Artists, Architects & Photographers

Franny Moyle traces and analyses the life and work of an extraordinary artist against the backdrop of an era of political turbulence and cultural transformation, to which his art offers a subtle and endlessly refracting mirror....

In his widely anticipated memoir, Ai Weiwei - one of the world's most famous artists and activists - tells a century-long epic tale of China through the story of his own extraordinary life and the legacy of his father, Ai Qing, the nation's most celebrated poet.... 

In this stunningly original memoir, Edmund de Waal travels the world to stand in the great buildings his forebears once inhabited....

The star presenter and judge of Channel 4's The Great Pottery Throw Down looks back on his life and career - and the passion for ceramics that started it all....

Scott Adams has probably failed at more things than anyone you've ever met. So how did he go from hapless office worker and serial failure to the creator of Dilbert, one of the world's most famous comic strips, in just a few years....

A decade in the making, based upon hundreds of interviews and extensive new material, Pulitzer Prize winners Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan have written a startlingly original portrait—rich, complex, and subtle—of a commanding modern figure....

El aclamado autor de los best sellers Steve Jobs y Einstein nos vuelve a cautivar con la vida del genio más creativo de la historia en esta fascinante biografía....

In Look Again, Bailey describes growing up in working-class East London, where his dyslexia led to him being written off as stupid at school but his drive and ambition led to his meteoric rise as a photographer....

Scritta tra il 1943 e il 1944, durante la sua militanza nel Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale, viene pubblicata nel 1945, a guerra ormai conclusa...

Françoise Gilot was in her early 20s when she met the 61-year-old Pablo Picasso in 1943. Brought up in a well-to-do, upper-middle-class family, who had sent her to Cambridge and the Sorbonne and hoped that she would go into law, the young woman defied their wishes....

Alessandro Barbero segue Dante nella sua adolescenza di figlio d'un usuraio che sogna di appartenere al mondo dei nobili e dei letterati; nei corridoi oscuri della politica, dove gli ideali si infrangono davanti alla realtà meschina degli odi di partito e della corruzione dilagante...

Michel Basquiat's transition from the subways to the chic gallery spaces of Manhattan brought the artist into the company of many of New York's established and aspiring stars....

Though ferociously private, Lucian Freud spoke every week for decades to his close confidante and collaborator William Feaver - about painting and the art world, but also about his life and loves....

For four decades, J. Michael Straczynski has been one of the most successful writers in Hollywood, one of the few to forge multiple careers in movies, television, and comics. Yet there’s one story he’s never told before: his own....

My memoir begins at birth, where I almost died, and ends with my suicide attempt at the age of 31. I am grateful that I survived. Somewhere in the aftermath, an old self perished, along with all past trauma. I went through a rebirth and was ready to share that story I had kept hidden....

Unlike most artists, Van Gogh developed very slowly, beginning with work as an art dealer that exposed him to many great works. He undertook this work for several years, after which he spent time as a missionary for the Dutch Reformed Church....

The second half of William Feaver's Baillie Gifford Prize-shortlisted work of biography: the definitive story of the epic life of one of the 20th century's most important artists....

Albrecht Dürer changed the way we saw nature through art. From his prints in 1498 of the plague ridden Apocalypse - the first works mass produced by any artist - to his hyper-real images of animals and plants, his art was a revelation....

Michelangelo, God's Architect is the first book to tell the full story of Michelangelo's final two decades, when the peerless artist refashioned himself into the master architect of St. Peter’s Basilica and other major buildings....

More than 30 years ago, David Loftus’s cherished identical twin, John, passed away. Ever since, a day hasn’t passed without David feeling the loss....

Vivienne Westwood is one of the icons of our age. Fashion designer, activist, cocreator of punk, global brand, and grandmother--a true living legend....

In this endlessly stimulating investigation, Geoff Dyer sets his own encounter with late middle age against the last days and last achievements of writers, painters, athletes and musicians who've mattered to him throughout his life....

The witty and perceptive diaries kept by Cecil Beaton's authorised biographer during his many fascinating encounters with extraordinary - often legendary - characters in his search for the real Cecil Beaton....

With exclusive access to Snowdon and the people closest to him, this book uncovers the real man and his times....

Celia Paul has felt a lifelong connection to the artist Gwen John. Letters to Gwen John is Paul's imagined correspondence with Gwen John, whose life and work have loomed so large in hers....

My memoir begins at birth, where I almost died, and ends with my suicide attempt at the age of 31. I am grateful that I survived. Somewhere in the aftermath, an old self perished, along with all past trauma. I went through a rebirth and was finally ready to share that part of my story which I had kept hidden and secret from the world. My journey covered mental illness, drug and alcohol addiction, prescription medication abuse, suicide, drug overdose, coma recovery, military base life, house repossession, facing homelessness, gang crime, domestic abuse, divorce, and much more. 

At 65, artist, writer, and psychologist Sharon Strong doesn’t fit into the cultural stereotype of “senior citizen”—and she has no desire to. Instead, she claims the next decade as the most transformational years of her life. At 66, she erects the first of what will become a series of monumental sculptures on the Black Rock Desert at Burning Man. At 67, she treks in the Himalayas. At 70, she meets the love of her life and begins a new life with him. To honor her 75th year, she delves into an inward journey with psilocybin mushrooms.

Hans Holbein the Younger is chiefly celebrated for his beautiful and precisely realised portraiture, which includes representations of Henry VIII, Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell, Anne of Cleves, Jane Seymour and an array of the Tudor lords and ladies he encountered during the course of two sojourns in England. But beyond these familiar images, which have come to define our perception of the world of the Henrician court, Holbein was a protean and multi-faceted genius.

Eye Contact is the story of a photographer's decade-long journey in search of meaning and manhood. An experienced freelancer with the New York Times, author Luke Sharrett treats listeners to a behind-the-scenes look at covering the White House and flying aboard Air Force One. Despite achieving professional success at a young age, he is haunted by a feeling that he simply doesn't belong. He can't seem to outrun a nagging fear that he doesn't have what it takes to succeed in life. As he navigates his career, he begins searching for answers. Who am I? Where do I belong?

Celia Paul has felt a lifelong connection to the artist Gwen John. There are extraordinary parallels in their lives and work. Both have always made art on their own terms. Both were involved with older male artists. Both worked hard to keep themselves and the sacred flame of their creativity from being extinguished by others. Letters to Gwen John is Paul's imagined correspondence with Gwen John, whose life and work have loomed so large in hers.