Alasdair Fotheringham is a freelance journalist and writer based in Spain. He writes regularly on cycling for the ‘I’, The Independent.co.uk, The Express, ProCycling and Cyclingnews. He has been reporting on the Tour de France and other top road cycling events since 1992. His first book was The Eagle of Toledo, a biography of cycling’s greatest ever climber, Federico Martín Bahamontes. He has also written Reckless, a biography of the ill-fated Luis Ocaña, the 1973 Tour winner and considered Eddy Merck’s top Grand Tour rival, and The End of the Road, an account of the 1998 Tour de France.

Alasdair Fotheringham

Alasdair Rae is an award-winning scholar, cartographer, data analyst and former Professor of Urban Studies and Planning at the University of Sheffield. He left academia in 2020 to launch his own data and spatial analysis consultancy, Automatic Knowledge.

Alasdair Rae

Alasdair Wickham

Alastair Campbell was born in Keighley, Yorkshire in 1957, the son of a vet. Having graduated from Cambridge University in modern languages, he went into journalism, principally with the Mirror Group. When Tony Blair became leader of the Labour Party, Campbell worked for him first as press secretary, then as official spokesman and director of communications and strategy from 1994 to 2003. He continued to act as an advisor to Mr Blair and the Labour Party, including during subsequent election campaigns. He now splits his time between writing, speaking, politics in Britain and overseas, consultancy and charity, as chairman of fundraising for Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research, and a leading ambassador for the mental health campaign Time to Change. 
 
He lives in North London with his partner of thirty-five years, Fiona Millar. They have three children. His interests include running, cycling, bagpipes and Burnley Football Club. He has published six volumes of diaries, including the number one Sunday Times bestseller, The Blair Years, a memoir on depression, The Happy Depressive, and three novels.

Alastair Campbell

Alastair Nathan Cook was born in Gloucester, December 1984. He is an English cricketer. He plays for Essex County Cricket Club and previously for England. Cook is the fifth highest Test scorer of all time. 
 
He is regarded as England's most successful batsman ever and now he is an icon and role model in sport. 
 
Outside of cricket, Alastair has written columns in the Telegraph and Metro, he is a talented saxophone player and donates his time to raising money for cancer charities and the David Randall Foundation. He is now married with three children.

Alastair Cook

Alastair Fothergill studied zoology and joined the BBC Natural History Unit in 1983, working on The Really Wild Show, Wildlife on One and David Attenborough's The Trials of Life. He was appointed head of the Unit in 1992, and during his tenure he produced Attenborough's award-winning series Life in the Freezer. He was awarded the Royal Geographical Society's Cherry Kearton Medal and Award in 1996. 
In June 1998, he stood down as head of the Natural History Unit to concentrate on his work as series producer, initially on the multi-award-winning The Blue Planet,. In 2006 he completed his next major series Planet Earth, which won the Cinema for Peace Clean Energy Award at the Cinema for Peace Gala Berlin in 2008. He was executive producer of Frozen Planet (2011) and The Hunt (2015). He has also presented several television programmes, including The Abyss. 
In 2008, he signed a multi-picture deal with newly formed Disneynature. In 2012 he left the BBC to co-found Silverback Films, which makes landmark natural history series for various clients including Netflix and the BBC. 
In 2016, Alastair was made a Fellow of the Royal Television Society for his work in natural history programming. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2019 Birthday Honours for services to film.

Alastair Fothergill

Alastair Gunn is an experienced magazine journalist. The Advent Killer was his first novel in the series featuring DCI Antonia Hawkins, followed by My Bloody Valentine and The Keeper, which was published in April 2017. 
 
Alastair lives in Hertfordshire with his fiancée, Anna.

Alastair Gunn

Alastair Jessiman

Alastair Panton

Alastair Reynolds

Alastair Sooke is the author of the biographies Henri Matisse: A Second Life and Roy Lichtenstein: How Modern Art was Saved by Donald Duck, both published by Penguin. He is art critic for the Daily Telegraph and is a popular BBC broadcaster. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London.

Alastair Sooke

Alayo Akinkugbe graduated from the University of Cambridge with a BA in History of Art in 2021 and graduated with an MA in Curating the Art Museum from the Courtauld Institute of Art in 2023. She runs the Instagram platform @ABlackHistoryofArt, which highlights Black artists, sitters, curators and thinkers from art history and the present day; and hosts the podcast A Shared Gaze. Alayo is a contributing editor and writes the column ‘Black Gazes’ for AnOther Magazine. She was awarded a curatorial research grant by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art for the exhibition Entangled Pasts: Art Colonialism and Change at the Royal Academy of Arts. 
Alayo was on the advisory panel and contributed to the book African Artists: From 1882 to Now, published by Phaidon in 2021, and has written for publications including Dazed, Tate Etc. and The World of Interiors. Reframing Blackness is her first book.

