Secondhand Literary Biography Books

A hilarious collection of essays from 'the premier observer of our world and its weirdnesses,' New York Times bestselling author David Sedaris (Adam Kay, author of This is Going to...

'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...

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...

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...

This captivating novel evolves like a detective story, as a family member airbrushed out of history sets out to uncover the well-kept secrets of the three Boleyn women: Why was...

When we spend so much of our time immersed in books, who's to say where reading ends and living begins? The two are impossibly and gloriously wedded, as Hill shows...

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...

In 2006 journalist Joanna Moorhead discovered that her father's cousin, Prim, who had disappeared many decades earlier, was now a famous artist in Mexico. Although rarely spoken of in her...

'Dazzling...full of special delights. Harman excels in the vivid presentation of scenes, the selection of detail...[a] marvellous and beautifully written book.' Elspeth Barker, Independent on Sunday At the age of...

Lee Child is the enigmatic powerhouse behind the bestselling Jack Reacher novels. With millions of devoted fans across the globe, and over a hundred million copies of his books sold...

The Wittgenstein family was one of the richest, most talented and most eccentric in European history. The domineering paternal influence of Karl Wittgenstein left his eight children fraught by inner...

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...

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 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....

THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP 10 BESTSELLERLet Dame Judi Dench take you behind the scenes of a life loving the Bard - as she shares her story with, and enduring affection...

An exuberant biography of the life of the iconic photographer and naturalist Peter Beard, whose life and work captured the cultural imagination Peter Beard lived an astonishing life. The artist,...

'Before I turn 67 - next March - I would like to have a lot of sex with a man I like. If you want to talk first, Trollope works...

'Absolutely exquisite . . . a contemporary classic' Dave Eggers'Death in Venice with more sex, more booze, more action.' FTBBC Radio 4 Book of the WeekOstend, 1936: the Belgian seaside...

Vanity Fair, published in serial parts in 1847-8, made William Makepeace Thackeray famous 'all but at the top of the tree', he told his mother, 'and having a great fight...

Probably no English poet of the 19th century is today so widely read or greatly loved as Gerard Manley Hopkins. Yet in his lifetime he was almost entirely unpublished, and...

In spring 2004, Susan Sontag was diagnosed with the incurable blood cancer. She had a huge appetite for experience, and a wild, extravagant desire to live. Rieff writes movingly about...

The extraordinary life of the most notorious adventuress of the Victorian era. How did an Irish Protestant girl, baptized Eliza Gilbert, transform herself into the most famous courtesan of the...

The father fled East Prussia to escape the 1880s pogroms and, as a penniless immigrant boy, hawked newspapers on the streets of Chicago. The son, who lives on Philadelphia's Main...

'An absolute gem . . . I was delightfully lost by the river throughout' Paul Whitehouse'Marvellous . . . The Catch leaves both its writer and its reader wonderfully "lost...