Literary Figures

An essay with the reach and momentum of a novel, Kate Briggs's This Little Art is a genre-bending song for the practice of literary translation, offering fresh, fierce and timely thinking on reading, writing and living with the works of others. Taking...

A NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR From one of our greatest living writers, comes a remarkable memoir of a forgotten England. 'The war went. We sang in the playground,...

George Orwell left post-war London for Barnhill, a remote farmhouse on the Isle of Jura, to write what became Nineteen Eighty-Four. He was driven by a passionate desire to undermine the enemies of democracy and make plain the dangers of dictatorship,...

* * 'Very funny and astute . . . a loathly feast for royal-watchers' Hilary Mantel, New Statesman Books of the Year 2018'Almost every page is a gem'A. N. Wilson, Spectator Christmas Books'A complete delight, conjuring up, with a few sharp strokes of the...

John McGahern's astounding memoir of his childhood:'A glowing masterpiece.' Hilary Mantel'The one Irish writer everyone should read.' Colm ToibinAs wise and compelling a book as any of his elegiac and graceful novels.' David Mitchell'I have admired, even...

The fascinating and quirky biography of a disheveled poet, skillfully interwoven with his original works.Zen monk Santoka Taneda (1882-1940) is one of Japan's most beloved modern poets, famous for his "free-verse" haiku, the dominant style today. This...

'A huge, fizzing omnium-gatherum of a book . . . marvellous' Daily Telegraph'Witty, wise and elegant . . . a classic of history itself' The Spectator'Grave and witty, suave yet pointed . . . full of energy' Hilary Mantel'An enthralling investigation . . ...

'I wish you a Merry Xmas but no compliments of the season' - Jane AustenChristmas comes up time and time again in Jane Austen's books, from childish chaos in Persuasion to fraught festivities in Northanger Abbey. Join Christmas historian Maria Hubert on...

Cardinal Manning * Florence Nightingale * Thomas Arnold * General Gordon Lytton Strachey's biographical essays on four 'eminent Victorians' dropped a depth-charge on Victorian England when the book was published in 1918. It ushered in the modern...

‘Barbara Pym is one of my most favourite novelists. Few other writers have given me more laughter and more pleasure’ - Jilly Cooper‘I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym’ - Richard Osman‘Could one write a book based on one’s diaries over thirty years? I...

THE TOP 10 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'Completely fascinating, authoritative and intriguing' William Boyd'The big bang of Bond books... Beautiful, brilliant' Tony Parsons_______________________________________________________________________Goldeneye: the...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780957452213Author John CalderFormat PaperbackPage Count 360Imprint John Calder Publishers ScotlandPublisher John Calder Publishers ScotlandWeight(grams)...

The authorised biography of one of the greatest storytellers of all time, written with complete access to the archives stored in the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre. In this award-winning biography, Donald Sturrock reveals many many hidden...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781854110480Author Tony PinkneyFormat PaperbackPage Count 148Imprint SerenPublisher Poetry Wales PressWeight(grams) 195g

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780812982152Author Tracy KidderFormat PaperbackPage Count 224Imprint Random House Trade PaperbacksPublisher Random House USA IncWeight(grams)...

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE With an introduction by her biographer, Mark Bostridge'Remains one of the most powerful and widely read war memoirs of all time' GUARDIAN 'Vera Brittain's heart-rending account of the way her generation's lives changed is still...

Reading George Eliot's work was described by one Victorian critic as 'the feeling of entering the confessional in which she sees and hears all the secrets of human psychology--that roar which lies on the other side of silence'. This new biography of...

An intimate portrait illuminating the life and work of Amos Oz, the award-winning Israeli writer and activist "Concise and compelling."-Benjamin Balint, Wall Street Journal Amos Oz (1939-2018) was one of Israel's most prolific and prominent writers,...

One day, years after he's moved away from his childhood home in rural Ireland, Dermot Healy returns to care for his ailing mother. Out of the blue she hands him the forgotten diary he had kept as a fifteen-year-old. He is amazed to find the makings of...

From the author of The World and All That It Holds, Aleksandar Hemon's The Book of My Lives is an unforgettable memoir of a life forever marked by international conflict.Aleksandar Hemon grew up in a blissful Sarajevo, where his childhood was consumed by...

