50 Drag Queens Who Changed the World is a tribute to the hugely influential pioneers who have shaped the fantastic world of drag, as well as the queens of today that we all know and love. Learn about the wild and brilliant lives of Mama Ru and the best-loved Drag Race superstars, including Alaska, Bianca Del Rio and Courtney Act,…
'Boldly ambitious, deeply affecting, and magisterial in scope' Steve Silberman, author of Neurotribes 'Expansive and thoughtful, it illuminates the complexity and elusiveness of his subject' New Statesman Depression is a leading cause of disability around the world today, a growing health crisis that affects us all. It is a complex and diverse condition. But it is also highly treatable. In…
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…
The iconic bassist and co-founder of the Red Hot Chili Peppers tells his fascinating origin story, complete with all the dizzying highs and the gutter lows you'd want from an LA street rat turned world famous rock star. Michael Peter Balzary was born in Melbourne, Australia, on October 16, 1962. His more famous stage name, Flea, and his wild ride…
Eva was arrested by the Nazis on her fifteenth birthday and sent to Auschwitz. Her survival depended on endless strokes of luck, her own determination and the love and protection of her mother Fritzi, who was deported with her. When Auschwitz was liberated, Eva and Fritzi began the long journey home. They searched desperately for Eva's father and brother, from…
Having been found guilty of adultery, Hester Prynne is forced to wear an embroidered scarlet letter A as a punishment for her sin. While her vengeful husband embarks on a quest to discover the identity of her lover, she is left to face the consequences of her infidelity and find a place for herself and her illegitimate child in the…
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,…
Gandhi's non-violent struggles against racism, violence, and colonialism in South Africa and India had brought him to such a level of notoriety, adulation that when asked to write an autobiography midway through his career, he took it as an opportunity to explain himself. He feared the enthusiasm for his ideas tended to exceed a deeper understanding of his quest for…
'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…
Now in paperback featuring a new introduction by Michelle Obama, a letter from the author to her younger self, and a book club guide with 20 discussion questions and a 5-question Q&A, the intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the United States In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama…
*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…
What was it like to be Elvis Presley? What did it feel like when impossible fame made him its prisoner? As the world’s first rock star there was no one to tell him what to expect, no one with whom he could share the burden of being himself – of being Elvis. On the outside he was all charm, sex…
ohn Lennon was a rock star, a school clown, a writer, a wit, an iconoclast, a sometime peace activist and finally an eccentric millionaire. He was also a Beatle – his plain-speaking and impudent rejection of authority catching, and eloquently articulating, the group’s moment in history. Chronicling a famously troubled life, Being John Lennon analyses the contradictions in the singer-songwriter’s…
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…
The biggest names…the coolest sounds…the 40 most inspirational movers, shakers, and innovators in black music are here! In this fun, fact-packed book from the 40 Inspiring Icons series, learn how these black musicians changed music, from the creation of blues to the invention of rap. Meet the Godfather of Funk, the High Priestess of Soul, and the King of Reggae.…
There was life before the fall. 1989 was a year of astonishing and rapid change: the fall of the Berlin Wall marked the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and an end to an entire way of life for millions of people behind the Iron Curtain. Bloc Life collects first hand testimony of the people who lived in East Germany, Czechoslovakia and…
Edgar Allan Poe was a writer of uncommon talent; in The Murders in the Rue Morgue he created the genre of detective fiction while his genius for finding the strangeness lurking within us all has been an influence on everyone from Freud to Hollywood. This complete collection of all his short stories and novellas contains well-known tales 'The Pit and…
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…
Now, having secured access to the remaining band members and those who were closest to Freddie from childhood to death, Lesley-Ann has written the most in-depth account of one of music's best loved and most complex figures. Meticulously researched, sympathetic, unsensationalised, the book focuses on the period in the 1980s when Queen began to fragment, before their Live Aid performance…
An engaging, fast-paced and vivid read . . . Essential reading not only because it is a personal story of survival, leavened with insight and wit, but because it does more to expose apartheid - its legacy, its pettiness, its small-minded stupidity and its damage - than any other recent history book or academic text.
