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.

Stuart : A Life Backwards

Politics & Social Sciences

Masters, Alexander

Social Sciences

Harperperennial

Paperback. Pub Date :2006-02-01 Pages: 304 Language: English Publisher:. HarperCollins UK Stuart does not like the manuscript Hes after a bestseller. like what Tom Clancy writes But you are not an assassin trying to frazzle the president with. anthrax bombs. I point out. You are an ex-homeless. ex-junkie psychopath. I do not add.This is the story of a remarkable friendship between a reclusive writer a middle-class scum ponce. if you want to be honest about it. Alexander. and Stuart Shorter. a homeless. knife-wielding thief Told backwards -. Stuarts idea - it starts with a deeply troubled thirty-two-year-old and ends with a happy-go-lucky little boy of twelve This. brilliant biography. winner of the Guardian First Book Award. presents a humbling portrait of homeless life. and is as extraordinary and unexpected as the man it describes.

Stuart A Life Backwards

HarperCollins, Publishers

STRANGER THAN... - STUART: A LIFE BACKWARDS

Biographies & Memoirs

Delta Trade

An intimate portrait of an everyday genius. Alexander Masters tripped over his first subject on a Cambridge pavement, and the result was the multi-award-winning bestseller Stuart: A Life Backwards. The second, he's found under his floorboards. One of the greatest mathematical prodigies of the twentieth century stomps around the basement in semi-darkness, dodging between stalagmites of bus timetables and engorged plastic bags. He eats tinned kippers stirred into packets of Bombay Mix. Simon is exploring a theoretical puzzle so complex and critical to our understanding of the universe, that it is known as the Monster. It looks like a sudoku table -- except a sudoku table has nine columns of numbers. The Monster has 808017424794512875886459904961710757005754368000000000. But Simon's also up to something else. What's inside the decaying sports bag he never lets out of his clutches? Why does he hurtle out of the house in the middle of the night? And -- Good God! -- what is that noxious smell that creeps up the stairwell? The Genius in my Basement is the grumpy, poignant, comical story -- more intimate than either the author or his subject intended -- about the frailty of brilliance, Britain's most uncooperative egghead, and a happy man.

The Genius in My Basement: The Biography of a Happy Man

Arts & Literature

Fourth Estate

In this extraordinary book, Alexander Masters has created a moving portrait of a troubled man, an unlikely friendship, and a desperate world few ever see. A gripping who-done-it journey back in time, it begins with Masters meeting a drunken Stuart lying on a sidewalk in Cambridge, England, and leads through layers of hell…back through crimes and misdemeanors, prison and homelessness, suicide attempts, violence, drugs, juvenile halls and special schools–to expose the smiling, gregarious thirteen-year-old boy who was Stuart before his long, sprawling, dangerous fall. Shocking, inspiring, and hilarious by turns, Stuart: A Life Backwards is a writer’s quest to give voice to a man who, beneath his forbidding exterior, has a message for us all: that every life–even the most chaotic and disreputable–is a story worthy of being told.From the Hardcover edition.

Xstranger Than Stuart Life Bac

Literature & Fiction

British & Irish

Delta

Untitled

Unique, transgressive and as funny as its subject, A Life Discarded has all the suspense of a murder mystery. Written with his characteristic warmth, respect and humour, Masters asks you to join him in celebrating an unknown and important life left on the scrap heap.A Life Discarded is a biographical detective story. In 2001, 148 tattered and mould-covered notebooks were discovered lying among broken bricks in a skip on a building site in Cambridge. Tens of thousands of pages were filled to the edges with urgent handwriting. They were a small part of an intimate, anonymous diary, starting in 1952 and ending half a century later, a few weeks before the books were thrown out. Over five years, the award-winning biographer Alexander Masters uncovers the identity and real history of their author, with an astounding final revelation.A Life Discarded is a true, shocking, poignant, often hilarious story of an ordinary life. The author of the diaries, known only as `I', is the tragicomic patron saint of everyone who feels their life should have been more successful. Part thrilling detective story, part love story, part social history, A Life Discarded is also an account of two writers' obsessions: of `I's need to record every second of life and of Masters' pursuit of this mysterious yet universal diarist.

Stuart: A Life Backwards (4th Estate Matchbook Classics)

Community & Culture

Alexander Masters, the bestselling author of Stuart: A Life Backwards, asks you to join him in celebrating an unknown and important life left on the scrap heap In 2001, 148 tattered and mold-covered notebooks were discovered lying among broken bricks in a bin on a building site in Cambridge, England. Tens of thousands of pages were filled to the edges with urgent handwriting. They were a small part of an intimate, mysterious diary, starting in 1952 and ending half a century later, a few weeks before the books were thrown out. The anonymous author, known only as “I,” is revealed as the tragicomic patron saint of everyone who feels their life should have been more successful. Over five years, the brilliant biographer Alexander Masters uncovers the identity and real history of this secret author, ending with an astounding final revelation. 
 A biographical detective story that unfolds with the suspense of a mystery―but has all the dazzling originality that made Masters’s Stuart: A Life Backwards such a beloved book―A Life Discarded is a true, poignant, often hilarious story of an ordinary life.

A Life Discarded: 148 Diaries Found in the Trash

Farrar. Straus and Giroux

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