** THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ** 'Juliet Nicolson is brilliant at recapturing mood, moment and character . These shadows hung over a country paralysed by frozen heating oil, burst pipes and power cuts. And yet underneath the frozen surface, new life was beginning to stir.
Discover an exquisitely told, tragic tale of thwarted love.It is in 1950s' Brighton that Marion first catches sight of Tom. He teaches her to swim in the shadow of the pier and Marion is smitten - determined her love will be enough for them both. A few years later in Brighton Museum Patrick meets Tom. Patrick is besotted with Tom and opens his eyes to a glamorous, sophisticated new world. Tom is their policeman, and in this age it is safer for him to marry Marion. The two lovers must share him, until one of them breaks and three lives are destroyed.'A moving story of longing and frustration' Observer
The second volume in his autobiographical quartet based on the seasons, Winter is an achingly beautiful collection of daily meditations and letters addressed directly to Knaugsaard's unborn daughterIt is strange that you exist, but you don't know anything about what the world looks like.
Begins with a letter the author writes to his unborn daughter. He adds one short piece per day, describing the material and natural world with the precision and mesmerising intensity that have become his trademark.
**SHORTLISTED FOR THE T.S. ELIOT PRIZE 2021**A book of loss, looking back, and what binds us to life, by a towering poetic talent, 'one of the poetry stars of his generation' (Los Angeles Times).'We sleep long, / if not sound,' Kevin Young writes early on in this exquisite gathering of poems, 'Till the end / we sing / into the wind.' In scenes and settings that circle family and the generations in the American South - one poem, 'Kith', exploring that strange bedfellow of 'kin' - the speaker and his young son wander among the stones of their ancestors. 'Like heat he seeks them, / my son, thirsting / to learn those / he don't know / are his dead.' Whether it's the fireflies of a Louisiana summer caught in a mason jar (doomed by their collection), or his grandmother, Mama Annie, who latches the screen door when someone steps out for just a moment, all that makes up our flickering, precarious joy, all that we want to protect, is lifted into the light in this moving book. Stones becomes an ode to Young's home places and his dear departed, and to what of them - of us - poetry can save.
A timeless, visionary collection of poems from one of China's most acclaimed poets-now available in English for the first time in a generation and featuring a foreword by his son, contemporary artist and activist Ai WeiweiOne of the most influential poets in Chinese history, Ai Qing is mostly unknown to Western readers, but his work has shaped the nature of poetry in China for decades. Born between the fall of imperial Manchurian rule and the establishment of the Communist People's Republic, Ai Qing was at one time an intimate of Mao Zedong. He would eventually fall out with the leader and be sentenced to hard labor during the Cultural Revolution, when he was exiled to the remote part of the country known as "Little Siberia" with his family, including his son, Ai Weiwei. In his work, Ai Qing tells the story of a China convulsing in change, leaving behind a legacy of feudalism and imperialism but uncertain what the future will hold. Breaking with traditional forms of Chinese poetry, Ai Qing innovatively adapted free verse, writing with a simple sincerity in clear lines that could be understood by everyday readers. Selected Poems of Ai Qing is an extraordinary collection that traces the powerful inner life of this influential poet who crafted poems of protest, who longed for a newer, happier age, and who wrote with a profound lyricism that reaches deep into the heart of the reader.
'Rich and moving' New York Times'A book that expands and breaks your heart' Adelle Waldman, author of The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.A revelatory enquiry into selfhood, freedom, mortality, storytelling, and what it means to be a mother's daughterDuring one of the texting sessions that became our habit over the period I now think of as both late and early in our relationship, my mother revealed the existence of someone named Janis Jerome.So begins Michelle Orange's extraordinary inquiry into the meaning of maternal legacy - in her own family and across a century of seismic change. Jerome, she learns, is one of her mother's many alter egos: the name used in a case study, eventually sold to the Harvard Business Review, about her midlife choice to leave her husband and children to pursue career opportunities in a bigger city. A flashpoint in the lives of both mother and daughter, the decision forms the heart of a broader exploration of the impact of feminism on what Adrienne Rich called 'the great unwritten story': that of the mother-daughter bond.Through a blend of memoir, social history, and cultural criticism, Pure Flame pursues a chain of personal, intellectual, and collective inheritance, tracing the forces that helped transform the world and what a woman might expect from it.
WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATUREPreviously published as 'The Beggar Maid'Born into the back streets of a small Canadian town, Rose battled incessantly with her practical and shrewd stepmother, Flo, who cowed her with tales of her own past and warnings of the dangerous world outside.
'Don't show proper feelin', does it, not turnin' up for 'is dad's funeral?'Siblings Sophia, Harry and Francis have lost both their parents in the last six months. Attending the funeral for their estranged father, they wonder what will become of them now that the last connection to their difficult childhood has been severed. What have they inherited - financially and emotionally - to guide them to adulthood, and build a new home together? Enbury Heath is a semi-autobiographical account of the years which Gibbons and her brothers spent living in a cottage in Hampstead Heath: a wonderfully astute, bittersweet novel about family, grief, money, and the pleasures of London.
Louis de Bernieres is the master of historical fiction that makes you both laugh and cry, in the perfect nostalgic read to escape with this autumn. Is it ever too late to change your story? Daniel Pitt was an RAF fighter in the First World War and an espionage agent for the SOE in the Second.
But biscuits are not only tasty treats to go with a cup of tea, the sustenance they afford is often emotional, evoking nostalgic memories of childhood. Lizzie Collingham begins in Roman times when biscuits - literally, 'twice-baked' bread - became the staple of the poor;
It is also a rallying cry, a call to appreciate how amateur theatre enriches communities and many people's lives - and how, if you join in, it might just do the same for you. '[A] joyous celebration of amateur theatre;
The second novel from Booker-longlisted Bill Clegg Following his acclaimed New York Times bestseller, Did You Ever Have a Family, Bill Clegg returns with a profoundly moving, emotionally resonant second novel about the complicated bonds and breaking points of family and friendship.
'A magnum opus... Puts the reader at the heart of the horror that came to be called the Atlanta child murders' Toni MorrisonZala Spencer is barely surviving on the margins of Atlanta's booming economy when she awakens one summer's morning in 1980 to find her teenage son, Sonny, has disappeared. As uneasy hours turn into desperate days, Zala realizes that Sonny is among the many cases of missing children beginning to attract national attention. Growing increasingly disillusioned with the authorities, who respond to Sonny's disappearance with cold indifference, Zala and her estranged husband embark on an epic search. Through the eyes of a family seized by anguish and terror, we watch a city roiling with political, racial, and class tensions. Written over a span of twelve years, and edited by Toni Morrison, who called Those Bones Are Not My Child the author's magnum opus, Toni Cade Bambara's last novel leaves us with an enduring and revelatory chronicle of an American nightmare.
