BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY

On April 13th, 2004 Gloria Hunnifords 41 year old daughter, Caron Keating, died after a secret seven year battle with cancer. The world that had changed with Caron's diagnosis, now shattered. Life had been cruelly interrupted, a black hole opened in Glorias heart, she was consumed with the unimaginable grief that the loss of a child brings and she was alone. Or so she felt. Within days of Caron's death letters started to arrive. People who had lost their children felt compelled to write. Strangers understood what she was going through often more than the family and friends standing next to her. There were many, many dark days but the letters kept coming and somehow she managed to do the impossible. Wake up everyday, get out of bed, breath. The black hole is still there, sometimes as big as ever, but she has found a way to live with it, around it. This is the story of how Gloria and her family survived Carons death, but it is not only her story. It is written for those who held her while she raged. It is written for all those people who helped her through that first terrible year by writing, but mostly it is written for the many thousands who didnt.Grief is lonely, but as this book shows, you are not alone. Death affects us all at some point. Gloria will never again be the carefree woman she once was, the loss of a loved one is always with you, but so are the living This is how she found her way back to them.

ISBN: 9780340953969

At the height of Hollywood's Golden Age, Tony Curtis starred in "Houdini" and "Spartacus", made comedy history with Jack Lemmon in the unforgettable "Some Like It Hot", was friends with Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant and James Dean, and romanced screen sirens such as Marilyn Monroe, Janet Leigh and Natalie Wood. He lived a life he could only dream of growing up in the Bronx. Born Bernard Schwarz to immigrant parents, this is Tony Curtis' story of his hard-knock childhood, his wild days as a Hollywood playboy, his destructive drug addiction and his life now as an artist in his eighties. Sparing no name, no detail and no ego, Tony Curtis talks intimately about the people he has known during his long, illustrious career, his co-stars, the studio owners, his wives, his lovers and his friends. This book will be the true record of his life, told with humour, grace and honesty.

ISBN: 9781905264346

Following in the hugely popular 'Angel Saved My Life' series comes a moving new collection of real-life stories from the Afterlife. Following in the bestselling An Angel Saved My Life series, An Angel on my Shoulder is an inspiring collection of true stories about the guardian angels who protect us, warn us and guide us from the other side. / A kicking and screaming angel saves a woman from dying on a train. / A grieving daughter is comforted by the kiss of an angel. / A mysterious stranger protects a young girl from a mugging - and then vanishes. / A animal angel saves a family from carbon monoxide poisoning. These are just some of the amazing accounts in this inspiring new collection of true stories.

ISBN: 9780007288809

Barack Obama's success in becoming President-Elect of the United States means he will dramatically change the face that his country presents to the world. In this bestselling book Obama discusses the importance of empathy in politics, his hopes for a different America with different policies, and how the ideals of its democracy can be renewed. With intimacy and self-deprecating humour, Obama describes his experiences as a politician, about balancing his family life and his public vocation. His search for consensus and his respect for the democratic process inform every sentence. A senator and a lawyer, a professor and a father,a Christian and a sceptic, Barack Obama has written a book of transforming power that will inspire people the world over.

ISBN: 9781847670830

Wentworth is in Yorkshire and was surrounded by 70 collieries employing tens of thousands of men. It is the finest and largest Georgian house in Britain andbelonged to the Fitzwilliam family. It is England's forgotten palace which belonged to Britain's richest aristocrats. Black Diamonds tells the story of its demise: family feuds, forbidden love, class war, and a tragic and violent death played their part. But coal, one of the most emotive issues in twentieth century British politics, lies at its heart. This is the extraordinary story of how the fabric of English society shifted beyond recognition in fifty turbulent years in the twentieth century.

On Friday 25th May, 1934, a forty-one-year-old woman walked into the lobby of Claridge's Hotel to meet the nineteen-year-old son whose face she did not know. Fifteen years earlier, as the First World War ended, Idina Sackville shocked high society by leaving his multimillionaire father to run off to Africa with a near penniless man. An inspiration for Nancy Mitford's character The Bolter, painted by William Orpen, and photographed by Cecil Beaton, Sackville went on to divorce a total of five times, yet died with a picture of her first love by her bed. Her struggle to reinvent her life with each new marriage left one husband murdered and branded her the 'high priestess' of White Mischief's bed-hopping Happy Valley in Kenya. Sackville's life was so scandalous that it was kept a secret from her great-granddaughter Frances Osborne. Now, Osborne tells the moving tale of betrayal and heartbreak behind Sackville's road to scandal and return, painting a dazzling portrait of high society in the early twentieth century.

