Biography

I drew my first breath on the 28th of January 1935, which was quite a good time for a future writer to be born in England...' The only child in...

An Instant NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A LOS ANGELES TIMES, BOSTON GLOBE, WALL STREET JOURNAL, and NATIONAL INDIE BESTSELLER A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR according to Elle, Real Simple...

From the #1 bestselling author of Running with Scissors and Dry --a contagiously funny, heartwarming, shocking, twisted, and absolutely magical collection. True stories that give voice to the thoughts we...

My Left Foot is Christy Brown's inspirational story of his early life, his battle against the restraints of cerebral palsy and his determination to learn to read, write, and paint,...

It is not often that an author and his editor strike up a relationship which survives forty years of epistolary exchanges and intellectual sparring. The strangely enduring and occasionally fractious...

The second book from acclaimed writer and journalist Joel Golby 'There's no one funnier than Joel Golby' GREG JAMES 'I love this book' DOLLY ALDERTON How much of your life...

A Second Wind, the basis for the major motion picture The Intouchables, is the inspiring true story of two men who refused to ask for help and then wound up...

In this literary memoir, writer and critic Helen Elliott observes her younger years via these letters to eleven influential people in her life. 'Remarkable...an account of the friendship, truthfulness, decency...

'These journals are a revelation, a road map and a gift to us all' TAYARI JONES, author of An American Marriage 'Walker writes beautifully about the push and pull of...

Peter's mother is dying. Born in England and having spent most of her adult life as a doctor in Zimbabwe, she now lies on a hospital bed in the partitioned...

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2025 IN THE INDEPENDENT, GQ, NEW STATESMAN, FINANCIAL TIMES AND BBC CULTURE When the Going Was Good is Graydon Carter's lively recounting of how he...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 'Vivid and empowering' GILLIAN ANDERSON 'A stunning book' BERNARDINE EVARISTO 'Dazzling' TARA WESTOVER 'A story about hope, imagination and resilience' GUARDIAN An...

The ground-breaking work of the poet who paved the way for generations of women writers, in a new selection by her daugher and literary executor, Linda Gray Sexton When Anne...

In 1993, writer and democracy activist Hwang Sok-yong was sentenced to five years in the Seoul Detention Center upon his return to South Korea from North Korea, the country he...

From the author of Cider With Rosie, this is a moving, lyrical portrait of the landscape of Laurie Lee's world. 'Living in our valley was like broad beans in a...

'Every woman on Earth should read it' Caroline Overington, Weekend Australian Having lived through the humiliation and bewildering complexity of heartbreak in her twenties, Nikki Gemmell eventually resurfaced, reclaimed space...

Author: Alice Walker Format: Paperback Number of Pages: 560 'These journals are a revelation, a road map and a gift to us all' TAYARI JONES, author of An American Marriage...

Part memoir, part masterclass by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer's craft, comprising the basic tools...

Uncovering the hidden love triangle between novelist Elizabeth Bowen and the author's grandparents - the critically acclaimed biography with never-before-seen letters detailing the affair. For readers who were swept up...

Michael Chabon, author of 'Wonder Boys' and the Pulitzer Prize-wining 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay' , offers his first major work of non-fiction: an autobiographical narrative as inventive,...

'Every woman on Earth should read it' Caroline Overington, Weekend Australian Having lived through the humiliation and bewildering complexity of heartbreak in her twenties, Nikki Gemmell eventually resurfaced, reclaimed space...

'The story of my life is the story of my stories,' writes Susan Orlean in this extraordinary, era-defining memoir from one of the greatest practitioners of narrative nonfiction of our...

'What a treat! Brutal truths and bombshells galore. Profound reflections on life, longing and the legacy of Bob. It's like a long Friday lunch that you never want to end....

This memoir of adolescence follows the earlier volume by Mary Karr, "The Liars' Club". In "Cherry", we find Karr once again trying to run from the thrills and terrors of...

