Biography Bestsellers

Falling Forward is a story of reclaiming identity, voice and power.  In this deeply personal memoir, released alongside her documentary, Rachel Kolisi takes readers behind the public image and into the private moments that shaped her. With courage and clarity, she traces her journey through childhood, motherhood, love, marriage, her faith in God tested and rebuilt, loss and reinvention, and the complex reality of living a life under constant scrutiny. This is not a story of perfection or arrival, but of becoming. Of breaking, rebuilding and choosing to rise anyway. Through hard-learned lessons and unflinching honesty, Rachel reflects on what it means to let go of who you were expected to be and step fully into who you are. Together with Rachel’s personal journey, she shares how purpose and service became anchors in her healing process. Her commitment to uplifting others is not separate from her story, but a natural continuation of it. Raw yet hopeful, grounded yet powerful, Falling Forward is for any woman whohas had her world turned upside down and found the strength to begin again.

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Arundhati 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.

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Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice In 2011, Virginia Roberts Giuffre hit the headlines as Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s most outspoken victim: the woman whose decision to speak out helped send both serial abusers to prison and whose photograph with Prince Andrew catalyzed his fall from grace. But first and foremost, she became known as a voice of courage and resilience for women everywhere. This is her story, in her own words. A story that has never been told in full before now. It demonstrates with extraordinary power that victims are made, not born. And that once you come to truly understand the horrifying impact of abuse, you will never again question why a victim stays, or returns over and over again.   In April 2025, Giuffre took her own life. She left behind a memoir written in the years preceding her death and stated unequivocally that she wanted it published. This is the powerful story of an ordinary girl who would grow up to confront adversity and trauma of the darkest form, yet found the strength to move forwards, reclaim her voice and shine a light on evil – advocating for others and fighting for a safer, fairer world.   Nobody’s Girl  is a remarkable recounting of one woman’s fortitude in the face of depravity and despair, and the legacy she leaves behind.

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‘Unleashed is filled with empathy, depth and a charming touch of humour at the perfect moments.’ – SYLVESTER CHAUKE ‘An effortlessly comedic and deeply moving tale of a vet finding her feet and purpose. Venniker is that rare guide who’s honest, witty and relatable.’ – ALASTAIR MCALPINE ‘Fascinating, funny and poetically heartbreaking. Who knew the secret life of a vet would be a page-turner?’ – DION CHANG ‘Unleashed is a book that celebrates life.’ – MIKE NICOL** Unleashed is the hilarious, intensely honest memoir of Caitlin Venniker’s journey from Onderstepoort, the only veterinary  training institution in South Africa, into the heart of private practice, with a few stops in the United Kingdom and Middle East along the way. It’s a story of growing up, juggling owners with high expectations and animals with big opinions, bluffing confidence, quirky colleagues, cows with anger issues and midnight emergencies. It’s about navigating the challenges of dating, using coffee as a crutch, finding humour in dark moments, and the immense joy and grief that come with loving animals.  

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A lost boy. A fractured family. A continent that will test them all.  Vilna, 1889. Eight-year-old Izzy Lieberman leaves his snow-covered homeland with only his father, escaping the pogroms and bound for a new life at the edge of the world - Cape Town, South Africa. But amid the chaos of the port, as tensions rise in the days before the Anglo-Boer War, Izzy’s father vanishes. In the confusion, Izzy is left behind - forgotten, frightened, and convinced he has been farfolen - thrown away.  Alone on the harsh streets of Cape Town, Izzy learns to survive among the city’s homeless boys who become his only family. Years later, drawn north to the diamond diggings of Kimberley, he toils under the blazing African sun with them, unearthing both fortune and sorrow.  Eleven years after his disappearance, the once-abandoned boy arrives in Johannesburg a man - scarred by hardship, hardened by survival - and comes face-to-face with the family he thought he had lost forever. And as Izzy stands on the threshold of a new life, he finally understands that even those who are lost can find their way home.  The Boy in the Barrel is a sweeping historical journey from Eastern Europe to the raw, restless soul of Africa - a story of survival, forgiveness, and the unbreakable bonds of family.

