A gripping true-crime investigation of the 1948 abduction of Sally Horner and how it inspired Vladimir Nabokov’s classic novel, Lolita

Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita is one of the most beloved and notorious novels of all time. And yet very few of its readers know that the subject of the novel was inspired by a real-life case: the 1948 abduction of eleven-year-old Sally Horner.

Weaving together suspenseful crime narrative, cultural and social history, and literary investigation, The Real Lolita tells Sally Horner’s full story for the very first time. Drawing upon extensive investigations, legal documents, public records, and interviews with remaining relatives, Sarah Weinman uncovers how much Nabokov knew of the Sally Horner case and the efforts he took to disguise that knowledge during the process of writing and publishing Lolita.

Sally Horner’s story echoes the stories of countless girls and women who never had the chance to speak for themselves. By diving deeper in the publication history of Lolita and restoring Sally to her rightful place in the lore of the novel’s creation, The Real Lolita casts a new light on the dark inspiration for a modern classic.

A controversial look at Reagan’s role in ending the Cold War—from the author of The New York Times bestseller Rise of the VulcansIn “The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan”, “New York Times” bestselling author James Mann directs his keen analysis to Ronald Reagan’s role in ending the Cold War. Drawing on new interviews and previously unavailable documents, Mann offers a fresh and compelling narrative—a new history assessing what Reagan did, and did not do, to help bring America’s four-decade conflict with the Soviet Union to a close.As he did so masterfully in “Rise of the Vulcans”, Mann sheds new light on the hidden aspects of American foreign policy. He reveals previously undisclosed secret messages between Reagan and Moscow; internal White House intrigues; and battles with leading figures such as Nixon and Kissinger, who repeatedly questioned Reagan’s unfolding diplomacy with Mikhail Gorbachev. He details the background and fierce debate over Reagan’s famous Berlin Wall speech and shows how it fitted into Reagan’s policies.This book finally answers the troubling questions about Reagan’s actual role in the crumbling of Soviet power; and concludes that by recognising the significance of Gorbachev, Reagan helped bring the Cold War to a close.Mann is a dogged seeker after evidence and a judicious sifter of it. His verdict is convincing.The New York TimesA compelling and historically significant story.The Washington Post

Painstakingly honest, this chilling memoir reveals how a teenager became immersed in the bizarre life of legendary porn star John Holmes. Starting with a childhood that molded her perfectly to fall for the seduction of “the king of porn,” this autobiography recounts the perilous road that Dawn Schiller traveled—from drugs and addiction to beatings, arrests, forced prostitution, and being sold to the drug underworld. After living through the horrific Wonderland murders of 1981, she entered protective custody, ran from the FBI, and turned in John Holmes to the police. This is the true story of a young girl’s harrowing escape from one of the most infamous public figures, her struggle to survive, and her recovery from unthinkable abuse.

К юбилею создания легендарной группы! Rolling Stones представляет новую книгу, которая станет идеальным подарком для верных поклонников группы. Песни, которые стали историей, музыка, которая знакома каждому. Взгляд изнутри — это уникальная возможность оказаться в закулисье вместе с Миком Джаггером, Китом Ричардсом, Чарли Уоттсом и Роном Вудом. Увидеть все глазами счастливчика Доминика Ламблена, который провел 40 лет рука об руку с группой. Сумасшествие в концертном зале «Олимпия» в 60-х, декадентские турне 70-х, туры в поддержку легендарных альбомов «Exile On Main Street» и «Some Girls» — Ламблен видел абсолютно все! Более 100 уникальных, ранее не публиковавшихся фото из архива автора и ранее не рассказанные истории из личной жизни музыкантов. Он был везде: в отеле с Брайаном Джонсом, сочиняющим новые хиты, с Миком Джаггером в ресторанчике в пригороде Парижа и даже на теннисном корте с Китом Ричардсом. Книга, буквально пропитанная атмосферой «Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll», захватывает вас с первой страницы. Легкость и ироничность подачи придает рассказу вид дружеской беседы. Будто по секрету автор рассказывает разные авантюрные истории с концертов, записей, анекдоты из жизни музыкантов. Он не утаил ничего. Его откровенность подкупает, а насыщенный жизненный опыт затягивает нас в глубь истории, заставляя пролистывать страницу за страницей, проживая легенду. Входит в десятку самых ожидаемых книг этого года.

