Biography

BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week'Astonishing' Cathy Rentzenbrink, The Times'A breathtakingly good writer' GuardianOne of the most anticipated (read more)

BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week'Astonishing' Cathy Rentzenbrink, The Times'A breathtakingly good writer' GuardianOne of the most anticipated books of 2017, I AM, I AM, I AM is a memoir with a difference - a story of a woman's life in near-death experiences. It is a memoir you will finish newly conscious of your own vulnerability, determined to make every heartbeat count.A childhood illness she was not expected to survive. A teenage yearning to escape that nearly ended in disaster.

A terrifying encounter on a remote path. A mismanaged labour in an understaffed hospital. Shocking, electric, unforgettable, this is the extraordinary memoir from Costa Novel-Award winner and Sunday Times bestselling author Maggie O'Farrell. (hide)

Gary Barlow is one of the most successful British musicians and songwriters of all time, but fifteen years ago, as he himself admits, (read more)

Gary Barlow is one of the most successful British musicians and songwriters of all time, but fifteen years ago, as he himself admits, he hit rock bottom - he was out of shape, out of work and depressed. Faced with an underperforming solo career, tireless media taunts and the other cruel twists of fate, Gary turned to food. For nine years, he struggled with his weight and went on every diet imaginable before eventually asking a doctor what the 'cure' for obesity was.

That was when he realised that he would have to change his life dramatically. So how did he go from an obese, out-of-work pop star to becoming a hugely successful superstar of music and TV, as well an accomplished musical songwriter and producer who is full of vitality, fitter, happier and more successful than ever before?In this extraordinarily honest memoir, Gary tells of his journey back to professional success, as well as mental and physical health. A Better Me is a remarkably frank account of Gary's life as he battled with his demons, endured personal tragedy, and staged one of the most thrilling professional comebacks in decades. (hide)

Alan Bennett's "A Life Like Other People's" is a poignant family memoir offering a portrait of his parents' marriage and recalling (read more)

Alan Bennett's "A Life Like Other People's" is a poignant family memoir offering a portrait of his parents' marriage and recalling his Leeds childhood, Christmases with Grandma Peel, and the lives, loves and deaths of his unforgettable aunties Kathleen and Myra. Bennett's powerful account of his mother's descent into depression and later dementia comes hand in hand with the uncovering of a long-held tragic secret. A heartrending and at times irresistibly funny work of autobiography by one of the best-loved English writers alive today. (hide)

As one of the best biographers of her generation, Claire Tomalin has written about great novelists and poets to huge success: now, (read more)

As one of the best biographers of her generation, Claire Tomalin has written about great novelists and poets to huge success: now, she turns to look at her own life.This enthralling memoir follows her through triumph and tragedy in about equal measure, from the disastrous marriage of her parents and the often difficult wartime childhood that followed, to her own marriage to the brilliant young journalist Nicholas Tomalin. When he was killed on assignment as a war correspondent she was left to bring up their four children - and at the same time make her own career.She writes of the intense joys of a fascinating progression as she became one of the most successful literary editors in London before discovering her true vocation as a biographer, alongside overwhelming grief at the loss of a child.Writing with the elan and insight which characterize her biographies, Claire Tomalin sets her own life in a wider cultural and political context, vividly and frankly portraying the social pressures on a woman in the Fifties and Sixties, and showing 'how it was for a European girl growing up in mid-twentieth-century England ... carried along by conflicting desires to have children and a worthwhile working life.'
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We visualise dashing and daring young men as the epitome of the pilots of the Second World War, yet amongst that elite corps was (read more)

We visualise dashing and daring young men as the epitome of the pilots of the Second World War, yet amongst that elite corps was one person who flew no less than 400 Spitfires and seventy-six different types of aircraft - and that person was Mary Wilkins. Her story is one of the most remarkable and endearing of the war, as this young woman, serving as a ferry pilot with the Air Transport Auxiliary, transported aircraft for the RAF, including fast fighter planes and huge four-engine bombers. On one occasion Mary delivered a Wellington bomber to an airfield, and as she climbed out of the aircraft the RAF ground crew ran over to her and demanded to know where the pilot was! Mary said simply: 'I am the pilot!' Unconvinced the men searched the aircraft before they realised a young woman had indeed flown the bomber all by herself.

After the war she accepted a secondment to the RAF, being chosen as one of the first pilots, and one of only three women, to take the controls of the new Meteor fast jet. By 1950 the farmer's daughter from Oxfordshire with a natural instinct to fly became Europe's first female air commandant. In this authorised biography the woman who says she kept in the background during her ATA years and left all the glamour of publicity to her colleagues, finally reveals all about her action-packed career which spans almost a century of aviation, and her love for the skies which, even in her nineties, never falters.

