Biographies

Please visit our Book Bulletin 2019 crowdfunding project at CrowdPatch to buy recommendations for our Winter 2019 catalogue and to volunteer your skills, experience and contacts. All funds raised will support not-for-profit Jolabokaflod CIC’s forthcoming programme of events.

Cuz
Danielle Allen
(UK: Vintage, @vintagebooks, 2018; Liveright Publishing, @LiverightPub, 2017)

Aged 15 and living in Los Angeles, Michael Allen was arrested for a botched carjacking. He was tried as an adult and sentenced to thirteen years behind bars. After growing up in prison Michael was then released aged 26, only to be murdered three years later … In this deeply personal yet clear-eyed memoir, Danielle Allen reconstructs her cousin’s life to try and understand how this tragedy came to pass.

We get to know Michael himself through the eyes of a devoted relative, moving from his first steps to his first love through to the day of his arrest, his coming of age in prison, and his attempts to make up for lost time after his release. We learn what it’s like to grow up in a city carved up by invisible gang borders; and we learn how a generation has been lost.

With breathtaking honesty and insight, Cuz circles around its subject, exposing it from all angles to reveal the shocking reality of a broken system. The result is a devastatingly powerful yet reasoned tribute to a life lost too soon.

Recommended by:
Liveright Publishing: at BookExpo America

Liveright Publishing Corporation grew out of the storied Boni & Liveright press, one of the most important publishers of the early 20th century. Although no original titles had been published bearing the distinctive cowled monk colophon of Liveright for many years, in 2012, WW Norton & Company re-launched the storied imprint, producing an inaugural catalogue of publications sure to once again secure Liveright as a pre-eminent publisher of the finest literature. Along with publishing new works, Liveright Publishing of the 21st century will continue to print classics from the 20th-century catalogue.

Ma’am Darling (UK) | Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret (USA)
Craig Brown
(UK: 4th Estate, @4thEstateBooks, 2018; USA: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, @fsgbooks, 2018)

She made John Lennon blush and Marlon Brando clam up. She cold-shouldered Princess Diana and humiliated Elizabeth Taylor. Jack Nicholson offered her cocaine and Pablo Picasso lusted over her. To her friends, Princess Margaret was witty and regal; to her enemies, she was rude and demanding. This biography looks at her from many angles, creating a kaleidoscopic biography, and a witty meditation on fame and art, snobbery and deference, bohemia and high society.

Recommended by:
Dan Calladine, Head of Media Futures, Carat Global Management | Founder, London Pop-ups
Dan says: ‘This is an unbelievably good read and a great book to give to someone as a present’

Dan Calladine is a media industry maven who tracks online and offline media trends and the effectiveness of media strategy for Carat, a media agency within the Dentsu Aegis Network. He is an expert commentator on media, having been interviewed by BBC Radio 4, the Financial Times, Campaign and The Guardian, among other channels and publications. Dan is an expert on social media, including and social media tracking: he is a keen user, being active on YouTube, Twitter and Pinterest. Dan also heads and runs London Pop-ups, a online listings hub for pop-up events in the capital city.

A Life Discarded
Alexander Masters
(UK: 4th Estate, @4thEstateBooks, 2017; USA: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, @fsgbooks, 2017)

In 2001, 148 tattered and mold-covered notebooks were discovered lying among broken bricks in a bin on a building site in Cambridge, England. Tens of thousands of pages were filled to the edges with urgent handwriting. They were a small part of an intimate, mysterious diary, starting in 1952 and ending half a century later, a few weeks before the books were thrown out. The anonymous author, known only as “I,” is revealed as the tragicomic patron saint of everyone who feels their life should have been more successful. Over five years, the brilliant biographer Alexander Masters uncovers th

Recommended by:
Dan Calladine, Head of Media Futures, Carat Global Management | Founder, London Pop-ups
Dan says: ‘The author traces the story of a mystery diarist whose journals he discovered by accident’

Elon Musk
Ashlee Vance
(UK: Virgin Books, @virginbooks, 2016; Ecco, @eccobooks, 2017)

South African-born Elon Musk is the renowned entrepreneur and innovator behind PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity. Musk wants to save our planet; he wants to send citizens into space, to form a colony on Mars; he wants to make money while doing these things; and he wants us all to know about it. He is the real-life inspiration for the Iron Man series of films starring Robert Downey Jr.

Elon Musk is the Steve Jobs of the present and the future, and for twelve months he was shadowed by tech reporter, Ashlee Vance. Her biography is an important, exciting and intelligent account of the Silicon Valley icon.

Recommended by:
Simon Krystman, Entrepreneur | Social Entrepreneur, 12R Prizes; Founder, The Smart Startup Company; Founder, IdeasPatch; Director, Brain Mind Forum; CEO, CrowdPatch CIC

Simon is a passionate entrepreneur who has successfully set up and exited a number of businesses in the digital and innovation space over the past 20 years; most recently launching a suite of products for start-ups and early-stage companies (accessed via Start-up Tools 101). These revolve around ideas, people and funding. He is also in the process of co-authoring a book about the Ideas Economy. Simon’s philanthropic activities involve crowdfunding for communities where he runs a crowdfunding platform to raise small amounts of funding for social causes, often working with MPs and other community leaders.

	Christopher Norris on Secret Santa 2022
	Bronwyn on Secret Santa 2022
	Richard on Let’s get the Icelanders…

Please visit our Book Bulletin 2019 crowdfunding project at CrowdPatch to buy recommendations for our Winter 2019 catalogue and to volunteer your skills, experience and contacts. All funds raised will support not-for-profit Jolabokaflod CIC’s forthcoming programme of events.

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