{"title":"Biography: writers Books","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"daphne-du-maurier-and-her-sisters-9780007347094","title":"Daphne Du Maurier and Her Sisters","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCelebrated novelist Daphne Du Maurier and her sisters, eclipsed by her fame, are revealed in all their surprising complexity in this riveting new biography.The middle sister in a famous artistic dynasty, Daphne du Maurier is one of the master storytellers of our time, author of Rebecca', Jamaica Inn' and My Cousin Rachel', and short stories, Don't Look Now' and the terrifying The Birds' among many. Her stories were made memorable by the iconic films they inspired, three of them classic Hitchcock chillers. But it was her sisters, writer Angela and artist Jeanne,who found the courage to defy the conventions that hampered Daphne's emotional life.In this group biography they are considered side by side, as they were in life, three sisters who grew up during the 20th century in the glamorous hothouse of a theatrical family dominated by a charismatic and powerful father. This family dynamic reveals the hidden world of the three sisters  Piffy, Bird \u0026amp; Bing, as they were known to each other  f\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Perceptive and exuberant … a saga that is sparklingly re-told’ The Times\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘The fascination for readers is the different character and destiny of each sister, plus their relationships with one another and with the dynamics of the family romance – and few family romances have been more potent than that of the du Mauriers’ Spectator\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘Daphne is a compelling subject – passionate and cold, attractive and repellent … Angela suffers, as she did in life …from … Daphne’s infinitely more intriguing saga’ Evening Standard\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘Meticulous, perceptive … it is a sign of Jane Dunn’s generous professionalism that she accords the du Maurier girls the same respect that she gave Bloomsbury’s high priestesses in her acclaimed study of Woolf and her sister Vanessa Bell’ Financial Times\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘Engaging … this book’s strength lies in its account of a trio of lives developing during a period of class and gender upheaval, and the sisters’ response to social change’ Independent\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘Compelling … sensitive and sympathetic … loneliness is the thudding heart of Dunn’s book, about three pampered sisters who never quite overcame the handicap of not being boys’ Daily Telegraph\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘Intriguing and revelatory biography … [of] complex and contradictory lives’ Scotsman\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘Jane Dunn specialises in female relationships, and she has found three splendid women for her new book … Dunn writes with haunting delicacy … and she evokes a long-lost England in which women felt deep passions and survived emotional hurricanes with amazing outward restraint’ Mail on Sunday\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘Dunn is excellent on the lesbian 1920s and 30s in London, with delicious detail’ Guardian\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘An original, well-researched and very readable book full of well-chosen details and perceptive observations. In the subject of rivalry between literary sisters Jane Dunn has found a little goldmine’ Literary Review\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"HarperCollins Publishers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47832380703063,"sku":"9780007347094","price":12.59,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780007347094.jpg?v=1710331694"},{"product_id":"judith-kerrs-creatures-a-stunning-biography-of-the-classic-bestselling-childrens-author-judith-kerr-creator-of-the-tiger-who-came-to-tea-the-perfect-illustrated-gift-book-9780007513215","title":"Judith Kerrs Creatures A stunning biography of","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA lavishly illustrated retrospective in celebration of 100 years since Judith Kerr's birth, author of The Tiger Who Came to Tea and many other iconic books.Judith Kerr was one of the best-loved authors and illustrators to ever put pencil to paper. The books she created, including The Tiger Who Came to Tea, Mog the Forgetful Cat, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit and many many more, have become classics of children's literature, loved by generations of readers.But what of the life behind the iconic characters? Judith's own story is riveting, from her early childhood in Berlin, dramatically cut short by the family having to flee the rising Nazi Party, to her time at the BBC in the 1950s and her long and happy marriage to the celebrated screenwriter Nigel Kneale, creator of British television's first major hit, The Quatermass Experiment.The joy of this very special book is in hearing this story from Judith herself, accompanied by a treasure trove of illustrations and memorabilia. All combine \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e“… captures the colourful innocence of the 1950s and 1960s, with its harlequin tights, squat stoves and fathers in hats…Kerr’s world is one in which the small and lost come to be treasured.” – The Times\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e“176 large, beautiful pages of nostalgia for anyone who has been a child in the past half century.” – The Independent\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"HarperCollins Publishers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47832392794455,"sku":"9780007513215","price":24.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780007513215.jpg?v=1710331981"},{"product_id":"the-fragments-of-my-father-9780008300623","title":"The Fragments of my Father","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEARIn the vein of the Costa-winning Dadland, with the biographical elements of H is for Hawk, The Fragments of my Father is a powerful and poignant memoir about parents and children, freedom and responsibility, madness and creativity and what it means to be a carer.SHORTLISTED FOR THE BARBELLION PRIZEMy life had been suspended, as though I had inhaled and was still waiting to let out that gasp of breath. I set aside my dreams for a future time when life might be normal again. But that night, on my mother's birthday, as I sat and watched the sky turn from blue to black, I wondered for the first time if it ever would There were holes in Sam Mills's life when she was growing up  times when her dad was just absent, for reasons she didn't understand. As she grew older, she began to make up stories about the periods when he wasn't around: that he'd been abducted, spirited away and held captive by a mysterious tribe who lived at the bottom of the garden. The truth\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘…a beautifully written memoir … a\u003cstrong\u003e brave and original book filled with all kinds of glittering fragments\u003c\/strong\u003e — personal, literary and political … It is not a how-to manual, but a powerful exploration of loving and giving’ \u003cem\u003eThe Times \u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘Stunning – brilliantly original, wise and profound. Mills writes with great philosophical depth and lyrical beauty about the quotidian asperities and painful tragicomedy of caring for a very ill parent, and the knowledge that they inhabit a surreal nightmare and the insane rules of this nightmare are that they are ravaged however much you love and protect them. \u003cstrong\u003eImmensely moving, timely and also timeless\u003c\/strong\u003e’ Joanna Kavenna, author of \u003cem\u003eZed\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘Mills’s interweaving of stories, both historical and contemporary, displays the complexity of the bonds of familial and romantic love and how they can enrich one’s life and work if we allow them to … beautifully exposes the grains of an author’s life through the exploration of their place in a family. \u003cstrong\u003eIt show us there are many ways to move towards our unknowable futures via the stories of our past\u003c\/strong\u003e’ \u003cem\u003eSpectator\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘… a poignant memoir about being a carer for a father who suffered from mental illness. 