Showing titles in Themes & Styles

'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...

William Collins Books and Decca Records are proud to present ARGO Classics, a historic catalogue of classic fiction read by some of the world’s most renowned voices. Originally released as vinyl records, these expertly abridged and remastered stories are now available to download for the first...

This remarkable poem, dedicated to Queen Elizabeth I, was Spenser's finest achievement. The first epic poem in modern English, The Faerie Queene combines dramatic narratives of chivalrous adventure with exquisite and picturesque episodes of pageantry. At the same time, Spenser is expounding a deeply-felt allegory of the eternal struggle between Truth and Error....

Under the order of King Pelias, Jason embarks on a perilous journey to steal the Golden Fleece from the Land of Colchis. Far from heroic, Jason is the typical everyman. Often compared with Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Jason and the Argonauts is the only surviving poem from the Hellenistic period and was hugely influential on later literature, especially the Roman poetry of Virgil and Ovid.

The Arthurian legend of Camelot has been told many times, but never better than by Alfred Tennyson. Employing some of the most stirring and beautiful blank verse ever written, Tennyson crafted his version of the Knights of the Round Table over the course of nearly fifty years, completing it in 1885. Despite the length of time, Tennyson managed to maintain a high level of style and continuity throughout.

From touching poems on the peony, the snowdrop and the sweet pea to hilarious verse on Emily the Gardener and the Garden Design Course, this is Alan Titchmarsh's heartfelt and entertaining celebration of his favourite space - the garden.  

Four more delightful tales from one of the most entertaining storytellers of all time. Though writing in the thirteenth century, Chaucer’s wit and observation comes down undiminished through the ages, especially in this accessible modern verse translation. The stories vary considerably from the uproarious Wife of Bath’s Tale, promoting the power of women to the sober account of patient Griselda in the Clerk’s Tale.

The Iliad. Join Achilles at the Gates of Troy as he slays Hector to Avenge the death of Patroclus. Here is a story of love and war, hope and despair, and honor and glory. The recent major motion picture Helen of Troy starring Brad Pitt proves that this epic is as relevant today as it was twenty five hundred years ago when it was first written. So journey back to the Trojan War with Homer and relive the grandest adventure of all times. The Odyssey.

Known for his romantic and lyrical style of poetry, Yeats’s work was often inspired by Irish myths, spiritualism, love, longing and loss. His later work became more modernist in style, challenging poetic conventions and shifting to a political focus. In this definitive collection, you will find some of Yeats’s most noteworthy poems, written from the late nineteenth century right up until his death in 1939.

This major new poetry collection from best-selling poet and priest Malcolm Guite features more than 70 new and previously unpublished works. It includes a sequence of 27 sonnets written in response to George Herbert’s exquisite sonnet "Prayer", as well as 45 more widely ranging new poems.

An age-old subject is given new perspectives in Blossomise, a collection with change at its heart. Blossomise celebrates the ecstatic arrival of spring blossom just as it acknowledges, too, its melancholic disappearance. From a crashed Ford Capri wrapped around the immovable trunk of a cherry tree, to saplings flourishing among skyscrapers and urban sprawl, the fizz and froth of the annual blossom display is explored here both as an exuberant emblem of the natural world and a nervous marker of our vulnerable climate.

Vowing at an early age "to be a poet or nothing at all", Hermann Hesse rebelled against formal education, focusing on a rigorous program of independent study that included literature, philosophy, art, and history. One result of these efforts was a series of novels that became counterculture bibles that remain widely influential today. Another was a body of evocative spiritual poetry. Published for the first time in English, these vivid, probing short works reflect deeply on the challenges of life.

Brought to you by Penguin. If you stop and look around you, you'll start to see. Tall marigolds darkening. A spring wind blowing. The woods awake with sound. On the wooden porch, your love smiling. Dew-wet red berries in a cup. On the hills, the beginnings of green, clover and grass to be...

The conversion of a local beauty spot into a municipal graveyard is the starting point for New Cemetery. From regular walks around the boundary near his moorland home in West Yorkshire, Simon Armitage chronicles the extraordinary transformation of landscape both outer and inner. These luminous and wry poems—composed in short-lined tercets—reflect the changing world: one of unstable weather patterns and unpredictable news events, all observed across a few acres of Pennine upland.

This book of Free Verse poems tells stories of growing up. When we share our growing-up experiences, a window is open for children to learn about life, family, friendship, and faith. These stories can impart invaluable lessons and morals, helping them navigate their life journeys. Sharing stories from your childhood and adolescence allows children to connect with you on a deeper level. They will see you not just as a parent or guardian but as someone who faced and learned from challenges. Such narratives provide gentle guidance and a moral compass for positive choices.

This study explores how contemporary Canadian Prairie women poets negotiate the silences, gaps, and margins surrounding maternal experience through innovative writing strategies. The audiobook examines how poets from the Prairie provinces challenge dominant narratives of motherhood, giving voice to experiences often excluded from literary and cultural discourse—including maternal ambivalence, loss, Indigenous mothering, queer mothering, and the intersections of motherhood with labor, landscape, and identity.

In A Meditation on I Am, Rupert Spira contemplates the essential nature of our self before it has been conditioned or qualified by the content of experience. It is a poem, a prayer and a hymn of praise to the simple fact of being that is the source of the peace and happiness for which we long above all else.

The Aeneid represents one of the greatest cultural and artistic achievements of Western Civilization. Within the brooding and melancholy atmosphere of Virgil's pious masterpiece lies the mythic story of Aeneas and his flight from burning Troy, taking with him across the Mediterranean the survivors of the Greek onslaught. Aeneas, after many travails and adventures, including a love affair with Dido Queen of Carthage and a visit to the underworld to see his father, ends up in Italy.

The oldest long poem in Old English, written about AD 1,000, Beowulf tells the story of a great warrior of southern Scandinavia, in both youth and maturity. The monster Grendel terrorizes the Scyldings of Hrothgar's Danish Kingdom until Beowulf defeats him. As a result, he has to face her enraged mother. Beowulf dies after a battle against a fierce dragon.