A marvellous debut from a young man of complex literary and musical parentage: birds of a feather, sins of the father, on and off the rails (the cenotaph too, memorably) - and a magpie calle... read more
Revisits the circumstances surrounding the death of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjoeld in 1961, who was found dead in the smoking wreckage of his plane on the way to Leopoldville in the ... read more
SK's father was Bernat Klein, a Yugoslav Jew who came to Britain after WW2 and became a successful textile designer - Chanel, Dior & Balenciaga were amongst his clients. He lived in a moder... read more
Tall, red-haired, green-eyed, Enid Lindeman caused havoc in pursuit of love and wealth. No less than five lovers killed themselves, her husbands died at regular intervals (one was known as C... read more
"A lesser life does not seem lesser to the person who leads one" ...Diane Johnson's sensitive, witty and and intelligent biography of Mary Ellen Peacock Meredith (1821-1861), the well-educat... read more
She went from socialite to pariah when she married George III's sixth son in 1793, without the King's permission. Her children were declared illegitimate, the family scorned: this is a movin... read more
A comic masterpiece of a memoir: the subject, chiefly, is the Irish filmmaker Brian Desmond Hurst, who once described himself as tri-sexual - "the Army, the Navy and the Household Cavalry"..... read more
The cover of this book shows the gorgeous Zoffany portrait of these talented and influential siblings, who were born in a Northumberland rectory and became involved in such a wide range of C... read more
Brought up in North Carolina in the Jim Crow era, AT won a postgraduate scholarship to Brown University, worked at Warhol's Factory and volunteered for Diana Vreeland. He went on to become e... read more
A remarkable work of research and skill, which brings to life Tsunemo, a country priest's daughter who defied conventions when her world was radically changing.
Born into a farming family in the eastern Tibetan province of Kham, the author fled with his older brother following the Chinese invasion in 1959. He has spent many years in the UK and the U... read more
The story of London's notorious drinking den, the realm of the great and foul-mouthed Muriel Belcher. Constructed from interviews with many of its principal players.
The author's ancestors made their fortunes through slaves and sugar. The fortune was lost but the letters were preserved: this is a powerful investigation of an Imperial past which is widely... read more
CC is the distinguished Australian publisher who founded Virago. Her forebear was transported for seven years for stealing a piece of hemp, but managed to prosper in Australia. He returned t... read more
A biographical account of Eliot's troubled first wife, presented alongside her writings. Married to T.S. Eliot in 1915, their marriage lasted until about 1933. Her circle included Ottoline M... read more
Four generations, from Ukrainian shtetls via the Holocaust to influence in Washington DC. The author is the mother of Jonathan S F, whose first novel 'Everything Is Illuminated' (2002) also ... read more
The contents of a shoebox in America led the author to discover her grandmmother's family, from Picasso in Paris, Dior and Chagall to a farmhouse in the Auvergne, Auschwitz and Long Island. ... read more
Unjustly ejected from the Liberal government in 1915 as a 'German sympathiser', Haldane's influence on many of our institutions was great, and lasting.
Macbain was born in Scotland but moved to Ireland in the 1960s with a bicycle, a suitcase and a tent. His subsequent careers have included butler, footman, farmer, a restorer of an ancient h... read more
When the author makes an impulsive trip to Koenigsberg, her grandmother - after sixty years' silence on the matter - begins to tell her own wartime story. Deeply moving.
NB Publication ... read more
The author's German grandparents were 'Mitlaufer' - those who went with the flow in the Third Reich. They just wanted to forget, to bury it all under the wreckage... In this fascinating book... read more
This epic tale of the Sassoons and the Kadoories in 1930s Shanghai is like 'Dynasty' transferred from Texas to the global stage of China-Baghdad-London in the 1930s.
NB Publ... read more
A portrait of the group composed of Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore, Paul Nash, Herbert Read, Gropius, Mondrian and others: how their lives crossed and influenced one another... read more
Its second subtitle is "an adventurous history of botany". JG is a scientist and an historian of exploration (his "The Rattlesnake: A Voyage of Discovery to the Coral Sea" was excellent).
An incisive post-mortem on the state of the Victorian union, told (with a gossipy thrill) through the lives of five couples - Thomas Carlyle and Jane Welsh, John Ruskin and Effie Gray, Charl... read more
Insecure but fiercely precocious, the young Sontag devours everything that culture offers up to her. From her early teens through to late twenties, she craves not just the thrill of intellec... read more
Blaise Pascal famously said that "all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone".
In 1790 a young French aristocrat living in Turin was confined to a ... read more
Blaise Pascal famously said that 'all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone".
In 1790 a young French aristocrat living in Turin is confined to a ... read more
A large format biography of the Bloomsbury pair, and their houses, commissioned by the National Trust. An entertaining introduction with handsome colour pics.
Dedicated to her friend Tirzah Garwood, this is a deliciously charming and funny mix of commonplace book and diary from the 1950s, illustrated with woodcuts not by Tirzah as intended (she ha... read more
The last seven years of Lowell's life, including 'The Dolphin' sonnets controversy, his break up and reconciliation with EH, seen through their letters to each other, Elizabeth Bishop, Caro... read more