13th June 2025


Art, architecture & illustrated


Kate Bryan, David Shrigley (illus) How to Art: Bringing a Fancy Subject Down to Earth So We Can All Enjoy It


Hutchinson Heinemann, 18th, £16.99, HB, 9781529154528


“What is art… and once I’m in front of it, what am I supposed to think about it?” Bryan is an art historian broadcaster and curator, including for Soho House’s art collection. Featuring original artworks by Shrigley, this “funny, inviting” full-colour guide hopes to entice those who feel they do not know about art, or who do not think it is for them.


Sally Mann Art Work: On the Creative Life


Particular, 9th, £25, HB, 9780241774540


In her first book for 10 years – her 2015 memoir Hold Still won a slew of awards – the renowned US photographer shares wild and illuminating stories about her own practice, and also what she has learned about how to live and thrive as an artist. One of the most salient books about the art and graft of creativity I have ever read.


Twentieth Century Society Cooling Towers: A Celebration of Sculptural Beauty, Architectural Legacy and Industrial History


Batsford, 11th, £45, HB, 9781849949460


Bringing together the work of some noted architectural historians and a foreword by Antony Gormley, this is a “stirring” large-format celebration of cooling towers, the Brutalist structures, many of which have been slated for imminent demolition.


Biography & memoir


Priscilla Beaulieu Presley, Mary Jane Ross Softly As I Leave You: Life After Elvis


Headline, 23rd, £25, HB, 9781035421633


In the wake of Sofia Coppola’s 2023 film about her life, and in her first book since 1985, the author and actress chronicles her “difficult, inspiring” journey beyond the walls of Graceland after her divorce from Elvis, and reveals how she built a life of her own. It retells the Presley family story in a new light, I am told.


Tim Berners-Lee This Is for Everyone Macmillan, 9th, £25, HB, 9781035023677


In this intimate memoir, the creator of the World Wide Web tells the story of his invention, explores the power of technology to fuel our worst instincts and profoundly shape our lives for the better, and provides a bold manifesto for advancing humanity’s future. No reading material was available but it is sure to be widely covered and commented on.


Nicholas Blincoe Oliver Twist and Me: The True Story of My Family and Charles Dickens’s Best-Loved Novel


The Bridge Street Press, 4th, £25, HB, 9780349136387


A contemporary memoir by workhouse orphan Robert Blincoe supplied much of the source material for Charles Dickens’ novel, Oliver Twist. This intriguing sounding dual biography of both Dickens and the author’s great-great- great-grandfather shows how the novel took off in different directions, inspired by the true story of a workhouse boy.


Bobbi Brown Still Bobbi Bloomsbury, 23rd, £22, HB, 9781526687722


In her first memoir, the beauty industry titan and renowned make-up artist


shares her business- orientated story of invention and reinvention, and dispenses practical tips and hard-won business savvy to help you “jump into life- changing action”. I am certainly a big fan of her philosophy and wares.


Molly Burke Unseen: How I Lost My Vision and Found My Voice


Abrams, 25th, £19.99, HB, 9781419777882


Disability activist Burke who has more than five million followers across her social media platforms chronicles her journey as a disabled woman, business owner and entertainer in this “vulnerable and witty” memoir on navigating the challenges of being legally blind in an ableist world.


Paul Burrell The Royal Insider: My Life with the Queen, the King and Princess Diana


Sphere, 11th, £25, HB, 9781408734216


In his latest memoir, the former long-time royal household servant shares more untold stories of his life at home and abroad with the royals; from unexpected moments of intimacy with the Queen to his complex relationship with Princes William and Harry.


David Cannadine ( 1) Queen Elizabeth II: A Concise Biography of an Exceptional Sovereign


OUP, 11th, £12.99, HB, 9780198902300


Providing a sympathetic yet detached historical account of her life – “appreciative but not uncritical” - a concise biography of Elizabeth II by the distinguished historian.


