"What kind of story you want? Rough story or nice story?"A collaboration between author Will Ashon and Michal Novosad, Rafal's Saga presents a tale of homeless life in London: the difficulties, the despair, the endless problems, but also the humanity and humour and, most of all, the heartbreaking beauty of being alive.As William Morris pointed out, the most grinding poverty is a trifling evil compared with the inequality of classes and this inequality of class is cr...

In litter-strewn Epping Forest on the edge of London, might a writer find that magical moment of transcendence? He will certainly discover filthy graffiti and frightening dogs, as well as world-renowned artists and fading celebrities, robbers, lovers, ghosts and poets. But will he find himself? Or a version of himself he might learn something from?Strange Labyrinth is a quest narrative arguing that we shouldn't get lost in order to find ourselves, but solely to accept that...

An original and profound portrait of contemporary Britain told through the testimonies of its inhabitants.'A spectacularly enjoyable and compelling reading experience . . . funny, moving, surprising and thought-provoking. It humanises literature in this toxic moment.'MAX PORTER, author of Lanny'Seemingly simple yet so deeply profound, The Passengers is an absorbing insight into the lives and minds of so-called ordinar...

Early one autumn afternoon in pursuit of an elusive book on her shelves, Susan Hill encountered dozens of others that she had never read, or forgotten she owned, or wanted to read for a second time. The discovery inspired her to embark on a year-long voyage through her books, forsaking new purchases in order to get to know her own collection again.A book which is left on a shelf for a decade is a dead thing, but it is also a chrysalis, packed with the potential to burst into new li...

**'A sprinkling of delightful nuggets about the uses and abuses of the English Language'**Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year'[There are] myriad delights in Ben Macintyre's musings on language' The Times, Books of the Year_____________________Do you know your geek-speak from your geek-chic? Ever wanted to put Humpty Dumpty together again? Can you distinguish Spanglish from Chinglish?We adapt words from other l...

Every day we pepper our speech with hundreds of phrases, place names and expressions, but rarely do we think about their origins. If we did, we'd be in for a treat, because the stories behind our sayings are often fascinating, amusing and intriguing. Following on from the bestselling March Hares and Monkeys' Uncles, once again Harry Oliver has delved deep into the history behind hundreds of terms in our endlessly rich language, and produced a tome packed with answers to the questions you m...

Best known for his provocative take on cultural issues in The Intellectuals and the Masses and What Good Are the Arts?, John Carey describes in this warm and funny memoir the events that formed him - an escape from the London blitz to an idyllic rural village, army service in Egypt, an open scholarship to Oxford and an academic career that saw him elected, age 40, to Oxford's oldest English Literature professorship.He frankly portrays the snobberies and rituals of...

Widely regarded as the finest poet of his generation, Seamus Heaney is the subject of numerous critical studies; but no book-length portrait has appeared until now. Through his own lively and eloquent reminiscences, Stepping Stones retraces the poet's steps from his early works, through to his receipt of the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature and his post-Nobel life. It is supplemented with a large number of photographs, many from the Heaney family album and published here fo...

Readers of the ‘ brilliant Telegraph Letters page’ , as Ian Hislop recently lauded it, will be fondly aware of the eclectic combination of learned wisdom, wistful nostalgia and robust good sense that characterise its correspondence.But what of the 95 per cent of the paper’ s huge postbag which never sees the light of day? Some of the best letters inevitably arrive too late for the 24/7 news cycle, or don’ t quite fit with the rest of the day’ s selection. Others are just a little t...

Born in Thamesville, Ontario, a student at Queen’s University in Kingston in the 1930’s, and editor and later publisher of the Peterborough Examiner from the 1940s to the mid-1960s, playwright, essayist, critic, professor, and novelist Robertson Davies (1913-1995) was one of Canada’s pre-eminent literary voices for more than a half-century.Davies, with his generous beard and donnish manner, was the very epitome of the "man of letters," a term he abhorred. Best known for his Deptfor...

The first publication from FIRST TUESDAY BOOK CLUB, this book is a collection of specially commissioned writing from selected guests on a book they have loved and treasured.first tuesday book club has been blessed with entertaining, inspiring and provocative guests. Now, a selection of wonderful authors and booklovers featured on the show comes together to reveal the books closest to their hearts. Some love classics-Jane Eyre anyone? A Moveable Feast? Anna Karenina? Some champion ne...

The inspiration for the annual Pleasure of Reading PrizeA charming and revealing collection of essays from some of our best-loved writers about the pleasures of reading, with royalties donated to the Give a Book charityIn this delightful collection forty-three acclaimed writers explain what first made them interested in literature, what inspired them to read and what makes them continue to do so. Original contributors include Marga...