English Biography

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER More than one million copies sold! A “brilliant” (Lupita Nyong’o, Time), “poignant” (Entertainment Weekly), “soul-nourishing” (USA Today) memoir about coming of age during the twilight of apartheid “Noah’s childhood stories are told with all the...

Ed is the grandson of footballing legend Gordon Banks. He was a national icon, the only goalkeeper ever to win the soccer World Cup for England. But Ed’s heard a rumour: that in 1970, while defending the title, his granddad, his hero, was poisoned… by the CIA. All part of a Cold War plot to bolster a military dictatorship in Latin America, supposedly. Could this possibly be true? Banks did get ill in Mexico in 1970 with food poisoning. And England crashed out, marking the start of decades of hurt. Ed enlists the help of investigative journalist Gabriel Gatehouse.

Best-selling author Bryan Burrough recently made a shocking discovery: The small town of Temple, Texas, where he had grown up, had harbored a dark secret. One of his high school classmates, Danny Corwin, was a vicious serial killer. In this chilling tale, Burrough raises important questions of whether serial killers can be recognized before they kill or rehabilitated after they do. It is also a story of Texas politics and power that led the good citizens of the town of Temple to enable a demon who was their worst nightmare.

In this brilliant book, Francis Wheen, the author of the most successful biography of Karl Marx, tells the story of Das Kapital and Marx's 20-year struggle to complete his unfinished masterpiece. Born in a two-room flat in London's Soho amid political squabbles and personal tragedy, the first volume of Das Kapital was published in 1867 to muted praise. But after Marx's death, the book went on to influence thinkers, writers, and revolutionaries.

Saint Francis of Assisi is one of the most influential men in the whole of human history. This acclaimed biography of Saint Francis examines the life of a pure artist, a man "whose whole life was a poem". Here is the Saint Francis who prayed and danced with pagan abandon, who talked to animals, and who invented the crèche. Yet Francis also acknowledged the mystic responsibility to communicate his divine experience.

The Secret Daughter is the tale of Nikki Carlson, an adoptee whose search for her roots sets her on an unbelievable thrill ride and emotional odyssey that forever changes her. Adopted as a toddler into a big game-hunting Minnesota family and raised on the flat prairies of the Midwest, Nikki’s life is wholly unremarkable. Haunted by the mysteries of her origins, once Nikki comes of age, she begins to search for her biological roots. What she uncovers is more surreal and twisted than anything she could have imagined.

In his poetry, Walt Whitman set out to encompass all of America, and in so doing, heal its deepening divisions. This magisterial biography demonstrates the epic scale of his achievement, as well as the dreams and anxieties that impelled it, for it places the poet securely within the political and cultural context of his age.

How can Danielle understand "normal" if she has never experienced it? She was moved from town to town, kept hidden from society, and always felt like an outsider. Her innocence was brutally taken by someone she least expected. She harbored a dark secret that could devastate her family—a secret she fiercely protected. Would the burden of shame be too much to bear if the truth were revealed? As secrets are uncovered, Danielle plunges into a tumultuous descent with nothing to stop her fall.

INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER In this rowdy, frank reflection on illness, fame, sex, and everything in between, the remarkable mind behind the hit series Girls and the bestselling author of Not That Kind of Girl asks whether fulfilling her creative ambitions has been worth the pain...

Tired of the pace and noise of life near London and longing for a better place to raise their young children, Mary J. MacLeod and her husband, George, encountered their dream while vacationing on a remote island in the Scottish Hebrides. Enthralled by its windswept beauty, they soon were the proud and startled owners of a near-derelict croft house - a farmer’s stone cottage - on “a small acre” of land. Mary assumed duties as the island’s district nurse.

In this new collection, recorded live, on-location from Massachusetts to California, David Sedaris reflects on what it means to be a foreigner, a brother, a lifelong friend, in essays that are “among the best of his career" (Publishers Weekly, starred review). “A welcome return to form for...

This magnificent biography of Henry VIII is set against the cultural, social and political background of his court - the most spectacular court ever seen in England - and the splendour of his many sumptuous palaces. An entertaining narrative packed with colourful description and a wealth of anecdotal evidence, but also a comprehensive analytical study of the development of both monarch and court during a crucial period in English history.

In this wild, genre-bending audio documentary, New York Times best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Ronan Farrow dives deep into the strange and storied life of high-society socialite and former Miss Arizona Celia (Cece) Doane.

From the jail cell to the Billboard charts—discover the raw, unflinching story of Jelly Roll, the genre-defying artist who turned pain into poetry and chaos into country-rap gold. Jason DeFord, known to million's as Jelly Roll, is not your typical music star. His story is proof of the strength of change, perseverance, and fortitude. Before his music reached viral heights and before the crowds at his concerts, Jelly Roll faced a life full of challenges most would find overwhelming, juvenile detention, struggles with addiction, multiple prison stints, and brushes with the law. Yet, it was ...

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.

Thomas Jefferson was arguably the most brilliant and inspiring political writer in American history. But the ethical realities of his personal life and political career did not live up to his soaring rhetoric. Indeed, three tensions defined Jefferson’s moral life: democracy versus slavery, republican virtue versus dissolute consumption, and veneration for Jesus versus skepticism about Christianity. In this book, Thomas S. Kidd tells the story of Jefferson’s ethical life through the lens of these tensions.

When Autobiography of a Yogi first appeared in 1946, it was acclaimed as a landmark work in its field. The New York Times hailed it as "a rare account". Newsweek pronounced it "fascinating". The San Francisco Chronicle declared, "Yogananda presents a convincing case for yoga, and those who 'came to scoff' may remain 'to pray." Today it is still one of the most widely read and respected books ever published on the wisdom of the East.

Born in England to socially ambitious parents, Elizabeth Taylor was catapulted into child stardom and molded by MGM into the great violet-eyed beauty of postwar America. Along the way, without training or counsel, she became an award-winning actress, dazzling audiences everywhere with spectacular performances.

This fast-paced, inspirational narrative reveals how God used one man of great courage, discipline, and humility to bring countless souls to Christ. God’s accomplishments through George Whitefield are to this day virtually unparalleled. In an era when many ministers were timid and apologetic in their preaching, he preached the gospel with aggressive zeal and undaunted courage. In the wake of his fearless preaching, revival swept across the British Isles, and the Great Awakening transformed the American colonies.

The Manchester Evening News declared, it took "a biographer like Ingrid Seward to unleash a sober, challenging glimpse into the one relationship of such scrutiny." That relationship is the complex, troubled, and often turbulent association between Princess Diana and Queen Elizabeth.