Biography: writers Books
Europa Editions (UK) Ltd. After Oscar
£22.50
HarperCollins Publishers The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym
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
£17.09
HarperCollins Publishers Shakespeare The World as a Stage
Book SynopsisBill Bryson's biography of William Shakespeare unravels the superstitions, academic discoveries and myths surrounding the life of our greatest poet and playwright.Ever since he took the theatre of Elizabethan London by storm over 400 years ago, Shakespeare has remained centre stage. His fame stems not only from his plays performed everywhere from school halls to the world''s most illustrious theatres but also from his enigmatic persona. His face is familiar to all, yet in reality very little is known about the man behind the masterpieces.Shakespeare's life, despite the scrutiny of generations of biographers and scholars, is still a thicket of myths and traditions, some preposterous, some conflicting, arranged around the few scant facts known about the Bard from his birth in Stratford to the bequest of his second best bed to his wife when he died.Taking us on a journey through the streets of Elizabethan and Jacobean England, Bryson examines centuries of stories, half-truths and downrTrade Review'A brilliantly funny and gently insightful travel guide to 16th century England. Bryson is great at picking out of the morass of Elizabethan fact the small details that illuminate and amuse…he also uncovers from the world that surrounded the theatre some fascinating examples of Elizabethan eccentricity…As an abbreviated tour around the world of Shakespeare, this could hardly be bettered' Sunday Times 'Less a biography than a delightful account of Shakespeare's elusiveness – and the extraordinary lengths people have gone to remedy it…the pairing of Bryson with Shakespeare is a happy on.’ TLS 'Bill Bryson jogs along in his own ineffable way, good–humoured, undoctrinaire, nodding respectfully at experts but confidently following his own inclinations…he is shrewd on telling detail’ Times ‘Bill Bryson has always been able to spot a market; and there ought to be a market for his latest book…an accessible, sensible Life of Shakespeare…surely a fine gift for someone encountering Shakespeare for the first time…Bryson is shrewd…and as funny as you'd expect…he sets down all the important bits of evidence, and assesses them in a measured scholarly way. He's good value too.’ Daily Telegraph ‘Measured, sensible and, at times, as wryly humorous as you'd expect’ Times ‘Bryson uses an inimitably light touch and squeezes a vast subject down to manageable proportions…he is a warm and funny guide through the whole complicated morass of Shakespearean scholarship’ Financial Times
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd The Women
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£10.44
Oxford University Press Life of Johnson Oxford Worlds Classics
Book SynopsisSamuel Johnson was a poet, essayist, dramatist, and pioneering lexicographer, but his continuing reputation depends less on his literary output than on the fortunate accident of finding an ideal biographer in James Boswell. As Johnson''s constant and admiring companion, Boswell was able to record not only the outward events of his life, but also the humour, wit, and sturdy common sense of his conversation. His brilliant portrait of a major literary figure of the eighteenth century, enriched by historical and social detail, remains a monument to the art of biography. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Trade ReviewBoswell's life must be the greatest biography ever written; crammed with sage advice and anecdotes both comical and touching, it is best taken unabridged. * The Week *
£22.50
Penguin Books Ltd Living to Tell the Tale
Book SynopsisIn Living to Tell the Tale Gabriel Garcia Marquez - winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature and author of One Hundred Years of Solitude - recounts his personal experience of returning to the house in which he grew up and the memories that this visit conjured. ''My mother asked me to go with her to sell the house''Gabriel Garcia Marquez was twenty-three, a young man experimenting with his writing when this mother asked him to come back with her to the village of his grandparents and the memories of his Colombian childhood.In the first part of Gabriel Garcia Marquez''s memoir, the Nobel Prize-winning author returns to the atmosphere and influences that shaped his formidable imagination and formed the basis of his world-famous, and much-loved, fiction.''A treasure trove, a discovery of a lost land we knew existed but couldn''t find. A thrilling miracle of a book'' The Times''A marvellous journey. Never less thanTrade ReviewMárquez's greatest book. As a reading experience it is completely magical * Observer *
£9.49
Pan Macmillan John Clare
Book SynopsisJonathan Bate, born in 1958, is the author of The Genius of Shakespeare, Song of the Earth and a novel, The Cure for Love. He is the Leverhulme Research Professor of English at the University of Warwick and writes regularly for the Telegraph, the TLS and the Independent.
£17.00
Pan Macmillan The Music Room
Book Synopsis‘Fiennes has exceptional gifts, and he has written a small masterpiece, a tribute to the power of place, family and memory’ Sunday Telegraph William Fiennes’ childhood was one of imagination and curiosity, bounded only by the horizon he saw from the roof-tiles of his ancient family home. His older brother Richard, known for his towering presence, his inventiveness, his great passion for Leeds United, and his suffering due to severe epilepsy, was an adored and charismatic figure in his life. Years later, eager to understand his brother’s mind as fully as the ancient trees and secret haunts of his own journey towards adulthood, William Fiennes has written a profoundly moving account of his home, his family’s care, and above all, of Richard. The Music Room is a luminous testament to the miracle of consciousness and to the permanence of love. ‘On putting the book down I felt as if I had been hypnotised. It held me
£9.49
Little, Brown Book Group The Hyacinth Girl
Book SynopsisThe revealing of the hidden muse - Emily Hale - the Hyacinth Girl of the famous The Waste Land poem - who influenced the life and art of TS Eliot.Among the greatest of poets, T.S. Eliot protected his privacy while publicly associated with three women: two wives, Vivienne and Valerie, and a church-going companion, Mary Trevelyan. This presentation concealed a life-long love for an American: Emily Hale, a drama teacher who was the source of ''memory and desire'' in The Waste Land; she is the Hyacinth Girl. Drawing on the recently unsealed 1,131 letters Eliot wrote to Hale and suppressed in his lifetime, leading biographer Lyndall Gordon reveals both the hidden poet and the muse who was the first and consistently important woman of his life and art. Emily Hale was at the centre of a love drama he conceived and the inspiration for the lines he wrote to last beyond their time. ''Extraordinary... a rare work'' COLM TOIBIN''As Trade ReviewExtraordinary... The Hyacinth Girl is a rare work of sympathy and insight. Lyndall Gordon's passionately intelligent engagement with the letters between T. S. Eliot and Emily Hale is matched by her close reading of Eliot's poems. Her ability to see both complexity and simplicity in the relationship between Eliot and Hale means that their entangled world comes fully alive in this brilliant book * Colm Tóibín *Gordon sifts through the documents with her customary care and delicacy... [her] subtle readings never lose sight of the central mystery -- Frances Wilson * Telegraph *Explores some of the most significant relationships of Eliot's life, and by shifting the focus to these women a less familiar Eliot emerges... in tracing Hale's life to its end, [Gordon] reminds us that she lived her own life * Spectator *T.S. Eliot's oft-forgotten relationship with an American woman takes center stage in this illuminating account from Gordon ... it also treats the women in his life with dignity and goes a long way in reversing the erasure he attempted. Literature lovers, take note * Publishers Weekly *There is no finer guide into the mind of T. S. Eliot than Lyndall Gordon... Thanks to her meticulous research and inspired storytelling we will never read [Eliot's] poems the same way again * Heather Clark, author of Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath *Allows Gordon to find new coherence in Eliot's otherwise apparently fragmented interior life... Equally praiseworthy are Gordon's sensitive assessments of the other women who shaped Eliot's life * Booklist *An astute portrait of Eliot... Gordon illuminates Eliot's writing through the prism of his correspondence with Emily Hale, demonstrating how central she is to a real understanding of the man and his work... A revelatory book' * Erica Wagner, author of Ariel's Gift: Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath and the story of Birthday Letters *Gordon is the first biographer to uncover the life of T. S. Eliot's hidden muse... [her] fairminded and declarative approach works perfectly for a story that gives the reader a shocked understanding of the way that a literary genius was ready to banish the women he loved when they no longer served his purpose... a work that will change the way Eliot is seen * Miranda Seymour, author of I Used to Live Here Once: The Haunted Life of Jean Rhys *Exquisitely nuanced -- Kathryn Hughes * Sunday Times *In The Hyacinth Girl, which is based on an incendiary cache of letters only recently released from their 14 steel-bound boxes, Gordon writes that when opened in January 2020 'detonated according to plan'... It is a tale of betrayal on a grand scale, and it is very well told... Gordon's account is as exciting as a detective story... She catches the drama brilliantly... Gordon establishes the profound influence [his relationship with Hale] had upon the substance and in particular upon the imagery of his work, lasting from The Waste Land through to Four Quartets -- Margaret Drabble * New Statesman *In 1977, Gordon published Eliot's