A. Igoni Barrett was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, in 1979 and lives in Lagos. He is a winner of the 2005 BBC World Service short story competition, the recipient of a Chinua Achebe Center Fellowship, a Norman Mailer Center Fellowship, and a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Residency. His short story collection, Love is Power, or Something Like That, was published in 2013. In 2014 he was named on the Africa39 list of sub-Saharan African writers under 40. Blackass is his first novel.

A. Igoni Barrett

The short life of A.J.A. Symons (1900-41) was described by his biographer as an intricate and largely harmless confidence trick. His many interests included the collection of musical boxes and rare books as well as the study and practice of forgery; they left him time to edit an anthology of Edwardian verse and compose studies of H.M. Stanley and other notable figures. He is remembered for The Quest for Corvo, one of the most remarkable biographies ever written, and for co-founding the Wine and Food Society.

A. J. A. Symons

A. J. Liebling, born in Manhattan in 1904, joined the staff of the New Yorker in 1935 and contributed innumerable articles to the magazine throughout his lifetime, on subjects ranging from food to boxing and France to horse racing. As a war correspondent during the Second World War, he reported from France, England and Algeria, and participated in the Normandy landings. In later life he married the writer Jean Stafford, his third wife. He died in 1963.

A. J. Liebling

A. J. Rosen is an author of YA fantasy novels and is an ambassador for Wattpad, known as @agatharoza. Entwined is her first novel.

A. J. Rosen

A. K. Davidson

A. O. Scott has been a film critic at the New York Times since 2000. His writing has appeared in many other publications, including the New York Review of Books, Slate, the New Yorker and the Nation. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism in 2010, Scott is currently Distinguished Professor of Film Criticism at Wesleyan University. He lives with his family in Brooklyn, New York. 
 
@aoscott

A. O. Scott

A.S. Byatt (1936-2023) was a novelist, short-story writer and critic of international renown. Her novels include Possession (winner of the Booker Prize 1990), the Frederica Quartet and The Children’s Book, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. She was appointed CBE in 1990 and DBE in 1999, and was awarded the Erasmus Prize 2016 for her ‘inspiring contribution to life writing’ and the Pak Kyongni Prize 2017. In 2018 she received the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award.

A. S. Byatt

A. T. Williams won the George Orwell Prize for Political Writing in 2013 for his book A Very British Killing: The Death of Baha Mousa. He lives in Warwickshire.

A. T. Williams

A. W. Chase

Dubbed ‘The new queen of spy fiction’ by the Guardian newspaper, and ‘the real thing’ by the Washington Post, A.C. 'Ava' Glass is the CWA Dagger-shortlisted author of Alias Emma (The Chase), The Traitor and The Trap. The Traitor was a 2023 Richard and Judy Bookclub pick. Alias Emma was a Barnes and Noble book of the month. A former crime reporter and communications consultant, for five years Ava worked closely with spies. Her time in that world fascinated her, and the people she met back then inspire every book she writes.

A.C. Glass

A.E. Housman

Arthur Edward Waite was the designer and co-creator of the now famous Rider Waite Tarot deck. 
 
An American-born British poet and scholarly mystic, his strong interest in all esoteric matters - divination, magic, Kabbalism, alchemy and Freemasony - led to him penning a number of books. These include the Key to the Tarot, The Book of Ceremonial Magic and A New Encyclopedia of Freemasony.

A.E. Waite

A.E. Warren is the author of the Tomorrow's Ancestors series, which consists of Subject Twenty-One, The Hidden Base, The Fourth Species and The Final Rising. 
 
After spending eight years working as a lawyer, she began to write in the evenings and early mornings as a form of escapism from life in a very small cubicle with lots of files. She self-published her first novels in her spare time, which were picked up by Del Rey UK which is the science fiction/fantasy imprint of Penguin Random House. 
 
 She is an avid reader, occasional gamer and fair-weather runner. She lives in the UK with her husband, daughter and hopefully, one day, a wise border terrier named Austen.

A.E. Warren

A.G.D. Maran

A.J. Ayer

A.J. Cronin

A K Benedict writes crime and speculative fiction in a room filled with clowns, mannequins and Doctor Who figures. Her first novel, The Beauty of Murder, was nominated for an eDunnit award and is in development for a major 8-part TV series by Company Pictures. Her second, Jonathan Dark or The Evidence of Ghosts, came out in February 2016. She's written Torchwood audio dramas for Big Finish and her short stories have featured in anthologies including Great British Horror and Best British Short Stories. She lives in St Leonards-on-Sea with her dog, Dame Margaret Rutherford.

