Essays

When Prince Oroonoko's passion for the virtuous Imoinda arouses the jealousy of his grandfather, the lovers are cast into slavery and transported from Africa to the colony of Surinam. Oroonoko's noble bearing soon wins the respect of his English captors,...

The "Father of History."Herodotus the great Greek historian was born about 484 BC, at Halicarnassus in Caria, Asia Minor, when it was subject to the Persians. He traveled widely in most of Asia Minor, Egypt (as far as Aswan), North Africa, Syria, the...

As with his previous bestseller, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, in An Anthropologist on Mars Oliver Sacks uses case studies to illustrate the myriad ways in which neurological conditions can affect our sense of self, our experience of the world,...

Whether puncturing the lies of politicians, wittily dissecting the English character or telling unpalatable truths about war, Orwell's timeless, uncompromising essays are more relevant, entertaining and essential than ever in today's era of spin.About...

Annie Ernaux's father died exactly two months after she passed her exams for a teaching certificate. Barely educated and valued since childhood strictly for his labour, Ernaux's father had grown into a hard, practical man who showed his family little...

'The story goes that a sow who had delivered a whole litter of piglets loudly accosted a lioness. "How many children do you breed?" asked the sow. "I breed only one", said the lioness, "but it is very well bred!"' The fables of Aesop have become one...

'These sixteen pieces brim over with vitality . . . every one of them opening up fresh lines of thought' John Gray, New StatesmanAt the Same Time contains sixteen illuminating essays by Susan Sontag with a preface by David Rieff.The sixteen essays...

In September 1939, housewife and mother Nella Last began a diary whose entries, in their regularity, length and quality, have created a record of the Second World War which is powerful, fascinating and unique. When war broke out, Nella's younger son...

'A landmark of feminist thought and a rhetorical masterpiece' GuardianRanging from the silent fate of Shakespeare's gifted imaginary sister to Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte and the effects of poverty and sexual constraint on female creativity, A Room of...

A Sunday Times BestsellerChristopher Hitchens (1949-2011) was a matchless writer, debater and humanist. Throughout his life he shone the light of reason and truth into the eyes of charlatans and hucksters, exposing falsehood and decrying hypocrisy...

For the Pre-Socratic philosophers the soul was the source of movement and sensation, while for Plato it was the seat of being, metaphysically distinct from the body that it was forced temporarily to inhabit. Plato's student Aristotle was determined to...

Rome, from the beginning.Livy (Titus Livius), the great Roman historian, was born at or near Patavium (Padua) in 64 or 59 BC; he may have lived mostly in Rome but died at Patavium, in AD 12 or 17. Livy's only extant work is part of his history of Rome...

Fuelled by innumerable cigarettes, Martin Amis provides dazzling portraits of contemporaries and mentors alike: Larkin and Rushdie; Greene and Pritchett; Ballard and Burgess and Nicholson Baker; John Updike - warts and all. Vigorously zipping across to...

Philosopher John Dewey called Ralph Waldo Emerson "the one citizen of the New World fit to have his name uttered in the same breath with that of Plato."Through his writing and his own personal philosophy, Emerson unburdened his young country of Europe's...

A TRUE STORY THAT HAS TOUCHED THE HEARTS OF THOUSANDS'Unmitigated delight from cover to cover' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'A real-life love story . . . A timeless period piece. Do read it' WALL STREET JOURNAL 'Beguile an hour of your time and put you in tune with...

Set on a Bengali noble's estate in 1908, this is both a love story and a novel of political awakening. The central character, Bimala, is torn between the duties owed to her husband, Nikhil, and the demands made on her by the radical leader, Sandip. Her...

'I went & sat with W & walked backwards & forwards in the Orchard till dinner time - he read me his poem. I broiled Beefsteaks.' Dorothy Wordsworth's journals are a unique record of her life with her brother William, at the time when he was at the...

To be a journalist is to tell the truth. I Love Russia is Elena Kostyuchenko's fearless attempt to document Russia as experienced by those whom it systematically and brutally erases: village girls recruited into sex work, queer people in the outer...

Terry Pratchett in his own wordsWith a foreword by Neil GaimanTerry Pratchett earned a place in the hearts of readers the world over with his bestselling Discworld series - but in recent years he became equally well-known as an outspoken campaigner for...

