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An unforgettable journey from seventh-grade dropout to celebrated professor Her family was white, but not the right kind of white. They were five star white trash. They borrowed money and tried to buy class. In this unflinching response to JD Vance's Hillbilly Elegy, Georgiann Davis guides us through her extraordinary life, from weighing almost 300 pounds by fifth grade, to dropping out of school in the seventh and on to selling weed out of her "monkey shit green" Plymouth Neon. A tall, fat girl who only wore boy's clothing, she grew up with a turbulent family outside of Chicago: the larger-than-life mother who looked like Farah Fawcett, the father who understood cars better than children, the brother whose drug use went unchecked, and the Greek grandparents who could only love her from afar. Then there was the shocking medical secret kept from her–one that upended everything she thought she knew about herself, gender, and the human body. With unflinching candor and dark humor, Davis tells her 'stranger-than-fiction' life story in a brave voice that will have readers rooting for her. As Davis chronicles her surprising journey from middle-school dropout to professor, she reveals how whiteness colored her family's struggles. She connects her personal experiences of medical abuse, fatphobia, and fear of the intersex body with incisive critiques of whiteness, the opioid crisis, and gendered and queer oppression. Faced with unimaginable setbacks—identity theft, home eviction, medical trauma, and family betrayal—Davis relentlessly pursued education. It was this quest that transformed her life, giving her the tools to tell her own story. The result is a deeply moving memoir which complicates our understanding of upward mobility and familial love.

The autobiography of one of the last standing insiders, 'Fast Tracks and Dark Deals', is a surgical dissection of the business of sport and its evolution over the past fifty years from a cottage industry to a trillion-dollar business. Fast-paced and edgy, it profiles the characters and events that gave birth to the sports biz. Along the way, readers encounter dazzling highs and sobering lows, as wars, scandals, and economic crises threaten to pull the whole spectacle apart. The story is told from a seat close enough to hear the whispers in the corridor yet distant enough to see the broader patterns, the fragile alliances, the unexpected friendships, and the bold ideas that reshaped global sport. 'Fast Tracks and Dark Deals' offers unique business insights from someone who was a major player in many of them, who knew everyone and has been everywhere in the labyrinth of world sport, even its dark corners. The final part provides a telling and perhaps unsettling prediction for the next fifty years. Forewords from Dr Thomas Bach, IOC President, and Bernie Ecclestone, F1 Supremo.

An elderly Korean woman talking about being forced into sexual slavery during World War II. A modern Korean woman extricating herself from a failing relationship with an artist. Award-winning South Korean writer Kim Soom presents us with portraits of two women who couldn’t be more different but who both show resilience and compassion. No Hand Held Mine: Stories, containing one non-fiction piece and one short story, demonstrates the power and breadth of Kim’s writing. “Granny Wild Goose” uses former Comfort Woman Gil Won-Ok’s own words, recorded during conversations with Kim, to tell her life story of brutality, betrayal, and survival. In “The Root’s Tale,” the female protagonist comes to understand the strength of solitary women. Both devastating and reaffirming, No Hand Held Mine shows why Kim Soom has received every major literary award in Korea. Joon-Li Kim and Doo-Sun Ryu’s sensitive translation maintains Kim’s lyricism and exquisite imagery. This book is published with the support of The Daesan Foundation.

