William Gladstone was, with Tennyson, Newman, Dickens, Carlyle, and Darwin, one of the stars of nineteenth-century British life. He spent sixty-three of his eighty-nine years in the House of Commons and was prime minister four times, a unique accomplishment. From his critical role in the formation of the Liberal Party to his preoccupation with the cause of Irish Home Rule, he was a commanding politician and statesman nonpareil. But Gladstone the man was much more: a classical scholar, a wide-ranging author, a vociferous participant in all the great theological debates of the day, a voracious reader, and an avid walker who chopped down trees for recreation. He was also a man obsessed with the idea of his own sinfulness, prone to self-flagellation and persistent in the practice of accosting prostitutes on the street and attempting to persuade them of the errors of their ways.

Gladstone, by historian and eminent politician Roy Jenkins, is a full and deep portrait of a complicated man, offering a sweeping picture of a tumultuous century in British history, and is also a brilliant example of the biographer’s art.

The son of a Black African father and a white American mother, Barack Obama recounts an emotional odyssey, retracing the migration of his mother’s family from Kansas to Hawai’i, then to his childhood home in Indonesia. Finally he travels to Kenya, where he confronts the bitter truth of his father’s life and at last reconciles his divided inheritance. Written nearly fifteen years before becoming president, Dreams from My Father is an unforgettable read. It illuminates not only Obama’s journey, but also our universal desire to understand our history and what makes us who we are.

In this, his third riveting volume of autobiography, John Simpson focuses on how journalists set about finding the stories that make the headlines. It is quintessential Simpson: vivid, utterly absorbing and written with all the care and lucidity of his reporting style.

‘Great stories told with great gusto…an easy and rewarding read’ Jon Snow, Daily Mail.

‘Dave Eggers has written a superb memoir… The work soars because it is, simply and tremendously, an honest and moving account of one man’s life. In the process, he reminds me that while the language and style of literature are always changing, it is forever about coming to terms with the timeless conflicts of the human heart…Like all authors, he uses his life and imagination to make sense of the world. Like the very best writers, he does not manufacture cheap answers.’

The News & Observer

‘The story is at once funny, tender, annoying and, yes, heartbreaking – an epic about family and how families fracture and fragment and somehow, through all the tumult and upset, manage to endure . . . A virtuosic piece of writing, a big, daring, manic-depressive stew of a book that noisily announces the debut of a talented – yes, staggeringly talented new writer’ Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

‘Eggers is an original new voice, the real thing. When you read his extraordinary memoir you don’t laugh, then cry, then laugh again; you somehow experience these emotions all at once – and powerfully’ David Remnick

‘The force and energy of this book could power a train’ David Sedaris