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‘Benni had everything that a coach loves in a player.’ – José Mourinho Benni McCarthy is South Africa’s most successful footballer – he’s the all-time top scorer for Bafana Bafana, the country’s only Champions League winner, and he is now forging a successful career as a coach. Benni has gone from growing up in the ganglands of the Cape Flats to playing at some of the biggest arenas in sport, moving from South Africa as a teenager to become a much-prized player at clubs in the Netherlands, Spain and England. He was the top scorer at the Africa Cup of Nations finals, he also found the back of the net at the World Cup, and he helped FC Porto and their fabled coach José Mourinho to win the top club prize in world football. Since hanging up his boots, Benni has embarked on a coaching career that has seen him win silverware in South Africa and then go on to work on the staff at Manchester United. He is now building a national team for Kenya as they ready themselves to host the 2027 Cup of Nations tournament. Overcoming formidable obstacles has been the hallmark of Benni’s career, be it defying neighbourhood gang bosses, a series of vindictive coaches or self-serving South African football administrators. His defiant approach to officialdom often landed him in hot water but he has always stayed true to his principles, resulting in a love-hate relationship with Bafana Bafana that has never been properly explained … until now.

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Although hailed, alongside Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo, as one of the ANC’s holy trinity, Walter Sisulu has remained a relatively neglected figure in the historiography of the struggle for liberation in South Africa. Modest and unassuming, Sisulu was always content to stay in the background in a way that has belied his importance. This nuanced and highly original biography of Walter Sisulu, drafted by political historian Tom Lodge before his untimely death, provides a powerful corrective. Lodge pronounces Walter an exceptional organiser, the most influential planner of the ANC’s mass campaigning during the 1950s, a principled but undoctrinaire communist, and alongside Mandela an advocate of the necessity of armed struggle. He also served as the careful navigator of the ambiguous relationship between the ANC and Umkhontho we Sizwe, and Lodge details how Sisulu’s exceptional grasp of this enabled him to confound the prosecution when he later played a lead role as a defendant in the Rivonia trial. Sentenced to life imprisonment with his fellow trialists, Walter’s became a calming influence amidst the divisive ideological debates which took place on Robben Island, as well as a constant source of strength and support to Mandela. Then, after his release from jail – ahead of Mandela – in 1989, he again demonstrated his prowess as the chief organiser of the ANC as it re-established itself prior to the 1994 elections. In this powerful account of his life, completed by Roger Southall, Lodge provides the detailed analysis of his commitment and contribution to South African freedom that Walter Sisulu deserves.

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From the Academy Award®-winning actor, an unconventional memoir filled with raucous stories, outlaw wisdom, and lessons learned the hard way about living with greater satisfaction. I've been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me. Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries. I found stories I experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. I found a reliable theme, an approach to living that gave me more satisfaction, at the time, and still: If you know how, and when, to deal with life's challenges - how to get relative with the inevitable - you can enjoy a state of success I call 'catching greenlights. 'So I took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops. Hopefully, it's medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot's license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears. It's a love letter. To life. It's also a guide to catching more greenlights-and to realising that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too. Good luck.

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Shocking and darkly funny, Careless People gives you a front-row seat to the decisions that are shaping our world and the people who make them. Welcome to Facebook.Sarah Wynn-Williams, a young diplomat from New Zealand, pitched for her dream job. She saw Facebook’s potential and knew it could change the world for the better. But, when she got there and rose to its top ranks, things turned out a little different.From wild schemes cooked up on private jets to risking prison abroad, Careless People exposes both the personal and political fallout when boundless power and a rotten culture take hold. In a gripping and often absurd narrative, Wynn-Williams rubs shoulders with Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg and world leaders, revealing what really goes on among the global elite – and the consequences this has for all of us.Candid and entertaining, this is an intimate memoir set amid powerful forces. As all our lives are upended by technology and those who control it, Careless People will change how you see the world.

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**THE MILLION COPY BESTSELLER** 'Rattling. Heartbreaking. Beautiful.' Atul Gawande, bestselling author of Being Mortal What makes life worth living in the face of death? At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade's training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, the next he was a patient struggling to live. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi's transformation from a medical student asking what makes a virtuous and meaningful life into a neurosurgeon working in the core of human identity - the brain - and finally into a patient and a new father. Paul Kalanithi died while working on this profoundly moving book, yet his words live on as a guide to us all. When Breath Becomes Air is a life-affirming reflection on facing our mortality and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a gifted writer who became both. 'A vital book about dying. Awe-inspiring and exquisite. Obligatory reading for the living' Nigella Lawson

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