Essays

Oliver Sacks died in August 2015 at his home in Greenwich Village, surrounded by his close friends and family. He was 82. He spent his final days doing what he loved: playing the piano, swimming, enjoying smoked salmon - and writing . . . As Dr Sacks...

A stunning collection of essays and memoir from twice Booker Prize winner and international bestseller Hilary Mantel, author of The Mirror and the Light In 1987, when Hilary Mantel was first published in the London...

Sontag wrote Illness as Metaphor in 1978, while suffering from breast cancer herself. In her study she reveals that the metaphors and myths surrounding certain illnesses, especially cancer, add greatly to the suffering of the patients and often inhibit...

The epic Viking Age stories that inspired J. R. R. Tolkien and Wagner's Ring cycleWritten in thirteenth-century Iceland but based on ancient Norse poetry cycles, The Saga of the Volsungs combines mythology, legend and sheer human drama. It tells of the...

'The story of the negro in America is the story of America ... it is not a very pretty story'James Baldwin's breakthrough essay collection made him the voice of his generation. Ranging over Harlem in the 1940s, movies, novels, his preacher father and his...

Written by an unknown author in the twelfth century, this powerful tale of murder and revenge reaches back to the earliest epochs of German antiquity, transforming centuries-old legend into a masterpiece of chivalric drama. Siegfried, a great prince of...

Love and loyalty, hatred and revenge, fear, deprivation, and political ambition: these are the motives which thrust the characters portrayed in these three Sophoclean masterpieces on to their collision course with catastrophe. Recognized in his own...

A Guest at the Feast uncovers the places where politics and poetics meet, where life and fiction overlap, where one can be inside writing and also outside of it.From the melancholy and amusement within the work of the writer John McGahern to an...

Written around AD 1200 by an unnamed Icelandic author, the Orkneyinga Saga is an intriguing fusion of myth, legend and history. The only medieval chronicle to have Orkney as the central place of action, it tells of an era when the islands were still part...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780956240163Author Carole Boyce DaviesFormat PaperbackPage Count 242Imprint Ayebia Clarke Publishing LtdPublisher Ayebia Clarke Publishing LtdWeight(grams)...

'A brilliant, glittering intelligence' Sunday TimesOn Women brings together Susan Sontag's most fearless and incisive writing on women, a crucial aspect of her work that has not until now received the attention it deserves.For the most part written in...

This is a selection of the poet's work, including all the great lyrics and the more important prophetic books. In her introduction the poet and critic expounds Blake's esoteric theory and shows how it helped to create a poetry which is unlike any other...

On the creation of the world, and the destruction of Atlantis.Plato, the great philosopher of Athens, was born in 427 BC. In early manhood an admirer of Socrates, he later founded the famous school of philosophy in the grove Academus. Much else...

In this bold and exhilarating mix of memoir and writing guide, Melissa Febos tackles the emotional, psychological, and physical work of writing intimately while offering an utterly fresh examination of the storyteller's life and the challenges it...

In this inspiring collection of essays, acclaimed writer and critic Olivia Laing makes a brilliant case for why art matters, especially in the turbulent political weather of the twenty-first century.'Never has a publication been more timely' - Dazed'A...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781590301661Author Shaun McNiffFormat PaperbackPage Count 256Imprint Shambhala Publications IncPublisher Shambhala Publications IncWeight(grams)...

Illuminations contains the most celebrated work of Walter Benjamin, one of the most original and influential thinkers of the 20th Century: 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction', 'The Task of the Translator' and 'Theses on the Philosophy...

In the early 2000's, as an undergraduate, Michele Filgate started writing an essay about being abused by her stepfather. It took many years for her to realize what she was actually trying to write about: the fracture this caused in her relationship...

In these delightful, melancholy prose sketches Maeve Brennan goes in pursuit of the ordinary, taking us on a tour of the cheap hotels, unassuming restaurants, and crowded streets of New York City. Brennan presents herself as the long-winded lady,...

Ursula K. Le Guin witnessed and contributed to many of the twentieth century's rebellions and upheavals, including women's liberation, the Civil Rights movement and US anti-war and environmental activism. Spanning fifty years of her life and work, Space...

