Essays Books
Canongate Books Antlers of Water: Writing on the Nature and
Book Synopsis'Luminous' The Times'Beautiful' Caught by the RiverBringing together contemporary Scottish writing on nature and landscape, this inspiring collection takes us from walking to wild swimming, from red deer to pigeons and wasps, from remote islands to back gardens, through prose, poetry and photography.Edited and introduced by Kathleen Jamie, and with contributions from Amy Liptrot, Jim Crumley, Chitra Ramaswamy, Malachy Tallack, Amanda Thomson and many more, Antlers of Water urges us to renegotiate our relationship with the more-than-human world, in writing which is by turns celebratory, radical and political.Trade ReviewSplendid . . . Read, and treasure what we have while we have it * * The Times * *A selection of luminous essays, poems and visual art . . . The most intuitive pieces reflect that nature is not something to be explored on weekends and in nice weather but through everyday rituals . . . [written with] a gallows humour and deftness of touch * * The Times * *Varied and unexpected . . . The Scotland we find here is a bracingly complex place . . . Yields some very fine writing * * TLS * *Essential . . . With fine contributions from a variety of diverse writers and artists, this is more than a celebration of the natural world; it is a call to action. From placenames to field notes, creatures to flora; bodies of water to stretches of land - this is a raw, exquisite reckoning, free from blinkers, full of love and loss. To protect something, we must see it. These contributors show us our world, one still so full of hope -- Kerri ní Dochartaigh * * Irish Times * *Beautiful . . . A series of authentic experiences, each individual immersing themselves in nature . . . Antlers of Water is a warm invitation to reimagine your intimacy to nature, whether that's within the confinements of a communal city garden or on an island surrounded by the vast ocean. But whilst we should enjoy it, in whatever manner we please, we must not forget we must also take care of it * * Caught by the River, Book of the Month * *Features some fine writing on Scotland's environment * * Independent * *Rich and intriguing . . . Illuminating, insightful and - even more important - necessary, there's something for everyone here, whether you're a devoted Munro bagger and birdwatcher or an occasional countryside visitor * * Herald * *Provides relief and inspiration . . . Open-hearted . . . The knowledge that there is something bigger than ourselves, is a relief. How deep the water is, how old the mountains. Scotland is wild. I'm going out to look again * * Scotsman * *Reveals why fresh awareness of wildlife and landscape should be cherished * * Sunday Post * *A bravura collection of essays on the splendour and wildness of the Scottish landscape, Antlers of Water is edited by the acclaimed Kathleen Jamie and draws together a stellar list of contributors * * Waterstones, Best Books of the Year * *
£10.44
Penguin Books Ltd Why We Read
Book SynopsisWhy read non-fiction? Is it just to find things out? Or is it for pleasure, challenge, adventure, meaning? Here, in seventy new pieces, some of the most original writers and thinkers of our time give their answers.From Hilton Als on reading as writing's dearest companion to Nicci Gerrard on reading for her life; from Malcolm Gladwell on entering the minds of others to Michael Lewis on books as secret discoveries; and from Lea Ypi on the search for freedom to Slavoj Žižek on violent readings, each offers their own surprising perspective on the simple act of turning a page. The result is a celebration of seeing the world in new ways - and of having our minds changed.
£8.54
Verso Books Analogue Africa
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£18.70
Verso Books The Hard Road to Renewal: Thatcherism and the
Book SynopsisStuart Hall was one of the most insightful and incisive critics of the Thatcher era. In this essential selection of his essays during the period, he elaborates both how Thatcher's rise to power exploited weakness in the left, but also how the left itself can refresh itself in the shadow of defeat. This collection is as vital today as it was in 1988. Through the essays Hall shows how Thatcher has exploited discontent with Labour's record in office and with aspects of the welfare state to devise a potent authoritarian, populist ideology. This ranges through the formation of the SDP, inner city riots, the Falklands War and the signficance of Antonio Gramsci. He suggests that Thatcherism is skillfully employing the restless and individualistic dynamic of consumer capitalism to promote a swingeing programme of 'regressive modernization'.In response he elaboraties a new politics for the Left as it is with the project of the Right. Hall insists that the Left can no longer trade on inherited politics and tradition. Socialists today must be as radical as modernity itself. Valuable pointers to a new politics are identified in the experience of feminism, the campaigns of the GLC and the world-wide response to Band Aid.Trade ReviewHall's metier was to tease out the competing histories, the contradictory political, economic, and social forces condensed within a particular historical moment, an excavation of ideology he called 'conjunctural analysis.' . . . [H]is work is all too timely, for the haphazard project of neoliberalism, justified retroactively by nonsensical appeals to the 'free market,' is as advanced as the decades-long economic decline it magics away with bubbles and rhetoric -- Michael Robbins, Bookforum * [For Selected Political Writings] *Hall's work has become especially resonant as Britain has voted for a narrower identity and a more isolationist attitude to the rest of the world.... There is a generosity and literary imagination in his writing-a recognition that humans are complex, contradictory creatures shaped by, among other things, what they believe, where they live, how they shop, and who they sleep with -- New Republic * [For Selected Political Writings] *He has left us a vital legacy of intellectual passion, analytical rigor, and political prescience that should be heeded, especially now, by progressive scholars and activists -- Angela Y Davis * [For The Fateful Triangle] *Hall is a key thinker. His analysis remains profound. In these days of Brexit we need his nuanced view of identity more than ever. -- New Statesman * [For Familar Stranger] *The most significant figure on the British intellectual left over the course of the last 50 years. -- Guardian * [For Familar Stranger] *
£12.34
Everyman A Room of Ones Own
Book SynopsisA Contemporary Classics hardcover edition of Virginia Woolf's classic plea for aworld in which women are free to use their gifts. In this influential extended essay and using powerful images and memorable thought experiments -such as a fictional sister of William Shakespeare, who is as talented as her brother but limited in ways he was not -Woolf analyses the many ways in which women have been held back throughout history and still are in her own time.