People kept asking: Why would you have cats that don’t love you back?The morning after Courtney Gustafson moved into an old house in the Poets Square neighbourhood of Tucson, Arizona, she noticed tiny pawprints all over her driveway. They were the first evidence of a colony of feral cats who would, in time, become part of her family and help pierce a personal darkness she’d wrestled with for much of her life.Beebs was the first cat to appear, allowing herself to be petted in the driveway. And then came so many others. There was Monkey, the hissing, dark-blotched calico, and Reverse Monkey, her timid, white-blotched opposite. There were Sad Boy and Lola, the inseparable pair who made their way across the internet and into strangers’ wedding vows. There was the sweet, serene Dr. Big Butt, who brought lessons about grief. And there was Goldie, the tiny king of Poets Square: sick, skinny, but completely unafraid. These cats – and many, many others – would expand her world spectacularly.Poets Square is a love letter to community in a broken society, told through the cats Courtney meets in dark alleys, neglected homes and her own driveway; cats she cherishes and must sometimes let go. Above all, she explores what her encounters with feral cats can teach us about care, connectedness and the powerof hope.‘Cats are mystical beings, bridging the spiritual and the tangible. Courtney Gustafson’s Poet Square is a book that helps us connect to this spiritual world, offering a bridge to the ethereal’ Ai Weiwei‘Courtney Gustafson writes with uncommon grace about the castoff, the abandoned, the invisible. This book should be read and treasured for its ability to make the reader more human and humane’ Lauren Slater, author of Blue Dreams‘Deftly intertwined with the individual stories of all these cats is her own story of how she got there … She is clear-eyed about the deviation of her life’ Esther Walker, The Spike

<p><b>In 1983 an off-duty prison officer was shot by the IRA in cold blood on a Dublin street. Over 40 years later, no one has been convicted of his murder. In this book, his son outlines why justice must be done.</b><br><br>Brian Stack was the chief prison officer working on the IRA wing of Portlaoise Prison in 1983. He was also a fan of amateur boxing, and had travelled to see a match in Dublin in March of that year. After the match, he was shot outside the venue by an IRA gunman, leaving him paralysed and brain damaged.<br><br>Brian survived the attack but succumbed to his injuries within 18 months, leaving a wife and three young sons. Austin Stack was 14 when his father passed away, but he has never forgotten him nor has he ever given up hope of bringing his murderers to justice. Over the years, he has held secret talks with Gerry Adams and members of the IRA, but to date no one has been convicted of the crime. <br><br>This book is an account of a son's ongoing quest for justice, and his determination to set the record straight.</p>

During Admiral Thomas Cochrane’s demolition of imperial Spain’s naval presence in the Pacific during the revolutionary wars for Spanish South America, all the raids were carried out by his marines under a young officer called William Miller. He came from nowhere – one of three sons of a baker in a small village in Kent, with no family influence, money, or even secondary education – but, following his service as a teenaged soldier in Wellington’s Peninsular War, went on to have a meteoric rise in the armies that liberated the nations of Chile and Peru. Inspired by some South Americans’ wish to leave Spain’s colonial empire, Miller went not to join Simón Bolívar in the north (as did many demobilised European soldiers), but to the south, to José de San Martín in Argentina and Chile. By the time of Ayacucho in 1824, the large battle that ended Spanish rule in South America, there were seven generals in the royalist Spanish army and five on the patriot side. Eleven of these generals were Hispanic; Miller was the only foreigner. Miller was passionately anti-imperialist, anti-slavery, and unusually kind to ordinary people and peasant farmers due to his own humble origins. He was highly regarded by all the leaders of independence and popular with his men and fellow officers, and when he died decades after the battles in which he made his name he was buried in the Pantheon of founding fathers of Peru. William (or Guillermo, as he is known in South America) Miller is well recognised and loved particularly in modern Peru, but also across the swathe of nations liberated from Spanish rule during this period.

A WATERSTONES BEST ENTERTAINMENT BOOK OF 2025'A riot' - The Times'Absolutely irresistible' - Joanna Lumley'I couldn't put it down!' - Michelle Ogundehin'Entertaining and energetic' - StylistChronicling how she transformed Harvey Nichols from a fusty, old-fashioned store to a thriving, cutting-edge fashion brand, this entertaining and insightful book is suffused with the heady glamour and excess of 90s Cool Britannia. Mary takes us behind the shop window - to the people who kept the show on the road and the early lessons that shaped her career. Told with her trademark wit, grit and candour, readers will see first-hand how, armed only with the blank canvas of a shop window and her own creativity, Mary created an era-defining global brand destination.