Early Years, a sharp-eyed book setting his work in the context of his life. The reviews were savage: one male New Statesman critic said it is was full of "gossip and memoirs... the result is a disaster". "I knew instantly that I wanted nothing more than to live to the day when the letters would be opened," says Gordon. She was there on 2 January 2020, aged 78, at Princeton's special collections room . The final line of her new book's introduction speaks volumes: "I was not disappointed." -- Jude Rogers * Observer *One of the most refreshing things about The Hyacinth Girl is that Gordon doesn't glorify or put down Eliot... Gordon somehow manages to keep Eliot's poetry and prose central to the book, while maintaining a quiet but persistent moral authority * UK Time News *[A] sensitive study of Emily Hale, Eliot's childhood sweetheart in America -- Books of the Year * Daily Telegraph *Gordon is a writer of high intelligence and deep sensibility, with an earnest interest in truth and justice... These qualities, coupled with a moral seriousness that is never solemn, are evident throughout The Hyacinth Girl -- Richard Davenport-Hines * Literary Review *Lyndall Gordon has always combined the precision of a literary scholar with the human insight of a biographer... The Hyacinth Girl is a revelation... A brilliant account of how great art has nothing to do with good behaviour -- Books of the Year * Tablet *Gordon's work has two great strengths... She is sympathetic to all the women in Eliot's life [and] she shows the huge influence of Hale on Eliot's poetry * Church Times *The Hyacinth Girl is not only insightful and important, but a moving account of an unfairly obscured life... Gordon's even-handedness allows her book to achieve both a necessary revisionism and a subtler, shrewder psychological portrait * Tablet *The most brilliant and incisive new book on Eliot -- Colm Tóibín * Irish Times, Books of the Year *Vibrant.... In narrating [Eliot's] romantic attachments, [Gordon] captures his manipulations, his selfishness, what she calls his 'cruelty,' without abandoning her mission to understand him and his writing... There is a human richness to Eliot's cerebral poetry that we can appreciate more in the context of his knotted emotional life, and Gordon's art is in drawing this out -- Katie Roiphe * New York Times *A masterpiece... Gordon writes sympathetically about all Eliot's women... a feat of multi-dimensional life-writing... wonderfully illuminating * Daily Maverick *Gordon superbly recounts the life of Emily Hale - TS Eliot's hidden muse, whose love for him was never consummated, but sustained through a decades-long stream of transatlantic letters * Daily Telegraph *
£11.69
Faber & Faber The World of Christopher Marlowe
Book SynopsisDavid Riggs evokes the atmosphere and texture of Marlowe''s life, from the stench and poverty of a childhood spent near Canterbury''s abattoirs to the fanatical pursuit of classical learning at school. Marlowe won a place at Cambridge University, where he entered its world of 18-hour working days, religious intrigue and twilight homosexuality, tolerated but unspoken. The gifted student was not immune to the passions and fears of the wider society, and Riggs describes the mood of England in those years when Elizabeth''s crown was anything but secure, and Spain and the Papacy were determined to overthrow her regime. Looming above everything is the Elizabethan state and its spy rings, with which Marlowe was already involved by the time he left Cambridge. His undercover missions brought him into contact with Catholic conspirators who were plotting to kill the Queen; yet as a playwright and thinker he was attracted to the most unorthodox and threatening idea of all - atheism. MaTrade Review"'The best account of Marlowe's life there is' Guardian"
£11.69
Faber & Faber The Disappearance of mile Zola Love Literature
Book SynopsisPronounced guilty of libel and sentenced to a year in prison, novelist Émile Zola went on the run. Zola's crime had been to defend a wrongly convicted man, in what became known as the Dreyfus Affair. Fleeing the French state with just hours to spare he ended up living in the suburbs of south London unable to speak a word of English. Michael Rosen brings to life the sleepy world of late Victorian suburbia, Zola's turbulent politics and his tangled private life. Desperate to write a novel, he was also trying to balance the extremely delicate matter of the two women in his life one the mother of his children, the other his wife. The Disappearance of Émile Zola is the incredible true story of a writer's personal bravery in the face of the greatest political scandal of the age.
£11.69
Faber & Faber Square Haunting Five Women Freedom and London
Book SynopsisA SUNDAY TIMES LITERARY NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEARA GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR (AS CHOSEN BY AUTHORS)**LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE****SHORTLISTED FOR THE RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE**''Outstanding. I''ll be recommending this all year.'' SARAH BAKEWELL''A beautiful and deeply moving book.'' SALLY ROONEYI like this London life . . . the street-sauntering and square-haunting.' Virginia Woolf, diary, 1925Mecklenburgh Square, on the radical fringes of interwar Bloomsbury, was home to activists, experimenters and revolutionaries; among them were the modernist poet H. D., detective novelist Dorothy L. Sayers, classicist Jane Harrison, economic historian Eileen Power, and writer and publisher Virginia Woolf. They each alighted there seeking a space where they could live, love and, above all, work independently.Francesca Wade's<
£11.69
Faber & Faber Faber Faber The Untold Story
Book SynopsisFirst published to celebrate Faber's 90th anniversary, this is the story of one of the world's greatest publishing houses a delight for all readers who are curious about the business of writing.''A striking drama.''SUNDAY TIMES''Never less than fascinating.''DAILY TELEGRAPH''This book will fascinate anyone with an interest in twentieth-century literature . . . a treasure trove.''SCOTSMAN''The details here do consistently shine.''NEW YORK TIMES''Ingeniously compiled . . . charming and quirky''EVENING STANDARDTold in its own words, this is the story of one of the world's greatest publishers, capturing the excitement, hopes and fears of the people who published and wrote the books that line our shelves today. Including archive material from T. S. Eliot, Samuel Beckett, Seamus Heaney, P. D. James, Kazuo Ishiguro and Philip Larkin, this is both
£10.44
Faber & Faber The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth
Book SynopsisThe prize-winning biography of Wordsworth''s beloved sister, champion, muse who was at the heart of the Romantic movement in Britain - reissued to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Dorothy''s birth.''Genius ... Its own kind of heaven.'' New York Times ''A most beautiful, deep, and humble study of incredibly complex people.'' Oliver Sacks Dorothy Wordsworth is an enigma. William''s beloved sister was his muse, champion, and most valued reader. She is mythologised as a self-effacing spinster and saintly amanuensis, yet Thomas De Quincey described her as ''all fire and ardour''. Dorothy sacrificed a traditional life to share in her brother''s world of words. In her Grasmere Journals, she vividly recorded their intimate life together in the Lake District, marked by a startling freedom from social convention. The tale that unfolds in her brief, electric entries reveals an intense bond between siblings, culTrade Review'Intelligent and intriguing...A portrait of a peculiar, passionate, yet meticulous woman which is hauntingly strange.' - Sunday Telegraph 'Passion is the keynote of Wilson's fine biography...Brims with the personality of [an] extraordinary woman...Thrilling.' - Sunday Times'This beautiful, wise biography draws Dorothy from her hiding places. She emerges as a passionate figure.' - Daily Telegraph'Gripping...Bold, witty, scholarly and speculative.' - Margaret Drabble
£10.44
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Macintyre B For Your Eyes Only
Book SynopsisThe official book on Ian Fleming and James Bond by the bestselling author of Agent ZigzagTrade Review'A marvellously entertaining and informative book ... deserves to fly off the shelves every bit as quickly as Devil May Care' Spectator 'Thrilling' Sunday Times 'Everything that makes Bond interesting with relation to the real world, in fact, is explored here. Ben Macintyre's skill, in this entertaining mix of history, espionage, biography, and post-war sociology, is to make you see clearly where Ian Fleming's world ended and the fantasy of James Bond began' Tom Fleming, Literary Review 'Fleming, a journalist like Macintyre, would have approved of Macintyre's fast, witty and informative style, and this is the perfect starting place for anyone wanting to find out more about Bond and his creator' Mail on Sunday
£10.44
John Murray Press Blythe Spirit
Book Synopsis''An intimate and insightful portrait of the peerless observer of rural life'' RICHARD MABEY''Moving, candid, vivid, it is all that we could hope for in a memoir of this unique and treasured writer'' ROWAN WILLIAMS''As a boy I dreamed of scholars and saints wandering around markets and cornfields, and of artists and poets sitting under the trees.''Ronald Blythe (1922-2023), author of the inimitable Akenfield, was a prolific and poetic chronicler of rural and spiritual life, nature and literature. He spent a joyful century close to his Suffolk roots, time travelling in his imagination and publishing forty books and thousands of essays. His wide creative network included John and Christine Nash, Cedric Morris, Benjamin Britten, E. M. Forster, Patricia Highsmith and Richard Mabey.From finding Thomas Hardy in February rain and John Clare in country tracks, to talking to his white cat and reading through a dragonfly''s wings, th
£21.25
John Murray Press Shadowlands The True Story of C S Lewis and Joy
Book SynopsisAn updated edition of this modern classic, SHADOWLANDS tells the tragic love story of C. S. Lewis and Joy Davidman.
