Biography Books

Book Synopsis***''An honest and thoughtful memoir. Moving but, ultimately, full of hope. Beautiful.'' KATE MOSSE''Superb. Love & Care is a book about the unbreakable bonds of family, the cruelty of passing time and a love that never dies.'' TONY PARSONS''A beautiful, intimate story of love and understanding - candid and funny. This is a lyrical memoir of hope and forgiveness.'' RAYNOR WINN, author of The Salt Path ''He''s in hospital again . . . and he''s not eating. Perhaps you should think about coming back to the UK,'' Brenda said. ''I don''t think your dad will be going home again.'' Shaun''s mother is in a care home with Parkinson''s Dementia and now his father is dying. He should go back. And yet this was supposed to be his time. Shaun has relocated to a new country to make a fresh start. His two daughters are grown-up. He has moved on from the divorce. He is single a

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Book SynopsisIn Come By The Hills Cameron McNeish shares his journeys through Scotland on foot, by bike and in his wee red campervan. He is still an adventurer, but these days things are a bit different. Reaching summits is still enjoyed, but no longer a priority. Instead, he takes us on a wide exploration of Scotland’s hills, forests, and coastlines, and the ancient tales that bring a turbulent history to life. He takes us into the loveliest of glens, Etive and Lyon, to our most distant islands in the Hebrides and Shetland, and reminisces on wonderful characters such as Dick Balharry, Finlay MacRae, and the early working-class climbers when they first took to the hills.Trade ReviewObservant and witty. -- Muriel GrayWritten with humour and clarity. What is obvious is McNeish’s adoration for the wilderness – something that could enthuse even a non-walker to don the old walking boots. * Scottish Field *

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Book SynopsisIn 50 Years of Hard Road, Nick Charles MBE - the first person to be honoured by the Queen 'for services to people with alcohol problems' - details his time in the abyss of alcohol addiction; a period that despatched relationships, his health, his career, and so much more.

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Book SynopsisIn 50 Years of Hard Road, Nick Charles - the first person to be honoured by the Queen 'for services to people with alcohol problems' - details his time in the abyss of alcohol addiction; a period that despatched relationships, his health, his career, and so much more.

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Book SynopsisDuring his 1920s heyday, Arnold Bennett was one of Britain’s most celebrated writers. As the author of The Old Wives’ Tale and Clayhanger he was a household name, writing just as much for the common man as London’s literati. His face was plastered over theatre hoardings and the sides of West End omnibuses. His life represents the ultimate rags-to-riches story of a man who ‘banged on the door of Fortune like a weekly debt collector’ as one of his obituaries so vividly put it. Yet for all his success, few were aware how cursed Bennett felt by his life-long stutter and other debilitating character traits. In the years running up to his death in 1931, his affairs were close to collapse as he fought a losing battle on three fronts: with his estranged wife; with his disenchanted mistress; and from a literary perspective with Virginia Woolf. As the first full length biography of Bennett since 1974, the work draws on a wealth of unpublished diaries and letters to shed new light on a personality who can be considered a ‘Lost Icon’ of early Twentieth Century Britain.Trade Review“Hated by Woolf, but this life of Arnold Bennett proves the literary snobs wrong” The Sunday Times “Excellent book” A.N Wilson, The Spectator "First-rate biography" Roger Lewis, Daily Mail "sheds new light" Margaret Drabble, The Times Literary Supplement "This excellent book puts Bennett back on the map" Simon Heffer, The Telegraph "absorbing biography" D J Taylor, Literary Review "a work that must now displace [Margaret Drabble's] as the standard account of the novelist's life" Revd Dr John Pridmore, Church Times

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Book SynopsisTravel back in time to the vibrant 1960s, and join Bridget and her friends, students at the Hereford College of Education, as they dare to defy convention and hitchhike their way through an era of change.Armed with sixpenny Esso road maps and thumbing rides from friendly lorry drivers, they journey through Wales, Scotland and onwards to London. Venturing abroad, they find themselves enchanted by the romance of France, navigate Spanish landscapes fraught with both beauty and danger, fend off proposals of marriage on the back of a lorry travelling through the Atlas Mountains, and revel in the soul-stirring folk music of Ireland.Hit the Road, Gals captures a time when the roads were open, the spirits were free and a group of daring young women carved their own path through a world in transition.

