Essays Books

Book SynopsisItalo Calvino in Collection of Sand claimed that ''the brain begins in the eye''. The essays collected here display his fascination with the visual universe, in which the things we see tell a truth about the world. With encyclopedic knowledge and engaging curiosity, Calvino writes about such diverse subjects as the imaginative pleasures of maps, bizarre exhibitions and the earliest forms of written language. Books and paintings provoke discussions of artistic motivation, while descriptions of a meticulous Japanese garden, Trajan''s column crumbling to dust or a Mexican temple smothered by the jungle lead to contemplations on space, time and civilization. Surprising and profound, Collection of Sand provides a glimpse into the mind of a master of the magination.Italo Calvino, one of Italy''s finest postwar writers, has delighted readers around the world with his deceptively simple, fable-like stories. Calvino was born in Cuba in 1923 and raised in San Remo, Italy; he fought for the Italian Resistance from 1943-45. He died in Siena in 1985, of a brain hemorrhage.Martin L. McLaughlin is Professor of Italian and Fiat-Serena Professor of Italian Studies at the University of Oxford where he is a Fellow of Magdalen College. He is the English translator of Umberto Eco and Italo Calvino among many others.Trade ReviewA brilliant collection that may change the way you see the world around you * Guardian *A pleasure . . . offers new glimpses into the mind of the great writer while also reminding us of Calvino's insatiable curiosity * Independent *A delight, these essays are distinguished by a sly philosophic humour and whimsy * Spectator *

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Book Synopsis''They are memorials to times and countries whose best is probably past and gone . . . I was lucky to have known them when I did, before darkness began to fall from the air.''When Laurie Lee first left his country village aged nineteen, he discovered a delight in the outside world that remained undiminished throughout his writing life. This enchanting collection of his ''first loves and obsessions'' brings together pieces including recollections of his Gloucestershire childhood celebrated in Cider With Rosie; reflections on life, love and death, such as a moving report from the tragic Welsh village of Aberfan; and evocative travel writings on Tuscany, Mexico and the West Indies, amongst others, before they were transformed by mass tourism. Together they capture a world that is lost forever.''One of Britain''s finest writers'' Daily Mail''There''s a formidable, instant charm in the writing that genuinely makes it difficult to put the book

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Book SynopsisFrom one of the most talented young thinkers in the US, a warm, funny and intellectually dazzling call for excess, ecstasy and disorder in an age of sterility and minimalism

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Book Synopsis''A rich, deep moral view of fiction and life: the lessons from this book were essential to my development as an artist.'' Brandon TaylorAt her death in 1964, O''Connor left behind a body of unpublished essays and lectures as well as a number of critical articles that had appeared in scattered publications during her too-short lifetime. The keen writings comprising Mystery and Manners, selected and edited by O''Connor''s lifelong friends Sally and Robert Fitzgerald, are characterized by the directness and simplicity of the author''s style, a fine-tuned wit, understated perspicacity, and profound faith.The book opens with The King of the Birds, her famous account of raising peacocks at her home in Milledgeville, Georgia. Also included are: three essays on regional writing, including The Fiction Writer and His Country and Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction; two pieces on teaching literature, including Total Effect and the 8th Gr

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Book SynopsisOliver Sacks was born in 1933 in London and was educated at the 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 SynopsisTHE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER - A SUNDAY TIMES FILM & TV BOOK OF THE YEAR'Razor-sharp and as funny as I May Destroy You ... A gifted writer' Sunday Times 'A remarkable talent' Guardian 'A perfect truth-teller of our time' ELLE 'Leaps off the page' Observer 'Comic and devastating' New York Times 'A magnificent thinker' gal-dem 'A must-read' Metro 'Your self-help bible' Sunday Times***A BEST AUTUMN READ in Vogue, Vulture, Time Magazine, Observer, Entertainment Weekly, Bustle and LitHub ***______________________________________________From the brilliant mind of the creator and star of I May Destroy You and Chewing Gum comes a passionate declaration against fitting in.Michaela Coel's MacTaggart Lecture touched a lot of people with her striking revelations about race, class and gender. But in the end, the person most impacted was Coel herself. Building on this speech, Misfits immerses readers in her deeply personal vision through powerful allegory and anecdotes - from her East London upbringing to her discovery of theatre and love for storytelling.With inspiring insight and wit, she tells of her reckoning with trauma and metamorphosis into a champion for herself, inclusivity and radical honesty, and in telling her journey invites us to reflect on our own. By embracing our differences, she says, we can transform our lives. An artist to her core, Coel holds up the path of the creative as an emblem of our need to regard one another with care and respect - and transparency.Misfits is a triumphant call for honesty, empathy and inclusion. This timely, necessary book is a rousing coming-to-power manifesto dedicated to anyone who has ever worried about fitting in.

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Book SynopsisAs seen on ABC's The View • One of W magazine’s Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2023"We reserve this space for our humanity in all of its fond, ironic, elated, grief-stricken, confused glory . . . When you find yourself alone and downtrodden, when the news is too much, return to these pages. This one is for you." —from the introduction by Cole Brown and Natalie Johnson"There's something particularly special about Black Love. When you consider the history of our people, the strife and adversity we've overcome, love seems an almost illogically ambitious act of resistance." —from the foreword by John LegendFrom celebrated Black writers, creators, and thinkers—and with a foreword by John Legend—comes a collection of letters and original illustrations on the subject of Black love, a powerful and heartfelt celebration of Blackness in all its many forms.In this exquisite anthology of letters and illustrations, Cole Brown and Natalie Johnson bring together a constellation of influential Black figures to write to the people, places, and moments that mean the most to them. With a foreword from John Legend and contributions from Brontez Purnell, Morgan Jerkins, Reverend Al Sharpton, and Dr. Imani Perry, among many others, Black Love Letters is an ode to a phenomenal community: a testament to the fact that where there has been pain and suffering, there has also always been immeasurable, irrepressible joy and love.With letters from: Akili King • Reverend Al Sharpton • Alexandra Elle • Allisa Charles-Findley • Barbara Edelin • Belinda Walker • Ben Crump • Bill Whitaker • Bilquisu Abdullah • Brianna Holt • Brontez Purnell • Cole Brown • Danez Smith • Dick Parsons • Deborah Willis • Doug Jones • Douglas Kearney • Imani Perry • Jamila Woods • Jan Menafee • Jayne Allen • Jeh Charles Johnson • Jenna Wortham • Jonathan Capehart • John Legend • Joel Castón • Joy-Ann Reid • Justus Cornelius Pugh • Kwame Dawes • Lynae Vanee Bogues • Mahogany Browne • Malachi Elijah • Michael Eric Dyson • Morgan Jerkins • Nadia Owusu • Natalie Johnson • Raka Reynolds • Rhianna Jones • Chef Rōze Traore • Sojourner Brown • Tarana Burke • Tembe Denton-Hurst • Topaz Jones • Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts • VJ JenkinsTrade ReviewOne of W magazine’s Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2023“Achingly beautiful . . . Paired with Johnson’s dazzling illustrations, these letters are sure to play on your heartstrings in the best way.” —Oprah magazine“Moving . . . In times of seemingly ceaseless darkness, Black Love Letters is a celebration of the love that binds us.” —W magazine (Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2023)“This powerful collection of letters and original illustrations celebrates Black love that exists in spite of the pain and injustice our community has faced.” —The Root“A wide-ranging collection of testaments to what moves the heart.” —Kirkus Reviews"There are many books about love but precious few that are love. That's a more difficult challenge—concentrating love to words on a page, capturing love as it is, delivering it still intact. Cole, Natalie, and the many authors in Black Love Letters have done just that—distilled love to soothe your soul. I just know you'll love it like I do." —from the foreword by John Legend

