Autobiography: writers Books

Book Synopsis''I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart''s affections, and the truth of imagination'' - Keats, in a letter to his friend Benjamin Bailey in November 1817.In a period of great letter-writing, Keats''s letters are outstanding. They begin in summer 1816, as he approached his twenty-first birthday, and were written over the next four years until his early death. Viewed together, they give the fullest and most poignant record we have of Keats''s ambitions and hopes as a poet, his life as a literary man about town, his close relationship with his brothers and young sister, and, later, his passionate, jealous and frustrated love for Fanny Brawne.Keats enclosed many of his poems with his letters, and read together, they offer an incomparable insight into his creative process and development as a poet. This major new edition edited by Professor John Barnard includes an introduction and notes, as well as a map of Keats''s Scottish walking tour and reproductions of his letters.John Keats was born in October 1795. His Poems appeared in 1817, while Endymion was published in 1818, both to mixed reviews. In 1819 he wrote The Eve of St Agnes, La Belle Dame sans Merci, the major odes, Lamia and the Fall of Hyperion. Keats was already unwell when preparing his 1820 volume for the press; by the time it appeared in July he was desperately ill. He died in Rome in 1821, in a rented apartment next to the Spanish Steps, at the age of twenty-five.John Barnard is Emeritus Professor of English Literature at the University of Leeds and has edited The Complete Poems of Keats for Penguin Classics.

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewBy the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewSen is so engaging, so full of charm and has such a clear gift for the graceful sentence. It's a wonderful book, the portrait of a citizen of the world ... full of its author's beguiling personality, elegance and wit of presentation, and joyous in its celebration of the life of the mind. -- Philip Hensher * Spectator *Sen's sensibility still seems Tagorean. There is the same affinity for freedom and imagination, a similar commitment to the vulnerable and the downtrodden, but most of all a shared sense that we don't yet know all there is to know about the world. -- Abhrajyoti Chakraborty * Guardian *The clarity of Sen's thought and the lucidity of his prose are delightful and entertaining but the lightness of his touch can often be deceptive because it sometimes conceals the depth and range of Sen's erudition, the intensity and the passion of his commitment to certain values and ideas and his relentless quest to bring together the home and the world. -- Rudrangshu Mukherjee * The Wire India *a charming, immensely readable, and very enjoyable voyage through the making of a great mind ... we are just led with rare good humour and gentle wit through the formative years of his life ... This is a very accessible book, "fun" to use one of Sen's favourite words, written in beautifully constructed short sentences that explain the most profound observations with commendable brevity ... It is Sen's capacity to maintain a simple style while telling amusing stories or explaining complex issues (as he does occasionally) that is both unique and captivating ... This memoir is an unforgettable story of the evolution of a thinking and enquiring and all too human a mind, as also a tribute to one who has harnessed his abundant academic talent to the needs of the humblest and poorest -- Mani Shankar Aiyar * Open the Magazine *Amartya Sen's Home in the World is really three books in one. A sensitively written memoir of the first thirty years of his life, it is interspersed with sharp commentaries on history and politics as well as intellectual disquisitions on economic theory and philosophy. -- Sugata Bose * Harvard Magazine *hypnotic ... Amartya Sen's exemplary life is a lesson in engagement with the world in which he is so at home; he is a real advertisement for someone who is happy being "a citizen of nowhere", or everywhere. -- Ferdinand Mount * Prospect *it strikes me that Sen is more than an economist, a moral philosopher or even an academic. He is a life-long campaigner, through scholarship and activism, via friendships and the occasional enemy, for a more noble idea of home - and therefore of the world. -- Edward Luce * Financial Times *This charming and absorbing book ... has the flavour of a relaxed conversation with a gifted raconteur ... Sen's memoir traces the experiences, encounters, and relationships that determined his conceptual concerns and intellectual evolution. It is also a deeply humane appreciation of what life can offer, filled with respect and empathy for other humans. -- Jayati Ghosh * The Lancet *captivating ... This is not, though, just a book of ideas. Home in the World can't help but be the work of an intellectual. But, as its title implies, it is the work of an intellectual who acknowledges that ideas grow out of - are imbricated with - phenomena external to the self. -- Christopher Bray * Tablet *[full of] raconteurial energy ... Sen writes with an elegance and wit ... His accounts of his own work are characteristically succinct and fluent ... His evocation of post-war Cambridge and the towering figures of 20th-century economics are affectionate but just. Even more vivid is the picture of his undergraduate days in Calcutta, with its student revolutionaries and generous booksellers. ... It is striking just how much of Sen's own large-hearted liberalism turn out to have been prefigured in the freedoms of his unusual childhood. -- Nikhil Krishnan * Daily Telegraph *Home in the World is the chronicle of an early life well lived and well considered. -- David Gilmour * Literary Review *Amartya Sen's memoir Home in the World beautifully conveys the immense, curious charm of his unapologetic high intelligence. -- Philip Hensher * Spectator Books of the Year *graceful and hopeful ... Home in the World focuses on Sen's formative years, revealing the roots of his academic interests in his early experiences ... Sen is such a charming and engaging narrator -- Barbara Spindel * Christian Science Monitor *A charming, lively account of Sen's remarkable adolescence -- Zareer Masani * History Today *Sen's gentle memoir shed[s] light on the distant nooks of a long life of distinction. ... There is something of Tagore in the judicious Mr. Sen. He is an un?inching man of science but also insistently humane. -- Tunku Varadarajan * Wall Street Journal *warmhearted, clear-eyed account of the formative years of his life, a book that reaches from Myanmar to Berkeley ... a testament to just how far, in one life, one man might go into that vast world ... Sen's writing style is even-keeled and gently humorous. -- Mythili G. Rao * Washington Post *PRAISE FOR AMARTYA SEN * - *With his masterly prose, ease of erudition and ironic humour, Sen is one of the few great world intellectuals on whom we may rely to make sense out of our existential confusion -- Nadine GordimerAmartya Sen is one of the most distinguished minds of our time [who] enjoyably mixes moments of profundity with flashes of mischievous provocation -- William Dalrymple * New York Review of Books *The world's poor and dispossessed could have no more articulate or insightful a champion -- Kofi AnnanAn accessible and exceptional humanitarian -- Jon Snow * New Statesman *Sen is one of the great minds of both the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We owe him a huge debt -- Nicholas SternA distinguished inheritor of the tradition of public philosophy and reasoning - Roy, Tagore, Gandhi, Nehru ... if ever there was a global intellectual, it is Sen -- Sunil Khilnani * Financial Times *