Like John Updike, Martin Amis is the pre-eminent novelist-critic of his generation. The War Against Cliche is a selection of his reviews and essays over the past quarter-century. It contains pieces on Cervantes, Milton, Donne, Coleridge, Jane Austen,...

The revised edition of Grube's classic translation follows and furthers Grube's noted success in combining fidelity to Plato's text with natural readability, while reflecting the fruits of new scholarship and insights into Plato's thought since...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781739267599Author David HundeyinFormat PaperbackPage Count 274Imprint Abibiman Publishing UKPublisher Abibiman Publishing UK

AN OPRAH BOOK CLUB PICKTHE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER -- FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER QUIET: THE POWER OF INTROVERTS IN A WORLD THAT CAN'T STOP TALKING"Amazing and profound . . . every single person should read it" Johann Hari"Moving...

From the bestselling author of On Gratitude and On the Move.In this spirited volume, Oliver Sacks examines the many passions of his own life - both as a doctor engaged with the central questions of human existence, and as a polymath conversant in all the...

Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82) was a writer of breathtaking range and learning, whose works demonstrate a warm and humorous view of human nature. Religio Medici is a fascinating, witty and intimate exploration of his views on faith and tolerance, while...

A collection of insightful and uproariously funny non-fiction by the bestselling author of INFINITE JEST - one of the most acclaimed and adventurous writers of our time. A SUPPOSEDLY FUN THING... brings together Wallace's musings on a wide range of...

'I am afraid of being the disruptive woman. And of not being disruptive enough. I am afraid. But I am doing it anyway.'In this dazzling debut, Emilie Pine speaks powerfully from her painful personal experience - on the emotional labour of caring for her...

FROM THE BEST-SELLING AUTHOR OF MY SEDITIOUS HEART AND THE MINISTRY OF UTMOST HAPPINESS, A NEW AND PRESSING DISPATCH FROM THE HEART OF THE CROWD AND THE SOLITUDE OF A WRITER'S DESKThe chant of 'Azadi!' - Urdu for 'Freedom!' - is the slogan of the freedom...

A deeply moving and mind-expanding collection of personal essays in the first ever work of non-fiction from #1 internationally bestselling author John GreenThe Anthropocene is the current geological age, in which human activity has profoundly shaped the...

Twelve early pieces never before collected that offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of Joan Didion. Mostly drawn from the earliest part of her astonishing five-decade career, the wide-ranging...

The best of Bukowski's novels, stories, and poems, this collection reads like an autobiography, relating the extraordinary story of his life and offering a sometimes harrowing, invariably exhilarating reading experience. A must for this counterculture...

Laughter shakes us out of our deadness. An outburst of spontaneous laughter is an eruption from the unconscious that, like political resistance, poetry, or self-revelation, expresses a provocative, impish drive to burst free from external constraints...

From one of the great thinkers and writers of our time, comes the unmissable final instalment in Deborah Levy's critically acclaimed 'Living Autobiography'.'A beautifully crafted and thought-provoking snapshot of a life' The Evening...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781911547396Author Margaret DrabbleFormat PaperbackPage Count 198Imprint Daunt BooksPublisher Daunt Books

In 1963, Annie Ernaux, 23 and unattached, realizes she is pregnant. Shame arises in her like a plague: understanding that her pregnancy will mark her and her family as social failures, she knows she cannot keep that child. This is the story, written...

BY THE WINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR JOURNALISM 2023A powerful collection of journalism on race, racism and Black life and death from one of the nation's leading political voices.'An outstanding journalist and chronicler.' BERNARDINE EVARISTO'Fused with...

Mock trial-Roman style.The Lesser Declamations, dating perhaps from the second century AD and attributed to Quintilian, might more accurately be described as emanating from "the school of Quintilian." The collection-here made available for the first...

'A joyful examination of two artists from different centuries and the unlikely parallels in their life and work' Guardian'An ardent fan letter from Hornby that makes you want to reread Great Expectations whilst listening to Sign o'the Times'...

George Orwell's moving reflections on the English character and his passionate belief in the need for political change.The Lion and the Unicorn was written in London during the worst period of the blitz. It is vintage Orwell, a dynamic outline of his...