Alec Russell

Alec Vidler

Alec Wilkinson

Aled Jones

Aleesha Nandhra

Alejo Carpentier (1904-1980) was one of the major Latin American writers of the twentieth century, as well as a classically trained pianist and musicologist. His best-known novels are The Lost Steps, Explosion in a Cathedral, and The Kingdom of This World. Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, and raised in Havana, Cuba, Carpentier lived for many years in France and Venezuela before returning to Cuba after the 1959 revolution. A few years later he returned to France, where he lived until his death.

Alejo Carpentier

Dr Aleks Krotoski is an award-winning international broadcaster, author and academic. She has topped the ratings for the BBC and Channel 4, winning Emmy, BAFTA, Radio Academy and Royal Society awards, and has written and presented landmark technology and social science series for both radio (with BBC Radio 4’s The Artificial Human and The Digital Human) and international television (with BBC World’s The Virtual Revolution). Krotoski has held fellowships at the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics and received an honorary doctorate from the Open University. She currently teaches at NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

Aleks Krotoski

Aleksandar Ciric

Aleksandar Sotirovski

Aleksandar Zolotic

Aleksandr Orlov

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was born in 1918 and grew up in Rostov-on-Don. He graduated in Physics and Mathematics from Rostov University and studied Literature by correspondence course at Moscow University. In World War II he fought as an artillery officer, attaining the rank of captain. In 1945, however, after making derogatory remarks about Stalin in a letter, he was arrested and summarily sentenced to eight years in forced labour camps, followed by internal exile. In 1957 he formally rehabilitated, and settled down to teaching and writing, in Ryazan and Moscow. The publication of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in Novy Mir in 1962 was followed by publication, in the West, of his novels Cancer Ward and The First Circle. In 1970 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, and in 1974 his citizenship was revoked and he was expelled from the Soviet Union. He settled in Vermont and worked on his great historical cycle The Red Wheel. In 1990, with the fall of Soviet Communism, his citizenship was restored and four years later he returned to settle in Russia. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn died in August 2008.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Aleksei Bitskoff

Aleksei Evdokimo

Aleksi Hoffman

Alena Tkach is an award-winning Ukrainian freelance illustrator who studied Graphic Arts at Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts. She works mostly as children’s book illustrator and 2D artist. Alena loves llamas because they are cute and sweet, and when they jump it's really funny. Follow Alena on Instagram @alena.tkach.

Alena Tkach

Alessandra Peters

Alessandro Manzoni

Alex Bellos is a journalist, broadcaster and puzzle master. He read Mathematics and Philosophy at Oxford University before becoming a journalist and writer. Alex was born in Oxford and grew up in Edinburgh and Southampton and lived in Brazil for five years as a foreign correspondent for the Guardian before returning to the UK He is the author of 8 books about puzzles and mathematics and currently writes weekly puzzle column for the Guardian.

Alex Bellos

Alex Berenson

Alex Boardman

Alex Brummer

Alex Bulmer

Alex Butterworth

Alex Caine

Alex Carter

Alex Chance

Alex Cliff

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Eve Claxton

From childhood through to adulthood &shy;- if not necessarily maturity - The Book of Life offers the literary journal of a lifetime, in the company of the most fascinating and talented figures in history. 
 
From Alan Bennett's wartime childhood in Yorkshire to Mahatma Gandhi's experiment with cigarettes; Katherine Hepburn on her first acting job aged 21 and Primo Levi on being captured by Fascist militia at the same age; Darwin on his lifelong love - his work - and Nelson Mandela on his release from prison aged 71 ... life and living in all its manifold glories is represented. 
 
With insights that encompass generations and continents, this is a uniquely enjoyable immersion in some of the world's best, and most personal, writing.

The Book Of Life

Terence Blacker

Though born into privilege and inheriting a fortune, Willie Donaldson ended up dying alone in a seedy rented flat, his computer still logged on to a lesbian porn site. To some, he had been one of the great, under-rated comic writers of our time, and to others, a dangerous force of corruption and decadence. 
 
