Authors

On Writing is part biography, part a collection of tips for the aspiring writer....

An irresistible collection of essays and memoir from the internationally best-selling, Women’s Prize-winning author of The Dutch House....

What could be a more tempting Christmas gift than a compendium of David Sedaris' best stories, selected by the author himself? From a spectacular career spanning almost three decades, these stories have become modern classics and are now for the first time collected in one volume....

In 1982 Murakami began running to keep fit. Here he reflects on his running experiences....

In London during the interwar years, five women's lives intertwined around one address....

Nevil Shute was a power and a pioneer in the world of flying long before he began to write the stories that made him a best-selling novelist....

No book ever written has more perfectly captured the spirit of the 1960s counterculture....

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Dedicated to the daughter she never had but sees all around her, Letter to My Daughter reveals Maya Angelou's path to living well and living a life with meaning....

In this long-awaited and candid memoir, Hitchens re-traces the footsteps of his life to date....

In the powerful and daring essays in Constellations Sinéad Gleeson does that very thing. All of life is within this audiobook, from birth to first love, pregnancy to motherhood, terrifying sickness, old age and loss to death itself....

The powerful, urgent manifesto on never giving up from Booker prize-winning trailblazer Bernardine Evaristo....

Published posthumously in 1964, A Moveable Feast remains one of Ernest Hemingway's most beloved works....

A. A. Gill's memoir begins in the dark of a dormitory with six strangers. He is an alcoholic, dying in the last-chance saloon - driven to dry out, not out of a desire to change....

Poet, artist, visionary and author of the unofficial English national anthem 'Jerusalem', William Blake is an archetypal misunderstood genius. His life passed without recognition and he worked without reward, mocked, dismissed and misinterpreted....

First published in 1986 and updated several times since, Don’t Panic is in an in-depth exploration of Douglas Adams’s cultural phenomenon The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy....

Eat, Pray, Love is a journey around the world, a quest for spiritual enlightenment, and a story for anyone who has battled with divorce, depression, and heartbreak....

From Finnish saunas and soppy otters to grief, grandparents and Kellogg's anti-masturbation pants, Slug is a book which holds a mirror lovingly up to the world, past and present, through Hollie's driving, funny, hopeful poetry and prose....

This is the second part of Roald Dahl's remarkable life story, following on from Boy.... 

On 10th June 2020, the scholar James Nwoye Adichie died suddenly in Nigeria. In this tender and powerful essay, expanded from the original New Yorker text, his daughter, a self-confessed daddy's girl, remembers her beloved father....

In his late 30s, Edward Parnell found himself trapped in the recurring nightmare of a family tragedy.... 

Patricia Highsmith's journals reveal a most complex life that might help explain why her novels were so much more than just crime novels: world literature....

The unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Charles Dickens: A Life....

Inventory of a Life Mislaid follows Marina Warner’s beautiful, penniless young mother Ilia as she leaves southern Italy in 1945 to travel alone to London....

Thoreau's classic account of the solitary life describes his attempts to simplify his life and sort out his priorities by living alone in a cabin beside Walden Pond for nearly two years....

On July 19, 2001, Jeffrey Archer - international best selling author - is sentenced to four years in prison for perjury...

With a play opening on Broadway, and every reason to smile, Sarah Ruhl has just survived a high-risk pregnancy when she discovers the left side of her face is completely paralysed. She is assured that ninety percent of Bell's palsy patients see spontaneous improvement and experience a full recovery.... But Sarah is in the unlucky 10 per cent.

Perhaps you have heard of Edgar Allan Poe. Perhaps not. Either way, this 19th-century author has received quite some fame for his works and his unique style. His mystery and gruesome horror stories, comedy, and other genres have reached far into the depths of American literature. Edgar Allan Poe had a life, a background worth studying. His death, however, was and still is a mystery by itself. Find out more about this fascinating author, in a time we can hardly understand without knowing more about it.

