Essays Books
Penguin Books Ltd Sister Outsider
Book Synopsis
£9.49
Fitzcarraldo Editions Women in Dark Times
Book SynopsisOne of our leading thinkersforges a new language for feminism, weaving together stories of visionary women past and present, and their paths of defiance. A decade on from its first publication, Jacqueline Rose'sWomen in Dark Timesis as urgent and compelling as ever.
£13.49
Penguin Books Ltd A Poet Can Survive Everything But a Misprint
Book Synopsis
£5.99
Fitzcarraldo Editions The Book Against Death
Book Synopsis
£12.34
Penguin Books Ltd A Short History of Decay
Book SynopsisA Short History of Decay (1949) is E. M. Cioran''s nihilistic and witty collection of aphoristic essays concerning the nature of civilization in mid 20th-century Europe. Touching upon man''s need to worship, the feebleness of God, the downfall of the Ancient Greeks and the melancholy baseness of all existence, Cioran''s pieces are pessimistic in the extreme, but also display a beautiful certainty that renders them delicate, vivid, and memorable. Illuminating and brutally honest, A Short History of Decay dissects man''s decadence in a remarkable series of moving and beautiful pieces.Trade ReviewTo miss reading this book would be a deprivation * Los Angeles Times *Sheds remarkable light on the literature, culture and politics of the region...anyone coming fresh to the field will be captivated by the richness, variety, humour and pathos of a classic literature that, through a shared historical experience, transcends national and linguistic boundaries. -- CJ Schüler * Independent on Sunday *
£9.49
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: From the Man Booker
Book SynopsisTHE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER PICKED BY THE SUNDAY TIMES, GUARDIAN, INDEPENDENT, IRISH TIMES, SPECTATOR, TLS, NEW STATESMAN, MAIL ON SUNDAY, I PAPER, PROSPECT, REVEW31 AND EVENING STANDARD AS A BOOK OF 2021 'A masterclass from a warm and engagingly enthusiastic companion' Guardian Summer Reading Picks 2021 ‘This book is a delight, and it’s about delight too. How necessary, at our particular moment’ Tessa Hadley ________________ From the New York Times-bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo and Tenth of December comes a literary master class on what makes great stories work and what they can tell us about ourselves - and our world today. For the last twenty years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian short story to his MFA students at Syracuse University. In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it’s more relevant than ever in these turbulent times. In his introduction, Saunders writes, “We’re going to enter seven fastidiously constructed scale models of the world, made for a specific purpose that our time maybe doesn’t fully endorse but that these writers accepted implicitly as the aim of art—namely, to ask the big questions, questions like, How are we supposed to be living down here? What were we put here to accomplish? What should we value? What is truth, anyway, and how might we recognize it?” He approaches the stories technically yet accessibly, and through them explains how narrative functions; why we stay immersed in a story and why we resist it; and the bedrock virtues a writer must foster. The process of writing, Saunders reminds us, is a technical craft, but also a way of training oneself to see the world with new openness and curiosity. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is a deep exploration not just of how great writing works but of how the mind itself works while reading, and of how the reading and writing of stories make genuine connection possible.Trade ReviewA wonderful book … This book is a delight … I love the warmth with which he writes about this teaching, and agree wholeheartedly … All this makes Saunders’s book very different from just another “how to” creative writing manual, or just another critical essay … One of the pleasures of this book is feeling his own thinking move backwards and forwards, between the writer dissecting practice and the reader entering in through the spell of the words, to dwell inside the story -- Tessa Hadley * Guardian *Saunders is such a wise and amiable teacher ... A page-turner -- Robert WebbLuminously perceptive * Guardian *A masterclass in how to be human ... unfailingly, often thrillingly illuminating … Published any time, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain would be a joyous reminder that fiction is “the most effective mode of mind-to-mind communication ever devised”. Published now, it feels like vital and civilising corrective to the pretend certainties of public life – and, increasingly, of our personal lives too * Telegraph *It will stay with you and transform how you read story by story, sentence by sentence * The Times, Best Paperbacks of 2022 *One of the most accurate and beautiful depictions of what it is like to be inside the mind of a writer that I’ve ever read * New York Times *The Russian greats truly shine in this account; but Saunders is the real star. His way of expressing himself is simultaneously supremely intellectual and jovially down-to-earth. It’s rare to read a book and love it so much that you think it’s simply perfect. