Secondhand Literary Biography Books

A. A. Gill's memoir begins in the dark of a dormitory with six strangers. He is an alcoholic, dying in the last-chance saloon - driven to dry out, not out...

In Dysphoria Mundi, Paul B. Preciado has written a mutant text assembled from essays, philosophy, poetry and autofiction that captures a moment of profound change and possibility. Rooted in the...

Winner of the Crime Fest HRF Keating Award'Not merely the conclusive homage to a compulsively fascinating character, but an insightful study into the biographical process itself' Nicholas Shakespeare'Now that he...

One of the most critically acclaimed memoirs ever written. One of the ten books - novels, memoirs and one very unusual biography - that make up our Matchbook Classics' series,...

The childhood and early life memoir of Antonia Fraser, one of our finest narrative historians.Antonia Fraser's magical memoir describes growing up in the 1930s and '40s, but its real concern...

'I was fascinated, moved and entertained by every page. This is the kind of book the world needs right now' DONAL RYAN_______________'My dictionary's first two definitions of 'comrade' are:A close...

William Golding was born in 1911 and educated at his local grammar school and Brasenose College, Oxford. He published a volume of poems in 1934 and during the war served...

'Dear Mama, I am having a lovely time here. We play football every day here. The beds have no springs . . .'So begins the first letter that a nine-year-old...

FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARDLonglisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Non-fictionHow do you tell the real story of someone misremembered - an icon and idol -...

The Boy Behind the Curtain is a portrait of a life, a place and a man. In this deeply personal collection of true stories and essays Tim Winton shows how...

In this memoir of his childhood, O'Driscoll eloquently examines his troubled relationship with his father, whose bullying and mental abuse have affected him profoundly throughout his life. The task the...

One bright day in December 2001, sixty-two-year-old Germaine Greer found herself confronted by an irresistible challenge in the shape of sixty hectares of dairy farm, one of many in south-east...

'Are you going into town today?' she says, which annoys me because it's something she says all the time, having forgotten she said it before, and I say, 'Jesus, Mum,...

'Heartbreaking? Certainly. Staggering? Yes, I'd say so. And if genius is capturing the universal in a fresh and memorable way, call it that too' Anthony Quinn, Sunday Times 'Is this...

'I wanted what we all want: everything. We want a mate who feels like family and a lover who is exotic, surprising. We want to be youthful adventurers and middle-aged...

National Geographic Traveller's the best books on European cities, 2019In the autumn of 1948 Hemingway was approaching fifty and hadn't published a novel in nearly a decade. He travelled for...

Elizabeth Jane Howard (1923-2014) wrote brilliant novels about what love can do to people, but in her own life the lasting relationship she sought so ardently always eluded her. She...

More than a memoir, My Crazy Century explores the ways in which the epoch and its dominating totalitarian ideologies impacted the lives, character, and morality of Klima's generation. Klima's story...

Maxine Hong Kingston, author of such seminal works as The Woman Warrior and China Men, is one of the most important American writers of her generation. In this remarkable memoir,...

'Evocative . . . poignant . . . acute and funny' Observer'The Revival of the Great Lucia Berlin Continues Apace' New York TimesBest known for her short fiction, it was...

A powerful, personal agenda-changing exploration of poverty in today's Britain.'One of the most important books of the year' Guardian'When every day of your life you have been told you have...

A fascinating exploration of the contents of Agatha Christie's 73 recently discovered notebooks, including illustrations, deleted extracts, and two unpublished Poirot stories. When Agatha Christie died in 1976, aged 85,...

One of the most enduringly popular and controversial writers of the twentieth century, George Orwell's work is as relevant today as it was in his own lifetime. Possibly, in the...

From the author of the international bestseller Sweetbitter, a memoir of survival, starting over, and love in all its complicated guises. Even after achieving her dream of selling her debut...

Writing Fiction offers the novice writer engaging and creative activities, making use of insightful, relevant readings from well-known authors to illustrate the techniques presented. This volume makes use of new...

Coloured by poverty and horrifying brutality, Gorky's childhood equipped him to understand - in a way denied to a Tolstoy or a Turgenev - the life of the ordinary Russian....

Over 15 years ago, The Big Issue began to ask well-known figures from the worlds of entertainment, politics, literature, business and more, one simple question:If you could write a letter...

A deluded mother who invented her past, an alcoholic father who couldn't deal with the present, a son who wondered if this could really be his family. Richard Glover's favourite...

'I have never before in my life kept a diary of my thoughts, and here at the start of my ninth decade, having for the moment nothing much else to...

Maya Angelou's five volumes of autobiography are a testament to the talents and resilience of this extraordinary writer. Loving the world, she also knows its cruelty. As a black woman...

The novelist J.G. Farrell - known to his friends as Jim - was drowned on August 11 1979 when he was swept off rocks by a sudden storm while fishing...

This remarkable double biography celebrates the interlocking lives of two of the greatest eccentrics of the 20th century: the brilliant and bizarre Quentin Crisp and the outlandish Philip O'Connor, whose...

Written with a mixture of memoir and dramatic stories, this text is an exploration into what it means to be a wife, particularly a "good wife", then and now, looked...

WINNER OF THE 2020 CRIME WRITERS' ASSOCIATION ALCS GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTIONSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2019 BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTIONChosen as one of Barack Obama's favourite books of 2019'A triumph...

TWO LIVES tells the remarkable story of Seth's great uncle and aunt. His great uncle Shanti left India for medical school in Berlin in the 1930s and lodged with a...

A Sunday Times Top 10 Bestseller As one of the best biographers of her generation, Claire Tomalin has written about great novelists and poets to huge success: now, she turns...

'I don't believe in God, but I miss Him.' Julian Barnes' new book is, among many things, a family memoir, an exchange with his brother (a philosopher), a meditation on...

Angela Carter was one of the most vivid voices of the twentieth century. When she died in 1992 at the age of fifty-one, she had published fifteen books of fiction...

When Stephen Ambrose became interested in American history at age 18, there was much that America had done that made him proud, but there were many things he condemned as...

The first book after Doris' Nobel Prize takes her back to her childhood in Southern Africa and the lives, both fictional and factual, that her parents lead. 'I think my...

James Lees-Milne (1908-97) - known to friends as Jim - is remembered for his work for the National Trust, rescuing some of England's greatest architectural treasures, and for the vivid...

It is 1964 and Maya Angelou is on her way back home, leaving behind her beloved - and now seriously teenaged - son Guy, to finish university in Ghana. America...

"To be young, good-looking, healthy, famous, comparatively rich and happy is surely going against nature." When Joe Orton (1933-1967) wrote those words in his diary in May 1967, he was...

A Guardian Book of the YearAn Evening Standard Book of the YearAn Independent Book of the Year Netgalley's non-fiction Book of the YearA national treasure's journey to the brink and...