Biography / Memoir

  • Missing Persons, Or My Grandmother's Secrets

    Missing Persons, Or My Grandmother’s Secrets

    23.95

    WILLS, CLAIR

  • Mother Mary Comes To Me

    Mother Mary Comes To Me

    19.95

    The incredible first memoir from the Booker-winning radical icon Arundhati Roy, author of The God of Small ThingsTHE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERFOYLES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025AUDIBLE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025BLACKWELL’S NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025WINNER OF THE GOOGLE PLAY BEST OF 2025 AWARDSHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025SHORTLISTED FOR THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2026SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMENS PRIZE FOR NONFICTION 2026Arundhati Roy’s first work of memoir, this is a soaring account, both intimate and inspiring, of how the author became the person and the writer she is, shaped by circumstance, but above all by her relationship to her extraordinary, singular mother Mary, who she describes as ‘my shelter and my storm’. Distraught and even a “little ashamed” at the intensity of her response to the death of the mother she ran from at age eighteen, Arundhati began to write Mother Mary Comes to Me. The result is this astonishing, disconcerting, surprisingly funny chronicle—unique and simultaneously universal, of the author’s life, from childhood to the present, from Kerala to Delhi.

    With the scale, sweep, and depth of her novels and the passion, political clarity, and warmth of her essays, Mother Mary Comes to Me is an ode to freedom, a tribute to thorny love and savage grace—a memoir like no other. 2025 BOOK OF THE YEAR ACCORDING TO NEW STATESMAN, SPECTATOR, TIME, INDEPENDENT, FINANCIAL TIMES, ECONOMIST, OBSERVER

  • Mr. Attention To Detail

    Mr. Attention To Detail

    12.95

    KELLY, JOE

  • News from Under a Coat Stand

    News from Under a Coat Stand

    15.00

    The first six months of 2020 were the strangest of times. An unknown virus was spreading globally that brought social distancing, incredible uncertainty and sadly death. It also brought cocooning, the 2 km travel limit and delicious banana bread. Working from home in Carrick-on-Shannon, County Leitrim, RTÉ Journalist Carole Coleman kept a detailed diary of Covid’s first 100 days. Her lively personal story may remind you of your own town, family and friends – or amaze you about what you missed. While home schooling teenagers, remotely broadcasting Sunday’s This Week radio programme, and chatting with nearly everyone, “News from Under a Coat Stand” provides a poignant, serious, yet often hilarious account of a time Ireland and the world will never forget.

  • Nobody's Girl

    Nobody’s Girl

    27.95
    Description
    The book no-one should have to write but we all have to read. ‘If books can shape history, this is one.’ DAILY MAIL‘Both devastating and uplifting … fearless and frank – angry and empowering. It speaks to the thousands of other victims out there about how to start fighting back.’ EMILY MAITLISThis is the extraordinarily powerful memoir by the late Virginia Roberts Giuffre, the inspirational woman who stood up and spoke out about serial abusers Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, and how they trafficked her, and others, to some of the world’s richest, most powerful men.

    ‘Make no mistake: this is a book about power, corruption, industrial-scale sex abuse and the way in which institutions sided with the perpetrator over his victims. . .

    . But it is also a book about how a young woman becomes a hero. .

    . . Important [and] courageous.’ GUARDIANThis is Virginia’s story, in her own words.

  • Obsessed-The Autobiography

    Obsessed-The Autobiography

    24.95
    Description
    THE NO. 1 BESTSELLERIn his hotly anticipated autobiography, Johnny Sexton tells the story of his life and explores the sources of his unmatched will to win. ‘Sexton will go down as Ireland’s greatest ever player’ Gordon D’Arcy, Irish Times___________________Four European Cups.

    Four Six Nations championships (including two Grand Slams). A series win in New Zealand. Two stints for Ireland at number 1 in the world.

    And the World Player of the Year award. No Irish rugby player has ever achieved more, or been a source of more inspiration to teammates and fans alike, than Johnny Sexton. Outspoken, on and off the field, Sexton offers an honest look at his childhood, his relationships with key teammates and coaches (including Brian O’Driscoll, Paul O’Connell, Ronan O’Gara, Joe Schmidt and Andy Farrell), and his ideas about the game.

  • Overcoming A Memoir

    Overcoming A Memoir

    10.95
    Description
    Sunday Times Memoir of the Year 2019An Post Irish Book of the Year 2019When Vicky Phelan delivered an emotionally charged statement from the steps of the Four Courts in April 2018 – having refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement in the settlement of her action against the HSE – she unearthed the medical and political scandal of our times. It would emerge that, like Vicky, 220 other women who were diagnosed with cervical cancer were not informed that a clinical audit -carried out by the national screen programme CervicalCheck – had revised their earlier, negative smear tests. Their cancers could possibly have been preventable.

