BOOKS


Editor’s Choice


Previews New Titles: Non-fiction


ambitious, decade-by- decade survey provides an epic visual history of America from the 1940s to the present day in photos from renowned collective Magnum Photos.


Biography & memoir


Biography & memoir


Lucy Hughes-Hallett The Scapegoat: The Brilliant Brief Life of


the Duke of Buckingham Fourth Estate, 10th, hb, £30, 9780008126551


“By all reliable accounts, George Villiers… was really very nice”. The Pike, Hughes-Hallett’s last non-fiction book, won the Samuel Johnson Prize and the Costa Biography Prize. So what a treat to dive into her new biography, a portrait of the short, spectacular life of the handsome George Villiers, first Duke of Buckingham (1592-1628). Loved by three monarchs: James I; Charles I; and Anne, Queen of France, the House of Commons nevertheless held him responsible for all the country’s ills and he was assassinated at 36. The truth, as we discover, was much more complicated.


Bill Bailey


My Animals, and Other Animals Quercus, 10th, hb, £25, 9781529436143 Comedian Bailey’s enjoy- able first memoir is told through his lifelong love of animals; from his childhood encounter with a boister- ous red setter on a Devon beach and his Patterdale terrier Rocky who occasionally joined him on stage, to the animals with which he has shared his home, including birds, dogs, frogs, chameleons called Posh and Becks, and an armadillo called Tommy.


Editor’s Choice


Natural history


John Lewis-Stempel England: A Major Natural


History in 12 Habitats Doubleday, 3rd, hb, £25, 9780857526472X


“I wanted not to observe from outside, but to be part of the scene”. Five years in the making, this gloriously packaged natural history is billed as Lewis-Stempel’s magnum opus and is divided into 12 habitats with an exemplifying location for each. From Estuary (the Thames) to Coast (Portreath, Cornwall), and from otters to cuckoos to stag beetles, it criss-crosses the country to reveal the species that typify each landscape. With enliv- ening personal anecdotes from the author, it’s a richly enjoyable treasure trove for any nature lover. Gilbert White for the 21st century.


Lotte Bowser Bittersweet Little A, 1st, pb, £8.99, 9781662521409 “How do you see what the future looks like—without the person you love most in it?” In this memoir, Bowser reflects on the life and death of her partner from a rare form of cancer, reminding us that grief and joy can co-exist and that life after loss can still be beautiful.


Fern Britton Repowered: Lessons I’ve Learned the Older I Get Ebury Spotlight, 10th, hb, £22, 9781529940503 “Welcome to your second act!” In which the broadcasting legend and prolific novelist, now aged 64, explores the challenges and joys of midlife with “warmth and humour”, including her life since moving to Cornwall in 2020.


Anthony Cheetham A Life in 50 Books Apollo, 10th, hb, £25, 9781035912766 “Charming and enter- taining” memoir of Cheetham’s 60-year career in publishing,


22 12th July 2024


Patrick Cockburn Believe Nothing Until It Is Officially Denied: Claud Cockburn and the Invention of Guerrilla Journalism Verso, hb, £25, 9781804290743 The leading Middle East correspondent surveys the life and work of this father, the ground-breaking radical journalist, Claud Cockburn, and argues that he was a pioneer for campaigning guerrilla journalism: “Investigations that told the truth without fear or favour.”


Jenny Éclair Jokes, Jokes, Jokes: My Very Funny Memoir Sphere, 3rd, hb, £25, 978 How did the daughter of Major Derek Hargreaves become Jenny Éclair and elbow her way into the male-dominated world of 1980s stand-up and become the first woman to win the Perrier Award? From drama school and cider to punk poetry and bedsit misery, it’s all in this entertaining memoir which charts her partly peripatetic, partly Lancashire childhood and her comedy career.


Edith Eger


The Ballerina of Auschwitz: A Dramatic Retelling of “The Choice” Rider, 3rd, pb, £10.99, 9781846047817 This reboot of Eger’s truly remarkable memoir, The Choice, has a greater focus on her teenage years, and includes around 30% new content.


Miranda Hart I Haven’t Been Entirely Honest With You Michael Joseph, 10th, hb, £25, 9781405958332 Packed with “hard-won wisdoms and gentle truths”, this new memoir from comedian Hart


Lisa Marie Presley & Riley Keough Untitled Memoir Macmillan, 15th, hb, £25, 9781035051045 In the years before her death in early 2023, the only daughter of Elvis Presley taped a series of conversations which she hoped would form basis of her autobiography. After her death, her daughter Keough completed the memoir her mother did not live to finish. “Revealing, shocking, elegant”, it reflects on her Graceland childhood, the death of her father,


structured around his relationship with 50 books; from those he published including Dune and A Suitable Boy to classics including The Lord of the Rings and War and Peace.


explores 10 treasures— life lessons—that have helped on her healing journey to overcoming a decade of illness, includ- ing crippling anxiety and agoraphobia. She has 1.1m followers on Instagram.


Lara Marlowe & Yulia Mykytenko How Good It Is I Have No Fear of Dying: Lt Yulia Mykytenko’s Fight for Ukraine Apollo. 24th, hb, £20, 9781035910175 In 2022, Marlowe travelled to Ukraine to report for the Irish Times on women in the military. There she met Mykytenko—“one of the most extraordinary people I have interviewed in 42 years of journal- ism”—and now tells the “inspirational” story of her experiences on the frontline since the Russian invasion.


Elliot Mintz We All Shine On: John, Yoko and Me Bantam Press, 24th, hb, £25, 9780857506078 Mintz is a former West Coast DJ, publicist and business manager who was a close friend to both John Lennon and Yoko for nearly 10 years during the 1970s, and to the latter after Lennon’s murder. Including photos and letters, this is his “personal and at times heart- breaking” memoir of an extraordinary friendship, “bringing two cultural icons to life like never before”.


and also speaks “breath- takingly” about mother- hood and the death of her son Ben to suicide.


Tina Shingler Hair Apparent Biteback, 1st, hb, £18.99, 9781785909016 Based on the author’s experience of growing up a Black Barnardo’s child in 1960s rural North Yorkshire, and tracing her life across the UK, Italy, the US and India, this “hairmoire” also embraces the legacy of Afro hair across 70 years of trends in fashion and culture.


Wayne Sleep Just Different Hodder, 31st, hb, £25, 9781399712064 In this “laugh-out-loud and gossip-filled” memoir, the ballet dancer and entertainer looks back on his dancing career, including his encounters with the likes of Freddie Mercury and Princess Diana, and how he overcame obstacles and prejudice to find success, fulfilment and love.


John Suchet In Search of Beethoven: A Personal Journey Elliott & Tompson, 17th, hb, £25, 9781783968107 The broadcaster and author, also a recognised authority on Beethoven, presents his “most personal” book on the life of the composer. Part biography, memoir and travelogue, it draws on Suchet’s own career to show how Beethoven’s music has accompanied him through the best and worst of times.


Alex van Halen Brothers HarperCollins, 24th, hb, £25, 9780008706050 “Nothing like any rock ‘n’ roll memoir you’ve read”, this book by the original drummer and co-founder of rock band Van Halen is a personal story of family, friendship, music and brotherly love, written while mourning the death of his brother


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