Movies from Sting

This Is Spinal Tap

"This Is Spinal Tap" shines a light on the self-contained universe of a metal band struggling to get back on the charts, including everything from its complicated history of ups and downs, gold albums, name changes and undersold concert dates, along with the full host of requisite groupies, promoters, hangers-on and historians, sessions, release events and those special behind-the-scenes moments that keep it all real.
Sting
Musician
I think the film was made with a lot of love, and expresses a lot of love and I think that actually lasts more than anything else.
Movies from Sting

A Hard Day's Night

Capturing John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr in their electrifying element, 'A Hard Day's Night' is a wildly irreverent journey through this pastiche of a day in the life of The Beatles during 1964. The band have to use all their guile and wit to avoid the pursuing fans and press to reach their scheduled television performance, in spite of Paul's troublemaking grandfather and Ringo's arrest.
Sting
Musician
I would say Hard Day's Night. One, they were British, the Beatles. (Laughter.) They came from a northern industrial town like I did and that visceral excitement of a band at the beginning of their life totally enraptured me, and I thought, "Well, if they can do it, why not me?
Books from Sting

Apeirogon

'Nothing like any book you've ever read' MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM'A quite extraordinary novel. Colum McCann has found the form and voice to tell the most complex of stories, with an unexpected friendship between two men at its powerfully beating heart' KAMILA SHAMSIE Rami Elhanan and Bassam Aramin live near one another – yet they exist worlds apart. Rami is Israeli. Bassam is Palestinian. Rami's license plate is yellow. Bassam's license plate is green. It takes Rami fifteen minutes to drive to the West Bank. The same journey for Bassam takes an hour and a half. Both men have lost their daughters. Rami's thirteen-year-old girl Smadar was killed by a suicide bomber while out shopping with her friends. Bassam's ten-year-old daughter Abir was shot and killed by a member ofthe border police outside her school. There was a candy bracelet in her pocket she hadn't had time to eat yet. The men become the best of friends. In this epic novel – named for a shape with a countably infinite number of sides – Colum McCann crosses centuries and continents, stitching time, art, history, nature and politics into a tapestry of friendship, love, loss and belonging. Musical, muscular, delicate and soaring, it is a book for our times from a writer at the height of his powers.
Sting
Musician
My Book of the Month is Colum McCann’s “Apeirogon,” set within the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. How does someone tackle an intractable problem? You tell a story ... your enemy’s story, and he tells yours.
Books from Sting

Agent Running in the Field

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER'Le Carré delivers a tale for our times . . . a demonstration of the British spy thriller at its unputdownable best' Robert McCrum, Observer________________________________Nat, a 47 year-old veteran of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, believes his years as an agent runner are over. He is back in London with his wife, the long-suffering Prue. But with the growing threat from Moscow Centre, the office has one more job for him. Nat is to take over The Haven, a defunct substation of London General with a rag-tag band of spies. The only bright light on the team is young Florence, who has her eye on Russia Department and a Ukrainian oligarch with a finger in the Russia pie. Nat is not only a spy, he is a passionate badminton player. His regular Monday evening opponent is half his age: the introspective and solitary Ed. Ed hates Brexit, hates Trump and hates his job at some soulless media agency. And it is Ed, of all unlikely people, who will take Prue, Florence and Nat himself down the path of political anger that will ensnare them all. Agent Running in the Field is a chilling portrait of our time, now heartbreaking, now darkly humorous, told to us with unflagging tension by the greatest chronicler of our age._______________________________'A rich, beautifully written book studded with surprises. Narrative is a black art, and Le Carré is its grandmaster' Andrew Taylor, Spectator'Blisteringly contemporary . . . Each new book from le Carré is refreshingly different and uniquely compelling' Economist'A very classy entertainment about political ideals and deception . . . laced with fury at the senseless vandalism of Brexit and of Trump. Le Carré is the master of the spy genre' Guardian'Subtle, wry and seamless, it's an utter joy, from first page to last' Daily Mail
Sting
Musician
It made me smile. It’s a great read, as always, and set within our current political malaise, the topsy turvy Trumpian/Brexit world, as well as being strangely prescient of the conflicted loyalties of public servants when faced with self serving and corrupt political agendas.
Books from Sting

