Secondhand Biographies

Stefan Zweig's seminal memoir recalls the golden age of pre-war Europe - its seeming permanence, its promise and its devastating fall. Through the story of his life and his relationships...

How do you learn to live again when you've danced with death?Louise's road to having a baby was far from easy, suffering a heartbreaking miscarriage during her first pregnancy and...

The long-awaited memoir by the superstar of stage, screen, recordings, and television'Exhilarating ... leaves blood on the page ... My Name Is Barbra is 992 pages of startling honesty and...

Torey Hayden returns with this deeply-moving sequel to her first book, One Child (the Sunday Times bestseller). After seven years, Torey is reunited with Sheila, the disturbed 6-year-old she tried...

I had spent most of my childhood thinking I was a dog, and suspect I had aged in dog years. By the time I was ten I had discovered the...

'A manifesto for recalibrating' DAILY MAIL'I can't think of many books where the reader feels so passionately on the side of the narrator' Guardian'Full of kindness, A Still Life will...

A vivid and lyrical memoir of a man damaged in childhood but redeemed by Shakespeare. 'Written with such delicate and sensitive humanity that laughter and tears are constantly interchanging. What...

This is an extraordinary account of one man's experiences of mental illness and institutions: a rare insight into a hidden world.John O'Donoghue was first admitted to Claybury asylum with manic...

This is a biography of Napoleon III who ruled over 18 years of glittering success in France known as the Second Empire. Modern Paris was created out of its medieval...

When I had a Little Sister by Catherine Simpson is a searingly honest and heartbreaking account of growing up in a farming family, and of Catherine's search for understanding into...

In a land where Kings still rule, I am a Princess. You must know me only as Sultana, for I cannot reveal my true name for fear that harm will...

As Meghan Markle once said: 'With fame comes opportunity, but it also includes responsibility - to advocate and share, to focus less on the glass slipper and more on pushing...

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING JULIETTE BINOCHE AND ANTONIO BANDERASTHE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERA NEW YORK TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR LA TIMES BOOK PRIZE FINALIST'Riveting ...The best book...

I checked my balance and peered apprehensively at the sheer drop below. Once I felt comfortable, I radioed down to Stu.'I'm just gonna unclip quickly,' I said.My walkie-talkie crackled straight...

Since his death in 1976, Howard Hughes has been remembered primarily as an eccentric billionaire, compulsively secretive and strangely deluded. The grotesque details of his last years obscured the fact...

An extraordinarily brave and moving memoir from one of the world's most famous transparency activists and trans women.In 2010, Chelsea Manning was working as an intelligence analyst for the US...

War Paint is the story of two remarkable women - Miss Elizabeth Arden and Madame Helena Rubinstein. Between them they left an extraordinary legacy which touches the lives of virtually...

In this poignant memoir, Charles Spencer recounts the trauma of being sent away from home at age eight to attend a boarding school. A Very Private School offers a clear-eyed,...

THIS SUMMER'S MOST EXPLOSIVE READ. GET READY FOR TRUTHS AND BOMBSHELLS Celebrating twenty years since her bestselling debut autobiography, Being Jordan, and a stellar thirty-year career, This is Me is...

David Taylor was a supremely resourceful backbencher, a polymath and a unique parliamentary craftsman whose sudden death on Boxing Day 2009 shocked and saddened all of Westminster. In this biography,...

Included in The Times and Daily Telegraph Book of the Year round-ups'Friends and Enemies is an extraordinary read showing unflinching candour from a truly remarkable woman' Elton John 'Blistering ....

Winifred Fortescue was born in Suffolk in 1888. At the age of 17 she decided to help the family's ailing resources by taking a career on the stage, and starred...

Just who does David Cameron think he is? In an engaging series of landmark interviews - that will define the would-be prime minister ahead of the next election - Dylan...

'Why the hell have you come to a place like this?' These are the words of a twelve-year-old pupil upon meeting one of the Prime Minister's key strategists in the...

'Ultimately, my experiences as a mental health nurse have taught me that we should judge less and open our hearts more.'Belinda Black was just seventeen years old when she began...

Born on a Somerset pea-field in 1941, the second of eight children in a Romani family, Maggie Smith-Bendell has lived through the years of greatest change in the travelling community's...