With intimate detail, author Maria Riva reveals the rich life of her mother, Marlene Dietrich, the charismatic star of stage and screen whose career spanned much of the 20th century. Opening with Dietrich's childhood in Schöneberg, Riva's biography introduces us to an energetic, disciplined, and ambitious young actress whose own mother equated show business with a world of vagabonds and thieves.  

Norfolk, 1953. The Fens have never seen anything quite like the girls from USAF Drampton. Overpaid, overfed and over here. While their men patrol the skies keeping the Soviets at bay, some are content to live the life of the Future Homemakers of America - clipping coupons, cooking chicken pot pie - but other start to stray, looking for a little native excitement beyond the perimeter fence. Out there in the freezing fens they meet Kath Pharaoh, a tough but warm Englishwoman. Bonds are forged, uniting the women in friendship that will survive distant postings and the passage of 40 years.

John Conlan is nicknamed “The Bathroom Bomber” after setting off firecrackers in the boys’ bathroom 23 times without ever getting caught. John and his best friend, Lorraine, can never please their parents, and school is a chore. To pass the time, they play pranks on unsuspecting people, and it's during one of these pranks that they meet the “Pigman”. In spite of themselves, John and Lorraine soon get caught up in Mr. Pignati’s zest for life. In fact, they become so involved that they begin to destroy the only corner of the world that has ever mattered to them. Can they stop before it’s too late?

With a heart full of dreams, Sallie Coleman leaves Texas and heads west determined to get as far from the squalor of her dirt poor beginnings. With its shifting sands, smoky saloons, and bingo palaces, Las Vegas seems like a paradise. A paradise where an extraordinary twist of fate makes Sallie the most powerful businesswoman in Nevada.

Carol Burnett is one of the most beloved and revered actresses and performers in America. The Carol Burnett Show was seen each week by millions of adoring fans and won 25 Emmys in its remarkable 11-year run. Now, in This Time Together, Carol really lets her hair down and tells one funny or touching or memorable story after another.

Hayley Mills' teenage decade in Hollywood produced some of the era's greatest coming-of-age family movies: classics like Pollyanna, The Parent Trap and In Search of the Castaways, and in Britain the acclaimed Whistle Down the Wind. These films made Hayley a genuine teen idol and a household name. Now, and for the first time, Hayley reveals the truth of her own coming-of-age story, in her own words - a story of incredible twists of fate and fortune, but also mismanagement, bankruptcy, family crisis and dislocation. 

A Fine Romance begins with Bergen's charming first husband, French director Louis Malle, whose huge appetite for life broadened her horizons and whose occasional darkness never diminished their love for each other. But her real romance begins when she discovers overpowering love for her daughter after years of ambivalence about motherhood.

Fierce Pajamas is a delightful treat, a treasury of laughter from The New Yorker, a publication described by W.H. Auden as "the best comic magazine in existence." This collection features unabridged selections by Steve Martin, Woody Allen, James Thurber, Dorothy Parker, Ogden Nash, and more.

Even as a child, Joseph Lennox was happy to live in his older brother Ross’s shadow. Sadistic and charming, Ross was blossoming into a teenage rebel when one day, down by the train tracks, Joe inadvertently shoves him onto the third rail. After that fatal afternoon, Joe tried to blend into the shadows, fleeing to Austria as soon as he graduated college. Now he lives in Vienna, enjoying the cozy dullness of empty cafés and old movie theaters, doing his best to forget the day he watched his brother die. But death is not through with Joe Lennox.

He's one of America's most recognizable and acclaimed actors: a star on Broadway, an Oscar nominee for The Aviator, and the only person to ever win Emmys for acting, writing, and directing, during his 11 years on M*A*S*H. Now Alan Alda has written a memoir as elegant, funny, and affecting as his greatest performances.

When Beatrice Trixie Jordan replies to a personal ad, she meets Jacob Grace, a charming, effervescent 30-something free-spirit writer passionately seeking life. He possesses his own turns of phrase and ways of thinking and feeling that dissonantly harmonize with Trixie's off-center vision. As they rollercoaster through the joys and furies of their wrenching romance, they try to come to terms with the hurt brought about by both of their distant fathers who, in different ways, forsook them.

Sophie Duncan should have been at the perfect point in her life, but it seemed instead as if it were crumbling away underneath her. Leaving the bar stumbling, not from intoxication, but in a tear-filled state, she manages to drench Pam Browning, a complete and total stranger wearing a white silk blouse, with her drink, ruining it. Although she promises to replace the blouse, neither woman expects what’s about to unfold in both their lives....

'Between the Stops is a sort of a memoir, my sort. It's about a bus trip really, because it's my view from the Number 12 bus (mostly top deck, the seat at the front on the right), a double-decker that plies its way from Dulwich, in South East London, where I was living, to where I sometimes work - at the BBC, in the heart of the capital. It's not a sensible way to write a memoir at all, probably, but it's the way things pop into your head as you travel, so it's my way'.    

In Me Elton writes powerfully about getting clean and changing his life, about finding love with David Furnish and becoming a father. In a voice that is warm, humble and open, this is Elton on his music and his relationships, his passions and his mistakes. This is a story that will stay with you, by a living legend. 

Eleanor Oliphant has learned how to survive - but not how to live. Eleanor Oliphant leads a simple life. She wears the same clothes to work every day, eats the same meal deal for lunch every day and buys the same two bottles of vodka to drink every weekend. Eleanor Oliphant is happy. Nothing is missing from her carefully timetabled life. Except, sometimes, everything. One simple act of kindness is about to shatter the walls Eleanor has built around herself. Now she must learn how to navigate the world....