Charles Dickens: A Life by Claire Tomalin

Charles Dickens was a phenomenon: a demonicly hardworking journalist, the father of ten children, a tireless walker and traveller, a supporter of liberal social causes, but most of all a great novelist.

Yet the brilliance concealed a divided character: a republican, he disliked America; sentimental about the family in his writings, he took up passionately with a young actress; usually generous, he cut off his impecunious children. Charles Dickens: A Life paints an unforgettable portrait of Dickens, capturing brilliantly the complex character of this great genius ...

... a completely riveting story of poverty and riches, loyalty and betrayal, triumph and tragedy, fully exploring the complexities and contradictions of Dickens's character ....

Kate Remembered: Kathryn Hepburn
by A. Scott Berg

Kate Remembered is a loving tribute and a tender farewell that reveals an unusual relationship in a unique life, one fully lived - and largely according to Katharine Hepburn's own rules. More importantly, it sets down many of the stories of that life as she saw them, full of sentiments she felt should not be made public until after her death.

A memoir with never a dull page ...

Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self
by Claire Tomalin

Biography of naval administrator Samuel Pepys, who was well-known for being the friend of the famous and powerful. This text, which draws on Pepys' own personal diary, covers his childhood and young adulthood. It moves through the famous diary years and beyond, to the death of his wife and the setting up of a new household.

Toast: The Story of a Boy's Hunger
by Nigel Slater

Nigel Slater's extraordinary story of a childhood remembered through food. Whether relating his mother's ritual burning of the toast, his father's dreaded Boxing Day stew or such culinary highlights of the day as Arctic Roll and Grilled Grapefruit this memoir vividly recreates daily life in sixties surburban England.

Life On Air
by David Attenborough

Sir David Attenborough is Britain's best-known natural history film-maker. His career as a naturalist and broadcaster has spanned nearly five decades and there are very few places on the globe that he has not visited. In this book David tells stories of the people and animals he has met and the places that he has visited.

Piaf
by David Bret

A tiny, black-clad figure with a scorchingly powerful voice who dominated stages around the world for almost thirty years, the legendary Edith Piaf still reigns supreme more than four decades after her death. David Bret tells Piaf's amazing rags-to-riches story with unprecedented detail, honesty and compassion.

... the most comprehensive and up-to-date biography available ... the ultimate tribute to the undisputed genius of a remarkable woman ...