Essays Books

Book SynopsisTimeless essays on the literary art by a master novelist

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Book SynopsisThe best of journalist and Yippie Paul Krassner's investigative satire.

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Book SynopsisThe Annals of the Warring States records the School of Diplomacy at work during one of the most captivating times in Chinese history. In four dialogues, thinking beings challenge sovereign power in ways that surprise and resonate. They make visible an astonishing relationship between politics and the intellect, and echo our notions of oratory and democracy in differing contexts. This book is part of the Erstwhile Series.

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Book SynopsisAn advocate of Confucian morality, Mencius exhorted ruling through virtue during the Warring States, when sundry ideas of effectual governance prospered. Like Confucius had done two centuries before him, Mencius wandered from state to state, lobbying sovereigns. Mencian virtue politics has been pivotal to political thinking in China, though most appealing, it may be argued, to scholars. From Mencius, Mingyuan Hu selects and translates four dialogues exemplary of this thinking. This book is part of the Erstwhile Series.

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Book SynopsisA book about literary obsession by two writers who have both written acclaimed novels about the 19th-century French writer Stendhal.

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Book SynopsisAlex Miller has twice won the prestigious Miles Franklin Literary Award, Australia's premier literary prize; the first occasion in 1993 for The Ancestor Game, and again in 2003 for Journey to the Stone Country. He is also an overall winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, for The Ancestor Game, in 1993. British by birth, he now lives in Victoria.

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Book Synopsis"Like all the best meetings of Jewish minds, this book will make you think, argue and see the world anew." Hadley Freeman, author of House of GlassConspiracy theories about Jews are back in the mainstream. The Pittsburgh gunman who murdered 11 people in a synagogue claimed that 'filthy evil' Jews were bringing 'filthy evil' Muslims into America. The billionaire philanthropist George Soros has been accused of supporting 'white genocide'. Labour Party members have claimed that Israel is behind ISIS. The belief that Jews are plotting against society never dies, it just adapts to suit the times: from medieval accusations that Jews murder Christians for their blood to claims that Zionists are seeking to control the world. In eight short essays, edited by Jo Glanville, this book goes back to the source of the conspiracy theories and traces their journey into the 21st century in a bid to make sense of their survival. With contributions from some of the great Jewish writers and thinkers of our time, including Tom Segev, Jill Jacobs and Mikhail Grynberg, this is a fresh take on the roots of antisemitism that explores how an irrational belief can still flourish in a supposedly rational age.

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Book SynopsisAntipodean Riffs is a collection of essays on Australian jazz and jazz in Australia. Chronologically they range from what could be called the 'prehistory' of the music - the tradition of US-sourced African-American music that predated the arrival of music billed as 'jazz' - to the present. Thematically they include studies of framing infrastructural mechanisms including the media. The volume also incorporates case studies of particular musicians or groups that reflect distinctive aspects of the Australian jazz tradition.Table of ContentsIntroductionBruce JohnsonCultural Contexts1. Demons of Discord Down Under: "Jump Jim Crow" and "Australia's First Jazz Band"John Whiteoak, Monash University2. Early Jazz in Australia as Oriental ExoticaAline Scott-Maxwell, Monash University3. Got a Little Rhythm: The Australian Influence on Swing in New Zealand during the 1930s and 1940sAleisha Ward, jazz writer4. Jazz in Adelaide and Melbourne in the Angry Penguins DecadeBruce Clunies-Ross, University of Copenhagen5. Cuba Street Parade: Identity, Authenticity and Self-expression in Contemporary Australasian Jazz ScenesNick Tipping, musicianInfrastructures6. How Jazz was Taken Out of the History of Australian Music TelevisionLiz Giuffre, University of Technology, Sydney7. Shotgun Weddings and Bohemian Dreams: Jazz, Family Values and Storytelling in Australian FilmChristopher Coady, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney8. Perspectives on the Melbourne International Women's Jazz FestivalMarjorie Louise Denson, Queensland Conservatorium, Brisbane 9. A Tale of Five Festivals: A Study of Five Australian Jazz Festivals from 2004 to 2014Brent Keogh, Macquarie University and University of Technology, SydneyMusicians10. 'I Wouldn't Change Skins with Anybody': Dulcie Pitt/Georgia Lee, a Pioneering Indigenous Australian Jazz, Blues and Community SingerKarl Neuenfeldt, musician11. Lydia in Oz: The Reception of George Russell in 1960s AustraliaPierre-Emmanuel Seguin, musician12. Examining the Legend and Music of Australian Saxophonist, Frank SmithRalph Whiteoak, doctoral student13. Expressive Ientity in the Voices of Three Australian Saxophonists: McGann, Sanders and Gorman Sandy Evans, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney14. Sex and the Sonic Smorgasbord - The NecksJane Galbraith, jazz musician