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…
‘Entrancing . . . This book allows us to observed not just the nimble-mouthed elf of his previous work, but a man in his seventh decade expunging his darker secrets and contemplating mortality . . . The brilliance of David Sedaris’s writing is that his very essence, his aura, seeps through the pages of his books like an intoxicating cloud,…
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…
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…
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…
By the author of the acclaimed bestsellers Benjamin Franklin and Steve Jobs, this is the definitive biography of Albert Einstein. How did his mind work? What made him a genius? Isaacson’s biography shows how his scientific imagination sprang from the rebellious nature of his personality. His fascinating story is a testament to the connection between creativity and freedom. Based on…
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.
A compilation of the subversive, important and entertaining writer of Hunter S. Thompson - renowned American writer of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas 'It would not do to be found in the desert under these circumstances: firing wildly into the cactus from a car full of drugs...' Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone showcases the evolution of the writer of Fear and…
‘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 story of a man whose music changed the world. Farrokh Bulsara was a young boy who loved music and was known for being quiet and kind, even when people made fun of his unusual teeth. Farrokh grew up to be Freddie Mercury, an incredible musician who could command audiences with his charisma and talent, and who would one day…
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…
'All my life my Stradivarius had been waiting for me, as I had been waiting for her . . .' At 7 years old Min Kym was a prodigy, the youngest ever pupil at the Purcell School of Music. At 11 she won her first international prize. She worked with many violins, waiting for the day she would play 'the…
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…
Iggy Pop’s life has been one of extraordinary highs and terrifying lows. Infamous for his wild ways, he is also a towering figure of the rock scene – hugely influential, charismatic and provocative. Every ‘mad, bad, dangerous to know’ rock star owes a debt to him, and the stories of his shocking behaviour are legendary. But Iggy Pop is also,…
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…
In April 1992 Chris McCandles, a young man from a well-to-do family, hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness. He had given all his savings to charity, abandoned his car and posessions, burnt all the money in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a hunter…
Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild examines true story of Chris McCandless, a young man, who in 1992 walked deep into the Alaskan wilderness and whose SOS note and emaciated corpse were found four months later, internationally bestselling author Jon Krakauer explores the obsession which leads some people to explore the outer limits of self, leave civilization behind and seek enlightenment…
Freud revolutionized the way we think about ourselves. His psychoanalytic terms such as Id, Ego, libido, neurosis and Oedipus Complex have become a part of our everyday vocabulary. But do we know what they really mean? "Introducing Freud" successfully demystifies the facts of Freud's discovery of psychoanalysis. Irreverent and witty but never trivial, the book tells the story of Freud's…
The definitive book on iconic cult hero Jeff Buckley, the singer who made just one record but inspired a generation of rock musicians. Written by his manager Dave Lory, Jeff Buckleyincludes interviews with others who worked closely with him who have never spoken before. For the first time since Jeff Buckley’s untimely death on May 29, 1997, his manager Dave…
The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian's much-garlanded masterpiece: 'The most compelling biography I have read in years' Max Hastings By the time of his assassination in 1963, John F. Kennedy stood at the helm of the greatest power the world had ever seen. Born in 1917 to a striving Irish American family that had become among Boston's wealthiest, Kennedy knew political ambition…
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…
Don DeLillo's extraordinary Libra is a brilliant reimagining of the events and people surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Concentrating on the lives of Lee Harvey Oswald, some rogue former spooks unhappy with Kennedy's presidency, and Nicholas Branch, a CIA archivist, trying to make sense of or draw inferences from the mass of information after the assassination, Libra presents an unapologeticly provocative…
'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…
Malala Yousafzai lived in Pakistan where she was one of the best students in her class. But then a group of Islamist extremists called the Taliban came and a war began. Then, one day, two men from the Taliban shot Malala on the bus home from school. Penguin Readers is a series of popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking…
Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the experiences of others he treated later.
'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…
'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:…
Celebrating a tradition of bravery, thirst for knowledge, and pursuit of glory, this book tells the stories of the most famous mountaineers in history and explores the climbs that they conquered. Mountaineers is filled with stirring tales of adventure and intriguing characters, from the Brits who insisted on hauling cases of vintage champagne up to Everest base camp in 1924,…
Gloria Steinem had an itinerant childhood. Every fall, her father would pack the family into the car and they would drive across the country, in search of their next adventure. The seeds were planted: Steinem would spend much of her life on the road, as a journalist, organizer, activist, and speaker. In vivid stories that span an entire career, Steinem…
'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…
