Biography Books

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Book SynopsisThose Flat Share Girls is a collection of light verse, written in easy to read rhyming couplets, containing an old man’s recollections of his young life in London in the 1960s. It begins in January 1960, when he bids his school goodbye with the thought that: I knew I’d never use again A logarithm or a sine But the trappings of a cultured mind I knew exactly where to find. And, not long after this, while strolling to a local coffee bar, he and a friend sense that: There was a fire about to burn And of that flame we had both caught a spark. That warm summer’s evening in Grovelands Park. And so, life moves forward through the years with the usual parties and musical delights of the superb jazz bands to be found performing in the back rooms of pubs for twopence ha’penny and the emerging electric bands who would sell black rhythm and blues back to the USA. Unfortunately, he misses most of this scene’s excitement because: Far from the fuss and ballyhoo I was on my way to Kathmandu On what became known as the Hippie Trail. Then onwards to a couple of years in Australia as a roustabout ‘swagman’. A few further adventures follow, an attempt to walk the Pennine Way amongst them; and there are several unconsummated romances along the way until he eventually finds himself ‘complete’ in the comforting arms of a loving wife. And finally, back in a local park, an old man minding a friend’s dog. He sits observing the changed world of 2022, sixty odd years after he sensed a fire about to burn and ponders contentedly: There really is no better place To see first-hand the changing face Of our noble, ancient ‘Island Race’ Than in a local park on a Sunday morn …

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Book SynopsisA captivating blend of feminism, ancient roads and history that asks and answers the question: where are the women in nature?Why is it radical for women to walk alone in the countryside, when men have been doing so for centuries? The Hard Way is a powerful and illuminating book about addressing this imbalance, reclaiming fearlessness and diving into the history of the landscape from a woman’s point of view.Setting off to follow the oldest paths in England, The Ridgeway and The Harrow Way, Susannah Walker comes across artillery fire, concern from passing policemen and her own innate fear of lone figures in the distance: a landscape shaped by men, from prehistoric earthworks to today’s army bases.But along the way, Susannah finds Edwardian feminists, rebellious widows, forgotten writers and artists, as well as all their anonymous sisters who stayed at home throughout history. They become her co

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Book SynopsisJoin TV star Hamza Yassin as he travels around the British Isles to meet the fascinating wildlife at home to our shores.

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Book SynopsisA unique memoir from British cycling's most fascinating competitorIn the summer of 2020 sportswriter David Walsh asked Pippa York if she'd be interested to be his travelling companion for the Tour de France. The deal was that he would sort out the logistics beforehand, the hotels, the transport details and she would do the day to day tasks of getting them about and adding her insight occasionally. It would also mean she would return to the race she had ridden eleven times as Robert Millar.This is the resulting book: a unique and entertaining sporting odyssey, The Escape uses the minutiae of Pippa and David's trip, and the iconic landmarks of the Tour de France, to explore her early life growing up in working class Glasgow; her entry into racing; the psychological aspects of the sport and how that manifested itself in her personality; her ups and downs as a competitor; her post-career and her eventual transition in her 40s.Touching on doping, gender in sport and the unique wonders and d

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Book SynopsisIt seems excessive...but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. Saul "Slash" Hudson was born in Hampstead to a Jewish father, an album cover artist, and a black American mother of Nigerian descent, who created David Bowie's look in The Man Who Fell to Earth. He was raised in Stoke until he was 11, when he and his mother moved to LA. Frequent visitors to the house were David Bowie, Joni Mitchell, Ron Wood and Iggy Pop, . At this time Slash got into BMX bikes, and would eventually turn professional, winning won major awards and money, but at 15 his grandmother gave him his first guitar. Even though it had just one string he began teaching himself to play, and soon school was forgotten as he devoted up to 12 hours a day to honing his skills. Sessions with numerous local LA rock bands followed until a fateful meeting with singer W Axl Rose! and the rest was rock history.Trade Review‘Brilliant stuff’ **** News of the World ‘The most insane rock n’ roll autobiography you’ll ever read.’ Observer ‘A raucous rock yarn’, (Top 10 Rock Books) The Independent **** Q Magazine ‘A fitting monument… Slash’s memoirs are an unexpectedly intoxicating cocktail of irresponsibility and dedication.’ Independent on Sunday ‘Slash’s story is harrowingly compulsive reading, presenting the most graphically spot-on account of hardcore drug addiction since William Burroughs’ The Record Collector

