Illuminating her inner journey growing up mixed-race in Britain, Esua Jane Goldsmith’s unique memoir exposes the isolation & ambiguities that often come with being ‘an only’. Raised in 1950s South London & Norfolk with a white, working-class family, Esua’s education in racial politics was immediate & personal. From Britain & Scandinavia to Italy and Tanzania, she tackled inequality wherever she saw it, establishing an inspiring legacy in the Women’s lib & Black Power movements.

Illuminating her inner journey growing up mixed-race in Britain, Esua Jane Goldsmith’s unique memoir exposes the isolation & ambiguities that often come with being ‘an only’. Raised in 1950s South London & Norfolk with a white, working-class family, Esua’s education in racial politics was immediate & personal. From Britain & Scandinavia to Italy and Tanzania, she tackled inequality wherever she saw it, establishing an inspiring legacy in the Women’s lib & Black Power movements.

Plagued by questions of her heritage and the inability to locate all pieces of herself, she embarks on a journey … More

In his forties, Malcolm gave up his job in suburban Glasgow when a persistent seed that had been growing inside him started to bloom, disrupting the foundations of his life. When he saw the job advert, ‘urgent: island doctor needed’, he applied immediately. What he didn’t anticipate was how much Orkney would affect his family, for better or worse. In stories that range from the humorous to the deeply moving, Malcolm describes what it’s like adjusting to life without modern conveniences & to the extreme – & constantly changing – weather; & what it means to be providing the best medical care to the local population with limited resources. Which often includes the wildlife as well …

In his forties, Malcolm gave up his job in suburban Glasgow when a persistent seed that had been growing inside him started to bloom, disrupting the foundations of his life. When he saw the job advert, ‘urgent: island doctor needed’, he applied immediately. What he didn’t anticipate was how much Orkney would affect his family, for better or worse. In stories that range from the humorous to the deeply moving, Malcolm describes what it’s like adjusting to life without modern conveniences & to the extreme – & constantly changing – weather; & what it means to be providing the best medical care to the local population with limited resources. Which often includes the wildlife as well …

Malcolm’s journey evokes the awe that the Orkney landscape can inspire, as well as the challenges of island life and … More

Bass player extraordinaire Charles Mingus, who died in 1979, is one of the essential composers in the history of jazz, and Beneath the Underdog, his celebrated, wild, funny, demonic, anguished, shocking and profoundly moving memoir, is the greatest autobiography ever written by a jazz musician. It tells of his God-haunted childhood in Watts during the 1920s and 1930s; his outcast adolescent years; his apprenticeship, not only with jazzmen but also with pimps, hookers, junkies, and hoodlums; and his golden years in New York City with such legendary figures as Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie.

Bass player extraordinaire Charles Mingus, who died in 1979, is one of the essential composers in the history of jazz, and Beneath the Underdog, his celebrated, wild, funny, demonic, anguished, shocking and profoundly moving memoir, is the greatest autobiography ever written by a jazz musician. It tells of his God-haunted childhood in Watts during the 1920s and 1930s; his outcast adolescent years; his apprenticeship, not only with jazzmen but also with pimps, hookers, junkies, and hoodlums; and his golden years in New York City with such legendary figures as Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie.

Here is Mingus in his own words, from shabby roadhouses to fabulous estates, from the psychiatric wards of Bellevue … More

‘I really liked this book. I’d forgotten how shit it was in the seventies’ Paul Weller The Jam released their debut single, ‘In The City’, in May 1977. At that time, no-one was happy in Britain, particularly not in Ian Stone’s house. He was fourteen and his days consisted of going to school, watching Arsenal play terrible football and listening to his parents’ marriage disintegrating. Outside, the country was divided – by racism, violence, inner-city riots, police corruption, unemployment and terrorism. But late one evening in 1978, Ian’s eyes and ears were opened to an entirely new world..

‘I really liked this book. I’d forgotten how shit it was in the seventies’ Paul Weller The Jam released their debut single, ‘In The City’, in May 1977. At that time, no-one was happy in Britain, particularly not in Ian Stone’s house. He was fourteen and his days consisted of going to school, watching Arsenal play terrible football and listening to his parents’ marriage disintegrating. Outside, the country was divided – by racism, violence, inner-city riots, police corruption, unemployment and terrorism. But late one evening in 1978, Ian’s eyes and ears were opened to an entirely new world..

..The Jam walked onstage at London’s Music Machine to a huge roar, and launched into ninety blistering minutes of some … More

Born OTD in 1915, American jazz singer with a career spanning nearly thirty years, Eleanora Fagan AKA, Billie Holiday. Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz music & pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills

Born OTD in 1915, American jazz singer with a career spanning nearly thirty years, Eleanora Fagan AKA, Billie Holiday. Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz music & pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills

Billie Holiday, by Argentinian Carlos Sampayo and artist José Muñoz is a graphic memoir in the NBM Graphic biography series … More

The long-awaited memoir of Booker T. Jones, leader of the famed Stax Records house band, architect of the Memphis soul sound; one of the most legendary figures in music. From Booker T. Jones’ earliest years in segregated Memphis, music was the driving force in his life. While he worked paper routes & played gigs in local nightclubs to pay for lessons; support his family, Jones, on the side, was also recording sessions in what became the famous Stax Studios & all while still in high school.

