Biography: writers Books

Book SynopsisLoved Goodbye Christopher Robin? Learn more about the real place that inspired the beloved stories. Delve into the home of the world’s most beloved bear! The Natural World of Winnie-the-Pooh explores the magical landscapes where Pooh, Christopher Robin, and their friends live and play. The Hundred Acre Wood—the setting for Winnie-the-Pooh’s adventures—was inspired by Ashdown Forest, a wildlife haven that spans more than 6,000 acres in southeast England. In the pages of this enchanting book you can visit the ancient black walnut tree on the edge of the forest that became Pooh’s house, go deep into the pine trees to find Poohsticks Bridge, and climb up to the top of the enchanted Galleons Lap, where Pooh says goodbye to Christopher Robin. You will discover how Milne's childhood connection with nature and his role as a father influenced his famous stories, and how his close collaboration with illustrator E. H. Shepard brought those stories to life. This charming book also serves as a guide to the plants, animals, and places of the remarkable Ashdown Forest, whether you are visiting in person or from the comfort of your favorite armchair. In a delightful narrative, enriched with Shepard’s original illustrations, hundreds of color photographs, and Milne’s own words, you will rediscover your favorite characters and the magical place they called home.

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Book Synopsis#1 SEATTLE TIMES BESTSELLER A playful and moving book of essays by a "born storyteller" (Seattle Times) who invites us into the miraculous and transcendent moments of the everydayTrade ReviewAstonishing... gorgeous... Doyle was a writer 'made of love and song and amusement.' Every living thing intrigued him and was worthy of his powerful capacity for study and his equally powerful capacity for celebration. - New York TimesBrian Doyle took on the everyday and he suffused it, every last drop of it, with a redefining soulfulness... This posthumous collection will leave you marveling and wiping away the occasional tear. Certainly you will spill ink on its pages---starring and underlining, sprinkling exclamations up and down the margins... Over and over, Doyle's musings are canticles of joy, punctuated with occasional double-shots of heartbreak and humility. It's the textured layering, the leap from shadow to light, that keeps the reader alert, and ever absorbing. Always, emphatically, there comes wisdom; it's a signature move, one you can count on. Have your pens aimed and ready. It's a gospel of the ordinary, the shoved-aside, the otherwise overlooked. And at the heart of it, that ineffable and necessary unction, a holiness you can all but hold in your palms - Chicago Tribune

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Book SynopsisTranslation of: Kafka, die Jahre der Entscheidungen.Trade ReviewOne of The Guardian Best Books of 2013, chosen by Colm Toibin "Most impressive is Stach's recounting of the creation of his subject's writings... Stach's own writing is wonderfully expressive."--Publishers Weekly (starred review) "A scrupulous, discriminating, and highly instructive account of Kafka's life."--Robert Alter, New Republic "[S]uperbly tempered... [T]hrough this robustly determined unearthing he rescues Kafka from the unearthliness of his repute... Shelley Frisch, Stach's heroic American translator, movingly reproduces his intended breadth and pace and tone... In this honest and honorable biography there is no trace of the Kafkaesque; but in it you may find a crystal granule of the Kafka who was."--Cynthia Ozick, New Republic "Stach aims to tell us all that can be known about [Kafka], avoiding the fancies and extrapolations of earlier biographers. The result is an enthralling synthesis, one that reads beautifully... I can't say enough about the liveliness and richness of Stach's book... Every page of this book feels excited, dynamic, utterly alive."--Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World "Stach's is a splendid effort and will be hard to surpass."--William H. Gass, Harper's Magazine "A masterpiece of inspired biographical writing."--Choice "Probing... Essential reading."--Booklist (starred review) "Magnificent."--Die Zeit "Stach develops the various elements that play a role in Kafka's life brilliantly."--Der Spiegel "The first great biography of Franz Kafka ... exciting and instructive from the first to the last page."--Tagesanzeiger "This extraordinary biography fills the empty spaces between Kafka's own writings and the writings of friends, family, and contemporaries with so much empathy and imagination that one can't put it down."--Frankfurter Rundschau "[M]onumental... [A] superb English-language translation by Shelly Frisch ... now reprinted in a handsome paperback by Princeton... In this first volume, Stach sifts through that rubble with huge amounts of energy and discretion (and Frisch follows him without a misstep; it feels like exactly the book I read ten years ago in its original language)... His letters and journals are marshaled with sometimes breathtaking ingenuity, and the sheer scope of the work allows Stach to be expansive when painting his backgrounds... Always in these recountings, Stach is searching for his elusive subject, trying--as all previous biographers have tried, though none so well--to hear Kafka's strange, singular voice in the noise... Kafka: The Decisive Years was greeted with a loud chorus of praise when it first appeared in English, and the passage of almost a decade has cast no doubt on that verdict. Princeton has re-issued this classic so that it can stand next to the following volume, Kafka: The Years of Insight, newly published in hardcover. No one interested in Kafka (or, by almost inevitable extension, 20th century literature) should miss either."--Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Monthly "[F]lawlessly translated... [A] wonderfully intelligent and perceptive portrait of a uniquely powerful writer."--PD Smith, Guardian "Stach reads the work and the life with minute care and sympathy. He has a deep understanding of the world that Kafka came from and this is matched by an intelligence and tact about the impulse behind the work itself."--Colm Toibin, Irish Independent "[T]he definitive biography."--Jonathon Sturgeon, Flavorwire "Superbly translated from German by Shelley Frisch... Illuminating facts and intelligent commentary... The three volumes are so carefully composed and densely woven--blending history, literary analysis, psychological insights, quotes and commentary from others--that it would be practically impossible to produce an abridged version in a single volume."--Alexander Adams, Spiked ReviewTable of ContentsIntroduction 1 PROLOGUE: The Black Star 16 1At Home with the Kafkas 21 2Bachelors, Young and Old 42 3Actors, Zionists, Wild People 54 4Literature and Loneliness: Leipzig and Weimar 71 5Last Stop Jungborn 86 6A Young Lady from Berlin 94 7The Ecstasy of Beginning: "The Judgment" and "The Stoker" 108 8A Near Defenestration 119 9The Girl, the Lady, and the Woman 134 10Love and a Longing for Letters 145 11Exultant Weeks, Little Intrigues 159 12The Bauer Family 169 13America and Back: The Man Who Disappeared 175 14The Lives of Metaphors: "The Metamorphosis" 192 15The Fear of Going Mad 206 16Balkan War: The Massacre Next Door 226 171913 231 18 The Man Who Disappeared: Perfection and Disintegration 242 19Invention and Exaggeration 253 20Sexual Trepidation and Surrender 266 21The Working World: High Tech and the Ghostsof Bureaucracy 281 22The Proposal 297 23Literature, Nothing but Literature 324 24Three Congresses in Vienna 350 25Trieste, Venice, Verona, Riva 368 26Grete Bloch: The Messenger Arrives 379 27An All-Time Low 390 28Kafka and Musil 401 29Matrimonial Plans and Asceticism 413 30Tribunal in Berlin 433 31The Great War 444 32Self-Inflicted Justice: The Trial and "In the Penal Colony" 464 33The Return of the East 484 34The Grand Disruption 493 35No-Man's-Land 508 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 517 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE 519 KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS 521 NOTES 523 BIBLIOGRAPHY 551 PHOTO CREDITS 563 INDEX 565

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Book SynopsisTrade Review'A brilliantly woven narrative of Tolkien's life. The biographer, also a philologist by training, knows what he is talking about, his judgements are reasonable and he makes the reader anxious to discover whether Tolkien can win out against the enemies of his most original work.' -- Christopher Howse * The Tablet *'The Tolkien biography we've been waiting for for thirty years.' -- David Bateman * Tolkien Studies *

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Book SynopsisTranslation of: Kafka, die Jahre der Erkenntnis.Trade ReviewWinner of the 2014 Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize Finalist for the 2013 National Jewish Book Award in History, Jewish Book Council One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2014 One of The Guardian Best Books of 2013, chosen by Colm Toibin Longlisted for the 2014 PEN Translation Award, Pen American Center "[S]cholars and specialists lost and absorbed in the many rooms of the Kafka factory will find much to discuss in the labors of Reiner Stach."--Joy Williams, New York Times Book Review "[Stach's] resplendent Kafka: The Years of Insight, tracking Kafka's final eight years, meditates on the limits of the knowable even as it exhibits unparalleled dedication to the Kafka's life and work."--Gary Giddins, Wall Street Journal "This well-researched new biography details the last nine years of Franz Kafka's life and explores the personal, social, and political events that shaped his writing... Despite the narrow time frame, this insightful book is likely to become a standard by which future biographies are measured."--Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) "[S]uperbly tempered... [T]hrough this robustly determined unearthing he rescues Kafka from the unearthliness of his repute... Shelley Frisch, Stach's heroic American translator, movingly reproduces his intended breadth and pace and tone... In this honest and honorable biography there is no trace of the Kafkaesque; but in it you may find a crystal granule of the Kafka who was."--Cynthia Ozick, New Republic "Stach's book succeeds brilliantly at clearing a path through the thick metaphysical fog that has hung about Kafka's work almost since his death... [I]lluminating... It is common to say of biography that it sends you back to the work. Stach's book does this in spades, but, importantly for English readers, it also presents new aspects of the work in Shelley Frisch's superb and lucid translations... Between them, she and Stach have produced a superbly fresh imaginative guide to the strange, clear, metaphor-free world of Kafka's prose."--Tim Martin, Telegraph "Stach reads the work and the life with minute care and sympathy. He has a deep understanding of the world that Kafka came from and this is matched by an intelligence and tact about the impulse behind the work itself."--Colm Toibin, Irish Independent "This work is a monumental accomplishment with a first-rate translation by scholar Frisch."--Library Journal (Starred Review) "Conclusion of a massive, comprehensive life of the famed Czech/German/Jewish writer, chockablock with neuroses, failures and moments of brilliance... An illuminating book built, like its subject's life, on small episodes rather than great, dramatic turning points. Essential for students and serious readers of Kafka."--Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review) "With impressive insight into imaginative artistry, Stach illuminates the way Kafka responds to personal trauma and global firestorm, sometimes incorporating his negative circumstances into his fiction, but sometimes transcending those circumstances in metaphysical creations informed by a profoundly personal myth. This literary-biographical analysis will help scholars penetrate major Kafka works, including The Castle and The Trial, The Hunger Artist and The Burrow. Thanks to a lucid translation, English-speaking readers can now share the German enthusiasm for this masterful portrait."--Bryce Christensen, Booklist (Starred Review) "[T]he definitive biography of Kafka... [A] supple and accurate English translation by Shelley Frisch... Stach presents a full, nuanced treatment of Kafka's feelings about Jewishness. He is particularly adept in his depiction of Kafka's relationships with the women he loved."--David Mikics, Forward.com "[M]agnificent."--John Carey, Sunday Times "[S]uperlative, readable and ... genuinely gripping... Stach manages to recreate the worlds through which Kafka moved and in which he suffered in a manner that reads ... like high-quality fiction... Stach on Kafka is more than worthy to be put on a shelf of the magisterial literary biographies of the last few decades... It is quite splendid."--Kevin Jackson, Literary Review "No one will ever be able to write Kafka's story as well as he could, but Reiner Stach, a first-class German scholar, does remarkably well in Kafka: The Years of Insight."--Robert Fulford, National Post "The second volume of Reiner Stach's epic biography of Franz Kafka ... [is] a tangle of counter-grained and often under-sourced life stories, but reading Stach's magnificent narrative (wonderfully translated by Shelley Frisch) straight through brings death, not life, to the forefront. Stach is a compulsively readable writer... [A]s in the previous volume, the prose in The Years of Insight is supple and very appealingly complex--all of which, once again, is perfectly rendered by Frisch."--Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Monthly "[H]ighly readable."--Ian Thomson, Financial Times "[M]onumental... [A] superb English-language translation by Shelly Frisch ... now reprinted in a handsome paperback by Princeton... In this first volume, Stach sifts through that rubble with huge amounts of energy and discretion (and Frisch follows him without a misstep; it feels like exactly the book I read ten years ago in its original language)... His letters and journals are marshaled with sometimes breathtaking ingenuity, and the sheer scope of the work allows Stach to be expansive when painting his backgrounds... Always in these recountings, Stach is searching for his elusive subject, trying--as all previous biographers have tried, though none so well--to hear Kafka's strange, singular voice in the noise... Kafka: The Decisive Years was greeted with a loud chorus of praise when it first appeared in English, and the passage of almost a decade has cast no doubt on that verdict. Princeton has re-issued this classic so that it can stand next to the following volume, Kafka: The Years of Insight, newly published in hardcover. No one interested in Kafka (or, by almost inevitable extension, 20th century literature) should miss either."--Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Monthly "A definitive biography of a rare writer... [M]asterful... [T]his biography makes for an excellent read. Mr Stach, a German academic, expertly presents Kafka's struggles with his work and health against a wider background of the first world war, the birth of Czechoslovakia and the hyperinflation of the 1920s."--The Economist "A definitive biography of a writer as transcendent as Franz Kafka might be unattainable, but in his massive trilogy, Stach comes as close as one can."--Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs "[A] further passionate attempt to reinscribe works such as Metamorphosis, A Report To An Academy, and The Castle on 21st century readers... Stach does us a great service... By dint of a rhythmic sequencing of narration and discussion, Stach illuminates the symbiosis of Kafka's inner catastrophes and vocational ardour with the violent military devastation of Europe, the birth of the Czech Republic and his frail body's tortuous decline."--Gregory Day, The Age Praise for Kafka: The Years of Insight: "It would be impossible to describe the work and essence of this key artist of the twentieth century in a livelier and more vibrant style... A masterpiece of the art of interpretation and of empathy."--Der Tagesspiegel Praise for Kafka: The Years of Insight: "Reiner Stach has recounted Kafka's life more vividly than any other biographer. The reader moves through his Kafka biography, which reads like a novel, in breathless anticipation... No one has written about Kafka as suggestively and insightfully, and in such a beautiful and clear language, as Reiner Stach."--Ulrich Greiner, Die Zeit "[E]xtensive ... impeccably translated... Each volume is crafted such that one simply must read the other two: Stach peppers his writing with tantalizingly vague references and foreshadowings to elsewhere in the series, and his allusions compel the reader to absorb Kafka's complete biography from start to finish... The author's meticulous chronicle of Kafka's life by no means precludes examination of the literary legacy that it produced; rather, it sharpens our understanding of some of Kafka's most obscure and abstract works... An utterly thorough biography, the three-volume set will prove a treasure to any admirer of Franz Kafka--or good research."--Nat Bernstein, Jewish Book Council "Kafka: The Years of Insight ... wonderfully translated ... is Volume III of what will surely be the definitive biography. Kafka is brought to vivid life by an author at once scholarly and entertaining."--John Banville, New Statesman "Stach's declared aim is to find out what it felt like to be Kafka, and he succeeds."--John Banville, Irish Times "Countering the prevailing notion that Kafka was out of touch with reality, Stach details how this quixotic modernist was actually well informed about the crisis and how this knowledge altered the course of his writing. In addition to being a skillful biographer, Stach is an authority on Kafka, having worked for more than a decade on the definitive critical edition of Kafka's writings... [T]his biography is an extraordinary accomplishment."--Choice "Stach's riveting narrative, which reflects the latest findings about Kafka's life and works, draws readers in with a nearly cinematic power, zooming in for extreme close-ups of Kafka's personal life, then pulling back for panoramic shots of a wider world."--World Book Industry "Reiner Stach's biography of Franz Kafka, planned for three volumes, has assumed a commanding position in a crowded field: this is a work that simply must be studied by anyone with a serious interest in Kafka... The appearance in English of this groundbreaking work is a publishing event of major importance."--Peter Zusi, Slavic Review "Stach pursues what can be known of Kafka so far and so exhaustively... Sometimes I thought of Stach as the captive and Kafka as the captor... Vivid and valuable."--Rivka Galchen "Masterly ... Stach's great achievement is to place the literary work into a biographical context that emphasises the interplay of memory, experience and symbolism in the writing... A triumph of biography and literary scholarship."--PD Smith, Guardian "[A] brilliant, authoritative portrait."--John Yargo, The Millions "Superbly translated from German by Shelley Frisch... Illuminating facts and intelligent commentary... The three volumes are so carefully composed and densely woven--blending history, literary analysis, psychological insights, quotes and commentary from others--that it would be practically impossible to produce an abridged version in a single volume."--Alexander Adams, Spiked ReviewTable of ContentsPROLOGUE The Ants of Prague 1 CHAPTER ONE Stepping Outside the Self 8 CHAPTER TWO No Literary Prize for Kafka 31 CHAPTER THREE "Civilian Kavka": The Work of War 46 CHAPTER FOUR The Marvel of Marienbad 83 CHAPTER FIVE What Do I Have in Common with Jews? 105 CHAPTER SIX Kafka Encounters His Readers 129 CHAPTER SEVEN The Alchemist 141 CHAPTER EIGHT Ottla and Felice 157 CHAPTER NINE The Country Doctor Ventures Out 170 CHAPTER TEN Mycobacterium tuberculosis 186 CHAPTER ELEVEN Zurau's Ark 201 CHAPTER TWELVE Meditations 222 CHAPTER THIRTEEN Spanish Influenza, Czech Revolt, Jewish Angst 244 CHAPTER FOURTEEN The Pariah Girl 266 CHAPTER FIFTEEN The Unposted Letter to Hermann Kafka 287 CHAPTER SIXTEEN Merano, Second Class 311 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Milena 319 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Living Fires 332 CHAPTER NINETEEN The Big Nevertheless 353 CHAPTER TWENTY Escape to the Mountains 380 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Fever and Snow: Tatranske Matliary 387 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO The Internal and the External Clock 404 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE The Personal Myth: The Castle 423 CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Retiree and Hunger Artist 451 CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE The Palestinian 475 CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX Dora 497 CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN The Edge of Berlin 512 CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT Last Sorrow 546 EPILOGUE 573 Acknowledgments 577 Translator's Note 579 Key to Abbreviations 581 Notes 583 Bibliography 647 Photo Credits 665 Index 667

