The Club

An excellent recap, with wonderful access and forensic detail on the Premier League's rise to global alpha status... All told with an arch sense of humour The Guardian How did English football - once known for its stale pies, bad book-keeping and hooligans - become a commercial powerhouse and the world's premium popular entertainment? This was a business empire built in only twenty-five years on ambition, experimentation and gambler's luck. Lead by a motley cast of executives, Russian oligarchs, Arab Sheikhs, Asian Titans, American Tycoons, battle-hardened managers, ruthless agents and the Murdoch media - the Premier League has been carved up, rebranded and exported to phenomenal 185 countries. The United Nations only recognizes 193. But the extraordinary profit of bringing England's ageing industrial towns to a compulsive global attention has come at a cost. Today, as players are sold for hundreds of millions and clubs are valued in the billions, local fans are being priced out - and the clubs' local identities are fading. The Premier League has become the classic business fable for our globalised world. Drawing on dozens of exclusive and revelatory interviews from the Boardrooms - including Liverpool's John W. Henry, Tottenham's Daniel Levy, Martin Edwards and David Gill at Manchester United, Arsene Wenger and Stan Kroenke at Arsenal, Manchester City's sporting director Txiki Begiristain, and executives at Chelsea, West Ham, Leicester City and Aston Villa - this is the definitive bustand boom account of how the Premier League product took over the world.

An excellent recap, with wonderful access and forensic detail on the Premier League's rise to global alpha status... All told with an arch sense of humour The Guardian How did English football - once known for its stale pies, bad book-keeping and hooligans - become a commercial powerhouse and the world's premium popular entertainment? This was a business empire built in only twenty-five years on ambition, experimentation and gambler's luck. Lead by a motley cast of executives, Russian oligarchs, Arab Sheikhs, Asian Titans, American Tycoons, battle-hardened managers, ruthless agents and the Murdoch media - the Premier League has been carved up, rebranded and exported to phenomenal 185 countries. The United Nations only recognizes 193. But the extraordinary profit of bringing England's ageing industrial towns to a compulsive global attention has come at a cost. Today, as players are sold for hundreds of millions and clubs are valued in the billions, local fans are being priced out - and the clubs' local identities are fading. The Premier League has become the classic business fable for our globalised world. Drawing on dozens of exclusive and revelatory interviews from the Boardrooms - including Liverpool's John W. Henry, Tottenham's Daniel Levy, Martin Edwards and David Gill at Manchester United, Arsene Wenger and Stan Kroenke at Arsenal, Manchester City's sporting director Txiki Begiristain, and executives at Chelsea, West Ham, Leicester City and Aston Villa - this is the definitive bustand boom account of how the Premier League product took over the world.

The story of the group of extraordinary eighteenth-century writers, artists, and thinkers who gathered weekly at a London tavern Selected by New York Times Book Review as a Best Book Since 2000 A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2019 • A Kirkus Best Book of 2019 “Magnificently entertaining.”— Washington Post In 1763, the painter Joshua Reynolds proposed to his friend Samuel Johnson that they invite a few friends to join them every Friday at the Turk’s Head Tavern in London to dine, drink, and talk until midnight. Eventually the group came to include among its members Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, and James Boswell. It was known simply as “the Club.” In this captivating book, Leo Damrosch brings alive a brilliant, competitive, and eccentric cast of characters. With the friendship of the “odd couple” Samuel Johnson and James Boswell at the heart of his narrative, Damrosch conjures up the precarious, exciting, and often brutal world of late eighteenth‑century Britain. This is the story of an extraordinary group of people whose ideas helped to shape their age, and our own.

The story of the group of extraordinary eighteenth-century writers, artists, and thinkers who gathered weekly at a London tavern Selected by New York Times Book Review as a Best Book Since 2000 A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2019•A Kirkus Best Book of 2019 “Magnificently entertaining.”— Washington Post In 1763, the painter Joshua Reynolds proposed to his friend Samuel Johnson that they invite a few friends to join them every Friday at the Turk’s Head Tavern in London to dine, drink, and talk until midnight. Eventually the group came to include among its members Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, and James Boswell. It was known simply as “the Club.” In this captivating book, Leo Damrosch brings alive a brilliant, competitive, and eccentric cast of characters. With the friendship of the “odd couple” Samuel Johnson and James Boswell at the heart of his narrative, Damrosch conjures up the precarious, exciting, and often brutal world of late eighteenth‑century Britain. This is the story of an extraordinary group of people whose ideas helped to shape their age, and our own.

A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Are you ready for the roller coaster ride that is The Club ? . . . A beautifully written, densely plotted murder mystery that takes place at a private club off the coast of England. Read about a luxurious, celeb-only island during a weekend of partying and ultimately murder." --Reese Witherspoon (Reese's Book Club March '22 Pick) From the author of People Like Her comes a smart and sinister murder mystery set in the secretive world of exclusive celebrity clubs. Everyone's Dying to Join . . . The Home Group is a glamorous collection of celebrity members' clubs dotted across the globe, where the rich and famous can party hard and then crash out in its five-star suites, far from the prying eyes of fans and the media. The most spectacular of all is Island Home--a closely-guarded, ultraluxurious private island resort, just off the English coast--and its three-day launch party is easily the most coveted A-list invite of the decade. But behind the scenes, tensions are at breaking point in this gripping whodunnit: the ambitious and expensive project has pushed the Home Group's CEO and his long-suffering team to their absolute limits. All of them have something to hide--and that's before the beautiful people with their own ugly secrets even set foot on the island. As tempers fray and behavior worsens in a deadly locked-room mystery, as things get more sinister by the hour and the body count piles up, some of Island Home's members will begin to wish they'd never made the guest list.

