Secondhand Literary Biography Books

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 -...

'You are the knife I turn inside myself'Franz Kafka's letters to his one-time muse, Milena Jesenska - an intimate window into the desires and hopes of the twentieth-century's most prophetic...

'Traditional autobiography is composed after the experience has passed. I wrote this book in the very panic of the experiences that inspired it ... 'In his early thirties, Greg Baxter...

Martin Amis is perhaps the most gifted novelist of his generation. His prose refashions the English language into a lean and brillant instrument, dazzling readers with its energy and wit....

Who was William Shakespeare? How did the 'rude groom' from Stratford grow up to be the greatest poet the world has known? Not for a generation, since the late Anthony...

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...

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...

THE EXTRAORDINARY #1 BESTSELLER 'Fiercely feminist, fascinating. I have recommended this to several people. And I'm doing the same here' Sunday Times 'Do not read this book in public: it...

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...

Nora Ephron meets Bram Stoker in Sophie White's vivid and ambitious literary non-fiction collection. White asks uncomfortable questions about the lived reality of womanhood in the 21st century, and the...

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...

Lynn Barber, by her own admission, has always suffered from a compelling sense of nosiness. An exceptionally inquisitive child she constantly questioned everyone she knew about imitate details of their...

'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...

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...

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,...

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was a prolific dramatist,critic, essayist, pamphleteer and social reformer. The shy, idealistic Irishmanseparated himself from his opinionated public persona, 'G. B. S.', and hiseccentric alter ego...

On 25 February 1956, twenty-three-year-old Sylvia Plath walked into a party and immediately spotted Ted Hughes. The sensational aspects of the Plath-Hughes relationship have dominated the cultural landscape to such...

An intimate study of three of Ireland's greatest writers from one of its best-loved contemporary voices, Colm Toibin__________________In Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know Colm Toibin takes three of Ireland's greatest...

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...

'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...

Cold Cream is a sparkling autobiography in the great tradition: wonderfully perceptive, exquisitely rendered and bursting with characters and anecdotes of every shade and hue. A tender, moving and witty...

Dearest Lumpy, I hope you are plump and well. Your mother bashed her car yesterday and chooses to believe it was not her fault...'Roger Mortimer's witty dressing-downs and affectionate advice...

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...

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...

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,...

David Foster Wallace is to contemporary literature what Kurt Cobain is to music. He died young enough for his promise and his achievements to solidify into a legend. For many,...

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...

'A remarkable book... the breadth and depth of research is astonishing' Emma Thompson'An illuminating study... fascinating' IndependentHailed as a gay icon and pioneer of individualism, Oscar Wilde's insistence that 'there...

The biographer - so often in the shadows, kibbitzing, casting doubt, proving facts - here comes to the stage.James Atlas takes us back to his childhood in suburban Chicago, where...

'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...

Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio PrizeShortlisted for the James Tait Black Biography PrizeThe Number One Irish Bestseller 'Utterly magnificent. Raw, thought-provoking and galvanising; this is a book every woman should...

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...

John le Carre was a defining writer of his time. This enthralling collection letters - written to readers, publishers, film-makers and actors, politicians and public figures - reveals the playfully...

Is it possible life without romantic love isn't so bad?An essential memoir about building life on your own terms'Marks an important shift in ideas about intimacy' OBSERVER'The harbinger of real...

'Dolly Alderton at her wise, warm and witty best' RedSince early 2020, Dolly Alderton has been sharing her wisdom, warmth and wit with the countless people who have written in...

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...

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...

'Leon's elegant, witty prose . . . is a joy. One of the best European novelists around' Amanda CraigIn a series of vignettes full of affection, irony, and good humor,...