A new, wise and warmly funny work of memoir from bestselling novelist Sebastian Faulks 'A wise and heartfelt piece of writing' THE TIMES 'Witty' INDEPENDENT 'Wry and reflective . ....

A prize-winning, best selling, rivetingly dark and funny memoir of a most unusual girl. It is the mid-1950s in Lewiston, a sleepy town near Niagara Falls, famous only for the...

From the Sunday Times bestselling author, Laura Cumming, a kaleidoscopic memoir connecting her life as an art critic with the vivid world of her father's paintings and those of the...

From Hanif Kureishi, author of The Buddha of Suburbia, a memoir about the accident that left him paralysed On Boxing Day 2022, in Rome, Hanif Kureishi had a fall. When...

Elizabeth Smart's passionate fictional account of her intense love-affair with the poet George Barker, described by Angela Carter as 'Like Madame Bovary blasted by lightening ... A masterpiece'. One day,...

'I've never read a book like it. It's as if they tore their own hearts out and asked the other to hold it for them while they wrote.' Phoebe Waller-Bridge...

A twenty-two-year-old perennial virgin, Englishman Grant Stoddard didn't know what to do with his life in America--until he won an X-rated online contest, the prize being intercourse with an infamous...

A generous, entertaining, intimate look at Gore Vidal, a man who prided himself on being difficult to know Detached and ironic; a master of the pointed put-down, of the cutting...

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 'Utterly fascinating' NEW YORK TIMES 'A profound, rich document' NEW STATESMAN 'An act of intimate storytelling' VOGUE A recently discovered journal from one of America's...

The second book from acclaimed writer and journalist Joel Golby 'There's no one funnier than Joel Golby' GREG JAMES 'I love this book' DOLLY ALDERTON How much of your life...

The second book from acclaimed writer and journalist Joel Golby 'There's no one funnier than Joel Golby' GREG JAMES 'I love this book' DOLLY ALDERTON How much of your life...

Andrew Motion has been close to the centres of British poetry for over fifty years. Sleeping on Islands is his clear-sighted and open-hearted account of this remarkable career. It takes...

The official autobiography of James Patterson, where he tells the story of his life and his journey to becoming one of the bestselling writers of all time. HIS BEST STORIES...

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 'Utterly fascinating' NEW YORK TIMES 'A profound, rich document' NEW STATESMAN 'An act of intimate storytelling' VOGUE A recently discovered journal from one of America's...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 'Vivid and empowering' GILLIAN ANDERSON 'A stunning book' BERNARDINE EVARISTO 'Dazzling' TARA WESTOVER 'A story about hope, imagination and resilience' GUARDIAN An...

NB: This is a secondhand book in very good condition. See our FAQs for more information. Please note that the jacket image is indicative only. A description of our secondhand...

Is it possible life without romantic love isn't so bad? An essential memoir about building life on your own terms Is it possible life without romantic love isn't so bad?...

'Brown Baby is a beautifully intimate and soul-searching memoir. It speaks to the heart and the mind and bears witness to our turbulent times.' - Bernardine Evaristo, author of Girl,...

"Has the page-turning quality of a thriller." -NPR "Strange and wonderful...A book for our times." - The New York Times Book Review "Propulsive...mesmerizing...breathtaking." - Publishers Weekly (starred review) This unforgettable...

From the bestselling author of 4 3 2 1 and The New York Trilogy, an updated collection of Paul Auster's nonfiction, including the seminal work The Invention of Solitude. Paul...

From Hanif Kureishi, author of The Buddha of Suburbia, a memoir about the accident that left him paralysed 'A few days ago, a bomb went off in my life, but...

Robert Dessaix's Chameleon is about everything that matters, a book of memories that flow so freely they seem to happen as we read. Cartwheeling from story to story, Dessaix describes...

The second volume in Simone de Beauvoir's celebrated autobiography, recalls her formative years in Paris when she began to emerge as a public figure First published in 1960, The Prime...

The classic Danish trilogy hailed as a masterpiece on publication in English last year - now in a single volume in Penguin Modern Classics Growing up in a working-class neighbourhood...