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Book SynopsisThe Magic Of Terry Pratchett is the first full biography of Sir Terry Pratchett ever written. Sir Terry was Britain's best-selling living author, and before his death in 2015 had sold more than 85 million copies of his books worldwide. Best known for the Discworld series, his work has been translated into 37 languages, and performed as plays on every continent in the world, including Antarctica. Journalist, comedian and Pratchett fan Marc Burrows delves into the back story of one of UK's most enduring and beloved authors, from his childhood in the Chiltern Hills, to his time as a journalist, and the journey that would take him via more than sixty best-selling books to an OBE, a knighthood and national treasure status. The Magic Of Terry Pratchett is the result of painstaking archival research alongside interviews with friends and contemporaries who knew the real man under the famous black hat, helping to piece together the full story of one of British literature's most remarkable

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Book SynopsisHoward Phillips Lovecraft had a short life, and he died of cancer in 1936 at the age of 46. But in that relatively short time he had a significant, varied and outstanding output, and although he was not a well-known writer during the time he lived, he has since been hailed as one of the great supernatural fiction writers. Although a huge influence on many writers since his death, and now someone with significant book sales every year, Lovecraft never managed to make a living from writing during his lifetime.Lovecraft spent much time battling various physical and mental issues, but he was able to form bonds and relationships with key people in his life, some of which influenced his thinking and his work. These included his mother, grandfather, aunt, wife and famous figures from the time including Harry Houdini and Robert E Howard; comments from many are included.Lovecraft's sensitivity comes through in his writing, and this book also contains numerous quotes from his famous fictional works. Samples from his poems, letters and other writings serve to paint a full portrait of this master of his chosen genre, horror, but who also contributed significantly to science fiction and fantasy; he truly possessed outstanding talent, as celebrated inside.SAMPLE QUOTE: 'The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.' - Francis Wayland Thurston sets the scene for indescribable horror in The Call of Cthulhu, HP Lovecraft, 1926. SAMPLE FACT: HP Lovecraft's work was the inspiration behind Arkham Asylum (Batman), Black Sabbath's album Behind the Wall of Sleep and The Book of the Dead from the Evil Dead movies.Table of Contents'Hideous': An exploration of the life and times of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and his family: mother and father, grandfather, aunts, and his wife. 'Madness': Lovecraft wrote a wide body of work, including fiction in various genres (horror, science fiction), poetry, journalism, criticism and letters. This chapter includes interesting quotes from Lovecraft himself, as well as his contemporaries, authors and critics. 'Nameless': Lovecraft's most famous creation, Cthulhu was born of horror. This chapter contains quotes relating to the fascinating universe and all things Cthulhu. 'Antiquarian': Science, travel, autobiography and philosophy. Quotes from Lovecraft, his work and others on these lesser-known works of the master. Influence: A look at some of the many places, people and characters that Lovecraft inspired, from books and movies to comic strips and television shows. Wit and Wisdom: A roundup of interesting, odd, amusing and sometimes downright disturbing quotes from Lovecraft and his commentators.

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Book SynopsisA renowned scholar investigates the "human crisis” that Albert Camus confronted in his world and in ours, producing a brilliant study of Camus’s life and influence for those readers who, in Camus's words, “cannot live without dialogue and friendship.”As France—and all of the world—was emerging from the depths of World War II, Camus summed up what he saw as "the human crisis”: We gasp for air among people who believe they are absolutely right, whether it be in their machines or their ideas. And for all who cannot live without dialogue and the friendship of other human beings, this silence is the end of the world. In the years after he wrote these words, until his death fourteen years later, Camus labored to address this crisis, arguing for dialogue, understanding, clarity, and truth. When he sailed to New York, in March 1946—for his first and only visit to the United States—he found an ebullient nation celebrating victory. Camus warned against the common postwar complacency that took false comfort in the fact that Hitler was dead and the Third Reich had fallen. Yes, the serpentine beast was dead, but “we know perfectly well,” he argued, “that the venom is not gone, that each of us carries it in our own hearts.” All around him in the postwar world, Camus saw disheartening evidence of a global community revealing a heightened indifference to a number of societal ills. It is the same indifference to human suffering that we see all around, and within ourselves, today. Camus’s voice speaks like few others to the heart of an affliction that infects our country and our world, a world divided against itself. His generation called him “the conscience of Europe.” That same voice speaks to us and our world today with a moral integrity and eloquence so sorely lacking in the public arena. Few authors, sixty years after their deaths, have more avid readers, across more continents, than Albert Camus. Camus has never been a trend, a fad, or just a good read. He was always and still is a companion, a guide, a challenge, and a light in darkened times. This keenly insightful story of an intellectual is an ideal volume for those readers who are first discovering Camus, as well as a penetrating exploration of the author for all those who imagine they have already plumbed Camus’ depths—a supremely timely book on an author whose time has come once again.Trade ReviewPraise for Albert Camus and the Human Crisis “Meagher shows how considering the importance of our stories and the “language of common humanity”, which characterizes Camus’ life and work, is the response to the human crisis. The book focuses on Camus’ core ideas and takes us through all his work, offering insightful and moving readings of their meaning… [A] lovingly written and deeply moral book.” * The Times Higher Education *"In Albert Camus and the Human Crisis, Meagher presents a powerful reading of the oeuvre of a thinker who still has much to tell us. Meagher’s deep understanding of Camus, developed over fifty years of teaching, enables him to discuss Camus’ work in prose that is lively and clear and, at the same time, full of nuance. Reading Meagher is like talking over coffee with your favorite professor. Berets and clove cigarettes optional." * Chicago Review of Books *"This fascinating, multifaceted study of the weird and enduring social relevance of Camus is only a kind of biography on one of its many levels, but even so, it sheds more light on the inner man than many full-dress life studies have been." -- Steve Donoghue, Founding Editor of Open Letters Review * Best Biographies of 2021 *"Robert Meagher sheds light on Albert Camus’s 'enduring contribution to today’s challenges' in this brilliant study. Meagher argues strongly against the notion that Camus was an existentialist and an atheist, and makes a convincing case that a modern world in peril ought turn to 'the moral clarity and prophetic wisdom' of Camus. Fans of the philosopher and those new to his work will find this full of insight." * Publishers Weekly *"Prophets are relentless. Their voices defy death and the passage of time. In Robert Meagher’s book, the prophetic voice of Camus is powerfully resonant on every page. Camus warns us that our world is in crisis. Our common humanity is at stake. We daily harden ourselves against the suffering and death of others. We despair of dialog and prefer dominance. We eliminate people instead of problems. We accept everyday murder in our name, calling it just, deserved, or inevitable. In each chapter, Meagher mines the rare wisdom and decency in Camus’s words and works, confronting and challenging us to see ourselves in each other, to recognize our common humanity, to renounce killing and create community. Albert Camus and the Human Crisis is a moral field guide to surviving our lethal, dehumanizing times." -- Sr. Helen Prejean, CSJ: Celebrated author of Dead Man Walking; The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions; and River of Fire: On Becoming an Activist. Founder of Ministry Against the Death Penalty.Praise for Robert Emmet Meager’s War and Moral Injury:"An invaluable guide on the path to a fuller understanding of Moral Injury.” -- David Wood, Pulitzer Prize journalist and author of What Have We Done: The Moral Injury of Our Longest Wars"This brilliant, timely, and compelling collection on the experience of war sheds urgently needed light on the moral 'wounds' of our combat veterans and how we, our society, and especially faith organizations can reach out to assist them in their time of need." -- John Scott, Major General (USA Retired), Deacon, Roman Catholic Church"This book is a tremendous contribution to understanding moral injury, an impact of war largely unseen through ignorance or design. It should compel us individually and as nations to tackle mythologies contrived to glorify wars at the cost of the moral wellbeing of those sent to fight them.” -- Jody Williams, Nobel Peace Prize, Founding Coordinator, International Campaign to Ban Landmines"War and Moral Injury is not only a work from the conscience, but from the heart. This earnest and moving collection gives us a much-needed view of what it is to be human in the face of war, of how we are not made to kill, and of how doing so injures the human soul. A stunning and essential book." -- Helen Benedict, Columbia University, author of Wolf Season, Sand Queen, and The Lonely Soldier"A particularly illuminating critical study." -- The Arts Fuse * Recommended Books of 2021 *

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Book SynopsisVery Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring Elizabeth Bishop has been described as the ''best-loved'' poet in English of the second half of the twentieth century. This Very Short Introduction explores the 90 or so published poems that are at the core of her remarkable canon of verse. Drawing on biographical and critical material, Jonathan Post also makes frequent use of Bishop''s letters and commentary by fellow poets, including Marianne Moore, Robert Lowell, and James Merrill to illuminate her writing and contemporary literary landscape. Throughout, Post places Bishop''s lyric poetry within the context of her life and aesthetic values, showing how these shaped her work. The book covers a wide range of core themes present in her poetry, including her powerful use of description, the environment, balance, and ideas of love and loss, as well as looking at Bishop''s interest in the visual arts. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.Trade ReviewA generous, sensitive overview of Bishops life and work. - Kimberly Johnson, Brigham Young University, George Herbert JournalI would recommend this book to any reader of Bishop because Professor Post's insights are fine-tuned with a good ear and extensive poetic foundation. * Angus Cleghorn, Seneca College, Toronto, The Elizabeth Bishop Centenary *Jonathan F. S. Post has written a fine guide. * Andrew Neilson, Los Angeles Review of Books *Table of Contents1: Less is more: a world in miniature 2: Formal matters 3: 'The Armadillo', the art of description, and 'Brazil, January 1, 1502' 4: Poetry and painting 5: Love known 6: Late travel poems Epilogue, with acknowledgements Timeline References Further reading Index

