Biography & Autobiography

WINNER OF THE JAMES TAIT BLACK BIOGRAPHY PRIZESHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZELONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTIONSelected as a Book of the Year in the Herald In 1845, a Reading bookseller named John Snare came across the...

A downright revolutionary 30th-anniversary deluxe edition of the iconic bestselling biography of Nirvana, updated with exclusive new content exploring the personal and cultural forces that inspired the music, the author's friendship with Kurt Cobain and...

Raised in a desperately poor village during the height of China's Cultural Revolution, Li Cunxin's childhood revolved around the commune, his family and Chairman Mao's Little Red Book. Until, that is, Madame Mao's cultural delegates came in search of...

A TRUE STORY THAT HAS TOUCHED THE HEARTS OF THOUSANDS'Unmitigated delight from cover to cover' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'A real-life love story . . . A timeless period piece. Do read it' WALL STREET JOURNAL 'Beguile an hour of your time and put you in tune with...

"I have read few autobiographies more extraordinary . . . Astonishing" OBSERVER"A classic. I preferred it to Primo Levi's If This is a Man" EDWARD WILSON"A child's clear-eyed journey to hell" ANNE SEBBAThis is a story of a young boy's journey from a...

'They call me a madman but compared to Pete Way, I'm out of my league.' - Ozzy OsbourneThere are rock memoirs and then there is this one. A Fast Ride Out of Here tells a story that is so shocking, so outrageous, so packed with excess and leading to such...

Drawing on exclusive final interviews with Frank, and with unprecedented access to his closest relatives, Mad Frank and Sons follows his rise from a small kid stealing to put food on the table to a feared and respected West End crime lord and head of a...

'A litany of fresh heroes to make the embattled heart sing' Caitlin Moran 'Newman is a brilliant writer' Observer A fresh, opinionated history of all the brilliant women you should have learned about in school but...

King Charles's Pirate PrinceTo his fellow Royalists, fighting for King Charles I, Prince Rupert of the Rhine was the archetypal 'cavalier'. Young, handsome, expert horseman, crack pistol shot, his swaggering style irritated the stuffier of the king's...

WWII began with a metallic roar as the German Blitzkrieg raced across Europe, spearheaded by the most dreaded weapon of the 20th century: the Panzer. No German tank better represents that thundering power than the infamous Tiger, and Otto Carius was one...

Machiavelli's highly influential treatise on political power 'It is far safer to be feared than loved...' The Prince shocked Europe on publication with its advocacy of ruthless tactics for gaining absolute power and its abandonment of conventional...

Escape into nature with Matt Baker's fascinating journey through the natural year and family life on the farm'A delight' Countryfile Magazine_______Matt Baker finds his calm on the farm.Surrounded by nature with his family, dogs, array of sheep,...

In the 60s, Ronnie and Reggie Kray were Britain's most notorious gangsters. With violence and intimidation they were the kings of London. They sipped champagne with celebrities and rubbed shoulders with politicians. They were untouchable. Until they...

FINALIST FOR THE CUNDILL PRIZE FOR HISTORY 'Not only deserves the description "epic", in its true sense, but the term "masterpiece" as well' Independent This gripping epic tells the story of one of the world's most critical failed...

Milligan's Meaning of Life is a glorious celebration of the legendary Spike Milligan. Here you will find his most intimate and hilarious reflections on life.With his lightning-quick wit, unbridled creativity and his ear for the absurd, Milligan...

He was one of the world's true superstars, and the silver screen's most beloved James Bond. Sir Sean Connery - a proud Scotsman born in 1930 to a working-class family - died at home in the Bahamas on 31 October 2020. He left behind him a legacy to rival...

Clad in white tie and tails, dancing and scatting his way through the "Hi-de-ho" chorus of "Minnie the Moocher," Cab Calloway exuded a sly charm and sophistication that endeared him to legions of fans. In Hi-de-ho, author Alyn Shipton...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780593396599Author Michelle ZaunerFormat PaperbackPage Count 416Imprint Random House Large PrintPublisher Diversified PublishingWeight(grams)...

A Rothschild by birth and a Baroness by marriage, beautiful, spirited Pannonica - known as Nica - seemed to have it all: children, a handsome husband and a trust fund. But in the early 1950s she heard a piece by the jazz legend Thelonious Monk. The music...

