Evelyn Waugh was born in Hampstead in 1903 and educated at Hertford College, Oxford. In 1928 he published his first novel, Decline and Fall, which was soon followed by Vile Bodies (1930), Black Mischief (1932), A Handful of Dust (1934) and Scoop (1938). During these years he also travelled extensively and converted to Catholicism. In 1939 Waugh was commissioned in the Royal Marines and later transferred to the Royal Horse Guards, experiences which informed his Sword of Honour trilogy (1952-61). His most famous novel, Brideshead Revisited (1945), was written while on leave from the army. Waugh died in 1966.

Evelyn Waugh

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Joseph O'Connor

At college in 1980s Luton, Robbie Goulding, an Irish-born teenager, meets the elusive Fran Mulvey, an orphaned Vietnamese refugee. Together they form a band. Joined by cellist Sarah-Thérèse Sherlock and her twin brother Seán on drums, The Ships in the Night set out to chase fame. But the story of this makeshift family is haunted by ghosts from the past. 
 
Spanning 25 years, The Thrill of it All rewinds and fast-forwards through an evocative soundtrack of struggle and laughter. Infused with blues, ska, classic showtunes, New Wave and punk, using interviews, lyrics, memoirs and diaries, the tale stretches from suburban England to Manhattan’s East Village, from Thatcher-era London to the Hollywood Bowl, from the meadows of the Glastonbury Festival to a wintry Long Island, culminating in a Dublin evening in July 2012, a night that changes everything. 
 
A story of loyalties, friendship, the call of the muse, and the beguiling shimmer of teenage dreams, this is a warm-hearted, funny and deeply moving novel for anyone that’s ever loved a song.

The Thrill of it All

Anne Enright

‘Written with all the ingenuity and twisty tautness of a thriller’ The Times 
 
From the Booker-winning Irish author, a brilliant and moving novel about fame, sexual power, and a daughter’s search to understand her mother’s hidden truths. 
 
 This is the story of Irish theatre legend Katherine O’Dell, as told by her daughter Norah. It tells of early stardom in Hollywood, of highs and lows on the stages of Dublin and London’s West End. Katherine’s life is a grand performance, with young Norah watching from the wings. 
 
 But this romance between mother and daughter cannot survive Katherine’s past, or the world’s damage. As Norah uncovers her mother’s secrets, she acquires a few of her own. Then, fame turns to infamy when Katherine decides to commit a bizarre crime. 
 
 Actress is about a daughter’s search for the truth: the dark secret in the bright star, and what drove Katherine finally mad . . .

Actress

Zawe Ashton

'Entertaining...revealing, shocking' BERNARDINE EVARISTO 
 
'Sublime' CANDICE CARTY-WILLIAMS 
 
Actor and director Zawe Ashton brings us a unique look at life, work and the absurdities of today's world 
 
Zawe Ashton has been acting since she was six. She has played many different roles, from 'cute little girl' to 'assassin with attitude', Oscar Wilde's Salome to St Trinian's schoolgirl by way of Fresh Meat's Vod. 
 
In Character Breakdown, Zawe scrolls through a version of her life. Or is it a version of her art? Or something in between. In it, she encounters glamour, horror, absurdity and questions like: is a life spent more on performance than reality any life at all? 
 
'Smart, funny, vivid, honest, dark, timely' The Times 
 
'A smart, funny and well-written take-down of modern showbiz' Elizabeth Day, author of How To Fail 
 
Selected by Bernardine Evaristo as one her 20 books by Black British Womxn Writers

Character Breakdown

Jenny Landreth

'With spot-on injections of humour and a frequently raised sardonic eyebrow, joy and warmth shine from this fascinating and funny book' Jo Brand 
 
A joyful celebration of amateur theatre 
 
From the Mystery Plays of the Middle Ages, via the Georgian aristocrats who built opulent private theatres in their own homes, to the radical lefties taking political theatre to the streets, this is the story of amateur dramatics in Britain. We meet a cast of characters who tell us about the joy amateur theatre brings them and we follow the full arc of a production, from first auditions to last night party, with all the mishaps and forgotten lines that come in between. In a triumphant mix of memoir, social history and manifesto, Jenny Landreth opens our eyes to am-dram and shows us a vibrant world that is a crucial part of our culture.