£9.99
Headline Publishing Group Agatha Christie
Book Synopsis''Laura Thompson''s outstanding biography . . . is a pretty much perfect capturing of a life'' - Kate MosseIt has been 100 years since Agatha Christie wrote her first novel and created the formidable Hercule Poirot. In this biography, Laura Thompson describes the Edwardian world in which she grew up, explores the relationships she had, including those with her two husbands and daughter, and investigates the mysteries still surrounding Christie''s life - including her disappearance in 1926. Agatha Christie is a mystery and writing about her is a detection job in itself. But, with access to all of Christie''s letters, papers and writing notebooks, as well as interviews with her grandson, daughter, son-in-law and their living relations, Thompson is able to unravel not only the detailed workings of Christie''s detective fiction, but the truth behind her private life as well.First published in 2007 as ''Agatha Christie: An English Mystery'', this is a fuTrade ReviewThompson does a superlatives job at digging beneath the surface of this public but private woman... her prose here is elegantly turned and concise - and perfectly at the service of its enigmatic subject. * Crime Time *
£12.34
Vintage Publishing Red Comet: A New York Times Top 10 Book of 2021
Book SynopsisThe first biography of this great and tragic poet that takes advantage of a wealth of new material, this is an unusually balanced, comprehensive and definitive life of Sylvia Plath.'Surely the final, the definitive, biography of Sylvia Plath' Ali Smith *WINNER OF THE SLIGHTLY FOXED PRIZE 2021* *A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE DAILY TELEGRAPH AND THE TIMES* *FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE IN BIOGRAPHY 2021*Drawing on a wealth of new material, Heather Clark brings to life the great and tragic poet, Sylvia Plath. Refusing to read Plath's work as if her every act was a harbinger of her fate, Clark evokes a culture in transition in the mid-twentieth century as she thoroughly explores Sylvia's world. We see Plath's early relationships and determination not to become a conventional woman and wife; we witness her Cambridge years and thunderclap meeting with Ted Hughes; and, through clear-eyed portraits of the demonised players in the arena of her suicide, we gain a deeper understanding of her final days.Featuring illuminating readings of Plath's poems, Red Comet brings us closer than ever to the spirited woman and visionary artist who blazed a trail that still lights the way for women the world over.'A first-class biography . . . Each chapter reads with the ease of a novel . . . I couldn't put it down' The TimesTrade ReviewA first-class biography... Red Comet is a mighty achievement. Clark is compassionate, clear-eyed, sceptical. Each chapter reads with the ease of a novel... I couldn't put it down. -- Laura Freeman * The Times *Rescuing Sylvia Plath from the cult of her fans...[Red Comet,] a terrific, even-handed biography of Plath frees the poet from the narrow view of her as 'a mind on course for suicide'... Heather Clark's meticulous research, sweeping up every scrap, deftly integrates drafts, unpublished pieces, stories and critiques of poems...to make this extraordinary story more moving than ever. -- Lyndall Gordon * Daily Telegraph *At last, there is Red Comet, a major biography that recognises Sylvia Plath...and recovers her from cliché. It is a superbly researched, fluent and assured book...and Heather Clark writes with a rare empathy and understanding of her subject... Not one sentence seems extraneous... Red Comet reveals Plath as she ought to be seen. -- Ann Kennedy Smith * Times Literary Supplement *Clark's defining project, both a joyful affirmation for Plath fanatics and a legitimization of her legacy... Clark masterfully analyses the poetry with intelligent incorporation of the biography... In this mammoth biography of a short, troubled life, the deepest impression is of [Plath's] resilience and dogged energy. -- Jessica Ferri * Los Angeles Times *Finally, the biography that Sylvia Plath deserves, one that takes her seriously as both a poet and a person. Combining rigorous research with in-depth literary analysis and immersive style, Heather Clark's magisterial book not only traces Plath's influences and inspirations, but also chronicles her often-tumultuous relationships with respect and empathy. A spectacular achievement. -- Ruth Franklin, author of Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life
£17.00
Cornerstone Just Sayin': My Life In Words
Book SynopsisThe long-awaited autobiography of one of the world's greatest children's writers, and an empowering and inspiring account of a life in books.Malorie Blackman OBE is one of Britain's best loved and most widely-read writers. For over thirty years, her books have helped to shape British culture, and inspired generations of younger readers and writers. The Noughts and Crosses series, started in 2000, sparked a new and necessary conversation about race and identity in the UK, and are already undisputed classics of twenty-first-century children's literature.She is also a writer whose own life has been shaped by books, from her childhood in south London, the daughter of parents who moved to Britain from Barbados as part of the Windrush Generation, and who experienced a childhood that was both wonderful and marred by the everyday racism and bigotry of the era. She was told she could not apply to study her first love, literature, at university, in spite of her academic potential, but found a way to books and to a life in writing against a number of obstacles.This book is an account of that journey, from a childhood surrounded by words, to the 83 rejection letters she received in response to sending out her first project, to the children's laureateship. It explores the books who have made her who she is, and the background to some the most beloved and powerful children's stories of today. It is an illuminating, inspiring and empowering account of the power of words to change lives, and the extraordinary life story of one of the world's greatest writers.Trade ReviewThis is a book of life. An inspiring life. * Benjamin Zephaniah *A powerful inspirational memoir that shows just what you can achieve with resilience, determination, ferocious hard work and talent. * Jacqueline Wilson *This book is a frank, earnest, surprising, witty, vulnerable yet open insight into the journey, mind (or heart) and life of a literary icon. * Dapo Adeola *Since childhood it has been an honour to read every story that Malorie Blackman has written. * Candice Carty Williams *It's a total privilege to get a glimpse in to Malorie's inner world. Her humour, boldness, sensitivity and humanity are as much on show here as any of her classics. She's a superhero of literature, goodness knows how many readers she's saved like me. * Zawe Ashton *
£10.44
Cornerstone The Truth About Lisa Jewell
Book Synopsis*For those aspiring authors who are interested in the path to success*'I read this yesterday in one glorious sitting! What an absolute treat of a book!' Lesley Kara'Illuminating, revealing and absolutely fascinating, Will Brooker offers us the keys to the Jewell kingdom.' Vanessa Fox O'Loughlin aka Sam Blake__________Have you ever thought about what it takes to become a bestselling writer?If so, The Truth About Lisa Jewell is the book for you. It is the story of how a novel is written, from before the start to after the finish; it's an in-depth analysis of how that novel fits into a bestselling author like Lisa Jewell's career and her previous work, and what her style shares with authors from James Joyce to Martin Amis.But this is more than just a study of an author at the top of her game. Like Lisa Jewell's much-loved novels, it's also the story of a relationship - between the bestselling author and the professor of cultural studies who has made her his muse - evolving slowly as the world comes gradually out of Covid. It's the story of two very different writers getting to know each other gradually through words; two complete strangers becoming something more like friends.A must-have for fans of Lisa Jewell, for aspiring authors who are interested in the path to success - and a testament to the way books can bring us together. . .__________Readers LOVE The Truth About Lisa Jewell . . .***** 'This book is perfect for fans and aspiring writers alike ... It's faultless to the point that I'd say it's a must read for anyone interested in Lisa Jewell or her work.'***** 'An insightful and well written book.'***** 'Brooker ... succeeds in being a great guide to [Lisa Jewell's] progression.'
