The Face Pressed Against a Window

Chosen as one of the Daily Mail's Memoirs of the Year Tim Waterstone is one of Britain's most successful businessmen, having built the Waterstone's empire that started with one small bookshop in 1982. In this charming and evocative memoir, he recalls the childhood experiences that led him to become an entrepreneur and outlines the business philosophy that allowed Waterstone's to dominate the bookselling business throughout the country. Tim explores his formative years in a small town in rural England at the end of the Second World War, and the troubled relationship he had with his father, before moving on to the epiphany he had while studying at Cambridge, which set him on the road to Waterstone's and gave birth to the creative strategy that made him a high street name. Candid and moving, The Face Pressed Against a Window charts the life of one of our most celebrated business leaders.

Tim Waterstone read English at Cambridge University before moving to Calcutta to work for a broking firm. On returning to England, he worked at W.H. Smith for eight years, and went on to establish the bookselling chain Waterstone's in 1982. He became the founder chairman of HMV media group in 1998, which he left in 2001. He is currently the chancellor of Edinburgh Napier University and a board member of Yale University Press, as well as being a novelist and business speaker.