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Selected Poems (French Texts)
by Pierre RonsardRonsard is considered one of France's greatest love poets, yet his poetic achievements are not restricted to his verses of love, wine and nature. A true Renaissance figure, his themes ranged from politics, science and philsophy, to the bawdy and risqué. Using Greco-Roman and Italian poetic models, and drawing on the rich images of classical mythology, Ronsard revolutionised the tradition of French poetry. In the 20th century, Ronsard's poetry was influential for W. B. Yeats, translated by Sylvia Plath, and illustrated by Henri Matisse. He stands as one of the most innovative and diverse voices in the history of European poetry.
Love Simon: Simon Vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda Official Film Tie-in
by Becky AlbertalliStraight people should have to come out too. And the more awkward it is, the better. Simon Spier is sixteen and trying to work out who he is - and what he's looking for. But when one of his emails to the very distracting Blue falls into the wrong hands, things get all kinds of complicated. Because, for Simon, falling for Blue is a big deal . . .It's a holy freaking huge awesome deal.
Tales from a Master's Notebook: Stories Henry James Never Wrote
by VariousWhen Henry James died he left behind a series of notebooks filled with ideas for novels and stories that he never wrote. Now ten of our best contemporary authors and James enthusiasts have written new short stories based on these 'germs' of ideas. Differing dramatically in setting and style, these stories are modern interpretations of the richly suggestive and enticing notes that Henry James left behind, offering a fresh and original approach to a canonical literary author. Professor Philip Horne, a renowned authority on Henry James, has edited and introduced this collection, which also includes transcripts of James’s original jottings allowing readers to trace the raw ideas through to their modern-day interpretations.Contains stories by Colm Toibin, Rose Tremain, Jonathan Coe, Paul Theroux, Amit Chaudhuri, Giles Foden, Joseph O'Neill, Lynne Truss, Susie Boyt and Tessa Hadley.WITH A FOREWORD BY MICHAEL WOOD
The Dinner Guest
by Gabriela Ybarra Natasha WimmerLONGLISTED FOR THE 2018 MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZEThe Dinner Guest is Gabriela Ybarra’s prizewinning literary debut: a singular autobiographical novel piecing together the kidnap and murder of her grandfather by terrorists, reflecting on the personal impact of private pain and public tragedy.The story goes that in my family there’s an extra dinner guest at every meal. He’s invisible, but always there. He has a plate, glass, knife and fork. Every so often he appears, casts his shadow over the table, and erases one of those present. The first to vanish was my grandfather.In 1977, three terrorists broke into Gabriela Ybarra’s grandfather’s home, and pointed a gun at him in the shower. This was the last time his family saw him alive, and his kidnapping played out in the press, culminating in his murder. Ybarra first heard the story when she was eight, but it was only after her mother’s death, years later, that she felt the need to go deeper and discover more about her family’s past.The Dinner Guest is a novel, with the feel of documentary non-fiction. It connects two life-changing events – the very public death of Ybarra’s grandfather, and the more private pain as her mother dies from cancer and Gabriela cares for her. Devastating yet luminous, the book is an investigation, marking the arrival of a talented new voice in international fiction.