    Since then, Vicky has become women’s voice for justice on the issue, and her system-changing activism has made her a household name. In her memoir Overcoming, Vicky shares her remarkable personal story, from a life-threatening accident in early adulthood through to motherhood, a battle with depression, her devastating later discovery that her cancer had returned in shocking circumstances – and the ensuing detective-like scrutiny of events that led the charge for her history-making legal action. An inspiring story of rare resilience and power, Overcoming is an account of how one woman can move mountains – even when she is fighting for her own life – and of finding happiness and strength in the toughest of times.

    ‘Calls to mind the work of Emilie Pine, or the memoir by Maggie O’Farrell, I Am, I Am, I Am … Overcoming is more than the retelling of an extraordinary life. Its pacing and gentleness leaves plenty of room for tears and for reflection’ Irish Independent

  • Poor

    Poor

    13.95
    Description
    The No. 1 BestsellerBiography of the Year, Irish Book Awards 2023The Last Word Listeners’ Choice Award, Irish Book Awards 2023’One of the best [books] I have read about the complexities of poverty . .

    . one of the most remarkable people you will ever meet’ GuardianLike young girls everywhere Katriona O’Sullivan grew up bright, enthusiastic, curious. But she was also surrounded by abject poverty and chaos, and after she became pregnant and homeless at 15, what followed was five years of barely surviving.

    Yet today Katriona is an award-winning academic whose work explores barriers to education for girls like her. What set Katriona on this unexpected path were the mentors and supporters who truly saw her. The teachers who showed her how to wash in the school toilets or turned up at her door to convince her to sit at least one GCSE.

  • Poor

    Poor

    16.50

    As the middle of five kids growing up in dire poverty, the odds were low on Katriona O’Sullivan making anything of her life. When she became a mother at 15 and ended up homeless, what followed were five years of barely coping.

    This is the extraordinary story – moving, funny, brave, and sometimes startling – of how Katriona turned her life around. How the seeds of self-belief planted by teachers in childhood stayed with her. How she found mentors whose encouragement revived those seeds in adulthood.

    Katriona is now an award-winning lecturer whose work challenges barriers to education. Poor is her stirring argument for the importance of looking out for our kids’ futures. Of giving them hope, practical support and meaningful opportunities.

  • Powered to Fall, Empowered to Rise

    Powered to Fall, Empowered to Rise

    10.00

    About the Book

    I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis at the age of 30. At the same time I was looking to start a new life in Australia and had just met Des (my fiancé) while working at an Irish bar.

    Des stood by me through this illness and supported me in ways I could have never imagined with his love. After having to cancel our wedding in 2018 and give up work, we finally found our happy place in 2020.

    The love that Des showed me during this time and the illness inspired me to write a book so that I could help others who are also going through a difficult time. The book writes about the lessons I learnt in my own life on health, wealth, love and happiness.

    It is my hope that in sharing lessons from my own life that it will help others and inspire others that love will always shine through no matter how dark our days are. This book has been written from my heart to yours.

  • Rambling Man - My Life on the Road

    Rambling Man – My Life on the Road

    18.95

    In my fantasy of the Rambling Man who is something of a hobo, walking – or maybe jumping into the car of a moving train – is what he does. He slings his guitar or banjo over his shoulder and strides out along the road to the next town. There he plays a few songs at a local gig and meets a beautiful woman who feeds and shags him.

    It’s a wonderful life, and a million miles better than sitting on your couch watching reality TV.

    During his lifetime of global adventures, Sir Billy Connolly’s genuine curiosity and natural ability to connect with the people he meets on the road has made him a true ‘citizen of the world’.

    A good trip, in my book, should be littered with little detours. Travelling from A to B is all very well, but you risk missing out on so much .

    In RAMBLING MAN, Billy takes us with him on his incredible journeys criss-crossing the world.

    But this is no conventional travel memoir. From Ireland to India, Australia to the Arctic, we join the Big Yin on an international voyage full of detours, digressions and the most eccentric of characters – all underscored by the chosen soundtrack of the ultimate ramblin’ man himself.

  • Rememberings

    Rememberings

    13.50

    THE LANDMARK MEMOIR OF A GLOBAL MUSIC ICON

    Sinead O’Connor’s voice and trademark shaved head made her famous by the age of twenty-one. Her recording of Prince’s ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ made her a global icon. She outraged millions when she tore up a photograph of Pope John Paul II on American television.

