A scratched and splintered portrait (with echoes of MP's first book) of the artist's last days in Madrid, body and language failing him. He had travelled there, against doctor's advice, to v... read more
The fascinating story of a language known as 'Rotwelsch', associated with vagabonds - linked to Yiddish and Romani - that the author learned from his father and uncle. His grandfather, a Naz... read more
A creepy whodunnit set in Victorian Bath, in which a silhouette artist enlists the help of a child spirit medium to investigate the murders of her clients.
A follow-up to the New York duo's unbelievably successful 'Flower Colour Guide' published in 2018. Flower arrangement by colour in as many different schemes as there are days in a week or tw... read more
A panoramic account by the distinguished Harvard historian of five generations of a French provincial family originally from Angouleme, crammed with stories and archival research. ER has a d... read more
Weather-beaten and remote, Helgoland is the treeless North Sea island to which 23-year old Werner Heisenberg fled to relieve his hay fever symptoms. Upon it he devised the theory of quantum ... read more
Sands, the overloaded former editor of the Today programme, visited ten monasteries around the world hoping to understand what they have in common and how monastic life might help her in her... read more
A new assessment of Alan Brooke, first Viscount Alanbrooke, which examines his treatment at the hands of historians as well as his importance to Churchill.
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' work, distilled from decade... read more
A deep dive into the mythologies and economies of the chasm. Not just about giant squid, but humanity's harvesting of the depths for medical and financial benefits.
A timely celebration of a class of beings so often derided or subjected to appalling mass murder, and upon whom we depend for our survival as a species. Mary Oliver, Alice Oswald, Donne, Mar... read more
PS accompanied the fashion photographer Eric Boman on a shoot in 1976; the Yemen Arab Republic they entered has been closed to foreigners for years and this book documents what they saw trav... read more
A beguiling, masterful novel in which village's dead recount the defining moments or aspects of their lives. By the author of 'A Whole Life' and 'The Tobacconist'.
Fascinating study on the convergence of the technical and the transcendent - a heightened "atmospheric pressure" was the restorers' lofty aim. The Chapel contains fourteen enormous Rothko pa... read more
Parallel possible worlds spool from a German rocket strike in London in 1944: five children are killed but, in a feat of authorial engineering, are given futures nevertheless. A dazzling cel... read more
A marvellous history of pilgrimage around the world. Sacred landscapes, geographical hotspots where cultures, religions and trade routes meet, the remote and the metropolitan - and humanity'... read more
MS is an outstanding literary voice in contemporary Russia: here she creates a portrait of three Russian-Jewish generations sifted from the detritus in a late aunt's flat. This book is diff... read more