Published diaries, letters and journals Books

Book SynopsisNamed one ofThe Guardian''s "Best Books of 2016"From the author of My Brilliant FriendThis book invites readers into Elena Ferrante?s workshop. It offers a glimpse into the drawers of her writing desk, those drawers from which emerged her three early standalone novels and the four installments of My Brilliant Friend, known in English as the Neapolitan Quartet. Consisting of over 20 years of letters, essays, reflections, and interviews, it is a unique depiction of an author who embodies a consummate passion for writing. In these pages Ferrante answers many of her readers? questions. She addresses her choice to stand aside and let her books live autonomous lives. She discusses her thoughts and concerns as her novels are being adapted into films. She talks about the challenge of finding concise answers to interview questions. She explains the joys and the struggles of writing, the anguish of composing a story only to discover that that story isn?t good enough. She contemplates her relationship with psychoanalysis, with the cities she has lived in, with motherhood, with feminism, and with her childhood as a storehouse for memories, impressions, and fantasies. The result is a vibrant and intimate self-portrait of a writer at work.

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Book SynopsisWinner of the 2016 EDGAR, AGATHA, MACAVITY and H.R.F.KEATING crime writing awards, this real-life detective story investigates how Agatha Christie and colleagues in a mysterious literary club transformed crime fiction.Detective stories of the Twenties and Thirties have long been stereotyped as cosily conventional. Nothing could be further from the truth.The Golden Age of Murder tells for the first time the extraordinary story of British detective fiction between the two World Wars. A gripping real-life detective story, it investigates how Dorothy L. Sayers, Anthony Berkeley, Agatha Christie and their colleagues in the mysterious Detection Club transformed crime fiction. Their work cast new light on unsolved murders whilst hiding clues to their authors' darkest secrets, and their complex and sometimes bizarre private lives.Crime novelist and current Detection Club President Martin Edwards rewrites the history of crime fiction with unique authority, transforming our understanding of deteTrade Review‘Few, if any, books about crime fiction have provided so much information and insight so enthusiastically and, for the reader, so enjoyably’ THE TIMES ‘Illuminating and entertaining – provides a new way of looking at old favourites. I admire the way that Martin Edwards weaves the sometimes violent, sometimes unlawful, and always gripping true stories of these writers with the equally wild tales they tell in their books.’ LEN DEIGHTON, author of SS-GB ‘Forensically sharp and exhaustively informed… Crime fiction is driven by death. In this superbly compendious and entertaining book, Edwards ensures that dozens of authorial corpses are gloriously reborn.’ MARK LAWSON, GUARDIAN ‘Edwards knows his business. He understands how to parcel out the clues and red herrings so as to feed the reader enough information to keep a variety of possibilities open, while making sure to prepare for a satisfying solution.’ SEATTLE POST ‘You can learn far more about the social mores of the age in which a mystery is written than you can from more pretentious literature. I mean, if you want to know what it was like to live in England in the 1920s, the so-called Golden Age, you can get a much better steer from mysteries than you can from prize-winning novels.’ P. D. JAMES

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Book SynopsisClassic 1722 account of the epidemic that ravaged England nearly 60 years earlier. Defoe used his considerable talents as a journalist and novelist to reconstruct historically and fictionally the Great Plague of London in 1664-65. Written as an eyewitness report, the novel abounds in memorable and realistic details.

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Book SynopsisYasmin Boland invites you to use the transformative energy of the Moon to make 2026 a year of dramatic shifts that create space for positive change.In the ever-changing cosmic landscape, 2026 is a year of transformation with a celestial mandate to chase your dreams. The Moonology Diary 2026 will support you on an astrological journey through a year unlike any other. In 2026, the stars demand action and say, ?Don?t just sit there, do something!?As multiple outer planets make momentous transitions from one sign to the next, the planetary energies are set to shift dramatically. These rare and significant changes, some occurring for the first time in decades or even centuries, herald a powerful time to break free from the past and old patterns. It?s a time to embrace fresh ways of being because, by year?s end, your life could look radically different than it did in January.Each week you''ll learn how to work with the cycles of the Moon to create, plan, and predict changes in your life during this eventful year. Dive in and discover how to harness the lunar energies to manifest your dreams and step boldly into a new era of possibility. You''ll learn how: the Moon and her nine magical phases can be a source of light and guidance attuning to the energies in each lunar cycle can help you set and achieve your goals to use simple techniques to supercharge different aspects of your life?from work and friendships to finances and romance co-creating your reality with the cosmos can invite magic and even bliss into each week This essential diary, which sells out every year, charts the key themes of 2026 and includes plenty of space for you to plan your year, get in tune with the Moon, and live a life full of possibility!

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Book SynopsisUnpublished for 90 years, Agatha Christie's extensive and evocative letters and photographs from her year-long round-the-world trip to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and America as part of the British trade mission for the famous 1924 Empire Exhibition.In 1922 Agatha Christie set sail on a 10-month voyage around the British Empire with her husband as part of a trade mission to promote the forthcoming British Empire Exhibition. Leaving her two-year-old daughter behind with her sister, Agatha set sail at the end of January and did not return until December, but she kept up a detailed weekly correspondence with her mother, describing in detail the exotic places and people she encountered as the mission travelled through South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and Canada.The extensive and previously unpublished letters are accompanied by hundreds of photos taken on her portable camera as well as some of the original letters, postcards, newspaper cuttings and memorabilia Trade Review‘A compelling, entertaining and joyful read. It is the people she meets along the way for whom she saves her best prose… It is they, and her wonderful descriptions of them, that make this book as enjoyable as any of her novels.’ – SUNDAY EXPRESS ‘The 32-year-old Agatha is confident, full of laughter, and sharply observant. She misses none of the local gossip… We can see an author gathering material for future use – the courting couples, elderly clergymen, spinsters, male secretaries, gouty ex-army officers, and vamps with kohl-ringed eyes, who form Agatha Christie’s typical cast of characters. The long sea voyages, sleeping compartments and dining cars will become the train in Murder on the Orient Express or the paddle steamer in Death on the Nile.’ – DAILY MAIL

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Book SynopsisVolume Two covers the early years of his editorship of The Criterion (the periodical that Eliot launched with Lady Rothermere''s backing in 1922), publication of The Hollow Men and the course of Eliot''s thinking about poetry and poetics after The Waste Land. The correspondence charts Eliot''s intellectual journey towards conversion to the Anglican faith in 1927, as well as his transformation from banker to publisher, ending with his appointment as a director of the new publishing house of Faber & Gwyer, in late 1925, and the appearance of Poems 1909-1925, Eliot''s first publication with the house with which he would be associated for the rest of his life. It was partly because of Eliot''s profoundly influential work as cultural commentator and editor that the correspondence is so prolific and so various, and Volume Two of the Letters fully demonstrates the emerging continuities between poet, essayist, editor and letter-writer.

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Book SynopsisShowcasing for the first time more than 200 of renowned author J.P. Donleavy's most intimate letters, this scrupulously edited collection throws an extraordinary light on the composition, publication and afterlife of The Ginger Man.