ISBN: 9781844084807

Churchill (1874-1965) was one of the 20th century's most charismatic and controversial figures. He escaped from capture as a prisoner of war in the Boer War, was a Nobel Prize-winning author and twice prime minister. He is best remembered as the astute and powerful orator who inspired a battered Britain to victory and led the post-war, shattered nation to recovery. Richard Langworth, co-chairman and editor of "The Churchill Centre", has spent over 20 years researching Churchill's written and spoken words.In "Churchill by Himself", which is fully authorised by the Churchill Estate, Langworth has edited and annotated this library to make the definitive collection of Churchill's words, thematically arranged. He also highlights the myriad quotations commonly mis-attributed to Churchill. From his meetings with world leaders such as Roosevelt, de Gaulle and Stalin, his verbal engagements with Hitler and the Third Reich, to his wit and oratory on the floor of the Commons, every facet of Churchill's life and times is explored with his own pragmatic intelligence, sharp humour and legendary wisdom.

ISBN: 9780091918521

"Rebecca", published in 1938, brought its author instant international acclaim, capturing the popular imagination with its haunting atmosphere of suspense and mystery. But the more fame this and her other books encouraged, the more reclusive "Daphne du Maurier" became. Margaret Forster's award-winning biography could hardly be more worthy of its subject. Drawing on private letters and papers, and with the unflinching co-operation of Daphne du Maurier's family, Margaret Forster explores the secret drama of her life - the stifling relationship with her father, actor-manager Gerald du Maurier; her troubled marriage to war hero and royal aide, 'Boy' Browning; her wartime love affair; her passion for Cornwall and her deep friendships with the last of her father's actress loves, Gertrude Lawrence, and with an aristocratic American woman. Most significant of all, Margaret Forster ingeniously strips away the relaxed and charming facade to lay bare the true workings of a complex and emotional character whose passionate and often violent stories mirrored her own fantasy life more than anyone could ever have imagined.

ISBN: 9780099333319

Dawn French is one of the greatest comedy actresses of our time, with a career that has spanned nearly three decades, encompassing a vast and brilliant array of characters. Loved for her irreverent humor, Dawn has achieved massive mainstream success while continuing to push boundaries and challenge stereotypes. Here she describes the journey that would eventually establish her as a perhaps unlikely, but nevertheless genuine, national treasure. Dawn began her career as part of the groundbreaking alternative comedy group, the Comic Strip, marking a radical departure from the more traditional comedy acts of the time. Later came the all-female Girls On Top, which teamed Dawn with Jennifer Saunders, Ruby Wax and Tracy Ullman and firmly established women in British comedy.As part of the wildly successful and much loved duo French and Saunders, Dawn helped create a repertoire of brilliantly observed characters, parodying popular culture and impersonating everything from Madonna and Harry Potter to The Exorcist. Dawn's more recent role in the Vicar of Dibley showcased not only her talent but also her ability to take a controversial and topical issue and make it mainstream - and very funny. From her early years as an RAF child and her flat-sharing antics with Jennifer Saunders, to her outspoken views on sizism and her marriage to Lenny Henry, "Dear Fatty" will chronicle the extraordinary, hilarious rise of a complex, dynamic and unstoppable woman.

ISBN: 9781846053443

OCTOBER 2008

The son of a black African father and a white American mother, Obama was only two years old when his father walked out on the family. Many years later, Obama receives a phone call from Nairobi: his father is dead. This sudden news inspires an emotional odyssey for Obama, determined to learn the truth of his father's life and reconcile his divided inheritance. Written at the age of thirty-three, Dreams from my Father is an unforgettable read. it illuminates not only Obama's journey, but also our universal desire to understand our history, and what makes us the people we are.

ISBN: 9781847670946

For years now, Fern Britton has been widely loved as the presenter of "Ready Steady Cook", and, more recently, co-presenter of "This Morning with Philip Schofield". Never one to shy away from a good laugh or cry on national TV, she has none-the-less never talked about herself to the public, preferring to keep her private life private. Her warmth and humour, empathy and compassion, have made her feel like a best friend to millions on a daily basis, but no one knows the woman behind the sparkling smile. Now, for the first time, she is going to tell her story. And it is one that will strike a chord with women everywhere. Life as a child was not always easy, and she faced private and public challenges with her personal life, appearance and her career as she climbed the ladder to fame. Now a full-time working mum, with a very happy marriage to her second husband Phil Vickery, she is at the top of her game, and ready to tell it like it is. So put your feet up and get ready for a great read.