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewA wonderfully readable account of one of the great, and difficult, figures in world literature, Dostoevsky in Love brings the subject brilliantly to life. Anyone who loves his novels will be fascinated by this book. -- Sue Prideaux, author of 'I Am Dynamite! A Life of Friedrich Nietzsche'Christofi immerses us in the forcefield of Dostoevsky’s thought … Beautifully crafted and realised, but it is the great love that Christofi feels for his subject that makes this such a moving book. -- Frances Wilson * Guardian *Whether you know everything or nothing about Dostoevsky, whether you love or hate him (and he was extremely annoying), this is the perfect modern biography. A celebration of human complexity which fuses surprising new information about the life of the writer with a passionate love for his books. Alex Christofi has created the most charismatic and engaging portrait of a tortured, brilliant man. Dostoevsky In Love is as entertaining as it is insightful. -- Viv Groskop, author of 'The Anna Karenina Fix: Life Lessons from Russian Literature'A wonderfully written life of Dostoevsky, in which the boundaries that conventionally separate biography and autobiography are dissolved to revelatory effect. -- Tom HollandCombining equal parts fact and fiction with literary flair, Alex Christofi has crafted in Dostoevsky in Love a stunning, genre-bending work certain to captivate fans of Dostoevsky and the Russian classics. A daring and mesmerizing twist on the art of biography. -- Douglas Smith, author of 'Rasputin: The Biography'Alex Christofi has created a dazzling hybrid, a narrative account of Dostoevsky’s life that blends the known facts with his letters and the most autobiographical elements of his fiction. The effect is like that of colourised film footage: the Dostoevsky that shambles through these pages possesses an immediacy and a realness that’s almost uncanny. -- Chris Power, novelist and author of 'Mothers'A fierce account of Dostoevsky’s inner and outer life … Christofi’s rapidly unrolling tapestry helps to capture the madcap, tumbling and ferocious quality of Dostoevsky’s style. * Financial Times *Innovative biography ... The sociopolitical ferment of Russia bubble[s] up through Mr Christofi’s pages * Wall Street Journal *Fluently readable and warmly entertaining * Daily Telegraph *[A] compelling portrait of the writer’s inner world … Christofi reminds us how much Dostoevsky’s own failings and endless remorse informed his work and shaped his characters. My only caveat is that this lively account is too short. * New Humanist *An immersive and visceral journey through the life of the revolutionary author … [Dostoevsky in Love] feels like a cinematic thriller with one of those protagonists that you want to grasp by the shoulders and shake. * Irish Times *An utterly charming, lively and original work that reads like a novel itself. * Globe and Mail *... qualities which we ascribe to [Dostoevsky’s] unforgettable fictional characters, were all to be found in “Fyodor” himself and Christofi describes them with warmth and understanding. -- A. N. Wilson * Times Literary Supplement *In Dostoevsky in Love, Alex Christofi managed to pack the life and works into just two hundred understated pages. -- Oliver Ready * Literary Review *Crafted with novelistic skill, it is a book to fit the vast complexity of the man and his work. -- Frances Wilson * New Statesman *Alex Christofi collages fragments from the fiction and journals to explore Dostoevsky’s three great love affairs. The result, a meticulously sourced, semi-novelistic “biography”, is both immersive and extraordinary. -- Sunday Times * Literary Non-fiction Books of the Year *... Christofi creates a kind of speculative memoir, part juicy information, part romantic guesswork. For me it worked beautifully, being both unexpectedly moving…and an exciting, unpredictable page-turner. * Big Issue *Table of ContentsAuthor's Note Prologue: Life is a Gift (1849) 1 White Nights (1821-45) 2 Circles within Circles (1846-49) 3 The Dead House (1850-54) 4 The Devil's Sandbox (1854-59) 5 Young Russia (1860-62) 6 Polina (1863) 7 Epoch's End (1864-66) 8 The Gambler (1866-67) 9 The Idiot (1867) 10 Death for the Russian (1868-71) 11 The Citizen (1872-77) 12 The Prophet (1878-81) Epilogue Notes Select Bibliography Acknowledgements Index

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Book SynopsisFour popular novelists of the same generation each wrote a novel inspired by a holiday that the author spent in France. In the nineteen-fifties, Rumer Godden based The Greengage Summer on her recollections of her family’s 1923 battlefield-tour manqué in the Champagne region. Margery Sharp’s 1936 holiday in Southern France led to ‘Still Waters’ and The Nutmeg Tree: both the short story and the novel are set in and around the region of Aix-les-Bains. In 1955, Daphne Du Maurier first visited the department of Sarthe to research French family history; the novel The Scapegoat was the immediate result of the holiday. And in 1966, Stella Gibbons’ last trip to the continent took the form of a visit to an old friend in her summer home near Grenoble. The stay is obliquely reflected in The Snow-Woman, in which a similar holiday leads a never-married septuagenarian to experience a renaissance of sorts.Trade Review"This is a very original literary study of the work of four British writers who, though still remembered today, are not as celebrated or read as much as they deserve to be. Through the prism of visits to France in the novels and stories of these writers, Anne Hall explores the delicate and subtle interplay of relations between those two nations in fiction. It is elegantly written, illuminating and informative. There is some fascinating original scholarship here, but, above all, Four French Holidays is highly entertaining and tempts you to go and read for yourself (if you haven’t already) or re-read the works under consideration." Reggie Oliver, nephew and biographer of Stella Gibbons

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Book Synopsis ‘One of the greatest writers of our time.’ Toni Morrison ‘You Don’t Know Us Negroes adds immeasurably to our understanding of Hurston … her words make it impossible for readers to consider her anything but one of the intellectual giants of the 20th century.’ The New York Times Book ReviewTrade Review‘Reading Hurston, you always wonder what shape her dignity will take next. Her style and spark were her own.’ The New York Times ‘Fierce, insightful and often devilishly funny, her satirical writing is particularly biting.’ The Observer ‘In these essays, which cover themes of race, gender and politics, her writing is characterised by an impish relish that remains both shocking and invigorating today.’ Financial Times Online ‘You Don’t Know Us Negroes adds immeasurably to our understanding of Hurston, who was a tireless crusader in all her writing, and ahead of her time. Though she was often misunderstood, sometimes maligned and occasionally dismissed, her words make it impossible for readers to consider her anything but one of the intellectual giants of the 20th century. Despite facing sexism, racism and general ignorance, Hurston managed to produce a written legacy that, thanks to enduring collections like this one, will engage readers for generations to come.’ The New York Times Book Review ‘This collection recognises one of the finest writers of the 20th century.’ The Sunday Express

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Book Synopsis A Sunday Times Book of the Year'This magnificent, highly readable double biography...brings these two driven, complicated women vividly to life' The Financial Times'A gripping saga of a double-biography' Daily Mail'A masterful portrait' The Times'Vastly enjoyable' Literary Review'Deeply absorbing and meticulously researched' The Oldie In 1815, the clever, courted and cherished Annabella Milbanke married the notorious and brilliant Lord Byron. Just one year later, she fled, taking with her their baby daughter, the future Ada Lovelace. Byron himself escaped into exile and died as a revolutionary hero in 1824, aged 36. The one thing he had asked his wife to do was to make sure that their daughter never became a poet. Ada didn't. Brought up by aTrade Review‘A masterful portrait…Miranda Seymour is a marvellous storyteller…it is composed to a considerable extent of scandal, gossip and bad blood, Seymour’s book is hugely entertaining as well as formidably researched, and should not be missed’ -- John Carey * The Sunday Times *‘It was…her brilliance as a scientific and mathematical pioneer that defined Ada…Struggling against her mother’s domineering influence and the sexism of 19th Century England…she also found herself in competition for Annabella’s attention with Medora, Augusta’s daughter and rumoured Byronic bastard.’ -- Alexander Larman * The Times *‘Vastly enjoyable…it is one of the many pleasures of this book that Seymour makes the reader warm to their inconsistencies, to all the inexplicable oppositions of character and action that make them so familiar and human…Brilliant, ebullient, eccentric, vivacious, egocentric and oddly dressed, Ada had her mother’s discipline and her father’s volatility.’ -- Lucy Lethbridge * Literary Review *'As Miranda Seymour writes in this gripping saga of a double-biography…the pretty 20-year-old Annabella Milbanke… [who] fell head over heels in love with mad, bad and dangerous Lord Byron…a serial womaniser who referred to sexual encounters as "hot luncheons"…"her heart was obstinately set upon the reformation of a rake".' -- Ysenda Maxtone Graham * Daily Mail, Book of the Week *'Miranda Seymour is…subtle, astute and experienced an historian…and her zestful prose keeps the reader engaged throughout…in this deeply absorbing and meticulously researched biography of Byron’s wife and daughter.' -- Rupert Christiansen * The Oldie *'It’s more than 160 years since the death of the computer pioneer Ada Lovelace…credited with everything from the invention of the CD to the foundation of Silicon Valley. Miranda Seymour agrees that it is not Ada Lovelace’s skills as a mathematician that matter, but rather her visionary words, 100 years before the birth of electronic computers, about "a new, a vast and a powerful language". In her ambitious...dual biography of Ada and her mother Lady Byron, the power of Lovelace’s imagination and her belief in a "poetry of mathematics" is seen as a direct inheritance from Ada’s father Lord Byron.' -- Mark Bostridge * The Spectator *'There are difficult men, and then there is Lord Byron…the aim of Miranda Seymour’s new book is to put Byron’s wife, Annabella Milbanke, and their increasingly famous daughter, Ada Lovelace, centre stage… Not only were his wife and child still dealing with the rumours of cruelty, incest and sodomy – a then illegal activity which, Seymour…a wonderful writer… speculates, his young wife may have enjoyed – long after his death in 1824; they remained, in emotionally complex ways, in his thrall all their lives.' -- Rachel Cooke * The Observer, Book of the Day *'On BBC4 she was celebrated as "Calculating Ada, the Countess of Computing"…writing about Babbage’s Analytical Engine, whose potential she was the only one to realise…in her extraordinarily prophetic "Notes"…As for Ada’s mother… Annabella Milbanke was married only a year before she left Byron, and he left the country…Miranda Seymour puts everything straight in this magnificent, highly readable double biography, which brings these two driven, complicated women vividly to life…In Seymour’s hands, Annabella’s pioneering work…at last assumes the status it deserves. Her humanity shines through…Ada’s own short life was colourful, chaotic and bedevilled by illness…This is a very fine book. Written with warmth, panache and conviction, its formidable research is lightly worn.' -- Sue Gaisford * The Financial Times *‘The story of this unhappy trio has been told before, but seldom with as much brio as it is here. Miranda Seymour’s particular aim is to rescue Annabella from over a century’s worth of bad press… Only now, in Seymour’s careful hands, is she finally allowed to emerge as a figure who was neither saint nor sinner but somewhere in between.’ -- Kathryn Hughes * The Guardian *‘A seasoned biographer, [Miranda Seymour] brings her considerable powers to the lives of the human jetsam…left to sink or swim in Byron’s wake.' * Weekend Australian *‘A nuanced account, attuned to contemporary preoccupations...Goethe thought the spectacle of the Byrons’ marriage "so poetical that if Lord Byron had invented it, he would hardly have had a more fortunate subject for his genius." Seymour’s account...shows that it has lost none of its power to enthrall.’ * Daily Telegraph *‘Deft and compelling… The late Georgians invented the cult of celebrity and Byron was its first and finest creation. His wife and daughter could not escape fame, they could hope only to avoid notoriety. Annabella’s attempts to preserve her reputation and other people’s attempts to salvage Byron’s have left a pall of smoke from burning letters and diaries, further obscuring the facts that remain. Seymour carries off a delicate balancing act, combining the historian’s proper caution with acute judgements and a dashing narrative pace.’ -- Rosemary Hill * London Review of Books *‘Seymour manages to offer a supremely even-handed and well-evidenced account of the relationship without losing any of the juicier details (Byron’s affair and possible daughter with his half-sister; his predilection for sodomy; his seeming derangement in the face of wedlock)…one of the many strengths of Seymour’s study is its illustration of these accomplished women’s lives apart from the man who deserted them. Seymour is a master of character, and here she gives us two ferociously intelligent women who were deeply ambivalent about motherhood and their place in the male-dominated fields they inhabited.’ -- Corin Throsby * TLS *‘Meticulously researched…A skilled and experienced biographer, Seymour weaves her way through cobwebby curtains of rumor and gossip…The combination of pure mathematics and agonized personal passions gives Seymour’s book an arresting power’ -- Jenny Uglow * New York Review of Books *‘Miranda Seymour joins the dots with a wonderful account of the life of Ada’s mother, Annabella Milbanke, a society heiress and education reformer who outlived both husband and daughter. This double biography…is a scholarly treatment of sensational material, and it’s often as gripping as a soap opera’ * Sunday Times Books of the Year *‘A skilful account of Lord Byron’s disastrous marriage to the heiress Annabella Milbanke…and then on their daughter, Ada, Countess of Lovelace, computing pioneer, who descended into drugs and debt’ * Daily Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisWilfred Owen is the poet of pity, the voice of the soldier maimed, blinded, traumatised and killed, not just in the Great War, but in all wars since, so resonant has his message become. Although he saw only five of his poems published in his lifetime, he left behind a portfolio of poetry and letters that created a powerful legacy. This generously illustrated book tells the story of Wilfred Owen’s life and work anew, from his birth in 1893 until his death one week before the Armistice on 4 November 1918. It chronicles Owen’s journey from a romantic youth, steeped in the poetry of Keats, to mature soldier awakened to the horrors of the Western Front. Drawing on rich archival material such as personal books, artefacts, family photographs and numerous manuscripts, the volume takes a fresh look at Owen’s apprenticeship and eventual mastery of poetry, giving a comprehensive view of the relationship between his lived experience and his writing. Those already familiar with or well-versed in Owen's work will find new material in this book, and those coming to Owen for the first time will enjoy a well researched, yet accessible, illustrated introduction to one of the twentieth century's greatest poets.Table of ContentsForeword Preface 1. 1893-1910 Childhood and young adulthood: Oswestry, Birkenhead, Shrewsbury 2. 1911-1915 The search for a profession: Dunsden, Bordeaux, The Pyrenees, Mérignac 3. 1915-1916 Enlistment and training: London, Romford, Aldershot 4. 1917 Active Service and shell shock: The Somme and Craiglockhart 5. 1918 The last year: Ripon and France 6. Owen’s Afterlife: Publication, critical reception, canonization Notes Bibliography List of poems Picture Credits Index

