Biographies

From declaring my love to Vanessa Redgrave to being fed cockroaches by Steve Buscemi, from turnip-based comedy with Blackadder to being farted on by Arnold Schwarzenegger, from Graham Norton's sofa to Alan Cumming's campervan, my life has been (and continues to be) a riotous adventure. Oh Miriam! has been such a constant refrain in my life, said in all kinds of tones - laughs, surprised gasps and orgasmic sighs (I'm hoping for all those from you as you read on!) - that it had to be the title of this book. And with a castlist that stretches from Churchill to di Caprio, Dahl to Dietrich, Princess Margaret to Maggie Smith, I've got so much more to tell you and so much more to say. My chapters range from 'How to Stay Married' to 'Don't Let the Bastards Get You Down'. Discover how to break the thickest conversational ice; why swearing is actually good for you (though not on the Today programme); the unexpected things I actually learnt at school and what my Spice Girl name would be. Not to mention my Tale of the Unexpected and my very own Vagina Monologue. Buckle up and join me on another unforgettable adventure, but this time through my heart and head...  Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781399803359 • Author: Miriam Margolyes • Publisher:  John Murray • Format:  Hardback • Pages:  336 • Dimensions: 15.29 x 1.78 x 23.39 cm 

Eddy de Wind, a Dutch doctor and psychiatrist, was shipped to Auschwitz with his wife Friedel, whom he had met and married at the Westerbork labour camp in the Netherlands. At Auschwitz, they made it through the brutal selection process and were put to work. Each day, each hour became a battle for survival. For Eddy, this meant negotiating with the volatile guards in the medical barracks. For Friedel, it meant avoiding the Nazis’ barbaric medical experiments. As the end of the war approached and the Russian Army drew closer, the last Nazis fled, taking many prisoners with them, including Friedel. Eddy hid under a pile of old clothes and stayed behind. Finding a notebook and pencil, he began to write with furious energy about his experiences. Last Stop Auschwitz is an extraordinary account of life as a prisoner, a near real-time record of the daily struggle to survive but also of the flickering moments of joy Eddy and Friedel found in each other - passing notes through the fence, sometimes stealing a brief embrace. Documenting the best and the worst of humanity, it is a unique and timeless story that reminds us of what we as humans are capable of, but that there is hope, even in Hell. Thought to be the only complete book written within Auschwitz itself, it will linger with you long after the final page has been turned. Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781804995730 • Author:  Eddy de Wind • Publisher:  Doubleday • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  272 • Dimensions: 14.4 x 2.7 x 22.2 cm

January, 1945. 14-year-old Moshe Kessler steps off the train at Buchenwald concentration camp. Having endured the horrors of Auschwitz-Birkenau, lost touch with his entire family, and survived the death march in the freezing European winter, he has seen more than his share of tragedy. Moshe knows only one thing about Buchenwald. Everyone knows it. If you want to survive, you have to get to Block 66. The Germans are cruel and determined - but they are not prepared for Buchenwald's secret resistance, which rises up with one mission only: to protect the camp's children from harm. This is the incredible true story of Moshe Kessler and Block 66 - the children's block that was at the forefront of one of the most shocking and inspiring stories of Holocaust survival. Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781802472509 • Author:  Limor Regev • Publisher:  Ad Lib Publishers Ltd • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  244 • Dimensions: 19.7 x 12.8 x 1.8 cm

"My life will always be in danger. My beautiful sister Banaz Mahmod was murdered in an ‘honour killing’ ordered by our father and uncle. If those evil men find me, they will kill me too." Bekhal Mahmod was one of six siblings from a Sunni Muslim family in Iraqi Kurdistan who sought a new life as asylum seekers and arrived in London in 1998. When Bekhal's father tried to force her into an arranged marriage at 15, she ran away. This caused her father to ‘lose respect’ within the Kurdish community and Bekhal became the target of an honour killing and her younger sisters Banaz and Payzee were quickly married off to restore the family's reputation. When Banaz left her husband, claiming he'd beaten and raped her, Mahmod decided this 'shame' to the family meant Banaz must die. Within weeks, she had vanished. Her body was finally discovered, crammed into a suitcase and buried in a garden in Birmingham. Banaz, age 20, had been raped and killed in a sickening plot orchestrated by her father and uncle. Still fearing for her own life, Bekhal bravely faced her father and uncle in court - making her the first female in British legal history to give evidence against family members in an honour killing trial - and won justice for her beloved sister Banaz. Bekhal now has a new identity after entering the police witness protection programme. She lives in terror of her father’s release from jail. This is her story. Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781913543051 • Author:  Bekhal Mahmod  • Publisher:  Ad Lib Publishers Ltd • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  240 • Dimensions: 12.7 x 2.03 x 19.69 cm

