Essays Books

Book SynopsisWithin two generations humanity is set to leave behind the fossil fuels which built our modern industrial civilisation. The clean energy transition is already underway, and its completion inevitable. So what lies ahead in our future? The key technologies of wind, solar, pumped hydro, batteries, heat pumps and green hydrogen are going to be key, argues Black. But transitions are not necessarily going to be smooth: fossil fuel corporations will go bankrupt and workers will lose jobs; the most powerful fossil fuel states have always pushed back and will continue to do so as their market contracts. However, water cannot be pushed uphill for any length of time. Already clean energy costs have fallen so far that almost all electricity generation capacity being built around the world is renewable; soon, for example, electric models will account for almost all growth in the global car fleet. As more are built, costs come down and rollout accelerates. Whether the transition happens fast enough

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Book SynopsisIn Tomorrow Is Too Late, Grace Maddrell collects testimonies of activism and hope from young climate strikers, from Brazil and Burundi to Pakistan and Palestine. These youth activists are experiencing the reality of the climate crisis, including typhoons, drought, flood, fire, crop failure and ecological degradation, and are all engaged in the struggle to bring these issues to the centre of the world stage. Their strength and determination show the urgency of their cause, and their understanding that the generations above them have failed to safeguard their environment. With contributors aged between eight and twenty-five, this is an inspiring collection of essays from the most vital generation of voices in the global struggle for climate justice, and offers a manifesto for how you can engage, educate, and inspire change for a more hopeful future. Trade ReviewVanessa Nakate (contributor) featured and quoted in ‘7 Young Planet-Saving Activists To Follow, Stat’ https://www.vogue.co.uk/news/article/climate-activists-on-instagram -- Emily Chan * Vogue *‘Bringing the Climate Crisis Home: How young people can educate their parents’ https://www.theguardian.com/parenting-your-parents/2021/jan/15/bringing-the-climate-crisis-home-how-young-people-can-educate-their-parents * The Guardian *'I've lost friends': the young climate strikers forced to go it alone’ ‘It was the power of social media that inspired Anna Kernahan, 17, Grace Maddrell, 14, and Helen Jackson, 21, to set up Solo But Not Alone, a Twitter page dedicated to sharing the stories of solo climate strikers.’ https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/13/young-climate-strikers-go-it-alone -- Jessica Murray * The Guardian *Essay by Nasratullah Elham [Extract from Tomorrow Is Too Late] * The London Magazine *Book review: Tomorrow is too Late, ed Grace Maddrell -- Jeremy Williams * The Earthbound Report *How it feels to watch world leaders make catastrophic climate decisions -- Grace Maddrell * The Independent *Young activists speak out on the climate ‘[A] a remarkable book that shows how educated and passionate young people can be about saving the planet.’ -- Ibrahim Sawal * New Scientist *Gen Z on how to save the world: young climate activists speak out ‘After attending a first climate school strike as barely a teenager, Grace Maddrell, at just 16, has now published Tomorrow Is Too Late (Indigo Press), a book of essays and stories by young activists from around the world illustrating why it is imperative that we act now to avert climate catastrophe.’ * The Observer *Kicked out of School for Being a Freethinker [Extract: Ali Khademolhosseini’s essay from Tomorrow Is Too Late] * It’s freezing in LA! *It’s easy to set climate targets for a distant 2050 – but even tomorrow is too late ‘However you do it, I hope you’ll find a way to hear the voices of these young people, because every single one of them is vital to this fight.’ -- Grace Maddrell * The Big Issue *Vanessa Nakate Wants Climate Justice for Africa -- Vanessa Nakate (contributor to Tomorrow Is Too Late) * Time *

