Literary Criticism

For those that have mastered the basics of memoir and wish to probe this brand of creative nonfiction further, Writing the Radical Memoir uses salient theories about memory and the...

'A superlative piece of writing... provocative, loving and profound' THE TIMES'Without exaggeration, an awe-inspiring achievement' NIGELLA LAWSON'Moving, funny, and liable to unexpectedly cause me to tear up' NEIL GAIMANAn Irish...

What do you do with death and dying when they can no longer be pushed to the outer limits of your lived experience or dismissed from your conscious mind? How...

To celebrate the centenary of the publication of Ulysses, the most important literary work of the twentieth century, eighteen artists, writers and thinkers respond to an episode each of the...

'Ferrara's book is an introduction to writing as a process of revelation, but it's also a celebration of these things still undeciphered, and many other tantalising mysteries besides.' - The...

A BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week'This is such a great idea for a book, and Michelle Dean carries it off, showing us the complexities of her fascinating, extraordinary...

On Women brings together Susan Sontag's most fearless and incisive writing on women, a crucial aspect of her work that has not until now received the attention it deserves.For the...

Anita Leslie (1914-85), best known for popular biographies of her relatives including Jennie Churchill, Winston's mother, was also an unlikely war heroine. In 1940, Anita volunteered as an ambulance driver....

Why Japan? In Fifty Sounds, winner of the 2019 Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize, Polly Barton attempts to exhaust her obsession with the country she moved to at the age of...

An irresistible, nostalgic, insightful-and "consistently intelligent and funny" (The New York Times Book Review)-ramble through classic children's literature from Vanity Fair contributing editor (and father of two) Bruce Handy.The dour...

Letters, postcards, notes and telegraphs from the great and the good, the notorious and the downright wicked, shine a spotlight on a range of historical events and movements providing an...

Reading a story to another person creates a bond between two people. It is often assumed that reading aloud is only for children, but the practice was once a common...

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. No matter how much you fight against it, dust pervades everything. It gathers...

NATIONAL BESTSELLERNOMINATED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD"Heroically brave, formidably learned... The Western Canon is a passionate demonstration of why some writers have triumphantly escaped the oblivion in which...

'Make this your next inspirational read. Trust us, it's Oprah's Book Club worthy' ViceIn London in 1958, a play by a 19-year-old redefined women's writing in Britain. It also began...

Quentin Blake is one of the foremost illustrators of the twentieth century. Perhaps best known for his collaboration with Roald Dahl on books such as The Giraffe and the Pelly...

A unique history of the Beats, in the words of the movement's most central member, Allen Ginsberg, based on a seminal series of his lecturesIn 1977, twenty years after the...

Melodrama, biography, cold war thriller, drug memoir, essay in fragments, mystery - Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors is cult critic Ian Penman's long awaited first original book, a kaleidoscopic study of...

A TLS, FINANCIAL TIMES, NEW STATESMAN, GUARDIAN AND OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEARFrom award-winning writer Claudia Rankine, the stunning follow-up to Citizen and Don't Let Me Be Lonely 'Audacious, revelatory,...

'Mendelsohn takes the classical costumes off figures like Virgil and Sappho, Homer and Horace ... He writes about things so clearly they come to feel like some of the most...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 2017 SHORTLISTED FOR THE LONDON HELLENIC PRIZE 2017 WINNER OF THE PRIX MEDITERRANEE 2018 From the award-winning, best-selling writer: a deeply moving tale of...

'A remarkable book' Robert Macfarlane'A distinctive new voice: attentive and tender' Amy Liptrot'Elegant, understated, urgent and nourishing' Jessica J. LeeHome is many people and places and languages, some separated by...

*A 'BOOKS OF 2021' PICK IN THE GUARDIAN, FINANCIAL TIMES AND EVENING STANDARD*Twelve bytes. Twelve eye-opening, mind-expanding, funny and provocative essays on the implications of artificial intelligence for the way...

This comprehensive edition brings together for the first time three seminal collections by legendary essayist and journalist Joan Didion: Slouching toward Bethlehem, White Album and Sentimental Journeys. Prefaced with a...

The year 2021 marks the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri, a poet who, as T. S. Eliot put it, 'divides the world with Shakespeare, there being no...

'One for your Christmas list ... A feast of Dickensian knowledge' The Times 'This is a marvellous, endlessly illuminating book ... It doesn't go on the shelf alongside other critics;...

*THE TOP 10 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER*'This book might just change your life' Sunday Times Warm, wise and beautifully designed, Conversations on Love is the thoughtful gift for loved ones this...

A provocative history of Ulysses and the Easter Rising as harbingers of decolonization. When revolutionaries seized Dublin during the 1916 Easter Rising, they looked back to unrequited pasts to point...

A personal essay on exposure, auto-fiction, internet feminism and the anxiety epidemic. Last year Olivia Sudjic published Sympathy, a novel about surveillance and connection in the internet age. If a...

A true original. In this stunningly unusual prose debut, Doireann Ni Ghriofa sculpts essay and autofiction to explore inner life and the deep connection felt between two writers centuries apart....

'Every devotee of literature and art should read this rare, bright-lit, hard-won book, and every student of life - that is to say, everyone.' - Sebastian BarryIn this contemplative short...

With the death of her aunt, Maria Stepanova is left to sift through an apartment full of faded photographs, old postcards, letters, diaries, and heaps of souvenirs: a withered repository...

A concise and practical book for experienced and novice writers.

One of the funniest writers of his generation, Michael Frayn has been writing humorous newspaper columns since 1959, principally for the Guardian and Observer, and originally came to prominence as...

How do we talk about porn? Why it is that when we do talk about porn, we tend to retreat into the abstract? How do we have meaningful conversations about...

To celebrate the centenary of the publication of Ulysses, the most important literary work of the twentieth century, eighteen artists, writers and thinkers respond to an episode each of the...

'Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional'A compelling mediation on the power of running and a fascinating insight into the life of this internationally bestselling writer. A perfect reading companion for...