A.K.Benedict

A. L. Kennedy has twice been selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists and has won a host of other awards – including the Costa Book of the Year for her novel Day. She lives in Essex.

A.L. Kennedy

A.M. Ellis is a speculative fiction author and lover of everything steeped in myth and mystery. Her stories often lean into diverse voices, not only in her identity as a Black woman, but in exploring neurodivergence and mental health. A proud introvert and nostalgic gamer, she lives in Maryland, USA, with her husband and three children.

A.M. Ellis

A.N. Wilson was born in 1950 and educated at Rugby and New College, Oxford. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he holds a prominent position in the world of literature and journalism. He is an award-winning biographer and a celebrated novelist, winning prizes for much of his work. He lives in North London.

A.N. Wilson

A. T. Emerald lives with her husband and baby daughter in Nottinghamshire. She discovered her love of writing in 2020 and has not shut up about enemies to lovers ever since. She loves iced matcha, torrid love confessions with knives pressed to throats (fictional, of course) and does not accept bills for any therapy her books might incur.

A.T. Emerald

A.W. Priest

A.B.C. Merriman-Labor was a barrister, writer and munitions worker born in Freetown, Sierra Leone in 1877. His published works include A Series of Lectures on the Negro Race and The Story of the African Slave in a Nutshell. He also edited two editions of the Handbook of Sierra Leone. He arrived in the UK in 1904 to study law. In 1907, he organised a centenary commemoration of the abolition of the slave trade in Westminster Abbey. He later embarked on an 'entertainment-lecture' tour called Life and Scenes in Britain, travelling across thousands of miles of West, South West and Central Africa, which he expanded on to create Britons Through Negro Spectacles.

ABC Merriman-Labor

AJ Cronin

AJ Molloy

Aabria Iyengar is an American actress and author.

Aabria Iyengar

Aaliya Jaleel is a freelance illustrator, designer, and visual development artist, currently majoring in Animation at the University of Texas at Dallas. She is also the illustrator of Under My Hijab and Muslim Girls Rise. You can visit her online at www.aaliyamj.com.

Aaliya Jaleel

Aaron Allston

After more than fifteen years of experience as a clinical psychotherapist, Dr Aaron Balick has taken the amazing insights from psychology and psychotherapy out of the consultation room and made them accessible to the wider world. 
 
He has been an ‘agony uncle’ for many years for both CBBC and BBC Radio 1, as well as on television, including BBC Worldwide, BBC 3 and BBC Learning.

Aaron Balick

Aaron Carroll

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Caitlin Moran

‘I’ve lived through ten iOS upgrades on my Mac – and that’s just something I use to muck about on Twitter. Surely capitalism is due an upgrade or two?’ 
 
When Caitlin Moran sat down to choose her favourite pieces for her new book she realised that they all seemed to join up. Turns out, it’s the same old problems and the same old ass-hats. 
 
Then she thought of the word ‘Moranifesto’, and she knew what she had to do… 
 
This is Caitlin’s engaging and amusing rallying call for our times. Combining the best of her recent columns with lots of new writing unique to this book, Caitlin deals with topics as pressing and diverse as 1980s swearing, benefits, boarding schools, and why the internet is like a drunken toddler. 
 
And whilst never afraid to address the big issues of the day – such as Benedict Cumberbatch and duffel coats – Caitlin also makes a passionate effort to understand our 21st century society and presents us with her ‘Moranifesto’ for making the world a better place. 
 
The polite revolution starts here! Please.

Moranifesto

Mindy Kaling

Mindy Kaling has found herself at a turning point. So in Why Not Me?, she shares her ongoing journey to find fulfilment and adventure in her adult life, be it falling in love at work, seeking new friendships in unlikely places, or attempting to be the first person in history to lose weight without any behaviour modification whatsoever. 
 
In “How to Look Spectacular”, she reveals her tongue-in-cheek solutions for guaranteed on-camera beauty. “Player” tells the story of Mindy being seduced, then dumped, by a female friend in LA. And in “Soup Snakes,” she spills some secrets on her relationship with ex-boyfriend and close friend B. J. Novak. 
 