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It is a passionate cry for the millions of carers across the world, unpaid, unthanked, fighting every day out of love’ Kate Williams, author of \u003cem\u003eRival Queens\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"HarperCollins Publishers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47832448532823,"sku":"9780008300623","price":9.49,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780008300623.jpg?v=1710333238"},{"product_id":"dr-b-the-internationally-bestselling-world-war-ii-spy-novel-9780008374525","title":"Dr. B. the internationally bestselling World War","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe former director of the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm makes his literary debut with this dramatic and riveting novel of book publishing, émigrés, spies, and diplomats in World War II Sweden based on his grandfather's lifeIn 1933, after Hitler and the Nazi Party consolidated power in Germany, Immanuel Birnbaum, a German-Jewish journalist based in Warsaw, is forbidden from writing for newspapers in his homeland. Six years later, just months before the German invasion of Poland that ignites World War II, Immanuel escapes to Sweden with his wife and two young sons.Living as a refugee in Stockholm, Immanuel continues to write, contributing articles to a liberal Swiss newspaper under the name Dr. B. He becomes increasingly entangled with British intelligence agents who plan several acts of sabotage on the orders of Winston Churchill. But when the Swedish postal service picks up a letter written in invisible ink, clearly by Dr. B. himself, the Allied plotters are exposed. But could a J\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e             \u003cstrong\u003e‘A superb thriller, a cross between Tom Stoppard’s \u003cem\u003eTravesties\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eThe Thirty-Nine Steps\u003c\/em\u003e, full of mysteries, twists and turns … You can’t put it down. This is an astonishing debut and Daniel Birnbaum is clearly a talent to look out for’ \u003cem\u003eThe Jewish Chronicle\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e           \u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘\u003cstrong\u003eIf you’re looking for a ridiculously brilliant story, you can stop looking\u003c\/strong\u003e … He’s got the world’s best story – he’s got \u003cem\u003eDr B\u003c\/em\u003e’ Svenska Dagbladet\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eDr B\u003c\/em\u003e is an astonishing thriller-novel\u003c\/strong\u003e … reminiscent of both Hjalmar Söderberg’s \u003cem\u003eDoctor Glass\u003c\/em\u003e as well as the dreamy melancholy in\u003cem\u003e The Rings of Saturn\u003c\/em\u003e by W.G Sebald … This moral ambiguity makes Dr. B. no less fascinating a character than Stefan Zweig’s version of the same’ \u003cem\u003eAftonbladet\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘\u003cstrong\u003eA moving evocation of a life beset by conflicts in a troubled time\u003c\/strong\u003e’ \u003cem\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘Illuminating … \u003cstrong\u003eBirnbaum skillfully delineates the social and political tensions shaping a culture caught between the national interests of Germany and Russia\u003c\/strong\u003e, and he poignantly conveys the plight of individuals for whom each day is a potential tragedy waiting to happen’ \u003cem\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘Who was Dr. B.? A spy? A member of the resistance? A journalist manipulated by competing political forces in the Casablanca of the North that was Stockholm during World War II? \u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eDr. B\u003c\/em\u003e brings to life the feverish atmosphere of the capital … where Immanuel Birnbaum becomes entangled in a whirlwind of confusing intrigue\u003c\/strong\u003e’ \u003cem\u003eLe Monde\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘\u003cstrong\u003eA spy novel as complex as it is captivating\u003c\/strong\u003e … \u003cem\u003eDr. B.\u003c\/em\u003e evokes so vividly the apocalyptic chaos of 1939-40 Stockholm, where different political forces jockey for power … and Immanuel Birnbaum, Dr. B, finds himself caught in the confusion’ \u003cem\u003eFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"HarperCollins Publishers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47832469373271,"sku":"9780008374525","price":9.49,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780008374525.jpg?v=1710333674"},{"product_id":"black-girl-no-magic-reflections-on-race-and-respectability-9780008477042","title":"black girl no magic reflections on race and","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘\u003cem\u003eBlack Girl, No Magic\u003c\/em\u003e is a gorgeous essay collection: each piece of writing is a gem thanks to Kim's willingness to lay bare the truest parts of her lived experience and ground them in political realities. This book is a glowing achievement by one of the best essayists of her generation’ Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘Kimberly's writing is witty, fresh and full of life’ Liv Little\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘In this engaging series of essays McIntosh takes aim at respectability politics with precision and humour. Every essay is a hit’ Dr Annabel Sowemimo\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘Kim’s writing is a joy. Her honesty and humour, her insights and observations invite us to be our whole selves, the good, the bad, the messy and the beautiful. Kim’s take on sex, British politics, mental health, intimacy, and race are some of the truest words I’ve read on these issues in a long time. You can see your real self in Kim’s words. And guess what? It doesn't feel too frightening. A delicious and wonderfully written collection’ Derek Bardowell, author of \u003cem\u003eNo Win Race\u003c\/em\u003e \u0026amp; \u003cem\u003eGiving Back\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘I can’t recommend more highly… it’s one of those books that I just want to press in the hands of everybody… no matter who you are it will make you interrogate your identity… it’s really entertaining, it’s very frank, and funny’ Damian Barr, Literary Salon Podcast\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"HarperCollins Publishers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47832502763863,"sku":"9780008477042","price":15.29,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780008477042.jpg?v=1710334442"},{"product_id":"shakespeare-the-world-as-a-stage-9780008610043","title":"Shakespeare The World as a Stage","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBill Bryson's biography of William Shakespeare unravels the superstitions, academic discoveries and myths surrounding the life of our greatest poet and playwright.Ever since he took the theatre of Elizabethan London by storm over 400 years ago, Shakespeare has remained centre stage. His fame stems not only from his plays  performed everywhere from school halls to the world''s most illustrious theatres  but also from his enigmatic persona. His face is familiar to all, yet in reality very little is known about the man behind the masterpieces.Shakespeare's life, despite the scrutiny of generations of biographers and scholars, is still a thicket of myths and traditions, some preposterous, some conflicting, arranged around the few scant facts known about the Bard  from his birth in Stratford to the bequest of his second best bed to his wife when he died.Taking us on a journey through the streets of Elizabethan and Jacobean England, Bryson examines centuries of stories, half-truths and downr\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e'A brilliantly funny and gently insightful travel guide to 16th century England. Bryson is great at picking out of the morass of Elizabethan fact the small details that illuminate and amuse…he also uncovers from the world that surrounded the theatre some fascinating examples of Elizabethan eccentricity…As an abbreviated tour around the world of Shakespeare, this could hardly be bettered' \u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e'Less a biography than a delightful account of Shakespeare's elusiveness – and the extraordinary lengths people have gone to remedy it…the pairing of Bryson with Shakespeare is a happy on.’ \u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eTLS\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e'Bill Bryson jogs along in his own ineffable way, good–humoured, undoctrinaire, nodding respectfully at experts but confidently following his own inclinations…he is shrewd on telling detail’ \u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eTimes\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e           \u003cp\u003e‘Bill Bryson has always been able to spot a market; and there ought to be a market for his latest book…an accessible, sensible Life of Shakespeare…surely a fine gift for someone encountering Shakespeare for the first time…Bryson is shrewd…and as funny as you'd expect…he sets down all the important bits of evidence, and assesses them in a measured scholarly way. 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Du Maurier was immediately established as the queen of the psychological thriller. But the more fame this and her other books encouraged, the more reclusive Daphne du Maurier became.