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Book SynopsisAntipodean Riffs is a collection of essays on Australian jazz and jazz in Australia. Chronologically they range from what could be called the 'prehistory' of the music - the tradition of US-sourced African-American music that predated the arrival of music billed as 'jazz' - to the present. Thematically they include studies of framing infrastructural mechanisms including the media. The volume also incorporates case studies of particular musicians or groups that reflect distinctive aspects of the Australian jazz traditionTable of ContentsIntroductionBruce JohnsonCultural Contexts1. Demons of Discord Down Under: "Jump Jim Crow" and "Australia's First Jazz Band"John Whiteoak, Monash University2. Early Jazz in Australia as Oriental ExoticaAline Scott-Maxwell, Monash University3. Got a Little Rhythm: The Australian Influence on Swing in New Zealand during the 1930s and 1940sAleisha Ward, jazz writer4. Jazz in Adelaide and Melbourne in the Angry Penguins DecadeBruce Clunies-Ross, University of Copenhagen5. Cuba Street Parade: Identity, Authenticity and Self-expression in Contemporary Australasian Jazz ScenesNick Tipping, musicianInfrastructures6. How Jazz was Taken Out of the History of Australian Music TelevisionLiz Giuffre, University of Technology, Sydney7. Shotgun Weddings and Bohemian Dreams: Jazz, Family Values and Storytelling in Australian FilmChristopher Coady, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney8. Perspectives on the Melbourne International Women's Jazz FestivalMarjorie Louise Denson, Queensland Conservatorium, Brisbane 9. A Tale of Five Festivals: A Study of Five Australian Jazz Festivals from 2004 to 2014Brent Keogh, Macquarie University and University of Technology, SydneyMusicians10. 'I Wouldn't Change Skins with Anybody': Dulcie Pitt/Georgia Lee, a Pioneering Indigenous Australian Jazz, Blues and Community SingerKarl Neuenfeldt, musician11. Lydia in Oz: The Reception of George Russell in 1960s AustraliaPierre-Emmanuel Seguin, musician12. Examining the Legend and Music of Australian Saxophonist, Frank SmithRalph Whiteoak, doctoral student13. Expressive Ientity in the Voices of Three Australian Saxophonists: McGann, Sanders and Gorman Sandy Evans, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney14. Sex and the Sonic Smorgasbord - The NecksJane Galbraith, jazz musician

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Book SynopsisA collection of exquisitely crafted essays by Ben Okri, one of Britain's foremost poets, and a Booker Prize-winning novelist, that explore such diverse themes as childhood and creativity, beauty, censorship, art and politics. 'A single line,' writes Ben Okri, 'can lead the mind to terraces of contemplation. Naturally it depends on the line and the view.' This is a collection of exquisitely crafted essays on themes as diverse as childhood and creativity, beauty, censorship, art and politics. They are responses to the world and the times we live in. They ask unsettling questions. They provoke thoughts and they make us dream. 'Profound and enchanting' The Times. 'There can be no mistaking Okri's passion and intelligence. A powerful piece of work' Sunday Telegraph.Trade ReviewPRAISE FOR STARBOOK: 'Stands in the grand tradition of myth-making exemplified in One Hundred Years of Solitude and Midnight's Children, although the book has a vision and a voice uniquely its own' Observer. 'A work of magic' Sunday Times. '[Okri] has a diction which glides superbly. His ear is pitch perfect' * Scotsman *

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Book SynopsisTales of Forgotten Kent is a collection of twenty-two essays about the people and events that have largely been neglected by historians, but remain an integral part of Kent's rich tapestry, featuring the eccentric, unusual and often overlooked tales buried within the garden of England.Who would have thought that the cradle of British aviation was the unfashionable Isle of Sheppey, home to Britain's first licensed pilots and the world's first aircraft manufacturers; or that the greatest technological change in printing computer typesetting occurred in the small town of Westerham; and that the poet who wrote the first sonnet was not actually Shakespeare but Sir Thomas Wyatt of Allington Castle, lover of Anne Boleyn; or that Britain's oldest school is The King's School, Canterbury, whose alumni includes the controversial playwright Christopher Marlowe, and still plays host to ghostly legends.Read on to unearth more of Kent's best kept secrets a

