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Books > Language & Literature > Biography & autobiography > Literary

A Confession (Paperback): Leo Tolstoy A Confession (Paperback)
Leo Tolstoy
R313 Discovery Miles 3 130 Ships in 18 - 22 working days
The Secret Life of Objects (Paperback): Dawn Raffel The Secret Life of Objects (Paperback)
Dawn Raffel; Illustrated by Sean Evers
R266 Discovery Miles 2 660 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

Selected for 4 of Oprah's "Best Books" lists: * Best Memoirs * Best Beach Reads * Best First Lines * Top Books to Pick Up Now "Sometimes things shatter," writes Dawn Raffel in The Secret Life of Objects. "More often they just fade." But in this evocative memoir, moments from the past do not fade - they breathe on the page, rendering a striking portrait of a woman through her connections to the people she's loved, the places she been, what's been lost, and what remains. In clear, beautiful prose Raffel reveals the haunting qualities of the objects we gather, as well as the sustaining and elusive nature of memory itself." - Samuel Ligon, author of Drift and Swerve: Stories "Dawn puts memories, people and secrets together like perfectly set gems in these shimmering stories, which are a delight to read. Every detail is exquisite, every character beautifully observed, and every object becomes sacred in her kind, capable hands. I savored every word." - Priscilla Warner, author of Learning to Breathe - My Yearlong Quest to Bring Calm to My Life

These Precious Days - Essays (Paperback): Ann Patchett These Precious Days - Essays (Paperback)
Ann Patchett
R430 R401 Discovery Miles 4 010 Save R29 (7%) Ships in 18 - 22 working days
The Man Who Invented Christmas (Movie Tie-In): Includes Charles Dickens's Classic A Christmas Carol - How Charles... The Man Who Invented Christmas (Movie Tie-In): Includes Charles Dickens's Classic A Christmas Carol - How Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits (Paperback, Media tie-in)
Les Standiford 1
R322 Discovery Miles 3 220 Ships in 4 - 6 working days
Bright Star, Green Light - The Beautiful and Damned Lives of John Keats and F. Scott Fitzgerald (Hardcover): Jonathan Bate Bright Star, Green Light - The Beautiful and Damned Lives of John Keats and F. Scott Fitzgerald (Hardcover)
Jonathan Bate
R724 R517 Discovery Miles 5 170 Save R207 (29%) Ships in 9 - 17 working days

A dazzling biography of two interwoven, tragic lives: John Keats and F. Scott Fitzgerald. 'Highly engaging ... Go now, read this book' THE TIMES 'For awhile after you quit Keats,' Fitzgerald once wrote, 'All other poetry seems to be only whistling or humming.' John Keats died two hundred years ago, in February 1821. F. Scott Fitzgerald defined a decade that began one hundred years ago, the Jazz Age. In this biography, prizewinning author Jonathan Bate recreates these two shining, tragic lives in parallel. Not only was Fitzgerald profoundly influenced by Keats, titling Tender is the Night and other works from the poet's lines, but the two lived with echoing fates: both died young, loved to drink, were plagued by tuberculosis, were haunted by their first love, and wrote into a new decade of release, experimentation and decadence. Luminous and vital, this biography goes through the looking glass to meet afresh two of the greatest and best-known Romantic writers in their twinned centuries.

Burning Man - The Ascent of DH Lawrence (Paperback): Frances Wilson Burning Man - The Ascent of DH Lawrence (Paperback)
Frances Wilson
R415 R390 Discovery Miles 3 900 Save R25 (6%) Ships in 9 - 17 working days

**LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2021** **SHORTLISTED FOR THE DUFF COOPER PRIZE 2021** **SHORTLISTED FOR THE JAMES TAIT BLACK PRIZE** **FINALIST FOR THE 2022 PLUTARCH AWARD** D. H. Lawrence is no longer censored, but he is still on trial - and we are still unsure what the verdict should be. Delving into the memoirs of those who both loved and hated him most, Burning Man follows Lawrence from the peninsular underworld of Cornwall in 1915 to post-war Italy to the mountains of New Mexico, and traces the author's footsteps through the pages of his lesser known work. Wilson presents a complex, courageous and often comic fugitive, careering around a world in the grip of apocalypse, in search of utopia; and, in bringing the true Lawrence into sharp focus, shows how he speaks to us now more than ever. 'A work of art in its own right' OBSERVER 'Utterly enthralling' GEOFF DYER 'Brilliantly unconventional' RICHARD HOLMES 'A red-hot, propulsive book' THE TIMES

Tolstoy As Man and Artist with an Essay on Dostoyevsky (Hardcover): Dmitry Merezhkovsky Tolstoy As Man and Artist with an Essay on Dostoyevsky (Hardcover)
Dmitry Merezhkovsky; Contributions by Mint Editions
R407 Discovery Miles 4 070 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Tolstoy as Man and Artist with an Essay on Dostoevsky (1901) is a work of literary criticism by Dmitriy Merezhkovsky. Having turned from his work in poetry to a new, spiritually charged interest in fiction, Merezhkovsky sought to develop his theory of the Third Testament, an apocalyptic vision of Christianity's fulfillment in twentieth century humanity. In this collection of essays on Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Merezhkovsky explores the spiritual dimensions of the written word by examining the interconnection of being and writing for two of Russian literature's most iconic writers. For Dmitriy Merezhkovsky, an author who always wrote with philosophical and spiritual purpose, the figure of the artist as a human being is a powerful tool for understanding the quality and focus of that artist's work. Leo Tolstoy, author of such classics as War and Peace and Anna Karenina, developed a reputation as an ascetic, deeply spiritual man who envisioned his art as an extension of his political and religious beliefs. Dostoevsky, while perhaps more interested in the psychological aspects of human life, pursued a similar path in such novels as The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment. In Merezhkovsky's view, these writers came to embody in their lives and works the particularly Russian conflict between truths both human and divine. Tolstoy as Man and Artist with an Essay on Dostoevsky is an invaluable text both for its analysis of its subjects and for its illumination of the philosophical concepts explored by Merezhkovsky throughout his storied career. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Dmitriy Merezhkovsky's Tolstoy as Man and Artist with an Essay on Dostoevsky is a classic work of Russian literature reimagined for modern readers.

Dictionary of National Biography - Errata (Hardcover): Sidney Lee Dictionary of National Biography - Errata (Hardcover)
Sidney Lee
R885 Discovery Miles 8 850 Ships in 10 - 15 working days
Four French Holidays - Daphne Du Maurier, Stella Gibbons, Rumer Godden, Margery Sharp and their novels inspired by France... Four French Holidays - Daphne Du Maurier, Stella Gibbons, Rumer Godden, Margery Sharp and their novels inspired by France (Hardcover)
Anne Hall; Introduction by Hugh Schofield
R568 Discovery Miles 5 680 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Four popular novelists of the same generation each wrote a novel inspired by a holiday that the author spent in France. In the nineteen-fifties, Rumer Godden based The Greengage Summer on her recollections of her family's 1923 battlefield-tour manque in the Champagne region. Margery Sharp's 1936 holiday in Southern France led to 'Still Waters' and The Nutmeg Tree: both the short story and the novel are set in and around the region of Aix-les-Bains. In 1955, Daphne du Maurier first visited the department of Sarthe to research French family history; the novel The Scapegoat was the immediate result of the holiday. And in 1966, Stella Gibbons' last trip to the continent took the form of a visit to an old friend in her summer home near Grenoble. The stay is obliquely reflected in The Snow-Woman, in which a similar holiday leads a never-married septuagenarian to experience a renaissance of sorts.