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Book SynopsisThese letters chart the friendship between Boswell and the man he called his most intimate friend, William Johnson Temple.

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE CALIFORNIA BOOK AWARDA LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER. NAMED A BEST CALIFORNIA BOOKS OF 2021 BY THE NEW YORK TIMESA provocative, exhilaratingly new understanding of the United States' most confounding metropolisnot just a great city, but a full-blown modern city-stateAmerica is obsessed with Los Angeles. And America has been thinking about Los Angeles all wrong, for decades, on repeat. Los Angeles is not just the place where the American dream hits the Pacific. (It has its own dreams.) Not just the vanishing point of America's western drive. (It has its own compass.) Functionally, aesthetically, mythologically, even technologically, an independent territory, defined less by distinct borders than by an aura of autonomy and a sense of unfurling destinythis is the city-state of Los Angeles.Deeply reported and researched, provocatively argued, and eloquently written, Rosecrans Baldwin''s Everything Now app

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Book SynopsisShortlisted for the Victorian Premier''s Literary Award for Non-FictionShortlisted for the Stella Prize 2017''Against anything I had ever been told was possible, I was turning white. On the surface of my skin, a miracle was quietly brewing . . .''Suburban Australia. Sweltering heat. Three bedroom blonde-brick. Family of five. Beat-up Ford Falcon. Vegemite on toast. Maxine Beneba Clarke''s life is just like all the other Aussie kids on her street.Except for this one, glaring, inescapably obvious thing.From one of Australia''s most exciting writers, and the author of the multi-award-winning FOREIGN SOIL, comes THE HATE RACE: a powerful, funny, and at times devastating memoir about growing up black in white middle-class Australia.

