Most Popular Books by Hunter Davies

The worldwide bestseller that defines the band that defined an era.

Hunter Davies, the only ever authorised biographer of the group, has produced the essential Beatles guide. Divided into four sections – People, Songs, Places and Broadcast and Cinema – it covers all elements of the band’s history and vividly brings to live every influence that shaped them. Illustrated with material from Hunter''s remarkable private collection of artefacts and memorabilia, this is the definitive Beatles treasure.

A wryly humorous memoir from Hunter Davies, as he falls in love again in his eighties and chronicles the first year of living with his new girlfriend in their cottage on the Isle of Wight. King Charles I was imprisoned here; Queen Victoria so liked its mild climate and coastal scenery that she built an Italianate house here (and later expired in it); hundreds of thousands of people got stoned here at music festivals in the 1960s summers of love. And, in the very un-hippyish summer of 2020, Hunter and Claire escaped locked-down North London for a week''s holiday on the Isle of Wight, fell in love with its sleepy charm – and ended up buying a Grade 2-listed love nest in the elegant Victorian seaside resort of Ryde. Love in Old Age tells the story of their first twelve months on the island. It is a journey of discovery to a forgotten corner of England; an exploration of the attraction of meeting new people and new places in old age, and a celebration of flat sandy beaches. It brings together the themes of love in old age; Covid lockdown; rural escape; the anxieties of house-buying; and the history and curiosities of England''s largest and second most populous island – all bound together by Hunter Davies''s insatiable curiosity about people and places, and his irrepressible and ironic sense of humour.

Hunter Davies''s first major interview was with John Masefield for The Sunday Times in 1963. In the years since, he has interviewed many of the most famous people that the late twentieth century has to offer, from James Baldwin and Orson Welles to Jack Nicholson and Salman Rushdie. in an eclectic and highly readable selection, we learn that Noel Coward enjoyed watching operations and considered himself ''about as decadent as a suet pudding'', David Hockney dyed his hair because ''blonds have more fun'', and Anthony Burgess had yet to touch the body of an Englishwoman. Christy Brown concedes ''I''m just a run-of-the-mill genius'', while Alan Sugar admits ''I''m a miserable sod''. The book opens with a specially written introduction in which Hunter Davies explores the art of the Celebrity Interview, and turns the tables to interview fellow practitioners, such as Lynn Barber and Angela Lambert.

When the first edition of The Glory Game was published in 1972, it was instantly hailed as the most insightful book about the life of a football club ever published. Hunter Davies was, and still is, the only author ever to be allowed into the inner sanctum of a top-level football team (Tottenham Hotspur) and his pen spared nothing and no one. ''His accuracy is sufficiently uncanny to be embarrassing,'' wrote Bob Wilson in the New Statesman. ''Brilliant, vicious, unmerciful,'' wrote The Sun. Davies spent a whole season with the team, training with them, visiting the players'' homes and witnessing the dressing-room confrontations. In the modern era of painstaking media management and tight security, no sportswriter will ever again be granted such unprecedented access. While some features of the game have changed beyond all recognition - notably the all-consuming role that money now plays - inside every club the dramas and tensions revealed by Davies remain, making the book a timeless classic and securing its position as one of the best books about football ever written.

Behind every ritual of every day - waking from a dream, calling the dog in, going for a drink after work - there are figures listing the most common dreams, the most popular names for male and female dogs and the preferred afterwork activities of various people. In an all-new approach to the list format, Hunter Davies explores these quirky and compulsive statistics and their meanings, dispensing knowledge on every topic from the top 10 breakfast cereals (and the amount every household eats each year) to the things people want to do before they die. If you want to know what doctors'' slang really means, which postcards will have sold out at the Tate Gallery, what to pack if you''re ever going to join the Women''s Air Force, and what on earth the Twelve Days Of Christmas actually refer to - buy this book.

Hunter Davies is one of the most well-known and respected sports writers in the country. His most famous work, "The Glory Game", is a footballing classic still in print some 30 years since its original publication. Hunter is also a successful novelist and distinguished biographer, whose subjects include The Beatles, Dwight Yorke and Paul Gascoigne. Now, though, he describes his own extraordinary life, from growing up on a Carlisle council estate in the 1950s and his student days at Durham to his introduction to Fleet Street, his enduring obsession with football and memorabilia, and the many fascinating characters he has met, interviewed and written about over the last 40 years. It is also the intimate portrait of his marriage to teenage sweetheart Margaret Forster, herself a well-known novelist. Full of wonderful observations, warm humour and colourful anecdote - it is a memoir to treasure.