Nestor Makhno (1888–1934) was a peasant anarcho-communist who organized an experiment in anarchist values and practice in southeast Ukraine during the Russian Revolutions of 1917 and the subsequent Civil War (1917–1921). The Russian Revolution in Ukraine is the first volume of his memoirs which covers the two Russian revolutions of 1917 and the beginnings of the Civil War from the point of view of a peasant activist in a Ukrainian village. This is the first English translation of this work, originally published in France in 1928–1929.

Following on from the success of ‘The Speckled People’, Hugo Hamilton's new memoir recounts the summer he spent working at a local harbour in Ireland, at a time of tremendous fear and mistrust.Young Hugo longs to be released from the confused identity he has inherited from his German mother and Irish father, but the backdrop of his mother’s shame at the hands of Allied soldiers in the aftermath of the Second World War, along with his German cousin’s mysterious disappearance somewhere on the Irish West Coast and the spiralling troubles in the north, seems determined to trap him in history. In an attempt to break free of his past, Hugo rebels against his father’s strict and crusading regime and turns to the exciting new world of rock and roll, still a taboo subject in the family home.His job at the local harbour, rather than offering a welcome respite from his speckled world, entangles him in a bitter feud between two fishermen — one Catholic, one Protestant. Hugo listens to the missing persons bulletins going out on the radio for his German cousin, and watches the unfolding harbour duel end in drowning before he can finally escape the ropes of history.

From the critically acclaimed author of the novel The Good Brother and memoir My Father the Pornographer, Same River Twice is the second volume from an American literary star. “If you haven't read Chris Offutt, you've missed an accomplished and compelling writer” (Chicago Tribune).At the age of nineteen, Chris Offutt had already been rejected by the army, the Peace Corps, the park rangers, and the police. So he left his home in the Kentucky Appalachians and thumbed his way north — into a series of odd jobs and even stranger encounters with his fellow Americans. Fifteen years later, Offutt finds himself in a place he never thought he’d be: settled down with a pregnant wife. Writing from the banks of the Iowa River, where he came to rest, he intersperses the story of his youthful journeys with that of his journey to fatherhood in a memoir that is uniquely candid, occasionally brutal, and often wonderfully funny. As he reckons with the comforts and terrors of maturity, Offutt finally discovers what is best in life and in himself.

In 1957, Ryszard Kapuscinski arrived in Africa to witness the beginning of the end of colonial rule as the first African correspondent of Poland's state newspaper. From the early days of independence in Ghana to the ongoing ethnic genocide in Rwanda, Kapuscinski has crisscrossed vast distances pursuing the swift, and often violent, events that followed liberation. Kapuscinski hitchhikes with caravans, wanders the Sahara with nomads, and lives in the poverty-stricken slums of Nigeria. He wrestles a king cobra to the death and suffers through a bout of malaria. What emerges is an extraordinary depiction of Africa-not as a group of nations or geographic locations-but as a vibrant and frequently joyous montage of peoples, cultures, and encounters. Kapuscinski's trenchant observations, wry analysis and overwhelming humanity paint a remarkable portrait of the continent and its people. His unorthodox approach and profound respect for the people he meets challenge conventional understandings of the modern problems faced by Africa at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

