Literary Figures

What is the What is Dave Eggers's astonishing novel about one of the world's most brutal civil warsValentino Achak Deng is just a boy when conflict separates him from his family and forces him to leave his small Sudanese village, joining thousands of...

The first essay collection from one of the most acclaimed writers of our time. 'This trenchant, unrepentant collection reminds you that she's a brilliant writer... Order a copy in case she's cancelled by Christmas' THE TIMES...

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...

A first-hand account of the life of travel writer Dervla Murphy in which she tells of her early life in Lismore, Co. Waterford, in her rather unusual household. Her father was the county librarian and her mother a chronic invalid. An only child, Dervla...

John le Carre was a defining writer of his time. This enthralling collection letters - written to readers, publishers, film-makers and actors, politicians and public figures - reveals the playfully intelligent and unfailingly eloquent man behind the...

The critical and biographical introduction tells of Lady Wortley Montagu's travels through Europe to Turkey in 1716, where her husband had been appointed Ambassador. Her lively letters offer insights into the paradoxical freedoms conferred on Muslim...

John Hopkins brings back to life all the decadence and flamboyance of Tangier in the 1960s and 1970s. Tangier in the 1960s and '70s was a fabled place. This edge city, the 'Interzone', became muse and escapist's dream for artists, writers,...

"Every page brings forth the elegiac tone of JRR Tolkien's work... It is a beautiful book, including many wonderful pictures by Tolkien himself... Garth's book made me realise the impact that Tolkien has had on my life."The Times A lavishly illustrated...

Longlisted for the 2014 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction (now the Bailie Gifford) 'A thrilling and complex book, enlarges our view of Homer ... There's something that hits the mark on every page'...

When the first bombs fell on London in August 1940, the city was transformed overnight into a battlefront. For most Londoners, the sirens, guns, planes and bombs heralded gruelling nights of sleeplessness, fear and loss. But for Graham Greene and some of...

A fascinating picture of the American frontier emerges from Twain's fictionalized recollections of his experiences prospecting for gold, speculating in timber, and writing for a succession of small Western newspapers during the 1860s.About the AuthorBorn...

Jonathan Bate's Soul of the Age brings us closer than ever to understanding what being Shakespeare was actually like.How did plague turn Shakespeare from a jobbing hack into a courtly poet? How did Bottom's dream rewrite the Bible? How did Shakespeare's...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781590170014Author Henri MichauxFormat PaperbackPage Count 200Imprint NYRB ClassicsPublisher The New York Review of Books, IncWeight(grams)...

Born in 1931, the illegitimate child of an abandoned mother, Thomas Bernhard was brought up by an eccentric grandmother and adored grandfather. Tormented as a young student in a right-wing, catholic Austria, Bernhard ran away from home aged fifteen. At...

'Fiennes has exceptional gifts, and he has written a small masterpiece, a tribute to the power of place, family and memory' Sunday Telegraph William Fiennes' childhood was one of imagination and curiosity, bounded only by the horizon he saw from the...

'So wise and so well done. It made me wish it were much longer than it is' Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie From the award-winning author of Five Star Billionaire and We, The Survivors comes a whirlwind personal...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781612198736Author Toni MorrisonFormat PaperbackPage Count 192Imprint Melville House PublishingPublisher Melville House Publishing

Hermione Lee sees Virginia Woolf afresh, in her historical setting and as a vital figure for our times. Her book moves freely between a richly detailed life-story and new attempts to understand crucial questions - the impact of her childhood, the cause...

See through the eyes of the Brontes as you immerse yourself in their lives and landscapes, wandering the very same paths they each would have walked in search of the inspiration behind their novels and poetry. An...

This is the never-before-told story of George Orwell's first wife, Eileen, a woman who shaped, supported, and even saved the life of one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. In 1934, Eileen O'Shaughnessy's futuristic poem, 'End of the Century,...

Divine Invasions is the definitive biography of one of America's greatest novelists and science fiction's greatest ambassador to literary audiences.Philip K. Dick loosened the bonds of the genre, ultimately making his reputation as a literary writer who...

