Literary Figures

'Next, I applied to work in the accounts department, a sealed room where women operated clattering machines like enormous typewriters. After I had catastrophically and erroneously applied all the wrong information to several trolley loads of documents...

Max Brod, a successful novelist, was a boyhood companion of Kafka's and remained closely tied to him until Kafka's death in 1924. He was undoubtedly the one man whom Kafka trusted more than any other, and it is to Brod, as his literary executor and...

Think you already know the story of Charles Dickens' life? Think again.Almost everything you're familiar with was first mentioned in an authorised biography written by Dickens' close friend John Forster 150 years ago. It's the version of events that...

A homage to a remarkable poet and his world.'At The Loch of Green Corrie is more than merely elegant, more than a collection of albeit fascinating insights, laugh-out-loud observations and impressively broad erudition' - Sunday Herald'You could easily...

'One of Britain's most celebrated contemporary novelists' Sunday TimesIn this probing series of exclusive interviews, Alistair Owen talks to William Boyd about his works and the life which has inspired them. The conversations which emerge are a deep-dive...

A memoir of land, family and perseverance from one of the most influential writers in America. In this moving and surprising book, Joan Didion reassesses parts of her life, her work, her history - and America's. Where I Was From, in Didion's...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781911547525Author Phyllis RoseFormat PaperbackPage Count 360Imprint Daunt BooksPublisher Daunt Books

'A marvel of storytelling and a masterclass in the history of the book' WALL STREET JOURNALThe Renaissance in Florence conjures images of beautiful frescoes and elegant buildings - the dazzling handiwork of the city's artists and architects. But equally...

A FASCINATING TRUE STORY OF FRIENDSHIP, INTRIGUE AND UNFORGIVABLE BETRAYAL, NOW A MAJOR TV SERIES Readers LOVE Capote's Women: 'A genuinely fascinating account of a great writer and his muses.' 'Loved it! Fabulous book about a extremely...

From 1892, when he was eighteen, until 1949, when this book was first published, Somerset Maugham kept a notebook. It is without doubt one of his most important works. Part autobiographical, part confessional, packed with observations, confidences,...

Winner of the H.R.F. Keating Award for best biographical/critical book related to crime fiction, and nominated for the Edgar Allen Poe and Macavity Awards for Best Critical/Biographical book. Ninety crime writers from the world's...

Delivered in Stockholm on 7 December 2017, My Twentieth Century Evening and Other Small Breakthroughs is the lecture of the Nobel Laureate in Literature, Kazuo Ishiguro. A generous and hugely insightful biographical sketch, it explores his relationship...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781590173657Author Gillian RoseFormat PaperbackPage Count 176Imprint NYRB ClassicsPublisher The New York Review of Books, IncWeight(grams)...

* TOLKIEN * Now a major motion picture Acclaimed as 'the best book about Tolkien', this award-winning biography explores J.R.R. Tolkien's wartime experiences and their impact on his life and his writing of The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings...

'The best thing he's ever written . . . I loved it' ObserverMelvyn Bragg's first ever memoir - an elegiac, intimate account of growing up in post-war Cumbria, which lyrically evokes a vanished world.In this captivating memoir, Melvyn Bragg recalls...

A New York Times Bestseller There aren't many books more beloved than The Tale of Peter Rabbit and even fewer authors as iconic as Beatrix Potter. Her characters-Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddle Duck, and all the rest-exist in a charmed world filled with...

Elizabeth Branwell was born in Penzance in 1770, a member of a large and influential Cornish family of merchants and property owners. In 1821 her life changed forever when her sister Maria fell dangerously ill. Leaving her comfortable life behind,...

With an introduction by Olivia Laing Monday 20 April 1925. One thing in considering my state of mind now, seems to me beyond dispute, that I have at last, bored down into my oil well, & can't scribble fast enough to bring it all to the surface... I...

Isaiah Berlin was one of the great public intellectuals of his time. A magnetic speaker and beacon of liberal philosophy, he gained first-hand experience of some of the pivotal events of the twentieth century and crossed paths with luminaries from...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780670786190Author Camille PeriFormat HardbackPage Count 464Imprint Viking Press IncPublisher Penguin Putnam Inc

A renowned scholar investigates the "human crisis" that Albert Camus confronted in his world and in ours, producing a brilliant study of Camus's life and influence for those readers who, in Camus's words, "cannot live without dialogue and friendship."As...