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMargaret Forster''s award-winning biography could hardly be more worthy of its subject. Drawing on private letters and papers, and with the unflinching co-operation of Daphne du Maurier''s family, Margaret Forster explores the secret drama of her life - the stifling relationship with her father, actor-manager Gerald du Maurier; her troubled marriage to war hero and royal aide, ''Boy'' Browning; her wartime love affair; her passion for Cornwall and her deep friendships with the last of her father''s ac\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAltogether a model biography - human sympathy tempered with honesty and spiced with real intelligence -- Lorna Sage * Observer *\u003cbr\u003eA startlingly good biography * The Times *\u003cbr\u003eConvincing throughout ... Margaret Forster's interpretation of her subject is so complete and so persuasive that it leaves nothing for the reader to do except admire and enjoy * Independent on Sunday *\u003cbr\u003eForster's acute and sensitive book succeeds on many levels ... 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It brings together some of the most influential social critics of the 20th century, including Dorothy Parker, Mary McCarthy, Hannah Arendt, Susan Sontag and Joan Didion, and shows how these glamorous iconoclasts forged their singular careers. Dean makes the convincing argument that women's voices--if not necessarily feminist ones--did far more to define the last century's intellectual life than we realize -- Michelle Goldberg * New York Times *\u003cbr\u003e[A] stunning and highly accessible introduction to a group of important writers * Publishers Weekly *\u003cbr\u003eMichelle Dean has delivered an exquisite examination - both rigorous and compassionate - of what it has meant to be a woman with a public voice and the power to use it critically. 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We remember him not only for his famous trial and imprisonment, but also for a “devil’s dictionary” of timeless aphorisms and for the enduring brilliance of plays such as The Importance of Being Earnest.  Wilde's life resembles his early short story, \"The Remarkable Rocket\", which, rising from nowhere in a shower of sparks, explodes and falls to earth, exclaiming as it goes out, \"I knew I should create a great sensation.\" Merlin Holland expertly traces the arc of his illustrious ancestor's life, from his birth in Dublin in 1854 as Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, to a brilliant career at Oxford University where his reputation for dandyish wit was first honed, through to his conquest of the drawing rooms and theatres of fashionable London, culminating in disgrace and imprisonment at the hands of the Marquess of Queensberry in the most notorious libel trial in English history. Wilde died in penury and obscurity in 1900, yet his reputation today has never been greater. This engaging and innovative short book features a concise biographical essay on Wilde's meteoric career, followed by a Q\u0026amp;A interview based on Wilde's own words and Merlin Holland's unrivalled knowledge of his grandfather's life, work and puckish observations.  This sparkling biography does full justice to Oscar Wilde's writerly genius and irrepressible humanity. It offers readers a renewed appreciation for a man who at times scandalised his era as much as he delights our own.","brand":"Watkins Media Limited","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47851207688535,"sku":"9781786782304","price":9.49,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781786782304.jpg?v=1710630301"},{"product_id":"autumn-in-venice-ernest-hemingway-and-his-last-muse-9781782399407","title":"Autumn in Venice: Ernest Hemingway and His Last","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNational Geographic Traveller's \u003c\/i\u003ethe best books on European cities, 2019\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the autumn of 1948 Hemingway was approaching fifty and hadn't published a novel in nearly a decade. He travelled for the first time to Venice and there, at a duck shoot in the lagoon he met and fell in love with Adriana Ivancich, a striking young Venetian woman just out of finishing school. What followed was a platonic love affair; he continued to visit her in Venice; she in turn came to Cuba while he wrote \u003ci\u003eThe Old Man and the Sea\u003c\/i\u003e. This is the illuminating story of a writer and a muse that intimately examines both the cost to Adriana and the fractured heart and changing art of Hemingway in his fifties.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Hemingway [is] an enduringly fascinating character, one whom di Robilant, with his easy-paced style, has sympathetically brought to life.' \u003ci\u003eLiterary Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Effortlessly and expertly explores the secret desires, successes, and depressive obstacles that shrouded Ernest Hemingway's final productive years.' \u003ci\u003eNew York Journal of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA saga that \u003cb\u003egrips and enthrals from start to finish\u003c\/b\u003e. * Sunday Times *\u003cbr\u003eHemingway [is] an enduringly fascinating character, one whom di Robilant, with his easy-paced style, has sympathetically brought to life. -- Andrew Lycett * Literary Review *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eEffortlessly and expertly explores the secret desires, successes, and depressive obstacles that shrouded Ernest Hemingway's final productive years.\u003c\/b\u003e * New York Journal of Books *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFascinating and mildly addictive\u003c\/b\u003e * Culture Calling *\u003cbr\u003eRich with new material, some based on Italian sources, di Robilant's lively and affecting double portrait brings \u003cb\u003ea fresh perspective to the much-examined life of an all-too-human writer.\u003c\/b\u003e * Booklist (starred review) *\u003cbr\u003eA sensitive recounting of a writer's doomed fantasy. * Kirkus Reviews *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn evocative and alluring tale of love and death\u003c\/b\u003e . . . In his effusive letters to Adriana, Hemingway laid bare his extremely passionate, generous, and contradictory nature. * La Stampa (Italy) *\u003cbr\u003eOne of the most wrenching and scandalous love stories in all of literary biography . . . di Robilant reconstructs their tale with remarkable precision and a wealth of unpublished materials . . . what emerges is an ample, finely detailed fresco of the last stage of Hemingway's life, a kaleidoscopic succession of relationships, passions, trips, editorial disputes, drinking binges, set against the backdrop of northeast Italy . . . \u003cb\u003e[\u003ci\u003eAutumn in Venice\u003c\/i\u003e] has all the intrigue and emotion of a novel.\u003c\/b\u003e * Il Piccolo (Italy) *","brand":"Atlantic Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47851313103191,"sku":"9781782399407","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781782399407.jpg?v=1710634190"},{"product_id":"endpapers-a-family-story-of-books-war-escape-and-home-9781611854473","title":"Endpapers: A Family Story of Books, War, Escape","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Remarkable lives in extraordinary times - a gripping and exceptional literary journey.' Philippe Sands\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Alexander Wolff is keen, after a generation of silence, to follow the untold stories wherever they might lead.' Claire Messud, \u003ci\u003eHarpers Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e'\u003c\/i\u003eAs riveting as the fiction the Wolffs themselves have published, and deeply affecting.' \u003ci\u003eNewsweek\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 2017, acclaimed journalist Alexander Wolff moved to Berlin to take up a long-deferred task: learning his family's history. His grandfather Kurt Wolff set up his own publishing firm in 1910 at the age of twenty-three, publishing Franz Kafka, Émile Zola, Anton Chekhov and others whose books would be burned by the Nazis. In 1933, Kurt and his wife Helen fled to France and Italy, and later to New York, where they would bring books including \u003ci\u003eDoctor Zhivago\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Leopard\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Tin Drum\u003c\/i\u003e to English-speaking readers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMeanwhile, Kurt's son Niko, born from an earlier marriage, was left behind in Germany. Despite his Jewish heritage, he served in the German army and ended up in an prisoner of war camp before emigrating to the US in 1948. As Alexander gains a better understanding of his taciturn father's life, he finds secrets that never made it to America and is forced to confront his family's complex relationship with the Nazis.