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Book SynopsisA decal is a copy, a transfer of forms and knowledge, something that sticks and leaves a mark. Lessons of Decal meditates on these transfers, on writing and making art, and on the many voices and art works that teach us how to read and think and be. Using personal reflections, close readings, and poetic interventions, Lessons of Decal gathers a series of passionate and playful essays that treat Form as their side-kick, experimenting with the confusing, unpredictable and pleasurable side of language along the way. Together, they make an impassioned call for nuance, curiosity, messiness, attentiveness, and pleasure. Lessons of Decal is a defence of complexity and confusion, across art and life. For Fans Of: Maggie Nelson, Lisa Robertson, Nuar Alsadir

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Book SynopsisThe Sunday Times bestseller from literary phenomenon Karl Ove Knausgaard, a love letter about the world written by a father to his unborn daughter.'Inspiring, surprising... Autumn will warm and enlighten anyone who opens their eyes to it' The TimesAutumn begins with a letter Karl Ove Knausgaard writes to his unborn daughter. He adds one short piece each day, describing the material and natural world - from twilight to the migration of birds, from Van Gogh to forgiveness - with the precision and mesmerising intensity that have become his trademark.With artwork by Vanessa Baird'This book is full of wonders... The world feels repainted' New York TimesTrade ReviewDiverse and delightful… These sharp little essays capture the wonder of things with photographic immediacy… This is an inspiring, surprising collection * The Times *Brilliantly conveys the sense you get, as a prospective parent, that the world is brand new… It’s all beautifully done. -- William Leith * Evening Standard *In Autumn, a lyrical cabaret beside the grand opera of the My Struggle books, taboo memories and forbidden feelings disrupt the grown-up project of a compendium of fatherly wisdom... Autumn glows with a radiant attachment to 'the world, as it is'... From sunshine to head-lice, it celebrates the 'dizzying intensity of being'. * The Economist *Quietly illuminates Knausgaard's profound gift for making the reader see the world in fresh and unpredictable ways. -- Stuart Evers * The Observer *This book is full of wonders… Loose teeth, chewing gum, it all becomes noble, almost holy, under Knausgaard’s patient, admiring gaze. The world feels repainted. -- Parul Sehgal * New York Times *

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Book SynopsisSummer is the fourth volume of the Seasons quartet, a collection of short prose and diaries written by a father for his youngest daughter, with stunning artwork by Anselm Kiefer.'Knausgaard unearths the mysteries of the commonplace' Observer In Summer, Karl Ove Knausgaard writes about long days full of sunlight, eating ice cream with his children, lawn sprinklers and ladybirds. He experiments with the beginnings of a novel and keeps a diary in which the small events of his family's life are recorded. Against a canvas of memories, longings, and experiences of art and literature, he searches for the meaning of moments as they pass us by.'Wondrous... There are blissful glimpses of nature's mystery and balance' Financial TimesTrade Review[Knausgaard is] endlessly curious about the world… [and] his perceptions of it are so particular. * Observer *[Knausgaard] brings it all alive in his prose, makes it shimmer. Whether intellectually parsing for meaning or playing this existential video game of political turmoil, horror, and heartache, his writing flows easily from quiet, thoughtful engagement to ecstatic communion with the world… He may be done with this quartet, the My Struggle series, and autofiction altogether, but I still want more of it. That kind of passionate literary intimacy is rare. * Los Angeles Review of Books *Engrossing… Knausgaard’s prose evokes universal themes from intimate specifics. * Publishers Weekly *Knausgaard closes his quartet of autobiographical meditations on the seasons in an appropriately verdant and optimistic fashion. . . While interrogating the nature of storytelling, he’s priming readers for a powerful, straightforward yarn. Breezy reading that’s also a commentary on breezy reading. Some trick. * Kirkus *

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Book SynopsisIn her latest work, Annie Ernaux recounts a relationship with a student thirty years her junior – an experience that transforms her, briefly, back into the ‘scandalous girl’ of her youth. When she is with him, she replays scenes she has already lived through, feeling both ageless and closer to death. Laid like a palimpsest on the present, the past’s immediacy pushes her to take a decisive step in her writing – producing, in turn, the need to expunge her lover. At once stark and tender, The Young Man is a taut encapsulation of Ernaux’s relationship to time, memory and writing.Trade Review‘[Shame and The Young Man] deserve to be read widely. Her work is self-revealing, a series of pitiless auto-autopsies….Their disparate achievements work together to illuminate something perennially fascinating about Ernaux: her relationship to revelation and visibility. These are deeply intimate books, but in another way, Ernaux brings a disquieting impersonality to her project.’ — Megan Nolan, The Times‘Annie Ernaux’s work is proof of how expertly autobiography can be done… The Young Man does offer a taste of what’s so unique and astonishing about her honesty, her intelligence, the deceptive simplicity of her narratives. And for those who have been reading her for decades, it adds invaluable information to what we have already learned about the sources of her energy and courage, about the complex connections between her life and her work, her lived experience and the grace with which she transforms memory into art.’ — Francine Prose, Guardian‘Reading her is like getting to know a friend, the way they tell you about themselves over long conversations that sometimes take years, revealing things slowly, looping back to some parts of their life over and over.’ — Joanna Biggs, London Review of Books‘Annie Ernaux is one of my favourite contemporary writers, original and true. Always after reading one of her books, I walk around in her world for months.’ — Sheila Heti, author of Pure Colour‘I find her work extraordinary.’ — Eimear McBride, author of A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing‘But the brevity has a function. Ernaux’s works aren’t coy or glancing; they’ve been sharpened to a point. Though she seems like a writer of details, each book is a vital mission, carried out with thrusting force.’ — Tobi Haslet, Harper’s‘That Ernaux can do so much — “The Young Man” tackles love, aging, desire, loss, misogyny, class and death — in such a small space is clearly the hallmark of a writer who has honed her craft to be razor sharp. It cuts to the bone.’ — Jessica Ferri, Washington Post‘Ernaux has inherited de Beauvoir’s role of chronicler to a generation.’ — Margaret Drabble, New Statesman‘Across the ample particularities of over forty years and twenty-one books, almost all short, subject-driven memoirs, Ernaux has fundamentally destabilized and reinvented the genre in French literature.’ — Audrey Wollen, The Nation‘The Young Man is another opportunity to journey with Ernaux as she peels back an experience…’ — Pat Reber, Artsfuse‘As Ernaux’s work shows, telling the story of a life always involves more than putting the facts of it in order. It means moving backward and forward through time, repeating and revisiting, uncovering old memories and fleshing out stories that have already been told. If you end up returning again and again to the same episodes, then so be it. Show them from different angles. Rearrange the order. Do whatever you must to make it new.’ — Maggie Doherty, New Republic‘Like Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary, Ernaux’s affair should be counted as one of the great liaisons of literature.... I suspect the book will become a kind of totem for lovers: a manual to help them find their centre when, like Ernaux, they are lost in love. All her books have the quality of saving frail human details from oblivion. Together they tell, in fragments, the story of a woman in the twentieth century who has lived fully, sought out pain and happiness equally and then committed her findings truthfully on paper. Her life is our inheritance.’ — Ankita Chakraborty, Guardian (praise for Getting Lost)‘Getting Lost is a feverish book. It’s about being impaled by desire, and about the things human beings want, as opposed to the things for which they settle ... it’s one of those books about loneliness that, on every page, makes you feel less alone.’ — Dwight Garner, New York Times (praise for Getting Lost)‘From the very first lines, we feel ourselves, like her, caught up in the vertigo of waiting, obsessed by the telephone that never rings, time that passes too quickly and the meetings that become less frequent. Love, death and literature are constantly intertwined in this story that plunges us into the intimacy of a couple, without ever giving us the impression of being voyeurs.’ — Pascale Frey, Elle (praise for Getting Lost)‘Ernaux has once more created a living document of existential terror and hope.’ — Catherine Taylor, Irish Times (praise for Getting Lost)

