The author began his bookselling life in the King's Road (not at Sandoe's but Slaney & Mackay, where JdeF worked for him briefly). For the last 30 years he has managed the Waterstones in Can... read more
Greek and Roman patrons, robber-baron philanthropists, welfare socialists, celebrity activists...: motives and results are explored through historical analysis and numerous interviews.
The director of the Bodleian includes some of the US president's deleted tweets in an historical survey that ranges from the Library of Alexandria to the Windrush papers. The surprise is tha... read more
SP's robust defence of the nymphs of her native county includes a Protestant martyr and an abolitionist. Further afield, the author of 'The Essex Serpent' sees Kim Kardashian et al as exempl... read more
An anthology of essays about reading, by outstanding writers: as well as Macfarlane and Boyd, there are pieces by Chigozie Obioma, Max Porter, Madeleine Thien, Candice Clarty-Williams, Phili... read more
Women and goddesses of Greek mythology are held up to close scrutiny by the sharp-eyed Haynes, who looks at both their origins and at their subsequent recastings. Lively and intelligent, fr... read more
In the C13th, the largest library in Europe contained fewer than 2000 books. Baghdad alone contained five libraries with between 200,000 and a million books.
For having considered God and himself he will consider his neighbor. Montaigne, Schopenhauer, Eliot and Gorey, Smart and now Gray consider the cat, and her relationship to those useful human... read more
How we can emerge from the current global crisis created by the Covid-19 pandemic with our humanity intact. A salutary reminder of unfashionable ethical values, and that individual effort is... read more
Humane and witty ruminations on science, history, philosophy and politics by the bestselling physicist: Dante's universe, Nabokov's butterflies, Einstein's errors, etc.
Published to coincide with Edmund de Waal's installation about exile, displacement, libraries and voice that recently opened at the British Museum. The exhibition has migrated from Venice to... read more
Thirteen essays by the Northcliffe Professor of English at UCL. An entertaining guide that looks at Dickens's choice of names, use of outrageous coincidence, and why he works best when read ... read more
A long look at the magazine, founded in 1867, and its editors, stylists and photographers and contributors: as well as Dior and Schiaparelli, McQueen and Tom Ford, there's Diana Vreeland, Je... read more
For old rockers and die-hards who simply refuse to gather moss... and, no doubt, for hipsters: an illustrated history of contemporary culture, through the prism of Rolling Stone magazine's c... read more
A fairly academic collection of essays about the uncanny in gardens - ghosts, fairy sightings, nasty things in orchards if not woodsheds... who knew that 'ecogothic studies' is a Thing? M R ... read more
A sumptuous volume on the so-called father of English geology, replete with Smith's own remarkable hand-coloured maps, stratigraphies, Sowerby's fossil illustrations, and photographs. Very l... read more
A selection of Milne's essays from 1910-1952: lively, entertaining glimpses into a lost world of errant hats, dodgy plumbing, cheap cigars, loony maids, pacifism, etc.
A lovely clothbound thing from Slightly Foxed, whose taste is unerring. Hudson has been compiling these for forty years, and worked with John Murray on the latter's own famously delicious co... read more
A neat bit of historical detective work enabled the author of 'Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts' to identify Becket's Anglo-Saxon Psalter, which he may have been holding when he was murd... read more
A biographical account of Eliot's troubled first wife, presented alongside her writings. Married to T.S. Eliot in 1915, their marriage lasted until about 1933. Her circle included Ottoline M... read more
H is for hawk-eyed: Helen MacDonald follows her sensational memoir with a collection of essays about the world around her.
NB Publication of this book has been delayed. Publishing sched... read more
An incisive post-mortem on the state of the Victorian union, told (with a gossipy thrill) through the lives of five couples - Thomas Carlyle and Jane Welsh, John Ruskin and Effie Gray, Charl... read more
Blaise Pascal famously said that "all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone".
In 1790 a young French aristocrat living in Turin was confined to a ... read more
Blaise Pascal famously said that 'all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone".
In 1790 a young French aristocrat living in Turin is confined to a ... read more
Stoppard's new play is a major event. Set in the Jewish quarter of Vienna during the first 50 years of the C20th, it is regarded as his most personal play to date.
Stoppard's new play is a major event. Set in the Jewish quarter of Vienna during the first 50 years of the C20th, it is regarded as his most personal play to date.
The late CB specialized in identifying patterns (eg The Seven Basic Plots). Here he examines three sets of ‘in-group’ attitudes that he believed to be increasingly pervasive, and dangero... read more
A labour of love and scholarship, this is a study of the extraordinary Royal Library of Dom Joao V (1706-1750) of Portugal that was destroyed in 1755 in the Lisbon earthquake. The library co... read more