Alayo Akinkugbe

Alba De Zanet

Albert Camus (1913-60) grew up in a working-class neighbourhood in Algiers. He studied philosophy at the University of Algiers, and became a journalist. His most important works include The Outsider, The Myth of Sisyphus, The Plague and The Fall. After the occupation of France by the Germans in 1941, Camus became one of the intellectual leaders of the Resistance movement. He was killed in a road accident, and his last unfinished novel, The First Man, appeared posthumously.

Albert Camus

Albert Cohen

Albert Costa was Research Professor at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona and director of the Speech Production and Bilingualism Group at the Centre for Brain and Cognition. His research focused on the cognitive and neural underpinnings of language processing.

Albert Costa

Regarded as the founder of modern physics, Albert Einstein was born in 1879, in Ulm, Kingdom of Württemberg, German Empire. He completed his Ph.D. from the University of Zürich in 1905 and published four papers in the scientific journal named Annalen der Physik. These papers on photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity and mass-energy equivalence (E = mc2) were significant contributors to the foundation of modern physics. In the next few years, Einstein came to be recognized as a major scientist. 
He developed the general theory of relativity between 1907 and 1915. It was published in 1915. In 1916, Einstein published Relativity: The Special and the General Theory in German. Its first English translation was published in 1920. In 1921, Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to Theoretical Physics and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect." He published numerous scientific and non-scientific works. 
Einstein died on 18 April 1955, aged seventy-six, in Princeton, New Jersey.

Albert Einstein

Albert Espinosa

Albert French

Albert Jack

Albert Reynolds

Albert Roux

Alberto Granado

Alberto Polverosi was born in Montelupo Fiorentino, Tuscany and has been writing for Corriere dello Sport since 1977. He has covered eight World Cups and seven European Championships. He lives in Florence.

Alberto Polverosi

Alberto Villoldo

Aldo Leopold

Aldo Zilli

Aldous Huxley was born on 26 July 1894 near Godalming, Surrey. He began writing poetry and short stories in his early 20s, but it was his first novel, Crome Yellow (1921), which established his literary reputation. This was swiftly followed by Antic Hay (1923), Those Barren Leaves (1925) and Point Counter Point (1928) – bright, brilliant satires in which Huxley wittily but ruthlessly passed judgement on the shortcomings of contemporary society. For most of the 1920s Huxley lived in Italy and an account of his experiences there can be found in Along the Road (1925). The great novels of ideas, including his most famous work Brave New World (published in 1932, this warned against the dehumanising aspects of scientific and material 'progress') and the pacifist novel Eyeless in Gaza (1936) were accompanied by a series of wise and brilliant essays, collected in volume form under titles such as Music at Night (1931) and Ends and Means (1937). In 1937, at the height of his fame, Huxley left Europe to live in California, working for a time as a screenwriter in Hollywood. As the West braced itself for war, Huxley came increasingly to believe that the key to solving the world's problems lay in changing the individual through mystical enlightenment. The exploration of the inner life through mysticism and hallucinogenic drugs was to dominate his work for the rest of his life. His beliefs found expression in both fiction (Time Must Have a Stop,1944, and Island, 1962) and non-fiction (The Perennial Philosophy, 1945; Grey Eminence, 1941; and the account of his first mescaline experience, The Doors of Perception, 1954). Huxley died in California on 22 November 1963.

Aldous Huxley

Alec Baldwin is a multiple Emmy, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award-winning actor, producer, comedian and philanthropist. He has also been nominated for an Oscar and a Tony Award and the author of the New York Times bestseller A Promise to Ourselves.

Alec Baldwin

Alec Ross is the New York Times bestselling author of The Industries of the Future and one of the world's leading experts on innovation. Now Distinguished Visiting Professor at Bologna Business School of l'Universitá di Bologna, he served in the Presidential Administration of Barack Obama for four years as Senior Advisor for Innovation to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He is also Board Partner at Amplo, a global venture capital firm and has been named a Top 100 Global Thinker by Foreign Policy magazine.

Alec Ross

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Rory McGrath

Bearded Tit is Rory McGrath's story of life among birds. From a Cornish boyhood wandering gorse-tipped cliffs listening to the song of the yellowhammer with his imaginary girlfriend, or drawing gravity-defying jackdaws in class when he should have been applying himself to physics, to quoting the Latin names of birds to give himself a fighting chance of a future with JJ - the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. 
 
As an adult, or what passes for one, Rory recounts becoming a card-carrying birdwatcher, observing his first skylark - peerless king of the summer sky - while stoned; his repeatedly failed attempts to get up at the crack of dawn like the real twitchers; and his flawed bid to educate his utterly unreconstructed drinking mate Danny in the ways of birding. 
 
Rory's tale is a thoroughly educational, occasionally lyrical and highly amusing romp through the hidden byways of birdwatching and, more importantly, a love story you'll never forget.

