Nadine's picks:
Born to Run
By Bruce Springsteen
Simon and Schuster
Born to Run has been many years in the making -- Springsteen began writing the book in 2009, and a huge amount of love and thought has been poured into this book: it’s full of deep and engaging insights into the art of making music, but Springsteen also writes very candidly about his struggles with depression, and doesn’t hold back when discussing the more difficult aspects of being the leader of the E Street band. Highly recommended.
When Breath Becomes Air
By Paul Kalanithi
Bodley Head
Paul Kalanithi was just 36 when he learned that he had a type of cancer that would kill him. In this memoir, the US surgeon explores his life and feelings about the prospect of death, detailing his tough experiences of being the patient rather than the doctor; and of figuring out how to use his final days as best as he can. A gripping and emotionally charged account.
The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo
By Amy Schumer
Harper Collins
Amy Schumer inked a deal worth more than €8 million for this book, a hybrid offering taking in aspects of memoir, journalistic style comedy, and the more amusing fragments from her teenage diaries. Schumer isn’t perfect, but this is a funny, trashy and sharp take on life as lived by a very successful woman in her 30s.
The Princess Diarist
By Carrie Fisher
Bantam Press
Carrie Fisher has a uniquely captivating voice: raw, earthy, brash, and full of humour and intelligence. She carries that tone through to her new memoir, an account of her days as a young actress preparing to take on her first role on the 1976 set of Star Wars, as young Princess Leia.
Porcelain
By Moby
Faber and Faber
With his vegan lifestyle and Bible-studying background, Moby might not immediately seem like the ideal musician to deliver a no-holds-barred, rock’n’roll memoir, but actually he’s a great literary companion: honest, erudite and superb at delivering atmospheric description that conjures up both his own background and the life of the city he most loves: New York.
Trump and Me
By Mark Singer
Allen Lane
There are weightier books on Donald Trump, but if you’re looking for a brief, snarky and fun primer on the US president-elect, look no further than Mark Singer’s Trump and Me, in which he delivers a witty and scathing assessment of Trump’s character. As one commentator told Singer, “Deep down, he wants to be Madonna.”
Set the Boy Free
By Johnny Marr
Random House
Iconic guitarist Johnny Marr is kinder to Morrissey than some people might say he should be in his new memoir tracking back through the golden years of the Smiths in the 1980s. But while those looking for spite will be left disappointed, Marr offers something valuable in its stead -- an affectionate portrait of life lived as a creative artist.
Pour Me
A Life
By AA Gill
Although this memoir came out in November 2015, it received its paperback publication in 2016 and many people will be interested to buy it, after the journalist's sad passing recently. It tells of Gill's battle with alcoholism as a younger man and the hurdles he faced in his writing career.
Paschal's picks:
The Silk Roads: A New History of The World
Peter Frankopan
Published August 2015 by Bloomsbury
The traditional view is that Western civilization descends from the Romans, who were in turn heir to the Greeks, who, in some accounts, were heirs to the Egyptians. Frankopan argues that the Persian empire was the center point of the rise of humanity.
Hillbilly Elegy
JD Vance
Published June 2016 by Harper Collins
A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis is a memoir by J. D. Vance about the Appalachian values of his upbringing and their relation to the social problems of his hometown
Enough Said: What's Gone Wrong with the Language of Politics?
Mark Thompson
Published September 1st 2016 by Penguin
Enough Said reveals how political, social and technological change has transformed our political landscape – and how we talk about the issues that affect us all. Political rhetoric has become stale and the mistrust of politicians has made voters flock to populists who promise authenticity, honesty and truth instead of spin, evasiveness and lies.
Politics: Between The Extremes
Nick Clegg
Published 15th September 2016 by Penguin
As Deputy Prime Minister of Britain’s first coalition government in over fifty years, Nick Clegg witnessed this change from the inside. Here he offers a frank account of his experiences – from his spectacular rise in the 2010 election to a brutal defeat in 2015, from his early years as an MEP in Brussels to the tumultuous fall-out of Britain’s EU referendum – and puts the case for a new politics based on reason and compromise.
Alter Egos
Mark Landler
Published April 2016 by Penguin Random House
The deeply reported story of two supremely ambitious figures, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton—archrivals who became partners for a time, trailblazers who share a common sense of their historic destiny but hold very different beliefs about how to project American power
In Alter Egos, veteran New York Times White House correspondent Mark Landler takes us inside the fraught and fascinating relationship between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton—a relationship that has framed the nation’s great debates over war and peace for the past eight years.
The Rise and Fall of American Growth: : The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil War
Robert J. Gordon
Published January 2016 by Princeton University Press
In the century after the Civil War, an economic revolution improved the American standard of living in ways previously unimaginable. Electric lighting, indoor plumbing, motor vehicles, air travel, and television transformed households and workplaces. But has that era of unprecedented growth come to an end? Weaving together a vivid narrative, historical anecdotes, and economic analysis, The Rise and Fall of American Growthchallenges the view that economic growth will continue unabated, and demonstrates that the life-altering scale of innovations between 1870 and 1970 cannot be repeated.