A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Are you ready for the roller coaster ride that is The Club ? . . . A beautifully written, densely plotted murder mystery that takes place at a private club off the coast of England. Read about a luxurious, celeb-only island during a weekend of partying and ultimately murder." --Reese Witherspoon (Reese's Book Club March '22 Pick) From the author of People Like Her comes a smart and sinister murder mystery set in the secretive world of exclusive celebrity clubs. Everyone's Dying to Join . . . The Home Group is a glamorous collection of celebrity members' clubs dotted across the globe, where the rich and famous can party hard and then crash out in its five-star suites, far from the prying eyes of fans and the media. The most spectacular of all is Island Home--a closely-guarded, ultraluxurious private island resort, just off the English coast--and its three-day launch party is easily the most coveted A-list invite of the decade. But behind the scenes, tensions are at breaking point in this gripping whodunnit: the ambitious and expensive project has pushed the Home Group's CEO and his long-suffering team to their absolute limits. All of them have something to hide--and that's before the beautiful people with their own ugly secrets even set foot on the island. As tempers fray and behavior worsens in a deadly locked-room mystery, as things get more sinister by the hour and the body count piles up, some of Island Home's members will begin to wish they'd never made the guest list.

The Club is the previously untold inside story of how English soccer's Premier League became the wildest, richest, most popular sports product on the planet. This is a sports and business tale of how money, ambition, and twenty-five years of drama remade an ancient institution into a twenty-first-century entertainment empire. No one knew it when their experiment began, but without any particular genius or acumen, the motley cast of billionaires and hucksters behind the modern Premier League struck gold. Pretty soon, everyone wanted to try their luck, from Russian oligarchs to Emirati sheikhs, American tycoons, and Asian Tiger titans. Some succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Some lost everything. Today, players are sold for tens of millions, clubs are valued in the billions, and games are beamed out to nearly two hundred countries, all while the league struggles to preserve its English soul. Deeply researched and drawing on one hundred exclusive interviews, including the key decision makers at every major English team, The Club is the definitive and wildly entertaining narrative of how the Premier League took over the world.

The Club is the previously untold inside story of how English soccer's Premier League became the wildest, richest, most popular sports product on the planet. This is a sports and business tale of how money, ambition, and twenty-five years of drama remade an ancient institution into a twenty-first-century entertainment empire. No one knew it when their experiment began, but without any particular genius or acumen, the motley cast of billionaires and hucksters behind the modern Premier League struck gold. Pretty soon, everyone wanted to try their luck, from Russian oligarchs to Emirati sheikhs, American tycoons, and Asian Tiger titans. Some succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Some lost everything. Today, players are sold for tens of millions, clubs are valued in the billions, and games are beamed out to nearly two hundred countries, all while the league struggles to preserve its English soul. Deeply researched and drawing on one hundred exclusive interviews, including the key decision makers at every major English team, The Club is the definitive and wildly entertaining narrative of how the Premier League took over the world.

"Through masterful research and sparkling prose, The Club feels like an exclusive invitation to a Parisian enclave during an era of artistic and social transformation." -Michael Finkel, #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Art Thief A deliciously entertaining, never-before-told history of a residence for American women artists in Paris from 1893 to 1914. In Belle ?poque Paris, the Eiffel Tower was newly built, France was experiencing remarkable political stability, and American women were painting the town and gathering at a female-only Residence known as The American Girls' Club in Paris. Opened in 1893, The Club was the center of expatriate living and of dedication to a calling in the fine arts, and singularly harbored a generation of independent, talented, and driven American women. Now in The Club , curator, art historian, and podcast host Jennifer Dasal presents the never-before-told story of the Club, the philanthropists who created it, and the artists it housed. These women forged connections in the arts and letters with luminaries like Auguste Rodin and Gertrude Stein or became activists through their relationships with the likes of Emmeline Pankhurst. But just as importantly, these women's lives revealed the power of the Club itself, and the way that having a safe home for single women of ambition allowed them to grow as teachers, artists, suffragists, and people. For readers interested in women's lives as captured in books like The Barbizon , art history buffs who loved Ninth Street Women , and armchair travelers longing to visit Belle ?poque Paris, The Club is a captivating, colorful new history.

"Through masterful research and sparkling prose, The Club feels like an exclusive invitation to a Parisian enclave during an era of artistic and social transformation." -Michael Finkel, #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Art Thief A deliciously entertaining, never-before-told history of a residence for American women artists in Paris from 1893 to 1914. In Belle ?poque Paris, the Eiffel Tower was newly built, France was experiencing remarkable political stability, and American women were painting the town and gathering at a female-only Residence known as The American Girls' Club in Paris. Opened in 1893, The Club was the center of expatriate living and of dedication to a calling in the fine arts, and singularly harbored a generation of independent, talented, and driven American women. Now in The Club , curator, art historian, and podcast host Jennifer Dasal presents the never-before-told story of the Club, the philanthropists who created it, and the artists it housed. These women forged connections in the arts and letters with luminaries like Auguste Rodin and Gertrude Stein or became activists through their relationships with the likes of Emmeline Pankhurst. But just as importantly, these women's lives revealed the power of the Club itself, and the way that having a safe home for single women of ambition allowed them to grow as teachers, artists, suffragists, and people. For readers interested in women's lives as captured in books like The Barbizon , art history buffs who loved Ninth Street Women , and armchair travelers longing to visit Belle ?poque Paris, The Club is a captivating, colorful new history.