Diaries & Memoirs

The Lonely City is a captivating book by Olivia Laing, published in 2017 by Canongate Books. This book explores the subject of loneliness in a unique and profound way, taking the reader on a journey through the busy streets and crowded apartments of the city. The author uses her personal experiences and observations to illuminate the complexities of isolation and solitude in the urban environment. The Lonely City is a thought-provoking read that will resonate with anyone who has ever felt alone in a crowd. Despite being set in the hustle and bustle of the city, it is a book that speaks to the universal human experience of loneliness. Published by Canongate Books, this is a must-read for anyone interested in contemporary literature.

In his twenty-first century reworking of Niccolo Machiavelli's influential masterpiece, The Prince, Jonathan Powell - Tony Blair's Chief of Staff from 1994 - 2007 - recounts the inside story of that period, drawing on his own unpublished diaries.

At twenty-six, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother's rapid death from cancer, her family disbanded and her marriage crumbled. With nothing to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to walk eleven-hundred miles of the west coast of America - from the Mojave Desert, through California and Oregon, and into Washington state - and to do it alone. She had no experience of long-distance hiking and the journey was nothing more than a line on a map. But it held a promise - a promise of piecing together a life that lay in ruins at her feet. Strayed's account captures the agonies - both mental and physical - of her incredible journey/how it maddened and terrified her, and how, ultimately, it healed her. Wild is a brutal memoir of survival, grief and redemption: a searing portrayal of life at its lowest ebb and at its highest tide.

A celebration of the process and artwork created for the Radiohead albums Kid A and Amnesiac

A View from a Front Seat in Football. bA manifesto for change and the state of the game by one of the UKs most recognisable figures in football/b

A coming-of-age memoir of addiction, ambition and redemption in the high-stakes world of Michelin star kitchens. From reckless drug addict to one of Australia's top chefs and television stars: MasterChef judge Jock Zonfrillos powerful life story will shock and inspire. Jock's life spiralled out of control when he tried heroin for the first time as a teenager while growing up in 1980s Glasgow. For years he balanced a career as a rising star amongst legendary chefs with a crippling drug addiction that took him down many dark paths. Fired from his job at a Michelin star restaurant in Chester, England, after a foul-mouthed rant, Jock made his way to London looking for work and found himself in front of the legendary Marco Pierre White. He credits White for saving his life, but Jock continued to struggle with addiction in a world of excess, celebrity, and cut-throat ambition. On New Year's Eve 1999, Jock shot up his last shot of heroin before boarding a plane to Sydney, where he would find passion and new meaning in life in the most unexpected places. There would be more struggles ahead, including two failed marriages, the closure of his prized restaurant during COVID-19, his time on-country, and some very public battles. This is his unforgettable story.Praise for Last Shot Last Shot is Trainspotting meets Kitchen Confidential. Jock's ability to not sugarcoat the truth and his brutal honesty about his struggle with his inner demons will resonate with so many people. That coupled with his absolute passion for food, his commitment to highlighting the culture and food of Australia's First Nations People and his pure love for his family makes this a truly stunning book. I loved it.' Actress, Rebecca Gibney';Oh my goodness what a book. I've just finished it, devoured it in under four hours. I laughed and cried and marvelled at him.'News Corps National Entertainment Writer,Lisa Woolford

An explosive memoir from Bobby Hall, the multiplatinum recording artist known as Logic.

Meet Syd and Shea McGee, the powerhouse couple behind Studio McGee, the fastest-growing interior design studio in the country. This uplifting guide, filled with insights and wisdom from Syd and Shea's ongoing journey, shows readers how classic interior design principles can be used to build an authentically beautiful life.

The most accomplished mountain runner of all time contemplates his record-breaking climb of Mount Everest in this profound and free-flowing memoir-an intellectual and spiritual journey that moves from the earth's highest peak to the soul's deepest reaches.What drives a person to the edge of one of the most difficult and revered mountains in the world? How much is one willing to sacrifice and suffer to pursue an authentic and bold life? The most accomplished mountain runner of all time, Kilian Jornet ponders these questions as he contemplates his record-breaking climb of Mount Everest, exploring the mountain's changing nature over four seasons and his own existence.As he recounts a life spent studying, tending, and ascending the greatest peaks on earth, Jornet ruminates on what he has found in nature-simplicity, freedom, and spiritual joy-and offers a poetic yet clearheaded assessment of his relationship to the mountain . . . at times his opponent, at others, his greatest muse. In this sweeping, soulful journey-the flip side of stories like Into Thin Air-Jornet illuminates with beauty and brilliance what it means to be an athlete, a competitor, and a human facing the greatest life challenges-for him, the mountain he yearns to climb and honour.

A memoir of love, loss and gratitude.

The breathtaking first volume in Rachel Carson's classic and New York Times bestselling trilogy, about the history of the oceans, introduced by Margaret Atwood

"Mike Majlak was a seventeen-year-old from a loving, middle-class family in Milford, Connecticut, when he got caught up in the opioid epidemic that swept the nation. For close to a decade thereafter, his life was a wasteland of darkness and despair. While his peers were graduating from college, buying homes, getting married, having kids, and leading normal lives, Mike was snorting OxyContin, climbing out of cars at gunpoint, and burying his childhood friends. Unable to escape the noose of addiction, he eventually lost the trust and support of everyone who had ever loved him. Alone, with nothing but drugs to keep him company, darkness closed in, and the light inside him--the last flicker of hope--began to dim. His dreams, potential, and future were all being devoured by a relentless addiction too powerful to fight. Despair filled him as he realized he wasn't going to survive. Somehow, he did ..."--Amazon

For every woman that has ever felt trapped. A funny, raw and empowering mid-life-crisis-with-a-difference, vlogger, mother, lover businesswoman and social media phenomenon Tova Leigh explores what the hell you are supposed to do when you find yourself living a life you don't remember signing up for.