A story of astonishing resilience and compassion... In 1943, the Dutch champion boxer, Leen Sanders, was sent to Auschwitz. His wife and children were put to death while he was sent 'to the left' with the others who were fit enough for labour. Recognised by an SS officer, he was earmarked for a 'privileged' post in the kitchens in exchange for weekly boxing matches for the entertainment of the Nazi guards. From there, he enacted his resistance to their limitless cruelty. With great risk and danger to his own life, Leen stole, concealed and smuggled food and clothing from SS nursing units for years to alleviate the unbearable suffering of the prisoners in need. He also regularly supplied extra food to the Dutch women in Dr. Mengele's experiment, Block 10. To his fellow Jews in the camp, he acted as a rescuer, leader and role model, defending them even on their bitter death march to Dachau towards the end of the war.  Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781788404303 • Author:  Erik Brouwer  • Publisher:  Cassell • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  336 • Dimensions:  12.7 x 1.91 x 20.32 cm

I was unwanted, beaten, sold, swapped, photographed, filmed, left for dead, corrupted, blamed, betrayed, ignored and orphaned. But I was also born with a fire inside me. I call it my Phoenix Fire. I am no victim – that word only describes what happened to me. Nor am I a survivor because that implies I am over it. I am a Phoenix – a work in progress. This is my story…” Product Information: • ISBN: 9781914451003 • Author: Shy Keenan • Publisher: Mardle Books • Format: Paperback • Pages: 311 • Dimensions: 19.8 x 12.9 cm

Another year on the Diddly Squat Farm and Jeremy is still knee-deep in mud and endless challenges. Welcome back to Clarkson's Farm. Since taking the wheel three years ago Jeremy's had his work cut out. And it's now clear from hard-won experience that, when it comes to farming, there's only one golden rule: Whatever you hope will happen, won't. Enthusiastic schemes to diversify have met with stubborn opposition from the red trouser brigade, defeat at the hands of Council Planning department, and predictable derision from Kaleb - although, to be fair, even Lisa had doubts about Jeremy's brilliant plan to build a business empire founded on rewilding and nettle soup. And only Cheerful Charlie is still smiling about the stifling amount of red tape that's incoming... But he charges by the hour. Then there are the animals: the sheep are gone; the cows have been joined by a rented bull called Break-Heart Maestro;. the pigs are making piglets; and the goats have turned out to be psychopaths. But despite the naysayers and (sometimes self-inflicted) setbacks, Jeremy remains irrepressibly optimistic about life at Diddly Squat. Because It's hard not to be when you get to harvest blackberries with a vacuum cleaner. And, after all, it shouldn't just be Break-heart Maestro who gets to enjoy a happy ending...  Product Information:  • ISBN:  9780241674895 • Author:  Jeremy Clarkson • Publisher:  Michael Joseph • Format:  Hardback • Pages:  192 • Dimensions: 15.2 x 2.6 x 23.6 cm

Bobby's heartbreaking true story of neglect, secrets and abuse. Three young siblings arrive at Maggie's door after being taken into care. Teachers of eight-year-old Bobby spotted distinct hand-shaped bruises on his arm and his dad and stepmother are uncooperative and hostile to Social Services. While they investigate, Bobby, as well as Melodie and Poppy, are looked after in Maggie's home. As the children settle in, a thought won't let Maggie go. While Melodie and Poppy are clean, well-fed and immaculately dressed, Bobby is pale, severely underweight and extremely quiet. What looks like a case of neglect is actually something much more sinister. Bobby and his half-sisters are hiding a cruel secret, but can Maggie find the truth? Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781399606608 • Author:  Maggie Hartley • Publisher:  Seven Dials • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  272 • Dimensions: 12.7 x 1.91 x 19.05 cm