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Book Synopsis''Mightily entertaining'' - Heat People ask me how come I''m still alive, and I don''t know what to say. When I was growing up, if you''d have put me up against a wall with the other kids from my street and asked me which one of us was gonna make it to the age of sixty, with five kids and four grandkids and houses in Buckinghamshire and California, I wouldn''t have put money on me, no f**king way. But here I am: ready to tell my story, in my own words, for the first time. A lot of it ain''t gonna be pretty. I''ve done some bad things in my time. But I ain''t the devil. I''m just John Osbourne: a working class kid from Aston, who quit his job in the factory and went looking for a good time.Trade ReviewPacked with outrageous, hilarious, disgusting and wholly improbable incedents * Guardian *A must-read for fans of vicarious rock'n'roll insanity * Scotland on Sunday *Every page of this hugely entertaining, sometimes painfully frank autobiography seems to have at least one punch-line to a good joke * Uncut *Mightily entertaining * Heat *A frank and honest account that will make you laugh out loud . . . A brilliant read * Sun *Gripping, funny and sad * Q *

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Book SynopsisTHE MULTI-MILLION COPY BESTSELLER A BETWEEN THE COVERS PICK Selected as a book of the year by AMAZON, THE TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES, GUARDIAN, NEW YORK TIMES, ECONOMIST, NEW STATESMAN, VOGUE, IRISH TIMES, IRISH EXAMINER and RED MAGAZINE 'One of the best books I have ever read . . . unbelievably moving' Elizabeth Day 'An extraordinary story, beautifully told' Louise O'Neill 'A memoir to stand alongside the classics . . . compelling and joyous' Sunday Times Tara Westover grew up preparing for the end of the world. She was never put in school, never taken to the doctor. She did not even have a birth certificate until she was nine years old. At sixteen, to escape her father's radicalism and a violent older brother, Tara left home. What followed was a struggle for self-invention, a journey that gets to the heart of what an education is and wTrade ReviewA memoir to stand alongside classics by the likes of Jeanette Winterson and Lorna Sage . . . a compelling and ultimately joyous account of self-determination * Sunday Times *[A] fascinating, jaw-dropping memoir * Observer *[A] superb memoir… Westover’s journey from a remote corner of the American west to one of the world’s grandest seats of learning is extraordinary . . . Her story, of fighting to be herself, is as old as the hills she came from, but Westover gives us such a fresh, absorbing take that it deserves to bring her own private Idaho into the bestseller lists, book groups and, eventually, cinemas. * The Times *Brilliantly recounts her journey towards knowledge and enlightenment * Guardian *An amazing story, and truly inspiring. The kind of book everyone will enjoy. IT’S EVEN BETTER THAN YOU’VE HEARD.Her story is remarkable, as each extreme anecdote described in tidy prose attests. That someone who grew up in her circumstances could achieve as much as she has is astonishing . . . The central tension she wrestles with throughout her book is how to be true to herself without alienating her family. Her upbringing was extraordinary, but that struggle is not. * The Economist *This memoir [is] one of the wisest accounts of family love and betrayal that I’ve read * Mail on Sunday *[An] astonishing autobiographyHeartbreaking in its honesty...[an] intelligent and powerful memoir * Literary Review *An astonishing and uplifting story about the transformative power of education * Mail on Sunday, 2018 Cultural Highlights *Educated is quite simply one of the best books I have ever read. What a writer, what a thinker and what a gift for the rest of us to be able to read her story. Unbelievably moving and profoundly thought-provoking.Educated is an unflinching account of love and brutality, of the strength of blood ties and the power of imagination, and of a young woman whose intellect, self-knowledge and courage illuminate every page. There are passages so painfully vivid that they sear themselves into the memory, yet Westover is never prurient or punitive: even when writing from the depths, she does so with compassion and grace. Both the book and its writer are remarkable in every respectWestover has a story to tell that shouldn't be ignored * The Guardian *This fiercely intelligent memoir is a fascinating and compassionate view of another world and the author’s struggle to both escape from and understand it as she heads out into the world * The Pool, Ones to Watch in 2018 *A dazzling example of what you can achieve if you set your mind to something… an inspirational, truly unique coming-of-age tale * BBC Ones to Watch in 2018 *A shocking and powerfully moving memoir * Daily Express *What comes through is Tara’s grit, determination and instinctive sense that somewhere within education lies her redemption ... There is pain and adversity in this heart-wrenching memoir but ultimately what Tara leaves us with is hope * Sunday Express *Marvellous. There is no feeling like discovering a young writer who is springing up fully armed with so much talentAbsolutely superb . . . the last 100 pages were so gripping I could hardly breatheTara Westover's beautifully written memoir shines a light on a part of our country that we too often overlook. Her powerful tale—of trying to find a place for herself in the world, without losing her connection to her family or her beloved home—deserves to be widely read. My Mamaw would have been rooting for Tara.