Bearded Tit

A Love Story with Feathers

Clara Kramer

On 21 July 1942 the Nazis took control of the small Polish town of Zolkiew, life for Jewish 15-year-old Clara Kramer was never to be the same again. While those around her were either slaughtered or transported, Clara and her family hid perilously in a hand-dug bunker. Living in the house above and protecting them were the Becks. 
 
Mr Beck was a womaniser, a drunkard and a self-professed anti-Semite, yet he risked his life throughout the war to keep his charges safe. Nevertheless, life with Mr Beck was far from predictable. From the house catching fire, to Beck's affair with Clara's cousin, to the nightly SS drinking sessions in the room just above, Clara's War transports you into the dark, cramped bunker, and sits you next to the families as they hold their breath time and again. 
 
Sixty years later, Clara Kramer has created a memoir that is lyrical, dramatic and heartbreakingly compelling. Despite the worst of circumstances, this is a story full of hope and survival, courage and love.

Clara's War

John Elder Robison

From the time he was three or four years old, John Elder Robison realised that he was different from other people. He was unable to make eye contact or connect with other children, and by the time he was a teenager his odd habits - an inclination to blurt out non-sequiturs, obsessively dismantle radios or dig five-foot holes (and stick his younger brother in them) - had earned him the label 'social deviant'. It didn't help that his mother conversed with light fixtures and his father spent evenings pickling himself in sherry. 
 
Look Me in the Eye is his story of growing up with Asperger's syndrome – a form of autism – at a time when the diagnosis simply didn't exist. Along the way it also tells the story of two brothers born eight years apart yet devoted to each other: the author and his younger brother Chris, who would grow up to become bestselling author Augusten Burroughs. 
 
This book is a rare fusion of inspiration, dark comedy and insight into the workings of the human mind. For someone who has struggled all his life to connect with other people, Robison proves to be an extraordinary storyteller.

Look Me in the Eye

My Life with Asperger's

Alexander Sinclair

As a young boy, Alexander Sinclair was the target of his mother's irrational hatred. She stopped at no lengths in her campaign to tear him to pieces both mentally and physically. In his chilling memoir, Alex describes how he received the most unnecessary and appalling treatment in mental institutions because of her actions, to the point where his mental and physical health deteriorated to a perilous state. 
 
Covering her tracks with cunning deception, his mother began by beating him repeatedly and forcing him to take a dangerous mix of amphetamines and Valium. His health already in balance, and raped by an uncle, the professionals believed his mother's lies. Mental asylums in Greece and the UK followed, as did isolation cells and ECT. 
 
But his mother's hatred was to take a more sinister turn still - how much more could Alex take and still survive? 
 
Not since Sickened has there been a book that catalogues a child's experience of being made devastatingly ill at the hands of their mother. Dramatic and uniquely shocking, this is a memoir that will haunt the reader long after they close the final page.

Mummy Doesn't Love You

Andrew Rosetta

In Whatever She Wants, Andrew Rosetta lifts the lid on the mysterious, sexy and little-known world of the male escort. 
 
As one of the most sought-after escorts in London, Andrew's clients are many and varied: from a gangster's wife in search of a little fun to a world-famous pop star requiring the utmost discretion, all of them are looking for different things. His personal life, meanwhile, is just as turbulent - from a girlfriend who discovers his secret to a client who turns against him and threatens to reveal all. 
 
Smart, erotic and eye-opening, Whatever She Wants reveals exactly what type of woman is willing to part with her money in search of sex, and what type of man is willing to provide it...

Whatever She Wants

True Confessions of a Male Escort

Jon Katz

'I believed Rose had a secret plan for the farm, a detailed map in her head that showed exactly where all her ewes and lambs and humans ought to be. Though I was nominally the herder, I wasn't privy to the map. My job was mostly to latch and unlatch the gates, the rest was up to her' 
 
Jon Katz leaves the suburbs for a remote farm in order to give Border Collie puppy Rose - along with our friend Devon from A Dog Year - a true taste of herding life. 
 
Rose's adventures start early, going head to head with a head-butting ram the day the sheep arrive. She soon establishes a routine for the sheep, chickens and donkeys - and Jon - that makes everything run like clockwork. However, any notion Jon has of the romance of a rural idyll is shattered when the snow comes and temperatures of minus twenty set in. With two fingers damaged to frostbite and a sheep lost, the prospect of all-night lambing seems terrifying. But with Rose by his side Jon finds there is little that together they can't do, and as spring comes and the frost thaws he finds himself battered, drained yet exhilarated. 
 
This is his delightfully funny, touching and insightful depiction of the realities of country life, and of how one man turned his life upside down for the love of a dog. 
 
Please note, A Home for Rose is the UK title for the book published in the US as The Dogs of Bedlam Farm.

