Showing titles in Biographies & Memoirs

What happens at your kitchen table can become the blueprint for everything you are. Did you sit alone or with people you loved? Was it fun or tense? Was someone working hard to stop you noticing someone else's mood? Did you take it for granted, or know someone had busted their balls to make it...

Des Powell left school with no qualifications and little in the way of formal education. At nineteen he signed up to join the Parachute Regiment. Famously, the Paras is home to the UK military's second-toughest training regime after the SAS. Des Powell knows all about both. In fact, Des knows SAS selection better than anyone because he's done it twice. In SAS: Trial by Fire he tells the story of those gruelling tests: how Para training turned him into a soldier but, more crucially, how the SAS process turned him into a member of the elite.

When the Going Was Good is Graydon Carter's lively recounting of how he made his mark as one of society's most talented editors and shapers of culture. Carter arrived in New York from Canada with little more than a suitcase, a failed literary magazine in his past and a keen sense of ambition. He landed a job at Time, went on to work at Life, cofounded Spy magazine and edited The New York Observer before catching the eye of Condé Nast chairman Si Newhouse, who tapped him to run Vanity Fair.

Pat Nevin never wanted to be a professional footballer. His future was clear, he'd become a teacher like his brothers. There was only one problem with this - Pat was far too good to avoid attention. Raised in Glasgow's East End, Pat loved the game, playing for hours and obsessively following Celtic. But as he grew up, he also loved Joy Division, wearing his Indie 'gloom boom' coat and going on marches - hardly typical footballer behaviour!

HMP Wakefield. 'Monster Mansion'. Hell to be inside. Almost impossible to escape. This prison has seen some of the most infamous prisoners of all time pass through its cells - from Levi Bellfield to Harold Shipman, Ian Huntley and Charles Bronson. Jonathan Levi and Emma French are the perfect...

Brought to you by Penguin. When Englishman Chris Broad landed in a rural village in northern Japan he wondered if he'd made a huge mistake. With no knowledge of the language and zero teaching experience, was he was about to be the most quickly fired English teacher in Japan's history? Abroad in...

Part autobiography, part self-help, part confession, part celebration of being a common-or-garden woman, part collection of synonyms for nunny, Sarah Millican's debut audiobook delves into her super normal life with daft stories, funny tales and proper advice on how to get past life's blips - like being good at school but not good at friends, the excitement of IBS and how to blossom postdivorce.

For half a century, Michael Jackson’s music has been an indelible part of our cultural consciousness. Landmark albums such as Off the Wall and Thriller shattered records, broke racial barriers, amassed awards, and set a new standard for popular music. While his songs continue to be played in...

Friday, 12th February, 1993. Two outwardly unremarkable 10-year-old boys began the day by playing truant and ended it running an errand for the local video shop. In between they abducted and killed a two-year-old boy, James Bulger. In search of an explanation, award-winning journalist David James Smith looks behind the misinformation, misunderstanding and sensational reporting to an exact account of the events of that day. A sensitive and definitive account, The Sleep of Reason achieves a unique understanding of the James Bulger case.

On screen, Danny Trejo is the most recognisable anti-hero in Hollywood - killed at least a hundred times, he steals every scene he's in. But off screen, he is so much more. The ultimate hard-knock-lifer, and a true man of the world, he has all the stories, and all the scars. Raised in an abusive...

From the NASA astronaut who spent a record-breaking year aboard the International Space Station - what it's like out there and what it's like now, back here. Enter Scott Kelly's fascinating world and dare to think of your own a little differently. The veteran of four space flights and the American record holder for most consecutive days spent in space, Scott Kelly has experienced things very few of us ever have and very few of us ever will.

The first book of D Day Through German Eyes has fascinated listeners around the world with its insight into the German experience of June 6, 1944. Now, book 2 contains a completely different set of astonishing German testimonies from the same archive. These newly translated eyewitness statements by German veterans show the defenders to be determined but psychologically insecure, often deluded in their thinking, and all too human in their shock at the onslaught they faced.

This brilliant audiobook is hilariously read by the author, Nina Stibbe. From the beloved author of Love, Nina, comes a warm and funny story of a woman changing her life at sixty. 'Vulnerable, sharp, funny, wise' - Bonnie Garmus, author of Lessons In Chemistry 'A unique comic voice, endlessly...

Brought to you by Penguin. A rare insight into the heart of pro cycling and the inner workings of the peloton, from Team Sky and Ineos Grenadiers legend, Luke Rowe. There’s one well-established truth in professional cycling: the strongest always wins. Yet in a sport of champions, victory is...

On his second combat tour, Nick Brokhausen served in Recon Team Habu, CCN. This unit was part of MACV-SOG (Military Assistance Command Vietnam Studies and Observations Group), or Studies and Observations Group as it was innocuously called. The small recon companies that were the center of its activities conducted some of the most dangerous missions of the war, infiltrating areas controlled by the North Vietnamese in Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. The companies never exceeded more than 30 Americans, yet they were the best source for the enemy's disposition.

'These beautiful essays, inspired by a life of exploring other cultures through the rituals of cooking and eating - and thinking about cooking and eating - are manna for the hungry listener.' A Times Audiobook of the Year 'One of her finest books yet.' Bee Wilson, the Sunday Times 'Diana Henry's...

Graham Norton has been entertaining audiences and having fun with some of the world's biggest stars for nearly twenty years. He is loved across the nation for his delight in the peculiar and for his ability to find humour and a common ground in all that life brings. The Life and Loves of a He...

There is no one quite like Brian Blessed. He's an actor, film star, trained undertaker, unlikely diplomat, secret romantic, martial artist and mountaineer. He's also a brilliant storyteller who will - and you must brace yourself - simply leap out of the pages at you. Ready? Then open Absolute...

Peter Ratcliffe served in the SAS for 25 years. Blooded in Oman in the 1970s, he also saw action in Northern Ireland, in the Falklands War, and in the Gulf campaign. From his early days in the Paras to his time as Regimental Sergeant-Major in the Gulf, he has lived and fought by the motto 'who dares wins'. Eye of the Storm is his insider's account of that exceptional career.

Few people serve time in prison before studying at Cambridge. You might be surprised to know that Stephen Fry is one of them. Moab is My Washpot, the remarkable story of Stephen Fry's tumultuous early life, is by turns funny, shocking, tender, delicious, sad, lyrical, bruisingly frank and addictively listenable.