John Calder's new poetry collection, 'Solo', avoids strict poetic forms in favour of a casual and natural expression of thought. Honest in its pessimism, the tone is often questioning, and some of the biggest issues, such as politics and war, are not shirked.

This selection of poems by Leonard Cohen, one of the most acclaimed singer-songwriters in the world, is accompanied by twenty-four of his striking and provocative drawings.Cohen first made his name as a poet more than half a century ago and since then his achievements in poetry and music have made him an internationally revered figure. These fifteen poems, including “Death of a Lady’s Man,” “On Hearing a Name Long Unspoken,” and “The Embrace,” are drawn from across his remarkable c...

Four Quartets is the culminating achievement of T.S. Eliot's career as a poet. While containing some of the most musical and unforgettable passages in twentieth-century poetry, its four parts, 'Burnt Norton', 'East Coker', 'The Dry Salvages' and 'Little Gidding', present a rigorous meditation on the spiritual, philosophical and personal themes which preoccupied the author. It was the way in which a private voice was heard to speak for the concerns of an entire generation, ...

Mark Forsyth - author of the Sunday Times Number One bestseller The Etymologicon - reveals in this essay, specially commissioned for Independent Booksellers Week, the most valuable thing about a really good bookshop.Along the way he considers the wisdom of Donald Rumsfeld, naughty French photographs, why Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy would never have met online, and why only a bookshop can give you that precious thing - what you never knew you wer...

When Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis was first published, it catapulted its author into the bestseller lists and established her as one of our funniest and most eloquent poets.There are so many kinds of awful men -One can't avoid them all. She often saidShe'd never make the same mistake again:She always made a new mistake instead.(from 'Rondeau Redoublé')

Ten contemporary poems.1.Love Potion. A man seeks the girl of his dreams by using a witch.2.Only Smell And Touch. The thoughts of a near comatose patient.3.Why Worry, No One Else Does.4.Newspapers. Satire.5.Sands.6.Despair.7.I want To Work. 2 points of view.8.Tramp, Tramp, Tramp.9.A Hollow Sound.10. Comparisons. About the recent Royal Wedding.

Few American readers seem to be aware that Hermann Hesse, author of the epic novels Steppenwolf and Siddhartha, among many others, also wrote poetry, the best of which the poet James Wright has translated and included in this book. This is a special volume—filled with short, direct poems about love, death, loneliness, the seasons—that is imbued with some of the imagery and feeling of Hesse's novels but that has a clarity and resonance all its own, a sense of longing for l...

Sure to inspire and enlighten, this handy volume of 100 great principles to live by is a revelation at any age, but an especially great graduation present.Not your typical lackluster—and might we add heavy—book of quotes, EVERYTHING I’VE LEARNED is a practical volume rich in words to live by: words that are sometimes quirky, definitely wise, and always right on target. Readers will learn from such luminaries as Theodore Roosevelt, John Wayne, Joan Baez, and even th...

The best book since 'Pick-Up Lines for Pensioners' Miss Betty Jones You just have to buy this book! Miss Galena Sublime You have no idea what it's like sitting on a shelf in the poetry section of a bookshop. Have you ever noticed how literature designated as being intellectual is always hidden like some top shelf publication in a sweet shop? I get so lonely down there in all that prehistoric dust. Truth be known, I get picked up less than Betty Jones at number 47 and shes 92! As you might ...

Marius is an antiquarian bookseller in London who has travelled widely; while ostensibly a collection of essays and reflections on the art of poetry (and in some cases, music and the visual arts), these essays are also biographical, and include dozens of anecdotes about his encounters with poets, novelists, and artistsIncludes stories of time spent as apprentice at distinguished UK antiquarian firm Bertram Rota, where he was bookseller to Javier Marías (who in turn caricatured Mari...

A collection of poems I have kept since I was 13-17 years old. They're all varying in different subjects but mostly it's about what I imagine certain things must have been like.

When Jane Sutcliffe sets out to write a book about William Shakespeare and the Globe Theatre, in her own words, she runs into a problem: Will's words keep popping up all over the place! What's an author to do? After all, Will is responsible for such familiar phrases as "what's done is done" and "too much of a good thing." He even helped turn "household words" into household words.But, Jane embraces her dilemma, writing about Shakespeare, his plays, and his famous phrases with glee....