A Home for Rose

How My Life Turned Upside Down for the Love of a Dog

Alexander Roy

On his deathbed, Alex Roy's father dropped tantalizing hints about the notorious Cannonball Run of the 1970s, the utterly illegal high-speed non-stop races from New York to LA. Inspired by his father's dying words, and against the advice of his friends, Roy enters this mysterious world - trying both to find himself, and to locate 'The Driver' - the anonymous organizer of the world's ultimate car race. 
 
In this riveting memoir, Roy straps you into his highly modified BMW M5, takes you on a terrifying 120 mph lap of Manhattan, then tackles the Gumball 3000 and the Bullrun - the two most infamous road rallies in the world. His bogus Polizei Autobahn Interceptor sticks out among the Lamborghinis and Ferraris driven by millionaire playboys, software moguls, Arab princes, movie stars, leggy Czech supermodels, gearheads, and tech whizzes. Armed with myriad radar detectors, laser jammers and police scanners, and his trunk crammed with a variety of fake uniforms, the obsessively prepared Roy evades arrest at almost every turn, wreaking havoc on his fiercest rivals and gaining the admiration of police forces around the globe. 
 
Filled with insane driving and Roy's quixotic quest to win both for his late father and himself, The Driver is the tale of one man's insatiable drive beyond life in the fast lane.

The Driver

True Life Adventures of an Underground Road Racer

Elaine Lordan

Elaine Lordan is well-known to millions as EastEnders' Lynne Slater. Yet the real-life heartache and loss she came to suffer eclipsed even the rollercoaster troubles of her TV character. After leaving the show, Elaine lost her beloved mother when she took her life under a train. Then later that same year, just two days after her wedding, Elaine lost James, her one-year-old son and only child, to a rare condition. 
 
Whatever It Takes is the story of a no-nonsense working-class girl who hit the big time and enjoyed several happy years as one of the nation's favourite soap stars. Things took a downward turn as her heavy drinking and affair with a married man led to her being hounded by the press. Yet Pete would become the love of her life and together they would experience the unfathomable joy of having a child. This flush of happiness was short-lived, though, as Elaine felt the full impact of her mother's death, while her son James battled for life. It wasn't long before family life revolved around the hospital - hoping for the best, but fearing the worst. 
 
Full of larger-than-life characters from her boisterous Irish family and close circle of north London friends, Elaine tells her story with heart-wrenching candour. In this life-affirming memoir of overcoming tragedy, we see how Elaine's indomitable spirit and innate humour have carried her through even the bleakest moments, and how one woman's 'sink or swim' approach has ensured her survival.

Whatever It Takes

A Story of Family Survival

Janice Erlbaum

'Dave was coming back. I had told her I was leaving if she took him back. And she was taking him back. I walked out of the kitchen and into my bedroom, grabbed my bag, and headed for the door. My mother said, "Where do you think you're going?" I had no idea.' 
 
When her mother takes back her abusive boyfriend once again, Janice Erlbaum makes the desperate decision to run away from home. 
 
From her first frightening night at a shelter in New York's Hell's Kitchen, Janice knows she is in over her head. She is beaten up, shaken down and nearly stabbed by a pregnant girl. Yet as she becomes familiar with this world filled with prostitutes, crack heads and criminals, it's not long before she takes to drugs and promiscuity herself. 
 
But Janice has a choice ... keep on falling or build the life she set ran away to find. After a near-fatal overdose, she eventually finds the inner strength to turn her life around.

The Runaway

When her stepfather came back, Janice's only option was the streets...

Sid Waddell

Bellies and Bullseyes is simply the greatest account there will ever be about the sport of darts - as told by one of its most legendary characters - Sid Waddell. It mixes Sid's own personal journey from the coalfields of the North East with the entire history of the sport. What is revealed is a hilarious yet epic Darts Babylon, covering every significant event and every character to walk the oche from Eric 'The Crafty Cockney' Bristow to Phil 'The Power' Taylor. 
 
In words as ripe as his commentaries, Sid brings an authentic whiff of fags, hard drink, hot tungsten and moist polyester to the whole cabaret. Sid has been friend and confidante to most of darts' stars over the years as well as being instrumental in the game's progress himself. Nobody is equipped to tell the story quite like he is. 
 
From the early days of hustling in bars and the 1960s money-race pub competitions that spawned the likes of John Lowe and Leighton Rees, to ITV's brilliantly daft The Indoor League and the glory days of BBC's coverage; from the bling of Bobby George and the belly of Jocky Wilson to the awesome professionalism of Phil Taylor; from smoky Northern working men's clubs to the Houses of Parliament; this is the complete, incredible story of darts.

Bellies and Bullseyes

The Outrageous True Story of Darts

Julia O'Donnell

Irish singing star Daniel O'Donnell's mother, Julia, grew up on a remote island off the northwest coast of Ireland, going barefoot and doing hard labour as as child during the poverty-stricken 1920s. 
 
The hard work continued through her teenage years as she picked potatoes in the fields and travelled to Scotland to gut fish in the ports. After she married, Julia's beloved husband, Francie, was forced to work away from home for months on end. Physically demanding, the work eventually took its toll and Julia found herself widowed and penniless with five children while still in her forties. 
 
