Blow by Blow: The Story of Isabella Blow

Sykes, Tom

Blow, Detmar

HarperCollins Publishers, Ltd

“One of the most original and influential people of the twentieth century to me and many others.” —Alexander McQueen With a career spanning thirty years in fashion, as an influential voice at Vogue, Tatler, and The Sunday Times Magazine—as well as a legacy as one of the industry’s kingmakers for discovering Philip Treacy, Alexander McQueen, Sophie Dahl, and Hussein Chalayan—Isabella Blow had been a pillar of couture culture until her suicide in 2007 left the fashion world mourning one of its finest friends and patrons. Blow by Blow is a captivating journey through Issie’s life, a one-of-a-kind look at her unforgettable impact on the fashion world, and a moving exploration of her inspiring and ultimately tragic tale.

Humor & Entertainment

It Books

Imagining Manila: Literature, Empire and Orientalism

History

Asia

Bloomsbury Academic

In this entertaining volume, you'll find Governor General Award-winner Margaret Avison and American sci-fi novelist Piers Anthony rubbing shoulders with Blag Dahlia and Ben Bachelder. You'll read of Jello Biafra's encounter with shoe-eating cows, Alan Dean Foster's ride on a whale shark, and Kage Baker's hilarious account of actors broken down on Interstate 5. Filmmakers, politicians, stand-up comedians, poets, journalists, and carpenters all come together through the shared experience of hitching a ride. Throughout the '60s and '70s — the heyday of hitchhiking — this form of travel was a key means of transportation. Today, people continue to hitchhike all over the world. Money never changes hands, but all manner of social transactions take place. Hilarious, sad, nostalgic, sometimes scary, and always entertaining, these travelers' tales will open your eyes and take you back — or forward. Just when you think you've heard it all, turn the page. You'll discover you haven't!

No Such Thing as a Free Ride?: A Collection of Hitchhiking Tales, North American Edition

Travel

Sykes, Simon

Reference

Goose Lane Editions

What Did I Do Last Night?: A Drunkard's Tale

When Tom Sykes landed his dream job as the New York Post's bar columnist and nightlife reporter, he turned his long-standing drinking problem into a vocation. His memoir is a funny, thrilling, and ruthlessly honest exhumation of his drinking life and a candid account of his first 90 days without alcohol Tom traces his alcoholism back to his British boyhood at Eton College, England's oldest and most exclusive boarding school, where the boys had to wear tail suits to class and there was a school pub. He delves into his aristocratic family's well-documented fondness for the bottle and covers his own drinking apprenticeship as a trainee journalist on London's famously alcohol-sodden newspapers. Whether he is getting arrested for drunk driving at the age of 15, climbing naked into his friends' and colleagues' beds, or simply trying to file an emergency front-page update while reeling from a cocktail of Ecstacy and magic mushrooms, Tom takes the reader on an addictive journey into the insanity of intoxication—all too often followed by a mossy tongue, a dull headache, and one burning question: "What the hell did I do last night?"

Biographies & Memoirs

Memoirs

Rodale Books

"Sykes's amusing and depressing ancedotes about his 'research,' deepened by the occasional bout of introspection, make this addition to the recovery memoir genre distinctive." --People The former New York Post nightlife reporter for "Page Six" serves up his own dark secrets in this funny, biting, candid memoir of his long relationship with booze and his first intrepid steps toward recovery. Tom Sykes always liked to drink. When he was a teenager he drank to escape the boredom of his uptight British boarding school, Eton, and his rapidly disintegrating family. Sykes also chronicles his experiences in the workforce as a substance-abusing young editor at GQ magazine in London, and describes what it was like, after the Post beckoned him to New York, for a reporter with a fondness for the bottle to cover the glamorous social scene in a city that never sleeps. As the excesses of the party scene that he documents threaten to become his downfall, he faces the ultimate question: Can he summon the strength to pick himself off the barroom floor and save his own life? "Fast, funny and at times stupefyingly honest" --British GQ "A compulsive, salutary and entertaining story of social intoxication" --British Glamour "Unputdownable--as sad as it is funny. I admit to being Tom's sister, but it's still a brilliantly written book." --Plum Sykes, author of The Debutante Divorcee and Bergdorf Blondes "Take one bright lad, mix with two parts drink and tabloid journalism and you get a memoir that reads like a three-day bender, full of high-spirited humor and low-point misadventure. I enjoyed every page." --Rick Marin, author of Cad: Confessions of a Toxic Bachelor "A thrilling ride through the drug-and alcohol-soaked nightlife of London and New York. Tom Sykes's writing is funny, smart, and a dead-on account of addiction. What's more, unlike most confessional memoirs, it's all true." --Toby Young, author of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Addiction & Recovery