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Book SynopsisA powerful and provocative collection of essays that offers poignant reflections on living between society’s most charged, politicized, and intractably polar spaces—between black and white, rich and poor, thin and fat. Savala Nolan knows what it means to live in the in-between. Descended from a Black and Mexican father and a white mother, Nolan’s mixed-race identity is obvious, for better and worse. At her mother’s encouragement, she began her first diet at the age of three and has been both fat and painfully thin throughout her life. She has experienced both the discomfort of generational poverty and the ease of wealth and privilege. It is these liminal spaces—of race, class, and body type—that the essays in Don’t Let It Get You Down excavate, presenting a clear and nuanced understanding of our society’s most intractable points of tension. The twelve essays that comprise this collection are rich with unforgettable anecdotes and are as humorous and as full of Nolan’s appetites as they are of anxieties. Over and over again, Nolan reminds us that our true identities are often most authentically lived not in the black and white, but in the grey of the in-between.Trade ReviewReview: Don’t Let It Get You Down ‘This fierce and intelligent book is important not just for how it celebrates hard-won pride in one’s identity, but also for how Nolan articulates the complicated—and too often overlooked—nature of personal and cultural in-betweenness.’ https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/savala-nolan/dont-let-it-get-you-down/ * Kirkus *‘Nolan’s writing on identity and self-worth is captivating from start to finish; her words will resonate long after the last page.’ https://www.libraryjournal.com/review/dont-let-it-get-you-down-essays-on-race-gender-and-the-body-2116601 -- Emily Bowles * Library Journal *‘Like the 12 essays in Don’t Let It Get You Down: Essays on Race, Gender, and the Body, Savala Nolan is powerful and complex.’ https://issuu.com/book_page/docs/0721_bookpage -- Priscilla Kipp * Book Page *Review: Don’t Let It Get You Down: Essays on Race, Gender, and the Body ‘…the mix of cultural criticism and thoughtful personal writing will be just right for fans of Roxane Gay.’ https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-982137-26-7 * Publisher's Weekly *Review: Don’t Let it Get You Down: Essays on Race, Gender, and the Body by Savala Nolan ‘Personal and lyrical, this essay collection is full of anecdotes that echo and sentences that stop you in your tracks.’ https://utopia-state-of-mind.com/review-dont-let-it-get-you-down-essays-on-race-gender-and-the-body-by-savala-nolan/ * Utopia State of Mind *Savala Nolan Is Finally Being Heard Loud and Clear ‘Not only is it an important read, but also a delightful one that shows just how multitalented and impressive the author is when taking on subjects that resonate inside of her but also in the bodies and minds of her readers as well.’ https://www.shondaland.com/inspire/books/a37028643/savala-nolan-is-finally-being-heard-loud-and-clear/ -- Scott Neumver * Shondaland.com *Twelve revelatory essays probe with unflinching honesty what it means to be black https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/books/review-12-revelatory-essays-probe-with-unflinching-honesty-what-it-means-to-be-black -- Dolen Perkins-Valdez * San Francisco Chronicle *Savala Nolan Takes a Hard Look at the White Gaze and Its Blind Spots ‘Vulnerable, but rarely veering into self-indulgence . . . it is a brutal, beautifully rendered narrative. A standout collection.’ https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/12/books/review/savala-nolan-dont-let-it-get-you-down.html -- Tressie Mc Millan Cottom * New York Times Book Review *24 of the best new book releases in June https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/entertainment/g15922606/new-good-books-to-read/?slide=24 * Cosmopolitan *‘Please don’t call me strong’: notes on race, gender and the body – an extract https://gal-dem.com/dont-let-it-get-you-down-extract/ * Galdem *Savala Nolan: Don't Let It Get You Down review - finding voice in the liminal ‘Finding her voice, her faith, her self in the liminal, Nolan reclaims a mighty tradition and way of telling for us all.’ https://theartsdesk.com/books/savala-nolan-dont-let-it-get-you-down-review-finding-voice-liminal -- Hannah Hutchings-Georgiou * The Arts Desk *

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Book SynopsisAn extraordinary memoir of anticipatory grief, seventy-two minutes of life and a silent maternity leave, from artist and academic Tamarin Norwood. A few months into pregnancy, Tamarin Norwood learned that the baby she was carrying would not live. Over the sleepless weeks that followed, Tamarin, her husband and their three-year-old son tried to navigate the unfamiliar waters of anticipatory sorrow and to prepare for what was to come. Written partly during pregnancy and partly during the silent maternity leave that followed, The Song of the Whole Wide World is an emergency response to grief held somewhere between the womb, the grave and the many stories that bind them: stories drawn from medical science, poetry, liturgy, vivid waking dreams of underwater life, and knowledge held deep within the body. This profoundly moving and intimate account offers a lyrical and fearless meditation on birth, death, and the possibilities of consolation.