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis stunning account of a family navigating wartime and its aftershocks brilliantly evokes the perils, triumphs and secrets of history and exile.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003ean event-filled biography and, along the way, a \u003cb\u003ecaptivating \u003c\/b\u003ecase study in the challenges faced by refugees attempting to remake a life...as enlightening as it is engaging. * Wall Street Journal *\u003cbr\u003eas \u003cb\u003eriveting \u003c\/b\u003eas the fiction the Wolffs themselves have published, and \u003cb\u003edeeply affecting\u003c\/b\u003e. * Newsweek *\u003cbr\u003eAlexander Wolff is keen, after a generation of silence, to follow the untold stories wherever they might lead. -- Claire Messud * Harpers Magazine *\u003cbr\u003eRemarkable lives in extraordinary times - a \u003cb\u003egripping and exceptional \u003c\/b\u003eliterary journey. -- Philippe Sands\u003cbr\u003e[A] poignant portrait...Wolff \u003cb\u003eskillfully contextualizes\u003c\/b\u003e his father and grandfather's tales with military and political history; details links between Merck and the Nazi regime; and uncovers family secrets, including the existence of his father's illegitimate half-brother. History buffs and literary enthusiasts will be rewarded * Publishers Weekly *\u003cbr\u003eAn \u003cb\u003eastonishing, compelling, confronting\u003c\/b\u003e story of a divided family, reaching sharply into the present. -- Tim Bonyhady, author of GOOD LIVING STREET\u003cbr\u003eMeticulously researched and beautifully written, \u003ci\u003eEndpapers\u003c\/i\u003e, at its heart, is an absorbing family history. But it is so much more than that, a haunting exploration of guilt and responsibility, of roots and new beginnings. Filled with stunning literary details that any bibliophile will cherish, this is \u003cb\u003ean intimate and complex portrait of a remarkable family\u003c\/b\u003e that also tells a wider story of Europe and America in the twentieth century. \u003ci\u003eEndpapers \u003c\/i\u003eis a treasure - a brave and moving book. -- Ariana Neumann, author of WHEN TIME STOPPED\u003cbr\u003eA powerfully told story of family, honor, love and truth, by a masterful writer who sees across the oceans and through the generations. In \u003ci\u003eEndpapers\u003c\/i\u003e we see the Wolff family through war and love, detention camps and immigration hearings, kindness and betrayal, occupying a world equal parts \u003ci\u003eCasablanca\u003c\/i\u003e and Kafka. It is \u003cb\u003eengrossing and entertaining\u003c\/b\u003e, a book of conscience and remembrance that tells the beautiful truth that so often those who contribute most to the culture and civic life of a place are the outcast and the refugee. -- Beto O'Rourke\u003cbr\u003eAlexander Wolff - a writer of superb grace - traces a complex and compelling family history in this \u003cb\u003edeeply absorbing\u003c\/b\u003e narrative of high culture under threat, of political and moral violence, and the deep wish for what Wolff refers to as Heimkehr or 'homecoming.' \u003ci\u003eEndpapers\u003c\/i\u003e held me in its spell for days. -- Jay Parini, author of BORGES AND ME: AN ENCOUNTER\u003cbr\u003eA stunning and brave book, \u003cb\u003edeep and absorbing\u003c\/b\u003e. I was enraptured by the story of Kurt, Niko and Alex as they moved through the crosswinds of the twentieth century, from Munich to Princeton, and into the modern world. -- David Maraniss, author of A GOOD AMERICAN FAMILY\u003cbr\u003eIn a \u003cb\u003ecompelling, frequently thrilling\u003c\/b\u003e and - if you have an ear for the biting tone of Hitler's exiles - \u003cb\u003eoften hilarious\u003c\/b\u003e book, Alexander Wolff combines biography, memoir and cultural history, rendering them indivisible, and making clear the uncanny and terrifying parallels between Kurt Wolff's day and ours. -- Anthony Heilbut, author of EXILED IN PARADISE and THOMAS MANN\u003cbr\u003e[A] \u003cb\u003erevelatory, riveting and deeply moving\u003c\/b\u003e account of his family's involvement in Germany's recent history. -- Joshua Hammer * New York Review of Books *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePrologue: \tPrologue Introduction: \tIntroduction 1: \t\tBildung and Books 2: \t\tDone with the War 3: \t\tTechnical Boy and the Deposed Sovereign 4: \t\tMediterranean Refuge 5: \t\tSurrender on Demand 6: \t\tInto a Dark Room 7: \t\tA Debt for Rescue 8: \t\tAn End with Horror 9: \t\tBlood and Shame 10: \t\tChain Migration 11: \t\tLate Evening 12: \t\tSecond Exile 13: \t\tSchweinenest 14: \t\tTurtle Bay 15: \t\tMr. Bitte Nicht Ansprechen 16: \t\tShallow Draft 17: \t\tPlay on the Bones of the Dead 18: \t\tThe End, Come by Itself","brand":"Grove Press \/ Atlantic Monthly Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47851453350231,"sku":"9781611854473","price":10.44,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781611854473.jpg?v=1710636800"},{"product_id":"making-darkness-light-the-lives-and-times-of-john-milton-9781529364286","title":"Making Darkness Light: The Lives and Times of","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'\u003ci\u003eMaking Darkness Light \u003c\/i\u003eis an illumination' Adam Phillips\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'His sympathetic yet challenging account will undoubtedly win Milton new readers - and for that a chorus of Hallelujahs' \u003ci\u003eSpectator\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor most of us John Milton has been consigned to the dusty pantheon of English literature, a grim puritan, sightlessly dictating his great work to an amanuensis, removed from the real world in his contemplation of higher things. But dig a little deeper and you find an extraordinary and complicated human being.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRevolutionary and apologist for regicide, writer of propaganda for Cromwell's regime, defender of the English people and passionate European, scholar and lover of music and the arts - Milton was all of these things and more.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eMaking Darkness Light \u003c\/i\u003eshows how these complexities and contradictions played out in Milton's fascination with oppositions - Heaven and Hell, light and dark, self and other - most famously in his epic poem \u003ci\u003eParadise Lost\u003c\/i\u003e.  It explores the way such brutal contrasts define us and obscure who we really are, as the author grapples with his own sense of identity and  complex relationship with Milton. Retracing Milton's footsteps through seventeenth century London, Tuscany and the Marches, he vividly brings Milton's world to life and takes a fresh look at his key works and ideas around the nature of creativity, time and freedom of expression. He also illustrates the profound influence  of Milton's work on writers from William Blake to Virginia Woolf, James Joyce to Jorge Luis Borges.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis is a book about Milton, that also speaks to \u003ci\u003ewhy\u003c\/i\u003e we read and what happens when we choose over time to let another's life and words enter our own. It will change the way you think about Milton forever.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMaking Darkness Light is elegant, nuanced, and comprehensive. Moshenska gives us a fresh and vivid account of Milton as an individual and a poet while pushing beyond the boundaries of conventional biography. Blending the personal with the historical and the literary, the results are compelling' -- Bart van Es, author of The Cut Out Girl\u003cbr\u003eJoe Moshenska's superb new biography of Milton is, like the poetry of his subject, a miracle of form, moving from moments of arresting detail to vast contemplations of time, history, and art, all set within an intimate narrative that is at once deeply embedded in its historical moment and aware of how that history connects through other moments to the present. The result is a stirring and compelling account of how great poetry gets written and gets read -- Edward Wilson-Lee, author of The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books\u003cbr\u003eMoshenska has written a new kind of literary biography. At once glancingly a memoir, a rivetingly informative biography, and a fascinating reading of Milton as poet, scholar and ordinary man in his everyday life, \u003ci\u003eMaking Darkness Light \u003c\/i\u003eis an illumination. Milton and everything and everybody around him are seen in a quite different, intriguing light. -- Adam Phillips, author of On Kissing, Tickling and Being Bored and Becoming Freud\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eJoe Moshenska is professionally committed to creating a readership for Milton among those for whom Genesis, Virgil, Homer and Tasso are closed books . . . A great imaginative exercise . . . His sympathetic yet challenging account will