Autobiography: literary

  • Confessions

    £10.99

    Known for his journalism, biographies and novels, A.N. Wilson turns a merciless searchlight on his own early life, his experience of sexual abuse, his catastrophic mistakes in love (sacred and profane) and his life in Grub Street as a prolific writer.

  • A private spy

    £14.99

    John le Carré was one of the greatest novelists of his generation but also had an extraordinary life, from his childhood with a con man father to his inimitable career as a writer. From his involvement in the Cold War, time in Berlin, travels to Vietnam and engagement with world leaders, his experiences were truly remarkable. This collection of letters reveals John le Carré – the man, the writer and his world – for the first time and most intimately. Including letters to Stephen Fry and about Mrs Thatcher, and correspondence with Alec Guinness and a ten-year-old aspiring spy, selected letters come together with crispness and clarity to illuminate the extraordinary writer.

  • Cotswold Family Life

    £10.99

    For eight years, Clare Mackintosh wrote for ‘Cotswold Life’ about the ups and downs of life with a young family in the countryside. In this memoir she brings together all of those stories – and more – for the first time. From keeping chickens to getting the WI drunk, longing for an Aga to dealing with nits, Clare opens the door to family life with warmth and humour and heart.

  • Bear woman

    £9.99

    For readers of Rachel Cusk, Lisa Taddeo and the essays of Zadie Smith, ‘Bear Woman’ is a beautifully wrought memoir from one of Sweden’s bestselling authors, in which she examines motherhood and the female experience. In 1541, a young woman named Marguerite de La Roque accompanied her guardian on one of the first French colonial expeditions to the new world. After a sexual scandal on board ship, she was punished with abandonment on a barren, uninhabited island in the North Atlantic. Centuries later, Swedish writer Karolina Ramqvist came across the legend of the Bear Woman and became obsessed with this woman’s story of survival against the odds.

  • The scent of flowers at night

    £14.99

    Over one night, alone in the Punta della Dogana Museum in Venice, Leila Slimani grapples with the self as it is revealed in solitude. In a place of old and new, she confronts her past and her present, through her life as a Moroccan woman, as a writer, and as a daughter. Surrounded by art, she explores what it means to behold and clasp beauty; enveloped by night, she confronts the meaning of life and death.

  • Illuminated by water

    £10.99

    Travel-writer, novelist and singer-songwriter Malachy Tallack has been passionate about fishing since he was young. Growing up in Shetland, with its myriad lochs, he and his brother would roam the island in search of trout, and in so doing discovered a sense of freedom, of wonder, and an abiding passion. But why is it that catching a fish – or simply contemplating catching a fish – can be so thrilling, so captivating? Why is it that time spent beside water can be imprinted so sharply in the memory? Why is it that what seems such a simple act – that of casting a line and hoping – can feel so rich in mystery? ‘Illuminated by Water’ is Malachy’s personal attempt to understand that freedom, and to trace the origins and sources of that sense of wonder.

  • To the One I Love the Best

    £9.99

    Ludwig Bemelmans’ charming intergenerational friendship with the late-in-life ‘First Lady of Interior Decoration’ provides an enormously enjoyable nostalgia trip to the sun-soaked glamour of Los Angeles, where de Wolfe surrounded herself with classic movie stars and a luminous parade of life’s oddities. With hilarity and mischief that de Wolfe would no doubt approve, ‘To the One I Love the Best’ lifts the curtain on 1950s Hollywood – a bygone world of extravagance and eccentricity, where the parties are held in circus tents and populated by ravishing movie stars.

  • A Private Spy

    £30.00

    John le Carré was one of the greatest novelists of his generation but also had an extraordinary life, from his childhood with a con man father to his inimitable career as a writer. From his involvement in the Cold War, time in Berlin, travels to Vietnam and engagement with world leaders, his experiences were truly remarkable. This collection of letters reveals John le Carré – the man, the writer and his world – for the first time and most intimately. Including letters to Stephen Fry and about Mrs Thatcher, and correspondence with Alec Guinness and a ten-year-old aspiring spy, selected letters come together with crispness and clarity to illuminate the extraordinary writer.

  • Confessions

    £20.00

    Known for his journalism, biographies and novels, A.N. Wilson turns a merciless searchlight on his own early life, his experience of sexual abuse, his catastrophic mistakes in love (sacred and profane) and his life in Grub Street as a prolific writer.

  • Allegorizings

    £9.99

    Soldier, journalist, historian, author of 40 books, Jan Morris led an extraordinary life, witnessing such seminal moments as the first ascent of Everest, the Suez Canal Crisis, the Eichmann Trial, The Cuban Revolution and so much more. Now, in ‘Allegorizings’, published posthumously as was her wish, Morris looks back over some of the key moments of her life, and sees a multitude of meanings. From her final travels to the USA and across Europe to late journeys on her beloved trains and ships, from the deaths of her old friends Hilary and Tenzig to the enduring relationships in her own life, from reflections on identity and nations to the importance of good marmalade, it bears testimony to her uniquely kind and inquisitive take on the world.

  • Illuminated by Water

    £16.99

    Travel-writer, novelist and singer-songwriter Malachy Tallack has been passionate about fishing since he was young. Growing up in Shetland, with its myriad lochs, he and his brother would roam the island in search of trout, and in so doing discovered a sense of freedom, of wonder, and an abiding passion. But why is it that catching a fish – or simply contemplating catching a fish – can be so thrilling, so captivating? Why is it that time spent beside water can be imprinted so sharply in the memory? Why is it that what seems such a simple act – that of casting a line and hoping – can feel so rich in mystery? ‘Illuminated by Water’ is Malachy’s personal attempt to understand that freedom, and to trace the origins and sources of that sense of wonder.

  • Back in the Day

    £25.00

    Melvyn Bragg’s first ever memoir – an elegiac, intimate account of growing up in post-war Cumbria, which lyrically evokes a vanished world. In this captivating memoir, Melvyn Bragg recalls growing up in the Cumbrian market town of Wigton, from his early childhood during the war to the moment he had to decide between staying on or spreading his wings. This is the tale of a boy who lived in a pub and expected to leave school at fifteen yet won a scholarship to Oxford. Derailed by a severe breakdown when he was thirteen, he developed a passion for reading and study – though that didn’t stop him playing in a skiffle band or falling in love. It is equally the tale of the people and place that formed him.

Nomad Books