Search results for ""Sort of Books""

''This marvel of a book is a profound meditation on the precariousness of the planet ... these pieces kept bringing tears to my eyes, catching me offguard ... it is what art or, in this case, wonderful writing can do'' Kate Kellaway, ObserverCairn: A marker on open land, a memorial, a viewpoint shared by strangers.For the last five years poet and author Kathleen Jamie has been turning her attention to a new form of writing: micro-essays, prose poems, notes and fragments. Placed together, like the stones of a wayside cairn, they mark a changing psychic and physical landscape. The virtuosity of these short pieces is both subtle and deceptive. Jamie''s intent ''noticing'' of the natural world is suffused with a clear-eyed awareness of all we endanger. She considers the future her children face, while recalling her own childhood and notes the lost innocence in the way we respond to the dramas of nature. With meticulous care she marks the point she has reached, in life and within the cascad

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WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2022 LONGLISTED FOR THE RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE 2023 A searing satire set amid the murderous mayhem of Sri Lanka beset by civil war Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida, war photographer, gambler and closet gay, has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the serene Beira lake and he has no idea who killed him. At a time where scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts with grudges who cluster round can attest. But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has seven moons to try and contact the man and woman he loves most and lead them to a hidden cache of photos that will rock Sri Lanka. Ten years after his prizewinning novel Chinaman established him as one of Sri Lanka's foremost authors, Karunatilaka is back with a rip-roaring epic, full of mordant wit and disturbing truths. 'Fizzes with energy, imagery and ideas against a broad, surreal vision of the Sri Lankan civil wars' The Booker judges 'Recalls the mordant wit and surrealism of Nikolai Gogol's Dead Souls or Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita ... Karunatilaka has done artistic justice to a terrible period in his country's history' Guardian 'Outstanding... the most significant work of Sri Lankan fiction in a decade.' New European

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'If we want to understand what has been lost to time, there is no way other than through the exercise of imagination ... imagination applied with delicate rather than broad strokes'. So wrote the award winning Japanese author Kyoko Nakajima of her story, Things Remembered and Things Forgotten, a piece that illuminates, as if by throwing a switch, the layers of wartime devastation that lie just below the surface of Tokyo's insistently modern culture. The ten acclaimed stories in this collection are pervaded by an air of Japanese ghostliness. In beautifully crafted and deceptively light prose, Nakajima portrays men and women beset by cultural amnesia and unaware of how haunted they are - by fragmented memories of war and occupation, by fading traditions, by buildings lost to firestorms and bulldozers, by the spirits of their recent past.

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In the bitter winds of autumn 1963, Tove Jansson, helped by Brunström, a maverick fisherman, raced to build a cabin on a treeless skerry in the Gulf of Finland. The island was Klovharun, and for thirty summers Tove and her beloved partner, the graphic artist, Tuulikki Pietilä, retreated there to live, paint and write, energised by the solitude and shifting seascapes. Notes from an Island, published in English for the first time, is both a chronicle of this period and a homage to the mature love that Tove and 'Tooti' shared for their island and for each other. Tove's spare prose, and Tuulikki's subtle washes and aquatints combine to form a work of meditative beauty. '... Tooti wandered aimlessly around the island and stood stock still for long periods. I thought I knew what she was doing. She was working again. Copperplate etchings and wash drawings. Mostly the lagoon, the lagoon as a consummate mirror for clouds and birds, the lagoon in a storm, in fog. And the granite, first and foremost, the granite, the cliff, the rocks. It's all peace and quiet now.'

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When a grumbling volcano causes Moominvalley to flood, the Moomins escape by boat, finding refuge on a floating theatre. Adventures abound when the theatre casts adrift leaving Moomin,The Snorkmaiden and Little My marooned. Will they all be reunited before the final curtain?

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Special collectors' hardback editions lovingly restored to original designs 'I love these editions - so beautifully produced, so solid and permanent, just as Tove Jansson deserved.' Philip Pullman A beautiful collectors' edition of this classic Moomin story, using original 50s and 60s cover artwork, newly scanned images and gorgeous endpapers. When signs appear that a comet is heading towards their beloved Moominvalley, Moomin and his friend Sniff set sail to consult with the professors in the distant Lonely Mountains. Their journey is full of adventures and narrow escapes; from crocodiles, giant lizards, eagles and the like, but new friends - soon to become firm friends - help lighten the way. In this first and most exciting Moomin novel, we meet the wandering Snufkin, the fascinating Snork Maiden and her brother the Snork as they join Moomin in his race to get home to Moominmamma before the comet crashes. From the publisher of The Invisible Child and The Fir Tree (all proceeds to Oxfam) here's the Moomin gift editions.

