Walking in the Shade: Volume Two of My Autobiography, 1949–1962
The second volume of the autobiography of Doris Lessing, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Biography: general
This Wild Darkness: The Story of My Death
A meditation on dying by a writer who has been compared to Proust, was much praised by Salman Rushdie and is perhaps most famous for producing very little.
Football in Sun and Shadow: An Emotional History of World Cup Football
Football is, in Pele’s words, ‘the beautiful game’ . Eduardo Galeano has written a series of football epiphanies from the global history of football when the rays of light have glittered from the passion of the game.
Jane Austen
A sparklingly intelligent and intimate biography of one of Britain’s best-loved writers by the highly praised biographer of Swift: ‘The best biography of Swift to date.’ Michael Foot, Observer.
Best Seat In The House
Best Seat in the House is a love letter from a passionate, unswerving fan to basketball, the New York Knickerbockers and their thirty-year relationship through disappointment, triumph, bad calls and air balls. It’s a slam dunk.
The Queen of Whale Cay
A fascinating biography of the woman champion motorboat racer of the 1920s who in the ’30s bought and became ‘ruler’ of an island in the British West Indies.
Cary Grant: A Class Apart
The ultimate biography of this ever-popular star and icon, from a young Cambridge don who has already made his name with a much praised biography of Marilyn Monroe.
Boys Like Us: Gay Writers tell their Coming-Out stories
A collection of true ‘coming out’ stories, written by the leading gay voices of the US. This is a literary, biographical, sociological and historical tour de force.
The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly
The diary of Jean-Dominique Bauby who, with his left eyelid (the only surviving muscle after a massive stroke) dictated a remarkable book about his experiences locked inside his body. A masterpiece and a bestseller in France.
Dear London: Notes from the Big City
A wonderfully original, warm and witty account of London over the past 3 decades that simultaneously charts the author’s rise from incidental tourist to internationally renowned agony aunt.
Terence Rattigan: A Biography
SHORT-LISTED FOR THE 1995 WHITBREAD BIOGRAPHY PRIZE
‘Wansell provides much the fullest portrait of Rattigan so far… taking you as close to the man as you are likely to get.’ Sunday Telegraph
This Wild Darkness: The Story of My Death
A meditation on dying by a writer who has been compared to Proust, was much praised by Salman Rushdie and is perhaps most famous for producing very little.
Longitude
The dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest: the search for the solution of how to calculate longitude and the unlikely triumph of an English genius. ‘Sobel has done the impossible and made horology sexy – no mean feat’ New Scientist