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Book SynopsisThe body as a measuring tool for planetary harm. A nervous system under increasing stress. In this urgent collection that moves from the personal to the political and back again, writer, activist, and migrant Jessica Gaitán Johannesson explores how we respond to crises. She draws parallels between an eating disorder and environmental neurosis, examines the perils of an activist movement built on non-parenthood, dissects the privilege of how we talk about hope, and more. The synapses that spark between these essays connect essential narratives of response and responsibility, community and choice, belonging and bodies. They carry vital signals.Trade Review‘The climate crisis is nerve-racking … Jessica Gaitán Johannesson’s collection of essays offers an expansive constellation of responses … Her writing resists empty answers, striving instead for ethical rigour and nuance. This is a poetic, bodily thinking. Short, fragmented lyric poems appear between each essay, intensifying and expanding the connections … It’s the kind of writing that is as bracing as it is sobering.’ -- Andy Jackson * The Saturday Paper *‘The Nerves and Their Endings is a beautifully written, original collection of essays that explores identity, place, home, and hope. These essays ask how we might not only live in a time of climate collapse, but how we might work towards a better future also — one of community, shared understanding, and tenderness, even in the face of such terrible inequality, cruelty, loss, and disaster. This is a book that’s truly necessary for our moment.’ -- Rebecca Tamás, author of Strangers: essays on the human and nonhuman‘Jessica Gaitán Johannesson “stays with the trouble” of climate, environmental, and social injustice with a searching honesty. Tangled, raw, and sparking with intelligence, The Nerves and Their Endings shows how the personal and the political, the human body and the earth’s body, are knotted together. As living, feeling, thinking beings our nervous system connects with the world’s systems. When the world is sick, we are too. [Gaitán Johannesson] challenges the tunnel vision of fear-based responses to the multiplying crises of our times, while alert to the unevenness of the suffering caused, the cushioning afforded by privilege, and the responsibility to act that this implies. She asks the hard questions and tackles them with integrity and an open heart. There are no trite answers offered here, rather, an honest exploration of what “hope” might look and feel like in these times, and why we need it in order “not to feel responsible but to ably respond”.’ -- Samantha Clark, author of The Clearing‘A pained, dedicated book, which thinks with care about how planetary, personal, and political are inseparable. It seeks out what matters, and where there is most at stake. I found its stories of ecological crisis and intimate experience absorbing, Gaitán Johannessen has a clear analytical voice and a gently deprecating sense of humour.’ -- Daisy Hildyard, author of Emergency‘The Nerves and Their Endings is both important and beautiful. Jessica Gaitán Johannesson writes compellingly about the need to view the climate crisis in a wider context. We should all be listening to her.’ -- Jessie Greengrass, author of The High House‘Through these remarkable personal essays and poetry on crisis and climate, crystal clear and unflinching, Jessica Gaitán Johannesson allows us the space to absorb and respond to our own intimate histories while considering the ways we connect (and can be of use to) to the world around us. Truly a talent, this a powerful, generous, community-minded book, and I feel wiser and more empowered for having read it.’ -- Niven Govinden, author of Diary of a Film‘The Nerves and Their Endings captures the terrifying freefall of the current moment, stripping away the illusory membrane that separates us from each other and from past and future, and showing, with remarkable elegance and intelligence, the transformative effect of that recognition.’ -- James Bradley, author of Ghost Species‘The Nerves and Their Endings beautifully presents the manifest ways our current global crisis intersects with personal experience of crises. Across a broad range of compelling and lyrical essays, Jessica generously gifts us her own narratives and knowledge, of the type that is as bodily as it is metaphysical. She has produced an emotive and detailed map from which we can learn and change, just as we must from the catastrophe itself.’ -- Alice Hattrick, author of Ill Feelings‘The Nerves and Their Endings is a beautiful book full of solidarity, grief, and love. Jessica writes with a soft, ardent touch about the climate crisis, the climate movement, and living across borders. I felt I was being spoken to by a friend and also by a poet.’ -- Yara Rodrigues Fowler, author of there are more things‘The Nerves and Their Endings is a deft, clear-eyed, and deeply felt essay collection that not only articulates the immense loss, complicity, and powerless felt in the capitalist West against the rising waters, but also the hope that enlivens good political writing always: the hope that when we look and think and move together — implicated, entangled — we grow the nerve to align in action. Jessica Gaitán Johannesson is a humane, original, and extremely talented writer, and this collection is a true pleasure to read and think with.’ -- Ellena Savage, author of Blueberries‘I devoured this bold, experimental collection of essays … Moving, funny, and fierce.’ -- Mairi Oliver & Jim Taylor * The Bookseller *‘Each line in this short book bears careful reading … an evolving, lyrical, and unrelenting analysis of the accelerating climate crisis, which in its short pages offers critique of capitalism, racism, colonialism, capitalism, racism, colonialism, patriarchy, and the contradictions within the climate movement itself.’ -- Frieda Klotz * Sunday Independent *‘Bold and deeply affecting.’ * The Skinny *‘In these elliptical, probing essays, Johannesson mines her own life – her experience of anorexia, her mother’s illness and death, her inner conflict over her work as an activist – to wrestle with larger philosophical questions about the illusion of self-sufficiency and control, the social inequities the climate crisis exposes, the ethical responsibilities inherent in bringing children into the world, and finally, what hope might look like in times like this.’ * The Sydney Morning Herald *‘These lyrical essays by bookseller Johannesson contemplate the consequences of impending climate collapse … Johannesson’s prose has a quiet, entrancing pull, and she cleverly structures her pieces to highlight unexpected connections, driving home her vision of interconnectedness. Understated and moving, this ruminative outing resonates.’ * Publishers Weekly *Praise for How We Are Translated: ‘How We Are Translated is the most contemporary of novels; set somehow both in the now and in the distant past; in one city that could be many cities, and in two different languages, though also in defiance of language, with as much focus on the silences between words as the words themselves. It’s a novel that maintains just the right balance of oddity, intimacy, and illumination. It’s a novel that anyone interested in the future of the English novel needs to read!’ -- Sara Baume, author of Spill Simmer Falter WitherPraise for How We Are Translated: ‘A novel brimming with ideas and promise.’ -- Lucy Knight * The Sunday Times *Praise for How We Are Translated: ‘One of the gentlest and most patient, humane, and quirky things I have read in a long time … Hugely original.’ -- Niamh Campbell, author of This Happy