Otto Rosenberg is 9 and living in Berlin, poor but happy, when his family are first detained. All around them, Sinti and Roma families are being torn from their homes by Nazis , leaving behind schools, jobs, friends, and businesses to live in forced encampments outside the city. One by one, families are broken up, adults and children disappear or are 'sent East'. Otto arrives in Auschwitz aged 15 and is later transferred to Buechenwald and Bergen-Belsen. He works, scrounges food whenever he can, witnesses and suffers horrific violence and is driven close to death by illness more than once. Unbelievably, he also joins an armed revolt of prisoners who, facing the SS and certain death, refuse to back down. Somehow, through luck, sheer human will to live, or both, he survives. The stories of Sinti and Roma suffering in Nazi Germany are all too often lost or untold. In this haunting account, Otto shares his story with a remarkable simplicity. Deeply moving, A Gypsy in Auschwitz is the incredible story of how a young Sinti boy miraculously survived the unimaginable darkness of the Holocaust. Product Information: • ISBN: 9781800961128 • Author: Otto Rosenberg • Publisher: Monoray • Format: Paperback • Pages: 240 • Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.6 x 2.2cm

Alan Rickman remains one of the most beloved actors of all time across almost every genre, from his breakout role as Die Hard's villainous Hans Gruber to his heart-wrenching run as Professor Severus Snape, and beyond. His air of dignity, his sonorous voice and the knowing wit he brought to each role continue to captivate new audiences today. But Rickman's artistry wasn't confined to just his performances. Rickman's writing details the extraordinary and the ordinary in a way that is anecdotal, indiscreet, witty, gossipy and utterly candid. He takes us behind the scenes on films and plays ranging from Sense & Sensibility, the Harry Potter series, Private Lives, My Name Is Rachel Corrie and many more. The diaries run from 1993 to his death in 2016 and offer insight into both a public and private life. Here is Rickman the consummate professional actor, but also the friend, the traveller, the fan, the director, the enthusiast: in short, the real Alan Rickman. Here is a life fully lived, all detailed in intimate and characteristically plain-spoken prose. Reading the diaries is like listening to Rickman chatting to a close friend.  Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781838854805 • Author:  Alan Rickman  • Publisher:  Canongate Books • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  496 • Dimensions:  12.9 x 3 x 19.8 cm

In 1974, Liz Harvie – born Claire Elaine Watts – was given up for adoption by her birth mother Yvonne. Claire was just eight weeks old when her adoptive parents took her in – and renamed her Elizabeth.  Although brought up in a ‘perfect’ household, the emotional – and physical – trauma of being taken from her biological mother would never leave Liz. She constantly wondered: what does my real mum look like? Will she come back for me? Why did she abandon me? But whenever Liz voiced such questions, she invariably received the same response: “Your birth parents were not married. They couldn’t look after you.” Years later, aged twenty-eight, Liz reconnected with her birth mother – and finally learned the shocking truth surrounding her adoption. Yvonne had not abandoned her daughter. A social worker had snatched her ten-day-old baby from her arms. “I didn’t even get a final cuddle. She just took her away from me,” says Yvonne.  Liz became one of 185,000 victims of forced adoption between 1949 and 1976 in England and Wales. As a young unmarried mum, Yvonne was deemed unfit as a parent by the government, churches, adoption agencies and her father – and made to give up her child against her will.  Although reunited, Liz and Yvonne are still struggling to cope with the agony resulting from their devastating separation. As Liz says, “We can’t just skip hand in hand into the sunset. The trauma of being a forced adoptee is lifelong.”  Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781837700462 • Author:  Liz Harvie & Eve Hatton • Publisher:  Mardle Books • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  240 • Dimensions:  19.9 x 2.4 x 12.9 cm

