Search results for ""faber faber""
Faber & Faber The Gloomster
Music depresses me.Dancing distresses me.Everything turns out wrong.That's why, the whole day long,I feel so gloomy.Inspired by Ludwig Bechstein's nineteenth-century poem, Axel Scheffler has created a set of delightfully dark depictions of misanthropic misery. Julia Donaldson, Axel's collaborator on The Gruffalo, has penned a wry, witty new translation of the original German. The result is a triumph of negativity, in the macabre yet merry spirit of the late, great Edward Gorey. Superbly miserable, brilliantly curmudgeonly and oddly cheering, gloominess has never been so appealing. If you have ever felt that winter is cold and dreary but spring comes too soon each year, or that you'd rather just pull up the bedclothes and turn out the light, then The Gloomster is the book for you.
£8.99
Faber & Faber Avalon
Bran's Southern California upbringing is anything but traditional. After her mother abandons her and joins a Buddhist colony, Bran is raised by her 'common-law stepfather' on Bourdon Farms - a plant nursery that doubles as a cover for a biker gang. She spends her days tending plants, slogging through high school and imagining what life could be if she had been born to a different family.Then she meets Peter - a charming, troubled college student from the East Coast - who launches his teaching career by initiating her into the world of art. The two begin a seemingly doomed long-distance relationship as Bran searches for meaning in her own surroundings. She knows how to survive, but now she must learn how to live.'Avalon observes beautifully the shifting terrain of teenage intimacy: its intensity and its fragility . . . it's a hilarious, heartbreaking and - of course - extremely weird novel.' Sunday Times
£9.99
Faber & Faber The Book of the Most Precious Substance: Discover this year’s most spellbinding quest novel
**Winner of the eDunnit Award for Crime ebook of the Year**Shortlisted for an LA Times Book Award, and a Daily Mail Book of the Year'Deeply atmospheric. . . Combines intrigue, magic and antiquarian bookselling.' Observer'A marvellous, magical novel' Irish Times'Irresistible. . . A lavish, lush quest novel.' LAUREN BEUKESRare book dealer Lily Albrecht has been given a tip-off about The Book of the Most Precious Substance, rumoured to be the most powerful occult book ever written. With some of the world's wealthiest people willing to pay a fortune for it, she embarks on a journey from New York to New Orleans to Munich to Paris, knowing that it could also help erase the greatest tragedy of her life.But does the book really exist at all, or will Lily lose everything in search of a ghost?What readers are saying:***** 'Erotic, thrilling, and tense all the way through. There is nothing like this on the shelves.'***** 'Devilishly delightful. . . THE BEST TWIST ENDING of the year!!'***** 'I'm a bit obsessed with this book. . . it's sexy and mysterious and cool, like nothing I've read before.'***** 'My only complaint is that I wanted more!'
£8.99
Faber & Faber Fire Down Below: Introduced by Kate Mosse
Introduced by Kate Mosse, lose yourself in an epic naval journey in the final novel in the Booker Prize-winning historical fiction Sea Trilogy by the author of Lord of the Flies.I think there has been death in my hands.On the last stretch of its epic voyage from England to Australia, a disintegrating warship inches towards land. But there are still trials ahead, as the vessel is smashed against an ice cliff and blasted by a great storm, while the claustrophobic passengers battle erotic desires, masculine rivalry and violent power struggles - all experiencing a sea change in their natures. And when an unseen fire begins to smoulder below decks, the other side of the world has never seemed further away ...'Fantastic ... Gems tumble off the pages ... A strong sense of drama ... Much of the pleasure of reading his work is his original imagery.' Annie Proulx 'A truly noble achievement'. Patrick O'Brien'The best novel I've read this year ... The language fizzes and spits.' Daily Telegraph'Reeks and resounds with authenticity ... The epic imaginative enterprise [is] as formidable a feat as the year-long odyssey it charts.' Sunday Times'Golding writes the past as present [with] uncanny skill and tremendous intuition.' Ben OkriTo The Ends of the Earth: A Sea Trilogy - Book Three
