Biography & Memoir

“One of the most original, amazing stories I've ever read” (Mary Gaitskill), iconic rock-and-roll musician Adele Bertei’s memoir Twist is her harrowing and electric story of transforming trauma through art, pluck, and imagination, as told through the...

Habibi, based on a Middle Eastern fable, tells the story of Dodola, who escapes being sold into slavery and rescues an abandoned baby she names Zam. They live in isolation in an old boat in the desert. As they age their relationship shifts from mother...

Between 58 and 50 BC Caesar conquered most of the area now covered by France, Belgium and Switzerland, and twice invaded Britain. This is the record of his campaigns. Caesar's narrative offers insights into his military strategy & paints a...

The author of the runaway hit Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies shares honest and practical lessons for healing your past and owning your future so you can radiate strength, bravery, and joy when life gets dark.“A revealing and powerful book that lit me up...

This edition of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca's Relacion offers readers Rolena Adorno and Patrick Charles Pautz's celebrated translation of Cabeza de Vaca's account of the 1527 Panfilo de Narvaez expedition to North America. The dramatic narrative tells the...

From leaving the oven on to embarrassing yourself in front of tradespeople, TikTok star and chronic overthinker Hayley Morris is here to share her most hilariously cringeworthy moments and reassure all readers that they are not alone in practicing such...

Powerful, affecting essays on mental illness, winner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize and a Whiting AwardAn intimate, moving book written with the immediacy and directness of one who still struggles with the effects of mental and chronic...

"From the New York Times bestselling author of Rise of the Rocket Girls comes the never-before-told story of a small cadre of influential female spies in the precarious early days of the CIA—women who helped create the template for cutting-edge espionage...

"A loving testament to the work and reward of the best friendships, the kind where your arms can’t distinguish burden from embrace.” — People   New York Times Bestselling author Ann Patchett’s first work of nonfiction chronicling her decades-long...

Featuring an all-new cover, New York Times bestseller Bill Bryson's irrevent and hilarious journey through the beloved island nation he called home for two decades. From Downing Street to Loch Ness, this is a delightful look at the United Kingdom...

Every time Bill Bryson walks out the door, memorable travel literature threatens to break out. This time in Australia.His previous excursion along the Appalachian Trail resulted in the sublime national bestseller A Walk in the Woods. In A Sunburned...

The astonishing, uplifting story of a real-life Indiana Jones and his humanitarian campaign to use education to combat"terrorism"in the Taliban’s backyardAnyone who despairs of the individual’s power to change lives has to read the story of Greg...

Karen Blixen's Out of Africa is the lyrical and luminous memoir of Kenya that launched a million tourist trails, beautifully repackaged as part of the Penguin Essentials range. 'I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills . . . Up in this high...

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • An “urgently readable” (Newsweek) biography of the captivating tsar who changed Russian history—from the New York Times bestselling author of Nicholas and Alexandra, The Romanovs, and Catherine the Great“Enthralling . . . as...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An “absorbing” (Los Angeles Times) biography of one of the most remarkable, powerful, and captivating women in Russian history—from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra, and The...

A “magnificent and intimate” (Harper’s) modern classic of Russian history, the spellbinding story of the love that ended an empire—from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Peter the Great, The Romanovs, and Catherine the Great“A moving, rich book . . ...

Marpa the Translator, the eleventh-century farmer, scholar, and teacher, is one of the most renowned saints in Tibetan Buddhist history. In the West, Marpa is best known through his teacher, the Indian yogin Nâropa, and through his closest disciple,...

Finalist for the 2021 National Book Award for Nonfiction  Winner of the 2022 Asian/Pacific American Award in Literature A TIME and NPR Best Book of the Year in 2021 This evocative memoir of food and family history is "somehow both mouthwatering and...

ccOver the past several years, "the American in Tuscany" has become a literary subgenre. Launched by the phenomenal success of Frances Mayes's Under the Tuscan Sun, bookstores now burgeon with nimble, witty accounts of this clash in cultures-Americans...

A true story of royal intrigue—with famed diarist Samuel Pepys as the main protagonist—as a fatal shipwreck on the shores of Restoration Britain sparks a mystery that now may finally be solved.In 1682, Charles II invited his scandalous younger brother,...