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Book SynopsisIn Case of Loss gathers the best of Lutz Seiler's non-fiction from last twenty-five years, revealing his essays to be different to, but on a par with, his fiction and poetry. Seiler's beautifully anecdotal and associative pieces throw fascinating light on literature and his background, not least the environmental and human catastrophe of the Soviet-era mining in the community he grew up in, ‘the tired villages . . . beneath which lay the ore, uranium.’ Other essays focus on poetry, including his discovery of poetry during his military service and pieces on German poets, including Ernst Meister, Jürgen Becker and Peter Huchel, whose former house, outside Berlin, is now home to Lutz Seiler, after he broke and entered it with Huchel's widow's blessing. Meanwhile, the title essay – a fascinating insight into creative process – describes Huchel's notebook, a kind of dictionary of poetic images organised by mood and location. Providing a perfect welcome in to his work as a whole, In Case of Loss sees one of Europe's most original writers speak with openness and clarity in essays full of insight, humanity and a poet's attention to the importance of often overlooked objects and lives.Trade Review‘If this book were a building, it would surely be a makeshift shack of some kind. A shelter for forgotten objects but also a workshop in which wheels are allowed to turn without always having to touch the ground. The views from the window keep changing. No sooner have you glimpsed old tank roads running past dunes in Fischland by the Baltic, than you’re somehow looking out from a hotel room in Los Angeles, or gazing over a lawn, which at first lies outside a proscribed poet’s house in a remote forest, and is then transported to a cultural centre in Rome. There’s a village too, still in the GDR, where everyone is tired thanks to the Cold War decision to convert it into a vast uranium mine. This is an exceptional and absorbing book, in which Lutz Seiler successfully recovers and also recreates the narrative of our times.’ Patrick Wright ---- 'It is never about reconstructing. Memory does not bring back what was forgotten. Indeed, the person who remembers doesn't even know for sure that what is remembered ever existed. . . Seiler's inimitable style as a storyteller, the wilful waywardness and weight of what he has to say, the intensity (and personal tact) of his engagement with the landscapes of others' poetries and lives all make these essays a lively portrait of the writer surrounded by his library. Seiler sets standards for reflection in art today. At the same time, he gives us a sense of the pagan-sacramental importance of objects in poetry.' Sibylle Cramer, Suddeutsche Zeitung

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Book SynopsisFROM THE DIRECTOR AND SCREENWRITER OF WOMEN TALKING 'Fascinating, harrowing, courageous, and deeply felt, these explorations of "dangerous stories", harmful past events and trials of the soul speak to all who’ve encountered dark waters and have had to navigate them.' Margaret Atwood Sarah Polley's work as an actor, screenwriter and director is celebrated for its honesty, complexity and deep humanity. She brings all those qualities, along with her exquisite storytelling skills, to these six essays. Each one captures a piece of Polley's life as she remembers it, while at the same time examining the fallibility of memory and the embodied reactions of children and women adapting and surviving. The guiding light is the possibility of experiencing the past anew, as the person she is now but was not then. In this extraordinary book, Polley explores what it is to live in one's body, in a constant state of becoming, learning and changing. As she was advised after a catastrophic head injury - if we relinquish our protective crouch and run towards the danger, then life can be reset, reshaped and lived afresh. '[Polley is] a stunningly sophisticated observer of the world and an imperfect witness to the truth.' New York Times

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Book Synopsis''Gavin Maxwell''s trilogy is essential reading'' Sunday HeraldFifty years ago Gavin Maxwell went to live in an abandoned house on a shingle beach on the west coast of Scotland. A haven for wildlife - he named his home Camusfearna and settled there with the otters Mij, Edal and Teko.Ring of Bright Water chronicles Gavin Maxwell''s first ten years with the otters and touched the hearts of readers the world over, brilliantly evoking life with these playful animals in this natural paradise. Two further volumes followed bringing the story full circle telling of the difficult last years and the final abandonment of the settlement.For the first time the entire trilogy is available in a single narrative in this beautifully presented collection.''If you like your wildlife, this is a must-read'' Reader Review''For lovers of otters this is an admirable compilation'' Reader Review''You will fall in love with Scotland'' Reader ReviewTrade Review"Gavin Maxwell's trilogy is essential reading" - Sunday Herald"