Pub Date:
20 December 2016 (hide)

Anjelica Huston's life, once she turned 15 and moved to London, is a who's who of popular culture from the Rolling Stones in late (read more)

Anjelica Huston's life, once she turned 15 and moved to London, is a who's who of popular culture from the Rolling Stones in late '60s London to the Chelsea Hotel in New York when she was modelling in the early '70s, to Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty in '70s and '80s Los Angeles, to Hunter Thompson in Aspen. She is a force who has won every possible acting award, working with some of the greatest directors of her time, and a friend to many of the greatest artists, writers, actors and musicians. One could say it was a charmed life, an enviable life, and she would agree.

But it is a life also full of so much tragedy and sadness, and Huston writes about both triumph and hardship with extraordinary eloquence and depth. A stunning achievement, her memoir ranks among the best in the genre. (hide)

From humble beginnings Adele has come to be a globally recognised icon. Her first album shot her to fame and the second consolidated (read more)

From humble beginnings Adele has come to be a globally recognised icon. Her first album shot her to fame and the second consolidated her position as a singing/songwriting superstar with lasting, global appeal. She has already won more than 40 industry awards, including 11 Billboard Music Awards, a BRIT award, and eight Grammy awards.

She has broken record after record: first artist to sell more than 3m albums in a year in the UK, first living artist to have two top five hits in both the UK singles and albums charts simultaneously since the Beatles, the first artist in history to lead the Billboard chart concurrently with three number ones, 21 is the longest running number one album by a female solo artist on the UK chart and in the US it held the top position for longer than any other album since 1993.

Pub Date:07/07/2016 (hide)

Henry Marsh has spent a lifetime operating on the surgical frontline. There have been exhilarating highs and devastating lows, but (read more)

Henry Marsh has spent a lifetime operating on the surgical frontline. There have been exhilarating highs and devastating lows, but his love for the practice of neurosurgery has never wavered. Prompted by his retirement from his full-time job in the NHS, and through his continuing work in Nepal and Ukraine, Henry has been forced to reflect more deeply about what forty years spent handling the human brain has taught him.

Moving between encounters with patients in his London hospital, to those he treats in the more extreme circumstances of his work abroad, Henry faces up to the burden of responsibility that can come with trying to reduce human suffering. Unearthing memories of his early days as a medical student, and the experiences that shaped him as a young surgeon, he explores the difficulties of a profession that deals in probabilities rather than certainties, and where the overwhelming urge to prolong life can come at a tragic cost for both patients and for those who love them. In this searing, provocative and deeply personal memoir, the bestselling author of Do No Harm finds new purpose in his own life as he approaches the end of his professional career, and a fresh understanding of what matters to us all in the end.
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Born in the shadow of a dark, satanic cream cracker factory, Mike Harding struggled against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune (read more)

Born in the shadow of a dark, satanic cream cracker factory, Mike Harding struggled against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and the catapults and half-bricks of the Black Hand Gang to find himself launched into stardom when he won the egg-and-spoon race at St Anne's Crumpsall Junior School. For a while he was the leader of the Crumpsall Father Christmas and Tooth Fairy Cult but he gave that all up when he discovered that Dan Dare and girls were more interesting. After growing up in an Irish Catholic household, he was sent to a grammar school run by priests, from which he eventually emerged unscathed.

A combination of O Levels and rock 'n' roll led him into the bowels of Manchester's club land, where he worked alongside strippers and Chinese strongman acts while revising the War of Jenkin's Ear. Testosterone and guilt struggled for mastery in his lapsing Catholic chest and trousers until testosterone won and, with guilt still on his back like Quasimodo's hump, he toured the dancehalls of Northern England in a VW panel van, taking rock 'n' roll to one-horse towns where the horse had bolted. Warm, nostalgic and very funny, Mike Harding's memoir of his early life in post-war Manchester is as idiosyncratic and engaging as the man himself. (hide)

This is the Second World War career of the longest serving double agent in the Double Cross system, Harry Williamson. Harry operated (read more)

This is the Second World War career of the longest serving double agent in the Double Cross system, Harry Williamson. Harry operated from September 1940 to the end of war after initially being parachuted into England by the Nazi secret service, the Abwehr. He was quickly caught and taken to Camp 020 for interrogation by the team led by the famous Colonel 'Tin-Eye' Stephens.

He eventually agreed to work as a double agent with the cover name TATE and went on to send more than a thousand messages during the war for the Double Cross organization, who's aim was to supply disinformation to the Nazi regime. Harry took part in the famous D-Day deception, provided the Nazis with misinformation about the damage caused by the V1 and V2 rockets and misled the German Navy with faulty intelligence over U-boat minefields, critical to the success of British convoys. After the war he settled in Watford and worked as a photographer. (hide)