His achievements were significant - he published Sylvia Plath while still at Cambridge, as a producer in the Sixties he staged Beyond the Fringe, and he was later to write the celebrated Henry Root Letters - but not as impressive as his reckless talent for self-destruction. The impresario became a serial bankrupt. The man about town, who had lived with Sarah Miles and been engaged to Carly Simon, ended up as a ponce in a Chelsea brothel. Success as a writer quickly led him into a dark underworld of crack addiction, fraud and sexual obsession. Now friend and collaborator, Terence Blacker unravels the intimate truth of Willie Donaldson's strange story in all its glamour, hilarity and pain. 
 
'What a young fool I was. But how I adored him' Carly Simon 
 
'A slimy crook' Private Eye 
 
'For the skill and wit of his writing he deserves to be hailed as the English Nabokov' Auberon Waugh 
 
'I am someone who always answers the phone at 1.00 am, because I know it isn't going to be my bank manager or the Inland Revenue, but probably a crack dealer or a prostitute' Willie Donaldson

You Cannot Live As I Have Lived and Not End Up Like This

The thoroughly disgraceful life and times of Willie Donaldson

James Salant

Leaving Dirty Jersey is the compellingly crafted tale of James Salant's descent into crystal meth addiction. Written at the age of only twenty-two, this memoir chronicles his year-long addiction with complete honesty and heartbreaking candour. 
 
Brought up in a stable, middle-class family, the second son of two therapists, he was introduced to heroin at seventeen by his brother Joe. This resulted in a spell in rehab where he met a bunch of ex-convicts, and he soon fell into the thuggish, drifting lifestyle of meth addiction. It was to take a near-psychotic event to finally get him to clean up. 
 
With graphic descriptions of life on crystal meth - the insatiable sex drive, the paranoia, the desperate need for more drugs to sustain the high - James' writing mimics the emotional detachment of the drug and the wired yet aimless life it induces. His voice is so open and authentic, it is hard to believe he is still so young. 
 
Given the nickname Dirty Jersey, while living as a tough guy-junkie in California, James had it tattooed on the inside of his left arm. There it remains as a graphic and permanent reminder of his past life as a junkie.

Leaving Dirty Jersey

A Crystal Meth Memoir

Matt Lowe

Matt Lowe's childhood was outwardly idyllic. He was part of a large, loving family and lived comfortably on the Norfolk coast. Yet, unnoticed by his parents and peers, he was being abused by a young man who had been welcomed into the family fold...in the guise of the perfect family friend. 
 
Jeremy was intelligent, artistic and fantastic with children. A real-life Peter Pan, he was loved by the children and trusted by the adults. He was particularly fond of Matt and would organise outings and treats every weekend, just for the two of them. But from the start the relationship had a sinister side; one that Matt instinctively knew must remain hidden. 
 
Written with heart-wrenching candour, Matt's story is an unusually insightful and moving account of how one small boy endured many years of sexual and psychological abuse and how, without realising, those closest to him allowed it to happen.

The Family Friend

Sometimes the danger is closer than you think

Joanne Fedler

Based on true conversations with real women, The Secret Mothers' Club is a funny, irreverent and often heartbreaking look at women, friendships and motherhood. 
 
One evening in late June a group of female friends get together for an old-school sleepover. It is a regular reunion for eight very different women, with very different lives, secrets and fantasies. The only unifying factor? They are all mothers. 
 
Be warned, you will recognise yourself and your friends within these pages - theirs are conversations we've all had: about our weight; our fantasies - sexual and otherwise; those school lunchboxes; mother's guilt; our partners; the endless struggle to balance work, housework, family and sanity; and the seemingly impossible task of deciding what to feed the family every single night of the week. 
 
This is a book about the delicate nature of mothering, the beauty and complexity of friendships, and the way in which women judge, but also support, one another.

The Secret Mothers' Club

Paddy Agnew

When journalist Paddy Agnew and his girlfriend Dympna touched down in Rome in 1985 in search of adventure, sunshine and the soul of Italian football (well, Paddy was looking for that), they were travelling into the uncharted terrain of a country they did not know and a language they did not speak. 
 