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Book Synopsis''I Will Be Complete is the best memoir I''ve read in years. It''s likely the best memoir published in years.'' Darin Strauss, author of Half a Life and Chang and EngFrom the bestselling author of Carter Beats the Devil and Sunnyside, a shocking, big-hearted memoir about his bizarre upbringing in California in the 1970s and how he survived it. Glen David Gold grew up rich on the beaches of 1970s California, until his father lost a fortune and his parents divorced when he was ten.Glen and his English mother moved to San Francisco, where she was fleeced by a series of charming con men and turned increasingly wayward. When he was twelve, she took off for New York without telling him, leaving him to fend for himself. On midnight streets and at drug-fuelled parties, wise-cracking his way through an alarming adult world, Glen watched his mother''s countless, wild attempts to reinvent herself. In this exceptioTrade ReviewRemarkable . . . The product of nine years of work and a lifetime of reflection, the book is full of humour, unflinching reflection and flashes of horror. And it exudes tremendous empathy for his mother . . . Gold's book is funnier and more hopeful than any story about a child's abandonment and a parent's descent into terrifying chaos has a right to be. * The Times *Gold's heartbreaking, brave book deals with his tangled, troubled and troubling relationship with his tempestuous mother and, with insightful introspection, he reveals how it has affected all his other relationships. It's a shocking read, describing a shattered childhood, a complicated adolescence and an adulthood that finds him happy and whole. * Book of the Month, Psychologies *Gold's sentences reflect the surface of the 1970s perfectly . . . Gold's novelistic handling of these moments is brilliant . . . It's a dazzlingly insightful account how the smart children of emotionally 'shattered' adults attempt to hold themselves and their parents together as they grow . . . Gold says he is finally happy. He's achieved this state by letting go of his need to explain and save his mother. He broke the bonds of her 'terrible love'. And like his muse, Houdini, Gold has made a moving public spectacle of his escape. -- Helen R. Brown * Spectator *An extraordinary memoir . . . It's a tale of a boy's moral and sentimental education, with all the febrile moods and heart-stopping lurches of a Donna Tartt epic . . . There's something painfully sweet about this memoir, particularly the way Gold wills himself to extract something of value from the pain inflicted by irresponsible adults . . . smart, generous, and gripping until the very last pages. It's one of the best books I've read in 2018. -- Joanna Thomas-Corr * New Statesman *Remarkable . . . It's a tale of disintegrating relationships, bad choices, guilt, panic, hurt and weighty sadness so well told, with such lucidity and honesty, it's almost frightening to read . . . Gold wears his wisdom and novelist's powers of observation lightly, remaining beguilingly modest and likeable to the end. -- Jane Graham * Big Issue *Equally subtle and shocking, as clear-eyed about how the sins of the parent are visited on the child as it is generous and loving . . . It touches lightly on the set pieces, bizarre incidents and bravura descriptions that readers of Gold's bestselling novels, Carter Beats the Devil and Sunnyside, will treasure . . . it never feels over-worked or weighed down with detail . . . You cannot read it and remain unchanged. -- Maria Farrell * Irish Times *Imagine Home Alone with a kid who is part Salvador Dali, part Holden Caulfield . . . an extraordinary book about growing up in California . . . Gold's childhood is much more than merely interesting; it is riveting . . . [his] knack for devastating insights are a marvel to read . . . an audacious, boundary-shattering work that will be talked about for a very long time. * Los Angeles Times *Ambitious and brave * New York Times *One helluva ride . . . in his capable hands even the smallest events seem revelatory. Each dimwitted move his mother makes reads as more bonkers (and undeniably sad) than the last. Each time Gold throws himself into love, it's like Orpheus trying to win back Eurydice. When combined with his deadpan delivery and wry sense of humor, each obstacle to overcome or hoop to jump through takes on a life of its own . . . wickedly intelligent, wildly imaginative (well, in some ways) and everything in between. * San Francisco Chronicle *A banquet of vivacity, shrewdness and wit, a soiree of heart-wreck wised up by humour. . . One of the myriad delights of this memoir is its revealing vista onto the ethos of San Francisco in the 70s and Los Angeles in the '80s, deleted worlds in which outrageous characters stagger and strive. . . Gold is a dynamic writer outfitted in wisdom and verve, one whose sentences you'll want to remember. -- William Giraldi * Washington Post *Dazzling . . . Beautiful and deft, witty and searing, like a playful song with a persistent bass line of unresolved grief. I can't stop thinking about it. * Janet Fitch, author of The Revolution of Marina M. and White Oleander *We expect the story of a boy and his mother ought to go a certain way. I Will Be Complete goes in ways you'd never expect. The people shatter, reassemble themselves, and shatter all over again. The prose is crystalline, hard as real diamonds, flashing, revealing. The story is simple, just a boy and his mother's long disintegration, but the journey is darkly complicated, heartbreaking, beautiful as hell * Mark Childress, author of CRAZY IN ALABAMA *Glen David Gold is one of the best storytellers working today. He could write about anything and make it gripping. As it turns out, he also has one hell of a story to tell. * Joseph Fink, author of WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE *An extraordinary account of an extraordinary life. Gold captures with stunning clarity the emotional chaos he grew up in, and that made him the brilliant writer he is now. * Lev Grossman, author of THE MAGICIANS *I Will Be Complete is the best memoir I've read in years. It's likely the best memoir published in years. Gold's a novelist and this book reads like the best fiction. It's exciting, beautiful, and clear-eyed in a way most memoirs aren't. Oh, and you'll never forget this charming, intelligent, unique narrator. * Darin Strauss, author of HALF A LIFE and CHANG AND ENG *A fine, funny, discomfiting book. And very candid. -- Teddy Jamieson * Sunday Herald *

