Biographies

This book is the very simple story of the love affair between Miss Helene Hanff of New York and Messrs Marks and Co, sellers of rare and secondhand books, at 84 Charing Cross Road, London'. DAILY TELEGRAPHTold in a series of letters in 84 CHARING CROSS ROAD and then in diary form in the second part THE DUCHESS OF BLOOMSBURY STREET, this true story has touched the hearts of thousands.

John le Carre was a defining writer of his time. This enthralling collection letters - written to readers, publishers, film-makers and actors, politicians and public figures - reveals the playfully intelligent and unfailingly eloquent man behind the penname. _____'The symbiosis of author and editor, father and son, has resulted in a brilliant book, le Carre's final masterpiece' 5*, Jake Kerridge, Sunday Telegraph_____A Private Spy spans seven decades and chronicles not only le Carre's own life but the turbulent times to which he was witness

A riveting, deeply personal account of history in the making-from the president who inspired us to believe in the power of democracy In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency-a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil. Obama takes readers on a compelling journey from his earliest political aspirations to the pivotal Iowa caucus victory that demonstrated the power of grassroots activism to the watershed night of November 4, 2008, when he was elected 44th president of the United States, becoming the first African American to hold the nation's highest office. Reflecting on the presidency, he offers a unique and thoughtful exploration of both the awesome reach and the limits of presidential power, as well as singular insights into the dynamics of U.S. partisan politics and international diplomacy. Obama brings readers inside the Oval Office and the White House Situation Room, and to Moscow, Cairo, Beijing, and points beyond. We are privy to his thoughts as he assembles his cabinet, wrestles with a global financial crisis, takes the measure of Vladimir Putin, overcomes seemingly insurmountable odds to secure passage of the Affordable Care Act, clashes with generals about U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, tackles Wall Street reform, responds to the devastating Deepwater Horizon blowout, and authorizes Operation Neptune's Spear, which leads to the death of Osama bin Laden. A Promised Land is extraordinarily intimate and introspective-the story of one man's bet with history, the faith of a community organizer tested on the world stage

A Very Easy Death has long been considered one of Simone de Beauvoir’s masterpieces. The profoundly moving, day-by-day recounting of her mother’s death “shows the power of compassion when it is allied with acute intelligence” (The Sunday Telegraph). Powerful, touching, and sometimes shocking, this is an end-of-life account that no reader is likely to forget.

hortlisted for the @CrimeFest H.R.F. Keating Award **'A smart and highly entertaining portrait of a literary powerhouse'- THE TIMES BOOKS OF THE YEAR'A riveting portrait'- GUARDIAN BOOKS OF THE YEAR***'Christie lovers should read this biography for the same reason they read her novels.' - The Times'A model of how to combine biographical information, analysis and literary criticism into a propulsive narrative' - Daily Telegraph'Worsley's book excels in bringing a broader historical perspective to Christie's life and work, and her enthusiasm is infectious.' - ObserverMs Worsley herself writes engagingly... She combines an almost militant support for her subject with a considered analysis of her books and plays.' - Economist'Nobody in the world was more inadequate to act the heroine than I was.'Why did Agatha Christie spend her career pretending that she was 'just' an ordinary housewife, when clearly she wasn't? As Lucy Worsley says, 'She was thrillingly, scintillatingly modern'.

This book is a torn page from the History of World War II.
It cost the author 20 years of research. It cost the Greek National Resistance thousands of dead and wounded in battles and acts of sabotage that have remained unsung.
The inspiration and the leader of the unorthodox and harsh war without prisoners against the invaders was Aris; a charismatic 36 year old man with an iron will. He created ELAS, the largest volunteer army in the history of Greece, and a "Free Greece" within enslaved Europe.
But when the invaders went, Aris clashed with the political leadership of both, the Right and the Left and he took to the mountains again, where he committed suicide on June 15, 1945, hounded by all of them. (From the publisher)

"Aris was the military genius of ELAS." (C.M. Woodhouse, British Colonel in WW II)

"Of all the ELAS leaders that I met -and I met many- only Aris impressed me. He was strong, thoughtful and composed." (Adolfo Infante, Italian General in WW II)

"A monster with leadership and organizational abilities, truly superhuman." (Napoleon Zervas, Greek General and an adversary of Aris)

Self-taught and ambitious, Charles Darwin is most famous for his groundbreaking-and to some still controversial-theory of evolution and natural selection. In Autobiographies the great scientist weighs his career and his life. Darwin's memoir concentrates on his public career and towering scientific achievements but is also full of moments from his private life. There are lively anecdotes about his family and contemporaries, as well as haunting memories of a mother he never knew, a hot-tempered father he could never please, and lingering doubts about the fitness of the genes he was passing on to his heirs. Autobiographies comprises a fragment Darwin wrote at the age of twenty-nine and the longer "Recollections" of 1876, showing a man toward the end of his life who stands isolated, dogged by illness and self-doubt.

A brilliantly written and groundbreaking book about Dylan's music - now the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2016 - and its musical, political and cultural roots in early 20th-century AmericaGrowing up in Greenwich Village in the 1960s Sean Wilentz discovered the music of Bob Dylan as a young teenager. Almost half a century later, now a distinguished professor of American history, he revisits Dylan's work with the critical skills of a scholar and the passion of a fan. Drawing partly on his work as the current historian-in-residence on Dylan's official website, Sean Wilentz provides a unique blend of biography, memoir and analysis in a book which, much like its subject, shifts gears and changes shape as the occasion demands.