A. J. Liebling, born in Manhattan in 1904, joined the staff of the New Yorker in 1935 and contributed innumerable articles to the magazine throughout his lifetime, on subjects ranging from food to boxing and France to horse racing. As a war correspondent during the Second World War, he reported from France, England and Algeria, and participated in the Normandy landings. In later life he married the writer Jean Stafford, his third wife. He died in 1963.

A. J. Liebling

A. J. Rosen is an author of YA fantasy and is known as @agatharoza on Wattpad.

A. J. Rosen

A. K. Davidson

A. O. Scott has been a film critic at the New York Times since 2000. His writing has appeared in many other publications, including the New York Review of Books, Slate, the New Yorker and the Nation. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism in 2010, Scott is currently Distinguished Professor of Film Criticism at Wesleyan University. He lives with his family in Brooklyn, New York. 
 
@aoscott

A. O. Scott

A.S. Byatt (1936-2023) was a novelist, short-story writer and critic of international renown. Her novels include Possession (winner of the Booker Prize 1990), the Frederica Quartet and The Children’s Book, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. She was appointed CBE in 1990 and DBE in 1999, and was awarded the Erasmus Prize 2016 for her ‘inspiring contribution to life writing’ and the Pak Kyongni Prize 2017. In 2018 she received the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award.

A. S. Byatt

A. T. Williams won the George Orwell Prize for Political Writing in 2013 for his book A Very British Killing: The Death of Baha Mousa. He lives in Warwickshire.

A. T. Williams

A. W. Chase

Dubbed ‘The new queen of spy fiction’ by the Guardian newspaper, and ‘the real thing’ by the Washington Post, A.C. 'Ava' Glass is the CWA Dagger-shortlisted author of Alias Emma (The Chase), The Traitor and The Trap. The Traitor was a 2023 Richard and Judy Bookclub pick. Alias Emma was a Barnes and Noble book of the month. A former crime reporter and communications consultant, for five years Ava worked closely with spies. Her time in that world fascinated her, and the people she met back then inspire every book she writes.

A.C. Glass

A.E. Housman

Arthur Edward Waite was the designer and co-creator of the now famous Rider Waite Tarot deck. 
 
An American-born British poet and scholarly mystic, his strong interest in all esoteric matters - divination, magic, Kabbalism, alchemy and Freemasony - led to him penning a number of books. These include the Key to the Tarot, The Book of Ceremonial Magic and A New Encyclopedia of Freemasony.

A.E. Waite

A.E. Warren is the author of the Tomorrow's Ancestors series, which consists of Subject Twenty-One, The Hidden Base, The Fourth Species and The Final Rising. 
 
After spending eight years working as a lawyer, she began to write in the evenings and early mornings as a form of escapism from life in a very small cubicle with lots of files. She self-published her first novels in her spare time, which were picked up by Del Rey UK which is the science fiction/fantasy imprint of Penguin Random House. 
 
 She is an avid reader, occasional gamer and fair-weather runner. She lives in the UK with her husband, daughter and hopefully, one day, a wise border terrier named Austen.

A.E. Warren

A.G.D. Maran

A.J. Ayer

A K Benedict writes crime and speculative fiction in a room filled with clowns, mannequins and Doctor Who figures. Her first novel, The Beauty of Murder, was nominated for an eDunnit award and is in development for a major 8-part TV series by Company Pictures. Her second, Jonathan Dark or The Evidence of Ghosts, came out in February 2016. She's written Torchwood audio dramas for Big Finish and her short stories have featured in anthologies including Great British Horror and Best British Short Stories. She lives in St Leonards-on-Sea with her dog, Dame Margaret Rutherford.

A.K.Benedict

A. L. Kennedy has twice been selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists and has won a host of other awards – including the Costa Book of the Year for her novel Day. She lives in Essex.

A.L. Kennedy

A.M. Ellis is a speculative fiction author and lover of everything steeped in myth and mystery. Her stories often lean into diverse voices, not only in her identity as a Black woman, but in exploring neurodivergence and mental health. A proud introvert and nostalgic gamer, she lives in Maryland, USA, with her husband and three children. Angelica is also the author of Hunt A Killer, a PERFECT SCORE novel, under the pen name A.M. Ellis, which she wrote as an IP for Scholastic in the US.

