Biographies & Memoirs

In his first full-length autobiography, comedy legend and national treasure Billy Connolly reveals the truth behind his windswept and interesting life....

A thrilling history with enormous historical implications, The Escape Artist is the astonishing, forgotten story of the hero who escaped from Auschwitz to reveal the truth of the Holocaust....

Edward Snowden, the man who risked everything to expose the US government’s system of mass surveillance, reveals for the first time the story of his life, including how he helped to build that system and what motivated him to try to bring it down....

For David Goggins, childhood was a nightmare - poverty, prejudice, and physical abuse colored his days and haunted his nights. But through self-discipline, mental toughness, and hard work, Goggins transformed himself....

In this unflinching autobiography, Craig Harrison catapults us into the heat of the action as he describes his active service in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan and gives heart-stopping accounts....

For more than 25 years, David Nott has taken unpaid leave from his job as a general and vascular surgeon with the NHS to volunteer in some of the world’s most dangerous war zones....

Award-winning actor, creator of a myriad of memorable characters from Lady Whiteadder to Professor Sprout, Miriam Margolyes is a national treasure.... 

From the Academy Award-winning actor, an unconventional memoir filled with raucous stories, outlaw wisdom and lessons learned the hard way about living with greater satisfaction....

Darren McGarvey has experienced poverty and its devastating effects firsthand. He knows why people from deprived communities all around Britain feel angry and unheard. And he wants to explain....  

So, I’ve written a book. This certainly doesn’t mean that I’m quitting my day job, but it does give me a place to shed a little light on what it’s like to be a kid from Springfield, Virginia, walking through life while living out the crazy dreams I had as young musician....

David Sedaris once again captures what is most unexpected, hilarious, and poignant about these recent upheavals, personal and public, and expresses in precise language both the misanthropy and desire for connection that drive us all....

Winner of the British Book Awards, Author of the Year, 2005.

When John Thaw, star of The Sweeney and Inspector Morse, died from cancer in 2002, a nation lost one of its finest actors, and Sheila Hancock lost a husband....

Eddie Jones is one of the most successful sports coaches of all time. From coaching three different nations to Rugby World Cup Finals and with a winning record with England of nearly 80 per cent, Eddie Jones knows what it takes to lead and manage high-performance teams....

Welcome to the life of a junior doctor: 97-hour weeks, life-and-death decisions, a constant tsunami of bodily fluids and the hospital parking meter earns more than you. Adam Kay's This Is Going to Hurt provides a no-holds-barred account of his time on the NHS front line....

From Tom Segura, the massively successful stand-up comedian and cohost of chart-topping podcasts 2 Bears 1 Cave and Your Mom’s House, hilarious real-life stories of parenting, celebrity encounters, youthful mistakes, misanthropy, and so much more....

A memoir and self-help manual by one of the country's most treasured comedians - for anyone who feels stuck in a rut but doesn't have the tools or self-belief to shake things up....

We all have a random collection of the things that made us—photos, tickets, clothes, souvenirs, stuffed in a box, packed in a suitcase, crammed into a drawer....

From adventures at Central Saint Martins to The Great British Sewing Bee, go behind the seams of Esme Young's amazing life....

Ride alongside Jon Moxley as he retraces some of the highways traveled on his remarkable journey. Revel in the never-before-told stories about his early life, the independent wrestling scene where he cut his teeth, the corporate landscape of the WWE, and the rebellious upstart AEW....

Push beyond your physical limits to improve yourself by following bowhunter and ultramarathoner Cameron Hanes's lifelong philosophies and disciplines....

The long-awaited audio edition of Peter Kay’s best-selling autobiography, The Sound of Laughter, including two completely new and exclusive bonus chapters....

The heart-wrenchingly honest new book about life and death from forensic pathologist and best-selling author of Unnatural Causes, Dr Richard Shepherd....

Simon Jordan made his fortune building a mobile phone company from scratch. When he sold it for £75 million, he bought Crystal Palace FC, the club he'd supported as a boy, and led them into the Premier League....

Dolly Alderton survived her 20s (just about) and in Everything I Know About Love, she gives an unflinching account of the bad dates and squalid flat-shares, the heartaches and humiliations....

In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites listeners into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her - from her childhood to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work....

Cynthia's mother is dying. Often. Travelling between her home in Scotland and California, as she spends time at her mother's bedside. Cynthia recalls her youthful adventures: living in a squat, train-hopping, hitchhiking and all the other things she never told her mother.

Hunting: You've Got to Be Kidding! is a wonderful true story about a man with a dream. Written by Kevin A. Dettler, it is a humorous and emotional story of his endeavor to achieve what only 120 hunters in the world had accomplished. The book takes you through a chronological order of years as the author hunts all the big game species that call North America home. You will be entertained as the book's focus dwells not on the hunting, but on the mental processes associated with hunting trophy big game animals. Best of all are the many humorous "you've got to be kidding" moments!