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Tove Jansson's first book for adults drew on her childhood memories to capture afresh the enchantments and fears of growing up in Helsinki in the nineteen tens and twenties. Described as both a memoir and 'a book of superb stories' by Ali Smith, her startlingly evocative prose offers a glimpse of the mysteries of winter ice, the bonhomie of balalaika parties, and the vastness of Christmas viewed from beneath the tree. With rare images from the Jansson family archive, it makes a perfect gift.

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The outer world flew open like a door, and I wondered - what is it that we're just not seeing? In this greatly anticipated sequel to Findings, prize-winning poet and renowned nature writer Kathleen Jamie takes a fresh look at her native Scottish landscapes, before sailing north into iceberg-strewn seas. Her gaze swoops vertiginously too; from a countryside of cells beneath a hospital microscope, to killer whales rounding a headland, to the constellations of satellites that belie our sense of the remote. Written with her hallmark precision and delicacy, and marked by moments in her own life, Sightlines offers a rare invitation to pause and to pay heed to our surroundings.

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The Good Life goes on at El Valero. Find yourself laughing out loud as Chris is instructed by his daughter on local teenage mores; bluffs his way in art history to millionaire Bostonians; is rescued off a snowy peak by the Guardia Civil; and joins an Almond Blossom Appreciation Society. You'll cringe with Chris as he tries his hand at office work in an immigrants' advice centre in Granada, spurred into action by the arrival of four destitute young Moroccans at El Valero. And you'll never see olive oil in quite the same way again... In this sequel to 'Lemons' and 'Parrot', Chris Stewart's optimism and zest for life is as infectious as ever.

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This newly translated collection of stories brilliantly evokes the shifting scenes and restlessness of summer. A professor arrives in a beautiful Spanish village only to find that her host has left and she must cope with fractious neighbours alone; a holiday on a Finnish Island is thrown into disarray when a disconcerting young boy arrives; an artist returns to an old flat to discover that her life has been eerily usurped. Philosophical and profound, but with the deceptive lightness that is her hallmark, Travelling Light is guaranteed to surprise and transport.

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A tale of Moomin Valley sees Toffle driven from his home by the frightening noises of the forest. Too shy, at first, to approach the many colourful Moomin characters he passes along the way, he gains confidence by discovering a scared and lonely Miffle who needs his help. Toffle's quest to save Miffle from the dreadful Groke is an inspiring tale that every child (and many adults) are sure to identify with. In Scandinavia, this story by Tove Jansson is even more popular than her Moomin books; in over 40 years since it was published it has never once been out of print.

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Celebrating 50 years of Tove Jansson's classic, bestselling novel Featured in the BBC 2 Between the Covers Bookclub Special (Eurovision series 2023) 'Distils the essence of summer' Robert Macfarlane 'Magical, life-affirming' Elizabeth Gilbert The Worldwide Classic about a tiny island and larger love. An elderly artist and her six-year-old grand-daughter while away a summer together on a tiny island in the gulf of Finland. As the two learn to adjust to each other's fears, whims and yearnings, a fierce yet understated love emerges - one that encompasses not only the summer inhabitants but the very island itself. Written in a clear, unsentimental style, full of brusque humour, and wisdom, The Summer Book is a profoundly life-affirming story. Tove Jansson captured much of her own life and spirit in the book, which was her favourite of her adult novels. With a foreword by Esther Freud and an afterword by Sophia Jansson (on whom the child 'Sophia' is based) who returns to the island during the pandemic at the point of becoming a grandmother herself. Includes a 15pp epilogue by Tove's niece Sophia Jansson - the inspiration for 'Sophia' - on a personal and moving return to the island. 'Eccentric, funny, wise, full of joys and small adventures. This is a book for life.' Esther Freud 'Tove Jansson was a genius. This is a marvellous, beautiful, wise novel, which is also very funny.' Philip Pullman

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A sweeping historical adventure, set in 17th-century Morocco, from the bestselling author of Court of Lions. Morocco, 1677 The tyrannical King Ismail resides over the palace of Meknes. Through the sweltering heat of the palace streets, Nus Nus, slave to the king, is sent to the apothecary. There he discovers the bloody corpse of the herb man, and becomes entangled in a plot to frame him for the murder. Meanwhile, young, fair Alys Swann is captured during her crossing to England, where she is due to be wed. Sold into Ismail's harem, she is forced to choose: renounce her faith or die. An unlikely alliance develops between Alys and Nus Nus, one that will help them to survive the horrifying ordeals of King Ismail's court. Brimming with rich historical detail and peppered with real characters, from Charles I to Samuel Pepys, The Sultan's Wife is a story of enduring love and adventure. 'Jane Johnson writes the sort of books you want to tell everyone about... I'm addicted' Katie Fforde 'An utterly compelling story' Stuart MacBride 'An irresistible page turner – I loved it' Barbara Erskine 'Full of intrigue, deceit, skulduggery and murder' Ben Kane

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