For nearly ten years, Ben Rhodes was at the centre of the Obama Administration - first as a speechwriter, then a policymaker, and finally a multi-purpose aide and close collaborator. Rhodes puts us in the room at the most tense and poignant moments in recent history: starting every morning with Obama in the Daily Briefing;

In his new autobiography, Finding My Virginity, the Virgin Founder shares his personal, intimate thoughts on five decades as the world's ultimate entrepreneur. Discover how he created a new life on Necker Island, while continuing to grow the Virgin brand into all corners of the world.

Pulitzer Prize-winning biologist Edward O. Wilson imparts the wisdom of his storied career to the next generation.

An unprecedented international publishing event: the first and only diary written by a still-imprisoned Guantanamo detainee.

THE GRIPPING FIRST-PERSON ACCOUNT OF BIN LADEN'S EXECUTION For the first time, read the first-hand account of the planning and execution of the extraordinary mission to kill the terrorist mastermind. No Easy Day puts readers inside the elite, handpicked twenty-four-man team known as SEAL Team Six as they train for the most important mission of their lives. From the crash of the Black Hawk helicopter that threatened the mission with disaster, to the radio call confirming their target was dead, the SEAL team raid on bin Laden's secret HQ is recounted in nail-biting second-by-second detail. Team leader Mark Owen takes readers behind enemy lines with one of the world's most astonishing fighting forces, in the only insider's account of their most spectacular mission. 'No Easy Day amounts to a cinematic account of the raid to kill Bin Laden: you feel as if you're sitting in the Black Hawk as it swoops in' NY Times 'A blistering first-hand account' The Sun

Reginald Jones was nothing less than a genius. And his appointment to the Intelligence Section of Britain's Air Ministry in 1939 led to some of the most astonishing scientific and technological breakthroughs of the Second World War.In Most Secret War he details how Britain stealthily stole the war from under the Germans' noses by outsmarting their intelligence at every turn. He tells of the 'battle of the beams'; detecting and defeating flying bombs; using chaff to confuse radar; and many other ingenious ideas and devices.Jones was the man with the plan to save Britain and his story makes for riveting reading.

'You have talked so often of going to the dogs - and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached them.' George Orwell's vivid memoir of his time among the desperately poor and destitute in London and Paris is a moving tour of the underworld of society. Here he painstakingly documents a world of unrelenting drudgery and squalor - sleeping in bug-infested hostels and doss houses, working as a dishwasher in the vile 'H tel X', living alongside tramps, surviving on scraps and cigarette butts - in an unforgettable account of what being down and out is really like.Includes an introduction by Dervla Murphy, as well as definitive footnotes assigned to Orwell.

The first collection of memoirs from the author who inspired the BBC series All Creatures Great and Small. This edition contains If Only They Could Talk and It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet. Fresh out of Glasgow Veterinary College, to the young James Herriot 1930s Yorkshire seems to offer an idyllic pocket of rural life in a rapidly changing world. But from his erratic new colleagues, brothers Siegfried and Tristan Farnon, to incomprehensible farmers, herds of semi-feral cattle, a pig called Nugent and an overweight Pekingese called Tricki Woo, James finds he is on a learning curve as steep as the hills around him. And when he meets Helen, the beautiful daughter of a local farmer, all the training and experience in the world can't help him . . . Since they were first published, James Herriot's memoirs have sold millions of copies and entranced generations of animal lovers. Charming, funny and touching, All Creatures Great and Small is a heart-warming story of determination, love and companionship from one of Britain's best-loved authors.'I grew up reading James Herriot's books and I'm delighted that thirty years on, they are still every bit as charming, heartwarming and laugh-out-loud funny as they were then' Kate Humble

I AM ZLATAN - the explosive, critically-acclaimed memoir of Zlatan Ibrahimovich, one of the world's most gifted and controversial footballers'Guardiola has no balls. He drove me like a Fiat . . . I'm a Ferrari' Zlatan Ibrahimovic - professional football's most mercurial player, Swedish national hero, tabloid fixture, fashion icon, modern-day philosopher and black belt in Taekwondo. Born to a Muslim father from Bosnia, and a Catholic mother from Croatia, Zlatan recounts his extraordinary life story, from his poverty-stricken upbringing as an outsider in Malm , Sweden, to becoming one of the world's most sought-after and expensive players, gracing Europe's finest clubs, from Ajax to Juventus, Internazionale to Barcelona, Milan to Paris Saint-Germain. I AM ZLATAN reveals a rare and ferocious intelligence, willpower and God-given talent most recently exhibited when Zlatan scored all 4 goals for Sweden in a 4-2 victory against England. His fourth goal, a 30-yard overhead kick with his back to goal is widely regarded as one of the greatest goals of all time. The BBC described it as a goal that 'combined unfathomable imagination and expert technique'.For fans of The Secret Footballer and Football Manager Stole My Life this no holds barred football memoir is every bit as dramatic and revealing as Roy Keane's classic autobiography.'The best footballer's autobiography of recent years is probably I Am Zlatan Ibrahimovic . . .' Simon Kuper, author of Why England Always Lose'Eagerly awaited, not least because Ibra seems to be spoiling for a fight on every other page. 'Dynamite' said one Swedish reporter' Daily Mail on I AM ZLATAN