In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency-a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil.…
From being told she couldn't have dance lessons as a kid in Great Yarmouth to having to conform to the stereotypes of the gay scene in London's East End, people have always been trying to put Bimini Bon Boulash in a box. It was only through discovering the art of drag that she began to fight back against those preconceptions,…
Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize The Top Ten Bestseller A The Times Book of the Year Waterstones Non-Fiction Book of the Month ‘If you want to read a book that moves you both at the level of sentence and the quality of language and with the emotional depth of its subject matter, then A Fortunate Woman is definitely the…
Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction Nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award An American Library Association Notable Book Jonathan Franzen's third novel, The Corrections, is a great work of art and a grandly entertaining overture to our new century: a bold, comic, tragic, deeply moving family drama that stretches from the Midwest at mid-century to Wall…
In this memoir of loss, acclaimed writer and comedian Rob Delaney grapples with the fragile miracle of life, the mysteries of death, and the question of purpose for those left behind. When you’re a parent and your child gets hurt or sick, you not only try to help them get better but you also labour under the general belief that…
A memoir of politics and activism, from the bestselling and beloved author of I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS ‘A brilliant writer, a fierce friend and a truly phenomenal woman’ BARACK OBAMA It is 1964 and Maya Angelou is on her way back home, leaving behind her beloved – and now seriously teenage – son Guy, to finish university…
The incredible memoir of Elaine Brown - the first woman leader of the Black Panthers 'Here I was, a woman, proclaiming supreme power over the most militant organization in America' In 1974 Elaine Brown became the first woman leader of the Black Panther Party. This is her unforgettable memoir, charting her rise from an impoverished neighbourhood in Philadelphia, through her…
'Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian dreamer, the command to love one's enemy is an absolute necessity for our survival' Advocating love as strength and non-violence as the most powerful weapon there is, these sermons and writings from the heart of the civil rights movement show Martin Luther King's rhetorical power at its most fiery and uplifting.…
Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook…
A memoir about home and belonging, from the author of I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS ‘A brilliant writer, a fierce friend and a truly phenomenal woman’ BARACK OBAMA Maya Angelou’s five volumes of autobiography, beginning with I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS, are a testament to the talents and resilience of this extraordinary writer. Loving the world,…
'Drawing on exclusive access to key players and two billion digital words and images Ross left behind, New York Times bestselling author Nick Bilton offers a tale filled with twists and turns, lucky breaks and unbelievable close calls. It’s a story of the boy next door’s ambition gone criminal, spurred on by the clash between the new world of libertarian-leaning,…
'June, 1942: I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support.' In Amsterdam, in the summer of 1942, the Nazis forced teenager Anne Frank and her family into hiding. For over two years, they, another…
This second volume of Sontag's journals and notebooks traces her evolution from fledgling participant in the artistic and intellectual world in 1960s New York City to a dominant force in the world of ideas. This is an invaluable record of one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century. 'A powerful self-portrait emerges. In its fragmentation . . .…
In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time . . . From the author of Before the Coffee Gets Cold comes Tales from the Cafe, a story…
*A younger reader's edition of the number-one bestselling memoir by former first lady of the United States, Michelle Obama. With a new introduction from Mrs Obama herself* What's important is our story, our whole story, including those moments when we feel a little vulnerable . . . Michelle Robinson started life sharing a bedroom with her older brother Craig, in…
'An essayistic marvel...deeply personal and yet immensely readable' Sara Collins, GUARDIAN America is at a crossroads. Drawing insight and inspiration from Baldwin's writings, Glaude suggests we can find hope and guidance through an era of shattered promises and white retrenchment. Seamlessly combining biography with history, memoir and trenchant analysis of our moment, Begin Again bears witness to the difficult truth…
Black Milk is the affecting and beautifully written memoir on motherhood and writing by Turkey's bestselling female writer Elif Shafak, author of Honour, The Gaze and The Bastard of Istanbul which was long-listed for the Orange prize. Postpartum depression affects millions of new mothers every year, and- like most of its victims- Elif Shafak never expected to be one of…
