Political Biographies

The Fall of Boris Johnson is the fascinating inside account of how the prime minister lost his grip on power. Sebastian Payne, Whitehall Editor for the Financial Times, tells the essential behind-the-scenes story, charting the series of scandals that felled Johnson: from the blocked suspension of Owen Paterson to Partygate, and, finally, the Chris Pincher allegations, which were the final...

I had seen dozens of people die horrible deaths ... This time was different. This time it was a friend of mine dying in the dirt in front of me, and it was my job to save him. Dr Dan Pronk served on over 100 combat missions in Afghanistan as a frontline special forces combat doctor, where the casualties he...

Kokichi Nishimura was a member of the 144th Regiment of the Japanese Imperial Army. In 1942, he fought along every foot of Kokoda as the Japanese attempted to take Port Moresby. He was the only man from his company to survive the campaign. As he was evacuated to safety, he made a promise that one day he would return to...

Maud West ran her detective agency in London for more than thirty years, having started sleuthing on behalf of society's finest in 1905. Her exploits grabbed headlines throughout the world but, beneath the public persona, she was forced to hide vital aspects of her own identity in order to thrive in a class-obsessed and male-dominated world. And—as Susannah Stapleton reveals—she...

Survivor by Mark Wales is a national bestselling memoir detailing a Special Forces veteran's extraordinary story of life, loss, and resilience in and out of the Australian SAS. How do you rebuild your life when you've hit rock bottom? Mark Wales thought his life would end in a cornfield in Afghanistan. Over four deployments of intense fighting, the line between...

Sarah Huckabee Sanders served as White House Press Secretary for President Donald J. Trump from 2017 to 2019. A trusted confidante of the President, Sanders advised him on everything from press and communications strategy to personnel and policy. She was at the President's side for two and a half years, battling with the media, working with lawmakers and CEOs, and...

Sister Bullwinkel by Lynette Ramsay Silver tells the harrowing yet inspiring story of Vivian Bullwinkel. For 52 years, Vivian has put on a brave face to the world, ever since her release from a Japanese prison camp in Sumatra at the end of World War II. Her story is one she has recounted many times, a narrative of survival and...

The extraordinary story of American special operator and trailblazer Shannon Kent, who hunted high value targets on classified missions in the most dangerous locales on earth while trying to balance her life as a wife and mother. Of the 1.3 million active-duty service members in the US military, only a tiny fraction are selected as “operators.” Shannon Kent was one...

This will not come as a surprise to anyone, including even to the President's most ardent defenders: Donald Trump lied to me from the start. Saving Justice is James Comey's searing memoir and guide to reclaiming truth in the institutions of justice, which have been so badly damaged under Trump. Whether or not Donald Trump occupies the White House after...

The Capitol riot was our Chernobyl - James Comey, Guardian interview, 19 January 2021 An absolutely fascinating read - newsreader Emily Maitlis James Comey, former FBI Director and Sunday Times number one bestselling author of A Higher Loyalty, uses his long career in federal law enforcement to explore issues of justice and fairness in the US justice system. James Comey...

Saving Justice by James Comey, former FBI Director and Sunday Times number one bestselling author of A Higher Loyalty, uses his long career in federal law enforcement to explore issues of justice and fairness in the US justice system. James Comey might best be known as the FBI director that Donald Trump fired in 2017, but he has had a...

Renaissance Woman by Ramie Targoff tells of the most remarkable woman of the Italian Renaissance: Vittoria Colonna, Marchesa of Pescara. Vittoria has long been celebrated by scholars of Michelangelo as the artist's best friend— the two of them exchanged beautiful letters, poems, and works of art that bear witness to their intimacy. She also had close ties to Charles V,...

Nearly a century after his murder, Rasputin remains as divisive a figure as ever. Was he really a horse thief and a hard-drinking ruffian in his youth? Was he a devout Orthodox Christian, or was he in fact just a fake holy man? Are the stories of his enormous sexual drive, debauchery, and drunken orgies true, or simply a myth?...

Archaeologist, spy, Arabist, linguist, author, poet, photographer, mountaineer, and nation builder, Gertrude Bell was born in 1868 into a world of privilege and plenty. However, she turned her back on all that for her passion for the Arab peoples, becoming the architect of the independent kingdom of Iraq and seeing its first king, Faisal, safely onto the throne in 1921....