£15.29
Orion Publishing Co Gathering Blossoms Under Fire
Book Synopsis''These journals are a revelation, a road map and a gift to us all'' TAYARI JONES, author of An American Marriage''Walker writes beautifully about the push and pull of intimacy . . . You find yourself admiring her idealism, her gift as a writer and her abundant appetite for life'' THE TELEGRAPHFrom the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Color Purple, Gathering Blossoms Under Fire presents four decades'' worth of personal journals to offer a passionate, intimate record of Alice Walker''s intellectual, artistic and political development. Walker writes in an unvarnished and singular voice about an astonishing array of events: marching in Mississippi with civil rights foot soldiers, marrying a Jewish lawyer and defying 1960s anti-interracial marriage laws, writing her first novel, experiencing the trials and triumphs of the women''s movement, being both admired and maligned for her work and activism, burying her mother and estrangement from her daughter. Her journals reveal an inextricable intertwining of the personal and political, exploring her thoughts and feelings in real time as a woman, writer, African American, wife, daughter, mother, lover, sister, friend and citizen of the world.
£14.70
Profile Books Ltd Tolstoy: A Russian Life
Book SynopsisIn November 1910, Count Lev Tolstoy died at a remote Russian railway station attended by the world's media. He was eighty-two years old and had lived a remarkable and long life during one of the most turbulent periods of Russian history. Born into a privileged aristocratic family, he seemed set to join the ranks of degenerate Russian noblemen, but fighting in the Crimean war alongside rank and file soldiers opened his eyes to Russia's social problems and he threw himself into teaching the peasantry to read and write. After his marriage he wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina, both regarded as two of the greatest novels in world literature. Rosamund Bartlett's exceptional biography of this brilliant, maddening and contrary man draws on key Russian sources, including the many fascinating new materials which have been published about Tolstoy and his legacy since the collapse of the Soviet Union.Trade ReviewThe extraordinary character of the giant is captured better by Bartlett than by any previous biographer * Spectator *Superbly readable and, in contrast to some earlier biographies, treats the great novelist's sometimes strange enthusiasms and obsessions sympathetically and seriously. -- Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury * Mail on Sunday Books of the Year *Conveys Tolstoy to me more vividly than any biography I have read. * Financial Times *Rosamund Bartlett's new life of Tolstoy is a splendid book - immensely readable, full of fresh details, and often quite brilliant in its perceptiveness about the greatest of Russian writers, and one of the stars in the western firmament. This biography has the sweep and vividness of literature itself, and I strongly recommend it. -- Jay Parini, author of The Last Stationhighly accessible and intelligent... neat and illuminating...Bartlett's biography is worth tackling for four qualities alone. The first is her insight into the many contradictions of Tolstoy's character... Its second merit is the way Bartlett places Tolstoy in the much wider cultural context... The third great strength of Bartlett's biography is the weight she gives both to his philosophical writings, and to his social activism, which is a salutary corrective to those, including his Soviet critics, who concentrate on the great novels to the exclusion of all else... The fourth distinguishing feature, and a considerable one, is Bartlett's relatively sympathetic treatment of the women in Tolstoy's life... bonus throughout is Bartlett's pleasant, unimposing style -- Mary Dejevsky * Independent *In the centenary of Leo Tolstoy's death, it was a great pleasure to read Rosamund Bartlett's Tolstoy: A Russian Life...an accessible and scholarly biography of the troubled master of realist fiction which conjures the splendid image of him wobbling around on a bicycle -- Richard Godwin * Evening Standard Books of the Year *engaging... In her revelations about the immense difficulties of producing the definitive Collected Works (a task that, under Soviet Communism, proved almost impossible) and in her elucidation of the suppression of Tolstoy's spiritual influence, Bartlett reminds us not only that the great man is not so very long dead, but also that his myth is being made and remade even now -- Claire Messud * Daily Telegraph *a splendidly lucid and sympathetic biography -- Scotsman * Alan Massie *Impressive * Independent on Sunday Books of the Year *
£12.34
Biteback Publishing A Duel of Bulls
Book SynopsisA Duel of Bulls is the untold story of the contentious friendship that existed between Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles, set against the backdrop of Spain, the history of bullfighting, and the Spanish Civil War.
£17.00
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Oscar: A Life
Book SynopsisThe first major biography of Oscar Wilde in thirty years, and the most complete telling of his life and times to date. NOMINATED FOR THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE 2019 'The Book of the Year, perhaps of the decade' TLS 'Simply the best modern biography of Wilde... A terrific achievement' Evening Standard 'Page-turning... Vivid and desperately moving. However much you think you know Wilde, this book will absorb and entertain you' The Sunday TimesBooks of the Year Oscar Wilde's life – like his wit – was alive with paradox. He was both an early exponent and a victim of 'celebrity culture': famous for being famous, he was lauded and ridiculed in equal measure. His achievements were frequently downplayed, his successes resented. He had a genius for comedy but strove to write tragedies. He was an unabashed snob who nevertheless delighted in exposing the faults of society. He affected a dandified disdain but was prone to great acts of kindness. Although happily married, he became a passionate lover of men and – at the very peak of his success – brought disaster upon himself. He disparaged authority, yet went to the law to defend his love for Lord Alfred Douglas. Having delighted in fashionable throngs, Wilde died almost alone. Above all, his flamboyant refusal to conform to the social and sexual orthodoxies of his day make him a hero and an inspiration to all who seek to challenge convention. Matthew Sturgis draws on a wealth of new material and fresh research, bringing alive the distinctive mood and characters of the fin de siècle in the richest and most compelling portrait of Wilde to date.Trade ReviewThis page-turning life of Oscar Wilde is vivid and desperately moving. However much you think you know Wilde, this book will absorb and entertain you * Sunday Times *Wonderfully exciting... Sturgis's great achievement is to take on board his great flurry of contradictions' * Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday, 5* review *Matthew Sturgis uses new letters and a libel trial transcript to give a fuller picture of Oscar Wilde's dazzling rise and tragic fall... He is a tremendous orchestrator of material, fastidious, unhurried, indefatigable' * Observer *A perfectly diligent book, and tells new readers all they possibly need to know about Wilde and his world * The Times *Authoritative, magnificently researched * Spectator *Oscar Wilde is more fashionable than ever, and his demise still makes for a gripping read... Sturgis's account is fuller and in some ways more reliable [than Richard Ellmann's biography]... Sturgis's account of the hearing at the Old Bailey is as gripping as it is grim' * Guardian *[Sturgis's biography] is the first major attempt since that of Richard Ellman some 30 years ago, and it's much better... This is simply the best modern biography of Wilde... A terrific achievement' * Evening Standard *The Book of the Year, perhaps of the decade... Captures the wit, the love-ability, the dramatic genius, the insane self-destructiveness, the originality of Wilde... [Sturgis] is the greatest chronicler of the 1890s we have ever had' * TLS, Books of the Year *Astute in its judgements and offers a sharp and detailed grasp of the period and an appreciation of Wilde's ambiguities * Irish Times, Books of the Year, Colm Tóibín *Like Churchill, Oscar Wilde [...] is one of those people who never seem to stop inspiring outstanding biographies, and Oscar: A Life by Matthew Sturgis is one of the best, as well as the latest, of a long line * Sunday Telegraph. *A first rate biography * Sunday Express, Books of the Year *This book provides not only a comprehensive record of [Wilde's] activities, friendships and financial affairs, but also a powerful sense of what it was actually like to know him... This is undoubtedly the most comprehensive, reliable and clear-sighted study of Wilde ever likely to be written' * Dublin Sunday Business Post *This excellent biography offers a deeper, more rounded picture of the writer's life, his rise to stardom, his fall and tragic final days... At once entertaining and scholarly. The man himself would be proud' * The Lady *Sturgis' attention to decadence allows readers to view Wilde's post-prison years in a new light... [An] insightful biography' * Volupte *Very solid and complete biography * The Dutch Review of Books *A great read * Edge Media Network *
£11.69
National Portrait Gallery Publications Writers Revealed
Book SynopsisWriters Revealed tells the stories of the best-loved writers in English literature, investigating their enduring appeal from the sixteenth century to today through the collections of the National Portrait Gallery and the British Library. Intimate handwritten manuscripts, letters and notebooks as well as rare first editions of books from the British Library are paired with the National Portrait Gallery's outstanding collection of author portraits. From William Shakespeare to Zadie Smith, Writers Revealed features over 70 poets, novelists and academics. Each short profile which provides insight into the writers' inspirations, struggles, and working practices is beautifully illustrated with a portrait and manuscript. Readers will enjoy in-depth encounters with some of the world's most famous writers, including James Joyce, Bernardine Evaristo, Virginia Woolf, Bram Stoker, Jane Austen, Benjamin Zephaniah, and Angela Carter, and discover just what it is that makes these individuals so endlessly compelling.
