Джайлз Брандрет – лучшие книги

Лондон, 1889 год. Оскар Уайльд - знаменитый поэт и драматург, остроумный рассказчик, перед талантом которого преклоняется вся Европа. Однажды Оскар Уайльд обнаруживает в темной и душной комнате, в свете свечи обнаженное тело шестнадцатилетнего юноши Билли Вуда. Уайльд не может забыть об этом жестоком убийстве и вместе со своим другом Артуром Конаном Дойлом принимается за расследование преступления. Оскар Уайльд обладает талантом детектива и вхож в самые разные круги викторианского Лондона: от богемного полусвета до криминальных сообществ, что в дальнейшем сыграет решающую роль в раскрытии серии необъяснимых преступлений. В классическом…

Знаменитый английский писатель Оскар Уайльд по праву считался умнейшим человеком своего времени, но и он не смог предусмотреть, каким кошмаром обернется придуманная им игра: люди, которых участники этой забавы в шутку назначили "жертвами", стали умирать, причем убийца явно был из числа игроков. Кто же он? За расследование взялся сам Уайльд и его ближайшие друзья, знаменитый сэр Артур Конан Дойл, уже успевший создать своего Шерлока Холмса, и будущий автор "Дракулы" Брэм Стокер... Читателя ждут головокружительный сюжет, яркие образы главных героев, живое описание быта и нравов викторианской Англии - и конечно же разгадка тайны на последних…

Puns, palindromes, pangrams, Malaprops, euphemisms, mnemonics, acronyms, anagrams, alphabeticals, Tweets, verbiage, verbarrhea - if you can name it, you should find it here, along with the longest, shortest, wittiest, wildest, oldest, latest, oddest, most interesting and most memorable words in the English language - the richest, most remarkable language ever known.

This is the definitive account of one of the most extraordinary stories of our time. Gyles Brandreth, acclaimed biographer of the Queen and Prince Philip, presents a unique portrait of their son, Charles, Prince of Wales, and of the one 'non-negotiable' love of his life, Camilla Shand, now Duchess of Cornwall.

What are Charles and Camilla really like? What is their heritage? What has made them the way they are? This is both a revealing portrait of two unusual individuals and a family saga like no other, told with unrivalled authority and insight - and humour - by a best-selling writer who has met all the key characters in the drama: Charles, Camilla, Diana, their children, their families and their friends.

This is the story of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh - the longest-serving consort to the longest-reigning sovereign in British history. It is an extraordinary story, told with unique insight and authority by an author who knew the prince for more than forty years. Philip - elusive, complex, controversial, challenging, often humorous, sometimes irascible - is the man Elizabeth II once described as her 'constant strength and guide'. Who was he? What was he really like? What is the truth about those 'gaffes' and the rumours of affairs? This is the final portrait of an unexpected and often much-misunderstood figure. It is also the portrait…

London. 1894. 'I am not a detective, chief constable.' 'No, but you are a poet, a freemason and a man of the world. All useful qualifications for the business in hand.' So says Police Chief Macnaghten to Oscar Wilde, in a Chelsea drawing room in the company of Arthur Conan Doyle. The business they are gathered to discuss is none other than the case of Jack the Ripper, the most notorious murderer in England. And thus the three men set out to solve one of the world's most famous mysteries - the ultimate truth about the identity of Jack the Ripper. Case Closed is Arthur Conan Doyle's account of the events of 1894, the year of the return of…

Laugh yourself silly in this fantastic collection of jokes and riddles!
WHAT'S BLACK AND WHITE AND RED ALL OVER?
An embarrassed Penguin
A sunburnt elephant
A newspaper!
Did those jokes make you laugh? Make you groan? Maybe a bit of both? There's a lot more where they came from.
Collected here by jokesmith Gyles Brandreth are some of t

*A brand-new book of amazing, mind-boggling riddles, from the much-loved Gyles Brandreth, author of What's Black and White and Red All Over*
When first I appear I seem mysterious,
But when I am explained I am nothing serious.
What am I?
A RIDDLE!
Was that too easy? How about what goes ninety-nine BONK (a centipede with a wooden leg)? Or which fam

A personal account of the life and character of Britain's longest-reigning monarch, from the writer who knew her family best.
Gyles Brandreth first met the Queen in 1968, when he was twenty.

Over the next fifty years he met her many times, both at public and private events. Through his friendship with the Duke of Edinburgh, he was given privileged access to Elizabeth II.

He kept a record of all those encounters, and his conversations with the Queen over the years, his meetings with her family and friends, and his observations of her at close quarters are what make this very personal account of her extraordinary life uniquely fascinating.

From her childhood in the 1920s to the era of Harry and Meghan in the 2020s, from her war years at Windsor Castle to her death at Balmoral, this is both a record of a tumultuous century of royal history and a truly intimate portrait of a remarkable woman.

