Patricia Highsmith - author of STRANGERS ON A TRAIN and THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY - had more than her fair share of secrets. During her life, she felt uncomfortable about discussing the source of her fiction and refused to answer questions about her private life. Yet after her death in February 1995, Highsmith left behind a vast archive of personal do...

"I am afraid of being the disruptive woman. And of not being disruptive enough. I am afraid. But I am doing it anyway." In this vivid and powerful collection of essays, Emilie Pine boldly confronts the past to better understand herself, her relationships and her role in society. She speaks to the business of living as a woman in the 21st century &n...

Abridged version (approved by Natalie) of her book, read by Natalie. Includes spontaneous asides, as she reads. The book is a crisp mix of memoir, teaching guide, non-fiction and poetry. Natalie strips creativity to the essential mind that is "raw, full of energy, alive and hungry." Natalie is compassionate, practical and humorous. "Even if it's ju...

One of America's most acclaimed novelists boldly re-imagines one of America's most enduring icons in Blonde—the National Book Award-nominated bestseller by Joyce Carol Oates. The legend of Marilyn Monroe—aka Norma Jeane Baker—comes provocatively alive in this powerful tale of Hollywood myth and heartbreaking reality. Marilyn Monro...

Brought to you by Penguin The Instant Sunday Times BestsellerThe Instant #1 New York Times BestsellerThe Instand #1 Audible BestsellerNARRATED BY WILL SMITH.One of the most dynamic and globally recognized entertainment forces of our time opens up fully about his life, in a brave and inspiring book that traces his learning curve to a place where out...

A radical look at Jane Austen As you've never seen her – as a lover of farce, comic theatre and juvenilia. The Genius of Jane Austen celebrates Britain's favourite novelist 200 years after her death and explores why her books make such awesome movies, time after time. Jane Austen loved the theatre. She learned much of her art from a long trad...

'Captures both Barbara and her writing so miraculously' JILLY COOPER Picked as a Book to Look Forward to in 2021 by the Guardian, The Times and the Observer A Radio 4 Book of the Week, April 2021 Barbara Pym became beloved as one of the wittiest novelists of the late twentieth century, revealing the inner workings of domestic life so brilliantly th...

Written as a diary, and starting in September, this is the story of Nigel Slater's love for winter, its fables and its family feasts. Here are legends and folktales, myths and memoir, all told in Nigel's warm and intimate signature style. Nigel Slater's new book will have everything you need to prepare for midwinter, and at the heart of the book ar...

This classic memoir of the First World War is now a major motion picture starring Alicia Vikander and Kit Harington. In 1914 Vera Brittain was 20, and as war was declared she was preparing to study at Oxford. Four years later her life - and the lives of her whole generation - had changed in a way that would have been unimaginable in the tranquil p...

People 'know' my on-stage comedy persona or my scripted ballsy characters and wrongly assume that at home, I must stomp around all day in designer dresses eviscerating those who dare to cross my path and denouncing the existence of men in general. But mostly, I'm just sat eating pickles and being nice to some dogs.Whatever strangers think of me is...

In 1992 Franziska Thomas had her first seizure and her whole world was turned upside down - literally. In Fits and Starts Franziska gives a compelling personal description of living with Epilepsy, an illness shrouded in secrecy and antiquated myths. Laden with self-deprecating humour she describes her own coming of age - as an epileptic, a teacher,...

'I wanted it to look like how it feels like, and how it feels to be Irish sometimes is that you are in a murder mystery.' Caroline O'Donoghue, host of Sentimental Garbage and author of Promising Young Women, Scenes of a Graphic Nature and the forthcoming YA novel All Our Hidden Gifts, tells Jess about playing with different genres, how some endings...

From April 15, 2021 Actor and audiobook narrator Kobna Holdbrook-Smith talks about what it was like to voice Rivers of London as his first audiobook, what he had to unlearn to do voice work and how Frank Sinatra inspired his mic technique.

Author Francis Spufford talks about what it's been like to launch his new novel, Light Perpetual, during a pandemic, the many talents and accents required of audiobook narrator Imogen Church, the fondness he holds for his 'unlikable' characters, and why the narrator was especially important for his historical novel Golden Hill. To top it off, he de...

It does play huge roles in describing the character and circumstances, but really it’s there because I love food! Author Claire Fuller talks with Jess about her latest novel, Unsettled Ground, shortlisted for the 2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction, and her third novel, the simmering, suspenseful Bitter Orange. Claire reflects on the roles m...

From Jul 15, 2021 'The kayak gives this incredible perspective on the world, where you are really embedded in the worlds of the species, you're surrounded by other animals, they don't respond to you in the way that they respond to humans on foot because obviously they are so much more skilled in and on the water than you are.' Writer and historia...

From Aug 12, 2021 'My reading experience with poetry is that I'm in the presence of some...body and we're in that kind of potentially ... it might be that slightly late night kitchen table moment where you've sort of got through all the news and the stuff and you actually enter into where you really are, and what's going on, and what you really n...

Brought to you by Penguin.Discover the healing power of nature through the stories of these characterful birds.Can you recognise the cheerful chirrups of the house sparrow? A song thrush singing out at winter's darkest hour? Or the beautiful, haunting call of the curlew?At a time of great anxiety and uncertainty, while coping with the untimely deat...

One small soul like me won't make much difference' Captain TomIf Captain Tom's big heart and generosity of spirit helped see us through difficult days, this was his parting gift.Full of the wit, warmth and wisdom that made him so special, his reflections and guiding principles form a long life, well lived; Life Lessons will be a sour...

When Dr Rahul Jandial operated on Karina, an eleven-year-old girl whose spinal cord was splitting in two, he had to make an impossible decision. He followed his head over his gut and Karina was left permanently paralysed, altering both patient and surgeon's lives for ever. This decision would haunt Rahul for decades, a constant reminder of the fine...

The long-awaited first autobiography by national treasure Bob Mortimer.Bob Mortimer's life was trundling along happily until suddenly in 2015 he was diagnosed with a heart condition that required immediate surgery and forced him to cancel an upcoming tour. The episode unnerved him, but forced him to reflect on his life so far. This is the framework...