A history and call-to-action by a dynamic new thinker and campaigner, re-centring the importance of grassroots, structural change. Vital reading for the present (and any) cultural moment.
Rutter - a literature graduate who notes the etymological link between 'text' and 'textile' - travelled the British Isles researching the social history of wool and knitting. This charming a... read more
A delightful extended riff on books and reading from a man with various pseudonyms (Jennie Walker, Jack Robinson...). Its subtitle is 'A book about books, mostly. And bonfires, cliches, dyst... read more
A brilliant historical novel whose subtitle 'A Romance' is deliciously deceptive. Sontag follows Sir William Hamilton (rechristened as 'The Cavalier' for the entire book), whose expat exploi... read more
This year's slim winner of the International Booker Prize is stunningly brilliant. Set during the Great War and narrated by a Senegalese soldier fighting for France on the Western Front, it ... read more
A learned study of the history of the altarpiece in Renaissance Italy from the 13th to 17th century. Accompanied with beautiful images, DE discusses the development and narrative categories ... read more
A dizzying and quietly surreal novel of South London life narrated through an interlinked series of episodic character studies. Ridgway's neo-Beckettian prose is never less than needle sharp... read more
Another themed anthology from Daunt Newest in the Daunt Books series (At the Pond, In the Kitchen), this brings together essays from various Sandoe's luminaries (Penelope Lively, Francesca W... read more
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
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
A new translation of this fabulous C16th Chinese work - a wild epic, an outrageous satire, and surely one of the most exuberant works of literature the world has ever known. Based on the mon... read more
Boelsums is an extraordinary visual artist and this is one of the most remarkable photographic books to have come our way. Tramping through any amount of Dutch rain, wind and weather - arduo... read more
Tesson practised living in extreme cold on the shores of Lake Baikal a few years ago, memorably and entrancingly recounted in Consolations of the Forest. Here he has renounced both solitude ... 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 no-holds-barred revenge thriller set in Virginia. Two anti-hero fathers try and make up for their poor parenthood and prejudices by avenging the murders of their two sons. Hold on to your ... read more
It's 1939 and Josef Kavalier has just arrived in New York, smuggled out of Nazi-occupied Prague in the body of a Golem. In Brooklyn he meets his cousin Sammy Clayman and the two dive headlon... 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
A first collection by an Afghan poet, born in Kabul in 1990 and now a don at Peterhouse, Cambridge. Highly literate yet drawing on the story-telling traditions of her youth, Fayyaz tells of ... read more
This electric new translation of Kleist's novella of 1810 reminds us why it was so admired by writers such as Rilke and Kafka. MH brilliantly renders the austere yet wild narrative about a C... 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
Amongst the plethora of recent books on the threats facing liberal democracy, this one stands out for the author's talent for making complex subjects comprehensible. He sees the danger comin... 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
The Cleverley family is graced with fame and fortune, but disaster in their media world is just a tweet away... This satire on social media and today's culture wars will make you ROFL. A li... read more
"John seemed only to float in a current of pleasure as reflected in his pictures. But hedonism, always a sturdy attribute, acquires a heroic quality with age...": Ian Collins' biography of C... read more