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Book Synopsis"[Selected Poems] offers readers a chance to catch on to one of the most distinctive talents of our time, one of the few who can genuinely startle...Ruefle is clearly one of the best American poets writing, and her body of work is remarkable for its spiritual force, intelligence, stylistic virtuosity, and adventurousness."--Tony Hoagland of all things standing furthest from what is real, stand these trees shaking with dispensable joy ...Mary Ruefle is the winner of the 2011 William Carlos Williams Award and has authored ten collections of poetry; The Most of It, a book of prose; and A Little White Shadow, a collection of erasures. She teaches at Vermont College.Trade Review"Her Selected Poems, like the work of William Carlos Williams, is a testimony not only to the power of artfulness, but to human empathy."--Rodney Jones, from his 2011 William Carlos Williams Award citation "This first retrospective collection from Ruefle, which selects from her nine previous books of poetry... shows her to be a poet of visionary imagination, abiding sensitivity, and melancholy humor."--Publishers Weekly "One of the enjoyable paradoxes of reading Ruefle's work is how easy it is to read, but how many possible meanings you can make. Though sometimes described as an experimental or "post-avant" poet, I have always found Ruefle's work intelligently accessible, charming and reader-friendly."--Jeannine Hall Gailey, The Rumpus "Ruefle is clearly one of the best American poets writing, and her body of work is remarkable for its spiritual force, intelligence, stylistic virtuosity, and adventurousness."--Tony Hoagland, On the SeawallTable of ContentsStanding Furthest; Transpontine; Replica; The Intended; From Memory; Patient; Without an Acre; All the Activity There Is; Barbarians; Perfume River; At the North Pole; The Beautiful Is Negative; The Last Supper; Pen and Ink; Depicted on a Screen; Heaven on Earth; The Beginnings of Idleness in Assisi; Lapland; Diary of Action and Repose; How It Is; Timberland; Cul-de-Sac; The Pedant's Discourse; Instrument of the Highest; Naked Ladies; Towards the Correction of Youthful Ignorance; Trust Me; Entirely, Eventually; Nice Hands; Rain Effect; Cold Pluto; Out of a Hundred; Merengue; Topophilia; Perpetually Attempting to Soar; Talking to Strangers; The Brooch; The Cart; The March; Ancestors; The Butcher's Story; The Hand; Minor Figure; Glory; The Wild Rose Bush; The Balloon; Perfect Reader; Tilapia; The Passing of Time; When Adults Talk; Marked; Argosy; Sentimental Education; Chilly Autumn Evenings; The Jewel; County Fair; The Letter; Pressed for Details; The Edge; Furtherness; Thistle; Nothing Like the Earth; Full Moon; Silk Land; Against the Sky; Mariposa and the Doll; Patina; Mercy; Among the Musk Ox People; Seven Postcards from Dover; The Tragic Drama of Joy; The Great Loneliness; The Feast; Zettel; Japanese Bloodgod; Magnificat; My Life as a Farmer (by James Dean); Critique of Little Errors; Concerning Essential Existence; Do Not Disturb; The Little I Saw of Cuba; In the Office of the Therapist I Behold the Extinguished Guests; The Nutshell; Why I Am Not a Good Kisser; Proscenium Arch; Oh Myrtie; From Here to Eternity; A Picture of Christ; Gathered on a Friday in the Hour of Jupiter; How I Became Impossible; The Tenor of Your Yes; My Happiness; The Meal That Way Always There; Kiss of the Sun; Pontiac; My Timid Eternity; Sweet Morning; The Imperial Ambassador of the Infinite; After a Rain; Thirteen; Lines Written on a Blank Space; Little Questions; Quick Note About the Think Source; Kettle; Lullaby

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Book SynopsisA New York Times Books New & Noteworthy book • A Most-Anticipated Book from BookPage, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Paperback Paris • Glowing reviews and features in Garden & Gun, CNN Philippines, Chapter16, Kirkus Reviews, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and more This fierce collection celebrates the incredible diversity in the contemporary South by featuring essays by twenty-one of the finest young writers of color living and working in the region today, who all address a central question: Who is welcome? Kiese Laymon navigates the racial politics of publishing while recording his audiobook in Mississippi. Regina Bradley moves to Indiana and grapples with a landscape devoid of her Southern cultural touchstones, like Popeyes and OutKast. Aruni Kashyap apartment hunts in Athens and encounters a minefield of invasive questions. Frederick McKindra delves into the particularly Southern history of Beyonce's black majorettes. Assembled by editor and essayist Cinelle Barnes, essays in A Measure of Belonging: Twenty-One Writers of Color on the New American South acknowledge that from the DMV to the college basketball court to doctors’ offices, there are no shortage of places of tension in the American South. Urgent, necessary, funny, and poignant, these essays from new and established voices confront the complexities of the South's relationship with race, uncovering the particular difficulties and profound joys of being a Southerner in the 21st century.Trade ReviewA Measure of Belonging challenges the idea of a monolithic Southern culture." --New York Times Book Review "The South on exhibit here does feel new: polygot, multiracial, small-c catholic, urbanized, unwilling to accomodate or overlook the past but instead primed to confront it head-on, and keen to sift the South's virtues--lovingly--from its flaws." --Garden & Gun "Sharp and witty, this collection shows that there are many different ways to live, breathe, thrive and be a person who belongs in the South." --Bookpage, starred review "Cinelle Barnes has compiled the most diverse portrayal of the contemporary South I've read to date. These beautifully-written, clear-eyed essays present the American South through the eyes of its black and brown voices and expand the reader's view of belonging to or hailing from the region. I love this collection and its depictions complicate the South in ways that mainstream America sometimes refuses to believe about our ugly/beautiful South. A Measure of Belonging is a major contribution to the canon of Southern literature and each of the writers give of themselves fully. It is a book for our times. Welcome to the 21st century!" --Crystal Wilkinson, author of The Birds of Opulence "Totally engaging, this informing, thought-provoking collection is valuable for its vision of a South that is not monolithic."--Publishers Weekly "Across the collection, the writers push against the limits of what we think we know about the South." --Kirkus Reviews "A Measure of Belonging is a stark reminder that, behind the draping magnolias and weeping willows, the south has a loaded history, the effects of which still ripple through today’s society. Cinelle Barnes's anthology is but one call to awareness, a call to artful rebellion." --NewPagesTable of ContentsOsayi Endolyn (Atlanta, GA) Soniah Kamal (Atlanta, GA) Jennifer Hope Choi (Charleston, SC) Kiese Laymon (Oxford, MS) Devi Laskar (Atlanta, GA) M. Evelina Galang (Miami, FL) Tiana Clark (Nashville, TN) Latria Graham (Spartanburg, SC) Aruni Kashyap (Athens, GA) Minda Honey (Louisville, KY) Regina Bradley (Kennesaw, GA) Natalia Sylvester (Austin, TX) Christena Cleveland (San Francisco, CA) Nichole Perkins (Brooklyn, NY) Ivelisse Rodriguez (Whitsett, NC) Gary Jackson (Charleston, SC) Frederick McKendra (Little Rock, AR) Toni Jensen (Fayetteville, AR) Diana Cejas (Durham, NC)

