Showing titles in Art & Literature

As 2000AD and Judge Dredd celebrate their 40th birthday in 2017, Pat Mills at last writes the definitive history of the Galaxy's Greatest Comic and the turbulent, extraordinary and exciting events that shaped it. The story begins in a garden shed in Scotland sometime in 1971...Pat Mills is the creator of 2000AD and one of the comic's top writers.

Patricia Highsmith - author of Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr Ripley - had more than her fair share of secrets. During her life, she felt uncomfortable about discussing the source of her fiction and refused to answer questions about her private life. Yet after her death in February 1995, Highsmith left behind a vast archive of personal documents - diaries, notebooks and letters - which detail the links between her life and her work. 

Jean-Paul Sartre is one of the undisputed giants of 20th-century philosophy. His intellectual writings popularizing existentialism, combined with his creative and artistic flair, have made him a legend of French thought. His tumultuous personal life - so inextricably bound up with his philosophical thinking - is a fascinating tale of love and lust, drug abuse, high-profile fallings-out and political and cultural rebellion.

At nine, Sean Connery saved him from drowning. At thirteen, desperate to hook up with Janis Joplin, he attended his aunt Joan Didion's legendary L.A. party for the publication of Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. In his early 20s, he shared an apartment in Manhattan's Hotel Des Artistes with his best friend and soulmate Carrie Fisher, while she was filming some sci-fi movie called Star Wars and he was a struggling actor working as a popcorn seller at Radio City Music Hall.

This is the memoir Christopher Fowler always wanted to write about 'writing'. It's the story of how a young bookworm growing up in a house where there was nothing to read but knitting pamphlets and motorcycle manuals became a writer—a 'word monkey'—and pursued a sort of career in popular fiction. And it's a book full of brilliant insights into the pleasures and pitfalls of his profession, dos and don'ts for would-be writers, and astute observations on favorite (and not-so-favorite) novelists.

Read by acclaimed actor Alfred Molina, star of The Da Vinci Code, An Education and Chocolat, this is the definitive biography of Leonardo Da Vinci. Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo’s astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson weaves a narrative...

Bloomsbury presents The Lives of Lucian Freud: YOUTH 1922–1968 by William Feaver, read by Jonathan Keeble. SELECTED AS BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE TIMES, FINANCIAL TIMES, DAILY TELEGRAPH, NEW STATESMAN, SUNDAY TIMES, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT AND SPECTATOR SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE...

From her childhood, where there was no blueprint for success, to building a career as a bestselling novelist against all odds, Amanda Prowse explores what it means to be a woman in a world where popularity, slimness, beauty and youth are currency—and how she overcame all of that to forge her own path to happiness.

The definitive critical study of Tolkien’s greatest works by the respected and world renowned Tolkien scholar Professor T.A. Shippey. Following the unprecedented and universal acclaim for The Lord of the Rings, the respected academic and world-renowned Tolkien scholar, Professor Tom Shippey...

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 Sturrock's book lucidly describes a complicated life and relates it to the richness of Dahl's storytelling."Quentin Blake...

As the work at the heart of Christianity, the Bible is the spiritual guide for one out of every three people in the world. It is also the world's most widely distributed book, having been translated into over 2,000 languages, as well as the world's best-selling book, year after year. But the Bible is a complex work with a complicated and obscure history.

Secrecy came naturally to John le Carré, and there were some secrets that he fought fiercely to keep. Adam Sisman's definitive biography, published in 2015, provided a revealing portrait of this fascinating man; yet some aspects of his subject remained hidden. The Secret Life of John le Carré reveals a hitherto-hidden perspective on the life and work of the spy-turned-author and a fascinating meditation on the complex relationship between biographer and subject.

Legendary musician Johnny Marr joins David Darlington in the Audible Studios to discuss his autobiography, Set the Boy Free.

David Dimbleby reflects on his 50 year career at the BBC taking us behind the scenes of some of the biggest moments in British broadcasting. David Dimbleby has interviewed prime ministers and presidents, made award-winning documentaries, chaired Question Time for 25 years, and anchored the BBC's...

The short-lived Blitz club in London's Covent Garden was more than somewhere to hang out or be seen: it was a catalyst for cultural explosion, a counter-culture blast against everything Thatcher's leadership had ushered in by the dawn of the 80s. In Blitz, Elms reflects on a club night founded by working-class kids, one whose impact reverberated beyond its doors, through the worlds of Art, Literature, Fashion and Music, and into the present day.

One Christmas, Cathy Rentzenbrink finds herself drained by life's upheavals. In need of comfort and escape, she turns to her first literary love: Agatha Christie. As Cathy delves into Agatha's novels and her mysterious disappearance in 1926, she discovers more than she expected. Beyond the hidden jewels, detectives and thrilling escapes on trains and automobiles, Cathy unearths an adventurer and innovator who hid - within the pages of her own books - the secrets of how she survived a personal crisis and started life again.

Will Self is the author of many novels and books of non-fiction, including Great Apes, The Book of Dave, How the Dead Live, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel of the Year 2002, The Butt, winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction 2008, Umbrella, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2012, and Shark. His most recent novel, Phone, was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize. He lives in south London.

A stunning, tragic memoir about John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, and his cousin Anthony Radziwill, by Radziwill’s widow. What Remains is a vivid and haunting memoir about a girl from a working-class town who becomes an award-winning television producer and marries a...

From the very first book publication in 1920 to the recent film release of Death on the Nile, this investigation into Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot celebrates a century of probably the world’s favourite fictional detective. This book tells his story decade-by-decade, exploring his...

In 1900, an 18-year-old Spaniard named Pablo Picasso made his first trip to Paris. It was in this glittering capital of the international art world that, after suffering years of poverty and neglect, he emerged as the leader of a bohemian band of painters, sculptors, and poets. Fueled by opium and alcohol, inspired by raucous late-night conversations at the Lapin Agile cabaret, Picasso and his friends resolved to shake up the world.