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Book SynopsisA collection of vibrant essays to inform, stimulate and inspire every nature lover. Through unparallelled expertise as a field naturalist, Roy Dennis is able to write about the natural world in a way that considers both the problems and the progress in ecology and conservation. Beginning with cottongrass, whose snow-white blooms blow gently in the wind across the wetter moors and bogs, this is a year-round trove of insight and knowledge for anyone who cares about the natural world - from birdsong and biodiversity to sphagnum and species reintroduction. Written by one of our most prominent advocates for rewilding, the essays have a clear message: "Never give up on trying to conserve and restore wildlife and the wild places you cherish. It's essential to try and to succeed. And remember, it's never 'if', but 'when' - and with climate chaos closing in, the time is now."Trade ReviewTHE HIGHLAND BOOK PRIZE 2020, LONGLISTED; "I can't think of a more important book that's been written about British wildlife in the past 20 years ... Roy Dennis [is] the UK's pre-eminent conservationist of the past half century ... he writes with such conviction, clarity, insight, depth and purpose. He understands better than anyone how times have changed ... In just a sentence or two, he cuts to the quick ... If you read any book about the environment this year, read this." James Fair, naturalist, in Countryfile's Best Nature Books of 2020; "In an exhilarating roundelay of profoundly questioning essays, Roy Dennis has revealed a lifetime in nature conservation, while also delivering a sparkling vision for an ecologically sustainable Highlands, the country and the planet. This little book is a testament to a rare and redeeming curiosity; we must all learn from the deep wisdom of experience." Sir John Lister-Kaye OBE; "This is a cracking book full of beautifully descriptive prose and thought-provoking sentiments by a man who, more than anyone else, has been there, done that and got the 'T'-shirt." Iolo Williams; "Roy is not just a brilliant conservationist but a superb naturalist too ... These beautiful essays are also positive and pragmatic about the future ... absolutely joyous." Chris Packham; "Reminds me strongly of Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac, which is a classic of the ecological literature, and I can think of no better comparison to give you an idea of its content and of this book's quality and worth ... It is a book of ideas; ideas about how the future should be, but rooted in the present and with knowledge of the past." Mark Avery, Nature Book of the Year 2020; "The wonderful, insightful and eclectic musings from a lifetime watching wildlife, by one of Britain's greatest conservationists." Mike Dilger; "Fine and very enjoyable ... packed with a wisdom that only comes from lifelong experience." Stephen Moss, Best nature books of 2020; A pleasure to read … This book should become a classic.” John Low, Scottish BirdsTable of ContentsIntroduction; Cottongrass; All in a name; The optimism of spring; Capercaillies and crofters’ cows; The beauty of birdsong; Too many badgers; Rewilding – ecological restoration; Cheaper food and poorer farming; The tragedy of rare flowers; Nature’s networks; Bearded vulture and a lack of carrion; Storks and people; Green J is back again; Selective land management in Abernethy Forest; The decline of swifts and martins; Caring for our planet – a minister’s responsibilities; The bonnie heather hills of Scotland; The dangers of downpours; Traditional cattle and biodiversity; Lynx kittens in my pockets; Insect Armageddon; A good day with red squirrels; Sea eagles on Sunday; The invader from the Orient; Quiet pride over red kites; Thoughts on wild red grouse; Big fish; Rabbits – here today, gone tomorrow; Let’s have a sacred mountain; Nature and the problems of tidiness; Bringing back the beaver; The ecology of changing goose numbers; Looking at a footprint and thinking, ‘Bear!'; Chance and the Wilson’s warbler; The salmon and the bear; Our place on the planet; Right trees, wrong places; Orcas and seals; Golden eagles – a new future?; Days in a real forest; The deaf birder’s bird; Giant pandas and thoughts of home; Bounty from the seas; Genes and wildlife management; The true worth of nature; New Year birding; White stoat, green grass; Always remember the bigger picture; The assassin of the night; Is the common mole a soil canary?; Why mentors matter; Ecological resilience for our grandchildren’s grandchildren; Author’s note

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Book SynopsisTeeming with life and compulsively readable, the pieces gathered together in The Tribe aggregate into an extraordinary mosaic of Cuba today. Carlos Manuel Álvarez, one of the most exciting young writers in Latin America, employs the crónica form – a genre unique to Latin American writing that blends reportage, narrative non-fiction, and novelistic forms – to illuminate a particularly turbulent period in Cuban history, from the re-establishment of diplomatic relations with the US, to the death of Fidel Castro, to the convulsions of the San Isidro Movement. Unique, edgy and stylishly written, The Tribe shows a society in flux, featuring sportsmen in exile, artists, nurses, underground musicians and household names, dissident poets, the hidden underclass at a landfill, migrants attempting to make their way across Central America, fugitives escaping the FBI, dealers from the black market, as well as revelers and policemen in the noisy Havana night. It is a major work of reportage by one of Granta’s Best of Young Spanish-Language novelists.Trade Review‘There is magic in these pages…[T]his book tells the actual story of Cuba as it exists today.’ — Jon Lee Anderson‘Álvarez is very good on the absurdist rituals of zombie totalitarianism…The Tribe vividly explores the more offbeat milieus and people of an extended Cuba.’ — Lorna Scott Fox, TLS ‘A journalistically rigorous picture of Cuban life, The Tribe is characterized by the gaps between Álvarez’s subjects. Using interviews and on-site reportage, Álvarez profiles people from various socioeconomic backgrounds, with contrasting political affiliations. The sketches he compiles demonstrate a wide range of experiences and perceptions of Cuba. Álvarez allows the juxtapositions between these profiles to reveal a country that looks different from person to person.... A nation is, after all, nebulous— the only way to make an honest portrait is to approach it from myriad perspectives. In The Tribe, the resulting mosaic is rich for its nuance and contradictions.’ — Morgan Graham, Chicago Review of Books‘Àlvarez has smuggled an important ethnographic work inside the form of an entertaining and well-written crónica.’ — Alex Payne, Buzz Magazine ‘Álvarez does not try to instruct or speculate. He does not write on whether the Revolution succeeded or failed. He does not determine whether the leader was a hero or a tyrant. His book is not an explanation: it is …. the history of a country told through its people.’ — María Teresa Hernández, AP News‘That rarest of books about a people that achieves a restorative function without idling in a documentarian mode, The Tribe’s gift to its subjects is not raising them as a hot topic, but by preserving their dignity in spite of the headlines.’ — Words Without Borders ‘This is one of those books you'll read in a single sitting. Conveying readers to the turbulent landscapes of Cuba's recent political past, it offers a refreshing assessment of the country outside of typical historic tropes, giving voice to ordinary Cubans, from artists and nurses to underground musicians and dissident poets.’ — Lucy Kehoe, Suitcase Magazine