Luminous essays on translation and self-translation by an award-winning writer and literary translatorTranslating Myself and Others is a collection of candid and disarmingly personal essays by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri, who reflects on...

From the bestselling author of THE BINDING CHAIR, a searing memoir of a four-year affair between the author and her father. 'My father takes my face in his hands. He tips it up and kisses my closed eyes, my throat. I feel his fingers in the...

The Real Beatrix Potter is a fascinating and revealing biography of one of the world's most cherished children's authors. Beatrix Potter's famous little white books have enchanted generations of young readers who adored the characters she created and of...

A vivid and personal documentation of T. S. Eliot's most crucial years, both in his private and public life.Despairing of his volatile, unstable marriage, T. S. Eliot, at 44, resolves to put an end to his eighteen-year union with Vivien Haigh-Wood Eliot...

"If you loved Wilder's books, or if you garden with a child who loves her books, you will enjoy the read." -San Francisco Chronicle In this revealing exploration of Laura Ingalls Wilder's deep connection with the natural world, Marta McDowell follows the...

'A beautifully structured narrative: tough, very moving, a political testimony of considerable force' - Harold Pinter 'As wise and witty and funny and brave as any of his plays' - Louis Auchincloss 'Wholly admirable' - Anthony Burgess ...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781400078936Author Anne Conover HellerFormat PaperbackPage Count 608Imprint Fodor's Travel Publications Inc.,U.S.Publisher Random House USA IncWeight(grams)...

In 1944, at the age of five, William Graves was taken from England to the delightful mountain village of Deya in Majorca, where his father - the poet Robert Graves - had returned with his new family to the place he had lived with Laura Riding before the...

Twain's account of travelling in Europe, A TRAMP ABROAD (1880), sparkles with the author's shrewd observations and highly opinionated comments on Old World culture, and showcases his unparalleled ability to integrate humorous sketches, autobiographical...

Biography is one of the most popular, best-selling, and widely-read of literary genres. But why do certain people and historical events arouse so much interest? How can biographies be compared with history and works of fiction? Does a biography need...

GUARDIAN BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2014No marriage of a major twentieth-century writer lasted longer than Vladimir Nabokov's. Vera Slonim shared his delight at the enchantment of life's trifles and literature's treasures, and he rated her as having the best and...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781848408814Author Daniel MulhallFormat PaperbackPage Count 336Imprint New Island BooksPublisher New Island BooksWeight(grams) 373gDimensions(mm) 215mm *...

From the International Man Booker Prize-winning author of Can't and Won't and The End of the Story - a crystalline collection of literary essays for fans of Susan Sontag and Joan Didion'She's a joy. There's no writer quite like her' Ali Smith 'Among my...

Philip Larkin: A Writer's Life won the Whitbread Award for Biography in 1993 and was championed as 'an exemplary biography of its kind' (The Times). With a new introduction written by the author, this edition offers an engrossing portrait of one of the...

At the outset of his career Ted Hughes described letter-writing as 'excellent training for conversation with the world', and he was to become a prolific master of this art which combines writing and talking. This selection begins when Hughes was...

Discover the life of one of the twentieth century's most significant and notorious war correspondents, and the third wife of Ernest Hemingway.Martha Gellhorn's journalism tracks many of the flashpoints of the twentieth century; as a young woman she...

WRITTEN WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY MARK BOSTRIDGE In her bestselling first volume of autobiography, Testament of Youth, Vera Brittain passionately recorded the agonising years of the First World War, lamenting the destruction of a generation which for...

Eliot is called upon to become the completely public man. He gives talks, lectures, readings and broadcasts, and even school prize-day addresses. As editor and publisher, his work is unrelenting, commissioning works ranging from Michael Roberts's The...

Thanks to Shakespeare, the name Macbeth has become a byword for political ambition realised by bloody violence. Fiona Watson has uncovered, buried beneath the layers of myth, a history that is entirely different from, but just as extraordinary as, that...

The 1987 publication of Iain M. Banks's Consider Phlebas helped trigger the British renaissance of radical hard science fiction and influenced a generation of New Space Opera masters. The thirteen SF novels that followed inspired an avid fandom and...