£9.99
Faber & Faber Some Answers Without Questions
'A pointed, svelte but diverse work.' Irish TimesPart memoir, part manifesto, Some Answers Without Questions is an elegant, important and spirited work of self-investigation; the result of decades of answering questions that don't really matter-and not being asked the ones that do.'A delight: approachable, rigorous and omnivorous in its frame of reference. . . a timely, lyrical investigation into what it means to create.' Observer
£10.99
Faber & Faber Was It for This
Hannah Sullivan's first collection, Three Poems, won the T. S. Eliot Prize and the inaugural John Pollard International Poetry Prize. Was It for This continues that book's project, offering a trenchant exploration of the ways in which we attempt to map our lives in space and time. But there is also the wider, collective experience to contend with, the upheaval of historic event and present disaster. 'Tenants', the first poem, is an elegy for Grenfell, written from the uneasy perspective of a new mother living a few streets away. Elsewhere, from the terraces and precincts of seventies and eighties London to the late-at-night decks of American suburbs, intimately inhabited geographies provide reference points and sites for revisiting. Nothing is too small or unlovely to be transfixed by the poet's attention, from the thin concrete pillars of a flyover to an elderly peacock's broken train. There is a memorialising strain in the forensic accumulation of detail, but there is also celebration, a keen sense of holding on to and cherishing what we can.
£12.99
Faber & Faber Richard Scarry's Best Busy Year Ever
Scarry captures all the hustle and bustle of Busytown through a series of delightful, brightly illustrated stories. Flossie, Big Hilda, Mother Cat, Squeaky Mouse and a cast of Scarry's most popular characters are off to pick spring flowers, watch fireworks at the Pig family picnic, help the postman deliver letters, and celebrate holidays, family and friends. This is the perfect introduction to everyday grown-up life - ever!
£8.99
Faber & Faber Love and Theft
'Thrilling.' New York Times Book Review 'Pure pleasure' Sunday Times 'A dark jewel' A. J. Finn 'Electrifying' Robert Crais 'The thriller we've all been waiting for' Lincoln Child What price would you put on a second chance? When Alex Cassidy and Diane Alison meet by chance at a party in Princeton, New Jersey, there are instant sparks. Both are single parents living in wealthy suburbia, independent, highly competent and seemingly settled in their lives. She runs a successful catering business. He's part of a crew that robs banks, casinos and jewellery stores around the world. Neither realises initially that their lives have overlapped before, or that their shared history and burgeoning relationship will come to threaten everything they love. As Alex prepares for one final, daunting job, he discovers that he's not the only one with secrets - and that both of them are playing for the highest stakes imaginable. What readers are saying: 'Full of adrenaline and glamour. It's basically a blockbuster action movie in book form . . . this novel will have you on the edge of your seat for the entire wild ride.' 'It's wildly entertaining, thrilling, and kept me second guessing through the end.' 'A highly bingeable read. I have never before cheered so hard for a positive outcome for a group of criminals in fiction.' 'I nearly gave myself paper cuts flying through Parish's exhilarating thrill ride.' 'This is a fast-moving, machine-gun of a book, a "one last job" and heist novel and unlikely love story all rolled into one.'