She's the iconic leader who puts Donald Trump in his place, the woman with the toughness to take on a lawless president and defend American democracy. Ever since the Democrats took back the House in the 2018 midterm elections, Nancy Pelosi has led the opposition with strategic mastery and inimitable elan. It's a remarkable comeback for the veteran politician who...

This highly revelatory book, based on original research and completely new analysis, presents a compelling new suspect as the most notorious serial killer of all time: Jack the Ripper. Using a different analytical approach, for the first time, Sarah Bax Horton identifies a named perpetrator as Jack the Ripper by linking eye-witness accounts of the killer’s distinctive physical characteristics to...

Nye Bevan was one of the pivotal Labour Party figures of the post-war era in Britain. As Minister for Health in Attlee's government, his role in the foundation of the National Health Service, the world's largest publicly-funded health service, changed the face of British society forever. The son of a coal miner from South Wales, Bevan was a lifelong champion...

You've heard about the tantrums, the seething, the storming out of court, yes. But what about E. Jean's side of the story? What about the flight suits, the bottle of green Chartreuse, and the bob? Not My Type puts you in a better seat than the jury box. You will hear Alina Habba, Esq., "Trump's most beautiful attorney," asking E....

A bold reinterpretation of the causes and legacy of Nat Turner's rebellion—and the new definitive account. In August 1831, a group of enslaved people in Southampton County, Virginia, rose up to fight for their freedom. They attacked the plantations on which their enslavers lived and attempted to march on the county seat of Jerusalem, from which they planned to launch...

Mead significantly expands our understanding of Montgomery himself, his motivation and his genius – GENERAL LORD RICHARD DANNATT Deeply researched, highly insightful... Contains all anyone needs to know about Britain's most consequential soldier of the Second World War – ANDREW ROBERTS Known to all as Monty, Bernard Law Montgomery’s greatest achievement was to give the British Army self-belief after Dunkirk....

The illustrious life of Merlyn Baillieu Myer (1900–1982) spanned more than three-quarters of the twentieth century. Born in Queenscliff, on Victoria’s Bellarine Peninsula, the third of four children of a prosperous family of hoteliers, Merlyn was propelled from being a shy and timid child into becoming one of Australia’s grandest, most celebrated philanthropic and social figures. Her life was transformed...

From the private papers of a young Winston Churchill to the tender notes of an unknown Tommy in the trenches, Love Letters of the Great War is a collection of profound, intimate and heartfelt letters written during World War One. Many of the letters collected here are eloquent declarations of love and longing; others contain wrenching accounts of fear, jealousy...

The Sunday Times top 10 bestseller The incredibly moving and powerful memoir of an Auschwitz survivor who made headlines around the world. With a foreword by King Charles III, as Prince of Wales, this updated edition includes Lily being awarded the MBE, reaching her hundredth birthday, and the discovery of a long-lost book belonging to her murdered brother - the...

Let's See What Happens is described by David Olusoga, author of Black and British, as 'a brutally honest account of power, politics, race and class, written by a politician with a remarkable backstory and destined for bigger things'. In 2016, Marvin Rees was elected as Mayor of Bristol, marking the first time a major European city elected a mayor of...

"To me, hard times are like hide-and-seek: where is the solution, where is the hope? We can never give up looking for these things because they are just waiting to be found." Gidon Lev, an 89-year-old Holocaust survivor, has lived an extraordinary life. At the age of six, he was imprisoned in the concentration camp of Theresienstadt. Liberated when he...

The new biography of President Joe Biden by National Book Award winner and New Yorker staff writer Evan Osnos – A Financial Times, Guardian and Daily Express Book of the Year 'A thoroughly readable primer' Guardian 'Biden has overcome unimaginable tribulation, multiple presidential primary humiliations, a potentially crippling speech impediment and his own mediocrity. Now he carries the hopes of...

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! From the New York Times bestselling author of Jackie, Janet & Lee comes a fresh and often startling look at the life of the legendary former first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Based on hundreds of interviews with friends, family, and lovers over a thirty-year period—as well as previously unreleased material from the JFK Library—Kennedy...

