Biography

She made John Lennon blush and Marlon Brando clam up. She cold-shouldered Princess Diana and humiliated Elizabeth Taylor. Jack Nicholson (read more)

She made John Lennon blush and Marlon Brando clam up. She cold-shouldered Princess Diana and humiliated Elizabeth Taylor. Jack Nicholson offered her cocaine and Pablo Picasso lusted over her.

To her friends Princess Margaret was witty and regal, to her enemies, she was rude and demanding. Ma'am Darling looks at her from many angles, creating a kaleidoscopic biography, and a witty meditation on fame and art, snobbery and deference, bohemia and high society. (hide)

A MASSIVE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER IN HARDBACK - NOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK Teen dance prodigy, breakout Dance Moms star, and judge (read more)

A MASSIVE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER IN HARDBACK - NOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK Teen dance prodigy, breakout Dance Moms star, and judge on So You Think you Can Dance: The Next Generation, Maddie Ziegler presents her uplifting coming-of-age memoir about following her dreams and working hard to achieve success in both the dance world and in life. Maddie Ziegler had hoped to become a star - she just didn't know how soon that day would come. At just eight years old, she was cast on the hit reality TV show Dance Moms and quickly won the hearts of fans everywhere with her natural talent and determination.

Soon, she was catching eyes all over - including those of pop superstar Sia, who handpicked her to star in the incredibly popular music video 'Chandelier'. The rest, as they say, is history. In this inspirational memoir, Maddie explains the hard work she put in to her rise to stardom and how she keeps her balance along the way - starring in music videos, going on tour and becoming an actress in The Book of Henry, with Naomi Watts and Jacob Tremblay.
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All roads lead home. `After my knighthood was announced, a woman from the BBC came to Glasgow to interview me. We sat down in a lovely (read more)

All roads lead home. `After my knighthood was announced, a woman from the BBC came to Glasgow to interview me. We sat down in a lovely hotel in a nice part of town, and she hit me with her first question: "This must mean a lot to you, with you coming from nothing?" I looked at her, and I laughed.

"I did'nae come from nothing," I told her. "I come from something." I grew up in the tenements of post-war Glasgow. I am very proud to be working class, and especially a working-class Glaswegian who has worked in the shipyards.
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For more than three decades, Madonna has been generating headlines and topping charts. Now J. Randy Taraborrelli has written the (read more)

For more than three decades, Madonna has been generating headlines and topping charts. Now J. Randy Taraborrelli has written the definitive biography of one of the richest and most successful pop stars in the world, whose music has constantly evolved and who has remained relevant even as she hits her sixtieth year.

From the driven, ambitious young woman struggling to get a break in New York to the outrageous pop diva and more spiritual mother, the changing faces of Madonna are revealed. We see her relationships with men like Basquiat, Tupac, Prince and Warren Beatty, and what happened in her marriages to Sean Penn and Guy Ritchie. We see her embracing motherhood. (hide)

The enthralling Sunday Times-bestselling biography of the shepherd boy who changed the world with his revolutionary engineering and (read more)

The enthralling Sunday Times-bestselling biography of the shepherd boy who changed the world with his revolutionary engineering and whose genius we still benefit from todayThomas Telford's name is familiar; his story less so. Born in 1757 in the Scottish Borders, his father died in his infancy, plunging the family into poverty. Telford's life soared to span almost eight decades of gloriously obsessive, prodigiously productive energy.

Few people have done more to shape our nation. A stonemason turned architect turned engineer, Telford invented the modern road, built churches, harbours, canals, docks, the famously vertiginous Pontcysyllte aqueduct in Wales and the dramatic Menai Bridge. His constructions were the greatest in Europe for a thousand years, and - astonishingly - almost everything he ever built remains in use today. (hide)

Not For Turning is the first volume of Charles Moore's authorized biography of Margaret Thatcher, the longest serving Prime Minister (read more)

Not For Turning is the first volume of Charles Moore's authorized biography of Margaret Thatcher, the longest serving Prime Minister of the twentieth century and one of the most influential political figures of the postwar era.