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Book SynopsisFrom the private papers of Mark Twain and Mozart to those of Robert Browning and Nelson, Love Letters of Great Men collects together some of the most romantic letters in history.Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is edited and introduced by publisher Ursula Doyle.For some of these great men, love is a ‘delicious poison’ (William Congreve); for others, love can scorch like the heat of the sun (Henry VIII), or penetrate the depths of one’s heart like a cooling rain (Flaubert). Every shade of love is here, from the exquisite eloquence of Oscar Wilde and the simple devotion of Robert Browning, to the wonderfully modern misery of the Roman Pliny the Younger. Taken together, these Love Letters of Great Men show that perhaps men haven’t changed so very much over the last 2,000 years; passion, jealousy, hope and longing are all represented described here – as is the simple pleasure of sending a letter to, and receiving one from, the person you love most.Trade ReviewThe most romantic book ever * Daily Mail *Pan has pioneered the art of product placement in reverse * Observer *Love Letters will sell boatloads of books * Entertainment Weekly *Inspired by the Sex and the City movie . . . Famous men caught with pen in hand and heart in mouth * The Times *Table of ContentsIntroduction - i: Introduction Chapter - 1: Pliny the Younger to his wife, Calpurnia Chapter - 2: King Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn Chapter - 3: William Congreve to Mrs Arabella Hunt Chapter - 4: Richard Steele to Miss Mary Scurlock Chapter - 5: George Farquhar to Anne Oldfield Chapter - 6: Alexander Pope to Martha Blount Chapter - 7: Alexander Pope to Teresa Blount Chapter - 8: Alexander Pope to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu Chapter - 9: David Hume to Madame de Boufflers Chapter - 10: Laurence Sterne to Catherine Fourmantel Chapter - 11: Laurence Sterne to Lady Percy Chapter - 12: Denis Diderot to Sophie Volland Chapter - 13: Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, to Lady Grosvenor Chapter - 14: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to his wife, Constanze Chapter - 15: Lord Nelson to Lady Emma Hamilton Chapter - 16: Robert Burns to Mrs Agnes Maclehose Chapter - 17: Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller to Charlotte von Lengefeld Chapter - 18: Napoleon Bonaparte to his wife, Josephine Chapter - 19: Daniel Webster to Josephine Seaton Chapter - 20: Ludwig van Beethoven to his ‘Immortal Beloved’ Chapter - 21: William Hazlitt to Sarah Walker Chapter - 22: Lord Byron to Lady Caroline Lamb Chapter - 23: Lord Byron to the Countess Guiccioli Chapter - 24: John Keats to Fanny Brawne Chapter - 25: Honorè de Balzac to the Countess Ewelina Hanska Chapter - 26: Victor Hugo to Adèle Foucher Chapter - 27: Nathaniel Hawthorne to his wife, Sophia Chapter - 28: Benjamin Disraeli to Mary Ann Wyndham Lewis Chapter - 29: Charles Darwin to Emma Wedgwood Chapter - 30: Alfred de Musset to George Sand Chapter - 31: Robert Schumann to Clara Wieck Chapter - 32: Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett Chapter - 33: Gustave Flaubert to Louise Colet Chapter - 34: Gustave Flaubert to George Sand Chapter - 35: Walter Bagehot to Elizabeth Wilson Chapter - 36: Mark Twain to Olivia Langdon Chapter - 37: William F. Testerman to Miss Jane Davis Chapter - 38: Charles Stewart Parnell to Katherine O’Shea Chapter - 39: Oscar Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas Chapter - 40: Pierre Curie to Marie Sklodovska (Marie Curie) Chapter - 41: G. K. Chesterton to Frances Blogg Chapter - 42: Captain Alfred Bland to his wife, Violet Chapter - 43: Regimental Sergeant-Major James Milne to his wife, Meg Chapter - 44: Second Lieutenant John Lindsay Rapoport to his fiancée Acknowledgements - ii: Acknowledgements

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"A labor of love.... These letters are gold, the richest Machiavelli vein there is for mining the life and the ideas."—Colin Walters, Washington Times "A marvelous book that gives us, for the first time in English, all the extant personal letters that Machiavelli exchanged with his friends and associates over thirty years.... A major event."—John M. Najemy, Cornell University "Bravo!' to the superb edition Atkinson and Sices have produced.... Should be required reading."—Peter Bondanella, Indiana UniversityTable of ContentsTable of Contents Preface Introduction Letters 1497-1498 1499 1500 1501 1502 1503 1504-1505 1506 1507-1508 1509 1510-1512 1513 1514 1515-1519 1520 1521 1522-1524 1525 1526 1527 Appendix Notes Abbreviations Works Cited List of Correspondence Subject Index

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Book SynopsisThe irreverent diaries of Tina Brown's eight spectacular years as editor in chief of Vanity Fair. From the author of the bestselling THE PALACE PAPERSTrade ReviewA mile-a-minute memoir I read like a parrot with my nails embedded in Pirate Tina's shoulder, yelling 'What??!!' 'What!?!!' 'WOWZA!' as she swashbuckles through the eighties, her sword slicing up the staid shibboleths of New York. I remembered why I was afraid of her in those days. And why that energy and imagination, turned to making the world better, has galvanized so many of us now. A cultural catalyst, she makes things happen. Thank god she wrote it all down. Hang on - it's a wild ride -- Meryl StreepIt's brilliant, concretely realised social history as much as a fabulous odyssey, and I read it in a mad frenzy -- Stephen FryFull of creative glee, passion and wild-ride excitement, The Vanity Fair Diaries features a cast of characters like Mad Men (and women) on speed; an epic of a legendary magazine's dazzling re-creation; moments of laugh-out-loud comic asides, juicy gossip and sketches of Austen-like sharpness, all put together by an editor of high-octane genius who pauses only to reflect that however good she might be, it's never quite good enough. Oh yes it is. Read the diaries and feel better about everything. The word lives! -- Simon SchamaThere has been fevered speculation about Tina Brown's diaries for decades ... Well, here they finally are - and I read them in one six-hour sprint of pure pleasure and joy. These are the most compelling media diaries since Piers Morgan's The Insider but with a tonier cast of characters, indiscreet, brilliantly observed, frequently hilarious ... Her turnaround of the relaunched Vanity Fair in the mid-Eighties is the stuff of journalistic legend - an electrifying, glitzy, gritty triumph - and these are the years covered by these diaries. And it's all here: the Demi Moore naked and pregnant front cover, Claus von Bulow photographed in black leather, Donald and Ivana Trump, the whole sweep of Eighties Manhattan reported at first hand in Tina's fresh, beady, borderline-paranoid style ... As a primer for how to edit a hot magazine, there is much to learn here ... Tina encounters it all, and deals with it -- Nicholas Coleridge * EVENING STANDARD *Who could resist Tina Brown, that then 30-year-old blonde Brit who stormed New York in the Eighties, reading her memoir of how she did it? Not me ... Her voice is taut, her eye is everywhere. She doesn't bring us into her circle but tells us, firmly, proudly, sometimes wickedly, what it was like ... Listening to her is as delightful as eating a whole box of chocolates, without a trace of weight gain ... She's irresistible -- Gillian Reynolds * DAILY TELEGRAPH *High, low, smart, sexy, Tina Brown's The Vanity Fair Diaries is like the magazine she reinvented, a must-read for anyone interested in Hollywood, high society, and the movers and shakers of pop culture -- Anderson CooperThe party-by-party, cover-by-cover story of how a Brit conquered New York publishing. As a novice editor, I can tell you it is packed with priceless advice from one of the greatest of them all -- George Osborne * NEW STATESMAN Books of the Year *Right there. That's what makes Brown such a fabulous diarist. It's not just that she's a wonderful writer (although she is: fluent, funny, fierce). It's more that, even after taking her seat at America's top table, she never stops noticing. Amid the narcotic stupefaction of great wealth, Brown is invariably alert and on the money -- Allison Pearson * SUNDAY TELEGRAPH *Because you can never have too many books - and this one will be the juiciest of the year * COSMOPOLITAN *[A] terrifying, breakneck, hothouse, backstage tour of how magazines, news and views, and reputations are made and destroyed. [It] made me crave an anti-anxiety pill! In [my] next life I will definitely be a snail -- @MargaretAtwood (Twitter)Brown is brilliant at these gleeful little character descriptions ... She has the knack of making people instantly interesting ... [The Vanity Fair Diaries] make for a fast-paced and head-spinningly hectic read -- Eithne Farry * SUNDAY EXPRESS *Within a couple of years she had turned it into the house magazine of a resurgent celebrity beau monde and gained an untouchable star quality of her own. Her diaries recount this will to power with caustic drollery and dash -- Anthony Quinn * FINANCIAL TIMES *One of Brown's most appealing qualities is her frankness. She speaks as openly about big issues as she has expected the celebrities who've appeared in her magazines to do. And it's why her book is such a juicy read. She's honest about every interaction, no matter how big the star: every success and every mistake -- Natasha Perlman * GRAZIA *These diaries are a great deal of fun ... Ultimately, though, this is a perfect primer to the gaudy excesses of 1980s culture. "This is what I appreciate most about the city at night, the life force of New York aspiration, wanting, wanting to be seen," Brown writes in September 1985. The same could be said about the author: it is her joy in her job, her delight at being ringside in this moment, and, most of all, her sheet chutzpah, which keeps you turning the pages -- Sarah Hughes * i NEWSPAPER *Tina Brown's account of her years as editor of Vanity Fair is enthralling - and terrifying -- Peter Conrad * OBSERVER *Heaven -- India Knight * SUNDAY TIMES *Her addictive account features encounters with every influential name under the sun (political, literary and Hollywood stars) as well as an insight into Brown's publishing power, which changed magazine journalism for ever * i NEWSPAPER *A great portrait of the greed, the glitter, the fatal superficiality of that decade ... her witty skewerings are first-class -- Roger Lewis * THE TIMES *A brilliant portrait of New York in an age of shoulder-padded excess by a British editor who can pass as American, but never lost her merciless gift for a great story -- Allison Pearson * SUNDAY TELEGRAPH *In this fascinating memoir from a publishing legend, Tina Brown offers insights into the life of a glossy magazine editor * HELLO! *Gripping, funny ... Her enthusiasm for New York, and magazines, is infectious. "There's no fun in the world greater than the frenzy of closing a magazine on deadline," she says in her introduction. And you believe her when she squeals on 10 January 1984, "I have loved my first week!" -- Markie Robson-Scott * THE ARTS DESK *No matter how much you might hate yourself for wanting to read the British journalist's account of her wonder years at the helm of the US's pre-eminent glossy, the troubling fact is that it is addictive -- Kathryn Hughes * GUARDIAN *The Vanity Fair Diaries has a Gone with the Wind-like feel: it's a chronicle of a lost age, before the internet, when 'to be the editor of Time or Newsweek was to be a demigod'. Yeah, and to be Tina Brown was very heaven -- Cosmo Landesman * LITERARY REVIEW *A journalism masterclass -- Janice Turner * NEW STATESMAN *One is left with huge admiration for Brown's wit, talent and determination -- Lynn Barber * SUNDAY TIMES *Fun and often funny -- Hadley Freeman * GUARDIAN *Tina Brown, editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair during the 1980s, covers her time in Manhattan with wit and wisdom, as she unwraps the stories behind the famous covers and tells of how she fought her corner, raised a family and strove to make the magazine a success -- Kerry Fowler * SAINSBURY'S MAGAZINE *The perfect stocking filler for any social x-ray who yearns to wallow in nostalgia. But even students of our own time with find the prescience of Brown's observations a source of amusement. The decade's greatest symbol, she observes, turned out not to be a person but a building: Trump Tower, "the very definition of ersatz with its fool's gold facade, its flashy internal waterfall, its dodgy financing". Lucky she was there because you couldn't make it up -- Fiametta Rocco * 1843 ECONOMIST *That's what makes Tina Brown such a fabulous diarist. It's not just that she's a wonderful writer (although she is fluent, funny, fierce). It's more that, even after taking her seat at America's top table, she never stops noticing. Amid the narcotic stupefaction of great wealth, Brown is invariably alert and on the money * IRISH INDEPENDENT *She makes you glad that someone was taking notes -- Jamie Fisher * TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT *Anyone who was anyone in Eighties New York can be found in Brown's polished account of her time editing US magazine Vanity Fair. The result is a page-turning hymn to a vanished media age * i *Her pen portraits of the denizens of the Manhattan zoo are invariably sharp, and sometimes caustic - yet Brown is at home in this world, and in love with it, and the relish with which she records it makes for compulsive reading * DAILY MAIL *

