Showing titles in Memoirs, Diaries & Correspondence

A publishing sensation, the publication of Victor Klemperer's diaries brings to light one of the most extraordinary documents of the Nazi period. 'A classic ... Klemperer's diary deserves to rank alongside that of Anne Frank's' SUNDAY TIMES 'I can't remember when I read a more engrossing book'...

Alan Rickman remains one of the most beloved actors of all time across almost every genre, from his breakout role as Die Hard's villainous Hans Gruber to his heart-wrenching run as Professor Severus Snape, and beyond. But Rickman's artistry wasn't confined to just his performances. Fans of memoirs at large will delight in the intimate experience of Rickman detailing the extraordinary and the ordinary in a way that is 'anecdotal, indiscreet, witty, gossipy and utterly candid'.

Patricia Highsmith's first novel was picked up by Hitchcock and was a world-wide success. Her second novel was meant to tell everything about her true inside and dare what no-one had dared to write before: a lesbian love-story with a happy ending. But when she eventually relented to publish it under a pseudonym, it was a decision that would shape her life more than she could have guessed at the time. Henceforth she would vent her inner life either encoded in her future novels or—unbeknownst to most—in the 18 diaries and 38 notebooks she kept throughout her life.

John Keats' letters paint an unforgettably vivid and moving picture of the richly productive but also tragic final years of the poet's life. As he ponders on the nature of the writer's craft, he must first confront his brother's death from tuberculosis and then the imminent prospect of his own, tormented by the fear that he will not live to consummate his relationship with Fanny Brawne.

'ABSOLUTE HEAVEN' INDIA KNIGHT 'WARM AND UPLIFTING' AJ PEARCE 'THE PERFECT ANTIDOTE TO THE WORLD RIGHT NOW' JENNIE GODFREY Many of us dream of owning a bookshop, but for Katie Clapham it happened by accident, when she moved back to the seaside town she grew up in and went into business with her...

The Windsor Diaries are the never-before-seen diaries of Alathea Fitzalan Howard, who lived alongside the young Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret at Windsor Castle during the Second World War. Alathea's home life was an unhappy one. Her parents had separated and so during the war she was sent to...

Step aboard Boater, a mesmerising voyage along the tranquil waterways of England, written by former UK Canal Laureate, Jo Bell. ' It's not a lifestyle. It's a life ' For over twenty years, Jo Bell, archaeologist and poet, has travelled the waterways of England (and sometimes Wales) meeting...

'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 Roald Dahl penned to his mother, Sofie Magdalene, under the watchful eye of his boarding-school headmaster. For most of his life, Roald...

Winner of the 2015 Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album Following up the phenomenal success of her headline-making New York Times bestseller I Hate Everyone...Starting With Me, the unstoppable Joan Rivers is at it again. When her daughter Melissa gives her a diary for Christmas, at first Joan is...

For everyone who loves watching Amanda Owen and her family on Our Farm Next Door: Amanda, Clive & The Kids and Our Yorkshire Farm, or enjoys reading her bestselling books, comes this delightful and uplifting collection of her monthly Dalesman columns. In Tales From the Farm by the Yorkshire...

Meet Liz: all she wants is some peace and quiet so she can read a book with her cat Henry, love of her life, by her side. But trampling all over this dream is a group of wild things also known as Liz's family. Namely Richard - a man, a husband, no serious rival to Henry; Thomas - their sensitive seven-year-old son, for whom life is a bed of pain already; and Evie - five-year-old acrobat, gangster, anarchist, daughter. And as if her family's demands weren't enough, Liz must also contend with the madness of parents, friends, bosses and at least one hovering nemesis. 

Pore over the letters of Eve Babitz—queen of the witty, gossipy, and thoroughly engrossing missive. Eve Babitz was a pure product of Los Angeles. The goddaughter of the avant-garde composer Igor Stravinsky, she made the scene of just about every midcentury California scene there was: from the...

For everyone who loves watching Amanda Owen and her family on Our Yorkshire Farm, or enjoys reading her bestselling books, comes this delightful and uplifting collection of her monthly Dalesman columns. In Tales From the Farm by the Yorkshire Shepherdess Amanda takes readers on an evocative...

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of Inside Vogue, written and read by Alexandra Shulman. Editor-in-Chief Alexandra Shulman kept a diary of British Vogue's Centenary year. And what a year. She reveals the emotional and logistical minefield of producing the 100th...

'This is a unique juxtaposition of the shatteringly honest diaries of two Jewish girls fighting to survive — Grandma Rosi in the Holocaust and two generations later Jess in today's grubby showbiz world. It appalled, uplifted and delighted me. I wish I’d written it.' MIRIAM MARGOLYES 'Deeply...

Forty-five episodes from Series 1-8 of the Sony Award-winning BBC Radio comedy show, hosted by Rufus Hound. In this hilarious and revealing show, host Rufus Hound invites his guests to revisit their formative years by dusting off their intimate teenage diaries and reading them out in public for...

Sally Urwin and her husband, Steve, own High House Farm in Northumberland, which they share with Mavis the sheepdog, one very fat pony and many, many sheep. Set in beautiful, wild landscape, and in use for generations, it's the perfect setting for Sally's (sometimes brutally) honest and charming account of farming life. From stock sales to lambing sheds, and out in the fields in snow and on hot summer days, A Farmer's Diary reveals the highs, lows and hard work involved in making a living from the land.

Ralph Waldo Emerson is one of the most important figures in the history of American thought, religion, and literature. The vitality of his writings and the unsettling power of his example continue to influence us more than a hundred years after his death. Now Robert D. Richardson Jr. brings to life an Emerson very different from the old stereotype of the passionless Sage of Concord.

The definitive collection of works on a subject that inspired and haunted Charles Bukowski for his entire life: alcohol. Charles Bukowski turns to the bottle in this revelatory collection of poetry and prose that includes some of the writer’s best and most lasting work. A self-proclaimed...

John le Carré was one of the greatest novelists of his generation but also had an extraordinary life, from his childhood with a con man father to his inimitable career as a writer. From his involvement in the Cold War, time in Berlin, travels to Vietnam and engagement with world leaders, his experiences were truly remarkable. This collection of letters reveals John le Carré—the man, the writer and his world—for the first time and most intimately.