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Book Synopsis''I Will Be Complete is the best memoir I''ve read in years. It''s likely the best memoir published in years.'' Darin Strauss, author of Half a Life and Chang and EngFrom the bestselling author of Carter Beats the Devil and Sunnyside, a shocking, big-hearted memoir about his bizarre upbringing in California in the 1970s and how he survived it. Glen David Gold grew up rich on the beaches of 1970s California, until his father lost a fortune and his parents divorced when he was ten.Glen and his English mother moved to San Francisco, where she was fleeced by a series of charming con men and turned increasingly wayward. When he was twelve, she took off for New York without telling him, leaving him to fend for himself. On midnight streets and at drug-fuelled parties, wise-cracking his way through an alarming adult world, Glen watched his mother''s countless, wild attempts to reinvent herself. In this exceptioTrade ReviewDazzling . . . Beautiful and deft, witty and searing, like a playful song with a persistent bass line of unresolved grief. I can't stop thinking about it. * Janet Fitch, author of The Revolution of Marina M. and White Oleander *I Will Be Complete is the best memoir I've read in years. It's likely the best memoir published in years. Gold's a novelist and this book reads like the best fiction. It's exciting, beautiful, and clear-eyed in a way most memoirs aren't. Oh, and you'll never forget this charming, intelligent, unique narrator. * Darin Strauss, author of HALF A LIFE and CHANG AND ENG *We expect the story of a boy and his mother ought to go a certain way. I Will Be Complete goes in ways you'd never expect. The people shatter, reassemble themselves, and shatter all over again. The prose is crystalline, hard as real diamonds, flashing, revealing. The story is simple, just a boy and his mother's long disintegration, but the journey is darkly complicated, heartbreaking, beautiful as hell * Mark Childress, author of CRAZY IN ALABAMA *Glen David Gold is one of the best storytellers working today. He could write about anything and make it gripping. As it turns out, he also has one hell of a story to tell. * Joseph Fink, author of WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE *An extraordinary account of an extraordinary life. Gold captures with stunning clarity the emotional chaos he grew up in, and that made him the brilliant writer he is now. * Lev Grossman, author of THE MAGICIANS *Gold's heartbreaking, brave book deals with his tangled, troubled and troubling relationship with his tempestuous mother and, with insightful introspection, he reveals how it has affected all his other relationships. It's a shocking read, describing a shattered childhood, a complicated adolescence and an adulthood that finds him happy and whole. * Book of the Month, Psychologies *Remarkable . . . The product of nine years of work and a lifetime of reflection, the book is full of humour, unflinching reflection and flashes of horror. And it exudes tremendous empathy for his mother . . . Gold's book is funnier and more hopeful than any story about a child's abandonment and a parent's descent into terrifying chaos has a right to be. * The Times *One helluva ride . . . in his capable hands even the smallest events seem revelatory. Each dimwitted move his mother makes reads as more bonkers (and undeniably sad) than the last. Each time Gold throws himself into love, it's like Orpheus trying to win back Eurydice. When combined with his deadpan delivery and wry sense of humor, each obstacle to overcome or hoop to jump through takes on a life of its own . . . wickedly intelligent, wildly imaginative (well, in some ways) and everything in between. * San Francisco Chronicle *Imagine Home Alone with a kid who is part Salvador Dali, part Holden Caulfield . . . an extraordinary book about growing up in California . . . Gold's childhood is much more than merely interesting; it is riveting . . . [his] knack for devastating insights are a marvel to read . . . an audacious, boundary-shattering work that will be talked about for a very long time. * Los Angeles Times *A banquet of vivacity, shrewdness and wit, a soiree of heart-wreck wised up by humour. . . One of the myriad delights of this memoir is its revealing vista onto the ethos of San Francisco in the 70s and Los Angeles in the '80s, deleted worlds in which outrageous characters stagger and strive. . . Gold is a dynamic writer outfitted in wisdom and verve, one whose sentences you'll want to remember. -- William Giraldi * Washington Post *Gold's sentences reflect the surface of the 1970s perfectly . . . Gold's novelistic handling of these moments is brilliant . . . It's a dazzlingly insightful account how the smart children of emotionally 'shattered' adults attempt to hold themselves and their parents together as they grow . . . Gold says he is finally happy. He's achieved this state by letting go of his need to explain and save his mother. He broke the bonds of her 'terrible love'. And like his muse, Houdini, Gold has made a moving public spectacle of his escape. -- Helen R. Brown * Spectator *Remarkable . . . It's a tale of disintegrating relationships, bad choices, guilt, panic, hurt and weighty sadness so well told, with such lucidity and honesty, it's almost frightening to read . . . Gold wears his wisdom and novelist's powers of observation lightly, remaining beguilingly modest and likeable to the end. -- Jane Graham * Big Issue *Equally subtle and shocking, as clear-eyed about how the sins of the parent are visited on the child as it is generous and loving . . . It touches lightly on the set pieces, bizarre incidents and bravura descriptions that readers of Gold's bestselling novels, Carter Beats the Devil and Sunnyside, will treasure . . . it never feels over-worked or weighed down with detail . . . You cannot read it and remain unchanged. -- Maria Farrell * Irish Times *An extraordinary memoir . . . It's a tale of a boy's moral and sentimental education, with all the febrile moods and heart-stopping lurches of a Donna Tartt epic . . . There's something painfully sweet about this memoir, particularly the way Gold wills himself to extract something of value from the pain inflicted by irresponsible adults . . . smart, generous, and gripping until the very last pages. It's one of the best books I've read in 2018. -- Joanna Thomas-Corr * New Statesman *A fine, funny, discomfiting book. And very candid. -- Teddy Jamieson * Sunday Herald *Ambitious and brave * New York Times *