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Book SynopsisThe definitive collection of works on a subject that inspired and haunted Charles Bukowski for his entire life: alcohol Charles Bukowski turns to the bottle in this revelatory collection of poetry and prose that includes some of the writer’s best and most lasting work.

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Book SynopsisIn their celebration of ‘little matters’ – the regular round of visiting, dining out, drinking tea, of reading and walking to the shops and sending to the post – Jane Austen’s letters and novels have many similarities. The thirteen letters collected by Jane Austen’s House Museum, in Chawton, Hampshire and reproduced in this book give us intimate glimpses into her life in Bath and Chawton and on visits to London, many of their details finding echoes in her fiction. 'Jane Austen: The Chawton Letters' traces a lively story beginning in 1801, when, aged twenty-five, Jane Austen left Steventon in Hampshire to move to Bath. Later letters relish the shops, theatres and sights of London, but are interspersed from 1809 with the quieter routines of village life in Chawton, Hampshire, which was to be her home for the remainder of her short life. We learn here of her anxieties for the reception of Pride and Prejudice, her care in planning Mansfield Park and the hilarious negotiations over the publication of Emma. These letters, each accompanied by reproductions from the original manuscripts in Jane Austen’s hand, testify to Jane’s deep emotional bond with her sister: the most moving letter of all is that written by Cassandra only days after Jane’s death in Winchester in July 1817. Brought together in this little book, these artefacts make a delightful modern-day keepsake of correspondence from one of the world’s best-loved writers.Trade Review'Exquisitely bound and printed, with an excellent introduction by Kathryn Sutherland, this is a book that will delight any Austen reader … a real treasure that will find its way on to many a fan's bookshelf.' * Jane Austen's Regency World *Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Chronology Introduction Letters Further Reading Index

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Book SynopsisThe number one Sunday Times bestseller, Adam Kay's festive hospital diaries, Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas, is the perfect stocking filler from the author of multi-million-copy bestseller This is Going to Hurt – now a major BBC TV series. Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat . . . but 1.4 million NHS staff are heading off to work. In this perfect present for anyone who has ever set foot in a hospital, Adam Kay delves back into his diaries for a hilarious, horrifying and sometimes heartbreaking peek behind the blue curtain at Christmastime.This is a love letter to all those who spend their festive season on the front line, removing babies and baubles from the various places they get stuck, at the most wonderful time of the year.‘The perfect surgical stocking-filler’ – The TimesTrade ReviewSunday Times humour book of the year * Sunday Times *The perfect surgical stocking filler. Jokes galore. This little book will no doubt cheer up the many readers who find it under their tree * The Times *Very, very funny -- Graham NortonBeyond hilarious . . . A small-but-perfectly formed follow-up to This is Going to Hurt, this Christmas-themed delight continues to capture the dark humour and dedicated work of NHS professionals everywhere * Stylist *A funny, poignant snapshot of humanity * Radio Times *Will have you crying with laughter * Good Housekeeping *Contains Kay’s unique alchemy of medical insight and cynical wit * Daily Mirror *Hilarious and heartbreaking * Irish Times *The funniest book of 2019 * The Mail *Kay's fans will be delighted to discover that it is entirely as revolting, funny and moving as the first * i-news *Matchless stories . . . funny, disgusting and moving * Guardian *

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Book Synopsis''As brutal, withering and funny as you''d expect'' Julian Clary''A rollicking read, packed with wit and old-school glamour'' Sunday Telegraph''Fabulously entertaining, impossibly glamorous and utterly irresistible'' Piers Morgan''Packed with insight and fun'' Red***A keen diarist from the age of twelve, Joan Collins is finally spilling the beans - well, nearly all of them. Taking us on a dazzling tour around the globe - from exclusive restaurants in Los Angeles to the glittering beaches of St Tropez, from dinner parties in London to galas in New York City - some of the characters you will meet in these pages include Rod Stewart, Princess Margaret, Donald Trump, Michael Caine, Princess Diana, Elizabeth Taylor, Rupert Everett, Roger Moore, Shirley MacLaine, Andrew Lloyd Webber and many more. Her diaries are intimate and witty, and they pull no punches, with NO apologies to anyone mentioned in them!Trade ReviewOutrageously wonderful . . . hilarious . . . it is nice to read a book where someone truly enjoys being themselves. She has promised us 'unapologetic' but woo-eee, it is savage. -- Camilla Long * The Sunday Times *These diaries are like their author - fabulously entertaining, impossibly glamorous, and utterly irresistible -- Piers MorganEven with a life as packed as this, can there be anything left to say? Plenty, it turns out, and with great style and an enormous dash of acid. This is a book to read while sipping a stiff drink, ideally with a gorgeous companion on hand to whom you can read out the choicest bits. She puts on a hell of a show * The Times *A fascinating glimpse into a fabulous life. Dame Joan's private thoughts are as brutal, withering and funny as you'd expect -- Julian ClaryThe inimitable Dame Joan shares her views on the world and her showbiz chums without deference to political correctness * Daily Telegraph *From encounters with the Royal Family to experiences at star-studded parties, this is a book packed with insight and fun * Red *A wonderfully rich and mesmerising diary. Full of insight and revelation -- William BoydThese diary entries are brilliantly candid, with name-dropping aplenty. A rollicking read, packed with wit and old-school glamour * Sunday Telegraph - Stella Magazine *Unapologetic to say the least. Alexis Carrington hasn't got anything on Dame Joan -- Tracey Emin CBE RACombative and gloriously indiscreet, Dame Joan Collins leaves a trail of walking wounded in her wake with her waspish observations of Hollywood, theatre-land and monarchy. It's why she is showbusiness royalty -- Andrew PierceWhat a treat to delve into Joan Collins's diaries; a treat from start to finish -- Elizabeth Hurley

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Book SynopsisA fascinating collection of some of the most significant, interesting and groundbreaking letters ever written.

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE'One of the world's finest living writers.' Independent'In this world of forgeries, where some might be in danger of losing their faith in literature, Pamuk is the real thing.' Savkar Altinel, Observer'Orhan Pamuk is the sort of writer for whom the Nobel Prize was invented.' Daily TelegraphEvery day for over a decade, Orhan Pamuk has written and drawn in his notebooks. Translated into English for the first time, these stunning snapshots of his life and creative process are a wonderful accompaniment to his bestselling works of fiction. They include daily events and reflections, dialogues with his imagined characters, notes on his works-in-progress, his experience of writer's block and the unfolding of his difficulties with the current Turkish government. Each entry is illustrated in the author's uniquely idiosyncratic and charming style.