So, I’ve written a book. I have decided to write these stories just as I have always done, in my own hand. The joy that I have felt from chronicling these tales is not unlike listening back to a song that I’ve recorded and can’t wait to share with the world, or reading a primitive journal entry from a stained notebook, or even hearing my voice bounce between the Kiss posters on my wall as a child.  From hitting the road with Scream at 18 years old, to my time in Nirvana and the Foo Fighters, jamming with Iggy Pop or playing at the Academy Awards or dancing with AC/DC and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, drumming for Tom Petty or meeting Sir Paul McCartney at Royal Albert Hall, bedtime stories with Joan Jett or a chance meeting with Little Richard, to flying halfway around the world for one epic night with my daughters…the list goes on.  I look forward to focusing the lens through which I see these memories a little sharper for you with much excitement.  Product Information: • ISBN: 9781398503724 • Author: Dave Grohl • Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK • Format: Paperback • Pages: 384 • Dimensions: 19.8 x 13 x 2.7 cm

My mother once said to me, ‘I wish you could feel the way I do for eighteen seconds. Just eighteen seconds, so you’d know how awful it is.’ I thought about it. Realised we could all learn from being in another person’s head for eighteen seconds. Eighteen seconds inside Grandma Roberts’ head as she sat alone with her evening cup of tea, us girls upstairs in bed. Eighteen seconds inside one-year-old Colin’s head when he woke up in a foster home without his family. Eighteen seconds inside the head of a girl waiting for her bedroom door to open. Writer, Louise Beech, looks back on the events that led to the day her mother wrote down her last words, then jumped off the Humber Bridge. She missed witnessing the horror herself by minutes. Louise recounts the pain and trauma of her childhood alongside her love for her siblings with a delicious dark humour and a profound voice of hope for the future. Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781837700202 • Author:  Louise Beech  • Publisher:  Mardle Book • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  240 • Dimensions: 12.7 x 2.03 x 19.69 cm

US President John F. Kennedy's killing in Dallas, Texas, in November 1963, sent a shockwave around the world. The charismatic young Democrat was seen as a beacon of hope in the West, but his liberal reforming policies had made him many powerful enemies at home. For sixty years, numerous theories have swirled around this key event in American - and world - history. Yet whatever the conclusions of the official Warren Report - that the President had been assassinated by a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald - many people doubt that to be true. Indeed, President Nixon later admitted on tape that the report was 'a hoax committed on the American people.' John Hughes-Wilson, a former colonel in British Intelligence, has sifted through the millions of words and thousands of pieces of evidence, to put together an intelligence assessment of what really happened that dreadful high noon in Dallas in 1963. Reading this astounding book, no one can be in any doubt that JFK's death was not at the hands of a lone deranged gunman, but a deadly plot to remove a President who threatened vested interests at home and abroad.  Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781789467376 • Author:  John Hughes-Wilson • Publisher:  John Blake • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  368 • Dimensions: 12.9 x 2.1 x 19.8 cm   

Meet five groundbreaking musicians: Aretha Franklin, Elton John, Prince, Stevie Wonder & Dolly Parton! Discover the lives of outstanding musicians and performers. All of them achieved incredible things, yet each began life as a child with a dream. Little People, Big Dreams aims to inspire young minds through engaging stories, facts and vibrant photos. Included in this Collection: • Play Like a Musician: Guided Journal • Groundbreaking Musicians: Treasury Product Information:  • ISBN:  9780711289529 • Author:  Little People Big Dreams • Publisher:  Quarto Publishing • Format:  Box Set

An uplifting journey through the sheer hard work, pitfalls and thrills of navigating a great rock band to the pinnacle of success... Dire Straits filled giant stadiums around the world and sold hundreds of millions of records. Throughout the eighties they were one of the biggest bands on the planet. Their classic songs - 'Sultans of Swing', 'Romeo and Juliet', 'Money for Nothing', 'Brothers In Arms' - formed the soundtrack of a generation and live on today: still racking up sales, still being played on the radio on every continent. In My Life in Dire Straits, John Illsley - founding member, bassist and mainstay - evokes the spirit of the times and tells the story of one of the great live acts of rock history. Starting with his own unlikely beginnings in Middle England, he recounts the band's rise from humble origins in London's spit-and-sawdust pubs to the best-known venues in the world, the working man's clubs to Madison Square Garden, gigging with wild punk bands to the Live Aid stage at Wembley. Until, ultimately, the shattering demands of touring on a global scale and living life in the spotlight took their inevitable toll. John's story is also a tribute to his great friend Mark Knopfler, the band's lead singer, songwriter and gifted guitarist - the only band members to stay the fifteen-year distance. Told with searching honesty, soulful reflection and wry humour, this is the first and only account of that incredible story.  Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781804995693 • Author:  John Illsley  • Publisher:  Penguin • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  336 • Dimensions:  12.8 x 2.2 x 19.7 cm

