Biography

I AM, I AM, I AM is a memoir with a difference - the unputdownable story of an extraordinary woman's life in near-death experiences. (read more)

I AM, I AM, I AM is a memoir with a difference - the unputdownable story of an extraordinary woman's life in near-death experiences. Insightful, inspirational, gorgeously written, it is a book to be read at a sitting, a story you finish newly conscious of life's fragility, 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. (hide)

For more than three decades, millions of Britons have woken to the sound of John Humphrys' voice. As presenter of Radio 4's Today, (read more)

For more than three decades, millions of Britons have woken to the sound of John Humphrys' voice. As presenter of Radio 4's Today, the nation's most popular news programme, he is famed for his tough interviewing, his deep misgivings about authority in its many forms and his passionate commitment to a variety of causes. A Day Like Today charts John's journey from the poverty of his post-war childhood in Cardiff, leaving school at fifteen, to the summits of broadcasting.
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At the moment her mother died, Olivia Potts was baking a cake, badly. She was trying to impress the man who would later become her (read more)

At the moment her mother died, Olivia Potts was baking a cake, badly. She was trying to impress the man who would later become her husband. Afterwards, grief pushed Olivia into the kitchen.

She came home from her job as a criminal barrister miserable and tired, and baked soda bread, pizza, and chocolate banana cake. Her cakes sank and her custard curdled. But she found comfort in jams and solace in pies, and what began as a distraction from grief became a way of building a life outside grief, a way of surviving, and making sense of her life without her mum. (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)

Henry Marsh has spent four decades operating on the human brain. In this searing and provocative memoir following his retirement (read more)

Henry Marsh has spent four decades operating on the human brain. In this searing and provocative memoir following his retirement from the NHS, he reflects on the experiences that have shaped his career and life, gaining a deeper understanding of what matters to us all in the end. (hide)

The trajectory of Suede - hailed in infancy as both 'The Best New Band in Britain' and 'effete southern wankers' - is recalled with (read more)

The trajectory of Suede - hailed in infancy as both 'The Best New Band in Britain' and 'effete southern wankers' - is recalled with moving candour by its frontman Brett Anderson, whose vivid memoir swings seamlessly between the tender, witty, turbulent, euphoric and bittersweet. Suede began by treading the familiar jobbing route of London's emerging new 1990s indie bands - gigs at ULU, the Camden Powerhaus and the Old Trout in Windsor - and the dispiriting experience of playing a set to an audience of one. But in these halcyon days, their potential was undeniable. (hide)

Inspired by the fortunes and misfortunes of the Getty family, whose most extraordinary and troubled episode - the kidnap and ransom (read more)

Inspired by the fortunes and misfortunes of the Getty family, whose most extraordinary and troubled episode - the kidnap and ransom of grandson Paul Getty - is now a major motion picture, directed by Ridley Scott, from a screenplay written by David Scarpa and starring Michelle Williams, Christopher Plummer and Mark Wahlberg. When sixteen-year-old Paul Getty was kidnapped, the news exploded worldwide. But his grandfather, J.Paul Getty, the richest living American, refused to pay the ransom, oblivious to his sufferings. And as the days dragged painfully on, it was Paul's distraught but determined mother Gail who was left to negotiate with his captors...

In this full biography of the Getty family, John Pearson traces the creation of their phenomenal wealth and the ways in which it has touched and tainted the lives of various generations. (hide)

The story of Anders Lassen is one of the most amazing and heroic of the Second World War - indeed in the history of the British armed (read more)

The story of Anders Lassen is one of the most amazing and heroic of the Second World War - indeed in the history of the British armed services. He was awarded no less than three Military Crosses and the SAS regiment's only Victoria Cross. From the day he stalked and killed a stag armed only with a knife, Lassen had been recognized as quite unique.

He took part in a series of extraordinary strikes against the Axis powers in West Africa, Normandy, the Channel Islands, the Aegean and Greece, the Balkans and, finally, in Italy. This classic biography of a remarkable warrior, which was first published in 1988, is based on interviews with Lassen's fellow soldiers and a wealth of original research. It covers each stage of Lassen's short, brilliant career in vivid detail and offers a penetrating insight into the exceptional courage, confidence and single-minded motivation that lay behind Lassen's extraordinary exploits.

Pub Date:
30/11/2016 (hide)

BRITAIN'S GREATEST CLIMBER. 'He is the David Attenborough of mountaineering . . . Bonington's most personal memoir yet.' The Times. (read more)

BRITAIN'S GREATEST CLIMBER. 'He is the David Attenborough of mountaineering . .

. Bonington's most personal memoir yet.' The Times. 'This is a compelling tale of fortitude and endurance.' - The Sunday Times'He is the icon of British climbing.' The Daily MirrorSir Chris Bonington memoir Ascent will chart not only his many triumphs in the climbing world - such as the Eiger, and the Himalaya - but also the struggles he has faced in his life bringing up a family, and maintaining a successful and loving marriage over the decades of travelling the world to conquer mountains.

He has undertaken nineteen Himalayan expeditions, including four to Mount Everest which he climbed in 1985 at the age of fifty, and has made many first ascents in the Alps and greater ranges of the world. Along the way we will be fascinated by his many daring climbs, near-death adventures, and the many luminaries of the mountain fraternity he has climbed with, and in some cases - witness their deaths on the rock. The mercurial Dougal Haston; the legendary-tough Don Whillans, the philosopher of the rock Stephen Venables, and the enigmatic Doug Scott, plus many more - this will be an expert's opinion on the past sixty years of British/ world mountaineering. (hide)