undoubtedly win Milton new readers - and for that a chorus of Hallelujahs\u003c\/p\u003e -- A.N. Wilson, Spectator\u003cbr\u003eStrikingly original . . . a poetic tour of 17th-century England . . . Literature lovers of all sorts will find something to savor here -- Publishers Weekly\u003cbr\u003eOxford literature professor Moshenska takes a fresh perspective on John Milton (1608-1674), the art of biography, and the experience of reading . . . An inspired biographical and autobiographical journey -- Kirkus\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eMaking Darkness Light \u003c\/i\u003eis unlike any book on Milton I have ever read. It is often densely erudite, but also richly inventive . . . [its] avoidance of easy certainties is typical of this subtle, challenging book -- John Carey, The Sunday Times\u003cbr\u003eJoe Moshenska . . . is astute in placing music, especially rhythm (a word neither Milton nor Shakespeare used) and its visceral relationship to the body, at the root of this original, penetrating, cleverly constructed and occasionally frustrating biography -- Paul Lay, The Times\u003cbr\u003eTantalisingly different and new...an extraordinary, seductive work of intellectual imagination -- Financial Times\u003cbr\u003eMoshenska . . . brings his own experiences into this searching creative portrait of the visionary English poet. The book . . . comes alive in its alert close readings -- New York Times\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eMaking Darkness Light\u003c\/i\u003e is not a conventional biography . . . despite the ambitious and demanding nature of his project, Moshenska writes with humility and agility -- Literary Review\u003cbr\u003eOf course, anyone looking for a deeper understanding of the facts of Milton's life and the context for his poetry will certainly find what they're looking for here. \u003ci\u003eMaking Darkness Light \u003c\/i\u003eincludes not only moments in Milton's life and the landscape of 17th century England as well as close readings of his work. But it's the exploration of what the author describes as one of Milton's deepest occupations, \"the place of literature in a life,\" that sets the book apart. Moshenska has no aspirations to separate the biographer from the biography, and \u003ci\u003eMaking Darkness Light \u003c\/i\u003eis richer for his presence throughout the book -- Jessie Gaynor, Lit Hub Senior Editor\u003cbr\u003eMoshenska knows his way around Milton's world... \u003ci\u003eMaking Darkness Light\u003c\/i\u003e privileges us with a peek inside its author's mind in contemplation of such a life and makes a compelling case that it could be told in no other way -- Boston Globe","brand":"John Murray Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47851537039703,"sku":"9781529364286","price":22.5,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781529364286.jpg?v=1710638588"},{"product_id":"terry-pratchett-a-life-with-footnotes-the-official-biography-9781529176902","title":"Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes: The","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWINNER OF THE 2023 LOCUS AWARD FOR NON-FICTION\u003cbr\u003eWINNER OF THE BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION ASSOCIATION AWARD FOR BEST NON-FICTION\u003cbr\u003eFINALIST FOR THE HUGO AWARD FOR BEST RELATED WORK\u003cbr\u003eSHORTLISTED FOR THE BRITISH FANTASY AWARD FOR BEST NON-FICTION\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Always readable, illuminating and honest. It made me miss the real Terry.' \u003ci\u003e- \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eNeil Gaiman\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Sometimes joyfully, sometimes painfully, intimate . . . it is wonderful to have this closeup picture of the writer's working life.' - \u003cb\u003eFrank Cottrell-Boyce, \u003ci\u003eObserver\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e--------\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAt the time of his death in 2015, award-winning and bestselling author Sir Terry Pratchett was working on his finest story yet - his own.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe creator of the phenomenally bestselling Discworld series, Terry Pratchett was known and loved around the world for his hugely popular books, his smart satirical humour and the humanity of his campaign work. But that's only part of the picture.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBefore his untimely death, Terry was writing a memoir: the story of a boy who aged six was told by his teacher that he would never amount to anything and spent the rest of his life proving him wrong. For Terry lived a life full of astonishing achievements: becoming one of the UK's bestselling and most beloved writers, winning the prestigious Carnegie Medal and being awarded a knighthood.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow, the book Terry sadly couldn't finish has been written by Rob Wilkins, his former assistant, friend and now head of the Pratchett literary estate. Drawing on his own extensive memories, along with those of the author's family, friends and colleagues, Rob unveils the full picture of Terry's life - from childhood to his astonishing writing career, and how he met and coped with what he called the 'Embuggerance' of Alzheimer's disease.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA deeply moving and personal portrait of the extraordinary life of Sir Terry Pratchett, written with unparalleled insight and filled with funny anecdotes, this is the only official biography of one of our finest authors.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e--------\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Spins magic from mundanity in precisely the way Pratchett himself did.' - \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eTelegraph\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'As frank, funny and unsentimental as anything its subject might have produced himself.' - \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eMail on Sunday\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAlways readable, illuminating and honest. It made me miss the real Terry.\u003c\/b\u003e * Neil Gaiman *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eHeart breaking and funny . . .  sometimes joyfully, sometimes painfully, intimate . . . it is wonderful to have this closeup picture of the writer's working life. \u003c\/b\u003e -- Frank Cottrell-Boyce * Observer *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe joy of this biography . . . is that it spins magic from mundanity in precisely the way Pratchett himself did.\u003c\/b\u003e * The Telegraph *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eNo one, after Pratchett's wife, Lyn, and daughter, Rhianna, knew the author as well as Wilkins. I wept through the last 20 pages - beautifully done - charting Pratchett's decline in a way that is both sensitive and unsparing.\u003c\/b\u003e * The Times *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFond, funny and conveys a pitch-perfect sense of how Pratchett managed to take the elements of his 1950s working-class childhood . . . and turn it into a universe of limitless richness and invention.\u003c\/b\u003e * Mail on Sunday *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe friendship and affection between the pair shines through every page . . . Of course, [Pratchett] fans will love the book . . . and even casual readers will delight in tales of his idiosyncratic passions.\u003c\/b\u003e * Independent *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA biography almost as funny and perceptive as one of Terry's novels . . . a rich, deeply affectionate portrait of a unique personality . . . it's a joy to see the much-missed author spring back into technicolour life in this fascinating and deeply moving tribute. \u003c\/b\u003e * Daily Express *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA moving and acutely observed account . . . Pratchett's magical mind, and dementia, by the man who knew him best.\u003c\/b\u003e * The Sunday Times *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWilkins has many advantages over most biographers, having not only known his subject well, but taken down notes while he was alive for his projected memoir. The result, at times, is like a ventriloquist act, with Pratchett's voice and personality emerging loud and clear.\u003c\/b\u003e * The Herald *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBoth more and less than a biography . . . full of insights and revelations, in many ways the sort of thing Prathett might have written about himself, proud of what has been done, honest about the process . . . written with intelligence and compassion.\u003c\/b\u003e -- Christopher Priest * The Times Literary Supplement *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReduced me to tears of both laughter and heartbreak.