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Book SynopsisThe incredible autobiography from Claire Lorrimer, bestselling romance novelist and daughter of ''Queen of Romance'' Denise Robins.You Never Know is former WAAF officer and bestselling novelist Claire Lorrimer''s autobiography, containing a graphic description of the six years she spent doing vitally secret work as a WAAF in the Fighter Command Filter Rooms in World War Two. It is the fascinating story of a life overflowing with adventure, humour, tragedy, love, joy and disasters. Claire paints vivid images of her childhood when her mother, the famous author Denise Robins, entertained pre-and post-war literati at her weekend country house parties. Armed with an old typewriter, a vivid imagination and a passion for life, Claire started writing books during the war. She has had a remarkable career and You Never Know is the intriguing story of a long and extraordinary life.Trade ReviewA compelling portrait of a woman who knows how to love and live. A natural storyteller tells her won story effortlessly, hypnotically and joyfully. Another winner in a long string of successes * Bookseller *I found this nostalgic autobiography riveting, reminiscent of Gosford Park. Excellent stuff - I loved it -- Diane Pearson, President, Romantic Novelists' Association

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Book Synopsis''The most detailed, amusing and accurate account ever of the post-war world of the English Establishment'' William Shawcross, Daily Telegraph''Extremely entertaining'' Jane Ridley, Literary ReviewKenneth Rose was one of the most astute observers of the establishment for over seventy years. The wry and amusing journals of the royal biographer and historian made objective observation a sculpted craft. His impeccable social placement located him within the beating heart of the national elite for decades. He was capable of writing substantial history, such as his priceless material on the abdication crisis from conversations with both the Duke of Windsor and the Queen Mother. Yet he maintained sufficient distance to achieve impartial documentation while working among political, clerical, military, literary and aristocratic circles. Relentless observation and a self-confessed difficulty ''to let a good story pass me by'' made Rose a legendTrade ReviewIntimate with the highest levels of society, politics, the arts and the Royal Family, Kenneth Rose has left us one of the most vivid, full and revealing records of the post-war era -- Andrew RobertsA huge treat ... [T]he first volume of Rose's journals, covering 1944-79, will also delight anyone who enjoys the great English diarists - Samuel Pepys, Chips Channon, Harold Nicolson, James Lees-Milne, Alan Clark. Who's In, Who's Out offers a feast of the choicest gossip from highest society -- Lewis Jones * Sunday Telegraph *A fascinating insight into postwar society at the highest level and an intimate view of many of the key players ... Dip into the book at random and you often pull out a plum -- Patrick Kidd * The Times *[A]n astonishing and enjoyable collection of anecdotes, observations and judgements ... D.R. Thorpe, himself a gifted biographer and a friend of Rose for 40 years, has edited the raw materials tactfully and with a light touch ... Thorpe, like Rose, has a well-tuned ear for anecdote; and one can open this volume almost at random and be sure to find a jolly story ... [A]nyone who wants to understand the British establishment in the decades after the war should treat these diaries as their primer. The reader moves effortlessly through embassies and drawing rooms, not to mention palaces ... It is a spectator's diary, albeit written from the best possible seats in the ground -- Simon Heffer * Daily Telegraph *An insider's account, this gossipy and acute diary will become the indispensable guide to the Establishment in the years between 1944 and 1979 -- Jane Ridley * The Spectator Books of the Year *The diaries, chronicling the events of previous generations, give a unique glimpse of the personalities and preoccupations of the statesmen of that time. Harold Macmillan, Rab Butler, amongst other figures, are shown in a different and more informal way than their biographers have done and the differences in their approach to politics and each other are amusingly revealed -- Lord Carrington, Foreign Secretary 1979–82The most detailed, amusing and accurate account ever of the post-war world of the English Establishment -- William Shawcross * Daily Telegraph *[S]o full of riveting detail that you can't help wondering how much of the juiciest gossip was left out of the Albany column and saved for the journals -- Andrew M. Brown * Catholic Herald *[G]reat fun to read ... Rose has a good eye for colourful detail ... [The diaries] illuminate history and give it life. If one cannot be there oneself then Rose provides as good an apparatus for eaves-dropping as can well be conceived. He deserves our gratitude -- Philip Ziegler * The Spectator *As a history of the Establishment in the second half of the 20th century, these journals will become indispensable and definitive. They are the equivalent for that period of the journals of Harold Nicolson and Chips Channon for the first half, combining sharp observation and anecdote with political and social insights. They are also extremely entertaining. Rose was right to think that they were his most important and lasting contribution. D. R. Thorpe has done a great job of editing them. He has a light touch. In spite of being an authority on the period, having written great biographies of Macmillan and Alec Douglas-Home, he makes no attempt to fill the page with footnotes, but allows Rose to speak directly to the reader -- Jane Ridley * Literary Review *Rose was an impeccably connected biographer and gentleman journalist ('Albany' in the Sunday Telegraph for many years) and the joys of his diaries are choice anecdotes, pithily recounted, and plenty of culinary detail -- Gyles Brandreth * The Oldie *These journals kept by the royal biographer and journalist Kenneth Rose - who liked nothing so much as to dine in a London club with someone in the know about the world of high politics or royalty - make highly amusing and enlightening reading. Rose jotted down the juiciest gossip and the best anecdotes ... The journal entries are never more than a short paragraph long: ideal bedtime reading for anyone who relishes the unguarded utterances of the rich and well-connected -- Ysenda Maxtone Graham * Daily Mail *What is so good - and is so well brought out in D.R.Thorpe's edition - is that [Kenneth Rose] was master of his material. This was the British establishment ... his diaries compose accurate, fair-minded history ... As Kenneth's editor in the later years of his Albany column, I was irritated by his fault (quite the opposite of most of us journalists) of putting into his articles less than he knew. This is corrected in his Journals. He knew a lot and he put it in; and now we can read it. -- Charles Moore * THE SPECTATOR *