A.M. Ellis

A.N. Wilson was born in 1950 and educated at Rugby and New College, Oxford. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he holds a prominent position in the world of literature and journalism. He is an award-winning biographer and a celebrated novelist, winning prizes for much of his work. He lives in North London.

A.N. Wilson

A.T. Emerald

A.W. Priest

A.B.C. Merriman-Labor was a barrister, writer and munitions worker born in Freetown, Sierra Leone in 1877. His published works include A Series of Lectures on the Negro Race and The Story of the African Slave in a Nutshell. He also edited two editions of the Handbook of Sierra Leone. He arrived in the UK in 1904 to study law. In 1907, he organised a centenary commemoration of the abolition of the slave trade in Westminster Abbey. He later embarked on an 'entertainment-lecture' tour called Life and Scenes in Britain, travelling across thousands of miles of West, South West and Central Africa, which he expanded on to create Britons Through Negro Spectacles.

ABC Merriman-Labor

AJ Cronin

AJ Molloy

Aabria Iyengar is an American actress and author.

Aabria Iyengar

Aaliya Jaleel is a freelance illustrator, designer, and visual development artist, currently majoring in Animation at the University of Texas at Dallas. She is also the illustrator of Under My Hijab and Muslim Girls Rise. You can visit her online at www.aaliyamj.com.

Aaliya Jaleel

Aaron Allston

After more than fifteen years of experience as a clinical psychotherapist, Dr Aaron Balick has taken the amazing insights from psychology and psychotherapy out of the consultation room and made them accessible to the wider world. 
 
He has been an ‘agony uncle’ for many years for both CBBC and BBC Radio 1, as well as on television, including BBC Worldwide, BBC 3 and BBC Learning.

Aaron Balick

Aaron Carroll

Aaron Dignan is the founder of The Ready--a global organizational transformation and coaching practice--that helps companies large and small adopt new forms of self-organization and dynamic teaming. Clients include Johnson &amp; Johnson, Microsoft, Lloyds Bank, Citibank, Boeing, Mailchimp, Airbnb, Dropbox, and charity: water. 
 
He is also the founder of Murmur--a SaaS startup that helps teams scale culture through the magic of working agreements. The Murmur platform will allow every team on the planet to define and share their ways of working. 
 
Dignan is the author of Brave New Work (2019) and Game Frame (2011), co-host of the Brave New Work podcast, and a friend to misfit toys.

Aaron Dignan

Aaron Edwards is a senior lecturer in defence and international affairs at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, specialising in terrorism and counter-insurgency. He is the author and editor of several books, including Defending the Realm: The Politics of Britain’s Small Wars Since 1945, and has lectured all over the world on aspects of national and international security. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Aaron Edwards

Aaron Robertson is a writer, an editor, and a translator of Italian literature. His translation of Igiaba Scego’s Beyond Babylon was short-listed for the 2020 PEN Translation Prize and the National Translation Award, and in 2021 he received a National Endowment for the Arts grant. His work has appeared in the New York Times, The Nation, Foreign Policy, n+1, The Point, and Literary Hub, among other publications. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Aaron Robertson

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Richard Attenborough

Diana Hawkins

Richard Attenborough and Diana Hawkins have been friends and colleagues for nearly 50 years.They have now teamed up to write this frank and funny account of their unlikely partnership and his extraordinary life. 
 
Together, laughing and squabbling, they have travelled the world, meeting people and making films. Among the eclectic cast of characters who appear in this two-handed memoir are Steve McQueen, Mother Teresa, Charlie Chaplin, Robert Mugabe, Edward G Robinson, Ronald Reagan, David Lean, Margaret Thatcher, John Mills, Steven Spielberg, Noel Coward, Indira Gandhi, Gordon Brown and Nelson Mandela. 
 
Prompted by his adventures in the movie business, Attenborough reflects on the highs and lows of a long life, both in and out of the public gaze. He writes revealingly of his passion for football and politics, of his avuncular relationship with Princess Diana and finally about the tsunami tragedy which engulfed his family in December 2004.

Entirely Up to You, Darling

Paul Merton

On the surface it may seem slightly surprising that a master of verbal humour should also be a devotee of silent comedy, but Paul Merton is completely passionate about the early days of Hollywood comedy and the comic geniuses who dominated it. His knowledge is awesome - as anyone who watched his BBC 4 series Silent Clowns or attended the events he has staged nationwide will agree - his enthusiasm is infectious, and these qualities are to be found in abundance in his book. 
 