They were born on opposite sides of the Second World War: Beate grew up in the ruins of a defeated Weimar Germany, while Serge, a Jewish boy in France, was hiding in a cupboard when his father was arrested and sent to Auschwitz. They met on the Paris Métro and fell in love, and became famous when Beate slapped the...

The first time Lara Marlowe interviewed Lieutenant Yulia Mykytenko in Ukraine in 2023, Marlowe realised that the 28-year-old woman army officer was one of the most extraordinary people she had encountered in 42 years of journalism. Mykytenko was born in Kyiv in July 1995. She co-founded the ‘female squad’ of the 16th regiment of the Self-Defence Force during the 2013/14...

“Accessible, engaging and immediate” – Neil Price, The Times Literary Supplement Weaving together Norse sagas and Anglo-Saxon chronicles to vividly depict the violence and spectacle of the Viking age, Don Hollway brings the legendary Olaf Tryggvason to life. Hammer of the Gods tells the extraordinary saga of Olaf Tryggvason – warlord, wanderer, king, and crusader – whose life rivals the...

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A memoir from Valerie Biden Owens, Joe Biden's younger sister, trusted confidante, and lifelong campaign manager. Valerie, one of the first female campaign managers in United States history, writes of the role of family, faith, and fate in shaping her life, and the power of empathy and kindness in the face of turmoil and division....

Growing Up Biden details Valerie's decades-long professional career in politics, and the central role she played in her brother's life as an insightful adviser, an ever-loyal advocate and best friend. This memoir, full of candour and warmth, brings readers into the Biden home and shares stories from growing up in Delaware as the only daughter of the close-knit Irish Catholic...

Freedom is the most important book of the year, publishing 26 November 2024. For 16 years, Angela Merkel was Chancellor of Germany. She led the country through numerous crises, shaping both Germany and international politics with her actions and attitudes. In her memoirs, co-written with her long-time political advisor Beate Baumann, she reflects on her life in two German states...

Frankly is no ordinary political memoir. Remarkable for its honesty and self-reflection, this is the story of Nicola Sturgeon, one of our most influential and successful leaders. The enduring popularity of Nicola Sturgeon, the first female and longest-serving First Minister of Scotland, was a rare constant in an era marked by Brexit, Covid and five different UK prime ministers. Previously,...

As a life-long soldier, I can assert the vibrancy and value of legends - battles, places, and always, people. Reg Saunders was such a legend - courageous, inspirational and much admired by all who served alongside or under him. By the way, he was an extraordinary Australian, a true emblem for the future. Thank you, James Saunders! - Peter Cosgrove...

Father and Son is a beautiful, compelling memoir. It presents an exquisite, sometimes lunatic tension between powerful emotions and carnage on one side, and on the other, the conventional codes of what must remain unsaid. This, Raban's final work, is a gorgeous achievement. - Ian McEwan On 11 June 2011, three days short of his sixty-ninth birthday, Jonathan Raban suffered...

A beautiful, compelling memoir . . . This, Raban's final work, is a gorgeous achievement - Ian McEwan On 11 June 2011, three days short of his sixty-ninth birthday, Jonathan Raban suffered a stroke which left him unable to use the right side of his body. Learning to use a wheelchair in a rehab facility outside Seattle and resisting the...

In 2018, Captain Louis Rudd MBE walked into the history books when he finished a solo, unsupported crossing of Antarctica, pulling a 130 kg sledge laden with his supplies for more than 900 miles. Louis' skills had been honed in the SAS, on operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, but now—in the most hostile environment on earth—they would be tested like...

Endeavour sailed for just 14 years, but its name reverberates through history. This book examines why it is still charismatic and controversial, 250 years later. There are many views of Endeavour. To some, it is a great ship of exploration and science, a symbol of the Age of Enlightenment. To indigenous people of the Pacific, especially Australia, it represents invasion...

Courage Under Fire is a testament to a man selfless in the face of threat, courageous in the face of terror, generous in the face of suffering, and humble in the face of an honour bestowed. As noted by Dame Quentin Bryce, Daniel Keighran exemplifies these qualities. On 24 August 2010, in battle in Afghanistan, Corporal Daniel Keighran risked his...

