Bloom's last work, completed weeks before his death when he felt 'edged by nothingness' and consoled himself with readings from Montaigne, Blake, Dante, Shakespeare et al. Missed from our Xm... read more
A collection of canine poems... This genre in any medium gives us the shivers, but Oliver is such an outstandingly wonderful poet that we are going to risk it...
Post-war France through the despatches of Mavis Gallant, James Baldwin, A J Liebling and others. This collection is the source for Wes Anderson's forthcoming film, 'The French Dispatch', and... read more
A clever and playful reworking of Wagner's 'Ring' that brings in the financial crisis of 2008; originally conceived as a libretto for the Berlin Opera.
First collection of the KOV's essays to be published in English. Wide-ranging - many subjects are northern, but not all - with his characteristic concentration on the navel. What would the C... read more
With considerable humility, this book is subtitled "In Which Four Russians Give a Masterclass on Writing, Reading and Life". Actually it's the brilliant Saunders' work, distilled from decade... read more
Sebald, an empty street in Italy, Cavafy, St Petersburg, Alexandria, Eric Rohmer, Proust and Pessoa: Aciman's essays roam through time, imagination, place and memory.
The last edition to be edited by the brilliant Francesca Wade (whose 'Square Haunting' also appears in this catalogue as a recent favourite). Contributors include Lydia Davies, Can Xue, Kris... read more
A new addition to this excellent reference series of slim, small paperbacks. The cardinal virtues, the heavenly virtues, the thought of Aristotle and Aquinas; virtues moral and intellectual;... read more
Comprises the 26 meditations that our former archbishop and thoroughly good egg wrote for his parishioners during the first wave of the pandemic. Thoughtful and wise.
A delicious anthology of ambling, strolling, pausing, looking, thinking... A feast that combines Joseph Roth and Rebecca Solnit, George Sand and Werner Herzog, Joseph Conrad and Kate Humble,... read more
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.