Clive Bell and the Making of Modernism - A Biography (Paperback): Mark Hussey Clive Bell and the Making of Modernism - A Biography (Paperback)
Mark Hussey
R440 R402 Discovery Miles 4 020 Save R38 (9%) Ships in 9 - 17 working days

'Amusing, charming, stimulating, urbane' - THE TIMES 'Revelatory' - GUARDIAN 'Restores Clive Bell vividly to life' - Lucasta Miller ______________ Clive Bell is perhaps better known today for being a Bloomsbury socialite and the husband of artist Vanessa Bell, sister to Virginia Woolf. Yet Bell was a highly important figure in his own right: an internationally renowned art critic who defended daring new forms of expression at a time when Britain was closed off to all things foreign. His groundbreaking book Art brazenly subverted the narratives of art history and cemented his status as the great interpreter of modern art. Bell was also an ardent pacifist and a touchstone for the Wildean values of individual freedoms, and his is a story that leads us into an extraordinary world of intertwined lives, loves and sexualities. For decades, Bell has been an obscure figure, refracted through the wealth of writing on Bloomsbury, but here Mark Hussey brings him to the fore, drawing on personal letters, archives and Bell's own extensive writing. Complete with a cast of famous characters, including Lytton Strachey, T. S. Eliot, Katherine Mansfield, Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau, Clive Bell and the Making of Modernism is a fascinating portrait of a man who became one of the pioneering voices in art of his era. Reclaiming Bell's stature among the makers of modernism, Hussey has given us a biography to muse and marvel over - a snapshot of a time and of a man who revelled in and encouraged the shock of the new. 'A book of real substance written with style and panache, copious fresh information and many insights' - Julian Bell

Mad at the World - A Life of John Steinbeck (Hardcover): William Souder Mad at the World - A Life of John Steinbeck (Hardcover)
William Souder
R743 Discovery Miles 7 430 Ships in 9 - 17 working days

This first full-length biography of the Nobel Laureate to appear in a quarter century explores John Steinbeck's long apprenticeship as a writer struggling through the depths of the Great Depression, and his rise to greatness with masterpieces such as The Red Pony, Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath. His most poignant and evocative writing emerged in his sympathy for the Okies fleeing the dust storms of the Midwest, the migrant workers toiling in California's fields and the labourers on Cannery Row, reflecting a social engagement-paradoxical for all of his natural misanthropy-radically different from the writers of the so-called Lost Generation. A man by turns quick-tempered, contrary, compassionate and ultimately brilliant, Steinbeck took aim at the corrosiveness of power, the perils of income inequality and the growing urgency of ecological collapse, all of which drive fierce public debate to this day.

From Greenhorn to Senior Boy My Secondary School Days (Paperback): Robert Peprah-Gyamfi From Greenhorn to Senior Boy My Secondary School Days (Paperback)
Robert Peprah-Gyamfi
R296 Discovery Miles 2 960 Ships in 10 - 15 working days
Inventing Scrooge - The Incredible True Story Behind Charles Dickens' Legendary a Christmas Carol (Paperback): Carlo DeVito Inventing Scrooge - The Incredible True Story Behind Charles Dickens' Legendary a Christmas Carol (Paperback)
Carlo DeVito
R389 R297 Discovery Miles 2 970 Save R92 (24%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days
The Selected Letters of Lewis Carroll (Paperback, 2nd ed. 1989): Lewis Carroll The Selected Letters of Lewis Carroll (Paperback, 2nd ed. 1989)
Lewis Carroll; Edited by Morton N. Cohen; Roger Lancelyn Green
R1,441 Discovery Miles 14 410 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Lewis Carroll is one of the world's best-loved writers. His immortal Wonderland and delightful nonsense verses have enchanted generations of children and adults alike. The wit and imagination, the wisdom, sense of absurdity and sheer fun which fill his books shine just as clearly from the many letters he wrote. '...each is a miniature Wonderland... They reveal a truly delightful man...the combination of intense goodness and unselfishness with a magic, nonsense wit is unique'. The Scotsman '...a magnificent collection of delightful and entertaining letters reflecting all that was embraced in that remarkable character...all his charm, inventive fun, wisdom, generosity, kindliness and inventive mind'. Walter Tyson, Oxford Times.