Courage Under Fire tells the journey of Daniel Keighran, a man selfless in the face of threat, courageous in the face of terror, generous in the face of suffering, and humble in the face of an honour bestowed. On 24 August 2010, in battle in Afghanistan, Corporal Daniel Keighran risked his life in a hail of gunfire to save his...

Every American president, from Washington to Biden: Their lives, policies, foibles, and legacies, assessed with clear-eyed authority and wit. Authors of the acclaimed Killing books, the #1 bestselling narrative history series in the world, Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard begin a new direction with Confronting the Presidents. From Washington to Jefferson, Lincoln to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Kennedy to Nixon, Reagan...

A memoir by the highest-ranking covert warrior to lift the veil of secrecy and offer a glimpse into the shadow wars that America has fought since the Vietnam Era. Enrique Prado found himself in his first firefight at age seven. The son of a middle-class Cuban family caught in the midst of the Castro Revolution, his family fled their war-torn...

I had never experienced a regular home environment, and certainly nothing even approaching what people take for granted today. I had never experienced the feeling of belonging to a proper family, or the warm comfort of a family home. Life for me had always been a game of chance; a matter of heads or tails. Yet it was here, on...

A stunning collection from the archive of Australia's greatest storyteller, Banjo Paterson. Notebooks, illustrations, photographs, letters, and transcripts of some of our best-loved songs, poems, and stories have been brought together for the first time. Banjo's great-grandson and sole executor of the poet's literary estate, Alistair Campbell, has curated this rare collection and provides intimate commentary on his famous relative....

Until the Arab Spring of 2011, the world's view of Bashar al-Assad was largely benign. He and his wife, a former British banker, were viewed as philanthropic individuals doing their best to keep their country at peace. So much so that a profile of Mrs Assad in American Vogue was headlined 'The Rose in the Desert'. Shortly after it appeared,...

It is a moment shrouded in horror and mystery. Edgar Allan Poe died on October 7, 1849, at just forty, in a painful, utterly bizarre manner that would not have been out of place in one of his own tales of terror. What was the cause of his untimely death, and what happened to him during the three missing days...

A deeply humane memoir of immense power - there is nothing more affecting than a first-hand experience finely told - Philippe Sands, author of The Ratline A fabulous memoir . . . a testament to [Malka's] skill and determination - Dame Maureen Lipman A Mother's Courage is Holocaust survivor Malka Levine's powerful and moving tribute to a determined and resourceful...

A deeply humane memoir, of immense power - there is nothing more affecting than a first hand experience finely told - PHILIPPE SANDS A fabulous memoir . . . a testament to [Malka's] skill and determination - DAME MAUREEN LIPMAN A Mother's Courage is Holocaust survivor Malka Levine's powerful and moving tribute to a determined and resourceful woman who refused...

WINNER OF BEST BIOGRAPHY BY A PARLIAMENTARIAN, WESTMINSTER BOOK AWARDS 2026 'Scurrilous and full of heart' — GRAHAM NORTON 'Fascinating, frank, funny and moving' — REVEREND RICHARD COLES 'Terrific' — FINANCIAL TIMES 'Beguilingly human' — OBSERVER 'Riveting, raw and hilarious' — HELEN LEDERER The blisteringly candid account of a life that has taken Sunday Times-bestselling author and minister Chris Bryant...

A Bigger Picture, the bestselling political memoir of 2020, is authored by Malcolm Turnbull, Australia’s 29th prime minister. This narrative tells the remarkable story of his life. Now available in paperback, this edition is updated with an all-new foreword by the author, shedding light on the significant political and cultural changes happening today. When Malcolm Turnbull assumed the nation’s top...

In a dusty German bookshop, the noted historian Joel F. Harrington stumbled upon a remarkable document: the journal of a sixteenth-century executioner. The journal gave an account of the 394 people Meister Frantz Schmidt executed, and the hundreds more he tortured, flogged, or disfigured for more than forty-five years in the city of Nuremberg. But the portrait of Schmidt that...

Malcolm in the Desert is a roadmap for people navigating the crossroads of a confusing, fast-moving, and uncivil world. Based on the teachings and the example of Malcolm X, as understood by his daughter Ilyasah Shabazz, Malcolm in the Desert invites the reader to embark on their own personal pilgrimage and distills life-changing lessons which readers can use to navigate...

