The life story of an extraordinary mathematical genius - John Nash - who became schizophrenic, entered remission, and won the Nobel Prize. Nash was only 21 years old and at Princeton University when he invented game theory, the most influential theory of rational human behaviour of our time.

A biography of Samuel Johnson which concerns the last twenty years of his life. It establishes Johnson's centrality in 18th century letters. It places him in a literary and cultural context.

The making of the Oxford English Dictionary was a monumental 50 year task requiring thousands of volunteers. One of the keenest volunteers was a W C Minor who astonished everyone by refusing to come to Oxford to receive his congratulations. In the end, James Murray, the OED's editor, went to Crowthorne in Berkshire to meet him.

Galileo is seen as one of the greatest scientists ever. Little is known of his illegitimate daughter, Virginia. As a nun, she wrote 120 letters to her father from 1623 to her death from exposure and malnutrition ten years later. This text investigates the father-daughter relationship.

Stunning reissue of the phenomenal worldwide bestseller: Frank McCourt's sad, funny, bittersweet memoir of growing up in New York in the 30s and in Ireland in the 40s.

This biography of Harry Truman presents a picture of an extraordinary American President. Drawing archival material and interviews, McCullough chronicles Truman's boyhood, his entry into politics and his emergence as President. This book won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1993.

For nearly 50 years, until his death in 1988, Richard Feynman's work lay at the heart of physics. Always controversial, Feynman was the key physicist from his days as part of the A-bomb-making team in the 1940s, until his discovery of the reason for the Challenger space shuttle disaster.

The only authorised biography, and the only one written by an author who actually met J.R.R. Tolkien, with a redesigned cover to match the distinctive paperback editions of The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales.

Winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1965, Richard Feynman was one of the world's greatest theoretical physicists, but he was also a man who fell, often jumped, into adventure. This work presents the taped conversations that Feynman's had with his friend Ralph Leighton over a period of years.

In July 1942, thirteen-year-old Anne Frank and her family, fleeing the horrors of Nazi occupation, went into hiding in an Amsterdam warehouse. Over the next two years, Anne describes not only the daily frustrations of living in such close quarters, but also her thoughts, feelings and longings as she grows up.

In 1771, at the age of 65, Benjamin Franklin sat down to write his autobiography, having emerged from the poverty and obscurity in which I was born and bred to a state of affluence and some degree of reputation in the world, and having gone so far through life with a considerable share of felicity. The result is a classic of American literature.

This portrait of Benjamin Frankin's public and private life also examines American and European political history of the time. The author examines the run up to the Revolutionary War, the relations between Britain, France and the colonies and the events that led to America's independence.

Examines the true story of Chris McCandless, a young man, who in 1992 walked deep into the Alaskan wilderness and whose SOS note and emaciated corpse were found four months later. This book explores the obsession which leads some people to explore the outer limits of self, leave civilization behind and seek enlightenment through solitude.

The theatre for which Shakespeare wrote and acted was a cut-throat commercial entertainment industry. Yet his plays were also intensely alert to the social and political realities of their times.

The first full biography of Albert Einstein since all of his papers have become available -- a fully realised portrait of this extraordinary human being, and great genius.

Sex, intrigue and adultery in the world of high politics and huge wealth in late eighteenth-century England.

New edition.

From hustling, drug addiction and armed violence in America's black ghettos Malcolm X turned to the puritanical fervour of the Black Muslims. He became identified in the white press as a teacher of race hatred. This autobiography reveals his integrity and the fierce idealism which led him to reject both liberal hypocrisies and black racialism.

The new life of this legendary French queen by bestselling historian Antonia Fraser.

A new edition of one of the bestselling and best-loved books of recent years, with a new introduction by the author.