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Book Synopsismicrobursts is a collection of hybrid, lyric essays about the places between life and death; memoir and poetry; making and letting go. Originally written by Reeder as an intense text-based collection of lyric and experimental essays responding to the illnesses and deaths of her parents, it confronts the raw emotions of crisis, grief and creativity. Through collaboration with Thomson, the project expanded to consider how design and visual intervention might alter the nature and impact of the text.The outcome is a book which explores the subjects of illness, crisis, creativity, caring, death and grief, alongside the aesthetic and formal concerns of cross-genre writing, including how image, formatting and text work together to create tension, understanding and pace, expanding the possibilities of the essay and the artist’s book.Formally audacious, linguistically fluid, sensitive and intricate in its visual presentation, microbursts uses the potential and elasticity of the essay form to explore intensely personal, yet universal, experiences and considers the ways in which we can express and communicate these through spatial and linguistic form. Crucially, it achieves these things effortlessly, with its accessible, poetic language and engaging narrative of family, love, care, grief, dying, death and creativity.

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Book SynopsisREVISED & EXPANDED 2nd EDITIONRenowned internationally for her lyrically unsettling novels Book of Clouds, Asunder and Sea Monsters, the Mexican writer Chloe Aridjis crosses borders in her work as much as she traverses them in life. Now, collected here for the first time, her stories, essays and pen portraits reveal an author as imaginatively at home in the short form as in her longer fiction. At once fabular and formally innovative, acquainted with reverie and rigorous report, sensitive to the needs of a wider ecology yet familiar with the landscapes of the unconscious, her texts are both dream dispatches and wayward word plays infused with the pleasure and possibilities of language. Conversations with the presences who dwell on the threshold of waking and reverie, flâneuses of the dusk and dawn, these pieces will stay with you long after the lamps have flickered out.

