The first biography of Mew since Penelope Fitzgerald's of 1984. The poet, once feted, has become as outcast as she felt herself to be; let us hope that Julia Copus' recent new edition of her... read more
Mathilde Carre joined the French Resistance in 1940 but was captured by the Germans a year later and betrayed her network. She survived working as as a double agent and then - possibly - a t... read more
Duncan has been in politics for three decades and must therefore wot what of - and whom of - he writes. He was Johnson's deputy at the Foreign Office for two years. The diaries cover the yea... read more
The author moved to Japan aged 21, immersing herself in language and culture with such success that she is now a literary translator. Her route there was by no means straightforward; this bo... read more
Frost is a prominent designer/decorator who set up the Aids Ark charity with his partner Jeremy Norman, the man who set up the Embassy Club and Heaven. They met in the 1980s, when AIDS began... read more
The author's father was an American soldier who fell in love with a Japanese girl on the devastated island. This affecting book probes her own complex feeling and the attitudes among which s... read more
A riveting portrait of the man who sold many of the books that drove the Renaissance, who knew where manuscripts were, arranged for copies to be made and trod carefully among rival ruling fa... read more
Better remembered now as Vanessa Bell's husband, CB's 1914 'Art' was a ground-breaking re-evaluation that stood at the centre of early C20th art. This fine biography reclaims his significanc... read more
The acclaimed graphic novel that took France by storm, about a year in the life of a 10 yr-old schoolgirl. A brilliantly sharp look at our times, tender, wry, funny, extremely direct. Ages 1... read more
The marvellous Attlee takes us on the journey, through space and time, of one violin, whose voice "was powerful enough to unbuckle joints". Cremona, Russia, Venice, Alpine forests... (Her la... read more
A new assessment of Alan Brooke, first Viscount Alanbrooke, which examines his treatment at the hands of historians as well as his importance to Churchill.
A life of the indefatigable and intrepid Bird (1831-1904) who travelled in her mid-life to Australia, the United States, Hawaii, Japan, China, Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, and Malaya; later sh... read more
The rich and varied life of the woman who introduced smallpox vaccination into the British Isles, a friend of Swift and Pope, and who is famous for her letters, especially those sent from Tu... read more