John Blake: 861 books

There is a tribute book to be written about the nicest man in snooker-but this isn't it. Whatever else he was, Alexander Gordon Higgins wasn't nice. Unpredictable, wild, demonic and obsessive for certain. The People's Champion. An unstoppable force who single-handedly transformed snooker from a niche...

Although it is said that he owed his poetic vision to his Sephardic Jewish roots, Siegfried Sassoon was, in many ways, a conventionally Edwardian squire. And although near-suicidal bravery won him the Military Cross (Sassoon was famously fictionalized in Pat Barker’s Regeneration trilogy), his poetry...

John Bindon emerged from a poor, working class London childhood and fraternized 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. Usually typecast in tough-guy...

As he turns eighty, Jack Nicholson can look back on a career that has spanned over six decades. With iconic roles in Easy Rider, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Shining and The Departed to name but a few, he has exhibited an astonishing range in all and remains arguably our greatest living actor. This...

Aled Jones was a choirboy with a remarkable voice, whose prodigious talent propelled him to international stardom. Before he was sixteen, he had already sold more than six million records and had become a fixture on television and radio. He has worked alongside such greats as Leonard Bernstein, Andrew...

John Holmes was a schoolboy when World War II broke out in 1939, but even he jknew his destiny lay in the skies. 'Boys from these parts don't join the RAF', he was told on more than one occasion. But they were wrong.After many months undergoing selection and training he eventually made it into the...

With two collections of his verse written during World War I, Siegfried Sassoon established himself among the greatest of the war poets. Beyond that, the memoirs of his service with the Royal Welch Fusiliers on the Western Front, beginning with Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, rank perhaps as highly...

Since their foundation during the Second World War, the Parachute Regiment has acquired a formidable reputation as tough, fearless soldiers. "The Red Devils" have played a key role in many of the battles of the past sixty years—the capture of Sicily, the D-Day landing, the heroic but doomed...

John O'Kane delivers a gripping tale of a life dedicated to football violence and gives an unparalled insight into the reality of being a career hooligan. With 33 criminal convictions against him, plus a further 33 cases either dropped or with a not guilty verdict, O'Kane has been remanded nine times...

The Dundee Utility stands apart from other football firms. Its members are drawn not from the supporters of one team, but from two - Dundee United and Dundee FC - all of whom share the same passion: their city. The two bands of fans stand united, except on derby day, of course! In this compelling...

At the 1908 Summer Olympics, one of the contenders in the marathon was the diminutive Italian Dorando Pietri. After leading the pack at a grueling pace, Pietri staggered into the stadium, turned the wrong direction, and fell five times, after which two officials took him by the arms and brought him...

This is the thrilling account of the heroism, ambition, and scandal of three remarkable men whose actions at the 1908 Olympics overshadowed the first London Games. Diminutive Italian Dorando Pietri fell five times, and was practically carried across the finish line. Scottish sprinter Wyndham Halswelle...

Spanning 40 years of love, life, and villainy, this epic novel is a major tour de force from an author at the peak of his powers, the Spillane of Brit Noir   Once upon a time in south London, three young men without a future decide to invent their own. The sixties are starting...

A gripping, if chilling, forensic examination of three savage serial killers who, among themselves, brutally murdered 28 innocent womenMichael Ross. Kenneth Bianchi. John Scripps. These are truly the servants of hell, three savage killers without a shred of soul between them. Michael Ross— "The...