In this classic and inspiring story of triumph over adversity, Julia tells how she battled through this dark period by knitting sweaters into the early hours of the morning to support her family. Then, in an amazing twist of fate, this hard-working woman and dedicated mother watched from the wings as her offspring flourished. Her daughter Margaret and son Daniel went on to achieve fame and fortune as chart-topping singers. 
 
Poignant, warm and laced with great humour, The Mother's Story is a tale of maternal love, hardship and sacrifice, and a fascinating insight into this remarkable Irish family's life. 
 
'I was six when my father died so my mother has been everything to me. Wherever I go I tell the world about my wonderful mother. I'm a singer today because of my mother's encouragement. She has been the biggest influence in my life.' Daniel O'Donnell

Even on Days when it Rains

A True Story of Hardship and Maternal Love

Gail Porter

Gail Porter burst on to our TV screens in the late 90s presenting The Movie Chart Show, Alive and Kicking and Top of the Pops. Bright, sparky and beautiful she soon attracted an entirely different audience, posing for a number of men's magazines and rapidly becoming the pin-up of the lad-mag generation. FHM, in a now famous stunt, even projected her naked form on to the Houses of Parliament. 
 
But beneath her cheery public façade, Gail was struggling with anorexia and bi-polar disorder. After nine years of extreme dieting, she collapsed and through sheer determination forced herself to begin eating properly again. Having been told she would never be able to conceive, her new healthier lifestyle led to a much desired pregnancy by her then husband, Toploader guitarist Dan Hipgrave. But the intense pressures of juggling motherhood with her career, led to crippling post-natal depression and precipitated the breakdown of her marriage. Overwhelmed by single motherhood, one day after dropping her daughter Honey off at nursery, she took an overdose and her world very publicly began to unravel. 
 
But Gail's ability to stay afloat as her life crumbled in the public spotlight made her an icon all over again for a new audience of ordinary women who recognised her pain. She refused to hide-away as stress-induced alopecia caused her to loose her hair, famously appearing at a charity event sporting a startling pink Mohican. Her stunning features and her unwillingness to wear a wig to hide her bald head have made her a contemporary icon. 
 
But despite all her troubles, Gail remains upbeat and positive. She has become a role model for coming through it all as a good mother and a working woman unbowed. As iconic as Jordan, smart as Billie and as wild as Kerry, Gail Porter has written her autobiography herself - a raw, honest account of her own troubled life and the world of celebrity we now live in.

Laid Bare

My story of love, fame and survival

Jon and his wife live in a New Jersey suburb with two perfectly behaved Labradors. Then into the mix comes Devon, who creates havoc from the moment he arrives at the airport, when it takes Jon, two baggage handlers and three police officers to track him down after he escapes. 
 
Jon learns the hard way how to encourage Devon to behave. But amongst the difficulties of their first year together, Jon discovers his life is enlivened by a creature with so much mischievousness and joie de vivre. In fact, Jon finds that he is to change as much as Devon. 
 
By turns insightful, hilarious and deeply moving, A Dog Year is a delightful true story of the age-old bond between man and dog.

A Dog Year

Rescuing Devon, the most troublesome dog in the world

Kerry Cohen

'There is a new boy I like. I see him every other day when our classes let out at the same time. He has long, dark hair and unbelievably beautiful eyes. Almost immediately I can feel the energy between us, the promise of something to come.' 
 
Kerry first noticed the power she had over the opposite sex at the age of eleven. By the time she was in her teens she was obsessed by boys, and soon she needed sex just to feel alive. 
 
Sleeping with countless partners, Kerry's misguided search for love was getting out of hand. But would she ever find what she really needed?

Loose Girl

Patrick Touher

Leaving his abusive Irish boarding school after eight long years, Patrick Touher thought his troubles were over. But the adult world was a dangerous place for a naïve adolescent. From the Dublin Catholic boys' home to arriving alone in London, again Patrick is seen as easy prey. 
 
Yet Patrick's strength, honesty and sense of humour never left him. The boy they couldn't break fought back and eventually found love and a family. But the shadow of his early years was always with him. With the encouragement of his wife - a constant witness to his traumatic nightmares - Patrick set about taking the Christian Brother to task. 
 
The eagerly awaited sequel to bestseller Fear of the Collar that doesn't disappoint, Scars that Run Deep is a deeply moving and ultimately triumphant true story.

Scars that Run Deep

Sometimes the Nightmares Don't End

Andrew Collins

Fast approaching his fortieth birthday, Andrew is cornered at a family gathering by the nine-year-old son of his brother-in-law's sister. Having seen him as a talking head on TV, the boy asks, 'What are you?' It is a question so frank and simple that Andrew doesn't have an immediate answer to hand. 
 