At the end of almost every day of their fifty-five years of married life, the publicity-shy author Margaret Forster would ask the naturally gregarious and outgoing Hunter Davies to describe to her the highlights of his day in the worlds of journalism and publishing. In the six years that have elapsed since Margaret''s death, Hunter has continued these conversations with his wife, regaling her with accounts of the events and developments in his life – domestic, social, romantic, book-related, health-related and others – through a sequence of ''Letters to Margaret’. The letters are pure Hunter Davies: a feast of gossipy stream-of-consciousness that weaves together strands of confession, self-mockery, anecdote and touching remembrance of married happiness with Margaret. Entertaining, informative, irreverent and indiscreet – and sometimes very touching – Letters to Margaret reveals an eighty-seven-year-old Hunter still raging against the dying of the light, and seeking consolation for life’s frustrations and disappointments (and the loneliness of widowerhood) through a sustained conversation with the woman he shared his life with for more than half a century.

Stored away and forgotten for 200 years, the private journals of Elizabeth Hervey (1749–1820) vividly describe her life and times. Her teenage years were spent in luxury at Fonthill Splendens, home of her stepfather, Alderman William Beckford. She married a handsome army officer who turned out to be a gambler, and with him fled abroad to escape his creditors. Soon widowed and with two small children, she returned to England, and after a brief affair with a political radical poet, settled in London. Intelligent, independent and well-educated, Herveybecame associated with Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill set and the Bluestockings. Every day she wrote her journal, vividly describing theatre visits, family dramas, servants, friends, society gossip, politics, her visits to country houses and lengthy tours at home and abroad. As a novelist she was first published in 1788, launching a career that, while earning her a living, put strain on her relationship with her half-brother, William Beckford, author of the classic gothic novel Vathek and builder of the infamous Fonthill Abbey. Theirs was a complex relationship, marred by literary rivalry, and after a quarrel in 1798 they never met again. Over the years Hervey’s social network widened to include Lord Byron, Richard and Maria Cosway, the Duchess of Devonshire, Eva Garrick, Lady Hamilton and Sarah Siddons. Yet just as vivid in her journals are her accounts of her household servants, her relationship with her sons, her problems with ill health (and drastic remedies) and her financial ups and downs. As a lively and entertaining window into late Georgian society, there are few sources to rival Elizabeth Hervey’s journals.

The definitive, all-access biography of one of the world’s most beloved literary voices, showcasing a life as triumphant and inspiring as the stories she crafted. To know the name Judy Blume is to know and love literature. Her influential novels turned classics — including Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret; Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing; Deenie; and Summer Sisters — touched the lives of tens of millions of readers. For more than fifty-five years her work has done something revolutionary: it rewired the world’s expectations of what literature for young people can be — frank, candid, earthy, and unafraid to show the messier sides of humanity. But little has been written about the real woman behind the iconic persona and the unlikely journey of her literary ascension, until now. In Judy Blume, journalist, historian, and longtime Blume aficionado Mark Oppenheimer pens a beautiful, multidimensional portrait of the acclaimed author through extensive interviews with Blume herself, invaluable access to her papers and correspondence, and thoughtful analysis of Blume’s beloved novels, including early, unpublished works that shed light on the pathbreaking writer she would become. Oppenheimer goes deep, exploring Blume’s middle-class 1940s upbringing, complicated childhood, varied relationships and marriages, unabashed sexual experiences, bouts of heartache and loss, and enduring legacy as a champion of free speech and contemporary literature. He pulls back the curtain to reveal the woman behind the literary empire in all her complex, multifaceted glory — a true gift for anyone who grew up reading and loving these extraordinary books.

