First published in 1973, Behind the Steam received huge critical acclaim from day one. It is the working memoir of one Bill Morgan who, in 1916, signed on as a cleaner at the GWR terminus in Neyland, Pembrokeshire, aged just 14, with an ambition to go all the way to the top - become a GWR express driver. When he retired 50 years later, he had indeed achieved his ambition, driving the newly introduced British Rail diesels, but what a weird and wonderful career path it was! By the age of 15 he already had one derailment to his credit and his rise up the ranks, next to fireman (his vivid description of keeping a coal-hungry express up to steam on a run to Paddington is captivating) and right to the top is recounted in such warm-hearted, hilarious and compelling words that you feel you are on the footplate - or the coal truck, his lodgings, the cloakrooms, the markets, the pubs... As well as cleaning, fuelling and driving the trains, his "off the track" recollections add immense interest. An unofficial purveyor of anything from lobsters to rabbits, he turned the Neyland line into a mobile grocer he also recounts tales of making wireless sets, cockle-gathering, training greyhounds and absconding bookies, and here too are grimmer events - the General Strike, wartime work on the potentially lethal ammunition trains and the bombing of Swansea. This book is the 2003 revised edition which includes many more photos from Bette's collection of the Neyland area than the original and is sure to lapped up by all steam enthusiasts, a book that just oozes with the flavour of the railways and the characters that ran then. 222pp with 20 pages of b/w photos.

Sub-titled 'Travels with Oscar Wilde', this is the outrageous and very personal memoir with riotous anecdotes, a rude and uproarious third memoir about the vicissitudes of fame and Rupert Everett's attempts to make a film about the last days of Oscar Wilde. He hoovers up 'a couple of dry martinis to conjure up a bit of sloshed sparkle - the dregs of my star quality.' Travelling across Europe for the film, Everett weaves in extraordinary tales from his past, remembering wild times, freak encounters and lost friends and of course celebrities. But we also meet glamorous but doomed Aunt Peta who introduces Rupert, then aged three, to the joys of make-up. In 1980s Paris, his great friend Lychee burns bright, and is gone. In 1970s London, a 'weirdly tall, beyond size zero' teenage Rupert is expelled from the Central School of Speech and Drama. Everett is wonderfully sharp and alive to all the comical absurdities of the movie business and turns out to be a masterly travel writer with the magical ability to make a city or building or group of people burst into life in a few words. Like his previous volumes, the memoir quivers with A-list gossip and sardonic prose and he is a brilliantly caustic wit on Hollywood and on the march of time. His scabrous account of his lifelong love of Oscar Wilde, he has a keen sense of the ridiculous as well as a huge capacity for the short-term enjoyment of life's sensual pleasures. He ricochets from Paris to Naples, Berlin to Venice in search of funding and locations, captures the snakes-and-ladders world of international finance and survives all the setbacks in the film's making, along with the stalwart support of loyal friends like Colin Firth and Emily Watson. 337pp, paperback with many colour photos.

Sub-titled 'Scenes From England's Last Literary Salon' the book is a Who's Who of the arts in post-war Britain and a rich, luscious account of a charming, kind and generous group of people. In 1945, Eddy Sackville-West, Desmond Shawe-Taylor and Eardley Knollys purchased Long Crichel House, an old Dorset rectory with no electricity and inadequate water supply. In this improbable place, the last English literary salon began. The Visitors' Book attracted such names as Nancy Mitford, Benjamin Britten, Laurie Lee, Cyril Connelly, Somerset Maugham, E. M. Forster, Cecil Beaton, Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson, who were attracted by the good food, generous quantities of drink and excellent conversation. In later years the house and its inhabitants were to weather the aftershocks of the Crichel Down affair, the Wolfenden Report and the AIDS crisis. The book brings a fine balance between nostalgia and commemorates the privileged world long since vanished and the problems caused by having four neurotic personalities intermittently at large under a single roof. The trio were later joined by the literary critic Raymond Mortimer and members became one another's surrogate family and their companionship became a stimulus for writing. Yet there was more to the place than just a 'prose factory' than what critics variously referred to as a group of 'gentleman-aesthetes'. The book unveils a missing link in English literary and cultural history and we relish the details of the central characters who are of course homosexual or bisexual, but there is nothing here to surprise or disturb apart from croquet on the lawn, music and literary debate. 354pp, paperback, photos.