In this unique neurological memoir Siri Hustvedt attempts to solve her own mysterious condition.While speaking at a memorial event for her father in 2006, Siri Hustvedt suffered a violent seizure from the neck down. Despite her flapping arms and shaking legs, she continued to speak clearly and was able to finish her speech. It was as if she had suddenly become two people: a calm orator and a shuddering wreck. Then the seizures happened again and again. The Shaking Woman tracks Hustvedt’s search for a diagnosis, one that takes her inside the thought processes of several scientific disciplines, each one of which offers a distinct perspective on her paroxysms but no ready solution. In the process, she finds herself entangled in fundamental questions: What is the relationship between brain and mind? How do we remember? What is the self?During her investigations, Hustvedt joins a discussion group in which neurologists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, and brain scientists trade ideas to develop a new field: neuropsychoanalysis. She volunteers as a writing teacher for psychiatric in-patients at the Payne Whitney clinic in New York City and unearths precedents in medical history that illuminate the origins of and shifts in our theories about the mind-body problem. In The Shaking Woman, Hustvedt synthesizes her experience and research into a compelling mystery: Who is the shaking woman? In the end, the story she tells becomes, in the words of George Makari, author of Revolution in Mind, “a brilliant illumination for us all.”

In the fierce winter of 1710, in a North American port, a boat ferried ten shipwreck survivors to the safety of shore. Fourteen Englishmen had taken refuge on Boon Island, a sparse 100-yard long stretch of rock, without food or adequate shelter, uncertain of when or if they would be rescued. They endured for 24 days. An escape attempt failed and four men died. Facing starvation, their captain, John Deare, gave the order to butcher and eat a member of the crew. Deane’s decision fended off starvation and sustained his crew until rescue. John Deane emerged as unlikely hero. But an alternative version of events began to circulate. The First Mate painted Deane as a murderous fraudster, tyrant and an enthusaistic consumer of human flesh. Centering on the scandal that defined him, The Shipwreck Cannibals tells the forgotten story of John Deane; criminal, mercenary, gentleman, diplomat and cannibal.

Впервые на русском! Самая подробная и откровенная биография легендарного вокалиста группы Queen – Фредди Меркьюри. К премьере фильма «Богемская рапсодия!

От прилежного и талантливого школьника до звезды мирового масштаба – в этой книге описан путь одного из самых талантливых музыкантов ХХ века. Детские письма, архивные фотографии и интервью самых близких людей, включая мать Фредди, покажут читателю новую сторону любимого исполнителя. В этой книге переплетены повествования о насыщенной, яркой и такой короткой жизни великого Фредди Меркьюри и болезни, которая его погубила.

Фредди Меркьюри – один из самых известных и обожаемых во всем мире рок-вокалистов. Его голос затронул сердца миллионов слушателей, но его судьба известна не многим. От его настоящего имени и места рождения до последних лет жизни, скрытых от глаз прессы.

Перед вами самая подробная и откровенная биография великого Фредди Меркьюри. В книге содержится множество ранее неизвестных фактов о жизни певца, его поисках себя и трагической смерти. Десятки интервью с его близкими и фотографии из личного архива семьи Меркьюри помогут читателю проникнуть за кулисы жизни рок-звезды и рассмотреть невероятно талантливого и уязвимого человека за маской сценического образа.

The explosive story of the poisoning of the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and what it reveals about the growing clandestine conflict between the West and RussiaSalisbury, England: March 4, 2018.Slumped on a bench, paralyzed and barely able to breathe, were a former Russian intelligence officer named Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia. Sergei had been living a quiet life in England since 2010, when he was expelled from Russia as part of a spy swap; he had been serving a lengthy prison sentence for working secretly for the British intelligence agency MI6. On this Sunday afternoon, he and his daughter had just finished lunch at a local restaurant when they started to feel faint. Within minutes they were close to death.The Skripals had been poisoned, not with a familiar toxin but with Novichok, a deadly nerve agent developed in southern Russia. Was this a message from the Kremlin that traitors would not escape violent death, even on British soil? As Sergei and Yulia fought for their lives, and the British government and their allies sought answers, relations between the West and Russia descended to a new low.The Skripal Files is a remarkable and definitive account of Sergei Skripal’s story, which lays bare the new spy war between Russia and the West. Mark Urban, the diplomatic and defense editor for the BBC, met with Skripal in the months before his poisoning, learning about his career in Russian military intelligence, how he became a British agent, his imprisonment in Russia, and the events that led to his release. Skripal’s first-hand accounts and experiences reveal the high stakes of a new spy game that harks back to the chilliest days of the Cold War.