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Book SynopsisChronicles of sex and disco in ’70s San Francisco, from the revolutionary musician behind “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” Patrick Cowley (1950–82) was one of the most revolutionary and influential figures in electronic dance music. Born in Buffalo, Cowley moved to San Francisco in 1971 to study music at the City College of San Francisco. By the mid '70s, his synthesizer techniques landed him a job composing and producing songs for disco diva Sylvester, including hits such as "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)." Cowley created his own brand of peak-time party music known as Hi-NRG, dubbed "the San Francisco Sound." His life was cut short on November 12, 1982, when he died shortly after his 32nd birthday from AIDS-related illness. Mechanical Fantasy Box is Cowley's homoerotic journal, or, as he called it, "graphic accounts of one man's sex life." The journal begins in 1974 and ends in 1980 on his 30th birthday. It chronicles his slow rise to fame from lighting technician at the City Disco to crafting his ground-breaking 16-minute remix of Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" to performing with Sylvester at the SF Opera House. Vivid descriptions are told of cruising in '70s SoMA sex venues, ecstatic highs in Buena Vista Park and composing "pornophonics" in his Castro apartment. For this book, artist Gwenaël Rattke created 25 original illustrations inspired by selected entries, three street maps documenting locations mentioned herein, and four collages of photos, ephemera and notes that Cowley had inserted in the journal. This book shows a very out-front, alive person going through the throes of gay liberation post-Stonewall.Trade Review[Mechanical Fantasy Box] contains 13 previously unreleased tracks by Hi-NRG pioneer Patrick Cowley, created between 1973-80. Accompanying the release is the producer’s very own journal... Beyond music, he recounts his experiences cruising in SoMa’s sex venues in the 70s, and tales of sexual liberation. -- Vivian Yeung * Crack *In its X-rated recollections, [Mechanical Fantasy Box] lays bare how the rise of LGBTQ culture after Stonewall liberated Cowley and many others, enabling new forms of expression, sexually and creatively, of their real identities. -- Jude Rogers * New Statesman *The rare opportunity to hear directly from Cowley... Patrick Cowley’s sex journal is a voraciously readable historical document, a seminal text in every possible manner of the phrase. -- Rich Juzwiack * Pitchfork *The disco and electronic music icon [Patrick Cowley's] Mechanical Fantasy Box is being released [with] a book collecting his erotic journals. -- Evan Minsker * Pitchfork *Mechanical Fantasy Box features 13 previously unreleased songs and takes its name from Cowley’s intimate journal. * Vinyl Factory *Dark Entries has overseen a number of reissues from the late producer,... [but] the announcement follows the discovery of 40 reels of unheard music produced by Patrick Cowley in an attic. -- Amy Fielding * DJ *Featuring early explorations into funk, ambient and more abstract, psychedelic fare, the tracks selected showcase Cowley at his most experimental. -- Henry Bruce-Jones * Fact *The entries are introspective and show a very out-front, alive person going through the throes of gay liberation. * XLR8R *

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Book SynopsisTHE NUMBER ONE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERINDIE BOOK AWARDS NON-FICTION WINNER'EXTRAORDINARY' The Times, 'BEAUTIFUL' Dolly Alderton, 'SHATTERING' Observer, 'INCREDIBLE' Benjamin Zephaniah, 'UNPUTDOWNABLE' Sunday Times, 'ASTOUNDING' Matt Haig, 'POWERFUL' Elif Shafak At the age of seventeen, after a childhood in a foster family followed by six years in care homes, Norman Greenwood was given his birth certificate. He learned that his real name was not Norman. It was Lemn Sissay. He was British and Ethiopian. And he learned that his mother had been pleading for his safe return to her since his birth.This is Lemn's story: a story of neglect and determination, misfortune and hope, cruelty and triumph.Sissay reflects on his childhood, self-expression and Britishness, and in doing so explores the institutional care system, race, family and the meaning of home. Written with all the lyricism and power you would expect from one of the nation's best-loved poets, this moving, frank and timely memoir is the result of a life spent asking questions, and a celebration of the redemptive power of creativity.Trade ReviewA lyrical, painful and yet hope-filled memoir . . . Shattering, light-searching * * Observer * *Searing . . . Unputdownable . . . My Name Is Why is authentic and beautiful, a potential game-changer in public attitudes to children raised in care. It's about bureaucratic cruelty and what happens when love is absent. Don't miss it * * The Times * *An extraordinary story * * Sunday Times * *The most amazing thing about this book is that it's not made up. This actually happened. It is an incredible story -- BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAHI have never read a memoir like it. A blistering account of a young life in the hands of neglectful authorities. It's a quest for understanding, for home, for answers. Grips like a thriller. Astounding -- MATT HAIGThe great triumph of this work comes from its author's determination to rail against what he rightly diagnoses as this institutionally endorsed disremembering of black and marginalised experience. It is a searing and unforgettable re-creation of the most brutal of beginnings -- Michael Donkor * * Guardian * *Utterly devastating and beautiful . . . Breathtakingly written -- DOLLY ALDERTONThis is a deeply moving memoir that speaks with incredible poeticism. A staggering exposé of colonial theft and abandonment, this book is grippingly heartbreaking -- DAVID LAMMYA fascinating memoir . . . So powerful -- ELIF SHAFAKThe engaging transfiguring truth of My Name Is Why is like a baptism of truth - leaving you washed clean of lies and reborn in love. Profound in its kindness, intelligence and unselfish heart, this book is important and unputdownable -- JESSICA HYNES

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Book SynopsisFew have written more beautifully about the British countryside than Francis Kilvert. A country clergyman born in 1840, Kilvert spent much of his time visiting parishioners, walking the lanes and fields of Herefordshire and writing in his diary. Full of passionate delight in the natural world and the glory of the changing seasons, his diaries are as generous, spontaneous and vivacious as Kilvert himself. He is an irresistible companion.This new edition of William Plomer’s original selection contains new archival material as well as a fascinating introduction illuminating Kilvert’s world and the history of the diaries.‘One of the best books in English’ Sunday Times'Kilvert has touched and delighted (and mildly shocked) readers of his diaries ever since they were first published. New readers are in for a treat' Alan BennettTrade ReviewKilvert has touched and delighted and (mildly shocked) readers of his diaries ever since they were first published. New readers are in for a treatOne of the most enchanting portraits of English rural life ever written...Kilvert's lyrical nature writing is recognised for its Wordsworthian sensibility * Guardian *One of the best books in English * Sunday Times *Funny, lyrical, witty and wise, Robert Kilvert’s diaries are a treasure-house of vital fieldwork and social observation. Parochial is the best sense, he joyed in the natural wonders of his parish, recording the trials and splendours of his day-to-day. As such, the diary is a marvel of observance; a hybrid hymn to a world now lost and a vibrant counterpoint to fellow poet-cleric, Gerard Manley HopkinsThe best picture of quiet vicarage life in Victorian England that has yet been given to us