£12.99
Faber & Faber Exiles: Three Island Journeys
A luminous exploration of exile - the people who have experienced it, and the places they inhabit - from the award-winning travel writer and author of The Immeasurable World and The Moor. 'Breathtakingly good . . . Exiles is completely sui generis.'EDMUND DE WAAL'Atkins spins a marvellous tapestry of colourful tales, beautifully weaving history and travel accounts.'ANDREA WULF, author of The Invention of Nature'A volume for our times.'SARA WHEELER, THE SPECTATOR'A fascinating study of exile and its effects.'OBSERVERThis is the story of three unheralded nineteenth-century dissidents, whose lives were profoundly shaped by the winds of empire, nationalism and autocracy that continue to blow strongly today: Louise Michel, a leader of the radical socialist government known as the Paris Commune; Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo, an enemy of British colonialism in Zululand; and Lev Shternberg, a militant campaigner against Russian tsarism.In Exiles, William Atkins travels to their islands of banishment - Michel's New Caledonia in the South Pacific, Dinuzulu's St Helena in the South Atlantic, and Shternberg's Sakhalin off the Siberian coast - in a bid to understand how exile shaped them and the people among whom they were exiled. In doing so he illuminates the solidarities that emerged between the exiled subject, on the one hand, and the colonised subject, on the other. Rendering these figures and the places they were forced to occupy in shimmering detail, Atkins reveals deeply human truths about displacement, colonialism and what it means to have and to lose a home.Occupying the fertile zone where history, biography and travel writing meet, Exiles is a masterpiece of imaginative empathy.'[Atkins] is humane, humble, and empathetic . . . beautiful and moving.'ILYA KAMINSKY, author of Deaf Republic and Dancing in Odessa'An incredible, brilliant act of retrieval.'PHILIP HOARE, author of Albert & the Whale'A finely crafted and lyrical meditation.' TLS'Gracefully written . . . Brilliant.' THE ECONOMIST'Rarely has a book been more timely.' HISTORY TODAY***Read The Moor and The Immeasureable World for more award-winning writing from William Atkins
£10.99
Faber & Faber Once You Go This Far
After the death of her cop father, PI Roxane Weary did everything she could to lose herself in her work - but she's getting tired of the hangovers, of fighting with her ex-girlfriend, and of avoiding her mother. When she's asked to investigate a suspicious death, she delves into the case with her usual stubborn determination.Pulling her far from home, and into an insular and controlling evangelical community, the case might just be bigger than Roxane can handle alone. But is it too late, or too dangerous, to call on the people she needs?'Roxane Weary [is] a wonderful character. Lepionka is such an assured writer, with complete narrative authority from the first line.' Sophie HannahWhat readers are saying'Gripping!''Honestly, I can't see myself ever tiring of this series or these characters.''If you like books about hard boiled private eyes who seem to attract trouble with a capital T then you will love these books.''Crisp writing, believable characters and some secret spice that Lepionka imbues her stories with.''I'm a sucker for a good murder mystery and this book did not disappoint.'
£8.99
Faber & Faber Golden Child: Winner of the Desmond Elliot Prize 2019
A TIMES AND EVENING STANDARD BOOK OF THE YEARWINNER OF THE DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE 2019WINNER OF THE AUTHORS' CLUB FIRST NOVEL AWARDWINNER OF THE MCKITTERICK PRIZE 2020ONE OF THE BBC'S '100 NOVELS THAT SHAPED OUR WORLD'LONGLISTED FOR THE JHALAK PRIZE AND THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL FIRST BOOK AWARDWINNER OF BARNES & NOBLE'S 2019 DISCOVER NEW WRITERS PRIZE'So hard to put down.' Daily Mail'Startling . . . Remarkable.' Economist'Right away I was utterly absorbed.' Sarah Jessica ParkerOne father. Two sons. An impossible choice.When thirteen-year-old Paul doesn't return home one afternoon, even his twin brother, Peter, doesn't know where he is. So their father, Clyde, must set out into the dark Trinidadian bush with a torch, to search for him on foot. And when the reasons for Paul's disappearance become clear, Clyde will be faced with a terrible decision. How does a father choose between his children? How does he weigh up what each one is worth? Which one is the golden child?
£8.09
Faber & Faber In the City of Love's Sleep
Iris, a museum conservator in her late forties, is separating from her husband while bringing up two daughters.Raif is a stalled academic, as uncertain of the past as he is of the future, whose girlfriend is about to move in with him. When Iris and Raif first meet by chance, Iris suddenly turns away and starts to run. She is running from what this encounter has woken in her.In the City of Love's Sleep is a contemporary story about what it means to fall in love in middle age. It charts the steps two people take towards one another and what it means to have taken those steps before.
