Literary Figures

In Boyhood, J. M. Coetzee revisits the South Africa of half a century ago, to write about his childhood and interior life. Boyhood's young narrator grew up in a small country town. With a father he imitated but could not respect, and a mother he both...

In Boyhood, J. M. Coetzee revisits the South Africa of half a century ago, to write about his childhood and interior life. Boyhood's young narrator grew up in a small country town. With a father he imitated but could not respect, and a mother he both...

'Captures both Barbara and her writing so miraculously' JILLY COOPER Picked as a Book to Look Forward to in 2021 by the Guardian, The Times and the Observer A Radio 4 Book of the Week, April...

A superb autobiography by one of the great literary figures of the twentieth century, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter offers an intimate picture of growing up in a bourgeois French family, rebelling as an adolescent against the conventional expectations of...

A beautifully illustrated account of the letters and correspondence of Jane Austen. It has been said that Jane Austen the woman and Jane Austen the author are all of a piece, and nowhere is this more evident to the lovers of her novels than in the pages...

An exploration of the visual corollary to Didion's life and work and the feeling that each generates in her admirers, detractors and critics-including artists from Helen Lundeberg to Diane Arbus, Betye Saar to Maren Hassinger, Vija Celmins and Andy...

Bram Stoker, despite having a name nearly as famous as Count Dracula, has remained an enigma. David J. Skal, in a psychological and cultural portrait, exhumes the inner world and strange genius of the writer who conjured an undying cultural icon. Stoker...

"You don't have to be Irish to cherish this literary gift-just being human and curious and from a family will suffice." -Malachy McCourt, New York Times bestselling author of A Monk Swimming In the tradition of Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes and Alice...

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...

The Empress of Crime's life was the ultimate detective story - revealed for the first time in this forthright and perceptive biography. While Ngaio Marsh had a flamboyant public persona, she was fiercely protective of her private life. And no...

A collection of writings by the author of the 2022 Booker Prize-shortlisted Treacle Walker 'His work has a symphonic quality unique in fiction' THE TIMES ...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781916475014Author Kathleen JonesFormat PaperbackPage Count 314Imprint The Book MillPublisher The Book Mill

"Publish and be damned", Wellington's famous adage, runs like a leitmotiv through John Calder's memoirs. He has been damned by a censorious press, by politicians, by other publishers and by organs of the state for publishing books on sensitive issues...

'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...

The first book to publish the entirety of Franz Kafka's graphic output, including more than 100 newly discovered drawings "The figures he drew stand alone as stories in themselves."-Lauren Christensen, New York Times Book Review "A sensational new book...

A perceptive introduction to the mind of one of German's greatest writers, in a new translation for the first time in 150 years'The best German book there is' Nietzsche By the turn of the nineteenth century, the poet, novelist and thinker Johann...

A renowned scholar of the English language, Tolkien is today celebrated as the father of the high fantasy genre. Drawing on his knowledge of languages, mythology and legend, he created an entire alternative reality, Middle Earth, and populated it with...

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...

'Dear Mama, I am having a lovely time here. We play football every day here. The beds have no springs . . .'So begins the first letter that a nine-year-old Roald Dahl penned to his mother, Sofie Magdalene, under the watchful eye of his boarding-school...

'As the author reaches her 9th decade [this makes] for a fascinating insight into her life and world, albeit with discretion and leaving tantalising hints at what lies beyond. One for the fans (and friends).' Crime Time'Leon's elegant, witty prose . . ...

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...

NOW AN AWARD-WINNING FILM ON NETFLIX 'One of the great autobiographies written in the twentieth century' MICHAEL HOLROYD, SUNDAY TIMES'Irresistibly readable, commendably honest' FLEUR ADCOCK, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT'The Janet Frame of An Angel at My...

*Longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize*In late eighteenth-century London, a group of extraordinary people gathered around a dining table once a week.The host was Joseph Johnson, publisher and bookseller and he was joined at dinner by a shifting...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780451531780Author Lorraine HansberryFormat PaperbackPage Count 272Imprint SignetPublisher Penguin Putnam IncWeight(grams) 153gDimensions(mm) 170mm * 107mm...

'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...

'Sleepless has changed how I feel about sleep . . . I was captivated' The Times, Book of the Week'This book will inspire you to get up, light a candle, and experience your own Night Self' Financial TimesTHE NIGHT SELF IS: CREATIVE. CURIOUS...

Clive James, a true polymath, became a generation-defining voice as a broadcaster, a critic, a poet and an author. Among his greatest achievements, his five hilarious, heartwarming books of autobiography are collected now in two volumes: his Complete...

He may live in Madrid but he continues to make front-page headlines. This is David Beckham's own story of his career to date, for Manchester United, Real Madrid and England, and of his childhood, family and private life. Featuring David's first full...

"Hayes leaves resonance cleaving the air." -NPRIn these works based on his Bagley Wright lectures on the poet Etheridge Knight, Terrance Hayes offers not quite a biography but a compilation "as speculative, motley, and adrift as Knight himself." Personal...

The acclaimed first English-language biography of the great European novelist and journalist, Joseph Roth, author of The Radetzky March, a writer who captured life in Europe between the wars like no other. The mercurial, self-mythologising novelist...

'Wonderfully readable... Emphasises their sheer extraordinariness and celebrates them' MAIL ON SUNDAY. The eldest was a razor-sharp novelist of upper-class manners; the second was loved by John Betjeman; the third was a fascist who married Oswald...

In 1951 the Australian writers Charmian Clift and George Johnston left grey, post-war London for Greece. Settling first on the tiny island of Kalymnos, then Hydra, their plan was to live simply and focus on their writing The result is Charmian Clift's...

She is the most prolific children's author in history, but Enid Blyton is also the most controversial. A remarkable woman who wrote hundreds of books in a career spanning forty years, even her razor sharp mind could never have predicted her enormous...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.AwardsCommended for Agatha Awards (Best Nonfiction) 2022.Book InformationISBN 9781639362523Author Lucy WorsleyFormat HardbackPage Count 432Imprint Pegasus CrimePublisher Pegasus...

Sitting down to write a book about his hero D.H. Lawrence, Geoff Dyer finds himself compelled to write about anything else. He is in fact compelled to do more or less anything else instead of write. In Sicily he is too preoccupied by his hatred of...

Robert Burns is more than Scotland's national poet. This compact little book contains an illustrated selection of Burns' most acclaimed and best loved poems and songs. The book also contains a biography, a guide to the key landmarks 'in the land of...

A revealing biography of Anne Frank, exploring both her life and the impact of her extraordinary diary In this innovative biography, Ruth Franklin explores the transformation of Anne Frank (1929-1945) from ordinary teenager to icon, shedding new light...

The Invisible Woman by Claire Tomalin is the acclaimed story of Nelly Ternan and Charles DickensWinner of the NCR Book Award, the Hawthornden Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize'This is the story of someone who - almost - wasn't there; who...

'A biography as gripping as one of Lee Child's own bestsellers' Ian Rankin 'Very enjoyable' The Times'Vivid and entertaining' TelegraphLee Child is the enigmatic powerhouse behind the phenomenally successful Jack Reacher novels. With devoted fans...

When you combine the deepest learning and the highest readability with the most plumptious story-telling, the result is A. N. Wilson ... Stephen Fry Known for his journalism, biographies and novels, A. N. Wilson turns a merciless searchlight on his...