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Book SynopsisThese early letters from John Cage to Merce Cunningham will be revelatory for many. While the two are widely known as a dynamic, collaborative duo, the story of how and when they came together has never been fully told. In the 39 letters of this collection, spanning 1942 46, Cage shows himself to be a man falling deeply in love. When they first met at the Cornish School in Seattle in the 1930s, Cage was 26 to Cunningham's 19, their relationship was purely that of teacher and student, and Cage was also very much married.It was in Chicago that their romantic relationship would begin. Cage was teaching at Moholy-Nagy's School of Design when Cunningham passed through town as a dancer with the Martha Graham Company on March 14, 1942. The letters begin in January, but a week after Cunningham's performance, the essential correspondence begins. Cage's letters to Cunningham are passionate, distraught, romantic and confused, occasionally containing snippets of poetry and song. They are also more than love letters, with intimations that resonate with our experience of the later John Cage.Love, Icebox takes its shape from these letters transcribed, chronologically ordered and in some instances reproduced in facsimile. Laura Kuhn, Cage's assistant from 1986 to 1992 and now longtime director of the John Cage Trust, adds an introduction, postscript and running commentary. Photographic illustrations of their final 18th St loft, as well as personal and household objects left behind, remind us of the substance and rituals of a long-shared life.Trade ReviewIlluminating; hopefully we can expect the John Cage Trust to produce more fresh books, each as surprising and valuable as this. -- Richard Kostelanetz * Rain Taxi Review of Books *Love, Icebox is extremely gratifying and nearly guiltily so. A book of letters dated between 1942 to 1946 from John Cage to Merce Cunningham, Love, Icebox illustrates at least one perspective on the beginning and formation of Cage and Cunningham’s relationship. -- Perwana Nazif * Los Angeles Review of Books *Love, Icebox: Letters from John Cage to Merce Cunningham lets us into one side of the storied 20th-century partnership between the composer and dancer/choreographer. As a collection of beautifully presented photographs and transcripts, the book expresses the foundation of the couple’s relationship, the development of Cage’s creative life, and the inevitable merging of the two. -- Blair Johnson * Full Stop *An intimate look inside the long-standing romantic and creative collaboration between two of the titans of the Modernist avant-garde: Merce, the fierce dancer, and John, the cerebral composer. -- Rumaan Alam * New Republic *Preserved by Cunningham and discovered after his death in 2009, [the letters] constitute the foundation stones of one of the great Modernist love affairs, one that began as a teacher-student crush (Cage was the teacher) and blossomed into an artistic collaboration and 50-year marriage. We only get Cage’s view of the affair in the letters, but the emotions expressed are intense enough to speak for two... -- Holland Cotter * New York Times *John Cage’s onetime assistant and now the director of the John Cage Trust — collects a series of 39 letters that the composer wrote to the dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham during the 1940s. What’s lovely about this slim volume is how it traces the full arc of a relationship. -- Henry Alford * New York Times: Book Review *To see how Cage's brilliant mind transposed disparate elements around him into an ongoing legacy inspires me to keep returning to his challenging, nonlinear work. -- Dave Wheeler * Shelf Awareness *

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Book SynopsisMoral courage is much in the spotlight today given an upsurge in authoritarian regimes world-wide. Award-winning psychiatrist Anthony Feinstein offers his expert perspective on why investigative journalists stand up to intolerant regimes, often singlehandedly. Nineteen international journalists explain their rationales for the work they do in face-to-face interviews with the author. Moral Courage builds on Professor Feinstein’s strong and lauded track record in the field of conflict journalism research. This book this is an essential read for anyone drawn to topics encompassing biography, conflict, politics and journalism.

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Book SynopsisFollowing the acclaimed Dunce, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, comes Mary Ruefle’s latest prose publication The Book.True to its bold title, The Book affirms Mary Ruefle’s legacy as (dubbed by Publishers Weekly) “the patron saint of childhood and the everyday.” With the same curiosity found in Madness, Rack, and Honey and My Private Property, Ruefle’s prose here feels both omniscient and especially intimate. “It seems I believe in a bygone world though I no longer live there,” she writes. “Will I continue to read about all that is dusty?” In the spirit of friendship, Ruefle generously invites us to query ourselves as readers and thinkers in a world that will eventually endure without us.Trade ReviewStraightforward in form, comic and companionable in tone, blessed with the Martian gift of seeing the strange in the ordinary and vice-versa... —Joel Brouwer, PoetryRuefle’s speakers muse in a very deliberate, declarative syntax in a lot of universalities, generalities, and absolutes, speaking often for all of us. —Adrien Blevins, PloughsharesFor more than thirty years, she has freshened American poetry by humbly glorifying both the inner life and the outward experience. —Rodney Jones, Poetry Society of America[She is] a poet of visionary imagination, abiding sensitivity, and melancholy humor. —Publishers WeeklyRuefle is the Poet Laureate of the City of Ideas — surreal and lyrical and deeply moving at the same time. — Michael Klein, Los Angeles Review of BooksThey record small moments with sweeping scope, moments in which the speed of thought seems to outpace real time. –– Elisa Gabbert, The New York TimesTable of ContentsUntitledThe PhotographPixieThe Wrapped BookNettlesThe BarkNopeWe Need To Talk About Ice CreamThe CandyHouse HuntingA Lesson In HistoryMy Life As A ScholarThe CashewMy Memory of A Story by Lydia DavisI Read Years Ago And Never ForgotThe StagehandThe TreesWhat Happens When You DieThe Cloud BeatersThe TranslatorGolden CrumbsLove StoryThe WindThe ColorThe PerkThe Heart, What Is It?I Dream Of JungLucky DragonMy Dying FriendDear FriendsLetter To Elizabeth BishopThe GablesAffordable VacationAn American HaikuTeeth Of NoonThe EffusiveThe NovelThe BookChilly ObservationThe Plum And The Devil

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Book SynopsisThe Big O by Patrick Skene is the story of Olsen Filipaina, a New Zealand Hall of Fame rugby league legend who was a pathfinder for the Maori and Pasifika players who today dominate the Australian National Rugby League.