Limehouse Nights
by Thomas BurkeThomas Burke paints an enduring portrait of London’s East End At the beginning of the twentieth century, the East End of London was a filthy and violent neighborhood, a place where a man was more likely to get a knife in his stomach than a good dinner. It was worlds away from the fashionable district it has become more than a century later. In this gripping collection of stories, author Thomas Burke traverses the area and offers glimpses of life in Limehouse. One tale portrays the unusual friendship that develops between an immigrant and a girl who has recently been beaten by her father. Another follows a down-on-his-luck boxer looking for one last chance. In all of the pieces, Burke displays the beauty inherent in humanity, no matter the squalor in which it resides. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
The Lodger
by Marie Belloc LowndesBased on the nineteenth century’s most infamous crime, a novel that asks, How do you recognize a serial killer?One damp November evening on the Marylebone Road, a couple sits in silence. Though their thoughts are the same—money and the lack thereof—the time has long since passed when Mr. and Mrs. Bunting could find comfort in sharing their anxieties with each other. Now every word is a reproach—a reminder of luxuries forsaken and keepsakes pawned. Retired servants, the Buntings sunk every last shilling into their London lodging house. Now they are trapped. The rooms are empty, the rent is due, and ruin awaits. When the paper boys’ cry of “Horrible Murder! Murder at St. Pancras!” rings out in the street, Mr. Bunting risks his wife’s ire to buy the Evening Standard. The latest exploits of the killer known as the Avenger will give him something to think about besides his own misery.Just when he is settling in with the paper, there is a knock at the door. Mr. Sleuth enters, seeking “quiet rooms” to rent. He bears no luggage, save one nearly empty leather bag, and his demeanor is odd, to say least. The beautiful sitting room on the second floor interests him not at all, but the obsolete gas stove on the underfurnished third floor is exactly what he has been looking for. Best of all, he wants to pay a month’s rent in advance. Mr. and Mrs. Bunting believe that the new lodger is a godsend until a dark fear grips their hearts. Could the strange Mr. Sleuth be the Avenger in disguise? And if he is, can they afford to know? Inspired by the Jack the Ripper murders and the basis for Alfred Hitchock’s first thriller, The Lodger is a masterpiece of psychological suspense. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
The Lone Wolf
by Otto Penzler Louis Joseph VanceThe origin story of the Lone Wolf, master criminal with a conscienceOne rainy winter night, an orphan is abandoned to the care of a shabby Parisian inn called Troyon’s. For the next eleven years, the boy is up before dawn to clean and fetch and serve, his only respite the closet to which he retires at night and the books he pilfers from the hotel’s guests. A few francs here and there also find their way into his pockets, but not so much that anyone would notice—anyone, that is, except Bourke, the cultivated Irish thief who regularly hides out at Troyon’s. Caught red-handed, the amateur outwits the professional. Turn me over to the innkeepers, he says, and I’ll go to the police with everything I know about you. Astonished, Bourke takes the boy under his wing and teaches him how to be a master criminal. The most important lesson? Be friendless.Years later, Michael Lanyard—known to the authorities only as the Lone Wolf—is the world’s greatest jewel thief. When a ruthless gang of outlaws threatens to expose him unless he joins their “pack,” Lanyard vows to give up crime rather than violate Bourke’s code. Only a beautiful American girl and a sinister German spy stand in his way.Louis Joseph Vance’s groundbreaking series introduced a new turn of phrase to the language and gave American literature one of its most iconic characters.This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
Madame X
by Alexandre Bisson J. W. McConaughyA tragic story of infidelity, murder, and a mother’s love in turn-of-the-century France. When Jacqueline Floriot’s husband, Louis, finds her in the arms of another man, she and her lover flee the house. Two years later, Jacqueline returns, hoping to reunite with her young son, Raymond. But Louis, overcome with jealous rage, sends her out into the cold of winter without so much as a glimpse of her child. His merciless act sets off a tragic chain of events as Jacqueline sinks into a life of depravity, drugs, and prostitution. Twenty years later, Raymond is a lawyer, working alongside his father. When he finds himself representing a woman accused of murder, a woman known only as Madame X, he has no way of knowing that he defends his own mother—or that she may have committed her alleged crime out of love for her son. Based on Alexandre Bisson’s 1908 play of the same name, J. W. McConaughy’s novel brilliantly depicts a harrowing tale. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
The Robin: A Biography
by Stephen MossSelected as a Book of the Year 2017 in The Times'There is no doubt that Moss’s book, with its charming cover and quaint illustrations, will make it into many a stocking this year' The TimesNo other bird is quite so ever-present and familiar, so embedded in our culture, as the robin. With more than six million breeding pairs, the robin is second only to the wren as Britain’s most common bird. It seems to live its life alongside us, in every month and season of the year. But how much do we really know about this bird? In The Robin Stephen Moss records a year of observing the robin both close to home and in the field to shed light on the hidden life of this apparently familiar bird. We follow its lifecycle from the time it enters the world as an egg, through its time as a nestling and juvenile, to the adult bird; via courtship, song, breeding, feeding, migration – and ultimately, death. At the same time we trace the robin's relationship with us: how did this particular bird – one of more than 300 species in its huge and diverse family – find its way so deeply and permanently into our nation’s heart and its social and cultural history? It’s a story that tells us as much about ourselves as it does about the robin itself.