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Book Synopsis"The seven 'essays' by J.R.R. Tolkien assembled in this paperback were with one exception delivered as general lectures on particular occasions; and while they mostly arose out of Tolkien's work in medieval literature, they are accessible to all. Two of them are concerned with Beowulf, including the well-known lecture whose title is taken for this book, and one with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, given to the University of Glasgow in 1953. Also included in this volume is the lecture English and Welsh; the Valedictory Address to the University of Oxford in 1959; and a paper on invented languages delivered in 1931, with exemplification from poems in the Elvish tongues. Most famous of all is On Fairy-stories, a discussion of the nature of fairy-tales and fantasy, which gives insight into Tolkien's approach to the whole genre. The pieces in this collection cover a period of nearly thirty years, beginning six years before the publication of The Hobbit, with a unique 'academic' lecture on

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Book SynopsisAcclaimed worldwide as the definitive biography of the Prophet Muhammad in the English language, Martin Lings' Muhammad: His Life Based to the Earliest Sources is unlike any other. Based on Arabic sources of the eighth and ninth centuries, of which some important passages are translated here for the first time, it owes the freshness and directness of its approach to the words of men and women who heard Muhammad speak and witnessed the events of his life.Martin Lings has an unusual gift for narrative. He has adopted a style which is at once extremely readable and reflects both the simplicity and grandeur of the story. The result is a book which will be read with equal enjoyment by those already familiar with Muhammad's life and those coming to it for the first time.Muhammad: His Life Based to the Earliest Sources was given an award by the government of Pakistan, and selected as the best biography of the Prophet in English at the National Seerat Conference in

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Book SynopsisThe Right Honourable Dame Jacinda Ardern was elected the fortieth prime minister of New Zealand at the age of thirty-seven, becoming the country's youngest prime minister in more than 150 years. Since leaving office, Ardern has established the Field Fellowship on empathetic leadership. She is a Senior Fellow at Harvard University, continues to work on climate action, and is the Patron of the Christchurch Call to Action to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. Ardern also works on a number of projects that support women and girls, but considers her greatest roles to be those she will hold for life, including that of mum and proud New Zealander.