£13.49
Persephone Books Ltd London War Notes
Book Synopsis
£16.00
GINGKO Essays of his Later Years
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£18.00
Allen & Unwin The Girl from Revolution Road
Book SynopsisBased on Ghazaleh Golbakhsh's experience as an Iranian immigrant growing up in New Zealand, these essays range from a childhood in war-torn Iran, including the trauma of a night spent in prison as a six-year-old, to learning English so she could make friends, to dating in the days of Corona. This is about growing up as a young woman torn between her immigrant roots and her desire to be like everyone else.The humour is sometimes offset with the more sombre reminder of the racism that has always existed in this country, from misguided quips to more serious stories of harassment. The impact of recent world events shows that, more than ever, marginalised voices are needed in our cultural discourse.
£13.49
HarperCollins Publishers Inc All Art Is Propaganda
Book SynopsisThe essential collection of critical essays from a twentieth-century master and author of 1984.As a critic, George Orwell cast a wide net.
£10.44
Little, Brown Book Group In Conclusion Dont Worry About It
Book SynopsisAdvice for graduates and reflections on staying true to yourself from the beloved Gilmore Girls actress and New York Times bestselling author of the memoir Talking as Fast as I Can and the novel Someday, Someday, Maybe.If you''re kicking yourself for not having accomplished all you should have by now, don''t worry about it. Even without any ''big'' accomplishments yet to your name, you are enough. In this expansion of the 2017 commencement speech she gave at her hometown Langley High, Lauren Graham, the beloved star of Gilmore Girls and Parenthood, reflects on growing up, pursuing your dreams, and living in the here and now. Whatever path you choose, whatever career you decide to go after, the important thing is that you keep finding joy in what you''re doing, especially when the joy isn''t finding you. In her hilarious, relatable voice, Graham reminds us to be curious and compassionate, no matter where life tak
£9.49
Harvard University Press Ecclesiastical History Volume I
Book SynopsisEusebius, Bishop of Caesarea from about AD 314, was the most important writer in the age of Constantine. His history of the Christian church from the ministry of Jesus to AD 324 is a treasury of information, especially on the Eastern centers.
£23.70
Dover Publications Inc. Notes on Nursing
Book SynopsisOutspoken writings by the founder of modern nursing record fundamentals in the needs of the sick that must be provided in all nursing. Covers such timeless topics as ventilation, noise, food, bed and bedding, light, cleanliness, and observation of the sick. Still the finest book on nursing. Co-Evolution Quarterly.
£7.12
Skyhorse Publishing Zero Gravity
Book SynopsisHis first new collection of short humor in fifteen years is classic Woody Allen. Zero Gravity is the fifth collection of comic pieces by Woody Allen, a hilarious prose stylist whose enduring appeal readers have savored since his classics Getting Even, Without Feathers, Side Effects, and Mere Anarchy. This new work combines pieces that have appeared in The New Yorker along with ten written exclusively for this book, each a comic inspiration. Whether he’s writing about horses that paint, cars that think, the sex lives of celebrities, or how General Tso’s Chicken got its name, he is always totally original, broad yet sophisticated, acutely observant, and most important, relentlessly funny. Along with titles like “Buffalo Wings Woncha Come Out Tonight” and “When Your Hood Ornament Is Nietzsche,” included in this collection is his poignant but very funny short story, "Growing Up in Manhattan.”Zero Gravity implies writing not to be taken seriously, but, as with any true humor, not all the laughs are weightlessTrade ReviewPraise for Mere Anarchy, Woody Allen's previous collection of his short humor pieces:“The stories in Mere Anarchy deliver the same joys and foibles that have been with its author from the start.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times“Uproarious . . . In each story the ornate and the vulgate slam together and make it rain polysyllabic absurdity.”—Wall Street Journal“Like the Carnegie’s one-pound sandwiches, Allen’s literary slapstick is . . . comedy on wry.”—USA Today“Brilliant neurotica . . . Unfailingly entertaining . . . [An] obsessive and seriously funny book.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review“Will put a rictus on your kisser. . . . The animating comedy is part S. J. Perelman and part borscht belt: Allen piles the ludicrous on top of the ridiculous and tops it with an acidic lemon squeeze, and then just keeps the jokes coming.”—Publishers Weekly"The topsy-turvy literary allusions pour from Allen's pen like bullets from a Gatling gun (an appropriately obscure simile), exposing the intellectual pretensions of a ragtag assortment of Allenesque everymen—endearingly unkempt nebbishes who, despite knowing their Dostoevsky, can't quite deal with the absurdities of daily life."—Booklist
£17.00
Carcanet Press Ltd A Responsibility to Awe
Book SynopsisRebecca Elson's A Responsibility to Awe reissued as a Carcanet Classic. A Responsibility to Awe is a contemporary classic, a book of poems and reflections by a scientist for whom poetry was a necessary aspect of research, crucial to understanding the world and her place in it, even as, having contracted terminal cancer, she confronted her early death. Rebecca Elson was an astronomer; her work took her to the boundary of the visible and measurable. `Facts are only as interesting as the possibilities they open up to the imagination,’ she wrote. Her poems, like her researches, build imaginative inferences and speculations, setting out from observation, undeterred by knowing how little we can know.