From one of our most powerful writers, a work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter. Richly textured with bits of her own childhood and married life with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and daughter, Quintana Roo, this new book by Joan Didion examines her thoughts, fears, and doubts regarding having children, illness, and growing old. Blue Nights opens on…
Bob Dylan’s impact on popular music has been incalculable. Having transformed staid folk music into a vehicle for coruscating social commentary, he then swept away the romantic platitudes of rock ‘n’ roll with his searing intellect. From the zeitgeist-encapsulating protest of ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ to the streetwise venom of ‘Like a Rolling Stone’, and from the stunning mid-sixties trilogy…
Meet 30 positive male role models from throughout history. From activists like Mahatma Gandhi and Frederick Douglass to creative innovators like Prince and David Hockney, these men have fought conventional stereotypes to prove that modern-day masculinity can be defined freely. Instead of a single model of how a boy can grow into a man, this book offers 30 stories of…
Cheer the F**K Up is, without a doubt, the most meaningful and funniest book I have ever read on mental health and loss. Jack is a genius (fact) and he weaves together themes of love, grief, sexuality, trauma, growing up, mental health and friendship in a memoir that will stand the test of time. If you are a human living…
Trans people in Britain today have become a culture war 'issue'. Despite making up less than one per cent of the country's population, they are the subjects of a toxic and increasingly polarized 'debate' which generates reliable controversy for newspapers and talk shows. This media frenzy conceals a simple fact: that we are having the wrong conversation, a conversation in…
The story of a young man's coming of age, a tender tribute to a life lost, and a devastating analysis of a broken system. Aged 15 and living in LA, Michael Allen was arrested for a botched carjacking. He was tried as an adult and sentenced to thirteen years behind bars. After growing up in prison Michael was then released…
Chuck Palahniuk showed himself to be his generation’s most visionary satirist in this, his first book. Fight Club’s estranged narrator leaves his lackluster job when he comes under the thrall of Tyler Durden, an enigmatic young man who holds secret after-hours boxing matches in the basement of bars. There, two men fight "as long as they have to." This is…
What does it take to master French cooking? This is the question that drives Bill Buford to abandon his perfectly happy life in New York City and (with his wife and three-year-old twin sons in tow) move to Lyon, the so-called gastronomic capital of France. But what was meant to be six months in a new city turns into a…
I wanted to change the world, but the world I was born into changed me first. My name is Jeremiah Emmanuel. I'm twenty one years old. I'm an activist, an entrepreneur, a former deputy young mayor of Lambeth and member of the UK Youth Parliament. Raised in south London, I lived in an area where crime and poverty were everywhere…
I’m standing on the red railway car that sits abandoned next to the barn. The wind soars, whipping my hair across my face and pushing a chill down the open neck of my shirt. The gales are strong this close to the mountain, as if the peak itself is exhaling. Down below, the valley is peaceful, undisturbed. Meanwhile our farm…
Veteran technology journalist Ashlee Vance offers an unprecedented look into the remarkable life of the most daring entrepreneur of our time. Elon Musk paints a portrait of a complex man who has renewed American industry and sparked new levels of innovation—from PayPal to Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity—overcoming hardship, earning billions, and making plenty of enemies along the way.
Trans people in Britain today have become a culture war 'issue'. Despite making up less than one per cent of the country's population, they are the subjects of a toxic and increasingly polarized 'debate' which generates reliable controversy for newspapers and talk shows. This media frenzy conceals a simple fact: that we are having the wrong conversation, a conversation in…
Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction Nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award An American Library Association Notable Book Jonathan Franzen's third novel, The Corrections, is a great work of art and a grandly entertaining overture to our new century: a bold, comic, tragic, deeply moving family drama that stretches from the Midwest at mid-century to Wall…
Chuck Palahniuk showed himself to be his generation’s most visionary satirist in this, his first book. Fight Club’s estranged narrator leaves his lackluster job when he comes under the thrall of Tyler Durden, an enigmatic young man who holds secret after-hours boxing matches in the basement of bars. There, two men fight "as long as they have to." This is…
‘Why can’t you find a nice man to be happy with?’ my mother is saying. We are walking down Ninth Avenue after a noon-hour concert at Lincoln Centre. ‘Why do you pick one schlemiel after another? Do you do this to make me miserable?’ Vivian Gornick’s relationship with her mother is difficult. At the age of forty-five, she regularly meets…