£9.99
Faber & Faber Say Nothing
A normal Wednesday afternoon, and Judge Scott Sampson is preparing to pick up his six-year-old twins from school. His wife Alison texts with a change of plan - she will be collecting them instead. But when Alison arrives home later she is alone, and denies any knowledge of the text.Then the phone rings: a voice warns them that if they want to see their children again, Scott must do exactly what he is told in an upcoming court case, and, most importantly, they must 'say nothing' . . .
£7.19
Faber & Faber Stars, Cars and Crystal Meth
Jack Sutherland has, you might say, led a charmed life in the face of seeming damnation. After a childhood spent in London, his family moved to California and by his twenties Jack was PA and bodyguard to the Hollywood stars - most notably Michael Stipe, RuPaul and Mickey Rourke. His work took him around the world and led to bizarre encounters and requests, but also lured him into a smorgasbord of addictions. Eventually Jack was saved by his father, John Sutherland, one of the literary world's most esteemed figures, and the co-author of this book. Stars, Cars and Crystal Meth is a sensational memoir written with inspiring honesty.
£8.09
Faber & Faber Crusoe's Island: A Rich and Curious History of Pirates, Castaways and Madness
Originally named Juan Fernández, the island of Robinson Crusoe in the South Pacific was the inspiration for Defoe's classic novel about the adventures of a shipwrecked sailor. Yet the complex story of Britain's relationship with this distant, tiny island is more surprising, more colourful and considerably darker. Drawing on voyage accounts, journal entries, maps and illustrations, acclaimed historian Andrew Lambert brings to life the voices of the visiting sailors, scientists, writers and artists, from the early encounters of the 1500s and the perilous journeys of the eighteenth-century explorers, to the naval conflicts of the First World War and the environmental concerns of more recent years. Crusoe's Island explores why we are still not willing to give up on the specks of land at the far ends of the earth.
£8.99
Faber & Faber The Meaning of Art: Faber Modern Classics
Since its first appearance in 1931 Herbert Read's introduction to the understanding of art has established itself as a classic of its kind. It provides a basis for the appreciation of paintings, sculpture and art-objects of all periods by defining the elements that went into their making. A compact survey of the world's art, from primitive cave-drawings to Jackson Pollock, The Meaning of Art explains the persistence of certain principles and aspirations throughout the history of art, and summarizes the essence of such movements as Gothic, Baroque, Impressionism, Expressionism and Surrealism.This new Faber Modern Classics edition features a brand new foreword by Will Gompertz, BBC arts editor.
£10.99
Faber & Faber The New York Trilogy
'One of the great American prose stylists of our time.' New York Times'Auster really does possess the wand of the enchanter.' New York Review of BooksThe New York Trilogy is perhaps the most astonishing work by one of America's most consistently astonishing writers. The Trilogy is three cleverly interconnected novels that exploit the elements of standard detective fiction and achieve a new genre that is all the more gripping for its starkness. It is a riveting work of detective fiction worthy of Raymond Chandler, and at the same time a profound and unsettling existentialist enquiry in the tradition of Kafka or Borges. In each story the search for clues leads to remarkable coincidences in the universe as the simple act of trailing a man ultimately becomes a startling investigation of what it means to be human. The New York Trilogy is the modern novel at its finest: a truly bold and arresting work of fiction with something to transfix and astound every reader.'Marks a new departure for the American novel.' Observer'A shatteringly clever piece of work . . . Utterly gripping, written with an acid sharpness that leaves an indelible dent in the back of the mind.' Sunday Telegraph
£9.99
ACC Art Books John McConnell: Design
John McConnell's list of collaborators includes many household names - Boots, Faber & Faber, Halfords, Clarks, John Lewis. The man behind the Biba logo (for which he won the D&AD Silver in 1969), the logo of the National Grid and the covers of a Penguin student textbook series from the early '70s has exerted a quiet influence over British design since the sixties. His awards alone speak to his prowess: the Prince Philip Designers' Prize (2002) and the title of RDI (Royal Designer of Industry, 1987) among them. Part biography, part showcase for some of McConnell's most celebrated designs, this book gathers McConnell's exclusive redesign for Faber & Faber - a revolutionary new approach to book covers from the early 1980s.