''I don''t know any tract of land in which in so narrow a compass may be found an equal variety of sublime and beautiful features''. So said the poet Wordsworth of England''s Lake District, an area as rich in cultural associations as it is in beautiful scenery. Hunter Davies, who has spent every summer in the Lake District for nearly half a century, takes the reader on an engaging, informative and affectionate tour of the lakes, fells, traditions, denizens and history of England''s most popular tourist destination. From the first discovery of Lakeland as a tourist destination in the 18th century, to the tale of the Maid of Buttermere, to the poet Coleridge''s ascent of Scafell Pike in 1802, to such enduring local traditions as Cumberland wrestling and hound trailing, Hunter Davies brings England''s Lake District memorably and informatively to life.

''I am fascinated by people turning their daft dreams into a reality. How did they do it and why?'' Driven by his own passion for collecting Hunter Davies has packed his notepad and set off in search of Britain''s maddest museums. As he explores these hidden gems he soon discovers that they are everywhere and that they celebrate just about everything, from lawnmowers in Southport to pencils in Keswick. But as Hunter travels up and down the country he comes to realise that it isn''t only the collections that are fascinating, it''s also the people who have put them together. Whether they''re a man who loves his Heinz so much he''s changed his name to Captain Beany or a kleptomaniac Vintage Radio buff, these eccentric collectors are Britain''s finest and could live in no other country in the world. Once you discover these museums and get to know their curators, Great Britain won''t look quite the same again...

At the end of almost every day of their fifty-five years of married life, the publicity-shy author Margaret Forster would ask her naturally gregarious and outgoing husband Hunter Davies to describe to her the highlights of his working day spent in the worlds of journalism and publishing. In the six years that have elapsed since Margaret''s death, Hunter has continued these conversations with his wife, regaling her with accounts of the events and developments in his life – domestic, social, romantic, book-related, health-related and others – through a sequence of ''Letters to Margaret''. Whether recounting adventures in online dating, the pleasures and pitfalls of buying a new house by the seaside, the trauma of major operations on his heart and gall bladder, a chance encounter at a book-signing session that led to a new romantic attachment, or a visit to A&E when he was supposed to be watching the World Cup final, these twenty-three letters weave together strands of confession, self-mockery, anecdote and touching remembrance of married happiness with Margaret. Letters to Margaret reveals Hunter Davies raging happily against the dying of the light in his late eighties, and seeking consolation for life''s frustrations and disappointments through a sustained conversation with the woman he shared his life with for more than half a century.

An engaging portrait of Hampstead Heath – a place rich not just in natural wonders but in history and monuments, emotions and memories, people and places. ''I enjoyed every inch of the way, from Parliament Hill to the Pergola... A late-life little masterpiece'' Ferdinand Mount ''A love letter, both to the Heath and to his late wife'' Islington Tribune ''An affectionate book which blends personal anecdote, history and interviews'' Ham & High The eight hundred acres of Hampstead Heath lie just four miles from central London; and yet unlike the manicured inner-city parks, it feels like the countryside: it has hills and lakes, wild spots and tame spots. Hunter Davies has lived within a stone''s throw of Hampstead Heath for more than sixty years and has walked on it nearly every day of his London life. For him, it is not just a place of recreation and relaxation but also a treasure-house of memories and emotions. In The Heath, he visits all parts of this, the largest area of common land in Britain''s capital city: from Kenwood House to the Vale of Health, from Parliament Hill to Boudicca''s Mound, and from the Ladies Bathing Pond to the fabulous pergola. As he walks, Davies talks to the diverse array of individuals who frequent the Heath: regulars; visitors; dog walkers; stall holders at the weekly farmer''s market; famous faces having their morning stroll; twenty-first-century hippies spreading peace, love and happiness.

