From childhood through to adulthood - if not necessarily maturity - The Book of Life offers the literary journal of a lifetime, in the company of the most fascinating and talented figures in history.From Alan Bennett's wartime childhood in Yorkshire to Mahatma Gandhi's experiment with cigarettes; Katherine Hepburn on her first acting job aged 21 and Primo Levi on being captured by Fascist militia at the same age; Darwin on his lifelong love - his work - and Nelson Mandela ...

**Soon to be a major motion picture, from Brad Pitt and Tony KushnerA Washington Post Best Book of 2015A mid-century doctor's raw, unvarnished account of his own descent into madness, and his daughter's attempt to piece his life back together and make sense of her own.**Texas-born and Harvard-educated, Dr. Perry Baird was a rising medical star in the late 1920s and 1930s. Early in his career, ahead of his time, he grew fascinated with identifying the bioche...

A daughter's moving search to understand her mother, Carolyn Scott—once a bridesmaid to Princess Grace and one of the first Ford models—who later in life spent years living in a homeless shelter.Nyna Giles was picking up groceries at the supermarket one day when she looked down and saw the headline on the cover of a tabloid: "Former Bridesmaid of Princess Grace Lives in Homeless Shelter." Nyna was stunned, shocked to see her family's private ordeal made so public—th...

**"A fascinating true story." — Good HousekeepingA daughter’s moving search to understand her mother, Carolyn Scott—once a bridesmaid to Princess Grace and one of the first Ford models—who later in life spent years living in a homeless shelter.**Nyna Giles was picking up groceries at the supermarket one day when she looked down and saw the headline on the cover of a tabloid: “Former Bridesmaid of Princess Grace Lives in Homeless Shelter.” Nyna was stunned, shocked ...

**Soon to be a major motion picture, from Brad Pitt and Tony KushnerA Washington Post Best Book of 2015A mid-century doctor's raw, unvarnished account of his own descent into madness, and his daughter's attempt to piece his life back together and make sense of her own.**Texas-born and Harvard-educated, Dr. Perry Baird was a rising medical star in the late 1920s and 1930s. Early in his career, ahead of his time, he grew fascinated with identifying the bioche...

The dual story of Carolyn and her child; one strand evoking a beautiful woman's success and film star friendship with Grace Kelly in '50s new York - the other a child's-eye account of a mother's descent into psychosis and a childhood of deprivation and captivity. Nyna, the youngest child of Carolyn Scott Reybolds, became the victim of her untreated mental illness. Yet through it all, like a glimpse of a different world, her mother's oldest, closest friend would write and visit, the woman t...

‘What a remarkable book by a unique and extraordinary man. I fell in love with Jason’s family, especially the incredible Giff (what a mother, what a woman!) and I cheered at every infuriating brick wall she and Jason smashed down’ – Kathy Burke, author of A Mind of My Own‘You did it, didn’t you, Jason?’ Mum asked.‘No, Giff,’ I told her. ‘We did. We did it . . .’When Jason A...