£11.69
Prototype Publishing Ltd. Book of Mutter
Book SynopsisBook of Mutter is a tender and disquieting meditation on the ability of writing, photography, and memory to embrace shadows while in the throesand dead calmof grief. Neither memoir, essay, nor poetry, it is an uncategorisable text that draws upon a repertoire of genres to write into and against silence.
£10.80
Oxford University Press The Histories
Book SynopsisHerodotus is not only known as the `father of history'', as Cicero called him, but also the father of ethnography; as well as charting the historical background to the Persian Wars, his curiosity also prompts frequent digression on the cultures of the peoples he introduces. While much of the information he gives has proved to be astonishingly accurate, he also entertains us with delightful tales of one-eyed men and gold-digging ants. This readable new translation is supplemented with expansive notes that provide readers the background that they need to appreciate the book in depth. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further studTable of ContentsIntroduction Textual Note Bibliography Chronology Appendices Glossary Maps Explanatory Notes Textual Notes Index of Proper Names
£10.44
Penguin Books Ltd Reflections on the Revolution in France
Book SynopsisBurke''s seminal work was written during the early months of the French Revolution, and it predicted with uncanny accuracy many of its worst excesses, including the Reign of Terror. A scathing attack on the revolution''s attitudes to existing institutions, property and religion, it makes a cogent case for upholding inherited rights and established customs, argues for piecemeal reform rather than revolutionary change - and deplores the influence Burke feared the revolution might have in Britain. Reflections on the Revolution in France is now widely regarded as a classic statement of conservative political thought, and is one of the eighteenth century''s great works of political rhetoric.Table of ContentsReflections on the Revolution in France AcknowledgmentsIntroductionBiographial NoteBurke's Prefatory NoteReflections on the Revolution in FranceNotesBibliographical Note
£10.44
Penguin Books Ltd Shooting an Elephant And Other Essays Penguin
Book Synopsis''Shooting an Elephant'' is Orwell''s searing and painfully honest account of his experience as a police officer in imperial Burma; killing an escaped elephant in front of a crowd ''solely to avoid looking a fool''. The other masterly essays in this collection include classics such as ''My Country Right or Left'', ''How the Poor Die'' and ''Such, Such were the Joys'', his memoir of the horrors of public school, as well as discussions of Shakespeare, sleeping rough, boys'' weeklies and a spirited defence of English cooking. Opinionated, uncompromising, provocative and hugely entertaining, all show Orwell''s unique ability to get to the heart of any subject.A collection of witty and incisive non-fiction, George Orwell''s Shooting an Elephant includes an introduction by Jeremy Paxman in Penguin Modern Classics.Table of ContentsWhy I write; the spike; a hanging; shooting an elephant; bookshop memories; Charles Dickens; boy's weeklies; my country right or left; looking back on the Spanish War; n defense of English cooking; good bad books; the sporting spirit; nonsense poetry; the prevention of literature; books versus cigarettes; decline of the English murder; some thoughts on the common toad; confessions of a book reviewer; politics versus literature - an examination of "Gulliver's Travels"; how the poor die; such, such were the joys; reflections on Gandhi.
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics
Book SynopsisNo philosopher has held a higher opinion of art than Hegel, yet nor was any so profoundly pessimistic about its prospects - despite living in the German golden age of Goethe, Mozart and Schiller. For if the artists of classical Greece could find the perfect fusion of content and form, modernity faced complicating - and ultimately disabling - questions. Christianity, with its code of unworldliness, had compromised the immediacy of man''s relationship with reality, and ironic detachment had alienated him from his deepest feelings. Hegel''s Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics were delivered in Berlin in the 1820s and stand today as a passionately argued work that challenged the ability of art to respond to the modern world.Table of ContentsThe range of aesthetic defined, and some objections against the philosophy of art refuted; methods of science applicable to beauty and art; the conception of artisitc beauty; historical deduction of the true idea of art in modern philosophy; division of the subject.
£10.44
Oxford University Press The Republic and The Laws
Book SynopsisCicero's The Republic is an impassioned plea for responsible government, based on Greek political theory, and written just before the civil war that ended the Roman Republic. Its sequel, The Laws, expounds the influential doctrine of Natural Law, setting out an ideal code for a reformed Roman Republic that is half in the realm of Utopia. This is the first complete English translation of both works since 1928.Trade ReviewIn his translation G. achieves a consistent vitality both in narrative... and in argument. * Michael Coffey, The Classical Review Vol.XLIX No.2 *
£7.99
Penguin Books Ltd Useful Work v. Useless Toil
Book SynopsisVisionary English Socialist and pioneer of the Arts and Crafts movement, William Morris argued that all work should be a source of pride and satisfaction, and that everyone should be entitled to beautiful surroundings no matter what their class. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.
£7.59
The University of Chicago Press Discourses on Livy
Book Synopsis"Discourses on Livy" is the founding document of modern republicanism and this English translation remains faithful to the original text. With explanatory notes, a glossary of key words and an annotated index, this version reveals Machiavelli's radical vision of a new science of politics.
