Showing titles in Essays

In her latest forays into the American scene, Joan Didion covers ground from Washington to Los Angeles, from a TV producer's gargantuan "manor" to the racial battlefields of New York's criminal courts. At each stop she uncovers the mythic narratives that elude other observers: Didion tells us about the fantasies the media construct around crime victims and presidential candidates; she gives us new interpretations of the stories of Nancy Reagan and Patty Hearst; she charts America's rollercoaster ride through evanescent booms and hard times that won't go away.

Brought to you by Penguin. One of our most beloved scientists, a fearless free spirit, Carlo Rovelli is also a masterful storyteller. In this collection of writings, the logbook of an intelligence always on the move, he follows his curiosity and invites us on a voyage through science, literature...

Internationally bestselling novelist and American icon Tom Robbins' legendary memoir--wild tales of his life and times, both at home and around the globe. Tom Robbins’ warm, wise, and wonderfully weird novels—including Still Life With Woodpecker, Jitterbug Perfume, and Fierce Invalids Home...

From organising the school summer fete - 'Because of our inability to recognise our climatic shortcomings from the outset, arrangements for outdoor jollities get completely out of hand' - to the sometimes rather odd passions of childhood - 'I collect stones with holes in them' - Miss Read captures the essence of rural life, and in particular of village schools, as only she can.

In this engaging and erudite essay, critically acclaimed writer Julian Barnes explores what is involved when we change our minds: about words, about politics, about books; about memories, age and time.

Mit den Erinnerungen eines Europäers hat Stefan Zweig seine persönliche, zugleich eine der besten Analysen der Jahrzehnte zwischen dem ausgehenden 19. Jahrhundert und dem 2. Weltkrieg verfasst.

Wildflower is a portrait of Drew's life in stories as she looks back on the adventures, challenges and incredible experiences of her earlier years. It includes tales of living on her own at 14 (and how laundry may have saved her life), getting stuck in a gas station overhang on a cross country road trip, saying good-bye to her father in a way only he could have understood and many more adventures and lessons that have led her to the successful, happy,and healthy place she is today.

Bloomsbury presents Spring is the Only Season, written and read by Simon Barnes. 'A book that filled me from first to last with a rapture as transcendent and thrilling as that which spring yearly provides... I absolutely adored it!' STEPHEN FRY 'As dynamic and ebullient as the season it...

Step aboard Boater, a mesmerising voyage along the tranquil waterways of England, written by former UK Canal Laureate, Jo Bell. ' It's not a lifestyle. It's a life ' For over twenty years, Jo Bell, archaeologist and poet, has travelled the waterways of England (and sometimes Wales) meeting...

Join Ursula K. Le Guin as she explores a broad array of subjects, ranging from Tolstoy, Twain, and Tolkien to women's shoes, beauty, and family life. With her customary wit, intelligence, and literary craftsmanship, she offers a diverse and highly engaging set of stories. The Wave in the Mind includes some of Le Guin's finest literary criticism, rare autobiographical writings, performance-art pieces, and most centrally, her reflections on the arts of writing and reading. 

The controversial father of psychiatry and psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud charted the human unconscious, brought us the talking cure, and wrote books that now rank among the classics of world literature. In On the Couch, the great analyst is analyzed by some of today's great writers and thinkers, who help us understand the man who has helped us understand ourselves as much, if not more, than anyone else, ever. The result is a fresh, multifaceted reassessment of Freud's continuing relevance and influence on ideas, literature, culture, science, and more.

Acquired Tastes is a celebration of life's extravagances. It explores an aspect of human nature that, although dormant in hard economic times, is capable of erupting with the hint of good fortune and the drop of a credit card. It samples the luxuries of Havana cigars, Parisian hotels, bespoke London tailoring, and handmade shoes; discusses the proper color for a stretch limousine; and weighs the cost versus the pleasure of keeping a mistress.

‘I salute him with the most heartfelt respect and admiration’ PHILIP PULLMAN ‘Entrancing … a creative manifesto’ TELEGRAPH ‘Mesmerising … vibrating with life and curiosity’ OBSERVER In this lyrical and revelatory memoir, Alan Garner, Booker shortlisted author of Treacle Walker...

Gore Vidal’s reputation as America’s finest essayist is an enduring one. This collection, chosen by the author from 40 years of work, contains about two-thirds of what he published in various magazines and journals. He has divided the essays into three categories, or states. State of the art covers literature, including novelists and critics, bestsellers, pieces on Henry James, Oscar Wilde, Suetonius, Nabakov, and Montaigne (a previosly uncollected essay from 1992).

A wide-ranging selection of George Orwell's essays, written in the clear-eyed, passionate and uncompromising style that has earned him a reputation as one of Britain's greatest writers.

Incredible true stories reveal strange new magic in American history in this wondrous first book from the creator of the award-winning podcast The Memory Palace. “One doesn’t often find the words imagination and history in the same sentence. Nate DiMeo has forever woven them together. The...

Read by the author, this is Louis Theroux's hilarious and thought-provoking journey through weird America. For 10 years, Louis Theroux has been making programmes about off-beat characters on the fringes of US society. Now he revisits America and the people who have most fascinated him to try to...

In this vivid and powerful collection of essays, Emilie Pine boldly confronts the past to better understand herself, her relationships and her role in society. She speaks to the business of living as a woman in the 21st century - its extraordinary pain and its extraordinary joy. Tackling subjects like addiction, fertility, feminism and sexual violence, and where these subjects intersect with legislation, these beautifully written essays are at one fascinating and funny, intimate and searingly honest. 

Brought to you by Penguin. A deeply moving and insightful collection of personal essays from #1 bestselling author John Green, adapted from his critically acclaimed podcast. The Anthropocene is the current geological age, in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its...

Abridged for audio. Read by the author, Clive James. With fascinating essays on towering figures from Anna Akhmatova to Stefan Zweig, via Charles de Gaulle, Hitler, Thomas Mann and Wittgenstein, Cultural Amnesia is one of the crowning achievements in Clive James's illustrious career as a critic...