Mindy has put the anxieties, the glamour and the celebrations of her second coming-of-age into this book, to which anyone can relate. (And, if they can’t, they can skip to the parts where she talks about meeting Bradley Cooper.)

Why Not Me?

Andrew Matheson

**MOJO MAGAZINE'S BOOK OF THE YEAR** 
 
The Hollywood Brats are the greatest band you’ve never heard of. 
 
Recording one near-perfect punk album in 1974, they were tragically ahead of their time. 
 
With only a guitar, a tatty copy of the Melody Maker and his template for the perfect band, Andrew Matheson set out, in 1971, to make musical history. His band, The Hollywood Brats, were pre-punk prophets – uncompromising, ultra-thin, wild, untameable and outrageous. But thrown into the crazy world of the 1970s London music scene, the Brats ultimately fell foul of the crooks and heavies that ran it and an industry that just wasn’t ready for them. 
 
Directly inspiring the London SS, the Clash, Malcolm McLaren and the Sex Pistols, The Hollywood Brats imploded too soon to share the glory. Punk’s answer to Withnail and I, Sick On You is a startling, funny and brilliantly entertaining period memoir about never quite achieving success, despite flying so close to greatness.

Sick On You

The Disastrous Story of The Hollywood Brats

The Disastrous Story of Britain’s Great Lost Punk Band

Chrissie Hynde

By the time she was 14, Chrissie Hynde knew she had to get out of Akron, Ohio. Her perfect ’50s American childhood upturned by a newly acquired taste for rock ’n’ roll, motorbikes and the ‘get down boys’ seen at gigs in and around Cleveland – Mitch Ryder, the Jeff Beck Group, the Velvet Underground and David Bowie among the many. 
 
Wrapped up in the Kent State University riots and getting dangerously involved in the local biker and drug scenes, she escaped - to Mexico, Canada, Paris and finally London where she caught the embryonic punk scene just in time not only to witness it first-hand, but more importantly to seize the opportunity to form her own band, the Pretenders. 
 
Iggy Pop, the Sex Pistols, the Clash, Vivienne &amp; Malcolm, Ray Davies … on every page household names mingle with small town heroes as we shift from bedroom to biker HQ; from squat to practice room; from pub gig to Top Of The Pops – the long and crooked path to stardom, and for the Pretenders, ultimately, tragedy. 
 
That Chrissie Hynde is alive to tell the tale is, by her own admission, something of a miracle. Throughout she is brutally honest, wryly humorous and always highly entertaining. She has written one of the most evocative and colourful music memoirs to be published in recent years.

Reckless

Corey Taylor

In his first book, front man of Slipknot and Stone Sour, Corey Taylor took on the Seven Deadly Sins, pulling them apart to reveal all that is irrelevant and wrong about the vices in the modern world through his own uniquely hilarious yet ferocious style. But in Corey's eyes that's not all that is wrong with the world today... 
 
From bad music, fame and infomercials to raising kids, sex and airport security, You're Making Me Hate You is the result of a one-man mission to demonstrate the alarming rise in worldwide idiocy, buffoonery and out-and-out disregard for intelligent thought. 
 
Rant-filled but eloquent, shocking but intelligent, this is bestselling author Corey Taylor at his most Corey Taylor and he doesn't leave himself out either... turns out he's just as f***ing stupid as the rest of us, too.

You're Making Me Hate You

Ronnie Corbett

A true great of British comedy, Ronald ‘Ronnie’ Corbett, is hailed as one of the finest comedians of his generation. 
 
Son of an Edinburgh baker, Ronnie rose to fame as one half of the infamous Two Ronnies alongside Ronnie Barker. Known for his versatility, quick-wit, family-friendly dialogue, and meandering monologues, Corbett was a staple of British television for more than 50 years. In his autobiography, he tells the complete story, from his school technique of estimating the height of a girl before daring to ask her to dance, to his days as a night club barman in London, and finally, to his decades long career as a stand-up and sitcom star. Including tales of how he first met David Frost, John Cleese and Michael Palin, this book is written with all of Ronnie’s trademark warmth and wit. 
 
Celebrating his life and career, this is Ronnie’s own honest and definitive account of his truly dramatic journey.