Asylum
by Sean BorodaleLike his two previous books, Asylum was written live on-site; in this case deep within the caves, mines, quarries, geological and archaeological horizons of the Mendip Hills in Somerset. The poems stage modes of exile in the darkness of earth, enacting solidarity with those others who have made their journey into the underworld – Dante, Orpheus, blinded Oedipus, Euripides. These are semi-dramatic voicings, staged across the thirty-mile theatre of the Mendip subterranean: each an act of recovery, of rescue. Traversing the broken, collapsed, eroded stones, looking for voices that express the damaged and the damned, Asylum pays homage to the darkness of the human cave: its memories and ancient histories, and to its more contemporary signals – internationally owned quarries, abandoned coal mines, decommissioned Cold War bunkers.As with Bee Journal and Human Work, these poems take on the nature of the experience recorded. Written blind, as it were, the diction here becomes mineral, deeply tactile – hard and granular, alert to sound in its own blackness. Descending underground with the poet is to enter a theatre of heightened senses, and these extraordinary poems feel both unearthed and unearthly.
The Garden Farmer
by Francine RaymondSelected as a Book of the Year 2017 in You Magazine'A lavish monthly guide to getting the most from your garden' Daily MailA punnet of plums from your tree, a handful of gooseberries; home-grown nuts and herbs, and a few freshly laid eggs from your hens – all enjoyed in your own small plot. What could be more satisfying?The Garden Farmer is an evocative journal and monthly guide to getting the most out of your garden throughout the year. Whether you are a keen gardener looking for inspiration, or just starting out and wanting to rediscover and reclaim your patch of earth, Sunday Telegraph garden-columnist Francine Raymond lays the groundwork for a bountiful year of garden farming. Maybe you would like to get outside more, grow a few essential vegetables, some fruit trees or bushes for preserving, and create a scented kitchen garden to provide for you year round. Or perhaps you will raise a small flock of ducks or geese, or even a couple of pigs? Could this be the year you decorate your home with nature’s adornments, encourage wildlife back to pollinate your trees and plants, and spend celebratory hours in a haven of your own creation? Each chapter of The Garden Farmer offers insight into the topics and projects you might be contemplating that month, along with planting notes and timely advice, and a recipe that honours the fruits of your labour. With just a little effort and planning, every garden can be tended in tune with nature, and every gardener can enjoy a host of seasonal delights from their own soil.Keep up-to-date with Francine's gardening adventures on her blog at kitchen-garden-hens.co.uk.
La Grotta Ices
by Kitty Travers75 refreshingly inventive and dynamically flavoured seasonal ice creams, sorbets and granitasShortlisted for the Jane Grigson Trust AwardIn a small converted greengrocers in south London (her ice cream shed), Kitty Travers creates an array of iced delights – fresh ice creams that taste of the real, whole fruits; hand-made choc ices that crack open to reveal layers of playful pastel-coloured flavours; juice-drenched granitas to be stuffed into brioche buns with fresh cream; and eye-popping, palate-tickling sorbets.La Grotta Ices is the culmination of Kitty's obsessive exploration and research into 75 ice cream, sorbet and granita recipes. Sunlit flavours and far flung traditions pervade Kitty's ice creams as well as her ultimate inspiration: nature. La Grotta celebrates ripe seasonal fruits and the true artistry of real ice cream through inventive flavours and pure, natural ingredients.
