CC withdrew to an enclosed world in her mid-20s, to emerge a decade later. This memoir of her private struggles and of tension within the institution is both moving and unexpectedly gripping... read more
Privilege and pain play out in this scintillating memoir that bounds across society's uplands, trips into alcoholism, and bravely clambers onto the wagon of recovery and the making of a new ... read more
From the publishers of Luncheon magazine, a chic collection of stories, reminiscences and recipes grounded in HC's childhood in Ireland and his time in the Basque country and France, with Pe... read more
A moving and thought-provoking exploration of Dutch art and the impact that painting can have on life - and life on painting. Fabritius, blown up in Delft in 1654 after painting The Goldfinc... read more
A memoir of life as a small girl in Rabindranath Tagore's famous cultural community in the 1930s, by one of India's foremost literary figures. Translated from the Bengali. (Originally due fo... read more
Neutral for fifty years in his work for the BBC, now he tells us what he thinks and thought about all those prime ministers, presidents, elections and scandals.
He left his young family in the '60s for sex, drugs, and enlightenment with the cult of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh; he would reappear from time to time, bringing chaos in his wake.
Written during lockdown, this is a book by a writer on top of his game. The ostensible subject is endings, last things, work produced in 'late style'... But, this being Geoff Dyer, it's abou... read more
Often hilarious and certainly astonishing, this is the novelist's memoir of growing up in Sheffield in the 1950s. His father, an insecure bully, adopted a toup?e, which functioned as an inst... read more
Often hilarious and certainly astonishing, this is the novelist's memoir of growing up in Sheffield in the 1950s. His father, an insecure bully, adopted a toupée, which functioned as an ins... read more
An English translation of Ernaux's memoir about her father and life in small-town France, first published in 1984: a counterpart to 'A Woman's Story' published in English last year. Both are... read more
A hotchpotch of journal entries from the last seven years to do with living around Paris, surprisingly free of the angst found in much of her other writing.
He was a resistance fighter in WW2 Budapest, a travel photographer in South America and an abusive patriarch in 70s New York - but Steven Faludi disappeared from his daughter's life decades ... read more
A memoir of the artist and of the author's friendship with him, part biography, part art criticism. Their friendship and this book cover the latter part of Guston's life, when his late work ... read more
On his impoverished childhood and the Christian ethics that together informed his political career. He was MP for Birkenhead for forty years and now sits as a crossbencher in the House of Lo... read more
A love hotel on Japan's Inland Sea, H.G. Wells, Rebecca West, 1930s' physics: a mesmerising memoir of his parents by the author of The Narrow Road to the Deep North.
Forster is always undoing, and no less so in this account of the remote princely court of Dewas in Madhya Pradesh, where he visited and worked as private secretary to the Maharajah in the ea... read more
Prominent in both Thatcher and Major's cabinets, the author is a shrewd observer of the corridors of power, with their surprising chicanes and U-turns.
An account by a London financier of her family in Japan over the last 150 years. The huge changes they have navigated are described with sympathy and careful research.
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
From the engaging author of Lady In Waiting, whose late flowering as a memoirist and author of a pair of deliciously silly thrillers make her a pin-up for so many.
The author of Oblomov spent the years 1852-1854 as secretary to Admiral Putyatin on board the Pallada; they sailed to Java, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Shanghai, the Philippines and Korea. ... read more