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Book Synopsis"Celebratory, even radical"—The New Yorker "Monumental"—Hyperallergic We Both Laughed In Pleasure: The Selected Diaries of Lou Sullivan narrates the inner life of a gay man moving through the shifting social, political, and medical mores of the second half of the 20th century. Sullivan kept comprehensive journals from age 11 until his AIDS-related death at 39. Sensual, lascivious, challenging, quotidian and poetic, the diaries complicate and disrupt normative trans narratives. Entries from twenty-four diaries reveal Sullivan’s self-articulation and the complexity of a fascinating and courageous figure. 2020 LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD WINNERTrade Review"Given how many contemporary trans narratives are rooted in trauma, their choice to foreground trans pleasure and sensuality is celebratory, even radical."—Jeremy Lybarger, The New Yorker "Sullivan's diaries, for example, are visual feasts."—Bay Area Reporter "An important HIV/AIDS history as well as important as a gay and trans history."—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel "This is a great book by a great person…If I am perhaps too glowing in my praise of Lou, that’s probably because I can’t physically imagine myself without him."—Charlie Markbreiter Bookforum "Lou is an open-book mystery, a man who built bridges of access, a gentle soul with whom I share similar demons"—Amos Mac, them "It feels like a gift to be able to read such a complete and evocative record of a life spent in pursuit of joy"—Sasha Geffen, The Nation "The strongest impetus for his transition is, as the book’s title lets on, pleasure"—Crispin Long, SLATE "His life and diary are committed to gay sex, seeing in it the embodiment of the challenge and passion of life at the margins."—Gabriel Ojeda-Sagué, Chicago Review "Sullivan’s diary entries are personal and political. They are recollections of many sexual escapades, but they also demonstrate his activist sensibility, that he was aware of his body and lifestyle as political issues, and of being in the throes of one of the largest gay scenes in the United States."—Caden Mark Gardner, Hyperallergic "It’s cathartic to read Lou’s frank acknowledgement of the terror inherent in making one’s own reality, while hoping against hope that the envisioned self might exist independently of one’s efforts to manifest it."—Callum Angus, Lit Hub "This Trans Day of Remembrance, if you’re in need of a little joy, a little reconnection with life, a little reminder of how we can fight for our own happiness, this is a volume to pick up."—Henry Giardina, The Pride LA "The writing is great, and, joyfully, aware of it’s own skill. The entries collected deal with obsession, politics, bodies (the sex scenes are great), medicine, longing. Easily one of the best things I read this year."—Dustin Kurtz, The Millions "Reading the diaries, I thought a lot about the ways in which Lou was both creating and disrupting contemporary trans narratives that demand we be singular and palatable in order to be legible, respectable, and have presence. Though not a memoir, I found his diaries full of anguish, desperation, and anxiety but also dripping with determination, exhilaration, and lightness. Lou has taught me how to better have and hold them all.—Spence Messih & Vincent Silk, Sydney Review of Books "We Both Laughed In Pleasure brings to vivid life the many journals left behind by queer transcestor Lou Sullivan. This finely edited collection pulls out threads like gender self-determination, illicit queer sexual desire, and relationship woes that span his entire life. The volume reads like an open letter written for future queer trans people longing to understand their identities and experiences across time and space."–Chris Vargas "Here is your chance to meet Lou Sullivan in his own words, as he experienced himself in the process of becoming. Zach Ozma and Ellis Martin have done a beautiful job curating passages that preserve all the voyeuristic pleasure of reading someone’s diary—minus the boring minutiae of everyday life. The Lou who emerges is contemplative and bold, despairing and determined, promiscuous and romantic, and powerfully aroused by men wearing jewelry. Bring him home with you."—Julian Carter "Lou Sullivan was a visionary, a leader, and clearly one of the most significant trans figures of the late 20th century. He had a rare capaciousness of mind and spirit: he savored complexity and the many facets of people, ideas, and practices. He was generous, courageous, and his own struggles opened up new worlds and forged pathways that others eagerly followed. He helped dismantle the rigid gate keeping of the gender clinics, pioneering new ways for trans folks to lead their own transitions. He was a voracious intellect: eagerly absorbing, producing, preserving, and disseminating trans knowledge. His most important legacy was FTM, the Bay Area group he founded in 1986 that revolutionized the social and medical terrains for trans men." —Gayle Rubin "This collection of Lou Sullivan’s journals, edited with great care by Martin and Ozma, details a profound personal metamorphosis alongside a political and cultural one. Lou’s intimate writing reveals a fantastic voyage of a late 20th century trans explorer, pioneering his way from the hippie coffee houses that Lou came of age in, to the gay male diaspora of the Castro, to early trans liberation movements, AIDS activism and beyond. The intimate details of Lou’s life shared in his journals lay bare just how human he was. Lou transgressed the limited thinking of his era, the restrictions of his body, and even a terminal diagnosis to leave a legacy of self-determination that resounds beyond the trans masculine community he sought to empower. This collection continues Lou’s legacy of knowledge-sharing and brings a oft-overlooked pioneer into sharp focus."—Rhys Ernst

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Book SynopsisA year's journey of love, connection and support. Let bestselling author Nicci Garaicoa guide you on a journey back to you.

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Book SynopsisLove, Poverty and War: Journeys and Essays showcases the Hitchens' rejection of consensus and cliché, whether he's reporting from abroad in Indonesia, Kurdistan, Iraq, North Korea, or Cuba, or when his pen is targeted mercilessly at the likes of William Clinton, Mother Theresa ("a fanatic, a fundamentalist and a fraud"), the Dalai Lama, Noam Chomsky, Mel Gibson and Michael Bloomberg. Hitchens began the nineties as a "darling of the left" but has become more of an "unaffiliated radical" whose targets include those on the "left," who he accuses of "fudging" the issue of military intervention in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet, as Hitchens shows in his reportage, cultural and literary criticism, and opinion essays from the last decade, he has not jumped ship and joined the right but is faithful to the internationalist, contrarian and democratic ideals that have always informed his work.Trade ReviewDazzling, and often very moving, writing from the 1990s by one of the most prolific, as well as brilliant, journalists of our time * Observer *An exceptional political polemicist * Prospect *Hitchens is just too damn good. * New Statesman *Table of Contents1: The Medals Of His Defeats 2: A Man Of Permanent Contradictions 3: The Old Man 4: Huxley And Brave New World 5: Greeneland 6: Scoop 7: The Man Of Feeling 8: The Misfortune Of Poetry 9: The Acutest Ear In Paris 10: Joyce In Bloom 11: The Immortal 12: It Happened On Sunset 13: The Ballad Of Route 66 14: The Adventures Of Augie March 15: Rebel Ghosts 16: America's Poet? Bob Dylan's Achievement 17: I Fought The Law In Bloomberg's New York 18: For Patriot Dreams 19: Martha Inc. 20: Scenes From An Execution 21: In Sickness And By Stealth 22: The Strange Case Of David Irving 23: Why Americans Are Not Taught History 24: A Hundred Years Of Muggery 25: Unfairenheit 9/11: The Lies Of Michael Moore 26: Virginity Regained 27: The Divine One 28: The Devil And Mother Teresa 29: Blessed Are The Phrasemakers 30: Jewish Power, Jewish Peril 31: The Future Of An Illusion 32: The Gospel According To Mel 33: The Struggle Of The Kurds 34: Thunder In The Black Mountains 35: Visit To A Small Planet 36: Havana Canwait 37: The Clinton-Douglas Debates 38: We're Still Standing 39: The Morning After 40: Against Rationalization 41: Of Sin, The Left, & Islamic Fascism 42: A Rejoinder To Noam Chomsky 43: Blaming Bin Laden First 44: The Ends Ofwar 45: Pakistan: On The Frontier Of Apocalypse 46: Saddam's Long Good-Bye 47: A Liberating Experience

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Book SynopsisA charming addition to Rizzoli’s carefully curated program of bringing classic books back into print. This beautifully packaged facsimile of Edith Holden’s original diary is filled with a naturalist’s masterful paintings and delightful observations chronicling the English countryside throughout 1906. As one of the few true records of the time in print, the handwritten thoughts and paintings contained in The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady transport readers to a more refined, romantic, and simpler time. Capitalizing on the current Downton Abbey–inspired appetite for Edwardian-era ephemera, fashions, and society, this reproduction brings readers back to a time in which propriety, civility, and an appreciation for the natural world reigned. This souvenir of a bygone era serves not only as a calming touchstone, but a reminder that as long as we choose to see it, we are still surrounded by beauty and grace.

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Book SynopsisJohn Hopkins brings back to life all the decadence and flamboyance of Tangier in the 1960s and 1970s. Tangier in the 1960s and â70s was a fabled place. This edge city, the 'Interzone', became muse and escapist's dream for artists, writers, millionaires and socialites, who wrote, painted, partied and experienced life with an intensity and freedom that they never could back home. Into this louche and cosmopolitan world came John Hopkins, a young writer who became a part of the bohemian Tangier crowd with its core of Beats that included William Burroughs, Paul and Jane Bowles and Brion Gysin, as well as Tennessee Williams, Jean Genet, Yves Saint Laurent, Barbara Hutton and Malcolm Forbes. Those intoxicating decades â Tangier's 'Golden Years' â are long gone. Grand old houses that once sparkled with life are shuttered and dark and most of the eccentrics who once lived and loved in the city have died. But here, in the pages of John Hopkins' cult classic, all the decadence and flamboyaTrade ReviewAn incomparable diarist. * Elle *[Hopkins] draws the reader into the daily life of what he describes as the “Saigon of the Sahara”, with tales of his encounters with the likes of William Burroughs, Malcolm Forbes, Wilfred Thesiger, Timothy Leary and Rudolf Nureyev [...] a chronicle of an era that has disappeared forever. * Independent on Sunday *All lovers of The Sheltering Sky will be grateful for this intimate record of Paul Bowles’s methods and opinions. -- Michael Arditti * Daily Mail *The Sixties are vividly described and we are plunged into the exotic world centred on writers Paul and Jane Bowles. A hit. -- Judy Cooke * Mail on Sunday *A grand read. -- Ephraim Hardcastle * Daily Mail *Morocco (especially Tangiers) was one of the places to be in the early ’60s. [...] Now it seems almost mythic, a great, outlandish American Bloomsbury. Hopkins delivers all the expected goodies and more: the requisite desert meditations, the kif-censed evenings in the kasbah, the celebrity sightings [...] a graceful, laconic stylist. * Kirkus Reviews *His diaries are crammed full of fine writing, warmly drawn recollections, and source material which will be used by historians so long as people want to read about the powerful confluence of cultures in collision which was Beat Tangier. -- Joe Ambrose * Outside Left *His beautiful diary is full of wonderful pen portraits of the many and various characters on display, vivid little street scenes and evocations of landscape [...] and personal stories. -- Jon May * The Generalist *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Introduction The Tangier Diaries, 1962–1979 Epilogue

