Memoirs Books
Penguin Books Ltd Children of Radium
Book SynopsisOff-beat, irreverent and subversive a Jewish family memoir about convenient delusions and unsayable truths, from the acclaimed author of the cult classic novel, Submarine'The best book I've read in the past year . . . A masterpiece' Financial TimesA slippery marvel [and] a quixotic voyage into the heart of 20th-century darkness' ObserverPoignant and profound, comic and unconventional and genuinely, searingly meaningful' The New York TimesJoe Dunthorne had always wanted to write about his great-grandfather, Siegfried: an eccentric scientist who invented radioactive toothpaste and a Jewish refugee from the Nazis who returned to Germany under cover of the Berlin Olympics to pull off a heist on his own home. The only problem was that Siegfried had already written the book of his life an unpublished, two-thousand page memoir so dry and rambling that none of his living descendants had managed to read it. And, as it turned out when Joe finally read the manuscript himself, it told a very different story from the one he thought he knewThus begins a mystery which stretches across the twentieth century and around the world, from Berlin to Ankara, New York, Glasgow and eventually London a mystery about the production of something much more sinister than toothpaste. On the trail of one jolly grandpa' with a patchy psychiatric history and an encyclopaedic knowledge of poison gases, Joe Dunthorne is forced to confront the uncomfortable questions that lie at the heart of every family. Can we ever understand where we come from? Is every family in the end a work of fiction? And even if the truth can be found will we be able to live with it?Children of Radium is a remarkable, searching meditation on individual and collective inheritance. Witty and wry, deeply humane and endlessly surprising, it considers the long half-life of trauma, the weight of guilt and the ever-evasive nature of the truth.
£15.29
Penguin Books Ltd Alone in Japan
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£21.25
Penguin Books Ltd Lion
Book SynopsisNOMINATED FOR SIX OSCARS, INCLUDING BEST PICTURE, SUPPORTING ACTOR AND SUPPORTING ACTRESS . . . Aged just five, Saroo Brierley lost all contact with his family in India, after waiting at a train station for his brother who never returned. Discover the inspiring, true story behind the film, Lion. This is the heart breaking and original tale of the lost little boy who found his way home twenty-five years later. ----------------------------------- As a five-year old in India, I got lost on a train. Twenty-five years later, I crossed the world to find my way back home. Five-year-old Saroo lived in a poor village in India, in a one-room hut with his mother and three siblings... until the day he boarded a train alone and got lost. For twenty-five years. This is the story of what happened to Saroo in those twenty-five years. How he ended up on the streets of Calcutta. And survived. How he then ended up in
£10.44
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC If In Doubt, Wash Your Hair
Book SynopsisTHE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'I've been waiting for this book all my life and everyone needs to read it' Claudia Winkleman Anya Hindmarch is a mother of five, stepmother, entrepreneur and globally renowned businesswoman. In If In Doubt, Wash Your Hair, she shares what she has learned during her busy and eclectic life, what she still worries about, and what advice she has received along the way. From practical tips and quick fixes, to profound observations about confidence and creativity, this inspiring handbook will show you how to live a little better – and why sometimes, the answer can be as simple as washing your hair. 'Comforting, practical and beautifully personal. This book feels like your best friend telling you it’s all going to be ok' Fearne Cotton ‘Warm, friendly, and packed to the rafters with excellent advice – I loved it’ India Knight 'A charming mix of memoir and manifesto' Grazia 'A hands-on, practical guide to managing the stresses of daily life' Evening Standard, Highlights for 2021 'Warm and refreshingly honest' Julia Samuel ‘I loved this book — it’s really unusual, surprising and inspiring’ Viv Groskop ‘A treasure trove of inspiring, down-to-earth and practical advice shared with humour and honesty’ Alexandra ShulmanTrade ReviewA hands-on, practical guide to managing the stresses of daily life * Evening Standard *A wise, straight-talking and empathetic guide for anyone wanting to start their own business or lead a happier life . . . with lashings of humility and zero psychobabble * Telegraph *I absolutely loved this book; it brings such wisdom, honesty and insight into a very important conversation on juggling motherhood, a career, entrepreneurship and the busyness of life -- Ella MillsA warm and refreshingly honest account of raising a blended family -- Julia SamuelA treasure trove of inspiring, down-to-earth and practical advice shared with humour and honesty -- Alexandra ShulmanEssential reading for the post pandemic entrepreneur . . . The ultimate guide to being both successful AND nice. Hail the roaringly kind 20s -- Christa D'SouzaI loved this book — it’s really unusual, surprising and inspiring -- Viv GroskopWarm, friendly, and packed to the rafters with excellent advice – I loved it -- India KnightAn engaging and down-to-earth guide to juggling family and a demanding career … Packed with motivation for budding entrepreneurs, quick fixes (including the tip that inspired the book’s title) and parenting advice, it’s an uplifting and enjoyable read’ * Sunday Express *Comforting, practical and beautifully personal. A gorgeous read -- Fearne Cotton
£9.49
Vintage Publishing What Have I Done?: Motherhood, Mental Illness &
Book Synopsis'Such a raw, honest and important book' Giovanna FletcherLike any new mum, Laura Dockrill felt rather overwhelmed after the birth of her son. But a slow recovery, sleep deprivation and anxiety quickly escalated into postpartum psychosis, and she had to spend a fortnight in a psych ward, separated from her family. It was only when Laura began to put her ordeal into words that she began to find herself again, and recovery seemed within reach.This is Laura's raw, honest and life-affirming story of how she made it through one of the most frightening experiences a mother can face. Now, she wants to break down the silence around postnatal mental health, shatter the idealised expectations of perfect motherhood, and show all new struggling parents that they are not alone.'A book to save a whole generation of women' AdeleA pleasure to read...I didn't want to put it down. If anyone is going through a similar experience it will make them feel less alone' Philippa Perry'A humbingly honest and human war report from the front lines of mothering psychosis and recovery; there is no other book like it' Caitlin Moran'An incredibly powerful book' Jessie Ware'This book will give women and their families confidence that the brain and body will heal' Dr Jessica Heron, CEO of Action on Postpartum Psychosis'An amazing read' Fiona Telford, postpartum psychosis survivorTrade ReviewThank you for this book, for shining a light on the darkness of psychosis, an illness that absolutely does happen to people like us. I found this book a balm for my soul, and am grateful to Laura for bravely penning such a beautiful account of an illness that is rarely talked about -- Bryony GordonMind-blowing -- Lemn SissayA book for those of us who didn’t have the fairytale. It’s important to know that even though things don’t always go to plan it doesn’t mean you aren’t a superhero or a power mum in your own right. Thank you Laura for making us all feel worthy. A must-read for all of those muddling through. -- Paloma FaithI saw the end of the world in her eyes. I knew she was in there somewhere but she was being held prisoner by her mind and we were all helpless to it. Sometimes things happen to us which means we can save other people, my own experience with mental health helped save her and now here she is about to save a whole generation of women! -- AdeleA humblingly honest and human war-report from the front lines of mothering, psychosis and recovery: there is no other book like it, and it is so desperately needed. -- Caitlin Moran
£8.99
Poetry Wales Press Last Poem for Sarah: And Other Poems
Book Synopsis
£6.00
Vintage Publishing Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading
Book SynopsisA love letter to the joys of childhood reading from Wonderland to Narnia.When Lucy Mangan was little, stories were everything. They opened up new worlds and cast light on all the complexities she encountered in this one.She was whisked away to Narnia - and Kirrin Island - and Wonderland. She ventured down rabbit holes and womble burrows into midnight gardens and chocolate factories. She wandered the countryside with Milly-Molly-Mandy, and played by the tracks with the Railway Children. With Charlotte's Web she discovered Death and with Judy Blume it was Boys. No wonder she only left the house for her weekly trip to the library or to spend her pocket money on amassing her own at home.In Bookworm, Lucy revisits her childhood reading with wit, love and gratitude. She relives our best-beloved books, their extraordinary creators, and looks at the thousand subtle ways they shape our lives. She also disinters a few forgotten treasures to inspire the next generation of bookworms and set them on their way.Lucy brings the favourite characters of our collective childhoods back to life - prompting endless re-readings, rediscoveries, and, inevitably, fierce debate - and brilliantly uses them to tell her own story, that of a born, and unrepentant, bookworm.'Passionate, witty, informed, and gloriously opinionated' Jacqueline Wilson author of The Story of Tracy Beaker Trade ReviewI felt like this was written just for me, and I think everyone will feel this wayTHE most wonderful, funny, clever, charming, evocative book. * India Knight *A book for people who love books, by a person who loves books. Bookworms unite (or just sit in our separate corners and read!) * Stylist *A delicously nostalgic treat that will make you want to pull out all those old favourites again * Good Housekeeping *Artfully evokes that particular magic of reading as a child… Deliciously unrepentant, Mangan’s Bookworm makes a timely case not just for how vital reading is, but also for rereading books as a child, and how reading remains consoling, fortifying and, sometimes, magical. * The Sunday Times *A wonderful romp through the pages of childhood, illuminated by wisdom, humour and enthusiasm. * Bernard Cornwell *What Mangan does brilliantly is express the experience of reading and articulate the emotional connections we make with stories. She understands how books become entwined in our lives and help us make sense of the world. You don’t need to have enjoyed the same books as she has to recognise the pure, life-affirming joy of reading that Bookworm celebrates so eloquently. * The Observer *Lucy Mangan has enough comic energy to power the National Grid... We need this new memoir about her childhood of being a bookworm. It's enchanting. * The Spectator *To read Lucy Mangan’s memoir of growing up bookish is to be taken back to a time in life