Art & Literature

A funny, insightful memoir by much-loved documentary maker Louis Theroux, taking us on a weird and wonderful journey through two decades of groundbreaking television....

In 1982 Murakami began running to keep fit. Here he reflects on his running experiences....

Murdoch is an innovator who has re-shaped a media industry across continents, from Australia to the UK to the US. He is a disruptor who has changed the nature of our politics with a steadfast focus on giving the people what he believes they want....

This brilliant biography, brimming with Pym’s private diaries and intimate letters, offers a first full insight into Barbara Pym’s life and how it informed her writing....

Sherlock Holmes is the most portrayed fictional character of all time, and he has been reimagined by actors, playwrights and directors over centuries....

On Writing is part biography, part a collection of tips for the aspiring writer....

Shortlisted for Audible's Listen of the Year, 2006.Bill Bryson's hilarious memoir of growing up in middle America in the Fifties, complete, unabridged and read by the author.

Part memoir, part manifesto, and including chapters on dating, work, sport, babies, families, anger and friendship, it is based on the simple premise that understanding why we fail ultimately makes us stronger....

When Lucy Mangan was little, stories were everything. They opened up new worlds and cast light on all the complexities she encountered in this one....

The MacArthur Foundation awards the “Genius Grant” every year to the most compelling scientists, educators and artists in the country....

No book ever written has more perfectly captured the spirit of the 1960s counterculture....

Eat, Pray, Love is a journey around the world, a quest for spiritual enlightenment, and a story for anyone who has battled with divorce, depression, and heartbreak....

Heavy Light is the story of a breakdown: a journey through mania, psychosis and treatment in a psychiatric hospital and onwards to release, recovery and healing....

Homage to Catalonia is George Orwell’s account of his experiences fighting in the Spanish Civil War....

In his late 30s, Edward Parnell found himself trapped in the recurring nightmare of a family tragedy.... 

Deeply personal and powerfully moving, a short and timely series of essays on the experience of lockdown, by one of the most clear-sighted and essential writers of our time....

In this stunningly original memoir, Edmund de Waal travels the world to stand in the great buildings his forebears once inhabited....

Agatha Christie’s ‘most absorbing mystery’ – her own autobiography....

When Jeanette Winterson left home at 16 because she was in love with a woman, Mrs. Winterson asked her: "Why be happy when you could be normal?"...

First published in 1986 and updated several times since, Don’t Panic is in an in-depth exploration of Douglas Adams’s cultural phenomenon The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy....

In this long-awaited and candid memoir, Hitchens re-traces the footsteps of his life to date....

Though ferociously private, Lucian Freud spoke every week for decades to his close confidante and collaborator William Feaver - about painting and the art world, but also about his life and loves....

" The Plague and I" recounts MacDonald's experiences in a Seattle sanitarium, where the author spent almost a year (1938-39) battling tuberculosis....

You'll be wincing in recognition and scratching your head in incredulity, but like Marian herself you won't be able to stop laughing at the sheer delightful absurdity that is modern life....

Thoreau's classic account of the solitary life describes his attempts to simplify his life and sort out his priorities by living alone in a cabin beside Walden Pond for nearly two years....

A Field Guide to Getting Lost draws on emblematic moments and relationships in Solnit's own life to explore issues of wandering, being lost, and the uses of the unknown....

From Oahu to Detroit, “Little Saigon” to Brooklyn, authors from all walks of life take us to the real worlds that inspired their works. Hosted by reporters Amy Standen and Michael Epstein....