Showing titles in Authors

Giles Wood and Mary Killen - better known as 'Giles and Mary off of Gogglebox' - joined us in the Audible Studios to discuss their debut audiobook The Diary of Two Nobodies. Believe it or not, they have a life outside that Channel 4 smash-hit programme: Giles is a brilliant artist and Mary a prolific author and journalist. They spoke to us about how they ended up on Gogglebox, what the most annoying things about each other are and the unusual term of endearment they use for each other.

'Dear Mama, I am having a lovely time here. We play football every day here. The beds have no springs . . .' So begins the first letter that a nine-year-old Roald Dahl penned to his mother, Sofie Magdalene, under the watchful eye of his boarding-school headmaster. For most of his life, Roald...

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. 

Aristocrat, literary celebrity, ‘Rose Queen’, devoted wife, lesbian, recluse, iconoclast – Vita Sackville-West was many things, but she was never straightforward. Her life is re-told here in a dazzling new biography. In this stunning portrait of Vita Sackville-West, Matthew Dennison traces...

Brought to you by Penguin. George Orwell's vivid memoir of his time living among the desperately poor and destitute, Down and Out in Paris and London is a moving tour of the underworld of society. 'You have talked so often of going to the dogs - and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached...

This is a biography of James Baldwin, author, one-time preacher, and civil rights activist. He chose David Leeming, a close friend and colleague, to write his biography and granted him access to his correspondence. Leeming traces his life from his birth in Harlem in 1924 to his self-imposed exile in Europe, his later years as political activist, and his public funeral in 1987.

The long-awaited portrait of a literary master from one of our generation's greatest biographers. Anthony Powell: the literary genius who gave us A Dance to the Music of Time, an undisputed classic of English literature. Spanning 12 spectacular volumes and written over 25 years, his comic masterpiece teems with idiosyncratic characters, capturing 20th-century Britain through war and peace. Drawing on Powell's letters and journals, and the memories of those who knew him, Hilary Spurling explores his life.

Agatha Christie’s personal memoirs about her travels to Syria and Iraq in the 1930s with her archaeologist husband Max Mallowan, where she worked on the digs and wrote some of her most evocative novels. Think you know Agatha Christie? Think again! To the world she was Agatha Christie...

Bloomsbury presents Confessions written and read by A. N. Wilson. 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...

**One of Literary Hub’s Five “Most Critically Acclaimed” Biographies of 2022** From acclaimed cultural and film historian James Curtis—a major biography, the first in more than two decades, of the legendary comedian and filmmaker who elevated physical comedy to the highest of arts and...

Unpublished for 90 years, Agatha Christie’s extensive and evocative letters from her year-long round-the-world trip to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and America as part of the British trade mission for the famous 1924 Empire Exhibition. In 1922 Agatha Christie set sail on a...

Rüdiger Safranski's Goethe: Life as a Work of Art is the first definitive biography in a generation to tell the larger-than-life story of the writer considered to be the Shakespeare of German literature. Drawing upon the trove of letters, diaries, and notebooks Goethe left behind, as well as correspondence and criticism from Goethe's contemporaries, Safranski weaves a rich tale of Europe in the throes of revolution and of the man whose ideas heralded a new era. 

Drawing together a fascinating body of writing from over 14 years of work, Figures in a Landscape ranges from profiles of cultural icons (Oliver Sacks, Elizabeth Taylor, Robin Williams) to intimate personal remembrances, from thrilling adventures in Africa to literary writings from Theroux's rich and expansive personal reading. Collectively these pieces offer a fascinating portrait of the author himself, his extraordinary life and his restless and ever-curious mind.

Born to the ranks of the lower English gentry in 1775, Jane Austen led what some have mistakenly described as an ordinary and unremarkable life - a life that ended all too soon at the age of 41. But from this life, Austen drew inspiration for six novels that all rank as literary masterpieces, including the widely beloved Pride and Prejudice. So, what do we really know about Austen’s life and influences?

In the World is the second instalment of Maxim Gorky’s autobiographical trilogy. Published in 1916, the book depicts Gorky’s experiences as a young adult, portraying his encounters with an array of characters from different social classes and conveying his observations of society at large. Gorky skilfully depicts the struggles, dreams and complexities of the lower classes, highlighting the social inequalities prevalent in Russia during the later 19th century.

In the early decades of the 20th century, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and several of their friends and colleagues at Oxford University began meeting together to share and discuss their writing. Some were novelists, poets, philosophers, and scholars, while others were simply there to revel in language, stories, and ideas.

A struggling writer. A city of hidden worlds. A life shaped by memory, poverty, and wonder. In Things Near and Far, celebrated Welsh author and mystic Arthur Machen looks back upon the experiences that shaped his imagination and his long, uncertain path toward a literary life. Beginning with...

Leaving was not the end of the story. After the Door Opened explores what happens after survival, when the environment changes but the body, mind, and emotions are still learning how to catch up. Through deeply personal reflection and honest storytelling, Feliteous Martin explores fear, emotional conditioning, rebuilding identity, parenting while healing, financial independence, nervous system recovery, boundaries, and learning how to trust yourself again after years of survival mode. This is not a book about dramatic transformation overnight.

Warum prägt William Shakespeare die Weltliteratur bis heute so stark, dass seine Komödien, Tragödien und Dichtungen überall gespielt, gelesen und verfilmt werden? Dieses Hörbuch führt Sie direkt an den Ursprung dieser Wirkung und zeigt, wie ein Lyriker und Dramatiker der Neuzeit Figuren erschuf, die uns noch immer spiegeln, trösten und erschüttern, auf der Bühne, im Unterricht und im Alltag. Der Autor und Herausgeber Bert Alexander Petzold nimmt Sie mit auf eine faktenreiche Kulturreise und erläutert verständlich, unterhaltsam und strukturiert Basiswissen, das sofort Orientierung gibt.

Wer Ernest Hemingway liest, spürt sofort die klare Kante seiner Sätze und die große Wucht dahinter. Dieses Hörbuch nimmt Sie mit auf eine faktenreiche Kulturreise durch Hemingways Leben, seinen knappen Stil und den Mythos, den er selbst mitaufbaute. Sie lernen, warum sein berühmtes Eisberg-Prinzip wirkt, wie Reduktion Spannung erzeugt und wie aus scheinbar einfachen Beobachtungen große Themen werden: Mut, Angst, Liebe, Schuld und Überleben. Hemingway sammelte im Ersten Weltkrieg Kriegserfahrung und wurde später als Kriegsreporter im Spanischen Bürgerkrieg und im Zweiten Weltkrieg bekannt.