£19.95
Faber & Faber Seduction and Betrayal
Book SynopsisONE OF THE WHITE REVIEW''S BEST BOOKS OF 2019Elizabeth Hardwick''s iconic essay collection Seduction and Betrayal is a radical portrait of women and literature, reissued with a new introduction by Deborah Levy.''Hardwick''s sentences are burned in my brain.'' - Susan SontagSidelined. Betrayed. Killed off. Elizabeth Hardwick dissects the history of women and literature. In her most virtuoso work of criticism, she explores the lives of the Brontës, Woolf, Eliot and Plath; the fate of literary wives such as Zelda Fitzgerald and Jane Carlyle; and the destinies of fictional heroines from Richardson''s Clarissa to Ibsen''s Nora. With fierce empathy and biting wit, Hardwick mines their childhoods, families, and personalities to probe the costs of sex, love, and marriage. Shattering the barrier between writing and life, she asks who is the seducer and who the seduced; who the victim and who the vi
£10.44
Fitzcarraldo Editions Nicotine
Book SynopsisWritten with the passion of an obsessive, Nicotine addresses a life of addiction, from the epiphany of the first drag to the perennial last last cigarette. Reflecting on his experiences as a smoker from a young age, Gregor Hens investigates the irreversible effects of nicotine on thought and patterns of behaviours. He extends the conversation with other smokers to meditations on Mark Twain and Italo Svevo, the nature of habit, the validity of hypnosis, and the most insignificant city in the United States, where he lived for far too long. With comic insight and meticulous precision, Hens deconstructs every facet of the dependency and offers a brilliant disquisition on the psychopathology of addiction.Trade Review‘If Nicotine has a literary progenitor I would say that it is In Search of Lost Time […] an extraordinary act of literary finesse […] [with] tinkling little notes of comedy […] [a] dark, lovely, funny book.’ — Joan Acocella, The New Yorker ‘[W]hen Nicotine stays dry, earthy and combustible, like a Virginia tobacco blend, it has a lot to say and says it well.’ — Dwight Garner, New York Times‘A satisfying wisp of an essay about tobacco, addiction, first cigarettes, last cigarettes, breathing, kissing, hypnosis, literature, memory, and marking time […] Nicotine is a smoke ring, blown perfectly in a single puff, or – better? – a wafting trail of vapor. Will Self contributes a foreword, a rapid monologue punctuated with vigorous little twists, as though he were grinding out a stub with yellow-stained fingers.’ — Christine Smallwood, Harper’s
£11.69
Granta Books I Was Told There'd Be Cake
Book SynopsisFrom getting locked out of her flat twice on the same day and being fired for baking a giant cookie in the shape of her boss's head, to playing bridesmaid for a friend she'd long forgotten, Sloane Crosley can do no right, despite the best of intentions. With sharp, original and irresistible storytelling that confounds expectations at every turn, Crosley recounts her victories and catastrophes, finding uproarious comedy and genuine insights in the most unpredictable places.Trade Review'I love Sloane Crosley. She's a postmodern Mary Tyler Moore, and this book is wry, generous, knowing - a perfect document of what it is to be young in today's world.' AM Homes 'Sloane Crosley is a mordant and mercurial wit. What makes her so funny is that she seems to be telling the truth, helplessly.' Jonathan Lethem 'Crosley channels David Sedaris - and Carrie Bradshaw - in a slightly cracked and often charming collection of essays recounting a suburban girl's adventures in the big city.' Vogue 'The voice feels a little like Nora Ephron's, a little like Dorothy Parker's and David Sedaris', although Crosley has a spry wistfulness that's very much her own. We applaud the arrival of a very funny writer.' Los Angeles Times
£9.49
Faber & Faber Dear Senthuran
Book Synopsis'Unlike anything I've read . . . Remarkable.' Roxane Gay'An audacious sojourn through the terror and beauty of refusing to explain yourself. ' New York TimesIn letters addressed to their friends, to members of their family - both biological and chosen - and to fellow storytellers, Akwaeke describes the shape of a life lived in overlapping realities. Through heartbreak, chronic pain, intimacy with death, becoming a beast, this is embodiment as a nonhuman: outside the boundaries imposed by expectations and legibility. This book is an account of the grueling work of realignment and remaking necessary to carve out a future for oneself.The result is a Black spirit memoir: a powerful, raw unfolding of identity.