High Hopes

My Autobiography

Jude Angelini

Jude Angelini’s tales of depravity are uncompromising, brutally honest and shocking. From growing up poor in a factory town outside Detroit to his adult life as a popular radio personality on Sirius XM, Hyena charts Angelini’s descent into ever more debauched sexual and drug-fuelled exploits, from one-armed strippers, women with abuse-fantasies and a night on dust that he thinks he’ll never wake up from. 
 
Yet underneath this series of deplorable autobiographical stories is an echo of heartbreak, loneliness, and the eternal poetry of a man struggling to be heard. Vividly told in his distinctive voice, Jude Angelini’s fi rst book is a blackly comic masterpiece.

Hyena

Paul Merton

Known for his intelligent and often surreal humour, Paul Merton’s weekly appearances on BBC1’s Have I Got News For You – as well as Radio 4’s Just A Minute and his travel documentaries – have seen him become an artfully rebellious fixture in our lives for over 25 years. 
 
He also has a real story to tell. In ONLY WHEN I LAUGH, his rich and beautifully-observed autobiography, Paul takes us on an evocative journey from his working-class Fulham childhood to the present day. 
 
Whether writing about school days, his run-ins with the nuns and other pupils; his disastrous first confession; his meatpacking job; taking acid; leaving home to live in bedsit; his early brushes with the opposite sex – and not forgetting his repeated attempts to break into the world of comedy – Paul’s writing is always funny, poignant and revealing. And when his star finally ascends in the atmospherically drawn 1980s alternative cabaret scene there is a sense of excitement, energy, camaraderie, momentum and dramatic impending success… 
 
…And then CRASH! In an unflinching and brilliantly written section that defines the book, we experience the disorienting and terrifying sustained manic episode that he suffered which landed him in a psychiatric hospital. These, and other tougher moments, are written about candidly and with sensitivity and honesty. 
 
Yet throughout ONLY WHEN I LAUGH, Paul Merton succeeds in telling his life story entertainingly, with warmth, humour and a big bucket load of wit. Ultimately uplifting, it is the story of a fascinating life, brilliantly told – and one of the best memoirs of the year.

Only When I Laugh: My Autobiography

Simon Goddard

He came from Outer Space... 
 
It was the greatest invention in the history of pop music – the rock god who came from the stars – which struck a young David Bowie like a lightning bolt from the heavens. 
 
When Ziggy the glam alien messiah fell to Earth, he transformed Bowie from a prodigy to a superstar who changed the face of music forever. But who was Ziggy Stardust? And where did he really come from? 
 
In a work of supreme pop archaeology, Simon Goddard unearths every influence that brought Ziggy to life – from HG Wells to Holst, Kabuki to Kubrick, and Elvis to Iggy. Ziggyology documents the epic drama of the Starman’s short but eventful time on Planet Earth… and why Bowie eventually had to kill him.

Ziggyology

Cilla Black

Cilla Black is without doubt one of Britain's most treasured personalities. Generations have grown up with Cilla's music, TV shows, and performances. But how much do we really know about 'the girl with the bright red hair and the jet black voice'? What's It All About? is Cilla's own story, told for the first time ever. It's the story of a woman who has worked ceaselessly to stay at the top for forty years despite setbacks and personal tragedy; a life of incredible highs and terrible lows. In this deeply personal autobiography she tells her unique story in intimate and vivid detail for the very first time. This is the real Cilla Black.

What's It All About?

Piers Morgan

Despite many wanting him to fail, Piers Morgan took over from US TV legend Larry King at CNN in 2010 and went on to cover some of the most shocking news events in recent US history, such as the killing of Osama bin Laden, the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy and horrific shooting rampages including the Newtown school massacre. 
 
In Shooting Straight Piers shares the diaries that he kept in this rollercoaster period of his life. 
 
Thrown right into the maelstrom of the US media, Piers finds himself rubbing shoulders with everyone from Mel Gibson and Charlie Sheen to the US President himself. Not to mention, Oprah, Rod Stewart, Meryl Streep, Woody Allen, Dustin Hoffman, Janet Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Barbra Streisand, Goldie Hawn, the Dalai Lama and Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad… 
 
As Piers gets more and more drawn into commenting on American culture, one issue – gun control – provokes the most incredible and heart-rending response of all, dividing the country dramatically. And, as usual, Piers is in the thick of it.

