Confessions of a Not-So-Secret Agent by Harry M. Miller with Peter Holder Hachette, HK$300
In Australia, Harry M. Miller is as much a brand as any of the international figures he has toured, celebrated, managed, and, in some cases, seduced. Miller has alienated most of his five adult children and burned through three marriages and countless affairs, while maintaining the respect of almost every client and colleague since the 1960s.
After listing his failings, one of his daughters concedes that he 'can nurture greatness, he is selfless in that way'.
Miller, 76, has a resilience that masks irrevocable loss and hurt.
His working class parents 'no doubt lived a fairly mundane and loveless life together'. His only sibling was stillborn; a year after Miller's birth, his father was paralysed and in hospital for six years before dying. When his mother developed epilepsy, the nine-year-old Miller was enrolled at a low-end boarding school. He soon realised that the only means of escape was money.
His entrepreneurial flair evolved at school, where he ran peep shows involving punctured shoeboxes with stick figures drawn inside ('my most cost-effective productions').