Catch and Kill

In a dramatic account of violence and espionage, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Ronan Farrow exposes serial abusers and a cabal of powerful interests hell-bent on covering up the truth, at any cost.In 2017, a routine network television investigation led Ronan Farrow to a story only whispered about: one of Hollywood's most powerful producers was a predator, protected by fear, wealth, and a conspiracy of silence. As Farrow drew closer to the truth, shadowy operatives, from high-priced lawyers to elite war-hardened spies, mounted a secret campaign of intimidation, threatening his career, following his every move and weaponizing an account of abuse in his own family. All the while, Farrow and his producer faced a degree of resistance that could not be explained - until now. And a trail of clues revealed corruption and cover-ups from Hollywood, to Washington, and beyond. This is the untold story of the exotic tactics of surveillance and intimidation deployed by wealthy and connected men to threaten journalists, evade accountability and silence victims of abuse - and it's the story of the women who risked everything to expose the truth and spark a global movement.Both a spy thriller and a meticulous work of investigative journalism, Catch and Kill breaks devastating new stories about the rampant abuse of power - and sheds far-reaching light on investigations that shook the culture.
Sting
Musician
My Book of the Month is “Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators” by Ronan Farrow. I simply couldn’t put it down, as a psychological/political thriller, and a gut wrenching exposure of the transgressive hierarchical structures deeply embedded within our society. I applaud Ronan’s courage, matched only by the courage of those who spoke out, and the evenness of his reporting under extraordinary pressure. Outstanding.
Books from Sting

Wolf Hall

In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII's court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king's favor and ascend to the heights of political powerEngland in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. The quest for the king's freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people and a demon of energy: he is also a consummate politician, hardened by his personal losses, implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph? In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel presents a picture of a half-made society on the cusp of change, where individuals fight or embrace their fate with passion and courage. With a vast array of characters, overflowing with incident, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political are separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power but a single failure means death.
Sting
Musician
The rain has stopped now. We sit and chat a bit more – about Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, which he recently read and loved
Books from Sting

Treasure Island

Treasure Island is an adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, narrating a tale of "buccaneers and buried gold."
Sting
Musician
Do you have a favorite childhood literary character or hero? I imagined myself as Jim Hawkins in “Treasure Island,” an innocent among thieves and cutthroats. It must have been the first book I ever read from start to finish, with unforgettable characters, Long John Silver, Blind Pew, Ben Gunn. . . . The Black Spot still terrifies me.
Books from Sting

Meditations

The "Meditations" of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius are a readable exposition of the system of metaphysics known as stoicism. Stoics maintained that by putting aside great passions, unjust thoughts and indulgence, man could acquire virtue and live at one with nature.
Sting
Musician
If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be? “Meditations,” by Marcus Aurelius — Stoicism and the limitations of power. “When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own — not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine.”
Books from Sting

THE MASTER AND MARGARITA

A 50th-anniversary Deluxe Edition of the incomparable 20th-century masterpiece of satire and fantasy, in a newly revised version of the acclaimed Pevear and Volokhonsky translation Nothing in the whole of literature compares with The Master and Margarita. One spring afternoon, the Devil, trailing fire and chaos in his wake, weaves himself out of the shadows and into Moscow. Mikhail Bulgakov’s fantastical, funny, and devastating satire of Soviet life combines two distinct yet interwoven parts, one set in contemporary Moscow, the other in ancient Jerusalem, each brimming with historical, imaginary, frightful, and wonderful characters. Written during the darkest days of Stalin’s reign, and finally published in 1966 and 1967, The Master and Margarita became a literary phenomenon, signaling artistic and spiritual freedom for Russians everywhere. This newly revised translation, by the award-winning team of Pevear and Volokhonsky, is made from the complete and unabridged Russian text.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Sting
Musician
What book has had the greatest impact on you? Probably Bulgakov’s “Master and Margarita,” a delicious and disruptive satire of Soviet Russia. I hear a dead man was put on trial in Moscow only this past summer; Woland would have loved it!
Books from Sting