Enter the world of Gyles Brandreth - broadcaster, actor, writer, former politician - as he takes us on an extraordinary journey into his past.
From growing up in an apparently well-to-do but strapped-for-cash middle-class English family to his adventures in swinging London, Gyles encounters princes, presidents, pop stars and prime ministers, gets involved in everything from setting up Scrabble championships to examining Danish sex shops, and thrills us with countless tales of family, friends and acquaintances, both famous and infamous.
Filled with incredible and sometimes shocking stories, Odd Boy Out is the story of Gyles Brandreth's fascinating life told with his unique wit and charm.

*Laugh yourself silly in this fantastic collection of jokes and riddles from master of funny Gyles Brandreth!* WHAT'S BLACK AND WHITE AND RED ALL OVER? An embarrassed Penguin A sunburnt elephant A newspaper! Did those jokes make you laugh? Make you groan? Maybe a bit of both? There's a lot more where they came from. Collected here by jokesmith Gyles Brandreth are some of the best and worst jokes ever (plus a few riddles to keep you on your toes). From 'Knock, knock' to 'Waiter waiter', with some funny elephants and giraffes thrown in for good measure, there's also a bit of expert joke advice, so you can show others just how…

Pedantic about punctuation or scrupulous about spelling? You'll love this hilarious and definitive guide to 21st century language from grammar-guru Gyles Brandreth
'Brandreth excels . . . in all his linguistic joie de vivre' Guardian
Don't know if it's, like, okay to say 'like'?
Are your apostrophe's in the wrong place?
Want to make fewer not less grammatical mistakes?

Должно быть, каждый в своей жизни задумывался над вопросом "Как стать счастливым?". Известный британский писатель, журналист и актер Джайлз Брандрет всерьез взялся за поиски ответа и провел целое исследование, результатом которого стала настоящая книга - своего рода руководство по обретению счастья. Путешествуя и общаясь с интересными людьми, Брандрет пришел к любопытным выводам о природе счастья. Его книга полна увлекательных и остроумных историй, мудрых афоризмов, неожиданных выводов. Многолетний "поход за оптимизмом" позволил Джайлзу сформулировать семь секретов - простых правил, помогающих обрести счастье.

Oscar Wilde makes a triumphant return in the fifth novel in the critically acclaimed historical mystery series, featuring Wilde as the detective aided by his friend Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In 1892 Arthur Conan Doyle, exhausted by his creation Sherlock Holmes, retires to the spa at Bad Homburg. But his rest cure does not go as planned. The first person he encounters is Oscar Wilde, and when the two friends make a series of macabre discoveries amongst the portmanteau of fan mail Conan Doyle has brought to answer - a severed finger, a lock of hair and finally an entire severed hand - the game is once more afoot. The trail leads to Rome,…

In OSCAR WILDE AND THE MURDERS AT READING GAOL, the sixth in Gyles Brandreth's acclaimed Oscar Wilde Murder Mysteries series featuring Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle, Reading Gaol's most famous prisoner is pitted against a ruthless and fiendishly clever serial killer. It is 1897, Dieppe. Oscar Wilde, poet, playwright, novelist, raconteur and ex-convict, has fled the country after his release from Reading Gaol. Tonight he is sharing a drink and the story of his cruel imprisonment with a mysterious stranger. He has endured a harsh regime: the treadmill, solitary confinement, censored letters, no writing materials. Yet even in the midst…

This, the fourth of Gyles Brandeth's acclaimed murder mysteries, opens in the spring of 1890 at a glamorous reception hosted by the Duke and Duchess of Albemarle. All London's haut monde is there, including a young actor Rex LaSalle who, disarmingly, claims to be a vampire. What begins as a diverting evening ends in tragedy. The Duchess is found murdered in an anteroom, two tiny puncture marks in her neck. Desperate to avoid a public scandal, the Prince of Wales asks Oscar and his friend Arthur Conan Doyle to investigate the crime. What they discover threatens to destroy the royal family - and the reputation of Oscar Wilde.

Playwright and raconteur Oscar Wilde embarks on another adventure as he sets sail for America in the 1880s on a roller coaster of a lecture tour. But the adventure doesn't truly begin until Oscar boards an ocean liner headed back across the Atlantic and joins a motley crew led by French impresario Edmond La Grange. As Oscar becomes entangled with the La Grange acting dynasty, he suspects that all is not as it seems. What begins with a curious death at sea soon escalates to a series of increasingly macabre tragedies once the troupe arrives in Paris to perform Hamlet. A strange air of indifference surrounds these seemingly random events,…

Privileged access to both the Queen and Prince Philip is the key to this revealing and engrossing royal biography.

This is the first major biography of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh—both royal, both great-great-great grandchildren of Queen Victoria, but in temperament and upbringing very different people. Her childhood was loving and secure, his turbulent: the Duke's grandfather was assassinated, his father arrested, his family exiled, his parents separated by the time he was ten. For almost sixty years theirs have been among the most famous faces in the world—yet the personalities behind the image remain elusive and the nature of their marriage is an enigma.

Gyles Brandreth has met all the principal players in the story; he quotes no anonymous sources; he has known the Duke of Edinburgh for twenty-five years and has interviewed him. This is a unique and revealing portrait of a remarkable partnership, told with candor and authority, and illustrated with Prince Philip's family photographs and pictures from the Queen's royal collection. 40 pages of illustrations.