Memoirs

  • Husbandry

    £14.99

    Isabel Bannerman reflects on the gardens she and her husband, Julian, have made together for the various houses in which they have lived, and the garden they are making now, at Ashington Manor in Somerset

  • Manifesto

    £9.99

    Bernardine Evaristo’s 2019 Booker win – the first by a Black woman – was a revolutionary moment both for British culture and for her. After three decades as a trailblazing writer, teacher and activist, she moved from the margins to centre stage, taking her place in the spotlight at last. Her journey was a long one, but she made it, and she made history. ‘Manifesto’ is Bernardine Evaristo’s intimate and inspirational, no-holds-barred account of how she did it, refusing to let any barriers stand in her way. She charts her creative rebellion against the mainstream and her life-long commitment to the imaginative exploration of ‘untold’ stories.

  • Getting Lost

    £12.99

    Getting Lost is the diary kept by Annie Ernaux during the year and a half she had a secret love affair with a younger, married man, a haunting record of a woman in the grips of love, desire and despair.

  • The Accidental Duchess

    £22.00

    A unique and fascinating insight into the life of an accidental duchess.

  • Landlines

    £20.00

    Raynor Winn knows that her husband Moth’s health is declining, getting worse by the day. She knows of only one cure. It worked once before. But will he – can he? – set out with her on another healing walk? The Cape Wrath Trail is over two hundred miles of gruelling terrain through Scotland’s remotest mountains and lochs. But the lure of the wilderness and the beguiling beauty of the awaiting glens draw them northwards. Being one with nature saved them in their darkest hour and their hope is that it can work its magic again. As they set out on their incredible thousand-mile journey back to the familiar shores of the South-west Coast Path, Raynor and Moth map the landscape of an island nation facing an uncertain path ahead. In this book, she records in luminous prose the strangers and friends, wilderness and wildlife they encounter on the way – it’s a journey that begins in fear but can only end in hope.

  • 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows

    £10.99

    In his widely anticipated memoir, Ai Weiwei – one of the world’s most famous artists and activists – tells a century-long epic tale of China through the story of his own extraordinary life and the legacy of his father, Ai Qing, the nation’s most celebrated poet.

  • Face It

    £10.99

    ‘I was saying things in songs that female singers didn’t really say back then. I wasn’t submissive or begging him to come back, I was kicking his ass, kicking him out, kicking my own ass too. My Blondie character was an inflatable doll but with a dark, provocative, aggressive side. I was playing it up, yet I was very serious.’

  • Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller

    £10.99

    In 2002, with her sister, Hind, and their friend, Nihal, Nadia Wassef founded Diwan, a fiercely independent bookstore. They were three young women with no business degrees, no formal training, and nothing to lose. At the time, nothing like Diwan existed in Egypt. Culture was languishing under government mismanagement, and books were considered a luxury, not a necessity. Ten years later, Diwan had become a rousing success, with ten locations, 150 employees, and a fervent fan base. Frank, fresh, and very funny, Nadia Wassef’s memoir tells the story of this journey.

  • The Making of the Modern Middle East

    £20.00

    A vivid and authoritative account of the making of the modern Middle East, from the BBC’s long-serving correspondent in the region.

  • The River in the Sky

    £10.99

    A soaring autobiographical poem, meditating on death and celebrating life, from one of our most cherished, critically acclaimed and bestselling writers.

  • Rising to the Surface

    £20.00

    ‘Rising to the Surface’ traces Lenny Henry’s career through the 80s and 90s. The 16-year-old who won a talent competition, now has to navigate his way through the seas of professional comedy, learning his craft through sheer graft and hard work. We follow Lenny through a period of great creativity – prize-winning tv programs, summer seasons across Britain, the starring role in a Hollywood film, stand-up gigs in New York and a gala wedding to Dawn French. But with each rise there is a fall, the most traumatic being the death of his mother. But by the end of the book he has been able to rise through a sea of troubles and breaks out to the surface to accept the Golden Rose of Montreaux for his work in television.

  • The Truth About China

    £16.99

    Bill Birtles was rushed out of China in September 2020, forced to seek refuge in the Australian Embassy in Beijing while diplomats delicately negotiated his departure in an unprecedented standoff with China’s government. Five days later he was on a flight back to Sydney, leaving China without any Australian foreign correspondents on the ground for the first time in decades. A journalist’s perspective on this rising global power has never been more important, as Australia’s relationship with China undergoes an extraordinary change that’s seen the detention of a journalist Cheng Lei, Canberra’s criticism of Beijing’s efforts to crush Hong Kong’s freedoms, as well as China’s military activity in the South China Sea and its human rights violations targetting the mostly Muslim Uighur minority in Xinjiang province.