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Book SynopsisA Major BBC Series Starring Ben Whishaw. The multi-million copy bestseller and Book of the Year at The National Book Awards.‘Painfully funny. The pain and the funniness somehow add up to something entirely good, entirely noble and entirely loveable.' - Stephen FryWelcome to the life of a junior doctor: 97-hour weeks, life and death decisions, a constant tsunami of bodily fluids, and the hospital parking meter earns more than you.Scribbled in secret after endless days, sleepless nights and missed weekends, Adam Kay's This is Going to Hurt provides a no-holds-barred account of his time on the NHS front line. Hilarious, horrifying and heartbreaking, this diary is everything you wanted to know – and more than a few things you didn't – about life on and off the hospital ward.Sunday Times Number One Bestseller for over eight months and winner of a record FOUR National Book Awards: Book of the Year, Non-Fiction Book of the Year, New Writer of the Year and Zoe Ball Book Club Book of the Year.This edition includes extra diary entries and an afterword by the author.Trade ReviewI’d prescribe this book to anyone and everyone. It's laugh-out-loud funny, heartbreakingly sad and gives you the lowdown on what it’s like to be holding it together while serving on the front line of our beloved but beleaguered NHS. It’s wonderful -- Jonathan RossPainfully funny. The pain and the funniness somehow add up to something entirely good, entirely noble and entirely loveable. -- Stephen FrySo clinically funny and politically important for supporters of the NHS that it should be given out on prescription * Guardian *Finally a true picture of the harrowing, hilarious and ultimately chaotic life of the junior doctor in all its gory glory, dark comedy and unavoidable sadness. A blisteringly funny account shot through with harrowing detail, many pertinent truths and the humanity we all hope doctors conceal behind their unflappable exteriors -- Jo BrandAs hilarious as it is heartbreaking – and it IS heartbreaking (also hilarious) -- Charlie BrookerBlisteringly funny, politically enraging and often heartbreaking . . . hilarious . . . brimming not just with humour but with humanity . . . This should be a wake-up call to all who value the NHS -- Hannah Beckerman * Sunday Express *A funny, excoriatingly revealing, beautiful book -- Dawn FrenchHorrifyingly hilarious and hilariously horrifying -- Danny WallaceA ferociously funny book -- Mark WatsonSuperb -- Pam AyresAs a hypochondriac I was worried about reading Adam Kay’s book. Luckily it’s incredibly funny – so funny, in fact, that it gave me a hernia from laughing -- Joe LycettBy turns witty, gruesome, alarming, and touching. Always illuminating and searingly honest -- Jonathan DimblebyBrilliant -- Mark HaddonTable of ContentsIntroduction - i: Introduction Chapter - 1: House Officer Chapter - 2: Senior House Officer Post 1 Chapter - 3: Senior House Officer Post 2 Chapter - 4: Senior House Officer Post 3 Chapter - 5: Registrar Post 1 Chapter - 6: Registrar Post 2 Chapter - 7: Registrar Post 3 Chapter - 8: Registrar Post 4 Chapter - 9: Senior Registrar Chapter - 10: Aftermath Section - ii: An Open Letter to the Secretary of State for Health Acknowledgements - iii: Acknowledgements

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Book SynopsisFrom one of our most powerful writers, a classic work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter.Richly textured with bits of her own childhood and married life with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and daughter, Quintana Roo, this new book by Joan Didion examines her thoughts, fears, and doubts regarding having children, illness, and growing old.Blue Nights opens on July 26, 2010, as Didion thinks back to Quintana's wedding in New York seven years before. Today would be her wedding anniversary. This fact triggers vivid snapshots of Quintana's childhood in Malibu, in Brentwood, at school in Holmby Hills. Reflecting on her daughter but also on her role as a parent, Didion asks the candid questions any parent might about how she feels she failed either because cues were not taken or perhaps displaced. How could I have missed what was clearly there to be seen?' Finally, perhaps we all remain unknown to each other.Blue Nights the long, light evening hours that signal the summer solstice, the opposite of the dying of the brightness, but also its warning' like The Year of Magical Thinking before it, is an iconic book of incisive and electric honesty.This is a beautiful and devastating book by one of the finest writers we have' Zadie SmithSearing, informative and affecting. Don't leave life without it.' Financial Times*Notes to John, the remarkable recently discovered journal from Joan Didion is available now*Trade Review‘Her prose is a thing of beauty’ Daisy Goodwin, Sunday Times ‘Where the book is most successful – and most poignant – is in the viciously honest picture Didion draws of a lonely, encroaching old age … your heart breaks for her increasing and incurable frailty’ Julie Myerson, Observer Reviews for ‘A Year of Magical Thinking’:‘It is the most awesome performance of both participating in, and watching, an event. Even though Didion does not allow herself to break down, only a terribly controlled reader will resist doing the same.’ John Freeman, Independent ‘Ultimately, and unexpectedly for a book about illness and death, this is a wonderfully life affirming book.’ Lisa O’Kelly, Observer ‘Searing, informative and affecting. Don’t leave life without it.’ Financial Times ‘This is a beautiful and devastating book by one of the finest writers we have. Didion has always been a precise, humane and meticulously truthful writer, but on the subject of death she becomes essential.’ Zadie Smith