The Brian Jonestown Massacre are one of the great contemporary cult American rock and roll bands. At the peak of their anarchic reign in the San Francisco underground of the mid '90s their psychedelic output was almost as prodigious and impressive as...

'I can be scratching around at home on an acoustic guitar, or singing a funny little idea into my phone, and all of a sudden, it becomes a beautiful fully fledged song. And I'm asking myself, how did we do that again? I still find that fascinating. It's...

At the start of the 137-kilometre Tour de Mont Aigoual, Tim Krabbe glances up from his bike to assess the crowd of spectators. 'Non-racers,' he writes. 'The emptiness of those lives shocks me.' Immediate and gripping from the first page, we race with the...

Lara was seven when her birth mother died from a drug overdose. With no extended family to look after her, she was put into foster care. The care system failed Lara and now she is failing her son. Lara and her one-year-old son, Arthur, are...

'Stuart does not like the manuscript. He's after a bestseller, "like what Tom Clancy writes". "But you are not an assassin trying to frazzle the president with anthrax bombs," I point out. You are an ex-homeless, ex-junkie psychopath, I do not add.' ...

A Sunday Times bestseller and Financial Times Book of the Year. The unmissable inside story of the race against the virus. Catapulted into an international crisis, Kate Bingham knew the odds were heavily stacked against a workable Covid-19 vaccine...

'For anyone who enjoyed Hillbilly Elegy or Educated, Unfollow is an essential text' - Louis Theroux'A moving, redemptive, clear-eyed account of religious indoctrination' - Pandora Sykes'A nuanced portrait of the lure and pain of zealotry' New York...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781101974285Author Peter MayleFormat PaperbackPage Count 208Imprint Vintage BooksPublisher Random House USA Inc

'Brilliant and epoch-making.' Times Literary SupplementThe Classical Style is an established classic which has remained in print since its first publication in 1971. With his experience as a world-class pianist as well as as teacher at Harvard and...

The huge Sunday Times number one bestselling inspirational memoir from rugby league legend Rob Burrow on his extraordinary career, his incredible friendship with fellow Rhino Kevin Sinfield, and his battle with motor neurone disease.'A pocket rocket of a...

This is the story of an extraordinary boy with a brilliant mind, a heart of gold and a tortured soul.'From the day he was born, Nick Traina was his mother's joy. By nineteen, he was dead. This is Danielle Steel's powerful story of the son she lost and...

Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), who led the Macedonian army to victory in Egypt, Syria, Persia and India, was perhaps the most successful conqueror the world has ever seen. Yet although no other individual has attracted so much speculation across the...

It was never easy for Professor Green. Born into a tough Hackney estate and raised by his grandmother, the rapper was always learning the hard way - whether at school, on the streets of east London or during impromptu freestyling shows at friends' house...

A Times book of the year A Guardian book of the year 'Magnificent'The Times 'Dazzling' New Statesman 'It filled me with hope' Zadie Smith What happens to our behaviour when we live most of our lives...

CLAIR: We've been let loose on a book... whose bright idea was that?JAMES: We haven't got anything to say!CLAIR: Don't tell them that before they buy it...JAMES: They'll work it out eventually!CLAIR: Well, we've managed to put together some bits and...

Brian Keenan went to Beirut in 1985 for a change of scene from his native Belfast. He became headline news when he was kidnapped by fundamentalist Shi'ite militiamen and held in the suburbs of Beirut for the next four and a half years. For much of that...

This is a very thorough account of the experience of the Jews of Europe during World War II. It is virtually a day-by-day account, in men and women's own words, of the horrifying events of the Holocaust - the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jewish race...

Discover Amos Oz's most iconic work in this extraordinary memoir that is at once a great family saga and a magical self-portrait of a writer who witnessed the birth of a nation*OVER 2 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE*'A hero of mine, a moral as well as...

The inspirational first book from S Club legend Rachel Stevens Whether as part of the iconic S Club or as a successful solo artist, Rachel Stevens was in the eye of the Noughties pop storm. Catapulted to fame in her...

Always prepared to work the hardest to achieve his goals, four times he faced life-changing decisions; to leave Wakefield who gave him his chance, depart from Leeds when part of the club's 'golden generation', turn his back on the NRL when at Wests...

A visual journey through 100 years of wedding styles and dresses, Vintage Weddings takes a close look at the key periods, diverse styles, iconoclastic designers, significant ceremonies and cultural influences in wedding fashions. Organized...