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Stach often does quietly brilliant work connecting known details of Kafka's youth to the older Kafka, so the reader can see how events appear (or don't) in the specific subjectivity of Kafka's recollection."--Rivka Galchen, London Review of Books "Stach's book crowns a definitive biographical trilogy 18 years in the making... Kafka: The Early Years, along with its two siblings--all three volumes impeccably translated from the German by Shelley Frisch--often feels like biography plotted as a novel. Stach's relish for detail is marshaled to the sensibility--if not the omniscience or imaginative license--of the novelist... [T]he heft of Stach's research is balanced by interpretive tact and a discerning eye."--Benjamin Balint, Wall Street Journal Praise for the previous volumes: "This is one of the great literary biographies, to be set up there with, or perhaps placed on an even higher shelf than, Richard Ellmann's James Joyce, George Painter's Marcel Proust, and Leon Edel's Henry James... [A]n eerily immediate portrait of one of literature's most enduring and enigmatic masters."--John Banville, New York Review of Books Praise for the previous volumes: "Resplendent."--Gary Giddins, Wall Street Journal Praise for Reiner Stach's biography of Kafka, winner of the 2015 Bavarian Book Prize: "One discovers a new, a different Dr. Franz Kafka of Prague in Reiner Stach's monumental, three-volume biography, which concludes triumphantly with Kafka: The Early Years: Kafka--a techie, a lady-killer, friend, the inventor of 3-D movies, and the prospective author of a series of low-priced travel guides for Europe. Reiner Stach proves that biography can be a literary art form and gives definitive shape to our contemporary image of Kafka."--Bavarian Book Prize jury statement Praise for the previous volumes: "[This] will surely be the definitive biography of one of the 20th century's most mysterious artists. Stach's declared aim is to find out what it felt like to be Kafka, and he succeeds."--John Banville, Irish Times Praise for the previous volumes: "The very best of which the genre is capable. This book is itself a novel."--Imre Kertesz, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature Praise for the previous volumes: "Superbly tempered... Shelley Frisch, Stach's heroic American translator, movingly reproduces his intended breadth and pace and tone."--Cynthia Ozick, New Republic Praise for the previous volumes: "A definitive biography of a rare writer... [M]asterful."--The Economist Praise for the previous volumes: "Stach aims to tell us all that can be known about [Kafka], avoiding the fancies and extrapolations of earlier biographers. The result is an enthralling synthesis, one that reads beautifully... I can't say enough about the liveliness and richness of Stach's book... Every page of this book feels excited, dynamic, utterly alive."--Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World Praise for the previous volumes: "Stach's is a splendid effort and will be hard to surpass."--William H. Gass, Harper's Magazine Praise for the previous volumes: "[Stach] has a deep understanding of the world that Kafka came from and this is matched by an intelligence and tact about the impulse behind the work itself."--Colm Toibin, Irish Independent Praise for the previous volumes: "Stach's book succeeds brilliantly at clearing a path through the thick metaphysical fog that has hung about Kafka's work almost since his death... [I]lluminating... Between them, [Frisch] and Stach have produced a superbly fresh imaginative guide to the strange, clear, metaphor-free world of Kafka's prose."--Tim Martin, Telegraph Praise for the previous volumes: "Magnificent."--John Carey, Sunday Times Praise for the previous volumes: "Flawlessly translated... [A] wonderfully intelligent and perceptive portrait of a uniquely powerful writer."--P. D. Smith, Guardian "Magisterial... [Reiner Stach's] portrait of the artist is intimately knowing... [Kafka: The Early Years] completes an indispensable work about a key figure in 20th-century modernism."--Kirkus Reviews "Kafka's eerie short stories and novels have electrified readers for generations, but Stach's portrait of the young Kafka contradicts the legend of their source in an alienated, detached enigma. Readers meet instead a likable, brilliant young insurance lawyer with, as Stach puts it, abundant perfectionism and self-doubt... [A]ll Kafka devotees will find this biography's insights deeply fulfilling."--Publishers Weekly "What Mr. Stach uncovers in this volume--written last because of a long struggle over access to documents--are the formative experiences of a Kafka who becomes new and surprisingly relevant... Even those immersed in the specialist work benefit from the illumination that Mr. Stach's detailed digging brings... In today's age of backlash against globalisation, the arc that Mr. Stach draws between 'The Early Years' and Kafka's later life takes on a new significance."--The Economist "Reiner Stach presents exhaustive details about the young author's life, which, rather than demystifying Kafka, actually have the effect of augmenting his complexity."--Mene Ukueberuwa, New Criterion "Reiner Stach's monumental three-volume Kafka ... looks set to be the definitive biography for the foreseeable future. Here we have something new: a credible and sympathetic human Kafka... The narrative sections of the book are masterly: Stach has a novelist's feel for atmosphere and psychology. He fixes important characters (not just Kafka, but his parents and his teachers, Brod, and several others) to the page in a few deft strokes. And he is truly excellent on Kafka's work, which is the most important thing of all. The central question of any serious literary biography should be: how did this person come to write these books? Stach answers it more fully and persuasively than any previous biographer of Kafka, by revealing in meticulous detail his feelings of personal insignificance and his dread of authority."--Edmund Gordon, Sunday Times "The best thing a biographer of Franz Kafka can do is bring the famed author back to earth. Not as regards his reputation, which is justifiably lofty. But to humanize Kafka and save him from our collective idea of him as some otherworldly creature who spent a mere 40 years on this earth, suffering much and publishing little. Reiner Stach accomplishes just this with the third and final volume of his magnificent biography... [He] strips away the myths and tells the story of how Kafka helped drag literature into the modern era."--John Winters, WBUR's ARTery blog "Stach's account of Kafka becoming Kafka is dotted with unlikely epigraphs (Laurie Anderson, Devo, the Human League) and written with pace and dry wit... Stach is an alert reader of the work, continuously on the prowl for aspects of Kafka's life that may shed light on his preoccupations... Stach's book succeeds because it concentrates less on reducing Kafka to psycho-biographical truisms than on ushering us into his company."--Tim Martin, Prospect "Belongs in the company of the masterpieces of literary biography... [C]omprehensive but raised above mere competency through astonishing architectural beauty. Thanks to the superb work of Stach's translator, Shelley Frisch, the trilogy also stands out in English at the sentence level, for the unbroken clarity, verbal ingenuity, and unflagging momentum of its prose."--Open Letters Monthly "One of the most engaging and persuasive features of [Kafka: The Early Years] ... is the way in which Stach goes far beyond the all-too-familiar neurotic, angst-ridden [Kafka] by presenting us with a variety of lesser-known 'Kafkas.'"--Mark Harman, Los Angeles Review of Books "Superbly translated from German by Shelley Frisch... Illuminating facts and intelligent commentary... The three volumes are so carefully composed and densely woven--blending history, literary analysis, psychological insights, quotes and commentary from others--that it would be practically impossible to produce an abridged version in a single volume."--Alexander Adams, Spiked Review "Stach's whole project is a wonder to behold."--Gregory Day, Sydney Morning Herald "If you are a Kafka fan (or just a fan of great literary biographies), the translation of Reiner Stach's enormous, three-part biography is something not to miss. Now that it has been translated into English by Shelley Frisch, the book offered English-language readers unparalleled insight into Kafka's life, his world, his colleagues, his lovers, his family, and of course his writing. As a longtime Kafka devotee, I found this biography exceptional, not just a great book about Kafka but simply a great book to read."--Scott Esposito, Conversational Reading "[Stach's] mastery of complex material, scrupulous examination of evidence, illuminating portrayal of the historical and intellectual background ranks with Joseph Frank's superb five-volume life of Dostoyevsky."--Jeffrey Meyers, Commonweal "We can trace, through Stach's measured narrative, the full course of Kafka's brief life... The result is not merely a biography of painstaking thoroughness but a piece of psychological investigation and literary detective work without clear parallel. It gives its readers a new Kafka. It explains much that has long seemed obscure; yet, by paradox, the more its author-hero is grounded in his context, and the more we grasp of the initial sources of his imagination, the more unfathomable his gifts become. The haze clears; he stands alone."--Nicolas Rothwell, AustralianTable of ContentsTranslator's Preface ix 1 Nothing Happening in Prague 1 2 The Curtain Rises 7 3 Giants: The Kafkas from Wosek 26 4 Julie Lowy 38 5 Losing Propositions 46 6 Thoughts about Freud 58 7 Kafka, Franz: Model Student 77 8 A City Energized 90 9 Elli, Valli, Ottla 113 10 Latin, Bohemian, Mathematics, and Other Matters of the Heart 122 11 Jewish Lessons 150 12 Innocence and Impudence 171 13 The Path to Freedom 184 14 To Hell with German Studies 204 15 Friend Max 222 16 Enticements 236 17 Informed Circles: Utitz, Weltsch, Fanta, Bergmann 248 18 Autonomy and Recovery 268 19 The Interior Landscape: "Description of a Struggle" 284 2 Doctor of Law Seeking Employment 302 21 Off to the Prostitutes 325 22 Cafes, Geishas, Art, and Cinema 335 23 The Formidable Assistant Offi ial 350 24 The Secret Writing School 370 25 Landing in Brescia 391 26 In the Heart of the West 407 27 Ideas and Spirits: Buber, Steiner, Einstein 420 28 Literature and Tourism 437 Acknowledgments 463 Key to Abbreviations 465 Notes 467 Bibliography 531 Photo Credits 549 Index 551

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Book SynopsisTWO LIVES tells the remarkable story of Seth''s great uncle and aunt. His great uncle Shanti left India for medical school in Berlin in the 1930s and lodged with a German Jewish family. In the household was a daughter, Henny, who urged her mother ''not to take the blackie''. But a friendship developed and each managed to leave Germany and found their way to Britain as the Nazis rose to power. Shanti joined the army and lost his right arm at the battle of Monte Cassino, while Henny (whose family were to die in the camps) made a life for herself in her adopted country. After the war they married and lived the emigre life in north London where Shanti, despite the loss of his arm, became a much-loved dentist. During his own adolescence in England, Vikram Seth lived with Shanti and Henny and came to know and love them deeply. His is the third life in this story of TWO LIVES. This is also a book about history, encompassing as it does many of the most significant themes and events in the 20thTrade ReviewThis is an accomplished and profoundly moving work * DAILY TELEGRAPH *Written as an act of love and duty it is a testament to his modesty and familial affection. * SUNDAT TIMES *A fascinating and honest read. * TRIBUNE *Seth is a thorough biographer, but his considerable narrative skill is as evident here as it is in his fiction... One of the beauties of TWO LIVES is that it transcends its subject matter, becoming a celebration of endurance, a recognition of all lives pun * SUNDAY BUSINESS POST *

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“A touching biography of [Pippi Longstocking’s] creator Astrid Lingren sheds new light on the genesis of her most celebrated creation. . . she continues to inspire fresh generations to follow in her outsize footsteps. —Lydia Slater, Harper’s Bazaar“Lindgren is an absolute gift to a biographer. She was an industrious letter writer and diarist, and her life both reflected and embodied some of the most significant political and social shifts of the 20th century. . . [Andersen] is masterful at elucidating the accumulative private sorrows that shaded the inner life of this industrious woman, who wrote such enduringly exuberant stories.” —Claire Allfree, Daily Telegraph “Literary critic Jens Andersen recounts the celebrated author’s fascinating life and work . . . a detailed and thoughtful volume.”—Meghan Cox Gurdon, Wall Street Journal“[A] fine and thoughtful biography.”—Nicci Gerrard, Observer“If one woman could embody the trajectory of the 20th century, I nominate Astrid Lindgren. She emerges from this absorbing biography as a feminist, writer, campaigner for children’s rights, visionary humanist, and a model of the intelligent life well-lived.”—Meg Rosoff, international best-selling author“This is the definitive biography of the author of Pippi Longstocking. Astrid Lindgren emerges as a fully formed artistic, political, and social figure: a Scandinavian modernist who produced works of world literature.”—Seth Lerer, author of Children's Literature: A Reader's History, from Aesop to Harry Potter“It is no small achievement to have brought to life an author already so alive in the minds of her readers, but Jens Andersen has done it. This is a wonderfully sympathetic and intimate portrait of a writer we all thought we knew.” — Morten Høi Jensen, author of A Difficult Death: The Life and Work of Jens Peter Jacobsen“Andersen tells Lindgren’s story with befitting adroitness and charm. This biography will raise the care and interest with which scholars and admirers alike approach Pippi Longstocking for years to come.”—Heather Klemann, Yale University

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Book SynopsisA remarkable portrait of a remarkable man by the inimitable and always entertaining Anthony Burgess.

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Book SynopsisEdward Thomas was perhaps the most beguiling and influential of First World War poets. Now All Roads Lead to France is an account of his final five years, centred on his extraordinary friendship with Robert Frost and Thomas''s fatal decision to fight in the war.The book also evokes an astonishingly creative moment in English literature, when London was a battleground for new, ambitious kinds of writing. A generation that included W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, Robert Frost and Rupert Brooke were ''making it new'' - vehemently and pugnaciously. These larger-than-life characters surround a central figure, tormented by his work and his marriage. But as his friendship with Frost blossomed, Thomas wrote poem after poem, and his emotional affliction began to lift. In 1914 the two friends formed the ideas that would produce some of the most remarkable verse of the twentieth century. Their writing was far more than just war poetry, but it was World War I that put an ocean b

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Book SynopsisÉmile Zola was the leader of the literary movement known as ''naturalism'' and is one of the great figures of the novel. In his monumental Les Rougon-Macquart (1871-93), he explored the social and cultural landscape of the late nineteenth century in ways that scandalized bourgeois society. Zola opened the novel up to a new realm of subjects, including the realities of working-class life, class relations, and questions of gender and sexuality, and his writing embodied a new freedom of expression, with his bold, outspoken voice often inviting controversy. In this Very Short Introduction, Brian Nelson examines Zola''s major themes and narrative art. He illuminates the social and political contexts of Zola''s work, and provides readings of five individual novels (The Belly of Paris, L''Assommoir, The Ladies'' Paradise, Germinal, and Earth). Zola''s naturalist theories, which attempted to align literature with science, helped to generate the stereotypical notion that his fiction was somehow nonfictional. Nelson, however, reveals how the most distinctive elements of Zola''s writing go far beyond his theoretical naturalism, giving his novels their unique force. Throughout, he sets Zola''s work in context, considering his relations with contemporary painters, his role in the Dreyfus Affair, and his eventual murder. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.Trade ReviewIts highlights are the short yet lucid English translations from Zola's French and vivid plot summaries. * Sucheta Kapoor, Techno India University, West Bengal , Nineteenth-Century French Studies *As an introduction to Zola's life and work, Nelson's little book cannot be faulted: it is grounded in a specialist's mastery of the field; it is completed by a reliable chronology; and its invitation to read further is supported by a bibliography listing major editions in French as well as critical studies in English which range from the accessible to the scholarly. * Robert Lethbridge, Journal of European Studies *Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of illustrations Introduction 1 Zola and the art of fiction 2 Before the Rougon-Macquart 3 The fat and the thin: The Belly of Paris 4 'A work of truth': L'Assommoir 5 The man-eater: Nana 6 The dream machine: The Ladies' Paradise 7 Down the mine: Germinal 8 The Great Mother: Earth 9 After the Rougon-Macquart A chronology of Zola's life and works References Further reading

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Book SynopsisDorothy Wellesley was a poet, gardener, traveller and heiress; she was also bisexual and a rebel. She became the lover of Vita Sackville-West, wrecking her marriage to the Duke of Wellington. She was the intimate friend of W.B. Yeats in his final years. On the fringes of the Bloomsbury Group, she had a unique view of these iconic writers and artists. Blue Eyes and a Wild Spirit, written by Dorothy’s granddaughter Jane Wellesley, draws on unpublished material, including private Wellesley family papers and hitherto unknown source materials. This is a riveting biography of a complex and fascinating woman.Trade ReviewA tender, warm biography... A story for our times. * The Independent *A fascinating, reckless and maverick member of one of the nation’s most famous families.An extraordinary woman, an extraordinary life. This is an engaging study – a treat of a book.