Starting with the very earliest pioneering short films, he traces the evolution of silent comedy through the 1900s and considers the works of the genre's greatest exponents - Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy and Harold Lloyd - showing not only how each developed in the course of their career but also the extent to which they influenced each other. At the same time, Paul brings a comedian's insight to bear on the art of making people laugh, and explores just how the great comic ideas, routines, gags and pratfalls worked and evolved. His first book for ten years, this is destined to be a classic.

Silent Comedy

Alan Alda

'The message is consistent: it's not what you do in life, but how you do it. Notice everything. Always be open to new ideas, new experiences. Alda is chatty, easygoing and humble ... His words of inspiration would be a perfect gift.' 
Publishers Weekly 
 
Acclaimed actor and internationally bestselling author Alan Alda has written a shrewd and funny account of some impossible questions he's asked himself over the years: what do I value? What, exactly, is the good life? (And what does that even mean?) 
 
Here, Alda listens in on things he's heard himself saying at critical points in his life - from the turbulence of the 60s, to his first Broadway show, to the birth of his children, and to the ache of September 11. He notices that 'doorways are where the truth is told', and wonders what one thing - art, activism, family, money, fame - could lead to a 'life of meaning'. 
 
In a book that is candid, wise and as questioning as it is incisive, Alda amuses and moves us with his uniquely witty meditations on questions great and small.

Things I Overheard While Talking To Myself

Peter Falk

Peter Falk came to prominence as an actor in 1956 in the highly successful off-Broadway revival of The Iceman Cometh with Jason Robards. Although he worked continuously for the next three years, bouncing from one off-Broadway theatre to the next, a theatrical agent advised him not to expect much work in motion pictures because of his glass eye. Later, a talent scout for Columbia Pictures described Falk as a second John Garfield, but Harry Cohn, the head of Columbia Pictures, unfortunately disagreed: 'For the same price, I can get an actor with two eyes.' 
 
But in 1958, Twentieth Century Fox came to New York to make a movie - Murder Inc - and Falk landed a juicy role for which he received rave reviews and, incredibly, was nominated for an Academy Award. He was then nominated again for his second film, Pocketful of Miracles starring Bette Davis. 
Falk went on to become a favourite among filmgoers, yet it was through television that he reached his widest audience as Lt. Columbo, winning four Emmys for the role. Interestingly, Columbo's raincoat came out of Falk's bedroom closet. He bought it years before he became an actor. He's been quoted as saying, 'I wanted to wear something people would remember. Bottom line, it's the world's most famous raincoat.' 
 
Just One More Thing is pure Peter Falk, and reads as if he were sitting next to you, chuckling as he recalls his remarkable past.

Just One More Thing

Donald Spoto

In 1956, at the age of 22, Alan Bates was cast in John Osborne's controversial play, Look Back in Anger. The play changed the course of British theatre - and of Alan's life. 
 
With a sudden rush of fame, he became a member of a new circle of actors at the Royal Court: the English Stage Company. From then on, he also worked steadily in television and won international acclaim for his roles in a number of major films, from A Kind of Loving and Zorba the Greek to Women in Love. 
 
But his personal life was not always as seemingly straightforward as his career - his relationships, including that with his wife, Victoria Ward, were often turbulent. Drawing on dozens of interviews with his family, lovers, colleagues and friends - and mining a rich store of primary research - Donald Spoto chronicles Alan's achievements as a performer against the backdrop of a complicated personal life.

Otherwise Engaged

The Life of Alan Bates

He's one of America's most recognisable and acclaimed actors-a star on Broadway, an Oscar nominee for The Aviator, and the only person to ever win Emmys for acting, writing, and directing during his eleven years on M*A*S*H. Now Alan Alda has written a memoir as elegant, funny, and affecting as his greatest performances. 'My mother didn't try to stab my father until I was six,' begins Alan Alda's irresistible story. The son of a popular actor and a loving, but mentally ill mother, he spent his early childhood backstage in the erotic and comic world of burlesque and went on after early struggles to achieve extraordinary success in his profession. 
 