£10.44
Penguin Books Ltd The Conquest of Gaul
Book SynopsisBetween 58 and 50BC Caesar conquered most of the area now covered by France, Belgium and Switzerland, and twice invaded Britain. This is the record of his campaigns.Caesar''s narrative offers insights into his military strategy & paints a fascinating picture of his encounters with the inhabitant of Gaul and Britain, as well as offering lively portraits of a number of key characters such as the rebel leaders and Gallic chieftains. This can also be read as a piece of political propaganda, as Caesar sets down his version of events for the Roman public, knowing that he faces civil war on his return to Rome.Table of ContentsThe Conquest of GaulIntroduction1. Roman politics in the late Republic2. Gaul and its inhabitants3. The course of the war4. Caesar the man5. Caesar as author6. Preface to second editionSuggestions for Further ReadingCaesar the Conquest of GaulBook I: The Expulsion of Intruders1. Repulse of the Helvetii (58 B.C.)2. Expulsion of Ariovistus from Gaul (58 B.C)Book II: The Conquest of the Belgic Tribes1. Collapse of the Belgic coalition (57 B.C.)2. Piecemeal conquest of the Belgic tirbes (57 B.C.)Book III: The First Rebellion1. Unsuccessful campaign in the Alps (57 B.C.)2. The fight on the Atlantic coast (56 B.C.)3. Victorious campaign in Aquitania (56 B.C.)4. Indecisive campaign against the Morini (56 B.C.)Book IV: Invasions of Germany and Britain1. Massacre of the Usipetes and Tenctheri (55 B.C.)2. The first crossing of the Rhine (55 B.C.)3. The first invasion of Britain (55 B.C.)Book V: The Second Rebellion1. The second invasion of Britain (54 B.C.)2. Destruction of Sabinus' army by the Eburones (54 B.C.)3. Attack by the Nervii on Cicero's winter camp (54 B.C.)4. Widespread revolts in northern and central Gaul (54-53 B.C.)Book VI: Operations Near the Rhine1. The Treveri routed (53 B.C.)2. The second crossing of the Rhine (53 B.C.)3. Customs and institutions of the Gauls4. Customs and institutions of the Germans5. Devastation of the country of the Eburones (53 B.C.)Book VII: The Rebellion of Vercingetorix1. The opening stage (52 B.C.)2. Siege and capture of Avaricum (52 B.C.)3. Roman reverse at Gergovia (52 B.C.)4. Vercingetorix's defeat in open warfare (52 B.C.)5. Siege and capture of Alesia (52 B.C.)Book VIII: The Final Rebellion1. Hirtius' preface2. Revolts of the Bituriges, Carnutes and Bellovaci (52-51 B.C.)3. The last encounters; capture of Uxellodunum (51 B.C.)4. Civil war impendsNotesAppendicesI. The TextII. The Roman ArmyIII. Chronological Outline of the Career of CaesarGlossary of Persons and PlacesIndex to MapsMaps:1. Northern Gaul2. Southern Gaul3. Principal tribes of South-east Britain4. The siege of Alesia
£10.44
Penguin Books Ltd Fall of the Roman Republic
Book SynopsisDramatic artist, natural scientist and philosopher, Plutarch is widely regarded as the most significant historian of his era, writing sharp and succinct accounts of the greatest politicians and statesman of the classical period. Taken from the Lives, a series of biographies spanning the Graeco-Roman age, this collection illuminates the twilight of the old Roman Republic from 157-43 bc. Whether describing the would-be dictators Marius and Sulla, the battle between Crassus and Spartacus, the death of political idealist Crato, Julius Caesar''s harrowing triumph in Gaul or the eloquent oratory of Cicero, all offer a fascinating insight into an empire wracked by political divisions. Deeply influential on Shakespeare and many other later writers, they continue to fascinate today with their exploration of corruption, decadence and the struggle for ultimate power.
£11.69
Cornerstone The 120 Days Of Sodom
Book SynopsisThe 120 Days of Sodom is the Marquis de Sade''s masterpiece. A still unsurpassed catalogue of sexual perversions and the first systematic exploration of the psychopathology of sex, it was written during Sade''s lengthy imprisonment for sexual deviancy and blasphemy and then lost after the storming of the Bastille during the French Revolution in 1789. Later rediscovered, the manuscript remained unpublished until 1936 and is now introduced by Simone de Beauvoir''s landmark essay, ''Must We Burn Sade?'' Unique in its enduring capacity to shock and provoke, The 120 Days of Sodom must stand as one of the most controversial books ever written, and a fine example of the Libertine novel, a genre inspired by eroticism and anti-establishmentarianism, that effectively ended with the French Revolution.Trade ReviewSade was one of the most radical minds in Western history, one that touched, with astonishing fusion of madness and cold rationality, on some of the most central aspects of psychic life... He remains a great, horrifying, but also vastly illuminating figure * Newsweek *
£15.29
Penguin Books Ltd Nobody Knows My Name
Book Synopsis''These essays ... live and grow in the mind'' James Campbell, IndependentBeing a writer, says James Baldwin in this searing collection of essays, requires ''every ounce of stamina he can summon to attempt to look on himself and the world as they are''. His seminal 1961 follow-up to Notes on a Native Son shows him responding to his times and exploring his role as an artist with biting precision and emotional power: from polemical pieces on racial segregation and a journey to ''the Old Country'' of the Southern states, to reflections on figures such as Ingmar Bergman and André Gide, and on the first great conference of African writers and artists in Paris.''Brilliant...accomplished...strong...vivid...honest...masterly'' The New York Times''A bright and alive book, full of grief, love and anger'' Chicago Tribune
£10.44
Penguin Books Ltd The Book of the Courtier Classics S
Book Synopsis‘The courtier has to imbue with grace his movements, his gestures, his way of doing things and in short, his every action’In The Book of the Courtier (1528), Baldesar Castiglione, a diplomat and Papal Nuncio to Rome, sets out to define the essential virtues for those at Court. In a lively series of imaginary conversations between the real-life courtiers to the Duke of Urbino, his speakers discuss qualities of noble behaviour – chiefly discretion, decorum, nonchalance and gracefulness – as well as wider questions such as the duties of a good government and the true nature of love. Castiglione’s narrative power and psychological perception make this guide both an entertaining comedy of manners and a revealing window onto the ideals and preoccupations of the Italian Renaissance at the moment of its greatest splendour.George Bull’s elegant translation captures the variety of tone in Castiglione’s speakers, from comic interje
£11.69
Penguin Books Ltd Orkneyinga Saga The History of the Earls of
Book SynopsisWritten around AD 1200 by an unnamed Icelandic author, the Orkneyinga Saga is an intriguing fusion of myth, legend and history. The only medieval chronicle to have Orkney as the central place of action, it tells of an era when the islands were still part of the Viking world, beginning with their conquest by the kings of Norway in the ninth century. The saga describes the subsequent history of the Earldom of Orkney and the adventures of great Norsemen such as Sigurd the Powerful, St Magnus the Martyr and Hrolf, the conqueror of Normandy. Savagely powerful and poetic, this is a fascinating depiction of an age of brutal battles, murder, sorcery and bitter family feuds.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 prov
£9.99
Penguin Books Ltd An Apology for Idlers
Book SynopsisOffering an invitation to reject the work ethic and enjoy life's simple pleasures (such as laughing, drinking and lying in the open air), this essay on the joys of idleness contains writings on, among other things, growing old, visiting unpleasant places and the overwhelming experience of falling in love.