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Book SynopsisThe wry and amusing second volume of the journals of royal biographer and Sunday Telegraph journalist Kenneth Rose, one of the most astute observers of the Establishment in 20th-century Britain.Trade ReviewIntimate with the highest levels of society, politics, the arts and the Royal Family, Kenneth Rose has left us one of the most vivid, full and revealing records of the postwar era * Andrew Roberts *[Kenneth Rose] has written a historian's journal ... Nevertheless, Rose does cast a critical and acute eye over Vanity Fair ... this is how Kenneth wished to be remembered by the world: as a suave, amusing columnist and gifted historian who walked with the great -- James Stourton * LITERARY REVIEW *Kenneth Rose provides a fascinating window on the establishment in the second volume of his gossipy, scandalous and insightful diaries, * CHOICE magazine *Addictive stuff. Each entry is only a few lines long; it's like reading an extremely good newspaper diary for page after page. If you're a newspaper addict like me - and a gossip addict, too, again like me - you'll love it. You feel as if you're tucking into an enormous box of chocolates, happily dropping down into infinite layers of new chocs below, without ever feeling sick. * CATHOLIC HERALD *

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Book Synopsis‘A most magnificent, beautifully written memoir’ - Nina Stibbe'Deft, witty and profound . . . had me turning the pages all night' - Jessie BurtonJean Hannah Edelstein was looking for love on OKCupid the night she lost her father. She had recently moved back to America to be closer to her parents, leaving behind the good friends, bad dates and questionable career moves that defined her twenties. But six weeks after she arrived in New York, her father died of cancer – and six months after that she learnt she had inherited the gene that determined his fate.Heartbreaking, hopeful and disarmingly funny, This Really Isn’t About You is a book about finding your way in life, even when life has other plans.Trade ReviewDeft, witty and profound . . . Jean Hannah Edelstein's writing glows with a peerless clarity that had me turning the pages all night. A stunning book. -- Jessie BurtonOne of the most brilliant writers of her generation, as witty, wry and unsentimental as Nora Ephron . . . a magnificent book, about families, mortality, love and the hard, necessary work of becoming an adult. -- Olivia LaingNever sentimental, this memoir is by turns extremely funny and extremely sad; Edelstein is a wonderful writer, and this is a stunning book. * Stylist *A most magnificent, beautifully written memoir. Unsentimental but heartbreaking, the voice – true and clear. Brilliant. -- Nina StibbeA very funny and charming and bittersweet book. -- Jami Attenberg, author of All Grown UpOne of Red’s favourite essayists, Jean Hannah Edelstein’s memoir is a work of deceptive simplicity and heart-crushing truths . . . by the end, you’ll never want to let her go. -- Sarra Manning * Red *Jean Hannah Edelstein is an exceptional writer, simultaneously wry and heartbreaking. -- Nikesh ShuklaIt hits you with the truth, it reads as enthrallingly as fiction can, and it leaves you changed * Elle *This Really Isn't About You is wry and poignant and true, and I loved it. -- Julie CohenThe book to read if you’re a Nora Ephron fangirl . . . Jean Hannah tells her story of returning to the U.S after years living abroad, upon hearing the news of her Father’s terminal illness diagnosis. Sometimes sad, sometimes funny; always thought-provoking * The Anna Edit *Insightful and charming, this is a breathtaking exploration of grief and becoming -- Laura Jane Williams, author of ICE CREAM FOR BREAKFASTIt’s a wonderful, warm and funny dissection of grief and life that left me feeling like Jean was a friend I never made, and wishing I had. -- David Whitehouse, The Long ForgottenThis Really Isn’t About You really isn’t about me, but it resonated in all sorts of ways: as a woman, as a writer, as a daughter. It is funny and serious, moving yet entirely unsentimental, and bracingly truthful. Jean Hannah Edelstein considers life in all its complexity with great clarity, grace and wit. -- Lisa Owens, author of Not WorkingA bold and unusual meditation on loss, instability, freedom and home. Engrossing, funny and brave. -- Kate Murray-Browne, author of The Upstairs RoomA powerful debut about a woman who is diagnosed with a genetic cancer syndrome shortly after her father’s death from cancer. Read if you’re into: memoirs, powerful tales written by Jewish women, and heartbreakingly funny writing. * Alma magazine *Jean Hannah Edelstein has written an elegant, beautiful book about a time in her life that was messy and ugly. It's strange to say such a sad story was "a joy", but her gift as a writer is that it was. -- Emma Forrest, author of Your Voice in My HeadShe writes about the biggest and most recognisably tiny aspects of humanity with such detail – and she’s darkly hilarious. -- Daisy Buchanan * Sheer Luxe *[A]n emotional, rich memoir, and ultimately a story of strength, acceptance, and hope * Publishers Weekly *