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Book SynopsisA chilling portrait of the ways that abuse can be hidden behind a glittering façade. It's also a compelling story of a woman learning to navigate pain, mental illness, and trauma, until finally becoming an advocate for her own strength and healing. ELIZABETH RENZETTI, author of Shrewed: A Wry and Closely Observed Look at the Lives of Women and GirlsKaren Gosbee had it all: a successful husband, three beautiful children, the homes, the cars, the jewelery, the A-list invitations. Her life looked perfect and as her husband, George, liked to say, appearances are everything. But at the height of his success as an owner of a major American sports franchise, cracks appeared in George's carefully constructed façade.Karen could not ignore his increasingly erratic and self-destructive behaviour, which spiralled from affairs and hard-drinking to prostitutes and drug abuse. Nor could she escape his abuse as emotional bullying escalated into dangerous beatings. A Perfect Nightmare is the story of a woman's awakening to the realities of her failing marriage and her desperate struggle - one that would end in headlines and tragedy - to bring herself and her children to safety.

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Book SynopsisFor years, a small unit of France’s national police known as ''The Office in Charge of the Fight Against Crimes Against Humanity’ has been discreetly chasing down war criminals.As the head of the thirty-person team, Colonel Eric Emeraux has investigated mass killings, summary executions, torture, and other abuses against civilian populations in Bosnia, Rwanda, Liberia, Syria, and other troubled lands.Now, for the first time, he reveals how his team gathered evidence of unspeakable crimes, identified and located the perpetrators, and through careful surveillance and brilliant police work brought them to justice.Hunting Monsters is a riveting true crime saga and a tribute to all those who fight for law in the face of force, and humanity in the face of terror. Translated from the French, La Traque est Mon Métier, Plon, 2020.

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Book SynopsisIn January 1936, the thirty-two-year-old George Orwell left his home in London and travelled to the industrial north of England with the intention of experiencing first-hand the conditions in which the working-class poor were compelled to live their lives. During his two-month expedition he visited Manchester, Wigan and Liverpool in the north-west, then Sheffield, Leeds and Barnsley in Yorkshire, recording his impressions as he went in a diary that would later form the basis of one of the most significant works of literary reportage ever written.Part sociological survey, part polemic about the potential benefits of socialism as well as the failures and idiosyncrasies of many of its middle-class exponents The Road to Wigan Pier represents a unique record of a country riven by class inequality and plagued by unemployment, inadequate housing, unsafe working conditions and other social ills, and provides an invaluable insight into the evolution of Orwell's political consciousn

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Book SynopsisThis Is Me is a colourful journal for exploring the uniqueness that makes you who you are. Featuring original artwork, it consists of 9 sections with fun questions and activities dedicated just to you, allowing you to connect with your emotions on a wonderful journey of exploration and discovery: 1. Who I Am 2. Friends & Family 3. Education & Work 4. Sections of Four 5. Fashion, Films & Fixtures 6. Books, Art & Music 7. Food & Parties 8. Home & Away 9. Lists of Seven A wonderful gift for friends, family or as a treat to yourself, This Is Me gives you space for the self-care and `me’ time we all deserve. Designed for you to dip in and out of in any order and at your own pace, This Is Me provides the opportunity to put down digital devices, switch off the TV, pick up a pen and snuggle under the covers of this fabulous journal. This Is Me is one of three hand-painted journals in the Mindful Collection. Discover Forward Thinking: A Wellbeing, Happiness & Fulfilment Journal and Wonderful Days: A Mindful, Daily Positivity Journal.