The Cold War spy Kim Philby lied and tricked his way through life and Hanning's masterful research lays bare the extraordinary hypocrisy in a tale as gripping as any thriller. It tells the extraordinary story of how Eleanor, a cultured American living in the espionage hotspot of 1950s Beirut, fell in love with the kindest of men. Unknown to her that man, Kim Philby, was under suspicion by the British and US intelligence services of having secretly signed up to help the Russians fight fascism in the 1930s, and of remaining in their pay at the height of the Cold War. Despite his mysterious past, Eleanor adored and married Philby, but the strength of their love was challenged as the net steadily closed in on him. His story may be familiar, but this angle breaks remarkable new ground and is an eye-opening tale of friendship, politics, love and loyalty which surpasses the best spy fiction and is a cautionary tale about the true costs of male privilege on the higher echelons of the British establishment. 408pp, paperback with 16 pages of photos and useful timeline. In the words of David Cornwell, aka John le Carré, 'The scale of Philby's betrayal is barely calculable to anyone who has not been in the business. In Eastern Europe alone, dozens and perhaps hundreds of British agents were imprisoned, tortured and shot.' Map. Paperback, 2022.

Our dear friend Gyles is and always was a huge fan of the Duke of Edinburgh, and together with our Annie dined at a banquet with the Duke at the Natural History Museum in London several years ago, and he had had the pleasure of meeting him on many occasions and enjoying his wit, intellect and bon viveur. Elusive, complex, controversial, challenging, often humorous and sometimes irascible, Prince Philip was the man Elizabeth II once described as her 'constant strength and guide'. What was he really like and what is the truth about those 'gaffes' and the rumours of affairs? Gyles is the writer who got closest to the human truth about our long-serving senior royals and this is the revised and updated 2022 paperback edition. 'I knew the Duke of Edinburgh over a period of more than 40 years. I was accustomed to his sense of humour. I liked it, I liked him. I admired him as much as any man I have known. It was knowing him as I did that led me to write this book about him, and his wife, and their remarkable marriage - the longest-lasting marriage of any sovereign and consort in history. I first met Prince Philip in the 1970s, when he was in his 50s and I was in my 20s, and I became involved in the world of the National Playing Fields Association.' 'I suppose the polo was fun. Playing cricket was fun, in the old days. The carriage driving is fun - when you don't fall off the box seat. Then it's just bloody painful.' 'I enjoyed flying... I think I should have joined the Air Force instead of the Navy.' Prince Philip's grandfather King George I of Greece was assassinated a few years before he was born. His favourite sister Cécile was killed in an aeroplane accident when he was still a teenager. His favourite uncle and guardian at the time George Milford Haven died of cancer soon after. His father, Prince Andrew of Greece, died when Philip was just 23. His other favourite uncle, Earl Mountbatten of Burma, was murdered by the IRA when blow up in his own boat in 1979. 'I'm quite ready to die. It's what happens - sooner or later.' And now it has and how sad we are here at Bibliophile since he was our patron and gave us a Royal Warrant, by Royal Appointment, which by the gracious gift of the Queen, we can still refer to in perpetuity. Here are candid photos like the tell-tale photograph of Philip and Elizabeth in October 1946 entitled 'The First Look', and their first dance, seen together publicly for the first time in July 1947 in Edinburgh. Gyles' book tells the story of two contrasting lives and assesses the Duke of Edinburgh's character and achievements, relationships with his wife, children and their families, and with the press and public and those at court who were suspicious of him in the early days. A moving account of a long life well lived and a remarkable royal partnership the likes and length of which we shall never see again. 513pp, paperback, well illus. with many colour plates.

The Sunday Times Bestseller is sub-titled 'A Survivor's Guide to the Menopause' and is an hilarious and refreshingly honest compendium from C for Carb-loading and G for Getting Your Shit Together, to I for Invisibility and V for Vaginas. Jenny's whistlestop tour of 'The Change' in all its glory will make you realise that it really isn't just you. She will share the surprising lessons she has learned along the way as well as her hard-won tips on the joy of cardigans, dealing with the empty nest (get a lodger) and keeping the lid on the pressure cooker of your temper (count to 20, ten is never enough). 'The trouble with overheating in bed and ripping off your nightie is that your partner thinks it's a sexy come-on...' This is a book written from experience and from the heart which will make you laugh and feel better because a problem shared after all is a problem halved, and as women age, nowadays the fairer sex are no longer content to boil silently and uncomplainingly in the corner. ?As long as there has been life on earth, then, there have been menopausal women, stomping about, feeling furious, giving the old man grief for bringing home some scraggy bit of flea-bitten mammoth and complaining about 'the bloody fire being too hot'?. The Grumpy Old Woman speaks, and very funny she is too. 295pp, paperback.

'Why me? How could a boy from a Copenhagen tower block say I want to be champion with Manchester United and Denmark and make it happen?' Frank and conversational in tone, honest and unsentimental, this is the biography of Peter Schmeichel and his exceptionally successful goalkeeping career alongside the remarkable story of a family. Schmeichel is a giant of football who won more Premier League titles (five) than any player in his position, and captained Manchester United in the incomparable, last gasp Treble, clinching a win over Bayern Munich in the 1999 Champions League final. In his book he takes us inside the remarkable, winning environment of a club that transformed football during the 1990s, and on to the pitch on that crazy, breathless night in Barcelona in 1999. From Sir Alex Ferguson's unique gifts, to Eric Cantona's unique personality, he delivers a close-up and insightful portrait of United's Golden era. But the biography goes way beyond the pitch. Schmeichel has an incredible family story to tell, starting with his father, Antoni, a brilliant Polish jazz musician who battled demons and for years kept a momentous secret from those around him. And he explores what he has been able to pass on to his own son, Kasper, himself a Premier League-winning goalkeeper and number one in the Danish national side. Schmeichel won ten league titles, three FA Cups and nine other major trophies in a club career spanning 19 years, 748 games and 10 goals - no ordinary goalkeeper. Ferguson paid just £505,000 to sign him in 1991, and hailed him as 'The bargain of the century'. 400 page paperback, many photos including colour.