The instant Sunday Times bestselling hardback - By the author of The Five, the acclaimed historical true-crime exploration of how a group of extraordinary women brought infamous wife-murderer Dr Crippen to justice. 'Terrific' - Ian Rankin The instant Sunday Times Bestseller by the award-winning author of The Five In this gripping examination of one of the most infamous murders of...

The recently discovered and remarkable memoir of a Hiroshima survivor and hero, Kiyoshi Tanimoto, one of the six characters in John Hersey's seminal 1946 book Hiroshima. A newly discovered firsthand account of the Hiroshima bombing and its aftermath from one of the survivors—a lost classic that brings unprecedented immediacy to our understanding of this world-changing event. The whole city was...

Other than the Tsar, Emanuel Nobel was likely the wealthiest man in early 20th-century Russia. He and his father, Ludwig, rose from bankruptcy to become the owners of an oil company that rivalled John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil. They imported the best practices from America, and then used their own innovative ideas to improve on them, transforming everything from refining...

One of the most enigmatic figures of antiquity, Tiberius lacked the imperial splendour of his great predecessor Augustus and the excesses of many of his successors, and has been overlooked by history. Yet this compelling study offers a portrait of a complex and contradictory man, both emperor and exile, tyrant and recluse. Drawing on a wealth of ancient sources as...

A narrative of the life of Francisco Franco, Spanish general and dictator. Growing up in the wake of the Spanish military's shattering defeat at the hands of the United States in 1898 over Cuba and having survived a bullet to the stomach while serving his country in Morocco, Francisco Franco’s fame and notoriety were eventually guaranteed by his ruthless pursuit...

Drawing on the diaries of a midwife and healer in eighteenth-century Maine, this intimate history illuminates the medical practices, household economies, religious rivalries, and sexual mores of the New England frontier. PULITZER PRIZE WINNER. Drawing on the diaries of one woman in eighteenth-century Maine, A truly talented historian unravels the fascinating life of a community that is so foreign, and...

On a June night in 1791, King Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette fled Paris in disguise, hoping to escape the mounting turmoil of the French Revolution. They were arrested by a small group of citizens a few miles from the Belgian border and forced to return to Paris. Two years later they would both die at the guillotine. It is this...

For five horrifying years, the librarian Herman Kruk recorded his own experiences and those of others, determinedly documenting the life and daily resistance of European Jews in the deepening shadow of imminent death. This chronicle includes all recovered pages of Kruk's diaries and provides an eyewitness account of the annihilation of the Jewish community of Vilna. The widely scattered pages...

Eloquently tracing the birth of a revolutionary, Huey P. Newton's famous and oft-quoted autobiography is as much a manifesto as a portrait of the inner circle of America's Black Panther Party. From Newton's impoverished childhood to his adolescence and struggles with the system, from his role in the Black Panthers to his solitary confinement in the Alameda County Jail, Revolutionary...

Boudica, or Boadicea, queen of the Iceni, led a famous revolt against Roman rule in Britain in AD 60, sacking London, Colchester and St Albans and throwing the province into chaos. Although then defeated by the governor, Suetonius Paulinus, her rebellion sent a shock wave across the empire. Who was this woman who defied Rome? Boudica: Iron Age Warrior Queen...

What kind of mind carries out orders that change the course of history? And more importantly... could it happen again? In the aftermath of World War II, inside a heavily guarded prison in Nuremberg, twenty-two of the most powerful men of a fallen regime sat in silence—waiting for judgement. Once feared, obeyed, and unquestioned, they were now reduced to prisoners...

A conspiracy theory revealed. We all know that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, by James Earl Ray. James wrote his book James Earl Ray, Who Killed Martin Luther King Jr.?, declaring his innocence while in prison, claiming a man he knew only as "Raoul" set him up to be patsy. He...

A Wall Street Journal Spring Books 2024 Selection: "What to Read This Spring" An Extraordinary Portrait of America's Beloved Female Founder and First Lady Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, was an eyewitness to America's founding and helped guide the new nation through her observations and advice to her famously prickly husband, who cherished her. She met many important and...