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Book Synopsis'What a nutjob!' - Geoff Dyer'Questions that occurred to me as I read this brilliant, baffling book: What the hell is this? Who the hell is this? Is this poetry?' - Tom BissellCan civilization save us from ourselves? That is the question J. D. Daniels asks in his first book, a series of six letters written during dark nights of the soul. Working from his own highly varied experience – as a janitor, night watchman, adjunct professor, drunk, exterminator, dutiful son –he considers how far books and learning and psychoanalysis can get us, and how much we’re stuck in the mud.In prose wound as tight as a copper spring, Daniels takes us from the highways of his native Kentucky to the Balearic Islands and from the Pampas of Brazil to the rarefied precincts of Cambridge, Massachusetts. His travelling companions include psychotic kindergarten teachers, Israeli sailors, and Southern Baptists on fire for Christ. In each dispatch, Daniels takes risks – not just literary (voice, tone, form) but also more immediate, such as spending two years on a Brazilian jiu-jitsu team (he gets beaten to a pulp, repeatedly) or participating in group psychoanalysis (where he goes temporarily insane). Daniels is that rare thing, a writer completely in earnest whose wit never deserts him, even in extremis. Inventive, intimate, restless, streetwise and erudite, The Correspondence introduces a brave and original observer of the inner life under pressure.Trade ReviewTightly written, often brilliant… Alive with deft asides and daring intuitive leaps. Daniels is a very good writer, and [this is] a very good book… The self is the well from which all these essays are drawn; or perhaps it’s the sewer into which all these essays drain… A complete work about a work-in-progress, the self-portrait of a writer slowly coming into his own. -- J Robert Lennon * Guardian *What a nutjob! Increasingly these three words constitute my highest praise for – almost my ideal of – a writer, and in this regard J. D. Daniels takes the biscuit. I love the way he throws out everything, both in the sense of throwing it all at us, and the opposite: discarding everything that might be deemed necessary to the seemly construction of narrative. So The Correspondence gives us the best of both worlds. -- Geoff DyerThe Correspondence gives off the unmistakable crackle of an original writer who has found a new form. It's hard to say who or what is meant to be on the receiving end of these “letters”, but if you care about modern life you need to read them. -- John Jeremiah Sullivan, author of PULPHEADThe Correspondence is one of the best things I’ve read in a long time, a whole new music that changes the score of masculinity, and a new kind of writing too, one that pushes form and sentence into radical, contemporary shapes. The word ‘honesty’ has become something of an irritant in contemporary literary culture: J. D. Daniels does something more moral than be simply honest. He invokes the grandeur and abasement of experience with a tactility of language that makes a psychological landscape of it, rather as the ancient Greeks did, and his notions of justice and truth are as richly textured as theirs. I have lent this slim, meaningful book to one person after another, and received the confirmation that it has changed their view of the world with its economy, its potency, its different fall of light. -- Rachel Cusk, author of TRANSITDaniels sees what others don't, feels what others won't, and writes what others can't. He is a blazing virtuoso of the English sentence, an oracle with a vulnerable and willing heart, and he has produced a shockingly perfect book. -- Sarah Manguso, author of ONGOINGNESSQuestions that occurred to me as I read this brilliant, baffling book: What the hell is this? Who the hell is this? Is this poetry? How can that sentence be so good? Can I steal that later? In 130 pages, Daniels shows you just about everything great prose can do. Books like this are why I read. -- Tom Bissell, author of APOSTLEJ.D. Daniels's The Correspondence is an epic in fragments: masterly, comic, wise, daring. It is a book for everyone, from Kentucky to Cambridge to Kathmandu, though as a reader you may feel that Daniels is trafficking in secrets, meant for you alone. It is occult. It is so strong, it will melt the books on the shelves around it. This is a book that will become a legend, introducing one of the very best writers in the country. If I could thrust it into every true reader's hands, I would. -- Mark Greif, author of THE AGE OF THE CRISIS OF MANThrough the speed and shocking cuts of his prose, Daniels shows us what it is to be a writer now. Each of these six letters is a modern expression of Baudelaire's tortured prayer: “O Lord God grant me the grace to produce a few good verses, which shall prove to myself that I am not the lowest of men, that I am not inferior to those whom I despise.” -- Michael Clune, author of GAMELIFEJ.D. Daniels is a scourge to an America drunk on fraudulent images of masculinity and to a literary scene enamored of dainty exhibitionism. A writer so rigorously on guard against complacency that he's likely to take any compliment paid him like a slap in the face. -- Marco Roth, author of THE SCIENTISTSMasculinity as vulnerable, smelly smackdown, personal failure as syntactic delight: in this volatile, brilliant collection, Daniels recollects in not-quite tranquility a series of synesthesiac rearrangements of the self. The riveting swerves of his sentences and of his geographic and spiritual wanderings will make you keep asking what “here” might be. These essays pay tribute to “the world… our common property”. -- Lisa Cohen, author of ALL WE KNOWDaniels’ book, a slip of a thing, is a hard one to pin down. But pin it down you should… Darker, fiercer, funnier… His is a strange, addictive voice, impossible to categorise. You won’t read another book like it. -- Miranda Collinge * Esquire *Daniels writes in a splendidly self-deprecating way while describing how martial arts took over his life (Brazilian jiu-jitsu, if you must know), about leaving the teaching profession because “I wanted to kill and eat the children who had been entrusted to my care” and of his reintroduction to his home state of Kentucky. Some would call him glib, but it’s an ironic pseudo-glibness which acknowledges pain and regret but isn’t going to let them get in the way of a good story. The Correspondence may be a tricky book to define, but what’s easier to discern from it is the emergence of a distinctive new voice worth listening to. * Herald Scotland *

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Book SynopsisChiltern Publishing creates beautifully crafted editions of the World's finest literature. Their extraordinary and unique classic cover designs have evolved into exquisite, handcrafted writing journals of a high art form. Put simply: they are the finest writing journals on the market.

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Book SynopsisGet your backstage pass to the world-famous Rockfield Recording Studios in Monmouth, Wales. Featuring frank and funny interviews with the artists who recorded there and studio staff, Rock Legends at Rockfield reveals the fascinating stories behind some of the world’s best-known and loved rock albums and records, including Oasis’s What’s the Story (Morning Glory), a number of Queen songs including Killer Queen and Bohemian Rhapsody, and Motörhead’s first recordings. This new edition will be fully revised and updated with new chapters on the artists who have recorded at Rockfield since 2007, including new interviews with bands such as Thunder, The Dirty Youth, Gun and YES; the Studios’ recent appearances in film and television such as the Oscar-winning Bohemian Rhapsody film and the Rockfield: the Studio on the Farm documentary; and a section on Rockfield’s neighbouring rehearsal studio, Monnow Valley, which later became a recording studio in its own right and has hosted bands such as Black Sabbath. A must-read for anyone interested in rock music and music history.

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Book SynopsisWinner of the Society for Theatre Research Theatre Book Prize 2023 The director Peter Dews prophesied: “You’ll be alright when you’re forty, and even better when you’re fifty.” It turns out that Peter Dews was right, almost to the month. In a study of British theatre through a varied acting career spanning over sixty years, Oliver Ford Davies explores the many changes within the performing arts scene through his experiences on various stages, in a variety of productions, across the country. Davies charts the ups and downs of British theatre in the last sixty years, while offering a unique perspective on life behind the curtain and the daring journey from leaving behind an academic career and into acting. From Shakespeare to Shaw, Chekhov to Pirandello, this is the story of an actor initially struggling to make a mark before making his breakthrough at fifty, winning the Olivier Best Actor award and being propelled into thirty years of leading roles.

