A ghost has no substance, but it has power - and presence - and it can appear in alternative forms. In the metaverse, we are all alternative forms. The Dead will join us. The genre-bending and masterful new collection of ghost stories from Jeanette Winterson 'Always passionate and provocative' NEW STATESMAN 'The best living writer in this language' EVENING STANDARD Our lives are digital, exposed and always-on. We track our friends and family wherever they go. We have millennia of knowledge at our fingertips. We know everything about our world. But we know nothing about theirs. We have changed, but our ghosts have not. They've simply adapted and innovated, found new channels to reach us. They inhabit our apps and wander the metaverse just as they haunt our homes and our memories, always seeking new ways to connect. To live amongst us. To remind us. To tempt us. To take their revenge. These stories are not ours to tell. They are the stories of the dead - of those we've lost, loved, forgotten... and feared. Some are fiction. But some may not be.

'Like most people I lived for a long time with my mother and father. My father liked to watch the wrestling, my mother liked to wrestle; it didn't matter what' This is the story of Jeanette, adopted and brought up by her mother as one of God's elect. Zealous and passionate, she seems destined for life as a missionary, but then she falls for one of her converts. At sixteen, Jeanette decides to leave the church, her home and her family, for the young woman she loves. Innovative, punchy and tender, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a few days ride into the bizarre outposts of religious excess and human obsession. 'Witty... extraordinary and exhilarating' The Times 'She is a master of her material, a writer in whom great talent abides' Vanity Fair 'Many consider her to be the best living writer in this language... In her hands, words are fluid, radiant, humming' Evening Standard 'A novel that deserves revisiting' Observer 'A wonderful rites-of-passage novel' Mariella Frostrup

Rooted in place, slipping between worlds - a rich collection of unnerving ghosts and sinister histories. Eight authors were given the freedom of their chosen English Heritage site, from medieval castles to a Cold War nuclear bunker. Immersed in the past and chilled by rumours of hauntings, they channelled their darker imaginings into a series of extraordinary new ghost stories. Also includes a gazetteer of English Heritage properties which are said to be haunted.

'The finest book ever written on nature and landscape in Britain' Guardian Introduction by Robert Macfarlane. Afterword by Jeanette Winterson In this masterpiece of nature writing, Nan Shepherd describes her journeys into the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland. There she encounters a world that can be breathtakingly beautiful at times and shockingly harsh at others. Her intense, poetic prose explores and records the rocks, rivers, creatures and hidden aspects of this remarkable landscape. Shepherd spent a lifetime in search of the 'essential nature' of the Cairngorms; her quest led her to write this classic meditation on the magnificence of mountains, and on our imaginative relationship with the wild world around us. Composed during the Second World War, the manuscript of The Living Mountain lay untouched for more than thirty years before it was finally published.

'The finest book ever written on nature and landscape in Britain' Guardian Introduction by Robert Macfarlane. Afterword by Jeanette Winterson In this masterpiece of nature writing, Nan Shepherd describes her journeys into the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland. There she encounters a world that can be breathtakingly beautiful at times and shockingly harsh at others. Her intense, poetic prose explores and records the rocks, rivers, creatures and hidden aspects of this remarkable landscape. Shepherd spent a lifetime in search of the 'essential nature' of the Cairngorms; her quest led her to write this classic meditation on the magnificence of mountains, and on our imaginative relationship with the wild world around us. Composed during the Second World War, the manuscript of The Living Mountain lay untouched for more than thirty years before it was finally published.

Condemned to shoulder the world forever by the gods he dared defy, freedom seems unattainable to Atlas. But then he receives an unexpected visit from Heracles, the one man strong enough to share the burden . . . Jeanette Winterson's retelling of the myth of Atlas and Heracles asks difficult and eternal questions about the nature of choice and coercion. Visionary and inventive, Weight turns the familiar on its head to show us ourselves in a new light. The Myths series brings together some of the world's finest writers, each of whom has retold a myth in a contemporary and memorable way. Authors in the series include Karen Armstrong, Margaret Atwood, A.S. Byatt, David Grossman, Natsuo Kirino, Alexander McCall Smith, Philip Pullman, Ali Smith and Jeanette Winterson.