It soon became clear that neither Italy nor Italian football would be boring. In that first week in Italy, Michel Platini and Juventus won the Intercontinental Cup, whilst just days later the PLO killed 13 people in a random shooting at Rome's Fiumicino airport. Paddy covered both stories. The coming years saw the rise of TV tycoon Silvio Berlusconi, as he became owner of AC Milan and then Prime Minister of Italy, naming his political party 'Forza Italia' after a football chant. In that same period, Argentine Diego Maradona became the uncrowned King of Naples, leading Napoli to a first ever Scudetto title in 1987, notwithstanding a hectic, Hollywood-esque lifestyle that mixed footballing genius with off-the-field excess. 
 
Forza Italia is a fascinating tale of inspired players, skilled coaches, rich tycoons, glitzy media coverage, Mafia corruption, allegations of drug taking and fan power - culminating in the 2006 World Cup victory that delighted a nation and a match-fixing scandal that shocked the world. It is also a personalised reflection on the consistent and continuing excellence of Italian football throughout a period of huge social, political and economic upheaval, offering a unique insight into a society where football has always been much more than just a game.

Forza Italia

The Fall and Rise of Italian Football

Felix Dennis

'Making money is a knack, a knack that can be acquired. And if someone like me can become rich, then so can you - no matter what your present circumstances. Here is how I did it and what I learned along the way.' So writes Felix Dennis, who believes that almost anyone of reasonable intelligence can become rich, given sufficient motivation and application. 
 
How To Get Rich is a distillation of his business wisdom. Primarily concerned with the step-by-step creation of wealth, it ruthlessly dissects the business failures and financial triumphs of 'a South London lad who became rich virtually by accident'. Part manual, part memoir, part primer, this book is a template for those who are willing to stare down failure and transform their lives. 
 
Canny, infuriating, cynical and generous by turns, How To Get Rich is an invaluable guide to 'the surprisingly simple art of collecting money which already has your name on it'.

How to Get Rich

Judy Marks

'I have long wanted to write a book about my life and the extraordinary years I spent with my husband Howard Marks. I feel now is the time. I want to write it from a woman's perspective and describe what it was like to be married to such a charismatic drug smuggler.' Judy Marks 
 
Howard Marks's story has passed into hippie folklore. At one time, the world's then most wanted man had 43 aliases, 89 phone lines and 25 registered companies. Thanks to the technical brilliance of his networking skills, it was estimated that he was trafficking as much as a tenth of all the marijuana smoked in the world. But this is only half the story. Intimately involved throughout was Marks's wife Judy. 
 
From living the high life hobnobbing with movie stars and euro trash to mixing it with the IRA and CIA, then the long, increasingly desperate years on the run, Mr Nice and Mrs Marks is about the exhilaration of their criminal life and the hell of not knowing what's happening when your husband stops telling you the truth. Now, for the first time, Judy tells her own side of the tale.

Mr Nice & Mrs Marks

- Adventures with Howard

Patrick Touher

Sent to an Industrial School in Dublin at the age of seven, Patrick Touher was forced into a tough regime of education and training, prayer and punishment, strict discipline and fearful nights. No allowances were made for emotion, sentiment or boyhood worries, and anyone who disturbed the routine was severely punished. Artane demanded absolute obedience, absolute submission; Patrick's was an education in cruelty and fear. 
 
Patrick Touher spent eight long years in Artane Industrial School. Run by the Christian Brothers, the school has become synonymous with the widespread abuse of children in Ireland in the 1940s and 1950s which is currently the subject of an official inquiry. 
 
This is the inside story of a childhood lived in the most horrific of circumstances. A moving and powerful true account, Fear of the Collar bears testament to the courage and determination of the children that society forgot.

Fear of the Collar

The True Story of the Boy They Couldn't Break

Tony Hawks

'All I knew about Moldova were the names of eleven men printed on the inside back pages of my newspaper. None of them sounded to me like they were any good at tennis ...' 
 
An eccentric wager finds Tony Hawks, a man who loves an unusual challenge, bound for the little-known Eastern European state of Moldova. His mission: to track down members of the country's football team and persuade them to play him at tennis. The bizarre quest ultimately has little to do with tennis or football, but instead turns into an extraordinary journey involving the Moldovan underworld, gypsies, chronic power shortages, near kidnap, and a surprisingly tender relationship with his host family. 
 