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is that book -- Viv Groskop * Spectator *Joins a long tradition of using Russian literature as a guide to life … Practical and playful … it also probes exactly how narrative techniques make us more alert, attentive and sympathetic in reading books and the world around us * i news *By the end Saunders is wondering if there is indeed any point in writing at all. I won’t spoil his conclusion. Suffice to say, the hairs on the back of my neck were alert * The Times *Suffused with wry humour … Not an academic interpretation, but a reader’s companion. I was pleasurably absorbed from start to finish * Evening Standard *The Booker-winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo considers the art of fiction through seven classic Russian short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy and Gogol * Guardian, 2021 in Books *The combination of Saunders’s piercing mind and the Russian subjects being Anton Chekhov, Ivan Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy and Nikolai Gogol promises to be a highbrow treat for fans of literature, and a book offering deep insights into storytelling and how narrative functions * Independent, The books to look out for in 2021 *A literary masterclass * Evening Standard, A look ahead to the best new books in 2021 *But the real star of A Swim isn't Chekhov or Turgenev or Tolstoy or Gogol - it's Saunders himself ... This book will quite simply make you a better, more observant and more understanding reader * Big Issue *Part intro to Russian literature, part musings on craft, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is all pleasure * Financial Times *A worship song to writers and readers * O, The Oprah Magazine *His warmth, enthusiasm and homespun metaphors – all part of that “writerly charm” – banish any sense of the chilly, mechanistic Fiction Lab ... Gleefully overshoots its brief as a technical manual or how-to guide … A Swim in a Pond in the Rain generates more fun, more wit, more sympathetic sense, than we have any right to hope for from a 400-page critical study * Arts Desk *There should be more books like this -- Sameer Rahim * Prospect Podcast *A masterclass from a warm and engagingly enthusiastic companion * Guardian, 50 hottest new books everyone should read *A masterclass in short fiction by one of the finest teachers alive… It is a joyously civilised primer on how to write – and live – better * Daily Telegraph *Warm, playful and acutely perceptive -- Ian Leslie * New Statesman, Books of the Year *Not just astute, humane lit crit but an inspirational manifesto for the art of fiction -- Boyd Tonkin * Spectator, Books of the Year *A masterclass in writing … a real treat -- Naomi Alderman * Spectator, Books of the Year *[I] loved George Saunders’s A Swim in a Pond in the Rain … Genial, generous and illuminating ... He is a great teacher as well as a great practitioner, and makes you see more * Times Literary Supplement, Books of the Year 2021 *A tin of caviar sort of a book … Saunders guides, prods, nudges, urges you to disagree … It will stay with you and transform how you read story by story, sentence by sentence * Sunday Times, 24 best fiction books 2021 *Delightful as well as an engaging work-out for the brain. Just the thing for a New Year’s read * i paper *In clear, fresh, often humorous language, Saunders reveals the various sleights of hand involved in their construction, while never trying to flatten their essential genius. A gem -- Craig Brown * Mail on Sunday *Joyful and playful, a book full of wisdom, one to drink in slowly * Independent (Online), The 20 Best Books of 2021 *An eagle-eyed breakdown of short stories by four great Russian writers * Prospect, Best books of 2021 *Saunders is warm and vivacious company, funny and even-handed and increasingly wise … This book is an enthralling delve into life and its narration – for people interested in how fiction works, it’s like breathing oxygen * Revew31, Books of the Year 2021 *
£10.44
Extraordinary Books Apocalypse Baroque
£11.69
Red Wheel/Weiser Sefer Yetzirah
Book SynopsisNow in its 7th printing since republication in 1997, the Sefer Yetzirah has established itself as a primary source for all serious students of Kabbalah. Rabbi Kaplan''s translation of this oldest and most mysterious of all Kabbalistic texts provides a unique perspective on the meditative and magical aspects of Kabbalah. He expounds on the dynamics of the spiritual domain, the worlds of Sefirot, souls and angels. This translation is based on Gra version of the Sefer Yetzirah and includes the author''s extraordinary commentary on all its mystical aspects including kabbalistic astrology, Ezekiel''s vision and the 231 gates. Also included are three alternative versions to make this volume the most complete work on the Sefer Yetzirah available in English.
£28.90
Vintage Publishing The Common Reader Volume 1
Book SynopsisDiscover Virginia Woolf's informative and erudite critical essays on some of the key novelists and dramatists of the canon from the ancient Greeks to Jane Austen and beyond.Virginia Woolf read, and wrote, as an outsider, denied the educational privileges of her male contemporaries. She was perhaps better able, then, to address a ''common reader'' in this wide-ranging collection of essays. With all the imagination and gaiety that are the stamp of her genius, she turns from medieval England to tsarist Russia, and subjects Elizabethan playwrights, Victorian novelists and modern essayists to her wise, acute and entertaining scrutiny.Essays on Jane Austen, George Eliot, Nancy Mitford, Joseph Conrad, Michel de Montaigne, Daniel Defoe and many others.Trade ReviewHer essays are delightful in the way that serious play is delightful. She is enjoying herself, and reading her gives me that leaping sense of being in excellent company -- Jeanette Winterson * The Times *More like novels than ordinary criticism * New Statesman *Woolf was easily the greatest literary journalist of her age -- James Wood, * Guardian *It is all pure Woolf, so distinctive is her voice - ironic, cool, conversational and playful, shrewd and fantastical by turns -- Literary Review
£10.44
Penguin Books Ltd Le Morte dArthur
Book SynopsisVolume two of Le Morte D''Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory''s powerful and elegaic version of the Arthurian legend, recounts the adventures of Sir Tristram de Liones and the treachery of Sir Mordred, and follows Sir Launcelot''s quest for The Holy Grail, his fatally divided loyalties, and his great, forbidden love for the beautiful Queen Guenever. Culminating in an account of Arthur''s final battle against the scheming, deceitful Mordred, this is the definitive re-telling of the Arthurian myth, weaving a story of adultery, treachery and ultimately - in its tragic finale - death. Edited and published by William Caxton in 1485, Malory''s moving prose romance looks back to an idealised Medieval age of chivalry, drawing on French and English verse sources to create an epic masterpiece of passion, enchantment, war and betrayal.