On the eve of the first Chechen war, Mikail Eldin was a young and naïve arts journalist. By the end of the second war, he had become a battle-hardened war reporter and mountain partisan who had endured torture and imprisonment in a concentration camp. His compelling memoir traces the unfolding of the conflict from day one, with vivid scenes right from the heart of the war. The Sky Wept Fire presents a unique glimpse into the lives of the Chechen resistance, providing testimony of great historical value. Yet it is not merely the story of the battle for Chechnya: this is the story of the battle within the heart, the struggle to conquer fear, hold on to faith and preserve one’s humanity.

Eldin was fated to witness key events in Chechnya’s history: from the first day of the attack on Grozny, and the full-scale Russian invasion that followed it, to the siege of Grozny five years later that razed the city to the ground and has been compared to the destruction of Dresden. Resurrecting these memories with a poet’s eye, Eldin observes the sights, the sounds and smells of war. Having fled Grozny along with droves of refugees, he joins the defending army, yet he always considers his role as that of journalist and witness. Shortly after joining the Chechen resistance, Eldin is captured in the mountains. He undergoes barbaric torture as his captors attempt to break his will. They fail to make him talk, and he is eventually transferred to a concentration camp. There a new struggle awaits him: the battle to overcome his own suicidal thoughts and ensuing insanity.

Gregor von Rezzori was born in Czernowitz, a onetime provincial capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that was later to be absorbed successively into Romania, the USSR, and the Ukraine — a town that was everywhere and nowhere, with a population of astonishing diversity. Growing up after World War I and the collapse of the empire, Rezzori lived in a twilit world suspended between the formalities of the old nineteenth-century order which had shaped his aristocratic parents and the innovations, uncertainties, and raw terror of the new century. The haunted atmosphere of this dying world is beautifully rendered in the pages of The Snows of Yesteryear.The book is a series of portraits — amused, fond, sometimes appalling — of Rezzori’s family: his hysterical and histrionic mother, disappointed by marriage, destructively obsessed with her children’s health and breeding; his father, a flinty reactionary, whose only real love was hunting; his haughty older sister, fated to die before thirty; his earthy nursemaid, who introduced Rezzori to the power of storytelling and the inevitability of death; and a beloved governess, Bunchy. Telling their stories, Rezzori tells his own, holding his early life to the light like a crystal until it shines for us with a prismatic brilliance.

Part diary and part reportage, The Soccer War is a remarkable chronicle of war in the late twentieth century. Between 1958 and 1980, working primarily for the Polish Press Agency, Kapuscinski covered twenty-seven revolutions and coups in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. Here, with characteristic cogency and emotional immediacy, he recounts the stories behind his official press dispatches — searing firsthand accounts of the frightening, grotesque, and comically absurd aspects of life during war. The Soccer War is a singular work of journalism.

The childhood world of Hugo Hamilton is a confused place. His father, a brutal Irish nationalist, demands his children speak Gaelic at home whilst his mother, a softly spoken German emigrant who escaped Nazi Germany at the beginning of the war, encourages them to speak German. All Hugo wants to do is speak English. English is, after all, what the other children in Dublin speak. English is what they use when they hunt down Hugo (or Eichmann as they dub him) in the streets of Dublin, and English is what they use when they bring him to trial and execute him at a mock seaside court. Out of this fear and confusion Hugo tries to build a balanced view of the world, to turn the twisted logic of what he is told into truth. It is a journey that ends in liberation but not before this little boy has uncovered the dark and long-buried secrets that lie at the bottom of his parents' wardrobe.