Yet Never Have Your Dog Stuffed is not a memoir of show business ups and downs. It is a moving and funny story of a boy growing into a man who then realizes he has only begun to grow. It is the story of turning points in his life, events that would make him what he is - if only he could survive them. 
 
From the moment as a boy when his dead dog is returned from the taxidermist's shop with a hideous expression on his face, and he learns that death can't be undone, to the decades-long effort to find compassion for the mother he lived with but never knew, to his acceptance of his father in him, personally and professionally, he learns the hard way that change, uncertainty and transformation are what life is made of, and the good life is made of welcoming them. 
 
Never Have Your Dog Stuffed, filled with curiosity about Nature, good humour and honesty, is the crowning achievement of an actor, author, and director, but surprisingly, it is the story of a life more filled with turbulence and laughter than any he's ever played on the stage or screen.

Never Have Your Dog Stuffed

William Cook

Peter Cook and Dudley Moore are the greatest double act that Great Britain has ever produced. This collection of their works is a comprehensive compilation of the finest comedy sketches that Cook and Moore ever wrote together - from the beginning of their partnership, in the groundbreaking stage show, Beyond The Fringe, to the notorious taboo busting Derek and Clive LPs that captured the spirit of punk rock, and inspired the scatological anarchy of Alternative Comedy. Featuring transcripts of one night stands long since almost forgotten, as well as a wealth of virtually unknown material, including previously unpublished scripts for Not Only But Also, Goodbye Again is a revelation, even for Cook and Moore's most informed fans. 
 
As well as illuminating their work, this book also promises to shed light on their intimate yet turbulent relationship. It will show how these two diametrically opposed men; tall and athletic Cook from a middle class public boarding school background, and diminutive, club-footed Moore, working class but with an impressive musical talent, came together to develop the closest of partnerships based on an instinctive, virtually intuitive sense of humour. Goodbye Again will chart the extraordinary friendship between the two men and its almost telepathic intensity, which not only bought them together but also pulled them apart time after time, until their eventual reconciliation.

Goodbye Again

Peter Cook and Dudley Moore

Joe Eszterhas

He spent his earliest years in post-World War Two refugee camps. He came to America and grew up in Cleveland - stealing cars, rolling drinks, battling priests, nearly going to jail. He became the screenwriter of the world-wide hits Basic Instinct, Jagged Edge and Flashdance. He also wrote the legendary disasters Showgirls and Jade. The rebellion never ended, even as his films went on to gross more than a billion dollars at the box office and he became the most famous - or infamous - screenwriter in Hollywood.

Hollywood Animal

Norman Wisdom

Norman Wisdom's early years could easily have come straight from the pages of a Dickens novel. Left by their frightened mother, ill-treated by a brutal father, Norman and his brother were forced to fend for themselves, sleeping rough in London and stealing food to survive. This is a rags to riches tale of the man Charlie Chaplin said would take his mantle and who went on to make millions laugh around the world for over five decades. Here are the hardships, tragedies and triumphs that gave him his inspiration. From the days working the seasons at Scarborough, to the unforgettable and endearing character Norman Pitkin - the little man in a tight fitting suit, read of his rapid climb up the showbiz ladder.

My Turn

An Autobiography

Lin Cook

An intimate and entertaining portrait of one of comedy's greatest geniuses by those who knew Peter Cook best and can write abut his rare talent. The contributors include Clive Anderson, Alan Bennett, John Cleese, Stephen Fry, William Goldman, Barry Humphries, Eric Idle, Dudley Moore and Michael Palin.

Something Like Fire

Suzanne Finstad

Born Natasha Zakharenko, Natalie Wood continues to haunt us 20 years after her tragic and mysterious death.  Her dark hypnotic beauty and passionate performances made her a movie star legend, appearing in over fifty films including West Side Story  and Rebel Without a Cause for which she was Oscar nominated. The story of her life is tinged with tragedy and drama. Pushed by her domineering, frustrated mother - an alcoholic determined to make her child a star at whatever cost,  Natalie grew up fast -  lonely and a misfit, uncertain of her identity.  At fifteen she had embarked on an affair with a director 30 years her senior, she was brutally raped by a leading Hollywood star when she was sixteen -an attack which her mother forbade her to report.  Her leading men frequently became her lovers including Elvis Presley, James Dean , Warren Beatty and the real love of her life, Robert Wagner whom she eventually married twice. Her fear of being alone and the years of exploitation and abuse led to an addiction to sleeping pills and several suicide attempts and for the first time, this book looks at evidence, yet to be published, surrounding her premature and controversial death - drowning at the age of 43. Suzanne Finstad has spent 3 years researching this, the first substantive biography of Natalie Wood, conducting over 400 interviews with friends, family, lovers, co-stars and the police officials who investigated her death.

