Biography & Memoir

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER.An unorthodox guide to making things worth making, from 'the father of the iPod and iPhone' and the creator of Nest.Everyone deserves a mentor.For every career crisis, every fork in the road, you need someone to...

A beautiful and timeless memoir about family in all its forms, from television documentary director, Rebecca Coxon. 'Moving, courageous, enlightening' ELIZABETH DAY ‘My family tree is not simple; my lineage is not linear. There are the...

Melodrama, biography, cold war thriller, drug memoir, essay in fragments, mystery - Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors is cult critic Ian Penman's long awaited first original book, a kaleidoscopic study of the late West German filmmaker Rainer Werner...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION'Outstanding' - The Guardian'Superb' - The Telegraph'A must read' - Anne Sebba'Lively' - The TimesThey seemed to be polar opposites . . .Augustus: vivid, volatile and promiscuous...

'Unflinchingly candid and extraordinarily powerful' DAILY TELEGRAPH ‘Dominic Gregory hasn’t just delivered a survey of courage and determination – Lifeboat at the End of the World is a hymn to human decency, and that...

The ancient Roman empire was the supreme arena, and to rule as a Caesar was to stand as an actor upon the great stage of the world. No biographies invite us into the lives of the Caesars more vividly or intimately than those by Gaius Suetonius...

A fascinating insight into the vibrant culture of Modernism, and the rich artistic world of Paris's Left Bank, Gertrude Stein's The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas includes an introduction by Thomas Fensch in Penguin Modern Classics. For Gertrude Stein...

‘If books can shape history, this is one.’ DAILY MAIL‘Both devastating and uplifting … fearless and frank - angry and empowering. It speaks to the thousands of other victims out there about how to start fighting back...

The dramatic real life stories of four young people caught up in the mass exodus of Shanghai in the wake of China’s 1949 Communist revolution—a heartrending precursor to the struggles faced by emigrants today. “A true...

An enchanting, illuminating, highly personal tour of some of the most iconic cemeteries of the world—part travelogue, part memoir, part hauntology by the author of Our Share of Night and "Buenos Aires's sorceress" (The New York...

An ode to nature and the American wilderness that is equal parts personal journey, travelogue and survival story, this is an inspired look at our beautiful world and where we fit in it. * Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award in Outdoor Literature...

Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism as I understand it. Thus wrote Orwell following his experiences as a militiaman in the Spanish Civil...

Few people have left as profound an impact on the world of science as Marie Curie, and she did it in two different fields. This history examines her life from top to bottom, both in terms of her contributions to modern science, and in terms of who she...

The prequel to Love Me Tender, narrating Debré’s transformation from affluent career woman to broke single lesbian and writer.I see all her beauty, I see the beauty of women. I see my own body, new. I tell myself there are so many...

George Orwell's vivid memoir of his time living among the desperately poor and destitute, Down and Out in Paris and London is a moving tour of the underworld of society. 'You have talked so often of going to the dogs - and well, here are the...

I've been told that no one sings the word 'hunger' like I do. Or the word 'love'. 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...

A fascinating biography of the author's painter uncle, Tucker's volume doubles as a revealing discourse on art, class and the complexities of the human psyche. Waterstones Non-Fiction Book of the Month for September 2025 Joe Tucker's Uncle...

USA TODAY BESTSELLER * A powerful examination of the nature of mistakes, why we make them, the hidden ways they can haunt us, and how surfacing and reckoning with them can help us lead to fuller, more satisfying lives by two powerhouse authors with...

Catherine Millet's best-selling The Sexual Life of Catherine M. was a landmark book — a portrait of a sexual life lived without boundaries and without a safety net. Described as "eloquent, graphic — and sometimes even poignant"...

Julia Phillips became a Hollywood player in the freewheeling 1970s, the first woman to win the Best Picture Oscar as co-producer of The Sting. She went on to work with two of the hottest young directorial talents of the era: Martin Scorsese (Taxi...