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Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.There was a contagion in the very air that blew from that haunted region; it breathed forth an atmosphere of dreams and fancies infecting all the land.'Featuring The Legend of Sleepy Hollow' and Rip Van Winkle', this collection of inspired essays, stories and sketches established Washington Irving's reputation as one of America's foremost authors. Irving's timeless characters, including Ichabod Crane, Rip Van Winkle and the headless Hessian trooper, jostle for space alongside 31 equally atmospheric and lyrical works in this haunting anthology from one of America's most distinctive literary voices.

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Book SynopsisOne morning Mel Toews put on his coat and hat and walked out of town, prepared to die. A loving husband and father, faithful member of the Mennonite church, and immensely popular schoolteacher, he was a pillar of his close-knit community. Yet after a lifetime of struggle, he could no longer face the darkness of manic depression. With razor-sharp precision,Swing Low tells his story in his own voice, taking us deep inside the experience of despair. But it is also a funny, winsome evocation of country life: growing up on farm, courting a wife, becoming a teacher, and rearing a happy, strong family in the midst of private torment. A humane, inspiring story of a remarkable man, father, and teacher.

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Book SynopsisThe second volume of the definitive collection of Dylan Thomas's letters.Trade ReviewDylan 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 TimesHis letters are as funny, and nearly as witty, as Oscar Wilde's, and sometimes almost as wise as Keats's - Sunday Telegraph

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Book SynopsisA compelling portrait of a beloved poet from one of today''s most acclaimed novelistsIn this book, novelist Colm Tóibín offers a deeply personal introduction to the work and life of one of his most important literary influences—the American poet Elizabeth Bishop. Ranging across her poetry, prose, letters, and biography, Tóibín creates a vivid picture of Bishop while also revealing how her work has helped shape his sensibility as a novelist and how her experiences of loss and exile resonate with his own. What emerges is a compelling double portrait that will intrigue readers interested in both Bishop and Tóibín.For Tóibín, the secret of Bishop''s emotional power is in what she leaves unsaid. Exploring Bishop’s famous attention to detail, Tóibín describes how Bishop is able to convey great emotion indirectly, through precise descriptions of particular settings, objects, and events. He examines how Bishop’s attachment to the Nova Scotia of her childhood, despite her later life in Key West and Brazil, is related to her early loss of her parents—and how this connection finds echoes in Tóibín’s life as an Irish writer who has lived in Barcelona, New York, and elsewhere.Beautifully written and skillfully blending biography, literary appreciation, and descriptions of Tóibín’s travels to Bishop’s Nova Scotia, Key West, and Brazil, On Elizabeth Bishop provides a fresh and memorable look at a beloved poet even as it gives us a window into the mind of one of today’s most acclaimed novelists.Trade ReviewColm Toibin, Inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame 2015 Nominee for the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism One of The Guardian's Best Books of 2015, selected by Nicci Gerrard One of The Guardian's Best Books of 2015, selected by Blake Morrison One of The Guardian's Readers' Books of 2015 One of the Irish Times 2015 Readers' Books of the Year One of The New Yorker's Twelve Books Related to Poems, 2015 "Toibin's close readings of Bishop's poems in this deft suite of essays are admirably acute, but what's truly special is that Toibin offers not an elegant study of Bishop's achievements as a poet, but also a shadow account of his own development as a writer, and thus an incidental treatise on the ways writers affect one another's process."--Joel Browner, New York Times Book Review "[The book's] pull on the reader is almost tidal ... it's still impossible for a reader to resist getting sucked into the orbit of Robert Lowell, the rapaciously brilliant and royally messed-up literary lion whom Bishop considered her closest friend. The cat-and-mouse dynamic of Bishop and Lowell's correspondence remains, in Mr. Toibin's telling, as riveting as a series on Netflix or HBO, and probably ought to become one."--Jeff Gordinier, New York Times "The Irish writer's valentine to the Canadian-American poet: a beautiful meditation on shyness, sex, art, and family."--Dan Chiasson, New Yorker "Toibin's little book on Bishop is a writer's exercise in rechristening himself, a second time through with Bishop as his chaperone. The narrative draws us back to moments when the discovery of Bishop, and later of Thom Gunn, drew Toibin forward. This is the kind of beautiful relay that great writers provide for each other, and it gives you hope that some young person somewhere who finds himself in a bind will pick this short book up and find in it not one, but two companions."--Dan Chiasson, New York Review of Books "On Elizabeth Bishop is an engaging introduction to her life and work, and also an essay on the importance of her work in his [Toibin's] life."--Matthew Bevis, London Review of Books "Novelist Toibin (Nora Webster) gives an intimate and engaging look at Elizabeth Bishop's poetry and its influence on his own work... Toibin is also present in the book, and his relationship to Bishop's work and admiration of her style gives the book much of its power. Whether one is familiar with Bishop's life and work or is looking to Toibin to learn more, this book will appeal to many readers."--Publishers Weekly starred review "An admiring critical portrait of a great American poet and a master of subtlety... An inspiring appreciation from one writer to another."--Kirkus Reviews "On Elizabeth Bishop, an unusual mixed-genre critical study/personal memoir by the celebrated Irish novelist Colm Toibin, himself something of a writer's writer, makes a particularly welcome addition to the Princeton University Press Writers on Writers series... Toibin's sense of identification with Bishop allows not only sympathy with her work but his real insight into it... [F]ew critics have dealt more revealingly than Toibin with Bishop's habitual illusion of 'spontaneous' self-correction, her process of thinking aloud on the page... [I]n some essential and large way, Toibin gets Bishop right, and even his quirkiest interpretations illuminate something about both Bishop and himself."--Lloyd Schwartz, Arts Fuse "How does a writer turn life into art? Novelist, poet and critic Colm Toibin's brilliant, compelling book On Elizabeth Bishop does not raise or answer this question directly, but it brings us very close to the moment of alchemy, both in Bishop's work and in his own, showing Princeton University Press' wisdom in establishing the series of writers on writers of which this is a part... Toibin's decision to set the poems in the context of Bishop's life, her friendships and love, and a circle of writers and painters like-minded enough to throw light on her achievement, is an impressive solution to a potentially difficult critical problem."--Elizabeth Greene, Times Higher Education "[I]n Colm Toibin's new book, the Irish novelist explores Bishop's remoteness in ways that both open her poems to the everyday reader and season scholars' broth about her eminence. John Ashbery once called Bishop a 'writer's writer's writer,' and Toibin reveals how this hypothesis has been, in his case, positively true. Though this book is not a biography, it has the uncanny effect of one: In close readings of Bishop's poems and their geographical moorings, Toibin takes us further inside the poet's (and his own) psyche than, perhaps, the archives ever will."--Heather Treseler, Weekly Standard "Bishop is a 20th-century U.S. master poet; Toibin is an Irish fiction writer of today. You might wonder at this pairing. Well, none could pair comfortably with the uneasy, furtive Bishop. Turns out the two have much in common... I just loved this: a writer so open about how his work and life touch another writer's... Little books like this make the world better, teaching us much and inviting more."--John Timpane, Philadelphia Inquirer "In this splendid and perceptive book, Colm Toibin the novelist, has probed the Bishop canon and biography and exquisitely described her work and vision."--Sam Coale, Providence Journal "Toibin's treatment is personal but never self-indulgent, and the book is much more than an appreciation of a poet with whom he has affinities. Beautifully written and deeply felt, this is a penetrating examination of Bishop's aesthetic of stylistic restraint and personal reticence."--Choice "[A] wonderful book."--Lavinia Greenlaw, The Telegraph "An entirely different kind of criticism [On Elizabeth Bishop] reads like a love letter from one writer to another."--Anthony Domestic, Commonweal "A deceptively little, sharp, brilliant book, in which Toibin's understanding and excellent analysis are profound, up close and personal."--Niall MacMonagle, Irish Times "It is not surprising to find, with Colm Toibin's exquisite meditation On Elizabeth Bishop that the masterful Irish novelist is also a critic of considerable acuity. Toibin's sensibility is superbly attuned to that of the formidable Bishop, a poet whose shadow over the crowded landscape of 20th-century American poetry grows longer with every passing year."--Michael Lindgren, Washington Post "I have always been drawn to Bishop's spare poetry, but it was reading Toibin's analysis, which manages to be both a personal reaction and an objective assessment, that helped me to appreciate her fully. Subject and critic can seldom have been as well-matched as they are here, and the insights go in both directions, illuminating Toibin's novels as well as Bishop's poems."--Catherine Peters, RacemeTable of ContentsNo Detail Too Small 1 One of Me 9 In the Village 15 The Art of Losing 30 Nature Greets Our Eyes 41 Order and Disorder in Key West 62 The Escape from History 77 Grief and Reason 96 The Little That We Get for Free 115 Art Isn't Worth That Much 135 The Bartok Bird 162 Efforts of Affection 174 North Atlantic Light 193 Acknowledgments 201 Bibliography 203

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Book SynopsisServing prison time with hard labor for the crime of gross indecency, Oscar Wilde wrote some of his most powerful works. A savage indictment of society, and testimony to private sufferings, his prison writings illuminated by Nicholas Frankel's notes reveal a different man from the dandy and aesthete who shocked or amused the English-speaking world.Trade ReviewA welcome gathering of Wilde’s most humane work, with choice illustrations, where the self-proclaimed ‘lord of language’ gives voice to the poor, the disaffected. * Irish Times *Frankel has…done us a favor to annotate such material with such labor and such learning…Wilde comes out of this volume with all his follies flying as an extraordinarily impressive human being. -- Peter Craven * Sydney Morning Herald *With headlines of police brutality and judicial immorality as relevant today as back then, creative works which remind audiences of Wilde’s timeless moral principles remain vital. -- John L. Murphy * PopMatters *De Profundis and The Ballad of Reading Gaol are canonical Victorian literature, and Frankel’s precise and well-informed notes will raise readers’ awareness of Wilde’s thinking on morality, crime, religion, sexuality, aesthetics, and prison reform. -- Ellis Hanson, Cornell UniversityFrankel provides a valuable service in comprehensively editing these works for a fresh generation of readers. -- Joseph Bristow, University of California, Los Angeles

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Book SynopsisA full accounting of Thoreau’s life that takes him, his writings, and his ideas seriously and puts him in the context of his place and time.Trade Review"Beautifully written, this is a substantial volume in which every page feels essential. You won't want to put it down."--Dianne Timblin "American Scientist " "Not only does the biographer capture the breadth and depth of Thoreau's relations and work, she leaves us tantalized, wanting more."--Barbara Lloyd McMichael "Seattle Times " "Laura Dassow Walls has written a grand, big-hearted biography, as compulsively readable as a great nineteenth century novel, chock-full of new and fascinating detail about Thoreau, his family, his friends, and his town. Walls's magnificent--landmark--achievement is the best all around biography of Thoreau ever written. It not only brings Thoreau vividly back to life, it will fundamentally change how we see him. We will hear no more about the 'hermit of Walden Pond.' Walls has given us a new socially engaged Thoreau for a new era, a freedom fighter for John Brown and America, and a necessary prophet and spokesman for Concord Mass. and Planet Earth."--Robert D. Richardson, author of Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind "Splendid . . . offers a multifaceted view of the many contradictions of his personality."--Robert Pogue Harrison "New York Review of Books " "Superb. . . . Exuberant. . . . Walls paints a moving portrait of a brilliant, complex man." --Fen Montaigne "New York Times " "This new biography is the masterpiece that the gadfly of youthful America deserves. I have been reading Henry David Thoreau and reading about him for 40 years; I've written a book about him myself. Yet often I responded to Laura Dassow Walls's compelling narrative with mutterings such as 'I never knew that' and 'I hadn't thought of it that way.' I found myself caught up in these New England lives all over again. . . . On a foundation of rigorous scholarship, Walls resurrects Thoreau's life with a novelist's sympathy and pacing." --Michael Sims "Washington Post " "As Laura Dassow Walls makes clear in her excellent Henry David Thoreau: A Life, he was a man of obsessively high principles, self-contained, a stickler for details who insisted on his own way of seeing the world, however quirky. . . . Walls earns her keep, digging into Thoreau's aphoristic letters and journals, finding acute reflections by his contemporaries, and drawing a wonderfully brisk and satisfying portrait. . ." --Jay Parini "Times Literary Supplement " "I've always been slightly skeptical of biography doorstops. . . . I read the book in two sittings. It will not be used as a doorstop--ever. . . . Walls, scouring his published and unpublished writings, gives her readers hundreds of these fleeting chances to catch sight of a beautifully untamed but distinctly American existence. . . . Walls comes as close as any biographer has to giving us the wild Thoreau--disorienting and bewildering." --John Kaag "Chronicle of Higher Education "

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Book SynopsisBorn in Vienna in 1936, David Pryce-Jones is the son of the well-known writer and editor of the Times Literary Supplement Alan Pryce-Jones and Therese “Poppy” Fould-Springer. He grew up in a cosmopolitan mix of industrialists, bankers, soldiers, and playboys on both sides of a family, embodying the fault lines of the title: “not quite Jewish and not quite Christian, not quite Austrian and not quite French or English, not quite heterosexual and not quite homosexual, socially conventional but not quite secure.”Graduating from Magdalen College, Oxford, David Pryce-Jones served as Literary Editor of the Financial Times and the Spectator, a war correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, and Senior Editor of National Review. Fault Lines is a memoir that spans Europe, America, and the Middle East and encompasses figures ranging from Somerset Maugham to Svetlana Stalin to Elie de Rothschild. As seen on Channel 4's My Grandparents' War, with Helena Bonham Carter, the memoir has the storytelling power of Pryce-Jones’s numerous novels and non-fiction books, and is perceptive and poignant testimony to the fortunes and misfortunes of the present age.