ISBN: 9780718154615

NOVEMBER 2008

Published to coincide with the eponymous blockbuster film, Roberto Saviano's groundbreaking and utterly compelling book is a major international bestseller. Since publishing his searing expose of their criminal activities, the author has received so many death threats from the Camorra that he has been assigned police protection. Known by insiders as 'the System', the Camorra, an organized crime network with a global reach and large stakes in construction, high fashion, illicit drugs and toxic-waste disposal, exerts a malign grip on cities and villages along the Neapolitan coast is the deciding factor in why Campania has the highest murder rate in all of Europe and why cancer levels there have skyrocketed in recent years. In pursuit of his subject, Saviano worked as an assistant at a Chinese textile manufacturer and on a construction site, both controlled by 'the System', and as a waiter at a Camorra wedding. Born in Naples, he recalls seeing his first murder at the age of fourteen, and how his own father, a doctor, suffered a brutal beating for trying to help an eighteen-year-old victim, left for dead in the street. "Gomorrah" is both a bold and engrossing piece of investigative writing and one heroic young man's impassioned story of a place under the rule of a murderous organization.

ISBN: 9780330450997

TV personality, founder of Childline, writer and broadcaster, Esther Rantzen has spent her life tirelessly campaigning on behalf of children and mental health sufferers. In this personal and anecdotal handbook, she turns her attention to the baby boomer and shows how, ultimately, reaching your fifties and beyond is just the beginning. Starting from her own experiences whether it be her childhood, the death of her husband, her battle with prejudice against women in the media, laughter and the love of friends, irritations with brainless ageism, the importance of travel, sex and good health all is of huge relevance and will give the fifty-something-plus-year-old a huge jolt of recognition, or a shocked gasp, or a laugh. Interspersed with practical advice and the occasional nostalgic rant, this is a fun celebration and an inspiration for the nations 17 million baby boomers.

ISBN: 9780755317202

Presents the personal account of the author who has led a rollercoaster life. This book tells how she overcame a string of emotional challenges: she has battled post-natal depression, endured a traumatic miscarriage and continually fought fears for the safety and health of her children and husband.

After more than her fair share of heartbreak, Katie Price has at last found true love and this time she knows it's for keeps. Physically and emotionally, she has met her match and there have been some dramatic changes in her life as a result. This book presents her story.

'Well now, prove it, Sheila. As John would say, "Put your money where your mouth is." Be a depressed widow boring the arse off everyone, or get on with life. Your choice.'In The Two of Us Sheila Hancock relived her life with John Thaw - years packed with love and family, work and houses, delight and despair. And then she looked ahead. What next? Gardening, grannying and grumbling, while they all had their pleasures, weren't going to fill the aching void that John had left. 'Live adventurously', a piece of Quaker advice, was hovering in her mind. So, putting her and John's much-loved house in France on the market - too many memories - she embarked, instead, on a series of journeys. She tried holidaying alone, contending with invisibility and budget flights. She tried travelling in a group, but the questions she wanted to ask were never the ones the guide wanted to answer. She tried relaxing - harder than you might think. Finally, heading out of her comfort zone, she found her travels and new discoveries led her back to her past: to consider her generation - the last to experience the Second World War - and the kind of person it made her.Just Me is a book about moving on, but it is also about looking back, and looking anew. Sheila, whether facing down burglars and easyJet staff (cross her at your peril) or making friends with waiters and taxi drivers, whether unearthing secrets in Budapest, getting arrested in Thailand, exulting in the art of Venice or mingling with the Mafia in Milan, is never less than stimulating company. Honest - because if you can't say what you think at seventy-five, when can you? - insightful and wonderfully down-to-earth, she is a woman seizing the future with wit, gusto and curiosity - on her own.

ISBN: 9780747588825

Reveals how Alice Sebold's life was transformed when, as an eighteen-year-old college freshman, she was raped and beaten in a park near campus. This book also chronicles her recovery as she triumphs, managing through grit and coincidence to help secure her attacker's arrest and conviction.

John and Jenny were just beginning their life together. They were young and in love, with a perfect little house and not a care in the world. Then they bought home Marley, a wiggly yellow fur ball of a puppy. Life would never be the same. Marley quickly grew into a barrelling, ninety-seven pound steamroller of a Labrador retriever, a dog like no other. He crashed through screen doors, gouged through drywall, flung drool on guests, stole womens undergarments, and ate nearly everything he could get his mouth around, including couches and fine jewellery. Obedience school did no good Marley was expelled. And yet Marleys heart was pure. Just as he joyfully refused any limits on his behaviour, his love and loyalty were boundless, too. Marley shared the couples joy at their first pregnancy, and their heartbreak over the miscarriage. He was there when babies finally arrived and when the screams of a seventeen-year-old stabbing victim pierced the night. The heartwarming and unforgettable story of a family in the making and the wondrously neurotic dog who taught them what really matters in life.

