A Life Like Other People’s Alan Bennett Alan Bennett’s poignant memoir recounts the marriage of his parents, the lives and deaths of his aunts and the uncovering of a long-held secret. First published in the acclaimed collection Untold Stories, this tender, intimate family portrait beautifully captures the minutiae of the Bennetts’ domestic life: their disappointments and pleasures, tragedies and successes, and underlying it all, their suspicion that they were somehow different to and lesser than other people. MORE
A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy Thomas Buergenthal Thomas Buergenthal is unique. He is a judge at the International Court in The Hague who was rescued from the death camps of Auschwitz at the age of eleven. In his funny and heartfelt memoirs, he tells the story of his extraordinary journey – from the horrors of Nazism to an investigation of modern day genocide. MORE
A Secret Madness: The Story of a Marriage Elaine Bass In post-war London two girls are relieved to find husbands. One lands the 1950s dream of wealth and security. The other, Elaine, endures fourteen years married to a man with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. MORE
A View From The Foothills: The Diaries of Chris Mullin Chris Mullin Alan Clarke meets Yes Minister in this wry and self-deprecating diary about life in the New Labour Government from 1999 to 2007. Says Mullin, ‘It is said that failed politicians make the best diarists. In which case I am in with a chance.’ MORE
Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance Atul Gawande The struggle to perform well is universal, but nowhere is this drive to do better more important than in medicine. In his new book, Atul Gawande explores how doctors strive to close the gap between best intentions and best performance in the face of obstacles that sometimes seem insurmountable. MORE
Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science Atul Gawande This is a stunningly well-written account of the life of a surgeon: what it is like to cut into people’s bodies and the terrifying – literally life and death – decisions that have to be made. There are accounts of operations that go wrong; of doctors who go to the bad; why autopsies are necessary; what it feels like to insert your knife into someone. MORE