So, with hilarious self-deprecation, he sets out to retrace how he got to where he is today. Seventeen precarious jobs in seventeen years: from trolley collector at Sainsbury's to high-flying film critic sipping cocktails with Will Smith and Jerry Bruckheimer on a yacht in Cannes. This is Andrew's tale of rubbing shoulders with the world's biggest stars: pissing off Christini Ricci, having his hairstyle mocked by Noel Gallagher, trying not to wake Clive James from his afternoon nap, having his apple pie eaten by Bob Geldof, and somehow stumbling into the next dream job. 
 
Along the way, he's been the world's worst gossip columnist, an almost-hip young gunslinger at the NME, a Radio 1 DJ (enduring a hellish Radio 1 roadshow in a car park in Birmingham), an ITV presenter, EastEnders scriptwriter, ghost writer for a major TV personality and much, much more. It charts a world of hedonism, mundanity, towering egos, shallow idiocy and occasional moments of mind-blowing joy. And, of course, being sent shit in a box.

That's Me in the Corner

Adventures of an ordinary boy in a celebrity world

Ian Botham

Voted the greatest English cricketer of the 20th century by the fans, Sir Ian Botham is the English game's one true living legend and his story both on and off the pitch reads like a Boy's Own rollercoaster ride. 
 
Born with a natural genius for cricket, Botham began breaking records with bat and ball from a young age and soon became the man English cricket expected most from. After a troubled period as England's captain, Botham rose once again to become a national hero with his display in the Miracle Ashes of 1981. But, with his confrontational nature and wild streak, he began regularly making the wrong kind of headlines. With accusations of drink and drugs, affairs and ball-tampering, he became hounded by the tabloid pack, never sure whether they wanted him to triumph or implode. Now a Knight and just as famous for his tireless charity work, Beefy gives us the definitive story of his never-dull life and times in his own no-nonsense words.

Head On - Ian Botham: The Autobiography

Woody Allen

'I am greatly relieved that the universe is finally explainable. I was beginning to think it was me.' Thus begins 'Strung Out', Woody Allen's hilarious application of the laws of the universe to daily life. Mere Anarchy, Woody Allen's first collection in over 25 years, features eighteen witty, wild and intelligent comic pieces - eight of which have never been in print before. 
 
Surreal, absurd, rich in verbal play, bitingly satirical and just plain daft in the mode we have grown to love from his finest films, this flight-of-fancy collection includes tales of a body double who, mistaken for the film's star, is kidnapped by outlaws; a pretentious novelist forced to work on the novelisation of a Three Stooges film; a nanny secretly writing an expose of her Manhattan employers; crooks selling bespoke prayers on eBay; and how to react when you're asked to finance a Broadway play about the invention and manufacture of the adjustable showerhead.

Mere Anarchy

Ellouise Moore

'He thought I was different from all the other girls and really shouldn't be there. A lot of men think like that; they want to save you. When it was time for his party to leave he reached into his pockets and pulled out a huge wad of notes. It was nearly four grand. I'd never held so much money in my life.' 
 
Naïve, fresh faced and wearing a floral dress, it seemed unlikely that Ellouise Moore would be selected from amongst the hundreds of glamorous girls when she auditioned at a well-known West End strip club. But she quickly learnt the ropes and became a club favourite. 
 
Intimate and very revealing, Ellouise tells us all about her life as a London stripper. We meet her regular clients and hear of the illicit sex and drugs behind the scenes. And how, in a world where many girls get lost in the glitz, she managed to stay afloat.

Girl in High Heels

Intimate Confessions of a London Stripper

Suzanna Clarke

When Suzanna Clarke and her husband bought a dilapidated house in the Moroccan town of Fez, their friends thought they were mad. Located in a maze of donkey-trod alleyways, the house - a traditional riad - was beautiful but in desperate need of repair. Walls were in danger of collapse, the plumbing non-existent. While neither Suzanna nor her husband spoke Arabic, and had only a smattering of French, they were determined to restore the building to its original splendour, using only traditional craftsmen and handmade materials. But they soon found that trying to do business in Fez was like being transported back several centuries in time and so began the remarkable experience that veered between frustration, hilarity and moments of pure exhilaration. 
 
But restoring the riad was only part of their immersion in the rich and colourful life of this ancient city. A House in Fez is a journey into Moroccan culture, revealing its day-to-day rhythms, its customs and festivals; its history, Islam, and Sufi rituals; the lore of djinns and spirits; the vibrant life-filled market places and the irresistible Moroccan cuisine. And above all, into the lives of the people - warm, friendly, and hospitable. 
 
Beautifully descriptive and infused with an extraordinary sense of place, this is a compelling account of one couple's adventures in ancient Morocco.

A House in Fez

Building a Life in the Ancient Heart of Morocco

Bob Drogin

'Curveball' was the codename given to the mysterious defector whose first-hand evidence on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction proved vital in giving the Bush administration the excuse it needed to invade Iraq. 
 