£7.59
Penguin Books Ltd After Kathy Acker A Biography
Book SynopsisRich girl, street punk, lost girl and icon ... scholar, stripper, victim and media-whore: The late Kathy Acker''s legend and writings are wrapped in mythologies, created mostly by Acker herself. In this first, fully authorized biography, Kraus approaches Acker both as a writer, and as a member of the artistic communities from which she emerged. At once forensic and intimate, After Kathy Acker traces the extreme discipline and literary strategies Acker used to develop her work, and the contradictions she longed to embody. Using exhaustive archival research and ongoing conversations with mutual colleagues and friends, Kraus charts Acker''s movement through some of the late 20th century''s most significant artistic enterprises.Trade ReviewThis is a gossipy, anti-mythic artist biography which feels like it's being told in one long rush of a monologue over late-night drinks by someone who was there. Acker emerges as an unlikely literary hero, but an utterly convincing one. -- Sheila Heti, author of How Should A Person BeThe path of the female artist. Is hell. Chris Kraus's veracious and intricately structured portrait rouses and stirs as it documents in meticulous and fascinating detail the life, work and body of Kathy Acker and what it takes to a become a 'great writer as countercultural hero.' -- Viv AlbertineKraus reconstitutes Acker's wanderings with real wit and beauty, understanding without pandering to the painfully high stakes of her identity games -- Olivia Laing * Guardian *To pin down the real Kathy Acker then is a self-defeating task but Chris Kraus's biography of her is a brilliant and necessary thing. Kraus pushes Acker's writing to the foreground making us understand how difficult a territory the so-called avant-garde was, and is, for a woman. -- Suzanne Moore * New Statesman *'To lie is to try,' Chris Kraus writes in this examination of the various personae of Kathy Acker, the fucked-up girl from high school who, through lying and trying, became an experimental writer of rare courage and vision. In some ways a contemporary and in some ways as far off as the days when people moved to New York and San Francisco for the cheap rent, Acker needed a key, and Chris Kraus provides it. -- Ben MoserChris Kraus's After Acker sets the bar for what will surely be a new era of critical and biographical reckoning with the life and work of Kathy Acker. Kraus had a ringside seat, has done her homework, and here provides a substantive effort to pay homage not only to the complex, singular, raucous, and crucial writer and human that Acker was, but also to the constellation of artists, musicians, writers, and thinkers who were her friends, lovers, inspirations, and fellow makers of history. -- Maggie NelsonHardly anyone writes better or more insightfully than Chris Kraus about the lives of women and artists. After Kathy Acker is an intense, riveting portrait of a writer who was raw and savvy, fragile and brilliant, whose self-deceptions were inseparable from her greatness. Quotes from her profane and passionate journals reveal Kathy the crazy poet, the bad girlfriend, the Upper East Side schoolgirl, the downtown writer, Kathy in love and in denial. Gossipy, sexy, tragic, terrific. -- Julie Phillips, author of The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon
£10.44
Penguin Books Ltd A Room of Ones OwnThree Guineas
Book Synopsis
£8.54
Penguin Books Ltd The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other
Book Synopsis
£13.49
Penguin Books Ltd The David Foster Wallace Reader
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewOne of the most dazzling luminaries of contemporary American fiction * Sunday Times *A prose magician, Mr Wallace was capable of writing . . . about subjects from tennis to politics to lobsters, from the horrors of drug withdrawal to the small terrors of life aboard a luxury cruise ship, with humour and fervour and verve -- Michiko Kakutani * The New York Times *A heady reminder of why we got hooked in the first place * Daily Telegraph *
£15.29
Methuen Publishing Ltd Ibadan The Penkelemes Years A Memoir 194567
Book SynopsisThe third volume in Soyinka's series of memoirs, the sequel to Ake and Isara. In a mixture of fact and fiction - to protect the innocent and nail the guilty and shape an often intolerable reality - it tells of the coming of age of a writer and political activist; and of a nation's betrayal.
£12.34
Faber & Faber Europe
Book SynopsisEurope has been widely acclaimed as among the finest achievements of 'one of our greatest living writers' (The Times). A personal appreciation, fuelled by five decades of journeying, this is Jan Morris at her best - at once magisterial and particular, whimsical and profound. It is a matchless portrait of a continent.Trade Review"'This is Jan Morris's finest book.' Michael Leapman, Country Life 'At the height of her incomparable form... Imagine listening to a great raconteur on a good evening. The contributions are cogent, pertinent and articulate, controversial but never overbearing... Who would not wish to be of the company?' Michael Dibdin, Sunday Times"
£11.69
Faber & Faber The Dyers Hand
Book SynopsisIn the early 1950s the author began planning a prose volume that would bring together some of his published essays, lectures, and reviews, together with freshly-written notes and aphorisms. This book combines earlier material with revised versions of many of his Oxford lectures.