The long-awaited memoir of Booker T. Jones, leader of the famed Stax Records house band, architect of the Memphis soul sound; one of the most legendary figures in music. From Booker T. Jones’ earliest years in segregated Memphis, music was the driving force in his life. While he worked paper routes & played gigs in local nightclubs to pay for lessons; support his family, Jones, on the side, was also recording sessions in what became the famous Stax Studios & all while still in high school.

Nearly five decades later, Jones’s influence continues to help define the music industry, but only now is he ready to … More

Born OTD in 1942, English director, stage designer, gardener, and author, Derek Jarman. In 1986 the controversial film-maker Derek Jarman discovered he was HIV positive, and decided to make a garden at his cottage on the bleak coast of Dungeness, where he also wrote these journals. Looking back over his childhood, his “coming out” in the 1960s and his cinema career, the book is at once a volume of autobiography, a lament for a lost generation and a celebration of homosexuality.

Born OTD in 1942, English director, stage designer, gardener, and author, Derek Jarman. In 1986 the controversial film-maker Derek Jarman discovered he was HIV positive, and decided to make a garden at his cottage on the bleak coast of Dungeness, where he also wrote these journals. Looking back over his childhood, his “coming out” in the 1960s and his cinema career, the book is at once a volume of autobiography, a lament for a lost generation and a celebration of homosexuality.

In 1986 Derek Jarman discovered he was HIV positive and decided to make a garden at his cottage on the … More

Blending memoir with critique, an award-winning poet and essayist’s devastating exploration of sickness and health, cancer and the cancer industry, in the modern world. A week after her 41st birthday, Anne Boyer was diagnosed with highly aggressive triple-negative breast cancer. For a single mother living payslip to payslip, the condition was both a crisis and an initiation into new ideas about mortality and the gendered politics of illness. In The Undying – at once her harrowing memoir of survival, and a 21st-century Illness as Metaphor – Boyer draws on sources from ancient Roman dream diarists to cancer vloggers to explore the experience of illness.

Blending memoir with critique, an award-winning poet and essayist’s devastating exploration of sickness and health, cancer and the cancer industry, in the modern world. A week after her 41st birthday, Anne Boyer was diagnosed with highly aggressive triple-negative breast cancer. For a single mother living payslip to payslip, the condition was both a crisis and an initiation into new ideas about mortality and the gendered politics of illness. In The Undying – at once her harrowing memoir of survival, and a 21st-century Illness as Metaphor – Boyer draws on sources from ancient Roman dream diarists to cancer vloggers to explore the experience of illness.

She investigates the quackeries, casualties and ecological costs of cancer under capitalism, and dives into the long line of women … More

Before I left the valley I thought everywhere was like this. Then I went away for 40 years and when I came back I realized that nowhere was like this. ‘Laurie Lee walked out of his childhood village one summer morning to travel the world, but he was always drawn back to his beloved Slad Valley, eventually returning to make it his home. In this portrait of his Cotswold home, Laurie Lee guides us through its landscapes, and shares memories of his village youth – from his favourite pub, The Woolpack, to winter skating on the pond, the church through the seasons, local legends, learning the violin and playing jazz records in the privy on a wind-up gramophone.

Before I left the valley I thought everywhere was like this. Then I went away for 40 years and when I came back I realized that nowhere was like this. ‘Laurie Lee walked out of his childhood village one summer morning to travel the world, but he was always drawn back to his beloved Slad Valley, eventually returning to make it his home. In this portrait of his Cotswold home, Laurie Lee guides us through its landscapes, and shares memories of his village youth – from his favourite pub, The Woolpack, to winter skating on the pond, the church through the seasons, local legends, learning the violin and playing jazz records in the privy on a wind-up gramophone.

A moving, never-before-published portrait of the landscape that shaped the life of Laurie Lee, the beloved author of Cider With … More

A personal and global history in objects, Gillian Tindall traces the memories and meanings that accrue to the artefacts of human lives through time. Before ordinary doctors had access to accurate pocket watches, they timed a patient’s pulse with a 30-second sandglass. A ‘pulse glass’ was a functional piece of medical equipment, designed to measure a life, never intended to survive for centuries. But Gillian Tindall inherited her great-great-grandfather’s pulse glass, which holds the heartbeats of many by-gone generations and offers a portal to nineteenth-century Anglo-Irish life, to her grandmother’s marriage and the assorted fates of the next generation.

A personal and global history in objects, Gillian Tindall traces the memories and meanings that accrue to the artefacts of human lives through time. Before ordinary doctors had access to accurate pocket watches, they timed a patient’s pulse with a 30-second sandglass. A ‘pulse glass’ was a functional piece of medical equipment, designed to measure a life, never intended to survive for centuries. But Gillian Tindall inherited her great-great-grandfather’s pulse glass, which holds the heartbeats of many by-gone generations and offers a portal to nineteenth-century Anglo-Irish life, to her grandmother’s marriage and the assorted fates of the next generation.

Most of the objects that surround us, no matter how important in their time, will eventually be lost and forgotten. … More