£12.34
Penguin Books Ltd The Soul of Man Under Socialism
Book SynopsisSelection includes The Portrait of Mr W.H., Wilde''s defence of Dorian Gray, reviews, and the writings from ''Intentions'' (1891): ''The Decay of Lying, ''Pen, Pencil, Poison'', and ''The Critic as Artist''.Wilde is familiar to us as the ironic critic behind the social comedies, as the creator of the beautiful and doomed Dorian Gray, as the flamboyant aesthete and the demonised homosexual. This volume presents us with a different Wilde. Wilde emerges here as a deep and serious reader of literature and philosophy, and an eloquent and original thinker about society and art.Table of ContentsThe Soul of Man under Socialism and Selected Critical ProseIntroductionNote on the TextsEight Reviews (1885-90)1. Mr. Whistler's Ten o'Clock2. The Relation of Dress to Art3. A Sentimental Journey through Literature4. Mr. Pater's Imaginary Portraits5. [The Actor as Critic]6. Poetical Socialists7. Mr. Swinburne's Last Volume8. Mr. Pater's Last VolumeThe Portrait of Mr. W. H. (expanded version 1889) In Defence of Dorian Gray (1890-91)The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)Intentions (1891)1. The Decay of Lying2. Pen, Pencil and Poison3. The Critic as Artist - Part IThe Critic as Artist - Part II4. The Truth of MasksNotesFurther Reading
£10.44
Penguin Books Ltd A History of My Times
Book SynopsisXenophon''s History recounts nearly fifty turbulent years of warfare in Greece between 411 and 362 BC. Continuing the story of the Peloponnesian War at the point where Thucydides finished his magisterial history, this is a fascinating chronicle of the conflicts that ultimately led to the decline of Greece, and the wars with both Thebes and the might of Persia. An Athenian by birth, Xenophon became a firm supporter of the Spartan cause, and fought against the Athenians in the battle of Coronea. Combining history and memoir, this is a brilliant account of the triumphs and failures of city-states, and a portrait of Greece at a time of crisis.Table of ContentsA History of My TimesIntroductionSelect BibliographyA Note on the NotesA History of My TimesBook OneBook TwoBook ThreeBook FourBook SixBook SevenAppendixMaps:1. The Aegean2. Asia Minor3. Northern Peloponnese and North West Greece4. Central Greece5. Area of the Isthmus and the Saronic Gulf6. Central and Southern Peloponnese7. ChalcidiceIndex
£11.69
Penguin Books Ltd The Essays A Selection Penguin Classics
Book SynopsisA survey of one of the giants of Renaissance thought, The Essays: A Selection collects some of Michel de Montaigne's most startling and original works, translated from the French and edited with an introduction and notes by M.A. Screech in Penguin Classics. To overcome a crisis of melancholy after the death of his father, Montaigne withdrew to his country estates and began to write, and in the highly original essays that resulted he discussed themes such as fathers and children, conscience and cowardice, coaches and cannibals, and, above all, himself. On Some Lines of Virgil opens out into a frank discussion of sexuality and makes a revolutionary case for the equality of the sexes. In On Experience he superbly propounds his thoughts on the right way to live, while other essays touch on issues of an age struggling with religious and intellectual strife, with France torn apart by civil war. These diverse subjects are united by Montaigne's distinctive voice - that of a tolerant man, sceTable of ContentsBook 1: we reach the same end by discrepant means; on idleness; on punishing cowardice; on fear; to philosophize is to learn how to die; on educating children; that it is madness to judge the true and the false from our own capacities; on the cannibals; judgements on God's ordinances must be embarked upon with prudence; on solitude; on prayer; on the length of life. Book 2: on the inconstancy of our actions; on drunkenness; on conscience; on the affection of fathers for their children; on cruelty; in defence of Seneca and Plutarch; on three good wives; on the resemblance of children to their fathers. Book 3: on repenting; on three kinds of social intercourse; on some lines of Virgil; on coaches; on the lame; on experience.
£9.99
Penguin Books Ltd Egils Saga Penguin Classics
Book SynopsisEgil's Saga tells the story of the long and brutal life of tenth-century warrior-poet and farmer Egil Skallagrimsson: a morally ambiguous character who was at once the composer of intricately beautiful poetry, and a physical grotesque capable of staggering brutality. The saga recounts Egil's progression from youthful savagery to mature wisdom as he struggles to avenge his father's exile from Norway, defend his honour against the Norwegian King Erik Bloodaxe, and fight for the English King Athelstan in his battles against Scotland. Exploring issues as diverse as the question of loyalty, the power of poetry, and the relationship between two brothers who love the same woman, Egil's Saga is a fascinating depiction of a deeply human character.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout
£9.99
Penguin Books Ltd On Solitude Michel de Montaigne Penguin Great
Book SynopsisBlending intellectual speculation with anecdote and personal reflection, the Renaissance thinker and writer Montaigne pioneered the modern essay. This selection contains his idiosyncratic and timeless writings on subjects as varied as the virtues of solitude, the power of the imagination, the pleasures of reading, the importance of sleep and why we sometimes laugh and cry at the same things. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.
£7.59
Penguin Books Ltd Night Walks
Book SynopsisCharles Dickens describes in Night Walks his time as an insomniac, when he decided to cure himself by walking through London in the small hours, and discovered homelessness, drunkenness and vice on the streets. This collection of essays shows Dickens as one of the greatest visionaries of the city in all its variety and cruelty.GREAT IDEAS. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.
