Biography & non-fiction prose

Originally from Dublin, Niall Harbison was the owner of a successful advertising company. After selling it, he moved to Thailand where his addictions - drugs and alcohol - almost got the better of him. One day he woke up in hospital, close to death, and realised that something had to change. And ...

Carol Klein is one of Britain's best loved horticulturists, and for decades gardening has been at the heart of her extraordinary life. From her childhood adventures in Manchester to her first experiments in plantswomanship at Glebe Cottage, and from training as an artist and a teacher, and then f...

With the recent cost of living crisis, we are all looking for ways to cut bills and save money. Ann Russell, who is best known as TikTok's Auntie, has lived much of her life on a tight budget, and since energy bills first started rising, has been answering fan's questions not just about cleaning ...

Formula 1 drivers are the public face of Grand Prix racing but behind every driver is a team of several hundred people sharing the same passionate desire to win. On race day it's the Team Strategist who calls the shots, working under immense pressure to make split-second and crucial decisions. We...

Anita Sethi was on a journey through northern England when she became the victim of a race hate crime. After the event Anita experienced panic attacks and anxiety. A crushing sense of claustrophobia made her long for wide open spaces; the Pennines - the 'backbone of Britain' - called to Anita wit...

Dame Zandra Rhodes has spent her life rallying against what was expected of her, both as a designer and a woman. Often perceived as too bold for the mainstream, she fought for creativity and individuality, and continues to achieve both in everything she does. In this insightful memoir, Zandra sha...

Richard Sorge was a man with two homelands. Born of a German father and a Russian mother in Baku in 1895, he moved in a world of shifting alliances and infinite possibility. A member of the angry and deluded generation who found new, radical faiths after their experiences on the battlefields of t...

Set against a backdrop of East End London, Georgia experienced a childhood few of us could imagine. Though brought up in a loving family, she watched her family break apart through deceit and her mother descend into heroin addiction. Escaping into what she felt was a loving sanctuary, Georgia end...

Doomed survivor of a family of geniuses, Charlotte Brontë had a life as dramatic as Jane Eyre. Turning her back on her tragic past, she reinvented herself as an acclaimed writer, a mysterious celebrity, and a lover. Doing so meant burning many bridges, but her sudden death left her friends and a...

A reassessment of W.H. Auden's early life and poetry, shedding new light on his artistic development as well as on his shifting beliefs about political belonging in interwar England.