£21.21
Eris Press I Killed and I Bled
£12.34
Oneworld Publications En Route
£17.09
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC This Dark Night
£18.00
Workman Publishing Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life: The Plants and
Book SynopsisA New York Times Bestseller There aren't many books more beloved than The Tale of Peter Rabbit and even fewer authors as iconic as Beatrix Potter. Her characters-Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddle Duck, and all the rest-exist in a charmed world filled with flowers and gardens. In Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life, bestselling author Marta McDowell explores the origins of Beatrix Potter's love of gardening and plants and shows how this passion came to be reflected in her work. The book begins with a gardener's biography, highlighting the key moments and places throughout her life that helped define her. Next, follow Beatrix Potter through a year in her garden, with a season-by-season overview of what is blooming that truly brings her gardens alive. The book culminates in a traveller's guide, with information on how and where to visit Potter's gardens today.Trade Review'There are photographs here that I have never seen before of Beatrix and her gardens, and delicious watercolours of rose hips, violets, clematis and honeysuckle, snapdragons and waterlilies.' (Alan Titchmarsh, The Telegraph)
£18.99
Penguin Books Ltd Black Milk
Book SynopsisPostpartum depression affects millions of new mothers every year. This is an epic poem to women everywhere.
£9.99
Quarto Publishing PLC The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien
Book Synopsis“Every page brings forth the elegiac tone of JRR Tolkien’s work... It is a beautiful book, including many wonderful pictures by Tolkien himself… Garth’s book made me realise the impact that Tolkien has had on my life.”The Times A lavishly illustrated exploration of the places that inspired and shaped the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, creator of Middle-earth. This new book from renowned expert John Garth takes us to the places that inspired J.R.R. Tolkien to create his fictional locations in The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and other classic works. Featuring more than 100 images, it includes Tolkien’s own illustrations, contributions from other artists, archive images, maps and spectacular present-day photographs. Inspirational locations range across Great Britain – particularly Tolkien’s beloved West Midlands and Oxford – but also oveTrade Review“Not only a wonderfully rich & learned book but beautiful as well. I’m sure Tolkien would have loved it.” -- Tom Holland * Award-winning historian, author and broadcaster *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. England to the Shire 2. Four Winds 3. The Land of Lúthien 4. Shore and the Sea 5. Roots of the Mountains 6. Rivers, Lakes and Waterlands 7. Tree-woven Lands 8. Ancient Imprints 9. Watch and Ward 10. Places of War 11. Craft and Industry Appendix Endnotes Select Bibliography Index Acknowledgements
£16.14
HarperCollins Publishers Inventory of a Life Mislaid An Unreliable Memoir
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
£15.29
Penguin Books Ltd Hans Christian Andersen
Book SynopsisJackie Wullschlager is Deputy Literary Editor of the FT, and one of their principal reviewers. Her last book was INVENTING WONDERLAND: THE LIVES AND FANTASIES OF LEWIS CARROLL, EDWARD LEAR, JM BARRIE.Table of ContentsIntroduction: life stories. The country, 1805-12; master comedy-player, 1812-19; the city, 1819-22; Aladdin at school, 1822-7; fantasies, 1827-31; my time belongs to the heart, 1831-3; Italy, 1833-5; first fairy tale, 1835; walking on knives, 1836-7; le Poete, c'est moi! 1837-40; I belong to the world, 1840-43; Jenny, 1843-4; Winter's Tales, 1844-6; the princess'poet, 1845-6; the shadow, 1846-7; lion of London, 1847; between the wars, 1848-51; Weimar revisited, 1851-6; Dickens, 1856-7; experiments, 1858-9; kiss of the muse, 1860-65; Aladdin's palace of the present, 1865-9; so great a love of life, 1869-75.
£16.19
Penguin Books Ltd Be Like the Fox Machiavellis Lifelong Quest for
Book Synopsis''A ripping read ... fascinating, charming, enjoyably unorthodox'' Daily TelegraphWas Niccolò Machiavelli really the cynical schemer of legend - or was he a profound ethical thinker, who tried to save the democratic freedom of Renaissance Florence as it was threatened by ruthless dynasties? This revelatory biography shows us a man of fox-like dissimulation: a master of disguise in dangerous times. ''A gripping portrait of a brilliant political thinker, who understood the dangers of authoritarianism and looked for ways to curb them'' The New Yorker''Compelling ... this unconventional biography questions whether the philosopher deserves his reputation as an advocate for tyranny'' Julian Baggini, Financial TimesTrade ReviewLively, compulsively readable, fluently written and unshowily erudite—Terry Eagleton, GuardianCompelling, unconventional—Julian Baggini, Financial TimesA ripping read . . . fascinating, charming, enjoyably unorthodox—Tim Smith-Laing, TelegraphA remarkable work of imaginative engagement backed by scholarly learning. . . can be read with pleasure by anyone interested in the craft of politics and the life of ideas.—Edmund Fawcett, The New York TimesEngaging, clever, entertaining . . . Benner brings to life a Machiavelli who's a man of considerable political principle . . . a creative, lively and very readable book with more than a little contemporary resonance.—Catherine Fletcher, Literary ReviewA gripping portrait of a brilliant political thinker, who understood the dangers of authoritarianism and looked for ways to curb them even though independent speech had become impossible.—The New YorkerA rich, vivid and endlessly surprising portrayal of the man and his times—Tracy Borman, BBC History MagazineErica Benner succeeds brilliantly in overturning centuries-old received views of a seminal but misunderstood writer and thinker. Her enthralling and moving evocation of Machiavelli's turbulent career, set in the milieu in which he lived, also reveals how much he is our contemporary—Rosamund BartlettTimely, dramatic . . . an eye-opening, captivating portrait. Benner succeeds at what every biographer tries to do: she brings her subject to life for her readers.—KirkusA readable and excellent book . . . In our world of new princes and divided societies, with increasing confrontations that can seem in constant danger of escalating to conflict, Be Like the Fox reads like a cautionary call from the past—General Sir Rupert SmithFascinating, remarkable . . . Erica Benner illuminates not only the life of Machiavelli but the complex and cruel political world in which he operate—Avi ShlaimVividly drawn . . . biography at its best—Times Higher Education SupplementEnjoyably revisionist . . . Benner deserves great praise for dragging this much-maligned man's reputation at least partly out of the mud—Andrew Lynch, Sunday Business PostA lively and engaging study told with empathy, passion and imagination . . . well-researched, forceful and thought-provoking—Historical Writers' Association
£10.44
Penguin Books Ltd Outlandish Knight The Byzantine Life of Steven
Book Synopsis''An extraordinary book ... exceptionally fascinating, always readable and penetratingly intelligent'' David Abulafia''As rich, funny and teemingly peopled as Anthony Powell''s A Dance to the Music of Time ... Dinshaw writes with wit and elegance, and the most elegiac passages of Outlandish Knight evoke a lost society London and way of life'' Ben Judah, Financial Times''This dazzling young writer is a mine of fascinating, memorable and totally useless information... I have been riveted by this book from start to finish, and leave the reader with one word of advice. Watch Minoo Dinshaw. He will go far'' John Julius Norwich, Sunday TelegraphThe biography of one of the greatest British historians - but also of a uniquely strange and various manIn his enormously long life, Steven Runciman managed not just to be a great historian of the Crusades and Byzantium, but Grand Orator of the Orthodox Church, a membeTrade ReviewBrilliantly entertaining ... Mr Dinshaw's choice of subject for his first book is an inspired one. He interweaves the strands of a long and variegated life with sympathy, elegance and awareness of the wider picture ... Mr Dinshaw has done Runciman proud. To whom will he turn his attention next? * Economist *Minoo Dinshaw's biography is itself a splendid mosaic, a careful and well-written account ... I wonder where Minoo Dinshaw goes from here. His is a splendid book, to be put at once onto the Wolfson Prize shortlist. -- Norman Stone * Oldie *An astonishing feat of empathy as well as research ... What keeps the reader's interest on every page is, precisely, this biographer's sensitivity to atmosphere and his humorous awareness ... Near-omniscient thoroughness, gentle humour and psychological precision. -- Noel