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Book SynopsisThis is the first full biography of Charles Williams (1886-1945), an extraordinary and controversial figure who was a central member of the Inklingsthe group of Oxford writers that included C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Charles Williamsnovelist, poet, theologian, magician and guruwas the strangest, most multi-talented, and most controversial member of the group. He was a pioneering fantasy writer, who still has a cult following. C.S. Lewis thought his poems on King Arthur and the Holy Grail were among the best poetry of the twentieth century for ''the soaring and gorgeous novelty of their technique, and their profound wisdom''. But Williams was full of contradictions. An influential theologian, Williams was also deeply involved in the occult, experimenting extensively with magic, practising erotically-tinged rituals, and acquiring a following of devoted disciples. Membership of the Inklings, whom he joined at the outbreak of the Second World War, was only the final phase in a remarkabTrade ReviewIn Charles Williams: The Third Inkling, Grevel Lindop has written a page-turner. He proves himself a master of the biographical narrative. He knows how to end chapters and sections of chapters with cliffhangers. He liberally employs the ironic slant, and he has an eye for visuals. Lindop's preface, a model of balanced prose, sets the volume's tone. * Philip Irving Mitchell, Religion and the Arts *exemplary, and very thought-provoking * Philip Hensher, Books of the Year 2015, The Spectator *This solid and scholarly biography explores the byways of literary history with much verve and energy ... Lindop has provided a fascinating account * Philip Hensher, Spectator *Lindop has added significantly to our knowledge of the Third Man in the Inklings and deftly filled in some major blank areas in our standard map of literary modernism. * Kevin Jackson, Literary Review *excellent biography * London Review of Books *[a] fine, thoroughly researched book. * Tablet *thorough biography * Journey *fascinating reading ... meticulous study ... This biography puts Williams back in the picture * Andy Ffrench, Oxford Times *a fascinating, and even astonishing biography * Theology *Grevel Lindop's biography of Charles Williams is, in almost every way, all that one would want in such a study: comprehensive, judicious, sympathetic, but also properly surprised by its subject, for good and ill. * Rowan Williams, Journal of Inkling Studies *His prose style has benefitted from long years of listening to the musicality of language: his sentences are clear and competent, his narrative skill evident, his storytelling ability considerable. It is this last quality, in combination with his meticulous scholarship, that makes The Third Inkling masterful. * Sørina Higgins, Journal of Inkling Studies *Lindop's exhaustive research and clarity of presentation make this an indispensable volume for anyone who wishes to understand Williams and come to terms with his writing and influence. No future study of Williams will be adequate without drawing on this study; Lindop deserves much praise for bringing to completion such a massive endeavour. * Holly Ordway, Journal of Inkling Studies *Lindop's narrative, packed with incident and parcelled into satisfying arcs, is exemplary * Oxford Today *Grevel Lindop has written a ground-breaking life, at once scholarly and readable, which reveals Williams in all his fascination ... Lindop has done a real service in showing not only why his writing had such an appeal for Tolkein, Lewis, and Eliot, but how it can still jolt us into deeper reflection today. * The Rt Revd Lord Harries, Church Times *the definitive biography ... .a brilliant introduction to a brilliant, yet very troubled and troubling, man * Evangelical Times *an authoritative, and extremely readable, biography. * Sydney Morning Herald *The Third Inkling is a very readable book which wears its meticulous research lightly - and that's no mean feat. It raises some important and troubling questions. * A Writer's Life *well-written biography * Notre Dame magazine *wonderful biography * Network Review *As a work of biographical scholarship, then, The Third Inkling leaves nothing to be desired. * The Oddest Inkling *a thorough, profound, and sympathetic study * A.N Wilson, First Things *an excellent biography, taking its place as the premier resource on Williams * The Notion Club Papers *Table of ContentsPrologue Chapter One: From Holloway to Silvania Chapter Two: 'The Most Talkative Young Man' Chapter Three: The Silver Stair Chapter Four: 'Marriages are Made in Heaven' Chapter Five: The Initiate Chapter Six: 'The Satanist' Chapter Seven: 'Why the Devil Does Anyone Ever Get Married?' Chapter Eight: Romantic Theology Chapter Nine: Phyllis Chapter Ten: 'I Can't Do Without You - I Can't' Chapter Eleven: Substitution Chapter Twelve: Novels and the Poetic Mind Chapter Thirteen: 'They Saved My Life by Three Hours' Chapter Fourteen: 'I'm Becoming a Myth to Myself' Chapter Fifteen: 'The Staff Work of the Omnipotence' Chapter Sixteen: The Order of the Co-Inherence Chapter Seventeen: 'A Kind of Parody of London' Chapter Eighteen: 'Bitter Is the Brew of Exchange' Chapter Nineteen: A Pioneer for the Young Poets Chapter Twenty: 'It Is Not Yet Too Late' Chapter Twenty-One: 'Into the Province of Death' Epilogue

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Book Synopsis''An enjoyable anthem to friendship'' Hephzibah Anderson, Observer''Hugely enjoyable . . . Modern-day readers can thank the ambitious, complicated, funny, brave women of the Mutual Admiration Society'' Anna Carey, Sunday Business Post''A tribute to that precious but still unsung thing: the loving bond between female friends, based on intellectual exchange and deep affection'' Charlotte Higgins, Guardian Winner of the Agatha Award for best nonfiction 2020Dorothy L. Sayers is now famous for her Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane detective series, but she was equally well known during her life for an essay asking ''Are Women Human?'' Women''s rights were expanding rapidly during Sayers''s lifetime; she and her friends were some of the first women to receive degrees from Oxford. Yet, as historian Mo Moulton reveals, it was clear from the many professional and personal obstacles they faced that society was Trade ReviewAn enjoyable anthem to friendship -- Hephzibah Anderson * Observer *It is a tribute to that precious but still unsung thing: the loving bond between female friends, based on intellectual exchange and deep affection -- Charlotte Higgins * Guardian *Hugely enjoyable . . . Modern-day readers can thank the ambitious, complicated, funny, brave women of the Mutual Admiration Society -- Anna Carey * Sunday Business Post *Rich and careful . . . [Mutual Admiration Society] excavates the social and emotional context of the lives of four indomitable women with painstaking affection; it is as valuable as it is enjoyable -- Sophie Read * TES *Well-written and fascinating, it's equally successful as a biography and social history -- Jake Kerridge * Sunday Express *Written with humour and insight, this is the fascinating group biography of Dorothy Sayers and five friends who formed a writing group at Somerville College Oxford in 1912 . . . This fine celebration of female friendship and early feminism reflects how far we have travelled since the post-Edwardian era * The Lady *A blend of group biography and social history, Mutual Admiration Society tells a quintessentially English story -- Francis Wilson * The Times *Mo Moulton shows [Dorothy L.] Sayers setting out in Gaudy Night, her most psychologically astute and least conventional novel, to present her own philosophy of women's intrinsic intellectual equality . . . Moulton's book sheds new light on Sayers's evolution as a writer, showing how some of her best work occurred in collaboration with her friend Muriel St. Clare Byrne * The New Yorker *This lively, rigorous, and surprising history of Dorothy L. Sayers and her circle is a clear-eyed, optimistic look at a particularly critical stage in the evolution of feminism * Kristen Roupenian, author of Cat Person And Other Stories *Deeply researched, beautifully written -- Nicole Chung, author of All You Can Ever Know

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Book SynopsisNo writer is more charismatic than Robert Burns and no biographer has captured his energy, brilliance and radicalism as well as Robert Crawford does in The Bard. To his international admirers Burns was a genius, a hero, a warm-hearted friend; yet to the mother of one of his lovers he was a wastrel, to a fellow poet he was 'sprung...from raking of dung', and to his political enemies a 'traitor'. Drawing on a surprising variety of untapped sources - from rediscovered poetry by Burns to manuscript journals, correspondence, interviews and oratory by his contemporaries - this new biography presents the remarkable life, loves and struggles of the great poet.With a poet's insight and a shrewd sense of human drama, Robert Crawford outlines how Burns combined a childhood steeped in the peasant song-culture of rural Scotland with a consummate linguistic artistry to become not only the world's most popular love poet but also the controversial master poet of modern democracy. Written with accessible élan and nuanced attention to Burns's poems and letters, The Bard is the story of an extraordinary man fighting to maintain a sly sense of integrity in the face of overwhelming pressures. This incisive, intelligent biography startlingly demonstrates why the life and work of Scotland's greatest poet still compels the attention of the world a quarter of a millennium after his birth.Trade ReviewMagnificent... This is a fine biography, and it is difficult to imagine its being surpassed for a very long time -- Alexander McCall Smith * Daily Telegraph *Crawford has delivered a living Burns: smart, arrogant, chivalrous, but also a strong poet to be confronted at every step of our written and sung culture. After this, we can't just take Burns down from the shelf this one night a year -- Brian Morton * Observer *Robert Crawford gives us a sympathetic portrait of a self-fashioning Burns who has to imagine himself as a bard - a poet not only in word but in act - in order to become one. Crawford's Burns, merrily mixing high and low culture, seems eerily contemporary * New Yorker *Generous, highly intelligent and comprehensive biography...a portrait that comes nearer to the whole man than any other yet written...I can't imagine a better life of the Bard being written. It is likely to become the standard work: certainly it deserves to be greeted as that * Literary Review *Crawford has produced an act of homage as well as a fine biogrpahy * Sunday Times *

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Book SynopsisA revelatory portrait of Chekhov during the most extraordinary artistic surge of his life.In 1886, a twenty-six-year-old Anton Chekhov was publishing short stories, humor pieces, and articles at an astonishing rate, and was still a practicing physician. Yet as he honed his craft and continued to draw inspiration from the vivid characters in his own life, he found himself—to his surprise and occasional embarrassment—admired by a growing legion of fans, including Tolstoy himself. He had not yet succumbed to the ravages of tuberculosis. He was a lively, frank, and funny correspondent and a dedicated mentor. And as Bob Blaisdell discovers, his vivid articles, stories, and plays from this period—when read in conjunction with his correspondence—become a psychological and emotional secret diary. When Chekhov struggled with his increasingly fraught engagement, young couples are continually making their raucous way in and out of relationships on the page. When he was overtaxed by his medical duties, his doctor characters explode or implode. Chekhov’s talented but drunken older brothers and Chekhov’s domineering father became transmuted into characters, yet their emergence from their family's serfdom is roiling beneath the surface. Chekhov could crystalize the human foibles of the people he knew into some of the most memorable figures in literature and drama. In Chekhov Becomes Chekhov, Blaisdell astutely examines the psychological portraits of Chekhov's distinct, carefully observed characters and how they reflect back on their creator during a period when there seemed to be nothing between his imagination and the paper he was writing upon. Trade Review"[Chekhov Becomes Chekhov] captures the turn in Chekhov’s life. Blaisdell’s entertaining book traces this change in Chekhov’s self-perception and allows us to trace the emergence of a literary genius." * The New York Review of Books *"Absorbing, pleasurable, and as unaffected as its subject. [Blaisdell] doesn’t simply (as the title promises) explain how Chekhov came to be Chekhov but rather how impossible it was for him to become anybody else. It’s the sort of book that dedicated readers rarely find, one that doesn’t presume to teach us about Chekhov so much as simply enjoy him. It is like reading along with a fellow lover of Chekhov, attentive to the nuances of the life behind the work." -- Scott Bradfield * The New Republic *“A celebration of the enduring power of literary creativity. The mystery of Chekhov’s genius is thrown into even sharper relief, a rare accomplishment in a genre that’s often the playground of know-it-alls. Blaisdell’s reading reaps handsome rewards. The author’s overflowing enthusiasm never distracts from the main performance––Anton Chekhov’s miraculous transformation from paid humorist to profound commentator on the human condition. As we turn the pages of Chekhov Becomes Chekhov, the author’s delight is ours, too.” * The Wall Street Journal *"A work of love...Blaisdell’s incredibly researched work is a treasure trove of insight and information for scholars and fans of Russian literature. For generations to come, it will be a staple for Chekhov studies." * Library Journal, starred review *“Two years in the life and work of the Russian master, where Blaisdell draws from Chekhov’s personal correspondence and references several previous biographies in conjunction with close readings of his numerous stories. Blaisdell offers meaningful insights into Chekhov’s life and writing.” * Kirkus Reviews *"A penetrating take on Anton Chekhov's development as a writer. Blaisdell seamlessly blends biography and critical analysis to offer a bracing look at a formative period in the life of a literary legend. The result is a stirring portrait of an artist coming into his own." * Publishers Weekly *Praise for Creating Anna Karenina: "That Creating Anna Karenina is a major contribution to Tolstoy scholarship makes it no less of a delight to read. Blaisdell's passion for the subject, and his always-surprising discoveries about the great man and his creation, kept me turning the pages unstoppably. This is a wonderful book." -- Ian Frazier, author of Travels in Siberia, staff writer at The New Yorker“Captivating. How did Anna Karenina evolve from a trivial high-society adulteress, whom Tolstoy despised, into one of the deepest, most sensitive tragic heroines in all of literature? What happened inside Tolstoy to condition this metamorphosis? Creating Anna Karenina is a worthy companion to the novel." -- Janet Fitch * Los Angeles Review of Books *"In its study of the comings and goings of the Tolstoy household at the time of the novel’s composition, Creating Anna Karenina asks if one of the world’s greatest novels was in fact just as much a product of everyday minutia—like who stops by for a visit with what kind of gossip to tell—as it was the culmination of long-simmering ideas about morality and desire." * The New Republic *"A fuller understanding of any work—and especially of its creation—requires the resurrection of its creator and his milieu. Blaisdell manages to do precisely that." -- Boris Dralyuk, Executive Editor, Los Angeles Review of Books, from the Foreword

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Book SynopsisOn 17th September 1820, accompanied by his friend Joseph Severn, John Keats left London for Italy on board the Maria Crowther in a desperate bid to restore his health. Anguished at the thought of having to part, possibly for ever, from his fiancée and his friends, troubled by money worries and broken in body and mind, the young poet launched on his last journey on earth with both a sense of hope and a deep foreboding that his efforts would be in vain. Despite Keats''s own assertion that by then he no longer felt a citizen of the world and was leading a posthumous life, his final five months were filled with events of great biographical interest, and deserve to be examined much more carefully.Using exclusively primary sources and first-hand accounts, Keats''s editor and translator Alessandro Gallenzi has pieced together all the available material adding newly discovered and previously unpublished documents to help the reader follow the poet step by step from his departure a

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Book SynopsisThe perfect gift for fans of All Creatures Great and Small, this is a charming collection of classic stories from James Herriot’s much-loved books with insights into his life and work from his children Rosie and Jim.With astute observations and boundless humour, country vet Herriot captures the spirit of the Yorkshire Dales and of rural communities on the cusp of change, before tractors and machines had taken over and modern medicines and antibiotics transformed veterinary work.Along the way a beloved cast of characters emerges, from the squabbling brothers Tristan and Siegfried to Herriot’s hapless courtship and eventual family life with Helen Anderson. But it’s the animals which are at the heart of Herriot’s stories. Whether he’s dodging a raging bull on a risky artificial insemination assignment, becoming pen pals with Tricki Woo the spoilt Pikingese or the inevitable trials and tribulations of lambing season, there&rsquTrade ReviewIt cleverly interweaves extracts from his novels, with an interesting commentary from his son and daughter . . . their memories and anecdotes augment the stories and make delightful reading * The Yorkshire Times *