£7.59
Penguin Books Ltd The Collected Dorothy Parker
Book SynopsisDorothy Parker, more than any of her contemporaries, captured the spirit of the Jazz Age in her poetry and prose, and The Collected Dorothy Parker includes an introduction by Brendan Gill in Penguin Modern Classics.Dorothy Parker was the most talked-about woman of her day, notorious as the hard-drinking bad girl with a talent for stinging repartee and endlessly quotable one-liners. The decadent 1920s and 1930s in New York were a time of great experiment and daring for women. For the rich, life seemed a continual party, but the excesses took their emotional toll. In the bitingly witty poems and stories collected here, along with her articles and reviews, she brilliantly captures the spirit of the decadent Jazz Age in New York, exposing both the dazzle and the darkness. But beneath the sharp perceptions and acidic humour, much of her work poignantly expresses the deep vulnerability of a troubled, self-destructive woman who, in the words of philosopher Irwin Edman, was '
£11.69
Penguin Books Ltd The Best Minds of My Generation
Book SynopsisA unique history of the Beats, in the words of the movement''s most central member, Allen Ginsberg, based on a seminal series of his lecturesIn 1977, twenty years after the publication of his landmark poem ''Howl'', Allen Ginsberg decided it was time to teach a course on the literary history of the Beat Generation - partly to preserve his own memories of those years. The Best Minds of My Generation presents the best of these candid, intimate and illuminating lectures, revealing Kerouac, Burroughs and the rest of the Beats as Ginsberg knew them: friends, confidantes, literary mentors and fellow visionaries in a group who started a revolution.''Marvellous ... spellbinding ... preserving intact the story of the literary movement Ginsberg led, promoted and never ceased to embody'' The New York Times Book Review''An awesome exhaustive feat ... fascinatingly readable'' Sunday Times''Astonishingly intimate ... Full of penetrating insight and fascinating literary gossip, the book is a major contribution to the core Beat canon ... situates the Beats in cultural history in a way that no other exploration of their work does'' San Francisco Chronicle
£11.39
Oxford University Press The Major Works
Book SynopsisThis authoritative edition was originally published in the acclaimed Oxford Authors series under the general editorship of Frank Kermode. It brings together an extensive collection of Bacon''s writing - the major prose in full, together with sixteen other pieces not otherwise available - to give the essence of his work and thinking.Although he had a distinguished career as a lawyer and statesman, Francis Bacon''s lifelong goal was to improve and extend human knowledge. In The Advancement of Learning (1605) he made a brilliant critique of the deficiencies of previous systems of thought and proposed improvements to knowledge in every area of human life. He conceived the Essays (1597, much enlarged in 1625) as a study of the formative influences on human behaviour, psychological and social. In The New Atlantis (1626) he outlined his plan for a scientific research institute in the form of a Utopian fable. In addition to these major English works this edition includes ''Of Tribute'', an impTrade ReviewThis volume helps to illustrate the reciprocal relation between his career as a lawyer and a statesman and his writings in natural philosophy, moral philosophy, religion, and politics. * Rose-Mary Sargent, Metascience *
£12.34
Penguin Books Ltd Committed Writings
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewProbably no European writer of his time left so deep a mark on the imagination -- Conor Cruise O'BrienCamus helps you become "the one you are". And the revolt he incites, an assertion of individual freedom, brings you into a recognition of common human suffering and of the common need to lessen it and to enliven the lives of all -- David Constantine
£10.44
Penguin Books Ltd The Decay of Lying
Book Synopsis''Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life''The two works brought together here, ''The Decay of Lying'' and ''The Critic as Artist'', are Oscar Wilde''s wittiest and most profound writings on aesthetics, in which he proposes that criticism is the highest form of creation and that lying, the telling of a beautiful untruth, is the ultimate aim of art.One of twenty new books in the bestselling Penguin Great Ideas series. This new selection showcases a diverse list of thinkers who have helped shape our world today, from anarchists to stoics, feminists to prophets, satirists to Zen Buddhists.
£7.59
Penguin Books Ltd Pleasure of Thinking
Book Synopsis''A very captivating book. Wang Xiaobo''s unique blend of rationality, serenity, candor, and sense of humour serves as an embodiment of the liberalism he ardently believes in'' Ai WeiweiThe dazzling essays of the beloved, subversive Chinese writer Wang Xiaobo, a continual bestseller in China, now in English for the first time Wang Xiaobo made his name as a novelist but his essays, too, have become ongoing bestsellers in China since their publication in the 1990s. Bringing together his thoughts on reading and talking and silence in the Cultural Revolution, about the irrepressible spirit of one beloved pig he met while an ''educated youth'', and about being operated on via a textbook, these essays give a rare glimpse into a world rarely seen and discussed with such honesty.Written with a light touch and with a wry sense of humour, these are also the essays of a great literary talent, grappling with sociology, sexuality and feminism, with the cul
£11.69
Penguin Books Ltd AZADI
Book SynopsisTrade Review[A] startling collection of essays . . . The passion and beauty of her voice is unabated . . . Azadi is the outcome of a life of writing from the frontline of solidarity and humanism, and from a writer who is perhaps only now reaching the height of her literary powers * Guardian *An eloquent and scorching indictment of the growing authoritarianism of Hindu nationalism . . . it is a tour de force * i *Azadi is a deeply-committed literary artist’s vision of what is wrong with our world today and a heartfelt appeal to join together to try and heal the wounds before it is too late * Telegraph India *
£10.44
Harvard University Press Epistles Volume II
Book SynopsisIn 124 epistles Seneca (ca. 4 BC–AD 65) writes to Lucilius, occasionally about technical problems of philosophy, but more often in a relaxed style about moral and ethical questions, relating them to personal experiences. He thus presents a Stoic philosopher’s thoughts about the good life in a contemporary Roman context.
£23.70
New York Review Books The Anatomy Of Melancholy
Book SynopsisOne of the major documents of modern European civilization, Robert Burton''s astounding compendium, a survey of melancholy in all its myriad forms, has invited nothing but superlatives since its publication in the seventeenth century. Lewellyn Powys called it 'the greatest work of prose of the greatest period of English prose-writing,' while the celebrated surgeon William Osler declared it the greatest of medical treatises. And Dr. Johnson, Boswell reports, said it was the only book that he rose early in the morning to read with pleasure. In this surprisingly compact and elegant new edition, Burton''s spectacular verbal labyrinth is sure to delight, instruct, and divert today''s readers as much as it has those of the past four centuries.
