Edwards, one of the most promising players ever to come out of England, lost his battle for life. Two other players, Jackie Blanchflower and Johnny Berry, were so severely injured that they were never able to play again.

"It was about larging it. It was about pulling out a wad of 20s when you were buying your champagne at the bar. It was about buying your cocaine in an eight ball. It was about wearing designer clothes. At that top tier of that club scene, it was about giving it loads." With a foreword by music journalist, Miranda Sawyer, Superstar DJs Here We Go! is the full, unexpurgated story of the biggest pop culture phenomenon of the 1990s: the rise and fall of the superstar DJ. During the 1990s big names such as Sasha, Jeremy Healy, Fatboy Slim, Dave Seaman, Nicky Holloway, Judge Jules, and Pete Tong exploded out of acid house, becoming international jetsetters, flying all over the world just to play a few hours and commanding up to £140,000 a night. The plush, heavily branded 'superclubs' where they performed - clubs like Cream, Ministry, Renaissance and Gatecrasher - were filled with thousands of adoring clubbers, roaring their approval of their DJ gods. For the DJs and promoters, it was a licence to print money and live like a rock star. For clubbers, it was a hedonistic utopia where anyone and everyone could come together to look fabulous, take drugs, and dance the night away. But underneath the shiny surface lurked a darker side, a world of cynical moneymaking, rampant egos and cocaine-fuelled self-indulgence that eventually spiralled out of control leaving behind burnt-out DJs, jobless promoters and a host of bittersweet memories. They went from having the clubbing world at their feet to the world's biggest comedown. Dom Phillips - former editor of clubbers' bible Mixmag - reveals an enthralling and at times jaw-dropping account of flawed people, broken dreams and what really happens when it all goes Pete Tong.

ERIC BRISTOW MBE is considered to be the greatest darts player of all time. He was an unmistakable figure on the oche during his 1980s heyday, and became renowned not just for the number of world titles he won but for his arrogance on stage and off it. In this candid account Bristow reveals how darts proved a salvation from his early life as a cat burglar, shoplifter and thug, introducing him to a new world of beer, babes and undreamed of success. And in his rapid rise to the top he gives fascinating insights into the characters that pioneered darts in those early days and how, when his own career began to slide at the end of the decade, he trained his protégé Phil 'The Power' Taylor, turning him into the most successful player darts has ever known. Bristow holds nothing back as he reveals his battle with dartitis, a psychological condition which left him unable to let go of the dart and almost destroyed his career; his relationship with girlfriend and former women's world darts champion Maureen Flowers; and his occasional all-too-public falls from grace. Bristow's life story is a thrill-a-minute ride through the raucous world of darts and how it has helped to shape and drive his life over the past forty years.

Frank Skinner is undoubtedly one of the funniest and most successful comedians appearing on British screens. Born Chris Collins in 1957 he grew up in the West Midlands where he inherited his father's passion for football, a West Bromich Albion supporter, along with a liking for alcohol. Expelled from school at 16 Frank held various jobs later going on to gain an MA in English Literature. Nurturing a serious drink problem from the age of fourteen, Frank eventually turned to Catholicism in 1987 and hasn't had a drink since. He performed his first stand up gig in December 1987. His first television appearance in 1988 met with fits of laughter from the audience and 131 complaints, including one from cabinet minister Edwina Currie. He met fellow comedian David Baddiel in 1990 and the two went on to share a flat throughout the early 90's and to create the hit TV series Fantasy Football League. Winner of the prestigious Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Festival, Skinner's is a unique mixture of laddish and philosophical humour which has won him the prime time ITV show - The Frank Skinner Show. Here, for the first time, Frank candidly tells us of the highs and lows of his fascinating life and career.