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£20.00
From the author of ‘Square Haunting’ comes a biography as unconventional and surprising as the life it tells. ‘Think of the Bible and Homer, think of Shakespeare and think of me,’ wrote Gertrude Stein in 1936. Admirers called her a genius, sceptics a charlatan: she remains one of the most confounding – and contested – writers of the twentieth century. In this literary detective story, Francesca Wade delves into the creation of the Stein myth. We see her posing for Picasso’s portrait; at the centre of Bohemian Parisian life hosting the likes of Matisse and Hemingway; racing through the French countryside with her enigmatic companion Alice B. Toklas; dazzling American crowds on her sell-out tour for her sensational autobiography – a veritable celebrity.
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£25.00
Pamela Berry was the daughter of the buccaneering and brilliant politician and lawyer, FE Smith, the first Earl of Birkenhead, and married the son of another self-made man, William Berry from South Wales, who became Viscount Camrose and the owner of a group of national newspapers, including the Daily Telegraph. She had an unusually glamorous and precocious childhood, spoiled by her adoring father, and much photographed by Cecil Beaton. In her prime she used her position as a newspaper proprietor’s wife to become the most famous political and press hostess of her generation, harnessing her beauty and wit to influence successive governments, and was accused of wielding ‘petticoat power’ during the Suez crisis. She had a decade-long affair with Malcolm Muggeridge, became a vigorous promoter of British fashion, dragging it out of the dowdy fifties, and in later life was active in the museum world.
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£12.99
Where do the best ideas come from? How do you stay motivated? What does it take to become a published author? And how do you actually make money from your writing? For over five years the hosts of Always Take Notes podcast have posed their nosiest questions to some of the world’s greatest writers. The result is a compendium of frank and frequently entertaining guidance for living a creative life. From the early failures that shaped them to the daily challenges of writing and the habits that keep them on track, literary luminaries offer guidance to inspire.
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£7.99
Have fun testing your knowledge of the novels of Jane Austen with the crosswords, name games and wordsearches in this book. Every answer can be found in the six novels – no fragments or juvenilia have been used. Use your ingenuity to find the country homes, city streets and servants hidden in the wordsearch puzzles. Find the quotations to solve the crossword puzzles – there is one for each of the six novels – and play the name game to see how many of the 156 quiz questions you can answer, from the colour of Eleanor Tilney’s beads to the name of Mr Darcy’s mother; from the town where the Miss Musgroves went to school to the month in which Emma first saw the sea. The Victorian line drawings, which are also puzzles, are by Hugh Thomson and Charles Brock, from editions of Jane Austen’s novels published in the 1890s.
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£7.99
Here are fiendishly fun puzzles and quizzes for all fans of the adventures of the world-famous detective Sherlock Holmes and his ever-faithful companion Dr John Watson.
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£25.00
If Hollywood wanted to make a film about Oxford University, the casting team would have to find someone to play Jeremy Catto. Born in 1939, this composite of Goodbye Mr Chips, Porterhouse Blue and C.P. Snow was the quintessential Oxford don. A gifted teacher, noted scholar and devoted college man, he enjoyed the most extraordinary network and seemed to know everyone: he was friends with Bryan Ferry, became Harold Macmillan’s drinking companion, taught Princess Margaret her family’s history, had a part to play in General Pinochet’s extradition trial and was even rumoured to be a spy. But he was no mere caricature. This book details his remarkable life.