Follow the fortunes of Tony in this hilarious and often moving adventure as it takes him from Moldova, onwards to Northern Ireland, leading to an exciting denouement in Nazareth - and the naked truth of the bet's final outcome ...

Playing the Moldovans at Tennis

Greg Norman

Greg Norman (known universally as the Great White Shark for his rugged blonde Aussie looks) will go down in golfing history as one of the greatest of all time - the finest performer to grace a golf course between the golden era of Jack Nicklaus and the modern era of Tiger Woods. Before Woods, Greg had occupied the Official World No. 1 Rankings far longer than any other player in the modern game, with an incredible 331 weeks at the top. 
 
Greg sensationally won The Open Championship twice, in 1986 and 1993, has 20 PGA and European Tour wins to his name and 29 top ten finishes in majors. But despite such huge success, he is perhaps best loved as the nearly man in so many other big tournaments: particularly The Masters, US Open, and PGA Championship. He was equally a victim of his own bad luck, and good luck on the part of his fellow golfers (losing a near-certain PGA Championship win in 1986 after Bob Tway holed a bunker shot, and losing The Masters the following year in a playoff by an even more miraculous 45-yard chip shot from Larry Mize), and a couple of infamous 'chokes' where Norman's wobble-prone putting got the better of him. 
 
But it's not just a story of the highs and lows of a golfing legend either. Greg Norman has made a huge success in business since leaving the top rank of golf, with an empire worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and he offers the motivational truths that have driven him to win on both the fairway and beyond. 
 
Using his familiar charm and humour, Greg's own book will be an honest look at the long and arduous path to success - a journey littered with hard work, hard decisions, knowing when to trust your instincts, handling failure, psychological doubts, finding self-belief and learning from mistakes - an inspiration to any sportsman.

The Way of the Shark

Michael Walsh

Brothers in War is the immensely powerful and deeply tragic story of the Beechey brothers, and how they paid the ultimate price for King and country. All eight went to fight in the Great War on such far-flung battlefields as France, Flanders, East Africa and Gallipoli. Only three would return alive. Even amid the carnage of the trenches, it was a family trauma almost without parallel. Their wives and sweethearts were left bereft, their widowed mother Amy devastated. It is a tragedy that has remained forgotten and unmarked for nearly 90 years. Until now. 
 
Kept in a small brown case handed down by the brothers' youngest sister, Edie, were hundreds of letters sent home from the front by the Beechey boys: scraps of paper scribbled on in the firing line, heartfelt messages written from a deathbed, exasperated correspondences detailing the absurdities of life in the trenches. From it all emerges the remarkable tale of the lost brothers. 
 
Tragic and moving, poetic in its intensity, Brothers in War reveals first-hand the catastrophe that was the Great War; all told through one family forced to sacrifice everything.

Brothers in War

Boyd Hilton

David Walliams

Matt Lucas

Written together with friend and journalist Boyd Hilton, Inside Little Britain follows a year in the lives of Matt Lucas and David Walliams - the good, the bad, the mundane and the monumental. A year that includes at its core a mammoth nine-month Spinal Tap-esque tour where Little Britain goes in search of Great Britain. This is a milestone book that offers an unrivalled close-up of a classic British comedy act, as it happens, at the height of its powers. 
 
But it is also a journey back into their pasts, reflecting on just how they got from there to here. It covers their childhoods, family life and early comedy performances as they found their feet; their complex friendship and working relationship; and the increasingly insane world they now inhabit. 
 
Mixing memoir and travelogue to paint an engrossing portrait of fame and comic genius, Inside Little Britain is an unmissable, candid window on life inside the celebrity bubble in all its glamour and awfulness.