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Book SynopsisNow a major BAFTA nominated BBC comedy-drama starring BAFTA and Emmy award-winning actor Ben Whishaw. The multi-million copy bestseller now with an exclusive preface by the author.Welcome to the life of a junior doctor: 97-hour weeks, life and death decisions, a constant tsunami of bodily fluids, and the hospital parking meter earns more than you.Scribbled in secret after endless days, sleepless nights and missed weekends, Adam Kay's This is Going to Hurt provides a no-holds-barred account of his time on the NHS front line. Hilarious, horrifying and heartbreaking, this diary is everything you wanted to know – and more than a few things you didn't – about life on and off the hospital ward.‘Painfully funny. The pain and the funniness somehow add up to something entirely good, entirely noble and entirely loveable.' - Stephen FrySunday Times Number One Bestseller for over a year and winner of a record FOUR National Book Awards: Book of the Year, Non-Fiction Book of the Year, New Writer of the Year and Zoe Ball Book Club Book of the Year.The BBC series was Winner of Best Longform Drama at the The Writers' Guild of Great Britain Awards and Best Drama at the Broadcast Awards. Critics' Choice Awards nominee for 'Best Limited Series' and 'Best Actor'.Trade ReviewI’d prescribe this book to anyone and everyone. It's laugh-out-loud funny, heartbreakingly sad and gives you the lowdown on what it’s like to be holding it together while serving on the front line of our beloved but beleaguered NHS. It’s wonderful -- Jonathan RossSo clinically funny and politically important for supporters of the NHS that it should be given out on prescription * Guardian *Painfully funny. The pain and the funniness somehow add up to something entirely good, entirely noble and entirely loveable. -- Stephen FryFinally a true picture of the harrowing, hilarious and ultimately chaotic life of the junior doctor in all its gory glory, dark comedy and unavoidable sadness. A blisteringly funny account shot through with harrowing detail, many pertinent truths and the humanity we all hope doctors conceal behind their unflappable exteriors -- Jo BrandAs hilarious as it is heartbreaking – and it IS heartbreaking (also hilarious) -- Charlie BrookerBlisteringly funny, politically enraging and often heartbreaking . . . hilarious . . . brimming not just with humour but with humanity . . . This should be a wake-up call to all who value the NHS -- Hannah Beckerman * Sunday Express *A funny, excoriatingly revealing, beautiful book -- Dawn FrenchHorrifyingly hilarious and hilariously horrifying -- Danny WallaceA ferociously funny book -- Mark WatsonSuperb -- Pam AyresAs a hypochondriac I was worried about reading Adam Kay’s book. Luckily it’s incredibly funny – so funny, in fact, that it gave me a hernia from laughing -- Joe LycettBy turns witty, gruesome, alarming, and touching. Always illuminating and searingly honest -- Jonathan DimblebyBrilliant -- Mark HaddonTable of ContentsIntroduction - i: Introduction Chapter - 1: House Officer Chapter - 2: Senior House Officer Post 1 Chapter - 3: Senior House Officer Post 2 Chapter - 4: Senior House Officer Post 3 Chapter - 5: Registrar Post 1 Chapter - 6: Registrar Post 2 Chapter - 7: Registrar Post 3 Chapter - 8: Registrar Post 4 Chapter - 9: Senior Registrar Chapter - 10: Aftermath Section - ii: An Open Letter to the Secretary of State for Health Acknowledgements - iii: Acknowledgements

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Book SynopsisDear Nanny (sketch design) is an award-winning journal filled with over 60 fun and inspiring questions carefully created to inspire any grandmother to tell her story - probably one of the most valuable gifts you will ever buy. Everyone has stories to share about their own amazing life and it is so important to find ways to capture and treasure them. Dear Nanny contains 60 carefully designed questions to ask her about her life. Ask her to complete it carefully, adding photos and memorabilia along the way. Find out how things have changed throughout her life, what things did she do as a child that are different from today. What were her own parents really like and what adventures has she had in her life. Discover what your own mum or dad was like when they were young! What about your own relationship with your grandmother, what are her favourite memories of the times you have spent together and is there any advice she would like to give you? When you get her completed journal returned to you, this will be one of the most emotional presents you have ever received. A great gift for Mother's Day, Grandparent's Day, her birthday, an anniversary, Christmas or just because you care ...

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Book SynopsisC.G. Jung''s letters to the artist and analysand Hedy Wyss, published here for the first time, are a unique testimony to Jung''s vivid and sparkling spirit. Here we encounter the lively, compassionate and deeply human side of Jung''s nature. He writes neither scientifically nor cautiously, but quite spontaneously out of his respective state of mind. He mentions his suffering from various physical ailments to Hedy Wyss, such as heart troubles and rheumatism. At the same time he struggles for the integrity of the analytical relationship and the veracity of love. Jung wrote his most important works during the twenty years of their correspondence, concluding with Mysterium Coniunctionis. Accordingly, in many of his letters to Hedy Wyss, hidden references to the problems he wrestled with at any given time can be found throughout these works. As a result, the content of Jung''s letters required a comprehensive commentary. Alongside Jung''s works, a private manuscript written by Hedy Wyss, in which, years after his death, she looked back on her encounters with C.G. or the Old Sage as she liked to call him, furthered understanding of many details in the letters. These sources give us a unique insight into C.G. Jung''s singular approach as a researcher and analyst.

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Book SynopsisIn Plato's "Letters", Ariel Helfer provides to readers, for the first time, a highly literal translation of the Letters, complete with extensive notes on historical context and issues of manuscript transmission. His analysis presents a necessary perspective for readers who wish to study Plato's Letters as a work of Platonic philosophy. Centuries of debate over the provenance and significance of Plato's Letters have led to the common view that the Letters is a motley collection of jewels and scraps from within and without Plato's literary estate. In a series of original essays, Helfer describes how the Letters was written as a single work, composed with a unity of purpose and a coherent teaching, marked throughout by Plato's artfulness and insight and intended to occupy an important place in the Platonic corpus. Viewed in this light, the Letters is like an unusual epistolary novel, a manner of semifictional and semiautobiographical literary-philosophic experiment, in which Plato sought to provide his most demanding readers with guidance in thinking more deeply about the meaning of his own career as a philosopher, writer, and political advisor. Plato's "Letters" not only defends what Helfer calls the "literary unity thesis" by reviewing the scholarly history pertaining to the Platonic letters but also brings out the political philosophic lessons revealed in the Letters. As a result, Plato's "Letters" recovers and rehabilitates what has been until now a minority view concerning the Letters, according to which this misunderstood Platonic text will be of tremendous new importance for the study of Platonic political philosophy.

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Book SynopsisNewton’s Notebook is a biography with a difference. It provides a full and detailed account of Sir Isaac Newton’s life and discoveries, but is written, designed and illustrated to look like a personal notebook.By mining the rich sources of Newton’s own journals and books, and incorporating a variety of quotations and illustrations, Newton’s Notebook brings its subject to life more vividly than any ordinary biography. It reveals the man behind the theories and examines Newton’s personal and family life as well as the amazing impact of his ideas and the world’s reaction to them.

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Book Synopsis ‘One of the greatest writers of our time.’ Toni Morrison ‘You Don’t Know Us Negroes adds immeasurably to our understanding of Hurston … her words make it impossible for readers to consider her anything but one of the intellectual giants of the 20th century.’ The New York Times Book ReviewTrade Review‘Reading Hurston, you always wonder what shape her dignity will take next. Her style and spark were her own.’ The New York Times ‘Fierce, insightful and often devilishly funny, her satirical writing is particularly biting.’ The Observer ‘In these essays, which cover themes of race, gender and politics, her writing is characterised by an impish relish that remains both shocking and invigorating today.’ Financial Times Online ‘You Don’t Know Us Negroes adds immeasurably to our understanding of Hurston, who was a tireless crusader in all her writing, and ahead of her time. Though she was often misunderstood, sometimes maligned and occasionally dismissed, her words make it impossible for readers to consider her anything but one of the intellectual giants of the 20th century. Despite facing sexism, racism and general ignorance, Hurston managed to produce a written legacy that, thanks to enduring collections like this one, will engage readers for generations to come.’ The New York Times Book Review ‘This collection recognises one of the finest writers of the 20th century.’ The Sunday Express

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Book SynopsisA heartfelt and moving recollection by Sandra Sabatini, the author of the classic Breath, of her encounters and training under the guidance of Vanda Scaravelli, whose book Awakening the Spine inspired generations of yoga practitioners. With photographs by David Darom.

