Alice Oswald's poems are always vivid and distinct, alert and deeply, physically, engaged in the natural world. Mutability - a sense that all matter is unstable in the face of mortality - is at the he
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2016 MAN BOOKER PRIZE A good man in a bad world, Jon Sigurdsson is 59 and divorced: a senior civil servant in Westminster who hates many of his colleagues and loathes his work for a
A thirty-stone man is confined to his living room. One woman is abandoned on a tiny island in the middle of the ocean. Another woman is saved from drowning. Two boys discover a gun in a shoebox. A gro
Set against the background of violence and state repression in a turbulent period of French history, this book chronicles the incredible and outrageous life of Louise Michel, the revolutionary feminis
Amber Knight is London's hottest ticket - pop star, film star, front-page, gossip. Nick Belsey is less celebrated. He can't shake his habit of getting into serious trouble. His career at Hampstead CID
Here are nine men. Each of them is at a different stage in life, each of them is away from home, and each of them is striving - in the suburbs of Prague, in an over-developed Alpine village, beside a
Goethe claimed to know what light was. Galileo and Einstein both confessed they didn't. On the essential nature of light, and how it operates, the scientific jury is still out. There is still time, th
London, May 1945. Freya Wyley, twenty, meets Nancy Holdaway, eighteen, amid the wild celebrations of VE Day, the prelude to a devoted and competitive friendship that will endure on and off for the nex
Few newspaper editors are remembered beyond their lifetimes, but David Astor of the Observer is a great exception to the rule. He converted a staid, Conservative-supporting Sunday paper into essential
At first, these extraordinary poems may unsettle and disturb, but the next reading could be one of rapture and astonishment; it all hinges on your point of view. Like the optical illusion of the maide
West of Eden is the definitive story of Hollywood, told, in their own words, by the people on the inside: Lauren Bacall, Arthur Miller, Dennis Hopper, Frank Gehry, Ring Lardner, Joan Didion, Stephen S
Some memories are too powerful to live only in the past. During a ferocious storm, a red-haired stranger appears in the garden of a small farming cottage. Eliza and her parents take him in. But very s
In May 1937 a man in his early thirties waits by the lift of a Leningrad apartment block. He waits all through the night, expecting to be taken away to the Big House. Any celebrity he has known in the
David Litvinoff (1928–75) was ‘one of the great mythic characters of ‘60s London’ – outrageous, possessed of a lightning wit and intellect, dangerous to know, always lurking in the shadows as the spot
The conclusion to Simon Callow's masterful three-volume biography of Orson Welles.In One-Man Band, the third volume in his epic survey of Orson Welles' life and work, Simon Callow again probes in comp
Otherworldly, provocative, and strange, Audrey Niffenegger's art is a vital a part of her vision as her best-selling novels The Time Traveler's Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry. Awake in the Dream World
'The best book we've done on the Book Club this year' - Simon Mayo Radio 2 Book Club 'A novel of head-snapping ambition and heart-stopping power' - Michiko Kakutani, New York Times 'Love The Wire? Th
One night in the early 1990s, a young Swedish music producer put a demo tape into the cassette deck of his Nissan Micra to listen to on his drive home. Before he got there, Denniz PoP knew he wasn't i
"McCullin is required reading if you want to know what real journalism is all about." --Times Literary SupplementFrom the construction of the Berlin Wall through every conflict up to
McCullin's reputation has long been established as one of the greatest photographers of conflict in the last century. In the fourteen years since the first publication of the book, McCullin has shed t
Like Neil Rollinson's earlier books, Talking Dead is a refreshment of the senses: lifting the lid on the human condition in a heartfelt celebration of the act of being, whether in moments of love or m
From Salman Rushdie, one of the great writers of our time, comes a spellbinding work of fiction that blends history, mythology, and a timeless love story. A lush, richly layered novel in which our wor
"There is something reassuring yet deliciously unexpected about a Tessa Hadley novel." (Helen Brown, Daily Telegraph). Over five novels and two collections of stories Tessa Hadley has earned a reputat
Cecil Beaton's sense of style and his much-celebrated career as a designer for film and stage have overshadowed his position as one of the great photographers of the twentieth century. Beaton's person
Paul Dukach is heir apparent at Purcell & Stern, one of the last independent publishing houses in New York, whose shabby offices belie the treasures of its list. He is obsessed by one dazzling wri
An enlightening history of the Anglo-American alliance in the Second World War, from high command down to the soldiers on the ground.In the mid-twentieth century the relationship between America and B
Flaubert believed that it was impossible to explain one art form in terms of another, and that great paintings required no words of explanation. Braque thought the ideal state would be reached when we
Twenty-one stories and a novella that will disturb and delight, from the author of Fight Club. The absurdity of both life and death are on full display; in 'Zombies', the best and brightest of a high
2015 Man Booker Prize longlist A darkly glinting novel set on Ireland’s Atlantic coast, The Green Road is a story of fracture and family, selfishness and compassion – a book about the gaps in the hum
A frank and fearless new collection from the winner of the T. S. Eliot Prize Mark Doty’s poetry has long been celebrated for its risk and candour, an ability to find transcendent beauty even in the mu
Walt Whitman's iconic collection of poems, Leaves of Grass, has earned a reputation as a sacred American text. Whitman himself made such comparisons, going so far as to use biblical verse as a model f
What is the shape of Britain? The country’s outline, looking a little like a wingless dragon, is instantly recognisable on any map or globe. But jostling within that familiar profile are countless vyi
In its earliest days, the American-led war in Afghanistan appeared to be a triumph - a ‘good war’ in comparison to the debacle in Iraq. It has since turned into one of the longest and most expensive w
From the author of Fight Club, the classic portrait of the damaged contemporary male psyche, now comes this novel about the apocalyptic marketing possibilities of female pleasure. Sisters will be doin
Joe Sacco is renowned for his non-fiction books of comics journalism like Palestine, Safe Area Gorazde and Footnotes in Gaza. Now in Bumf he returns to his early days as a satirist and underground car
For as long as she can remember, Lucy has wanted to catch a glimpse of the mysterious green man who lives in Grandpa Will's garden: Lob. You have to be very special to see him; that's what Grandpa say
A gift that will bring cries of delighted recognition from anyone who has ever owned a dog and, dare one say it, charm the pants off even those who strongly prefer cats. Hello. My name is Plum and I’m
Set in the future, a world where the past is a dangerous country, not to be talked about or visited, J is a love story of incomparable strangeness, both tender and terrifying. Two people fall in love,
Every day the Little Steamroller works at London Airport clearing the runways for the aeroplanes and every day the people on the gate make fun of him. But they do not know of the time that this little