Inside Little Britain

Katherine Shellduck

'This morning I found this bag. I had been looking for sweets. I put my hand in the bag and felt a sticky liquid on my fingers, then I looked at it. A red smear. Then I looked in the bag: bloody knives and clothes. It didn't feel good. What did it mean? I don't know. There are no answers; I daren't ask the questions' 
 
Growing up in poverty in London's East End, Kathy was eight years old when her father forced her mother into prostitution. When their mother fled, leaving Kathy and her sisters behind, the girls stuck fiercely together while being passed from children's homes to boarding schools. Then, on a rare trip home, Kathy looked out the window to see a man firing four shots into a Rolls-Royce. It took several seconds for her to realise the victim was her mother's lover, and the gunman was her father. 
 
Kathy began her haunting memoir when, as an adult, she travelled back to London, to find out who her gangster father really was. A compelling memoir of an extraordinary childhood, Dance for your Daddy is a true story of the effects on one family of poverty and affluence, violence and love.

Dance for your Daddy

The True Story of a Brutal East End Childhood

Kevin Pietersen

Described by the media as 'the David Beckham of cricket', Kevin has become the poster boy for English cricket. But he is also in possession of a prodigious talent - fearless, bold and with unflappable nerves. His unique batting style has produced hundreds of runs and many outstanding innings, culminating in his extraordinary triumph at the 2005 Ashes. Yet with the highs, come the lows, and he gives his version of events during the 2006/07 Ashes when England were defeated by Australia. 
 
Crossing the Boundary recounts Kevin's remarkable journey so far - from growing up in his native South Africa and the opposition he faced from the national cricket board; his move to England and burgeoning career at Hampshire to winning a place on the England team. It provides a rare insight into the mind of an international cricketer, on and off the pitch. Reflecting his youthful charisma and his bullish confidence, this is a sporting memoir like no other. 
 
Full of personal anecdotes and insight from numerous sporting legends such as Shane Warne, Ian Botham, and Nasser Hussain, this is the riveting story of one of the most significant cricketers of our time.

Crossing the Boundary

Maureen Wells

In 1941, as the Second World War raged on, 20-year-old Maureen Bolster began writing to her boyfriend Eric Wells. He was stationed in the Middle East while Maureen remained on the Home Front. Their letters would be the only communication between the young love-struck couple for four long years. 
 
Filled with warmth and humour, this charming collection of Maureen's letters describes her life working for the war effort back home. Uproarious incidents occur when she encounters lecherous GIs, immoral lodgers and irascible landladies in her work first as a billeting officer; then as a Wren courier, bravely delivering secret documents by trains, boats and planes; and finally as a Wren stoker. But all the while her thoughts are with her sweetheart Eric as he fights for his country in such far away places as Bahrian, Cairo, Mosul and Beirut. 
 
Funny, touching and romantic, Entertaining Eric tells the true story of a love that survived war and separation - against all odds.

Entertaining Eric

A Wartime Love Story

Rohan Candappa

Rohan Candappa, author of bestselling humour books such as the Little Book of Stress and The Curious Incident of the Weapons of Mass Destruction, is the son of a Sri Lankan father and Burmese mother. He grew up small and round in South London, riding his chopper bike and supporting Leeds United. But every day his mother would conjur delicious meals out of thin air. His father cooked too, with fiery flavourings, black curries and green coriander chutneys. Their home became the focus for family gatherings and feasts of such delicacy and exoticism that you'd never have known Norwood lay outside the window. 
 
Yet somewhere in his twenties Rohan forgot his culinary heritage and it wasn't until he was bringing up his own young family that he began to think more about his identity as a second generation immigrant and the binding, identifying power of the family meal caught his imagination. 
 
And so he began this beautifully written, funny, poignant memoir of his heritage and his home. Of curry leaves and curried chips. Hot chillis and hot dogs. Pataks and Heinz. About the past and the present - and the place where time should cease to matter... the family kitchen.

Picklehead

From Ceylon to suburbia; a memoir of food, family and finding yourself

Stephanie Klein

When Stephanie Klein hit her twenty-fourth birthday she thought she had everything she could possibly have wanted from life: a good job, a successful husband, a Manhattan apartment and a baby on the way. 
 
By the time she hit thirty it was all gone; her husband and her baby lost. She was left to start again with a whole new life and an entirely depleted cast of characters. Her only company was her 'Furkid' (the small brown dog she now shared a bed with). Her friend told her to get out dating again and to employ the sandwich principle - keep one man on either side, and enjoy the interesting one in-between. So she set off, with much trepidation and wardrobe anxiety, to discover single sex all over again... 
 