\u003c\/b\u003e -- Charlotte Heathcote * Daily Mirror *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLively and affectionate, this is not a critical biography, but nor is it sycophantic. It shows Pratchett as brilliant and generous, but also cantakerous, with a ruthless sense of the ridiculous.\u003c\/b\u003e * i News *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA fabulous addition to any Pratchett library.\u003c\/b\u003e * SFX *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eIt isn't surprising that what most recommends this book is the anecdotes, amusing or sombre or often a mix of the two . . . It captures the spirit of Pratchett's writing by telling hard truths through an enjoyable-to-read layer and inspires rage, laughter and sadness in turns.\u003c\/b\u003e * The Sydney Morning Herald *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA captivating and in-depth account . . . [the] use of first-hand source material is very effective in relaying Pratchett's own take on many aspects of his life and career and, with Wilkins' additions and occasional fact-checking, it makes for a highly readable and enjoyable biography. \u003c\/b\u003e * The AU Review *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWilkins is a faithful and comprehensive documenter of Pratchett's life . . . moving and sensitive.\u003c\/b\u003e * Canberra Times *","brand":"Transworld Publishers Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47851558437207,"sku":"9781529176902","price":10.44,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781529176902.jpg?v=1710639255"},{"product_id":"dylan-thomas-the-collected-letters-volume-2-9781474608008","title":"Dylan Thomas The Collected Letters Volume 2","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe second volume of the definitive collection of Dylan Thomas's letters.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDylan Thomas's life and letters read like a cry of despair, interspersed with rare moments of happiness in Wales . . . A moving book. The pain is too real, the tragedy too pitiful to leave any reader untouched - Sunday Times\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHis letters are as funny, and nearly as witty, as Oscar Wilde's, and sometimes almost as wise as Keats's - Sunday Telegraph","brand":"Orion Publishing Co","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47851819729239,"sku":"9781474608008","price":15.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781474608008.jpg?v=1710645850"},{"product_id":"byron-in-love-9781474614443","title":"Byron In Love","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eByron, more than any other poet, has come to personify the poet as rebel; imaginative and lawless, reaching beyond race, creed or frontier, his notorious flaws redeemed by a magnetism and ultimately a heroism that by ending in tragedy raised it and him from the particular to the universal.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEverything about Lord George Gordon Byron was a paradox - insider and outsider, beautiful and deformed, serious and facetious, profligate but on occasion miserly, and possessed of a fierce intelligence trapped forever in a child''s magic and malices. He was also a great poet, but as he reminded us, poetry is a distinct faculty and has little to do with the individual life of its creator.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEdna O''Brien''s exemplary biography focuses upon the diverse and colourful women in Byron''s life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e''O''Brien charts the many loves of the notorious 19th-century poet''s reckless life in immediate and candid prose''\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eSunday Telegraph\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e''Edna O''Brien has always had a gift f\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'A beguiling blend of sympathy, humour and, of course, her signature lilting style... a delightful, though poignant, account' - MAIL ON SUNDAY\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e'O'Brien charts the many loves of the notorious nineteenthth-century poet's reckless life in immediate and candid prose' - STELLA\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e'Reading this compact and hugely enjoyable retelling of his life, one feels the inevitability of the biographer and her subject' - DAILY TELEGRAPH\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e'Edna O'Brien has always had a gift for writing about affairs of the heart' - GUARDIAN\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e'There is much to enjoy in this idiosyncratic and highly readable account of the poet whose writing enthralled and whose actions appalled in equal measure' - INDEPENDENT\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e'Immaculately researched and beautifully written' - CHOICE","brand":"Orion Publishing Co","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47851834769751,"sku":"9781474614443","price":8.49,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781474614443.jpg?v=1710646005"},{"product_id":"making-history-9781474615792","title":"Making History","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e''A huge, fizzing omnium-gatherum of a book . . . marvellous'' \u003ci\u003eDaily Telegraph\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e''Witty, wise and elegant . . . a classic of history itself'' \u003ci\u003eThe Spectator\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e''Grave and witty, suave yet pointed . . . full of energy'' Hilary Mantel\u003cbr\u003e''An enthralling investigation . . . consistently entertaining'' \u003ci\u003eThe Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e''Epic . . . whatever Cohen writes about he writes about with brio'' \u003ci\u003eNew Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWho writes the past? And how do the biases of storytellers - whether Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare or Simon Schama - influence our ideas about history today?\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEpic, authoritative and entertaining, \u003ci\u003eMaking History \u003c\/i\u003edelves into the lives of those who have charted human history - professional historians, witnesses, novelists, journalists and propagandists - to discover the agendas that informed their world views, and which in so many ways have informed ours. From the origins of history-writing through to television and the digital age, \u003ci\u003eM\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSuperb . . . Highly entertaining . . . Witty, wise and elegant, this tremendous book deserves to become a classic of history itself * THE SPECTATOR *\u003cbr\u003eWhat a brilliant achievement! Like all Richard Cohen's writing, \u003ci\u003eMaking History\u003c\/i\u003e opens a dialogue with the reader - grave and witty, suave yet pointed - erudite yet engaging and full of energy. It has huge scope, but never forfeits the telling detail. It is scholarly, lively, quotable, up-to-date and fun -- HILARY MANTEL\u003cbr\u003eAn enthralling investigation into the ways in which the background of historians affected and affects the way they present the past. Using autobiographies, letters and the comments of contemporaries, Cohen brings to life legendary figures. Black history and \"herstory\", novelists and journalists, Bible stories and military campaigns, Putin's revision of Russian history: all pass under his consistently entertaining scrutiny . . . [a] historical Tower of Babel * THE TIMES *\u003cbr\u003eA huge, fizzing omnium gatherum of a book . . . marvellous -- Noel Malcolm * DAILY TELEGRAPH *\u003cbr\u003eRichard Cohen has written an utterly engaging love letter to History's hidden story tellers. Provocative, funny but scrupulously fair, \u003ci\u003eMaking History \u003c\/i\u003eis a timely reminder that history doesn't write itself -- AMANDA FOREMAN\u003cbr\u003eThis absorbing survey begins with the early historians of the classical world and continues through to the modern era * FINANCIAL TIMES *\u003cbr\u003eSupremely entertaining . . . epic . . . whatever Cohen writes about he writes about with brio * THE NEW YORKER *\u003cbr\u003eInsightful and entertaining . . . there are so many things to like about this book: its breezy tone, its author's Herodotus-like curiosity and delight in anecdote, his readiness to recognise the vices as well as the virtues of historians, and the splendid in-text illustrations . . . a gargantuan achievement * THE CRITIC *\u003cbr\u003e[A] magisterial and wide-ranging examination of the way that historians and other significant witnesses distort through their own prejudices what have become records of human experience * COUNTRY LIFE *\u003cbr\u003eWith meticulous research and riveting anecdotes, Richard Cohen has peeled back the hidden history behind those who record our past. He brilliantly shows how an extraordinary gallery of characters - from