Carla Ciccone Nowhere Girl: Life as a Member of ADHD’s Lost Generation


Michael Joseph, 9th,£16.99, PB, 9780241647349


Drawing on feminist medical history and interviews with international experts, a “ground-breaking” memoir by a US writer about coming to terms with an ADHD diagnosis at the age of 39. She aims to shed new light on the condition.


Alan Davies White Male Stand-Up


Monoray, 9th, £25, HB, 9781800962576


1 12


The comedian and actor’s first memoir, Just Ignore Him, detailed his


traumatic childhood; this follow-up, written with “brutal honesty”, charts his entry into the “joyous and idealistic” world of stand-up comedy.


Sebastian Faulks Fires Which Burned Brightly


Hutchinson Heinemann, 2nd, £20, HB, 9781529154658


Billed as “10 wise and wryly funny essays in place of a memoir”, this new non-fiction book from the renowned novelist nevertheless forms an effective and absorbing account of his life, from his post-war rural childhood and the booze-sodden heyday of Fleet Street to his writing career. I particularly enjoyed the pieces about the research behind such novels as Birdsong and Charlotte Gray.


Brenda Fricker She Died Young: A Life in Fragments


Apollo, 11th, £20, HB, 9781035907465


Billed as being “as far from a celebrity memoir as you can get”, this “harrowing and inspiring” memoir by the Academy Award-winning Irish actor is described as a “literary work in which intellect, madness, art and raw honesty unite”.


Tina Gaudoin The Incidental Feminist: Friend, Foe, Femme Fatale? The Truth About Thatcher


Swift, 11th, £22, HB, 9781800753808


Published for the 100th anniversary of Margaret Thatcher’s birth, this is billed as the first book on the former prime minister to focus not solely on her political career, but also on her personal life, femininity and the impact of being the UK’s first female PM.


Elizabeth Gilbert All the Way to the River: Love, Loss and Liberation


Bloomsbury, 9th, £20, HB, 9781526654564


What if your most beautiful love story turned into your biggest nightmare? This new book by the author of the mega-selling Eat, Pray, Love will “resonate with anyone who has ever been captive to love – or to any other passion, substance or craving, and who yearns… for liberation”. So says Bloomsbury of this memoir in which Gilbert picks up her story after the publication of Eat, Pray, Love led to her having a “shit ton of money”. It Is


certainly a compelling story of addiction and a transformative love affair.


James Hanning The Bookseller of Hay: The Life and Times of Richard Booth


Corsair, 4th, £22, HB, 9781472159786


This enjoyable biography of bookseller and entrepreneur, Richard Booth, AKA The King of Hay, who invented the term “book town” and laid the foundations for the annual festival, is the story of an “extraordinary, chaotic man” and a true British eccentric. Hanning has been a frequent visitor to Hay-on-Wye since the 1960s and here draws on interviews with many local people.


Jodie Harsh You Had to Be There: An Odyssey Through Noughties London, One Night at a Time


Faber, 25th, £20, HB, 9780571392414


This riotous memoir by the DJ and dance-floor legend who has worked with singers including Beyoncé and Charli XCX provides a vivid account of the decadent Noughties era of pop culture in London; from the Astoria and the Soho Revue Bar, to Mahiki and The End. “You had to be there, and Jodie Harsh was. Every single night.”


Jen Hatmaker Awake: A Memoir Bluebird, 25th, £18.99, HB, 9781035081929


In 2020, US author Hatmaker woke up one morning to find her husband of 26 years voice-texting his girlfriend in bed next to her. This is her powerful memoir of the end of her marriage, and how she rebuilt a life after divorce, challenging the oppressive rules of her patriarchal church community in the process.


Richard Holmes The Boundless Deep: Young Tennyson, Science and the Crisis of Belief


William Colins, 25th, £25, HB, 9780007386932


What happens when a poet lives too long and becomes respectable? Holmes considers this question in the light of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s childhood, his early-life engagement with 19th-century scientific ideas and how it influenced the evolution of his poetry, as he grappled with ideas of his own destiny. Sadly, I did not get to read this in time, but am looking forward to doing so.


Books New Titles: Non-Fiction


BENEDICT JOHNSON


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