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Book Synopsis‘As the author reaches her 9th decade [this makes] for a fascinating insight into her life and world, albeit with discretion and leaving tantalising hints at what lies beyond. One for the fans (and friends).’ Crime Time'Leon's elegant, witty prose . . . is a joy. One of the best European novelists around' Amanda CraigIn a series of vignettes full of affection, irony, and good humor, Donna Leon narrates a remarkable life she feels has rather more happened to her than been planned.From a childhood in the company of her New Jersey family, with frequent visits to her grandfather's farm and its beloved animals and summers spent selling homegrown tomatoes by the roadside, Leon has long been open to adventure. In 1976, she made the spontaneous decision to teach English in Iran, before finding herself swept up in the early days of the 1979 Revolution. After teaching stints in China and Saudi Arabia, she finally landed in Venice. Leon vividly animates her decades-long love affair with Italy, from her first magical dinner when serving as a "chaperone" to a friend, to the hunt for the perfect cappuccino, to the warfare tactics of grandmothers doing their grocery shopping at the Rialto Market. Some things remain constant throughout the decades: her adoration of opera, especially Handel's vocal music, her advocacy for the environment, embodied in her passion for bees - which informs the surprising crux of the Brunetti mystery in Earthly Remains - and her eager imagination for crime as she watches unsuspecting travelers on trains. Yet as Leon inspects the cracks in the wall of a friend's bedroom, caused by the seven-story cruise ships making their way down Venice's canals, she admits regretfully that the thrill may be gone as mass tourism renders the city less and less appealing to its longtime chronicler.Having recently celebrated her eightieth birthday, Leon now confronts the dual challenges and pleasures of aging. Complete with a brief letter dissuading those hoping to meet Guido Brunetti at the Questura, and always suffused with music, food, and her fierce sense of humor, Wandering Through Life offers Donna Leon at her most personal.'Few detective writers create so vivid, inclusive and convincing a narrative as Donna Leon, the expatriate American with the Venetian heart' Washington PostTrade ReviewA delightful companion in life and on the page -- Mark Sanderson * The times *As the author reaches her 9th decade [this makes] for a fascinating insight into her life and world, albeit with discretion and leaving tantalising hints at what lies beyond. One for the fans (and friends). -- Maxim Jakubowski * Crime Time *Warm, witty and engaging * The Wall Street Journal *

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Book SynopsisMemoirs of Montparnasse is a delicious book about being young, restless, reckless, and without cares. It is also the best and liveliest of the many chronicles of 1920s Paris and the exploits of the lost generation. In 1928, nineteen-year-old John Glassco escaped Montreal and his overbearing father for the wilder shores of Montparnasse. He remained there until his money ran out and his health collapsed, and he enjoyed every minute of his stay. Remarkable for their candor and humor, Glassco’s memoirs have the daft logic of a wild but utterly absorbing adventure, a tale of desire set free that is only faintly shadowed by sadness at the inevitable passage of time.