The only problem - this 'evidence' was nothing more than a pack of lies. 
 
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bob Drogin has written the definitive account of the most notorious intelligence fiasco in US history, revealing how squabbling, arrogance and incompetence within the various intelligence agencies allowed one man's lies to spread higher and higher up the chain of authority, eventually reaching the White House itself. 
 
Breathlessly paced and shockingly revelatory, Curveball is an explosive true-life account of how honour and dishonesty amongst spies led to the UK and the US becoming embroiled in a catastrophic war.

Curveball

Spies, Lies and the Man Behind Them: The Real Reason America Went to War in Iraq

Chris Moyles

Superman was a hero. Clark Kent was a geek. 
 
Spiderman saved lives. Peter Parker sold photographs to his local paper. 
 
Chris Moyles entertains 8 million people each week on BBC Radio 1. Then he goes home and plays Xbox on his sofa, while wearing only his underpants. 
 
Welcome to the real world of Chris Moyles. 
 
The Difficult Second Book tries to get to the bottom of the double life of this award-winning broadcaster and hapless human being. You'll find out just what he thinks of his radio show guests - some of the most famous people in the country. You'll hear about his showbiz nights out and celebrity neighbourhood. You'll also learn why he is obsessive about washing up; why he lies to the pizza delivery man; and generally what it's like being a part-time famous person and a part-time nobody. 
 
Love him or not, Chris Moyles is part of the fabric of our nation and a proven best-selling author. A refreshingly honest, caustically dry and quick-witted commentator on daily life, The Difficult Second Book is a highly-entertaining read from start to finish.

The Difficult Second Book

Michael Simkins

A fat boy with a passion for sweets and a loathing for games, the young Michael Simkins finds in cricket a sport where size doesn't necessarily matter and a full-blown obsession is born. Now in middle-age, he still harbours the somewhat deluded belief that the England middle-order might usefully benefit from his hard-earned skills. From impromptu Test series played with his dad in the family sweetshop through to his years running a team of dysfunctional inadequates, Fatty Batter is the bestselling and hilarious story of one man's life lived through cricket.

Fatty Batter

How cricket saved my life (then ruined it)

Keith Allen

'He'll either win the Victoria Cross or go to prison,' said Keith Allen's headmaster, 1966. 
 
Born a Navy baby, Keith Allen learnt young that when things get too settled you move on. That's the way he has lived his life ever since - always leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. 
 
He might have been a professional footballer if his criminal behaviour hadn't got in the way. He spent time in prison, went on the run, drifted through squats and festivals, survived marriages, relationships and parenthood. He has loitered with intent in the worlds of comedy, music art, theatre and film, but never long enough to ever fully conform to expectations. He's become renowned for his extrovert and contentious behaviour, his radical opinions and his acting pedigree. But at 54-years-old ... has he finally grown up? 
 
Revelatory and unapologetically honest, Grow Up takes you on a break-neck journey through the chaotic life of someone who's broken all the rules.

Grow Up

Carla Van Raay

The Price of Passion is the eagerly awaited sequel to Carla van Raay's international bestselling memoir, God's Callgirl. 
 
A former nun and prostitute, Carla van Raay thought she had come to terms with her traumatic past. But then she received a phone call that threatened to upset the balance once again. 
 
Carla had first met Aaron at a tumultuous time in her life. She had left a convent after 13 years of bitter cruelty, lost her virginity in a brutal fashion to a man she barely knew, and then hastily got married before giving birth to a beautiful daughter. Now Aaron was back. And what's more he wanted to resume a relationship that had been intense, yet short-lived. But so much had happened since then. Carla had left her husband and, after years of repression in the convent, had turned to prostitution. 
 
The Price of Passion is a very personal story written with honesty and raw emotion. It is the story of two people who have tried to overcome abusive pasts embarking on a new, yet equally challenging, journey; but neither could have foreseen what lay ahead.

The Price of Passion

Tom Sykes

Tom had always drunk. Initially it was to escape the drudge of school and the distress of his rapidly disintegrating family, but as his career in journalism took off, so his alcohol consumption turned into a full-blown obsession. Having first run amok in London, it was landing the seemingly plum job of nightlife columnist at the New York Post that saw his life spiral completely out of control. Tom treated Manhattan as his Martini, until one day - hungover and alone - he realised he was totally out of his depth and, what's more, he didn't even care. What Did I Do Last Night? is the sad, funny and brutally honest tale of his descent into uncontrollable excess.

What Did I Do Last Night?

Piers Morgan

'They say you can always remember where you where when pivotal moments happen, such as losing your virginity or Elvis dying. Let me add another to the list: the moment I sang a duet to the the "Macarena" with Timmy Mallett, live to millions of people...' 
 
Sacked from his high-profile job as a national newspaper editor, Piers Morgan dived helplessly into the world of celebrity. But even twenty years of commenting on the lives of the rich and famous couldn't prepare him for the extraordinary world he uncovered... 
 