Undertones of War (Hardcover): Edmund Blunden Undertones of War (Hardcover)
Edmund Blunden; Edited by John Greening
R1,696 Discovery Miles 16 960 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Edmund Blunden (1896-1974) was one of the youngest of the war poets, enlisting straight from school to find himself in some of the Western Front's most notorious hot-spots. His prose memoir, written in a rich, allusive vein, full of anecdote and human interest, is unique for its quiet authority and for the potency of its dream-like narrative. Once we accept the archaic conventions and catch the tone-which can be by turns horrifying or hilarious-Undertones of War gradually reveals itself as a masterpiece. It is clear why it has remained in print since it first appeared in 1928. This new edition not only offers the original unrevised version of the prose narrative, written at white heat when Blunden was teaching in Japan and had no access to his notes, but provides a great deal of supplementary material never before gathered together. Blunden's 'Preliminary' expresses the lifelong compulsion he felt 'to go over the ground again' and for half a century he prepared new prefaces, added annotations. All those prefaces and a wide selection of his commentaries are included here-marginalia from friends' first editions, remarks in letters, extracts from later essays, and a substantial part of his war diary. John Greening has provided a scholarly introduction discussing the bibliographical and historical background, and brings his poet's eye to a much expanded (and more representative) selection of Blunden's war poetry. For the first time we can see the poet Blunden as the major figure he was. Blunden had always hoped for a properly illustrated edition of the work, and kept a folder full of possible pictures. The editor, with the Blunden family's help, has selected some of the best of them to include in this new edition.

Winifred Gerin - Biographer of the Brontes (Paperback): Helen MacEwan Winifred Gerin - Biographer of the Brontes (Paperback)
Helen MacEwan
R1,289 Discovery Miles 12 890 Ships in 18 - 22 working days

The biographer Winifred Gerin (1901-81), who wrote the lives of all four Bronte siblings, stumbled on her literary vocation on a visit to Haworth, after a difficult decade following the death of her first husband. On the same visit she met her second husband, a Bronte enthusiast twenty years her junior. Together they turned their backs on London to live within sight of the Parsonage, Gerin believing that full understanding of the Brontes required total immersion in their environment. Gerin's childhood and youth, like the Brontes', was characterised by a cultured home and intense imaginative life shared with her sister and two brothers, and by family tragedies (the loss of two siblings in early life). Strong cultural influences formed the children's imagination: polyglot parents, French history, the Crystal Palace, Old Vic productions. Winifred's years at Newnham College, Cambridge were enlivened by eccentric characters such as the legendary lecturer Quiller-Couch (Q'), Lytton Strachey's sister Pernel and Bloomsbury's favourite philosopher, G.E. Moore. Her happy life in Paris with her Belgian cellist husband, Eugene Gerin, was brought to an abrupt end by the Second World War, in which the couple had many adventures: fleeing occupied Belgium, saving Jews in Nice in Vichy France, escaping through Spain and Portugal to England, where they did secret war work for Political Intelligence near Bletchley. After Eugene's death in 1945 Winifred coped with bereavement through poetry and playwriting until discovering her true literary metier on the trip to Haworth. She also wrote about Elizabeth Gaskell, Anne Thackeray Ritchie and Fanny Burney. The book is based on her letters and on her unpublished memoir.