Malcolm * New Statesman *'An extraordinary book ... exceptionally fascinating, always readable and penetratingly intelligent account of one of Britain's most distinguished and colourful historians' -- David Abulafia * Standpoint *More than a biography; it is also a work of substantial literary criticism... This dazzling young writer is a mine of fascinating, memorable and totally useless information... I have been riveted by this book from start to finish, and leave the reader with one word of advice. Watch Minoo Dinshaw. He will go far -- John Julius Norwich * The Sunday Telegraph *Casts fresh light on [Runciman's] sexuality and his adventures as a part-time spy. -- Tim Cornwell * The Sunday Times *This biography is both funny and erudite and empathetic but critical as it chronicles a fascinating caste of dangerously charming spies, poet-scholars, scheming Oxbridge academics, dashing majors and clever queens. -- Barnaby Rogerson * Country Life *Dinshaw does a superb job in avoiding a chronological cradle-to-grave account of the life. Only towards the end of the book, for example, does he deal with Runciman's homosexuality, and his judgment here is perfectly balanced. The account of Runciman's old age (he died, aged 97, in 2000), playing the laird and host at his Borders tower Elshieshiels, couldn't be bettered. ... [Dinshaw] vividly brings alive this secretive, ludic man, making good his case that Runciman, like all the best historians, should be considered, first and foremost, as a writer -- Jane Ridley * Spectator *This obscure, ever-so-slightly discredited historian is an inspired choice of subject by Minoo Dinshaw. ... Dinshaw, rather than writing a crisp biography, has written a gigantic one, as rich, funny and teemingly peopled as Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time ... Dinshaw writes with wit and elegance, and the most elegiac passages of Outlandish Knight evoke a lost society London and way of life -- Ben Judah * Financial Times *A kaleidoscopic biography, studded with vivid portraits and entertaining footnotes. The writing is as elegant and as attentive to cadence as Runciman's ... Dinshaw has Runciman's talent for characterisation. ... Minoo has triumphed. He conjures up the worlds, works and harlequin career of Runciman with a magical touch of his own. -- James Howard-Johnston * Literary Review *
£17.09
Penguin Books Ltd After Kathy Acker A Biography
Book SynopsisRich girl, street punk, lost girl and icon ... scholar, stripper, victim and media-whore: The late Kathy Acker''s legend and writings are wrapped in mythologies, created mostly by Acker herself. In this first, fully authorized biography, Kraus approaches Acker both as a writer, and as a member of the artistic communities from which she emerged. At once forensic and intimate, After Kathy Acker traces the extreme discipline and literary strategies Acker used to develop her work, and the contradictions she longed to embody. Using exhaustive archival research and ongoing conversations with mutual colleagues and friends, Kraus charts Acker''s movement through some of the late 20th century''s most significant artistic enterprises.Trade ReviewThis is a gossipy, anti-mythic artist biography which feels like it's being told in one long rush of a monologue over late-night drinks by someone who was there. Acker emerges as an unlikely literary hero, but an utterly convincing one. -- Sheila Heti, author of How Should A Person BeThe path of the female artist. Is hell. Chris Kraus's veracious and intricately structured portrait rouses and stirs as it documents in meticulous and fascinating detail the life, work and body of Kathy Acker and what it takes to a become a 'great writer as countercultural hero.' -- Viv AlbertineKraus reconstitutes Acker's wanderings with real wit and beauty, understanding without pandering to the painfully high stakes of her identity games -- Olivia Laing * Guardian *To pin down the real Kathy Acker then is a self-defeating task but Chris Kraus's biography of her is a brilliant and necessary thing. Kraus pushes Acker's writing to the foreground making us understand how difficult a territory the so-called avant-garde was, and is, for a woman. -- Suzanne Moore * New Statesman *'To lie is to try,' Chris Kraus writes in this examination of the various personae of Kathy Acker, the fucked-up girl from high school who, through lying and trying, became an experimental writer of rare courage and vision. In some ways a contemporary and in some ways as far off as the days when people moved to New York and San Francisco for the cheap rent, Acker needed a key, and Chris Kraus provides it. -- Ben MoserChris Kraus's After Acker sets the bar for what will surely be a new era of critical and biographical reckoning with the life and work of Kathy Acker. Kraus had a ringside seat, has done her homework, and here provides a substantive effort to pay homage not only to the complex, singular, raucous, and crucial writer and human that Acker was, but also to the constellation of artists, musicians, writers, and thinkers who were her friends, lovers, inspirations, and fellow makers of history. -- Maggie NelsonHardly anyone writes better or more insightfully than Chris Kraus about the lives of women and artists. After Kathy Acker is an intense, riveting portrait of a writer who was raw and savvy, fragile and brilliant, whose self-deceptions were inseparable from her greatness. Quotes from her profane and passionate journals reveal Kathy the crazy poet, the bad girlfriend, the Upper East Side schoolgirl, the downtown writer, Kathy in love and in denial. Gossipy, sexy, tragic, terrific. -- Julie Phillips, author of The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon
£10.44
Penguin Random House India Being Modern
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£15.99
Oxford University Press Inc James Joyce
Book SynopsisRichard Ellmann has revised and expanded his definitive work on Joyce''s life to include newly discovered primary material, including details of a failed love affair, a limerick about Samuel Beckett, a dream notebook, previously unknown letters, and much more.Trade Review`a superlatively good biography of Joyce. It assembles, with a mastery Joyce himself would have admired, a great mass of published and unpublished testimony...It is informed by critical comment of high quality.' Frank Kermode, Observer.`It is deeply erudite and tremendously comprehensive, but more than that, it is compellingly readable and beautifully written.' Times Literary Supplement.`One of the great critical biographies of our generation.'Guardian.''Perhaps the greatest literary biography ever ... Ellmann achieves a prodigious feat of scholarship.' ___The Observer___`wonderfullyintelligent, elated, always amusing.' Stephen Spender, ___Books___`Perhaps the greatest literary biography ever written...Ellmann achieves a prodigious feat of scholarship, one even more comprehensive than (and as readable as) his recent life of Wilde.' ___Observer___'major scholarly work ... a new bench-mark for biography as a major vehicle of literary scholarship' John Batchelor, British Book News, September 1993
£27.44
Oxford University Press Geoffrey Chaucer
Book SynopsisOriginally writing over 600 years ago, Geoffrey Chaucer is today enjoying a global renaissance. Why do poets, translators, and audiences from so many cultures, from the mountains of Iran to the islands of Japan, find Chaucer so inspiring? In part this is down to the character and sheer inventiveness of Chaucer''s work. At the time Chaucer''s writings were not just literary adventures, but also a means of convincing the world that poetry and science, tragedy and astrology, could all be explored through the English language. French was still England''s aristocratic language of choice when Chaucer was born; Latin was used for university education, theological discussion, and for burying the dead. Could a hybrid tongue such as English ever generate great writing to compare with French and Latin? Chaucer, miraculously, believed that it could, through gradual expansion of expressiveness and scientific precision. He was never paid to do this; he was valued, rather, as a capable civil servant, regulating the export of wool and the building of seating for royal tournaments. Such experiences, however, fed his writing, leading him to achieve a range of social registers, from noble tragedy to barnyard farce, unrivalled for centuries. His tale-telling geography is vast, his fascination with varieties of religious belief endless, and his desire to voice female experience especially remarkable. Many Chaucerian poets and performers, today, are women. In this Very Short Introduction David Wallace introduces the life, performance, and poetry of Chaucer, and analyses his astonishing and enduring appeal.Previously published in hardback as Geoffrey Chaucer: A New IntroductionABOUT 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 ReviewReview from previous edition Prof. Wallace has produced a superb introduction: an adroit, authoritative, fresh, energetic delight. * The New English Review *This is a book which shows up everything you thought you knew about Chaucer, but didn't, and has a knack of making you want to find out even more. * Sandra Callard, On: Magazine *This smart and attractive little book is a very quick read, and Wallace's conversational style has warm appeal. * Laura Ashe, Times Literary Supplement *Showing a solid command of history, Wallace provides fascinating analyses of Chaucer's personal and literary evolution. He is a master of his subject, insightful and provocative throughout. * Kirkus Review *A thoroughly fresh engagement...which gives us Chaucer as a writer of his moment wide open to the future and the world. * Paul Strohm, author of The Poet's Tale *Along with its other mind-broadening features, this introduction offers a timely reminder that Chaucer benefited from a Europe-wide perspective and continues to evoke creative responses across cultures and borders. * Nicholas Havely, University of York *Table of Contents1: Beginnings 2: Schoolrooms, science, female intuition 3: A life in poetry 4: Poetry at last: Troilus and Criseyde 5: Organizing, disorganizing: The Canterbury Tales 6: Something to believe in 7: Performance and new Chaucers Timeline: a well-documented life Further Reading Index