'Back in 2012, everyone knew who Bradley Wiggins was. Everyone, that is, but me. Thirteen years after the summer that defined me, I have finally defined myself. The disguises have gone. I've made peace with myself.' Shortlisted for Autobiography of the Year at the 2026 Sports Book Awards A WATERSTONES SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025 A GUARDIAN BEST SPORTS BOOK OF 2025 A DAILY TELEGRAPH BEST BOOK OF 2025 'WHAT A STORY. SO HONEST. I COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN. THANK YOU FOR SHARING YOUR STORY.' JOE WICKS 'IT'S NOT A LIGHT READ BUT, BLIMEY, IT IS BRILLIANT.' POLLY VERNON, THE TIMES 'DISARMINGLY HONEST AND ROGUISHLY HUMOROUS.' JONATHAN LIEW, THE GUARDIAN 'SUCH A BRAVE BOOK: SUPER OPEN, SUPER HONEST. IT'S GOING TO HELP A LOT OF PEOPLE.' CHRIS EVANS, VIRGIN RADIO 'SEARING AND INSIGHTFUL … HARROWING … COMPELLING …DEFINITELY WORTH READING.' DAVID WALSH, THE SUNDAY TIMES 'RAW AND GRAPHIC' DAILY TELEGRAPH Think you know Bradley Wiggins? Think again. Join Bradley Wiggins on a remarkable journey of self-discovery during which he faced his greatest ever opponent – the demons inside his head. He has cast aside his fragile shell and is the person he always wanted to be. Finally, he is happy in his own skin. He has broken the chain. Bradley Wiggins is the greatest British cyclist of his generation. A national hero on both track and road, he won five Olympic gold medals, eight world titles and the Tour de France. But his is a story mired in contradiction, controversy, and confusion. Sat on a throne after winning gold at London 2012, just ten days after becoming the first Briton to win the Tour de France, here was a man with the world at his feet. Sporting hero. People’s champion. Legend. Everyone knew who ‘Wiggo’ was. Everyone, that is, but him. Bradley’s own truth was one of a chaotic and disturbing upbringing characterised by abandonment and abuse. The bike had been his escape but he knew that the second he got out of the saddle he was a shadow-man with no self-belief and even less self-worth. With zero confidence in his value as a human being, attention was his worst nightmare. Bradley’s answer was to wear a mask. He became ‘Sir Wiggo’, the loveable rogue, the disguise slowly suffocating the real him, crushing the last few remnants of self-esteem. Bradley descended into a deep personal despair marked by drug addiction. It was his lowest point, and one which, he freely admits, could have resulted in his death. Bradley’s saviour has been himself. Incredibly he found the strength to embark on a remarkable journey of self-discovery during which he faced his greatest ever opponent – the demons inside his head. In so doing he reached an understanding of what and who he is. The result is this powerful memoir, The Chain. It is a journey he now wants to share. He wants others to understand they are not alone in their mental battles; that embracing honesty and openness is the key to personal happiness. Bradley Wiggins has cast aside his fragile shell. Now, as the person he always wanted to be, he has become an inspiration to us all. Forget the jerseys, the medals. Finally, Bradley Wiggins is who he is, in his own skin. He has broken the chain.

‘Utterly inspiring and empowering’ Jennie Godfrey 'Ten shades of extraordinary’ Rosie Walsh I was fifty-five when I finally stopped pretending. What if real freedom isn’t about reinventing yourself… but about letting the woman you buried years ago grow wild again? To the world, Jane Green had everything: bestselling novels, a beautiful home, the perfect family. Inside, she was disappearing, squeezed into the roles of wife, mother, provider, eternal people-pleaser while her marriage cooled, her children flew, and her own dreams gathered dust. Then she stopped squeezing herself into shapes that didn’t fit. Rewilding is the raw, exhilarating story of what happened next. Of rediscovering the loud, messy, paint-splattered art student she once was. Of choosing meaningful friendships over obligation, creativity over perfection, and the truth over silence. Of learning – messily and joyfully – that home isn’t a place you build for other people. It’s the life you dare to live for yourself. Part memoir, part battle cry, Rewilding is for any woman who has ever felt invisible in her own story. And it’s proof that surrender could be the most radical act of all… and that the most powerful thing you can do is stop trying to be good, and start being free. For readers of Glennon Doyle, Elizabeth Gilbert and Brene Brown Who would you be if you stopped caring what anyone else thought?