Overland
by Graham RawleWelcome to Overland! Where the California sun shines down on synthetic grass and plastic oranges bedeck the trees all year round. Steam billows gently from the chimney tops and the blue tarpaulin lake is open for fishing… Hollywood set-designer George Godfrey has been called on to do his patriotic duty and he doesn’t believe in half-measures. If he is going to hide an American aircraft plant from the threat of Japanese aerial spies he has an almighty job on his hands. He will need an army of props and actors to make the Lockheed factory vanish behind the semblance of a suburban town. Every day, his “Residents” climb through a trapdoor in the factory roof to shift model cars, shop for imaginary groceries and rotate fake sheep in felt-green meadows. Overland is a beacon for the young women labouring below it: Queenie, dreaming of movie stardom while welding sheet metal; Kay, who must seek refuge from the order to intern “All Persons of Japanese Ancestry”. Meanwhile, George’s right-hand Resident, Jimmy, knows that High Command aren’t at all happy with the camouflage project...With George so bewitched by his own illusion, might it risk confusing everybody – not just the enemy?Overland is a book like no other -- to be read in landscape format. Based on true events, it is a novel where characters' dreams and desires come down to earth with more than a bump, confronting the hardships of life during wartime. As surreal and playful as it is affecting and unsettling, no-one other than Graham Rawle could have created it.
The Uncommon Reader: A Life of Edward Garnett
by Helen SmithTHE SUNDAY TIMES LITERATURE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017Over a career spanning nearly fifty years Edward Garnett – editor, critic and publisher’s reader – would become one of the most influential men in twentieth-century British literature. Famed for his incisive criticism and unwavering conviction in matters of taste, Garnett was responsible for spotting and nurturing the talents of a constellation of our greatest writers.In The Uncommon Reader Helen Smith brings to life Garnett’s fascinating, often stormy, relationships with those writers – from Joseph Conrad to John Galsworthy, D.H. Lawrence to T.E. Lawrence, Henry Green to Edward Thomas. All turned to Garnett for advice and guidance at critical moments in their careers, and their letters and diaries offer an insight into their creative processes, their hopes and fears.Addressing questions of culture, fame and success, this absorbing portrait of a man who shaped the literary landscape as we know it asks us to consider genius – what it is, where it comes from and to whom it belongs.
My Life as a Russian Novel
by Emmanuel Carrère‘As a writer, Carrère is straight berserk’ Junot DíazIn this non-fiction novel – road trip, confession, and erotic tour de force – Emmanuel Carrère pursues two consuming obsessions: the disappearance of his grandfather amid suspicions that he was a Nazi collaborator in the Second World War; and a violently passionate affair with a woman that he loves but which ends in destruction. Moving between Paris and Kotelnich, a grisly post-Soviet town, Carrère weaves his story into a travelogue of a journey inward, travelling fearlessly into the depths of his tortured psyche.
The Story of a Marriage
by Geir Gulliksen Deborah Dawkin'Brilliant and breathtaking...sexy and sad' A.M. HomesIn his struggle to understand what has happened to his family, how his wife could fall in love with another man after twenty happy years, Jon attempts to tell the story of the painful collapse of his marriage, but from her point of view. He tries to get inside her head, to see it all as she did, all the while knowing that he can never really achieve this, and that his efforts reveal more projection than insight. How can one truly know another person? How much of what we think is love, is just a construct? Is it possible to find – and maintain – the great love we long for? Gulliksen explores these questions, turning them over again and again till they crack, revealing hollowness – or possible new meanings.Intense, erotic, dramatic, raw – Story of a Marriage examines two people's inner lives with devastating and fearless honesty. It is a gripping but slippery narrative of obsession and deceit, of a couple striving for happiness and freedom and intimacy, but ultimately falling apart.