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Book SynopsisThe boundless and miraculous is what Vincent van Gogh believed we should all seek – and to be satisfied with nothing less. This is exactly what he achieved in his art, despite many profound difficulties which he recorded in his letters. These letters later became recognised for their literary virtues, such as simplicity, clarity, spontaneity and rich imagery. Such qualities are among those most prized in poetry. In The Boundless and Miraculous, extracts from Van Gogh’s letters are presented as ‘found poems’ – writing not originally intended to be a poem, reinterpreted as such – mainly in the form of sonnets. They record many of the pivotal moments in Van Gogh’s life and his struggles and emotional state at these times are evident in the content and tone of the writing. There are also his views on the work of other artists, both his contemporaries and those who went before him. In particular, the poems encapsulate much of the thinking behind the way van Gogh’s art developed, and notably the thought processes behind some of his most iconic paintings. With 87 colour plates, The Boundless and the Miraculous celebrates Van Gogh’s spectacular art as well as his wonderful writing in what could be considered a series of brief autobiographical sketches. A fabulous gift book aimed at all lovers of Van Gogh’s work, this volume will also make a major contribution to our understanding of his short and amazing life. To Theo You must understand how I regard art. One must work long and hard to arrive at the truthful. What I want is difficult, and yet I don’t believe I’m aiming too high. I would like to reach the point where people say of my work, that man feels deeply, feels subtly. What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity. Very well – assuming that, I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm – pure harmony. The Hague c. 21 July 1882Trade Review"Stapleton’s accessible and illuminating collection of sonnets works well as a series of glimpses into the consciousness of a great artist; the diary of a soul. It captures the voice of a man whose life was a constant struggle but who maintained good grace to the end. The poems are accompanied by a wealth of images of van Gogh’s work that complement the subject matter." The Sunday Times (UK); "Finding poetry in the letters of Vincent van Gogh..." The Irish Times

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Book SynopsisThis is a paperback edition of Eric Fenby's famous book which has not been available in authorised form for some years. It is a memoir of the last six years of the composer's life when Fenby, then a young organist from Scarborough, volunteered to live in Grez-sur-Loing to help the blind and partly paralysed Delius to continue to compose. The vivid account of the painful and exasperating process whereby Fenby was able to help Delius commit to paper such great works as Songs of Farewell and A Song of Summer is unforgettable. Equally gripping is the description of life in the strange household in which Frederick and Jelka Delius received visitors such as Balfour Gardiner, Roger Quilter, Philip Heseltine, Percy Grainger, Thomas Beecham and Elgar. Delius died in 1934 and Eric Fenby heeded Ernest Newman's advice not to wait but to write down his impressions at once. This he did and Delius As I Knew Him was published in 1936. In 1968 the book inspired Ken Russell's masterly film about the composer Song of Summer. In 1980, Delius and Fenby made an appearance in the song Delius by Kate Bush and subsequently their extraordinary story has influenced other artists too. Today Delius As I Knew Him remains one of the most remarkable books about a composer ever written.Trade ReviewMay I express my wholehearted admiration for your Delius Book...It is an amazing story and an amazing human and musical feat that you accomplished in taking down his last musical thoughts - an enviable feat! Percy Grainger, 6th Dec 1936; A courageous book and worthy of a Yorkshireman. Sir Matthew Smith, Nov 1936; I have read this book many times and never without being deeply moved by its unusual and perhaps unique emotional impact. Sir Malcolm Sergeant, Icon Edition 1966.Table of ContentsIllustrations Publisher's note Author's note to first edition Tommie Haglund...a Personal Introduction Part One: An interlude in the life of Frederick Delius Part Two: How he worked Part Three: Some aspects of the Man and the Composer as I knew him Part Four: The Sundown Appendices 1. Delius's method of composition 2. Notes Author's afterword to 1981 edition The Delius Fenby Legacy Index

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Book SynopsisPhilosophy, Pussycats, & Porn is a series of essays, blog posts, and stories surveying more than a decade of poignant journalistic accounts from internationally recognized writer, actor, and pornographer Stoya.Stoya provides crucial examinations of systemic biases toward sex workers and how sexuality is reflected in society. She often points her journalistic lens inward, providing us with personal, illustriously detailed stories of her life, her collaborators, and ow she has built a flourishing media haven in the face of a culture that is still learning how to handle public discourses on sex work.Trade Review“She casually drops one-liners that could be essays in themselves.” —James Reith, The Guardian

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Book SynopsisIt's easy to make a New Year's resolution. It's much more difficult to fulfill it. Dr. Paul Semendinger, a 53-year-old father of three, an average runner (who runs about one marathon a year), an author, and a school principal, decided to run every single day for an entire year. That was his New Year's Resolution. This is the story of his quest to do what, for him, seemed to be the impossible. There were no off-days, no chances to take it easy. He made a promise to himself to run every day in 2022. He worked to achieve that goal as one of the biggest parts of his life changed radically. This is his tale of running. It's also the story of a year in his life.Join Dr. Sem as he pushes ever forward. This is a story of motivation, of drive, of success, and even failure. The insights, the humor, the reflection, and the emotion that is part of this true tale is one that should motivate and inspire others to set their own goals for themselves and find ways to achieve them letting nothing get in