£9.49
The University of Chicago Press Gods Scrivener
Book SynopsisA biography of a long-forgotten but vital American Transcendentalist poet. In September of 1838, a few months after Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered his controversial Divinity School address, a twenty-five-year-old tutor and divinity student at Harvard named Jones Very stood before his beginning Greek class and proclaimed himself the second coming. Over the next twenty months, despite a brief confinement in a mental hospital, he would write more than three hundred sonnets, many of them in the voice of a prophet such as John the Baptist or even of Christ himselfall, he was quick to claim, dictated to him by the Holy Spirit. Befriended by the major figures of the Transcendentalist movement, Very strove to convert, among others, Elizabeth and Sophia Peabody, Bronson Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and most significantly, Emerson himself. Though shocking to some, his message was simple: by renouncing the individual will, anyone can become a son of God and thereby usher in a millennialistTrade Review“In God’s Scrivener: The Madness and Meaning of Jones Very, Clark Davis doesn’t spend much time on his subject’s spectacular breakdown. Instead, relying on new research, he painstakingly reconstructs everything that came before and after. . . . Mr. Davis wonders, at the end of his fine biography, if the world really needs ‘the strange purity’ of Very’s voice. But if you like your poems plain and unfussy, written as if every word mattered and were meant for you and no one else, give Very’s poetry a try. You will even get the occasional piece of useful life advice. Feeling too wrapped up in your own concerns? ‘Open thy window, gaze abroad / Go forth and walk an hour.’” * Wall Street Journal *“Davis . . . enthusiastically argues for a ‘reevaluation of the existing biographical evidence’ in his sympathetic God’s Scrivener. . . . To Davis, Very in the end is a kind of hero devoted to his vision and voice, a maverick committed to something like the beatitudes. He emerges as a kind of protomodern figure, resolute and true, who casts ‘a strong light on the compromises and half-truths of others.’” * New York Review of Books *“God’s Scrivener is a thoughtful, moving, and deeply researched portrait of the otherworldly mystic and poet Jones Very. Clark Davis reveals that, far from being the punchline of an old joke, the unjustly forgotten Very was nothing less than the stillness at the heart of Transcendentalism, joining Thoreau and Whitman as one of the era’s great poet-prophets who articulated a powerful and innovative response to the pressures of modernity. Davis’s biography radically deepens our understanding of the movement’s potential and its limits, a message with surprising resonance today. This is essential reading for anyone who cares about Transcendentalism, the poetry of faith and doubt, or the place of Christian mysticism at the heart of America’s longing for a better world.” * Laura Dassow Walls, author of "Henry David Thoreau: A Life" *“Massively well researched and well argued, God’s Scrivener benefits from Clark Davis’s informed attention to a trove of documents not available fifty-six years ago when the last biography of Jones Very was published. By showing how the life, times, and works illuminate each other, Davis restores to us an author once considered one of the best sonnet writers in the language. Even as he establishes Very’s historical importance, Davis clearly explores both the strengths and dangers of his example.” * Robert Daly, author of "God’s Altar: The World and the Flesh in Puritan Poetry" *“Jones Very has been the lost Transcendentalist for decades, but Clark Davis has recovered him as a superb poet and penetrating spiritual mind in his remarkable God’s Scrivener. This is the story of a moving and enlightening life, artfully told.” * David M. Robinson, author of "Natural Life: Thoreau’s Worldly Transcendentalism" *“God’s Scrivener, the first biography of the enigmatic and fascinating Transcendentalist poet Jones Very in more than half a century, is a masterful revaluation of both Very’s life and work. Davis’s careful analysis of Very’s sometimes ecstatic poetry and surviving accounts of his unconventional behavior help to make sense of Very’s state of mind during the period when he came to public attention in the intellectual, religious, and literary circles of Salem and the greater Boston area. Mining the poet’s neglected ‘commonplace books’ to great effect, Davis builds the most complete picture yet of the poet’s intellectual and spiritual development in his formative years.” * Helen R. Deese, editor, "Jones Very: The Complete Poems" *Table of ContentsList of Figures Introduction Prologue: 1823 I. “There is something very strange in it all” 1. Cousins 2. Federal Street 3. Eldest Son 4. Biography (I) 5. Cornelia Africana 6. Biography (II) 7. A Student’s Notes, 1833–34 8. A Poet’s Notes, 1834 9. Early Poems, 1833–35 10. The Uses of Faith, 1835 11. “Change of heart” 12. Scrapbook, 1835–36 13. Lamartine 14. Poems, 1835–36 15. “The Torn Flower” 16. Spiritual Freedom II. “Flee to the mountains!” 17. “Part or particle of God,” 1836 18. The Messianic Moment 19. Mr. Tutor Very 20. Temptation and Peace 21. “My heart in life’s winter” 22. The White Mountains, 1837 23. Arrival 24. “Beauty” 25. Concord 26. Miracles 27. “Newborn bard of the Holy Ghost” 28. “The end of all things” 29. Madness III. God’s Scrivener 30. Prince Hamlet 31. Asylum 32. “In obedience to the Spirit” 33. “Pierced through with many spears” 34. “Insane with God” 35. “Epistles to the Unborn” 36. “Between Very & the Americans” 37. Essays and Poems by Jones Very 38. Madness and Meaning 39. “True relations . . . in a false age” IV. Man of Peace 40. Nonresistance 41. “Heaven is a state and not a place” 42. War, Slavery, and Intemperance 43. “I war not, nor wrestle with the earthly man” 44. “But still the poet midst the tumult sings” 45. Knowledge and Truth 46. “The presence of things invisible” 47. “The Book of Life” Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Notes A Note on Sources Bibliography Index
£28.50
Yale University Press Into the Weeds
Book Synopsis
£12.99
Faber & Faber William Golding The Man who Wrote Lord of the
Book SynopsisWilliam Golding was born in 1911 and educated at his local grammar school and Brasenose College, Oxford. He published a volume of poems in 1934 and during the war served in the Royal Navy. Afterwards he returned to being a schoolmaster in Salisbury. Lord of the Flies, his first novel, was an immediate success, and was followed by a series of remarkable novels, including The Inheritors, Pincher Martin and The Spire. He won the Booker Prize for Rites of Passage in 1980, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983, and was knighted in 1988. He died in 1993.
£10.44
Faber & Faber Burning Boy
Book Synopsis** WINNER OF THE L.A. TIMES BOOK PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY **'Exhilarating.' Joyce Carol Oates, Times Literary Supplement Books of the Year'Sharp-eyed and revealing.' The New Yorker'Brilliant . . . Remarkable.' New York Journal of BooksStephen Crane produced an avalanche of sublime literature before he succumbed to tuberculosis at the age of twenty-eight. Yet his short life was an eventful one: from crushing poverty as a newcomer to Manhattan and his near-drowning in a shipwreck, to his stint as a war correspondent in Cuba and international fame at twenty-five, to his final years in England and friendships with Joseph Conrad and Henry James. In Burning Boy, celebrated novelist Paul Auster delves deeply into the story of Crane's tumultuous and dramatic life.