£17.00
New York Review Books The Anatomy Of Melancholy
Book SynopsisOne of the major documents of modern European civilization, Robert Burton''s astounding compendium, a survey of melancholy in all its myriad forms, has invited nothing but superlatives since its publication in the seventeenth century. Lewellyn Powys called it 'the greatest work of prose of the greatest period of English prose-writing,' while the celebrated surgeon William Osler declared it the greatest of medical treatises. And Dr. Johnson, Boswell reports, said it was the only book that he rose early in the morning to read with pleasure. In this surprisingly compact and elegant new edition, Burton''s spectacular verbal labyrinth is sure to delight, instruct, and divert today''s readers as much as it has those of the past four centuries.
£25.50
Silver Press The Cosmic Oval
£10.97
Pan Macmillan Black Voices on Britain
Book SynopsisA compelling anthology of Black voices from England, America, Africa and the Caribbean, from people who lived, worked, campaigned and travelled in Britain from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century.Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover.Professor Hakim Adi, shortlisted for the Wolfson history prize, draws on a variety of published works in Black Voices on Britain, all of which describe powerful experiences: James Gronniosaw and his family endure poverty, illness and unemployment; Mary Prince is driven out by her cruel owners and turns to London charities for help; Frederick Douglass, on a lecture tour around Britain, reveals how the Christian clergy built churches with slave-owners’ money; and William Wells Brown gives his impressions of England as he travels around a country which welcomes him more readily than America. These and other voices offer a fascinating and thought-provoking portrayal of Black experiences in Britain.
£10.44
University of Alberta Press Bodies of Art Bodies of Labour
Book SynopsisKate Beaton, award-winning author of the graphic novel Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, explores connections between class, literature, and art.
£11.39
Octopus Publishing Group What Everyone Knows About Britain Except The
Book Synopsis''A rare writer with the courage to tell Britain some home truths about itself and where it''s headed. A much needed book''. - Ian Dunt''What Britain needs at the moment is not to be talked up or talked down, but simply a sense of itself that''s underpinned by clarity and honesty... This is exactly what Michael Peel provides in this persuasive, good-humoured book.'' - Jonathan Coe''A wake-up call for those still under the illusion that Great Britain plc punches above its weight''. - Chris Mullin, author of A Very British Coup''Entertaining and smart.'' - Geoff Norcott''Michael Peel is a top class thinker and writer. This is a necessary book as well as an extremely entertaining one.'' - Simon Kuper''Sharp, witty and eye-opening. As Peel convincingly argues, we can do so much better.'' - Matthew Parker, author of One Fine Day: Britain''s Empire On the BrinkHow do you see Britain? That might depend on your point of view, and as long time British foreign correspondent, Michael Peel has come to understand, it can look very different from outside.It''s tempting to think of the UK as a fundamentally stable and successful nation. But events of the past few years, from Brexit to exposés of imperial history, have begun to spark fierce public debates about whether that is true. Is Britain, just a marginal northern European island nation, marked by injustices, corruption and with a bloody history of slavery, repression and looting? And yet UK politics, media, and public opinion live constantly in the shadow of old myths, Second World War era nostalgia, and a belief in supposedly core British values of tolerance, decency and fair play. British politicians regularly exploit a damaging complacency that holds that everything will turn out okay, because, in Britain, it always does.In WHAT EVERYONE KNOWS ABOUT BRITAIN, Michael Peel digs into the national consciousness with the perspective of distance to pull apart the ways in which we British have become unmoored from crucial truths about ourselves. He shows us that from many perspectives we are no different from other countries whose own national delusions have seen them succumb to abuses of power, increased poverty and divisive conflict.The battle over Britain''s narrative is the struggle for its future and its place in the world. So, how do we escape the trick mirror - and see ourselves as we really are?