Break a Leg

A memoir, manifesto and celebration of amateur theatre

Michael Holroyd

Henry Irving - a merchant's clerk who became the saviour of British theatre - and Ellen Terry, who made her first theatre appearance as soon as she could walk, were the king and queen of the Victorian stage. Creatively interdependent, they founded a power-house of arts at the Lyceum Theatre, with Bram Stoker as business manager, where they recast Shakespeare's plays on an epic scale and took the company on lucrative and exhilarating international tours. 
 
In his masterly new biography, award-winning writer Michael Holroyd explores their public and private lives, showing how their artistic legacy and their brilliant but troubled children came to influence the modern world.

A Strange Eventful History

The Dramatic Lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving and their Remarkable Families

Jean Stein

West of Eden is the definitive story of Hollywood, told, in their own words, by the people on the inside: Lauren Bacall, Arthur Miller, Dennis Hopper, Frank Gehry, Ring Lardner, Joan Didion, Stephen Sondheim – all interviewed by Jean Stein, who grew up in the Forties in a fairytale mansion in the Hollywood Hills. 
 
The book takes us from the discovery of oil in the Twenties with the story of the tycoon Edward Doheny (There Will Be Blood) and traces the growth of corruption through the syndicates, the mob, and the movie studios – from the beginnings of the film industry to the end, with News Corp. and Rupert Murdoch (who bought the Stein mansion in 1985). 
 
West of Eden is about money, power, fame and terrible secrets: the doomed Hollywood of the late Fifties, early Sixties – ‘the rotten heart of paradise’. Like her last book, the best-selling Edie, this is an oral history told through brilliantly edited interviews. As this is Hollywood, it’s a book full of sex, drugs and celebrity glamour; but because it’s built from the firsthand accounts of people who were actually there, many of them writers, actors and artists, it’s also strangely claustrophobic, seductive, and completely compelling.

West of Eden

Werner Herzog

Werner Herzog is the undisputed master of extreme cinema: building an opera house in the middle of the jungle; walking from Munich to Paris in the dead of winter; descending into an active volcano; living in the wilderness among grizzly bears - he has always been intrigued by the extremes of human experience. 
 
From his early movies to his later documentaries, he has made a career out of exploring the boundaries of human endurance: what we are capable of in exceptional circumstances and what these situations reveal about who we really are. But these are not just great cinematic themes. During the making of his films, Herzog pushed himself and others to the limits, often putting himself in life-threatening situations. 
 
As a child in rural Bavaria, a single loaf of bread had to last his family all week. The hunger and deprivation he experienced during his early years perhaps explain his fascination with the limits of physical endurance.All his life, Herzog would embrace risk and danger, constantly looking for challenges and adventures. 
 
Filled to the brim with memorable stories and poignant observations, Every Man for Himself and God against All unveils the influences and ideas that drive his creativity and have shaped his unique view of the world. This book tells, for the first time, the story of his extraordinary and fascinating life.

Every Man for Himself and God against All

A Memoir

Simon Morrison

As heard on Radio 4 Book of the Week 
 
Lina Prokofiev was alone in her Moscow apartment one night when the telephone rang. The caller insisted that she come downstairs to collect a parcel, but when she reached the courtyard she was arrested for treason. 
 
First enraptured by the young pianist and rising star, Serge Prokofiev, during a courtship in Brooklyn, then abandoned by him in Moscow, Lina survived one of the darkest periods in Soviet history – enduring eight years in the Gulag after she received that fateful telephone call. 
 
Unfolding with the intrigue of a spy novel, The Love and Wars of Lina Prokofiev traces the largely untold story of a remarkable woman who gave up her career, her country and her freedom for the brilliant man she married.

The Love and Wars of Lina Prokofiev

The Story of Lina and Serge Prokofiev

Charles King

'A delicious history of music, power, love, genius, royalty and adventure. Unforgettable' SIMON SEBAG MONTEFORE 
 
'A mesmerising journey through one of the most fascinating and creative moments in human history' AMANDA FOREMAN 
 
London - Dublin, 1741-42. 
An actress mired in scandal plans her escape from an abusive husband. 
A penniless sea captain sets out to rescue the city’s abandoned infants. 
An African Muslim and former captive in the colonies becomes a celebrity. 
A grieving political dissident seeks release from his torment. 
And a great composer to kings – George Frideric Handel – now ill and straining to keep an audience’s attention, faces a decision that will secure his place in history. 
 
