The Chagos Archipelago was appropriated from Mauritius by Britain in the 1960s and its inhabitants deported (with one suitcase each) to Mauritius and the UK in 1967-1973 to make way for the ... 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' own work, distilled from deca... read more
Born in Austrian Galicia in what is now Ukraine, Schulz is one of the great Eastern European writers of the C20th. Sadly - and oddly - he has been out of print for several years; we are ther... read more
A short biography of Thomas Linley, the Georgian prodigy who was celebrated - with Mozart - by Burney as "the most promising geniusses of the age". But he died very young.
A collection of his journalism and essays on literature and writing, getting his typewriter fixed (presumably all modernists use typewriters, the better to make modernist metajokes), etc.
A new translation of Seneca's 'On The Shortness of Life', with the Latin on facing pages and an introduction. One of three niftily pocket-sized classical guides to life.
The late lamented drummer of the Rolling Stones, who died just over a year ago. He was also a jazz fiend, playing and recording with several other musicians. His deadpan demeanour set off hi... read more
A powerful novel spanning forty years of friendship between two women. Events in Karachi in 1988 look rather different when seen from present day London, when each has power and an altered a... read more
These tales of cats in a Tokyo suburb weave a beguiling portrait of the local human inhabitants. What is it with cats and the Japanese literary scene? Murakami, Hiraide, Kawamura...
Shortlisted for both the Women's Fiction Prize (2022) and the Booker (2021), this stirring novel pulls together the lives of a fictional female aviator in the 1950s aiming to circumnavigate ... read more
Shortlisted for both the Women's Fiction Prize (2022) and the Booker (2021), this stirring novel pulls together the lives of a fictional female aviator in the 1950s aiming to circumnavigate ... read more
A first collection of essays and journalism from the novelist best known for We Need to Talk About Kevin. Free speech, identity politics and intellectual imprisonment are all grist to Shrive... read more
Tangled, mossy, temperate rainforest still prevails in some valleys and creases of these isles - though it seems hard to imagine after these months of drought... And the author's name is of ... read more
A boy finds an unknown variety of apple while wandering deep in the woods near his home. Lovely watercolours throughout. For children who love pottering about outside and are good at noticin... read more
Seed, leaf, bark, wood, flowers, fruits, symbiosis - and we who depend on them in our fragile and entwined ecosystem. Lavishly photographed and fascinating.
Another in the 'No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency' series from the master of 'sofa suspense': you'll find yourself safe in the middle of your seat rather than anywhere uncomfortably near its edg... read more
The world is as divided about cold water swimming as it is about the pronunciation of 'tomato'... One person's heaven is another's miserable hell; the side that is thought mad by the other h... read more
A 'chapter book' about Clementine, a genius who dreams in Latin and who also happens to be a mouse - and the prize specimen in a laboratory, from which she makes a prodigious bid for freedom... read more
Johann Doppelmayr published his Atlas Coelestis in 1742: here it is again, with all its plates and notes, with an excellent explanatory text. Comets, planets, moons, stars - this is a wonder... read more
Garcia has converted a Baroque monastery near Noto in Sicily: there are pearls around some of the gilded doorways and a large temple in the garden. Not for the austere or faint-hearted. Spl... read more
The first in a lively new series set in a school for spies in WW2. And, for those who might be missing Steven's earlier series, take heart: there IS a murder. Ages 8-11.
Siena's medieval golden age was brought to a grisly end by an appalling visitation of the plague in 1348. Nevertheless, the republic of Siena lasted for four hundred years, from the C12th un... read more
The friendship of Charles Darwin and Joseph Hooker, biologist and botanist sans pareil, and how they influenced each other in developing their understanding of the world around them - and ou... read more
Stoppard's libretto for André Previn's Penelope - a monodrama by Odysseus's wife - first performed in 2019 by Renée Fleming, Uma Thurman and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.