The weblog she kept of her new found freedom and sexual adventures became a sensation in the States. Her brilliantly funny, acerbic descriptions of love, life and dating bought her press and acclaim. Straight up and Dirty is Stephanie's funnier than comedy, truer than romance, sexier than fiction account of her journey.

Straight Up and Dirty

Mark Thomas

Mark Thomas is one of the UK's most effective and best-known political activists, as well as being a highly successful stand-up comedian. His show, The Mark Thomas Product, ran for six highly acclaimed series on Channel Four. Amazingly, this is his first book. 
 
As Used On the Famous Nelson Mandela is a deeply funny, deeply disturbing account of Mark's rampage through the arms trade. Under a fairly flimsy disguise and with the use of some worryingly poor accents, Mark set off on a journey of discovery in the company of arms dealers, torture victims, politicians, cops, crusties and geeks. The result is a shockingly entertaining read. 
 
Embedded within the sharpness of his humour is the truth of an industry fraught with loopholes, complacency and greed; that allows corrupt regimes to kill, maim and displace, but whose deals are often subsidised by the British taxpayer. 
 
Hard-hitting, laugh-out-loud funny and extremely unsettling, As Used on the Famous Nelson Mandela is never anything less than compulsive.

As Used On the Famous Nelson Mandela

Underground Adventures in the Arms and Torture Trade

Kerry Katona

By the age of 11 Kerry Katona had lived in countless different homes and attended 8 different schools. By the age of 13 she could beat grown men at pool and knew how to look after her mother during a breakdown. By the age of 15 she had lived in women's refuges, the heart of London's East End gangster-land and several different foster homes. By the age of 18 she was a pop star ... 
 
Too Much, Too Young is the moving, gripping - yet often very funny - account of one child's unique upbringing, and a woman's journey through pop stardom, motherhood and marriage heartbreak. 
 
From the backstreets of Warrington to the smoky pubs of the East End, from the shelters where victims of domestic violence hide, to the exclusive hotels where international pop stars party, this is an extraordinary read. 
 
Better than fiction, more dramatic than the tabloids, more emotional than the soaps and funnier than a reality TV show ... welcome to Kerry's life.

Kerry Katona: Too Much, Too Young

My Story of Love, Survival and Celebrity

Niki Shisler

What's the worst that could happen? Seriously. Where do your darkest fears lie? The one that knots your gut; that you push from your mind with a prayer and a shudder. Probably your loved ones feature; your partner, parents, friends. Or, more likely, your children... 
 
This is the story of an ordinary woman plunged into chaos. After years of abuse and addiction, single mother Niki Shisler had finally found herself with a wonderful new marriage and a perfect baby. When Niki unexpectedly becomes pregnant with twins life begins to spiral out of control with a series of dramatic events. The twins are born mysteriously ill, hanging onto life and, as family life refocuses around these two tiny beings in Great Ormond Street Hospital, Niki learns that there is always light to be found, even on the darkest days. 
 
This is a uniquely moving and compelling book. It will grab hold of you, wring your heart and leave you inspired.

Fragile

What's the worst that could happen? Where do your darkest fears lie?

Phil Ball

When Phil Ball left university with a workmanlike English degree to his name and no discernible ambitions, he wasn't entirely sure what to do next. So like many before him he thought he'd giving teaching a go. Why not? 
 
This is the comic story of one man's painfully slow metamorphosis into a teacher at an everyday comprehensive and his encounters with other remarkable teachers and pupils along the way. The good, the bad, the violent, the victimised and the clinically insane: from his first teaching practice nemesis, Alan Plant, who knows his dark secret, to the pupil who believes he is a reincarnation of the poet Andrew Marvell. It is a tale of the highs and lows of attempting to teach: from the joy of really making a difference to young minds to being physically set upon by a teenage horde. 
 
And that's just what happens in the classroom. Beyond it is the real world of teachers behind staff-room doors: desperate lives, unseemly professional competition, a diet of cigarettes, alcohol and cold coffee, casual sex and general social dysfunction. Not a great example, but the truth...