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Book SynopsisIn the groundbreaking tradition of In the Dream House and The Collected Schizophrenias, a gorgeously illustrated lyrical memoir that draws upon the Japanese myth of the Hyakki Yagyō — the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons — to shift the cultural narrative around mental illness, grief, and remembrance. Are these the only two stories? The one where you defeat your monster, and the other where you succumb to it? Jami Nakamura Lin spent much of her life feeling monstrous for reasons outside of her control. As a Japanese Taiwanese American woman with undiagnosed bipolar disorder, her adolescence was marked by periods of extreme rage and self-medicating, an ever-evolving array of psychiatric treatments, and her relationships with those she loved — especially her father — suffered as a result. Frustrated with the tidy arc of the typical mental illness memoir, the kind whose trajectory leads toward being ‘better’, Lin sought comfort in the Japanese folklore she’d loved as a child, tales of supernatural creatures known to terrify in the night. Through the lens of the yōkai and other East Asian mythology, she set out to interrogate the Western notion of conflict and resolution, grief, loss, mental illness, and the myriad ways fear of difference shapes who we are as a people. Divided into four acts in the traditional Japanese narrative structure and featuring stunning watercolour illustrations, Jami Nakamura Lin has crafted an innovative, genre-bending, and deeply emotional memoir that mirrors the sensation of being caught between worlds. Braiding her experience of mental illness, the death of her father, and other haunted topics with the folkloric tradition, The Night Parade shines a light into dark corners in search of a new way, driven by the question: How do we learn to live with the things that haunt us?Trade Review‘At once a medical memoir ... and a reflection on mythology — the personal, the collective, the inherited — The Night Parade moves with courage ... Jami Nakamura Lin’s speculative memoir is a feat of storytelling; one that I found deeply moving.’ -- Katie Goh‘The Night Parade is a stunning excavation of personal and collective histories, filled with the endless alchemy of storytelling. Jami Nakamura Lin writes with meditative precision and expansive empathy, challenging and reaffirming what communal stories can make possible. Exploring the many worlds that flourish beyond certain knowledge, this boundary-blurring memoir finds power in the undefinable. It reveals to us that the fracturing of a story can be beautifully fruitful. Teeming with language that is transformative and fully embodied, and gorgeously illustrated by Cori Nakamura Lin, The Night Parade is a generous and abundant feast for our living and our dead, our salvaged lineages, and our continuing stories.’ -- K-Ming Chang, award-winning author of Bestiary‘Jami Nakamura Lin has reinvented the genre of memoir, weaving an intricate braid of fable, memory, art, cultural legacy, and legend into a gorgeous tapestry of the stories that made her. The haunting illustrations by her sister, Cori Nakamura Lin, are a potent reminder that no one is self-authored. We all collaborate to become ourselves. Serpentine, polyphonic, and stunningly textured, The Night Parade positively pulses with life.’ -- Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, award-winning author of The Fact of A Body‘A gorgeous invocation of the magic-haunted spaces between lived experience and folkloric traditions, between the living and the dead, between memory and story. I loved The Night Parade.’ -- Kelly Link, bestselling author of Get in Trouble‘Beautifully written and imaginative, The Night Parade takes speculative nonfiction to new heights. Jami Nakamura Lin is both poet and storyteller, mystic and philosopher, teaching us to see the world differently, to suspend our disbelief, using mythology to interrogate our notions of family, grief, fear, love, and belonging. There is no other book like this — it’s truly a stunning and visionary work of art.’ -- Jaquira Díaz, author of Ordinary Girls: a memoir‘Genre-defying and deeply poetic, The Night Parade invites the pandemonium within the personal and mythic to a round table where ancestors and folkloric creatures transform grief, memory, and mental illness into the tangible. Ancient tales and horrific spectres braid throughout Jami Nakamura Lin’s life, but will worm your way under your skin, prompting the question: what do we cut out from our lives and histories and what do we let grow with us? Impossible to put down, gut-wrenching, and magical. I cannot think of a writer who has written so personally while acknowledging ancestral and cultural grief with such grace and honesty. A crucial and groundbreaking entry for the literature of the Asian Diaspora and explorations of mental illness.’ -- Sequoia Nagamatsu, author of How High We Go in the Dark‘The Night Parade is stunning — it is haunting and magical and terrifying at once. Deeply intimate, but with a sense of scope that transcends history and genre, I loved stepping into this dream of a memoir, of a shared experience.’ -- Catherine Cho, author of Inferno‘With abundant honesty and tenderness, Jami Nakamura Lin wraps her story in the expansive frameworks of folklore and the mystical, bringing in centuries of storytelling about love and loss, death, illness, and mystery. A moving and notable memoir.’ -- Aimee Bender, New York Times bestselling author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake‘In this gorgeous and unique debut memoir, Lin draws on the Japanese myth of the Hyakki Yagyo (the “Night Parade of One Hundred Demons”, in which demons and spirits march through the streets at night) to document her struggles with bipolar disorder and her father’s fatal illness … Throughout, Lin draws on characters from the Hyakki Yagyo (like the hideous, flesh-eating Oni Baba, or the vengeful ghost whale known as Bakekujira) to contextualise and come to terms with her feelings, sometimes using them to personify her “ugly” emotions, other times using them to interrogate cultural narratives about monstrousness. Interspersed throughout are full-colour illustrations of each creature by her sister, Cori … The result is a memorable and moving exorcism of the monsters within.’ -- Publishers Weekly, starred review‘Lin uses mythology from her Taiwanese and Japanese heritage to make sense of mental illness, cancer, and pregnancy loss … Throughout this inventive narrative, Lin takes calculated literary risks, ranging from the use of epistolary forms to experiments with point of view. These risks pay off mightily, coming together in a vulnerable, insightful, and refreshingly original meditation on survival, illness, and grief. A stunning memoir about the stories that make us who we are.’ -- Kirkus Reviews, starred review‘In this debut speculative memoir, Lin isn’t afraid of her demons. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder as a teenager, Lin struggled to manage her illness while caring for her cancer-stricken father. Unhappy with the rose-coloured narratives about recovering from mental illness, she takes a different approach here, leaning into the darkness. Inspired by Japanese, Taiwanese, and Okinawan ghost stories, Lin blends memoir and horror — plus stunning illustrations — to consider what it means to co-exist with anguish.’ * The Millions *‘Highly innovative ... Using Japanese, Chinese, and Taiwanese folklore to enrich her story, the author (who is a Japanese Taiwanese Okinawan American) delves into her own powerful feelings of rage, despair, loss, and hurt, ultimately emerging from each experience stronger and with more insight into not only herself but also her complex family history. With compelling prose, this title weaves folktales about frightening and monstrous figures into the narratives of Lin’s own developing bipolar disorder, her lineage, and her father’s illness. Her gorgeous writing draws readers into her gripping story, which is organized into a four-part narrative structure drawn from Japanese literary tradition. The book is richly illustrated by the author’s sister, Cori Nakamura Lin. VERDICT An engrossing memoir by an extraordinary debut author.’ -- Rebecca Maugridge * Library Journal, starred review *‘Part personal narrative, part mythical taxonomy, The Night Parade intertwines Nakamura Lin’s lifelong experience of bipolar disorder with figures from Japanese and Taiwanese myth, resulting in a moody, unusual, and compassionate portrait of a struggle too often reduced to cliché.’ * The Boston Globe *‘In an extraordinary exploration of life in all its stages, debut memoirist Jami Nakamura Lin turns to the monsters of Japanese and Taiwanese folklore to better understand her own mental illness, the death of her father and the birth of her child. Featuring illustrations of these fantastical beasts by the author’s sister Cori Nakamura Lin, this book is an “abundant feast for our living and our dead”, according to … author K-Ming Chang.’ * San Francisco Chronicle *‘In this highly innovative memoir, Lin shares her experiences as a person with bipolar disorder as she comes of age, marries, experiences a miscarriage, loses her father to cancer, and becomes a mother … With compelling prose, this title weaves folktales about frightening and monstrous figures into the narratives of Lin’s own developing bipolar disorder, her lineage, and her father's illness. Her gorgeous writing draws readers into her gripping story, which is organised into a four-part narrative structure drawn from Japanese literary tradition. The book is richly illustrated by the author’s sister, Cori Nakamura Lin. An engrossing memoir by an extraordinary debut author.’ -- Library Journal, starred review‘“In the presence of a story … time collapses. This is why I am always telling it.” So begins Lin’s memoir-cum-bestiary, a narrative of discovering her bipolar disorder, the struggle to start a family, and her beloved father’s death and its aftermath. Along the way, she tells stories of the yōkai, the liminal, ambiguous, supernatural creatures of Japanese folk and fairy tale, in the legends of which Lin finds parallels to her family’s experience of colonisation, trauma, immigration, and community. Illustrated in dreamy gouache and watercolour by Cori Nakamura Lin, the author’s sister, The Night Parade explores the many ways we — humans as individuals, humans in community — use stories to make sense of our lives. When calamity strikes, as in every life it must, the tales of the yōkai tell us why and how we can keep it from happening again. “To prevent disaster,” Lin writes, “worship the thing that eats you.” Heartfelt and thoughtful, this painfully lovely memoir will appeal to readers of Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House and Sabrina Imbler’s How Far the Light Reaches.’ * Booklist *‘Lin’s braiding of personal experience and cultural touchstones make this memoir very special.’ * Los Angeles Times *‘This genre-bending and emotionally resonant memoir offers a masterfully braided narrative of Lin’s experience with mental illness, the death of her father, the grieving process, and Japanese, Taiwanese, and Okinawan legends to interrogate the very notion of recovery. The result is a deeply textured portrait of the experiences that haunt us and the ways in which we can begin to feel whole again.’ * Chicago Review of Books *‘Beautiful and bizarre … explode[s] conventional narratives of mental illness and grief … weaves together fable and memory, research, and family history with elegance and honesty to create a singular record of family, diaspora, art, and belonging.’ -- Kathleen Rooney * Chicago Magazine *‘Based on a traditional Japanese narrative structure, this riveting speculative memoir by Jami Nakamura Lin is accompanied by the luminous illustrations of her sister, Cori. Grappling with themes of family, neurodivergence, illness, and identity, Nakamura Lin presents a nuanced, raw, and poetic redefinition of memoir.’ * Ms. magazine *‘Inventive … Jami Nakamura Lin weaves together threads of memoir and Japanese and Taiwanese mythology to create a gorgeous mosaic of family, grief, illness, inheritance, and love.’ * Shondaland *‘Both heart-wrenching and heart-filling … It’s breathtaking to read the way [Jami Nakamura Lin] skillfully utilises the Hyakki Yagyo — a procession of supernatural oni and yokai in Japanese folklore and mythology — to recontextualise and reconsider narratives of grief, mental illness, and memory-making. This is a book to keep at your bedside.’ * Conde Nast Traveler *