Jeanette Winterson's explosive first novel - ingenious, original, a modern classic.

Like most people I lived for a long time with my mother and father. My father liked to watch the wrestling, my mother liked to wrestle.

This is the story of Jeanette, born to be one of God's elect: adopted by a fanatical Pentecostal family and ablaze with her own zeal for the scriptures, she seems perfectly suited for the life of a missionary. But then she converts Melanie, and realises she loves this woman almost as much as she loves the Lord. How on Earth could her Church called that passion Unnatural?

Both a groundbreaking coming-of-age novel and a pioneering work of autofiction, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit goes beyond facts into the deepest truths. Searing and tender, playful and provocative, it is a portrait of the artist as a young evangelist, re-writing her own Bible.

The shocking, heart-breaking - and often very funny - true story behind Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. In 1985 Jeanette Winterson's first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, was published. It was Jeanette's version of the story of a terraced house in Accrington, an adopted child, and the thwarted giantess Mrs Winterson. It was a cover story, a painful past written over and repainted. It was a story of survival. This book is that story's the silent twin. It is full of hurt and humour and a fierce love of life. It is about the pursuit of happiness, about lessons in love, the search for a mother and a journey into madness and out again. It is generous, honest and true. 'Unforgettable... It's the best book I have ever read about the cost of growing up' Daisy Goodwin, Sunday Times **ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY**

The perfect winter treat: a beautifully illustrated book of Christmas stories and recipes from the Booker prize longlisted author of Frankissstein 'Packed with charm and beautifully illustrated, it's a book that will solve your gift dilemmas and let you escape the less salubrious aspects of Christmas for a literary wonderland' Stylist Everybody loves a Christmas story. The tradition of the Twelve Days of Christmas is a tradition of celebration, sharing and giving. And what better way to do that than with a story? Read these stories by the fire, in the snow, travelling home for the holidays. Give them to friends, wrap them up for someone you love, read them aloud, read them alone, read them together. Enjoy the season of peace and goodwill, mystery, and a little bit of magic. There are ghosts here and jovial spirits. Chances at love and tricks with time. There is frost and icicles, mistletoe and sledges. There's a cat and a dog and a solid silver frog. There's a Christmas cracker with a surprising gift inside. There's a haunted house and a SnowMama. There are Yuletides and holly wreaths. Three Kings. And a merry little Christmas time. And for the icing on the Christmas cake, there are twelve festive recipes from Yuletides past and present. Red cabbage, gravlax, turkey biryani, sherry trifle, Mrs Winterson's mince pies and more.

A New York Times Book Review 100 Notable Books of 2017 "Nowhere is [Winterson's] faith in the transporting power of storytelling more on display than in her new book, Christmas Days . . . dark, otherworldly and (trademark Winterson) wickedly funny . . . [a] holiday treasure . . . to be pulled out on a December night, fireside, and read aloud." --New York Times Book Review "If you crave the mystery, the family rituals, and the special victuals of Christmastime, you'll savor . . . bold, revelatory feminist writer Jeanette Winterson's Christmas Days." --Elle Jeanette Winterson brings together twelve of her brilliantly imaginative, funny and bold Christmas stories, linked by personal memories and twelve delicious recipes for the Twelve Days of Christmas. From jovial spirits to a donkey with a golden nose, a haunted house to a SnowMama, Winterson's innovative stories encompass the childlike and spooky wonder of Christmas. Enjoy the season of peace and goodwill, mystery, and a little bit of magic courtesy of one of our most fearless and accomplished writers. "Winterson has presented us with unexpected holiday cheer . . . perfect for stuffing the stockings of your eccentric relatives . . . The magical tales are all exuberant." --Washington Post "Funny, spooky stories for the Christmas season." --Los Angeles Times "A feast of stories . . . Winterson has wrapped up a holiday present between two covers." --NPR