when reading wasn’t merely a gentle pleasure or mild obligation but an activity as essential as breathing. * Guardian *Anyone who has ever preferred books to life will recognise Lucy Mangan as a kindred spirit. Her moving, funny, honest and superbly-written memoir about how childhood reading shapes our personalities, memories and chances could not be more timely or more needed in an age of library closures, embattled Humanities teaching and Philistinism. * Amanda Craig *Lucy Mangan's passionate, amusing and nostalgic reflection upon her favourite children’s books deserves to become as much of a classic as the novels she revisits. * Sunday Express *A witty and thorough history of reading for children from the 17th century to the present day. Fiercely unsentimental and often funny, it's a memoir that will strike a ringing chord with anyone who spent most of their childhood glued to a book. * Irish Times *Deft, warm and beautifully balanced. Made me smile. Made me glow. Made me think again and again. * Jason Hazeley, co-author of the adult Ladybird series *Funny, nostalgic and super-interesting… Warm, witty and a must-read for every bookworm. * The Sun *The Guardian columnist has composed an enthusiastic love letter to childhood reading, and the classic books that have shaped many young lives, as well as providing a resource and guide on how to build a children’s library * Guardian *Funny and engaging. -- Sue Barraclough * Irish News *Bookworm is for anyone who longed to be on Kirrin Island with the Famous Five, slip through a back of a wardrobe into Narnia or will always think fondly of the penis named Ralph in Judy Blume’s Forever * Red Magazine *A warm, witty story about stories and the way they shape us. -- Lucy Brookes * CultureWhisper *Lucy Mangan’s passionate, amusing and nostalgic reflection upon her favourite children’s books deserves to become as much of a classic as the novels she revisits. -- Charlotte Heathcote * Sunday Express *Enchanting. -- Ysenda Maxton Graham * Spectator *Joyful and heart-warming. * Muddy Stilettos *Entertaining and hugely engaging… An entirely inspiring read. -- Eithne Farry * Sunday Express *… like a heated but enjoyable discussion with a best friend bookworm. -- Jacqueline Wilson * The Week *A love letter to the books we all read as children. -- Mike Gayle * Metro *[W]ise and witty… all the time Mangan has the ability to be ceaselessly and apparently effortlessly funny * Books For Keeps *If you're a book lover of any form then you will almost certainly get something from this book… you will look fondly back on the books of your childhood too -- Paul Cheney * Nudge *In Lucy Mangan’s Bookworm…childhood books are brought vividly to life, as are the remembered pleasures of first encountering them -- Harriet Baker * Times Literary Supplement *Lucy Mangan's funny, warm Bookworm is personal and universal in the way that the very best books are -- Aliya White * Den of Geek, **Books of the Year** *Beautifully narrated, Bookworm brings the favourite characters of our collective childhoods back to life and brilliantly uses them to tell her own story * Psychologies *An enchanting, nostalgic, comfort read * Mail on Sunday *
£11.07
Octopus Publishing Group Mafiopoli
Book Synopsis''Part memoir, part shoe leather investigative journalism, Mafiopoli is a vital exploration of how organised crime takes hold of a society from the bottom up and spreads around the world.'' -Miles Johnson, author of Chasing Shadows''Beautifully written, excellently researched.'' -Mick Van Wely''An exceptional investigation into the global muscle of the Calabrian mafia.'' -StrongWords book of the week''It''s easy to think you''re listening to a thriller or TV drama but this is real life... impeccably researched... [Sanne de Boer is] an unstoppable force with an unstoppable audiobook'' -Bookriot The ''Ndrangheta mafia is one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the world. Bound together by blood ties, sworn to a code of silence and steeped in religious ritual, they are the force behind a litany of violence and corruption. In Mafiopoli, journalist Sanne De Boer takes us deep ins
£18.70
Octopus Publishing Group Raise The Bar
Book Synopsis'Ben Alldis is a force. His attitude and drive are contagious.' - Max La Manna, author of You Can Cook This! 'Ben is never shy of sharing his positive energy, it's infectious and this book will help lift all spirits, not just physically but emotionally too' - Aimee Fuller, snowboarder and 2xOlympian'A relatable story on building resilience and finding your way in life and fitness' - David Birtwistle, Health & Performance Coach'Ben is so knowledgeable and passionate about fitness, Raise The Bar gives valuable tips and guidance on how to stay focused and in control of your fitness goals' - Susie Chan, Endurance Runner & Peloton instructor'This is more than a self-help book, it is a transformational paradigm shift that will shape how you live the rest of your life' - Dr. Will Cole, leading functional medicine expert, NYT-bestselling author,
£10.44
Cornerstone Ootlin
Book SynopsisJenni Fagan was born in Scotland. Jenni was selected as one of Granta's Best Young British Novelists after the publication of her debut novel, The Panopticon, which was shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and the James Tait Black Prize. The Sunlight Pilgrims, her second novel, was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Encore Award and the Saltire Fiction Book of the Year Award and saw her win Scottish Author of the Year at the Herald Culture Awards. Luckenbooth was shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize 2021. Jenni Fagan is a Doctor of Philosophy, she lives in Edinburgh with her son.
£10.44
Transworld Publishers Ltd Unlawful Killings: Life, Love and Murder: Trials
Book SynopsisTHE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERWINNER OF THE CWA GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION 2023'Wendy Joseph's gripping account of the law at work reads like a cliffhanger.' Sunday Times'Absolutely superb. 5 stars for sheer readability alone. Her Honour entertains as she educates us about murder, about the law and about how we human beings are shaped as we create the culture we live with.' PHILIPPA PERRY, author of THE BOOK YOU WISH YOUR PARENTS HAD READ___________________________________________________________________________________'Every day in the UK lives are suddenly, brutally, wickedly taken away. Victims are shot or stabbed. Less often they are strangled or suffocated or beaten to death. Rarely they are poisoned, pushed off high buildings, drowned or set alight. Then there are the many who are killed by dangerous drivers, or corporate gross negligence. There are a lot of ways you can kill someone. I know because I've seen most of them at close quarters.'High-profile murder cases all too often grab our attention in dramatic media headlines - for every unlawful death tells a story. But, unlike most of us, a judge doesn't get to turn the page and move on. Nor does the defendant, or the family of the victim, nor the many other people who populate the court room.And yet, each of us has a vested interest in what happens there. And while most people have only the sketchiest idea of what happens inside a Crown Court, any one of us could end up in the witness-box or even in the dock.With breath-taking skill and deep compassion, the author describes how cases unfold and illustrates exactly what it's like to be a murder trial judge and a witness to human good and bad. Sometimes very bad.The fracture lines that run through our society are becoming harder and harder to ignore. From a unique vantage point, the author warns that we do so at our peril._____________________________________________________________________________________________'The most exceptional book I have read in a long time.' CLARE MACKINTOSH'A very rare gem. written with authority, humility and compassion. Compellingly clever and sharply honest.' PROFESSOR DAME SUE BLACK, author of ALL THAT REMAINS'Riveting, thought-provoking, and very, very entertaining. I loved it.' RODDY DOYLE'Will make you question all the fundamentals that you've come to take for granted about offenders, the crimes that they commit - especially murder - and the punishment they deserve. A page turner that will leave you wanting to know more.' EMERITUS PROFESSOR DAVID WILSON, author of MY LIFE WITH MURDERERSThe instant Sunday Times bestseller, March 2023Trade ReviewJudge Wendy Joseph's gripping account of the law at work reads like a cliffhanger ... Joseph is a deft deployer of suspense and nuance ... She is funny too, with a keen eye for the absurdities of the human condition -- Kathryn Hughes * Sunday Times *'UNLAWFUL KILLINGS reads like a really terrific novel. It is riveting, thought-provoking, and very, very entertaining. I loved it.' -- Roddy DoyleAbsolutely superb. 5 stars for sheer readability alone. Her Honour entertains as she educates us about murder, about the law and about how we human beings are shaped as we create the culture we live with. -- Philippa Perry, author of The Book You Wish Your Parents Had ReadFascinating, propulsive and beautifully written, this is an extraordinary insight into the heart and mind of a judge as they witness the best and worst of humanity. I couldn't put it down. -- Sarah Langford, author of In Your DefenceFresh, compelling, well-written and unflinchingly authentic. -- Emily Penninck * the i newspaper *
£10.44
Country Books MIXED FRUIT FROM A SUSSEX TREE: ASPECTS OF JOHN
Book Synopsis
£15.00
The Indigo Press Sanderling
£13.49
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Bringing Home the Birkin