Good Luck Sir...Sorry You Lose! is a lighthearted, sometimes quirky look at the Las Vegas gaming business, through the eyes of a casino dealer. It follows the author's dealing career, told in chronological order, from 1980 until his retirement in 2018. During that time, he experienced lessons that were never taught in dealer's school, such as staying composed while encountering irate and contemptible personalities. And those were just the other dealers. Throughout this book, there is laughter and tragedy, but in the end, one comes to realize that this is a study in humanity.

The 12 Indigenous women featured in this book overcame unimaginable hardships—racial and gender discrimination, abuse, and extreme poverty—only to rise to great heights in the fields of politics, science, education, and community activism. Such determination and courage reflect the essence of the traditional Cheyenne saying: “A nation is not conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground."

This overlooked work of Lawrence contains both beautiful descriptions of his travels in Italy during this period as well as a thoroughly engrossing portrait of a man, M, who he meets and can't quite get away from for months until the end. This true story grabs at you on several levels. Originally published as the introduction to M's work, Memoirs of the Foreign Legion, it stands on its own.

Drew Brees’ 15-year run in New Orleans is known for what he did for both a city and a franchise. He provided leadership in several ways—The Brees Way. Mike Nabors delves into Drew’s career in a unique fashion, going behind the scenes to learn how he approached the game and ultimately left his legendary legacy. Nabors interviewed Brees more than any media member in his Hall of Fame career. Together, they conducted nearly 300 one-on-one interviews following every game for 14 seasons. The best of those conversations are showcased in this book.

Raised in figure skating, Ashleigh brought the quest for perfectionism into marriage and motherhood, striving for the highest level of difficulty while trying to make it all appear effortless and beautiful. Hilarious, heartbreaking, and hopeful, what will she do when she realizes she has taken "doing it all" to a level she never intended?

A journey full of pain, romance, self-sacrifice, humor, and finally catharsis. A book that touches every emotion. A story that makes you want more and more!

In 1816, when eighteen-year old Mary Godwin began writing Frankenstein, the idea that a woman could dream up such a tale was as far-fetched as raising a being from the dead. But Mary wasn't just any woman. The daughter of two notorious radicals, Mary had become an outcast from English society when she was only sixteen. A lifelong advocate for the rights of women, she refused to be governed by social conventions, running away with a married man, having children out of wedlock, and authoring books, stories, and essays that broke literary conventions.

This is a love story told in reverse. It's about the best and worst of love: the euphoric and the painful. The beautiful and the messy. Reeling from a broken heart, Annie Lord revisits the past - from the moment she first fell in love, the shared in-jokes and intertwining of a long-term relationship, to the months that saw the slow erosion of a bond five years in the making. It is an unflinchingly honest reminder of the simultaneous joy and pain of being in love that will resonate with anyone that has ever nursed a broken heart.

Born in the '50s to a Sierra Leoneon mother battling mental health problems, Ronnie spent his childhood in and out of care. After difficult beginnings, marked by abuse, racism and brushes with both criminals and the police, he got into music, managing to get DJ gigs and, later, as a celebrity hairdresser for Vidal Sassoon and Smile in the height of '70s London. A flair for spotting antiques led him to start his own Knightsbridge gallery, ultimately becoming one of the most respected figures in the industry, culminating in a regular spot as an expert on Antiques Roadshow.

In 1922 Agatha Christie set sail on a 10-month voyage around the British Empire with her husband as part of a trade mission to promote the forthcoming British Empire Exhibition. Leaving her two-year-old daughter behind with her sister, Agatha set sail at the end of January and did not return until December, but she kept up a detailed weekly correspondence with her mother, describing in detail the exotic places and people she encountered as the mission travelled through South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and Canada.

It was the kind of phone call we all dread. Your elderly father has been admitted to hospital. Your even older mum is now at home alone. The answer? Simple. Drop everything, go back and help. The reality? Not so straightforward. Suddenly, you’re a kid again, stranded in the overheated house you grew up in. Soon they need you 24/7. And you want to help, of course you do. But now your own life starts to unravel almost as quickly as their health. And then there is nowhere else to go.

Mo Wilde made a quiet but radical pledge: to live only off free, foraged food for an entire year. In a world disconnected from its roots, eating wild food is both culinary and healing, social and political. Ultimately, it is an act of love and community. Using her expert knowledge of botany and mycology, Mo follows the seasons to find nutritious food from hundreds of species of plants, fungi and seaweeds, and in the process learns not just how to survive, but how to thrive. Nourishing her body and mind deepens her connection with the earth—a connection that we all hunger for.

First as a journalist and then a publicist at Warner Brothers Records for nearly twenty years, Barbara Charone has experienced, first-hand, the changes in the cultural landscape. Access All Areas is a personal, insightful and humorous memoir packed with stories of being on the cultural frontline, from first writing press releases on a typewriter driven by Tip Ex, then as a press officer for heavy metal bands taking the bus up to Donnington Festival with coffee, croissants and the much more popular sulfate.