Despite the struggle to make ends meet during the tough years of warfare in the 1940s and rationing persisting until the early 1950s, life could still be sweet. Especially if you were a young boy, playing football with your pals, saving up to go to the movies at the weekend, and being captivated by the latest escapade of Dick Barton on the radio. Chocolate might be scarce, and bananas would be a pipe dream, but you could still have fun. In an excellent social memoir from one of the UK''s premier columnists over the past five decades, Hunter Davies captures this period beautifully. His memoir of growing up in post-war North of England from 1945 onwards, amid the immense damage wrought by the Second World War, and the dreariness of life on rationing, very little luxuries and an archaic educational system, should be one that will resonate with thousands of readers across Britain. In the same vein as Robert Douglas''s Night Song of the Last Tram - A Glasgow Childhood and Alan Johnson''s This Boy, Hunter''s memories of a hard life laced with glorious moments of colour and emotion will certainly strike a vein with his generation.

The classic biography of Alfred Wainwright. Alfred Wainwright''s unique hand-drawn and hand-written PICTORIAL GUIDES TO THE LAKELAND FELLS have been an inspiration to walkers for over forty years. Yet despite many bestselling books and three television series, Wainwright remained an intensely private person. With full access to Alfred Wainwright''s private letters and unpublished material, Hunter Davies reveals a man more passionate, witty and generous than readers of his guides have come to expect. His biography throws a new and surprising light on a man who has been an enigmatic and misunderstood person.

To mark the hundredth anniversary of Stevenson''s death, Hunter Davies has gone travelling with him, searching out the man and his motivation, following him in the past and in the present. He has visited those places which will always be associated with him -- from his birthplace in Edinburgh, to France, California, and then his final home in the Pacific. His book is half travel, half biography. And all of it, as one would expect from the pen of Hunter Davies, is entertaining, amusing and informative.

Over 100 handwritten manuscripts of the Beatles'' original lyrics, tracked down from friends of the band, museums, universities and collectors. Hunter Davies, author of the only authorised biography of the Beatles, worked with the band in their heyday. Here he reveals each song''s context with vivid behind-the-scenes stories and gives a unique insight into the creative process of the world''s greatest songwriters. From ''Yesterday'' and ''Eleanor Rigby'' to ''Yellow Submarine'', The Beatles Lyrics is the definitive story of the band, uniquely told through their music.

A “thorough and painstaking” biography of the nineteenth-century poet who helped launch the Romantic movement in England (The Daily Mail, UK). Together with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth pioneered a new poetic form that celebrated nature and prized freedom, emotion, and individuality. The force of his aesthetic and intellectual influence was pervasive, reaching from music and art to science, politics, and history. Drawing on the published letters and diaries of Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy, and of their contemporaries Coleridge and Southey, this full-length biography of the poet’s life and times also draws on the author’s own knowledge of the Lake District, which was central to Wordsworth’s life. Hunter Davies discusses Wordsworth’s much-debated relationship with his sister; tells the story of his affair with Annette Vallon; and describes in detail William’s life with his wife, Mary. Readers will also learn of the poet’s family life at Grasmere and Rydal, his political activities, his formative meeting with Coleridge in the West Country, and his other travels.

Flossie Teacake is a teensy bit miserable - she''s ten years old, flat broke, and it''s Saturday night and she''s NOT going out! So flossie turns to her magical fur coat to spice things up. As a glam 18 year old she''s eligible to buy her own lottery ticket - and win the lottery.

A thirst for teenage thrills takes Flossie back to the room of wonders, but has the coat retained its fabulous secret? The shape-shifting heroine of Flossie Teacake’s Fur Coat returns, bored, envious, and itchy for instant adolescence. Join the fun, as two wicked boys, one nosy neighbour, and an all-night concert smash the teenage dream, and unravel a world of incredible possibilities…

Sellafield Stories is the largest Oral History Project conducted in the UK. It was started by Jenni Lister, of Cumbria Record Office & Local Studies Library, and was funded by the BNFL. Through the personal life stories of 30 people who lived, worked and built the complex SELLAFIELDS STORIES tells the true story of the Sellafields Nuclear Plant that has been at the heart of the Nation''s story for the last 60 years. First set up in the aftermath of World War II to develop Britain''s nuclear weapons, it was not until 1957 that it was given over to nuclear power, kick starting a revolution in post war energy. Since then it has been the site of protests, controversy and debate. Today it is still the country''s biggest single industrial site employing 13,500 people.