The Most Of P.G. Wodehouse

The most lavish P. G. Wodehouse collection ever published. In addition to Wodehouse's best known and beloved Jeeves and Bertie stories, The Most of P. G. Wodehouse features delightful stories about The Drones Club and its affable, vacuous members: Mr. Mulliner, whose considered judgment on any and all topics is drawn from the experiences of his innumerable relatives; Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge, the man of gilt-edged schemes; and Lord Emsworth, ruler of all he surveys at Blanding's Castle. Rounding out the collection are Wodehouses's witty golf stories and a complete and completely hilarious novel, Quick Service. As Jeeves would say, "The mind boggles, sir."
Sting
Musician
What books might we be surprised to find on your shelves? The complete works of P. G. Wodehouse, for their innocent escapism.
Music from Sting

Rodgers & Hammerstein's Carousel

Sting
Musician
She had all of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals. We never saw a musical, but they were in our record collection and I played them every day. “My Fair Lady.” “West Side Story.” My favorite was “Carousel.” So the musical theater is not something I suddenly arrived at, like a vision in Damascus. It’s something I knew. But my career moved another way
Music from Sting

Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007: I. Prélude

Sting
Musician
Now a senior citizen, Sting still looks, annoyingly, 38. It’s not by accident. Every morning he swims laps for an hour while listening to the Bach cello concertos played by Yo-Yo Ma.
Music from Sting

Vinnie Colaiuta

Sting
Musician
I know you have here Vinnie Colaiuta, he is fantastic jazz drummer, as well as great rock drummer.
Music from Sting

The Beatles

Sting
Musician
I think the blueprint of my life was due to the Beatles, being that they were form an industrial northern town and they wrote their own music and they conquered the world with that music.
Music from Sting

Chronology - Chronixx

Sting
Musician
Chronixx is quite new to the scene, but he's one of the best artists we’ve heard in a long time and since the likes of Buju Banton. What makes Chronixx so great, apart from his smooth vocals and reality style lyrics, is his consistency
Music from Sting

Maxi Priest - Best Of Me

Sting
Musician
"We love this album because it’s a compilation of some of Maxi’s biggest hits which includes 'Close ToYou', 'Wild World' and 'Temptress' among others.
Music from Sting

Damian Marley- Welcome To Jamrock

Sting
Musician
"This was Damian’s breakthrough album. Son of the biggest reggae icon ever, Bob Marley, Damian is considered reggae royalty so it wasn’t a surprise when he penned the powerful title track 'Welcome to Jamrock'. "
Music from Sting

Til Shiloh - Voice of Jamaica by Buju Banton

Sting
Musician
"Both records are timeless masterpieces, certainly within the Caribbean community. Voice of Jamaica was the second album to Buju’s break out album, Mr.Mention, which was a dancehall smash and included 'Ardent' among many other hits.
Music from Sting

Bob Marley & The Wailers - Babylon By Bus

Sting
Musician
What more is there to be said about the king of reggae? The thing to note is that there isn't one Bob Marley song that we don't like.
Music from Sting

Absinthe

Sting
Musician
Enjoying @dominicmillerofficial’s new album “Absinthe” back stage at The Princess of Wales Theatre. Congrats on its release, Dom.
Goods from Sting

1957 Fender Precision bass



Sting
Musician
“One thing I’m particular about is my bass, which I’ve had for a quarter of a century,” Sting says. “It’s from 1957, which is almost as old as me, and it’s a P-Bass, and it’s really been carved by use.
People from Sting

Mervyn Peake

Sting
Musician
I’ve written a script entitled Gormenghast which is an adaptation of the trilogy of books by Mervyn Peake. He’s a little known English novelist whom I love.
People from Sting

William Shakespeare

Sting
Musician
If you could meet any writer, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you want to know? I’d like to ask Shakespeare if he composed while walking, or was he entirely sedentary?
People from Sting

Paul McCartney

Sting
Musician
@paulmccartney says he wishes he would have written “Fields of Gold.” There are more than a few of Paul’s that I wish I would have written. To hear this from someone I owe my life to is very special. Thank you, Paul.