£10.44
Fitzcarraldo Editions Affinities
Book SynopsisWhat do we mean when we claim affinity with an object or picture, or say affinities exist between such things? Affinities is a critical and personal study of a sensation that is not exactly taste, desire, or allyship, but has aspects of all. Approaching this subject via discrete examples, this book is first of all about images that have stayed with the author over many years, or grown in significance during months of pandemic isolation, when the visual field had shrunk. Some are historical works by artists such as Julia Margaret Cameron, Dora Maar, Claude Cahun, Samuel Beckett and Andy Warhol. Others are scientific or vernacular images: sea creatures, migraine auras, astronomical illustrations derived from dreams. Also family photographs, film stills, records of atomic ruin. And contemporary art by Rinko Kawauchi, Susan Hiller and John Stezaker. Written as a series of linked essays, interwoven with a reflection on affinity itself, Affinities is an extraordinary book about the intimate and abstract pleasures of reading and looking.Trade Review‘Brian Dillon is always invigoratingly brilliant. His sentences, his stylistic innovations, the range and potency of his intellectual adventures; he is a true master of the literary arts and a writer I would never hesitate to read, whatever his subject.’ — Max Porter, author of Shy ‘Dillon’s discussion of these photographs forestalls this reading – close attention is one thing. Loving attention, another. And Dillon does love. That shines out from each essay. An affinity can be a relation of significance: of blood, of temporary likeness, of marriage. Dillon notes that the word also once meant a gathering of like-minded people. The images collected together in this book become, in Dillon’s hands, an affinity. And, by looking at them with him, he makes an affinity of us, too. This is key…Dillon’s book is an invitation to look together. It is one of life’s intimate pleasures to attend closely in the company of someone else. Done properly, it opens us to the other’s world.’ — Anil Gomes, Guardian‘Affinities completes a triptych of recent books by Dillon that have been daring and multifarious: textual analysis of everyone from John Donne to Joan Didion giving way to flowing autobiography.’ — Jonathan McAloon, Financial Times‘In this engaging and exhilarating Wunderkammer of a book, he offers us the world — in this case, the visual world — as he experiences it: his way of seeing, and of being, in a web of thrilling, sometimes unexpected, connection.’ — Claire Messud, New York Times‘Affinities is a book of enthrallments. Brian Dillon “performs” and “embodies” that tautology of fascination, its unspeakability. On titans like Julia Margaret Cameron, Claude Cahun, Francesca Woodman and Tacita Dean, Dillon is revelatory. Conceived during the pandemic, Affinities shares the eccentric pain of the moment, the intimate revelations of self-doubt imposed on us all. Affinities is a book after my heart.’ — Moyra Davey, author of Index Cards‘Brian Dillon’s essays match discernment and critical thinking with a sense of pleasure in finding a work of art that speaks to him and lures him into contemplating its mystery and intricacy. His writing is exact and calm; rather than explain he explores, playing what is tentative against what is certain.’ — Colm Tóibín, author of The Magician‘In Affinities, Brian Dillon has woven a sparking electric web of aesthetic attention, an astonishingly deft and slantwise autobiography through the images of others. With this third panel in his brilliant triptych – with Essayism and Suppose a Sentence – Dillon has made himself a quiet apostle of close looking, drawing such intimate connections between such disparate things that he reveals marvel after marvel, and miraculously passes his affinities along to the reader. His project, it seems to me, is a nearly holy one, borne of deep generosity and love for the world.’ — Lauren Groff, author of Matrix‘Brian Dillon’s Affinities eloquently describes the relationships we have – both physical and mental – with works of art. Dillon reflects on the nature of these relationships, the affinities for the selected works, through his research and personal history with them while intermittently allowing us insight into his mediations about the complexity of affinity itself.’ — Hans Ulrich Obrist, author of Ways of Curating‘[Brian Dillon] spins language’s roulette wheel with a finesse and seriousness that recalls the severe yet secretly florid tones of Sontag, Sebald, Benjamin, and other principled foragers in the realm of the buried, the overlooked, the ecstatic. I feel safer in the world, knowing that a diviner as keen-eyed as Brian Dillon is operating the control panel of the sentence.’ — Wayne Koestenbaum, author of Figure it Out‘Brian Dillon set himself firmly in the postmodernist tradition established by European, especially French, critics in the last third of the twentieth century, with its emphasis on close reading and aesthetic autonomy.... His taste in these essays is for the hovering, liminal quality in a wide range of work and personalities.... [F]ascinating and moving.’ — John Banville, Times Literary Supplement ‘This is a deeply personal enterprise but Dillon goes to great lengths to keep at a distance. The collection may amount to a sort-of autobiography but each essay is about the life of the artist or the work itself, not about him. He is careful of his subjects and scrupulous in neither over-interpreting them nor projecting his emotions on to them. Nevertheless, each means something profound to him and each is a pixel that builds into a creative work of his own: a picture of his own aesthetic and the constituent parts of its canon.’ — Michael Prodger, New Statesman‘It is a self-portrait of the critic as, evanescently but beautifully, an artist in his own right.’ — Kevin Power, Irish Times‘[Dillon] succeeds in capturing the resistance of certain images or characters to elucidation. The blurry, the obscure, the fugitive qualities of things are deftly described – from the ‘abstract blurs’ of Julia Margaret Cameron’s photographs to Claude Cahun’s portraits of herself, a strange duality of play-acting and authenticity.’ — James Cahill, Literary Review
£12.59
Fitzcarraldo Editions A Silent Language â WINNER OF THE 2023 NOBEL
Book SynopsisIf there's any metaphor I would use for the act of writing, it would have to be listening,' says Jon Fosse in A Silent Language, the lecture he delivered after being awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature. When he writes, Fosse explains, he listens for texts that exist somewhere outside of himself in order to transcribe them before they disappear. With reverence and humility, Fosse traces his relationship to writing and celebrates the capacity of language to embrace the mystery, complexity and existential uncertainty of the human experience. It is only in the silence that you can hear God's voice,' he says, offering a key to his beloved works of drama and fiction. Maybe.'
£6.99
Troubador Publishing Writings for a Car Boot Sale
Book SynopsisIn Writings for a Car Boot Sale, Pamela Theophilus Gardner takes readers on a new literary journey with her eclectic mix of writing to suit all moods. In this collection of short, entertaining fiction, fascinating non-fiction and academic essays, there is something for every reader.The book opens with a series of short stories; a selection of fictional sketches and narrative in a variety of forms, including realistic, fable and drama. This section concludes with a historical story, based on an episode in the life of the potter and ceramic artist, William Billingsley which links nicely to Pamela's second collection: non-fiction ceramic mysteries.Well illustrated, the mysteries are accessible to all readers, with or without an interest in ceramics. Dating from early to late nineteenth century: social history, and the characters populating the stories, feature as strongly as does the porcelain.A third section comprises more challenging essays. They stem from Pamela's academic interest and professional experience in diet and health; a blend of science and the politics of food policy.The book concludes with musings on writing in general. True or untrue.
£12.59
