A sharp and provocative new essay collection from the award-winning author of Freedom and The CorrectionsIn The End of the End of the Earth, which gathers essays and speeches written mostly in the past five years, Jonathan Franzen returns with renewed vigour to the themes – both human and literary – that have long preoccupied him. Whether exploring his complex relationship with his uncle, recounting his young adulthood in New York, or offering a ...
‘A dark treat’ Kate Riordan, author of The StrangerHaunting and moving, The Woman in the Mirror is a tale of obsession tinged with suspense, perfect for fans of Tracy Rees and Lulu Taylor.‘You’ll be the woman of this house, next, miss. And you’ll like it.’1947Governess Alice Miller loves Winterbourne the moment she sees it. Towering over the Cornish cliffs, its dark corners and tall turrets promise that, if Alice can hide from her ghosts anywher ...
Available for the first time in paperback, this is the pre-eminent critical study, and exploration, of how myth and legend played such a significant role in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.The Song of Middle-earth takes a fresh look at The Lord of the Rings, digging deep into the foundations of Tolkien’s world to reveal the complex tapestry of history and mythology that lies behind his stories.The charge that Tolkien's work was merely derivative – t ...
Published to coincide with his major biography of Iris Murdoch, Peter Conradi’s acclaimed critical appreciation of her work is reissued in a fully revised and updated edition, with a foreword by John Bayley.‘Peter Conradi is uniquely qualified to accompany the reader in a discovery of one of the 20th-century’s most remarkable novelists and thinkers.’ John BayleyIris Murdoch, who died in 1999, was the author of twenty-six novels, including ‘The B ...
Don’t miss this sweeping historical epic, perfect for fans of Gill Paul and Dinah Jeffries.Outback Australia, 1981After a terrible childhood, Jane comes to Thornfield as nanny to the adorable Adele, watched over by the handsome and enigmatic Edward. Plain and inexperienced, Jane would never dream of being more than his hired help. But swept up in the dramatic beauty of the Outback, she finds herself drawn to Edward. And, to her surprise, he seem ...
#2 in Yorkshire Post’s ‘Pick of the Best Books’The searchers took several hours to find the body, even though they knew roughly where to look. The whole hillside had collapsed, and there was water running off the moors and over the slick black rubble. The boy, they knew, was beyond their help.This was a recovery, not a rescue.A grim discovery brings DCI Lockwood to Gimmerton’s Heights Estate – a bleak patch of Yorkshire he thought he’d left behi ...
A radical look at Jane Austen as you’ve never seen her – as a lover of farce, comic theatre and juvenilia. The Genius of Jane Austen celebrates Britain’s favourite novelist 200 years after her death and explores why her books make such awesome movies, time after time.Jane Austen loved the theatre. She learned much of her art from a long tradition of English comic drama and took joyous participation in amateur theatricals and her visits to the th ...
AN OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEARA droll and dazzling compendium of observations, stories, lists, and brief essays about babies.‘Beguiling … A wunderkabinett of baby-related curios … A peculiar book, and astonishing in its effect.’ Boston GlobeOne August day, a baby was born, or as it seemed to Rivka Galchen, a puma moved into her apartment. Her arrival felt supernatural, she seemed to come from another world. And suddenly, the world seemed ludicrous ...
A selection of lectures and essays contributed to newspapers, magazines and books over recent years, revised for this volume and all highly relevant to today.In these essays find a portrait of the times, to help us map our way through the new Garden of Eden, in which men hold the baby and women the mobile phone. The garden is timeless, its beauties are ineradicable, the angel’s blazing sword no longer bars the way – so what’s going wrong? Tricky ...
