<p>A unique biography of a homeless man and a complete portrait of the hidden underclass. 'So here it is, my attempt at the story of Stuart Shorter, thief, hostage taker, psycho and sociopath street raconteur, my spy on how the British chaotic underclass spend their troubled days at the beginning of this century: a man with an important life. I wish I could have presented it to Stuart before he stepped in front of the 11.15 train from London to Kings Lynn.' Stuart Shorter's brief life was one of turmoil and chaos. In this remarkable book, a masterful act of biographical restoration, Alexander Masters retraces Stuart's troubled journey. Stuart was homeless, with many of the problems this sub-section of English society display; alcoholism, drug-addiction, crime, violence. Scattered with glimpses of the author's friendship with Stuart in the years before his death, Masters gives us Stuart's life in reverse, tracing his route backwards through the post-office heists and attempts at suicide and the spells inside many of this country's prisons, on back to a troubled time at school and learning difficulties and a violent childhood that acted like a springboard into the trouble that was to follow him all his life. This extraordinary book is a glimpse at the underbelly of English society, a world largely hidden from our lives. Funny, despairing, uplifting, brilliantly-written, it is one of the most original biographies of recent years.</p>

Stuart : A Life Backwards

Politics & Social Sciences

ALEXANDER MASTERS

Social Sciences

Fourth Estate

STRANGER THAN... - STUART: A LIFE BACKWARDS

Biographies & Memoirs

Harper-perennial

An intimate portrait of an everyday genius. As Aristotle understood it, 'there is no great genius without a mixture of madness' and he may well have had a point: Einstein routinely forgot his way home when out walking the streets of Vienna, Nietzsche wound up in an insane asylum and Bobby Fischer, the chess prodigy, now scrambles around the world, seeking residency in any country reckless enough to let him through immigration. Simon Philips Norton, the subject of 'The Genius in my Basement', is not mad - not by a long shot - but he is certainly mixed up. At one time he was considered one of the greatest prodigies of contemporary mathematics, his breakthrough work on a group of numbers nicknamed the 'Monster' inspired, and was acclaimed by, the international maths community for many years. These days he spends most of his time colouring in road atlases, tracing the paths of bus routes he has travelled upon all over the country, sheltering amongst a tower of unwashed pans and eating smoked kippers straight from a tin in his 'messy' (as Simon calls it) basement flat in Cambridge. In 'The Genius in my Basement', Alexander Masters, the award-winning and best-selling author of 'Stuart: A Life Backwards', offers a tender, humorous and intimate portrait of genius at its most ordinary and at its most blurred. He enters us into the extraordinary life of one of the would-be contenders - an everyday mastermind - and in doing so, reveals the cruel burdens, as well as the glorious rewards, of a life marked by brilliance.

The Genius in My Basement

Arts & Literature

Harper Collins Ome

Life Discarded

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

HARPER/COLLINS

Simon: The Genius in My Basement

DELACORTE PRESS

Das kurze Leben des Stuart Shorter

Verlag Antje Kunstmann

Stuart: A Life Backwards (Chinese Edition)

People's Literature Publishing House

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Books by ALEXANDER MASTERS