In 1930, at the age of twenty-seven, Liesl Herbst was the Austrian National Tennis Champion, a celebrity in Vienna. Liesl, her husband David and their daughter Dorli came to Britain after escaping the Nazis. In London, though initially stripped of their Austrian passports and rendered stateless aliens, both Liesl and her daughter Dorli competed at Wimbledon. They remain the only mother and daughter ever to have played doubles together at Wimbledon. This moving story of escape and survival is told by Liesl’s grand-daughter, Dorli’s daughter. Some of the story, the author heard first-hand from her grandmother; the rest, she has meticulously researched over many years in four countries.  It is as much a search for the author’s own identity as for her own children and grandchildren to ensure that their remarkable family history is never lost again.  Illustrated throughout with family photographs and original documents, this is a story of survival against terrible odds, an inspiring tale of resilience and hope.     Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781802471199 • Author:  Felice Hardy • Publisher:  Ad Lib Publishers • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  286 • Dimensions: 12.7 x 2.03 x 19.69 cm

A leading journalist's intense, riveting and personal investigation into the worlds and minds of cults. At a new age festival in Byron Bay, Australia, German journalist Anke Richter is finding her spiritual awakening when she meets a woman – a survivor of the Centrepoint cult – who will change the course of her life and career. Over the next ten years, Anke pursued a labyrinthine investigation into how and why cults attract, entrap and destroy otherwise ordinary people, asking what the line is between tribe and cult, participant and perpetrator, seduction and sexual abuse.  From the emotional and criminal carnage of Centrepoint in Auckland, New Zealand, to an anti-cult conference in Manchester, the infamous Osho’s ashram in India, the tantric Agama Yoga school in remote Thailand and culminating in a visit to Gloriavale on the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island, Anke uncovers a disturbing pattern of violence and suffering.  Cult Trip is a powerful exploration of what really goes on inside the groups we call cults, and how to reckon with their aftermath. Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781802471762 • Author:  Anke Richter  • Publisher:  Ad Lib Publishers Ltd • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  352 • Dimensions: 20.5 x 2.5 x 12.8 cm

An indispensable introduction to the darker side of life, revealing the often strange and grisly stories behind the world's most infamous murderers, swindlers and crooks. 100 Most Infamous Criminals is an astounding compendium of crimes and their perpetrators. Here you will find the stories of some of history's most notorious criminals, the lives they led, the crimes they committed and the destruction and sorrow they left in their wake. This collection includes such notorious villains as Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Ted Bundy and others. Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781398803527 • Author: Jo Durden Smith • Publisher:  Arcturus • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  208 • Dimensions: 23.5 x 1.8 x 15.3 cm

Letters from Serial Killers is a unique study of the criminal mind based on the author's extensive correspondence with convicted serial murderers.  Such a collection is extremely rare, and among the killers whose correspondence is examined are: Arthur John Shawcross, aka 'The Genesee River Killer'; Phillip Carl Jablonski, aka 'The Death Row Teddy'; Melanie Lyn McGuire, aka 'The Ice Queen'; Harvey 'The Hammer' Louis Carignan, aka 'The Want-ad Killer'; Ian Stewart Brady, aka 'The Moors Murderer'; Hal Karen and Ronald 'Butch' Joseph DeFeo Jr, aka 'The Amityville Horror'; Gary Ray Bowles, aka 'The I-95 Killer';John 'J.R.' Edward Robinson, aka 'The Slavemaster' Letters from Serial Killers is Christopher Berry-Dee at his steeliest best - exploring the downright creepy correspondence with murderers, serial killers and psychopaths behind bars, with exclusive scans of letters and eerily decorated envelopes. A must-have for fans of the series, based on a collection that will eventually be bequeathed to the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit at its headquarters at Quantico, Virginia.  Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781789466584 • Author:  Christopher Berry-Dee • Publisher:  John Blake • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  336 • Dimensions:   33.5 x 19.9 x 3.6 cm