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Book SynopsisThink today's anti-abortion ideas are rooted in religious prohibitions or arguments about where life begins? Wrong: today's anti-abortion movements is largely financed and planned by far-right extremists. Many of them are avowedly fascist and white supremacist, afraid of a "great replacement" of the world's white population by other races, who are working hard to reshape governments and policies across Europe, North America and around the world. Much of this far-right organizing and funding network, however, has been overlooked by today's feminist and left movements. As investigative journalist Sian Norris uncovers here, it is through attacking abortion rights that fascist ideas from the dark web, incel chat boards, and fringe organizations comes to enter mainstream debate -- and to then shape governmental policy across Europe, from authoritarian regimes like Hungary's to liberal democracies like Britain. As Norris goes undercover at anti-abortion activist meetings, and pieces together the money trail linking American think tanks to far-right fascist groups, she maps out the pipeline by which fascism has become respectable across the Global North by taking away women's reproductive rights and autonomy.Trade ReviewWhen it comes to the critical issues shaping our society, there are journalists who try to observe and analyse from on high - and then there are journalists like Sian Norris, who throw themselves headfirst into the messy tangle of people, places and politics that matter, and do so with passion and bite. Norris is not a passive stenographer, she's a fighter for a better world and her work might just help us win one. -- Jack Schenker, author of The Egyptians and Now We Have Your AttentionA vital and sobering book. Sian Norris's reporting on reproductive rights has long been prescient, dogged, and courageous -- and in this book she gives us an unflinching portrait of quite how much women stand to lose. Her account of how abortion is positioned in our contemporary moment -- by misogyny, white supremacy, and authoritarianism -- is necessary reading. -- Katherine Angel, author of Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good AgainAttacks on abortion rights are not only assaults on women's freedom to live and love as they choose, most successfully targeting black and ethnic minority women, but they are today a key plank of the far right's drive for power. Providing a splendid call to arms, in these pages Sia^n Norris shows why the struggle to preserve women's reproductive and sexual freedoms is now fundamental to the defeat of fascistic forces globally, as well as the foundation for any fairer, progressive future for all of us. -- Lynne Segal author of Lean on MeAn incisive account of the relationship between white supremacist ideology and the attack on abortion rights. The significance, necessity, and timeliness of this book is, unfortunately, all too apparent. -- Helen Hester, co-author of After WorkA groundbreaking and definitive study of far-right misogyny and how to fight it. Norris traces the networks that are pushing bigotry into the heads of young men across the world and shows how they interact with the "respectable" right. -- Paul Mason, author of How to Stop FascismReminds us that once won, rights - all rights - have to be constantly defended. This excellent book may help do that. -- Vanessa Baird * New Internationalist *Essential reading on what has become - yet again - one of the most important battles of our times. Sian Norris is an illuminating and passionate guide to the war on women's bodies and rights - there is so much here I didn't know, and to have it all set down so lucidly makes this book as invaluable as it is engrossing. -- Marina HydeA thorough, alarmed delineation of threats to abortion rights around the world. * Kirkus Reviews *An effective clarion call against complacency. -- Mia Levitin * Sunday Times *Table of ContentsTABLE OF CONTENTSA note on languageForewordIntroductionChapter One: The Ideology: The Place of Women in Fascist ThoughtChapter Two: The Extremists: The Anti-Abortion Far RightChapter Three: The Infiltration: The Networks that Bring Extremist Right Politics Into the MainstreamChapter Four: The Allies: How (Some) Women Join the Far Right ­- from Trad Wives to Anti-Trans Chapter Five: The Money: Who is Funding the Anti-Abortion Right?Chapter Six: The Politicians: How the Far-Right Influences Governments Around the WorldChapter Seven: The Tipping Point: Which Future Do We Choose?AcknowledgementsNotes

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Book SynopsisIn 1926 22 year - old Dutchman Willem de Kooning (1904 – 1997) travelled to the USA on a British freighter – without papers and hidden in the machine room. The young art student eked out a living by painting houses, signs and façades, before he was able aft er eight years to dedicate himself entirely to painting. In the United States he established contacts with the art scene and forged friendships with artists such as Arshile Gorky, Franz Kline, Clifford Still, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko. Today De Ko oning belongs to the outstanding painters of Abstract Expressionism and together with Jackson Pollock is regarded as a pioneer of Action Painting. This publication vividly examines De Kooning’s life, marked by self - doubts, successes, new beginnings, excess es, and scandalous paintings, as well as the evolution of his artistic work. In addition, author Corinna Thierolf opens up exciting perspectives on De Kooning’s work by revealing entirely new, surprising relationships with the works of fellow artists such as Franz Marc, Piet Mondrian, or Wassily Kandinsky.

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Book SynopsisA true-life Heartbeat for the twenty-first century. Yorkshireman Mike Pannett has just taken up a new posting as a local bobby in rural North Yorkshire. It's quite a change from the Met, where he dealt with riots on the capital's streets and drug gangs in Battersea, and found out what it was like to stare down the wrong end of a sawn-off shotgun.Now, instead of hunting down knife-wielding muggers, he's chasing runaway bullocks, holding up the Last Night of the Proms traffic to escort a lost mole across the road and combing the countryside for the villains who stole the Colonel's balls.Mike's first year on his new patch is told in seventeen chapters which interweave his escapades on the beat month by month together with his growing knowledge of a landscape that changes with the seasons and some snapshots from his off-duty life. Here is a wonderfully entertaining celebration of North Yorkshire, its breathtaking scenery and wide variety of characters and communities.

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Book SynopsisColeridge is the most complex and brilliant, yet the most elusive and intense of the great Romantic writers. This selection of verse and prose displays the extraordinary scope of his mind, the power of his imagination and the virtuosity of his literary gifts. It also reveals that behind the glittering surface of familiar masterpieces – The Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, Christabel, the Biographia – there is a great but unknown poet still waiting to be discovered.