Modern Times

IvoryCoast's nature is as alluring as its culture, whether you want to surf off beachesof Assinie, trek through the savannahs of the north or scale Mount Tonkoui forpanoramic views of Liberia and Guinea. In the Comoé, Tai and Marahoué nationalparks, it's possible to glimpse leopards, lions, chimpanzees, aardvarks,antelopes and 500 bird species. The guide includes sections offering advice on hikingand trekking the northern alpine regions and on birdwatching andwildlife-spotting in the various national parks. There is a section devoted toIvory Coast's artistic and cultural assets which includes accurate prices fortribal arts and crafts. Distributed throughout the book are fact boxescontaining anecdotes about notable Ivorians (such as the dramaticrags-to-riches-back-to-rags story of the singer Francois Lougah) as well as vox pops of average citizens (taxidrivers, shopkeepers, bar staff) expressing their thoughts about Ivorian life,society and culture.

Ivory Coast (Bradt Travel Guides)

Africa

Bradt Travel Guides

This new, thoroughly updated second edition of Bradt's Ivory Coast remains the only English-language guidebook to focus solely on this culturally rich West African country, a place of crimson savannas, sublime mountains and cream-hued beaches that is becoming increasingly popular for ecotourism and wildlife, surfing and off-the-beaten track travel. Written in easy-to-navigate geographical structure, chapters on background and practical information are followed by dedicated sections on Abidjan and the surrounding area; the southeast, including Grand-Bassam and Assinie; the southwest, including Sassandra, San-Pe´dro and the Parc National de Tai¨; and the centre: Yamoussoukro, Bouake´, Daloa and Abengourou. Moving up the country, the Dix-Huit Montagnes area is covered, including Man and Touba, followed by a chapter on the North, including Odienne´, Korhogo, Kong, Parc National de la Comoe´ and Bondoukou.From wildlife and birdwatching to hiking, trekking, chocolate and twerking, Bradt's Ivory Coast lifts the lid on what gives this country its unique flavour. Tribal arts, vibrant reggae, Afrobeat and traditional folk-music scenes, and delicious Ivorian food are all covered, as are hotels, the extraordinary mud mosques of Kong and the far north, Drummologie and 'talking drums', football (the 2023 Africa Nations Cup will be held here), and unprecedented pricing and timetabling information for the full range of transport options.Having only recently re-opened for tourism, Ivory Coast is West Africa's hidden treasure. Packed with vivid descriptions, detailed maps and essential practical advice, Bradt's Ivory Coast is the ideal companion for a perfect trip, whatever your interest.

Ivory Coast (Bradt Travel Guide)

The city of Manila is uniquely significant to Philippine, Southeast Asian and world history. It played a key role in the rise of Western colonial mercantilism in Asia, the extinction of the Spanish Empire and the ascendancy of the USA to global imperial hegemony, amongst other events. This book examines British and American writing on the city, situating these representations within scholarship on empire, orientalism and US, Asian and European political history. Through analysis of novels, memoirs, travelogues and journalism written about Manila by Westerners since the early eighteenth century, Tom Sykes builds a picture of Western attitudes towards the city and the wider Philippines, and the mechanics by which these came to dominate the discourse. This study uncovers to what extent Western literary tropes and representational models have informed understandings of the Philippines, in the West and elsewhere, and the types of counter-narrative which have emerged in the Philippines in response to them.

I.B.Tauris

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Books by Sykes, Tom