Secondhand Biographies

Dark, sharp, blackly funny and powerful, this is memoir, wielded as weapon, with the tightly compressed energy of an explosive device. 'She has a poet's gift for language, a playwright's...

When social distancing is over, can people still keep their distance?I only do the things I like now, rather than the things I should - is that alright?And these days,...

Shayne Ward was planning to work in his local clothes shop as usual last Christmas. Instead he was selling CDs - millions of them. In fact, the artist who secured...

In 1831 John Dodgson Carr, son of a Quaker grocer, set off to walk from his home in Kendal to Carlisle, determined to launch a great enterprise. Within 15 years,...

Woody Allen remains a controversial director. As a practitioner of film comedy he has progressed from the slapstick of "Take the Money and Run" and "Bananas" to the sophisticated Freudian...

In 1989, driven by a dream and by the memory of her own past, Christina Noble travelled to Vietnam and, against the odds, opened the Christina Noble Children's Foundation, a...

TELEGRAPH 50 BEST BOOKS OF 2022THE UNTOLD STORY OF PRINCESS DIANA'S STEPMOTHER 'A sparkling biography of a fascinating woman' - Lynn Barber, Telegraph ***** 'Gaudoin's book is revealing and hugely...

As a young boy, Alexander Sinclair was the target of his mother's irrational hatred. She stopped at no lengths in her campaign to tear him to pieces both mentally and...

From the Number One Bestsellign author of UGLY Despite her mother's constant physical and psychological abuse, Constance Briscoe has gained a place at Newcastle University to study law - a...

Doctor Max Jacobson, whom the Secret Service under President John F. Kennedy code-named "Dr. Feelgood," developed a unique "energy formula" that altered the paths of some of the twentieth century's...

Beautiful and charismatic, the daughter of one of Pakistan's most popular leaders -- Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, hanged by General Zia in 1979 -- Benazir Bhutto is not only the first...

You may not know it, but you've met Augusten Burroughs: You've seen him on the street, in bars, on the train, at restaurants: a twenty-something guy, nice suit, works in...

This story begins and ends with a photograph taken when I was two years old. Finding it was like discovering that I really did exist after all . It was...

Separated from her brother Bryan, and passed from caretaker to caretaker, Jenny discovers -- as she rebels her way through high school and into adulthood -- that the past can...

Born in 1786, by the time she was 15 years old, Harriette Wilson was well on her way to becoming Regency London's most sought-after courtesan. She counted amongst her conquests...

While Felicia Pearson is a brilliant actor in a truly chilling role, what's most remarkable about 'Snoop' is what she has overcome in real life. Born a three-pound, cross-eyed crack...

While wide awake in the middle of the night (welcome to menopause!), Amy Ferris began chronicling every one of her funny, sad, hysterical, down and dirty, and raw to the...

In Eccentric Wealth, Alastair Scott traces the life of Lancashire industrialist Sir George Bullough in this absorbing biography which explores his family's connection with the Hebridean island of Rum, particularly...

The Lost Boy is the harrowing but ultimately uplifting true story of a boy's journey through the foster care system in search of a family to love. This is Dave...

Aiden Aslin joined the Ukrainian marines in 2018, compelled to defend his adopted homeland from the growing threat of Russian invasion. In February 2022, as Russia mounted a full-scale offensive,...

________________'Like Eat, Pray, Love, her follow-up ... feels irresistibly confessional ... I found myself guzzling Committed, reading it in mighty chunks, far into the night. Whenever I put it down,...

"A Man Named Dave" is the conclusion to Dave Pelzer's trilogy of memoirs, the first two volumes of which were "A Child Called 'It'" and "The Lost Boy". From childhood,...

Like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi is an iconic figure, and the best-known prisoner of conscience alive today. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize...

Campbell Armstrong met his first wife Eileen in Glasgow when they were both young. She was Jewish, the only daughter of an Orthodox family. When they married, Eileen showed Campbell...

An award-winning poet and former infantry team leader in Iraq, Brian Turner combines his devastating recollections as "Sergeant Turner" with his visions of the experiences of generations of warriors in...

'NEXT, I APPLIED TO WORK IN THE ACCOUNTS DEPARTMENT, a sealed room where women operated clattering machines like enormous typewriters. After I had catastrophically and erroneously applied all the wrong...

Since his release from prison in 1990, Nelson Mandela has emerged as the world's most significant moral leader since Gandhi. As president of the African National Congress and spiritual figurehead...

The autobiography of the Dalai Lama of Tibet, a fascinating insight into the mind of one of the greatest contemporary spiritual leaders'An extraordinary story' Daily Mail'Compelling, fascinating, eye-opening' Washington Post'A...

Mrs Langtry - born a provincial in 1853, died rich and lonely in 1929 - was surrounded by scandal, luxary and gossip; but this new book goes beyond these outward...

John Bayley's account of his long and loving marriage to the great novelist Iris Murdoch takes us on a journey, from their love affair's comically inauspicious beginnings in the Oxford...

This biography of Cary Grant covers his reaction to his father's death and the subsequent stress caused by this and the conflict of hiding his true nature from the world,...

'I think the world should read it' LISA TADDEO, AUTHOR OF THREE WOMEN'Brutally candid. The most compelling book I've read in years' THE TIMES'It's impossible not to draw comparisons with...

Born in 1979, Roxy Freeman grew up travelling around Ireland and England in a traditional horse-drawn wagon with her mother and father and six siblings. Life was harsh but it...