The Hapless Teacher's Handbook

Richard McCann

Richard McCann's account of his childhood became a massive UK bestseller. In it he told the harrowing story of how he and his sisters were left motherless when the Yorkshire Ripper killed his first victim, Richard's mother Wilma McCann. Just A Boy was praised for its unflinching and unself-pitying account of a neglected childhood at the hands of an abusive father and uncaring authorities. 
 
The Boy Grows Up is an account of how Richard used the success of Just A Boy to try and save his sister, and of his attempts to make sense of his past whilst learning more about the effects of traumatic childhoods and loss.

The Boy Grows Up

The inspirational story of his journey from broken boy to family man

Alex Hannaford

Pete Doherty, erstwhile singer with The Libertines, is a British icon. 
 
Whether he is playing impromptu gigs in his front room or performing at Live 8, he possesses a sense of drama and expectation not seen in a performer since Sid Vicious. He is enigmatic, charismatic and thoroughly entertaining. 
 
Since leaving The Libertines, his life has become something of a rock 'n' roll soap opera where rumours of crack addiction abound, gossip about his relationship with Kate Moss is rife, and predictions for his future vary wildly. 
 
Written by Alex Hannaford, former rock and pop editor on the London Evening Standard, and with a brand new foreword by Pete's mum, Jackie Doherty, this is the definitive biography of Pete Doherty.

Pete Doherty

Last of the Rock Romantics

Mel Giedroyc

'Why is my hair starting to go as grey as Blake Carrington's? What is our local pub called? Are bootcut jeans still fashionable? These are just some of the questions I'll never answer now I've had my first baby.' 
 
With her TV career hitting the skids and her daughter's nappy doing the same every two hours, her husband suddenly unemployed and the bank writing to her only in red, Mel needs to come up with a scheme, and fast: Move to a house they can't afford, of course! Welcome to an endless cabaret of sleeplessness, removal men, sinister toddler groups, husband-stealing lodgers and competitive mums.

Going Ga Ga

Helen Alice Dear

Helen-Alice Dear was only fifteen when she left London to visit Bulgaria on a family holiday in 1937. Just weeks after her arrival, she found herself unable to leave and struggling to survive in an increasingly hostile and terrifying environment. Her marriage to a Bulgarian man bore her four children but they were often homeless, cold and hungry. Despite these hardships, Helen refused to give up hope and bravely managed to protect and raise her family. 
 
When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Helen was finally able to fulfil her dream of returning to her homeland. Her beautifully written memoir is a heart-wrenching tale of courage and resilience, proving just how indomitable the human spirit can be.

My Family Is All I Have

A British woman's story of escaping the Nazis and surviving the Communists

Barney Ronay

Fast approaching 30, Barney Ronay is a Sunday League left back with some tough choices to make. Is staying in with his girlfriend and Gardeners' World on a Friday night doing much for his match fitness? Would he be better off back with his best mate Dan in the bachelor pad of pizza boxes, lager and Playstation into the early hours? And at their age can they still afford to spend weekends in their desperate struggle to keep Bolingbroke Athletic afloat? Shouldn't they be growing up, getting married, spending their Sundays at Homebase? 
 
This is the hilarious story of a team in early mid-life crisis, hiding from responsibility in the strange masochism at the ugly end of the beautiful game - the smell of Deep Heat, naked fat men, hangovers and the eternal belief that next week you might just rediscover your first touch.

Any Chance Of A Game?

Andrew Carroll

'Quite simply, this is one of the greatest, most riveting books of war letters I have ever read.' Stephen E. Ambrose on War Letters 
 
In 2001 Andrew Carroll authored the US top ten bestseller, War Letters - a unique compilation of extraordinary correspondence from American soldiers serving in US conflicts throughout history. Following the publication of this landmark work Andrew was inundated with letters from soldiers all around the world (to date he has a staggering 75,000 letters). Inspired by these messages he embarked on a quest to discover other previously unpublished letters written during conflicts around the globe. For three years Andrew travelled the world zealously collecting letters from over 35 different countries including Great Britain. Behind the Lines is the remarkable anthology that has been put together as a result of this work. 
 
