Showing titles in Art & Literature

Douglas Adams, the legendary author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is one of the most beloved authors of all time. Twenty-five years after his death, his books continue to be read by new generations and his creations along with his ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything being “42,” have seeped deep into public consciousness.

Longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction Longlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing The Ministry of Truth charts the life of George Orwell's 1984, one of the most influential books of the twentieth century and a work that is ever more relevant in this tumultuous era of...

Acclaimed best-selling author Francine Prose offers a listen of Guggenheim's life that will enthrall enthusiasts of 21st-century art as well as anyone interested in American and European culture and the interrelationships between them. The lively and insightful narrative follows Guggenheim through virtually every aspect of her extraordinary life, from her unique collecting habits and paradigm-changing discoveries to her celebrity friendships, failed marriages, and scandalous affairs.

When he turned 65, the playwright Simon Gray began to keep a diary: not a careful honing of the days' events with a view to posterity but an account of his thoughts as he had them, honestly, turbulently, digressively expressed. One of Britain's most amusing and original writers reflects on a life filled with cigarettes (continuing), alcohol (stopped), several triumphs and many more disasters - a record of shame, adultery, friendship and love. Few diarists have ever been so frank about themselves and even fewer so entertaining.

This is perhaps one of the best-loved of all journals. William Wordsworth's sister, Dorothy, began it in May 1800 and resolved to keep it for a short time. She continued it for nearly three years. In it, she brought the Dove Cottage years to vivid and intimate life. She noted the walks and weather, the friends, country neighbours, and travellers on the roads. She set down accounts of the garden, of Wordsworth's marriage, their concern for Coleridge, and the composition of Wordsworth's poetry.

A leading scholar draws on fifty years of reading and studying J.R.R. Tolkien to explain how he created an entire world.

**One of Literary Hub’s Five “Most Critically Acclaimed” Biographies of 2022** From acclaimed cultural and film historian James Curtis—a major biography, the first in more than two decades, of the legendary comedian and filmmaker who elevated physical comedy to the highest of arts and...

Brought to you by Penguin. The hidden fabric of a Victorian woman's life - from family and friends to industry and Empire - told through her unique textile scrapbook. In 1838, a young woman was given a diary on her wedding day. Collecting snippets of fabric from a range of garments she carefully...

Norah Vincent became an instant media sensation with the publication of Self-Made Man, her take on just how hard it is to be a man, even in a man’s world. Following in the tradition of John Howard Griffin (Black Like Me), Vincent spent a year and a half disguised as her male alter ego, Ned, exploring what men are like when women aren’t around. As Ned, she joined a bowling team, took a high-octane sales job, went on dates with women (and men), visited strip clubs, and even managed to infiltrate a monastery and a men’s therapy group.

'I loved this book . . . I’m so desperate for you all to share in its wonder' - Elizabeth Day, author of How To Fail. Dear Reader is a moving, funny and joyous exploration of how books can change the course of your life, packed with recommendations from one reader to another. For as long as...

A candid look at the who's who of the last 50 years of fashion and proof that fact is always devilishly more fascinating than fiction. André Leon Talley's engaging and detailed memoir is his story of surviving and thriving in the notoriously cutthroat fashion industry amidst racism, homophobia and other challenges to become one of the most legendary voices and faces in fashion journalism.

Bloomsbury presents Dickens the Enchanter: Inside the Explosive Imagination of the Great Storyteller by Peter Conrad, read by David Rintoul and Peter Conrad A kaleidoscopic investigation of Dickens’s imagination and the world he created. See Dickens as never before in this creative biography...

Brought to you by Penguin. How do you welcome someone new into your home and heart? A week before Christmas, newly retired BBC journalist and award-winning Movers and Shakers podcaster Rory Cellan-Jones receives a special delivery that will change the course of his life. This is the story of...

This audiobook is read by the author, Hannah Kent. 'Immediate, intimate and never less than captivating' - Guardian From the bestselling author of Burial Rites comes an inspirational memoir about her travels in Iceland, an extraordinary country that has forged a nation of storytellers. When she...

Thoreau's classic account of the solitary life, describing his attempts to simplify his life and sort out his priorities by living alone in a cabin beside Walden Pond for nearly two years, is one of the most influential books ever written. The bible of the environmental movement, Walden vividly portrays Thoreau's reverence for nature, and his understanding of the idea that nature is made up of crucially interrelated parts.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of Walk Through Walls written and read by Marina Abramovic. This memoir spans Marina Abramovic's five decade career, and tells a life story that is almost as exhilarating and extraordinary as her groundbreaking performance art...

Brought to you by Penguin. A blazing, genre-bending masterpiece from one of the most inventive writers of our time Looking for wonder and some reprieve from the everyday, Anna Funder slips into the pages of her hero George Orwell. As she watches him create his writing self, she tries to remember...

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ‘Utterly fascinating’ NEW YORK TIMES ‘An act of intimate storytelling’ VOGUE ‘A profound, rich document’ NEW STATESMAN A deeply moving, newly discovered journal from one of America’s most iconic writers, Joan Didion, the author of The Year of...

When rare books dealer Rebecca Romney found an emerald clothbound edition of Evelina by Frances Burney, she was happy to discover that she'd stumbled across a novel by one of Jane Austen's favourite authors. Inspired by the connection between the two writers, she returned to Austen's books with a new lens, picking out clues sprinkled throughout her works that pointed to the writers she had admired.

Between 1994 and 1997, James Brown's loaded magazine became the the must-buy and must-be-in publication of the decade. It won every award going, year after year, and came to define not only its audience but also a generation. Bright, loud, funny, provocative, ambitious and careless, loaded was read from the barracks of Afghanistan to the England dressing room at Euro '96. It captured a hedonistic lifestyle of alcohol, cocaine and more. The last great hurrah before the end of the century.