From internationally bestselling icon Jeanette Winterson comes her most highly anticipated new book since Why Be Happy When You Could be Normal?, about the bodies we live in and the bodies we desire Since her astonishing debut at twenty-five with Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson has achieved worldwide critical and commercial success as "one of the most daring and inventive writers of our time" (Elle). Her new novel, Frankissstein, is an audacious love story that weaves together disparate lives into an exploration of transhumanism, artificial intelligence, and queer love. Lake Geneva, 1816. Nineteen-year-old Mary Shelley is inspired to write a story about a scientist who creates a new life-form. In Brexit Britain, a young transgender doctor called Ry is falling in love with Victor Stein, a celebrated professor leading the public debate around AI and carrying out some experiments of his own in a vast underground network of tunnels. Meanwhile, Ron Lord, just divorced and living with his mom again, is set to make his fortune launching a new generation of sex dolls for lonely men everywhere. Across the Atlantic, in Phoenix, Arizona, a cryogenics facility houses dozens of bodies of men and women who are medically and legally dead... but waiting to return to life. What will happen when homo sapiens is no longer the smartest being on the planet? In fiercely intelligent prose, Jeanette Winterson shows us how much closer we are to that future than we realize. Funny and furious, bold and clear-sighted, Frankissstein is a love story about life itself.

From one of Britain's best-loved literary novelists comes a magical, lyrical tale of the young orphan Silver, taken in by the ancient lighthousekeeper Mr. Pew, who reveals to her a world of myth and mystery through the art of storytelling. Motherless and anchorless, Silver is taken in by the timeless Mr. Pew, keeper of the Cape Wrath lighthouse. Pew tells Silver ancient tales of longing and rootlessness, of the slippages that occur throughout every life. One life, Babel Dark's, a nineteenth-century clergyman, opens like a map that Silver must follow, and the intertwining of myth and reality, of storytelling and experience, lead her through her own particular darkness. A story of mutability, talking birds and stolen books, of Darwin and Stevenson and of the Jekyll and Hyde in all of us, Lighthousekeeping is a way into the most secret recesses of our own hearts and minds. Jeanette Winterson is one of the most extraordinary and original writers of her generation, and this shows her at her lyrical best.

Kathy Acker pushed literary boundaries with a vigor and creative fire that made her one of America's preeminent experimental writers and her books cult classics. Now Amy Scholder and Dennis Cooper have distilled the incredible variety of Acker's body of work into a single volume that reads like a communique from the front lines of late-twentieth-century America. Acker was a literary pirate whose prodigious output drew promiscuously from popular culture, the classics of Western civilization, current events, and the raw material of her own life. Her vision questions everything we take for granted -- the authority of parents, government, and the law; sexuality and the policing of desire -- and puts in its place a universe of polymorphous perversity and shameless, playful freakery. Spanning Acker's '70s punk interventions through more than a dozen major novels, Essential Acker is an indispensable overview of the work of this distinctive American writer and a reminder of her challenge to and influence on writers of the future. Scarified sensibility, subversive intellect, and predatory wit make her a writer like no other I know. -- Tom LeClair, The New York Times Book Review

Jeanette Winterson's novels have established her as one of the most important young writers in world literature. The Passion is perhaps her most highly acclaimed work, a modern classic that confirms her special claim on the novel. Set during the tumultuous years of the Napoleonic Wars, The Passion intertwines the destinies of two remarkable people: Henri, a simple French soldier, who follows Napoleon from glory to Russian ruin; and Villanelle, the red-haired, web-footed daughter of a Venetian boatman, whose husband has gambled away her heart. In Venice's compound of carnival, chance, and darkness, the pair meet their singular destiny. In her unique and mesmerizing voice, Winterson blends reality with fantasy, dream, and imagination to weave a hypnotic tale with stunning effects.

