Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers

  • Somewhere towards the end

    £10.99

    Written in her nineties, when she was free from any inhibitions she may have once had, Diana Athill reflects frankly on the losses and occasionally the gains that old age can bring, and on the wisdom and fortitude required to face death. Lively, fearless and humorous, ‘Somewhere Towards the End’ encapsulates the vibrant final decades of Athill’s life. Filled with events, love and friendships, this is a memoir about maintaining hope, joy and vigour in later life, resisting regret, and questioning the beliefs and customs of your own generation.

  • Hardy women

    £25.00

    A TOP BOOK FOR 2024 IN: THE OBSERVER, INDEPENDENT, SUNDAY TIMES AND BOOKSELLER

    ‘He understands only the women he invents – the others not at all’

  • All sorts of lives

    £10.99

    Published to celebrate Katherine Mansfield’s centenary, this is a compact but comprehensive new portrait of her life, work, relevance and wonderfully inspiring personality.

  • Mistletoe malice

    £10.00

    The fire is on, sherry poured, presents wrapped, and claws are being sharpened. In a seaside cottage perched on a cliff, one family reunites for Christmas. While snow falls, a tyrannical widowed matriarch presides over her unruly brood. Her niece tends to her whims, but fantasises about eloping; and as more guests arrive, each bringing their secret truths and dreams, the Christmas tree explodes, a brawl erupts, an escape occurs – and their ‘midwinter madness’ climaxes.

  • The worlds of Sherlock Holmes

    £25.00

    An exploration of all that encompasses the world of Sherlock Holmes - tracing the infamous character’s own interests, personality and mythologised biography alongside that of his creator’s.
     

  • The world according to Joan Didion

    £16.99

    An intimate exploration of the life, craft, and legacy of one of the most revered and influential writers, an artist who continues to inspire fans and creatives to cultivate practices of deep attention, rigourous interrogation and beautiful style.

  • Agatha Christie

    £10.99

    With access to personal letters and papers that have rarely been seen, Lucy Worsley’s biography is both authoritative and entertaining and makes us realise what an extraordinary pioneer Agatha Christie was – truly a woman who wrote the twentieth century.

  • Thunderclap

    £25.00

    On the morning of 12th October 1654, in the Dutch city of Delft, a sudden explosion was followed by a thunderclap that could be heard more than seventy miles away. Carel Fabritius – now known across the world for his exquisite painting, The Goldfinch – had been at work in his studio. He, along with many others, would not survive the day. In ‘Thunderclap’, Laura Cumming reveals her passion for the art of the Dutch Golden Age and her determination to lift up the reputation of Fabritius. She reveals the Netherlands, where – wandering the narrow streets of Amsterdam, driving across the flatlands, or pausing at a quiet waterfront – she encounters the rich reality behind the shining beauty of Vermeer and Rembrandt, Hals and de Hooch. This is a book about what a picture may come to mean: how it can enter your life and change your thinking in a thunderclap, a sudden clarity of sight.

  • The secret heart

    £9.99

    A Telegraph Book to Read for Autumn 2022

    A Times Best Non-fiction Book for Autumn 2022

    A Daily Mail Book of the Year 2022

    A Waterstones Best Book of 2022: Biography

  • No love lost

    £9.99

    After a one-night-stand with the Angel Gabriel, a monk is transformed into a pregnant woman. Lost in the fog, two visitors are lured into a ruined candlelit mansion. A wife confiscates her husband’s homemade sex doll, only to demand her own. Great-aunts warn of the deadly skin of the pearlkillers. Rachel Ingalls’ incomparable novellas are masterpieces: surrealist, subversive, tragicomic.

  • How not to drown in a glass of water

    £16.99

    Write this down: Cara Romero wants to work. Cara Romero thought she would work at the factory of little lamps for the rest of her life. But when, in her mid-50s, she loses her job in the Great Recession, she is forced back into the job market for the first time in decades. Set up with a job counselor, Cara instead begins to narrate the story of her life. Over the course of twelve sessions, Cara recounts her tempestuous love affairs, her alternately biting and loving relationships with her neighbor Lulu and her sister Angela, her struggles with debt, gentrification and loss, and, eventually, what really happened between her and her estranged son, Fernando. As Cara confronts her darkest secrets and regrets, we see a woman buffeted by life but still full of fight.

  • The shutter of snow

    £9.99

    Some days, Marthe Gail believes she is God; others, Jesus Christ. Her baby, she thinks, is dead. The red light is shining. There are bars on the window. And the voices keep talking. Time blurs; snow falls. The doctors say it is a breakdown; that this is Gorestown State Hospital. Her fellow patients become friends and enemies, moving between the Day Room and Dining Hall, East Hall and West Side, avoiding the Strong Room. Her husband visits and shows her a lock of her baby’s hair, but she doesn’t remember, yet – until she can make it upstairs, ascending towards release. Shocking and hilarious, tragic and visceral, this experimental portrait of motherhood and mental illness written in 1930 – just before Woolf’s ‘The Waves’ and 33 years before Plath’s ‘The Bell Jar’ – has never felt more visionary.