Showing titles in Art & Literature

'A huge, fizzing omnium-gatherum of a book . . . marvellous' Daily Telegraph 'Witty, wise and elegant . . . a classic of history itself' The Spectator 'Grave and witty, suave yet pointed . . . full of energy' Hilary Mantel 'An enthralling investigation . . . consistently entertaining' The Times...

Carr, best known for his dark one-liners and signature laugh, didn't begin life as a comedian. After studying social science and political science at Cambridge, he began working for fuel company Shell. While there, he began reading self-help books and, feeling miserable, decided to make a change - he gave up his job and learned how to write jokes, got his first gig as a stand-up and changed his life!

'Brave, beautifully written and shrewdly researched . . . this is a riveting read by a writer at the top of her game.' The Times 'Seldom have I read such an enthralling biography.' Literary Review 'An exemplary Life, about a strange English writer of rare gifts and peculiar greatness.'...

The essential biography of the influential and beloved filmmaker George Lucas. On May 25, 1977, a problem-plagued, budget-straining independent science-fiction film opened in a mere thirty-two American movie theaters. Conceived, written, and directed by a little-known filmmaker named George...

A Telegraph Book to Read for Autumn 2022 A Times Best Non-fiction Book for Autumn 2022 A Daily Mail Book of the Year 2022 A Waterstones Best Book of 2022: Biography The astonishing new portrait of the master of spy fiction, by the woman he kept secret for almost half his life John le Carré led...

From her childhood, where there was no blueprint for success, to building a career as a bestselling novelist against all odds, Amanda Prowse explores what it means to be a woman in a world where popularity, slimness, beauty and youth are currency—and how she overcame all of that to forge her own path to happiness.

Douglas Adams is one of the most celebrated science fiction and comedy writers of his generation. He is best known for the best-selling radio, book, TV, and film series The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, along with Dirk Gently's Detective Agency, episodes of Doctor Who, and his collaborations with members of Monty Python.

A masterful, much-anticipated biography of one of the most celebrated figures in American literature: Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Updike - a candid, intimate, and richly detailed look at his life and work. In this magisterial biography, Adam Begley offers an illuminating portrait of John Updike, the acclaimed novelist, poet, short-story writer, and critic who saw himself as a literary spy in small-town and suburban America.

Internationally bestselling novelist and American icon Tom Robbins' legendary memoir--wild tales of his life and times, both at home and around the globe. Tom Robbins’ warm, wise, and wonderfully weird novels—including Still Life With Woodpecker, Jitterbug Perfume, and Fierce Invalids Home...

'Dear Mama, I am having a lovely time here. We play football every day here. The beds have no springs . . .' So begins the first letter that a nine-year-old Roald Dahl penned to his mother, Sofie Magdalene, under the watchful eye of his boarding-school headmaster. For most of his life, Roald...

Madonna. Andy Warhol. Keith Haring. Fab 5 Freddie. Debbie Harry. Julian Schnabel. Jean-Michel Basquiat's transition from the subways to the chic gallery spaces of Manhattan brought the artist into the company of many of New York's established and aspiring stars. Unable to deal with the demands that his new fame brought, in 1987, at the age of 27, Basquiat, the most successful black visual artist in history, died from a heroin overdose.

Barely educated and valued since childhood strictly for his labor, Ernaux's father had grown into a hard, practical man who showed his family little affection. Narrating his slow ascent towards material comfort, Ernaux's cold observation reveals the shame that haunted her father throughout his life. She scrutinizes the importance he attributed to manners and language that came so unnaturally to him as he struggled to provide for his family with a grocery store and cafe in rural France.

Georgette Heyer remains an enduring international best seller, read and loved by four generations of readers and extolled by today's best-selling authors. Despite her enormous popularity, she never gave an interview or appeared in public. Georgette Heyer wrote her first novel, The Black Moth, when she was 17 in order to amuse her convalescent brother. It was published in 1921 to instant success, and 90 years later it has never been out of print.

Poet, artist, visionary and author of the unofficial English national anthem 'Jerusalem', William Blake is an archetypal misunderstood genius. In this radical new biography, we return to a world of riots, revolutions and radicals, discuss movements from the Levellers of the sixteenth century to the psychedelic counterculture of the 1960s, and explore the latest discoveries in neurobiology, quantum physics and comparative religion to look afresh at Blake's life and work—and, crucially, his mind. 

Based on diaries that she kept from 1920-1932, the most famous du Maurier probes her own past, beginning with her earliest memories and encompassing the publication of her first book and her subsequent marriage. Here, the writer is open and sometimes painfully honest about the difficult...

Read by acclaimed actor Alfred Molina, star of The Da Vinci Code, An Education and Chocolat, this is the definitive biography of Leonardo Da Vinci. Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo’s astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson weaves a narrative...

The unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Charles Dickens: A Life, the major new biography from the highly acclaimed Claire Tomalin, published for the 200th anniversary of his birth. Charles Dickens was a phenomenon: a demonicly hardworking journalist, the father of ten children, a...

Beginning in 1987, as she embarks on an affair that she knows will be all-consuming and ending in 1995 with the publication of The First Stone and the furore that followed it, Garner reveals the inner life of a woman in love and a great writer at work. With devastating honesty and sparkling humour, she grapples with what it means for her sense of self to be so entwined with another - how to survive as an artist in a partnership that is both enthralling and uncompromising.

Josiah was 19 with the world at his feet when things changed. Without warning, the new university student's mental health deteriorated to the point that he planned his own death. His mother, bestselling author Amanda Prowse, found herself grappling for ways to help him, with no clear sense of where that could be found. This is the book they wish had been there for them during those dark times.

Roses, pleasure, and politics: a fresh take on Orwell as an avid gardener, whose political writing was grounded in his passion for the natural world. "Outside my work the thing I care most about is gardening" wrote George Orwell in 1940. Inspired by her encounter with the surviving roses that Orwell planted in his cottage in Hertfordshire, Rebecca Solnit explores how his involvement with plants, particularly flowers, illuminates his other commitments as a writer and antifascist, and the intertwined politics of nature and power.