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Book SynopsisAdvice and guidance for women of all ages, from Europe's first professional woman writerWritten by Europe’s first professional woman writer, The Treasure of the City of Ladies offers advice and guidance to women of all ages and from all levels of medieval society, from royal courtiers to prostitutes. It paints an intricate picture of daily life in the courts and streets of fifteenth-century France and gives a fascinating glimpse into the practical considerations of running a household, dressing appropriately and maintaining a reputation in all circumstances. Christine de Pizan’s book provides a valuable counterbalance to male accounts of life in the middle ages and demonstrates, often with dry humour, how a woman’s position in society could be made less precarious by following the correct etiquette.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700&

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Book SynopsisThis Norton Critical Edition brings research into this beloved poet’s body of work completely up to date.

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Book SynopsisFor porn stars, “coming out” is a process that never ends. To the uninitiated, the idea of a career in the adult film industry may come with stigma that porn performers and sex workers have long fought to shake off. For many, that fight begins with one awkward conversation.  When Coming Out Like a Porn Star was first published in 2015, it garnered cult status as an anthology of candidly intimate essays by diverse adult industry professionals and icons, relating the pain, pride, and surprises that accompanied their experiences coming out about their work. This updated edition includes new essays that explore issues transforming the modern porn field: deepfakes, AI, and OnlyFans; the inequity and fetishization faced by Black, Muslim, queer, disabled, and other marginalized performers; and the everyday, ever-evolving legal injustices compromising sex workers’ rights to live, earn, and bank. Edited by vete

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Book SynopsisA major collection of essays and interviews from an iconic 20th-century philosopher in five volumes, now all available together in paperback. Roland Barthes was a restless, protean thinker. A constant innovator—often as a daring smuggler of ideas from one discipline to another—he first gained an audience with his pithy essays on mass culture and then went on to produce some of the most suggestive and stimulating cultural criticism of the late twentieth century, including Empire of Signs, The Pleasure of the Text, and Camera Lucida. In 1976, this one-time structuralist outsider was elected to a chair at France’s preeminent Collège de France, where he chose to style himself as a professor of literary semiology until his death in 1980. The greater part of Barthes’s published writings has been available to a French audience since 2002, but now, translator Chris Turner presents a collection of essays, interviews, prefaces, book reviews, and other journalistic material for the first time in English and divided into five themed volumes. Volume four, Signs and Images, gathers pieces related to his central concerns—semiotics, visual culture, art, cinema, and photography—and features essays on Marthe Arnould, Lucien Clergue, Daniel Boudinet, Richard Avedon, Bernard Faucon, and many more. Table of ContentsGromaire, Lurçat and Calder Cinemascope Cinema, Right and Left The Problem of Signification in Cinema Review of Civilisation de l’Image Visual Information Dandyism and Fashion The Civilization of the Image Preface (Emmanuel Pereire Exhibition Catalogue) The Marthe Arnould Exhibition Visualization and Language (Interview) Japan: The Art of Living, the Art of Signs (Interview) What Is Good Like That (On Some Photographs by R. Avendon) On Some Photographs by Daniel Boudinet Colouring, Degree Zero Bernard Faucon The Interval (On the Japan exhibition) There Is No Man (On The Brontë Sisters Film) Note on an Album of Photographs by Lucien Clergue