Shooting Straight

Guns, Gays, God, and George Clooney

Gemma Collins Limited

Blonde, bubbly and ballsy, Gemma Collins has had fans of The Only Way Is Essex glued to their TVs since her arrival in series two. Her larger-than-life personality makes people cry with laughter as she haphazardly navigates through one romantic crisis after another. 
 
Gemma tries hard when it comes to finding 'Mr Right' – baking love pies and sexy texting – yet it never seems to work out. But does she care? Of course she doesn't. She always has the upper hand, leaving men quaking in their boots and women looking on in admiration. But finding her confidence has been a long and heartbreaking journey for Gemma. 
 
Inside, she opens up about the life events she endured before finding fame and feeling comfortable in her own skin. From breaking up with the love of her life and miscarrying a baby, to a drastic weight gain and depression; life for a real Essex girl is far from just an endless cycle of spray tans and vajazzles. 
 
Basically... is the touching yet riotously funny story of how a young girl with a big heart finally found what she’d been looking for. Herself.

Basically...

My Life as a Real Essex Girl

Dynamo

'I immersed myself in magic. I read every book I could get my hands on and practised and practised, day after day and night after night. Magic became my world...some might say an obsession.' 
 
When you’re a kid life can seem tough; tougher for some than others. But the darkest of times can also be the most enlightening. 
 
When his late granddad showed him magic for the first time, Steven Frayne knew there was more to life than hiding from bullies. He had a destiny. A calling. In that moment Dynamo was born: the most exciting magician of the 21st century. 
 
Since then, Dynamo has shocked, thrilled and amazed men, women and children, from all walks of life, all over the world. With his mind-blowing illusions, he has catalysed a whole new era of magic. 
 
Now, in his very first book, Dynamo invites you to join him on a breathtaking journey across the globe. Be prepared to levitate Lindsay Lohan in Singapore, transform snow into diamonds in the Austrian mountains, and walk on water across the River Thames. Along the way, he reveals how to make the impossible possible, what it takes to pull off the greatest stunts man has seen, and why everyone needs magic in their lives. 
 
This is no illusion. This is Dynamo revealed.

Nothing Is Impossible

My Story

The Real-Life Adventures of a Street Magician

Miles Jupp

** Shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award ** 
 
Fanatical about cricket since he was a boy, Miles Jupp would do anything to see his heroes play. But perhaps deciding to bluff his way into the press corps during England's Test series in India wasn't his best idea. 
 
By claiming to be the cricket correspondent for BBC Scotland and getting a job with the (Welsh) Western Mail, Miles lands the press pass that will surely be the ticket to his dreams. Soon, he finds himself in cricket heaven - drinking with David Gower and Beefy, sharing bar room banter with Nasser Hussain and swapping diarrhoea stories with the Test Match Special team. 
 
But struggling in the heat under the burden of his own fibs, reality soon catches up with Miles as he bumbles from one disaster to the next. A joyous, charming, yet cautionary tale, Fibber in the Heat is for anyone who's ever dreamt about doing nothing but watching cricket all day long.

Fibber in the Heat

Moranthology

Shane Spall

'Tim and I both understood we had done something really stupid. We had underestimated the danger involved in going out to sea. We had no radio, compass, life raft or flares. In other words, we were a couple of idiots.' 
 
This is the story of Shane and Timothy Spall and their Dutch barge The Princess Matilda. After a summer on the Thames they head out to sea with only a road atlas and a vast amount of ignorance - and it is absolutely terrifying! 
 
On their travels, memories are triggered of childhood trips to the seaside, but also of more recent times. A decade before, Tim had been diagnosed with acute leukaemia and was given only days to live. Shocked at how life can pass you by they decided that when, and if, Tim got better, they would buy a boat. 
 
As Tim and Shane explore the coast from the Medway to Cornwall, eventually they start to wonder, could they make it out of England altogether? Could Matilda make it to ... Wales?! 
 
Taking over five years, The Voyages of The Princess Matilda is a minor epic, charting a very personal, moving and uplifting story of an everyday couple's adventure around their much loved homeland. 
 
** Winner of the British Travel Press's Narrative Travel Book of the Year Award **

The Voyages of the Princess Matilda

Steven Patrick Morrissey is one of the most original and controversial voices in the history of popular music. With The Smiths, he led the most influential British guitar group of the 1980s, his enigmatic wit and style defining a generation. As a solo artist, he has continued to broach subjects no other singer would dare. 
 