Charles Moore's biography of Margaret Thatcher, published after her death on 8 April 2013, immediately supercedes all earlier books written about her. At the moment when she becomes a historical figure, this book also makes her into a three dimensional one for the first time. (hide)

Bringing to life one of the most complex characters in European history Stefan Zweig based his biography of Marie Antoinette, who (read more)

Bringing to life one of the most complex characters in European history Stefan Zweig based his biography of Marie Antoinette, who became the Queen of France at the age of fifteen, on the correspondence between her and her mother, and her great love the Count Axel von Fersen. Zweig analyzes the chemistry of a woman's soul from her intimate pleasures to her public suffering as a Queen under the weight of misfortune and history. Zweig describes Marie Antoinette in the King's bedroom, in the enchanted and extravagant world of the Trianon, and with her children.

And in his account of 'The Revolution', he describes her resolve during the failed escape to varennes, her imprisonment in the Conciergerie and her final tragic destiny under the guillotine. Zweig's account has been the definitive biography of Marie Antoinette since its publication, inspiring Antonia Fraser and the recent film adaptation. Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) was born in Vienna, into a wealthy Austrian-Jewish family. (hide)

'A compelling biography of one of the greatest men of the modern age. Stanford is particularly brilliant on the tensions inside Luther's (read more)

'A compelling biography of one of the greatest men of the modern age. Stanford is particularly brilliant on the tensions inside Luther's private and spiritual life. This is a very fine book, written with a flourish.' Melvyn Bragg The 31st of October 2017 marks the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther pinning his 95 'Theses' - or reform proposals - to the door of his local university church in Wittenberg.

Most scholars now agree that the details of this eye-catching gesture are more legend than hammer and nails, but what is certainly true is that on this day (probably in a letter to his local Archbishop in Mainz), the Augustinian Friar and theologian issued an outspokenly blunt challenge to his own Catholic Church to reform itself from within - especially over the sale of 'indulgences' - which ultimately precipitated a huge religious and political upheaval right across Europe and divided mainstream Christianity ever after. A new, popular biography from journalist Peter Stanford, looking at Martin Luther from within his Catholic context, examining his actual aims for Catholicism as well as his enduring legacy - and where he might fit within the church today. 'Peter Stanford makes the life of Luther into a thrilling narrative, told from a modern Catholic perspective' Antonia Fraser (hide)

Karl Marx was the first theorist of a truly global capitalism, and remains perhaps its most trenchant critic. This clear and innovative (read more)

Karl Marx was the first theorist of a truly global capitalism, and remains perhaps its most trenchant critic. This clear and innovative book, from one of the leading contemporary experts on Marx's thought, gives us a fresh overview of his ideas by framing them within concepts that remain topical and alive today, from class struggle and progress to democracy and exploitation. Taking Marx's work in his pamphleteering, journalism, speeches, correspondence and published books as central to a renewed understanding of the man and his politics, both his life experience and our contemporary political engagements are brought vividly to life.

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Nevil Maskelyne (1732-1811) was a hugely significant figure in the worlds of British science and maritime exploration. His high international (read more)

Nevil Maskelyne (1732-1811) was a hugely significant figure in the worlds of British science and maritime exploration. His high international standing and wide influence have in many ways been unfairly overlooked as his story has come to be dominated by his role in the campaign waged by John Harrison, the clockmaker, for a larger reward for his pioneering marine timekeepers. Maskelyne was, however, involved in all the key projects of eighteenth-century astronomy.

These included ambitious expeditions to observe the transits of Venus, experiments designed to establish the shape and 'weight' of the Earth, the remaking of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, and the survey of new lands on voyages of scientific exploration. The essays in this volume allow us to appreciate Maskelyne's role in these projects and to gain a new perspective on the decisions he made with the Board of Longitude. They reveal a conscientious individual, close to friends and family, with a deep sense of commitment to his work and those who depended on him for a living.
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