An autobiography of Stephen Fry's first twenty years, this book talks about his family, about his homosexuality, about the agonies of childhood.

For the last six years of his life, Roger Deakin kept notebooks in which he wrote his daily thoughts, impressions, feelings and observations. Discursive, personal and often impassioned, they reveal the way he saw the world, whether it be observing the teeming ecosystem that was Walnut Tree Farm, thinking about the wider environment, walking in his fields, on Mellis Common or on his travels at home, or contemplating his past and his present life. "Notes from Walnut Tree Farm" collects the very best of these writings, capturing Roger's extraordinary, restless curiosity about the natural and human worlds, his love of literature and music, his knack for making unusual and apposite connections, and of course his distinct and subversive charm and humour. Together they cohere to present a passionate, engaged and - in spite of the worst pressures of contemporary life - optimistic view of our changing world.

ISBN: 9780241144206

OCTOBER 2008

Edgar Allan Poe began his literary career composing verses modelled on Byron. Poe has been claimed as the forerunner of modern fantasy. This biography of Poe opens with his end, his final days - no one knows what happened between the time when friends saw him off on the steam-boat to Baltimore and his discovery six days later dying in a tavern.

On November 4, 2008, America voted for change. This is a must-have record of this epic event, featuring exclusive footage from campaign photographer Callie Shell, showing the profound speeches and rallies of Obama's trail, as well as the private, more poignant moments of his journey to become America's 44th president. Behind-the-scenes photography is accompanied by "TIME" articles from its stable of respected writers, documenting Barack Obama's journey from his groundbreaking speech at the Democratic Convention in 2004. Callie Shell has been alongside Obama since he started his campaign in January 2006, and has been able to document the private side of the 'skinny kid with a funny name', showing what he's like in repose, with Michelle Obama and their two daughters as well as when he's on the stage or behind the podium. Featuring interviews, analysis and the photographic inside track to this fascinating man, this is the book to own when people ask you where you were the day that history was made.

ISBN: 9780715333419

Beryl Markham, like Karen Blixen, could only have come out of Africa. Pioneering aviatrix, flamboyant beauty, brilliant race-horse trainer, unscrupulous seducer ? her life story is for every reader who was enthralled by Blixen's exotic world, that of Kenya between the wars. This fully authorised biography, drawn from the author's personal association with Beryl and her family, paints a vivid portrait of a tempestuous and controversial character. It tells of her friendship with Karen Blixen (though she commandeered Blixen's husband Bror and lover Denys Finch Hatton), of her spectacular courage when she became the first person to fly from England to America, and of the mysteries surrounding her highly praised, bestselling book WEST WITH THE NIGHT.

Julie Walters has been described as the nation's most popular actress and comedienne. She has been delighting us on screen and on stage for over 25 years and we have taken her to our hearts. Now she tells us her own story, in her own words. She was born in fifties Birmingham, daughter of an austere Irish Catholic mother. She was sent to school in a convent and from a young age always wanted to be an actress but to appease her mother she first went into nursing. This didn't last for long though and she soon went to join the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool. West End success followed, and she quickly replicated her success on film, earning an Academy Award nomination for her role opposite Michael Caine in Educating Rita. Julie's collaborations with her close friend Victoria Wood have given us, among others, the unforgettable character 'Mrs Overall' in Acorn Antiques and Petula in 'dinnerladies', and she's recently charmed a new generation of fans playing Mrs Weasley in the Harry Potter films and alongside Meryl Streep in 'Mamma Mia!', as well as co-starring with Helen Mirren in Calendar Girls. The winner of countless awards, Julie has continued to be in some of Britain's best TV drama and was awarded a CBE for her services to the theatre. A natural writer with an instinctive sense of timing, Julie's memoirs are warm, moving, painfully felt, fiercely intelligent - and totally entertaining.

ISBN: 9780297852063

Artistic genius, political activist, painter and decorator, mythic legend or notorious graffiti artist? The work of Banksy is unmistakable, except maybe when it's squatting in the Tate or New York's Metropolitan Museum. Banksy is responsible for decorating the streets, walls, bridges and zoos of towns and cites throughout the world. Witty and subversive, his stencils show monkeys with weapons of mass destruction, policeman with smiley faces, rats with drills and umbrellas. If you look hard enough, you'll find your own. His statements, incitements, ironies and epigrams are by turns intelligent and cheeky comments on everything from the monarchy and capitalism to the war in Iraq and farm animals. His identity remains unknown, but his work is prolific. Here's the best of his work in a fully illustrated colour volume - including brand material

Chuck it all in and buy a zoo? Why not? thought Benjamin Mee, unaware of the grim living conditions, creditors and escaped big cat that lay in wait...