It''s Christmas at London''s Theatre Royale and journalist Daphne King is determined to solve an extraordinary mystery...December 1935. Director Chester Harrison''s production of A Christmas Carol has had a troubled run on its tour of regional theatres. With tensions amongst the cast running high, the company reach their final stop - London''s Theatre Royale - a few days before Christmas.Catastrophe, however, strikes on opening night: ''Scrooge'' dies on stage, seemingly due to a heart attack. But the show must go on. Until, that is, an old rival of Chester''s is murdered in a dressing room. Are those associated with the production being picked off one by one? Journalist Daphne King is determined to reveal the truth...Readers love Ada Moncrieff''s Christmas mysteries:''Brilliant...full of twists and turns'' ''A modern rival to Agatha Christie''''A new festive favourite''
'Searing and timely' Tarana Burke, founder of the MeToo movement, and author of You Are Your Best Thing'Carefree Black Girls is the testimony I've been waiting to witness.'Robert Jones, Jr., author of The Prophets; creator of Son of Baldwin'Standout... one you'll struggle to put down.'Bad FormINCLUDES A FOREWORD WITH CLARA AMFOIn 2013, film and culture critic Zeba Blay was one of the first people to coin the viral term #carefreeblackgirls on Twitter. As she says, it was "a way to carve out a space of celebration and freedom for Black women online."In this collection of essays, Blay expands on this initial idea by delving into the work and lasting achievements of influential Black women in Pop Culture - writers, artists, actresses, dancers, hip-hop stars - whose contributions often come in the face of bigotry, misogyny, and stereotypes. Blay celebrates the strength and fortitude of these Black women, while also examining the many stereotypes and rigid identities that have clung to them.In writing that is both luminous and sharp, expansive and intimate, Carefree Black Girls seeks a path forward to a culture and society in which Black women and their art are appreciated and celebrated.
From the renowned naturalist Stephen Moss comes the must-have gift for bird lovers this Christmas. ''Wherever there is a stretch of water for them to find food and make their nest, you will come across swans'' With beautiful illustrations throughout, this eye-opening biography reveals the hidden secrets of one of Britain''s best-known birds. The Mute Swan is not so much a bird, as a national treasure: the avian equivalent of Sir David Attenborough or the Queen. These huge and stately creatures are part of our urban and rural landscapes, a constant presence on lakes, rivers and ponds throughout Britain. Yet despite their familiarity, they are often misunderstood; and while many people love swans, others fear them. Swans also feature in myths and legends, art and literature, dance and music, not just in Britain but all around the world. Stephen Moss delves into the facts and fiction about these charismatic birds, describes their seasonal life cycle and examines their central role in our history and culture. He also includes stories about ''wild swans'' - Whooper and Bewicks - that visit us in winter; and the Black Swan of Australia. ''A superb naturalist and writer'' Chris Packham ''Moss has carved out an enviable niche as a chronicler of the natural world'' Daily Mail
In What Is the Grass, Doty - a poet, a lover of men, a New Yorker, and an American - keeps company with Whitman and his mutable, landmark work, Leaves of Grass, tracing the resonances between his own experience and the legendary poet's life and work. What is it, then, between us? Whitman asks.
Lucid, lyrical and intellectually profound: this collection of poems resonates with real life and death, but mostly what falls in between: the charmed darkness. Several ghosts haunt Learning to Sleep, John Burnside's first collection of poetry in four years - from the author's mother, commemorated in an exquisitely charged variant on the pastoral elegy, to the poet Arthur Rimbaud, who wanders an implausible Lincolnshire landscape looking for some sign of belonging. Throughout the book, the powers and dominions of a lost pagan ancestry emerge unexpectedly through the gaps in contemporary life: half-seen and fleeting, but profoundly present. Behind it all, the figure of Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep, marks Burnside's own attempts to come to terms with the severe sleep disorder from which he has suffered for years, a condition that culminated in the recent near-death experience that informs the latter part of the book. Add to this a series of provocative meditations on the ways in which we are all harmed by institutions, from organised religion, or marriage, to the tawdry concepts of gender and romantic love that subtly govern our personal lives, and Learning to Sleep reveals Burnside at his most elegiac, while still retaining a radical pagan's sense of celebration and cultural independence. 'For my money, John Burnside is by far the best British poet alive... I read it over and over again, marvelling at its concision and beauty.' Cressida Connolly, Spectator** A SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021**
This outstanding collection of short stories showcases all the writing skill that has made Jo Nesbo the undisputed 'king of all crime writers' (Daily Express) and a repeat Sunday Times #1 bestseller.
A major new biography of Charles Dickens, tracing the year that would transform his life and times*BY THE AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF BECOMING DICKENS AND THE STORY OF ALICE*'It is hard to imagine a better book on Dickens' NEW STATESMANThe year is 1851.
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