This recent, fascinating Yale study of the 'lithic imagination' is already out of print in hardback but the paperback is a fine subsitute, and just as well illustrated.
Howard (1907-1987) served as an intelligence officer in WW2 throughout the Italian campaign. He married Lelia Caetani of Ninfa, where Bassani wrote a large part of The Garden of the Finzi Co... read more
Gleaming with finds from recent excavations, this accompanies the Fitzwilliam's splendid exhibition of artefacts of the Saka people - ornate metalwork of people and animals, real and imagina... read more
This two-volume masterpiece by the author of The Master and His Emissary is a long conversation between neuropsychology and philosophy, science and poetry, the two sides of our brains. Truly... read more
A lovely hardback reissue of Mabey's book about beech trees, prompted by the great storm of 1987 when so many blew down. It's a wonderful stroll through the history of Fagus sylvatica, inclu... read more
The first translation by a woman, using Arabic and French sources, with detailed notes and commentary. Beautifully illustrated with Arab and Persian works of art as well as many drawn from p... read more
A deeply affecting memoir of coming of age in Albania - the last outpost of Stalinism in Europe. Tracing the transition in 1990 from repression, food shortages and political executions to po... read more
Thomas Robins the Elder (1716-1770) recorded the country estates of the Georgian gentry - their orchards, Rococo gardens and potagers - like no other, with both topographical accuracy and de... read more
It's the shortest, coldest day of the year and Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant in a small Irish town, busies himself with the last few deliveries. An elegant and carefully distilled... read more
Lovely edition that includes some colour illustrations by Tove as well as the line drawings we are used to - the only colour ones she ever did, in fact, which were commissioned in 1961 for t... read more
A spare and engaging chronicle of the summers spent in a small cabin on a tiny island in the Gulf of Finland with her partner, who did the illustrations.
Overlooking the Beaulieu River, Exbury comprises 200 acres of outstanding woodland gardens. Begun in 1919, it became home to countless rare rhododendrons, collected and bred by three generat... read more
Lucy Atkinson (1817-1893) was an English Atkinson was an English nanny working in Russia. In 1848 she set out with her new husband on a six-year exploration of Siberia and Central Asia, by f... read more
A detailed portrait of the Jewish families whose collecting dominated the art world, and of their pillaging by the Nazis and the subsequent attempts at restitution.
From the Bible to Simon Schama, a huge investigation of how the writing of history influences the record of human experience, and therefore its development.
Acute and wide-ranging, these disparate glimpses come together (ha!) to make up a picture not only of the 'Fab Four' but of the new and colourful 1960s' world that they helped to usher in. ... read more
Having escaped the massacre at Katyn, Czapski was interned and lived to write these essays on some of those who were murdered, as well as pieces on Blok, Soutine, and others. He was the mode... read more
The "inner darkness of the commercial age", with its self-confident hypocrisy and inability to "connect", confronts Bloomsbury-esque ideals and characters in this intimate masterpiece from 1... read more
Jamie has just been named 'the Makar' - Scotland's poet laureate and you can see why in this essay collection: her quiet sentences are so polished they almost glisten. Whether she's windswep... read more
Cairo's Old City is itself a protagonist in this magnificent saga of the Al-Jawad family and its fearsome patriarch, from 1917 to late in WW2. the Nobel laureate's masterpiece is also availa... read more
Volume 3 of the Cairo Trilogy. Cairo's Old City is itself a protagonist in this magnificent saga of the Al-Jawad family and its fearsome patriarch, from 1917 to late in WW2. the Nobel laurea... read more
Volume 2 of the Cairo Trilogy. Cairo's Old City is itself a protagonist in this magnificent saga of the Al-Jawad family and its fearsome patriarch, from 1917 to late in WW2. the Nobel laurea... read more
Volume 1 of the Cairo Trilogy (which can be read on its own just as well). Cairo's Old City is itself a protagonist in this magnificent saga of the Al-Jawad family and its fearsome patriarch... read more
Two sumptuous novellas, set in the mid-1860s and 1870s, weave together experiences of life, love, loss and connection. The first, 'Morpho Eugenia', does so through the earthly plane of insec... read more