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Book SynopsisThe perennial classic: this intimate journal chronicling the Narnia author''s experience of grief after his wife''s death has consoled readers for half a century with its ''sensitive and eloquent'' magic (Hilary Mantel)''An intimate, anguished account of a man grappling with the mysteries of faith and love ... Elegant and raw ... A powerful record of thought and emotion experienced in real time.'' Guardian ''Raw and modern ... This unsentimental, even bracing, account of one man's dialogue with despair becomes both compelling and consoling ... A contemporary classic.'' Observer''A source of great consolation ... Lewis deploys his genius for vivid imagery ... It is a relief for the reader to find that he or she is not alone in the intense loneliness or feelings of anguish that bereavement brings.'' Henry Marsh, The Times''Testimony from a sensitive and eloquent witness [on] The Human Condition'. It offers an interrogation of experience and a glimmer of hardwon hope. It allows one bewildered mind to reach out to another. Death is no barrier to that.'' Hilary Mantel''Here, sorrow and despair, the tiredness and numbness and petulance and nightmarishness of grief, all have their full, uncontrolled, experienced force ... [Such] radical openness ... Brilliant.'' Francis Spufford***No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.Narnia author C.S. Lewis had been married to his wife for four blissful years. When she died of cancer, he found himself alone, inconsolable in his grief. In this intimate journal, he chronicles the aftermath of the bereavement and mourning with blazing honesty. He grapples with a crisis of religious faith, navigating hope, rage, despair, and love - but eventually regains his bearings, finding his way back to life.A luminous modern classic, A Grief Observed has offered solace to countless readers for decades. This companion edition combines the original text with personal responses from Hilary Mantel, Rowan Williams, Francis Spufford, Maureen Freely, Kate Saunders, Jessica Martin and Jenna Bailey.***What readers are saying:''A truly great book - inspirational and untold help.'' ''Every human being, living or dead, understands what Lewis means ... One of the most valuable books ever written.'' ''Lewis, as always, sits down next to you and validates your grief like a true friend. He lets you rage, and cry, and even be furious with God, just as he did.''''If you are grieving an enormous loss, you may find comfort here ... A great mind and wonderful writer who understands your grief well enough to put words to it.''''His journal was also my journal as I worked through my own grief. Reading this book was actually comforting in that I knew that someone else understood my situation and offered insight and hope ... I highly recommend this book for anyone who has gone through the death of a loved one or who wants to comfort. ''This little book has had me in floods of tears [and] shows a real understanding of grief ... To read the words of this great man who shared and understood my pain and is a life affirming and faith affirming experience.''