Natasha

The Biography of Natalie Wood

Bob Monkhouse

Bob`s journals of the last few years are interwoven with memories of a life in comedy. There are meetings with remarkable comedians -some like Paul Merton at the height of their powers, others like Dick Emery and Benny Hill in sad decline - and Bob reflects on what makes comedians great. Above all here is a wealth of wonderful true adventures, star scandals and gossip about the famous and infamous personalities he`s known initmately, with more stars than the most lavish Royal Variety Performance, including: Peter Sellers, Rex Harrison, Les Dawson, Elton John, Larry Grayson, Bing Crosby, Beryl Reid, k d lang and Luciano Pavarotti. As Bob puts it, `All the good stuff I couldn`t put in my autobiography because there wouldn`t have been room for me!' There has always been room for Bob in the hearts of the British public, and this very, very funny book is just one more reason why he so richly deserves his place in our affections.

Over The Limit

Christopher Reeve

Through his leading role in the three Superman films, Christopher Reeve became so closely identified with the superhero that he wasn't just seen as the actor who played Superman, he was Superman. Which is why the tragic riding accident which left him paralysed from the neck down shocked the world. Superman was not superhuman. It is also why he is now the world's most recognisable person in a wheelchair. In true superhero style, Christopher Reeve refuses to resign himself to the life of a quadriplegic, and is actively campaigning to raise the profile of spinal-cord injury victims and research. Although he was initially told that he would only ever be able to move his head, he can now shrug his shoulders and breathe alone for increasing periods of time, and is determined that he will walk again. It is this extraordinary courage and determination that has made Christopher Reeve the internationally admired figure that he is, and it is this bravery which makes this autobiography about his paralysis and his journey to recovery such a powerful and moving story.

Still Me

MARILYN MONROE is the most celebrated and controversial female icon of the 20th century. At last, Donald Spoto has produced an acclaimed biography worthy of this extraordinary and unforgettable star. 
 
With access to more than 35,000 pages of formerly sealed documents and interviews with 150 people who have never spoken on record before, Spoto's definitive biography reveals the truth behind the myths and speculations surrounding Marilyn's life and death. He exposes the falsehoods and casts new light on every aspect of Marilyn Monroe's 36 years: her dramatic childhood; her marriages; her relationships with movie moguls; politicians, poets, artists and statesmen. But most astonishing of all, he presents the reality of her death - more horrifying than anything a Hollywood screenwriter could have devised. 
 
Moving, often shocking, always absorbing, Marilyn Monroe will stand as the ultimate and compulsively readable biography of the woman who continues to enthrall millions. 
 
'Not just sensational, but sensationally good' - Sunday Telegraph 
 
'At long last Marilyn Monroe has found her knight in shining armour...[her] true story has been revealed' - Daily Mirror 
 
'An impressive reminder of the tough, triumphalist Norma Jean...for once she has a biographer worthy of her' - JULIE BURCHILL, Sunday Times

Marilyn Monroe

The Biography

A Private Thriller

A series of children's modern classic novels by renowned 20th century children's writers. All the titles in this series have the A Puffin Book logo, contemporary-style covers, and child-friendly endnotes.

A Puffin Book

A Ripley Novel

A Slice of the Moon

A Victorian Mystery

A Walk in...

A Women’s Murder Club Thriller

A chef Paul Delamare Mystery

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Agent Z

Detective Aidan Waits is a troubled junior detective haunted by his past. Facing an uncertain future, and disconnected from his history, DC Waits and his partner, Detective Inspector Peter 'Sutty' Sutcliffe work on Manchester's streets to uncover the city's worst criminals among the grime of the underworld.

Aidan Waits

Air Ministry Survival Guide

Alan Partridge on the BBC

Aldrin Adams Adventure

Alec Devlin

Alex Craft

Alex Cross

Alex Delaware

Alex vs Axel

Alexei Sayle's Imaginary Sandwich Bar

Alfie

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