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisFor readers of Rachel Cusk, Lisa Taddeo and the essays of Zadie Smith, Bear Woman is a beautifully wrought memoir from one of Sweden's bestselling authors, in which she examines motherhood and the female experience.'The deeply personal journey of a writer, surprising and illuminating, and for me, familiar in the most reassuring way as she loses herself in this compelling story' - Esther Freud, author of Hideous KinkyMarguerite de la Rocque didn't exist before her guardian abandoned her on a remote island.Abandoned, pregnant to a man she'd met on board one of the first ships sailing to settle what became Canada, Marguerite was forced to fight for her life against the treacherous wilderness of Nova Scotia, giving birth alone. When her guardian returned nearly two years later, her lover and her baby had died, but Marguerite had survived. Returning to France, her story was concealed so that her family's reputation might be protected.Centuries later, a woman with small children of her own begins writing what she believes to be a television script about the life of Marguerite de la Rocque and her incredible story of survival against the odds. As she delves deeper into the hidden history of Marguerite and her extraordinary story of persecution and survival, the woman begins to question her ability to tell this story, or that of any woman in history, and in so doing exposes a fundamental truth about what it is to be both a writer and mother.Combining historical text, autobiographical fiction and essay with the uncertainty of memory, Bear Woman is a deeply moving journey into what it means to be a woman, in a world in which men still hold power.Trade Review'The deeply personal journey of a writer, surprising and illuminating, and for me, familiar in the most reassuring way as she loses herself in this compelling story' * Esther Freud, author of Hideous Kinky *Ramqvist, in Vogel's translation, is a master of finely observed detail and this book - with a slow-burn obsession at its heart - captivated me. Rarely have I found a book so gentle but enthralling in its telling, so able to distill the subtle turbulence of womanhood, motherhood, and the writer's life. * J E S S I C A J. L E E, author of Two Trees Make a Forest *Ramqvist skillfully blends a story of survival with an autofictional meditation on womanhood ... It adds up to a careful study of a woman's writing life. * Publishers Weekly *Karolina Ramqvist writes with frosty precision the kind of literature that is unforgettable. Her portraits of women hit deep into bone and marrow. * DORTHE NORS on The White City *

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Book SynopsisPoet, travel writer, teacher, film-extra in Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet, quiz-show panellist -Kildare Dobbs has played many parts, been many places, met many people. His life’s journey, marked by frequent detours and diversions, from Asia to old Europe, Africa and the New World, is that of the quintessential post-colonial Western man at large. In Running the Rapids Dobbs becomes voyageur. He takes us from a lamp-lit, big house childhood in 1930s Kilkenny, to college days at Cambridge in thrall to Carl Jung and Wilhelm Reich, to commando training and naval service protecting Allied convoys from U-boat attack during World War II. Then began his time from 1948 to 1952 as district officer in Tanganyika, where he learnt Swahili beneath the ‘immense, unearthly bulk’ of Kilimanjaro and was falsely imprisoned for ivory theft. He then moved to Canada to work at Macmillan publishers, co-founding The Tamarack Review and becoming managing editor of Saturday Night magazine from 1965 to 1967. During the seventies he was both columnist and books editor of the Toronto Star. He recounts his friendships with writers Brian Moore, Richard Wright and Mordecai Richler, and with Ronald Searle, Marshall McLuhan and Wilfred Thesiger, among others. And nothing if not uxorious, this modern-day troubadour enters the lists of time and again throughout the narrative, finding his peace the third time around. Dobbs’s self-portrait vividly evokes the world of a restless man of letters, Rousseauesque in its foibles and candour, Johnsonianly pungent in its observations, Shandean in its sense of the absurd. ‘In memory and imagination’, he writes, ‘there is no time: all is simultaneous.’ This poignant and delightful chronicle sets out to reinforce that perception.

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Book SynopsisThis is a moving story of a family’s beginnings, growth and, in the context both of time and Trinidadian society, its inevitable dispersal. Savi Naipaul Akal’s memoir pays tribute to remarkable parents, so different but equal in importance to their large family. Her father’s life is one of heroic self-invention, from virtual orphan in a dirt-poor rural Indian family, one generation away from indentured migration, who through self-education became Seepersad Naipaul, a remarkable journalist and pioneering documenter of Indian Trinidadian life. Her mother, Dropatie, displayed remarkable diplomatic skills in sustaining a relationship with the large and inward-looking Capildeo clan of which she was the seventh daughter, whilst loyally supporting her husband’s insistence on independence and engagement with Trinidadian life. It was Dropatie, after Seepersad’s tragically early death, who held the family together, so that all seven children achieved university education. It is an account of family loyalty, sacrifice, and sometimes tensions; pride in the writing achievements of her brothers Vidiadhar and Shiva, and sorrow over estrangements and Shiva’s premature death. Through this focus, the memoir also gives a sharply observed picture of cultural change in Trinidad from colony to independent nation, of being Indian in a Creole society, of the role of education, and her parents’ encouragement of herself and her sisters to make independent lives for themselves. The memoir gives an acute analysis of the pressures that led many of the family to emigrate, but also of the good lives made by Savi and her husband that led them to “put down their bucket” and stay.Above all, this memoir offers the pleasure of writing which is elegant and lucid, with a distinctively personal voice. The book is further enhanced by the generous quantity of family photographs that say so much about both people and the times they lived through.

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