Literary Figures

The first comprehensive biography of this undervalued writer, who was considered 'far and away the best living woman poet' in her day.Andrew Motion's Spectator Book of the Year.'One of the many achievements of This Rare Spirit is its rejection of that...

An invaluable companion for any writer seeking to make the writing life a more complex and cooperative venture "Illuminating, deeply endearing essays."-Ron Charles, Washington Post "A lovely, loving letter to aspiring writers."-Diego Baez, Booklist ...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781583228555Author Annie ErnauxFormat PaperbackPage Count 62Imprint Seven Stories Press,U.S.Publisher Seven Stories Press,U.S.Weight(grams) 90g

Amid the flames of the culture wars, politicians have taken up arms over controls on literary culture, spurred on in part by universities 'triggering' canonical texts. Jonathan Swift's 'Battle of the Books' has flared up again. But is 'triggering' utter...

'I have read all W. Scott's novels at least fifty times,' wrote Byron. '...grand work. Scotch Fielding, as well as great English poet - wonderful man! I long to get drunk with him.' A. N. Wilson's subtle, entertaining and frequently provocative...

Edmund Spenser's innovative poetic works have a central place in the canon of English literature. Yet he is remembered as a morally flawed, self-interested sycophant; complicit in England's ruthless colonisation of Ireland; in Karl Marx's words,...

The extraordinary life of one of the world's greatest music and literary icons, in the words of those who knew him best.Poet, novelist, singer-songwriter, artist, prophet, icon-there has never been a figure like Leonard Cohen. He was a true giant in...

In Living to Tell the Tale Gabriel Garcia Marquez - winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature and author of One Hundred Years of Solitude - recounts his personal experience of returning to the house in which he grew up and the memories that this...

In an age of emails, tweets and emojis, this beautiful selection of original love letters invites us into a privileged realm and reminds us why the written word is so expressive and revealing. The 30 handwritten notes included in this book span...

Colm Toibin's Lady Gregory's Toothbrush is a beautiful insight into the life of outspoken Irishwoman, Augusta Gregory.A remarkable figure in Celtic history, she was married to an MP and land-owner, yet retained an unprecedented independence of both...

Over Hill and Dale is the second volume in Gervase Phinn's bestselling Dales series.'Miss, who's that funny man at the back of the classroom?So begins school-inspector Gervase Phinn's second year among the frankly spoken pupils and teachers of North...

Joseph Frank's award-winning, five-volume Dostoevsky is widely recognized as the best biography of the writer in any language--and one of the greatest literary biographies of the past half-century. Now Frank's monumental, 2500-page work has been...

With such varied correspondents as T. S. Eliot, Stephen Spender and Anthony Powell, for nearly forty years George Orwell wrote and received the letters that are now collected together in A Life in Letters, edited with an introduction by Peter Davison in...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2014 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTION The definitive biography of America's most impassioned and lyrical twentieth-century playwright from acclaimed theatre critic John Lahr 'A masterpiece about a genius' Helen Mirren ...

'I seem to have banged on this year rather more than usual. I make no apology for that, nor am I nervous that it will it make a jot of difference. I shall still be thought to be kindly, cosy and essentially harmless. I am in the pigeon-hole marked 'no...

'A daring and mesmerizing twist on the art of biography' - Douglas Smith, author of Rasputin: The Biography 'Anyone who loves [Dostoevsky's] novels will be fascinated by this book' - Sue Prideaux, author of I Am Dynamite! A Life of Friedrich...

The extraordinary and dramatic biography of the first modern feminist, who spent her entire life fighting for the principle of equality 'Gripping ... Most lives would be overshadowed by such a melodramatic end. But Marx's life was so much more than a...

"Ex-Friends" is filled with brilliant portraits of some of the cultural icons who defined our time. While it has some of the elements of a personal diary, it is also a journal de combat describing the intellectual and social turbulence of the 60s and 70s...

'Brisk, lively and wonderfully entertaining' John Banville'Excellent ... read this book' Literary Review'The best single-volume life of the author available' Irish TimesThe much mythologised author of Decline and Fall, A Handful of Dust and Brideshead...

'Brisk, lively and wonderfully entertaining' John Banville'Excellent ... read this book' Literary Review'The best single-volume life of the author available' Irish TimesThe much mythologised author of Decline and Fall, A Handful of Dust and Brideshead...