Book SynopsisMichael's newfound career started with an impulsive move to Barcelona, a vanished job assignment, no work visa, and an Hermes scarf sold on eBay to generate some quick cash. But soon the resourceful Michael discovered the truth about the waiting list and figured out the secret to getting Hermes to part with one of these precious bags.Trade Review"Funny, whip-smart... Both a hilarious raid on fashion's strongholds and a memoir that satisfies like a novel. Fashion die-hards, and many others, will be delighted from beginning to end." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) "The one-step, one-stop shop guide to buying a Birkin." -- Huffington Post "The one-step, one-stop shop guide to buying a Birkin." -- Arianna Huffington, Huffington Post " [Tonello] reveals the key to scoring that Holy Grail of handbags in a clever memoir." -- Boston Herald "In his peppy, addictive memoir ... [Tonello] details the comical lengths to which he's gone to snag hundreds of Birkins that he then sells (with a steep mark-up) on eBay." -- moderntonic.com "The perfect, fluffy and fun beach read." -- glamour.com "A witty and engaging retrospective on [Tonello's] long career traipsing the globe as a purveyor of the Birkin bag." -- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "[A] sunny memoir... The prose is vivid, the tone lighthearted. Mr. Tonello comes off as the fantasy gay best friend immortalized in contemporary women's fiction: sassy, plucky, optimistic-oh, and he can get you a Birkin." -- Wall Street Journal "[A] memoir of ... madcap travels, triumphs and humiliations. [Tonello] peels back the layers of pretension at the eminent design house... Anyone who's ever stepped into a luxury boutique and felt the sting of the doorman's disapproval will find a hero in Tonello." -- Miami Herald "Tonello recounts the strange and serendipitous tale of how he went from cleaning out his closet to being one of the busiest Internet resellers of Birkin bags in the world." -- The Globe and Mail Boston Globe bestseller -- No Source "Fascinating... The sassy and resourceful Tonello built a very lucrative eBay resale business from his apartment, specializing in Hermes scarves and the French luxury purveyor's highly desired Birkin bag. It's hard not to be swept up in his delightful one-man Birkin Brigades." -- Minneapolis Star Tribune "A deliciously addictive true tale of continent-hopping, celebrity-schmoozing, and a crazy-like-a-fox quest for that Hermes "it" bag, the Birkin. Haute read, indeed." -- straight.com "This summer's most adorable chick-lit book... It's smart. It's fizzy. It's amusingly snarky, with attitude to burn. " -- New York Times "Part comedy, part history, part treasure hunt, Michael Tonello's memoir is a romping sociological inquiry. If you're like me, you'll be transfixed and wanting more!" -- Tim Gunn "Hermes' worst nightmare." -- New York Daily News "I devoured, and adored Bringing Home the Birkin, the story of how one man turned the fashionable set's obsession with Hermes' signature handbag into a handsome, globe-trotting career." -- Jennifer Weiner, Author of Good in Bed and In Her Shoes "A deliciously quick nonfiction read." -- Charlotte Observer "Funny, thrilling, chock-full of great cocktail-party stories told with the flair of a natural raconteur." -- "The Year in Books 2008," Chicago Center for Literature and Photography "The fashion world is about to be handed its own Da Vinci Code with Bringing Home the Birkin." -- Maclean's
£9.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC I Shall Not Hate
Book SynopsisHeart-breaking, hopeful and horrifying, I Shall Not Hate is a Palestinian doctor''s inspiring account of his extraordinary life, growing up in poverty but determined to treat his patients in Gaza and Israel regardless of their ethnic origin. A London University- and Harvard-trained Palestinian doctor who was born and raised in the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip and who has devoted his life to medicine and reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians'' (New York Times), Abuelaish is an infertility specialist who lives in Gaza but works in Israel. On the strip of land he calls home (where 1.5 million Gazan refugees are crammed into a few square miles) the Gaza doctor has been crossing the lines in the sand that divide Israelis and Palestinians for most of his life - as a physician who treats patients on both sides of the line, as a humanitarian who sees the need for improved health and education for women as the way forward in the Middle East. AnTrade Review'This story is a necessary lesson against hatred and revenge.' * Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize laureate *'In this book, Doctor Abuelaish has expressed a remarkable commitment to forgiveness and reconciliation that describes the foundation for a permanent peace in the Holy Land.' * President Jimmy Carter *‘A remarkable study of compassion, and of daily life in the Gaza Strip' * Sunday Times *If there is to be peace in the Middle East, it will come through men and women of his giant moral stature and epic capacity for forgiveness. I urge everybody to read this wonderful book.' * Peter Oborne, Daily Telegraph *
£11.69
Fitzcarraldo Editions Happening – WINNER OF THE 2022 NOBEL PRIZE IN
Book SynopsisIn 1963, Annie Ernaux, 23 and unattached, realizes she is pregnant. Shame arises in her like a plague: understanding that her pregnancy will mark her and her family as social failures, she knows she cannot keep that child. This is the story, written forty years later, of a trauma Ernaux never overcame. In a France where abortion was illegal, she attempted, in vain, to self-administer the abortion with a knitting needle. Fearful and desperate, she finally located an abortionist, and ends up in a hospital emergency ward where she nearly dies. In Happening, Ernaux sifts through her memories and her journal entries dating from those days. Clearly, cleanly, she gleans the meanings of her experience. Trade Review‘The author of one of the most important oeuvres in French literature, Annie Ernaux’s work is as powerful as it is devastating, as subtle as it is seething.’ — Édouard Louis, author of The End of Eddy‘Happening is gripping and painfully inevitable to read – like a thriller. I felt close to Annie Duchesne, in her aloneness, in a way I’ve rarely felt close to a character in a book. Women will be grateful to Ernaux for her wisdom, concision, and commitment to writing about death and life.’ — Daisy Hildyard, author of Emergency‘I’ve just finished Happening by Annie Ernaux, in which she writes about her experience of unwanted pregnancy and illegal abortion in 1960s France. The Years was one of my favourite reads of last year and that same rigorous clarity of vision – even when dealing with the complex or ambiguous – is just as evident here again. The experience of living simultaneously on the inside and outside of your own body is very particular to the female experience I think – and not only in relation to pregnancy but in myriad other ways too. I like the measured, unforgiving way she works her way through the logic, or illogic, of that. I find her work extraordinary.’ — Eimear McBride, author of Strange Hotel‘Universal, primeval and courageous, Happening is a fiercely dislocating, profoundly relevant work — as much of art as of human experience. It should be compulsory reading.’ — Catherine Taylor, Financial Times‘Meticulous catalogues of longing, humiliation, class anxiety and emotional distress, Ernaux’s books are unsparing in detail, pitiless in tone. In contrast to those of so many of her confession-minded peers, her shock tactics feel principled, driven less by narcissism or the need for self-justification than by some loftier impulse: a desire to capture the past as it was, undistorted by faulty memories, moral judgments or decorative literary flourishes.’ — Emily Eakin, New York Times Book Review‘Ernaux’s work is an attempt at truth. Not a narrative bend on truth, but an “endeavour to revisit every single image”.... Ernaux’s work is important. Not just because of her subject matter, but because of the way she hands it over: the subtle contradictions; her dispassionate stoicism, mixed with savagery; her detailed telling, mixed with spare, fragmented text.’ — Niamh Donnelly, Irish Times‘This short book ... is one of the most powerful memoirs I have ever read. Ernaux is famed in France, and is gathering fame abroad ... as an autobiographer of unusual talent and insight, virtually creating (although she disavows the term) a genre called “autofiction”, a hybrid style mixing, as the name suggests, autobiography and fiction, although there is nothing in Happening that suggests any fictional element. This is the truth, as bare as it can be told, although every so often Ernaux reminds us, carefully, that memory is slippery.’ — Nicholas Lezard, Dhaka Tribune
£7.99
Scribe Publications What Doesn't Kill Us: the bestselling guide to
Book SynopsisA New York Times bestseller and a Book of the Year for the Evening Standard and The Times. Is getting a little less comfortable the key to living a happier, healthier life? When journalist Scott Carney came across a picture of a man in his fifties sitting on a glacier in just his underwear, he assumed it must be a hoax. Dutch guru Wim Hof claimed he could control his body temperature using his mind and teach others to do the same. Sceptical, Carney signed up to Hof’s one-week course, not realising that it would be the start of a four-year journey to unlock his own evolutionary potential. From hyperventilating in a Polish farmhouse to underwater weight training in California, and eventually climbing Mt Kilimanjaro wearing just shorts and running shoes, Carney travelled the world testing out unorthodox methods of body transformation and discovering the science behind them. In What Doesn’t Kill Us he explains how getting a little less comfortable can help us to unlock our lost evolutionary strength.Trade Review'[Wim Hof] has become a phenomenon, and Carney is an entertaining guide to his world and his followers.’ * The Times 'Book of the Week' *‘I always knew that jumping into freezing water makes you feel brilliant afterwards, but now I know why.’ -- William Leith * The Spectator *‘When it's cold outside, do you turn the heating up? Do you always put a coat on before going out? Do you think your comfortable life is good for you? If so, you have to read Scott Carney's What Doesn't Kill Us. Through some great stories — which often involve Carney in the snow without much on — and some serious research, he shows us how to escape the bland, shuffling gait of our centrally-heated, fleece-jacketed, molly-coddled lives by diving head first into the ice-cold, axe-sharp, scary experiences that made our ancestors' hearts beat faster every day. If we do that, we can awake from the dull slumber of modern life, and open our eyes to a better, healthier dawn of crisp air, better circulation, and the ability to truly mean it when we say: I'm alive. Buy this book, and you'll emerge a stronger, healthier, more human human.’ -- James Wallman * author of Stuffocation: Living More With Less *‘Climbing a mountain in nothing but a pair of shorts seems idiotic to most, but for Wim Hof and his companions, it’s just another day. When investigative journalist and anthropologist Carney heard about Hof’s mind-boggling methods and claims that he could ‘hack’ the human body, he knew he had to venture to Poland to expose this fraud. But in just a few days, Hof changed Carney’s mind, and so began a friendship and a new adventure. Carney now chronicles his journey to push himself mentally and physically using Wim Hof’s method of cold exposure, breath-holding, and meditation to tap into our primal selves. Our ancestors survived harsh conditions without modern technology, while we live in comfortable bubbles with little to struggle against and wonder how they survived. The question is, ‘What happens when we push our bodies to the limit?’ Carney calls on evolutionary biology and other modern scientific disciplines to explore and explain Hof’s unconventional methods. Fresh and exciting, this book has wide appeal for readers interested in health, sports, self-improvement, and extreme challenges.’ * Booklist *‘As this engaging autoethnography relates, anthropologist and investigative journalist Carney was skeptical upon encountering a photo of a nearly naked Wim Hof sitting on a glacier in the Arctic Circle. Hof, a Dutch fitness guru who runs a training camp in Poland’s wilderness, claims he can control his body temperature and immune system solely with his mind; though Carney set out to prove Hof a charlatan, he was instead won over. Carney documents his interactions with Hof and the many others who have learned to control their bodies in seemingly impossible ways: he learned Hof’s breathing techniques for tricking the body into doing things it isn’t evolutionarily designed for, and underwent training to face extreme cold while barely clothed. It is this training that enables Hof and Carney to summit Mt. Kilimanjaro in 28 hours while wearing shorts. This is part guide and part popular science book; readers will learn about how Neanderthals used the body’s ‘brown fat’ to keep warm and how exposure nearly reverses the symptoms of diabetes. The accomplishments Carney documents are unbelievable and fascinating; this isn’t a how-to for those looking to perform extraordinary feats, but it is an entertaining account that will appeal to the adventurous.’ * Publishers Weekly *‘Scott Carney is so curious about getting to the truth of things that he is willing to endure great pain and suffering to get there. While investigating the controversial methods of Wim Hof and others operating on the scientific fringe, Carney entered a skeptic yet emerged a true believer. In What Doesn't Kill Us, readers get to follow him along on his transformational journey, and the insights are truly fascinating. Informative, fun, and with a healthy degree of danger, this is a book for the adventurer in all of us.’ -- Gabriel Reece * Co-founder of XPT (Extreme Performance Training) *‘The further we get from the harsh environmental conditions that once threatened our existence, the more we need them. I see this every weekend at a Spartan Race somewhere in the world. Millions of otherwise sane people line up to suffer and push themselves to their physical limits, and it feels good. What Doesn't Kill Us is a fascinating investigation into the innate urge that drives people like these, and reveals how some have managed to use environmental conditioning to accomplish truly extraordinary things.’ -- John DeSena * founder of Spartan Race *‘As a Navy SEAL, you live by the mantra ‘What doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger.’ We would hear this phrase and repeat it, but we never had any proof that it was factual. Yet through comprehensive study, Scott Carney has brilliantly documented how engaging in environmental conditioning, breathing, meditation, and other techniques can actually make us physically and mentally stronger. What Doesn’t Kill Us is a fascinating book that will captivate all who read it and that will be of immense value to those in the military, those who are active in sports, and those who seek an alternate means of developing greater mental and physical strength.’ -- Don D. Mann * Don D. Mann, New York Times bestselling author, Inside SEAL Team SIX *‘The narrative is filled with personal details that will engage, astonish, and even repel readers … Couch potatoes take warning: the experiences described in this testimonial are often tough to read about, and the conclusions, while sometimes convincing, might best be taken with a touch of skepticism.’ * Kirkus Reviews *‘Carney writes with considerable narrative verve, slamming home the misery of what he has witnessed with passion and visceral detail.’ * The New York Times *
£10.44
Penguin Books Ltd The Undying
Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR NONFICTION 2020WINNER OF THE WINDHAM-CAMPBELL PRIZE FOR NONFICTION 2020FINALIST FOR THE PEN / JEAN STEIN BOOK AWARD 2020''Profound and unforgettable'' Sally Rooney''A classic . . . I have long thought of Boyer as a genius'' Patricia Lockwood''An outraged, beautiful, and brilliant work of embodied critique'' Ben Lerner''Some of the most perceptive and beautiful writing about illness and pain that I have ever read'' Hari KunzruBlending memoir with critique, an award-winning poet and essayist''s devastating exploration of sickness and health, cancer and the cancer industry, in the modern worldA week after her 41st birthday, Anne Boyer was diagnosed with highly aggressive triple-negative breast cancer. For a single mother living payslip to payslip, the condition was both a crisis and an initiation into new ideas about mortality and the gendered politics of illness.In The Undying - at once her harrowing memoir of survival, and a 21st-century Illness as Metaphor - Boyer draws on sources from ancient Roman dream diarists to cancer vloggers to explore the experience of illness. She investigates the quackeries, casualties and ecological costs of cancer under capitalism, and dives into the long line of women writing about their own illnesses and deaths, among them Audre Lorde, Kathy Acker and Susan Sontag.Genre-bending, devastating and profoundly humane, The Undying is an unmissably insightful meditation on cancer, the cancer industry and the sicknesses and glories of contemporary life.Trade ReviewAnne Boyer is an essential voice, and this is an essential book: one body's urgent attempt at finding a language to tell us what it knows -- Jonathan Lethem, author of The Feral DetectiveThis is a powerful, timely, and troubling book. Boyer's unflinching account of the market-driven brutality of American cancer care sits beside some of the most perceptive and beautiful writing about illness and pain that I have ever read -- Hari Kunzru, author of White Tears
£10.44
Octopus Publishing Group Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton and Me
Book Synopsis*THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER**A Times Best Music Book of 2023*'This is the most glorious of books. I am besotted by the life I never knew he had.' -Elton John'Every page of Scattershot is a delight, a joy, a name-dropper fan's delight. Divine. I couldn't put it down.' -Pete Townshend'Hilarious and so emotionally true, Scattershot is like a letter from a cherished friend. You'll want to keep it close, so you can read it again and again.' -Cameron Crowe'Touching. Charming. Humble. Witty. And exquisitely written. Taupin's words need no musical accompaniment. They sing with a poets voice.' -Gary Oldman'Eloquent and inspiring' -Robert Hilburn, author of Johnny Cash: The Life'A funny, zippy narrative' -MOJO'An entertaining ride that doesn't spare the horses' -RTE Guide'Sharply written' -The Independent'Self deprecating and refreshingly honest' - Sunday TimesThis is the memoir music fans have been waiting for. Half of one of the greatest creative partnerships in popular music, Bernie Taupin is the man who wrote the lyrics for Elton John, who conceived the ideas that spawned countless hits, and sold millions and millions of records. Together, they were a duo, a unit, an immovable object. Their extraordinary, half-century-and-counting creative relationship has been chronicled in biopics (like 2019's Rocketman) and even John's own autobiography, Me. But Taupin, a famously private person, has kept his own account of their adventures close to his chest, until now.Written with honesty and candour, Scatterhot allows the reader to witness events unfolding from Taupin's singular perspective, sometimes front and center, sometimes from the edge, yet always described vibrantly, with an infectious energy that only a vivid songwriter's prose could offer. From his childhood in the East Midlands of England whose imagination was sparked and forever informed by the distinctly American mythopoetics of country music and cowboys, to the glittering, star-studded fishbowl of '70s and '80s Beverly Hills, Scattershot is simultaneously a Tom Jones-like picaresque journey across a landscape of unforgettable characters, as well as a striking, first-hand account of a creative era like no other and one man's experience at the core of it.An exciting, multi-decade whirlwind, Scattershot whizzes around the world as we ride shotgun with Bernie on his extraordinary life. We visit New York with him and Elton on the cusp of global fame. We spend time with him in Australia almost in residency at an infamous rock 'n' roll hotel in an endless blizzard of drugs. And we spend late, late night hours with John Lennon, with Bob Marley, and hanging with Frank Sinatra. And beyond the world of popular music, we witness memorable encounters with writers like Graham Greene, painters like Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali, and scores of notable misfits, miscreants, eccentrics, and geniuses, known and unknown. Even if they're not famous in their own right, they are stars on the page, and we discover how they inspired the indelible lyrics to songs such as "Tiny Dancer," "Candle in the Wind," "Bennie and The Jets," and so many more.Unique and utterly compelling, Scattershot will transport the reader across the decades and around the globe, along the way meeting some of the greatest creative minds of the 20th century, and into the vivid imaginings of one of music's most legendary lyricists.Trade ReviewOrgasmic. Every page of Scattershot is a delight, a joy, a name-dropper fan's delight. Divine. I couldn't put it down * Pete Townshend *In Bernie Taupin's miraculous memoir Scattershot you'll meet legends, cowboys, geniuses, unforgettable faces in the night, shady purveyors of outrageous fortune, warriors of the heart, and most of all, Taupin himself. Hilarious and so emotionally true, Scattershot is like a letter from a cherished friend. You'll want to keep it close, so you can read it again and again * Cameron Crowe *Touching. Charming. Humble. Witty. And exquisitely written. Taupin's words need no musical accompaniment. They sing with a poets voice. * Gary Oldman *Eloquent and inspiring, Scattershot is a freewheeling memoir that is as warm and evocative as Bernie Taupin's most memorable lyrics. A born storyteller, Taupin gives us the life of an artist whose outlook was shaped by a rare but fascinating blend of lifelong innocence and endless intellectual curiosity * Robert Hilburn, author of Johnny Cash: The Life *I simply wouldn't write songs without Bernie Taupin. I've read every word he's ever written and there could never be enough of them to satiate my need for Bernie's way of seeing the world. Scattershot, though, is a lifting of the veil, as beautifully written as it is honest and rugged. Reading this book brought me face to face with who he truly is: an empathic genius who speaks to the everyman. * Brandi Carlile *This is the most glorious of books. I am besotted by the life I never knew he had. * Elton John *Written in a highly entertaining, articulate style with a wickedly acidic sense of humor, this book sets a new standard for rock biographies. * LIBRARY JOURNAL *Scattershot takes a non-linear approach and is all the better for it. It's funny too (one cokey chapter is titled Days Of Wine And Noses), and encounters with Salvador Dali and Princess Margaret colour the zippy narrative. There's a sense Taupin can't quite believe it all happened... * MOJO *An entertaining ride that doesn't spare the horses -- RTE GuideSharply Written * The Independent *Evocative * The Guardian *Engaging and poetic * The Times *Compellingly written - Scattershot is a thoroughly enjoyable read * Record Collector Magazine *Bernie is well-read, highly literate and, on the evidence of his memoir, a man of wise, sensitive intelligence. -- Roger Lewis, Daily Mail
£18.75
ONEWorld Publications Three Worlds
Book Synopsis
£11.69
Transworld Publishers Ltd Chapter and Verse New Order Joy Division and Me