prodigies to charlatans, from ideologues to heroes - has exposed, shaped and, at times, bent and even covered up the facts. In the process, Cohen has achieved what only the finest historians can: he has scrupulously and engagingly made history -- DAVID GRANN, author of Killers of the Flower Moon and The Lost City of Z\u003cbr\u003eWhat a grand, illuminating and fun book! Richard Cohen takes us on a learned tour through the cacophony of history and of the characters who've told the stories that shape us. To understand who we are, we have to understand who we've been -  and, as Cohen amply demonstrates, who's framed those understandings -- JON MEACHAM, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House and Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power\u003cbr\u003eA fascinating and finely wrought history of history * PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY, starred review *\u003cbr\u003e[A] love song to the profession of history . . . extremely effective. Cohen's range is admirably broad . . . insightful, thought-provoking and thoroughly researched * LIBRARY JOURNAL *\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Orion Publishing Co","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47851838538071,"sku":"9781474615792","price":15.29,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781474615792.jpg?v=1710646032"},{"product_id":"lady-caroline-lamb-9781474624824","title":"Lady Caroline Lamb","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom the outset, Caroline Lamb had a rebellious nature. From childhood she grew increasingly troublesome, experimenting with sedatives like laudanum, and she had a special governess to control her. She also had a merciless wit and talent for mimicry. She spoke French and German fluently, knew Greek and Latin, and sketched impressive portraits. As the niece of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, she was already well connected, and her courtly skills resulted in her marriage to the Hon. William Lamb (later Lord Melbourne) at the age on nineteen. For a few years they enjoyed a happy marriage, despite Lamb''s siblings and mother-in-law detesting her and referring to her as ''the little beast''.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 1812 Caroline embarked on a well-publicised affair with the poet Lord Byron - he was 24, she 26. Her phrase ''mad, bad and dangerous to know'' became his lasting epitaph. When he broke things off, Caroline made increasingly public attempts to reunite. Her obsession came to define much o\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA zig-zagging Shakespearean drama, played out in the highest echelons of fashionable Georgian society . . . Fraser packs Lamb's life into short, sharp book which can be devoured in an afternoon. She has an eye for delightful detail which paints a colourful picture of the Georgian world . . . This is an expertly crafted, scholarly book, which not only examines the playful though ultimately tragic life of Caroline Lamb, but celebrates her imperishable spirit too -- Alice Loxton * Daily Telegraph *\u003cbr\u003eSparklingly succinct ... Our Chief of Readable Historians -- Ysenda Maxtone Graham * Times *\u003cbr\u003eCharacteristically readable, accomplished and in places positively revolutionary ... Fraser shows that she has more élan and attack - or passion and sense - than writers a third her age. Should this be her final sally, it is as inimitable and impressive as anything in her distinguished bibliography -- Alexander Larman * Spectator *\u003cbr\u003eFraser's major achievement is to invest Caroline Lamb's life with a long-overdue sense of proportion ... Fraser writes with charm, empathy and the kind of readability that makes the findings of modern scholarship easier to swallow. And there can be no doubt that her understanding of Caroline owes something to a kind of wisdom derived from her own experience ... A wonderful swansong -- Mark Bostridge * The Oldie *\u003cbr\u003e[Fraser is] a meticulous researcher and an agile, vigorous writer . . . She wisely resists any temptation to hold up Lamb as a feminist heroine (which she was not), while acknowledging the constraints placed on her because she was a woman -- Clare McHugh * Washington Post *\u003cbr\u003eFraser approaches Lady Caroline Lamb as an eminent historian of the British era of reform, and a major biographer of complex, victimised women including Mary, Queen of Scots and Marie Antoinette. She privileges the evidence of primary sources to recover Lamb the ambitious, politically informed writer from the sensationalist anecdotes recycled by Byron biographers and historians of her husband's political career . . .  Through her determined pursuits of intellectual and sensual experience, Lamb the entitled socialite gained what Fraser recognises as the 'wry self-knowledge' to articulate the paradoxes she inhabited as the early victim of a celebrity culture still blighted by sexual double standards * Irish Times *\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Orion Publishing Co","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47851854430551,"sku":"9781474624824","price":22.5,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781474624824.jpg?v=1710646209"},{"product_id":"the-catch-fishing-for-ted-hughes-9781526644213","title":"The Catch: Fishing for Ted Hughes","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e‘An absolute gem . . . I was delightfully lost by the river throughout’\u003c\/b\u003e Paul Whitehouse \u003cb\u003e‘Marvellous . . . \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Catch\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e leaves both its writer and its reader wonderfully \"lost in water\"’ \u003c\/b\u003eRobert Macfarlane \u003cb\u003e‘Penetrating and poetic, filled with honeyed prose and thoughtful criticism’ \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Times\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cb\u003eA brilliant blend of memoir and biography, \u003ci\u003eThe Catch \u003c\/i\u003eis a stunning meditation on poetry and nature, and a quiet reflection on what it means to be a father and a son.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003e_______________\u003c\/b\u003e  \u003cb\u003eIt is in the midst of a swirling river, casting a line, that Mark Wormald meets Ted Hughes.\u003c\/b\u003e   He stands where the poet stood, forty years ago, because fishing was Ted Hughes’s way of breathing – and because the poet's writing has made Mark understand that it has always been his way of breathing, too.  Using Hughes’s poetry collection \u003ci\u003eRiver\u003c\/i\u003e and his fishing diaries as a guide, Mark returns again and again to the rivers and lakes in Britain and Ireland where the poet fished. At times, he uses Ted's fly patterns; at others his rods. It is an obsession; a fundamental connection to nature; a thrilling wildness; an elemental pursuit. But it is also a release and a consolation, as Mark fishes after the sudden death of his mother and during the slow fading of his father.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePenetrating and poetic, filled with honeyed prose and thoughtful criticism. -- Cal Flyn * The Times *\u003cbr\u003eAstute and fluent,\u003ci\u003e The Catch \u003c\/i\u003ewears its learning lightly… Compelling -- David Profumo * Country Life *\u003cbr\u003eWay above a mere fishing book, combining nature, personal recollections, biography, poetry, imagination and much more - BOOK OF THE YEAR * Classic Angling Magazine *\u003cbr\u003eWhilst Hughes’s love for angling is relatively well-known, Wormald makes a deep and sustained claim for the link between Hughes’s poetic thinking process and the act of fishing. … [But] The carrying streams of this book are not only those of Hughes’s life, and those of his family and friends, but of Wormald’s too. … Wormald’s own prose is sprung and striking [and] \u003ci\u003eThe Catch\u003c\/i\u003e becomes a subtle meditation on what it is to be a father, a son, a brother. -- Rob St. John * Caught by the River *\u003cbr\u003eWormald’s scene-setting and imaginative, close reading of the poems uncover new aspects of Hughes and his work, which is no easy task … Hughes thought the all-absorbing experience of fishing was much like writing poetry, and such descriptions will have the fishermen among this book’s readership nodding along. -- Richard Benson * The Mail on Sunday *\u003cbr\u003eElectrifyingly good -- John Clegg * London Review Bookshop *\u003cbr\u003eA beautiful book … Wormald is excellent at prising apart Hughes the myth from Hughes the man. -- Alex Diggins * The Critic *\u003cbr\u003eA profoundly reflective examination of Hughes’s fishing life, layered over with Wormald’s own … Wormald has an engaging, lyrical style, by which it’s easy to be beguiled into appreciative enjoyment and even wonder. -- Ettie Neil-Gallacher * The Field *\u003cbr\u003eAs a feat of scholarship, angling, and