£25.50
Silver Press The Cosmic Oval
£7.99
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Betting on the Muse
Book SynopsisBetting on the Muse is a combination of hilarious poetry and stories. Charles Bukowski writes about the real life of a working man and all that comes with it.
£9.49
Pushkin Press A Last Supper of Queer Apostles
Book SynopsisExtravagantly stylish, searingly critical dispatches from the margins by a queer Latin American icon, in English for the first time'He speaks brilliantly for a difference that refuses to disappear' Garth Greenwell'Astonishing and tender and quite outrageous... What a powerful, mould-breaking voice' Tomasz JedrowskiI speak from my difference wrote Pedro Lemebel, the Chilean writer who became an icon of resistance and queer transgression across Latin America. His innovative essays-known as crónicas-combine memoir, reportage, history and fiction to bring visibility and dignity to the lives of sexual minorities, the poor and the powerless.In a baroque, freewheeling style that fused political urgency with playfulness, resistance with camp, Lemebel shone a light on lives and events that many wanted to suppress: the glitzy literary salon held above a torture chamber, the queer sex and community that bloomed in Santiago's hidden corners and t
£11.69
Unbound A Country of Refuge
Book SynopsisA Country of Refuge is a poignant, thought-provoking and timely anthology of writing on asylum seekers from some of Britain and Ireland’s most influential voices.Compiled and edited by human rights activist and writer Lucy Popescu, this powerful collection of short fiction, memoir, poetry and essays explores what it really means to be a refugee: to flee from conflict, poverty and terror; to have to leave your home and family behind; and to undertake a perilous journey, only to arrive on less than welcoming shores.These writings are a testament to the strength of the human spirit. The contributors articulate simple truths about migration that will challenge the way we think about and act towards the dispossessed and those forced to seek a safe place to call home.Trade Review"Full of powerful writing. Many of the best contributions come from writers who are refugees, or second-generation refugees, themselves … Again and again, these writers argue for empathy." * TLS *"A powerful, and frequently harrowing, collection … I read it with fascination" -- Penelope Lively"A beautiful insight into the painful individuality of the refugee" -- Jon Snow"A first-class collection of essays and poems, stories and memoirs. Addictively readable, they are strong, angry, compassionate and enlightening." -- Sue Gaisford * The Tablet *"It is a moving, poignant, sometimes painful but always enlightening book … rich and wide-ranging…" -- Judith Vidal-Hall * Literary Review *
£8.54
Carcanet Press Ltd The Reverse Side of the Tapestry
£13.49
Y Lolfa A Dyma Tin Dad
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£14.99
Verso Books Amateurs
£17.00
Hesperus Press Ltd On War
Book Synopsis
£7.59
Notting Hill Editions Junkspace with Running Room
Book SynopsisIn Junkspace (2001), architect Rem Koolhaas itemises in delirious detail how our cities are being overwhelmed. His celebrated jeremiad is here updated and twinned with Running Room, a fresh response from architectural critic Hal Foster. 'The manifesto is a modernist mode, one that looks to the future… Junkspace makes no such claim: “Architecture disappeared in the twentieth century,” states Koolhaas matter-of-factly. Junkspace does a harder thing: it “foretells” the present, which is to say that it calls on us to recognize what is already everywhere around us.’ Hal FosterTrade ReviewJunkspace is the most important piece of writing on architecture of the 21st Century. The stream of Koolhaas’s prose is akin to a visionary dream, a structureless sequence of crystalline insight and enfolding opiate fog. . . It is distinctly literary, and there are moments of outright genius. —Icon Foster responds to Koolhaas with an argument for autonomy—both disciplinary (from one art to the next) and (by implication) personal—in order to find space (or the running room of the title) within the junk in which Koolhaas suggests we have drowned. And whether you are at an airport an art fair, that’s something we all need. —Art Review Rem Koolhaas’s luminescent essay Junkspace decries the mall as the slagheap of America...Koolhaas illuminates the dark underbelly of the kind of advanced capitalism living in the mall. —Columbia Review Magazine
£14.24
Daunt Books Approaching Eye Level
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£9.49
Fitzcarraldo Editions A Man's Place – WINNER OF THE 2022 NOBEL PRIZE IN
Book SynopsisAnnie Ernaux’s father died exactly two months after she passed her exams for a teaching certificate. Barely educated and valued since childhood strictly for his labour, Ernaux’s father had grown into a hard, practical man who showed his family little affection. Narrating his slow ascent towards material comfort, Ernaux’s cold observation in A Man’s Place reveals the shame that haunted her father throughout his life. She scrutinizes the importance he attributed to manners and language that came so unnaturally to him as he struggled to provide for his family with a grocery store and cafe in rural France. Over the course of the book, Ernaux grows up to become the uncompromising observer now familiar to the world, while her father matures into old age with a staid appreciation for life as it is and for a daughter he cautiously, even reluctantly admires.Trade Review‘Ernaux has inherited de Beauvoir’s role of chronicler to a generation.’ — Margaret Drabble, New Statesman‘A lesser writer would turn these experiences into misery memoirs, but Ernaux does not ask for our pity – or our admiration. It’s clear from the start that she doesn’t much care whether we like her or not, because she has no interest in herself as an individual entity. She is an emblematic daughter of emblematic French parents, part of an inevitable historical process, which includes breaking away. Her interest is in examining the breakage.... Ernaux is the betrayer and her father the betrayed: this is the narrative undertow that makes A Man's Place so lacerating.’ — Frances Wilson, Telegraph‘Not simply a short biography of man manacled to class assumptions, this is also, ironically, an exercise in the art of unsentimental writing ... The biography is also self-reflexive in its inquiry and suggests the question: what does it mean to contain a life within a number of pages?’ — Mia Colleran, Irish Times ‘Ernaux understands that writing about her parents is a form of betrayal. That she writes about their struggle to understand the middle-class literary world into which she has moved makes that betrayal all the more painful. But still she does it – and it is thrilling to read Ernaux working out, word by word, what she deems appropriate to include in each text. In being willing to show her discomfort, her disdain and her honest, careful consideration of the dilemmas of writing about real, lived lives, Ernaux has struck upon a bold new way to write memoir.’ — Ellen Pierson-Hagger, New Statesman‘No-one writes about family relationships with the nuance, both emotional and analytical, that Ernaux does, and such a reflective, self-critical perspective is even more precious. Her exploration of language in their household is sharp.... It might initially be read as a cold portrait, but the emotions and passionate thought rage through the taut writing. Likened to Simone de Beauvoir for her astute chronicling of a generation, Ernaux’s prose is intimate and unforgettable.’ — Dazed‘An unsentimental portrait of a man loved as a parent, admired as an individual but, because of habits and education, heartbreakingly apart. Moving and memorable.’ — Kirkus‘An affecting portrait of a man whose own peasant upbringing typified the adage that a child should never be better educated than his parents.’ — Publishers Weekly
£9.49
Renard Press Ltd England Your England
Book SynopsisGeorge Orwell set out 'to make political writing into an art', and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature - his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell's essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. Fearing that England was about to be wiped from the face of the earth by the Nazi bombers flying overhead, Orwell put pen to paper and set out to make a record of English culture. England Your England, the sixth in the Orwell's Essays series, is this record, and is an important tableau of the nation's history, and demonstrates a resolute refusal to bow to the threatening forces of Fascism.Trade Review'A writer who can - and must - be rediscovered with every age.' (Irish Times) 'It just keeps being horribly relevant.' (David Olusoga, The Guardian)
£6.79
Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) The Ultimates
Book SynopsisTed Adams is the founder of IDW Publishing, where he was CEO and Publisher for 20 years, negotiating deals to publish Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Star Trek, and many more. Under his leadership, the company won dozens of industry awards, including many Eisner and Harvey Awards. He was publisher of a line of Marvel comics aimed at kids and the prestigious Artist's Edition line, which included many classic Marvel titles.
£10.44
Hodder & Stoughton The Book of Delights: The life-affirming New York
Book SynopsisA NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERAs Heard on NPR's This American Life'The delights he extols here (music, laughter, generosity, poetry, lots of nature) are bulwarks against casual cruelties . . . contagious in their joy' New York TimesThe winner of the NBCC Award for Poetry offers up a spirited collection of short lyric essays, written daily over a tumultuous year, reminding us of the purpose and pleasure of praising, extolling, and celebrating ordinary wonders.Among Gay's funny, poetic, philosophical delights: a friend's unabashed use of air quotes, cradling a tomato seedling aboard an aeroplane, the silent nod of acknowledgement between the only two black people in a room. But Gay never dismisses the complexities, even the terrors, of living in America as a black man or the ecological and psychic violence of our consumer culture or the loss of those he loves. More than anything other subject, though, Gay celebrates the beauty of the natural world - his garden, the flowers peeking out of the sidewalk, the hypnotic movements of a praying mantis.The Book of Delights is about our shared bonds, and the rewards that come from a life closely observed. These remarkable pieces serve as a powerful and necessary reminder that we can, and should, stake out a space in our lives for delight.***'These charming, digressive "essayettes" surprise and challenge more than a reader might expect . . . experiences of "delight," recorded daily for a year, vary widely but yield revealing patterns through insights about everything from nature and the body to race and masculinity.' New Yorker'Pure balm for your soul. Savor one at a time every morning, this summer, or wolf them all down en masse on a gorgeous sunny day.' Celeste Ng'A reminder of what the personal essay is best at: finding the profound in the mundane . . . His delight is infectious. It's hard to read Gay and not to be won over.' Seattle TimesTrade ReviewThe delights he extols here (music, laughter, generosity, poetry, lots of nature) are bulwarks against casual cruelties. As such they feel purposeful and imperative as well as contagious in their joy * The New York Times Book Review *These charming, digressive 'essayettes,' in the manner of Montaigne, surprise and challenge . . . Gay, an award-winning poet, knows the value of formal constraint: his experiences of 'delight,' recorded daily for a year, vary widely but yield revealing patterns through insights about everything from nature and the body to race and masculinity. The fruits of this experiment-for which gardens and gardening provide a frequent, apt metaphor-attest to an imagination cultivated in hostile conditions. Gay's optimism is as easy as it is improbable, his 'heart cooing like a pigeon nestled on a windowsill where the spikes rusted off. * New Yorker *Ross Gay's poems are little celebrations of joy, and this book of mini-essays - each centering around a particular 'delight,' from sleeping in your clothes to planting tomato seedlings to the nod of greeting between the only two black people in a room - is a pure balm for your soul. Savor one at a time every morning, this summer, or wolf them all down en masse on a gorgeous sunny day. -- Celeste NgEveryone could use a bit more delight in their days . . . Gay, who is the winner of the NBCC Award for Poetry, is here to provide just that, with essays celebrating everything from air quotes to candy wrappers to pickup basketball games * New York