Charles Dickens is often remembered for his novel, A Christmas Carol. And even though it is a very interesting novel, it wasn’t even his favorite! Charles Dickens had a fascinating life, in an entirely different era and age in world history. To understand what and why he wrote what he did, it will be useful to see his works in the light of his marriage, his financial hardships, his success, his children, his traumas, and his goals. Become acquainted with this genius writer and his true drive that led him to who he became to be. 

Jane Austen is well-known for some famous books, among them the popular “Pride and Prejudice.” As an author in the early 1800s, many people may envision pretty dresses and fancy demeanor, but the reality of her life included some hardships that may not be so obvious by reading her novels. In this comprehensive guide, we shed more light on her situation, her road to success, her family life, and the trials she faced in a time when the culture was very different. Let’s slide back the curtain, and reveal the making of a talented, now-famous author!

 The great Swiss-German modernist author Robert Walser lived eccentrically on the fringes of society, shocking his Berlin friends by enrolling in butler school and later developing an urban-nomad lifestyle in the Swiss capital, Bern, before checking himself into a psychiatric clinic.

 Consisting of over 20 years of letters, essays, reflections, and interviews, Frantumaglia is a unique depiction of an author who embodies a consummate passion for writing. Ferrante answers many of her listeners’ questions. She addresses her choice to stand aside and let her books live autonomous lives.

When civil war broke out in Spain in 1936, Orwell, like many other European socialists, was quick to join the fight against fascism. And so, in December that year, he found himself in Catalonia with a 40-year-old rifle, no helmet, uniform, maps or tools, and a platoon of near children under his command.

At the time of his death Eric Hobsbawm was the most famous historian in the world. He not only wrote history was also witness to it, from the Communist uprising in Europe to revolution in Cuba where he was Che Guevara's interpreter. He was instrumental in the birth of New Labour and was also a jazz journalist for The New Statesman.

Judith Merril was a pioneer of 20th-century science fiction, a prolific author, and editor. She was also a passionate social and political activist. In fact, her life was a constant adventure within the alternative and experimental worlds of science fiction, left politics, and Canadian literature. 

This audiobook includes unabridged recordings of all George Orwell's greatest non-fiction: three full-length books, a collection of his most well-renowned essays and the complete collection of his poetry.

 
Joy Harjo, the first Native American to serve as US poet laureate, invites us to travel along the heartaches, losses, and humble realizations of her "poet-warrior" road. A musical, kaleidoscopic, and wise follow-up to Crazy Brave, Poet Warrior reveals how Harjo came to write poetry of compassion and healing, poetry with the power to unearth the truth and demand justice. 

Margery Allingham, already a successful crime writer, was living quietly in the Essex village of Tolleshunt D’Arcy ("Auburn") when the Second World War broke out. Her house became an Air Raid Wardens’ post and a First Aid centre, and Allingham herself became responsible for 275 East London evacuees in a rural community of just over 600.  

In Globe Catherine Arnold takes the listener on a tour of Shakespeare's London, looking at how they shaped each other. Acting turned into a trade, and troupes of touring players perfected their craft. Shakespeare's own company, the Chamberlain's Men, opened the Globe Playhouse on Bankside in 1599, creating a new focal point for the city. 

Known for her best-selling detective novels, Dorothy L. Sayers lived a fascinating, groundbreaking life as a novelist, feminist, Oxford scholar, and important influence on the spiritual life of C. S. Lewis. Providing a blueprint for bridge-building in contemporary, polarizing contexts, Subversive shows how Sayers used edgy, often hilarious metaphors to ignite new ways to think about Christianity, shocking people into seeing the truth of ancient doctrine in a new light. 

When Charif Majdalani begins to walk the streets of his city and to write down what he sees, the first hints of unrest within a vibrant culture creep to the fore. Majdalani's reportage through the months of 2020 bears witness to the ways in which an ancient civilisation slowly, then rapidly, descends into the abyss. Then, the unexpected, Beirut collapses under the explosive force of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate. The blast kills hundreds and injures thousands. But through the rubble and the sirens, a people finds its strength to survive and its heart to unite.