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Book SynopsisTHE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER PICKED BY THE SUNDAY TIMES, GUARDIAN, INDEPENDENT, IRISH TIMES, SPECTATOR, TLS, NEW STATESMAN, MAIL ON SUNDAY, I PAPER, PROSPECT, REVEW31 AND EVENING STANDARD AS A BOOK OF 2021 'A masterclass from a warm and engagingly enthusiastic companion' Guardian Summer Reading Picks 2021 ‘This book is a delight, and it’s about delight too. How necessary, at our particular moment’ Tessa Hadley ________________ From the New York Times-bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo and Tenth of December comes a literary master class on what makes great stories work and what they can tell us about ourselves - and our world today. For the last twenty years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian short story to his MFA students at Syracuse University. In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it’s more relevant than ever in these turbulent times. In his introduction, Saunders writes, “We’re going to enter seven fastidiously constructed scale models of the world, made for a specific purpose that our time maybe doesn’t fully endorse but that these writers accepted implicitly as the aim of art—namely, to ask the big questions, questions like, How are we supposed to be living down here? What were we put here to accomplish? What should we value? What is truth, anyway, and how might we recognize it?” He approaches the stories technically yet accessibly, and through them explains how narrative functions; why we stay immersed in a story and why we resist it; and the bedrock virtues a writer must foster. The process of writing, Saunders reminds us, is a technical craft, but also a way of training oneself to see the world with new openness and curiosity. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is a deep exploration not just of how great writing works but of how the mind itself works while reading, and of how the reading and writing of stories make genuine connection possible.Trade ReviewA wonderful book … This book is a delight … I love the warmth with which he writes about this teaching, and agree wholeheartedly … All this makes Saunders’s book very different from just another “how to” creative writing manual, or just another critical essay … One of the pleasures of this book is feeling his own thinking move backwards and forwards, between the writer dissecting practice and the reader entering in through the spell of the words, to dwell inside the story -- Tessa Hadley * Guardian *Saunders is such a wise and amiable teacher ... A page-turner -- Robert WebbLuminously perceptive * Guardian *A masterclass in how to be human ... unfailingly, often thrillingly illuminating … Published any time, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain would be a joyous reminder that fiction is “the most effective mode of mind-to-mind communication ever devised”. Published now, it feels like vital and civilising corrective to the pretend certainties of public life – and, increasingly, of our personal lives too * Telegraph *It will stay with you and transform how you read story by story, sentence by sentence * The Times, Best Paperbacks of 2022 *One of the most accurate and beautiful depictions of what it is like to be inside the mind of a writer that I’ve ever read * New York Times *The Russian greats truly shine in this account; but Saunders is the real star. His way of expressing himself is simultaneously supremely intellectual and jovially down-to-earth. It’s rare to read a book and love it so much that you think it’s simply perfect. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is that book -- Viv Groskop * Spectator *Joins a long tradition of using Russian literature as a guide to life … Practical and playful … it also probes exactly how narrative techniques make us more alert, attentive and sympathetic in reading books and the world around us * i news *By the end Saunders is wondering if there is indeed any point in writing at all. I won’t spoil his conclusion. Suffice to say, the hairs on the back of my neck were alert * The Times *Suffused with wry humour … Not an academic interpretation, but a reader’s companion. I was pleasurably absorbed from start to finish * Evening Standard *The Booker-winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo considers the art of fiction through seven classic Russian short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy and Gogol * Guardian, 2021 in Books *The combination of Saunders’s piercing mind and the Russian subjects being Anton Chekhov, Ivan Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy and Nikolai Gogol promises to be a highbrow treat for fans of literature, and a book offering deep insights into storytelling and how narrative functions * Independent, The books to look out for in 2021 *A literary masterclass * Evening Standard, A look ahead to the best new books in 2021 *But the real star of A Swim isn't Chekhov or Turgenev or Tolstoy or Gogol - it's Saunders himself ... This book will quite simply make you a better, more observant and more understanding reader * Big Issue *Part intro to Russian literature, part musings on craft, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is all pleasure * Financial Times *A worship song to writers and readers * O, The Oprah Magazine *His warmth, enthusiasm and homespun metaphors – all part of that “writerly charm” – banish any sense of the chilly, mechanistic Fiction Lab ... Gleefully overshoots its brief as a technical manual or how-to guide … A Swim in a Pond in the Rain generates more fun, more wit, more sympathetic sense, than we have any right to hope for from a 400-page critical study * Arts Desk *There should be more books like this -- Sameer Rahim * Prospect Podcast *A masterclass from a warm and engagingly enthusiastic companion * Guardian, 50 hottest new books everyone should read *A masterclass in short fiction by one of the finest teachers alive… It is a joyously civilised primer on how to write – and live – better * Daily Telegraph *Warm, playful and acutely perceptive -- Ian Leslie * New Statesman, Books of the Year *Not just astute, humane lit crit but an inspirational manifesto for the art of fiction -- Boyd Tonkin * Spectator, Books of the Year *A masterclass in writing … a real treat -- Naomi Alderman * Spectator, Books of the Year *[I] loved George Saunders’s A Swim in a Pond in the Rain … Genial, generous and illuminating ... He is a great teacher as well as a great practitioner, and makes you see more * Times Literary Supplement, Books of the Year 2021 *A tin of caviar sort of a book … Saunders guides, prods, nudges, urges you to disagree … It will stay with you and transform how you read story by story, sentence by sentence * Sunday Times, 24 best fiction books 2021 *Delightful as well as an engaging work-out for the brain. Just the thing for a New Year’s read * i paper *In clear, fresh, often humorous language, Saunders reveals the various sleights of hand involved in their construction, while never trying to flatten their essential genius. A gem -- Craig Brown * Mail on Sunday *Joyful and playful, a book full of wisdom, one to drink in slowly * Independent (Online), The 20 Best Books of 2021 *An eagle-eyed breakdown of short stories by four great Russian writers * Prospect, Best books of 2021 *Saunders is warm and vivacious company, funny and even-handed and increasingly wise … This book is an enthralling delve into life and its narration – for people interested in how fiction works, it’s like breathing oxygen * Revew31, Books of the Year 2021 *

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Book SynopsisJon Krakauer is a mountaineer and the author of Eiger Dreams, Into the Wild, (which was on the New York Times bestseller list for over a year and was made into a film starring Emile Hirsch and Kristen Stewart) Into Thin Air, Iceland, Under the Banner of Heaven and Where Men Win Glory. He is also the editor of the Modern Library Exploration series.Trade Review[Krakauer] has produced a narrative that is both meticulously researched and deftly constructed. -- Alastair Scott * New York Times Book Review *This is a great book, among the best ever on mountaineering. Gracefully and efficiently written, carefully researched, and actually lived by its narrator. * Washington Post *Into Thin Air ranks among the great adventure books of all time. * Wall Street Journal *A harrowing tale of the perils of high-altitude climbing, a story of bad luck and worse judgment and of heartbreaking heroism. * People *Krakauer is an extremely gifted storyteller as well as a relentlessly honest and even-handed journalist, the story is riveting and wonderfully complex in its own right . . .To call the book an adventure saga seems not to recognize that it is also a deeply thoughtful and finely wrought philosophical examination of the self. * Elle *