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Book SynopsisThis is the first book of essays by a major new Irish non-fiction writer from the West of Ireland, comparable to the celebrated Kilkenny essayist Hubert Butler first published by The Lilliput Press and subsequently widely acclaimed. Gerard McCarthy’s writing is no less distinguished than Butler’s. McCarthy writes of his book: "Perhaps the Philosophers who had the most enduring influence on me were the contrary figures of Nietzsche and Marcus Aurelius. The reading of each was an antidote to the other, but I was drawn to both by an instinctive affinity.They were augmented subsequently by the gargantuan figure of Michel de Montaigne. My interest has continued to be in the region where Philosophy merges into Literature, with a preference for a language of metaphor rather than of abstract reasoning.These eight essays were written over the course of more than a decade.The fact that they have all been published in the one place, by the good offices of Irish Pages, has allowed me see the continuity between them, and to hope that they might be seen by the reader to form a unity.”

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Book SynopsisThis long-awaited selection of essays and reviews from one of Ireland’s leading critics brings together a wealth of ref lection, observation and astute literary comment. It ranges in time from William Carleton to Edna O’Brien, and in subject matter from recent Irish poetry to ghosts, children’s books and MI5. Patricia Craig holds strong opinions on literary mer- it, and some of the essays collected in this book are less than adulatory. For example, she has included a highly critical, but good-humoured and amusing re- assessment of Somerville and Ross; and a couple of recent critical studies come in for a somewhat sharp evaluation.Where the tone is moderately unadmiring it is always justified (if provocative), and contributes to the overall balance of the collection. In short, Kilclief & Other Essays presents an original, diverting, intelligent and thought-provoking assem- bly of essays and reviews. Patricia Craig’s latest book should appeal to the general reader as well as to those whose interests are more specialised, and it deserves a wide audience, not only in Ireland but also in the United Kingdom and beyond.Trade Review;“Patricia Craig is not only Ireland’s greatest reader, she is also ... line by line, page by page, one of its finest, wittiest writers.” Glenn Patterson, novelist

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Book SynopsisBy turns flexible and delicate, taciturn and effusive, this collection of memoirs and micro-essays project in filmic clarity the cool head, dry wit and social conscience that have made Su Tong the ‘master of implication’ among China’s leading writers. Ranging from street-level portraits of a boisterous and rapidly changing nation to quiet musings on humanity’s strange and secret compulsions, Su Tong offers a glimpse behind the curtain into the workings of a keen mind that helped shape the literary and popular culture of modern China.

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Book SynopsisThis miscellany gathers together essays and papers written over a span of sixty-odd years. Some are hitherto unpublished, others disinterred from rare and learned periodicals: Together they form a scholarly and diverting mosaic of political and social life in Ireland over the past half-millennium. They take for subjects both individuals and institutions. McDowell examines Swift as a political thinker, Burke and the law, John Hely-Hutchinson, provost and controversialist, and the Ulster leader Edward Carson. More minor characters and events are linked to his lively sketches of Trinity College, from its foundation in the sixteenth century to the Second World War; of Dublin Castle and the viceregal court in its glory and decline; of the Dublin Society of the United Irishmen; of the Anglican episcopate. A nuanced and fascinating portrait of an era, and of Irish-English affairs, emerges, drawn with an unerring eye for human foible and idiosyncrasy. Historical Essays is testimony to the enduring energy and wit of one of Ireland’s most distinguished historians.Trade ReviewNo one alive has waded through more collections of correspondence, legislation, administrative records, ecclesiastical and collegiate fasti, than Professor McDowell. His knowledge of the fine print of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is truly awesome … He has one of the most judicious minds in the business, and his scholarship has the respect of the most rigorous practitioners.’- A.T.Q. StewartTable of ContentsThe court of Dublin Castle; Trinity College; Dublin and politics; The Dublin Society of the United Irishmen 1791-94; Ireland and England; the Anglican episcopate 1780-1945; Swift as a plural thinker; John Hely-Hutchinson; Edmund Burke and the law; Edward Carson; murder in the Rubrics; the rivals; Vice-Provost Barrett; riot at the gate, 1858; student opinion in TCD, 1938 - a survey.