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Book SynopsisThe global turmoil of the late 1980s and early 1990s severely tested every analyst and commentator. Few wrote with such insight as Christopher Hitchens about the large events - or with such discernment and wit about the small tell-tale signs of a disordered culture. First published in 1993, the writings in For the Sake of Argument range from the political squalor of Washington to the twilight of Stalinizm in Prague, from the Jewish quarter of Damascus in the aftermath of the Gulf War to the embattled barrios of Central America. Hitchens provides re-assessments of Graham Greene, P. G. Woodhouse and C. L. R. James, and his rogues' gallery gives us portraits of Henry Kissinger, Mother Theresa and P. J. O'Rouke. The addition of pieces on political assassination in America, as well as a devastating indictment of the evisceration of politics by pollsters and spin doctors, and an entertaining celebration of booze and fags, complete this outstanding collection from a writer of unequalled talent.Trade ReviewDisplays the intelligence, invective and stubborn common sense Mr Hitchens brings to his commentaries, be they about the political scene in Washington, the soap-opera travail of the British Royal family or a novel by George Eliot. * New York Times *Hitchens rejoices without inhibition in the pleasure of hating and knows that satire is murder by other means... A pen like this is more lethal than most swords. * The Observer *The fiercely independent-minded Hitchens provides reams of fuel for intellectual conflagration, couched in the luxurious excess of humour... progressive journalism as it was meant to be. * The Nation *The test of this kind of book is for the reader to be able to open it anywhere and be drawn into the argument; it's a test that Hitchens passes time and time again... He can be devilishly funny, but he is also capable of writing with acid seriousness. * Independent on Sunday *Table of Contents1: Where Were You Standing? 2: On the Imagination of Conspiracy 3: Contempt for the Little Colony 4: The State Within the State 5: Voting in the Passive Voice 6: The Hate that Dare Not Speak Its Name 7: A Pundit Who Need Never Dine Alone 8: Hard on the Houseboy 9: New Orleans in a Brown Shirt 10: Rioting in Mount Pleasant 11: Billionaire Populism 12: The Clemency of Clinton 13: Clinton as Rhodesian 14: Bill's Bills in Miami 15: Realpolitik in the Gulf: A Game Gone Tilt 16: Churchillian Delusions 17: No End of a Lesson 18: Befriending the Kurds 19: Arise, Sir Norman 20: Jewish in Damascus 21: Songs Fit For Heroes 22: Hating Sweden 23: Squeezing Costa Rica 24: The Saviour 25: Tio Sam 26: The Autumn of Patriarch 27: Third Thoughts 28: Cretinismo Eroico 29: The Twilight of Panzerkommunismus 30: Police Mentality 31: On the Road to Timsoara 32: Bricks in the Wall 33: The Free Market Cargo Cult 34: Now Neo-conservatives Perish 35: Appointment in Sarajevo 36: 'Society' and Its Enemies 37: Credibility Politics: Sado-Monetarist Economics 38: Union Jackshirt: Ingham's Conservative Chic 39: Neil Kinnock: Defeat Without Honour 40: Bribing and Twisting 41: How's the Vampire? 42: Charlie's Angel 43: Unhappy Families 44: Princess of Dysfunction 45: New York Intellectuals and the Prophet Outcast 46: Clubland Intellectuals 47: The 'We' Fallacy 48: Shouting Anarchy 49: Politically Correct 50: Friend of Promise 51: Booze and Fags 52: Nixon: Maestro of Resentment 53: Kissinger: A Touch of Evil 54: Berlin's Mandate for Palestine 55: Ghoul of Calcutta 56: The Life of Johnson 57: A Grave Disappointment All Round 58: Too Big For His Boot 59: P.J. O'Rourke: Not Funny Enough 60: Not Funny Enough (2) 61: Warhol in One Dimension 62: Siding with Rushdie 63: Goya's Radical Pessimism 64: Degenerate Art 65: James Baldwin: Humanity First 66: Updike on the Make 67: P.G. Wodehouse in Love, Poverty and War 68: Greene: Where the Shadow Falls 69: Kazuo Ishiguro 70: Victor Serge 71: C.L.R James 72: In Defence of Daniel Deronda

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Book SynopsisThese new translations present Plato''s remarkable dramatization of the momentous events surrounding the trial of Socrates in 399 BC, on charges of irreligion and corrupting the young. The Euthyphro, Defence of Socrates, and Crito form a dramatic and thematic sequence, raising fundamental questions about the basis of moral, religious, legal, and political obligation. Plato explores these issues with a freshness and directness that have never been surpassed. In the Defence of Socrates, Plato seeks not only to clear his master''s name, but also to defend the whole Socratic way of life, and therefore philosophy itself. The result is an oratorical masterpiece. The Euthyphro, an inquiry into the nature of piety, probes the relationship between religion and morality. The Crito discusses the citizen''s obligation to the state, in the context of a life-or-death issue confronting Socrates himself - whether or not to escape from prison. David Gallop''s Introduction provides a stimulating philos

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Book SynopsisSimon Critchley discovers a brilliant text on the ancient art of memory and a cache of astrological charts predicting the deaths of various philosophers in the archives of a deceased philosopher friend of his. Among them is a chart for Critchley himself, laying out in great detail the course of his life and eventual demise.Trade Review‘Memory Theatre is a brilliant one-of-a-kind mind game occupying a strange frontier between philosophy, memoir and fiction. Simon Critchley beguiles as he illuminates.’ — David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas‘With a sense of mischief combined with surprising reverie, Simon Critchley has braided together ideas about memory from the past with the latest thinking about unreliable narrative, altered states and the mysteries of consciousness. Memory Theatre is a tantalising, textual Moebius strip – philosophy, autobiography and fiction twisted together.’ — Marina Warner, author of Stranger Magic‘Simon Critchley is a figure of quite startling brilliance, and I can never begin to guess what he’ll do next, only that it is sure to sustain and nourish my appetite for his voice. His overall project may be that of returning philosophical inquiry, and “theory”, to a home in literature, yet without surrendering any of its incisive power, or ethical urgency. ... I read Memory Theatre and loved it.’ — Jonathan Lethem, author of Dissident Gardens‘Novella or essay, science-fiction or memoir? Who cares. Chris Marker, Adolfo Bioy Casares and Frances Yates would all have been proud to have written Memory Theatre.’ — Tom McCarthy, author of C‘A strange, affecting and stimulating book that’s both a philosophical history and a personal memoir. Sifting through the archives of a dead friend, Critchley takes a fascinating journey through the philosophy and history of memory, and the technologies of remembering dreamed up by thinkers since classical times.’ — Hari Kunzru, author of Gods Without Men‘This is a remarkable [fiction] debut: rich, profound and clever, but not oppressively so, and often very funny.’ — Nicholas Lezard, Guardian

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Book SynopsisSt Augustine, bishop of Hippo, was one of the central figures in the history of Christianity, and City of God is one of his greatest theological works. Written as an eloquent defence of the faith at a time when the Roman Empire was on the brink of collapse, it examines the ancient pagan religions of Rome, the arguments of the Greek philosophers and the revelations of the Bible. Pointing the way forward to a citizenship that transcends the best political experiences of the world and offers citizenship that will last for eternity, City of God is one of the most influential documents in the development of Christianity.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 introducTable of ContentsCity of GodChronologyIntroductionFurther ReadingTranslator's NoteArrangements and Contents of the City of GodAbbreviations Used in ReferencesConcerning the City of God, Against the PagansPart IBook IBook IIBook IIIBook IVBook VBook VIBook VIIBook VIIIBook IXBook XPart IIBook XIBook XIIBook XIIIBook XIVBook XVBook XVIBook XVIIBook XVIIIBook XIXBook XXBook XXIBook XXIIIndex