A Love of Eating: Recipes from Tart London
by Lucy Carr-Ellison Jemima Jones‘Nourishing, delicious, healthy, original food’ Vogue Lucy Carr-Ellison and Jemima Jones are the inimitable pair behind Tart London – the peerless boutique caterers, pop-up kitchen pros and ES Magazine columnists who have been bringing bold and bright food to the London scene since they first started in 2012. This book is about their approach to cooking and eating – creating colourful, fresh and wholesome meals to share and enjoy, always with a fun and fuss-free attitude. Whether you’re looking for a weeknight one-pot wonder that can bubble away while you get on with a glass of wine, a splendid brunch to surprise your friends, or the perfect menu for a long and lazy lunch, Lucy and Jemima have the key to honest, full-flavoured and effortlessly enjoyable eating. From deeply spiced Goan baked eggs or home-baked broccoli and taleggio flatbreads to smoky fish tacos or saffron-roasted tomatoes with labneh and crispy chickpeas, it’s easy to have a little of what you fancy, whenever you fancy it. A Love of Eating is all about naturally good food that is a pleasure to make and a pleasure to eat.
Woman at Sea
by Catherine Poulain Adriana Hunter'A tale of travel and adventure, the story of a body utterly surrendered to pain and joy. It is mind-blowing, a delight.' Le MondeLili is a runaway. She’s left behind her native France to go in search of freedom, of adventure, of life. Her search takes her to Kodiak, Alaska, home to a ragtag community of fishermen, army vets and drifters who man the island’s fishing fleet. Despite her tiny frame, faltering English and lack of experience, Lili lands a job on board the Rebel, the only woman on the boat.Out on the open sea, everything is heightened: colours are more vivid, sounds are louder and the work is harder than anything she's ever known. The terrifying intensity of the ocean is addictive to the point of danger. But Lili is not alone: in her fellow crewmembers she finds kindred spirits – men living on the edge, drawn to extremes. Based on Catherine Poulain’s own experiences, and written in taut, muscular prose, Woman at Sea cuts through the noise of life and straight to the heart of our innermost longings.
Fear and Loathing on the Oche: A Gonzo Journey Through the World of Championship Darts
by King AdzAnyone who’s ever seen or attended the PDC World Darts Championships knows that darts is no ordinary sport. Where else would you find world-class superstars, in the midst of a championship match, cultivating tomorrow’s banging hangover? Or two separate organisations, with a bitter historical rivalry, taking potshots at each other in a bid to secure players, fans and an all-important TV broadcast contract?And then there’s the fans… Darts fans are unlike any other fans in world sport. They drink the most, they wear the silliest costumes, they sing the loudest and yet they can arguably see the least live action. They feel an immense pride and ownership for the game – its theirs, and they couldn’t care less about the sneers from the mainstream. Join King ADZ as he dives headfirst into this tempestuous world, meeting former legends, future stars, dominant Internationals, the owners, the referees and of course the fans. Darts may be a simple game to many, but to most it’s absolute mayhem.
Trumpets from the Steep
by Lady Diana CooperThis last volume of Lady Diana Cooper's memoirs covers the years of the Second World War and its aftermath, when her husband Duff Cooper served as Minister of Information and then in various diplomat posts around the world. We accompany the Coopers on their travels from the Dorchester Hotel during the breathless days of the Blitz, to a happy sojourn farming in Sussex, to Singapore and Algiers and eventual retirement to France, all told with Diana's unique perspective and enchanting style.
The Rainbow Comes and Goes
by Lady Diana CooperLady Diana Cooper was a star of the early twentieth stage, screen and social scene. This first instalment of her sparkling autobiography tells of her upbringing, her beautiful artistic mother and aristocratic father, her debut into high society and the glittering parties - 'dancing and extravagance and lashing of wine, and charades and moonlit balconies and kisses' - which were interrupted with the outbreak of the First World War. This volume ends with Diana's marriage to the 'love of her life', diplomat and politician Duff Cooper.