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Book SynopsisProfessor J. Valentine Rice, erstwhile Chair of Education at Trinity College Dublin (1966-2005) to whom this volume of essays is dedicated in memoriam, engaged in the richness and diversity of education debate during the thirty-nine years that he held his academic post. His interests in the philosophy of education, Catholic education, human growth and guidance and the Irish language and culture are reflected in the essays by his former colleagues and students presented here. Whether it is the teaching of Irish, the involvement of the churches in education, the points system or the managerialism and "edunomics" of the universities, educational debate is vigorous and often passionate. The diversity of the themes of the contributions seems, on a first viewing, to indicate the lack of a common theme. On closer reflection, however, Val Rice's lifelong commitment to a view of education that must always be broad enough to encompass the many ways in which it aids genuine human flourishing, shines through. These essays are examples of the ways in which colleagues and students have responded to his influence as teacher, mentor, advocate and friend as they continue to work and engage in the broad field of education.

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Book SynopsisIntimacy with Strangers offers a dazzlingly original, thought-provoking approach to celebrity interviewing. Ciaran Carty draws upon a career involving many of the world’s leading writers, artists, actors and directors as they explore intimate concerns, ranging from love and rejection to the smallest physical sensations of pleasure and pain, and to the great issues of politics and war, God and atheism – the big and small of the human condition. Interweaving recent cultural and social history, Carty exposes unexpected affinities shared by his eclectic cast of subjects. Through chains of happenstance and six-degrees-of-separation, Intimacy with Strangers mirrors the cinematic cuts, fades and dissolves of its author’s sensibility as film critic and writer. By creating this magical memoir, Ciaran Carty offers an idiosyncratic portrait of a kaleidoscopic Ireland in a global setting.Trade Review‘…this anthology from veteran arts journalist Ciaran Carty is a hybrid creation. He seeks to blend serious art and populism, but, it is the searing insights from his more highbrow interviewees that most command our interest.’ – Alan Murdoch, Sunday Times ‘Intimacy With Strangers is rich and rewarding; there is definitely a filmic quality to the narrative (to be expected from a writer who has devoted much of his life to the big screen) but it also has plenty of unexpected moments from an eclectic career spent talking with the greats’. – Joe O’Shea, Irish Independent

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Book SynopsisIn this lyrical and compelling collection of tales of the quotidian, John A. Ryan paints a sincere picture of Ireland, it’s environment and people. His delicate awareness of the world around him is reflected in every paragraph of these poetic and contemplative pieces. Each is infused with a sense of mindfulness, slowness and the almost divine nature of the small and the commonplace, reminding the reader of the sacredness of life at the heart of the universe. Some of these twenty prose pieces, scattered across rural and small-town Ireland, France and the Mediterranean littoral, have already appeared in the pages of the Irish Press. Most are hitherto unseen. They partake of Benedict Kiely, Donal Ryan and the deep traditions of Irish traditional rural literature.Trade ReviewRyan ‘is an apostle of nature, possessed of a poet’s sensitivity … his stories have a directness and simplicity that remind me of certain songs by Neil Young.’

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Book SynopsisThese reflective essays about Déon’s life and experiences in the west of Ireland describe the colourful and varied personalities that the French novelist has come across since he and his family moved there in the mid 1970s. From his friendship with John McGahern and Ulick O’Connor to Tim, the sturdy old postman who prefers his wind-blown country round to retirement in sunny California, Horseman, Pass By! is peopled with fascinating characters and encounters. Taking its title from Yeats, this work is an affectionate portrait of the Irish and a lament for a fading country that has been changed by new wealth and altered values. Déon’s Horseman, Pass By! is an elegant memoir about a beautiful landscape and its inhabitants and forms a touching and amusing tribute to his adopted country.Trade Review‘Déon makes the poet, his life, his works, the absolute epicentre of an intimate wandering. Compass point in place, he traces around him the circle of rosettes of a long walk … We are touched. Conquered.’ —Le Monde ‘Country houses in the rain, Yeats stanzas – as always, the writer excels at mixing humour and seriousness.’ —Le Figaro Magazine ‘Horseman, Pass By! is filled with nostalgia, with humour, with colour, with ghosts. It is a declaration of love for Ireland.’ —Le Magazine LitteraireHorseman, Pass By! is filled with nostalgia, with humour, with colour, with ghosts. It is a declaration of love for Ireland. * Le Magazine Litteraire *

