Showing titles in Biographies & Memoirs

Richard Coles narrates this witty account of life as a parish priest and Radio 4 broadcaster. After a life of sex and drugs and the Communards - brilliantly recounted in the highly acclaimed first volume of his memoirs Fathomless Riches - the Reverend Richard Coles went on to devote his life to God and Christianity. He is also a much-loved broadcaster, presenting Saturday Live on Radio 4 and giving us regular reason to Pause for Thought on Radio 2.

In this groundbreaking book spanning decades of artistic risk-taking, the inventor of “industrial music”, founder of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, and world-renowned fine artist with COUM Transmissions, Genesis P-Orridge (1950-2020) takes us on a journey searching for identity and their true self. It is the story of a life of creation and destruction, where Genesis P-Orridge reveals their unwillingness to be stuck—stuck in one place, in one genre, or in one gender.

Winner of the Speakies award for the Best Self-Help Audiobook Read by the author, Suzi Ruffell, this audiobook includes exclusive behind-the-scenes conversations between Suzi and special guests, including Romesh Ranganathan, Josh Widdecombe, Tom Allen, Maisie Adams, Rosie Jones, and her mum. 'A...

When Katrina, a forty-six-year-old Midwestern mother of four, becomes consumed with feelings for her female Pilates instructor, she begins to understand that she is and always has been gay. Her husband suggests they open up their twenty+ year marriage, which appears to be a reasonable solution to their dilemma. But when Katrina and her husband have different ideas of what an open marriage should like, the cracks in their white-picket-fence life are hit with a hurricane-force fury.

The extraordinary life of history's first modern lesbian who inspired the television series Gentleman Jack. Anne Lister's journals were so shocking that the first person to crack their secret code hid them behind a fake panel in his ancestral home. Anne Lister was a Regency landowner, an intrepid world traveller...and an unabashed lover of other women. In this bold new biography, prizewinning author Angela Steidele uses the diaries to create a portrait of Anne Lister as we've never seen her before: a woman in some ways very much of her time and in others far ahead of it.

From the New York Times Bestselling author of Running With Scissors comes the story of one man trying to out-drink his memories, outlast his demons, and outrun his past. "I was addicted to "Bewitched" as a kid. I worshipped Darren Stevens the First. When he'd come home from work and Samantha...

The inspiration for the HBO Original Documentary, Rock Hudson: All that Heaven Allowed, airing June 28! The definitive biography of the deeply complex and widely misunderstood matinee idol of Hollywood’s Golden Age. “Mark Griffin paints a vivid portrait of a man who lived a double life in...

'The best vicar ever' Caitlin Moran 'Sex, drugs, death, religion, more sex... it has got it all' Guardian FATHOMLESS RICHES is the Reverend Richard Coles' warm, witty and wise memoir in which he divulges with searing honesty and intimacy his pilgrimage from a rock-and-roll life of sex and drugs...

A humorous collection of autobiographical essays from comedian and Somebody Somewhere actor Jeff Hiller, who shares his journey from growing up “profoundly gay” in 1980s Texas to his experiences as an inept social worker and how he clawed, scraped, and brawled to Hollywood’s lower...

A definitive history and celebration of the groundbreaking show RuPaul's Drag Race in its first decade, from a Burbank basement set all the way to the Emmy's, and every weave in-between, as told by its stars, producers and fans. Told over the first ten years, And Don't F&%k It Up tells a...

Brought to you by Penguin. THE MILLION COPY BESTSELLER Paul O'Grady is one of Britain's very best loved entertainers. He is known and adored by millions, whether as the creator of the acid-tongued Blonde Bombsite, Lily Savage, the presenter of the fantastically successful, award-winning Paul...

Caroline "Tula" Cossey was born with male genitalia but went on to become a beautiful woman with a successful modeling career. My Story is Tula's candid thought-provoking, enlightening, humorous, heart wrenching, and motivational account of her struggles: her troubled childhood being bullied and taunted in East Anglia, her dreams of becoming a woman, the operations that liberated her sexually, and the journey from showgirl to James Bond girl to top international model.

By the age of twenty, Lucy Spraggan had already experienced more extraordinary things than many do across a lifetime. When her X Factor audition went viral in 2012, Lucy became the bookies' favourite to win the show. She was the first contestant ever to write and perform her own original songs, refusing to be pigeonholed by stylists and producers. Viewers fell for her unmanufactured, anti-pop princess stance, and the tabloids loved her. Then, suddenly, mid-way through the live shows, Lucy dropped out. The public were told Lucy was unwell.

'Thoughtful, beautiful, incredibly necessary. People need to read this book, especially if they feel a resistance to. I wish everyone would.' Sofie Hagen ‘Uncompromising, anguished, combative: culture wars have victims, and this is an agonising story told with honesty and passion.’ Richard...

Growing up on Long Island, lonely and quiet and queer, she was enchanted by Hollywood starlets like Kim Novak. She found her turn in New York’s early Off-Off-Broadway theater scene, in Warhol’s films Flesh and Women in Revolt, and at the famed nightclub Max's Kansas City. She inspired songs by Lou Reed and the Rolling Stones. She became friends with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, borrowed a dress from Lauren Hutton, posed for Richard Avedon, and performed alongside Tennessee Williams in his own play.

Calum leaves the hometown he has been in all his life to embark on a journey that takes him all around the world, from teaching in a school on the outskirts of Rome to exploring the sex clubs of Berlin, to raising tigers in an animal sanctuary deep in the jungles of Thailand. Along the way, he meets LGBT+ people from all walks of life and every part of the rainbow - from an Italian teenager struggling with a homophobic father to a kathoey navigating life as a trans person in Thailand, to a young HIV-positive man living on the streets of London.

Hey, I'm Jamie, a 29-year-old trans guy from the UK. I've been transitioning for 12 years now after realising I was trans (by accident!) at sixteen years old. I knew I was a boy since the age of four, but realised whilst growing up that I was different. It was only in my teens that I found the words to express who I was and what I needed to do. Since then, I've been on testosterone for more than a decade - I know, I can't believe it either - I've also had top and bottom surgery and legally changed my sex, so I know a few things about the transitioning process and being trans!

Oscar Wilde's life – like his wit – was alive with paradox. He was both an early exponent and a victim of 'celebrity culture': famous for being famous, he was lauded and ridiculed in equal measure. His achievements were frequently downplayed, his successes resented. He had a genius for comedy but strove to write tragedies. Matthew Sturgis draws on a wealth of new material and fresh research, bringing alive the distinctive mood and characters of the fin de siècle in the richest and most compelling portrait of Oscar Wilde to date.

Gareth Thomas had it all. He was a national hero, a sporting icon. He was a leader of men, captain of Wales and the British Lions. To him, rugby was an expression of cultural identity, a sacred code. It was no mere ball game. It gave him everything, except the freedom to be himself. This is the story of a man with a secret that was slowly killing him. Something that might devastate not only his own life but the lives of his wife, family, friends and teammates.

So often the stories shared by trans people about their transition center on gender dysphoria: a feeling of deep discomfort with their birth-assigned gender, and a powerful catalyst for coming out or transitioning. But for many non-cisgender people, it's gender euphoria that pushes forward their transition: the joy the first time a parent calls them by their new chosen name, the first time they have the confidence to cut their hair short, the first time they truly embrace themself.