£14.95
Transworld Stitched Up
Dr Shahed Yousaf is a GP who works in prisons, substance misuse and with the homeless community. He was shortlisted for the Bath Flash Fiction Prize 2016 and commended for the Faber & Faber FAB Prize 2017. Shahed won a place on to the Writing West Midlands Room 204 Mentoring scheme and the Middle Way Mentoring Project in 2019.
£16.99
The Lilliput Press Ltd The Sinners' Bell
Helen’s expectations were far from starry-eyed, but married life with Frank in the late 1960s seemed bewilderingly joyless; from the honeymoon in a seedy Paddington hotel complete with dirty linen and a nosy landlady, her new husband drinking until all hours with a shady ‘friend’, their first home in his parents’ Irish pub, in a provincial backwater town. Frank’s father was his own best customer, his mother a shrill and censorious presence in the background, with the local priest as her only friend. Would she allow a sense of hopefulness to creep upon her when she finds out that a baby is on the way? The Sinners’ Bell is Kevin Casey’s first novel, published in 1968 by Faber & Faber. He reveals a striking capacity to convey with sympathy and unsentimental understanding the feelings of the inarticulate, and his portrayal of Helen’s struggle to come to terms with her own unhappiness is profoundly moving. Atmospheric and finely written, this exposé of a shotgun wedding and subsequent marriage is a jewel of narration, and a reissue that is long overdue.
£10.65
IRISH PAGES The Irish Pages Diary 2024
A week-to-view diary, this elegant and practical publication gathers extracts from twenty years of outstanding writing from Irish Pages (the island’s premier literary journal) and The Irish Pages Press (“British Book Award Small Press of the Year 2022, Island of Ireland”).With an array of distinguished Irish and international authors, The Irish Pages Diary 2024 is an essential holiday gift for readers, writers, and anyone interested in the life of the mind and the state of the world. The Diary features classic texts by celebrated authors such as Seamus Heaney, Kathleen Jamie, Susan Sontag, Patricia Craig, Slavenka Drakulić, Julia Kristeva and Chinua Achebe, as well as the remarkable work of emerging writers living in Ireland. The Diary includes quotations in English, Scots, Scots Gaelic and Irish, highlighting the linguistic range across Ireland and Britain. Offering illuminating insights throughout the year, the Diary pairs literary passages with corresponding holidays, historical anniversaries and elegant illustrations. Irish Pages and its authors inhabit “the space outside” the Pale of the Received – business-as-usual in all its (especially Western) forms: literary, intellectual, cultural, social, political. The Diary celebrates this emphasis on original imaginative engagement with the world and its dilemmas, and is intended especially for all those readers for whom ethical issues count. Similar to the Faber & Faber Poetry Diary, The LRB Diary or The Redstone Diary, The Irish Pages Diary offers a unique combination of Irish and international literary perspectives.
£12.00
Carcanet Press Ltd Vernon Watkins: New Selected Poems
Brought back into print in 2017 to mark the 50th anniversary of Vernon Watkins' death. Vernon Watkins (1906-1967) was called by Kathleen Raine: 'the greatest lyric poet of my generation.' Dylan Thomas referred to him as: 'the most profound and greatly accomplished Welshman writing poems in English', or, in a letter, as 'the only other poet except me whose poetry I really like today.' Philip Larkin wrote: 'In Vernon's presence poetry seemed like a living stream, in which one had only to dip the vessel of one's devotion. He made it clear how one could, in fact, 'live by poetry'; it was a vocation, at once difficult as sainthood and easy as breathing.' All Watkins's poetry was published by Faber & Faber in his lifetime, and he was friends with such widely differing poets as: W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, David Jones, Dylan Thomas, Marianne Moore, Philip Larkin, R.S. Thomas and Kathleen Raine. When he died, in 1967, he was being considered for poet laureate, after the death of John Masefield. Since that time, however, although a few have continued to praise his poetry very highly, public awareness of it has ceased almost completely, creating a bizarre gap in the perception of 20th Century poetry.100 years after Watkins's birth (June 27th, 1906), "New Selected Poems of Vernon Watkins" offers the first widely available selection of his poetry since his death, with a new introduction and notes, outlining the literary and biographical context of his work, and a foreword by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is a rare joy thus to be reintroducing the work of a major poet to a new generation of readers.