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Book SynopsisThe number one bestseller and Sunday Times Humour Book of the Year by national treasure Bob Mortimer.‘The most life-affirming, joyful read of the year’ - Sunday Times‘Winningly heartfelt’ – The Guardian‘A triumph’ – Daily Mail Bob Mortimer’s life was trundling along happily until suddenly in 2015 he was diagnosed with a heart condition that required immediate surgery and forced him to cancel an upcoming tour. The episode unnerved him, but forced him to reflect on his life so far. This is the framework for his hilarious and moving memoir, And Away… Although his childhood in Middlesbrough was normal on the surface, it was tinged by the loss of his dad, and his own various misadventures (now infamous from his appearances on Would I Lie to You?), from burning dTrade Review‘It’s probably fairer to say that since his brush with mortality, Mortimer has come into his own. There is this book, which is a triumph… And Away is as good a celebrity autobiography as you could hope to read, and enthusiastically recommend.’ * Daily Mail *‘…(a) fascinating and often poignant memoir.’ * Daily Express & Daily Mirror *‘The book, too, grows more confident in talking about serious subjects as it progresses and it’s the honesty and openness that he allows in Gone Fishing that make And Away…, by the end, an unexpectedly moving read’ * The Observer *‘A glorious collection of stories from an extraordinary life. Once you put it down, you may get the immediate urge to pick it up again. Yes, you couldn’t let it lie.’ * Yorkshire Magazine *‘Bob Mortimer is pretty much established as a national treasure…So it's great to hear his story of how he got there first-hand…In the end he has become loved for being himself. And maybe that's the best type of success of all.’ * Beyond the Joke *‘Bob’s recent reinvention via the …Gone Fishing series means a whole new audience might indeed be surprised at how many different things he’s done and will particularly admire the non-showbiz route to stardom in our age of driven but ultimately vacuous and content-free superstars.’ * Yorkshire Bylines *‘It’s a precarious world, but And Away... is a heartfelt testament to the magic of finding your happy place within it.’ * The Sunday Times *‘(a) touching, funny autobiography.' * Observer *‘(a) comic masterpiece of a memoir: melancholically amusing, warm and witty’ * Strong Words *‘Filled with anecdotes from Mortimer’s life, And Away… contrasts humour with a deeper contemplation of life following his open-heart surgery’ * Radio Times *‘…deftly combines all the varied aspects of Mortimer’s eventful, fascinating life and paints a fully three-dimensional picture of this much-loved figure’ * Chortle *‘…it’s everything you would want from the man who is the highlight of every show you see him on’ * The Independent *

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Book Synopsis''A masterful, must-read contribution to conversations on power, justice, healing, and devotion from a singular voice I now trust with my whole heart''GLENNON DOYLE, author of Untamed**Roxane Gay''s Book Club March 2023 Pick**When Lamya is fourteen, she decides to disappear. It seems easier to ease herself out of sight than to grapple with the difficulty of taking shape in a world that doesn''t fit. She is a queer teenager growing up in a Muslim household, a South Asian in a Middle Eastern country. But during her Quran class, she reads a passage about Maryam, and suddenly everything shifts: if Maryam was never touched by any man, could Maryam be... like Lamya? Written with deep intelligence and a fierce humour, Hijab Butch Blues follows Lamya as she travels to the United States, as she comes out, and as she navigates the complexities of the immigration system - and the queer dating scene. At each step, she turns to her faith to make sense of her life, weaving stories from the Quran to

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Book SynopsisUrsula K Le Guin's essential writings on feminism and gender collected for the first time.Trade ReviewEssential reading -- Kelsey Chen * ArtReview *