A Victorian Curate - A Study of the Life and Career of the Rev. Dr John Hunt (Hardcover, Hardback ed.): David Yeandle A Victorian Curate - A Study of the Life and Career of the Rev. Dr John Hunt (Hardcover, Hardback ed.)
David Yeandle
R1,286 Discovery Miles 12 860 Ships in 10 - 15 working days
Cold Cream - My Early Life and Other Mistakes (Paperback): Ferdinand Mount Cold Cream - My Early Life and Other Mistakes (Paperback)
Ferdinand Mount 1
R374 R340 Discovery Miles 3 400 Save R34 (9%) Ships in 9 - 17 working days

Cold Cream is a sparkling autobiography in the great tradition: wonderfully perceptive, exquisitely rendered and bursting with characters and anecdotes of every shade and hue. A tender, moving and witty portrait of Ferdinand Mount's family and his early life, it follows his bumbling path from his decadent upbringing in the world of 'Hobohemia' to his schooldays at Eton, and from the boozy depths of Fleet Street in the 60s to his years at the vortex of Downing Street in the 80s as speech writer (much to his own bemusement) for Margaret Thatcher. Every sentence radiates with fondness, intelligence and humour in this utterly charming anthology of an eccentric and colourful cast of people who defined their generation.

Walking Wounded - The Life and Poetry of Vernon Scannell (Paperback): James Andrew Taylor Walking Wounded - The Life and Poetry of Vernon Scannell (Paperback)
James Andrew Taylor
R1,135 Discovery Miles 11 350 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This uncompromising biography tells the story of a wounded D-Day veteran, a deserter, a violent drunk, a loving father who abandoned his first child, a boxer and brawler, a wife-beater, a bigamist, and a passionately romantic lover. It is also, most importantly, the story of a poet. Vernon Scannell wrote some of the finest poetry to come out of the Second World War. He won the Chomondeley Prize and the Heinemann Award, and for half a century he was acknowledged as one of the leading poets in the country. His Collected Poems are still in print, and his poetry for both adults and children is regularly anthologised and appears on English Literature examination papers. Scannell died in 2007, and Walking Wounded draws on his personal diaries, poems, and other writings to offer the first detailed study of this complex, controversial, and occasionally tragic life. For the first time, the women who loved him tell their stories; his children describe growing up with a father who was funny, affectionate, sometimes violent, and often not there at all; and his fellow poets, including Seamus Heaney, Anthony Thwaite, Alan Brownjohn and Kit Wright, speak of the dedicated stylist, assured performer, and occasionally roistering drunk that they knew. Scannell was seriously wounded in Normandy shortly after D-Day, but the book looks at the deeper, mental scars from the War that he bore all his life, and of the suffering they caused to him and the people who loved him. It is an important book about an important poet, which investigates where poetry comes from, and the terrible price that sometimes has to be paid for it.

A Little Bit of Luck (Hardcover): Richard D. Altick A Little Bit of Luck (Hardcover)
Richard D. Altick
R769 Discovery Miles 7 690 Ships in 10 - 15 working days
Fire Shut Up In My Bones (Paperback): Charles M. Blow Fire Shut Up In My Bones (Paperback)
Charles M. Blow
R446 R348 Discovery Miles 3 480 Save R98 (22%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Charles M. Blow's mother was a fiercely driven woman with five sons, brass knuckles in her glove box, and a job plucking poultry at a factory near their town in segregated Louisiana, where slavery's legacy felt close. When her philandering husband finally pushed her over the edge, she fired a pistol at his fleeing back, missing every shot, thanks to "love that blurred her vision and bent the barrel." Charles was the baby of the family, fiercely attached to his "do-right" mother. Until one day that divided his life into Before and After - the day an older cousin took advantage of the young boy. The story of how Charles escaped that world to become one of America's most innovative and respected journalists is a searing, redemptive journey that works its way into the deepest chambers of the heart.

