Showing titles in Art & Literature

*A BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week* Benjamin Zephaniah, who travelled the world for his art and his humanitarianism, tells the one story that encompasses it all: the story of his life. In the early 1980s when punks and Rastas were on the streets protesting about unemployment, homelessness and the...

Elizabeth Gaskell’s biography of her friend Charlotte Brontë—the first full-length biography of a woman novelist by a woman novelist—is a true classic. It transports us with a deft hand straight into 19th-century Haworth, Yorkshire and crafts an extensive account of Brontë’s life, quoting throughout from letters she sent and received. From her challenging, isolated childhood to her death shortly before the age of 39, newly married and pregnant, the enigmatic author of Jane Eyre is portrayed with enormous care.

Alan Bennett is one of the country's most celebrated and best-loved authors. This unmissable collection of diaries and memoirs brings together for the first time Telling Tales, Diaries: 1980-1990, the autobiographical section of Untold Stories, which covers the period 1997-2004, and Keeping On Keeping On: The Diaries 2005-2014. With wit, wisdom, sharp social commentary and perceptive impressions, Alan Bennett's memoirs and diaries are a joy to discover, and a delight to hear again.

A new investigation from Dr Mark Aldridge, exploring a lifetime of Agatha Christie’s Miss Jane Marple. Winner of the 2025 H.R.F Keating Award for the best 2024 biography or critical book related to crime fiction. In Agatha Christie’s Marple: Expert on Wickedness,‘Agathologist’ Dr Mark...

A Parrot in the Pepper Tree, the sequel to Lemons, follows the lives of Chris, Ana and their daughter, Chloë, as they get to grips with a misanthropic parrot who joins their home, Spanish school life, neighbours in love, their amazement at Chris appearing on the bestseller lists . . and their shock at discovering that their beloved valley is once more under threat of a dam.

Julian Barnes' new book is, among many things, a family memoir, an exchange with his brother (a philosopher), a meditation on morality and the fear of death, a celebration of art, an argument with and about God, and homage to the French writer Jules Renard. Though he warns us that 'this is not my autobiography', the result is a tour of the mind of one of our most brilliant writers.

“2500 nautical miles to go, plenty of time to tell the story,” says Christian Williams as he begins his inspiring and entertaining tale of evolution from a distracted schoolboy to Washington Post journalist, Hollywood writer-producer and long-distance singlehanded sailor with more than 10 million views on YouTube. With an infectious curiosity that ranges from bilge pump mechanics to issues of philosophy of identity, the author never flags in his quest to learn what makes every life distinctive and yet defined by its intersection with others.

Come round to Louis Theroux’s house where the much-loved TV documentary-maker, podcaster and bestselling author of Gotta Get Theroux This finds himself in unexpected danger . . . Like millions of others, Louis’ plans were mothballed by the onset of Covid. Unable to escape to the porn sets...

The instant New York Times bestseller 'Please read this joyful, tragic account of life in Gaza' – Miriam Margolyes 'Transforms pain into poetry' – Rupi Kaur In early October 2023, Palestinian Plestia Alaqad was a recent graduate with dreams of becoming a successful journalist. By the end of...

Charming, vibrant, witty and edifying, The Life of Samuel Johnson is a work of great obsession and boundless reverence. The literary critic Samuel Johnson was 54 when he first encountered Boswell; the friendship that developed spawned one of the greatest biographies in the history of world literature. The book is full of humorous anecdote and rich characterization, and paints a vivid picture of 18th-century London, peopled by prominent personalities of the time.

In this long-awaited and candid memoir, Hitchens re-traces the footsteps of his life to date, from his childhood in Portsmouth, with his adoring, tragic mother and reserved Naval officer father; to his life in Washington DC, the base from which from he would launch fierce attacks on tyranny of all kinds. Along the way, he recalls the girls, boys and booze; the friendships and the feuds; the grand struggles and lost causes; and the mistakes and misgivings that have characterised his life.

“You don’t have to be Irish to cherish this literary gift—just being human and curious and from a family will suffice.” —Malachy McCourt, New York Times bestselling author of A Monk Swimming In the tradition of Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes and Alice Taylor’s To School Through...

Brought to you by Penguin. From Sunday Times bestselling author Gyles Brandreth comes the remarkable life of A.A. Milne and the bear who captured millions of hearts... ‘Whatever subject an author chooses or has chosen for him, he reveals no secret but the secret of himself’ A A Milne When...

50th Anniversary Edition—With a new foreword on what Watergate means today. “The work that brought down a presidency...perhaps the most influential piece of journalism in history” (Time)—from the #1 New York Times bestselling authors of The Final Days. The most devastating political...

The celebrated painter Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) occupied a central place in the artistic scene of his time: a founding member of the new school of French painting, he was a close friend of Monet, a longtime associate in Degas's and Mary Cassatt's experimental work, a support to Cezanne and Gauguin, and a comfort to Van Gogh, and was backed by the great Parisian art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel throughout his career. Nevertheless, he felt a persistent sense of being set apart, different, and hard to classify.

The Vanity Fair Diaries is the story of an Englishwoman barely out of her 20s who arrives in New York City with a dream. Summoned from London in hopes that she can save Condé Nast's troubled new flagship Vanity Fair, Tina Brown is immediately plunged into the maelstrom of the competitive New York media world and the backstabbing rivalries at the court of the planet's slickest, most glamour-focused magazine company.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of The Pigeon Tunnel. Written and read by John le Carré. 'Out of the secret world I once knew, I have tried to make a theatre for the larger worlds we inhabit. First comes the imagining, then the search for reality. Then back to...

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD A moving exploration of the 2022 women-led protests in Iran, as told through the interwoven stories of two Iranian journalists “Unlike anything I’ve read . . . A searing, courageous, and ultimately beautiful book filled with the spirit of the...

A stunning, tragic memoir about John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, and his cousin Anthony Radziwill, by Radziwill’s widow. What Remains is a vivid and haunting memoir about a girl from a working-class town who becomes an award-winning television producer and marries a...

Brought to you by Penguin. A fascinating journey into the life of H.G. Wells, from one of Britain's best biographers. How did the first forty years of H. G. Wells' life shape the father of science fiction? From his impoverished childhood in a working-class English family, to his determination to...