Book SynopsisBorn in Salford in 1956, Bernard Sumner went on to be a founder member of Joy Division and the singer and lead guitarist of New Order.Trade ReviewContains poignantly rendered family tragedies, told with warm humour and without self-pity... As well as showing a life saved and made by rock'n'roll, it illustrates someone almost effortlessly negotiating the rapids of success and stardom, armed only with street smarts and laconic Manc wit... A must for Joy Division and New Order fans' -- Irvine Welsh * Esquire *A fascinating memoir...The book is filled with memories of every kind -- Mark Ellen * The Times *
£10.79
Short Books Ltd I Bought a Mountain
Book SynopsisWITH A FOREWORD BY PATRICK BARKHAMAnd an essay by Welsh hill farmer, Dafydd Morris-Jones'One of the great no-holds-barred life-adventures in the wilds of the British landscape.' ADAM NICOLSONWritten on the eve of the Second World War, this memoir tells the remarkable story of how 21-year-old Thomas Firbank decided on impulse to purchase a 2,400-acre hill farm in the rugged, inhospitable mountains of Snowdonia, and how he and his wife struggled to build it back into prosperity. The book became an international bestseller, selling over half-a-million copies worldwide and pioneered the genre of 'good life' rural escape literature. This new edition is introduced with a foreword by the award-winning nature writer, Patrick Barkham, and includes an afterword by contemporary Welsh sheep farmer, Dafydd Morris-Jones.I Bought a Mountain is a thrilling human tale of tragedy and triumph, as well as a portrait of a lost era when farming was a communal endeavour, offering precious insights into conservation and sustainability relevant for today.Trade Review'"There's nothing so fine as courage," Thomas Firbank writes in I Bought a Mountain and that is the motto of the book: challenge after challenge faced, suffered and, in part anyway, relished for its stimulus. One of the great no-holds-barred life-adventures in the wilds of the British landscape. Every page is alive with the presence of the Welsh mountains and and their people, every chapter with the insistent, often beautiful, often savage realities of the natural world.' * Adam Nicolson *'One of the most compelling and successful 20th-century versions of the urge to escape to the country... deeply inspiring... highly pertinent.' * PATRICK BARKHAM *'Extraordinarily relevant... this book could have been written in 2022, with Firbank talking angrily of a country that needed to improve its self-sufficiency... Above all, however, he describes so movingly the privilege of farming this miraculous landscape.' -- Kate Green * Country LIfe *'A delightful book, full of vivid experiences.' * Telegraph *'Vitally convincing and exhilarating.' * OBSERVER *
£10.44
Canongate Books Avoidance Drugs Heartbreak and Dogs
Book Synopsis
£10.44
Aurum The Heart of the Woods
Book Synopsis
£9.49
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Between the Falls
£17.00
John Murray Press Nigel
Book SynopsisTHE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERNIGEL - One of Britain''s favourite dogs! MONTY DON - One of Britain''s favourite presenters. When Monty Don''s golden retriever Nigel became the surprise star of BBC Gardeners'' World inspiring huge interest, fan mail and his own social media accounts, Monty Don wanted to explore what makes us connect with animals quite so deeply. In many respects Nigel is a very ordinary dog; charming, handsome and obedient, as so many are. He is a much loved family pet. He is also a star. By telling Nigel''s story, Monty relates his relationships with the other special dogs in his life in a memoir of his dogs past and very much present. Witty, touching and life-affirming, Nigel: My family and other dogs is wonderfully heart-warming. Monty Don is a great writer coming out of the garden and into the hearts and homes of every dog lover in the UK.<Trade ReviewHumane, engaging and eloquent * Times Literary Supplement *
£10.44
Pan Macmillan The Life Inside: A Memoir of Prison, Family and
Book SynopsisAn Irish Times and The i Book of 2022'Tense and intimate . . . an education' - Geoff Dyer'Enriching, sobering and at times heartrending. A wonder' - Sir Lenny Henry'Authentic, fascinating and deeply moving' - Terry Waite__________Can someone in prison be more free than someone outside? Would we ever be good if we never felt shame? What makes a person worthy of forgiveness?Andy West teaches philosophy in prisons. Every day he has conversations with people inside about their lives, discusses their ideas and feelings, and listens as they explore new ways to think about their situation.When Andy steps into a prison, he also confronts his inherited shame: his father, uncle and brother all spent time behind bars. While Andy has built a different life for himself, he still fears that their fate will also be his. As he discusses pressing questions of truth, identity and hope with his students, he searches for his own form of freedom too.Moving, sympathetic, wise and frequently funny, The Life Inside is an elegantly written and unforgettable memoir. Through a blend of storytelling and gentle philosophical questioning, it offers a new insight into our stretched justice system, our failing prisons and the complex lives being lived inside.__________'Inspiring' - The Observer'Strives with humour and compassion to understand the phenomenon of prison' - Sydney Review of Books'Expands both heart and mind' - Ciaran Thapar'A fascinating and enlightening journey . . . A legitimate page-turner' - 3AMTrade ReviewAndy West’s tense and intimate book is an education . . . The Life Inside deserves the widest possible readership. -- Geoff DyerBy turns enriching, sobering and at times, heartrending. A tale centering on our inner critic or executioner and how to stifle its constant sniping. A wonder. * Sir Lenny Henry *An authentic, fascinating and deeply moving story about the different ways people search for freedom. -- Terry WaiteWritten with sensitivity and humanity... a remarkable insight into prison life * Amanda Brown, author of The Prison Doctor *West powerfully interweaves an account of teaching philosophy in prison with his own family’s history of imprisonment, creating an intellectually thrilling memoir of freedom and constraint. -- Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, author of The Fact of a BodyWeaving philosophical questions about free will, forgiveness, guilt and shame, with family history and the realities of incarceration. Beautifully written – honest, painful, absurd and sometimes joyful. -- Caitlin Davies, author of Queens of the UnderworldA book that every thinking person should read. -- Simon Critchley, author of Continental PhilosophyWritten with compassion and searing honesty. * The Tablet *The Life Inside is an honest, delicate memoir that doubles as an accessible handbook of philosophical ideas. It expands both heart and mind; I’ll never think about prisons - let alone my own freedom and family - the same way again. -- Ciaran Thapar, author of Cut ShortIt’s a rare feat for anyone who works in a prison to capture the smell, the flavour and the taste of the fetid air they share with the prisoners in a book . . . More and more compelling with every turn of the page. -- Erwin James, author of RedeemableThese are tender, complicated relationships, and there is candour and wisdom - and no little courage - in how West shows them to us. * The New Humanist *West incorporates philosophical, descriptive, and psychological elements as with a fine Dickensian brush he paints a picture of the gritty details of prison life... profoundly moving. * Philosophy Now *Insightful and sophisticated. * TLS *An astonishing, necessary book . . . brilliantly dispels damaging myths about those whose lives are lived inside. * Lucia Osborne-Crowley *Immersing, entertaining and wonderfully empathetic. * The Bookseller *Drawn with great tenderness. * Prospect *One of the best books I've read this year. Moving, witty and profound, it's a powerfully humane book about a part of life that's defined by inhumanity. * Matt Rowland Hill *Poignant, insightful, and full of philosophical substance. * The Philosophers' Magazine *The Life Inside is extraordinary. * Rob Doyle *
£9.49
Ebury Publishing Dance Lessons
£18.70
Troubador Publishing Am I Still a Mother?: Surviving Life's Cruellest
Book SynopsisAn ordinary woman: an extraordinary life In 1979 Helen returns from Algeria to a much-changed UK, where she must juggle sole parenthood with the demands of a successful career. Her life unravels when her older son develops acute leukaemia and his devastated brother spirals into depression and addiction. For a decade Helen battles to keep her family, and herself, together. Unable to save her sons, can she now save herself? “Takes us on a devastating yet inspiring journey through the loss of her sons just a few years apart. Writing with searing insight and exceptional beauty, Helen Bouchami reveals how grief gave way to the transformative, healing power of love, and ultimately, to a new sense of meaning in life.” Joelle Fraser, author of The Territory of Men and The Forest House
£10.44
Mount Orleans Press To Catch the Sun
Book Synopsis
£25.31
University of Wales Press Nightshade Mother
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£10.44
Daunt Books Swimming Studies
Book Synopsis
£12.59
Pointed Leaf Press Wonderful
£14.24
Simon & Schuster Ltd My Next Breath
Book Synopsis
£18.70
New World Library Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change
Book Synopsis
£15.29
Orion Publishing Co Shadows Of The Workhouse The Drama Of Life In
Book SynopsisA fascinating slice of East End life, from the No.1 bestsellilng author of CALL THE MIDWIFE, soon to be a major BBC TV series.In this follow up to CALL THE MIDWIFE, Jennifer Worth, a midwife working in the docklands area of East London in the 1950s tells more stories about the people she encountered. There''s Jane, who cleaned and generally helped out at Nonnatus House - she was taken to the workhouse as a baby and was allegedly the illegitimate daughter of an aristocrat. Peggy and Frank''s parents both died within 6 months of each other and the children were left destitute. At the time, there was no other option for them but the workhouse. The Reverend Thornton-Appleby-Thorton, a missionary in Africa, visits the Nonnatus nuns and Sister Julienne acts as matchmaker. And Sister Monica Joan, the eccentric ninety-year-old nun, is accused of shoplifting some small items from the local market. She is let off with a warning, but then Jennifer finds stolen jeTrade ReviewBe warned, it's a real tear-jerker - but it also makes you very grateful for the life we have today. * Woman *
£9.49
Orion Publishing Co Pour Me: A Life