The sequel to I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS ‘A brilliant writer, a fierce friend and a truly phenomenal woman’ Barack Obama Maya Angelou’s volumes of autobiography are a testament to the talents and resilience of this extraordinary writer. Loving the world, she also knows its cruelty. As a black woman she has known discrimination and extreme poverty, but…
Chuck Palahniuk showed himself to be his generation’s most visionary satirist in this, his first book. Fight Club’s estranged narrator leaves his lackluster job when he comes under the thrall of Tyler Durden, an enigmatic young man who holds secret after-hours boxing matches in the basement of bars. There, two men fight "as long as they have to." This is…
The story of a girl who is changing the world. Greta Thunberg is an activist best known for calling attention to the devastating effects of climate change on our planet. A bold voice even against people that want to silence her, Greta has become a source of inspiration for millions of people who want to work towards tackling the climate…
Hellhound on His Trail is the story of two very different men whose lives catastrophically interweaved over the course of some nine months in the late 1960s: one was a thief and con man called James Earl Ray, the other one of the greatest American figures of the twentieth century, Martin Luther King Jr. Hampton Sides follows in Ray's footsteps…
From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate, a powerful account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America’s white working class Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of…
The New York Times bestseller based on the Oscar nominated documentary film In June 1979, the writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin embarked on a project to tell the story of America through the lives of three of his murdered friends: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. He died before it could be completed. In his…
The international classic and bestseller, Maya Angelou’s memoir paints a portrait of ‘a brilliant writer, a fierce friend and a truly phenomenal woman’ (BARACK OBAMA). ‘I write about being a Black American woman, however, I am always talking about what it’s like to be a human being. This is how we are, what makes us laugh, and this is how…
Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction Nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award An American Library Association Notable Book Jonathan Franzen's third novel, The Corrections, is a great work of art and a grandly entertaining overture to our new century: a bold, comic, tragic, deeply moving family drama that stretches from the Midwest at mid-century to Wall…
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is one of today's most admired and controversial political figures. She burst into international headlines following the murder of Theo van Gogh by an Islamist who threatened she would be next. An international bestseller, her life story Infidel shows the coming of age of this elegant, distinguished -- and sometimes reviled -- political superstar and champion of…
Trans people in Britain today have become a culture war 'issue'. Despite making up less than one per cent of the country's population, they are the subjects of a toxic and increasingly polarized 'debate' which generates reliable controversy for newspapers and talk shows. This media frenzy conceals a simple fact: that we are having the wrong conversation, a conversation in…
A collection of wisdom and life lessons, from the beloved and bestselling author of I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS ‘A brilliant writer, a fierce friend and a truly phenomenal woman’ BARACK OBAMA Dedicated to the daughter she never had but sees all around her, Letter to my Daughter reveals Maya Angelou’s path to living well and living a…
Living in the Blackwood family home with only her sister Constance and her Uncle Julian for company, Merricat just wants to preserve their delicate way of life. But ever since Constance was acquitted of murdering the rest of the family, the world isn't leaving the Blackwoods alone. And when Cousin Charles arrives, armed with overtures of friendship and a desperate…
'I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia. I composed a beautiful letter to you in the sleepless nightmare hours of the night, and it has all gone. I just miss you...' At a dinner party in 1922, Virginia Woolf met the renowned author, aristocrat - and sapphist - Vita Sackville-West. Virginia wrote in her diary that she didn't…
'Promises to make for one of 2021's must-read memoirs' Stylist The powerful, urgent manifesto on never giving up from Booker prize-winning trailblazer, Bernardine EvaristoIn 2019, Bernardine Evaristo became the first black woman to win the Booker Prize since its inception fifty years earlier - a revolutionary landmark for Britain. Her journey was a long one, but she made it, and…
Natasha Trethewey was born in Mississippi in the 60s to a black mother and a white father. When she was six, Natasha's parents divorced, and she and her mother moved to Atlanta. There, her mother met the man who would become her second husband, and Natasha's stepfather. While she was still a child, Natasha decided that she would not tell…