creative empathy, this book is an extraordinary achievement -- Seán Lysaght * Dublin Review of Books *\u003cbr\u003eBeyond biographical and instead a complete immersion into the mind and life of one of our greatest writers … A dip well worth taking -- Kevin Parr * Fallon's Angler *\u003cbr\u003eWhat a marvellous book \u003ci\u003eThe Catch\u003c\/i\u003e is: a time-slipping, genre-shifting exploration of lives and landscapes, in which poetry, memoir and biography swirl and braid most beautifully together. Obsessive, passionate and deep-pooled, Wormald's pursuit of Hughes becomes, over its course, unexpectedly and movingly personal: a journey inwards in spirit as well as backwards in time, moving against the flow. \u003ci\u003eThe Catch\u003c\/i\u003e leaves both its writer and its reader - to borrow a phrase from the book itself - wonderfully \"lost in water\". -- Robert Macfarlane\u003cbr\u003eHere is a book and a writer and a sense of the world and of language which are all as marvellous as the subject deserves. -- Adam Nicolson\u003cbr\u003eAn absolute gem ... Mark Wormald's love of angling and of Ted Hughes’s poetry come together beautifully. I was delightfully lost by the river throughout. -- Paul Whitehouse\u003cbr\u003eMark Wormald takes what is, on the face of it, a meaningless act – the pursuit of exact, often remote places where a famed poet and fisherman has stood, floated, angled – and makes of it a parable of what angling and poetry share. The act of stalking, the stalking of fish by man, but also the stalking by man of his true self in poetry, the moment of the catch, at the instant of self-forgetfulness. -- Harry Clifton\u003cbr\u003eI’m perhaps more fish than fisher, but like Ted Hughes’s \u003ci\u003eRiver\u003c\/i\u003e, this book tugs at an atavistic, aquatic consciousness at the base of my brain. Wormald’s quest has me swimming in the same brilliant flows, settled in the same rooty riverside nooks, vividly drowsy, deeply awake. I loved it. -- Amy-Jane Beer\u003cbr\u003eA torrent of a book, its swirling deeps and dark backwaters lit with hard-won insight. -- Luke Jennings\u003cbr\u003eEngaging and enlightening, a new and convincing key to Hughes’s extraordinary poetic gifts. -- Richard Beard\u003cbr\u003eA brilliant book. Complex, kaleidoscopic, brilliant in its originality,\u003ci\u003e The Catch\u003c\/i\u003e is a love song to a lifelong obsession. -- Katharine Norbury\u003cbr\u003eA rare piece of work - modest, brilliant, moving. Quietly profound -- Ian Sansom\u003cbr\u003eA wonderfully beguiling and enjoyable literary pilgrimage - full of surprises and insights, to delight anyone (fisherman or not) who loves reading poetry. Truly, a remarkable book -- David Profumo","brand":"Bloomsbury Publishing PLC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47851960697175,"sku":"9781526644213","price":10.44,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781526644213.jpg?v=1710649730"},{"product_id":"look-we-have-come-through-9781408877555","title":"Look We Have Come Through","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eHer intensity and intimacy are engaging' Blake Morrison, \u003ci\u003eGuardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eA lovely, urgent, serious book'' Tessa Hadley\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eRefreshing and unexpected' Daisy Hay, \u003ci\u003eFinancial Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eBrilliantly interweaving literary criticism, biography and memoir, \u003ci\u003eLook! We Have Come Through! \u003c\/i\u003eis a captivating exhumation of an author and a compelling manifesto for exposing ourselves to difficult and dangerous views.\u003c\/b\u003eLara Feigel listens to birds outside her window  their circling, strident calls  and thinks of D. H. Lawrence. It is the spring of 2020 and, as the pandemic takes hold, she locks down in rural Oxfordshire with her partner, her two children, and that most explosive of writers.Proceeding month by month through the year, she sets out to start again with Lawrence: to find vital literary companionship; to use him as a guide to rural living and even, unexpectedly, to child-rearing; to find a way through his writing to excavate the modern world she feels he helped bring\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo be able to meet the world unillusioned but undismayed is what Lawrence did for Lara Feigel, and it is what she hopes he can do for us as a result of her bracing and honest book. Each chapter homes in on a major topic and Feigel has something fresh to say in every case … Some of the sharpest, shrewdest discussions I have seen of Lawrence for a long time. -- Paul Dean * The Critic *\u003cbr\u003eRefreshing and unexpected … The case for reading, and for thinking hard and seriously about the role of reading in a world characterised by fracture, is powerfully made. -- Daisy Hay * Financial Times *\u003cbr\u003eA perceptive book … a critical biography but also a pandemic memoir – a story about how an author can inform and change your life … Part of the attraction of the book is Feigel’s candour: the charting of her ups and downs as the seasons pass. If she weren’t so attuned to Lawrence, it would feel ickily self-absorbed. But she writes insightfully about his central themes, and though she torments herself unduly by taking his wackier theories too seriously, her intensity and intimacy are engaging. -- Blake Morrison * Guardian *\u003cbr\u003eA lovely, urgent, serious book, making me think about Lawrence and life all over again. -- Tessa Hadley\u003cbr\u003eThrough an intimate engagement with a brilliant, ever-provocative writer, Lara Feigel navigates the pandemic and a storm-tossed year in her own life as woman and mother. By turns troubled, tender and bold, this absorbing book brings Lawrence's vivid talent and ideas close, testing them against the pressures of the contemporary. -- Lisa Appignanesi\u003cbr\u003eLara Feigel wrestles with Lawrence, resents him, adores him and even tries to learn from him, all while Covid rages; it makes for a daring and unconventional bibliomemoir that might change the way you feel about sex, motherhood, work, illness and faith. -- Samantha Ellis\u003cbr\u003eA fiercely intelligent engagement with Lawrence, half memoir and half critical biography, in which Lara Feigel comes in at a series of oblique angles to reach some startling judgments. I was highly impressed. -- D. J. Taylor\u003cbr\u003eFeigel’s Lawrence is an untimely, urgent teacher of life and its passions. Agile, surprising and compulsively absorbing,\u003ci\u003e Look! We Have Come Through!\u003c\/i\u003e is the perfect tonic for the cynical, jaded spirit of our time\u003cb\u003e.\u003c\/b\u003e -- Josh Cohen\u003cbr\u003eBoth an analysis of what makes Lawrence so troublingly intoxicating, and an account of what happens when we succumb to the writers we admire. Clear-headed, yet also strangely intuitive, what makes Lara Feigel’s writing so seductive is the way she seems to absorb Lawrence’s influence so deeply into herself that he becomes her own. -- Kate Kilalea\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eFr\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eee Woman\u003c\/i\u003e: '\u003c\/b\u003eA fascinating mix of literary criticism, cultural history and memoir … Highly enjoyable * Sunday Times *\u003cbr\u003eAn extraordinary meditation on what it means to be a clever, engaged woman … A classical, precise use of language … Most compelling … Physically and intellectually intimate * Guardian *\u003cbr\u003eThe most intriguing and certainly the bravest work of literary scholarship I have ever read -- Deborah Levy\u003cbr\u003eIronic, beautiful and rather moving * Literary Review *\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eFree Woman\u003c\/i\u003e is not a biography, but the same artistic process is at work: as a biographer, you think you are going to possess your subject, but they always end up possessing you. 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This is an intellectually lively treatment of a Renaissance giant and his world * Daily Telegraph *","brand":"Vintage Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48732245098839,"sku":"9780099485155","price":11.69,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780099485155.jpg?v=1719996119"},{"product_id":"reading-the-world-9780099584643","title":"Reading the World","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e''A brilliant, unlikely book'' \u003ci\u003eSpectator\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eHow can we celebrate, challenge and change our remarkable world? \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 2012, the world arrived in London for the Olympics...and Ann Morgan went out to meet it. She read her way around all the globe''s 196 independent countries (plus one extra), sampling one book from every nation. 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