Presents stories featuring authors when they were children, including Roald Dahl, J.K. Rowling, and Zora Neale Hurston.

On February 14, 1989, Valentine's Day, Salman Rushdie received a telephone call from a BBC journalist who told the author that he had been "sentenced to death" by the Ayatollah Khomeini. It was the first time Rushdie heard the word fatwa. His crime? To have written a novel called The Satanic Verses, which was accused of being "against Islam, the Prophet, and the Quran." So begins the extraordinary story of how a writer was forced underground, moving...

Following the acclaimed Things I Don't Want to Know, Deborah Levy returns to the subject of her life in letters. The Cost of Living reveals a writer in radical flux, considering what it means to live with value and meaning and pleasure. This perfectly crafted snapshot of a woman in the process of transformation is as distinctive, wide-ranging and original as Levy's acclaimed novels, an essential read for every Deborah Levy fan. 'Wise, subtle and ironic,...

Recruited into MI5 against a backdrop of the Cold War in 1972, Cambridge student Serena Frome, a compulsive reader, is assigned to infiltrate the literary circle of a promising young writer whose politics align with those of the government, a situation that is compromised when she falls in love with him.

"From the celebrated poet behind bone, a lyrical memoir--part prose, part verse--about coming-of-age, uncovering the cruelty and beauty of the wider world, and redemption through self-discovery and the bonds of family "You may not run away from the thing that you are because it comes and comes and comes as sure as you breathe." This is the story of Yrsa Daley-Ward, and all the things that happened--"even the terrible things. And God, there were terrible...

"Why did Agatha Christie spend her career pretending that she was "just" an ordinary housewife, when clearly she wasn't? Her life is fascinating for its mysteries and its passions and, as Lucy Worsley says, "She was thrillingly, scintillatingly modern." She went surfing in Hawaii, she loved fast cars, and she was intrigued by the new science of psychology, which helped her through devastating mental illness. So why--despite all the evidence to the...

Explores the turbulent lives of the three literary siblings and the oppressive times in which they lived, and offers insight into their classic nineteenth-century novels.

Dame Agatha Christie sheds light on her secretive life and tells of her early years, her marriages and rise to success.

Containing excerpts from earlier tributes to Dahl's work and wit, this is an eclectic and funny collection of tidbits by and about the late author. It also features a missing chapter from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."

A seemingly typical man wakes up one morning to discover that he has been transformed into a gigantic insect, and must deal with the depression over his new physical alteration, as well as the rejection of his family.