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
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
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 memoir by the artist who had a decade-long relationship with Lucian Freud; full of insights, sometimes discomfortingly so. CP has a fine, clear voice - Freud's gestures and movements as ... read more
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.
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
A brilliant, perky novella about the foibles of Professor Timofey Pnin, an eccentric Russian teacher at a school in New England. 'Pninian' should really be part of our daily vocabulary; it w... read more
A brilliant, perky novella about the foibles of Professor Timofey Pnin, an eccentric Russian teacher at a school in New England. 'Pninian' should really be part of our daily vocabulary; it w... read more
The story of a young girl growing up just before WW2: the late Morrison's first novel, published in 1970, still outstanding in its fiftieth anniversary year. In telling the 'how', she makes... read more
A gorgeous book, drawing from the V&As enormous collections. It contains over 500 pages of lavish illustrations, each chapter focusing on a different technique - weaving, knitting, dying... read more
Simms and Medd were part of the mass-release of Allied prisoners when Italy surrendered in 1943. Their escape story - and the bravery and kindness of the Italians who helped them on their ... read more