'In philosophy, one must start from scratch - & it takes a very long time to reach scratch' Iris Murdoch, Mary Midgley, Philippa Foot and Elizabeth Anscombe were philosophy students at Oxford during the Second World War when most male undergraduates (and many tutors) were conscripted. Taught by refugee scholars, women and conscientious objectors, the four friends developed a philosophy…
From the best-selling author of The Circle - the gripping true story of a young Yemeni American man, raised in San Francisco, who dreams of resurrecting the ancient art of Yemeni coffee but finds himself trapped in Sana'a by civil war Mokhtar Alkhanshali is twenty-four and working as a doorman when he becomes fascinated with the rich history of coffee…
A decade ago, Caitlin Moran thought she had it all figured out. Her instant bestseller How to Be a Woman was a game-changing take on feminism, the patriarchy, and the general ‘hoo-ha’ of becoming a woman. Back then, she firmly believed ‘the difficult bit’ was over, and her forties were going to be a doddle. If only she had known:…
'I am one of few Jewish survivors of World War Two, but one of many Jewish people to fight the Nazi regime. My story illustrates what happened to thousands of Jews and non-Jews alike. I have recorded the small details that made up our lives, the sheer luck that saved some of us and the atrocities that led to the…
The astonishing New York Times bestseller that chronicles how a brain scientist's own stroke led to enlightenment On December 10, 1996, Jill Bolte Taylor, a thirty-seven- year-old Harvard-trained brain scientist experienced a massive stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain. As she observed her mind deteriorate to the point that she could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall…
'Fiercely feminist, fascinating. I have recommended this to several people. And I'm doing the same here' Sunday Times 'Do not read this book in public: it will make you cry' Anne Enright 'I am afraid of being the disruptive woman. And of not being disruptive enough. I am afraid. But I am doing it anyway.' In this dazzling debut, Emilie…
'Hilarious, subversive, sharp without being lethal, and loving without an ounce of sentiment, Shirley Jackson's more-or-less autobiographical account of life as a mother of four and faculty wife (and brilliant writer) is an eternal, comic joy' Amy Bloom 'Our new house was waiting for us, eager, expectant, and empty' Shirley Jackson skewered the trials of domestic life in 1950s America…
Drawing on a wealth of new material, Heather Clark brings to life the great and tragic poet, Sylvia Plath. Refusing to read Plath's work as if her every act was a harbinger of her fate, Clark evokes a culture in transition in the mid-twentieth century as she thoroughly explores Sylvia's world. We see Plath's early relationships and determination not to…
"An insightful, tender and inspiring memoir that explores the emotional side of a doctor’s working life. ‘Brilliant, compelling… A hugely life-affirming book’ Mail on Sunday Grief. Anger. Joy. Fear. Distraction. Disgust. Hope. All emotions we expect to encounter over our lifetime. But what if this was every day? And what if your ability to manage them was the difference between…
Winner of the Tata Literature Live First Book Award for Non-Fiction 2020 Shortlisted for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year Award 2021 'A fabulous piece of writing... I recommend it unreservedly' William Dalrymple 'A brilliant book' Christina Lamb One of the first things I was told when I arrived in Kabul was never to walk... When journalist Taran…
Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction Nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award An American Library Association Notable Book Jonathan Franzen's third novel, The Corrections, is a great work of art and a grandly entertaining overture to our new century: a bold, comic, tragic, deeply moving family drama that stretches from the Midwest at mid-century to Wall…
A memoir about motherhood and music from the bestselling author of I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS ‘A brilliant writer, a fierce friend and a truly phenomenal woman’ Barack Obama Maya Angelou’s seven volumes of autobiography are a testament to the talents and resilience of this extraordinary writer. Loving the world, she also knows its cruelty. As a black…
WINNER OF THE 2020 PULITZER PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY Selected as a Book of the Year 2019 by the SPECTATOR, TELEGRAPH, NEW STATESMAN and FINANCIAL TIMES 'Definitive and delightful' Stephen Fry 'There can be no doubting the brilliance - the sheer explanatory vigour - of Moser's biography... a triumph of the virtues of seriousness and truth-telling that Susan Sontag espoused' New Stateman The definitive portrait of one…
From one of the most important chroniclers of our time, come two extended excerpts from her never-before-seen notebooks - writings that offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of a legendary writer. Joan Didion has always kept notebooks: of overheard dialogue, observations, interviews, drafts of essays and articles Here is one such draft that traces a road trip…
An icon of the last fifty years, Stephen Hawking seems to encapsulate genius: not since Albert Einstein has a scientific figure held such a position in popular consciousness. In this enthralling memoir, writer and physicist Leonard Mlodinow tells the story of his friend and their friendship, offering an intimate account of this giant of science. The two met in 2003,…