A unique collection of life lessons from renowned chef and humanitarian José Andrés José Andrés is a chef, entrepreneur, author, TV host, and tireless humanitarian leader across the globe. A Michelin-starred chef with more than 30 restaurants, José is perhaps best known as the founder of World Central Kitchen, a nonprofit dedicated to feeding the hungry in the wake of...

Few people have made a bigger mark on history—and lived such an adventurous life—as Julius Caesar (100–44 BCE). A sickly orphan boy who would climb to the top of the Roman Empire, his life was nothing short of legendary. How could Julius, a scrawny, penniless teenager, become Caesar, the most powerful man in the world? How could he vanquish every...

Fifteen years in the making, a landmark reinterpretation of the life of a pivotal figure in British and European history In this magisterial addition to the Yale English Monarchs series, David Bates combines biography and a multidisciplinary approach to examine the life of a major figure in British and European history. Using a framework derived from studies of early medieval...

The compelling story of the end of Henry VIII’s reign—and how the fate of England was determined by the king’s secretary and minister, William Paget. In the closing years of Henry VIII’s reign, the future of England hung in the balance. The king’s potential heirs consisted of two daughters of disgraced parentage and a young son too inexperienced to rule....

The Director is the first book ever written about FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover by a member of his personal staff—his former assistant, Paul Letersky. It offers unprecedented, clear-eyed and compelling insight into an American legend. The 1960s and 1970s were arguably among America’s most turbulent post-Civil War decades. While the Vietnam War continued seemingly without end, protests and riots...

The return of a revered revolutionary and the meaning of independence in a divided nation—in the 1820s and today In 1824, the legendary French hero of the American Revolution, Gilbert du Motier de Lafayette, commenced an epic tour of the United States at the invitation of President James Monroe. On this fourteen-month trip across all twenty-four states, Lafayette (1757–1834) witnessed...

Plato is one of history's most influential thinkers, the "sublime philosopher" whose writings remain foundational to Western culture. He is known for the brilliant dialogues in which he depicted his teacher, Socrates, discussing ethical truths with prominent citizens of Athens. Yet the image we have of Plato—an ethereal figure far removed from society and politics, who conjured abstract ideas in...

An updated and revised biography of Patrice Lumumba, former Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Patrice Lumumba (1926-61) is perhaps the most famous leader of the African independence movement. He became an icon of anti-imperialist struggle after his execution in 1961, when he had been the prime minister of the newly liberated Congo for only seven months....

Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Feature. When Marcelo Rubens Paiva was 11 years old, his father was tortured to death by the Brazilian dictatorship. Twenty-five years later, his mother, Eunice, helped usher into law a way for the families of the regime's victims to finally have their deaths formally acknowledged, and allow them to seek compensation. In...

In this riveting memoir, one of the country’s leading Africanists shares his story of five decades of work across the African continent at senior levels of government, business, and law. In 1971, months out of high school, Witney Schneidman found himself at a secondary school in Mbarara, Uganda listening on the radio as Idi Amin announced his takeover of the...

From the three-time National Book Award nominee and New York Times bestselling author Gail Godwin comes an incandescent reflection on past and present that speaks urgently to our current political moment. “He just had the presidency stolen from him.” Gail Godwin first heard these words in November 1960, as one of a crush of reporters eagerly awaiting the first post-election...

In the 1930s, the airship was viewed as the future of transatlantic travel and a brave new era of global connectedness. Germany's safe, fast and efficient airships brought it back into the international fold after its humiliation in World War I. But on May 6, 1937, the Hindenburg airship caught fire in the sky over New Jersey in a blaze...

Charles Sumner is mainly known as the abolitionist statesman who suffered a brutal caning on the Senate floor by the proslavery congressman Preston Brooks in 1856. This violent episode has obscured Sumner's status as the most passionate champion of equal rights and multiracial democracy of his time. A friend of Alexis de Tocqueville, an ally of Frederick Douglass, and an...

'This story starts roughly in the 1970s, a few years after I was born, about the time when I began to have memories and my father's codename was already long established as "Andronic", a name we learned about only last summer . . .' Burying the Typewriter is the haunting true story of life behind the Iron Curtain, and one...