    O’Connor was unapologetic and impossible to ignore, calling out hypocrisy wherever she saw it. She has remained that way for three decades. Now, in Rememberings, O’Connor tells her story – the heartache of growing up in a family falling apart; her early forays into the Dublin music scene; her adventures and misadventures in the world of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll; the fulfilment of being a mother; her ongoing spiritual quest – and through it all, her abiding passion for music.

    Rememberings is intimate, replete with candid anecdotes and full of hard-won insights. It is a unique and remarkable chronicle by a unique and remarkable artist.

  • Renegades

    Renegades

    24.95

    Two long-time friends share an intimate and urgent conversation about life, music and their enduring love of America, with all its challenges and contradictions, in this stunningly-produced expansion of their ground-breaking Higher Ground podcast, featuring more than 350 photographs, exclusive bonus content, and never-before-seen archival material. Renegades: Born in the USA is a candid, revealing, and entertaining dialogue between President Barack Obama and legendary musician Bruce Springsteen that explores everything from their origin stories and career-defining moments to their country’s polarized politics and the growing distance between the American Dream and the American reality. Filled with full-colour photographs and rare archival material, it is a compelling and beautifully illustrated portrait of two outsiders-one Black and one white-looking for a way to connect their unconventional searches for meaning, identity, and community with the American story itself.

    Along the way, they reveal their passion for-and the occasional toll of-telling a bigger, truer story about America throughout their careers, and explore how their fractured country might begin to find its way back toward unity.

  • Saltwater in the Blood

    Saltwater in the Blood

    17.50
    Description

    This is an incredibly inspiring exploration of the sea’s role in the wellness of people and the planet, beautifully written by Easkey Britton – surfer, scientist and social activist. She offers a powerful female perspective on the sea and surfing, explaining what it’s like to be a woman in a man’s world and how she promoted the sport to women in Iran, surfing while wearing a hijab. She speaks of the undiscussed taboo around entering the water while menstruating – and of how she has come to celebrate her own bodily cycles.

    She has developed her own approach to surfing, which instead of seeking to dominate the waves, works in tune with the natural cycles of her body, the moon and the seasons. In a society that rewards busyness, she believes that understanding the influence of cycles becomes even more important – and we all have them, men and women. For Easkey, the sea is a source of mental and physical wellbeing.

    She explores the mental toughness needed in big-wave surfing, and presents surfing as an embodied mindfulness practice in which we can find flow and connect with the movement of the waves. She stresses the need to recognize the ocean as our most powerful ally when addressing our greatest global challenge: the climate crisis. Above all, Easkey’s relationship to the sea has taught her about the need to meet life and evolve with it, rather than seeking to control it.

    By such wisdom our planet might just survive and thrive.

  • Spare

    Spare

    26.95

    It was one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother’s coffin as the world watched in sorrow – and horror. As Diana, Princess of Wales, was laid to rest, billions wondered what the princes must be thinking and feeling – and how their lives would play out from that point on. For Harry, this is that story at last.

    With its raw, unflinching honesty, Spare is a landmark publication full of insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief. Prince Harry wishes to support British charities with donations from his proceeds from Spare. The Duke of Sussex has donated $1,500,000 to Sentebale, an organisation he founded with Prince Seeiso in their mothers’ legacies, which supports vulnerable children and young people in Lesotho and Botswana affected by HIV/AIDS.

    Prince Harry will also donate to the non-profit organisation WellChild in the amount of GBP300,000. WellChild, which he has been Royal patron of for fifteen years, makes it possible for children and young people with complex health needs to be cared for at home instead of hospital, wherever possible.

  • Speaking My Mind

    Speaking My Mind

    25.95

    Leo Varadkar shares his fascinating experience as Irish prime minister at a time of much change and turbulence, in this remarkably honest memoir. Leo Varadkar was an unlikely Taoiseach – the youngest on taking office in 2017, the first Taoiseach to be gay, and the first person of colour to be Taoiseach. Equally unlikely was his decision to bow out of politics in his mid-forties.

    Now, liberated from the constraints of office, he tells his fascinating story with characteristic courage and candour, and provides a unique insight into the formation and evolution of a senior politician. In Speaking My Mind Leo Varadkar shares his pride in helping to bring about transformational changes, such as marriage equality. He describes experiences that only a prime minister could have – speaking frankly to Pope Francis on the legacy of church abuses, connecting with Barack Obama about both being the ‘tall, dark guy with the funny name’, navigating challenges such as the pandemic and the fallout from Brexit.

    And he writes honestly about the costs that go with the immense privilege of holding high office. Speaking My Mind is a revealing, intimate and important memoir from a singular public figure.