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Book Synopsis''A brilliant biography - John Sutherland has brought Monica Jones to life as she deserves.'' Claire Tomalin''Eye-opening... in this account [Monica Jones] comes alive.'' The Sunday TimesMonica Jones was Philip Larkin''s partner for more than four decades, and was arguably the most important woman in his life. She was cruelly immortalised as Margaret Peel in Kingsley Amis''s Lucky Jim and widely vilified for destroying Larkin''s diaries and works in progress after his death. She was opinionated and outspoken, widely disliked by his friends and Philip himself was routinely unfaithful to her. But Monica Jones was also a brilliant academic and an inspiring teacher in her own right. She wrote more than 2,000 letters to Larkin, and he in turn poured out his heart to her. In this revealing biography John Sutherland explores the question: who was the real Monica? The calm and collected friend and teacher? The witty conversationalist and inspiratTrade ReviewOne of the most brilliant biographies I have read - an extraordinary achievement - brings Monica to life as she deserves, and not only for what she did for Larkin and his work, but also her teaching skills. It makes me wish I could have heard her lecture. * Claire Tomalin *I couldn't put it down. Vivid and penetrating, it's a brilliant portrait of a confounding, complex woman which will be indispensable to anyone interested in Philip Larkin. The fact that John Sutherland knew Monica Jones enables him to bring not only his scholarship but his uniquely wry observation to his subject. It's a tremendous book. * Cressida Connolly *If you buy only one biography this year, make it this one. What makes this biography so special is that it not only gets to the beating heart of Monica Jones, but it uncovers the true ruthlessness of Philip Larkin. Beautifully crafted, beautifully written, it is a joy to read. * Anne Robinson *Eye-opening... in this account [Monica Jones] comes alive. * The Sunday Times *Who would have thought that the life of Monica Jones, an unpublished and under-promoted lecturer in the English department at University College, Leicester, would prove to be such a page-turner? We all knew that she was Philip Larkin's long-term lover, and we thought we knew that she was reactionary, racist, homophobic, awkward, hysterical and dowdy. How wrong we were, how wrong. John Sutherland has set up a counter-narrative that keeps us guessing, as he himself has been kept guessing by this strange woman whom in some ways he knew so well, and in other ways, as he speculates, not at all. This memoir is his tribute to Miss Jones, and he shows her to us in her powerful prime. It is a story as full of surprises as many a novel, and a story that only he could tell -- Margaret Drabble * NEW STATESMAN *Reading this book, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Larkin slowly destroyed Jones's life... Sutherland has written a bleak but convincing book... But Philip Larkin, Monica Jones and Me is also an essay in the banality of despair. Sutherland shows how a life can be ruined amid quite ordinary things like The Archers and cricket matches and outings to cathedral cities and English summer days. Ironically, this was something Larkin understood better and wrote about more feelingly than any English poet who has yet lived -- James Marriott * THE TIMES *[Monica Jones, Philip Larkin and Me] has a compelling flow of strong feeling and a touching sense of intimate connection . . . But Sutherland and Jones were never intimate or confiding - which means that the darkest revelations of her correspondence seem all the more shocking, to him first, and now to us . . . Larkin had managed to live pretty much how he wanted all along. Sutherland's book adds substance to the story of these wants, and some detail to the prejudices that accompanied them, and in this and other respects it's valuable -- Andrew Motion * THE SPECTATOR *[Sutherland's] book pays generous tribute to the woman who kick-started his prolific academic career. As the first scholar to see Jones's letters to Larkin (all 54 boxes of them in the Bodleian Library), he has also learned things about her he didn't know, some of them hard to take . . . It wasn't just Larkin's poetry Jones nurtured but his bigotry too. The relationship was sad and sometimes toxic, as Sutherland's excellent biography shows . . . In thrall to his genius, her love for Larkin endured - and so did the misery that went with it -- Blake Morrison * THE GUARDIAN *There are difficult women and then there is Jones: a racist, an antisemite, an emotional masochist, an alcoholic. It's not the job of a biographer to make his subject likable . . . Even if you understand what she was up against - the misogyny, theinternalised sexism, the booze - she's no phoenix, about to rise from the ashes . . . If the desolate story it tells - about two people, not one - is extreme, it's also universal. How little we understand our desires. How we struggle to make ourselves happy. How easily we get stuck. Here is a warning, if only people would take it, that sententiousness, in matters of the heart, is always a mistake. What will survive of us isn't love, but the struggle for survival itself -- Rachel Cooke * THE OBSERVER *John Sutherland's memoir-cum-biography hinges on a profound question: how well do we truly know a person? . . . It is partly a biography of Jones's life - her upbringing, her time at Oxford, her move to Leicester, and her relationship with Larkin . . . Other parts of the book are written with the intimacy of an insider - Sutherland, Boswell-like, portrays her in all her convivial wit and striking personality . . . often moving, with some wonderfully-expressed insights -- Tomiwa Owolade * EVENING STANDARD *There are only two books that I have picked up through choice to read, one was Jane Fallon's book and the other is ... Monica Jones, Philip Larkin and Me: Her Life and Long Loves. I am a massive Philip Larkin fan ... and this book has had the most amazing reviews ... The biography is such a great read ... this is the one book that's going to encourage me to get back to my reading ... This is the book that myself and many of my friends couldn't wait to get our hands on. -- Jo Good * BBC RADIO LONDON *Part biography and part memoir, this book rescues Jones from being just a poet's plus one. Beautifully written, you can almost taste the beery, tweedy, smoke-filled atmosphere of university life in the 1950s and 1960s. It's a gripping love story too -- Roger Alton * DAILY MAIL *In John Sutherland's book, Monica Jones emerges as a woman at once wonderful and complicated. This is her life, not as accessory or afterthought, but as a full person, interesting in her own right and on her own terms. A warm and generous book which is a vital addition to the realm of Larkin biography. * Jessie Greengrass *

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Book SynopsisThe first book to publish the entirety of Franz Kafka’s graphic output, including more than 100 newly discovered drawingsTrade Review“Franz Kafka’s drawings are neither ‘scribblings’ (as he called them) nor illustrations meant as mere accompaniments to text. . . . Kafka saw pictures and words as not complementary but independent, even irresolvable. The figures he drew stand alone as stories in themselves.”—Lauren Christensen, New York Times Book Review“[Kafka] was serious about the visual as well as the verbal. . . . His figures are grotesques, sometimes comical, sometimes cruel, their bodies, often drawn in dark black ink, like Rorschach blots come to life.”—Max Norman, Wall Street Journal“The more you move through this book, the more drawing and writing seem to exist for Kafka on a single and intricate plane, and it begins to change all the usual perspectives.”—Adam Thirlwell, Times Literary Supplement“Exquisitely produced. . . . In these drawings we see Kafka, unshackled from the cognitive cage of verbal meaning, remembering how to play. . . . Kilcher’s discussion of the influence on Kafka of Asian art . . . is especially interesting.”—George Prochnik, Literary Review“Until the legal resolution of their ownership in 2019, very few [of Kafka’s drawings] were seen by the public. Now Yale has revealed them all, publishing the complete catalogue raisonné.”—David Hayden, RA“A sumptuous volume. . . . As windows into Kafka’s elusive, elliptical imagination [his drawings] are fascinating.”—Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, Apollo“Fascinating and question-begging. These are wild and impromptu drawings, off the cuff, many of them in pencil. . . . What we had not expected were such bolts of fiery humour. Kafka was not always in the grip of pained self-haunting, it seems. And especially not when very young, as we see him here.”—Michael Glover, The Tablet, “Best New Art Books”“The uncanny animatedness, that which strikes us in Kafka’s prose even before we are enraptured by its depths, lives everywhere in the evidence of his hand. It lives in his cursive script, in these faces and bodies and windswept horses, in these self-portraits we encounter having somehow always known he was there, staring into us, waiting to be seen.”—Jonathan Lethem, author of The Fortress of Solitude“An important and original book. Informative and perceptive, it illuminates a side of Kafka that has hitherto scarcely been known.”—Ritchie Robertson, author of Kafka: A Very Short Introduction“Kafka, this absorbing book shows, was both artist and art-lover: inspired by Asian art, he explored line in defiance of gravity, drawing as a counterpoint to script. An intriguing volume, with Butler’s essay as the highlight.”—Katie Trumpener, Yale University

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Book SynopsisA luminous memoir of post-war childhood, adventure and loss on the banks of the Nile.Wonderful a brave, inventive, touching distillation of memory and imagination' JENNY UGLOWInventory of a Life Mislaid follows Marina Warner's beautiful, penniless young mother Ilia as she leaves southern Italy in 1945 to travel alone to London. Her husband, an English colonel, is still away in the war in the East as she begins to learn how to be Mrs Esmond Warner, an Englishwoman.With diamond rings on her fingers and brogues on her feet, Ilia steps fearlessly into the world of cricket and riding. But, without prospect of work in a bleak, war-ravaged England, Esmond remembers the glorious ease of Cairo during his periods of leave from the desert campaign. There, they start a bookshop, a branch of W. H. Smith's. But growing resistance to foreign interests, especially British, erupts in the 1952 uprising, and the Cairo Fire burns the city clean.Evocative and imaginative, at once historical and speculativTrade Review‘Wonderful – a brave, inventive, touching distillation of memory and imagination, shimmering with images, sounds and scents, conjuring a clash of lives, worlds and words’Jenny Uglow ‘A captivating re-creation of her childhood in a lost Cairo, so incomparably louche, sensuous and fragrant, and of her parents’ improbable marriage’Ferdinand Mount ‘An entrancing weave of memoir, history, autobiography and fiction, this adventurous book voyages through time and space to re-discover, re-imagine and reinvent a lost world. One of Marina Warner's most beautiful works’Michèle Roberts ‘Moving and original … Warner’s view of the past is always precise, at once generous and exacting. She has a gift for using objects to conjure up characters, feelings and atmospheres … Poignant and exquisitely crafted, Inventory of a Life Mislaid is bound to become a classic’Catriona Seth ‘A poignant and imaginatively transgressive exploration of her parents’ marriage, a war time love match between Southern Italy and upper class England … Evocative’Margaret Drabble ‘High-risk and multidimensional … Warner brings to these pages a lifetime of thinking about stories and the ways in which they shape our lives’Literary Review ‘This is a wonderful rich, partly mythical memoir that sifts through the past to connect a family’s secrets to the deep-rooted colonial assumptions that still resonate in a post-Brexit Britain … never dull … Eloquent and heartbreaking’TLS ‘Poignant and mythical’New Statesman ‘The most intriguing memoir … Marina Warner’s subtle, exotic and angry account of her parents’ marriage’Roy Foster, TLS, Books of the Year ‘Warner is such a skilful and imaginative writer that much of …the book reads like lived experience … the happiest of concoctions, a mix of fiction and fact, observation and speculation …This brave, painful, dazzling memoir is riveting’Spectator

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Book SynopsisFor almost two centuries, Shakespeare had no biography. Neither did his life have a timeline, and historians and archivists did not have the materials to make one. Does this mean that Shakespeare was not valued or understood until after 1800? This book focuses on a critical absence in the unfolding of Shakespeare's story.Trade Review[A] significant new contribution ...that push[es] the parameters of how we engage with the most revered writer in the English language...timely and erudite. * Lubaaba Al-Azami, History Today *As de Grazia's study demonstrates so compellingly, when life writing shifted from the anecdotal to the documentary, we lost something of our appreciation of Shakespeare as critics tried to force square pegs into round holes. * David McInnis, Australian Book Review *De Grazia's Shakespeare without a Life is unafraid of taking a bold stance .... Her subtle analyses highlight the differences between modern readers' obsession with biography and the lenses through which Shakespeare's contemporaries and immediate successors viewed him. * Willard Spiegelman, Wall Street Journal *Elegant ... what de Grazia does with familiar material is striking. * Emma Smith, Times Literary Supplement *This beautifully written book weaves together a set of absorbing stories which together produce a sharp-edged argument ... The final chapter on the Sonnets ...urges new ways of thinking about Shakespeare and his work... A pleasure to read and a book to rethink often. * Raphael Lyne, Review in English Studies *Table of Contents1: Shakespeare Without a Life 2: Shakespeare's Timeline 3: The Archive and its Discontents 4: Shakespeare's Dateless Sonnets