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Book SynopsisIn this remarkable autobiography, Thomas De Quincey hauntingly describes the surreal visions and hallucinatory nocturnal wanderings he took through London-and the nightmares, despair, and paranoia to which he became prey-under the influence of the then-legal painkiller laudanum. Forging a link between artistic self-expression and addiction, Confessions seamlessly weaves the effects of drugs and the nature of dreams, memory, and imagination. First published in 1821, it paved the way for later generations of literary drug users, from Baudelaire to Burroughs, and anticipated psychoanalysis with its insights into the subconscious.Trade Review“Mind-blowingly modern . . . [De Quincey’s] poetic depictions of the wild hallucinations that punctuated his years with the drug transfixed his contemporaries. To us, though, his story is revelatory mostly for its eerie familiarity.” —The New York Times Book Review“De Quincey’s rather majestic, classically learned and singular style inspires every page of his writing. . . . The self-controlled equanimity of this classic volume is little short of miraculous.” —The Guardian

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Book SynopsisThe Philokalia is a collection of texts on prayer and the spiritual life, written between the fourth and fifteenth centuries by masters of the Orthodox Christian tradition. First published in Greek in 1782, translated into Slavonic and later into Russian, this is the first complete translation into English. It is made from the original Greek, and will be completed in five volumes.Volume IV contains some of the most important writings in the entire collection. St Symeon the New Theologian speaks about the conscious experience of the Holy Spirit and about the vision of the divine and uncreated Light. St Gregory of Sinai provides practical guidance concerning the life of the Hesychast and the use of the Jesus Prayer. St Gregory Palamas discusses the distinction between the essence and the energies of God.

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Book SynopsisFrantz Fanon wrote in 1961 that 'Decolonisation is always a violent phenomenon,' meaning that the violence of colonialism can only be counteracted in kind. As colonial legacies linger today, what are the ways in which we can disentangle literary translation from its roots in imperial violence? 24 writers and translators from across the world share their ideas and practices for disrupting and decolonising translation.“For the past few years, I’ve written and rewritten this line in journals and proposals: literary translation is a tool to make more vivid the relationships between Afro-descendent people in the Americas and around the world.” - Layla Benitez James

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Book SynopsisA wide-ranging collection of essays written by the award-winning writer and historian over his forty-year career, chosen by the man himself.

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Book SynopsisAs museums worldwide shuttered in 2020 because of the novel coronavirus, New York-based cultural strategist András Szántó conducted a series of interviews with an international group of museum leaders. In a moment when economic, political, and cultural shifts are signaling the start of a new era, the directors speak candidly about the historical limitations and untapped potential of art museums. Each of the twenty-eight dialogues in this book explores a particular topic of relevance to art institutions today, and tomorrow. What emerges from the series of in-depth conversations is a composite portrait of a generation of museum leaders working to make institutions more open, democratic, inclusive, experimental and experiential, technologically savvy, culturally polyphonic, attuned to the needs of their visitors and communities, and concerned with addressing the defining issues of the societies around them. The dialogues offer glimpses of how museums around the globe are undergoing an accelerated phase of reappraisal and reinvention. CONVERSATION PARTNERS: Marion Ackermann, Cecilia Alemani, Anton Belov, Meriem Berrada, Daniel Birnbaium, Tom Campbell, Tania Cohen, Rhana Devenport, Maria Mercedes Gonzales, Max Hollein, Sandra Jackson-Dumont, Mami Kataoka, Brian Kennedy, Koyo Kouoh, Sonia Lawson, Adam Levine, Victoria Noorthoorn, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Anne Pasternak, Adriano Pedrosa, Suhanya Raffel, Axel Ruger, Katrina Sedwick, Franklin Sirmans, Eugene Tan, Phil Tinari, Marc-Olivier Wahler, Marie-Cécile Zinsou

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Book SynopsisThe Arabic word sumud is often loosely translated as ''steadfastness'' or ''standing fast.'' It is, above all, a Palestinian cultural value of everyday perseverance in the face of Israeli occupation. Sumud is both a personal and collective commitment; people determine their own lives, despite the environment of constant oppressions imposed upon them. This anthology spans the 20th and 21st centuries of Palestinian cultural history, and highlights writing from 2021-2024. The collection of writing and art features work from forty-six contributors including: Dispatches from Hossam Madhoun, co-founder of Gaza''s Theatre for Everybody, as he survives the post-October 2023 war on Gaza; novelist Ahmed Masoud with ''Application 39,'' a sci-fi short story about a Dystopian bid for the Olympics; Sara Roy and Ivar Ekeland with ''The New Politics of Exclusion: Gaza as Prologue,'' an analysis of Israel''s divide and conquer policies of fragmentation; historian Ilan Pappe with a review of Tahrir Hamdi''s book, Imagining Palestine, in which he unpacks the relationship between culture and resistance; essayist Lina Mounzer with ''Palestine and the Unspeakable,'' an offering on the language used to dehumanize Palestinians; and poetry by the next generation of poets who have inherited the mantle of the late Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008). The essays, stories, poetry, art and personal narrative collected in Sumud: A New Palestinian Reader is a rich riposte to those who would denigrate Palestinians'' aspirations for a homeland. It also serves as a timely reminder of culture''s power and importance during occupation and war.

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Book Synopsis I have the simplest tastes, remarked Oscar Wilde. I am always satisfied with the best. In this superlative collection of quotations by the great Irish playwright and wit, readers will find the very best of Wilde''s scintillating comments on art, human nature, morals, society, politics, history, and numerous other subjects. Epigrams, aphorisms, and other bon mots gleaned from Wilde''s enduringly popular plays, essays, and conversation offer amusing, thought-provoking observations that resonate with truth and profundity beneath their comic surface. Widely acknowledged as the most brilliant talker of his age, Wilde once explained to André Gide, I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works. This fine collection of nearly 400 quotes, organized by category, contains quotations from both his works and his conversation, including gems from his personal life with which even devotees may be unfamiliar. The result is a splendid introduction to Wilde''s mind and personality, embodied in a feast of the English language''s most brilliant and perceptive witticisms.