£9.95
Brown Dog Books Crafting: Transforming Materials & the Maker
In its far-ranging and comprehensive scope, Crafting: Transforming Materials & the Maker is at once both a manual and a manifesto for crafters and craft enthusiasts the world over. A must-have for any craft and educational library, it is a volume that draws together an unparalleled range of craftspeople, practitioners and educationalists from a mix of backgrounds so eclectic that the overall feel of this volume is one of refreshing new perspectives on age-old issues. It is underpinned throughout by critical thinking on a range of social, economic, cultural and ecological debates, and is committed on the seriousness with which we must engage hands-on and outdoor learning as part of a curriculum that values the individual and celebrates the human position within the planet. This is a book that causes us to rethink what constitutes wisdom and knowledge in an age that has detached us from that which defines us as both thinkers and makers. The context of craft, an overview of craft history and the development of a tradition, along with the spiritual underpinning and deep origins of craft production, are all given a thorough review before chapters that embark on an exploration of fabrics, leather, baskets, green wood, pottery, and metal - and glass-working. This timely contribution to the world of contemporary craft revival is a book that is to be applauded for the manner in which it will engage a wide and diverse audience. From master craftsperson to novice beginner, from enthusiast to critic, Crafting: Transforming Materials & the Maker will be an inevitable source of inspiration and an invocation for social change. I certainly envisage it won't be long before my own copy is well-thumbed as a consequence of repeated visits to its passionately written chapters. Alexander Landland, author of Craft: How Traditional Crafts Are About More Than Just Making Faber & Faber 2017
£26.96
Bonnier Books Ltd Abigale Hall
Two orphaned sisters in a house of secrets...On a foggy evening in 1947, seventeen-year-old Eliza and her troubled little sister Rebecca are banished by their aunt and sent to work at an isolated Welsh mansion. But there are rumours of missing maidservants and a ghost that stalks the deserted halls... Wandering through the mansion's dusty rooms, Eliza finds blood-spattered books, crumpled photographs and portraits of a mysterious woman - clues to a terrible past that might just become Eliza's future.As Eliza unravels a mystery that has endured for decades, Rebecca falls under the spell of cruel housekeeper Mrs Pollard, who will stop at nothing to keep the house's secrets. But can the sisters uncover the truth and escape back to London before they meet a dreadful fate?"Lauren A. Forry was PA to Zooey Deschanel on The Happening - that being an M. Night Shyamalan movie, she's obviously well versed in nightmares... This debut novel of the Faber & Faber Creative Writing MA prize winner, touted as Daphne Du Maurier meets hitchcock, is one to watch."THE SKINNY"Lauren Forry has created a brilliant debut novel, one that creeped me out, kept me hooked and will have me recommending Abigale Hall to everyone."READING WITH A VIEW"Abigale Hall hooks you in... Death hangs on the edge of the pages."HEATHER WRITES (4 Stars)"The mansionis something out of a gothic horror in its own right, and there's even a sinister housekeeper something along the lines of the terrifying Mrs Danvers from... what was that book... Ah yes, Rebecca!"CRIME FICTION LOVER"A beautifully written novel full of rumours, intrigue, love and loss."THE WELSH LIBRARIAN"Forry ratches up the tension expertly, until we don't know if it's madness, ghosts, someone toying with Eliza, or her own imagination that makes the mansion such a place of fear. Whatever it is, it works - keep the lights on when reading!"CRIME WORM
£7.99
HarperCollins Publishers There's a Pig up my Nose!
