John Bindon is a modern legend. A fine screen presence and a powerful figure in London's underworld, his film-star looks, charm and talent brought him worldwide exposure. His story reads like the plot of a movie which Big John himself might have landed a part in. Usually typecast in tough-guy roles, his on-screen persona was chillingly close to the real-life one. Big John's nickname came from his status as a legendary sexual performer, so it was no surprise that his encounters with stunning women, most famously Princess Margaret, led to numerous high profile relationships. But most of all, Big John was a warm-hearted, complex man, utterly devoted to those who have him respect and always prepared to be the last line of defence to those closest to him. He emerged from a poor, working class London childhood and fraternised with the Krays and the Richardsons, but eventually turned his back on crime to play major parts in films such as Mick Jagger's Performance, "The Who's Quadrophenia" and Michael Caine's "Get Carter". This is the a truly moving book, as powerful as The Guv'nor, about a man who was many different things to many people, but never anything but himself.

Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, the Thin White Duke. Gender Bender. Rebel. Songwriter. Fashion Icon. Rock God. One of the most influential creative artists of his generation, David Bowie morphed from one glittering incarnation to the next over the course of five decades—an enduring superstar who remained endlessly enigmatic and always ahead of his time. Discover the man behind the myth in this intimate and in-depth biography—featuring a full-color sixteen-page photo insert. David Bowie passed away after an eighteen-month battle with cancer on January 10, 2016. Few knew of his illness, and Bowie flawlessly orchestrated his last goodbye with the release of his final (and some say best) album, Blackstar, featuring the haunting song “Lazarus,” and its accompanying video, a farewell message to his millions of fans. Throughout his iconic career that included such hits as “Let’s Dance,” “Space Oddity,” “Heroes,” “Modern Love,” and “Life on Mars,” Bowie managed to retain his Hollywood star mystique. Through in-depth interviews with those who knew him best, New York Times bestselling author Wendy Leigh reveals the man behind Bowie’s myriad images—up to and including his role as stay-at-home dad, happily monogamous in his quarter-of-a-century-plus marriage to supermodel Iman. In this “sizzling” (Radar Online) new biography, Leigh brings fresh insights to Bowie’s battles with addiction; his insatiable sex life—from self-avowed gay to bisexual to resolutely heterosexual—and countless conquests; his childhood in a working-class London neighborhood and the troubling family influences that fueled his relentless pursuit of success; and much more. This exploration of an artist beloved by so many reveals the man at the center of the mythos.

A sweeping and dramatic history of the last half century of conflict in the Middle East from an award-winning journalist who has covered the region for over forty years, The Great War for Civilisation unflinchingly chronicles the tragedy of the region from the Algerian Civil War to the Iranian Revolution; from the American hostage crisis in Beirut to the Iran-Iraq War; from the 1991 Gulf War to the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. A book of searing drama as well as lucid, incisive analysis, The Great War for Civilisation is a work of major importance for today's world.

Once enthroned as a major international filmmaker, Carol Reed has long since been banished to a musty corner of movie history. To dust off his work, however, is to discover a dazzling body of films, a canon as remarkable for its diversity as its quality. Building his case, film by film, Robert Moss argues persuasively for a reassessment of this gifted artist, claiming a place for him in the ranks of the world's greatest directors.

An argument that we have a moral duty to explore other planets and solar systems--because human life on Earth has an expiration date. Inevitably, life on Earth will come to an end, whether by climate disaster, cataclysmic war, or the death of the sun in a few billion years. To avoid extinction, we will have to find a new home planet, perhaps even a new solar system, to inhabit. In this provocative and fascinating book, Christopher Mason argues that we have a moral duty to do just that. As the only species aware that life on Earth has an expiration date, we have a responsibility to act as the shepherd of life-forms--not only for our species but for all species on which we depend and for those still to come (by accidental or designed evolution). Mason argues that the same capacity for ingenuity that has enabled us to build rockets and land on other planets can be applied to redesigning biology so that we can sustainably inhabit those planets. And he lays out a 500-year plan for undertaking the massively ambitious project of reengineering human genetics for life on other worlds. As they are today, our frail human bodies could never survive travel to another habitable planet. Mason describes the toll that long-term space travel took on astronaut Scott Kelly, who returned from a year on the International Space Station with changes to his blood, bones, and genes. Mason proposes a ten-phase, 500-year program that would engineer the genome so that humans can tolerate the extreme environments of outer space--with the ultimate goal of achieving human settlement of new solar systems. He lays out a roadmap of which solar systems to visit first, and merges biotechnology, philosophy, and genetics to offer an unparalleled vision of the universe to come.