Literary Figures

Describing Tolstoy's crisis of depression and estrangement from the world, A Confession (1879) is an autobiographical work of exceptional emotional honesty. By the time he was fifty, Tolstoy had already written the novels that would assure him of...

Discover Amos Oz's most iconic work in this extraordinary memoir that is at once a great family saga and a magical self-portrait of a writer who witnessed the birth of a nation*OVER 2 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE*'A hero of mine, a moral as well as...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781785374357Author Colin BatemanFormat PaperbackPage Count 272Imprint Merrion PressPublisher Merrion Press

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BOOK AWARDS 2020*'A bravura performance, highly entertaining' Evening StandardThe Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending takes us on a rich, witty tour of Belle Epoque Paris, via the life story of the pioneering...

Agatha Christie's Complete Secret Notebooks brings together for the first time Secret Notebooks and Murder in the Making, two volumes that explore the fascinating contents of her 73 notebooks. This includes illustrations, deleted extracts, unused ideas,...

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...

'No one can write a man's life except himself.' In his Confessions Jean-Jacques Rousseau tells the story of his life, from the formative experience of his humble childhood in Geneva, through the achievement of international fame as novelist and...

'No one else can make me laugh and cry quite like Jilly Cooper.' Gill Sims'Jilly Cooper's non-fiction is just as entertaining as her novels.' Pandora Sykes____________________'One truth I have learnt, as middle age enmeshes me like Virginia creeper, is...

Jane Austen is the definitive biography of one of Britain's best-loved novelists, from the acclaimed author of Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self, Charles Dickens: A Life and The Invisible Woman'As near perfect a life of Austen as we are likely to get:...

Jane Austen is the definitive biography of one of Britain's best-loved novelists, from the acclaimed author of Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self, Charles Dickens: A Life and The Invisible Woman'As near perfect a life of Austen as we are likely to get:...

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...

From an impoverished childhood in the Scottish highlands to Victorian London, this is the inspiring story of two brothers – Daniel and Alexander Macmillan – who built a publishing empire - and brought Alice in Wonderland to the world. Their remarkable...

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...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE PEN ACKERLEY PRIZE 2020 'A uniquely strange and wonderful work of literature' Philip Hoare 'An exciting new voice' Mark Cocker, author of Crow...

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)...

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 9781848409286Author Grainne LyonsFormat PaperbackPage Count 248Imprint New Island BooksPublisher New Island BooksWeight(grams) 350gDimensions(mm) 198mm *...

"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...

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

FREDERICK FORSYTH HAS SEEN IT ALL. AND LIVED TO TELL THE TALE...At eighteen, Forsyth was the youngest pilot to qualify with the RAF.At twenty-five, he was stationed in East Berlin as a journalist during the Cold War.Before he turned thirty, he was in...

FREDERICK FORSYTH HAS SEEN IT ALL. AND LIVED TO TELL THE TALE...At eighteen, Forsyth was the youngest pilot to qualify with the RAF.At twenty-five, he was stationed in East Berlin as a journalist during the Cold War.Before he turned thirty, he was in...

From the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Last Act of Love, Cathy Rentzenbrink's Dear Reader is the ultimate love letter to reading and to finding the comfort and joy in stories.'Exquisite' - Marian Keyes, author of Grown Ups'A warm, unpretentious...

'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...

'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.'...

'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...

Evocative, engaging and filled with vivid details, Rooms of their Own explores the homes of these three writers linked to the Bloomsbury Group. Bringing together stories of love, desire and intimacy, of evolving relationships and erotic encounters, with...

From the very first book publication in 1920 to the recent film release of Death on the Nile, this investigation into Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot celebrates a century of probably the world's favourite fictional detective. ...

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...

'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...

'Making Darkness Light is an illumination' Adam Phillips'His sympathetic yet challenging account will undoubtedly win Milton new readers - and for that a chorus of Hallelujahs' SpectatorFor most of us John Milton has been consigned to the dusty pantheon...

Why biography? This collection of essays on the problems and functions of biography, and particularly the biography of writers, thinkers and artists, investigates a subject of enduring importance for those interested in culture and society. In the last...

**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,...

For the first time, John Drury convincingly integrates the life and poetry of George Herbert, giving us in Music at Midnight the definitive biography of the man behind some of the most famous poems in the English Language.'Love bade me welcome . . ...

The definitive biography of an extraordinary novelist, by acclaimed literary biographer Claire Harman'There was no possibility of taking a walk that day . . .' With these words Charlotte Bronte began Jane Eyre and changed English literature irrevocably...

The definitive biography of an extraordinary novelist, by acclaimed literary biographer Claire Harman'There was no possibility of taking a walk that day . . .' With these words Charlotte Bronte began Jane Eyre and changed English literature irrevocably...

A moving portrait of the landscape that shaped the life of Laurie Lee, the beloved author of Cider With Rosie 'Before I left the valley I thought everywhere was like this. Then I went away for 40 years and when I came back I realized that nowhere was...

The Essential Tagore showcases the genius of India's Rabindranath Tagore, the first Asian Nobel Laureate and possibly the most prolific and diverse serious writer the world has ever known.Marking the 150th anniversary of Tagore's birth, this ambitious...

'I am going to write the spy story to end all spy stories' One morning in February 1952, a journalist called Ian Fleming sat down at his desk and set about creating a fictional secret agent. James Bond was born and would go on to become one of the most...