Worshipped by some, vilified by others, Morrissey is a unique rock and roll creation. The 300,000 words of Mozipedia make this the most intimate and in-depth biographical portrait of the man and his music yet. Bringing together every song, album, collaborator, key location, every hero, book, film and record to have influenced his art, it is the summation of years of meticulous research. Morrissey authority Simon Goddard has interviewed almost everybody of any importance, making Mozipedia the last word on Morrissey and The Smiths.

Mozipedia

The Encyclopaedia of Morrissey and the Smiths

'I was 22 years old, a hard-on with a pulse: wretched, vice-ridden, too much to burn and not enough minutes in a hour to do so' 
 
The action begins in West Des Moines, Iowa, where Corey Taylor, frontman of heavy metal bands Slipknot and Stone Sour, systematically set about committing each of the Seven Deadly Sins. He has picked fights with douche bags openly brandishing guns. He has set himself on fire at parties and woken up in dumpsters after cocaine binges. He lost his virginity at eleven. He got rich and famous and immersed himself in booze, women, and chaos until one day he realised, suddenly, that he didn't need any of that at all. 
 
Now updated with a brand new chapter, Seven Deadly Sins is a brutally honest look at 'a life that could have gone horribly wrong at any turn', and the soul-searching and self-discovery it took to set it right.

Seven Deadly Sins

Jason Manford

The is the tale of a cheeky little sod from Salford called Jason growing up surrounded by his properly funny and most definitely shameless family and his discovery that being funny might actually get him somewhere. Other than detention, mugged, dumped or sacked that is. 
 
It's about being part of a big, northern, working-class family forever struggling with money, but never short on laughs or misadventures, who show that when the chips are down what really matters is sticking together.

Brung Up Proper

Sue Johnston

'There was a lot that we kept from my mother. My dad would say to me as a teenager "Don't tell your mother." We couldn't face the disapproval.' 
 
Sue Johnston always seemed to be disappointing her mother. As a girl she never stayed clean and tidy like her cousins. As she grew older, she spent all her piano lesson money on drinks for her mates down the pub, and when she discovered The Cavern she was never at home. The final straw was when Sue left her steady job at a St Helen's factory to try her hand at that unsteadiest of jobs: acting. 
 
Yet when Sue was bringing up her own child alone, her mother was always there to help. And playing her much-loved characters Sheila Grant in Waking the Dead and Barbara in The Royle Family- although her mum wouldn't say she was proud as such, she certainly seemed to approve. And in her mother's final months, it was Sue she needed by her side. 
 
The relationship with your mother is perhaps the most precious and fraught of any woman's life. When she began writing, Sue set out to record 'all the big things, and all the small things. Everything I wanted to tell my mother but felt I never could'. The result is a warm, poignant and often very funny memoir by one of Britain's favourite actresses.

Things I Couldn't Tell My Mother

Gok Wan

With his infectious energy and charisma, Gok Wan has an incredible gift of making women feel more confident within themselves - but it's not until you read his own inspirational story that you find out where he got that gift from. 
 
Gok grew up on a Leicester housing estate, with a loving family who ran a Chinese restaurant. For his parents, food meant love - and Gok was so well loved that by the time he was a teenager he weighed 21 stone. Being Asian and gay as well, Gok felt lonely and out of place. He was an easy target for bullies and suffered terribly at their hands. 
 
In a moment of inspiration, he decided to reinvent himself with his first style makeover and a larger-than-life personality to go with it. But his next move was to lose a devastating ten stone in nine months. In Through Thick and Thin, for the first time, Gok reveals all about that life changing period. 
 
The lessons Gok learnt during this time helped him bounce back to become a stylist to the stars, every woman's best friend and a national treasure. In this intimate memoir Gok tells his full story in his own words. Whether he's recounting the horrors of childhood bullying or riotous anecdotes about his loving family, behind the scenes in the fashion world or TV shows, Gok's voice jumps off the page with all the honesty, wit and warmth we've come to know and love him for.

Through Thick and Thin

Louise Wener

Just For One Day takes you on Louise Wener's musical odyssey from awkward 80s suburban pop geek to 90s jet-set Britpop goddess. Of course, once she's living the dream at the height of Britpop's glory, things aren't quite how they appeared from the other side. 
 
With her band Sleeper, Louise goes from doing gigs in toilets to gigs in stadiums, and on to the big interviews, constant touring and endless excess via Top of the Pops. 
 