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Book SynopsisFor over thirty years, Rupert Roopnaraine has fought a political battle for democracy, social justice, racial harmony and civil society. This collection of essays ranges across politics, literary pursuits, visual arts, social commentary, memoirs and tributes. They encompass Guyana, the wider Caribbean, including the US invasion of Grenada (which Roopnaraine witnessed first-hand), and the international socialist movement. The title comes from a Martin Carter poem written in grief over the assassination of the scholar-politician and WPA leader Walter Rodney. Essays on Martin Carter, Edgar Mittelholzer, AJ Seymour, Kyk-over-Al, the lexicographer Richard Allsop, and the artists Philip Moore, Winston Strick, Ras Ishi, Ras Akyem and Stanley Greaves reveal yet again that there are few Caribbean critics who write with such grace and insight. Born in 1943 in Georgetown, Guyana, Rupert Roopnaraine is one of the leading Caribbean intellectuals of his generation. Having studied in Cambridge and New York, he joined the Working People's Alliance in 1977. He has been a member of the Guyanese Parliament for many years. His book Primacy of the Eye: The Art of Stanley Greaves was published by Peepal Tree in 2003. He also wrote the introduction to Peepal Tree's 2010 edition of Edgar Mittelholzer's Shadows Move Among Them.

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Book SynopsisShaped over a period of twenty years, this is an elegantly written, scholarly but highly accessible, collection of essays that are essentially a map of how one of the Caribbean's most distinguished historians has sought to discover himself through practise of his craft. It covers new ground in Indo-Caribbean history primarily, but it also explores innovatively aspects of the intellectual legacy of four eminent Caribbean writers and thinkers: Guyanese poet, Martin Carter, Guyanese historian, Walter Rodney, Nobel laureate, V.S. Naipaul, and C.L.R. James, author of one of the great books of the 20th century, Beyond a Boundary (1963). Several of the pieces by Professor Seecharan, author of many books, including Sweetening 'Bitter Sugar': Jock Campbell, the Booker Reformer in British Guiana, 1934-66 (awarded the prestigious Elsa Goveia Prize in 2005 by the Association of Caribbean Historians), adopt a revisionist approach in revisiting the migration of indentured labourers from India to the Caribbean, between 1838 and 1917.He challenges many of the received assumptions on the subject; and he rejects that it was 'a new system of slavery'; that all the people were duped or kidnapped into indentureship; indeed, that the migrants had no agency in the process. He counters that the reverse was invariably the case, documenting that most women and men dared to travel alone, fleeing a life of utter despair in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in India to greater social freedom and a modicum of material success - flight to Guyana and Trinidad could therefore be considered, in most cases, an escape to freedom. Seecharan's essays demonstrate that the struggles on the plantations notwithstanding, Indians in Guyana gradually shaped a new persona of hope, rising quietly but confidently from the death of caste prejudice; thriving on the fruits of their new, vastly more open, environment with the making of communities rooted in rice, cattle and retail trade; maximizing the benefits of education while claiming the legacy of 'many Indias', part fact, part fiction, in advancing their civil and political rights in Guyana.Within this complex mix are located several Indo-Guyanese personalities, such as Joseph Ruhomon, a pioneer intellectual; Cheddi Jagan and Balram Singh Rai, politicians of contrasting visions; and the unsung cricketer, Ivan Madray. In the process, Seecharan finds not only himself, but he locates a rich narrative vein, illuminating a vital aspect of Caribbean life.

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Book Synopsis'A manifesto, a literary criticism, a personal chronicle of literary life, a book of days, a stage wherein famous writers such as Walcott, Thomas, Gunn, Espada, and others become actors, The Undiscovered Country discovers many things, but one thing for sure: Andre Bagoo is a fearless, brilliant mind. He can take us from the formal critical perspective to new futurist "visual essay", to verse essay, to sweeping historical account that is unafraid to go as far in time as Columbus and as urgently-of-our moment as Brexit—all of it with precision and attentiveness to detail that is as brilliant as it is startling. Bravo.' — Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic and Dancing in OdessaAndre Bagoo is the real deal as an essayist in that he asks interesting questions (was there an alternative to the independence that Trinidad sought and gained in 1962?) and is open to seeing where his ideas take him – quite often to unexpected places. He displays an intense interest in the world around him – including literature, art, film, food, politics, even Snakes and Ladders – but is just as keen to share with the reader some sense of how his point of view has been constructed. He writes as a gay man who grew up in a country that still has colonial laws against gay sexuality, as a man whose ethnic heritage was both African and Indian in a country whose politics have been stymied by its ethnic divisions. And just what were the effects of repeat-watching a defective video of The Sound of Music, truncated at a crucial moment? There is an engaging personality present here, a sharp and enquiring mind, and ample evidence that he knows how to write shapely sentences and construct well-formed essays. Encyclopaedic knowledge is rarely the point of the essay, but few readers will leave this collection without feeling better informed and more curious about their worlds.

