Had Mrs Gaskell lived in Japan and a century later, she might have written this intimate portrait of four sisters of good family living in Osaka in somewhat straitened circumstances. Their e... read more
Dedicated to her friend Tirzah Garwood, this is a deliciously charming and funny mix of commonplace book and diary from the 1950s, illustrated with woodcuts not by Tirzah as intended (she ha... 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
So the shortest day came, and the year died: a poem about how humans have responded to midwinter - the fading of the light and its mighty return - for millennia, by a well known children's a... 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
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
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
Beautifully published in India, this shows the development of Olivia's work from watercolours of contemporary life in India to the exquisite geometric works of recent years: focussed, ordere... read more
Translated from the German, this is a substantial book on the man who led Europe out of the Napoleonic chaos; the father of realpolitik, according to Kissinger.
Refracts an abusive relationship through a range of genre and fairytale tropes. A haunting work that is part-memoir and part-literary theory.
There is also a paperback edition of this boo... read more
In this magnificently madcap adventure, SR pursues rumours of old pianos into all corners of Siberia: Arctic, Altai, Kamchatka, Princess Volkonsky in Irkutsk... She writes well, has a lovely... read more
DON'T PANIC! And console yourself that as gloomy as things seem, at least the Earth hasn't been demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass. Self-isolation doesn't mean you can't trav... read more