Driven by famine from their home in the Rif, Mohamed's family walks to Tangiers in search of a better life. But things are no better there. Eight of Mohamed's siblings die of malnutrition and neglect, and one is killed by Mohamed's father in a fit of...

Peter Godwin, an award-winning writer, is on assignment in Zululand when he is summoned by his mother to Zimbabwe, his birthplace. His father is seriously ill; she fears he is dying. Godwin finds his country, once a post-colonial success story,...

TWO LIVES tells the remarkable story of Seth's great uncle and aunt. His great uncle Shanti left India for medical school in Berlin in the 1930s and lodged with a German Jewish family. In the household was a daughter, Henny, who urged her mother 'not to...

From the beloved and bestselling author of I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS, this memoir chronicles Maya Angelou's involvement with the civil rights movement. 'A brilliant writer, a fierce friend and a truly phenomenal woman' BARACK OBAMAMaya Angelou's...

By 1700, France and Italy already had dictionaries of their own, and it became a matter of national pride that England should rival them. Dr Johnson rose to the challenge, turning over the garret of his London home to the creation of his Dictionary. He...

Explore the life and times of Shakespeare and trace his journey from a little boy reluctant to go to school to becoming the famous bard.Travel back to his birthplace in the small town of Stratford-upon-Avon before accompanying the legendary storyteller...

'The water slips over me like cool silk. The intimacy of touch uninhibited, rising around my legs, over my waist, up to my collarbone. When I throw back my head and relax, the lake runs into my ears. The sound of it is a muffled roar, the vibration of...

The childhood and early life memoir of Antonia Fraser, one of our finest narrative historians.Antonia Fraser's magical memoir describes growing up in the 1930s and '40s, but its real concern is with her growing love of history. A fascination that began...

The childhood and early life memoir of Antonia Fraser, one of our finest narrative historians.Antonia Fraser's magical memoir describes growing up in the 1930s and '40s, but its real concern is with her growing love of history. A fascination that began...

'Martin Amis is a seriously good writer, and never on better form than now. Experience, the book of his life, may be the book of his life' Daily Telegraph **ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY** In this remarkable work of...

'Martin Amis is a seriously good writer, and never on better form than now. Experience, the book of his life, may be the book of his life' Daily Telegraph **ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY** In this remarkable work of...

**In November 2021, Anthony Broadwater, who was convicted of the 1981 rape of Alice Sebold and spent sixteen years in prison, was fully exonerated. Serious failings emerged in the 1982 prosecution, which was based largely on faulty witness identification...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780940322127Author J.R. AckerleyFormat PaperbackPage Count 280Imprint NYRB ClassicsPublisher The New York Review of Books, IncWeight(grams)...

Slipstream brilliantly illuminates the literary world of the latter half of the 20th century, as well as giving a highly personal insight into the life of Elizabeth Jane Howard, one of our most beloved British writers.'This is a brave, absorbing and...

Slipstream brilliantly illuminates the literary world of the latter half of the 20th century, as well as giving a highly personal insight into the life of Elizabeth Jane Howard, one of our most beloved British writers.'This is a brave, absorbing and...

'Magical' Daily Mail'I finished it with an ache in my heart and a tear in my eye' SpectatorFrom the author of Cider With Rosie, Village Christmas is a moving, lyrical portrait of England through the changing years and seasons. Laurie Lee left his...

A comprehensive and authorised biographical companion to the works of Agatha Christie covering books, films, TV and plays - revised and updated edition. Agatha Christie was the author of over 100 plays, short story collections and novels which...

'A brilliant biography - John Sutherland has brought Monica Jones to life as she deserves.' Claire Tomalin'Eye-opening... in this account [Monica Jones] comes alive.' The Sunday TimesMonica Jones was Philip Larkin's partner for more than four decades,...

'A brilliant biography - John Sutherland has brought Monica Jones to life as she deserves.' Claire Tomalin'Eye-opening... in this account [Monica Jones] comes alive.' The Sunday TimesMonica Jones was Philip Larkin's partner for more than four decades,...