J. R. R. Tolkien - The Mind Behind the Rings (Paperback): Mark Horne J. R. R. Tolkien - The Mind Behind the Rings (Paperback)
Mark Horne
R550 R501 Discovery Miles 5 010 Save R49 (9%) Ships in 4 - 8 working days

J. R. R. Tolkien: The Mind Behind the Rings, you'll get a never-before-seen look at the man, the artist, and the believer behind some of the world's most beloved stories. Join bestselling author Mark Horne as he explores lasting impact of the kind of creative freedom that can only come from faith and struggle. Raised in South Africa and Great Britain, young Tolkien led a life filled with uncertainty, instability, and loss. As he grew older, however, the faith that his mother instilled in him continued as an intrinsic contribution to his creative imagination and his everyday life. J. R. R. Tolkien explores: The literary giant's childhood, coming-of-age stories, and the countless hurdles he faced What inspired and influenced The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit Tolkien's service in the war The ways that Tolkien's faith influenced his work Previously published as a volume in the Christian Encounters series, this renewed edition of J. R. R. Tolkien now includes updated information about TV series and films inspired by Tolkien's literary creations as well as a discussion guide designed to keep the conversation going.

Rebel Writers: The Accidental Feminists - Shelagh Delaney * Edna O'Brien * Lynne Reid Banks * Charlotte Bingham *  Nell... Rebel Writers: The Accidental Feminists - Shelagh Delaney * Edna O'Brien * Lynne Reid Banks * Charlotte Bingham * Nell Dunn * Virginia Ironside * Margaret Forster (Paperback)
Celia Brayfield
R339 Discovery Miles 3 390 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

'Make this your next inspirational read. Trust us, it's Oprah's Book Club worthy' Vice In London in 1958, a play by a 19-year-old redefined women's writing in Britain. It also began a movement that would change women's lives forever. The play was A Taste of Honey and the author, Shelagh Delaney, was the first in a succession of young women who wrote about their lives with an honesty that dazzled the world. They rebelled against sexism, inequality and prejudice and in doing so challenged the existing definitions of what writing and writers should be. Bypassing the London cultural elite, their work reached audiences of millions around the world, paved the way for profound social changes and laid the foundations of second-wave feminism. After Delaney came Edna O'Brien, Lynne Reid-Banks, Charlotte Bingham, Nell Dunn, Virginia Ironside and Margaret Forster; an extraordinarily disparate group who were united in their determination to shake the traditional concepts of womanhood in novels, films, television, essays and journalism. They were as angry as the Angry Young Men, but were also more constructive and proposed new ways to live and love in the future. They did not intend to become a literary movement but they did, inspiring other writers to follow. Not since the Brontes have a group of young women been so determined to tell the truth about what it is like to be a girl. In this biographical study, the acclaimed author, Celia Brayfield, tells their story for the first time.

Czeslaw Milosz and Joseph Brodsky - Fellowship of Poets (Hardcover): Irena Grudzinska Gross Czeslaw Milosz and Joseph Brodsky - Fellowship of Poets (Hardcover)
Irena Grudzinska Gross
R1,971 Discovery Miles 19 710 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This intimate portrayal of the friendship between two icons of twentieth-century poetry, Czeslaw Milosz and Joseph Brodsky, highlights the parallel lives of the poets as exiles living in America and Nobel Prize laureates in literature. To create this truly original work, Irena Grudzinska Gross draws from poems, essays, letters, interviews, speeches, lectures, and her own personal memories as a confidant of both Milosz and Brodsky. The dual portrait of these poets and the elucidation of their attitudes toward religion, history, memory, and language throw a new light on the upheavals of the twentieth-century. Gross also incorporates notes on both poets' relationships to other key literary figures, such as W. H. Auden, Susan Sontag, Seamus Heaney, Mark Strand, Robert Haas, and Derek Walcott.

Formation - A Woman's Memoir of Rape, Rage, and War (Paperback): Ryan Leigh Dostie Formation - A Woman's Memoir of Rape, Rage, and War (Paperback)
Ryan Leigh Dostie
R412 R385 Discovery Miles 3 850 Save R27 (7%) Ships in 18 - 22 working days
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