These are the hilarious adventures of a girl's journey through Britpop, from the embarrassments of growing up to trying to remember what on earth it was you really wanted while eating Twiglets backstage and enviously eyeing up Damon Albarn's plate of foreign cheeses. 
 
PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED AS DIFFERENT FOR GIRLS

Just For One Day

Adventures in Britpop

David Gilmour

Jesse didn't want to go to school anymore. After much deliberation, his father offers him an unconventional deal: he can drop out, sleep all day, not work, not pay rent, but on one condition - that he watches three films a week, of his father's choosing. 
 
What follows is an unusual journey as week by week, side by side, they watch the world's best (and occasionally worst) films - from True Romance to Chunking Express, A Hard Day's Night to Rosemary's Baby, and La Dolce Vita to Giant. The films get them talking: about girls, music, heartbreak, work, drugs, money, friendship - but they also open doors to a young man's interior life at a time when a parent is normally shut out. Gradually the father's initial worries are set aside as he watches his son morph from chaotic teenager to self-assured adult - who even starts to get up before noon. As the film club moves towards its poignant and inevitable conclusion, the young man makes a decision which surprises even his father... 
 
The Film Club is a book that goes straight to the heart. Honest, unsparing, and emotive, it follows one man's attempt to chart a course for his beloved son's rocky passage into adulthood.

The Film Club

No School. No Work ... Just Three Films a Week

Lynda Bellingham

'Looking back, perhaps the single biggest problem was fear. Fear of failure, fear of other people - but mostly fear of myself. It has taken many years to discover who I really am. It's never too late to find yourself, however lost you may be ...' 
 
In Lynda Bellingham's blisteringly honest autobiography, the much-loved actress and Loose Women panellist reveals the truth about her life, including her search for her birth mother, only to lose her again to Alzheimer's, and her many years married to an abusive man while playing the 'nation's mum' in the Oxo adverts. 
 
But Lynda never lost her sense of humour, and among the darker moments she recalls hilarious anecdotes from her time on stage and screen. Lost and Found is an inspiring story of getting through the tough times with the strong spirit of a survivor, and finally finding true love.

Lost and Found

Richard Herring

Comedian Richard Herring has a major problem. He's about to turn 40 and hasn't seen it coming. He's not married, doesn't have a proper job or 2.4 children. But now, finally, it looks as if the world expects him to be a grown up - and he's completely unprepared for it. 
 
As the momentous and terrifying event approaches (his birthday), Richard notices a steep decline in his own behaviour. Inexplicably he begins to behave more childishly - hanging out with 22-year-olds, developing an unhealthy addiction to Flumps and even getting into a ludicrous fight. 
 
How Not to Grow Up is the funny story of how a self-confessed perpetual Big Kid deals with his greatest fear - getting older - and is the perfect book for everyone who, deep down, still thinks that they're 18.

How Not to Grow Up

A Coming of Age Memoir. Sort of.

Sid Waddell

'I had not lived in the former pit village of Lynemouth since 1961 but the winding road north from Newcastle will always be the same nostalgic highway, each twist charged with vivid memories and powerful emotions...' 
 
So begins a story full of wonderful humour, emotional candour and hardy tales of tough times - a quietly epic family saga set amid the pit villages of the North East . It stretches from the 1920s, before Sid's parents had even met, to the final closing of the mine and his mother's death in 1999. 
 
Sid paints a picture of a colourful, tight knit community full of good times and hard work, god-fearing women and hard-drinking men. Always dominating the skyline is Auld Betty, the pit head that took the men away each day and, with a prayer, brought them back each evening. Amongst the unforgettable cast of his extended family and friends, we follow the Waddells' attempts to stay afloat and provide a better future and possible escape for youngsters like Sid.

The Road Back Home

A Northern Childhood

Rosemary Ackland

Joss Ackland

Rosemary Ackland began writing her diary in 1945, aged just fifteen. For the next fifty-eight years, through happiness and heartache, she continued to write. Even after the tragic onset of Motor Neurone disease, which left her mute and immobile, her diary was still an outlet - in fact, then more than ever. 
 
Her simple, heartfelt jottings were never intended for an audience. But, during her last days, as he helped her hold a pen, her husband Joss read her words for the first time. Deeply moved by her lifetime's recollections he asked her consent to publish them and she agreed. 
 