A riveting, scandelous and brutally honest account of one man's quest for celebrity, Don't You Know Who I Am? lifts the lid on the egos and outrageous behaviour of everyone from Paris Hilton to Cherie Blair, Kate Moss to the legend that is the Hoff.

Don't You Know Who I Am?

Insider Diaries of Fame, Power and Naked Ambition

Celine Roberts

Given away by her mother at five months old, raped on the day of her first communion at age seven - when Celine Roberts was told 'No one wants you', she believed it. 
 
Illegitimate and unwanted, Celine was forced by her foster mother into prostitution. Her bones were broken, her nose was crushed and she ate candle wax to stay alive. 
 
Celine was finally rescued and sent to an industrial school, where she picked up the pieces of her shattered life. She also began the search for her parents. But what she found gave her battered survival instincts the hardest knock of all ... 
 
Full of the most heartbreaking tragedy but ultimately survival and hope, No One Wants You is the remarkably honest and compelling memoir of a woman triumphing over her brutal past.

No One Wants You

A true story of a child forced into prostitution

Sarah Brown

Gil McNeil

From inspirational mums who are not afraid of anything - except spiders - to magical mums, reluctant mums and mums behaving badly, this is a wonderful collection of fiction and memoir from some of Britain's best-loved writers. 
 
With touching and amusing anecdotes from celebrity mums such as Nigella Lawson and Arabella Weir, as well as original illustrations from the likes of Shirley Hughes and Quentin Blake, this rich treasure trove with proceeds going to children's charity PiggyBankKids reflects many voices from across the generations and is a glorious celebration of motherhood.

Mums

A Celebration of Motherhood

Jacqueline Gold

'In retrospect, I can see I was the perfect candidate for child abuse. My parents had divorced and my mother didn't show me much love. Her self-imposed isolation kept me away from other children. My abuser had nobody in his way.' 
 
Please Let It Stop is a gripping and ultimately inspiring memoir of suffering and determination, of obstacles and inner battles. Jacqueline Gold was abused by her stepfather for many years, but one day she summoned the courage to ask him to stop. 
 
Jacqueline went on to become Chief Executive of Ann Summers, but the journey was far from easy. In this, her no-holds-barred autobiography, Jacqueline describes her abused childhood, her tumultuous struggles to find love and conquer depression, and the heartbreak of undergoing IVF. 
 
Told with remarkable honesty, her story is a testament to one woman's ability to overcome the darkest of times.

Please Let It Stop

The true story of my abused childhood

Fuzzy World of Vivi Tinta

G.F. Newman’s The Corrupted

Gabriel's Inferno

The Roman grip on Britain is growing weaker and Druids are on the rise. Emperor Nero has turned away. Boudicca is preparing to lead tribes to war. 
 
Standing in her way is Gaius Valerius Verrens, commander of the veterans legion. In this battle he earns the accolade of Hero of Rome - but where will that title lead him next?

Gaius Valerius Verrens

Ganglands

Gargoylz

Garnethill

George and Flora

George's Secret Key to the Universe

Georgian Romance

From one of the most distinguished English authors of historical fiction comes a series that explores the lives of eleven Georgian figures. Beginning with the beautiful Sophia Dorothea, darling of Celle, and ending with Victoria's rise to become Queen of England.

Georgian Series

Ghost Detectives

Girl Heart Boy

The #1 bestselling series by Zoe Sugg, aka Zoella, following the life, loves and laughs of Penny, an ordinary blogger, who meets an extraordinary boy...

Girl Online

Maxine is a little girl full of big ideas. She loves solving problems, and can usually be found with her twin brothers in tow causing all kinds of mischief. Whether it is solving the mystery of the tooth fairy, building the biggest snowball ever or just causing trouble, they always have the best time together. This selection of fantastically funny short stories is perfect for spring boarding younger readers into the world of reading via an endearing heroine who has a lot of fun.

Girl Wonder

Being a teenager is tough, but having your two best friends around you can make it easier. Sometimes. Thirteen year old Ellie narrates this quartet of books as three girls navigate their way through their early teenage years, finding their first loves, testing the boundaries with their parents, falling out, making new friends, working out what they really want and realising how lucky they are to have each other. Jaqueline Wilson deals with the pressures surrounding teenage girls with her usual style, creating a series that is in equal measure heartwrenching and uplifting.

Girls

Gladiator

Glenn Moore’s Almanac

Global Icons Series

Glory Gardens

Glow-in-the-dark Dinosaurs

Gods Beyond the Skies

Gods and Warriors

Goodnight

Grandville Series

Set in rural Georgia, and starring Dr. Sara Linton, the town’s pediatrician and coroner, Jeffrey Tolliver, her wayward ex-husband and chief of police, and Lena Adams, the county’s only female detective.

Grant County

Starring Detective Inspector Will Grayson and Detective Sergeant Helen Walker – a police partnership like no other.

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