Winner of the Oscar's Book Prize 2018 What if a PIG got stuck up your NOSE? How ever would you get it out? When Natalie has to go to school with a pig stuck up her nose, her whole class gets together to find a way to get the pig out. But how will they do it? The zany humour of Sue Hendra (of Supertato and Barry the Fish with Fingers fame) meets Babe the Pig in this funny picture book. This delightfully silly tale, brought to life by warm, comical artwork from rising star Laura Hughes, will have children giggling and oinking out loud to try to work out how to get a farmyard animal out of someone's nose. The perfect picture book for boys and girls aged 3 years and up – or for anyone who has ever got something stuck up their nose! "This very funny, sweet story won the hearts of the judging panel. Oink!" @oscarsbookprize "The surprise comes right at the start, and what a wonderfully dotty premise to begin a story with, about problem solving in the classroom. Brilliantly structured too" – Julia Eccleshare "Everything about There's a Pig Up My Nose! is entrancing, from the title onwards; it also features the best PE excuse note ever" – The Guardian “…we really want to understand and pick out the books that kids want, as opposed to the books that adults think they should want. The winner that epitomises that more than any other is John Dougherty and Laura Hughes’ There’s A Pig Up My Nose from 2018, which is just glorious.” – James Ashton, co-founder of Oscar's Book Prize (The Bookseller) John Dougherty was born in Larne, Northern Ireland and worked as a children's primary school teacher for several years before leaving to concentrate on his writing. He has published several books for children and has been shortlisted for a number of prestigious awards. His book, Zeus Sorts It Out, was one of The Times children's books of the year 2011. Laura Hughes studied illustration at Kingston University and is the illustrator and artist behind Daddy’s Sandwich, nominated for the Kate Greenaway Medal 2016. She has worked with several publishers including Bloomsbury, Harper Collins US and Faber & Faber. She lives in east London with her cat. Disclaimer: neither of them have ever had a pig stuck up their nose …
£7.21
David R. Godine Publisher Inc Old Poets: Reminiscences and Opinions
“Old Poets is an indispensable jewel.” —Washington Post“An astonishing array of encounters...Hall’s observations are shrewd and generous.” —Boston Globe Intimate portraits of great poets in old age, giving new insight into their work and their lives, and context to the often flawless art created by flawed human beings. The best of themselves endure, and the old poets’ existence and endurance gives readers courage to pursue their own vision. Donald Hall (Essays After Eighty and A Carnival of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety) knew a great deal about work, about poetry, and about age. Each of those things come together in this unique collection. We hear about Robert Frost as Hall knew him: vain and cruel, a man possessed by guilt. But, as Hall writes, “The poet who survives is the poet to celebrate; the human being who confronts darkness and defeats it is the one to admire. For all his vanity, Robert Frost is admirable: He looked into his desert places, confronted his desire to enter the oblivion of the snowy woods, and drove on.”Hall’s essays are once both intimate portraits and learned treatises. He takes us on a pub crawl through the Welsh countryside with the word-mad Dylan Thomas; to the Faber & Faber office of T. S. Eliot, who had discovered more happiness in age than in youth; to a reading where Robert Frost’s public persona hid the truth; to Brooklyn for lunch with the enigmatic Marianne Moore; and to Italy and for a visit with the notorious Ezra Pound. By the time Hall met them, each poet was, he observed, “old enough to have detached from ongoing poetry, to feel alien to the ambitions of the grandchildren.”Also included are portraits of the poets who taught Hall as a writer: the unfailingly kind Archibald MacLeish and Yvor Winters, from whom he learned the most about poetry. Along the way are observations about many other poets and the literary cultures that sustained them.Contents include: “Vanity, Fame, Love, and Robert Frost,” “Dylan Thomas and Public Suicide,” “Notes on T. S. Eliot,” “Rocks and Whirlpools: Archibald MacLeish and Yvor Winters,” “Marianne Moore: Valiant and Alien,” and “Fragments of Ezra Pound.”For lovers of literature, this is a gorgeous remembrance and likely to compel an immediate visit to the poetry section of the nearest bookstore—as Hall writes, “Their presences have been emblems in my life, and I remember these poets as if I kept them carved in stone.”
£19.99