Kalevala
by Elias LonnrotKalevala is the poetic name for Finland: ‘the land of heroes’. Here you’ll find the cultural essence of a young country but an old land, the stories, songs and poems that recount the mythical adventures of humankind. Ambition, lust, romance, birth and death can all be found within its pages, as well as the sampo, a mysterious talisman that brings great happiness to its possessor and over which great battles will be fought.WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HORATIO CLARE
Don't Call Us Dead: Poems
by Danez Smith*A FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR POETRY 2017*‘[Smith’s] poems are enriched to the point of volatility, but they pay out, often, in sudden joy’ The New Yorker Award-winning poet Danez Smith is a ground-breaking force, celebrated for deft lyrics, urgent subjects, and performative power. Don’t Call Us Dead opens with a heartrending sequence that imagines an afterlife for black men shot by police, a place where suspicion, violence, and grief are forgotten and replaced with the safety, love and longevity they deserved here on earth. Smith turns then to desire, mortality – the dangers experienced in skin and body and blood – and an HIV-positive diagnosis. ‘Some of us are killed / in pieces,’ Smith writes, ‘some of us all at once.’ Don’t Call Us Dead is an astonishing and ambitious collection, one that confronts, praises, and rebukes an America where every day is too often a funeral and not often enough a miracle.
Our Story: A Memoir of Love and Life in China (Pantheon Graphic Nonfiction Ser.)
by Rao Pingru Nicky HarmanA graphic memoir like no other: the true story of a marriage in China that spanned the twentieth century, told in vibrant, original paintings and prose.WINNER OF AN ENGLISH PEN AWARDRao Pingru was a twenty-six-year-old soldier when he first saw the beautiful Mao Meitang. One glimpse of her through a window as she put on lipstick was enough to capture Pingru’s heart. It was a moment that sparked a union that would last almost sixty years.But when Meitang passed away in 2008, Pingru realised that their marriage and all the small moments and memories of a life together, would be lost to history. And so at the age of eighty-eight, in an outpouring of love and grief, Pingru began to paint.Our Story is a memorial to Pingru and Meitang’s epic romance, told through Pingru’s exquisitely detailed paintings and handwritten notes. We see Pingru and Meitang through the decades, through both poverty and good fortune, and as they grow so too does China: the nation undergoing political turmoil and seismic cultural change. A tale both tragic and inspiring, of enduring love and simple values, Our Story is an old-fashioned romance that unfolds within the rush of a rapidly changing nation. A love letter, a work of folk art and a historical testament, Our Story is a truly unique graphic memoir.'A beautifully warm, personal, human story of life, love and family' Forbidden Planet
Reshaping Poland’s Community after Communism: Ordinary Celebrations
by Helena Chmielewska-SzlajferHarnessing a cultural sociological approach to explore transformations in key social spheres in post-1989 Poland, Chmielewska-Szlajfer illuminates shifts in religiosity, sympathy towards others, and civic activity in post-Communist Poland in the light of Western influence over elements of Polish life.Reshaping Poland’s Community after Communism focuses on three major cases, largely ignored in Polish scholarship: (1) a hugely popular, faux-baroque Catholic shrine, which illustrates new strategies adopted by the Polish Catholic Church to attract believers; (2) Woodstock Station, a widely known free charity music festival, demonstrating new practices of sympathy towards strangers; and (3) the emergence of national internet pro-voting campaigns and small-town watchdog websites, which uncover changes in practical uses of civic engagement. In exploring grass-roots, everyday negotiations of religiosity, charity, and civic engagement in contemporary Poland, Chmielewska-Szlajfer demonstrates how a country’s cultural changes can suggest wider, dramatic democratic transformation.