The first book of its kind, Behind the Lines will be a dramatic, intimate and unprecedented look at warfare as seen through the eyes of troops and civilians. Unparalleled in geographical and historical scope it covers all major global conflicts from World War I and II and the American Revolution, up to Afghanistan and Iraq. Featuring never-before-seen letters and emails from war zones, and including the memories and thoughts from those on both sides of the hostilities documented, Behind the Lines will be a truly emotive and poignant depiction of war assembled by a uniquely talented and driven author who always keeps the general reader and narrative in mind.

Behind The Lines

Revealing and uncensored letters from our war-torn world

Carla Van Raay

Traumatised by a terrible event in her childhood, Carla van Raay entered a convent at the age of eighteen. Expecting to find understanding and inner peace amongst her fellow nuns, she instead became trapped in a web of cruel regulations that drove her to the brink of insanity. Finally released from her vows, she escaped back into the outside world even more damaged than she had been before. 
 
A hasty marriage and separation left Carla with a daughter to support. With few professional skills to rely on from her years as a nun, she turned to another age-old profession - prostitution. She worked as an escort to learn the ropes, then struck out on her own, setting up a massage service. God's Callgirl was born. At first she relished her new-found sexuality, but when eventually the darker side of the business began to assert itself, Carla was forced to confront the dark secrets of her past.

God's Callgirl

Julian Clary

This is Julian Clary's story, in his own words - the tale of an awkward schoolboy who became a huge worldwide success on stage and screen. 
 
After a sheltered suburban upbringing, Julian was sent to St Benedict's, where beatings from 'holy' men gave him some brutal life lessons, and other 'unholy' boys his first awakenings of sexuality. He had just one true friend and ally, Nick - to his other school peers, Julian's aloof demeanour made him an enigma or simply a figure of ridicule. In school he was just another pained adolescent, but inside Julian was a new Jean Genet or Quentin Crisp bursting to get out. 
 
Leaving St Benedict's thankfully behind him, Julian went on to college where he found his true vocation as an entertainer with a peculiar comic brand of smut and glamour. At the same time, he was finding as much sex as he could, sometimes with remarkably less-than-glamorous characters. 
 
Periods in community theatre and the singing telegram industry followed before Julian hit the big time with cabaret co-star Fanny the Wonder Dog as The Joan Collins Fan Club. Soon, the world was his oyster. But fame came at a price, as Julian struggled not only with the reality of being a high-profile gay man in the 1980s but also the pain of losing his lover to terminal illness. 
 
Far more than just another celebrity autobiography or 'funny book', this is a touching, beautifully written and wryly witty account of a unique progression from shy child to comedy icon.

A Young Man's Passage

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Greg the Sausage Roll

Grumpy Monkey

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Hairy Maclary and Friends

Meet Nathan Byrn. 
 
He's half White Witch, half Black Witch 
His mother was a healer, his father is a killer 
He's been kept in a cage since he was fourteen. 
 
If White Witches are good 
And Black Witches are evil... 
What happens if you are both?

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Intellectually brilliant, cultured and sophisticated, with refined tastes in art, music and cuisine. And a pure sociopath. This is the series that launched the world’s number one villain – Hannibal Lecter.

Hannibal Lecter

Happy Families

Harlem Renaissance Series

Harold Fry

Harry Hole

Harry and the Dinosaurs

Hatchimals

Hattie B, Magical Vet

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Hawthorne

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Heart Hassle

Heartbreaking romances from Rebecca Yarros

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Henry Pratt is the epitomy of the great British underdog. Nothing is ever simple in his world, just when it seems things are going right, life throws him another unwanted curve-ball. Join Pratt as he traverses the highs and lows of everyday life in this comic masterpiece.

Henry Pratt

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To some a brilliant warrior, to others a devil in human form; Hereward is as adept in the art of slaughter as the enemies that gather to claim England's throne. With King Edward heirless and ailing, Hereward has been declared an outlaw. What is he willing to risk in order to save the land he loves? 
 
Hereward's tales are of heroism, treachery, rebellion and bloody battles, with William the Bastard never too far away.

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