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Book SynopsisThe Penguin Classics edition of Jonathan Swift''s savagely satirical A Modest Proposal and Other Writings is edited with an introduction and notes by Carol Fabricant.To ease poverty in Ireland by eating the children of the poor was the satirical ''solution'' suggested by Jonathan Swift in his essay ''A Modest Proposal'' (1729). Here Swift unleashes the full power of his ironic armoury and corrosive wit, finding his targets - the British ruling class and avaricious landlords, and the brutalized Irish, complicit in their own oppression - with deadly precision. His masterly essay is accompanied by a generous selection of prose works, among them pamphlets attacking British rule in his native Ireland, periodical essays critiquing the new capitalist and military classes, a journal detailing his political activities in London, a loving tribute to his beloved ''Stella'' after her death and pieces on such diverse subjects as the absurdities of astrology, the joys of punning an

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Book SynopsisOne of the most powerful, perceptive and influential works of criticism in Western literary history In his near-contemporary account of classical Greek tragedy, Aristotle examines the dramatic elements of plot, character, language and spectacle that combine to produce pity and fear in the audience, and asks why we derive pleasure from this apparently painful process. Taking examples from the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, the Poetics introduced into literary criticism such central concepts as mimesis (''imitation''), hamartia (''error'') and katharsis (''purification''). Aristotle explains how the most effective tragedies rely on complication and resolution, recognition and reversals. The Poetics has informed thinking about drama ever since.Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Malcolm HeathTable of ContentsTranslated with an Introduction and Notes by Malcolm HeathIntroduction1. Human culture, poetry and the Poetics2. Imitation3. Aristotle's history of poetry4. The analysis of tragedy5. Plot: the basics6. Reversal and recognition7. The best kinds of tragic plot8. The pleasures of tragedy9. The other parts of tragedy10. Tragedy: miscellaneous aspects11. Epic12. Comedy13. Further reading14. Reference conventionsNotes to the IntroductionSynopsis of the PoeticsPOETICSNotes to the translation

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Book SynopsisPlutarch traces the fortunes of Athens through nine lives - from Theseus, its founder, to Lysander, its Spartan conqueror - in this seminal workWhat makes a leader? For Plutarch the answer lay not in great victories, but in moral strengths. In these nine biographies, taken from his Parallel Lives, Plutarch illustrates the rise and fall of Athens through nine lives, from the legendary days of Theseus, the city''s founder, through Solon, Themistocles, Aristides, Cimon, Pericles, Nicias and Alcibiades, to the razing of its walls by Lysander. Plutarch ultimately held the weaknesses of its leaders responsible for the city''s fall. His work is invaluable for its imaginative reconstruction of the past, and profound insights into human life and achievement. This edition of Ian Scott-Kilvert''s seminal translation, fully revised with a new introduction and notes by John Marincola, now also contains Plutarch''s attack on the first historian, ''On the Malice of Herodotus'

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Book SynopsisA daring critique of communism and how it had gone wrong behind the Iron Curtain, Camus' essay examines the revolutions in France and Russia, and argues that since they were both guilty of producing tyranny and corruption, hope for the future lies only in revolt without revolution. 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.

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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.

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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 '

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Book SynopsisIn these timeless and witty essays George Orwell explores the English love of reading about a good murder in the papers (and laments the passing of the heyday of the ''perfect'' murder involving class, sex and poisoning), as well as unfolding his trenchant views on everything from boys'' weeklies to naughty seaside postcards.

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Book SynopsisOrwell was one of the most celebrated essayists in the English language, and there are quite a few of his essays which are probably better known than any of his other writings apart from Aminal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four.Table of ContentsIntroduction Note on the Text Select Bibliography A Chronology of George Orwell Selected Essays Shooting an elephant (1936) Inside the whale (1940) Charles Dickens (1940) Boys' weeklies (1940) The art of Donald McGill (1941) Wells, Hitler and the world state (1941) Rudyard Kipling (1942) Raffles and Miss Blandish (1944) In defence of P.G. Wodehouse (1945) Notes on nationalism (1945) The prevention of literature (1946) Decline of the English murder (1946) Politics and the English language (1946) Confessions of a book reviewer (1946) Why I write (1946) Politics vs literature: an examination of Gulliver's Travels (1946) How the poor die (1946) Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool (1947) Writers and Leviathan (1948) Explanatory Notes

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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

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Book SynopsisGUARDIAN MUST READ BOOKS OF 2019 ''The you-gotta-read-this anthology'' Stylist''This collection showcases the joy, empathy and fierceness needed to adopt the country as one''s own'' Publishers Weekly An urgent collection of essays exploring what it''s like to be othered in an increasingly divided America. From Trump''s proposed border wall and travel ban to the marching of White Supremacists in Charlottesville, America is consumed by tensions over immigration and the question of which bodies are welcome. In this much-anticipated follow-up to the bestselling UK edition, hailed by Zadie Smith as ''lively and vital'', editors Nikesh Shukla and Chimene Suleyman hand the microphone to an incredible range of writers whose humanity and right to be in the US is under attack. By turns heartbreaking and hilarious, troubling and uplifting, the essays in The Good Immigrant USA come Trade ReviewRevelatory, sad, uplifting and very, very angry * Stylist *The you-gotta-read-this anthology * Stylist *Immigration has become a hot-button issue in America for all the wrong reasons (see: racists), and The Good Immigrant is the perfect antidote to all the hate. Through essays from first- and second-generation immigrants like Jenny Zhang, Chigozie Obioma, Fatimah Asghar and more, you'll get a whole new perspective on everything from '90s fashion to Uber drivers * PopSugar *There are no weak links in this well-curated book * Kirkus Reviews *The strength of this collection is in its diversity - of gender, sexuality, privilege, experience, and writing style. A gift for anyone who understands or wants to learn about the breadth of experience among immigrants to the US, this collection showcases the joy, empathy, and fierceness needed to adopt the country as one's own * Publishers Weekly *This collection is a resounding success on multiple fronts. Its righteous rage is perfectly matched by its literary rewards . . . a surround-sound chorus that bristles with an unpredictable, electric energy . . . Each essay is a tantalizing introduction - and invitation - to the larger body of work these artists have already created and will continue to make long after this moment passes. What unites this defiant chorus of immigrant voices is best expressed in this variation on an enduring line by Langston Hughes: 'We, too, sing America' * Washington Post *A well-curated set of essays from writers and artists . . . This book does what books can do better than other media: it devotes space to the shadowy ranges, to the subjects that are not easily graspable - the ineffable, varied, certainly never simple experiences of being an immigrant -- Rachel Khong * Guardian *The UK edition of The Good Immigrant, featuring essays by Riz Ahmed, Himesh Patel and Bim Adewunmi was an urgent, essential book. The US edition is no different. A whole new set of essays by first and second-generation immigrants explore what it's like to be othered in an increasingly divided America, touching on topics including memory, fashion and heritage * Stylist *This is a book that lays bare the fissures, cracks and cavernous ravines that ripple through American identity politics, offering sensitive, generous debate and genuine insight -- Jeffrey Boakye * Observer *The Good Immigrant is a lively and vital intervention into the British cultural conversation around race. Instead of statistics and dogma we find real human experience and impassioned argument - and it's funnyand moving, too. * Zadie Smith *

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Book SynopsisBY THE WINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR JOURNALISM 2023A powerful collection of journalism on race, racism and Black life and death from one of the nation's leading political voices.''An outstanding journalist and chronicler.'' BERNARDINE EVARISTO''Fused with truth, power and illumination.'' DAVID LAMMY''Every citizen and citizen journalist should have a copy.'' LEMN SISSAY''In short, it is a public service.'' NESRINE MALIKFor the last three decades Gary Younge has had a ringside seat during the biggest events and with the most significant personalities to impact the black diaspora: accompanying Nelson Mandela on his first election campaign, joining revellers on the southside of Chicago during Obama's victory, entering New Orleans days after hurricane Katrina or interviewing Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Maya Angelou and Stormzy. He has witnessed how much change is possible and the power of systems to thwart thTrade Review'A voice of our times.' - Stuart Hall, on STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND'An indispensable guide to 'identity' in politics, and a terrific read.' - Margaret Atwood, on WHO ARE WE?