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Book SynopsisThis edition of letters by Antonio Gramsci vividly evokes the 'great and terrible world' in which he lived, a description he used a number of times in his correspondence. The letters show Gramsci beginning to form the theoretical concepts that come to fuller fruition in the Prison Notebooks, but they also give an essential and rounded picture of Gramsci's development, politically, intellectually and emotionally - the latter especially through letters to his family and wife. Broadly speaking, the letters are of three types: early letters to Gramsci's family; overtly political letters from Turin, Moscow, Vienna, and Rome; and letters to the Schucht sisters, including Jul'ka, whom he married while in Moscow. The political letters constitute a fascinating insight into the period, both with regard to the Communist International and, more often, to Italian politics. The volume also includes the famous letter of 1926 in which Gramsci, writing in the name of the Italian Party's Political Bureau, criticises the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party for their handling of internal opposition. The book follows a broadly chronological structure, and includes a general introduction, a guide to the main personalities involved, and additional contextual information for each chapter. It also includes some little-known photographic material.Trade Review'This collection of Gramsci's early correspondence provides new insight into his life and work. Through these letters, we follow the development of Gramsci's own thought and his involvement with the international communist movement. This book will prove an indispensable resource, not only to Gramsci scholars, but to anyone interested in the history of the left more widely.' Mark Fisher, author of Capitalist Realism and Ghosts Of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures 'This is a meticulous translation of a selection of Gramsci's pre-prison letters with an extensive introduction that places them in their historical context. These letters furnish fascinating new insights into both his personal and political life. Gramsci the man and Gramsci the politician emerge in new depth and detail. The volume is an invaluable asset to anyone interested in better understanding his ideas and his humanity.' Professor Anne Showstack Sassoon, author of Gramsci and Contemporary PoliticsTable of ContentsGeneral introduction 1. School and home in Sardinia 2. University student in Turin 3. Revolutionary Journalist: L'Avanti! and L'Ordine Nuovo 4. Comintern leader in Moscow 5 .Vienna: towards the new PCI leadership 6. Rome I: Political upheaval, family matters 7. Rome II: The last months of freedom Note on the translation Note on main characters

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Book SynopsisA “touchstone for aspiring artists and writers” (Megan O’Grady, The New Yorker), Daybook is a classic work about reconciling the call of creative work with the demands of daily life.Renowned American artist Anne Truitt kept this illuminating and inspiring journal over a period of seven years, determined to come to terms with the forces that shaped her art and life. Her range of sensitivity—moral, intellectual, sensual, emotional, and spiritual— is remarkably broad. She recalls her childhood on the eastern shore of Maryland, her career change from psychology to art, and her path to a sculptural practice that would “set color free in three dimensions.” She reflects on the generous advice of other artists, watches her own daughters’ journey into motherhood, meditates on criticism and solitude, and struggles to find the way to express her vision. Resonant and true, encouraging and revelatory, Anne Truitt guides heTrade Review"Truitt’s frankness and intellectual curiosity about the hows and whys of a working artist’s life has made Daybook something of a touchstone for aspiring artists and writers" —Megan O'Grady, The New Yorker “A remarkable record of a woman’s reconciliation of art, motherhood, memoires of childhood, and present-day demands.” —Anne Morrow Lindbergh “Daybook is a rare gift, illuminating and nourishing, a journal to read and re-read.” —May Sarton “One of the great artists of our time, it’s a treat to be allowed into Anne Truitt’s mind as she contemplates the ups and downs of being an artist, mother and friend.” —Brie Larson “A natural and graceful writer…Truitt’s self-examination is unflinching and, at every moment, possessed of the inevitable dignity that attends a genuine commitment to telling the truth about oneself.” —Art in America

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Book SynopsisA contemporary critic described Ignatius Sancho as “what is very uncommon for men of his complexion, A man of letters.” A London shopkeeper, former butler, and descendant of slaves, Sancho was the first author of African descent to have his correspondence published. He was also a critic of literature, music, and art; a composer; and an advocate for the abolition of slavery. Sancho’s letters reveal an avid reader and prolific author, and his epistolary style shows a sophisticated understanding of both private and public audiences. Even after the abolition of the slave trade, proponents of equal rights on both sides of the Atlantic continued to use Sancho as an exemplar of the intellectual and moral capacity of people of African descent.In addition to the annotated letters by Sancho, this edition includes Laurence Sterne's letters to Sancho, Sancho's surviving autograph writings, and a selection of the many eighteenth-century responses to Sancho and his letters.Trade Review“Vincent Carretta’s Broadview edition of Ignatius Sancho’s letters revises and expands his earlier editions of this important eighteenth-century Black British text. Bringing together both the published and the recently discovered unpublished letters, along with meticulous footnotes, a wealth of scholarly and contextual material, and an illuminating introduction, Carretta allows us to see Sancho more vividly than ever before. But at the heart of this edition are the letters themselves: sparkling, witty, and endlessly readable, they remain a fascinating insight into the life of an African at the heart of eighteenth-century literary London.” — Brycchan Carey, Kingston University“The first man of African descent to publish a book in English, and to vote in a parliamentary election, Ignatius Sancho enjoyed considerable fame in eighteenth-century society. His letters were praised, quite rightly, for their wit, charm, and sensibility—though he was, equally, a trenchant critic of slavery and empire. Vincent Carretta’s edition for Broadview will become the new authoritative text, providing attentive and erudite annotation and a full biographical introduction, alongside all Sancho’s known letters, both in print and manuscript—including those only discovered in the last decade. Sancho is justly served in this excellent edition, which is a full and fitting memorial to his life and writing.” — Markman Ellis, Queen Mary University of LondonTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroductionIgnatius Sancho: A Brief ChronologyA Note on the TextA Note on MoneyLetters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, An African. In Two Volumes. To which are prefixed, Memoirs of his Life.Volume IVolume IIAppendix A: Ignatius Sancho’s FamilyAppendix B: Ignatius Sancho’s Principal CorrespondentsAppendix C: List of LettersAppendix D: Laurence Sterne’s Correspondence with Ignatius Sancho Sancho to Sterne [21 July 1766] Sterne to Sancho [27 July 1766] Sterne to Sancho [16 May 1767] Sterne to Sancho [30 June 1767] Appendix E: Ignatius Sancho’s Autograph Letters Sancho to William Stevenson (26 November 1776) Sancho to William Stevenson (24 October 1777) Sancho to William Stevenson (22 October 1778) Sancho to William Stevenson (14 November 1778) Sancho to Reverend Seth Ellis Stevenson (5 December 1778) Sancho to William Stevenson (5 December 1778) Sancho to William Stevenson (14 December 1778) Sancho to (presumably) William Stevenson (19 December 1778) Sancho to Reverend Seth Ellis Stevenson (4 January 1779) Sancho to Reverend Seth Ellis Stevenson (14 January 1779) Sancho to William Stevenson (11 March 1779) Sancho to (presumably) William Stevenson (1 April 1779) Sancho to William Stevenson (16 November 1779) Sancho to William Stevenson (4 January 1780) Sancho to (presumably) William Stevenson (18 August 1780) Appendix F: Eighteenth-Century References to Ignatius Sancho, and Responses to Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, An African The Monthly Review, or, Literary Journal (November 1775) The Gentleman’s Magazine: and Historical Chronicle (January 1776) The Public Advertiser (4 June 1778) Edmund Rack (20 April 1779) A Manuscript Letter Dated 17 September 1779 from the Aspiring Author George Cumberland to His Brother Richard Dennison Cumberland, Vicar of Driffield in Gloucester County, Attests to Sancho’s Reputation as a Literary Critic (17 September 1779) Ewan Clark, Miscellaneous Poems, By Mr. Ewan Clark (1779) John Thomas Smith, Nollekens and His Times (1829) The Gazeteer, and New Daily Advertiser (15 December 1780) Anthony Highmore, Jr., “Epistle to Mr. J. H—, on the Death of his justly Lamented Friend, Ignatius Sancho” (1780-82) The Gentleman’s Magazine: and Historical Chronicle (April 1781) The Gentleman’s Magazine: and Historical Chronicle (May 1781) The Public Advertiser (9 August 1782) William Whitehead, British Poet Laureate Since 1757, in an August 1782 Letter to George Simon Harcourt, second Earl Harcourt (August 1782) A New Review; with Literary Curiosities, and Literary Intelligence (1782) The Gentleman’s Magazine (September 1782) The European Magazine and London Review (September 1782) The New Annual Register, or General Repository of History, Politics, and Literature, for the Year 1782 (1783) John Williams, Thoughts on the Origin, and on the Most Rational and Natural Method of Teaching Languages: with Some Observations on the Necessity of One Universal Language for All Works of Science (1783) The Monthly Review: or, Literary Journal (December 1783) The Critical Review: or, Annals of Literature (January 1784) Town and Country Magazine, or Universal Repository of Knowledge, Instruction, and Entertainment (February 1784) Elkanah Watson, Men and Times of the Revolution; or, Memoirs of Elkanah Watson. Including Journals of Travels in Europe and America, from 1777 to 1842 (1856) George Gregory, Essays Historical and Moral (1785) Joseph Woods, Thoughts on the Slavery of the Negroes (1784) James Tobin, Cursory Remarks upon the Reverend Mr. Ramsay’s Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves in the Sugar Colonies. By a Friend of the West India Colonies, and their Inhabitants (1785) Thomas Clarkson, An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African, Translated from a Latin Dissertation, which was honoured with the first Prize in the University of Cambridge, for the Year 1785 (1786) Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1787) Thomas Cooper, Letters on the Slave Trade: First Published in Wheeler’s Manchester Chronicle; and since Re-printed with Additions and Alterations (1787) “Civis,” The Morning Chronicle, and London Advertiser (5 February 1788) “Civis,” The Morning Chronicle, and London Advertiser (19 August 1788) The Massachusetts Spy: Or, The Worcester Gazette (4 December 1788) William Mason, An Occasional Discourse, Preached in the Cathedral of St. Peter in York, January 27, 1788, on the Subject of the African Slave-Trade (1788) Peter Peckard, Am I not a Man and a Brother? (1788) Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville, A Critical Examination of the Marquis de Chatellux’s Travels in North America ... Principally Intended as a Refutation of his Opinions Concerning the Quakers, the Negroes, the People, and Mankind (1788) The County Magazine, for the Years 1786 and 1787 (1788) “Clericus,” The Country Curate; or, Letters from Clericus to Benevolus (1788) William Dickson, Letters on Slavery (1789) Richard Nisbet, The Capacity of Negroes for Religious and Moral Improvement Considered (1789) Thomas Burgess, Considerations on the Abolition of Slavery and the Slave Trade, upon Grounds of Natural, Religious, and Political Duty (1789) Fortescue; or, The Soldier’s Reward: A Characteristic Novel (1789) Elizabeth Bentley, from “On the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade. July, 1789,” in Genuine Poetical Compositions, on Various Subjects (1791) Clara Reeve, Plans of Education; with Remarks on the Systems of Other Writers. In a Series of Letters between Mrs. Darnford and Her Friends (1792) Alexander Chalmers, A New and General Biographical Dictionary: Containing an Historical, Critical, and Impartial Account of the Lives and Writings of the Most Eminent Persons in Every Nation of the World (1795) John Gabriel Stedman, Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam (1796) William Stevenson in John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century (1815) Select Bibliography