How do we love? With romance. With work. Through heartbreak. Throughout a lifetime. As a means, but not an end. Love in all its forms has been an abiding theme of Jeanette Winterson's writing. Here are selections from her books about that impossible, essential force, stories and truths that search for the mythical creature we call Love. Selected from the books of Jeanette Winterson VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. A series of short books by the world's greatest writers on the experiences that make us human Also in the Vintage Minis series: Eating by Nigella Lawson Jealousy by Marcel Proust Babies by Anne Enright Desire by Haruki Murakami

'This book is a deep, sensual plunge, a worship of the body, inside and out' The Times In a quiet English suburb, a love affair ignites. For our nameless narrator, Louise is the last in a long line of explosive passions, but the first to have broken their heart. With Louise's husband, Elgin, blocking love's course, their affair is doomed to unravel - until, that is, a terrible choice must be made. With its witty and masterful prose, Written on the Body takes the reader on a beguiling and defying exploration of love and its physical forms. 'An ambitious work, at once a love story and a philosophical meditation on the body' Sunday Telegraph

Nightwood, Djuna Barnes' strange and sinuous tour de force, "belongs to that small class of books that somehow reflect a time or an epoch" (Times Literary Supplement). That time is the period between the two World Wars, and Barnes' novel unfolds in the decadent shadows of Europe's great cities, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna--a world in which the boundaries of class, religion, and sexuality are bold but surprisingly porous.The outsized characters who inhabit this world are some of the most memorable in all of fiction--there is Guido Volkbein, the Wandering Jew and son of a self-proclaimed baron; Robin Vote, the American expatriate who marries him and then engages in a series of affairs, first with Nora Flood and then with Jenny Petherbridge, driving all of her lovers to distraction with her passion for wandering alone in the night; and there is Dr. Matthew-Mighty-Grain-of-Salt-Dante-O'Connor, a transvestite and ostensible gynecologist, whose digressive speeches brim with fury, keen insights, and surprising allusions. Barnes' depiction of these characters and their relationships (Nora says, "A man is another persona woman is yourself, caught as you turn in panic; on her mouth you kiss your own") has made the novel a landmark of feminist and lesbian literature.Most striking of all is Barnes' unparalleled stylistic innovation, which led T. S. Eliot to proclaim the book "so good a novel that only sensibilities trained on poetry can wholly appreciate it." Now with a new preface by Jeanette Winterson, Nightwood still crackles with the same electric charge it had on its first publication in 1936.

'At that time I could not imagine what would become of me, and I didn't care. It was not judgement day, but another morning' This is the story of Jeanette, adopted and brought up by working-class evangelists in the North of England to be one of God's elect. Passionate, headstrong and shielded by her mother's grand disapproval of a sinful world, she seems destined for life as a missionary. And then she meets Melanie. At sixteen, Jeanette faces a world of uncertainty as she breaks from the church and her community for the young woman she loves. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a warm, witty and daring novel that gives voice to irrepressible desire. Meet ten of literature's most iconic heroines, jacketed in bold portraits by female photographers from around the world.

Eight authors were given after hours freedom at their chosen English heritage site. Immersed in the history, atmosphere and rumours of hauntings, they channelled their darker imaginings into a series of extraordinary new ghost stories. Sarah Perry's intense tale of possession at the Jacobean country house Audley End is a work of psychological terror, while Andrew Michael Hurley's story brings an unforgettably shocking slant to the history of Carlisle Castle. Within the walls of these historic buildings each author has found inspiration to deliver a new interpretation of the classic ghost story. Relish the imagined terrors at these exhilarating locations: Kate Clanchy, Housesteads Roman Fort | Stuart Evers, Dover Castle | Mark Haddon, York Cold War Bunker | Andrew Michael Hurley, Carlisle Castle | Sarah Perry, Audley End | Max Porter Eltham Palace | Kamila Shamsie, Kenilworth Castle | Jeanette Winterson, Pendennis Castle

WITH INTRODUCTIONS BY JEANETTE WINTERSON AND GILLIAN BEER The Waves is an astonishingly beautiful and poetic novel. It begins with six children playing in a garden by the sea and follows their lives as they grow up and experience friendship, love and grief at the death of their beloved friend Percival. Regarded by many as her greatest work, The Waves is also seen as Virginia Woolf's response to the loss of her brother Thoby, who died when he was twenty-six. The Vintage Classics Virginia Woolf series has been curated by Jeanette Winterson, and the texts used are based on the original Hogarth Press editions published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf.