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

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Book SynopsisIn a dazzlingly original work of non-fiction, the Pulitzer-Prize winning author of The Underground Railroad recreates the exuberance, the chaos, the promise, and the heartbreak of New York. Here is a literary love song that will entrance anyone who has lived in - or spent time - in the greatest of American cities.A masterful evocation of the city that never sleeps, The Colossus of New York captures the city''s inner and outer landscapes in a series of vignettes, meditations, and personal memories. Colson Whitehead conveys with almost uncanny immediacy the feelings and thoughts of longtime residents and of newcomers who dream of making it their home; of those who have conquered its challenges; and of those who struggle against its cruelties. Whitehead''s style is as multilayered and multifarious as New York itself: Switching from third person, to first person, to second person, he weaves individual voices into a jazzy musical composition thTrade ReviewPitch-perfect . . . Utterly authentic . . . The Colossus of New York is quite simply the most delicious thirteen bites of the Big Apple I've taken in ages * Washington Post *A tour de force * New York Times Book Review *

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Book Synopsis''Gaiman is god in the universe of story'' Stephen Fry ''A perfect antidote to cynicism and a paean to the power of reading'' Observer--- ''Literature does not occur in a vacuum. It cannot be a monologue. It has to be a conversation'' This collection will draw you in to exchanges on making good art and Syrian refugees, the power of a single word and playing the kazoo with Stephen King, writing about books, comics and the imagination of friends, being sad at the Oscars and telling lies for a living. Here Neil Gaiman opens our minds to the people he admires and the things he believes might just mean something - and welcomes us to the conversation too.''If this book came to you during a despairing night, by dawn, you would believe in ideas and hope and humans again'' Caitlin MoranNEIL GAIMAN. WITH STORIES COME POSSIBILITIES. Trade ReviewIf this book came to you during a despairing night, by dawn, you would believe in ideas and hope and humans again -- Caitlin MoranGaiman is god in the universe of story and for millions this will be a holy book -- Stephen FryLike a series of thoughts for the day, it's a perfect antidote to cynicism and a paean to the power of reading * Observer *Neil Gaiman shows that while we might come to his writing for gods and monsters, actually all human life is here * Independent *Read every single word. Some of this stuff you won't care about at all - until Gaiman explains to you why it matters. Then, you will care. You will care deeply. You might even care forever -- Elizabeth Gilbert[Gaiman] is 100% pure writer. He has the ability to stimulate your thought process by expertly communicating his own -- Craig FergusonPart archive, part hymnal, full of devotion and erudition, this is also a glorious love letter to reading, to writing, to dreaming, to an entire genre -- Junot DiazAn intimate, erudite and illuminating conversation with one of the great minds of fantasy -- Guillermo del ToroProves the former journalist has lost none of his touch for astute observations * Metro *[Gaiman] is charming, enthusiastic, full of wonder * Guardian *

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Book Synopsis'Joins the dots in a neglected narrative of female scientists, visionaries and code-breakers' ObserverHow is artificial intelligence changing the way we live and love? Now with a new chapter, this is the eye-opening new book from Sunday Times bestselling author Jeanette Winterson.Drawing on her years of thinking and reading about AI, Jeanette Winterson looks to history, religion, myth, literature, politics and, of course, computer science to help us understand the radical changes to the way we live and love that are happening now.With wit, compassion and curiosity, Winterson tackles AI's most interesting talking points - from the weirdness of backing up your brain and the connections between humans and non-human helpers to whether it's time to leave planet Earth.'Very funny... A kind of comparative mythology, where the hype and ideology of cutting-edge tech is read through the lens of far older stories' Spectator'Refreshingly optimistic' GuardianA 'Books of 2021' Pick in the Guardian, Financial Times, Daily Telegraph and Evening StandardTrade ReviewThought provoking and necessary * Guardian *Briskly and breezily, it [12 Bytes] joins the dots in a neglected narrative of female scientists, visionaries and code-breakers -- Claire Armitstead * Observer *12 punchy, fact-laden and witty essays... Her writing engulfs you in lucid, fairytale-like realities that take you on gender-bending and time-warped explorations of religion, love, sex, and sexual identity. -- Charlotte Cripps * Independent *An unusual and entertaining read...[12 Bytes] is inflected with the same delightful, dry humour as the rest of her work... With its imaginative, insightful and wide-ranging essays, 12 Bytes will undoubtedly prompt readers to begin their own circlings around AI. -- Laura Grace Simpkins * New Scientist *Aspects of this AI future are frightening...[and] for any non-scientist wanting to understand the challenges and possibilities of this brave new world, I can't think of a more engaging place to start. -- Stephanie Merritt * Observer *

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Book SynopsisA selection of Michel de Montaigne's most profound, searching essays, in a new translation and stunning hardback edition featuring an introduction by Yiyun Li 'I myself am the subject of my book'. So wrote Montaigne in the introductory note to his Essays, the book that marked the birth of the modern essay form. In works of probing intelligence and idiosyncratic observation, Montaigne moved from intimate personal reflection to roving theories of the conduct of kings and cannibals, the effects of sorrow and fear, and the fallibility of human memory and judgement. This new selection of Montaigne's most ingenious essays appears in a lucid new translation by the prize-winning David Coward. What Do I Know? offers the modern reader profound insight into a great Renaissance mind.Trade Review'Read Montaigne in order to live' - Gustave Flaubert'I defy any reader of Montaigne not to put down the book at some point and say with incredulity: How did he know all that about me?' - The Times'[Montaigne] was the first who had the courage to say as an author what he felt as a man' - William HazlittTable of ContentsPART ONEMONTAIGNE ON MONTAIGNE 1 On Sorrow 2 On how our Actions are to be judged by the Intention 3 On Idling 4 On Liars 5 That we should not be considered happy until we are deadPART TWOON THE PURSUIT OF REASON 6 On Fear 7 To tell true from false, it is folly to rely on our own capacities 8 How we can cry and laugh at the same thing 9 On Solitude 10 On the Uncertainty of our Judgement 11 On DrunkennessPART THREEON GOVERNANCE AND GOVERNORS 12 On Cannibals 13 On the Inequality that exists between us 14 On Sleep 15 On our lease of life 16 On Carriages

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