Secondhand Literary Biography Books

An intimate yet frank biography of Gore Vidal, one of the most accomplished, visible and controversial American novelists and cultural figures of the past century. The product of thirty years...

'Spike Milligan: His Part in Our Lives' is a unique insight into the late Spike Milligan, one of Britain's best-loved comedians. Containing contributions from his many friends and colleagues, it...

Winner of the James Tait Black Prize for Biography 2014Winner of the Plutarch Award for Best BiographyNew York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of the YearPenelope Fitzgerald (1916-2000) was...

Colm Toibin's Lady Gregory's Toothbrush is a beautiful insight into the life of outspoken Irishwoman, Augusta Gregory.A remarkable figure in Celtic history, she was married to an MP and land-owner,...

The life of Rosamond Lehmann (1901-1990) was as romantic and harrowing as that of any of her fictional heroines. She enjoyed an idyllic childhood in the Thames valley, and she...

Deborah Devonshire is a natural writer with a knack for the telling phrase and for hitting the nail on the head. She tells the story of her upbringing, lovingly and...

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...

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...

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...

'It's hard to think of a better living practitioner of hilarious honesty than David Sedaris' The TimesIn Happy-Go-Lucky, David Sedaris once again captures what is most unexpected, hilarious, and poignant...

Authoritative biography of cult writer William Burroughs (1914-1997).It has been 50 years since Norman Mailer asserted, 'I think that William Burroughs is the only American novelist living today who may...

'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...

A guy walks into a bar . . . From here the story could take many turns. A guy walks into a bar and meets the love of his life....

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2015 SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE 'Gripping and at times ineffably sad, this book would be poetic even without the poetry. It will be the standard biography of Ted...

In December 1991, Allende's daughter Paula, aged 28 fell gravely ill and sank into a coma. This book started as a letter to Paula written during the hours spent at...

The ecstatic love poems of Rumi, a Persian poet and Sufi mystic born more than eight centuries ago, are beloved by millions of readers in America as well as around...

The definitive biography of Soviet Jewish dissident writer Vasily Grossman, called "gripping" and "fascinating" by William Taubman in the New York Times "[Popoff] tells Grossman's story with sensitivity and a...

'Just as gripping as the original novels . . . As pacy and vivid as one of Wilder's own narratives' Sunday TimesMillions of readers of Little House on the Prairie...

In this biography of W.B. Yeats (1865-1939) the author shows him through a life of tumultuous creativity through which he strove to bring new meaning to poetry, vision and politics....

'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...

Some say that the first hint that Bill Bryson was not of Planet Earth came when his mother sent him to school in lime-green Capri pants. Others think it all...

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...

Charles Dickens is the acclaimed definitive biography by bestselling author Claire Tomalin Charles Dickens was a phenomenon: a demonicly hardworking journalist, the father of ten children, a tireless walker and...

Shaun Bythell owns The Bookshop, Wigtown - Scotland's largest second-hand bookshop. It contains 100,000 books, spread over a mile of shelving, with twisting corridors and roaring fires, and all set...

'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...

'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,...

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 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...

Available for the first time and collected in one volume, the letters of one of America's most beloved authors, Laura Ingalls Wilder-a treasure trove that offers new and unexpected understanding...

In this wonderful addition to the Eminent Lives series, widely acclaimed biographer Brenda Maddox sheds a fascinating new light on the life of legendary novelist George Eliot. On 22 November...

From ND Stevenson, the New York Times bestselling author-illustrator of Nimona, comes a captivating, honest illustrated memoir that finds him turning an important corner in his creative journey-and inviting readers...

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...

Flamboyant and witty, Oscar Wilde was famous for being famous. The toast of late-nineteenth London society, he once boasted he could speak spontaneously on any subject, and his writings were...

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...

'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...

Told with Clive James's unassailable sense of humour and self-effacing charm, Unreliable Memoirs is a hilarious and touching introduction to the story of a national treasure. A million-copy bestseller, this...