Post *The Book of Delights is both practice and perfection in an unassuming package . . . These pieces reflect and examine the natural world, masculinity, racism, and other topics with vibrancy. Most essays are a few paragraphs, a page or two at maximum, but it's not the width or length of the pieces that ultimately grabbed my attention. It was the heart and intelligence found within his daily introspections * The Rumpus *A reminder of what the personal essay is best at: finding the profound in the mundane . . . his delight is infectious. It's hard to read Gay and not to be won over. * Seattle Times *The shock of Gay's writing . . . is his seamless shift from breezy, affable observation to sober (and admittedly still affable) profundity . . . I want to say that Gay's writing is magical because that's the way it feels when I read it. But . . . calling it magic undercuts Gay's craft, the effort that goes into producing literature that feels as fluent and familiar as a chat with a close friend. His voice has integrity, in both senses of the word: a completeness or consistency, true to itself; and an honesty and compassion so frankly subjective that it produces an incorruptible vision. Gay's loose-limbed sentences diagram his delight, partaking in numerous asides - some as paragraph-long parentheticals - and equally numerous asides within asides, as well as nested subordinate clauses that are the purview of intimate conversation, not written prose. They are clauses and asides in which, as Gay writes them, you feel his hand on your arm, you feel him lean in toward you, conspiratorially or simply to emphasize his meaning * The New York Review of Books *
£10.44
Pan Macmillan Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency
Book Synopsis'A brave writer whose books open up fundamental questions about life and art' – TelegraphIn this inspiring collection of essays, acclaimed writer and critic Olivia Laing makes a vivid and politically-engaged case for the importance of art – especially in the turbulent weather of the twenty-first century.We are often told art can’t change anything. In Funny Weather, Laing argues that it can. It changes how we see the world, it exposes inequality, and it offers fertile new ways of living.Across a diverse selection of essays, Laing profiles Jean-Michel Basquiat and Georgia O’Keeffe, interviews Hilary Mantel and Ali Smith, writes love letters to David Bowie and Freddie Mercury, and explores loneliness and technology, women and alcohol, sex and the body. Written with originality and compassion, Funny Weather is a celebration of art as a force of resistance and repair – and as an antidote to a frightening political moment.Trade ReviewA brave writer whose books open up fundamental questions about life and art * Telegraph *Olivia Laing is my new favourite non-fiction writer -- Nick HornbyLike all great critics, Olivia Laing combines formidable intelligence with boundless curiosity and fabulous taste, but she also has a rare quality of intimacy; an ability to connect the reader to a work of art or literature with a directness that lights it up like nothing else. It’s why I read her -- James LasdunHer observations and poetic incisiveness on art, writers and politics are a gift. This is a fascinating, excursive, tonic of a book -- Sinéad Gleeson, author of ConstellationsA thought-provoking, inspiring collection that you can go back to whenever the weather takes a funny turn * Evening Standard *Funny Weather gives the reader a tangible sense of the sprawling garden of work which Laing has planted. She is to the art world what David Attenborough is to nature: a worthy guide with both a macro and micro vision, fluent in her chosen tongue and always full of empathy and awe * Irish Times *Laing has acted as a kind of cultural sage for the past four years, an accidental literary grande dame of the emotional havoc wrought by late capitalism and digital disconnect * New York Magazine *Laing writes of her creative subjects in a winning, passionate voice that proves both soothing and galvanizing, especially amid a panic . . . It’s not just art we need in an emergency, but writers, like Laing, who gently guide our eyes to what’s out there -- Alina Cohen * Observer *The hospitality of world view in Olivia’s writing is a vital force in our disputatious present -- Maria Balshaw, director of TateLaing combines passion and curiosity in a collection of art-based essays and profiles that reflect the uncertainty of our age * Guardian *Never has a publication been more timely * Dazed *A warm, thinking, enticing sweep of a book, like spending the afternoon with your brainiest friend -- Kate Mosse, author of The Burning ChambersA fine writer’s embrace of the artists who preceded her, friendly visits with their lives and loving acknowledgement of their foundational contributions. A work of joy in recognition -- Sarah SchulmanThe book to help you make sense of the world . . . [a] mesmerizing collection of essays . . . this unique and compassionate book is a mind-expanding opportunity to rethink how we live, and what we can do to change things for the better. * Stylist *A light-footed tour of enriching stories, lives, and ideas * Dazed and Confused *Her gift as a critic is her ability to imaginatively sympathize with her subjects in a way that allows the art and life of the artist to go on radiating meaning after the book is closed * Elle *Breathtaking, beautiful, funny, shocking, sad, revealing, and timely -- Nina Stibbe, author of Love, NinaI yield to absolutely no one in my admiration of Olivia Laing; her essays are magical liberations of words and ideas, art and love; they're the essence of great 21st century literature: brilliantly expressed, wildly uncontained, wilful and wonderfully unbound. -- Philip Hoare, author of RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAROlivia Laing shines the light for art writing. Funny Weather urges us to humanise art, and listen to what artists say about life, love and crisis. -- Charlie PorterAn incivisive meditation on the value of heartfelt, messy art in our paranoid times * Telegraph *It’s not just art we need in an emergency, but writers, like Laing, who gently guide our eyes to what’s out there * Observer *Vibrant commentary on art and society by a writer with a sharp eye for the offbeat * Kirkus *Laing’s essays are urgent, compassionate, enlivening and acutely perceptive, and that’s true whether or not we encounter them “in an emergency” * the arts desk *Her words seem balefully accurate, given what has now overtaken us * Financial Times *Laing is an intelligent and acute writer, and this book is certainly interesting and assuredly well-written * Scotsman *Laing’s arts writing is sharp-minded, and her manner is generous toward both subject and reader * Washington Post *