Much is known about the achievements of George Stephenson and of his infamous creation, the Rocket, yet little is known of the man himself. This volume is a profile of the self-taught and often testy Geordie, whose Victorian invention is now the backbone of every nation on the planet.

The nation has commented on and devoured Paul Gascoigne for years. But until now no one has ever known what it is really like to be Gazza. Here Gascoigne, in the company of his therapist, confronts his demons and takes the reader into the recesses of his mind. The triggers that plunged Gascoigne into dark despair are revealed together with the critical moments that influenced his alcoholism, depression, drug abuse, gambling, eating disorders and compulsive behaviour. This is more than the story of one man. It applies to people who face turmoil every day. Through self-assessment forms and expert advice, any reader who sees a mirror of themselves will be offered help and a way forward.

Alfred Wainwright, the legendary fell walker and author of the incomparable and unique Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells was also a fluent, eloquent and diligent correspondent. Writing to old friends and to the many new ones gained through his books, and to his love, and later second wife, Betty, his letters display a much warmer, more sensitive and emotional character than his gruff popular image would suggest. Hunter Davies, Wainwright''s biographer, has here collected a selection of letters that range from his early years in Blackburn to his established position as Borough Treasurer in Kendal, and cover all aspects of his professional and personal life, as well as the voluminous correspondence that was a consequence of writing and publishing the Pictorial Guides. The latter vividly illuminate many aspects of that turbulent but ultimately triumphant process, while the former present a picture of a dedicated public servant whose personal life had been deeply unhappy until late in life he found unexpected but transcendent love and happiness. In turn business-like and comic, wonderfully well informed and remarkably innocent, deeply moving and yet tough-minded, the letters present a vivid and unforgettable picture of one of the great but eccentric creative geniuses of the twentieth century.

''Sharpish in dialogue, slick in characterization . . . made with sympathy and imagination.'' - Times Literary Supplement ''A very lively and entertaining novel.'' - Sunday Times ''Flows along at an entertaining speed.'' - Guardian ''Honest and unusual.'' - Spectator ''A fast-moving romp.'' - Observer Thirty-year-old Franko Baxter has an uncomplicated life. He shares a flat with his Gran and works for a shady unlicensed minicab company, a job he likes because it gives him plenty of free time for his true passion: playing football. But things start to get more complicated when Franko gets involved with three of his passengers: Shuggy, a conceited young football star, Zak, a dropout on the dole with a nymphomaniac wife and three kids, and Joff Howard, a bisexual BBC producer. His life begins to get progressively crazier, but the biggest surprise is yet to come. Suddenly Franko finds himself entangled in a police investigation into the murder of a gay man - a mystery that will lead to some shocking revelations about his new friends . . . and himself. Best known for his nonfiction, including his biography of the Beatles and his journalism and sports writing, Hunter Davies reveals his considerable talent as a novelist in Body Charge (1972). A clever mix of camp comedy and mystery thriller, Body Charge returns to print for the first time in forty years in this edition, which features a new introduction by the author.

Originally stetching across the neck of England for over seventy miles, Hadrian''s Wall is the most important Roman monument in Britain. Set in a wild, dramatic landscape, it is now a World Heritage Site, one of the wonders of the world, and stands as a reminder of the past glories of a mighty civilisation. Hunter Davies grew up at one end of the wall and was inevitably drawn to walk its length. His charming, part history, part guidebook and part personal experience, portrays the area and its inhabitants as they are today, and gives readers a taste of what life was like in this remote part of Britain 2000 years ago.

Small, impetuous, and longing for attention, Flossie crept into the eerie bedroom of Bella, her fascinating teenage sister. Somewhere in the darkness, nestling within shadow, hung an old coat—a wondrous fur coat: rich, wild, and the waxy colour of autumn chestnuts. Where the fur comes from is a mystery, but once Flossie slips into its bear-like-skin, nothing will ever be the same again...

Hadrian''s Wall stretches 73 miles along the neck of England and about ten miles are now left. In this personal account, the author, who grew up at one end of the wall, gives readers a taste of what human life was and is like along this stretch of northern Britain.

Who doesn''t remember Kevin Keegan''s haircut? Or David Seaman''s? Or David Beckham''s latest...? From the History of the Ball to the History of Football Haircuts, this book examines every facet of football beyond the rules and goals to the fans, commentators, merchandise, books and even art it has inspired.