Biographies

The astonishing and bestselling life story of the renowned campaigner for religious tolerance and women's rights, Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

A funny story of a boy growing into a man who then realizes he has only begun to grow. This book presents the story of turning points in his life, events that would make him what he is - if only he could survive them. It is filled with curiosity about nature, good humour and honesty.

Acclaimed analysis of the life and career of Formula 1's most successful driver - Michael Schumacher

National Book Award-winning author of Just Kids, Patti Smith writes of her childhood in this glittering memoir

Tells the history of the modest family which rose to become one of the most powerful in Europe. This title explores the intensely dramatic rise and fall of the Medici family in Florence, as well as the Italian Renaissance which they did so much to sponsor and encourage.

The real Master and Commander 'There is no man I envy so much as Lord Cochrane' Lord Byron

Isamu Noguchi was one of the most prolific yet enigmatic figures in the history of twentieth-century American art. This book features his biography. It draws on Noguchi's letters, his reminiscences, and interviews with his friends and colleagues to cast light on his youth, his creativity, and his relationships.

Following the enormous success of HITLER: HUBRIS this book triumphantly completes one of the great modern biographies. No figure in twentieth century history more clearly demands a close biographical understanding than Adolf Hitler; and no period is more important than the Second World War. Beginning with Hitler's startling European successes in the aftermath of the Rhinelland occupation and ending nine years later with the suicide in the Berlin bunker, Kershaw allows us as never before to understand the motivation and the impact of this bizarre misfit. He addresses the crucial questions about the unique nature of Nazi radicalism, about the Holocaust and about the poisoned European world that allowed Hitler to operate so effectively.

Shows how the author build his legend: running for sheriff in Aspen, Colorado, creating the seminal road book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", twisting political reporting to new heights for "Rolling Stone" and making sense of it all in the landmark "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72."

Rudolph Hoess was Commandant of Auschwitz during the war. He was taken prisoner by the British. Between his trial and his execution he was ordered to write his autobiography. This is it.

Covers Frank Dye's intrepid voyages in his open 16ft Wayfarer dinghy to Iceland and Norway that ranks among the most hazardous sea adventures of our time. Encountering the whole gamut of weather, such is Frank Dye's seamanship that he and his crew survived gales up to Force 9, capsizing and a broken mast, arriving to a Scandinavian welcome.

The mesmerizing autobiography of one of the most revered soul, jazz, and blues divas of our time-the late Nina Simone

In this highly readable, witty and colourful autobiography, Flynn reveals himself and his remarkable life as he did nowhere else.

The Orientalist unravels the mysterious life of a man born on the border between West and East, a Jewish man with a passion for the Arab world. Tom Reiss first came across the man who called himself 'Kurban Said' when he went to the ex-USSR to research the oil business on the Caspian Sea, and discovered a novel instead.

Genghis Khan - creator of the greatest empire the world has ever seen - is one of history's immortals.

This biography of Freddie Mercury is written by the man who was his personal assistant for the last 12 years of his life. It reveals the truth behind the scandalous rumours and describes the part played in Mercury's life by such famous names as Elton John, Kenny Everett and Elizabeth Taylor.

WINNER OF THE MEDICAL JOURNALISTS' OPEN BOOK AWARD 2005Revered and feared in equal measure, John Hunter was the most famous surgeon of eighteenth-century London.

Booker wining novelist, playwright, essayist, poet and critic - even admirers rarely know John Berger in all his literary incarnations. This collection of essays takes a look at his career. Berger's wide-ranging essays emphasise the continuities that have underpinned more than 40 years of tireless intellectual inquiry and political engagement.

Maugham spent the winter months of 1919 travelling fifteen hundred miles up the Yangtze river. Maugham keenly observes, and gently ridicules, their dogged and oblivious persistence with the life they know.

From the writer of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", "All the President's Men" and "Marathon Man", Oscar-winning screen writer William Goldman presents his memories and views of movie-making, and of acting greats such as Redford, Olivier, Newman and Hoffman.

When identical twins, June and Jennifer Gibbons were three they began to reject communication with anyone but each other, and so began a childhood bound together in a strange and secret world.

Quite possibly the most inspirational music biography ever written - essential. MUZIK

After backpacking her way around India, 21-year-old Sarah Macdonald decided that she hated this land of chaos and contradiction with a passion, and when an airport beggar read her palm and insisted she would come back one day - and for love - she vowed never to return.

Maria Trapp recalls the events that brought her talented family from Austria to the hills of New England.

Opening with his impoverished childhood in Algiers, Todd brings the historical context to life, shedding light on Camus' later agonising conflict between sympathy for the working class Algerians and for the French colonials with a stake in their adopted land.

The world-champion freestyle skateboarder and the man who brought the ollie - the trick that revolutionised the sport by taking it from the ground to the air - to street skating shares the history of skateboarding, as he tells the dramatic story of his life.

In the spring of 1976, the film-maker, Francis Ford Coppola, and his family left California for the Philippines, where the film "Apocalypse Now" was to be filmed. In this book Coppola's wife records the events of a period which stretched from months into years.

With an anthology edited by Tom Wolfe and E. W. Johnson