My Better Half and Me weaves together Rosemary's diaries with Joss's commentary to tell of an extraordinary love story that lasted over fifty years. Their life together was remarkably full. At first they lived on a shoestring, struggling to bring up their new family on just Joss's payas a young actor. Once his career took off their lives became a dynamic whirl of tours across the country. But they remained an extremely close-knit family, with lives shaped by their seven children, by the tragic, untimely death of their eldest son, and later, by the birth of their grandchildren. 
 
Above all, this intimate and candid story, shows how lucky they were to have each other. In turbulent times they were each other's rock. Theirs was truly and old-fashioned romance.

My Better Half and Me

Shaparak Khorsandi

It's 1977 and life in Iran is becoming unpredictable. The Shah will be overthrown and events are about to take place on the world stage. But for five-year-old Shappi Khorsandi all this means is that she must flee, leaving behind a mad extended Iran clan and everything she has ever known. 
 
Shappi and her beloved brother Peyvand arrive with their parents in London - all cold weather and strange food - without a word of English. If adapting to a new culture isn't troubling enough, it soon becomes clear that the Ayatollah's henchmen are in pursuit. With the help of MI5, Shappi's family go into hiding. So apart from checking under the family car for bombs every morning, Shappi's childhood is like any other kids' - swings in the park, school plays, kiss-chase and terrorists. 
 
'An extraordinary story...really funny and warm' 
Graham Norton

A Beginner's Guide To Acting English

Piers has got a new job. He's off to America to be the 'Nasty Brit' judging the show America's Got Talent - surely a role he was made for? And with unprecedented access to people, places and parties on both sides of the pond, he'll get the inside scoop on the world of celebrity Stateside. So what could possibly go wrong? 
 
Well, it's not all plain sailing. Piers finds himself snubbed by the paparazzi and subjected to national ridicule by Alan Sugar. As well as foolishly embarking on a visit to the Playboy Mansion with his girlfriend he also becomes one of the only people to fall off the 'idiot-proof' Segway (George Bush fell off one too). 
 
Somehow though, Piers still manages to get invited to all the best parties. Perhaps because he keeps being mistaken for David Cameron? From chinwags with Naomi Campbell to a cigar-smoking session with Arnold Schwarzenegger; hilarious tête-à-têtes with everyone from Boris Johnson to Cheryl Cole; and many bizarre encounters with the likes of Paris Hilton, Tony Blair and Jay-Z, Piers is his usual candid, honest, loudmouth self as he lifts the lid on Tinsel Town. 
 
With the background cries of 'Please don't embarrass us Dad!' from his sons, the Big Mouth Brit embarks on his hilarious American adventure, and suffers just a few mishaps along the way.

Misadventures of a Big Mouth Brit

Michael J. Fox

'At the turn from our bedroom into the hallway, there is an old full-length mirror in a wooden frame ... This reflected version of myself, shaking, rumpled, pinched and slightly stooped, would be alarming were it not for the self-satisfied expression pasted across my face. I would ask the obvious question, "What are you smiling about?" but I already know the answer: "It just gets better from here."' 
 
Struck with Parkinson's - a debilitating, degenerative disease - at the height of his fame, Michael J. Fox has taken what some might consider cause for depression and turned it into a beacon of hope for millions. 
 
In Always Looking Up, Michael's Sunday Times bestselling memoir, he writes with warmth, humour and incredible honesty about the journey he has undertaken since he came to terms with his condition.

Always Looking Up

A Private Thriller

A series of children's modern classic novels by renowned 20th century children's writers. All the titles in this series have the A Puffin Book logo, contemporary-style covers, and child-friendly endnotes.

A Puffin Book

A Ripley Novel

A Slice of the Moon

A Victorian Mystery

A Walk in...

A Women’s Murder Club Thriller

A chef Paul Delamare Mystery

Aberrations

Across the Universe

Actiphons

Adelia Aguilar

Adrian Mole

Adventures in Time

Aftermath

Against War

Age of X

Agent 21

Agent Z

Detective Aidan Waits is a troubled junior detective haunted by his past. Facing an uncertain future, and disconnected from his history, DC Waits and his partner, Detective Inspector Peter 'Sutty' Sutcliffe work on Manchester's streets to uncover the city's worst criminals among the grime of the underworld.

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