Richard Holmes's great work of biographical exploration, published alongside its sister volume 'Sidetracks'. In 1985, Richard Holmes published a small book of essays called Footsteps and the writing of biography was changed forever. A daring...

Mikhail Bulgakov (1891-1940) has become the most popular Russian writer of the twentieth century, even though his works were banned for decades after his death due to the repressive Soviet censorship of literature. His great novel, The Master and...

Son of the famous Thomas Mann, homosexual, drug-addicted, and forced to flee from his fatherland, the gifted writer Klaus Mann's comparatively short life was as artistically productive as it was devastatingly dislocated. Best-known today as the author of...

'These hours of solitude and meditation are the only time of the day when I am completely myself' Reveries of the Solitary Walker is Rousseau's last great work, the product of his final years of exile from the society that condemned his political and...

For years I've been telling friends about the therapeutic powers of the act of writing. Now at last I have a book that I can recommend.-Judith Guest, author of Ordinary PeopleBook InformationISBN 9780871316523Author Christina BaldwinFormat PaperbackPage...

'Constantly entertaining ... So much here to amuse and inform' Observer 'These friendly, knockabout letters are a treat' Sunday Telegraph 'Irresistible' New York Times ________________________ Before the world-famous Bond films came the...

THE RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK'Gobsmacking' The Times'Luscious' Mail on Sunday'Delectable . . . ravishing' Sunday Times'A chocolate box full of delicious gothic delights - jump in' Lucy Worsley'Stranger than fiction, as dark as any gothic drama . . ...

THE RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK'Gobsmacking' The Times'Luscious' Mail on Sunday'Delectable . . . ravishing' Sunday Times'A chocolate box full of delicious gothic delights - jump in' Lucy Worsley'Stranger than fiction, as dark as any gothic drama . . ...

From the author of The Satanic Verses and Midnight's Children comes an unflinchingly honest and fiercely funny account of a life turned upside-down. On Valentine's Day, 1989, Salman Rushdie received a telephone call from a BBC journalist that would...

'Entirely original and thrilling . . . this is Gatsby made real' JULIET NICOLSON'This witty, fascinating book is a delight. Read it.' MIRIAM MARGOLYESIn the 1920s a new generation stepped forward to invigorate the Bloomsbury Group - creative young people...

'Hilarious, subversive, sharp without being lethal, and loving without an ounce of sentiment, Shirley Jackson's more-or-less autobiographical account of life as a mother of four and faculty wife (and brilliant writer) is an eternal, comic joy' Amy...

'His erudition is enorous, his prose as beautiful and clear as the blue ocean on a crisp morning . . . Passage to Juneau is a wonderfully fluid read' - Sunday Times Passage to Juneau is an account of Raban's voyage from Seattle to the Alaskan capital by...

A Sinister Assassin contains original translations of Antonin Artaud's last writings and interviews, most never previously available in English.A Sinister Assassin presents translations of Antonin Artaud's largely unknown final work of 1947-48, revealing...

A new work by a highly acclaimed author - The Big Music(2012) was described as 'One of the finest novels of the past decade' by the TLS The essay will appeal to all fans of Katherine Mansfield A profound meditation on the nature of home and artistic...

In addition to his numerous works in prose and poetry for both children and adults, Daniil Kharms (1905-1942), one of the founders of Russia's "lost literature of the absurd," wrote notebooks and a diary for most of his adult life. Published for the...

'I don't believe in God, but I miss Him.' Julian Barnes' new book is, among many things, a family memoir, an exchange with his philosopher brother, a meditation on mortality and the fear of death, a celebration of art, an argument with and about God, and...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780996421812Author William E. JonesFormat HardbackPage Count 200Imprint We Heard You Like BooksPublisher We Heard You Like Books

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780156899826Author Ivan DoigFormat HardbackPage Count 336Imprint Mariner Books ClassicsPublisher Mariner Books Classics

A Washington Post 2021 Non-Fiction Book of the Year New York Times Review of Books Editors' Choice Non-Fiction Title Longlisted for the 2022 PEN / Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography 'Beautifully told. It is high time Elizabeth Barrett...

A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR The year is 1851. It's a time of radical change in Britain, when industrial miracles and artistic innovations rub shoulders with political unrest, poverty and disease. It's also a turbulent time in the life of Charles Dickens,...