£13.49
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Shakespeares Wife
Book SynopsisA biography of Ann Hathaway and a social history of Shakespeare's time by the redoubtable Germaine GreerTrade Review‘Greer dares to think the unthinkable ... this is a bold and imaginative book' * Independent *‘Excellent ... a marvellous imagining of the life of Shakespeare's wife and a devastating exposure of the misogyny of the male biographers who have disparaged her' * Sunday Telegraph *‘This is a spirited, voluble, scholarly book which gives some depth and some dignity to the marginalised Mrs Shakespeare' * Guardian *‘A refreshing corrective to the usual portrait ... Greer is impressive when it comes to detailing their Stratford life and times ... It's robust, lively stuff' * The Times *
£15.29
Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc Stephen King
Book SynopsisCelebrate the King of Horror’s 75th birthday with Stephen King, which explores the connections between Stephen King’s life and his body of work.Trade Review"Holy smokes, what an awesome book…It’s a must read for any fan." * Being Fictional *"...noted King chronicler Bev Vincent’s spent years delving into the undoubtedly haunted halls of King’s archives, unearthing letters, notes, outlines and photos that shed light on the novelist’s inspirations and frustrations. The resulting encyclopedic account of the novelist’s life and career, with pitstops in such terrifying towns as Castle Rock and Derry, is a (trick or) treat for all of us Constant Readers." -- Marcus Errico * Yahoo! *"Frankly, it’s a beautiful book, designed with character and creepiness that enhance the experience without becoming a gimmick or nuisance to reading." * Horror Obsessive *"Vincent consistently displays that same knack for expertly tucked-away nuggets amidst a more conventional narrative paved on book publications and career milestones. Vincent writes about King in a direct and simple style that allows King, often quoted verbatim, to rise to the fore. The volume, ‘‘published on the occasion of Stephen King’s seventy-fifth birthday,’’ transcends the simple marketing tool or hagiographic indulgence it might have been by combining studious knowledge with accessibility and insight." -- Alvaro Zinos-Amaro * Locus Mag *"Less than a dozen pages in and I knew this was everything I had hoped for. Bev Vincent has found a way to celebrate King’s complete body of work in a way that feels both academic and casual." * Derry Public Radio - Constant Readers *"This is a great reference book that the casual reader of King’s books will learn a lot from and in which, even we King nerds that read everything he has written still find new things." * Lilja's Library *"The almost conversational tone of the book is engaging and accessible, with extensive footnotes, credits, and appendices to extend readers’ experience with the topic." * Library Journal *"Bev Vincent did an amazing job putting this book together. It has everything you need to know about Stephen King. If you are about to delve into Stephen King, I recommend you start with Stephen King: A Complete Exploration of His Work Life, and Influences by Bev Vincent." * Sandbox World *"...takes fans on an in-depth look at exactly what it is that makes the King of Horror tick. Vincent knows his material and delivers the sort of depth and detail that many ‘behind the scenes’ books promise, but rarely deliver." * FilmJuice *"When it comes to expounding on King’s work, Vincent knows his stuff, through and through. Whether writing about King’s radio station or time with the Rock-Bottom Remainders, Vincent is curious in his approach and thorough in his results." -- Michael Berry * Portland Press Herald *"It’s a blast to open the book at random and dive in, and Vincent ensures every King text receives its just due." * TheFilmStage.com *Table of ContentsINTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1 THE FUTURE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN (1950–1969) INTERLUDE: THE POETRY OF STEPHEN KING CHAPTER 2 THE DOUBLEDAY YEARS (1970s) INTERLUDE: STEPHEN KING AS RICHARD BACHMAN INTERLUDE: WELCOME TO CASTLE ROCK CHAPTER 3 MIDAS TOUCH (1980s) INTERLUDE: THE DARK TOWER INTERLUDE: UNSEEN KING INTERLUDE: WELCOME TO DERRY CHAPTER 4 EXPERIMENTATION AND CHANGE (1990s) INTERLUDE: THE ACCIDENT CONTENTS CHAPTER 5 AFTER THE ACCIDENT (2000s) INTERLUDE: THE STEPHEN KING UNIVERSE CHAPTER 5 KING OF CRIME (2010 AND BEYOND) CONCLUSION THE TEST OF TIME SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY APPENDIX I BOOKS APPENDIX II SHORT STORIES AND NOVELLAS APPENDIX III ADAPTATIONS ENDNOTES IMAGE CREDITS ABOUT THE AUTHOR ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
£17.85
Transworld Publishers Ltd Word Monkey
Book Synopsis''A delight . . . a glorious, witty and life-affirming ragbag of autobiography, cultural commentary and hard-won wisdom.'' ANDREW TAYLOR, author of The Shadows of London''Perceptive, wise and illuminating . . . an unmissable farewell.'' Barry Forshaw, FINANCIAL TIMES''The most hilarious, life-affirming book you'll read this year.'' SAGA magazine''Wit and wisdom that make every page turn . . . what a fine talent the world has lost.'' STARBURSTThis is the memoir Christopher Fowler always wanted to write about ''writing''.It''s the story of how a young bookworm growing up in a house where there was nothing to read but knitting pamphlets and motorcycle manuals became a writer - a ''word monkey'' - and pursued a sort of career in popular fiction. And it''s a book full of brilliant insights into the pleasures and pitfalls of his profession, dos and don''ts for would-be writTrade ReviewClever, wise, heartbreaking and yet also life-affirmingly funny: his literary comic lightness of touch is on a par with Wodehouse. -- JOANNE HARRIS, bestselling author of Broken Light and ChocolatA delight to read - a glorious, witty and life-affirming ragbag of autobiography, cultural commentary and hard-won wisdom about the strange and miraculous craft of writing. It's the sort of book that makes you want to underline every other sentence. Beautifully written, of course - one would expect no less from Chris - and characterised by its complete lack of self-pity. I hope it sells by the truckload. -- ANDREW TAYLOR, bestselling author of The Shadows of LondonA delight: perceptive, wise and illuminating on the act of reading (no genre held terrors for him) and, equally, the act of writing. All of this in a book full of disarmingly sardonic gallows humour about his own impending death. An unmissable farewell from the much missed author. -- Barry Forshaw * FINANCIAL TIMES *A remarkable book by a remarkable writer: amazingly entertaining and informative and also, for obvious reasons, one of the most moving. -- SIMON MASON, author of the DI Wilkins MysteriesNot a hint of Pollyanna here, just the most hilarious, life-affirming book you’ll read this year. * SAGA magazine *
£17.09
Oneworld Publications Eve Bites Back
Book SynopsisThe lives and achievements of eight women writers – a startling and unconventional history of literatureTrade Review‘A smart, funny and highly readable journey through the lives of women writers and the challenges they and their works face. It’s an informative, enthusiastic and rightly enraging tour de force.’ —A.L. Kennedy'Essential reading.' —Claire Tomalin'In this splendid alternative history of English literature, Anna Beer shows that "simply by putting words together on the page" women authors have for centuries fought back… [an] excellent study: "let’s scavenge and rebuild in the face of the destruction of women’s work…Let’s find the precious gems amidst the rubble."' —Guardian'Eve Bites Back isn’t pleading for justice for female writers, it’s indicting a system that has long ignored them and, to some extent, still does… Part polemic, part revisionist criticism, Eve Bites Back, as its title suggests, is sharp and aggressive, a book that will irritate, enlighten, persuade and provoke argument. It’s a work of correction, in every sense of the word.’ —Washington Post'A totally absorbing and enlightening tour through the work of eight significant women authors – with one of the funniest introductory chapters ever.' —Sarah Bakewell'Writing with energy, wit and at times barely suppressed fury, Anna Beer brings to life the struggle to be heard of eight women writers over 500 years. Her subtle literary excavations are both informative and a gripping read.' —David Goodhart, founder editor of Prospect'Startling stories and facts on every page. Written with a clear and authoritative voice, this is both a very entertaining and very important book about the many obstacles that women have overcome to be writers, and the long struggles even the most gifted and well-connected women authors have encountered in order to be taken seriously.' —Yasmin Khan, associate professor of history, University of Oxford'Anna Beer is one of those very rare writers who are able to combine rigorous research with a gripping and thoroughly accessible style. This is an ambitious, authoritative, feisty book and a worthy successor to her inspirational Sounds and Sweet Airs: The Forgotten Women of Classical Music.' —Kate Kennedy, author of Dweller in Shadows'Eve Bites Back … is shaped by the same principles [as Beer’s earlier work] – feminist indignation, certainly, but also a drive to share ideas and observations about a diverse body of achievement, emerging from historical periods radically different from our own … invigorating.' —Dinah Birch, TLS'A delightful, and challenging read.' —New York Journal of Books'A thorough, wide-reaching overview of women’s literary accomplishments viewed through a fresh, modern lens … Eve Bites Back is an exemplary work of literary criticism.' —Foreword Reviews'In her alternative history of English literature, Eve Bites Back, cultural historian and biographer Anna Beer takes up arms against the patriarchy… extensive and meticulous.' —Washington Independent Review of Books
£10.99
