Showing titles in Essays

Though uncompromising, polemical and argumentative, Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) made a lasting impact on 19th-century culture as a multi-talented man of letters. And though his lengthy history of the French Revolution proved his major scholarly legacy, On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History remains perhaps his most popular and accessible work. It presented his deep-seated belief that ‘Universal History, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here’.  

Brought to you by Penguin. ‘We were so happy and didn’t know it…’ A thirty-three-year-old writer lives in a quiet European suburb with his wife and his dog. His parents have bought an apartment nearby. On weekends they go out for brunch, cook and see friends. Life is good; it is normal...

In Praise of Shadows is an eloquent tribute to the austere beauty of traditional Japanese aesthetics. Through architecture, ceramics, theatre, food, women, and even toilets, Tanizaki explains the essence of shadows and darkness, and how they are able to augment beauty. He laments the heavy electric lighting of the West and its introduction to Japan, and shows how the artificial, bright, and polished aesthetic of the West contrasts unfavorably with the moody and natural light of the East.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy. A Guardian Best Book of the 21st Century 'Life falls apart. We try to get a grip. We try to hold it together. And then we realize that we don't want to hold it together...' Picking up where Things I Don't Want to Know...

In his essay about the life of Irish writer John McGahern, Tóibín reveals the tones of melancholy and amusement within both art and the artist. In his extraordinary essay on his cancer diagnosis, Tóibín unpicks the word 'battle', and illuminates the distress, horror and blankness of his experiences. From the shades of light and dark in a Venice without tourists, to the streets of Buenos Aires riddled with disappearances and tied up with dictators and politics, we find ourselves considering law and religion in Ireland as well as in Marilynne Robinson's fiction.

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Justin Avoth and Laurence Dobiesz. This definitive recording includes an introduction by Christopher Rowe read by Justin Avoth. 'Consider just this, and give your minds to this alone: whether or not what I say is just' Plato's...

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).

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...

Brought to you by Penguin. A far-ranging, invigorating and irrepressible collection of essays on literature, cinema, art - and everything in between - from the MAN BOOKER PRIZE- and WOMEN'S PRIZE-SHORTLISTED author of Feel Free and Swing Time How did George Eliot's love life affect her prose?...

Leopold's essays on conservation will open the mind of any listener who gives them a chance. The first part uses essays for each of the 12 months to share the rhythm of life on his restored Wisconsin farmland, and uses the stories to branch into eye opening lessons on the history of man's use and abuse of it. The second part continues using stories from Leopold's experiences in wild places across North America to expand the lessons to a much wider view. The final part of the work seeks to lay out a better path for humanity, using solid logic and deep philosophical questioning.

Brought to you by Penguin. The first collection of Booker Prize-winning writer Anne Enright's non-fiction writing about culture, literature and her own life For thirty years Anne Enright has been paying attention: casting her lucid and distinctive gaze across the world, literature and her own...

A brand-new collection of Caitlin's award-winning Times columns plus three major new pieces exclusive to this book - one of which is Caitlin's Moranifesto for a better world. As with Moranthology, Caitlin introduces every piece and weaves her writing together into a brilliant, seamless book. And, similarly to her last collection, Moranifesto is a characteristically fun and witty look at the news, celebrity culture and society.

Brought to you by Penguin. FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL MEGASELLER QUIET: THE POWER OF INTROVERTS IN A WORLD THAT CAN'T STOP TALKING In this inspiring masterpiece, bestselling author Susan Cain shows the power of "bittersweetness" - a tendency toward sorrow and longing, an acute...

In this new anecdotal book, the unstoppable Dickie Bird takes one County Cricket Club at a time and revisits each with the aid of memorabilia, statistics, books and videos. A mass of new hilarious stories flow from Dickie as he flexes his memory: he describes the cricketers, the matches and the...

To overcome a crisis of melancholy after the death of his father, Montaigne withdrew to his country estates and began to write, and in the highly original essays that resulted he discussed themes such as fathers and children, conscience and cowardice, coaches and cannibals, and, above all, himself.

A classic work of psychology, this international bestseller provides a groundbreaking insight into the human mind. With an introduction by Will Self, read by Oliver Sacks. If a man has lost a leg or an eye, he knows he has lost a leg or an eye; but if he has lost a self – himself – he cannot...

Brought to you by Penguin. **SUNDAY TIMES BESTELLER** This book is about learning to live. Echoing Socrates' statement that the unexamined life not worth living, psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz draws on his twenty-five years of work and more than 50,000 hours of conversations to form a collection of...

Hanif Kureishi's new collection of essays and fiction. No topic is too fringe or too mainstream for this insatiable and much-loved author. From social media to the ancient classics, from appraisals of David Bowie to Georges Simenon to Keith Jarrett, this is the latest literary 'event' in a unique body of work that displays Kureishi's characteristic boundless curiosity and wit. What Happened? is as much about the very fact of Kureishi's catholic appetite for culture as his observations and insights themselves, and any new book in his oeuvre is a justification for celebration.

Witty, tender and daring essays from the British David Sedaris 'A lovely writer: supple, stylish and almost effortlessly witty.' Daily Mail 'Made me laugh out loud and then properly cry.’ Jennie Godfrey When it comes to the challenge of being a man, Adam Farrer always seems to find a way to...

“Genius ... It is miraculous to read these pieces ... You must read The Best of Me.” —Andrew Sean Greer, New York Times Book Review For more than twenty-five years, David Sedaris has been carving out a unique literary space. A Sedaris story may seem confessional, but is also highly attuned...