Secondhand Literary Biography Books

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 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...

Though in her lifetime only ten of Emily Dickinson's poems were published, her death revealed 1,789 poems, many of them in hand-sewn booklets, secreted in a locked chest. She is...

Nearing 70, and in what would be the last decade of his life, H.G. Wells fell in love at least three times - once with the much younger Baroness Budberg,...

When it comes to death, is there ever a best case scenario? In this disarmingly witty book, Julian Barnes confronts our unending obsession with the end. He reflects on what...

A The Times & Sunday Times Book of the Year'Fascinating... Wonderfully entertaining and absorbing' Sunday Times'Gripping... A story well told.' New York Times Book ReviewFinalist for the Pulitzer Prize for...

"Magisterial and glorious" (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), the first full authoritative biography of Dorothy Day-American icon, radical pacifist, Catholic convert, and advocate for the homeless-is "a vivid account of her political and...

Love, Nina meets Black Books: a wry and hilarious account of life in Scotland's biggest second-hand bookshop and the band of eccentrics and book-obsessives who work there'The Diary Of A...

This is a memoir of the first 40 years of Gore Vidal's life, ranging back and forth across a rich history. He spent his childhood in Washington DC, in the...

June 1849: Dr William Wilde, passing a wretched hovel in Dublin's Liberties, discovers James Clarence Mangan in a state of indescribable misery and squalor. Aged just 46, the man dubbed...

Since the publication of her debut novel The Country Girls in 1960, Edna O'Brien has experimented with an impressive range of forms and genres. Her most recent trilogy, completed in...

Alistair Cooke, for 52 years the unmistakable voice of BBC's "Letter from America", was 90 in 1998. Drawing upon correspondence, private papers and the reminiscences of family and friends, this...

In part thanks to early friendships with renegades such as Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, and William Burroughs, and his publication of the electrifying and brilliant 'Howl', Allen Ginsberg occupies a...

Every now and again I need to get down here, to get into the Diogenes tub, as it were, or the Colmcille beehive hut, or the Mossbawn scullery. At any...

My Good Bright Wolf is a memoir about thinking and reading, eating and not eating, about privilege and scarcity, about the relationships that form us and the long tentacles of...

'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...

This book is the very simple story of the love affair between Miss Helene Hanff of New York and Messrs Marks and Co, sellers of rare and secondhand books, at...

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...

The authorised biography of one of the greatest storytellers of all time."Irresistible. I thought I knew quite a lot about Roald Dahl, but now I know much much more. Donald...

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...

*THE NO.3 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER* 'Raw, compelling, wise and tender' Dolly Alderton'Motherwell is razor-sharp, fearless and wonderful' Adam Kay'Utterly candid and staggeringly good, both as the history of a woman...