Showing titles in Biographies & Memoirs

Rita Gigante grew up in a world swirling with secrets, lies, and multiple sins. Her father, notorious Mafia boss Vincent "The Chin" Gigante, was the leader of the Genovese crime clan and the head of all five New York crime families for decades. But until Rita was sixteen, she was kept in the dark about his underworld activities. She unknowingly hung out at mob headquarters and witnessed her dad's whispered meetings around the dinner table, but only knew what she was told by her mother and siblings about his odd behavior: Dad's sick. Keep your mouth shut. Don't talk about the family.

Rainbow History Class is your entry into LGBTQ+ history, sharing queer and trans stories from Ancient civilisations all the way up to the internet. So much of queer and trans history and culture has been erased, but Hannah McElhinney, writer and creator of Rainbow History Class (as seen on TikTok), is here to help us all with this crash course.

A NATIONAL BESTSELLER A humorous collection of autobiographical essays from comedian andEmmy Award–winning actor Jeff Hiller, who shares his journey from growing up “profoundly gay” in 1980s Texas to his experiences as an inept social worker and how he clawed, scraped, and brawled to...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The inspiring true story of transgender actor and activist Nicole Maines, whose identical twin brother, Jonas, and ordinary American family join her on an extraordinary journey to understand, nurture, and celebrate the uniqueness in us all. Nicole appears as...

The man behind the Real Housewives writes about his lifelong love affair with pop culture that brought him from the suburbs of St. Louis to his own television show From a young age, Andy Cohen knew two things: He was gay, and he loved television. Now presiding over Bravo's reality-TV empire, he...

When Seán meets Elias, the two fall headlong into a love story. But as Elias struggles with severe depression, the couple comes face-to-face with crisis. Wrestling with this, Seán Hewitt delves deep into his own history, enlisting the ghosts of queer figures and poets before him. From a 19th-century cemetery in Liverpool to the pine forests of Gothenburg, Hewitt plumbs the darkness in search of solace and hope. All Down Darkness Wide is an unflinching meditation on the burden of living in a world that too often sets happiness and queer life at odds.

This remarkable memoir is the classic account of the transgender journey. It is all the more extraordinary because it is the life story of a figure who, it seemed, seamlessly and publicly charted a course through the English establishment - James Morris, outstanding journalist, historian and travel writer, famed for a peerless writing style. But all the while he was concealing a very different inner world: from the age of four he felt that, despite his body, he was really a girl.

In this remarkable memoir - written with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Buzz Bissinger during her pivotal first years of rebirth - Caitlyn Jenner reflects on her past as she looks to her future. With poignancy and humour, Caitlyn writes about her confusion growing up, the temporary triumph of the Olympics as Bruce Jenner, and the noose of being endlessly described as the ultimate in manhood. She reveals her sense of shame and deceit she felt as she got older, as she went to great lengths to tell lies to conceal her true self.

Sir Ian McKellen is that rarest of characters: a celebrity whose distinguished political and social service has transcended his enormous fame and international stardom to reach far beyond the stage and screen. The breadth of his endeavour - professional, personal and political - has been truly staggering. Of some 400 stage and film roles, there are only three, in his own estimation, of which he has not been proud. Iconic roles have not been in short supply: Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings being perhaps the most universally recognised and well-loved. 

Shortlisted for the Indie Book Awards, Christopher Bland Prize and The People's Book Prize A Waterstones Best Memoir of 2024 An Independent and Stylist Best Non-Fiction Book The captivating true story of an underdog business – a feminist bookshop founded in Thatcher’s Britain – from a...

A definitive history and celebration of the groundbreaking show RuPaul's Drag Race in its first decade, from a Burbank basement set all the way to the Emmy's, and every weave in-between, as told by its stars, producers and fans. Told over the first ten years, And Don't F&%k It Up tells a...

It’s easy to be yourself when who and what you are is in vogue. But growing up Black and gay in America has never been easy. Before Billy Porter was slaying red carpets and giving an iconic performance in the celebrated TV show Pose; before he was the Tony Award-winning star of Broadway’s Kinky Boots; and before he was an acclaimed recording artist, actor, playwright, and all-around diva, Porter was a young boy who didn’t fit in. 

Brought to you by Penguin. My friends will respect me, I hope, just as much under my jacket as under my dress... So take me for a man or a woman as you wish. By the age of thirty, the novelist who had been born Aurore Dupin in 1804 had become the internationally renowned George Sand. In English...

Longlisted for Autobiography of the Year, Sports Book Awards 2022 The Instant Sunday Times Bestseller A deeply personal and inspiring memoir from one of the most celebrated and influential names in British sport. Tom Daley captured the hearts of the nation with his unforgettable medal-winning...

Hey, I'm Jamie, a 29-year-old trans guy from the UK. I've been transitioning for 12 years now after realising I was trans (by accident!) at sixteen years old. I knew I was a boy since the age of four, but realised whilst growing up that I was different. It was only in my teens that I found the words to express who I was and what I needed to do. Since then, I've been on testosterone for more than a decade - I know, I can't believe it either - I've also had top and bottom surgery and legally changed my sex, so I know a few things about the transitioning process and being trans!

In the wake of a disastrous two-year relationship, Melissa Febos decided to take a break—for three months she would abstain from dating, relationships and sex. Her friends were amused. Did she really think three months was a long time? But to Melissa, it was. Ever since her teens, she had been in one relationship or another. It was time to focus on herself and examine the lifelong patterns that had got her to this point. When those three months ended, she decided to extend her celibate period, fearing that she had not yet gained the clarity she was searching for.

The Times Art Book of the Year 2021 FINALIST FOR THE PLUTARCH AWARD 2022 ‘Must surely be the definitive life of Francis Bacon … A biography that no Bacon fan – or indeed foe – can afford to overlook … Mesmerising’ THE TIMES ‘A magnificent triumph … I was captivated by every...

Death isn't the end. Marie didn't expect to be given the opportunity to go to a new universe when she died, but when it was offered she held to the offer with all her might. Taking the name of Talyn, she was accompanied to the new world by the goddess Melody as her assistant, as she seeks out a more rewarding life for herself, no matter what challenges may stand before her. Even if the introduction of some game mechanics and a goddess to her life has unanticipated consequences.

Brought to you by Penguin. It’s 1996, and Jeremy has met the British boy of his dreams — just as, amid a media frenzy, US Congress prepares the Defense of Marriage Act, denying same-sex couples federal rights, including immigration. The pair snatch time in forests and deserts, London fashion...

In a crawlspace at the offices of Switchboard, a queer helpline in operation since 1974, lie dozens of log books kept by volunteers describing the phone calls they had taken: a teenager kicked out of home for dressing as the wrong gender; a lesbian terrified of having her baby taken away from her; a man arrested for chatting up another man; a young person wanting to know how to come out. These logs documented traces of tens of thousands of queer lives, captured by people who lent an ear to those in need.