Author Bernardine Evaristo won the 2019 Booker Prize - a historic and revolutionary occasion as she was the first black British person ever to win the prize in its 50-year history. However, Evaristo had been working 40 years in the arts before this career landmark. This nonfiction debut from Evaristo looks at the author's childhood as one of eight siblings with a Nigerian father and white Catholic mother, her experience helping set up Britain's first black women's theatre company, the relationships of her twenties and her determination to write novels she found to be absent in the literary world around her. Born in 1959 in London and raised in Woolwich, Evaristo recalls the bigotry she experienced, including frequent vandalism of her family's home with bricks thrown through the window and noting 'Black was bad and white was good'. Learn how Evaristo graduated Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama and worked with two colleagues to build Theatre of Black Women which created productions that included 'an experimental mixture of dramatic poetry, minimalist sets, movement and music - a theatrical collage, a poetry theatre'. Another important strand of Evaristo's life is her relationships which are chronicled in a chapter about her flings, relationships, crushes and sexuality. She writes that her creative life 'has been inextricably interwoven with my romantic entanglements with other people' and shares her experiences with a 'Mental Dominatrix' who convinced Evaristo she was better at reading the author's own poetry, a long distance affair with a Dutch woman and a restorative fling with a 'docile, sweet- natured, spiritual man'. Evaristo also reflects on her experience learning about Black history and how one 'cannot divorce Britain's imperialist history from its national identity'. At the end of the book, she leaves artists with the guidance to be wild, disobedient and daring with creativity, take risks instead of following predictable routes as 'those who play it safe do not advance our culture or civilisation'. There are fantastic photographs also included in the book, from photographs of her family including her parents' wedding day in Camberwell in 1954 and a portrait photo of her as a 'little dumpling' at the age of one, to a group photo with friends during her last year of school where she writes 'Ms Evaristo of the House of Suburbia is wearing an attention-grabbing woollen coat' and a shot of the author standing beside her fellow 2019 Booker Prize winner Margaret Atwood on 14 October 2019, under which she writes 'I wasn't an overnight success, but everything changed overnight'.

The day of his mother's death when he was five years old was the day the music died for Tony Garnett. His story begins in working-class war-torn Birmingham where he movingly describes the trauma of his mother's death following a back street abortion. 19 days later, stricken with grief, his father committed suicide, and Tony was sent to live with other family members, no longer to hear the soundtrack of his early life, his mother's piano playing. As an angry young man, Tony realised that his passion lay behind the camera and he rebuilt a life in films, pursuing the truth about the world in order to avoid the truth about himself. He eventually moved to London and was part of the counterculture scene in the 1960s. He shares the inside story of his most ground-breaking productions, including Cathy Come Home, Kes and This Life. He gives accounts of angry clashes with the BBC and film executives as he battled to make films that were thought too controversial, films about police corruption and psychiatrists' cruelty, films advocating abortion law reform and the abolition of the death penalty, films about the homeless and the waste of young people in poor schools. He takes us behind the scenes of a selection of his more famous productions and offers secrets and anecdotes, some moving, some amusing and this is a fine and moving memoir of a fine storyteller. 306pp, 16 pages of archive and some colour photos including Garnett with Pauline Letts on the cover of Radio Times for 'The Birth of a Private Man'. He probably was simply the best TV drama creator and producer ever and we all remember his films to this day. Paperback.

George Michael found fame and fortune beyond his wildest dreams from the formation of Wham! in 1981. Their music formed the soundtrack to the 1980s, but when they split in 1986, George went on to greater things as a solo artist. He achieved all this despite growing up in a dysfunctional family where his father openly proclaimed that George had no talent. Along the way he was embroiled in several controversies, but always happy to address the issues head on with the media. A court case with Sony, an arrest in a Los Angeles public toilet, minor run-ins over class C drugs and traffic offences in London, the biography tackles the issues that formed the superstar and his place as a cultural icon. In the last decade before his untimely death he had returned to touring and achieved a massively successful 25 Live tour and the critically acclaimed Symphonica after a serious health scare and a stint in prison. In the months before his death, George was working on new material and a TV documentary. It was only after his death in December 2016 that stories of the full extent of his generosity came to light, adding another layer to the complex story of an unusual superstar. 234pp, paperback with illustrations, we have the 2007 original edition.