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Book SynopsisContinuing on from his outstanding collection of literary criticism, My Strangled City and other essays, literary critic and Professor Gordon Rohlehr delves further, examining the work of Sam Selvon, Louise Bennett, Kamau Brathwaite, Derek Walcott and many other luminaries of the Caribbean. Originally published by Longman in 1992, this is a marvellous addition to the Caribbean Modern Classics series.

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Book Synopsis'Sometimes when you're reading Neal Stephenson, he doesn't just seem like one of the best novelists writing in English right now; he seems like the only one.' TimeOne of the most talented and creative authors working today, Neal Stephenson is renowned for his exceptional novels - works colossal in vision and mind-boggling in complexity. Exploring and blending a diversity of topics, including technology, economics, history, science, pop culture, and philosophy, his books are the product of a keen and adventurous intellect. Not surprisingly, Stephenson is regularly asked to contribute articles, lectures, and essays to numerous outlets, from major newspapers and cutting edge magazines to college symposia. This remarkable collection brings together previously published short writings, both fiction and nonfiction as well as a new essay (and an extremely short story) created specifically for this volume. Stephenson ponders a wealth of subjects, from movies and politics to David Foster Wallace and the Midwestern American College Town; video games to classics-based sci-fi; how geekdom has become cool and how science fiction has become mainstream (whether people admit it or not); the future of publishing and the origins of his novels. By turns amusing and profound, critical and celebratory, yet always entertaining, Some Remarks offers a fascinating look into the prismatic mind of this extraordinary writer.

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Book SynopsisDrawn from over 50 years of writing, this anthology includes Michael Moorcock's most recent work and writings from sources now unobtainable, including: 'London Peculiar', an impassioned statement of Moorcock's memories of wartime London and the architectural 'improvements' wrought by the rebuilding of the city after the Second World War.Trade ReviewIt's a privilege to have such a collection of humanistic and touching articles between the covers of one book. Dan Carrier, West End Extra

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Book SynopsisIn a frank and unpretentious series of letters addressed to a teenage granddaughter, this highly original book teaches us to know and understand the world we live in and its rules, and how to behave in it. In these thirty letters, Alan Macfarlane answers his granddaughter's questions about how the world works, how it got to be as it is, what it could be, and where she fits in. Lily's enquiries range from the intimate, personal and moral to the political, social and philosophical. What is the nature of good and evil? What is religion? How can I be truly me? Is right and wrong the same wherever you are? What is beauty? Does there have to be torture? Does money matter? Is knowledge always good? What is progress? What is truth? What is sex? Is democracy a good idea? These are just a few of the questions. In responding to Lily's challenging problems, Alan Macfarlane, from a lifetime's experience as a historian, anthropologist and teacher, ranges through history and across the world's cultures. Her questions are timeless. His answers add up to a classic.Trade ReviewA sweeping tour d'horizon ... deep-thinking, wide-ranging essays on identity and society couched in simple, sturdy prose ... charming. -- Boyd Tonkin * Independent *One of the most perceptive writers we have. -- Paul Barker * Evening Standard *A real tour de force. It is a guide to the whole of history and ethnography and encapsulates the historical philosophy of its author in a bewitchingly simple way. -- Keith Thomas, author of Religion and the Decline of Magic and Man and the Natural World

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Book SynopsisThis book will be for, and about, her. This book will be for mums and stepmums and mums with mental illnesses and mums without mums.This book will be for me.Everyone told Sinead that having a newborn was a beautiful kind of delirium - a hazy blur of broken sleep and exhaustion, wrapped in euphoria. A life-changing love. Sinead spent every day of her traumatic pregnancy clinging to that sliver of light in the dark.But when Vivie arrived, there was no euphoria, no life-altering love. And nine days after giving birth, Sinead was admitted to the Mother & Baby Unit at Starship Hospital in the grips of severe postnatal depression.An honest, gut-wrenching, irreverent, and shockingly funny memoir about motherhood and mental health, with raw, deeply personal insights into Sinead''s own journey. It Nearly Killed Me But I Love You is a no-holds-barred exploration of what it means to be a mother - written with humour, wit, and devastating frankness.

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