Collection: Adult Non Fiction - Biography

This is the story of a childhood spent in extreme poverty as an undocumented Chinese immigrant in Brooklyn. From manual labour in a sushi factory to learning English in elementary school, the days spent scavenging the neighbourhood for furniture to emergency treatment in hospital, Qian Julie Wang...

Over a year at Whipsnade Zoo we encounter a typically absurd cast - including Albert the lion, who's a dab hand at ventriloquism, and Teddy the brown bear, with whom the young Durrell sings duets. This is a charming account of Gerald Durrell's first job as a student keeper in Whipsnade Park in 19...

Formed as a New York City hardcore band in 1981, Beastie Boys struck an unlikely path to global hip hop superstardom. Here is their story, told for the first time in the words of the band. Adam "ADROCK" Horovitz and Michael "Mike D" Diamond offer revealing and very funny accounts of their transit...

Playing the drums at the age of five despite never taking formal lessons, by the late 1960s John Bonham was looking for a solid gig in order to provide his growing family. Guitarist Jimmy Page sought new bandmates to help him record an album and tour as the New Yardbirds; Bonham joined the band w...

The world has watched Prince William and Prince Harry since they were born. Raised by Princess Diana to be the closest of brothers, how have the boy princes grown into very different, now distanced men? From royal insider, biographer and historian Robert Lacey, this book reveals the untold detail...

11 June, 1930. On a ship floating near the Atlantic island of Nonsuch, a curious steel ball is lowered 3000ft into the sea. Crumpled up inside, gazing through the three-inch thick quartz windows, sits the famed zoologist William Beebe. With uncontrollable excitement, he watches as bizarre, never-...

"The story that bonds Ernest Rutherford and Marcus Oliphant is as extraordinary as it is unlikely. They were kindred souls, schooled and steeped in the furthest frontiers of Britain's empire, whose restless intellect and tireless conviction fused in the crucible of discovery at Cambridge Universi...

Anthony Holden, award-winning journalist and biographer, editor of Poems That Make Grown Men Cry, looks back whimsically and wittily on a richly varied, anecdote- and action-packed career. From poker to poetry, poisoners to princes, opera to the Oscars, Shakespeare to Olivier, Mozart to Murdoch, ...