'To be taught to write or to speak - but what is the use of speaking, if you have nothing to say? To be taught to think - nay, what is the use of being able to think, if you have nothing to think of? But to be taught to see is to gain word and thought at...

In Burning Questions Atwood aims her constant curiosity and impish humour at our world and reports back to us on what she finds.In it she seeks answers to Burning Questions such as:Why do people everywhere, in all cultures, tell stories?How can we live...

Over the past few decades, the bestselling author of Hitch-22 has crisscrossed the globe debating religious scholars, Catholic clergy, rabbis, and devout Christians on the existence of God- appearances that have attracted thousands of people on both...

Amid the corruption and power struggles of the collapse of the Roman Republic, Cicero (106-43BC) produced some of the most stirring and eloquent speeches in history. A statesman and lawyer, he was one of the only outsiders to penetrate the aristocratic...

A brilliantly varied new selection of D. H. Lawrence's essays, chosen and introduced by Geoff DyerFor D. H. Lawrence the novel was the pinnacle, 'the one bright book of life', yet his non-fiction shows him at his most freewheeling and playful. This is a...

No poetry has touched readers' hearts more deeply than the soldier poets of the First World War. Published to commemorate the centenary of 1914, this stunning set of books, with specially commissioned covers by leading print makers, is an essential...

'They are memorials to times and countries whose best is probably past and gone . . . I was lucky to have known them when I did, before darkness began to fall from the air.'When Laurie Lee first left his country village aged nineteen, he discovered a...

'A joyous multiplicity of writings incorporating collective manifestos, poetry, fiction, and autobiography... endlessly fascinating' Catherine Taylor, Financial Times'A tour de force of feminist thinking, spanning seven centuries and multiple...

For the great Roman orator and statesman Cicero, 'the good life' was at once a life of contentment and one of moral virtue - and the two were inescapably intertwined. This volume brings together a wide range of his reflections upon the importance of...

As the Amazon burns, Fabio Zuker shares stories of resistance, self-determination, and kinship with the land. In 2007, a seven-ton minke whale was found stranded on the banks of the Tapajos River, hundreds of miles into the Amazon rainforest. For...

The "Father of History."Herodotus the great Greek historian was born about 484 BC, at Halicarnassus in Caria, Asia Minor, when it was subject to the Persians. He traveled widely in most of Asia Minor, Egypt (as far as Aswan), North Africa, Syria, the...

'I mean who cares about opinions, gossip, whatever, when bodies are so vulnerable, in search only of love and breath.' Brilliant young writer Ellena Savage explores Portuguese police stations and Portland college campuses, suburban Melbourne libraries...

Featuring a gathering of more than fifty of contemporary literature's finest voices, this volume will enchant, move, and inspire readers with its tales of The Writing Life . In it, authors divulge professional secrets: how they first discovered they...

Accompanying a major exhibition at MEP, Paris, this book combines writing from Nobel-prize winner Annie Ernaux's book Exteriors with photographs from MEP's prestigious collection. Available in French and English editions.Book InformationISBN...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780954440909Author Cecil CollinsFormat PaperbackPage Count 51Imprint Fools' PressPublisher Fools' Press

Marie `Missie' Vassiltchikov as a White Russian emigree caught with her family in Hitler`s Germany at the outbreak of the war. She was a Bright Young Thing, part of the cosmopolitan set who managed to maintain a trance-like normality until as late as...

"Farnsworth beautifully integrates his own observations with scores of quotations from Epictetus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Montaigne and others. This isn't just a book to read-it's a book to return to, a book that will provide perspective and consolation...

Collecting the most incisive and influential writings of one of Rome's finest orators, Cicero's Selected Works is translated with an introduction by Michael Grant in Penguin Classics.Lawyer, philosopher, statesman and defender of Rome's Republic, Cicero...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780679724841Author W. H. AudenFormat PaperbackPage Count 544Imprint Random House USA IncPublisher Random House USA IncWeight(grams) 395gDimensions(mm) 203mm...

Louise Labe (1522-66) remains one of the most important and influential women writers of the Renaissance. Best known for her exquisite collection of love sonnets, Labe played off the Petrarchan male tradition with wit and irony, and her elegies respond...

'Dazzling ... in her kaleidoscopic essays, memoir has been shattered into sliding and overlapping pieces ... mind-expanding' The New York Times Book Review Esme Weijun Wang was officially diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder in 2013, although the...