Biographies & Memoirs

The only Monte Carlo gambler to devise an infallible and completely legal system to break the bank.

The unforgettable novels of Mervyn Peake (1911-1968), Titus Groan, Gormenghast and Titus Alone, have proved enduringly popular, remaining continuously in print for over thirty years, and the BBC has now produced a major television adaptation of the books. Vast Alchemies explores the life and extraordinary ...

Nicky Haslam has always been at the centre of things wherever he is - at parties, opening nights, royal weddings - and has stories to tell of crossing paths, and more, with the cultural icons of our time: Cecil Beaton, Francis Bacon, Diana Cooper, Lucian Freud, David Hockney, Andy Warhol, Jack Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe to name but a few.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and acclaimed author of Negroland boldly and brilliantly fuses cultural analysis and memoir to probe race, class, family and art.

Lady Sings the Blues is the inimitable autobiography of one of the greatest icons of the twentieth century. Born to a single mother in 1915 Baltimore, Billie Holiday had her first run-in with the law at aged 13. But Billie Holiday is no victim. Her memoir tells the story of her life spent in jazz, smoky ...

A must-read account of the cultural icon and poet laureate of the 60s and 70s.

A ground-breaking investigation into the intellectual, psychological, and personal life of American leader James Madison, the Founding Father who did the most, but about whom we know the least

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Thrilling yarns of buffalo hunts, Indian life, and riding with the Pony Express abound in this exciting memoir of life in the Old West. Illustrations by N. C. Wyeth.

A biography that focuses on Cleopatra's ever-shifting identity. Depending on the audience, she might present herself as a goddess, a political leader, or an alluring and exotic woman. Roman statesmen likewise manipulated Cleopatra's image for their own political ends.

The thrilling and previously untold true story of Suzanne Spaak, who abandoned her life of opulence to save the Jewish children of Occupied Paris during the Second World War.

The first biography in over thirty years of Conde Nast, the pioneering publisher of Vogue and Vanity Fair and main rival to media magnate William Randolph Hearst.

Salvador Dali is the central figure in surrealism and one of the most eccentric artists of the modern age. This title presents a psychologist's take on this extraordinary life.

The fascinating life of one of the great entertainment icons of the 20th century.

"After helping to put Al Capone behind bars, lawman Eliot Ness came to Cleveland, where he did battle with a vicious killer.

'Gloriana', 'Faerie Queene', 'Queen Bess' are just some of the names given to Elizabeth I, the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. The author challenges the many myths and truths surrounding Elizabeth's life and reveals the passionate woman behind the powerful and fearless 'Virgin Queen'.

This collection of 50 true narratives by veterans and active duty personnel spans four wars. It includes tales by a Vietnam vet whose helicopter plummeted to the ground, a marine who improvised when adrift and hungry in the sea and a pilot who learned why a dog is a man's best friend.

"Chika Jeune was born three days before the devastating earthquake that decimated Haiti in 2010. She spent her infancy in a landscape of extreme poverty, and when her mother died giving birth to a baby brother, Chika was brought to The Have Faith Haiti Orphanage that Albom operates in Port Au Prince. ...

A business biography of George Washington, focusing on his many innovations and inventions. George Washington: general, statesman...businessman? Most people don't know that Washington was the country's first true entrepreneur, responsible for innovations in several industries. In George Washington, Entrepreneur, ...

Gershwin's rise as one of the sons of Russian-Jewish immigrants on Manhattan's lower East Side to his unassailable position as the leading composer of his time makes Gershwin the embodiment of the American Dream. This biography evokes the pace and colour of New York in the 1920s and 30s, and firmly places Gershwin at the centre of the Jazz Age.