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Book SynopsisWalter Benjamin, one of the foremost cultural commentators and theorists of this century, is perhaps best known for his analyses of the work of art in the modern age and the philosophy of history. Yet it was through his study of the social and cultural history of the late nineteenth-century Paris, examined particularly in relation to the figure of the great Parisian lyric poet Charles Baudelaire, that Benjamin tested and enriched some of his core concepts and themes. Contained within these pages are, amongst other insights, his notion of the flaneur, his theory of memory and remembrance, his assessment of the utopian Fourier and his reading of the modernist movement.Trade ReviewA series of brilliant insights ... a remarkable volume. * Times Educational Supplement *His analyses are inspired. His fragments about with insights. -- George SteinerBenjamin is indispensable as well as brilliant. -- Raymond Williams

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Book SynopsisLike its highly acclaimed companions, The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry and The Outlaw Bible of American Literature, this edition is a prime for generational revolt and an enduring document of the visionary tradition of authenticity and nonconformity in American lives and letters. A raucous eruption of language and a showcase for the best essayists of our time, The Outlaw Bible of American Essays chronicles American history and measures the boundlessness of dissident thought.

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Book SynopsisFor his many friends and fans, Peter Cook was quite simply the funniest man they''d ever encountered. And nearly eight years since his death, his status as one of Britain''s greatest comedians shows no sign of shrinking. Despite his reputation for idleness, Peter Cook was a great comedy writer, who created countless outrageous sketches and articles and was famed for his prolific role in the satire boom of the 1960s. The very best, the most famous and some of the most unusual of his comic masterpieces are collected here. Some of these pieces have never been published before, others are out of print, a few only survive in print, and many have only ever been seen or heard - never read. This collection ranges from Cook''s first writing, at school and university, via Beyond The Fringe, with Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller, his dualogues with Moore as Pete & Dud and Derek & Clive, and their brilliant TV series, Not Only But Also, to transcripts of his late, great TV app

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Book SynopsisAfter joining the staff of the Burgholzli Mental Hospital in 1900, Jung developed and applied the word-association tests for studying normal and abnormal psychology. The studies have remained a significant phase in the development of Jung''s conceptions and an important contribution to diagnostic psychology and psychiatry. Between 1904 and 1907 he published nine studies on the tests. These studies, together with two lectures on the association method given in 1909 at Clark University and three articles on psychophysical researches from American and English journals in 1907-1908, compose this volume.Jung''s association studies showed the definite influence of Bleuler and also of Freud, with whom he worked closely for several years.With this volume, the Collected Works are complete except for the Miscellany, Bibliography and Index volumes.

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Book SynopsisSixteen studies in religious phenomena, including Psychology and Religion and Answer to Job.

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Book SynopsisA diasporic collection of essays on music, memory, and motion.In this powerful and deeply personal collection, Gloria Blizzard uses traditional narrative essays, hybrid structures, and the tools of poetry to negotiate the complexities of culture, geography, and language in an international diasporic quest.These essays of wayfinding accompany anyone exploring issues of belonging to a family, a neighbourhood, a group, or a country. Here, the small is profound, the intimate universal; the questions are all relevant and the answers of our times require simultaneous multiple perspectives.

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Book SynopsisG.K. Chesterton delivers insightful commentary on modern behavior and social practices influenced by big business, gender roles, government and other notable figures throughout his lifetime. The book is inspired by his own personal beliefs regarding faith, family and the working man. What’s Wrong with the World is a critical analysis of various topics covered by acclaimed writer G.K. Chesterton. He tackles contemporary ideals that dominate society and dictate culture. This book compiles Chesterton’s most prominent beliefs about the dangers of consumerism and a social hierarchy that thrives on oppression. It’s an indictment of what he considers the world’s most undeniable ills. G.K. Chesterton was a principled man with old fashioned values. His personal views shaped his literary work as well as his opinion of others. His catalog is full of essays offering distinct commentary with an indelible writing style. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of What’s Wrong with the World is both modern and readable.

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Book SynopsisSuzanne Brogger's work is known in English through translations of her novels The Jade Cat (1997) and the sensational Deliver Us From Love (1976), which was recommended by Henry Miller as the most daring and courageous book since Rabelais. This volume contains her autobiographical meditation "A Fighting Pig's Too Tough to Eat", and a selection of essays from the past twenty years, showing her development from social rebel to iconoclast and visionary. Suzanne Brogger (b. 1944) has always been unconventional in her lifestyle and in her writing, in a way that has often prompted comparison with her fellow countrywoman Karen Blixen. She writes stories, poems, plays and essays, and many of her writings transgress genre boundaries. Her pronouncements and her activities have excited much controversy in Denmark, and her books have been translated into thirteen languages. Beginning as a polemicist, she has matured into a philosophical writer for whom the writing process is a continuous meditation on life, death and eros.