£9.49
Orion Publishing Co No Time to Spare
£11.69
Bloomsbury A Time for New Dreams
£11.69
Vintage Publishing A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas (Vintage
Book Synopsis'Brilliant interweaving of personal experience, imaginative musing and political clarity' Kate Mosse Virginia Woolf exposes the prejudices and constraints against which women writers struggled for centuries, and argues for a more equal literary establishment. This volume combines two books which were among the greatest contributions to feminist literature this century. Together they form a brilliant attack on sexual inequality. A Room of One's Own, first published in 1929, is a witty, urbane and persuasive argument against the intellectual subjection of women, particularly women writers. The sequel, Three Guineas, is a passionate polemic which draws a startling comparison between the tyrannous hypocrisy of the Victorian patriarchal system and the evils of fascism. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HERMIONE LEETrade ReviewOne realises afresh the full meaning of originality, the magic of the mind which plays around concrete facts as though they were all spirit. And when it is finished it is with a renewed sense of zest and stimulus that one takes up life again and looks anew at objects which before were only ordinary. * Guardian *Brilliant interweaving of personal experience, imaginative musing and political clarity -- Kate MosseAchingly relevant -- Natasha Walter * Guardian *
£8.54
Pan Macmillan Hallucinations
£10.44
Pan Macmillan The Minds Eye
£10.44
Granta Publications Ltd Men Explain Things to Me: And Other Essays
Book SynopsisA landmark, incendiary collection from one of the leading essayists working today. Inspiring everyone from radical activists to Beyoncé Knowles, Rebecca Solnit's essay 'Men Explain Things to Me' has become a touchstone of the feminist movement and established her as one of the leading thinkers of our time. Here it is collected along with the best of Solnit's feminist writings. From French sex scandals to the nuclear family, rape culture to mansplaining, Virginia Woolf to colonialism, these essays are a fierce and incisive exploration of the issues that a patriarchal culture will not necessarily acknowledge as 'issues' at all. With grace, wit and energy, and in the most exquisite and inviting of prose, Rebecca Solnit proves herself a vital leading figure of the feminist movement and a radical, humane thinker. 'Solnit is a compelling writer with a glorious turn of phrase' Evening StandardTrade ReviewWhat has always impressed me in Solnit's writing is the simple cadence and timbre of a sentence, a paragraph, the way a whole essay lilts and skips. She is not one of the most important female essayists of her generation. She is one of the most important essayists of her generation. Incendiary, indignant, and true -- Stuart Kelly * Scotland on Sunday *[A] trenchant collection of essays... an eloquent reminder that we still have some way to go when it comes to speaking of the issues Solnit raises -- Erica Wagner * Financial Times *Stark and powerful prose... Solnit is a compelling writer with a glorious turn of phrase -- Rosamund Urwin * Evening Standard *[These essays] are the thin edge of a continuum that reaches from the opening anecdote to the rape and murder statistics that she deploys to such devastating effect. Solnit's book does what the best feminist writing does: it makes me angry. And it makes me believe we can, and we must, fight for change -- Caroline Criado-Perez, feminist activistExceptional... The feminist debate has once again exploded into the mainstream over the last few years, and this collection marks Solnit out as among the most thoughtful of many energetic writers leading it -- Jessica Abrahams * Prospect *Essays on feminism from the consistently wonderful author of The Faraway Nearby. Anything she writes is a must-read * Bookseller *Solnit is a brilliant essayist... A highly enjoyable and thought-provoking read -- Patrick Neale * Bookseller *A necessary read... Solnit writes powerfully * Flavourwire *Essential reading for anyone - feminist or not, male or female - who wants to fight for equality across all fronts * Gazette, Western Mail, Swindon Advertiser and Leicester Mercury *The essays fiercely confront crime against women... Solnit has a voice of fearless and provocative asperity; she launches a quiverful of aphoristic arrows -- Stevie Davies * Independent *A revolt championing the cause of women... [Solnit's] work feels both timeless and timely. She argues persuasively, is often funny and is articulate to a fault... [her] writing is its own victory and revolt. An incendiary, inquiring and important work -- Sinead Gleeson * Irish Times *Essential reading for anyone - feminist or not, male or female * Irish Examiner *The most clarifying, soothing and socially aware document I've read on the topic this year. Not to mention funny -- Lena Dunham 'Book of the year' * Wall Street Journal *
£9.49
Fitzcarraldo Editions Erik Satie Three Piece Suite
Book SynopsisAfter the publication ofFassbinder Thousands of Mirrors, his long awaited first original book, cult critic Ian Penman returns withI Am Called Erik Satie I Like Everyone Else, a three-part study of the composer and pianist.
£13.49
Simon & Schuster Ltd Love That Story
Book SynopsisQueer Eye star Jonathan Van Ness dives into his favourite subjects in Love That Story, a collection of heartfelt and entertaining essays. From experiencing heartbreaking grief to uncovering the hidden LGBTQ history of his hometown, Quincy, from overcoming body image issues and living with HIV to cultivating his personal style, JVN speaks out a wide range of topics with heart, honesty and flair. He not only shares his personal experiences, but with the help of conversations with experts, he also offers captivating perspectives on the wide number of issues we are dealing with today: the current nature of race issues in the US, the rise of white supremacy, transphobia and imposter syndrome.Love That Story is not just the story of JVN, but the story we are writing together.
£8.99
