Born in 1914 in Czernovitz in what is now Ukraine, the author was successively a citizen of Austro-Hungary, Romania and the Soviet Union as the bloody tides of the C20th swept to and fro bef... read more
How and why does it work on us? This masterful study explores the mystery through the psychology, philosophy, mathematics, neurology and history that underlie as surrund it, in all its remar... read more
First published in 1908, the brilliance of this superb novel is undiminished. A love story, or rather two, that starts in the Pension Bertolini in Florence. Catering for English tourists, it... read more
Two women in their mid-twenties, stifled by marriage and the monotony of Hampstead society, come across an advertisement in The Times: 'To Those Who Appreciate Wisteria and Sunshine. Small m... read more
The great Russian poet became a master of the English language in his long American exile: these essays evoke his youth in post-WW2 Leningrad with memorable portraits of his parents, in whom... read more
Two women in their mid twenties, stifled by marriage and the monotony of Hampstead society, come across an advertisement in The Times: 'To Those Who Appreciate Wisteria and Sunshine. Small m... read more
A collection of interconnected short stories by a former District Commissioner for Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province. Apparently inexorable consequences play out through multiple lives... read more
The "inner darkness of the commercial age", with its self-confident hypocrisy and inability to "connect", confronts Bloomsbury-esque ideals and characters in this intimate masterpiece from 1... 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
A story about a young woman in New York, newly married and nervous. Offill has mastered the curious genre of autofiction by shattering her books into deliciously pithy paragraphs: overheard ... read more
Written in 2015 by the chess grandmaster and human rights activist, this passionate indictment of Russian kleptocracy is also a warning against the complacency of Western democracies in the ... 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
This slim modernist novel written in 1939 is unforgettable. A young English woman returns to Paris after a long absence to take stock of her life. A study in bleakness, sadness and isolati... read more
He was a resistance fighter in WW2 Budapest, a travel photographer in South America and an abusive patriarch in 70s New York - but Steven Faludi disappeared from his daughter's life decades ... read more
"It may be that all borderlands hum with the frequencies of the unconscious; after all, borders are where the fabric is thin". This one is that wild, once barbed strip between Turkey, Bulgar... read more
A large format biography of the Bloomsbury pair, and their houses, commissioned by the National Trust. An entertaining introduction with handsome colour pics.
A cultural history of ice and icy places, written between Northern Greenland and the Bodleian Library, in the Alps and at the Kinross Curling Club. NC, a poet, deftly blends memoir, literary... read more
This gorgeous book was published to accompany an exhibition of art from the Danish Golden Age. The exhibition opened in 2019 in the Stockholm Nationalmuseum (who co-published the book) and m... read more
In his memoirs, Gorbachev wrote that the explosion at Chernobyl's power plant was "perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union." Plokhy's diagnosis is meticulous and his minut... read more
A neurotic Italian businessman obsessed by his own hypochondria, Zeno Cosini recounts his early years to his psychoanalyst Dr S. With a cigarette clutched permanently between his fingers, he... read more