1KBB Archives - Duckworth Books

A Ride Across America

‘Parker magnificently chronicles the America he encounters, a divided, disfranchised collection of states he fears for but comes to love for their generosity, community spirit and sense of hope’ Ben East, Observer

Frustrated by the shallow headlines focusing only on Trump, borders and division, award-winning travel writer Simon Parker decided that to better understand today’s USA he would have to travel across it, slowly.

Did the America of his teenage dreams really exist? And was it really as fractured as the headlines suggest? On his journey to find out, Simon cycled 4,373 miles through eleven states and numerous extreme weather events, via mountains and prairie lands, forests and freeways. Along the way he visited homes, schools, churches and rodeos, meeting hundreds of (extra)ordinary Americans behind the clickbait news posts to discover a nation whose portrayal has become vastly oversimplified.

Sinners of Starlight City

FROM INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING AUTHOR ANIKA SCOTT

Madame Mystique is a performer extraordinaire, come to work her scandalous magic at the glittering 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. Of African American and Sicilian heritage, Mystique – aka Rosa Mancuso – and her fellow performers move on the margins. Her ambiguous status serves a hidden vendetta: she awaits the arrival of Paolo Amanta, the dashing pilot sent by Mussolini to dazzle spectators with a phenomenal air show.

Back in Sicily, Paolo’s band of young Fascists had murdered her relatives as the old Mafia families were swept from their palazzi with unsparing brutality. Rosa is fixed on revenge. Then her estranged cousin, Mina, comes to the Fair, begging her help to face down their American family. Sinners of Starlight City is an immersive story of injustice, retribution and redemption that asks: who decides who we are and where we belong?

The Nordic Theory of Everything

An optimistic account of how the Nordic countries can teach us to live easier, healthier, happier lives.

From childcare to healthcare to provision for the elderly and the homeless, the Nordic countries are world leaders in organising society – no wonder Finland has been ranked among the happiest places on the planet.

In The Nordic Theory of Everything, Finnish journalist and US immigrant Anu Partanen sets out to understand why America – and much of the Western world – suffers from such stark inequality and struggling social services. Filled with fascinating insights, advice and practical solutions, she makes a convincing argument that we can rebuild society, rekindle optimism and become more autonomous citizens by following in the footsteps of our neighbours to the North.

Sugar

Sugar was once the most powerful commodity on earth. It shaped world affairs, influenced the economic policies of nations, drove international trade and left a legacy of suffering that still resonates today. But how did a substance that began as an expensive luxury of the wealthy become a staple in the modern world?

In Sugar this dark history is unveiled, from the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade to the environmental devastation caused by sugar cultivation. Richly detailed and thoroughly compelling, Elizabeth Abbott traces sugar from its very origins to the twenty-first century, examining the true cost of satisfying the world’s sweet tooth.

The Devil’s Guide to Hollywood

Joe Eszterhas has written some of Hollywood’s biggest hits Basic InstinctFlashdance and walked away with some of the largest writing cheques in the industry’s history. In The Devil’s Guide to Hollywood he reveals everything he knows about the movies the players, the personalities, the legends and screenwriting itself, revealing all that has inspired, amused and enraged him in Hollywood since his career began.

Hilarious, colourful but also practical, this is required reading for anyone who s ever thought of writing for the screen, and for anyone who wants the inside story on the organised insanity of the movie business.

Elvis Has Left the Building

The King departed this world during the month of punk Rock’s apotheosis. Punk had set out to destroy Elvis, or at least everything he came to represent, but never got the chance. Elvis destroyed himself before anyone else could.

Nearly forty years after his death, Rock’s ultimate legend and prototype just won’t go away and his influence and legacy are to be found not just in music today, but the world over. Elvis Presley has permeated the modern world in ways that are bizarre and inexplicable: a pop icon while he was alive, he has become almost a religious icon in death, a modern-day martyr crucified on the wheel of drugs, celebrity culture, junk food and sex.

In Elvis Has Left the Building, Dylan Jones takes us back to those heady days around the time of his death and the rise of punk. He evokes the hysteria and devotion of The King’s numerous disciples and imitators, offering a uniquely insightful commentary on Elvis’s life, times and outrageous demise. This is a fresh account, written with the authors customary panache, recounting how Elvis single-handedly changed the course of popular music and culture, and what his death meant and still means to us today.

Florence Foster Jenkins

‘Darryl Bullock’s timely biography – delightfully cheering’ Alexander McCall Smith, Guardian

Madame Jenkins couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket: despite that, in 1944 at the age of 76, she played Carnegie Hall to a capacity audience and had celebrity fans by the score. Her infamous 1940s recordings are still highly-prized today. In his well-researched and thoroughly entertaining biography, Darryl W. Bullock tells of Florence Foster Jenkins meteoric rise to success and the man who stood beside her, through every sharp note.

Florence was ridiculed for her poor control of timing, pitch, and tone, and terrible pronunciation of foreign lyrics, but the sheer entertainment value of her caterwauling packed out theatres around the United States, with the ‘singer’ firmly convinced of her own talent, partly thanks to the devoted attention from her husband and manager St Clair Bayfield. Her story is one of triumph in the face of adversity, of courage, conviction and of the belief that with dedication and commitment a true artist can achieve anything.

With a major Hollywood movie about her life out now (starring Meryl Streep, Hugh Grant and Simon Helberg), the genius of Florence Foster Jenkins is about to be discovered by a whole new audience.

‘The first full biography of Foster Jenkins’ Clemency Burton-Hill, BBC

‘Listening to her pathetic bleating is something like eavesdropping on a padded cell inmate’ Billboard magazine

The Devil in the Valley

In his quiet Vermont home, a man named Taft sits and wonders what’s missing from his life. He’s at a loss until a strange voice startles him from the rocking chair, where a stranger has seemingly appeared out of nowhere: well-dressed and smooth-talking, this man offers Taft the chance to have anything he’s ever wanted-for a price. So begins The Devil in the Valley, the latest novel from critically acclaimed author Castle Freeman, Jr. Combining his deft hand for the supernatural with his classic setting of rural Vermont, Freeman gives us a story that touches on temptation and greed, and explores what we’re willing to trade to obtain the things we most desire. A modern fable that explores the supernatural while staying rooted deeply in our world, The Devil in the Valley is a powerful novel from a master at his craft.

All That I Have

Wing is an experienced, practical man who enforces the law in his corner of Vermont with a steady hand and a generous tolerance. But when local tearaway Sean ‘Superboy’ Duke starts to get tangled up with a group of major league Russian criminals, things start to go awry in the sheriff’s small, protected domain. With an ambitious and aggressive deputy snapping at his heels and a domestic crisis of his own to confront, Wing must call on all the personal resources he has cultivated during his working life: patience, tact, and – especially – humour.

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