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Book SynopsisShe was the last ruler of the Macedonian dynasty of Ptolemies who had ruled Egypt for three centuries. Highly educated (she was the only one of the Ptolemies to read and speak ancient Egyptian as well as the court Greek) and very clever (her famous liaisons with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony were as much to do with politics as the heart), she steered her kingdom through impossibly taxing internal problems and railed against greedy Roman imperialism. Stripping away preconceptions as old as her Roman enemies, Joyce Tyldesley uses all her skills as an Egyptologist to give us this magnificent biography.Trade ReviewTyldesley's strength has always been her storytelling, and here she is on top form. * Sunday Telegraph *This excellent biography scores with a wealth of splendid detail. -- Christopher Hirst * Independent *Magnificent ... strips away preconceptions to provide a rich, absorbing picture of a country and its Egyptian Queen. * Belfast Telegraph *A very readable account of the life of Cleopatra VII, and one that goes some way to redress the way in which she is often viewed ... Intriguing insights into life and society in the Egypt of the Ptolemies. * THES *4 Stars: [A] sympathetic biography...she is able to place Cleopatra securely in Egyptian culture and history. * Mail on Sunday *A lively and informative history...The book is a treasure trove of facts and figures... -- Toby Clements * Daily Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisModern Japanese Short Stories is a remarkable collection of Japanese stories from the pioneers of contemporary Japanese literature. This volume's twenty-five stories by as many authors display a wide range of style and subject matter—offering a revealing picture of modern Japanese culture and society. The stories in this anthology include: "Tattoo" by Junichiro Tanizaki—a large spider tattooed on the back of a young woman results in unexpected changes "Autumn Mountain" by Ryunosuke Akutagawa—vivid memories of a beautiful painting leads a man to wonder if the it ever actually existed "The Priest and His Love" by Yukio Mishima—a Buddhist priest finds his path to enlightenment challenged after falling in love "The Moon on the Water" by Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata—a young woman who cared for her ailing first husband through most of their marriage regrets remarrying after his death Featuring a new foreword by Japanese literary scholar Seiji Lippit and striking woodcut illustrations by Masakazu Kuwata, the stories are translated by the editor, Ivan Morris, and Edward Seidensticker, George Saito, and Geoffery Sargent. This collection of short stories shows why Japanese literature is so highly valued today—it teaches not only about Japan, but about the human condition and the possibilities of art.Trade Review"Offering readers a doorway into the past and gorgeously illustrated by black-and-white Japanese woodblock prints, [this] is a worthy collection to savor." --The Japan Times"Modern Japanese Short Stories is a moveable feast of the richness, complexity, and depth of a land that is all too often reduced to clumsy stereotypes and broad brush strokes. For readers who hunger for more, it is a rare jewel that continues to bedazzle despite the unrelenting passage of time and tide." -- The Hawai'i Herald"Here is another excellent and thorough collection of 25 short stories…Some stories are quite simple in plot, provoking the reader to stop and reflect…but other stories are great windows into the social scenery." -- BBC.com

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Book SynopsisSinking ships, devastating fires, horrendous car accidents, mountain climbing catastrophes, sword wielding terrorists and killer crocodiles are all situations recorded in this book; but what start out as disasters are redeemed by the bravery, quick thinking and sheer humanity of people who, only moments before, had no idea that they are about to be thrown into circumstances of overwhelming intensity. These are stories from the archives of the Royal Humane Society, which has been rewarding bravery for 250 years. They provide an insight into the type of person who risks their lives, potentially sacrificing themselves to save others. Some are famous but most are ordinary people from young boys to older women going about their daily lives.Dramatic and hair-raising, the tales are gripping in their own right but the fact that there is always a hero or heroine at their heart reinforces our faith in humankind and reminds us that there are plenty of ordinary people in the world capable of extra

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Book SynopsisStep into the extraordinary life of the man who made an impact as an observer wherever he lived, and went on to become the leading western interpreter of Japan and Japanese culture—a position he still occupies today.Born in Greece and abandoned as a child, Lafcadio Hearn lived the life of an exile. He travelled the world and became a famous writer but always felt like an outsider—in Dublin, London, Cincinnati, New Orleans, and French-speaking Martinique. To him, none of these places felt like home.Hearn's life in America was punctuated by a string of successes and failures. In Cincinnati he became the city's best-known crime reporter but was fired after marrying a black woman. Devastated, he moved to New Orleans, where he championed French Creole and Caribbean culture and created the city's image as a place of voodoo and debauchery (the image which many Americans still hold today).Hearn arrived in Japan at a time of historic change. Sent there as a correspondent, he soon found himself alone and jobless. He settled in the remote town of Matsue, firmly believing that Japan would provide him with an endless supply of rich writing material—perhaps enough to last a lifetime. Over the next dozen years, Hearn published 15 books which were lauded by the likes of Mark Twain, William Butler Yeats, Albert Einstein and Charlie Chaplin. Hearn's books made him famous as the leading writer on Japan and Japanese culture.Discover the fascinating journey of Hearn's life and the series of events—from peaks to pitfalls—that shaped his remarkable story, including: His troubled childhood and emigration to America with no job or money His career as a popular newspaper writer and essayist in Cincinnati and New Orleans His life in Japan where he became a Buddhist, married the daughter of a Samurai and took the Japanese name Yakumo Koizumi Hearn's worldwide fame as a writer, especially for his works on ghosts, demons, monsters and the supernatural world of Japanese folklore Author Steve Kemme is president of the Lafcadio Hearn Society/USA and a leading expert on Hearn's life and writings. This book includes a foreword by Bon Koizumi, Hearn's great-grandson and director of the Lafcadio Hearn Memorial Museum in Matsue, Japan, along with 30 images which portray the pivotal people and places in Hearn's amazing life.Trade Review"My passion for Japan began with Lafcadio Hearn." —Henry Miller"Hearn's writing was not only true on the surface but in depth; not only to his conscious thinking but also to the submerged feelings that gave their rhythms to his prose…Long before coming to Japan he had shown an instinct for finding in legends the permanent archetypes of human experience--that is the secret of their power to move us--and he later proved that he knew which tales to choose and which details to emphasize, in exactly the right English." —Malcolm Cowley"I had read a book about Japan by Lafcadio Hearn, and what he wrote about Japanese culture and their theatre aroused my desire to go there." —Charlie Chaplin

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Book SynopsisSatirical yet prophetical advertisements for imaginary new products, influential to Marcel Duchamp and Francis PicabiaOriginally published in book form in 1916, this volume of French author Gaston de Pawlowski's (18741933) writings, New Inventions and the Latest Innovations, collects the humorist's fictional columns mocking his era's burgeoning consumerism and growing faith in science. From anti-slip soap, gut rests and the pocket-sized yardstick to repurposed spittoons, nasal vacuums, electric oysters and musicographical revolvers, Pawlowski offers a far-sighted critique of technological gadgetry and a cynical promise to remove discomfort from every facet of life, even as World War I raged on and technology was unleashing new horrors onto humanity.Pawlowski's humorous cultural critique and tongue-in-cheek celebration of uselessness and futility bears relevance for today, as technology remains the hoped-for answer to our increasingly troubled human

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