Book SynopsisSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2016 PEN ACKERLEY PRIZE'An intense, succulent read that's intermittently dazzling' THE TIMES'Chilling, exquisitely moving' DAILY TELEGRAPH'A superb memoir - and one of the best books on addiction I have ever read' EVENING STANDARDA. A. Gill's memoir begins in the dark of a dormitory with six strangers. He is an alcoholic, dying in the last-chance saloon. He tells the truth - as far as he can remember it - about drinking and about what it is like to be drunk. He recalls the lost days, lost friends, failed marriages ... But there was also an 'optimum inebriation, a time when it was all golden'.Sobriety regained, there are painterly descriptions of people and places, unforgettable musings about childhood and family, art and religion; and most movingly, the connections between his cooking, dyslexia and his missing brother. Full of raw and unvarnished truths, exquisitely written throughout, POUR ME is about lost time and self-discovery. Lacerating, unflinching, uplifting, it is a classic about drunken abandon.Trade Review'His mind, officially measured as off the Mensa scale, is an object of wonder. But it swivels everywhere like a dropped high-pressure hosepipe . . . Gill is explosive. God knows what a frightening thing he must have been in drink. He is bad enough as a dry drunk, the kind of sober person who gets thrown out of restaurants (in his case, Gordon Ramsay's). But the end of the book dwells on a recently evolved philanthropic side to Gill's character. He has become very anxious about the world. He travels to awful places, eloquently and genuinely compassionate with the suffering he witnesses there ... One deduces that he has transcended his suffering but he now has a hypersensitive sympathy with the suffering of others. A A Gill is 61, 30 years sober and surviving. Those who admire him (and I am one) will not merely read him over the years to come but follow him wherever he is now going. It will, one guesses, be an interesting journey' -- John Sutherland * NEW STATESMAN *'A.A. Gill, the man who makes a living getting beneath the skin of things, whether it's television, restaurants or places round the world - has skinned himself ... The funny, curious, sad and often sodden stories are told using combinations of words and ideas that shouldn't be friends, but hold hands at the behest of Gill, like a circus master with a comma for a whip. This is a book full of darkness, laughs and dark laughs. Personal truths by a man whose love of language is ultimately the protagonist' * VANITY FAIR *'[Gill] writes passionately and movingly about his struggle with dyslexia; disarmingly and defensively about his lifelong feelings of intellectual insecurity; evocatively about his relationships with his parents and the disappearance of his brother . . . stirringly about his love of journalism . . . It might not all be beautiful; it might not all be true. But that does little to diminish the pleasure to be found in its story' -- Matthew Adams * INDEPENDENT *'Fluent, cocky and dense with gags . . . he is a brilliant raconteur, and a gifted satirist of place and person. He is also, perhaps through a history of AA meetings (those initials are well chosen), unafraid to take risks of self-exposure. The baroque debauchery of his drinking days gives way to frank and often moving examinations of his growing up . . . his loves and lusts and marriages, and his own efforts at fatherhood: the role that has done most to keep him sober' -- Tim Adams * OBSERVER *'As readers of Gill's journalism will expect, Pour Me is alert, emphatic, mordant, unforgiving. It is often moving, but never tries to be likeable. Honesty about alcoholism is not its chief attraction. It is a full-blooded retrospective by a man aged 61, who has travelled in remote and dangerous places, and has considered most human possibilities. He apologises for his book being insufficiently amusing ("it's about me, and I'm not really funny"), but his gallows comedy gives a hefty kick, many sections are beautifully droll, and some scenes are hilarious' -- Richard Davenport-Hines * SUNDAY TIMES *'In this chilling, exquisitely moving book, Gill defines the seductive, addictive and destructive power of drink . . . Gill's trademark is slamming the truth down hard on the page. It is his honesty that accounts for the intensity of this haunting memoir . . . and although he says this is not a funny book, it is . . . there are meditative passages of beauty here . . . A book that began by discussing lost time becomes one of recovered time, of a new way of life that is worth not only living but also celebrating' -- Juliet Nicolson * DAILY TELEGRAPH *'It's an intense, succulent read that's intermittently dazzling - 250 pages about a young life nullified by anxiety and addiction and not one cliche, each sentence earning its keep. Gill's regular readers might expect that but his willingness to expose his deepest insecurities, his apparent belief that, even now, he's an imposter, method-acting being normal, makes him newly vulnerable . . . There's no triumphant, teary-eyed conclusion: Gill says he's still no clearer on whether he drank because he was anxious and depressed or that he was anxious and depressed because he drank. As he says, it probably doesn't matter. What he knows is that for all his success now, he will always mourn the blackout of those years, the prime decade of his life just a cigar box of dog-eared postcards and incoherent memories. The saddest thing of all, it turns out, is absence' -- Carol Midgley * THE TIMES *'Pour Me, Gill's sweet-sour memoir of his drinking days and subsequent reform . . . is a delight. In pages of well-turned anecdote, Gill chronicles a rackety life made good. The book is nicely designed, moreover, and I liked the discussions of, among other things, the difficulties of parenting and marriage in late middle age' -- Ian Thomson * SPECTATOR *'This tonic memoir is the absolute works . . . As an autobiographer, A.A. Gill is unhampered by introspection. He observes his former self from without, dispassionately, unsparingly, as if grimacing at some squalid exhibit in memory's museum, an exhibit from a different age that has little to do with the successful, prolific sexagenarian journalist and random stirrer. Indeed he's promiscuously interested in just about everything save himself. The scope of his knowledge is phenomenal . . . His descriptive prose is polychromatic and specific. He is impatient with 'impressionistic' approximations . . . He judges neither himself nor others . . . The aberrant behaviour, the bodily dysfunctions, the wondering how you ended up here, with these people you have never seen before - all this is recalled with impeccably grim comic timing' -- Jonathan Meades * COUNTRY LIFE *'A superb memoir - and one of the best books on addiction I have ever read . . . beautifully written. Gill describes many things - people, works of art, parts of London - wonderfully well. He says he wanted to be an artist. He is - with words' -- William Leith * EVENING STANDARD *'Pour Me by the jounalist A.A. Gill is a sour-sweet memoir of his alcoholism and its attendant woes. Gill's early years of drinking brought only a squalid self-denial and low self-esteem; liquor had got him well and truly licked. Often funny, the book is dedicated to the "friends of Bill", after the Bill Wilson who, in 1935, co-founded Alcoholics Anonymous' * THE TABLET *'Funny, infuriating and moving' * CATHOLIC HERALD *'The restaurant and television critic defines the seductive power of drink in this amusing, exquisitely moving memoir about alcoholism, full of riffs and detours, from Gill's parents' affairs while he was a child to his own first shaky detox days. His verbal dexterity is all the more remarkable for his dyslexia, the "wordcurdling" from which he has suffered since he was a schoolboy' * DAILY TELEGRAPH *'A.A. Gill's new memoir Pour Me is a prodigiously well-penned tale of addiction, misery, shame and rehabilitation - sometimes pompous, sometimes self-lacerating, but always unflinching and gripping' * MR HYDE *'A.A. Gill hangs his ferociously entertaining autobiography on his youthful spell as an alcoholic . . . with grimly comic scenes from bars and clubs, and confused fragments in between blackouts, garishly lit by guilt and shame . . . But Pour Me is more than an extended act of "sharing" at an AA meeting . . . He also writes about many aspects of his life that are much more interesting than his drinking, such as his family . . . He writes brilliantly about art - in a superb account of Gericault's 'Raft of the Medusa', for example - as he does about anything he turns his hand to, most surprisingly the plight of refugees. He has a terrific relish for simile . . . His favourite is "like a slap", which is what his writing is like; that or an electric shock: in any case, always stimulating' -- Lewis Jones * THE OLDIE *'Gill's memoir, Pour Me, focuses on his alcoholism and recovery from an earlier exclusive view of his own mortality. Like all his writings it combines a willingness to say the unsayable, and an intention to say it colourfully . . . it evokes a character of fearless intelligence, determined to find out everything for himself, and happy to tweak sensibilities along the way' -- David Horspool * TLS *
£9.49
Cornerstone Ootlin
Book SynopsisJenni Fagan was born in Scotland. Jenni was selected as one of Granta's Best Young British Novelists after the publication of her debut novel, The Panopticon, which was shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and the James Tait Black Prize. The Sunlight Pilgrims, her second novel, was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Encore Award and the Saltire Fiction Book of the Year Award and saw her win Scottish Author of the Year at the Herald Culture Awards. Luckenbooth was shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize 2021. Jenni Fagan is a Doctor of Philosophy, she lives in Edinburgh with her son.
£15.29
Little, Brown Book Group The Last Girl My Story of Captivity and My Fight
Book SynopsisJOINT WINNER OF THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZENadia Murad is a courageous young Yazidi woman who has endured unimaginable tragedy and degradation through sexual enslavement to ISIS. Six of Nadia''s brothers were killed, and her mother soon after, their bodies swept into mass graves. But she has fought back.This inspiring memoir takes us from her peaceful childhood in Iraq through loss and brutality to safety in Germany. She is the subject of Alexandria Bombach''s film On Her Shoulders, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee and the first Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking of the United Nations. Courage and testimony can change the world: this is one of those books. ''Those who thought that by their cruelty they could silence her were wrong. Nadia Murad''s spirit is not broken, and her voice with not be muted'' Amal Clooney''Offers powerful insight into the barbarity the Yazidi suffered alongside glimpsesTrade ReviewThe Last Girl offers powerful insight into the barbarity the Yazidi suffered alongside glimpses into their mystical culture . . . this is an important book by a brave woman, fresh testament to humankind's potential for chilling and inexplicable evil -- Ian Birrell * The Times *Courageous . . . Anyone who wants to understand the so called Islamic State (is) should read [The Last Girl] * The Economist *This devastating memoir unflinchingly recounts her experiences and questions the complicity of witnesses who acquiesced in the suffering of others * New Yorker *Nadia Murad has put a human face on one of the world's most complicated and intractable conflicts * Sunday Business Post *
£10.44
Penguin Books Ltd Henry and June
Book SynopsisThe brilliant tale of Anais Nin''s true love affair with Henry Miller, and her ambiguous, charged relationship with his wife, June. Drawn from the journals of a single momentous year in Paris, Henry and June provides a wildly lyrical account of a woman''s sexual awakening and the disillusion of idealized marriage.