Jodorowsky’s memoirs of his experiences with Master Takata and the group of wisewomen-magiciennes-who influenced his spiritual growth• Reveals Jodorowsky turning the same unsparing spiritual vision seen in El Topo to his own spiritual quest• Shows how the author’s spiritual insight and progress was catalyzed repeatedly by wisewoman shamans and healersIn 1970, John Lennon introduced to the world Alejandro Jodorowsky and the movie, El Topo, that he wrote, starred in, and directed. The movie and its author instantly became a counterculture icon. The New York Times said the film “demands to be seen,” and Newsweek called it “An Extraordinary Movie!” But that was only the beginning of the story and the controversy of El Topo, and the journey of its brilliant creator. His spiritual quest began with the Japanese master Ejo Takata, the man who introduced him to the practice of meditation, Zen Buddhism, and the wisdom of the koans. Yet in this autobiographical account of his spiritual journey, Jodorowsky reveals that it was a small group of wisewomen, far removed from the world of Buddhism, who initiated him and taught him how to put the wisdom he had learned from his master into practice.At the direction of Takata, Jodorowsky became a student of the surrealist painter Leonora Carrington, thus beginning a journey in which vital spiritual lessons were transmitted to him by various women who were masters of their particular crafts. These women included Doña Magdalena, who taught him “initiatic” or spiritual massage; the powerful Mexican actress known as La Tigresa (the “tigress”); and Reyna D’Assia, daughter of the famed spiritual teacher G. I. Gurdjieff. Other important wisewomen on Jodorowsky’s spiritual path include María Sabina, the priestess of the sacred mushrooms; the healer Pachita; and the Chilean singer Violeta Parra. The teachings of these women enabled him to discard the emotional armor that was hindering his advancement on the path of spiritual awareness and enlightenment.

‘I looked in the mirror one morning, and saw the face of a stranger. Who was she, this haggard, bun-faced woman with the softening jawline, the downturned mouth, the world-weary air of a woman who hasn’t had what she wanted from life, and knows she isn’t going to get it now? Why, it was no one else but me, myself and I.’Middle age took Jane Shilling by surprise. She hadn’t seen it coming, and she certainly wasn’t ready for it. She lives in a tumbledown urban cottage by the Thames, with a son, a cat and a horse in livery fifty miles away – a flawed, bittersweet version of the idyll she dreamed of in her twenties.Must she accept that middle age is the beginning of the end or is there one last great adventure still to be grabbed? Her sense of hope and excitement seem at odds with her contemporaries’ resolute denial or rueful resignation in the face of middle age. And what of the strange, conflicting attitudes – a mixture of fascination and revulsion – that surround the public perception of middle-aged women?The Stranger in the Mirror is one woman’s attempt to understand what middle age is, what it means for her and whether, as a new generation of women turns fifty, some kind of revolution is under way. The result is a very personal meditation about what it’s like to be at the midpoint, looking both backwards and forwards. It definitely won’t reverse the signs of ageing – but it will make you laugh, it will make you think and it could just make you look in the mirror in a slightly different way…

Russia under Vladimir Putin has proved a prickly partner for the West, a far cry from the democratic ally many hoped for when the Soviet Union collapsed. Abroad, Putin has used Russia’s energy strength as a foreign policy weapon, while at home he has cracked down on opponents, adamant that only he has the right vision for his country’s future.Former BBC Moscow correspondent Angus Roxburgh charts the dramatic fight for Russia’s future under Vladimir Putin – how the former KGB man changed from reformer to autocrat; how he sought the West’s respect but earned its fear; how he cracked down on his rivals at home and burnished a flamboyant personality cult, one day saving snow leopards or horseback riding bare-chested, the next tongue-lashing Western audiences. Drawing on dozens of exclusive interviews in Russia, where he worked as a Kremlin insider advising Putin on press relations, Roxburgh also argues that the West threw away chances to bring Russia in from the cold by failing to understand its fears and aspirations following the collapse of communism.‘A sober assessment of the Putin years, illuminated by Angus Roxburgh’s first-hand experience and long acquaintance with Russia.’Bridget Kendall, BBC diplomatic correspondent‘Using his personal experiences and material from new interviews with key figures, Angus Roxburgh lifts the lid on a decade of murky Kremlin politics and points the way towards the new Putin era that is about to dawn.’Martin Sixsmith, author of Russia: A 1,000-Year Chronicle of the Wild East