'An absolute delight, beautifully told' PETER FRANKOPAN 
 
Evoking a pivotal moment at the birth of modernity, a time of fear, conspiracy and uprising, and featuring some of the most unusual and brilliant personalities of the eighteenth century, Every Valley is a cinematic and moving drama of hope in the darkness and the entangled lives that shaped a masterpiece. 
 
'Fascinating...cinematic...truly informative, imaginative and engaging' Financial Times

Every Valley

The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times that Made Handel’s Messiah

The Story of Handel’s Messiah

Neneh Cherry

A SUNDAY TIMES, GUARDIAN, NEW STATESMAN, EVENING STANDARD, UNCUT AND ROUGH TRADE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024 
 
Top of the Pops, December 1988. The world sat up as a young woman made her debut: gold bra, gold bomber jacket, and proudly, gloriously, seven months pregnant. This was no ordinary artist. This was Neneh Cherry. 
 
But navigating fame and family wasn't always simple. In this beautiful and deeply personal memoir, Cherry remembers the collaborations, the highs and lows, the friendships and loves, and the addictions and traumas that have shaped her as a woman and an artist. At the heart of it, always, is family: the extraordinary three generations of artists and musicians that are her inheritance and her legacy. 
 
Musician. Songwriter. Collaborator. Activist. Mother. Daughter. Lover. Friend. Icon. This is her story.

A Thousand Threads

Salman Rushdie

‘The first great rock ’n’ roll novel in the English language’ The Times 
 
On Valentine’s Day, 1989, Vina Apsara, a famous and much-loved singer, disappears in a devastating earthquake. 
 
Her lover, the singer Ormus Cama, cannot accept that he has lost her, and so begins his eternal quest to find her and bring her back. His journey takes him across the globe and through cities pulsating with the power of rock ’n’ roll, to Bombay, London and New York. 
 
But around the star-crossed lover and his quest, the uncertain world itself is beginning to tremble and break. Cracks and tears are appearing in the very fabric of reality, and exposing the abyss beyond. And Ormus has to confront just how far he is willing to go for love.

The Ground Beneath Her Feet

Nicholas Hytner

The Sunday Times Bestseller 
 
This is the inside story of twelve years at the helm of Britain’s greatest theatre. 
 
It is a story of lunatic failures and spectacular successes such as The History Boys, War Horse and One Man, Two Guvnors; of opening the doors of the National Theatre to a broader audience than ever before, and changing the public’s perception of what theatre is for. It is about probing Shakespeare from every angle and reinventing the classics. About fostering new talent and directing some of the most celebrated actors of our times. Its cast includes the likes of Alan Bennett, Maggie Smith, Mike Leigh, Daniel Day-Lewis, Michael Gambon and Helen Mirren. 
 
Intimate, candid and insightful, Balancing Acts is a passionate exploration of the art and alchemy of making theatre.

Balancing Acts

Behind the Scenes at the National Theatre

The first novel by Joseph O'Connor, bestselling author of Star of the Sea and Shadowplay. 
 
Eddie Virago, proud owner of the last mohican haircut in Dublin, leaves his home town to find the fame and fortune he's convinced awaits in the wild world of the London rock scene. 
 
Things don't quite go as planned, however. He finds himself living in a ramshackle hotel with a girl he met on the ferry over, while a bewildering array of acid-house ravers, saloon-bar revolutionaries, music-business wideboys and media primadonnas all seem very anxious to help Eddie on his way... 
 
'Very funny... An immensely readable and entertaining book, full of truth about the world we live in' Sunday Independent 
 
'Clever, wry and often hilarious...with sardonic, very knowing digs at youthful pretension' Time Out

Cowboys and Indians

Simon Callow

A companion volume to Being an Actor, Callow's classic text about the experience of acting in the theatre, Shooting the Actor reveals the truth about film acting. The book describes his film work, from Amadeus to Four Weddings and a Funeral, from Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls to Shakespeare in Love. 
 
Its centrepiece is a hilarious and sometimes agonising account of the making of Manifesto, shot in the former Yugoslavia. When Callow first met the film's director Dušan Makavejev to discuss the movie, they both got on famously. Months later the two were barely speaking. Insightful and always entertaining, Shooting the Actor reveals more than any formal guide could about the process of film-making and the highly complex nature of being both actor and director.

Shooting the Actor

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