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd My Family and Other Spies
Book SynopsisAn extraordinary true story of growing up inside MI6, uncovering family secrets, and tracing a legacy of British espionage across half a century. A fabulous romp of a book, part John le Carré, part Ealing comedy compulsively readable'SUNDAY TIMESTells the story of the author's unique childhood and the extraordinary, shadowy lives of his mother and father'SUNDAY TELEGRAPHTruth is stranger than fiction 'INDEPENDENTReads like a Cold War thriller written by John le Carré with an added injection of wry humour'BBC SATURDAY LIVEIt has always been inculcated into me that no good could ever come of having anything to do with my fatherAs a boy, Alistair Wood lived within the (very high) walls of a Secret Intelligence Service or MI6 training camp, surrounded by some of the most senior - and colourful - characters in SIS history. After all, he was family. His mother was one of a handful of women to have operated behind the lines in post-war Berlin. His father, once one of Britain's most highly-regarded intelligence officers, was an absent and perplexing figure, the reasons for his sudden departure from the Service still classified to this day. But Wood's search for the truth took him on a journey more remarkable than even he had imagined. My Family and Other Spies is a gripping exploration of an extraordinary, scarcely believable life, a globe-trotting spy story that spans a half century from the gathering storm before the Second World War to the fall of Communism, and a son's reckoning with the secrets of the past. 'Simply stunning ... might be the best non-fiction book I've ever read about post-war SIS' CHARLES BEAUMONTA remarkable insight into British intelligence in the Cold Warwith all the intrigue and suspense of a truly gripping espionage novel' ALEX GERLISThis is very entertaining a fascinating biography STEPHEN DORRIL, author of MI6: 50 Years of Special Operations'A compelling personal journey to uncover the truth and an intimate view into one of Britain's most secretive organisations' HELEN FRY'The intriguing story of how the author peels back the cloak of mystery surrounding his father, a member of the Secret Intelligence Service. A very good book strongly recommended' ROBERT LYMAN
£18.70
Oneworld Publications Solito
Book SynopsisA child's odyssey to reunite with his parents on the other side of the borderTrade Review‘I don’t think I’ve ever read a memoir which captivated me in so many ways... It was a beautiful book about family, those that we have and those that we make, and the little family that they made on their journey, which was almost sort of Iliad-esque. An epic journey to their loved ones, because they had no choice.’ -- Jenna Bush Hager, TODAY'A monumental accomplishment.' -- Oprah Daily'Crafted with stunning intimacy . . . you’ll feel so close to the boy [Zamora] was then that you’ll think about him long after the book is done. It’s impossible not to feel both immersed in and changed by this extraordinary book.' -- Los Angeles Times'An important, beautiful work.' -- New York Times Book Review‘Solito is at once blistering and tender, devastating and affirming – it is, quite simply, a revelation, a new landmark in the literature of migration, and in nonfiction writ large.’ -- Francisco Cantú, New York Times bestselling author of The Line Becomes a River'A beautifully wrought work that renders the migrant experience into a vivid, immediately accessible portrayal' * Kirkus Review (starred) *'A monumental act of reconstruction...Zamora reminds us that behind the word migrant – whether used casually or cruelly – there are human faces, and individual tragedies and triumphs. * New Internationalist *'A gripping story, heart-breaking in some passages and heartening in others. Solito is my travel book of the year.' -- Telegraph'A beguiling personal memoir which is so effortlessly evocative of time and place, so light in its unexpected humour and convincing in its characterisation, it reads like a novel written by a master of imaginative and empathetic fiction.' -- Big Issue'Solito is both a work of personal healing and an implicit appeal for countries, including the United States, to address the hardships and danger that immigration posed to Zamora, and continues to pose for countless others.' -- New York Times'The heartbreaking odyssey of nine-year-old Javier Zamora, travelling through South America alone to reach his migrant parents in California, is both a rare, eye-opening rendition of the brutal reality of border-crossing and a haunting testament to the human cost of contemporary immigration policies. I was brought to tears of sympathy and anger.' -- Lea Ypi, author of Free'It’s the finest work of non-fiction I’ve read this year… Solito is a reminder, too, of how far strangers will go to help one another in times of trouble.’ -- Deskbound Traveller‘If there’s any justice, Solito will someday be considered a classic.’ -- Rumaan Alam, New York Times bestselling author of Leave the World Behind‘This is a magnificent book. Every character is rendered with boundless care and love, and the result is… a gorgeous, riveting tale of perseverance and the lengths humans will go to help one another in times of struggle. With this book, Zamora arrives at the forefront of essential American voices.’ -- Dave Eggers, author of The Circle and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius‘I have waited for a memoir like Solito for decades.’ -- Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street‘Zamora presents an immensely moving story of desperation and hardship in this account of his childhood migration from El Salvador to the US… This sheds an urgent and compassionate light on the human lives caught in an ongoing humanitarian crisis.’ -- Publishers Weekly, starred review'A stone-cold masterpiece. I read with my heart in my throat.' -- Emma Straub, author of the New York Times Bestseller ALL ADULTS HERE‘This incredible book… is an outstanding contribution to migration literature. It should become a compulsory read in schools, to understand better the ordeals that millions of migrants face daily trying to cross borders. Solito is not only a masterpiece of memoir writing but one of my favourite books of non-fiction published in recent years. It is a powerful human account that transcends languages, countries and cultures. The book sings its heart out with devastating force: it’s full of life, struggle and hope.’ -- Morning Star
£11.39
Hodder & Stoughton The Sober Diaries
Book SynopsisA bravely honest and brilliantly comic account of how one mother gave up drinking and started living. This is Bridget Jones Dries Out.Clare Pooley is a Cambridge graduate and was a Managing Partner at one of the world''s biggest advertising agencies, and yet by eighteen months ago she''d become an overweight, depressed, middle-aged mother of three who was drinking more than a bottle of wine a day, and spending her evenings Googling ''Am I an alcoholic?''In a desperate bid to turn her life around, she quit drinking and started a blog. She called it Mummy Was a Secret Drinker.This book is the story of a year in Clare''s life. A year that started with her quitting booze having been drinking more than a bottle of wine every day. It sees her starting a hugely successful blog, then getting and beating breast cancer. By the end of the year she is booze free and cancer free, two stone lighter and with a life that is so much richer, healthier and more reTrade ReviewBrutally honest and sparkily funny * Sunday Express *The Sober Diaries is a misconception-busting book, which draws on Pooley's extensive research. * Sunday Herald *
£10.44
Vintage Publishing What is the Grass
Book SynopsisMark Doty has always felt haunted by Walt Whitman’s bold, new American voice, and by his equally radical claims about body and soul and what it means to be a self. In What Is the Grass, Doty – a poet, a lover of men, a New Yorker, and an American – keeps company with Whitman and his mutable, landmark work, Leaves of Grass, tracing the resonances between his own experience and the legendary poet’s life and work.What is it, then, between us? Whitman asks. Doty’s answer is to explore spaces tied to Whitman’s life and spaces where he finds the poet’s ghost, meditating on desire, love, and the mysterious wellsprings of the poet’s enduring work. How does a voice survive death? What Is the Grass is a conversation across time and space, a study of the astonishment one poet finds in the accomplishment of another, and an attempt to grasp Whitman’s deeply hopeful vision of humanity.Trade ReviewDoty is an extraordinarily fine writer whose every word sings on the page… There certainly couldn’t be a more appropriate explorer [of Whitman] than Doty, as both a leading North American poet and a memoirist and prose writer of exceptional grace and depth… This is an exceptional, passionate memoir of reading, and of a poet’s lifelong work of understanding self and the world. -- Fiona Sampson * Spectator *Mark Doty's deeply personal love letter to Walt Whitman, belongs in the pantheon...beside Ted Hughes’s Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being and Don Paterson’s Reading Shakespeare’s Sonnets… As admirers of his poetry and memoirs will know, Doty writes about his life with a rare warmth and candour. He makes you lean forward to listen… He reads with care, in the sense of both attentiveness and love. -- Tristram Fane Saunders * Daily Telegraph *Marvellous. He sends you straight back to the text, makes you feel like you're returning to an old love... In a fit of enchantment. -- Abhrajyoti Chakraborty * Guardian *Doty is one of the most compelling modern singers of 'the body electric' and in What is the Grass he has produced an elegant meditation on the great founding father of American poetry... Doty helps us feel the touch and connection of great art afresh. It is a warmly affecting performance. -- David Wheatley * Literary Review *Mark Doty has written a warm and intelligent account of Whitman... [Doty's] poems are a highly engaging mixture of the quotidian and the numinous. -- Seamus Perry * Times Literary Supplement *
£15.29
Bonnier Books Ltd In Her Room: How Music Helped Me Connect With My
Book SynopsisWhen James Cook's daughter was nearly one, he began to suspect that she wasn't simply a 'late bloomer', as he and his wife were telling friends and family. Emily was strongly taken by images and patterns around the house, had a marked response to music, but never pointed at anything, and hadn't crawled yet. At the age of two-and-a-half, after months of invasive tests, Emily was finally diagnosed with severe autism, and everything changed.Forced to embark on a fraught journey from denial to acceptance, James discovered the multi-faceted link between music and autism, and how singing and playing guitar for Emily could provide a unique form of communication. In Her Room is an extraordinary and heartbreaking story of a father's attempts to connect with his daughter, and how music can help bridge the divide.