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Book SynopsisOn 9th August 2001, twenty-two days after Jeffrey Archer was sentenced to four years in prison for perjury, he was transferred from HMP Belmarsh, a double-A Category high-security prison in south London, to HMP Wayland, a Category C establishment in Norfolk.He served sixty-seven days in Wayland and during that time, as this account testifies, encountered not only the daily degradations of a dangerously over-stretched prison service, but the spirit and courage of his fellow inmates . . .Prison Diary Volume II: Purgatory is an extraordinary work of non-fiction, where Archer reveals what life is like inside the walls of Britain's prisons.Trade ReviewThe finest thing that Jeffrey Archer has ever written * Independent on Sunday *Compelling reportage . . . Jeffrey Archer raises these diaries to the standards of a prison Pepys by being such an assiduous recorder of fellow inmates’ secrets -- Jonathan Aitken * Mail on Sunday *Archer paints a bleak but true picture of life in prison . . . It is vivid and disturbing, and will reach a vastly wider audience than any academic treatise or political pamphlet on the subject -- Ann Widdecombe * New Statesman *

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Book Synopsis SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER AND POLITICAL BOOK OF THE YEAR''The wickedest political diaries since Alan Clark''s'' Daily Mail''Riotously candid'' Decca Aitkenhead, Sunday Times''An acute political intelligence at work'' Guardian''Glorious, compelling, jaw-dropping'' Evening StandardWhat is it like to be a wife of a politician in modern-day Britain? Sasha Swire finally lifts the lid. For more than twenty years she has kept a secret diary detailing the trials and tribulations of being a political plus-one, and gives us a ringside seat at the seismic political events of the last decade. A professional partner and loyal spouse, Swire has strong political opinions herself - sometimes more ''No, Minister'' than ''Yes''. She detonates the stereotype of the dutiful wife. From shenanigans in Budleigh Salterton to state banquets at Buckingham Palace, gun-toting terTrade ReviewGloriously indiscreet * Daily Mail *A gossipy, amusing, opinionated account of what it's like to be married to an MP... Good fun and eye-opening * The Times *Riotously candid -- Decca Aitkenhead * Sunday Times *A glorious, compelling, jaw-dropping read * Evening Standard *They're the wickedest political diaries since Alan Clark's * Daily Mail *This gossipy, opinionated and frequently hilarious book could be the most entertaining political diary since Alan Clark's -- Charlotte Heathcote * Sunday Express *Ten years ago, reviewing Alastair Campbell's diaries for the Spectator, I concluded as follows: "Who will be the chroniclers of the Cameron government? Somewhere, unknown to his or her colleagues, a secret scribbler will already be at work, documenting the rise and, in due course, no doubt, the fall of this administration" Well, here it is. The diary covers not only the rise and fall of the Cameroons, but also the shenanigans surrounding Brexit and the inexorable rise of Boris, concluding at the end of last year when Sir Hugo (as he was by then) left parliament. No holds are barred. Sasha is candid, irreverent, occasionally outrageous and sometimes hilarious -- Chris Mullin * Spectator *A funny, indiscreet and dangerously honest account of the Cameron-May years * The Times *Imagine the Alan Clark diaries, but written by his wife Jane instead: all the high-octane political gossip, set against a backdrop of country house shooting weekends and boozy dinners at Chequers, but seen through the sceptical eyes of a woman one step removed from all the head-butting stags. But there's far more to this book than reheated pillow talk. There is an acute political intelligence at work, of the sort that makes one wonder what might have been had Swire not settled for experiencing politics vicariously through her husband -- Gaby Hinsliff * Guardian *Westminster diaries are judged on three levels: the details they leak, the political era they re-create and the central character of the author. Swire scores highly on all three. She is funnier and ballsier than Chris Mullin and if she falls short of Alan Clark it is only because he was so devilish -- Quentin Letts * The Times *Diary of an MP's Wife is an irresistible, informal history and a rare tell-all about what it's really like to live behind the headlines of British political life. No one sees more than an observant wife and Sasha Swire's beady eye makes her a natural reporter! Her sharp vignettes and tart sense of humor make for compulsive reading. I do hope she keeps going! -- Tina BrownShe is not a high-society bird-brain but an acute and intelligent observer - and very funny. An invaluable source for future historians of Britain -- Margaret MacMillan * New Statesman *Swire has literary ability, a quality that manifests itself in the colour with which she describes the show and the freaks within it... there have been no political diaries to match the insightfulness and style of these since Alan Clark's and, like his, they will become an essential point of reference for those who wish to understand the politics of the age they describe -- Simon Heffer * Telegraph *Swire's uncharitable musings have demonstrated that the disloyalist's diary still has the power to inflict acute embarrassment, long after the events -- Ben MacIntyre * The Times *As tell-all diaries go, they don't get more riveting than Lady Swire's juicy tales -- Alice Fuller * Sun *Diary of an MP's Wife [is] both compelling and shrewd. The pesky MP's wife may have a better sense of public taste than all the players strutting on the political stage. I can't wait for the next swathe of Swire diaries and the film rights for these ones -- Sarah Sands * Oldie *Smirking at the juiciest revelations in the publishing sensation of the year. Relish these stories for they may be the last laughs we get in a while * Scotsman *Lady Swire has a keen eye for detail and a waspish turn of phrase, which makes this a real page-turner. Lady Swire deservedly takes her place alongside Alan Clark, Chips Channon and Julian Critchley -- Lord Vaizey of DidcotRight now, I'm reading a gossipy book; it's a diary of a British MP's wife, Sasha Swire. Normally when I'm buying a book like that I buy it on Kindle because then nobody can see what I'm reading! But it wasn't available, so I actually ordered it by mail and I'm happy I did that -- Kim Campbell, Prime Minister of CanadaThe most gossipy and mischievous diarist since Alan Clark begins her account in 2010 when her husband, Hugo, is appointed minister of state in the Northern Ireland office, and is so excited that he insists on being called "minister" at home * Sunday Times *The small clique of people at the top are also exposed with waspish irreverence by Sasha Swire in Diary of an MP's Wife. Lady Swire may be a social pariah in Notting Hill and Chipping Norton right now but will, I suspect, like Alan Clark before her, be remembered for her indiscretions long after most of the current cabinet * Telegraph *The wildly indiscreet tale of life inside David Cameron's inner circle... as much fun to pick through as a box of Quality Street, and beneath the gossipy surface lies a razor-sharp analysis of the Cameroons' descent from their gilded heyday to being eaten alive by Brexit * Guardian *

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