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Book SynopsisExploring themes that preoccupied Albert Camus--absurdity, silence, revolt, fidelity, and moderation--Robert Zaretsky portrays a moralist who refused to be fooled by the nobler names we assign to our actions, and who pushed himself, and those about him, to challenge the status quo. For Camus, rebellion against injustice is the human condition.Trade ReviewEnlightening… Zaretsky probes Camus’s multifaceted sensibility. -- John Taylor * Times Literary Supplement *A Life Worth Living departs from the chronological approach… Instead, Zaretsky tells [Camus’s] story according to the five themes that preoccupied his life and work: absurdity, silence, measure, fidelity, and revolt. The result is a much more human portrait of a man whose life is often reduced to a meditation on the bleakness of absurdism. By chronicling the ideas rather than the events of Camus’s life, Zaretsky shows that ‘Camus was all too human: an obvious point that our desperate need for heroes, especially now, often obscures.’ -- Linda Kinstler * New Republic *This is a wonderful introduction to Albert Camus and an overview for those who have already read him. Zaretsky effortlessly explores sometimes difficult concepts in an accessible, even conversational study that blends significant aspects of Camus’ life—his Algerian background, life in France, the importance of the war; the Resistance and the TB that afflicted him for much of his life—with his works, in such a way that it offers a strong sense of the writings and the writer… The result is a concise portrait of an intellectual deeply concerned with ethics, but with an abiding love of the sensual, and life’s beauty. -- Steven Carroll * Sydney Morning Herald *In the beautifully titled and beautifully written A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus and the Quest for Meaning, historian Robert Zaretsky considers Camus’s lifelong quest to shed light on the absurd condition, his ‘yearning for a meaning or a unity to our lives,’ and its timeless yet increasingly timely legacy… A remarkable read in its entirety. -- Maria Popova * Brain Pickings *Some writers are lucky enough to be remembered 50 years after they die, and a few are even beloved. What is vanishingly rare, however, is for a long-dead writer to remain controversial. Albert Camus is one of those exceptions, a writer who still has the power to ignite political passions, because he managed to incorporate the history of the 20th century so deeply into his writing… Readers new to Camus will find in Zaretsky a deeply informed and warmly admiring guide. -- Adam Kirsch * Daily Beast *It is extremely limiting to think of Albert Camus as an existentialist philosopher of the absurd. While Camus was never trained as a philosopher, Zaretsky demonstrates that many other themes marked Camus’s thought. Camus was a highly principled person, and a strong advocate for justice… Camus’s voice still has resonance. * Christian Century *More than a half-century after his untimely death in 1960 at age 46, Camus continues to engage us… Zaretsky provides thorough and rigorous examinations into the author’s life and work while also helping us understand the disquiet of a man who gave readers seeking sustenance in art some of the most lyrical and encouraging advice in 20th-century literature. -- Kevin Rabalais * The Australian *For a good short study of [Camus’s] life, work and philosophy, try Robert Zaretsky’s A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus and the Quest for Meaning. -- Stephen Romei * The Australian *The centenary [of Camus’s birth] has spurred books, papers and reconsideration of his contributions to literature and his times. Robert Zaretsky’s is one of the best. The Algerian-French Nobel Prize winner, known for novels such as The Stranger and The Plague and essays including ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’ and ‘Reflections on the Guillotine,’ wrote piercingly and urgently about facing injustice, the need for revolt, confronting absurdity and the search for meaning. Zaretsky underscores why the ideas of Camus, who died in a car accident in 1960, remain important today. -- Peter M. Gianotti * Newsday *Offer[s] concise, eloquent, and learned treatments of the life and work of the French-Algerian moralist… Camus contained multitudes and…Zaretsky returns to this truth again and again. -- Barry Lenser * PopMatters *What emerges is the paradoxical portrait of an exceptional everyman: imperfect, plagued by doubt, melancholic, flawed, but also sensitive, hopeful, passionate and heroic… A Life Worth Living reveals much about Camus, the times he lived in and wrote against… Those looking for a better understanding of the context in which Camus penned his books and essays on murder, torture, suicide, silence and rebellion will find much to ruminate on… Zaretsky is especially adept at seamlessly weaving Camus’ own words into the text, and the result is that the reader feels almost as though she is reading Camus as opposed to a biographer… Zaretsky’s book is good reading for dark times, a wonderfully written monograph about an absurd hero whose life serves as a reminder that, ‘while we have no reason to hope, we must also never despair.’ -- Jon Morris * PopMatters *Zaretsky identifies Camus as a moralist, not a moralizer, one who poses questions rather than imposes answers. Like such courageous moralists as Montaigne, Voltaire, Hugo and Zola, Camus extended his private quest for truth into the public sphere… In pithy prose worthy of his subject, Zaretsky reminds us that, in an age of suicide bombings and state-sanctioned murder, Camus is an author worth reading. -- Steven G. Kellman * Texas Observer *Zaretsky brings to light in this wonderfully readable intellectual biography of the iconoclastic pied noir the continued relevance of Camus in contemporary life… This volume offers a portrait of Camus not simply as an existentialist (as is typical) but rather as a ‘Mediterranean humanist’ disillusioned by the world’s failure to live up to its purest ideals. -- L. A. Wilkinson * Choice *Zaretsky delivers a lucid perspective on the intellectual provenance of the writer’s moral philosophy through an examination of Notebooks, The Myth of Sisyphus, The Rebel, The Plague, and The Stranger. His scrutiny converges on Camus’s sense of the fundamental absurdity of life and why suicide is not an option; his sensitivity to the positive and negative aspects of silence; his understanding of the human condition; and his conviction that rebellious response to injustice be measured, not extreme… An admirable, comprehensible introduction to Camus. -- Lonnie Weatherby * Library Journal *Zaretsky offers an invigorating blend of history, criticism, and biography in a stirring reassessment of the Nobel Prize–winning existentialist writer Albert Camus… Zaretsky demonstrates Camus’s commitment to justice and the joy of existence, evident in his rejection of Soviet communism, as well as his principled opposition to terrorism and capital punishment. Camus emerges as a compassionate thinker who always ruthlessly interrogated his own beliefs and assumptions. Zaretsky’s elegant prose and passion for the subject, meanwhile, will inspire both novices in existentialism as well as experts to revisit the contributions of this great French writer. * Publishers Weekly *A marvelously wise, concise, and adventurous exploration of Camus, his intellectual antecedents, the battles that raged around him, and his continuing power to unsettle and inspire us to this day. -- Sarah Bakewell, author of How to Live: A Life of Montaigne

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Book SynopsisCelebrated 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 & Bing, as they were known to each other fTrade Review‘Perceptive and exuberant … a saga that is sparklingly re-told’ The Times ‘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 ‘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 ‘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 ‘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 ‘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 ‘Intriguing and revelatory biography … [of] complex and contradictory lives’ Scotsman ‘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 ‘Dunn is excellent on the lesbian 1920s and 30s in London, with delicious detail’ Guardian ‘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

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Book SynopsisSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2015 SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZEGripping and at times ineffably sad, this book would be poetic even without the poetry. It will be the standard biography of Ted Hughes for a long time to come' Sunday TimesSeldom has the life of a writer rattled along with such furious activity A moving, fascinating biography' The TimesTed Hughes, Poet Laureate, was one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. He is one of Britain's most important poets, a poet of claws and cages: Jaguar, Hawk and Crow. Event and animal are turned to myth in his work. Yet he is also a poet of deep tenderness, of restorative memory steeped in the English literary tradition. A poet of motion and force, of rivers, light and redemption, of beasts in brooding landscapes.With an equal gift for poetry and prose, and with a soul as capacious as any poet who has lived, he was also a prolific children's writer and has been hailed as the greatest English letter-writer since John Keats. With his magnetic persTrade Review‘Remarkable … one of the very best biographies in years’ Joyce Carol Oates ‘I found it as spirited and sympathetic as it is scorching’ Bel Mooney, Books of the Year, Daily Mail ‘A work of head-spinning revelations … Bate offers a complete picture of Hughes: the man, the work and the restless mythologies that prowled his imagination … A moving, fascinating biography’ The Times ‘Comprehensive and definitive … Bate's relaxed prose keeps everything moving anecdotally … underpinning it all is a vast command of archival material … He is also a sure guide to the genesis and reception of each of Hughes's major books’ Daily Telegraph ‘Bate captures the great poet in all his wild complexity … A powerful and clarifying study, richly layered and compelling’ Melyn Bragg, Observer ‘[An] important … ultimately triumphant biography … Bate is obviously suited as a biographer and critic. His standing in his academic profession is eminent’ Financial Times ‘Magisterial … Bate writes with sympathy and perception about Hughes and his poetry. This fine book tells readers as much as they need to know for now’ Economist ‘Bate has read this huge mass of material with a scholar’s ability to date and arrange it … This scrupulous and lucid biography makes it all seem like muddle and self-deception, tormenting to himself and the many who loved him’ Guardian ‘Fascinating’ John Preston, Spectator, Books of the Year ‘Elegantly retells the myth and, occasionally, violence of the story and gives it new flesh’, Philip Hoare, Spectator, Books of the Year ‘The most controversial biography of the year’, Gaby Wood, Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year ‘Epic in both scale and voice’ Independent, Books of the Year ‘Manages to illuminate the poet’s lowering literary presence’ Financial Times, Books of the Year ‘A great present idea for the literary fan in your life. Bate’s fascinating biography is a painstaking exploration of Hughes’ Mail on Sunday

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Book SynopsisCaptures both Barbara and her writing so miraculously' JILLY COOPERPicked as a Book to Look Forward to in 2021 by the Guardian, The Times and the ObserverA Radio 4 Book of the Week, April 2021Barbara Pym became beloved as one of the wittiest novelists of the late twentieth century, revealing the inner workings of domestic life so brilliantly that her friend Philip Larkin announced her the era's own Jane Austen. But who was Barbara Pym and why was the life of this English writer one of the greatest chroniclers of the human heart so defined by rejection, both in her writing and in love?Pym lived through extraordinary times. She attended Oxford in the thirties when women were the minority. She spent time in Nazi Germany, falling for a man who was close to Hitler. She made a career on the Home Front as a single working girl in London's bedsit land. Through all of this, she wrote. Diaries, notes, letters, stories and more than a dozen novels which as Byrne shows more often than not refleTrade Review‘Byrne’s comprehensive biography … is unlikely to be bettered … This is an elegant, incisive and sympathetic biography that deepens our understanding of Pym … Byrne succeeds admirably’Literary Review ‘Engrossing … The chapters are enticingly short, and I romped through them. Each adds a vital piece of the jigsaw, explaining the provenance of her fictional characters and building up our understanding of [her] state of mind … It’s a delight to meet her again in these pages’The Times ‘Light-hearted and lively … Byrne is an excellent literary detective, tracing acquaintances directly into the novels. The author seems to have been as fun, clever and kind as her best creations’Lucy Atkins, Sunday Times ‘Illuminating … Byrne sees what fun Pym was, how much she liked and was fascinated by people … and has done us a great service in exploring this very unusual personality … This, like its subject’s best books, rewards reading and re-reading’Spectator ‘Both hilarious and heartbreaking … Byrne is beautifully savvy about her subject’s fiction … as a manifesto for her genius, it is gloriously persuasive’Daily Telegraph ‘Byrne’s book is outstanding … Just like a Pym novel, this biography is warm, funny, unexpected and deeply moving’Financial Times ‘Excellent … Byrne’s book is the first to integrate its revelations into a cradle-to-grave biography’Guardian, Book of the Week ‘Outstanding … meticulously researched, affectionate and fascinating in equal measure’Daily Express ‘Wonderfully attentive and touching … Byrne’s book is such a joy. It refreshes the parts other biographies simply cannot reach’Observer ‘Barbara Pym is one of my most favourite novelists. Few other writers have given me more laughter and more pleasure. I am therefore enchanted that this biography by Paul Byrne captures both Barbara and her writing so miraculously’Jilly Cooper

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Book SynopsisFrom the critically acclaimed author Sally Bayley, The Green Lady is a poignant, brilliant exploration of the relationships between children and their teachers.In the style of her memoir Girl with Dove, this book explores a child's search for artistic education and a sense of self. Lyrical and playful, Sally Bayley's writing transports the reader into an eccentric world of teachers, guardians and guiding spirits of place.Moved by her female teachers, and guided by the artist J.M.W. Turner, Bayley's protagonist goes in search of her maternal ancestors, in particular her grandmother, Edna May Turner. Following the narratives of other women in history who have taken different routes to independence and artistic freedom including the educational suffragist Mary Neal, actress Margaret Rutherford, and poet Stevie Smith Bayley considers the paths to happiness and the limitations social convention imposes.Part novel, part memoir, The Green Lady continues the traditions of Virginia Woolf's Or

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Book SynopsisThe acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Smash Cut, Flannery, and City Poet delivers the first popular biography of Rumi, the thirteenth-century Persian poet revered by contemporary Western readers.Ecstatic love poems of Rumi, a Persian poet and Sufi mystic born over eight centuries ago, are beloved by millions of readers in America as well as around the world. He has been compared to Shakespeare for his outpouring of creativity and to Saint Francis of Assisi for his spiritual wisdom. Yet his life has long remained the stuff of legend rather than intimate knowledge. In this breakthrough biography, Brad Gooch brilliantly brings to life the man and puts a face to the name Rumi, vividly coloring in his time and place—a world as rife with conflict as our own. The map of Rumi’s life stretched over 2,500 miles. Gooch traces this epic journey from Central Asia, where Rumi was born in 1207, traveling with his family, displaced bTrade Review“A dazzling feat of scholarship…the book restores Rumi to the glories and hardships of his momentous age.” — Washington Post “Profound, important….flows with the ease of good fiction….Rumi’s Secret offers an expanded view of the 13th – century poet.” — Christian Science Monitor “Gooch’s biography brings the political and intellectual tumult of the early medieval era to life, producing vivid characters and memorable portraits of urban experience…a sensitive and passionate introduction.” — New York Times Book Review “A biography that is painstaking enough to withstand scholarly scrutiny without losing the compelling storyline.” — Lion’s Roar “Their friendship transformed Rumi’s life, and transports this biography into an exquisite, joyous realm.” — New Yorker “Brad Gooch brilliantly pins both the life of the spirit and the magic of the poet to the page in this intimate, entrancing, sumptuous biography. Flutes play, goldsmiths hammer, silver bells jingle in camel ears -- and Rumi’s lush music washes over the reader. “Everyone is born once. I have been born many times,” wrote the Persian poet. Never before like this.” — Stacy Schiff, Author of The Witches and Cleopatra “Extraordinary… Brad Gooch’s fine, searching biography, “Rumi’s Secret,” will fascinate his subject’s many admirers. We will never fully know Rumi, but thanks to Mr. Gooch, we know him better.” — The Wall Street Journal “An excellent and accessible introduction to the profound and generous mystical vision of Rumi that will give Western readers a much needed insight into the true spirituality of Islam.” — Karen Armstrong, Author of A History of God and Muhammad “Rumi’s life in this telling is as compelling as his poetry. Rumi’s Secret is a beautiful and relevant book.” — Reza Aslan, author of No god but God and Zealot “…a wondrous groundbreaking book….Never have we known Rumi this intimately or understood the life behind the verse so well. Brad Gooch moves elegantly between storytelling, the psychologies of relationships, and evocative criticism….His graceful prose is charged with luminous details: the sounds, the sights, the very feel of these worlds, and how they generated Rumi’s ecstatic yet practical verse. With Rumi’s Secret, Gooch has not only set another high-water mark in literary biography, he has given the fullness of Rumi to us at a moment when we need him more than ever.” — Harvard Review “Brad Gooch unfolds the secret of Rumi’s art, mapping the transformation of Rumi’s life-experiences into his poems. Friendship, poetry, and spirituality intertwine into a felt experience for readers. Before we know it, Rumi has caught us up in his own experience and we are changed.” — Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, chairman of The Cordoba Initiative “This is a monumental book, an illumination, an achievement worthy of Rumi’s remarkable journey and lasting influence. May it dance its way to a wide audience, changing lives and bridging cultures, as Mevlana himself did.” — Eboo Patel, author of Acts of Faith “Suffice it to say, it’s Brad Gooch who holds the key to Rumi’s Secret.” — Vanity Fair: Hot Type “In these deeply divisive times, it matters more than ever to deepen our understanding of the roots of sacred Islam, and this deeply researched and highly literary biography of Rumi, the 13th-century Persian poet and Sufi mystic, is at once prescriptive and enlivening.” — Chicago Tribune

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