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Book SynopsisTHE SUNDAY TIMES MUSIC BOOK OF THE YEARA DAILY TELEGRAPH BEST MUSIC BOOK OF THE YEARA TELEGRAPH BEST MUSIC BOOK OF THE YEARA NEW STATESMAN BEST BOOK OF THE YEARFaith, Hope and Carnage is a book about Nick Cave's inner life.Created from over forty hours of intimate conversations with Seán O'Hagan, it is a profoundly thoughtful exploration, in Cave's own words, of what really drives his life and creativity.The book examines questions of faith, art, music, freedom, grief and love. It draws candidly on Cave's life, from his early childhood to the present day, his loves, his work ethic and his dramatic transformation in recent years.From a place of considered reflection, Faith, Hope and Carnage offers ladders of hope and inspiration from a true creative visionary.Trade ReviewAn extraordinary, uplifting book . . . This is a book you could dip into if you had no knowledge of Cave at all, just to find someone unafraid to ask all the big questions: what is grief? What is forgiveness? . . . Everyday carnage has brought forth a book of hope and freedom and life * * Daily Telegraph * *This beautiful book is a lament, a celebration, a howl, a secular prayer, a call to arms, a meditation & an exquisite articulation of the human condition. It will take your breath away -- RACHEL CLARKE * * Observer * *Illuminating . . . a great deal of beauty in Cave's descriptions of the "strange reckless power" that comes when the worst has happened . . . if it meets a need for Cave, it also feels like a gift to the reader * * Sunday Times * *An absolutely wonderful book. I don't think I've ever read so integrated and searching an engagement with how faith works, how creativity works, and how grief is bound up with both -- ROWAN WILLIAMSA masterpiece * * The Age * *Faith, Hope and Carnage redefines the potential potency of a memoir, creating a bold, brave and brilliant book that deserves to be read, reread and cherished as an illuminating reflection of how we haven't developed the vocabulary to adequately explore death and its aftermath * * Irish Times * *Ultimately enriching . . . suffused with love, teeming with ideas * * Guardian * *The most compelling book of the year - raw pain and struggle thought through and explored with rare courage * * New Statesman, Books of the Year * *Immensely eloquent and wise . . . a tender guide to the transformative potential of grief * * Telegraph, Best Music Books of 2022 * *Cave is one hell of a writer . . . An extraordinary, one-of-a-kind book . . . Cave is a miraculously fluent talker, incapable of a dull line. Many of the sentences have an aphoristic punch . . . It is impossible to overstate how unusual it is to find this depth of self-analysis and wisdom from a rock musician. Faith, Hope and Carnage makes most rock memoirs look like skips full of rusty anecdotes and grudges -- DORIAN LYNSKEY * * UnHerd * *

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisA searing account of corruption, racism and mismanagement inside Britain's most famous police force Barely a week goes by without the Metropolitan Police Service being plunged into a new crisis. Demoralised and depleted in numbers, Scotland Yard is a shadow of its former self. Spanning the three decades from the infamous Stephen Lawrence case to the shocking murder of Sarah Everard, Broken Yard charts the Met's fall from a position of unparalleled power to the troubled and discredited organisation we see today, barely trusted by its Westminster masters and struggling to perform its most basic function: the protection of the public. The result is a devastating picture of a world-famous police force riven with corruption, misogyny and rank incompetence. As a top investigative reporter at the Sunday Times and The Independent, Tom Harper covered Scotland Yard for fifteen years, beginning not long after the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent Brazilian killed by Met Police officers after being mistaken for a terror suspect in 2005. Since then, reporting on Scotland Yard has been akin to witnessing a slow-motion car crash. Using thousands of intelligence files, witness statements and court transcripts provided by police sources, as well as first-hand testimony, Harper explains how London's world-famous police force got itself into this sorry mess - and how it might get itself out of it.

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Book Synopsis***PRE-ORDER THE HILARIOUS NEW AUTOBIOGRAPHY FROM STRICTLY COME DANCING WINNER, CHRIS MCCAUSLAND***Strictly star Chris McCausland was a successful stand-up, actor, TV presenter and panel show favourite long before he danced into the hearts of the nation with his ground-breaking performances on the BBC's biggest show.After growing up in Liverpool and studying software engineering at Kingston University, Chris lost his sight at the age of twenty-two. Forced to rethink his career plans, he worked in sales before applying for a job as a spy at MI5. But, following an appearance at an open mic night in 2003, he turned his hand to stand-up. National Security's loss was comedy's gain. And he promises that his book will be really funny'.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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