£13.49
Granta Publications Ltd Nothing To Envy: Real Lives In North Korea
Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION A spectacular, definitive portrait of ordinary life within one of the world's most repressive states - North Korea. 'A most perceptive and eye-opening account of everyday life in North Korea' Jung Chang North Korea is Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four made reality: it is the only country in the world not connected to the internet; where Gone with the Wind is a dangerous, banned book; and where during political rallies, spies study your expression to check your sincerity. Nothing to Envy weaves together the stories of adversity and resilience of six residents of Chongin, North Korea's third-largest city. From extensive interviews and with tenacious investigative work, Barbara Demick has recreated the concerns, culture and lifestyles of North Korean citizens in a gripping narrative, and vividly reconstructed the inner workings of this extraordinary and secretive country. Includes an updated afterword by the author. 'Impossible to put down ... helps restore humanity to some of the world's most oppressed people' ObserverTrade ReviewA rare and valuable insight ... Nothing to Envy is a searchlight shining on a country cloaked in darkness -- Alastair Mabbott * Herald *Barbara Demick's achievement is to restore a measure of humanity to 23 million human beings. Many scholars have pored over North Korea's atrocious history, its fearful politics, abysmal economics and blood-curdling propaganda. No writer I know has done a better job of clothing these academic concerns with the rich detail of the lives of ordinary people - explaining, simply, what it feels like to be a citizen of the cruellest, most repressive and most retrograde country in the world -- Richard Lloyd Parry * The Times *A most perceptive and eye-opening account of everyday life in North Korea -- Jung ChangThis report on the lives of six of the citizens of totalitarian penal colony is unputdownable and deeply affecting, a worthy winner this week of the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction -- David Sexton * Evening Standard *Taking the cases of six individuals and their families, Demick constructs a harrowing narrative of the North's slide into famine following the death of the elder Kim in 1994 ... The Kim dynasty, whose Stalinist cruelty Demick graphically chronicles, has shown remarkable staying power -- Simon Scott Plummer * Daily Telegraph *I loved it - I couldn't pull myself away. This is the first book I've read which tells me about the inner lives of individual North Koreans and the universal cruelty of that regime. Reading this book, I've learnt something about how it feels to be North Korean - it's not unimaginable anymore, but it's even more painful than I could have predicted -- Lindsey Hilsum, International Editor, Channel 4 NewsDemick weaves stories derived from interviews and conversations, conducted over a number of years, into a compelling narrative. Her book is a reminder that oral history is one of our greatest resources. Its use in Nothing to Envy makes for a valuable contribution to the literature on North Korea -- Charlotte Middlehurst * New Statesman *A fascinating study in the oral history of Korea in the last decade of the twentieth century ... Nothing to Envy is a fascinating work which highlights in the lives of the individuals concerned the triumph of the human spirit in the face of overwhelming adversity -- Oliver Rafferty * Irish Times *The shroud of silence and misinformation surrounding North Korea means these stories of six lives inside the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, as told to Los Angeles Times journalist Barbara Demick by "defectors", are a revelation -- Emmanuelle Smith * Financial Times *Barbara Demick, the Beijing bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times, has occasionally been to the north, but on visits so strictly controlled as to be worthless. Talking with émigrés and escapees now living in the south has provided the material for this terrific, often gruelling work of reportage. It gives a harrowing, surreal glimpse of what she calls "this hermit kingdom", which is so secretive and little known that it is the only country on earth not connected to the internet -- Christopher Hart * Sunday Times *A fair, modest and informative book about North Korea, a country little known and less understood ... most of what her informants say is repeated in indirect speech, and I found their testimonies varied and convincing ... There is much to learn form this carefully written book that draws few conclusions beyond well-grounded individual cases. Barbara Demick says that in satellite pictures of the Far East, North Korea is an "area of darkness". She makes this black hole at least medium grey -- Jonathan Mirsky * Literary Review *Beijing-based journalist Demick draws on extensive interviews with North Koreans who have defected to the South, revealing the truth of ordinary life within Kim Jong-Il's bizarre and repressive Stalinist state * New Humanist *A lovely work of narrative non-fiction ... that offers extensive evidence of the author's deep knowledge of this country while keeping its sights firmly on individual stories and human details -- Dwight Garner * Scotland on Sunday *Eye-opening portrait of the downtrodden and monochrome lives of six ordinary citizens of North Korea ... Granta's comparisons with Stasiland are apt and you keep having to remind yourself this isn't fiction -- Caroline Sanderson * Bookseller *Nothing To Envy is based on her in-depth interviews with defectors - and their accounts are as harrowing as you would expect -- Siobhan Murphy * Metro *Writing a properly researched book on North Korea seems next to impossible. But in Nothing to Envy, Barbara Demick has done it ... Demick is thorough and fair on the troubled history of Korea -- Roger Hutchinson * Scotsman *In a detailed account of North Korea, Demick looks beyond the country's politics to engage with the human experience and suffering of its residents * Sunday Times *This remarkable book confirms our fears but does much more and is the deserving winner of the 2010 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize ... Barbara Demick is a reporter of impressive tenacity and thoroughness ... Many of those who defected have found their freedom hard to handle. Theirs have been lives twice blighted. But Demick does them proud -- Joan Bakewell * The Times *Barbara Demick, who has an easy winning style, introduces us to a county of suppressed impulses and state propaganda ... This compelling book, a worthy winner of the BBC Samuel Johnson prize, details the experiences of six North Koreans who defected to China or South Korea -- Ian Pindar * Guardian *I've never read anything quite like it ... Demick has unearthed some heartbreaking human stories -- William Leith * Evening Standard *Awarded this year's Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction, this book by the former Korea correspondent of the Los Angeles Times uses the accounts of six defectors to reconstruct everyday life under the secretive communist regime * New Statesman *A fascinating portrait of a population bred from birth to be state automatons ... Alongside the daring prison breaks and midnight escapes through icy rivers to reach China, the tales of everyday love and loss make Nothing to Envy impossible to put down ... Demick's important book, by illuminating previously hidden aspects of North Korean life, helps restore humanity to some of the world's most oppressed people -- Imogen Carter * Observer *This is an extreme book ... I've never read anything like it ... Demick has unearthed some heartbreaking human stories * Scotsman *This compelling account of life and death in Korea is eye-opening and often heart-rending. Demick's perceptiveness in describing the inner life of individual North Koreans both enthrals and horrifies. One of the most fascinating books of the year * Independent on Sunday *An elegant, honourable and meticulously referenced account of a country the author calls "grimly dysfunctional". It is an inspiring read. -- Celia Brayfield * The Times *Thoroughly deserving winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize. * Independent on Sunday *Much-praised 2010 winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, this is a painstakingly researched and gruelling account of the hardships and cruelties of life in the world's most isolated, eccentric and oppressive state -- Gideon Rachman * Financial Times *A story of epic stoicism and suffering and illuminated by such jaw-dropping details as the doctors who have to donate their own skin to conduct operations -- Brian Schofield * Sunday Times *A brilliant, timely work of very modern history and a deserving winner of the 2010 BBC Samuel Johnson prize -- Rob Attar * BBC History Magazine *Amy Bloom turned her unflinching gaze on the map of the human heart, finding solace in our ability to love no matter what -- Claire Allfree * Metro *gripping, revealing, enraging and unexpectedly inspiring -- Ursula Doyle, editorial director of Virago as the 2010 book she wished she had published * Guardian *A vivid picture of life in the Hermit Kingdom. It deserved the awards it has been winning * The Times *Redolent and disturbing, an account of real lives drawn from interviews with defectors from the shadowy (actually dark) and sinister world of North Korea -- Pete Irvine * Scotland on Sunday *A rare light on so hidden a country, and all the more remarkable for its unfailingly engaging humanity * Guardian *
£9.49
Canongate Books Belonging: Natural histories of place, identity
Book SynopsisSHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR NATURE WRITING 2023LONGLISTED FOR THE HIGHLAND BOOK PRIZE 2022Reflecting on family, identity and nature, belonging is a personal memoir about what it is to have and make a home. It is a love letter to nature, especially the northern landscapes of Scotland and the Scots pinewoods of Abernethy.Beautifully written and featuring Amanda Thomson's artwork and photography throughout, it explores how place, language and family shape us and make us who we are. It is a book about how we are held in thrall to elements of our past. It speaks to the importance of attention and reflection, and will encourage us all to look and observe and ask questions of ourselves.Trade ReviewOutstanding -- ROBERT MACFARLANEA beautifully written meditation on rural surroundings and her place within them * * Sunday Times * *Amanda Thomson's new book manages to carve out a distinctive niche for itself . . . This is a passionate book and infused with a sense of rootedness -- STUART KELLY * * The Scotsman * *In recent years rural landscapes have turned into battlegrounds, and nature writing has become increasingly polemical. Belonging is a quiet book of questions in a genre full of answers, but it is all the more powerful and beautiful for this -- PATRICK GALBRAITH * * TLS * *Deservedly shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize; a thoughtful blend of memoir, family history, artistic scrapbook and nature journal in a compelling collage. [ . . . ] There's also an all-encompassing belief in the importance of listening, looking and learning from the world around us * * Observer * *One of the best things I have read in ages . . . Quiet and beautiful and powerful -- ALYS FOWLERThomson writes of the natural in a way I have yet to encounter before. There is no real hoo-haa, no flowery description of which to speak yet somehow, I came away with that ache inside me - that renewed obsession with the world that is only borne of a very particular kind of writing - poetic, loving, raw . . . Like no other -- KERRI Ní DOCHARTAIGH * * Caught by the River * *I rather enjoyed Amanda's very personal history interweaving ideas of family, place, history and nature. I was left feeling that she is the sort of person that I would love to spend an evening engaged in conversation with -- DAVID LINDO, The Urban BirderWhether writing about nature, about family, about art, or about identity, Amanda Thomson brings a careful and a thoughtful attention to the page. She shows how the threads of a life - its passions and preoccupations - are intricately entangled, each illuminating and complicating the other -- MALACHY TALLACKA book that digs deep . . . Vivid * * Herald * *In belonging, Thomson invites us to think about what living with the land really means: not just beautiful and wild places, but cities, suburbs, old houses, the places that shape us in childhood and beyond, too. This is an evocative, intimate journey through the ways we find home - in family, place, history and language -- JESSICA J. LEELyrical * * Country Living * *A finely-wrought meditation on nature, identity and the tender hold of the past -- SAMANTHA WALTON, author of EVERYBODY NEEDS BEAUTY and THE LIVING WORLDTender, searching and dialectically alert, this glorious book is a primer on noticing, a map of intersectional consciousness. Each passage pulses with incandescent turns of wonder and pain, like wingbeats stirring the air. In strikingly original takes on Scottish history, environmentalism, Black feminist theory, artmaking, list-making, memory and memoir, Thomson crafts a cadence that is as wise as it is vitally alive. Reading it, I felt like I belonged. What a gift: to see and love the world even as it hurts, even as it changes -- MARGOT DOUAIHY, author of SCORCHED GRACEA highly original, beautifully written and timely account -- STEPHEN MOSS
£10.44
Hodder & Stoughton A Street Cat Named Bob
Book SynopsisFrom the stars of A CHRISTMAS GIFT FROM BOB, starring Luke Treadaway as James and Bob himself, the original bestseller and heartwarming story of the life-saving friendship between a man and his streetwise cat.''[Bob] has entranced London like no feline since the days of Dick Whittington.'' (Evening Standard)''A heartwarming tale with a message of hope'' (Daily Mail)''Reminded me how amazing having a cat can be'' (Glamour)* * * * * * * *The uplifting true story of an unlikely friendship between a man on the streets of Covent Garden and the ginger cat who adopts him and helps him heal his life. Now a major motion picture starring Luke Treadaway.When James Bowen found an injured, ginger street cat curled up in the hallway of his sheltered accommodation, he had no idea just how much his life was about to change. James was living hand to mouth on the streets of LTrade ReviewAn instantly bestselling memoir that, beside its heart-warming tale of their friendship, offers an insight into the injustice of life on the streets that's by turns frustrating and life-affirming. * The Times *A heartwarming tale with a message of hope. * Daily Mail *A true story and ideal for anyone like me who's a bit mad when it comes to felines. * Glamour *
£10.44