Pulitzer Prize Finalist 2026 One of TIME’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2025 and Electric Lit's Best Nonfiction of 2025At first, Hala’s baby is the size of a poppyseed. Then a grain of rice, then a lime. After years of trying for a baby, Hala watches from afar as her daughter grows in the body of another woman, in another country. Hala is not just awaiting news from the surrogate. She also holds her breath as Palestine and Lebanon, her estranged homelands, are under fire. She remembers family stories of grandmothers mapping their lives through a tangle of borders; of eradicated villages, invading armies and places of refuge that proved only temporary; of men who left, women who stayed, and the legacies passed down from one to another. Stunningly lyrical and unflinchingly honest, I’ll Tell You When I’m Home is a powerful story of unravelling and becoming, of homelands lost and reimagined, and of the intimate ways we learn to make a life when the ground beneath us shifts.

Answering the call of the open road-from Seoul to Silicon Valley to riding 40,000 life-changing miles across America. When Michael Yang bought his first motorcycle, he was a teenager who'd just moved to America. He knew little English and had few friends. Still, whenever he rode that green Yamaha, he felt more in touch with life's possibilities. The bike was stolen a few months later, but Yang never forgot the feeling. It wasn't until he was in his 40s that Yang got back on a motorcycle. By then, he'd settled into Silicon Valley amidst the technology revolution; and founded, scaled, and sold a half-billion-dollar tech startup. Life was a blur until he revved up his adventure bike and began riding into unfamiliar landscapes. Coming Alive on the Ride narrates more than 40,000 miles of Yang's travels, from California's coast to the upper reaches of Alaska, to Canada's far eastern edge, and more. One of the things about long motorcycle trips is that there's a lot of time to think. Yang describes the unique bliss of watching the miles pass beneath two wheels as he relives moments from his past-growing up in Korea during the turbulent years after the Korean War, and moving to America as a fourteen-year-old-all the while taking in North America's astounding scenery, from the stillness of the desert to heart-racing glimpses of a bison herds and grand mountain ranges. Somewhere along the way, it happens: Past experiences and future aspirations converge into a present discovery. Yang's inspiring memoir is a reminder that, if we slow down and tune in our senses, adventure inspires and instructs the way nothing else can. Yang shows what magic awaits when we make room for adventure in our daily lives.

'I have 90 years to share: 90 years of joy and sorrow, triumph and disaster, love and loss, laughter and tears; 90 years of watching the world change around me beyond my wildest imagination. Ninety years and still counting...'Amanda Barrie, the iconic Cleo in Carry on Cleo and much-loved Alma in Coronation Street, was born in 1935, above her grandfather's tailor's shop in Ashton Under Lyne, during a ferocious thunderstorm. And ever since her journey through life has been a stormy one. This book will tell the whole story for the first time, from her expulsion from two schools and running away from home aged 13 to be a Soho showgirl, to rising from the chorus to star in the West End, to Carry On Cabby and Carry On Cleo, to Corrie, Bad Girls and more. Amanda has become something of a national treasure, entertaining us all, whilst not hesitating to speak up for herself and others on national television, including on celebrity editions of Hell's Kitchen and Big Brother. Having performed in her teenage years alongside fellow national icon Barbara Windsor, Amanda's life has in many ways followed a similar trajectory to become a huge household name. Amanda will pay particular attention to the whole new life she has led since she left Coronation Street in 2001. Packed with anecdotes and memories of her nine decades on stage and screen, she will share the moments that came to define her life. She will fully explore her struggle to come to terms with who she was, relating in painful detail the traumas faced by a young gay woman in the 1950s and early 60s. She will explain why she kept that side of her a secret for most of her adult life, and how she feared that she would lose her job and her home if the truth became known. For the first time, she will tell the full story of how she met her wife, novelist Hilary Bonner, fell in love, overcame all manner of difficulties, and built a new life together.

