Showing titles in Themes & Styles

Dick Davis—“our pre-eminent translator from the Persian” (The Washington Post)—has revised and expanded his acclaimed translation of Ferdowsi’s masterpiece, adding more than 100 pages of newly translated text. Davis’s elegant combination of prose and verse allows the poetry of the Shahnameh to sing its own tales directly, interspersed sparingly with clearly marked explanations to ease along modern audiences.

Brought to you by Penguin. A beautiful book combining poetry, topics of self-reflection and journalling prompts to help readers find joy all around them. I always pay attention When a small joy grabs me Some say easily pleased I say, frequently happy! Life can often be stressful. Each day might...

The poems of the Poetic Edda have waited a long time for a modern English translation that would do them justice. Here it is at last (Odin be praised!) and well worth the wait. These amazing texts from a 13th-century Icelandic manuscript are of huge historical, mythological, and literary importance, containing the lion's share of information that survives today about the gods and heroes of pre-Christian Scandinavians, their unique vision of the beginning and end of the world, etc.

Joy Chose You is a beautiful collection of Donna's most-loved poems to bring more joy into our imperfect lives. When we allow joy to wrap her quiet warmth around us we find ourselves opening up to more life, love and light. With poems such as 'Joy Comes Back', 'Happy' and 'Unstoppable', as well as 20 new poems, including 'This Little Moment', 'Love Wins' and 'A Little Weird', Donna's wise words help us find hope in the dark, calm amid worry and greater joy in the beauty of living.

Tender captures all the tiny, fragile, perfect moments of new life and, with it, new parenthood. Full of sleepless wonder and with his characteristic wit and warmth, Harry Baker offers snapshots into the intense first 100 days with his son as they get to know each other.

Brought to you by Penguin. A magnificent new translation of the Odyssey by best-selling author and classicist Daniel Mendelsohn Setting aside the streamlining, modernizing approach of many recent translations, Mendelsohn artfully reproduces the epic’s formal qualities – meter, enjambment...

Sensual, macabre, joyous and liberating, The Flowers of Evil, or Les Fleurs du Mal, is a beautifully debauched reflection on dreams, sin, life, and death. With subjects ranging from travel to drugs, sex to faith, sleep to contemplation, Baudelaire finds new beauty in the most sinister and corrupt of situations. His morbid and nightmarish Romanticism was completely unique: cynical and bleak, but also inspiring. The book was highly controversial upon its release and Napoleon III’s government prosecuted Baudelaire for "an insult to public decency".

The Iliad is one of the two great epics of Homer, and is typically described as one of the greatest war stories of all time, but to say the Iliad is a war story does not begin to describe the emotional sweep of its action and characters: Achilles, Helen, Hector, and other heroes of Greek myth and history in the tenth and final year of the Greek siege of Troy.

MICHAEL MORPURGO'S FIRST BOOK OF ADULT NON-FICTION IN FORTY YEARS 'A joyous meditation on the season of new beginnings' THE TIMES 'Uplifting and enchanting.' JOANNA LUMLEY 'Spring is a delight. We are all the richer for what he sees.' PHILIP PULLMAN Michael Morpurgo has lived on a farm deep in...

A vibrant selection of poems by the great Persian mystic with groundbreaking translations by Haleh Liza Gafori, an American poet of Persian descent. Rumi’s poems were meant to induce a sense of ecstatic illumination and liberation in his audience, bringing its members to a condition of serenity, compassion, and oneness with the divine. They remain masterpieces of world literature to which readers in many languages continually return for inspiration and succor, as well as aesthetic delight.

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Adrian Schiller. In Paradise Lost Milton produced poem of epic scale, conjuring up a vast, awe-inspiring cosmos and ranging across huge tracts of space and time. And yet, in putting a charismatic Satan and naked Adam and Eve at the...

Jay Bernard’s powerful debut is a queer exploration of the black British archive, tracing a line between two significant events in recent British history: the New Cross Massacre of 1981 in which 13 young black people were killed in a house fire - and the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017. The collection stems from research undertaken about the New Cross Fire during a 2016 residency at the George Padmore Institute.

The Odyssey has survived nearly three thousand years because it speaks to a simple, powerful truth: sometimes the hardest battle is not the war abroad, but the long, uncertain journey back home. In this modern prose retelling, Homer's epic is presented as a continuous story rather than as verse. The language is clear and contemporary, but the structure and major episodes of the original are faithfully preserved.

Resonant, raw, and vibrant, Home is a lyrical map to navigating heartbreak. Tracing the stages of healing - from the despair that comes with the end of a relationship to the eventual light and liberation that comes with time - the poems in Home provide comfort and solace, while revitalizing your soul - and helping you make peace with your bees.

Brought to you by Penguin. Sunday Times bestselling author and Instagram sensation Jessica Urlichs returns with a new collection of beautifully observed poems about the ever-evolving journey of motherhood - the hard, the magic, and the fleeting. A mother is born the moment her children are...

Maya Angelou’s unforgettable collection of poetry lends its name to the documentary film about her life, And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS’s American Masters. Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size But when I start to tell them...

More than 1.5 million copies sold! What if you discovered that the life you already have is the life you've always wanted? What if joy and gratefulness is possible right where you are??New York Times?bestselling author Ann Voskamp invites you to embrace everyday blessings and embark on the...

With Professor Esolen you will enter the terrible gates of Hell and progress level by infernal level to its diabolical depths. Professor Esolen places a special emphasis on the drama of the poem, leading you through each canto in succession. Professor Esolen will more than satisfy your curiosity about Hell and the fate of the damned. He will reveal in all its starkness the horror of sin and awaken in your heart a longing for divine love.

'Like Pam Ayres on acid' LEMN SISSAY 'Energising, fearless and joyful' SARA PASCOE 'Hollie has such a wonderful voice. Warm, relatable, smart and funny' SOPHIE ELLIS-BEXTOR 'Funny, so smart and refreshingly honest' SARAH MILLICAN 'One of the best poets we have' MATT HAIG Virgin snow Virgin...

Essential Skills for a Full and Courageous Life When you think about personal transformation, do you have a picture of who you want to become? Many of us unconsciously create an idealized image of our “awakened” selves—and in doing so, reveals David Whyte, we undermine both the work and...