A fantastic reissue of Richard Holmes' epic biography of this most enigmatic and intriguing of the Romantic poets. This is simply one of the greatest biographical achievements of recent years. Shelley, the most neglected of all the great...

WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY JAMES FENTONSubtitled 'An education in the twenties', this work blends autobiography and fiction to describe the inner life of a writer evolving from precocious public school boy to Cambridge drop-out at large in London's...

'One of the all-time great memoirs' Daily Telegraph'Wonderful...candid, shrewd and moving' William Boyd'Laugh-out-loud glorious and uproarious' Simon SchamaHoward Jacobson's funny, revealing and tender memoir of his path to becoming a writer.Howard...

The sequel to I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS'A brilliant writer, a fierce friend and a truly phenomenal woman' Barack ObamaMaya Angelou's volumes of autobiography are a testament to the talents and resilience of this extraordinary writer. Loving the...

'So compellingly personal you feel you're looking over her shoulder as she sits down to write' New York Times 'Electrically entertaining ... Funny, generous, spirited and kind' The Times This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage is an irresistible...

The story both of the real world of the Brontes at Haworth Parsonage, their home on the edge of the lonely Yorkshire moors, and of the imaginary worlds they spun for themselves in their novels and poetry. Wherever possible, their story is told using...

From the acclaimed author of The Most Dangerous Book, the incredible true story behind the creation of a masterpiece of world literature, Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and PunishmentIn the summer of 1865, the former exile Dostoevsky found himself trapped in...

An acclaimed biography that recreates the cosmopolitan world in which a wine merchant's son became one of the most celebrated of all English writersGeoffrey Chaucer is often called the father of English literature, but this acclaimed biography reveals...

Wine and dine with Victorian London's literati in a heatwave in one of the first ever group biographies, introduced by Francesca Wade (author of Square Haunting).Though she loved the heat she could do nothing but lie on the sofa and drink lemonade and...

A Moment of War is the powerful and harrowing final book in Laurie Lee's acclaimed trilogy that began with Cider with RosieLaurie Lee was still a young man when he decided to fight for the Republican cause in Spain's civil war. But though he braved icy,...

Pairing 100 famous authors, poets, and playwrights from the Victorian age to today with recipes for their iconic drinks of choice, How to Drink Like a Writer is the perfect guide to getting lit(erary) for madcap mixologists, book club bartenders, and...

Warned by a fortune-teller not to risk flying, the author - a seasoned correspondent - took to travelling by rail, road and sea. Consulting fortune-tellers and shamans wherever he went, he learnt to understand and respect older ways of life and beliefs...

What makes one of the most gifted, charismatic and successful young literary agents in New York fall into full-blown crack-addiction: a collapse that would cost him his business, his home, many of his friends and - very nearly - his life? In his utterly...

'Riveting, tragic tale' New Yorker 'Anna Pasternak has produced an irresistible account of joy, suffering and passion' Financial Times The heartbreaking story of the passionate love affair between Boris Pasternak and...

Rooms of Their Own travels around the world examining the unique spaces, habits and rituals in which famous writers created their most notable works. The perennial question asked of all authors is, 'How do you write?'. What do they require of their room...

'Puts Cavendish back into the literary history books where she belongs' Kate Mosse 'Scholarly, articulate, and never less than fascinating' Alice Loxton A biography of the remarkable, and in her time scandalous, seventeenth-century writer Margaret...

'Compelling, remorseless, brilliant' John Gray I can still see Simenon coming into my office the next day, pleased with himself, displaying even more self-confidence, if possible, than before, but nevertheless with a touch of anxiety in his eyes.'...

**Featured on BBC Radio 4's A Good Read** 'A profound meditation on language and loss and time, and on how we construct ourselves through stories. And it's painful. And it's beautiful. And I love it.' NATHAN FLIER Samantha Harvey's insomnia arrived,...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780307592439Author David LipskyFormat PaperbackPage Count 320Imprint Three Rivers PressPublisher Three Rivers PressWeight(grams) 504g