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Book Synopsis“Make this book your friend,” says Arianna Huffington.James Thornton’s Nature, My Teacher, is a powerful guide to being human in a time of eco-crisis.In Nature, My Teacher, poet, lawyer and founder of top global environmental group ClientEarth, James Thornton offers a meditation on being alive while the planet fights to survive. He explores topics such as memory, climate anxiety, and human consciousness through a series of short essays, arranged into twelve “books”, each closing with a poem and a photo to leave readers in a reflective space.As a Zen priest from Los Angeles, James contemplates what he has learnt from observing and listening to nature, and shows that when the planet is hurting, we too feel its pain.The way this book is opening hearts and minds is remarkable. Arianna Huffington found it “powerful and moving”, Zen abbot and author Joan Halifax sums: “A profound guide to discovering the great wisdom in the natural world, this book…is a treasure for all”.

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Book SynopsisFrom streets to cars, parks to barbers, nightclubs to restaurants, these nine exuberant essays explore how we meet fellow humans, how we share space and what we gain from the physical presence and interactions of others. ''I have spent most of the last sixteen years creating unusual performances in everyday locations - in cafes and cinemas, on rooftops, in parks and out on the crowded streets of towns and cities. Doing so has meant spending a lot of time thinking carefully about these everyday spaces and the kinds of encounters we have in them. Encounterism draws from this history of messing around in everyday life to tell stories about a range of ordinary human encounters. The kind of interactions - with hairdressers, nightclubbers or strangers we pass on the street - that would normally disappear unnoticed into the great ocean of activity occurring around them. Our lives are littered with these little interactions, occupying a grey space between ritual and routine. Ways of meeting we

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Book SynopsisIn pursuit of moments of feeling 'sharply alive' and confronting fear of the body's betrayals, Birdsplaining is focused unapologetically on the uniqueness of women's experience of nature and constraints placed upon it. Sometimes bristling, always ethical, it upends familiar ways of seeing the natural world.

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Book SynopsisMael Renouard's historical and aesthetical contemplation on the Lascaux Cave enlivens a conceptual space for the spectator's dream. This book is translated from the French, Notes sur Lascaux (Editions du Sandre, 2018).

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Book SynopsisXenophon the Athenian was born 431 B.C. He was a pupil of Socrates. He marched with the Spartans, and was exiled from Athens. Sparta gave him land and property in Scillus, where he lived for many years before having to move once more, to settle in Corinth. He died in 354 B.C.Translated by Robin Waterfield with introductions and notes by Paul CartledgeTranslated by Robin Waterfield with introductions and notes by Paul Cartledge

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Book SynopsisWhereas the place for prejudice is a public meeting, a court of law is the adobe of truth.   Cicero was still in his twenties when he got Sextus Roscius off a charge of murdering his father and nearly sixty when he defended King Deiotarus, accused of trying to murder Caesar. In between (with, among others, his speeches for Cluentius and Rabirius), he built a reputation as the greatest orator of his time.   Cicero defended his practice partly on moral or compassionate grounds of human decency -  sentiments with which we today would agree. His clients generally went free. And in vindicating men - who sometimes did not deserve it - he left us a mass of detail about Roman life, law and history and, in two of the speeches, graphic pictures of the gun-law of small provincial towns.   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 history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.Table of ContentsMurder Trials IntroductionI. In Defence of Sextus Roscius of Ameria1. The Innocence of Sextus Roscius2. The Guilt of Magnus and Capito3. Chrysogonus: the Criminal behind the ScenesII. In Defence of Aulus Cluentius Habitus1. The Trial and Crimes of Oppianicus2. Previous Verdicts Quoted AGainst Cluentius3. The Innocence of CluentiusIII. In Defence of Gaius RabiriusIV. Note on the Speeches in Defence of Caelius and MiloV. In Defence of King DeiotarusAppendix A: List of TermsAppendix B: Genealogical TablesAppendix C: Table of DatesAppendix D: Further ReadingMapsIndex

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Book SynopsisOliver Sacks was born in 1933 in London and was educated at Queen's College, Oxford. He completed his medical training at San Francisco's Mount Zion Hospital and at UCLA before moving to New York, where he soon encountered the patients whom he would write about in his book Awakenings.Dr Sacks spent almost fifty years working as a neurologist and wrote many books, including The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Musicophilia, and Hallucinations, about the strange neurological predicaments and conditions of his patients. The New York Times referred to him as 'the poet laureate of medicine', and over the years he received many awards, including honours from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Royal College of Physicians. In 2008, he was appointed Commander of the British Empire. His memoir, On the Move, was published shortly before his death in August 2015.

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Book SynopsisA vibrant and page-turning anthology of essays on what Gilmore Girls means to writers from different walks of life.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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