'It was exciting when it started, then comfortable and domestic, and over time we grew apart. If it had been real, our relationship wouldn't have made a chapter in a memoir. But Mark was a fictional character, contrived by the British state to violate me and undermine the values I held dearest. And the entire time, EN31 was sitting around the corner, writing it all down, watching our lives unfold.'In 2003, British police infiltrated a group of idealistic young environmental activists, forming sexual relationships and spying without warrant on hundreds of innocent civilians. Kate Wilson fought back. She took the Met to court, at times battling alone without funding or legal representation, enduring bullying, psychological intrusion and further state surveillance. It took her nearly twenty years to uncover the eerie truth about Britain's secret political police. In her own words, and those of the officers who documented her every move, this is Kate's story.

‘An inspiring must-read for anyone who is searching for hope in darkness of loss, grief or addiction’  Gillian AndersonSarah Hiscox’s deep self-esteem and addiction issues began in childhood when she was given powerful sleeping pills for her nightmares. Then, as a young woman, a toxic relationship with food morphed into a full-blown heroin dependency that neither a loving marriage nor a new baby could halt. After years of cycling through relapse and new starts, Sarah’s relationships were wrecked. In rehab she was confronted with herself and all that she’d lost. But it would take repeated attempts for her to understand even her worst day of abstinence was better than the days she relapsed. Just a few threads of hope remained – a desire to see her children grow, a friend called Davina, a sister and an ex-husband who, despite it all, still loved her. A compelling, wonderfully uplifting true story of the redemptive power of self-acceptance, friendship and love.

THE INSTANT BESTSELLER'Vivid, bright and beautiful' – Guardian'Wonderful. I wish I'd written it – I couldn't put it down' Miriam MargolyesKathy Burke is one of Britain's most distinctive voices. Even as a fearless kid in Islington, she did things her own way; roaming the estate that raised her to find her own path. A place at the Anna Scher Theatre in her teens changed the course of her life, and she found unimaginable success as an actress and writer – and national fame. But the rare gift that has always set her apart, beyond the stage or screen, is her ability to see the truth and tell it like it is. This spellbinding memoir is not just Kathy's story, but the story of her class, her gender and her time. A Mind of My Own is funny, profound and deeply entertaining. 'This is a book about being raised as a feral, motherless child; starting work at 17; immortalising several of this country’s most endearing catchphrases; triumphing at Cannes; being told you’re a genius by Peter Cook; and, at one party, accidentally taking some of Shaun Ryder’s crack, then attempting to set fire to a woman’s arse' – Caitlin Moran, Times Magazine'Glorious, very funny and no-nonsense, just like Kathy Burke' – Jo Brand

Betsy Cornwell left home with her baby on his first birthday, checking into a hotel under a false name so her husband could not track them down. Over the long months of housing insecurity that followed, bouncing around cheap motel rooms and friend's couches, Betsy's determination to offer her son something she'd never had - a safe, stable home - took on the force of obsession. In The Old Knitting Factory, Cornwell invites readers to join her on the path that led out of her violent marriage and into renovating a run-down house on a lake in rural Ireland, transforming a largely abandoned and abused vacation house into a family home and childcare-inclusive arts retreat space for other single parents. Along the way, she creates community and finds family wherever she goes - even when she has to build it herself, brick by brick. Mixing Maid's gripping portrait of single motherhood's precarity with The Salt Path's wild, romantic sense of place - in this case among rural Ireland's cool mists, nubbly Aran yarns, and whispering turf fires - The Old Knitting Factory invites readers to experience the magic of found family and new beginnings.