"Mixing historical detail and dark horror, Winterson] brilliantly brews a spellbinding take on the 1612 English witch trials."--"People"
An instant bestseller in the UK, "The Daylight Gate" is Jeanette Winterson's singular vision of a dark period of complicated morality, sex, and tragic plays for power in a time when politics and religion were closely intertwined. On Good Friday, 1612, deep in the woods of Pendle Hill, a gathering of thirteen is interrupted by the local magistrate. Two of their coven have already been imprisoned for witchcraft and are awaiting trial, but those who remain are vouched for by the wealthy and respected Alice Nutter. Shrouded in mystery and gifted with eternally youthful beauty, Alice is established in Lancashire society and insulated by her fortune. As those accused of witchcraft retreat into darkness, Alice stands alone as a realm-crosser, a conjurer of powers that will either destroy her or set her free.
"Winterson's haunting imagery and narrative immediacy captivate. An engrossing story that's sure to leave you shivering."--"Elle"
"This book is addictive, a page-turner...Winterson lays on the horror and the supernatural with gleeful abandon."--"LA Review of Books"
"A daring historical novel...a portal in prose....Any reader who crosses over into this novel will remember vividly where he or she has traveled."--NPR.com
"Delightfully gruesome."--"New York Times"

'A fantasy, a vivid dream...inventive and brilliant' Guardian Henri has a passion for Napoleon - but Napoleon has a passion for chicken. As soldier and emperor butcher their way across Europe, glory falls to ruin and love turns to hate. But, when Henri encounters the red-haired, web-footed Villanelle, he discovers in her an equal. Together they abandon their pasts, and flee to the Venetian canals to meet their singular destiny in the city of chance and disguises. 'A deeply imagined and beautiful book, often arrestingly so.' New York Times

An anthology of opera-inspired stories by some of the most acclaimed writers of modern fiction includes new work by Kate Atkinson, Alexander McCall Smith, Ruth Rendell, Anne Enright, and many more Jeanette Winterson's request of many of her best-loved contemporaries was that they "choose an opera, and from its music or its characters, its plot or its libretto, or even a mood evoked, write a story." This specially commissioned collection of comedies, tragedies, and tales of love won or lost is contemporary fiction at its very finest, a book as broad in content as it is deep in atmosphere. The characters are from all walks of life, all parts of the world, and are driven by all motivations. All the stories are rich with emotion and written to inspire. Written for lovers of fiction and opera alike, this anthology""includes notes explaining on which opera each story is based, with a brief synopsis and a history of where and when it was first performed. The inside front and back covers feature brand new opera-themed illustrations from Posy Simmonds, the cartoonist whose work includes "Gemma Bovary" and "Tamara Drewe."

***LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2019*** 'Beware, for I am fearless and therefore powerful.' Inspired by Mary Shelley's gothic classic Frankenstein, discover this audacious new novel about the bodies we live in and the bodies we desire. As Brexit grips Britain, Ry, a young transgender doctor, is falling in love. The object of their misguided affection: the celebrated AI-specialist, Professor Victor Stein. Meanwhile, Ron Lord, just divorced and living with his Mum again, is set to make his fortune with a new generation of sex dolls for lonely men everywhere. Ranging from 1816, when nineteen-year-old Mary Shelley pens her radical first novel, to a cryonics facility in present-day Arizona where the dead wait to return to life, Frankissstein shows us how much closer we are to the future than we realise. 'Intelligent and inventive...very funny' The Times 'One of the most gifted writers working today' New York Times